Review MG Singh's Novel "ROMANCE OF THE FRONTIER''

The novel

The author

Writing a novel is a work of inspiration and this novel fills that genre. The novel was written many years back but was kept pending till the writer finally decided to publish it. Notion Books, Chennai was happy to publish it. There is a lot of action, killings, and the most important part is that the book is laced with oriental erotica.

Notion Books an Indian publishing firm has taken pains and printed the book with an excellent get-up and glossy cover.

The book is on sale on-line in both paperback forms, as well as a Kindle e-book.

The Plot

Book cover

The novel is set in the period when the British empire was on its last legs and as a parting shot had decided to divide India into two by creating Pakistan. This was a tumultuous period in Indian history and forms the background of the novel.

The hero is a Muslim Pathan tribesman who is benevolent, educated and above all a great warrior. The novel delineates his love affair with the daughter of a British major of the Indian army and subsequent affair with Anglo- Indian girl. In all this mayhem there are excellent erotic passages, as well as action. The hero kills with compunction, but he is just and fair. The novel also relates a feud between him and a Punjabi Muslaman who wants to drive the Hindus out of Punjab.

There is plenty of action and the reader can be spellbound in case he likes tales of love and adventure.
The book is available on all major online sites like Amazon, Flipkart, News hunt, Kobo, Google play, etc. I hope some friends will grab a copy.

Last Word

The book

Considering that it is the first book, it's a commendable piece of work. Some passages do appear disjointed now, but hopefully,  the writer will correct them in later novels.

The book runs into 252 pages and gives a picture of that turbulent time. The backdrop of a sizzling love adds to the allure of the novel. It's a good tale and readers should like it. It's also a tribute to the language of English which is now part of India, making it the biggest English knowing nation in the world. At a conservative estimate over 350 million Indians are well versed in this language. India has produced a number of top writers like Salman Rushdie and Kushwant Singh and I hope this novel will add to the repertoire of English literature published in India.

Priyanka Chopra strikes out in Hollywood: A First for an Indian Actress

Star from India in America

Chopra

The Mumbai film industry is second only to Hollywood, but despite churning out the largest number of films in the world, hardly any Indian actress makes it big in the US entertainment industry. After decades, one actress, Priyanka Chopra has been a success and it is a tribute not only to her hard work, but also her beauty, sex appeal, and tanned body. Priyanka has shot music videos and is also acting in Baywatch and this has gladdened the hearts of Indians.

Priyanka and entry in American show biz
Priyanka (born 1982) is the daughter of a military officer who had her schooling in the USA. She entered the Miss World contest and was crowned the winner in 2000. She has not looked back after that as she joined Hindi films and in a few years has reached the apex. Having spent her early years in the US, Priyanka had no phobia about life in the USA and she wished to make a mark in the TV and music industry there. She made waves when in 2012, she was signed by Creative Artists Agency. It was the first time an Indian actress had been signed by this agency. Chopra collaborated with Sam Walters, Jay Sean, and Mathew Korma, and produced her first album RedOne. She also released her first single" In My City." She made a mark with this album and received 3 nominations: best female artist, best song, and best video at the World Music Awards. Priyanka is on the road to success and she has released many more music videos.

Success in Baywatch series
One of her biggest successes was in bagging a role in Baywatch. In this serial, she has excelled and shown to Americans what an Indian beauty is like. Priyanka is the first star from India to have made a mark in America. She is the top star in Bollywood. Come to think of it, the doyen of Indian acting Amitabh Bachchan got a 10-minute measly role in the Great Gatsby. One can safely say that Priyanka is a trailblazer. She is now busy with her commitments in both Mumbai and the USA. One can be sure she will do better in the years to come. 

Memoir: Stanes High School

The Stanes High School

sir stanes

The Stanes High School on Avinashi road at Coimbatore is a school that is a testimony to the good that the Raj brought to India. The school now in its 148th year of existence is a tribute to the Raj and the men who were the sinews of that period. I had attended this school decades back when my father was posted at Coimbatore. Thus I have fond memories of this school.

Inception

Old residence of Stanes

The Stanes High school was the brainchild of Sir Robert Stanes a coffee planter who had his plantations of coffee in the Nilgiris. In those days Robert Stanes used to take his coffee seeds for processing to Kerala. But once he happened to visit Coimbatore, he liked the place immensely as it had a salubrious climate that reminded him of Manchester.
The school saw the shape in 1862, making it one of the oldest schools in India. In fact, it is older than the Daly College and Doon School.
The school was set up with help from the church. But by the turn of the twentieth century, the school opened its doors to all categories and classes of people. The name European was dropped and the school renamed as 'Stanes High School'. However in keeping with the wishes of Sir Stanes the school even now carries on with reservations for the minority Anglo Indian community. .

