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Books they read in ’06

Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy
Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh
I really do not have the time to read books with such a hectic
schedule at present. However, I am going through a book
titled The End of Poverty: How We Can make it Happen in
Our Lifetime by Jeffrey Sachs (Jeffrey D. Sachs is Special
Adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and economist).
It was given to me by a friend. I carry the book in the car and
go through it whenever I get time. I find it interesting.
The book focuses on how poverty has been beaten in the past,
how in realistic, attainable steps we can make a real
difference.
A large section of humanity still lives in extreme poverty. The book talks about how they can
find partnership with their wealthy counterparts to escape the poverty trap, how little it will
actually cost and how everyone can help.
The book also vividly describes the abject poverty across the world.
According to the book, more than eight million people around the world die each year because
they are too poor to stay alive. Our generation can choose to end that extreme poverty by the
year 2025. It goes with my thoughts.
As told to C.R. Gowri Shanker
***
M. Karunanidhi
Chief minister of Tamil Nadu
Of all the books I read this year, what touched my heart the most was A.N. Sattanathan’s Plain
Speaking: A Sudra’s Story, which was edited by his daughter Uttara Natarajan. As you know,
former IAS officer Sattanathan had headed the first backward classes commission in Tamil
Nadu, constituted when I was chief minister in 1969 and he had made far-reaching
recommendations. Based on his vast experience as an administrator with a special focus on the
plight of the underprivileged, Sattanathan has written this book. It is the story of a Sudra, one
born in an oppressed community, and how he comes up in life overcoming several ordeals. The
author has vividly brought out all the pains and realities of being born a Sudra in a caste-
dominated rural Tamil Nadu. The book moved me very much.
As told to R. Bhagwan Singh
***
SHEILA DIKSHIT
Chief minister of Delhi
Among the best and most enjoyable books I have read is M.J. Akbar’s Blood Brothers. This
book gives you a sense of oneness of people. This book touched my emotional chords. This was
easily one of the best books I have read. Another book I enjoyed was Gregory David Roberts’
Shantaram. It graphically depicts the underworld of Mumbai, with lots of plain philosophy about
life. Though the book mostly deals with crime, it has enough to reinvigorate the thought-
processes of the reader. Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss was another interesting book I read. It
takes you back to the charming world of a small town. Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul was another
book that made fascinating reading. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. The
book that I am reading right now is Conspiracy of Calaspia by the twins Suresh and Jyoti
Guptara.
As told to Manish Anand
***
KARAN SINGH
Rajya Sabha member, writer
I will not call it the best book I have read this year, but I found Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf’s book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, to be very interesting. It was a thought
provoking book and gave a lot of insight into the man. I may not agree with a lot of what had
been written in the book but it definitely gave an interesting look into what sort of person one
was dealing with. A lot of it was probably ghost written and there was some amount of egoism
on display, but then I am sure it was there in my autobiography also. The most interesting thing
about President Musharraf’s book I thought was that he constantly raised the issue of moderate
Islam. It was a common thread running through the book. He also spoke of the various
assassination attempts on his life which brought out the fact that he is a man of considerable
courage.
As told to Lakshmi B. Ghosh
***
Chandrababu Naidu
Former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and president of TDP
I am not reading any fiction nowadays. Since one and half years I have been reading more about
agriculture and rural poverty. I am concentrating on studying research work in these areas. In the
age of globalisation and liberalisation, Indian farmers are exposed to the international market,
without proper preparation to face it. In many fronts, our farmer was made vulnerable as the
reforms lacked a human face in implementation. I am studying the opinions of different people
who have done pioneering work in making agriculture viable.
The Jayati Ghosh Committee report, the Central Task Force on Agriculture recommendations
and experiences of Brazil and China in making their farm sector remunerative and competitive
are some of my recent readings. Recently my friends gave me the book Banker to the Poor
written by Dr Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
I started the self-help group and microcredit movement in Andhra Pradesh. It is very interesting
to know that a man who started the Grameen Bank with a meagre $27 is now able to serve 60
lakh people in his country. I am yet to start reading the book.
As told to Krishna Prasad
***
P.C. Alexander
Rajya Sabha member, writer, former governor of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu
William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal was undoubtedly the best book I read this year. I was
immensely influenced by his unique method of presenting facts and the painstaking and time
consuming research that he has put into his work. The book has an additional merit. For those
wanting to do additional research on the subject, he has made direct references to his source
material. So if you find any specific section interesting, you can simply refer to the source
material and then go on to make your own research on it. Also, I was struck by the fact that the
book was not a biography of Bahadur Shah’s life but focused on the historical events of that time
like the army rebellion that resulted in a political rising in the country.
Dalrymple is one of the greatest historical writers of our time and this book will surely go down
as his best so far.
As told to Lakshmi B. Ghosh

