Friends, Freya is a traveler, a motorcyclist, a reader of books, a social media consultant and she loves her dogs. While some of us were blindly posting the copyright messages on Facebook, she fought an interesting copyright issue on Facebook and managed to convince the folks there that some images by a certain photographer were plagiarized and got them pulled down. Thank you, no nonsense girl Freya!
‘Reading Roll of Honour gave me an insight into the lives of Sikhs after 1984. After partition this was the next big religious event that I was too young and too far geographically to remember, this book helped me understand the people of Punjab better. I’d definitely recommend this book if these kind of stories are your thing.’
Read on here.
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, riots, Roll of Honour, school
Friends, I am really happy to post this interview that The Hindu has carried. As a writer one often writes in a vacuum but when one suddenly sees a brilliant review in an esteemed page one feels both humbled and excited. That is what had happened with ‘Sepia Leaves’ that Uday Balakrishnan had reviewed a couple of years back. That he followed up with this interview for ‘Roll of Honour’ pleases me no end. Thank you Uday.
‘A teacher of mine used to say: the mad are poets without language. Whether he is the stoic father in [my earlier novel] Sepia Leaves or the traumatised boys in Roll of Honour, whether it is schizophrenia or depression, my attempt is to extend storytelling to situations where language frequently fails to articulate reality.’
Please read here.
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, bullying, Khalistan, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, riots, Roll of Honour, school
Finally, The Hindu reviewed Roll of Honour a day after its reading at Bangalore International Centre organized by the Bangalore Literature Festival. The previous night Dr Uday Balakrishnan had introduced the book as a close look on the boarding school system of the country and Mr Chiranjeev Singh had spoken so eloquently about the book which had touched upon his own 1984 wounds. I was satisfied that the book had reached home when Ms. Manisha Gangahar surprised me with this review.
Read on here.
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, riots, Roll of Honour, school
Dr. Gita Mohan blogged about the Roll of Honour reading organised at Easy Library by Vani Mahesh. Thank you Vani, Shinie, Dr. Sheshadri, Gita, and friends who could make it.
‘As the author explained, ragging or bullying is prominent in residential schools, especially in boys’ residential schools. The world itself is rift in violence and this is naturally reflected in various microcosms too, including schools. Bullying was very much seen as the “right” of senior students, who would revolt if prevented from bullying the newcomers. Sodomy was often the preferred means of bullying in residential schools. Residential schools in India were modelled on Eton and other public schools of England, which took in only the upper classes. However, the military residential schools were different in that pedagogy tried to invert the social classes! And herein lay the root of much malaise…’
Read on here.
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Dr. Sheshadri, Easy Library, Khalistan, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, riots, Roll of Honour, school, Vani Mahesh