INSIGHT

INSPIRING STORIES OF INDIA

2012-01-22T02:48:00.000-08:00

INSPIRING STORIES OF INDIA

In a country of over 1.21 billion people, a figure of 23 hardly matters. But then they can matter if these 23 people and their associates bring about substantial positive changes in the lives of millions of people in India. The changes they bring about are results of their ingenuity, ideas and actions: an engineer who builds foot bridges at a village in Kerala that remains marooned in water for six months in a year; a gynaecologist in Uttar Pradesh who fights for the ‘right to life’ of girl child; a farmer in Karnataka who partnered with a bee scientist to come up with a disease-resistant bee strain; the initiatives of the Smile Foundation to provide education to underpriviledged children in Orissa; and the Rural Medicare Centre which provides reliable facilities. Such stories and others have been compiled in the book, Inventive Indians: 23 Great Stories of Change.

As one reads the book, what stands out distinctly are the courage and dedication of people who have been portrayed in the essays. Amid the negative stories that fill the newspapers and television news channels, these people suddenly look like rays of sunshine. The road for them was never easy, as the chroniclers put it. Typical hurdles — bureaucratic, infrastructural among others — were aplenty. But that didn’t stop them to move ahead with their ideas. Take for example, Harivansh, who left his job of an Assistant Editor in Kolkata to join a defunct daily, Prabhat Khabar, in Ranchi. His unyielding determination to revive the daily, make it credible and compete with the big names in the media business can be instructive for the journalists and media proprietors. Defamation cases, poaching by bigger media house and punishing working hours could not stop Harivansh and his team to turn this newspaper into a true ‘people’s daily.’

Based on the interviews of people and the descriptions of the initiatives, the essays use a language — sleek and chatty — typical of magazines. These writings were published in the magazine Civil Society over a period of six to eight years. Quite naturally, some of them may sound a bit dated. Most of the essays do not have an ‘update’ on the current status of the initiatives or the people behind them. Moreover, there are no detailed statistics that might have helped a reader to understand the issues better. Plus, there is too much of ‘do-gooder’ aura in the writings. But then these writings are more about the efforts, grit and teamwork, rather than academic or typical journalistic analyses of the situations. Sometimes minute scrutiny must take backseat and allow the reader to relish the positive stories. Therefore, it is better to ignore these lacunae.

This compilation is like a tribute to all those who did not succumb to the lament of failures in this country, and the apathy of the politicians and governments. But more importantly, this compilation forces the reader to think whether he or she can contribute in some way to the betterment of the society. The compilation, simply put, is inspiring. ‘Mainstream media’ bosses and the glitz-struck editors will do well to note such stories.

Inventive Indians
Edited by: Rita and Umesh Anand
Genre: Non Fiction / Essays
Publisher: Westland
Pages: 259
Price: Rs 350

A LIFE IN ART AND TRADITION

2012-01-16T00:15:00.000-08:00

A LIFE IN ART AND TRADITION

The dance form of Bharatanatyam and the late T Balasaraswati are synonymous. This legendary artiste from South India was recognised worldwide for her dance and music. But her life also offers an extraordinary view of the matrilineal devadasi community from which the modern South Indian dance style has emerged. Independent scholar Douglas M Knight Jr provides us with that view in this biography, Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life.

The book is well organised, with the author beginning by touching upon different aspects of Bharatanatyam: its origin, traditions and the way the heritage was transmitted; and the history of Madras and British rule. He then proceeds to tell us about the devadasi community before narrating the history of Balasaraswati’s family that hailed from Thanjavur. Text on Gurukula and Arangetram or rite of passage involving the entire community also help to build up the context in which one has to understand Balasaraswati’s life. Though one may find it a bit tough to understand certain nuances of the dance form, the biographer has made things easier for the readers with his lucid language.

While he narrates the artiste’s life, he gets several people, who knew Balasaraswati or who had some connection with her, (Birju Maharaj and Kapila Vatsyayan among others) to recall the legend. Their words and views, and the anecdotes make the book engrossing. Along with all that, several black-and-white photographs of Balasaraswati’s performances and her family make the book rich.

An interesting part of the book is where the biographer writes about the Sringara Rasa in Bharatanatyam. Sringara Rasa has been considered part of courtesan practice, which was connected to prostitution and ‘indecent behaviour.’ The biographer has tried his best to understand these controversies. Balasaraswati’s views on the controversies surrounding this emotive expression, and the discourse on the issue is enlightening. The ‘moral police’ brigades that show up here and there in this country, may do well to read this part.

Similarly, Balasaraswati’s tours around the world as the messenger of peace and Indian culture come out quite well. The accounts of other artistes and critics bring out the greatness of Balasaraswati. Their reception in the USA and the celebrity status that Balasaraswati enjoyed is good to read, though the adulatory reviews from the critics in the USA become repetitive. But then that was the reality. The biographer has skilfully stitched them all from the resources available.

This book, though a biography, is also a personal account: the author is the son-in-law of Balasaraswati, whom he fondly refers as Balamma. Still, he has been objective without professing his personal admiration for the great artiste. His effort to come up with a consistent narrative of the later years of Balasaraswati, when she grew more private, is commendable. In all, it is a biography worth collecting and reading for anyone interested in a great art form and a legend.

Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life:
By: Douglas M Knight Jr
Genre: Non Fiction / Biography
Publisher: Tranquebar
Pages: 325
Price: Rs 599

A QUEST ACROSS CULTURES

2012-01-15T23:09:00.000-08:00

A QUEST ACROSS CULTURES

Lisbon 1898. Surgeon Antonio Maria, or Tino as he is fondly called by some, discovers that his beloved father, Dr Alexander Henriques Maria, is suffering from the dreaded disease of syphilis.And the disease has no known cure. Determined to find a solution, Antonio travels to Peking inChina to study under renowned Dr Xu who is believed to be a master in Nei Ching or the Yellow Emperor’s Canon — a compilation of Chinese medicine. This is the basic premise of Kunal Basu’s latest novel, The Yellow Emperor’s Cure.

Talking about the beginning, Basu says, “Like the cast of a phantasmagoria, the characters and the disease appeared all at once, as I strolled down the museum of traditional Chinese medicine on a summer day some years ago in Beijing. I caught a glimpse of a young European doctor learning the principles of Chinese medicine from his teacher inside a pavilion of the Summer Palace. Why would he have come this far? I asked myself. Unless, of course, he was in search of a cure that had eluded the West for centuries. And then, syphilis sprang to mind.”

Basu, who teaches at the Oxford University, had to do quite a bit of research for this novel. “The three big chunks of research focussed on history of syphilis up until the 19th century, the system of Chinese medicine, and the Boxer Rebellion,” he informs. “There were other foreground details to research such as sea voyages to China, festivals, cuisine, palace rituals, the lives of eunuchs, bullfighting, and many more, to bring to life the characters and settings.” And all of that get together to bring about a seamless novel that is quite a page-turner. “It wasn’t a particularly difficult process, as I was engrossed with the story,” Basu says. “I had started, as always, with the story, which propelled me to look for historical and medical details through research, whose sole purpose was to create a plausible world for the readers.”

China and the West
As a writer from the East, based in the West, how does he look at the past when West and the East met in China? “China has always been a contentious ground as far as East-West exchanges are concerned. Trade went hand-in-hand with territorial aspirations resulting first, in the Opium Wars and then the infamous Boxer Rebellion. Deep curiosity about the ‘other’ coexisted with mistrust and prejudice,” Basu says. “This duality has changed form but carries on even today. Being neither Chinese nor European, I felt wonderfully liberated while writing this tale, bringing out both sides of the conflict and the varying world views.” Basu says that while he “wanted to embed distinct cultural traits” in the characters, he “didn’t want to cast them as stereotypes.” As a novelist, it was important for him to draw Antonio, Fumi, Dr Xu and the rest of the cast as “fully rounded people, each with their own idiosyncrasies.”

The novel is visual, with vivid descriptions of places like Lisbon, the festivals, the European settlement in Macau, the settings in China and the like. “I am an instinctive artist. In order to write, I must ‘see’ a scene enact itself in my mind’s eye,” says Basu. “A character becomes real when I can visualise him/her in minute detail — almost like a miniaturist painting a portrait. It was a careful balancing act: to write a Chinese character as distinctly Chinese, but as a real individual who was free to depart from his or her own cultural lineage,” he adds when asked about how he balances between the descriptions and the characters.

An important strand in the novel is the love story between Antonio and Fumi — the mysterious lady with a haunted past. Did Basu ever feel tempted to turn the novel primarily into a love story, rather than a story of medicine, disease and Europeans in China? He believes that a novel with as “large a scope as The Yellow Emperor’s Cure must have several interwoven themes.” The love story, he says, is “as important and central as the human quest for solving a great medical problem of the times and the troubled encounter between the Chinese and Europeans.”

As I read the novel, it struck me that barring few exceptions, Indian literature doesn’t focus much on China and Chinese culture. Basu agrees. “Indian literature, indeed Indian thinking, tends to be largely Eurocentric when it leaves our national boundary. Of course, this is the debris of colonialism,” he says. “But our exchanges with China and the East are also equally significant. In a literary sense, it also provides great excitement to explore territories that haven’t been traversed,” he adds. “As in politics and trade, our literary heads need also to tilt eastward,” Basu asserts before we wrap up.

A REFRESHING CUPPA OF INDIA

2012-01-08T22:58:00.000-08:00

A REFRESHING CUPPA OF INDIA

On the road from Manali to Spiti, Rishab Saam Mehta came across a small settlement, Chhota Dara. “It is there that a shepherd runs a tea stall-cum-rest room where I got the best tea,” he says. “The stunning setting of the long winding roads, the mountains and the snow had cast a spell on me. But the tea that I had there was simply fascinating,” Mehta recalls with fondness. That and more come together in this electronic engineer-cum-travel writer’s recent book, Hot Tea Across India.

As the title suggests, tea plays an important role in the book. “It is like a binding factor. Roadside stalls, offering varied options of tea, are ubiquitous across the country, which says that we Indians love our tea. Moreover, this is one drink which can be refreshing at any season and at any place,” Mehta explains. “Tea peps up the mind, and one can always take a break for it. For me, travel and tea are always synonymous.”

But this book is not just about tea. It is about the places, the people, the experiences that were funny, invigorating and at times scary. Like when Mehta and his friends were crossing the border of Himachal Pradesh and entering into Punjab in the middle of the night in their car bearing Karnataka registration, a policeman at the check post asked for “chai paani”, a euphemism for bribe. But the guy was at his wits’ end when Mehta and his friends said that they cannot have ‘chai paani’ with the policeman at that time, because they had dinner a while back. Or when he had to escape from the clutches of a bearded man in Kargil who was hell-bent on buying Mehta’s motorbike.

