Jackals' Wedding
Jackals' Wedding

Author: Dawn Kawahara

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2003-01-21

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 1403343020

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Jackals Wedding, my story within a family story set in India, the land of my birth, tells of a past of puzzling opposites. "Tigers, and oil, and tea are all I remember," I once blithely answered an Indian professor whod taken me for a whirl. When he stopped dead, held me at arms length and searched my eyes, I had to think twice about the superficial untruth Id blurted. There were many parts of my early life Id locked away in the dark, just like my mother, and my grandmother before her. The good things that surfaced were idealized, airbrushed into scenes worthy of Kipling, or The Little Princess. I knew the romantic version, but what was the truth? What had really happened during those years in India? How had my mother and father became ensnared in a storm and sun relationship, a "jackals wedding," with my sister and me dragged along unwittingly? How had the exigencies of wartime prevented them from dealing with their own blow-ups? What was the big taboo within our family? Why so many secrets locked away, as my mothers heart had seemed locked to me? I was hungry to know the truth, so I began to dig down to the beginning through my first memories that are entwined with the unrest of the times. With a stroke of serendipity, my husband convinced me I must return to India, the land of my birth, and my childhood home in Dehra Dun. During this trip together, time spans were erased. People stepped forward to help. Images and voices and feelings came flooding back, and I was ready to examine them as Id examined the belongings that had traveled half the world in battered leather cases. Brought to light, the joys of my childhood flashed vivid and fragile as glass bangles. Fears that had lurked large as nightmare lions and scary as snakes dissolved like thunderheads shrinking and fading into a quiet sky. In Jackals Wedding, the stories of the child I was and the woman Ive become are braided with my mothers story and the stories she told. Many times during the writing, it seemed she was back, whispering in my ear what she wasnt able to tell, in life. I am still searching for my father.

Bush in Babylon
Bush in Babylon

Author: Tariq Ali

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1789609755

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The assault and capture of Iraq-and the resistance it has provoked-will shape the politics of the twenty-first century. In this passionate and provocative book, Tariq Ali provides a history of Iraqi resistance against empires old and new, and argues against the view that sees imperialist occupation as the only viable solution to bring about regime-change in corrupt and dictatorial states. Like the author's previous work, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, this book presents a magnificent cultural history. Detailing the longstanding imperial ambitions of key figures in the Bush administration and how war profiteers close to Bush are cashing in, Bush in Babylon is unique in moving beyond the corporate looting by the US military government to offer the reader an expert and in-depth analysis of the extent of resistance to the US occupation in Iraq. On 15 February 2003, eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. A historically unprecedented number of people rejected official justifications for war that the secular Ba'ath Party of Iraq was connected to al-Qaeda or that "weapons of mass destruction" existed in the region, outside of Israel. More people than ever are convinced that the greatest threat to peace comes from the center of the American empire and its satrapies, with Blair and Sharon as lieutenants to the Commander-in-Chief. Examining how countries from Japan to France eventually rushed to support US aims, as well as the futile UN resistance, Tariq Ali proposes a re-founding of Mark Twain's mammoth American Anti-Imperialist League (which included William James, W.E.B. DuBois, William Dean Howells, and John Dewey) to carry forward the antiwar movement. Meanwhile, as Iraqis show unexpected hostility and independence, rather than gratitude, for "liberation," Ali is unique is uncovering the depth of the resistance now occurring inside occupied Iraq.

You Can't Please All
You Can't Please All

Author: Tariq Ali

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2024-11-05

Total Pages: 841

ISBN-13: 1804290904

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A new memoir from renowned political activist and author of Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties The revolutionary upsurge of 1968–1975 jump-hopped continents with ease but finally petered out. What happened after is the subject of You Can’t Please All. Tariq Ali recounts a life committed to writing and cultural interventions. An eyewitness in Moscow to the fall of the Soviet Union, he was caught up in the intellectual excitement that had gripped the country. In Porto Alegre, Hugo Chávez invited him to visit Caracas, and the two men developed a striking friendship. Post-2001, as a founding member of the Stop the War Coalition, he became a fierce critic of the War on Terror, visiting many US cities with surprising regularity to engage in debate and discussion, inaugurating a new phase of political activism. Evident in his work is the integral part politics plays in his life. He is one of the most sought-after socialist and anti-imperialist public intellectuals on most continents. Underlying the narrative is a chain of anecdotes, reflections, jottings and storytelling. The book explores his work for the theatre and film, as well as his fiction, including the acclaimed Islam Quintet. There are pen portraits of friends and comrades such as Edward Said, Derek Jarman, Richard Ingrams, Benazir Bhutto, Mary-Kay Wilmers, and the intellectuals who founded and relaunched New Left Review: E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson and Robin Blackburn. The book also contains a moving family portrait, describing how his parents met and lived during the early years of Pakistan.

