Wednesday, March 19, 2014

An alternative PIL

To the honourable principal judge
Herewith mentioned are grounds for stopping the sale and purchase of Vendy Doniger's 'The Hindus - An alternative history'
- The book is too long. Hinduism is not that long. It's easy to explain, even to little children. Why should she write 900 pages? This proves mala fide intent beyond any doubt.
- The book is heavy. The hardback weighs 1.5 kg.
- It's boring. I couldn't get past...well...let's say I didn't have to read it to know what's in it. Why write so much? That too alternative history. I might as well read the correct history if I'm going to invest that kind of effort.
- It's full of factual inaccuracies. Amazon, for eg., says it's one book. Can one book have 900 pages and weigh 1.5 kg? No, it's at least 4-5 books. If you buy it and keep it in a shelf unread as you're likely to do, I'm told it naturally disintegrates into 4 books over time.
- It should be titled 'All the people who've ever lived - an alternative history'. Even if you devote one line to talk about each Hindu who's ever existed, it won't be as long as this book - so she's definitely talking about all communities. In fact I'm told she talks extensively about cows and buffaloes also. It should then simply be titled 'Everything - a comprehensive saga in 5 parts which has been made into one humongous book through a miracle of binding'.
- Free speech is fine by me but exactly how much of it is permissible? If each person is allowed free speech worth 900 pages, imagine the chaos. And that too with unsuitable titles. Let's say I write a book about fruits and flowers with no photos and in Arial 4 font covering a 1000 page sprawl and call it 'Christians - a crisp one page snapshot'. I'll then get a friend to write a blurb saying 'A quick light hearted romance. Pick this up if you have a 1 hour flight'.
- The book sees Hinduism through a very western and outsider perspective of publishing very large books with more than 900 pages which is essentially a western concept.
Given the above, I humbly seek a quick pulping or at least a severe shortening of the book and addition of funny illustrations every alternate page.
- Dinanot