The travelogue reads interesting, more so because of such incredible characters and events. At times they read like a fiction; reminding me of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. “I haven’t read that book. But I’ve been influenced by some classic writings in English language which one can use as a wonderful tool to tell tales of varied shades,” Mehta says. But, wasn’t he ever tempted to fictionalise the characters and the anecdotes? “Whatever I have written is true. There is no fiction in it. I didn’t want people to read the book, and then go to those places and see that it’s not true,” Mehta says. However, as a travel writer, one must know “how to visualise things and then add a dash of imagination here and there without compromising with the reality,” he adds.

I ask Mehta about the best way to get a reader connected to faraway places. “I prefer chatty language with bit of humour. I write in an enthusiastic manner. But I won’t give away all the details. I prefer to tempt the reader to get out of his couch and visit the places. My advice to all is, don’t follow the travel agent. Find on your own,” he replies. “I keep away the press kits when I travel. One has to experience on his own while travelling... talk to the people, ask them about the local legends and tales.”

As a travel writer, who prefers travelling by road, rather than by train, Mehta is fascinated by the unexpected in every nook corner of this country. “You never really know what will come up when you travel across India. In other countries, you know what lies ahead. In India, you are bound to be surprised any moment,” he says, recalling some of the incidents during his travels. “India is simply fantastic.”

SCRIBES' STORY

2012-01-01T23:42:00.000-08:00

SCRIBES' STORY

Let’s begin the year with us, the journalists. All of us in this profession would know the danger of falling prey to planted news. So, we remain cautious. If that caution is missing or compromised, then the credibility of the publication, the broadcaster and of course the journalist is lost. And that’s what happens to Oscar Pinto, the reporter of The Newsroom — venerable English daily of the country, when the published news of the arrest of Bombay don Narayan Swamy by Police Commissioner Donald Fernandez turns out to be wrong. What follows is a tale of raw power, sleaze, wits and dirty tactics used by all the sides, in Oswald Pereira’s debut thriller, The Newsroom Mafia.

Pereira, who has been a journalist for over 30 years, offers the insight through his blunt portrayal of the nexus between a section of journalists and the vested interests — politicians, bureaucrats, police and mafia. “Lot of things that I have seen were in the back of my mind. The book is based on my experiences, but the story in the book never really happened,” he claims. “All the characters are fictionalised.”

Beginning it as a non-fiction “tell-all” work, Pereira soon realised that the book can be turned into a fiction. “As I wrote, the plot developed. But I didn’t really think that I will be writing a thriller,” he says. However, he was certain about “telling the outside world” about that section of journalists who compromise their integrity. “Journalists criticise others. But they never put themselves in the dock. I wanted to write this book as a kind of introspection and make it clear that we are not as holy as we all claim to be,” Pereira asserts.

But he makes it clear that it did not intend to target the media through his work. “I didn’t target anyone. Neither did I want to sermonise. But I have seen how young people, who get into the profession as honest journalists, can get sucked by corruption... getting paid for printing a news, or for not printing something,” he explains. “But most of the journalists in this country are honest. And most of my colleagues have been supportive, and have praised this effort,” he adds.

I ask him how difficult was it for him to keep the balance between a journalist’s objectivity and his creativity while writing this thriller. “It was not easy to write. This book is my labour of love for the profession that I carried out objectively. Moreover, the aim was introspection. I had to keep that in mind,” Pereira replies. “As a writer, one has to keep the readers in mind and write responsibly, not to spread the muck too much, yet tell the truth,” he says as we wrap up.

LAUGH WITH GREG HEFFLEY

2011-12-25T21:39:00.001-08:00

LAUGH WITH GREG HEFFLEY

A kid’s mind is full of questions. And worries, like how to keep behaving nicely during the Thanksgiving Week. Or around the Christmas. Or for that matter all through the year, because Santa’s Scout is watching the kids. Any behaviour that is not nice, or that is bad, will get reported to the Santa. And Wimpy Kid or Greg Heffley certainly doesn’t want to be in Santa’s ‘Naughty List.’ His worry, therefore, is evident as we go through the recent Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, by Jeff Kinney.

It is Christmas, and I wonder what Greg is doing. Is he starting at the Christmas tree and planning to tear apart the wrapper of the gift kept under the tree? Going by his impatient nature, I won’t be surprised if he has already taken out the gift, without telling it to anyone. Trust author Kinney, the one who created this little character, and you’d know 12-year-old, self-obsessed Greg is not going to sit idly and wait for the ‘right’ time to open the wrapper.

An international bestseller, the Wimpy Kid series has been a favourite among the kids, though Kinney didn’t think of the little ones when he began writing. In any case, Wimpy Kid can also be liked by older folks, like me, who won’t mind reading about the innocence, fun, mischief and all that make up a cocksure kid’s world. With the black-and-white illustrations and letters that resemble a kid’s handwriting, this diary-format story of Greg will remind anyone about his or her younger days. Greg and the characters around him will make you laugh. And perhaps they will make one recall something similar that our very own Ruskin Bond has been penning, with Rusty and Mr Oliver as the leading characters. The only difference could be that Rusty, like most of us, grew up in an Indian setting, while this diary is set in the USA. But keep aside the nations and the kids’ world looks the same.

In this particular diary, we see Greg is in a big trouble. His school property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. The authorities close in, as a blizzard strikes the neighbourhood. What happens next? That’s for the reader to find out. I, for one, won’t spoil the fun.

The book reads pretty easy. What amuses is how Greg thinks: at times, he’s a kid; at times, he’s an adult. This kid spends most of his money at the concession stand to buy the chicken drumsticks. When he is probed by the Vice Principal, he looks around to see whether there is any ‘lie detector.’ He decides that he’s never going to have kids and stay a bachelor like Uncle Charlie. Then there are situations that are funny, but can be real. Like when Greg’s school removes all the playground equipments so that the kids do not suffer injuries, and thus avoiding possible lawsuits from their families. So recess is basically like a prison yard, writes Greg. To counter that, kids start a black market of toys.

Jeff Kinney says there is no message in the stories. But the ability of a child to look at the anomalies and the bleak things can be thought-provoking. Beyond the obvious fun, that’s the strength of this book.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever
By: Jeff Kinney
Genre: Fiction / Children
Publisher: Puffin
Pages: 217
Price: Indian Rs 299

BEST OF THEIR BOOKSHELVES

2011-12-25T01:04:00.000-08:00

BEST OF THEIR BOOKSHELVES

Five novelists, veteran and young, tell Biswadip Mitra about their top reading choices in the year 2011

Bestselling author Amish has three books on the top of his favourites. “Arun Shourie’s book Does He know a Mother’s Heart? has touched my heart. It is a poignant book that deals with the suffering of his son who’s afflicted with cerebral palsy. Shourie questions why his son has been suffering and then explains ‘suffering’ through different religions. It is a deeply analytical book. It forced me to think,” says Amish.

Second on his list is the book Tinderbox by M J Akbar. “We all have a morbid fascination about Pakistan. I liked the historical sweep in the book, and got to know lot of things that I didn’t know about Pakistan. It is an engaging book.”

Finally, on his list is the River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh. “He shows how literary English can be fascinating. He has been writing about the infamous opium trade that the British, along with many Indian traders, conducted in Asia in the 1830s,” Amish says. “Ghosh brings in this part of history wonderfully. The characters, like that of trader Bahram, are really strong.”

On top of American novelist Jabeen Akhtar’s list is the book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. “This book has a unique combination of old-fashioned whodunit storytelling and an edgy, enigmatic protagonist,” says Akhtar.

Coming second on her list is The Passage by Justin Cronin. Akhtar says that she likes “any book on post-apocalyptic crises.” But what is “so interesting is that Cronin breaks down vampire/human struggles to the familiar trappings of daily life.” And there’s “tons of gore and violence.”

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis has been another of her favourites. She enjoyed the “insightful, frightening and sometimes hilarious account of what led to the current economic crisis in the US that is actually entertaining.”

Finally, Akhtar adds Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. “I’m a vegan, and this book changed my life in 2011,” she divulges.

Novelist Susmita Bagchi mentions The Help by Kathryn Stockett as her most favourite book in 2011. “This is a compelling book about the post-slavery days of the USA when the black women with no money and not much education, had to become household helps in white families. The racial divide, the indignity and the distrust would make a reader’s blood boil.”

Pulitzer-winning book — The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee comes next on the list. “Frankly, I picked up the book because it got the Pulitzer Prize. But once I started reading it, I was hooked,” Bagchi admits. “Cancer is a scary word, but the author actually examines it with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s prospective and a biographer’s passion. By the end of it you are not only aware, but also prepared for any eventuality. This is an extremely well-written book,” she says.

Novelist and popular children’s writer Ruskin Bond loves crime fiction and thrillers. Not surprisingly, he mentions author Peter Robinson as his favourite this year as well. “I am fascinated by the character of Inspector Banks that Robinson has created. What I like about Banks is that he is not some super hero. He is fallible, a bit lazy and is forced to work” Bond says. “I love characters with which one can relate.” And this year Bond loved the thriller, Piece of My Heart.

Another favourite of Bond has been author Ann Cleaves. “I like her style. The ones that I enjoyed this year are the Hidden Depth and the Silent Voices,” he says.

Bestselling thriller writer Wilbur Smith votes for historical novels. “This year my favourite has been English author Bernard Cornwell. His recent novel, Death of Kings, is fascinating. It tells about the Saxon warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg who deals with the Danish invasion of parts of England. The way he writes is engaging,” Smith says.

Besides this, the historical thrillers by Conn Iggulden have remained Smith’s favourites. “I liked the way he has written about the Roman Empire. So, I read it all over again this year,” Smith adds.

PENNING ALL THINGS EXTREME

2011-12-11T01:11:00.000-08:00

PENNING ALL THINGS EXTREME

I was expecting some tough, rugged man. But unlike Major Hector Cross, the hero of his latest bestselling thriller, Those in Peril, Africa-born author Wilbur Smith appears suave and gentle as he chats about his books, his life and the world in general. And one gets a sense of a well-informed “god-fearing” person who enjoys writing thrillers, the massive worldwide fan following and “trappings of a good life.” Smith was in Pune recently as part of the Landmark Wilbur Smith Tour when I caught up with him.

I mention how decades ago Smith gave up his job to become a writer. From those years of frugal living to his debut When the Lion Feeds, to the current book, Smith has been successful as a writer. Fame and fortune have been plenty. What drives him now, I ask. “I am a writer and I love to write. That keeps me going. And then when my agent gives me a figure of 120 million books that have been sold worldwide, I am delighted. It indeed has been a rewarding journey,” Smith says with a smile. “I enjoy the process of writing... creating fiction. All of that keeps me closer to people.”