The Verso Book of Dissent
The Verso Book of Dissent

Author: Andrew Hsiao

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2015-03-03

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 1784783080

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Fully updated compendium of revolt and resistance Throughout the ages and across every continent, people have struggled against those in power and raised their voices in protest-rallying others around them or, sometimes, inspiring uprisings many years later. Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti-Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Cairo to Moscow and New York City. This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent should be in the arsenal of every rebel who understands that words and ideas are the ultimate weapons.

Burma Banyan
Burma Banyan

Author: Dawn Fraser Kawahara

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2019-09-18

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 1728323312

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In BURMA BANYAN, A Daughter’s Odyssey, the reader is invited on an intimate set of travels as the author overcomes qualms about returning to Burma after a life span. Memories of Dawnie, her child self, besiege her. These memories are not set in the peaceful, civilized atmosphere of Dehra Dun, nestled in the hills north of Delhi, the setting of her notable first memoir–Jackals’ Wedding, A Memoir of a Childhood in British India–but in remote areas of northern Burma and in Mandalay, the capital of “Upper Burmah,” in an unstable atmosphere and generally unsafe surroundings. The Burma sojourn of the author’s immediate family following Japanese occupation during World War II begins with a replay of their last days in India, continuing the compelling true story within a family story. Counterpoint with modern-day travels, the author once again revisits a long-locked past to probe the truth of romanticized early life. She reveals how she and her sister coped with expectations and warnings and absorbed the fears and insecurity of their parents in the aftermath of war to compound their own secret worries, how they became adept at assessing their grownups’ mood swings, and chameleonic in adapting themselves accordingly. Entertaining stories of the generations before, ancestors who settled in India and Burma from faraway lands, flow naturally as the daughters’ parents, Pansy and William, return to live for a time in the country of their birth. Their resulting storm-and-sun relationship, the nucleus of the symbolic “jackals’ wedding,” continues as such in BURMA BANYAN. Kawahara’s odyssey, which completes in an unexpected way, also takes readers from Hawai`i to the British Isles, and forays to Australia and New Zealand in search of “lost” family members. The search for a missing father–and a home–is the taproot of these journeys.

The Call of the Mountains
The Call of the Mountains

Author: Max Landsberg

Publisher: Luath Press Ltd

Published: 2013-10-17

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 190991259X

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An adventure across a thousand miles of Scotland's mountains. In this personal guide to the triumphs, hardships and perils of scaling the Munros, Landsberg brings the joys and pitfalls of hill-climbing to life. Landsberg's adventures are presented in vivid detail, with insights ranging from encompassing the wonder of unique experiences like seeing the birth of a deer to the mundane delight of the flavour of sandwich he had on a given day. Throughout his account, Landsberg provides an in-depth insight into his growing obsession with climbing the Munroes and its effect on his physical, emotional and spiritual development. With insights on the history, culture, ecology and geology of Scotland's mountains and guides to Gaelic place names, mountain safety and an analysis the science of walking, this book provides a complete guide for anyone looking for adventure in the Highlands, and is sure to inspire anyone who reads it to go climb a rock! Excerpt: One day I walked into these mountains, and I never came all the way back. For though Scotland's mountains may not be the highest in the world, they are certainly amongst the most awe-inspiring and enchanting. From the towering pinnacles of Skye, to the high rolling plateau of the Cairngorms; from the bonnie braes of Ben Lomond to the weeping cliffs of Glencoe; from the rocky battlements that encircle Loch Arkaig, to the gentle folds of Ben Lawers as it spills down to Loch Tay: here are offered scenes of unrivalled splendour, landscapes of unparalleled variety, and a magic ground for personal connection, inspiration, and transformation. These are places of accessible adventure - we leave behind the safety of the lush glen to cross the swooping moor, clamber up through craggy corridors, and with silver chuckling burn then spatey cascade as our sometime guide we reach at last the grand summits of these lands. Here beneath a hundred rainbows lie a hundred pots of gold - unclaimed scenic ingots that are yours for the taking and to which I hope to lead you, on a journey for body, for mind, and perhaps for something deeper.