Arun Shourie
BJP member of the Rajya Sabha, former Union minister, writer and journalist
It is difficult for me to pick up one book since I read two books in a week. But three novels were
particularly interesting and striking. I liked The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon because it is a story told by the son about a parent. The son is not abnormal but
thinks differently and it is a very well written book.
The other books which I liked were The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (translated
by Lucia Graves) and The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago. The book
Shadow is very nicely written, where nothing happens but the novel grips you, while in the
Gospel, it is a reconstruction of Jesus’ story from the eyes of Mary Magdalene. The way it is
written, one is almost transported to that period. It is so real.
In the non-fiction section, I was particularly impressed with two books written by Oriana Fallaci
about Islamic fundamentalism in Europe. The two books are The Rage and the Pride and The
Force of Reason. I read almost a hundred books a year.
As told to Sonal Kellogg

V.K. Malhotra
BJP MP and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha
Reading books is fun for me. I have read many books this year. But I liked Ved Vyas’
Mahabharat the most. The epic has been re-published by Gita Press in six parts. It has everything
which no other book has. What other books have, Mahabharat does too. Mahabharat has sex,
tragedy, drama. It also includes the Bhagvad-Gita which is the best discourse on niti and dharma.
Personally, it reinvigorates you and inspires you to take on the challenges of life. I also read Dan
Brown’s Da Vinci Code and liked it very much, because it involved religious controversies.
Deception Point by the same author was also good.
As told to Manish Anand

Mehbooba Mufti
President of People’s Democratic Party
Of the books I’ve gone through recently, I found Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner very
interesting; a remarkable piece of fiction that one would hardly forget reading for many, many
years to come. It is a timely and topical novel (the first Afghani novel to be published in English)
set against the backdrop of Afghanistan’s recent turbulent history, the story of a bleeding country
in our neighbourhood.
As a Kashmiri who has gone through evenly difficult times one identifies himself with the
characters depicted in the book. The tale of two young boys’ fragile childhood friendship in
Kabul portrayed is very identical to many similar stories that took birth in Kashmir over the
years. I found some emotional relationship there. The book also tells us that the pain and the hurt
are never sentimentalised and brushed away and the damage done in childhood causes
irreversible scars that aren’t magically made to disappear. Who else than a Kashmiri knows that
better? I also enjoyed reading Yogesh Chandra’s Rediscovering Gandhi. It gives some insights
into Gandhiji’s personal and political life; most of these not heard of before. I also read General
Pervez Musharraf’s In The Line of Fire: A Memoir. But what put me off is the book is full of
him. No doubt some of the events and incidents he discusses in the book are true but all this
coming from him does not look nice.
As told to Yusuf Jameel

Ram Vilas Paswan

Union minister for chemicals and fertilisers and Lok Janshakti Party president
After getting into politics I hardly get the time for reading. The day starts on a hectic note and
ends like that. And then I am not that fond of reading books. When I have not read any book this
year, how can I say which one was my favourite? But that does not mean that I don’t read. I keep
myself updated reading a lot of newspapers and magazines. And, yes, "social justice" is my
favourite topic and I don’t miss anything on this. I read every article on social justice whenever I
come across it in newspapers, magazines, booklets, pamphlets or even a book. But I don’t
remember the name of any.
As told to Kumar Uttam