Interestingly, this urge to stay closer to the people, keeps Smith away from the literary circle. “I don't want be despised by writers who are more successful than me. And I don't wish to look down upon writers who are not as successful as I am,” he says candidly. “My friends are doctors, lawyers, accountants and common people,” he informs. “I don't wish to get contaminated by other writers.” And he doesn't want to “talk away” what he's writing to other writers at some café.

Unlike his earlier history-influenced books, Those in Peril is more contemporary. The yacht of rich oil company boss Hazel Bannock gets hijacked by the Somalian pirates. Hazel's daughter Cayla is on board. Major Hector Cross, the owner of the Cross Bow Security that is entrusted with the security of the oil companies interests, is then tasked to deal with the pirates. Thrill, planning and ghastly actions are unleashed across the pages in typical Wilbur Smith style where sex and brutality is quite graphic. “These are stories of people in extreme situations. On the one side you have civilised people. On the other side you have lawless people with no civilised behaviour. I want the readers to know the realities. To understand the characters in peril. And that's why I have to make the violence so graphic,” Smith explains.

Those in Peril sees evil people like Sheikh Adam Tippoo Tip and his uncle Kamal orchestrating the piracy in the region. At the same time, they use religion with impunity to further their evil designs. I ask Smith about his views on religion. “I am fascinated by religion. Be it religion with one god or multiple gods. Our belief in god, among other things, is what makes us different from the wild animals. And the more I know, I realise that no religion is bad. It is some people who pervert the religions,” he says. “That is corruption. That is crime. Just as it is crime when the Americans bomb innocent people from war planes. This crime and corruption has been going on for a long time. No god would have ever approved of that.”

Does he ever feel the compulsion of writing 'politically correct' things so as not to offend people of certain religious affiliation? Smith laughs. “I enjoy writing 'politically incorrect' things. I love to examine people and situations and mock at them. I think it is wrong to call an 'old man' as a 'senior citizen.' I think such terms are nothing but hypocrisy.”

Like his other stories, the main male character, Hector Cross, in Those in Peril is strong, intelligent and trying to do something. He seem to be a 'super hero' brought back from the long-lost past. “Yes my male characters have that 'super hero' streak indeed. And you're correct in saying that the age of such heroes is gone. There are no longer people like the Moghuls or the other great warriors. But I like such characters... people who are physically powerful... who are strong-willed. Who can control mind, like the sages,” Smith elaborates. “These characters are in my mind. And I have seen such people.”

But in Smith's thrillers, such strong, successful characters mostly leave a trail of unpleasantness. I ask him why must the way to success be unpleasant. Smith smiles and leans forward a bit. “Self-made people who have been successful, must have done some wrong in their lives. Also, whenever a person is successful, there will be people to drag him or her down and find faults,” he says with a tinge of sigh. “No life can be sweet. My own life hasn't been perfect, for example.”

In Smith's thrillers, there is an aura the unknown and the wild Africa... the aura of colonial times. History and fiction get together to tell us the stories. How does he connect history with fiction? “History, as I often say, is like an untidy woman. I tend to tidy her up with my words. Some people come up and say that they don't like history. And I tell them, in that case you have no interest in yourself. We all are creations of history. And Africa is where humanity was born. So, Africa remains at the centre of my writings,” Smith helps me to join the dots.

In this thriller, besides referring to real-life characters like the British Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, and television talk show host Larry King, the author has banked on descriptions of places, yacht, oil rigs, ocean, and subjects like anatomy. “I get to know about these things from people I know. Be it about shipping or ammunition. Also, I know the the area in an around Seychelles island quite well. Moreover, I do research about what I write. That's the part of the excitement,” Smith informs.

The excitement keeps changing from one thriller to the other “depending on the subject.” The writing also changes. “Our minds change, way of looking at things change. So, over the decades my writing too has changed too,” Smith admits. “But my aim has always been to stay closer to reality,” he assures before we part.

HEALTHY, TASTY AND BETTER

2011-12-04T22:39:00.000-08:00

HEALTHY, TASTY AND BETTER

You love food. So does everyone else. But sadly, we have to be conscious about the calorie intake, nutritional values and negative effects of what we eat and drink. And a lot among us are wary of the increasing waistline that destroys our ‘size zero’ or ‘six pack’ dreams. So we fall back on the promising diet plans; we avoid fried snacks and try eating bland; we cut down on rice, potatoes, sugar, spices, ghee and butter. And we give up some of our favourites that we had relished for years.

In such a situation, Shubhra Krishan may come to your rescue. No, she is not a nutritionist. She has been a ‘lifestyle journalist’, which means she got to interact with some of the best chefs in the country in action. That and her own experiences in cooking yummy, healthy food that is not high on calorie, result in her recent book, Thinner Dinner. The ‘slim-n-sexy’ recipes are written in a chatty way. Krishan garnishes them with stories about how they came about all of a sudden. Like, she recalls how she came up with ‘low fat’ aloo-ki- parantha on a rainy evening when she was listening to Kishore Kumar hits. Stuffed with boiled potato — which has no fat, she says — the indulgence climbs up several notches, thanks to chopped chilli, onion, garlic and coriander. And our taste buds are perfectly satisfied. Such simple tips and tricks are what drives this book. The colourful photographs and illustrations in this book add to its sleekness. The recipe boxes make things easier.

Be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian, the food she offers looks dashing and seductive. From soup, salad, sizzlers, pizza toppings to our desi gastronomic pleasures, this book tries to touch a vast range of food. So, we have the ravishing yellow moong-ki-daal with heeng and ghee along with green chillies, ginger and turmeric that will satiate your ‘daal craving’ wonderfully. Then there is the Couscous Salad in which you just cook the couscous in boiling, salted water for few minutes, before adding it to a crunchy salad of onions, tomatoes, rocket leaves, oilve oil, lemon juice, and basil leaves.

If cauliflower is on your mind, Krishan suggests to add cheddar or skimmed milk to it when you prepare ‘baked cauliflower.’ The idea of ‘fruit butter’ with apple, minus the butter, is interesting too. The list of such food is quite long. It suffices to say they give the ordinary and extraordinary food a healthy makeover.

This, then, is more than a book of recipes. It is an invitation to healthy, tasty food. So, just get going and prepare the dishes. Relish them, as you too come up with similar innovative ideas. But don’t forget to share them with us.

Thinner Dinner
By: Shubhra Krishan
Genre: Non fiction / Food
Publisher: Westland
Pages: 137
Price: Indian Rs 395

A NEW ‘GREAT GAME’

2011-12-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

A NEW ‘GREAT GAME’

The first thing that you notice is the name ‘Burma’ that author Thant Myint-U uses, instead of the official ‘Myanmar’ in his recent book, Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia. Clearly, he doesn’t subscribe to ‘Myanmar’ which the country’s military junta had imposed in 1989. In a way, then, this New York-born, Burmese-origin grandson of former UN secretary general U Thant, rejects the ideas of the junta that had stifled democracy for about five decades.

As the title of the book suggests, Thant has studied Burma along with its two giant neighbours, India and China — the two “re-emerging” economies. Add to that the natural resources that Burma is blessed with, and you will get the picture. Like the rival colonial powers of the past, both India and China have been engaged for years in a new ‘Great Game,’ wooing Burma and its military leadership. China wants access to the Bay of Bengal via Burma, besides oil and gas — the energy for its economy; India wants to expand its ‘Look East’ policy.

As Thant rightly suggests, China has an edge over India in this regard, thanks to the booming Chinese economy. It is investing billions of dollars in the economically-weaker Burma. But will all that ‘infrastructure building’ and investments help Burma? Or the country is just being plundered by China? The author’s uneasiness is evident in this regard. Regarding India he writes: "Trade between Burma and India was growing. The two governments have talked of improving road connections, and of India building a new port on Burma’s Arakan coast. But by 2010 there was little beyond talk..." His uneasiness becomes evident again.

To the author’s credit, the book doesn’t read dreary. Beginning with the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, he skilfully combines the ancient and modern history of the region, his travelogue and geopolitical issues. Among other places, Thant travels to Lashio in the north-eastern corner of Burma. His account is compelling: an almost independent territory has been carved out in that region by the United Wa State Army, former head-hunters, former anti-junta guerrillas, and now drug lords and allies of the junta. Thant compares this region with the rest of Burma and the capital Rangoon. “The dirt roads become Chinese highways. And much of the Wa zone is on the Chinese electricity grid, and even its internet and mobile phone grid. BlackBerrys don’t work in Rangoon but they do in the Wa area...” Stunning, vivid description of these places and a combination of ethnic militias, drug lords, sex workers, businessmen and migrant populations across the pages, make the writing colourful.

He also visits China to see how changes have been ushered in that country. He travels across India too, including Calcutta, a city that had historic connections with Rangoon. Calcutta appears to him like a “mother ship” of Rangoon. The similarities between West Bengal's capital and Burma's capital surprise and please him. The dissimilarities, like lack of freedom in Rangoon as opposed to Calcutta, make him lament. Thant also travels to the north-eastern States of India. As he travels, he analyses the local history, politics and economies, and draws connections with Burma. By and large, Thant’s analyses are engrossing, though at times his travelogue suffers factual errors: in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, it’s Mao’s large painting that hangs, not a photograph; Calcutta ceased to be the capital of British India in 1911, not a year later. But if you gloss over these errors, the overview helps in building the perspectives to understand Burma’s past, present and future.

And the future can be either that of cooperation between Burma, India and China or of rivalry between India and China, where Burma may become a pawn. Thant’s worry in this regard is understandable. He, therefore, advocates greater engagement with the Burmese authorities: the West must do away with its sanctions on Burma, or else the influence of Western democracies will get reduced to near zero, he asserts. US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has just visited Burma, the first US leader to visit the country in 50 years. Though the US is not lifting the sanctions as yet, one has to carefully observe how India and China react to this Western re-entry in Burma. Surely, Thant will watch it all.

Where China Meets India
By: Thant Myint-U
Genre: Non fiction / Analyses
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Pages: 358
Price: Indian Rs 699

SCRIBE'S JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY

2011-11-14T00:09:00.000-08:00

SCRIBE'S JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY

Memoirs are often fascinating to read, more so if they give us facts that have been unknown. Veteran journalist S Nihal Singh, who was once the editor of The Statesman and later edited Khaleej Times, had the opportunity to witness many such facts that set the tone and tenor of history that was in the making, in India, South East Asia and the other parts of the world. Quite naturally, his recent book, Ink in My Veins : A Life in Journalism, raises the expectation of all those who have interest in the events that shaped the bi-lateral and multi-lateral relations between nation States, and politics and governance.