The School Today

the school

The Stanes High School will soon be celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2012. This will be a rare achievement as hardly any school in India is that old. Presently the school has over 3000 students and the medium of instruction is English.
When we look at the school now, we must all spare a thought for Robert Stanes who had the vision to set up this school. For his services to India and the people of Coimbatore, Henry Stanes was knighted by the King. He was also awarded the Kaiser-e-Hind medal by the Governor-General. Sir Robert Stanes breathed his last in 1936. But he left behind a splendid monument of all the good that the Raj brought with it.
For me it will always remind me of one the best period of my life.

Indo-Japanese Girl is Miss Japan

Miss Japan

Miss Japan

Japan was for centuries a closed society. In fact, from about 1600 the Togukawa shogunate closed Japan from the rest of the world in the belief that the Japanese were superior to the world, and could not associate with other races, who they deemed inferior. The Japanese imposed stringent restrictions on foreigners and hardly anyone was allowed into Japan. This state of affairs continued till about 1850 when the American flotilla commanded by Commodore Mathew Perry laid siege to Edo Bay. He was successful and the Japanese had no choice but to give in to American demands and open up their country.

Copying the West
The Japanese are avid learners and they soon copied or even bettered some of the ideas from the West. They built up a formidable military machine and at one time dominated the entire SE Asia. The Japanese also copied the concept of beauty pageants and began to have their own contests.

Despite the opening up, a section of the Japanese people still looked down on other races and many Japanese children from mixed marriages suffered, Called Haafu, or half Japanese, these children were often discriminated against. A blow was struck against this apartheid when last year a Haafu girl Ariana Miyamoto won the Miss Japan beauty contest for the first time. Many criticized her as she did not look Japanese enough. Nevertheless, she represented Japan at the world beauty contest.

Half-Indian girl wins beauty pageant

Miss Japan

This year another girl with mixed parentage Priyanka Yoshikawa has won the Miss Japan title. She is half Indian, as her father is from Calcutta and her mother is Japanese. She is related to the ex-Indian chief minister of Bengal and spent over a year in Calcutta in 2003-04. Priyanka was born in Tokyo and will represent Japan at the Miss World contest this year to be held in Washington. She has joined the rank of Celebrities.

Last word

Priyanka in a bikini

Orthodox Japanese are not happy at a non-Japanese girl winning the beauty contest and now representing Japan. But times are changing and so is Japan. There is more openness now and Priyanka considers herself Japanese first before anything else

How Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made Indian PM Indira Gandhi a Kitten

India won the 1971 war and held 930000 Pak soldiers as POWs, yet the Indian PM was outsmarted by the Pak Leader Bhutto and he got his POWs back without giving away anything in return

No result after victory

Bhutto and Indira

Fruits of Victory turn sour

I have given an account of the Kargil war, where the timidity of the Vajpayee government allowed the war to become a stalemate. Obviously, India achieved nothing after the Kargil war. But there is one war in 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh and was a decisive victory for India and yet India allowed the advantage of victory to slip away despite the fact that we held 93000 Pakistan army POWs. How did this happen that a victorious India allowed the fruits of victory to slip away from its fingers? The answer lies in the gullibility of Indira Gandhi and the astute skill of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani leader.

Advantage India
After the creation of Bangladesh, the Indian army held 93000 Pakistani soldiers as POW. This was the time to strike a hard bargain on Kashmir and ask that the present Line of Control be converted to an international border. I am told this was agreed to by Bhutto in secret talk with Indira Gandhi, but later Pakistan denied it. In fact in the Simla accord, India agreed to discuss the Kashmir problem with Pakistan. Bhutto had assured Indira Gandhi that this was just a ploy to please hardliners in Pakistan and he would soon move forward on Kashmir. Bhutto was working to a plan and during this meeting, he gave away nothing and in turn was able to get his POWs back. This was a great achievement. Indira Gandhi was outsmarted by Bhutto, who not only got his POWs back but also made India accept that a problem in Kashmir existed. Rarely has a victor at a conference been so misled as Indira Gandhi was during the Simla meeting.

