Parenting, Explosions and Democracy @ BYOB Party in August 2019 (Part 7)

A book that one of the readers at the BYOB party discussed was Growing Up Again: Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children by Jean Illsley Clarke and Connie Dawson. The book focuses on transactional analyses evolved as a therapeutic process and offers guidance on improved parenting practices. “The line that got me hooked was how the author talked about how I need to love myself first. That will help my child to love himself. This is a totally unique way of looking at love and compassion. Instead of focusing on lack, it is more helpful to be compassionate and look for alternative views of the past.”

Guru, an ex-navy officer and a self-confessed bibiophile spoke at great length about A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif. This tragic and satirical story talks about Zia ul Haq’s death in an air crash.  The Pakistani President, the US ambassador and a handful of officers died in the crash, the cause of which remains an unsolved mystery to this day. Hanif tried to get past the conspiracy theories but hit a brick wall every time. He decided to use satire and create his own answers- a kind of ‘journalistic revenge’. “I enjoyed the way Hanif recreates Zia’s character. His sudden religiousness, the comedy with the doctor, the curse of a woman who was sentenced to death by stoning…all these instances turn the novel into a laugh riot. Hanif is a non-establishment man as all journalists usually are,” Guru said.

“Wish that was always the case,” one of our readers said.

Watch this interview of the author and read this.

Jaya has been following Gautam Bhatia’s legal tweets because they are so decipherable. His book The Transformative Constitution is unlike like his tweets and is very academic. “I put up with it because of the content it addresses,” Jaya said, “And I’m glad I did. Now I’m hoping that a more popular version comes out. The book addresses many questions like the establishment of the republic and constitution, individual cases. legal precedents. The  issues discussed were relevant and even though it was a difficult read it was well worth reading.”

Jaya read out a piece from the book: “Political democracy can not last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does democracy mean? It means a way of life that recognizes that liberty, equality and fraternity are the principles of life. The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity. Liberty cannot be divorced from equality. Equality can not be divorced from liberty, nor liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would create the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty will kill individual initiative and without fraternity, liberty and equality would not become the natural course of things. It would require constantly to enforce them.”

And with that, we come to the end of the BYOB Party held at INTACH. Coming up interviews with some of our readers!

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