Among the several historical events that the author could witness from a fairly close quarter was the Vietnam War. Singh describes the chaotic days in Vietnam and one gets a basic idea of the troubled times in that region. However, these descriptions could have been more vivid and insightful. Singh’s take on the South East Asian politics in the 1960s is quite interesting. The way the regional politics between the then Malay, Singapore, the Philippines and Brunei played out could be instructive even now to the ‘foreign policy’ makers in India who have the task to keep those countries on India’s side, more so when there are signs of growing resentment in these countries about Communist China.

The more interesting part of the book, however, is Singh’s experiences and analyses of the 1969 split in the Congress Party. The then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s dealings with the old hats within the Congress — who had mistakenly thought that Mrs Gandhi would be a ‘dumb doll’, shows the feisty nature of the lady who took all the risks and won the battle to carve out her place in modern India’s history. “Indira disregarded the official Congress presidential choice and threw a bombshell which had its intended impact of scattering the party challengers...” Singh writes. “Coming back from Moscow as I was, I was struck by the Communist methods Indira used to win a majority. A new battery of slogans had been coined and propagated; the speeches were laced with populism... My distinct impression was that the party bosses were shell-shocked.”

Equally interesting is the part where Singh narrates the turbulent days of the Emergency when the Indian press was muzzled. An arrogant Vidya Charan Shukla, who became Indira Gandhi’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting during this period, did his best to threaten and dictate journalists as to how they must carry the news. Those difficult days for the Indian press and their fight not to buckle under the government’s pressure come alive very well through Singh’s words.

But what I found jarring is the way Singh keeps jumping the timeline and offers his opinions that are out of place with an event or an issue he’s dealing with at any given part of the book. These sudden breaks in the continuity are disconcerting. I wonder what Singh would have thought of such a fragmented style of writing, if he were to edit it.

Moreover, along with his experiences as the correspondent and editor of The Statesman, Singh writes about his sexual escapades, and trivial things like buying furniture in Moscow while he was posted there. And in that sense, this informative book is annoying. However, I should have been warned when Singh began with memories about how “handsome” he looked as a child, and how his schoolmates used to call him “the Rose.” Perhaps, Singh wanted to spice up his narrative with candour. But for a serious reader, such facts are useless. Moronic, actually.

IN A CAULDRON CALLED USA

2011-10-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

IN A CAULDRON CALLED USA

Being an immigrant in a new country is one thing, and being the child of immigrants is quite different. While the first-generation of immigrants struggle hard to adjust to the new country, for the later generations of the immigrant family, life becomes much easier with their increased affinity to a culture and lifestyle that can be starkly different from their country of origin. As a result, the views and mindsets differ across the generations in such an immigrant community. “I never felt like a child of the immigrants. Rather, I grew up as an US citizen with western outlook,” says American writer Jabeen Akhtar whose debut novel, Welcome to Americastan, explores this aspect.

Samira, an American girl of Pakistani origin has been just dumped by her long-time boyfriend, Ethan, for her best friend Natasha. Samira is then accused of attempting to run over Ethan with her car and she is wrongly suspected as being a terrorist. She gets arrested and then released due to the intervention of her employer, a US Senator. But she loses her job because of the fiasco. Samira returns to her parents in North Carolina State where her sister Meena and brother Khalid too live. As the siblings carry on with their American lives, they often battle the Pakistani-Islamic values that are hurled at them. Several other characters across ethnicity show up as Samira narrates her story; they come in varied colours: understanding, friendly, curious, ignorant, hostile, hypocrite and funny. There is laughter, sadness, rivalry, sex, religion and food. Everything melts into a pot to become Welcome to Americastan.

“I started writing bits and pieces, drawing from what I saw while growing up as US citizen, and things that I heard from my friends and my siblings,” Akhtar says from Delhi taking time off from her “first India tour.” Being a person of Pakistani origin herself too helped Akhtar in grasping the nuances of the community. Gradually she realised that these writings can evolve into a full-fledged novel. “It took me two-years full-time writing, plus another year to complete this novel,” informs Akhtar who lives and works in Washington DC.

The novel's female protagonist, Samira, was not Akhtar's first choice. “I had initially thought of a male protagonist who faces the worst consequences for his actions. But then I thought of a female protagonist and let her narrate what happens. I thought the story would be funny from a female point of view,” the author explains. “Samira is a combination of lot of women I know, including myself. Her sister, Meena, is bit of my best friend friend, though her name is derived from my parents' cat,” she adds with a laugh. Similarly, other characters evolved from the people Akhtar came across.

The novel sees traces Washington DC, especially the Capitol Hill, the power centre of the USA. Behind the gloss of the Capitol Hill, there are the juicy gossips of sex scandals. “DC is a small place. It is a serious place, but then people love such gossips. And Capitol Hill is a small community where the gossips get around fast. What I've written, is based on what I know, though I never worked at the Capitol Hill,” Akhtar clarifies.

I ask her whether she was conscious of the readership that the novel may attract. “Initially, I had the White Americans in mind so that they get some idea about the Pakistani-origin Americans,” Akhtar informs. Later, her Japanese friend said that the “novel can actually appeal to a lot more people, being the story of children of immigrants.” And then she found that readers in India too will be interested to read such a novel. “I was happy to find that I was wrong about the novels prospect in India. The market here is very good,” Akhtar says.

Akhtar's novel is full of wit and humour to show the duplicity and misconceptions that prevail across the communities --- Pakistani migrants or otherwise --- in the USA. How reflective are they all of the Pakistani-origin Americans? “I grew up in a lively group of Pakistani-Americans who laugh at themselves. And I have pretty accurately depicted their hypocrisy in the novel,” Akhtar replies. “If you ask whether they can be offended by what I have written, I would say that some people may, but generally, that won't be the case,” she adds. So, we find the second-generation Pakistani-American Khalid referring to his cousins in Pakistan as 'Pakis', a term usually perceived as derogatory. “For the older generation 'Paki' is a painful word. But for the younger Pakistani-Americans, it is not. They use it left and right,” Akhtar informs. Our perceptions indeed change with time and place. “So, you will not see any animosity between Pakistani-origin and Indian-origin people in the USA. We don't carry it there,” she adds in this context. However, they are not completely disconnected with South Asia. “There is a sense of uneasiness in the Pakistani-American community about what's happening in Pakistan,” Akhtar adds.

I ask Akhtar about the hyphenated identity of 'Pakistani-American'. “For the non-ethnic people, such hyphenated identities help as a label, though it often leads to stereotyped perceptions about the Pakistanis,” she says. “And for many people of Pakistani origin living in the USA, such an identity gives a sense of security.” But for the younger Pakistani-Americans, the hyphen doesn't stand in their way when they assert themselves as Americans. “In my case, integrating with the country was not tough. I didn't face any rejection for my Pakistani roots and ways. But then, in small US town, the situation could have been tougher, unlike in the bigger cities, such as New York,” Akhtar explains. And this difference might have given the novel slightly different shade, if the setting would have been different. “But the plot would have remained the same.”

Akhtar is now working on her second novel. “I am carrying back a lot of wonderful memories about India where Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and the rest live together, and where life is vibrant, unlike the neat residential areas in the USA that are often quiet and can be jarring. I hope to put my India experience into a short story at least,” she says. We will wait, for sure.

Welcome to Americastan
By: Jabeen Akhtar
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 268
Price: Indian Rupees 495

HERE COMES THE SHIVA, AGAIN...

2011-10-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

HERE COMES THE SHIVA, AGAIN...

“Today he is a god. Four-thousand years ago, he was just a man.” So reads the blurb on the back flap of The Secret of the Nagas, the second part of the Shiva Trilogy by Amish. “That’s what I thought when I began reading about the mythological characters. Just as we exist today, they too possibly existed in the past,” says the author. Time possibly chiselled out divine characters out of them and Amish banked on this idea to create pure fiction that is set in the ancient period.

As the readers would know, the first book, The Immortals of Meluha, sees how the ancient imaginary land of Meluha is saved, by a nomad named Shiva, in their war against the Chandravanshis who had joined forces with the group called the Nagas. Meluhan king Daksha had invited different tribes to stay in his country, including the one to which Shiva belonged. Soon Shiva is recognised as the saviour called Neelkanth. The second book sees Shiva’s hunt for the sinister Naga warrior who has killed his friend Brahaspati and is stalking his wife Sati.

Like the first book of the trilogy, the second book too has lot of philosophical elements. “Philosophy is relevant even today,” says Amish as he recalls how the idea of the trilogy germinated. “In our ancient texts, Devas are gods and Asuras are the demons. But in the ancient Zoroastrian text, Devas are the demons and Asuras are the gods. It all made me think about the concept of ‘evil.’ So I began with a thesis on ‘evil.’ Later, my brother and sister-in-law told me to turn the entire thing into an adventure fiction. So came about the idea of this Shiva Trilogy,” the author explains.

Amish is now working on the third book, The Oath of the Vayuputras. “All the three books have a continuum of the concepts on how Shiva became a great figure, the fight against evil and a case for the philosophy about what constitutes ‘evil’,” the author informs. “Along with them, the stories of life, romance, lust and the rest continues.”

A finance professional, who studied at the Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata, Amish had fascination for history from his childhood. That helped him a lot as he began writing the trilogy. “I researched about mythology, ancient history and the characters without actually thinking that I was researching. All that I had read and seen were at the back of my mind,” he reveals. His upbringing in a religious, liberal family was helpful too. “Interestingly, I was an atheist. And I questioned a lot. But over the years, I have understood the importance of religion that makes us become a more grounded, calmer person, as I am today,” says Amish, who is “happy” with his place in the world.

The events in the books bear stark similarities with the happenings in the modern world. I wonder whether he was inspired by the present. “This is a pure work of imagination. Actually, modern world can always learn from the past and that’s what I have tried to show in the book,” he explains. “However, a few of the characters have slight resemblances with some of the people I know or have come across,” he reveals.

I ask Amish whether he ever worried about the impact of moulding mythological and godly characters, more so when ‘religion’ is often made a tool to propagate hatred, or religiosity is looked upon as a sign of being ‘non-secular’. “Not really. All religions are good and we need to have mutual respect for each other,” he replies. “The idea has been to tell a story and no one had any issues with it. I have readers across the faiths — Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and the rest — who have enjoyed reading the fiction.”

When asked about his take on acclaimed literary works versus bestsellers that may not be considered as masterpieces, Amish says the debate is prevalent within the publishing industry. “As a reader, I am open to all kinds of books. As a writer, I write what comes naturally to me,” he says. “A writer must write for himself or herself,” Amish adds with a smile before signing off.

QUIZ ON FANTASY FICTION AND WRITERS

1. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s epic fantasy, Lord of the Rings, began as a sequel to his 1937 fantasy novel. Name this novel.

2. Name the the main antagonist in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy series. He is often referred to as the “Dark Lord.”

