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Oct 25, 1999
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INNOVATIVE INDIA
India TechRecord of Indian science marred by turgid writing.
By Samar
Halarnkar
INNOVATIVE INDIA
BY L.K. SHARMA, SIMA SHARMA
MEDIALAND
PAGES: 350
For a country that boasts of an ancient scientific
tradition and prides itself on its modern achievements, there is little by way of
documentation. There has been precious little effort in profiling and chronicling Indian
science as a whole. That is precisely what Innovative India seeks to do. It's a
trend-setting coffee-table size book with mostly excellent production quality and aims to
be a celebration of Indian science. And so you have pre-eminent names in Indian science
writing on everything from atomic energy to agriculture to ayurveda. There are essays by
international scientists who've worked with Indian laboratories and research institutions.
Essentially, everything you wanted to know about Indian science.
That's the good part -- and the bad. Innovative India
tries to tell a lot at the cost of readability. There is just too much text packed into a
book that should have been able to tell the story far better through graphics,
illustrations and pictures. The pictures are ordinary, to say the least. It is surely
inexcusable to have grainy pictures of something so photographed and publicised as the
Prithvi missile.
The other problem is the writing. Many of the writers are
great scientists, but they are clearly no writers, and so they showcase an old failing of
Indian science writing. The text is overly long, often turgid and replete with jargon.
Consider the explanation of a nuclear reactor vessel called a Calandria: "This is
constructed using 25mm thick plates of stainless steel type 304L having 77 penetration
nozzles. The positional accuracy of these nozzles and the other dimensional parameters are
important." You will excuse me if I say, huh? Still, this is a good effort and is a
storehouse of information on Indian science. But it lacks the finesse that would have
helped it transit into excellence.
AUTHORSPEAK
JAMYANG NORBU |
Sherlock Lama
The Strange Case of the Missing Detective
Like a good disciple of the "Master" -- his
expression for Sherlock Holmes -- Jamyang Norbu, 50, is a "believer in
atmosphere". So when he sat down to write The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes
(HarperCollins) he bought himself a deerstalker hat and learnt to smoke a pipe, much in
the manner of the great detective. The book was written over six months, half of them in
Edinburgh where, Norbu doesn't fail to remind you, Arthur Conan Doyle studied medicine.
Years later, vexed at the Holmes mysteries overwhelming his other writing, Conan Doyle
killed his most famous creation in The Final Problem. Popular demand forced Holmes back
from the dead, in The Empty House. In that story Holmes referred to how he'd spent the
intervening period travelling incognito in Tibet, meeting the "head (Dalai)
Lama". The good Dr Watson never did tell his readers what mysteries Holmes solved in
Lhasa; so Norbu does.
Director of the Tibetan Centre for Advanced Studies in
Dharamsala, Norbu is also an "overgrown schoolboy". A Sherlockian to the bone,
he is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, perhaps the world's best known cult of its
type, and keen to found a branch in India. That Norbu was brought up on a robust diet of
adventure stories is evident. His "pastiche" is a gripping mix of Holmesian
drama and Tibetan mythology. How else can you describe the final conflict between Holmes
and Moriarty -- who has also survived The Final Problem -- in the Ice Temple of Shambala,
the utopian locale known to James Hilton's readers as Shangri La?
Unhappy with the initial drafts, Norbu realised he
"needed a Watson, someone less intelligent than Holmes" to tell the story. So he
borrowed Hurree Chunder Mookerjee from Kipling's Kim. The partnership between Victorian
English gentleman and Anglophile Bengali babu -- both, alas, now a near-obsolete species
-- is not without its wry moments. The tables are turned when Moriarty is struck by the
Bengali babu's umbrella.
Norbu, whose family left Tibet for Sikkim in the 12th
century, hopes his book will break the stereotype of Tibetan writers. Publishers abroad
even wanted the Dalai Lama to write a foreword, without reading the manuscript.
Eventually, avid Sherlockian Frank Wisner, former US ambassador to India, spoke to
HarperCollins. The rest is elementary.
-Ashok Malik |
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