Field Notes from a Waterborne Land: Beyond Bengal and Bhadralok

Beyond the dominating narratives of the land defined by the Bhadralok lies a Bengal that thrives amid its own struggles. A woman labelled a witch because she was listed in the census as literate; a fisherman uprooted by a river 11 times in 20 years; an old mill worker and his wife fighting the ghosts of a dead industrial town — these are among the many stories that author Parimal Bhattacharya gathered along his many journeys across the hinterland of Bengal. At once personal, at once political, the book tells stories of a people battered by cyclones, floods, as also Partition.

FROM self-awareness to being a leader, it is a long journey for anyone who sees himself/herself in a position of power. Sharing principles of leadership through pragmatic real-life stories are Daniel Lee and Avi Liran in their book, ‘First Time Leadership’. A handbook for first-time leaders, aspiring leaders as well as experienced leaders, the book draws on interviews of 220 leaders in 37 countries across six continents. Through their stories, the authors have tried to draw a roadmap on how to be a better leader whose employees go home happier, feeling empowered, developed, appreciated and engaged to deliver results.

FORMER Army officer Brig RP Singh (retd) feels the story of Bangladesh began the day it became part of Pakistan. And it is here that he begins his book on the Bangladesh liberation war. As a young Captain in the Indian Army in 1971, he was involved in the war from its beginning. Over 267 days from March 26 onwards, he wore different hats — from commanding a rifle company on the international border to helping the civil administration run refugee camps to being an instructor at the Officers Training Wing of the Mukti Bahini. The book is an account of what he saw first-hand.