This is first of all a remarkable story of survival. But to an  extent it is also a different kind of Second World War history, in the  sense that war history, usually the province of scholars and commanders, is  brought to dramatic life and is broken down to its basic, human elements in  Eaten By the Japanese, a fascinating and horrific memoir of war,  imprisonment, and torture by Japanese soldiers during World War II. This  account, perhaps the only one written by an ordinary Indian soldier,  radiates a humanity and a pathos which make its appeal universal and  transnational, like Iris Chang's account of The Rape of Nanking.Crasta does  not fit the usual stereotype of a soldier: a pugnacious, boisterous  brawler, a jingoist ready to march off to battle, dangerous when provoked.  He is rather a man who in his whole life never willingly hurt a fly, who is  so forgiving, so moved by a small kindness that he invites his former  enemies to visit his home. Yet, the desperate need for a job makes this man  join the colonial army of his masters to save the British Empire--which is  under attack by the empire of another Asian country. In the process, he is  nearly Eaten By The Japanese. Eaten By the Japanese raises many controversial questions. What does the  ordinary soldier--who is by definition trained and commanded not to  think--think about war when he decides to think anyway? Did Britain treat  Indians justly after the war and reward them fairly for their sacrifices?  What about the Americans, who merrily bombed the Indian prisoners--their  own side? This is a non-elitist, first-person account of history, coming  from an invisible man and an invisible class. And what about cannibalism and man's inhumanity to man? At a time when  various skeletons of the war are emerging from the closet, renewing  discussion and the demand for apologies and reparations--is the fate of  Indian soldiers who were eaten, killed, or tortured too trivial to  consider? These are some of the questions posed by Richard Crasta, son of the author,  and an author in his own right of the novel The Revised Kama  Sutra--published by Penguin India and other foreign publishers--and of the  HarperCollins India book of essays Beauty Queens, Children, and the Death  of Sex), in his moving biographical introduction and concluding essays.

Eaten By the Japanese: The Memoir of an Unknown Indian Prisoner of War

History

John Baptist Crasta

Military

Invisible Man Books

Impressing the whites: The new international slavery

In this tongue-in-cheek, satirical, yet passionately idealistic book, a White God delivers "The Fourteen Commandments of Impressing the Whites": a guide for non-white people wishing to succeed in the West. Darker than "How to Be Black" (Baratunde) and funnier and more readable by far than "Orientalism" (Edward Said), the book examines the dilemma faced by non-whites who must strive to be found worthy by the West in order to succeed in their own countries. It ends with practical suggestions on how to avoid the truth-subverting games the races now play and be truer to their authentic selves. Controversial in India (where it was briefly featured on Outlook India's bestseller list), the book was discussed on Indian national television and also on BBC World, and ferociously attacked in some newspapers, but has been studied at an American university and also in South Africa. "The reader laughs, squirms, recognizes his/her own hypocrisy and the blatant absurdity of most unquestioned social conventions. In this, Crasta succeeds [in ways that] Chris Rock race routines succeed, i.e., brilliantly. Zany exuberance . . . mischievous pleasure."--Frank Feldman "Boldly goes where no Indian writer has gone before."--The Asian Age, Book Pick of the Fortnight.

Impressing the Whites: The New International Slavery

Biographies & Memoirs

Richard Crasta

Arts & Literature

<p>An attempt to highlight the dominant role of race in the present world bringing out the perceptions of non-whites by whites.</p>

Crasta, Richard

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