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5 comments about Fragments of Grace: My Search for Meaning in the Strife of South Asia.

1. it is a good book. and this good book has a good title - The Fragments of Grace. i live in new delhi and commute everyday to a 9-6 office. in the morning rush hour, as my bus crosses over the yamuna river, we always get stuck in a traffic jam....the buses in which I travel are always clogged tight with sweating commuters and it feels like hell......in such a distressing situation im always reminded of nazi cattle cars used for transportation of jews......at times while trapped inside these baked tin drums, i happen to look out from a side window and see the calm, dream-like, majestic dome of emperor humayun's tomb standing just across the road.......somehow someway it always make me feel beautiful about myself. while being crushed, pulled, pushed and mauled by surrounding commuters, I always try to frame a phrase that would exactly describe that nice feeling on seeing that beautiful monument. but the quest for that perfect articulation always eluded me.......thankfully, pamela constable's book-title did that job for me......humayun's tomb stands out like a 'fragment of grace' even as all sort of maddening chaos continue to fret and fume round it........

   there are many decent writers around but a good writer is one which helps to articulate the reader's own feelings and perceptions even if that was not the intention in the first place.....so i was very moved and almost screamed out saying 'hey, this is me' when constable talked about her parents: 'even when we are in the same room, we remain worlds apart".......or when she confessed "seeing friends and mates they were never able to accept"......such paragraphs in this intensely personal memoir made me pause and think about my own parents and about my own life.......and ms constable was bang on target when she said that her parents still try to "improve the way i look and dress'......how does she know so much about me and my parents? how come she took my innermost perceptions and family secrets out of ME and translated them into words for HER book?

   Each chapter in the book deals with her sojourn in some south asian country and ends with a deeply intimate interlude. reading the latter made me slightly uncomfortable, hesitant and anxious. it was like as if i had secretly tip-toed into somebody's attic one sleepy afternoon and was going through personal correspondence with half my alertness distracted towards the door from where that 'somebody' can enter anytime and catch me redhanded........at one point when constable wrote about a sudden in-your-face meeting with a long-lost journalist friend, once very intimate, in a crowded press conference, i felt embarrassed as if i was intruding into her privacy. indeed it makes for a very brave and kind person to write so gracefully about events so personal. thankyou pamela.

   i may be sounding melodramatic but i loved the ending of this book. it was a gradual close. it was like a fading piano tune echoing from the stone walls long after the concert has ended and the audience has returned home....

   finally if pamela constable happens to read this review, i want to tell her that many a times i have passed over that yamuna bridge on the banks of which lies a shanty where the elephants live. everytime i pass over that part of the city, i always instinctively look down under to wonder about those sad-looking elephants. i even made a guess after looking at some hoardings that it must be a muslim settlement. now after reading this book , whenever i will pass over that bridge again, i will know that delhi's total of 23 elephants camp there and that i know the name of at least one mahout who resides there - ghayar ali. constable should know that I too have noticed that place, that tiny fragment of grace.

   really it is a book not to be borrowed and read but to be bought and read and re-read....




2. This is an extremely important piece of literature. It is relevant and a must-read for any American who values her/his freedom.
   Pamela Constable is an honest, articulate and engaging writer. I couldn't put her book down. I feel far more informed about South Asia and the strife we can only begin to TRY to imagine here in the U.S.
   M.A.Bashaw
   Phoenix, AZ



3. I read most of this book on a long flight from Delhi to Los Angeles. I was inspired to buy the book by a favorable review in an Indian newspaper... For me, the greatest value of the book is the personal story of what it takes to bring us "the story" from conflict-ridden parts of the world, particularly Afghanistan in this case, but also Pakistan and to a lesser extent, Sri Lanka. Anyone aspiring to be a foreign correspondent should read this book... However, it must be admitted that Ms. Constable does not have a real sense of history. Her history on Kashmir and even the lead-up to the Taliban regime is full of gaps, as is the history of the Sri Lanka conflict. Noone should read this book alone and think they understand why Kashmir is what it is, who the Taliban were and how they came to power, and what is the diversity of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka or the long history of that conflict since colonization. Ms. Constable should not be faulted for this, she admits herself that this is more a personal document than history... As a personal document, and as a person, Fragments of Grace and Ms. Constable are worthy of admiration. What courage, what honesty, what compassion, what literature - her book was written not for personal profit, only somewhat for public enlightenment, it was written most of all out of a personal search for meaning, and on these terms it excels. One can only admire what it takes for journalists to give us the story we read with our daily cup of coffee, far far away from the conflicts we follow and can hardly fathom.



4. The value of this book is the simple albeit not so scholarly observations of the author. Reading it one feels like someone encountering with both curiosity and a bit of fear, new territory. Sure the historical or even common sense elements may be missing here and there, but it's the westerner sharing from western eyes, two world views that proves invaluable. Few authors who serve in third world areas like Pakistan and Afghanistan, ever write about the dizziness of returning to the United States where even the poor live in splendor compared to third world people. And I appreciate the authors reminder to me a woman from the United States, that I am spoiled and really have no idea what true oppression is all about. And as a side note I appreciate the authors love of animals in need.



5. Read it. Fall in love with the author because of her objective appraisal of herself; her resilience, adaptablity and wits to survive in the trenches of alien cultures; her universal compassion for the ordinary people and the animals alike; and because of her stirring, evocative and almost poetic writing style.
   Ignore a few inconsequential errors of historical facts.
   
   Asif A. Shah
   Washington, D. C. 20001

3 comments about Our Journey from Tibet.

1. I am 33 years old. I read this book for the first time today. These child's courage and bravery in this journey outshines all else. From the beginning to end this small child went through more hardship than most people I know of. What brings this book to light with most people is the quality of the pictures and the words. To be able to put the images that come to mind with pictures of such a dangerous journey is VERY Commendable. It also brings home the environment of what Tibets' children are facing each day. Makes me want to reach out to this child and hug her and tell her that it's over and it wont happen again.



2. Although the book was written for children, as an adult I found it very interesting. The color pictures on every page bring the story to life. I liked the book so much I ordered another one for my niece. She is 9 years old, and is anxious to bring the book to school on a "show and tell" day.



3. Under the occupation of the People's Republic of China, school in Tibet is too expensive for most families to allow their children to attend (Tibetans normally have large families while the Chinese are allowed to have only one child per family). Of course, for those who can afford to attend, the traditional Tibetan teachings are banned. Consequently, the Tibetan Children's Village was established in the city of Dharamsala in India with the motto "Others Before Self." "Our Journey from Tibet" is based by Laurie Dolphin on the dangerous journey taken by a young girl named Sonam to travel from her home in Tibet, through the mountains of the Himalaya in Nepal, to India. There, with other children who had taken a similar journey, Sonam learns about the language, religion, and history of her homeland. Dolphin, who has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for several years, was inspired by the plight of these children to write this book as a means of helping to preserve Tibetan culture. "Our Journey from Tibet" is illustrated with photographs by Nancy Jo Johnson, who has produced several stories for "Life" and "National Geographic." The book also includes a message from Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and an afterword by Rinchen K. Choegyal, Minister-in-Charge for Education for the Tibetan government in exile. As much as the story of a young girl having to take a perilous journey, the efforts of the people of Tibet to keep alive their Buddhist religious traditions, to reestablish in exile the monastic institutions destroyed in Tibet under the Chinese, and to teach their children their culture as part of a modern education is equally inspirational. Young students researching the land of Tibet for school would be well served by looking at "Our Journey From Tibet" as well to really get an idea of what live is like for children only slightly younger than themselves living on the other side of the world.

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