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The Gift of a DaughterBy Subhadra ButaliaPenguin IndiaPrice: Rs 200 The Imperial Bank, that was originally set up in 1921 as a quasi-central...

The Gift of a Daughter
By Subhadra Butalia
Penguin India
Price: Rs 200

It may remind one of a grandmother telling a bedtime story. But the memoirs are as unusual as this 81-year-old debutant writer. There are no fairy tales here and understandably so, for Butalia is a veteran activist. Here she addresses the prevalent practice of dowry. The book has real-life incidents drawn from a cross-section of society, perhaps to shake us out of our complacence that such crimes don’t happen amongst us. As the book progresses, the writer takes up

complex issues that emerge from a dowry death, like complicity of relatives or the role of judiciary, even as she shows her own growth into an individual who refuses to shut out the screams of a woman being burnt to death right across her street. This grandmother’s story comes with a moral. One only has to listen carefully.

— Smriti Diljun

The Evolution of the State Bank of India
Sage Publications
Price: 1,100

The Imperial Bank, that was originally set up in 1921 as a quasi-central bank of the country, later consolidated its position as the foremost commercial bank of the Indian subcontinent. The book is basically the history of the Imperial Bank, which was formed with the amalgamation of the presidency Banks of Bengal, Bombay and Madras and became in 1955 the State Bank of India (SBI) by an Act of Parliament. It is based principally on the archival material of the State Bank and offers detailed aspects of the formation and consolidation of the apex body during the politically and economically eventful thirty-five years from 1921 to 1955.

Of special interest to the heritage buff are bound to be a series of fading photographs of SBI’s old offices and properties.

— Ruchi Ahuja