Hali`A of Hawai`I
Hali`A of Hawai`I

Author: Frances Nelson Frazier

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2010-03-19

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1449077099

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This memoir takes us adventuring on sailing ships through flying boats to jet airplanes, exploring the authors Hawai`i vignettes, Letters from Dacca, travel stories, and stories of her sea captain father--his own nautical story embedded at books end. We learn how life events led to rediscovery of the Hawaiian language, the authors blood legacy, and how she accomplished her own legacy of important work. We gallop, sail and swim near Lanikai with a young girl at an earlier, more gentle time on O`ahu. We learn of work, romance, marriage and the beginning of life as a family. We watch with that young mother the bombing of Pearl Harbor, how she shields her baby from strafing while wondering if her engineer husband at dockside is alive. Hali`a, A Legacy of Language is an account of a pono (good, beneficial) life of trust in its many decades as they unfolded, bringing the author important work to be done in Hawai`i that became entwined with her passion for learning and correctly translating the Hawaiian language, especially relating to land deeds and rights to the `aina, the land, for people of Hawaiian heritage. We share the joy of an inquiring mind expanding and questioning with the opportunities that came for travel and residency abroad, and resultant contrast and comparison with home and different cultural ways in Hawai`i. The individuality of Aunty Hali`as life `olelo (story) reflects the experiences of one daughter of Hawai`i, but by its very individuality offers a universal connection with people, their sensibilities, and places around the globe. All of these parts merge in the telling of the serendipity of a journey as exciting and challenging as the journeys that brought her master mariner father to Hawai`i at an earlier time.

STRANGE ADVENTURES
STRANGE ADVENTURES

Author: Dr Asim K Dasgupta

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2024-10-13

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13:

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STRANGE ADVENTURES: In this children’s book Dr Asim K Dasgupta takes young readers on a series of short stories from around the world, mainly animal and ghost stories. In each story, the characters venture from more familiar places and situations into world of unexpected wonder, sometimes amusing, sometimes sad, sometimes eerie, but always a challenge to our imagination. Would you like to chat with a green turtle on a beach of black sand, or be invited to a Jackal’s wedding? In Dr Dasgupta’s world it might happen. When night comes, you better beware! Perhaps you are a doctor on night duty and there’s a power cut. It might be just a nuisance, but what if the lift goes on working even when the power has gone? And who is the mysterious lady who is beckoning to you so urgently? Or what if you’re a boarding -school boy and you need to take a river ferry to get to your home village? You may have done the trip a hundred times, but is it really safe to embark in a thunderstorm? And where is the usual ferryman, and why does the new one not utter a word? Or again, have you ever wondered if there is any truth in dreams? Can a dead loved one reach out to you in a dream that seems more real than the everyday world? What happens if you keep a squirrel as a pet? Sometimes, the wonderful thing may be just outside, in your back garden. You just never know what may happen, or when. But there is one thing that will surely happen to all of us, if we get what most people want: a long life. Dr Dasgupta’s story ‘Last quarter’ is a sensitive and compassionate exploration of old age: not only its sorrows, but also the comfort to be drawn from human companionship.

Folklore Of The Santal Parganas
Folklore Of The Santal Parganas

Author: Cecil Henry Bompas

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2023-08-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 9359392669

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"Folklore of the Santal Parganas" is a notable work by Cecil Henry Bompas, an English missionary and ethnographer who dedicated his life to studying and documenting the culture and folklore of the Santal people. The book presents a collection of traditional stories, myths, legends, and customs of the Santal community in the Parganas region of present-day Jharkhand, India. Bompas spent several years living among the Santal people, immersing himself in their way of life and establishing close relationships with the community. He gained their trust and was able to record their rich oral traditions, preserving them for future generations. "Folklore of the Santal Parganas" serves as a comprehensive repository of Santal folklore, encompassing a wide range of subjects, including creation myths, heroic tales, supernatural beings, rituals, and social customs. Bompas' work not only highlights the cultural heritage of the Santal people but also provides valuable insights into their worldview, beliefs, and practices. His meticulous documentation of Santal folklore contributes to the broader field of ethnography and folklore studies, enabling a deeper understanding of the Santal community's traditions and their place within the larger tapestry of Indian folklore. "Folklore of the Santal Parganas" remains an important resource for scholars, researchers, and enthusiasts interested in Indian folklore, anthropology, and cultural studies.