Praful Patel
Minister of state for civil aviation (independent charge) and NCP leader
First Among Equals by Jeffrey Archer. I like Jeffrey Archer because he is someone who can
keep you engaged throughout. There are other good books but they flag after some time.
Basically it’s really his style. The story and the plot are okay. The real thing is the way it is
written.
As told to Olga Tellis
Omar Abdullah
President of National Conference
I found Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram very fascinating. It is the fictionalised account of the
real life adventures of the author and the narrator is a man called Lin who has escaped from an
Australian jail and arriving in Mumbai with a fake New Zealand passport finds a hut in the local
slum to live in. Since I spent three years in a Mumbai college when I would visit cafés,
restaurants, etc., Shantaram has mentioned about, reading the book was reminiscent of those
good old days. But what I did not know then and the novel tells me now is that these very places
would be used for drug-peddling and other unlawful activities. Lin starts a free clinic for the
people in the slum and to provide for his own income he sells drugs to tourists at these places.
The revelation was somewhat shocking for me. But Shantaram is not just about drugs and crime,
it is also a story of a person who despite being caught in an ugly situation genuinely loves those
in his life and Mumbai, the city I loved very much, and became his home.
I also really enjoyed reading Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown. Though I’m not a fan of his,
I found this book, like Midnight’s Children, very poignant. After all, it revolves around my
homeland Kashmir and reminds me of many events I have closely watched and places I have
been to frequently.
Likewise, Justine Hardy’s The Wonder House portrays the picture of Srinagar and its
neighbourhood during the early days of militancy and talks about the very essence of the people
of Kashmir. "The Wonder House" is a houseboat on Nagin Lake, where Gracie Singh, English
widow of an Indian prince, spends her days, attended by mute Suriya and her beautiful daughter
Lila. Hal, a journalist from England, falls in love with Lila and, as security forces and militants
tear at the lives and loyalties of the local population, a personal tragedy unfolds. It is basically a
story about an average Kashmiri family which goes through difficult times. The author, a Briton,
had stayed with the family as a paying guest and spent several years watching the haplessness of
the local population; how they are caught between the guns of the security forces and the
militants. Since the author does not have a political agenda, she has illustrated the true picture of
Kashmir of the times. I belong to the place and reading about it makes me emotional. My blood
started curdling when I read about a young girl of this houseboat family who is sexually
assaulted by the security forces.
As told to Yusuf Jameel

MIRWAIZ UMAR FAROOQ

Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (Mirwaiz) and the religious head of Kashmiri
Muslims
For past many weeks, I’m hard at finishing my thesis on Sufism in Kashmir; hence could not
spare much time to read books other than those concerning the subject. Recently, I received a
complimentary copy of President Pervez Musharraf’s In The Line of Fire: A Memoir but again
for time constraints could go through just the first two chapters of the book, which, I’m afraid to
say, revolve only around the author’s person and his own feats. I’m quite busy in completing my
thesis on Mir Sayyid Ali Hamdani (a 14th century Muslim saint from Hamadan, Persia who
became instrumental in mass conversions to Islam in Kashmir) and other facets of Sufism in
Kashmir. During the research, I meticulously went through Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr abridged
from the four-volume The Passion of al-Hallaj, one of the major works of western Orientalism.
The book explores the life and teaching of the famous 10th century Sufi mystic and martyr
Mansur al-Hallaj, and describes not only his experience but also the whole milieu of early
Islamic civilisation. Written by Louis Massignon (1883-1962), France’s most celebrated Islamic
specialist in the last century and a leading Catholic intellectual, the book helps the reader in
getting rid of many misconceptions and misunderstandings about Hallaj.
Recently, I was in Cairo and at a local bookshop bought a very interesting book, The Heirs of
Muhammad authored by Barnaby Rogerson. It talks about the tempest of political intrigue and
deceit that blew over Islam following the death of the Last Messenger of Allah (peace be upon
him). Barnaby, however, has dealt with the subject minutely but objectively and has taken a
historical point of view instead of religious which most other contemporary writers did. I found
the book worth reading.
As told to Yusuf Jameel

MILIND DEORA
Congress MP from Maharashtra
One of the finest books I have read this year is Leadership by Rudy Giuliani. He gives case
studies of how he solved both his personal and professional problems. It is a great book for
anyone. It is a lesson in management which no management guru can teach you. I learnt a lot
from the book and it also makes good reading. It is by far one of the best books I have read. In
fact, I give it as gifts to people who are running big organisations like Mumbai municipal
commissioner Johny Joseph.
As told to Olga Tellis