3. Who created the famous fantasy fiction character of Conan the Barbarian?

4. How many books comprise the fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia, by C S Lewis? The first book was published in 1950.

5. Who created the famous fantasy character of Peter Pan?

Answers:
1. The Hobbit.
2. Lord Voldemort. He is also referrred to in the series as “You-Know-Who” or “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
3. Robert Ervin Howard. He created the fantasy series in 1932. The stories were published in the Weird Tales magazine.
4. Seven books: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician’s Nephew; The Last Battle.
5. Sir James Matthew Barrie.

LITERATURE WINS WITH WORDSMITHS

2011-09-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

LITERATURE WINS WITH WORDSMITHS

The entire auditorium erupted into applause as he received the trophy. Ranjit Lal had just won the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2010 in Children’s Writing category. The writer acknowledged the appreciation with his somewhat shy smile and the audience cheered again. Just as they did every time a winner accepted the trophy, a cheque and a citation from the chief guest, noted writer-journalist Mrinal Pande, at the final ceremony of the Award held last Friday at the Tata Theatre of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai.

Lal’s book, Faces in the Water, is about female infanticide. “I was horrified by the news reports about female infanticide which happens even in well-off families. And that led me to write this book,” Lal told me. “It was quite a challenge to write on such an issue, considering that the readers will be younger people.” So, he told the story through a teenage boy, who comes from a family that prides in having no girl child. And the boy keeps thinking about the sisters he never had and the wonderful time all of them could have had growing up together.

With 31 nominees selected out of over 300 entries, spread across five categories in the shortlist, the Vodafone Crossword Book Award has expanded a bit since the last edition in 2010. Each of the four jury-selected categories carries a cash prize of Rs three lakh while the Popular Award carries a cash prize of Rs one lakh. Instituted in 1998, the Award has been recognising some of the fascinating books by Indian authors. “Literature enlightens and entertains. But it also gives an aura to the human experiences,” said R Sriram, founder of the Crossword Books. “This award recognises the best of Indian writings and we are delighted to expand over the years,” he added. “It shows that literature is increasing in its appeal, thanks to the book lovers.”

Chief guest Pande echoed a similar view. “Literature will never die. It is a feast of life. Literature cannot be a school, but it makes a reader a perceptive person. Those who read a lot, understand the ironies of life,” she said. Pande wondered why many among us learn foreign languages rather than learning the great languages of India. “We need to tap the richness of our own languages,” she said earnestly.

The selection of the winners for four ‘jury categories’ was done by separate panels of eminent writers, academicians and critics; the Popular Award was decided by an online voting by the readers. But it was never an easy task for the judges. “Difficult” was the word that came up time and again as the judges shared their experiences. “It was dreadfully tempting to decide, but when it came to the actual task, it was tough,” said Githa Hariharan, who was one of the jury members. “Some were shockingly well-researched while other books were so experimental that they were nowhere.” Indeed, with a shortlist adorned with names including Upamanyu Chatterjee, Anjali Joseph, Omair Ahmad, Sudhir Kakar, Ruskin Bond, Deepak Dalal, Giti Chandra, Anushka Ravishankar, Michel Danino, Shiv Khera, R Gopalakrishnan and Amish Tripathi, the decisions demanded a lot of deliberations.

The evening’s tempo was building up even before the event had begun; discussions and arguments about the nominees and winners had filled the auditorium. Though the likes of Ruskin Bond, Upamanyu Chatterjee and Anjali Joseph were missing and were represented by their publishers, the usual excitement of spotting the who’s who of India’s stars of letters was pretty much the order of the evening. But as soon as actress Lilette Dubey took to the stage to anchor the event, the audience’s attention got directed to her. One-by-one the shortlisted nominees were called upon the stage to accept the certificates; later child prodigy Keshava performed a skilful recital on the tabla. The rhythms of the instrument reverberated the auditorium as we waited in bated breath for the awards.

And then it touched the crescendo when the announcements of the winners of different categories began. India’s pluralism came alive through the translated works of literature in the Indian languages. Five such works were shortlisted; the winner though was one: Litanies of Dutch Battery by N S Madhavan, translated into English from Malayalam by Rajesh Rajmohan. Pluralism became evident again through the winners in the Fiction category: Anjali Joseph for her novel Saraswati Park; and Omair Ahmad for his novel Jimmy The Terrorist. While Joseph’s novel deals with life in Mumbai, Ahmad’s novel is essentially about small towns. Ahmad shared his thought: “Small towns in India are not much documented. And what is being documented is often a joke. I just tried to bring out that small town in my novel,” he said.

The award in the Non Fiction category went to US-based V S Ramachandran for his book, The Tell Tale Brains. “Indian academic writers are not known for a style which would make a serious subject easier for the lay readers. But, Ramachandran has done that in this book,” informed Harsh Sethi, one of the jury members while justifying the choice.

The Popular Award went to Ashwin Sanghi for his political thriller Chanakya’s Chant. Sanghi is a “businessman by the day and writer by the night.” How easy is it for him to balance between the both, I asked him. ”Actually, writing lets me escape from the tedious world of business. It is 180-degrees opposite to reading balance sheets,” an elated Sanghi said. He is therefore planning a new book that is set in the early 1900s, with his “trademark elements of suspense, history and adventure to counter the boredom.”

As I was preparing to leave, I caught up with Deepak Dalal who was also in the contention in the Children’s Writing category with his books, Sahyadri Adventure: Anirudh’s Dream and Sahyadri Adventure: Koleshwar’s Secret. He may have lost out, but as always, Dalal was in his elements and was all praise for the writers who’ve won the award. So were the others, like Annie Zaidi, Sumana Mukherjee and Rashmi Bansal.

So that says it all in the nutshell: ultimately, it’s literature, and our love for books and reading that won, yet again.

MEMORIES ARE FOREVER

2011-08-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

MEMORIES ARE FOREVER

JS or the Junior Statesman is dead. It's been dead for decades now. But for noted columnist and journalist Jug Suraiya, that popular magazine from Calcutta where he began as a journalist working with Desmond Doig, remains alive with all its memories that he cherishes. Naturally, he treats the JS, Doig and his friends with much fondness in his recent book, JS & The Times of My Life: A Worm's-eye view of Indian Journalism, as he recalls his continuing career in different publications, spanning over 40 years.

“My editor with the publishers was after me for years and that prompted me to write this one. I wanted this book to offer a sort of journalistic history of recent times,” Suraiya tells me. “Though getting it started was not easy.”

But the uneasiness doesn't show up across the pages; 'history' never becomes a dreary monologue. In typical Jug Suraiya-style, the book is spiced up with anecdotes wrapped in wit and humour. We find Suraiya encountering a bikini-clad female eunuch in the Grand Hotel at Calcutta; covering the filming of Dev Anand's Hare Rama Hare Krishna in Nepal; or gaining entry into a tycoon's home in Calcutta by pretending to be the Maharajah of Malabar. And then there are the poignant memories of meeting Mother Teresa in her Home for Dying Destitutes or of visiting Belchi, in Bihar, where nine Harijans were killed in 1977.

The inner workings of The Statesman --- the all pervasive managing director, the editors, the dullness of handling Letters to the Editor, his initiation into writing the third edits, the stringent rules of writing in Statesman style, words of encouragement or otherwise --- come across quite vividly. However, Suraiya puts in a disclaimer of sorts when he says that he never thought of writing this book, and he had to depend entirely on his memory, which is “not reliable.”

It doesn't seem that his memory fails him; he effortlessly recounts how the JS was closed; how the managing director virtually turned the paper into a personal property; how praise for a certain assistant editor's articles kept appearing in the Letters to the Editor; and many more. On occasions it may seem that Suraiya doesn't keep his individual self and his journalistic self apart. One can sense a tinge of anger and sarcasm in his words. “This book is a subjective piece,” Suraiya justifies. “These are my views. Others may differ from what I have written.”

Along with his journalistic experiences, Suraiya adds bits of his personal life: how he met his future wife, Bunny; their days in the UK and the USA; their several travelling experiences; and Brindle, the dog who “ruled” Suraiya household for many years. “She's like a metaphor for all the marginalised people, a champion for those who have been sidelined,” Suraiya says, referring to the touching account of Brindle. One cannot miss the affection in his voice.

While selecting the anecdotes, Suraiya considered “whether they would be interesting for the readers, whether they can relate to it” --- a criterion he uses while writing his regular columns. “A writer cannot commit the sin to bore the reader. What I do is to put myself on the other side and try to understand how will my writing sound to the reader... can he or she relate to it...” he explains. “Today's journalists no longer preach. Journalism has become more interactive.”

In the book he mentions about how 'hard news' rules the roost in the newspapers. Features and feature writers are often not taken seriously. “But to reduce a 'hard news', say war, into just a report or into statistics is unfair. Features have the scope to portray the human faces of the news and bring them to the readers,” Suraiya concurs with me. “Often we tend to confuse between serious and sombre.”

Among several issues, Suraiya has touched upon how little money may not help a journalist to lead a lavish life, or to build his or her own home, for example. That's a price one pays to be remain honest and not get lured by money despite every opportunity to get seduced. However, in recent past certain high-profile journalists have been accused of fixing deals between political parties and hobnobbing with the corporate lobbyists. It dented the image of the journalists and the profession. Are Indian journalists losing their credibility, I ask. “I was dismayed to read about the allegations against those journalists. But I will still say that Indian journalists have credibility and they are honest,” he replies. So, for the younger breed of journalists Suraiya has words of encouragement, and hopes that “they work with a sense of commitment to the profession.”

Before we part, I ask him about Calcutta, a city he left decades ago to move to Delhi. Suraiya pauses for a while. “I miss Calcutta... but that's the Calcutta of the past,” he sounds nostalgic. But he doesn't sound sad. After all, it's the city where he had some of his best days... “the JS, its first issue with the cover story on the Beatles, the brimming enthusiasm of colleagues, the city streets, the music, hosting talk shows for the All India Radio...” the list is endless. Hopefully, we will get to know more from the man whom Kushwant Singh has described as 'India's Art Buchwald.'

JS & The Times of My Life: A Worm's-eye view of Indian Journalism
By: Jug Suraiya
Publisher: Tranquebar
Pages: 340
Price: Rs 495

ANALYSING THE SERVICE

2011-08-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

ANALYSING THE SERVICE

As we celebrate Independence Day tomorrow, a holiday for most of us, the nuts and bolts of the government won’t take a break from their work. Through a vast pool of officials in the echelons of the Indian Administrative Service or the IAS, the flag of governance will keep flying. Bhaskar Ghose, noted columnist and a retired IAS officer, who served as the Director General of the Doordarshan and also as the secretary to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, reviews the entire set-up of IAS, its effectiveness and relevance in the 21st-century India, in his recent book, The Service of the State: The IAS Reconsidered. Recounting his own experiences spanning across 36 years, Ghose writes on the good, bad and ugly of the ‘steel frame’ of Indian bureaucracy.