Last Word
In hindsight, India frittered away a great opportunity to settle the Kashmir issue. India should have insisted on a Kashmir solution and agreed for a return of the POWs only after that. By handing over the POWs, India lost all leverage on Kashmir. in effect, the Simla accord was a blunder. Whatever Bhutto agreed privately is not recorded and now we can say that Bhutto played his cards in an adroit manner.
In fact, after the victory in Bengal, the war should have been continued. Additional troops from Bengal would have been available and an attack on Kashmir was a necessity. Pakistan was in the throes of a crisis and Yahya Khan had resigned, it was an opportune moment to try and solve the Kashmir issue. History records that India failed and today the Kashmir issue is alive as ever

Conquest of Tibet by China

Conquest of Tibet

Tibet location

Tibet has a border of 3300 miles with India. But the Himalayas were a great barrier and as such cultural and military contacts between India and Tibet were minimal. The Tibetans were however closely connected with the Chinese since ancient times, but at no time was Tibet a part of China. The current Tibetan culture has been formed since the time the Lama culture was established in Tibet. The Tibetan form of Buddhism came from India when the Bodhisattva left from South India to preach Buddhism to the Tibetans. Buddhism became a state religion and was spread in Tibet by the edict of the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai became the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism was called upon to assume full political power as well. The Dalai Lama to protect Tibetan culture from outside influence forbade outside contacts and Tibet grew in isolation of world development.
The 19th century was a tumultuous period for Tibet’s history as the Western powers gained control in Asia and Tibet was also involved in the stream of western invasions. In 1893, the Ch’ing court signed the “Tibet India Treaty” also referred to as the Sikkim-Tibet Treaty under duress as Britain was the paramount power and controlled India and also had a big say in China

To emphasize British power an invasion under Colonel Francis Young Husband was launched against Tibet in 1903. The Tibet army was routed and the British Army seized Lhasa in 1904, forcing Tibetan officials to endorse the Lhasa Treaty. The 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1876-1933) fled to Mongolia and was stripped of his powers. This gave the Chinese under the Ch’ing government to established direct rule over Tibet for the first time in 1910. At that time the Dalai Lama fled to British India.
Chinese rule did not last long and In 1912, Tibet became an independent country when the Ch’ing Dynasty was overthrown by the Hsinhai Revolution. The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet from British India and proclaimed the independence of the Empire of Tibet. Tibet was effectively an Independent nation till 1951.

However, Communist China’s People’s Liberation Army occupied Tibet in 1951 and set up the Tibet military division in the following year. China abandoned the “Empire of Tibet” and established the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Chinese had a free hand as Nehru the Indian Prime Minister fed on theories of British imperialism refused to intervene and thus Tibet was lost as a buffer state to India.

Tibet is now effectively controlled by China and the Chinese define the 14th Dalai Lama as the “leader of the counter-revolution elements”. He had escaped to India in 1959 after a plot was uncovered to murder him.
He is the legitimate “head of state” of the “Empire of Tibet” and the government in exile in India is the legitimate government of Tibet region. Unfortunately, this is all on paper as the Chinese control Tibet and there is no way the status Quo of 1950 can be restored.

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JohnWayne: A Titan from Hollywood

Me and Wayne

JOHN WAYNE

I was a small boy when John Wayne died in 1979. But even at that age I loved the films of John Wayne and watched them in cinema halls with my friends while playing truant from school. Later, I built up a collection of his films and have now over 90 of his films on my hard disk. For me, there is no bigger star of cowboy films than John Wayne. Maybe Clint Eastwood would come a close second, but Wayne was the original macho star.
I saw his movie in a morning show in 1985 or 86 titled "True Grit". In this movie, he plays an aging one-eyed Marshal and the best scene is when he goes at the outlaws with the horse's reins clenched in his mouth and both guns firing at the outlaws. It was a great shot and I am so glad that John Wayne won an Oscar as the best actor for this role in 1973.

A Great Star

JOHN WAYNE

Wayne was the original macho movie star. He had strong views about negroes. In one of his interviews in Playboy magazine, he was asked what he thought of black rights. His reply was succinct and lucid. He said, "tell me which country in the world does a black have a better life than in America?". How very true, as all over the world like in Africa, the black man is dying of hunger, malnutrition and internecine wars.

John Wayne was a tough star and he lived his roles. One can remember his roles in The Horse Soldiers, Big Jake, North to Alaska, the Longest Day, True Grit and many more. I am told he acted in almost 170 films and never played a role as a supporting actor. I have almost 90 films of his on my computer and it gives me great pleasure to watch him act on an afternoon holiday with a glass of beer.

A Man to be Remembered

WAYNE

Wayne teamed up with all the top heroines of that era. The career of John Wayne touched almost 40 years. He was honored posthumously with the President of the United States Freedom Medal in 1980.
John while filming close to the Nuclear test site suffered some radiation and later developed cancer of the stomach. I think he died prematurely in 1979. He lived a full life and married thrice with 7 children from 2 wives. But this is just an aside and one cannot forget his drawl and the cowboy hat and the blazing gun. Truly a Hollywood great.