HT Picks

SHE GOES TO WAR BY RASHMI SAKSENA

Rs 499, 205pp; Speaking Tiger

Purnima, a faith healer in Imphal, Manipur, and Ribini, a nurse in a hospital in Assam. Unlikely occupations for women who once lived life on the run: the former as the fearless Nalini, a member of the rebel Kangleipak Communist party (KCP), a crack shot much in demand as an assassin and extortionist, and the latter as Lance Corporal Raisumai of the Bodo Security Force (BDSF), a banned militant separatist organization in the northeast.

In faraway Kashmir, Khalida was just another schoolgirl till 21 January 2007, the day she was found with a bullet through her head – gunned won by the Baramulla police who believed she was going to meet her comrades in the dreaded militant organization, the Lashkar–e-Taiba (LeT). Or by the militants, who suspected her of double crossing them? No one will ever know who killed Khalida but hers is a fate often met by the women of this embattled state.

Since the time that LTTE operative Dhanu, the first known human bomb in India, assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bombing in 1991, women have been crucial operators in insurgencies in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Chhattisgarh and Kashmir. Given the same rigorous training as their male comrades, they carry AK 47s, rob banks , ambush security forces and play the game of subterfuge with amazing elan. Through the stories of Purnima, Khalida, Rimini and others profiled in this book., Rashmi Saksena attempts to get under their skin and fathom what goes into the making of a woman militant. What motivates them to abandon the traditional playbook for girls and embrace the uncertain life of an insurgent, and equally, how easy it is for them to return to the ‘normal’ world, when age, or the desire for marriage and motherhood, makes them want to give it all up?

She Goes to War also highlights an important fact: the need for agencies involved in counter-terrorism operations to craft women-specific strategies not only to prevent women from being lured by insurgent groups to join their cause, but also, in the case of those who choose to surrender, to ensure effective rehabilitation schemes to prevent them from taking up the gun again. *

FRANKENSTEIN IN BAGHDAD BY AHMED SAADAWI

272pp, Rs 599; Oneworld

From the rubble-strewn streets of US-occupied Baghdad, the scavenger Hadi collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and give them a proper burial. Bu when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he has created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive – first from the guilty, and then from anyone who crosses its path.

An extraordinary achievement, Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humour the surreal reality of a city at war. *

THE BITTER PILL SOCIAL CLUB BY ROHAN DAHIYA

Rs 399, 308pp; Bloomsbury

Witness the private life of the world’s most beautiful animals: You know exactly who they are. The ones who walk right past club lines, who get what they want before they ask for it. It’s a familiar cast: the centre of attention, the shameless flirt, the loudmouth, the narcissistic writer. You’ve seen them all. You’ve felt their Gucci-anointed aura. Laughing and dancing. Kissing the wrong people at the wrong time. Swaying to their own beat. Going out every night they’re sad. Finding solace in the crowd in a city paved with mildly good intentions and cocaine lines. A city of smooth talkers, armchair activists, and the rich brats of Instagram. A place to talk pop spirituality and purple prose in connoisseur only jazz clubs.

The Bitter Pill social Cub takes a look at the lives of the Kocchar familiy who find themselves drifting apart in the city of djinns, gins, and fake friends wrapped up in cigarette smoke. As one of their own gears up to tie the knot, three siblings come home to the neurotic parents who raised them. Meanwhile, the parents face the family patriarch’s constant judgment. Divorce, disappointment, and disasters ensue as the entitled Kochhar brood dodges old lovers and marriage proposals. *

*All copy from book flap.