“This is not a memoir, really. It is a selection of events in my career which relate, directly or indirectly, to the basic theme of the book: Is the IAS relevant today,” says Ghose. And while doing so, the “events, consequently, virtually chose themselves.” So, the author “did not have to avoid anything” or glorify himself at all.Beginning with his selection to the Service, and training at The National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, Ghose writes about his initial years as a government officer, serving in West Bengal, and moves on to tell about his experiences at later postings, including the dreary life in Delhi where he was deputed for some time. His colleagues, the camaraderie they shared, the people he came across while serving, the highs and lows that he went through as he faced friendly and hostile colleagues, have all been described vividly. Ghose skilfully combines everything to offer valuable insight into the workings of bureaucracy. Was it easy for him to recall those events? “I find recalling the past fairly easy. I do remember things — events, people,” assures Ghose, who “never kept a diary or journal.”

In the book, Ghose has repeatedly mentioned the disconnect between the real-life situations on the ground and the rosy pictures that are being painted during the training. I ask him whether the disconnect has become more pronounced over the decades. “I can’t answer this very accurately as I am not familiar with the content of the present-day training given to IAS recruits,” he says. “All I can say is whatever the nature of the training, there can be no substitute for hands-on experience. To take an analogy — a pilot may do hours of flying in a simulator, but it’s nothing compared to actually flying a plane.”

Ghose particularly mentions the role played by the Financial Advisers. “Far from being adviser, they actually called the shots... The villain has been in the system, the one factor that rendered the best-thought-out projects and schemes useless because they were delayed for years together: the system of financial advisers...” Ghose writes. Is ‘obstruction’ the default mindset of the Indian bureaucrat, I ask. “The institution of Financial Advisers evolved with the increase in developmental expenditure. The original intention may have been to improve financial administration, but the system that it has now become, is pernicious...” Ghose explains. “And yes, there is a ‘high’ in being able to say ‘No’, at least for some who lack self-esteem. The system needs to be eliminated altogether and the powers vested completely in the administrative heads.”

In the book, the author mentions how lowly salary would not allow him or most of his colleagues to invite guests at home, forget splurging. But there were others who indulged in corrupt practices to lead a life of luxury. I wonder how can the IAS be kept insulated from ‘corruption’ which has become a national menace. “There’s no simple formula to eradicate corruption in the IAS. It has to be a many-pronged strategy. The PM had identified a crucial one some years ago when he spoke of taking students who clear their Class XII exams straight to the Academy. This would ensure their values can be shaped to reject any activity that smacks of corruption or irregular action. They do it in France, I hear. Students who pass their school exams are taken into L’Ecole de l’Administration (the School of Administration) which is a very prestigious institution in France which turns out their civil servants,” Ghose replies.

“This won’t eliminate corruption, but the young people being trained there will be conditioned instinctively to see corruption as something repellent. One other part of the strategy would be to improve the vigilance mechanism and punish corrupt officers very very quickly, with exemplary punishments,” he adds.

That’s a wish we all have across the country: a corruption-free, humane Indian bureaucracy that serves the people with sincerity, rather than behaving like despots inebriated with power.

A MIGHTY INDIAN

2011-08-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

A MIGHTY INDIAN

He was above the regional, communal, caste-based politics. From Peshawar to Kanyakumari, from Shilong to Bombay, he was revered as a fearless, uncompromising national leader whose sole aim was to see India free from the British. Subhash Chandra Bose or Netaji, as he is still popularly referred to, the arch enemy of the British, therefore evokes much enthusiasm even today when India seems to be far removed from the ideals of those heady days of freedom struggle. And people, who are attuned to India’s history, keep wondering, almost like a sigh, what if Netaji had been there to lead India after Independence. Noted historian Sugata Bose doesn’t try to answer this hypothetical question in his recent book, His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhash Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle Against Empire. Rather, the book aims to be a definitive biography of the leader.

Utilising a vast range of resources, including those from the Bose family archives, the author has charted the leader’s life from his birth to his final days. One gets a comprehensive account of how a boy from Cuttack in Orissa evolved to become a nationalist individual, leader of the Indian National Congress and later the leader of Indian National Army that fought pitched battles against the British in Asia. Known and unknown facts, and Netaji’s political views unravel seamlessly as the book deals with the history of India’s freedom struggle. Naturally, all the leading characters of that phase make regular appearances across the pages. The book portrays them as neutrally as possible, though it is common knowledge that some of the Congress leaders did their best to stifle Netaji’s efforts to fight the British. The author, therefore, has remained objective as a historian by presenting the established facts and allowing the readers to decide whether Netaji was wronged by the Indian National Congress under Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for whom Netaji had immense respect till the end.

Netaji’s life, especially the way he outsmarted the British to flee from India in 1941, and travelled across British India, Afghanistan and Russia to reach Germany, has been the stuff of a legend. His three-month-long voyage in German and then Japanese submarines from Europe to Asia was equally thrilling. The author could have added touches of drama while telling them, but creditably he doesn’t. Rather, he has stuck to the facts and moved on to dispassionately analyse Netaji’s views and his tough dealings with Nazi Germany under Hitler, Fascist Italy under Mussolini and the Japanese led by General Hideki Tojo. The Communists in India, who considered British as their friend, and were quick to malign Netaji as a betrayer, may do well to know how Netaji had massive contempt for the Nazis and considered Hitler as “baddha pagal” or raving mad. Yet, he took the help of Germans to counter the British Empire. With his prescience, Netaji understood the need to adhere to the old adage: ‘Enemy’s enemy is my friend.’ This book explains all that unambiguously.

An interesting part of Netaji’s life was his love affair with Emilie Schenkl whom he later married. The author has banked on the letters and telegrams exchanged between the two, besides the family photographs. All of that offers us a rare glimpse of the personal life of Netaji. His affectionate self, his love for travelling, nature, art and other finer aspects of life come to the fore. At the same time, we get to read how his sense of duty towards India and the cause of freedom kept Netaji away from his beloved and his only child, Anita. It makes for a poignant reading and you are bound to be touched.

This being a biography of a revered leader, the temptation of eulogising him was far greater for the author who is Netaji’s grandnephew. But this book doesn’t become a hagiography by any means. Lucidly written, this is a simple story of the man who championed the cause of a united, rejuvenated India that’s free from the shackles of poverty, discriminations, communal ideas and regressive customs. It becomes the story of an ideal India that honest Indians still dream of.

His Majesty’s Opponent
By: Sugata Bose
Publisher: Penguin-Allen Lane
Pages: 388
Price: Indian Rs 699

CLASHING WORLDVIEWS

2011-07-31T02:27:00.000-07:00

CLASHING WORLDVIEWS

Time changes everything. Maya Haque realises that on returning to Dhaka after her stint as a medical practitioner in a remote village in northern Bangladesh. Maya finds her friends being seduced by the lure of money; her brother, Sohail, has given up his liberal views to become a strict religious leader. Tahmima Anam’s recent novel, The Good Muslim, forces Maya to try and understand what it means to be a good daughter, sister, friend, citizen and a good Muslim.

“This is one of the questions that the novel asks. For Maya, being a good human being does not include religion, but for Sohail, religion and morality are intrinsically linked,” Anam says. “The novel is about the clash in these two worldviews — it does not aim to resolve this conflict and provide the answer, but rather to raise the issue within the sphere of these two characters.”

The Good Muslim is set in the period when religious fundamentalism was on the rise in Bangladesh that was suffering the aftermath of the Liberation War of 1971. A dictator rules the country and democracy is stifled. Sohail was a freedom fighter who witnessed savagery committed on his country by the Pakistani Army and their agents. I wonder if Sohail’s refuge into religion underscores a religion’s ability to heal the negativities of life or did the author want to show that religion can be used to cover a guilt. Anam replies: “I wanted to show that for some people, surviving a traumatic event like a war means that there must inevitably be a search for goodness, and for a higher power. Sohail desperately needs a moral anchor after the horrors he witnesses during the war, and religion provides him with the answers. But, of course, these things are never simple, and the result of his conversion is morally complex.”

Having said that, Anam cautions that she is “not an expert on religion.” So, it won’t be easy for her to deliberate on why religion has become a monstrous tool for many. “It would be best, of course, if people of different faiths could engage in a coherent dialogue and reach an understanding with one another,” she adds. Maya and her brother represent the two opposites still relevant in Bangladesh. How will that country balance between the two extremes — of liberal values and religious extremism, I ask. Anam sounds optimistic. “I believe very strongly in the importance of secular, democratic institutions. In Bangladesh, we have had a fairly functional democracy for the past 21 years, and this particular government (under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina) has done its part in reducing the role that religion plays in political life,” she affirms.

I draw Anam’s attention to the hyphenated identities that we often carry and ask her how different is a Bengalee-Muslim from a Muslim. “Islam is one part of a Bengalee-Muslim’s identity. There is no such thing as a person who is just Muslim. Every Muslim from every part of the world will have their own cultural, linguistic, and ethnic identity, and religion will form a part of that. A Bengalee-Muslim is both Bengalee, and Muslim, and a host of other things.”

People make up a nation. But at times, the nation overwhelms them. I ask Anam how would she describe the novel — as a story of a nation or a story of people who get affected by war. “The Good Muslim is intended to be the story of Bangladesh, starting with independence, and moving on to the challenges of nation-building,” she replies. “However, it is also the story of a family, and of these two characters, Maya and Sohail, who face the complex problems of moral choice, identity, faith. It is important to keep the characters at the heart of the story, rather than the larger political issues,” she adds.

Anam is now working on her next novel which focuses on climate change in Bangladesh.

ALL ABOUT GANESHA

2011-07-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

ALL ABOUT GANESHA

In Bengal, Lord Ganesha has a wife — the ‘Kawla Bou’, as we call her. As many would know, during the Durga Pujo, Ganesha arrives with his mother — Devi Durga, and his siblings — Lakshmi, Saraswati and Kartikeya. Kawla Bou too arrives. The Lord’s Bengalee wife is actually a banana plant wrapped in traditional Bengali saree. On the first day of the Pujo, this Kawla Bou is taken for a bath by the ladies of the households. As a kid, I would tag along with my mother and aunts to observe the ritual each year. Author, mythologist, illustrator Devudutt Pattanaik brought back that memory as I went through his recent book, 99 Thoughts on Ganesha.

The book’s title says it all: there are 99 short essays on the elephant-headed Hindu god, Ganesha. For some, he is Ganapati, while for others he is Gajanana, Vinayaka or the Pillaiyar. No matter by which name he is called, he remains the same: the one who removes the hurdles in life, and ensures knowledge, peace and prosperity. Most of us know that.

The book is divided into 12 separate parts that deal with the creation of Ganesha, his family, his representations, stories about him, symbols, temples, festivals, rituals, literature, history,spread and wisdom. Pattanaik has brought together the different mythological tales and folklores about Ganesha from across India, and beyond, and skilfully amalgamated them in each of the parts. To Pattanaik’s credit, the book still doesn’t become complex; the language remains simple and reading the tales becomes enjoyable. The array of ideas about Ganesha helps readers, particularly the curious lot, to get a considerably good overview of the Lord.

So for me, it’s nice to know about Ganesha’s avatars that appeared through the ages in ancient texts. The avatars had their roles of destroying the demons: mythological characters, like Sindhu and Sindura; or the negative human traits, like jealousy, vanity, rage, greed and the like. As an aside, it made me wonder whether, when and how Ganesha’s avatar will destroy the current demons: parochial politics, corruption and hedonism that are slowly but certainly engulfing us. Maybe as a Vinayaki — the female form of the Lord who appears in the Vana-Durga Upanishad.

Similarly, it is interesting to read about Ganesha’s siblings and his relations with them; so are the tales about Riddhi and Siddhi, the two wives of Ganesha as they appear in north of India, unlike in the south where the Lord stays a bachelor. Pattanaik does a brief comparative study of these wives and rightly comes to the conclusion about the minimal roles they play, rather than becoming mainstream deities.

The parts in the book are arranged to maintain the flow of a gradual storytelling. However, at times they tend to overlap. For example, the mythological tales about the avatars of the gods, including those of the Ganesha, come back again and again; so does Ganesha’s perceived role as the god who removes obstacles. But such overlapping is bound to happen as the themes cut across ages and regions.

Besides his comparative analyses of the deity, Pattanaik has illustrated the book with his line drawings that add up to the aesthetics. There are some interesting photographs by Harpreet Chhachhiya. On the whole, this book certainly enlightens us about the rich mythological-religious heritage and stokes the grey cells of the brain that might have been numbed by the crass glitz and fluff of modernity.

99 Thoughts on Ganesha
By: Devdutt Pattanaik
Publisher: Jaico
Pages: 225
Price: Indian Rupees 195

LORD GANESHA BEYOND INDIA

* Tibet: Ganesha has benevolent and malevolent forms. In the benevolent form he looks the same as seen in Bengal: white elephant head and reddish human body. He removes obstacles and dances, and is known as the Maha Rakta Ganapati.
* Burma: Ganesha is known as Mahapienne. He is a transformed form of Brahma, with golden elephant head and red body. He is happier and benevolent. He is one of the Nats — the supernatural spirits who guard the pagodas.
* Mongolia: Ganesha is a two-armed deity without his usual vahana (mount or vehicle), the mouse. Mongol legend says that Ganesha showed the land to the father of the Sakya Heirarch, P’ags-pa, and told him that his son will rule Mongolia.
* Japan: Followers of Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism worship Ganesha. There he is known as Ganabachi or Binayaka-ten. He also appears as a popular twin god: Sho-ten or Kangi-ten. The image of Kangi-ten is that of a double-headed elephant god — one male another female.

QUIZ ON GANESHA

1. Name the Purana in which Ganesha appears as Vakratunda, with a lion as his vehicle.

2. In South Indian tradition, Ganesha killed an elephant-headed demon. Name the demon.

3. Gajanan, an avatar of Ganesha, gives a discourse to a king, Varenya. Name the specific ancient text in Ganesha Purana where we find this discourse.

4. In the early 18th century, an Upanishad emerged which has its origin in the Atharva Veda. What’s the name of this Upanishad?

5. Who dictated to Ganesha the epic, Mahabharata?

Answers:
1. In Mudgala Purana. As Vakratunda he kills Matsara, the demon of jealousy.

2. Gajasura.

3. Ganesha Gita. Most of the verses are taken from the Bhagavad Gita. But here, Ganesha, not Krishna, is the supreme being.

4. Ganesha Atharvashirsha Upanishad.

5. Vyasa.

PENNING MIDDLE-CLASS LIVES

2011-06-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

PENNING MIDDLE-CLASS LIVES

As a city transforms, lot many things fade out silently. Just like the tribe of 'letter writers' who are possibly making a quiet exit from our bigger cities with the advent of Internet and perhaps a slight increase in literacy among the migrant subaltern. Mohan --- the 'letter writer' in his 50s --- who is one of the leading characters of Mumbai-born young author Anjali Joseph's debut novel, Saraswati Park, however, does not represent all that is vanishing. “He is a person in his own right, not a symbol,” says Joseph who has just won the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize in the UK for this novel. “But I did want to write about the type of minor clerical worker that you see all over Fort... crossing the Maidans in a hurry at rush hour on the way to either VT or Churchgate,” she adds.

As a child and later as an adult, Joseph came across the middle-class life in Mumbai. And she wanted to portray that milieu and the “importance of book in that world.” So we find Mohan and her wife Lakshmi trying to live their middle-class lives through compromises that a family-life demands. But amid the neatly-ironed shirts and the daily chores, Lakshmi tries to seek respite from the tedious domesticity: the television serials come to her rescue, though that infuriates Mohan. Then we find Ashish, Mohan's nephew, who comes to live with his uncle in Saraswati Park, in a quieter part of Mumbai. The young man is consumed with excitement and anguish of a concealed love.

“I already had the characters of Mohan and Ashish in mind,” says Joseph. “The first thing I wrote of the novel was the opening scene... I had the image of a man looking through the book stalls at Flora Fountain as the rush hour commuters began to flood through. The rest came as I wrote it,” she reveals about how the novel got evolved.

With all these characters, Mumbai too becomes a character in the novel as the city's charm unravels through Joseph's words. They indicate the author's love for the city which she left to study in the UK and work in Paris. What are her fondest memories of Mumbai? “They would be very ordinary things... taking the number 3 bus from Navy Nagar into town, going to the aquarium, playing in the Hanging Gardens, swimming in Juhu as a child, lurking in Kala Ghoda,” Joseph recounts. “There are also many places associated with my parents and grandparents, as well as friends, so the personal and general are often mixed.”

We get back to the prize she has been awarded. Appreciating the recognition an award brings forth, Joseph says: “It's very nice that people with whom you have no connection read your work and feel such enthusiasm for it.” Indeed that's true, as Joseph has attracted readership across the continents. Perhaps it is then natural that her next novel is set in Paris, London and Mumbai. Quite a multinational affair from the author who doesn't subscribe to the concept of Indian Writings in English.

SAFI'S SLEUTHS ARE HERE

2011-06-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

SAFI'S SLEUTHS ARE HERE

I don’t know Urdu. So I never met criminologist Colonel Faridi and his handsome sidekick, Captain Hameed. For decades though, these two men have been popular across the border that divides India and Pakistan, and maybe beyond. The two sleuths, as one may know, are the creations of late poet-novelist Asrar Ahmad who wrote detective thrillers under the pen name of Ibne Safi, as part of his Jasusi Dunya series. Now the adventures of Faridi-Hameed duo are available in English to thrill all those who love thrillers.

Translated by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, and published by Blaft in association with Tranquebar, four of Safi’s thrillers — Poisoned Arrow, Smokewater, The Laughing Corpse and Doctor Dread — take us to a fictional underworld network of pimps, drug dealers and foreign spies. There’s a crooked Doctor Dread — Faridi’s arch enemy; and there are rich people in their stately mansions who are often victims of conspiracies. Plus, there are some beautiful young women who get involved in the plots, as Faridi and Hameed try to counter the sinister designs of the baddies. As any ideal thriller demands, these stories by Ibne Safi are sufficiently racy: there’s enough gore that doesn’t let the stories to become just tales of acute mind games; the actions unfold seamlessly. They may not be always spine-chilling, but nonetheless they kept me glued to the pages. Safi writes as if he’s illustrating through words: he spices up the stories with minute details — on food, dress and fictitious locales.

Quite interestingly, it never becomes clear in which country are these stories set. Where, for example, is the Fun Island that keeps coming back in the stories? Or for that matter where is Tar Jam? Considering that Ibne Safi had migrated to Pakistan in the 1950s, I assume he brought in all the places he knew in India and later in Pakistan, in the stories. But more than that, it is the array of characters, with Indian and western names, that give the plots a multinational touch, thus making us forget the borders. Still, I would like to believe, as did the readers of earlier generations, that most of the Faridi-Hameed thrillers were set somewhere in India.

The author has portrayed the character of Faridi as almost invincible, or as they say, as a “complete man” whom you can trust without any hesitation. He’s too ideal to be true. His analytical mind, his toughness and hard-hitting actions somewhere remind me of Phantom, James Bond, Byomkesh Bakshi, Sherlock Holmes and Dick Tracy — all combined into one suave gentleman. Possibly to balance the macho effect that Faridi offers, the author casts Hameed in slightly comical shades. Sample this: Hameed recites ghazals to his billy goat every morning, and lectures it on progress and morals.

I am told that in the 1960s, Ibne Safi’s thrillers were sought-after like hot buns and people used to rent out the books on hourly basis. And it is believed that Colonel Faridi became so popular that Safi had to be cautious while portraying him in the later stories. I reckon, one of the reasons for the popularity was lack of similar characters in Urdu literature. Ibne Safi filled in that void skilfully. In 2011, these stories may seem to be a tad ordinary or dated for those who are into stuff like Mission Impossible and the Bourne series; Faridi may come across as just another tough do-gooder. But for those readers, who have no qualms in letting fantasies take control of the thrillers and to enjoy a dose of yesteryear feel, Ibne Safi will be a very good choice.
****
Poisoned Arrow; Smokewater;
The Laughing Corpse; Doctor Dread
By: Ibne Safi (Asrar Ahmad)
Translator: Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
Publisher: Blaft / Tranquebar
Price: Rs 200 each
****

THE ADVENTURES OF FARIDI AND HAMEED

** A man is killed by a poisoned arrow. Colonel Faridi’s investigations lead to a network of criminals. But who is behind it? A Goan named Finch? The beautiful Tara Nayadu? Or Doctor Dread? (Poisoned Arrow)
** Industrialist Sir Fayyaz Ahmad disappears en route to his vacation. His granddaughter approaches Colonel Faridi for help. It leads to the twisted world of rich people. (Smokewater)
**Beautiful Saeeda learns that her uncle has died in Jamaica leaving her a huge estate. Rich young men of the city try to woo Saeeda. But she is kidnapped. Colonel Faridi takes up the case. (The Laughing Corpse)
** Begum Irshad, a widow, is being blackmailed. Faridi and Hameed get involved as they try to figure out why a mentally-deranged man thinks that he’s an imprisoned angel. (Doctor Dread)

IT WAS 'GREAT FUN' AS HE LEARNT

2011-05-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

IT WAS 'GREAT FUN' AS HE LEARNT

Devdutt Pattanaik believes, “gods are everywhere”. Much unlike the “modern, urban, 50-year-old phenomenon which make the gods exalted, and belonging to a realm that is ethereal and distant”, Pattanaik banks on the “rural” concept of gods being omnipresent — “from the kitchen stove, the wheel of bullock cart, gossiping with women, making fun of men, and playing with the children”. So, he decided to “make gods as our friends” through his writings and drawings. “I just did something that should have been done a long time ago,” he says. His efforts led to serious books on mythology and folklore for mature readers. Now Pattanaik has come up with three books, under the Fun in Devlok series, for children where the mythological characters mingle up with modernity, and simple stories are told to the younger readers.

What made him think of writing for the children? “People keep asking me to write for children. I was not sure. I thought I was not very child-friendly. But my friends were convinced I could do it. So finally I gave it a try,” he says. “It worked! It was great fun. A new learning experience for me. And hopefully a fun learning experience for them too,” Pattanaik adds with a smile.

One might think it wasn’t easy for the author to write for children, after having written for the adults. But Pattanaik says “it was easier” than he had expected. “The only difference is that I take only one concept at a time and spend more time in descriptions,” he explains. “Pace can be an issue... how fast do you go to keep the fun without losing the wisdom. I am still learning. Not got there yet,” he reveals.

While telling a story, Pattanaik prefers mythology over history. “I prefer mythology as it is far more profound. History is limiting, restricted to a place and a period. Mythology is timeless,” he says, adding, “History is usually a historian’s imagination. Between facts and narrative, a whole bunch of imagination takes place. Historically, no one is sure if Birbal was a wit, or if Chanakya was an avenging angel.”

Besides writing, Pattanaik has also illustrated his books, like Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata. For him, these drawings are like “science diagrams that complement the text.” So, he cannot think that one can exist without the other. “Together they express what I wish to communicate,” he says.

Referring to children’s literature in India today, he says, “I don’t have much exposure. In one of my experiences, an editor and publisher were more interested in pushing their politics into a story in the name of education. In another, the whole attempt assumed children are dumb and stupid.” He then sounds a caution: “Writing mythology for children is very tricky, as the stories are complex, and can deal with rather awkward sexual and violent issues. So writers, however well-intentioned, struggle.” But, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Pattanaik who has nicely penned the stories.

THE STORIES

A talking cow named Sweety tells stories about Krishna, Kamdhenu, Goloka and the kings, to a girl named Gauri.

God Indra, who is unhappy, gets back to his happy mode as he tells stories to a boy named Harsha who travels on a cloud to meet Indra.

Lord Krishna tries to get an identity card for himself to fly in an aeroplane from Mumbai to Guwahati via Kolkata. He fails to get it, but reaches his destination on Garuda, and meets his devotee Lata-kumari. Still, Krishna hopes that he will get an identity card one day.

FACING POETIC MOMENTS

2011-05-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

FACING POETIC MOMENTS

It is a warm evening and a motley group has gathered at a small private hall for a ‘session of poetry and interaction’. The poet is a stocky lady; she has just published a collection of her poems which she wants to share with the “discerning members of the media” and her friends.

The poet picks up her newly-released book from a chair on the dais. Sitting in the front row of the chairs for audience, I grab my pen and pad to note down the poetic moments.

“Poems are not just for recitation. They need to be understood by you all,” the lady says. “And you will understand it better by joining in performing the poem,” she adds. “So let’s begin...”

Suddenly a baby cries loudly somewhere. A young nanny, with a baby in her arm, enters the hall from behind the curtains and walks up to the poet.

Will the baby recite too? You never know... today’s kids are very smart.

“He’s refusing to eat,” the nanny informs helplessly pointing at the baby.
The poet takes the baby and begins to sing: What is your mobile number? chook chook... what is your mobile number? chook chook...

Chook chook? Is that the music?

The baby enjoys the rendition, and goes quiet and yawns. The nanny takes him back into her arms.

The relieved poet begins to speak again: “Sorry about that. Okay then... let’s get on with the performance...”

We look at her curiously again.

“This is my new poem, called My Apathy,” the poet informs.
She then holds up her book like the Statue of Liberty and begins to sway like a pendulum.
The recitation begins: “I am the melancholy of the underground. Like a potato, I exist to be consumed by the greed of boredom...”
She kisses the book and waves her hands like a bird.

Why is she kissing the book? What does it all mean?

“So in apathy I dance like a turbulent bubble of simmering hope... ahhhh... ahhhh...”

Potato’s hope? What sort of hope?

The poet now moves forward and stands right in front of me, and continues her ‘pendulum act’.
I look around, feeling a little awed. Everyone seems to be watching me.

“So I dance in violation of the rule... I dance for you and me, and for the world...”

Violation? Is she referring to banned dance bars of Mumbai?

The poet holds up the book again, waves it and then lifts one of her legs like a Bharatnatyam danseuse. She then moves her hand as if she is touching someone... from head to toe. She kisses the book again and looks at me with a suspicious smile.

I consider moving out of my seat.
But before I can implement that thought, the poet lifts a veil from her shoulder and brushes it on my face.
I make a disapproving noise.
She then moves past me while trying to shake her hip like a Salsa dancer.
And she continues to recite: “Feel me, and fill me with your happiness... lubricate me...”

Is there a double meaning to it?

She lifts her veil again and brushes it against the face of a balding American guy. He is thrilled, I suppose.

“Listen to the sound of silence...” the poet suddenly shouts out as if she’s scolding us.

The baby cries again and the nanny enters the hall.
The recitation-cum-performance stops immediately.

“What is it now?” the poet asks impatiently, throwing the book on chair.
“I need to change his diaper, but he won’t let me open it,” the nanny says in a tired voice.
The poet turns to us.
“Sorry about it... but I will be back in a while. You can read the book in the meantime,” the poet announces.
I waste no time in getting out of the hall.

This piece has been published as Reporter's Diary
in Sakàl Times, Pune, India, on May 1, 2011.

QUEENS OF A DARK WORLD

2011-04-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

QUEENS OF A DARK WORLD

Women in the gangland? And in Mumbai? Oh yes, they were there too amid the male-dominated underworld of that city. Over the decades, S Hussain Zaidi, as a veteran crime journalist, has seen it all, and as he puts it, he was “fascinated” by the women criminals. “I realised they were gutsier, far more scheming and lethal when it came to pursuing their goals...” he writes in his book, Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands. And thus we get to know about the ladies who ran their gangs and illegal businesses --- drugs, prostitution rackets, adulterated oil and the like --- with precision and acumen that have been stuff of legend.

Zaidi picks out 13 women from the underworld: among them are Jenabai who was revered by the likes of Haji Mastan and other gang lords; Gangubai, the matriarch of Kamathipura --- Mumbai's red-light area; Ashraf aka Sapna who ran a gang to take revenge against Dawood Ibrahim, but was brutally murdered; Jyoti, the drug baroness of Reay Road; and their ilk.

The authors deal with the stories of these women like racy thrillers. Sprinkled with a dash of imagination, the reportage and first-person accounts flow smoothly, just as any other page-turner would do. That all these characters are real add to the thrill of reading, and the effect is riveting. One may just feel awed to know about the power that these ladies wielded.

But the authors have successfully gone beyond invoking thrill and awe. The book actually becomes a wonderful sociological study of a dark world. The life of each of these women comes to fore with much vividness --- be it as a wife, or a mother, or that of a lady Robin Hood. That most of these women were victims of circumstances and were forced to become criminals may make one somewhat sympathetic towards them. Zaidi, however, never tries to glorify them and leaves it to the reader to decide.

The settings span across Mumbai which have been described with much acuity. One gets a sense of the places --- the dingy lanes, roads and the buildings; the sinister gloom that hangs like a veil all over these locales. They weave with the history of the city to make the reader well acquainted with a world of crime that is, as Vishal Bharadwaj writes in the Foreword, “juicier than spirituality”.

The chapters dealing with the wives and girls of the criminal dons make for interesting read, particularly the effort to bring alive the psyche of Shameem (gangster Chhota Shakeel's love interest), through the excerpts of phone and email conversations between the two. But overall I felt that the stories in these chapters are a bit hurried. Maybe because the roles of these ladies were limited and they were in the shadows of their men.

An interesting inclusion in the book is the story of Monica Bedi who was, for years, the love interest and partner of gangster Abu Salem. I would call this inclusion as an exception, because Monica wasn't any 'mafia queen' and has now moved out of Salem's life. Perhaps the authors thought of telling her story to offer us a quick glimpse of the much-known influence of the underworld in Mumbai's film industry. Or perhaps they wanted to remind how Monica's account could also be the tale of so many other aspirants who want to be known as screen artistes, but end up as dejected discards.

Along with some of the rare black-and-white photographs of the women criminals and those of the places, this book stands out among the books on Mumbai and will satiate the minds that have been curious about these extraordinary women in the underworld.

Mafia Queens of Mumbai
By: S Hussain Zaidi with Jane Borges
Publisher: Tranquebar
Pages: 282
Price: Rs 250

LOST INNOCENCE

2011-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

LOST INNOCENCE

After 19 years Shahbaz returns to Karachi from Paris where his father had sought refuge following the revelation of his role in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy of 1951. And with his return, author Shehryar Fazli takes us to the Pakistani port city of 1970 in his debut novel, Invitation.

It was the time when people of Pakistan were focussed on the future, anticipating the political fallout of the discontent among the people in the then East Pakistan with their leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman challenging the autocratic administration in West Pakistan. There are other historical characters too; a charismatic Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; Ayub Khan and the rest. So are the fictional characters who Shahbaz comes across as he envisages to know the city and settle a dispute with his aunt, Mona Phuppi, over a 36-acre mango orchard where there are squatters. The orchard, to me, seems to be an allegory of Pakistan itself that was then at the crossroads. So is the Agra Hotel, one of the main settings in the novel; it is like a small replica of Pakistan with bureaucrats, officials and the elites frequenting the place, and discussing the politics and life, in general.

In Fazli’s novel, Karachi comes across as a politically-motivated city. But more than that, the darker hues — sleaze, opium and aspirations — play a major role in the novel as Shahbaz tries to claim a position of pride in Karachi’s high society. But that endeavour requires the patronage of a retired brigadier — an equation which remains a matter of concern for Shahbaz. The city gets its shades through the characters. There’s the friendly Bengalee driver, Ghulam Hussain, who narrates to Shahbaz about the riots in Dhaka against the Urdu-speaking Pakistanis; and there is Malika, the Egyptian cabaret dancer in a hotel with whom Shahbaz gets intimate; and most of all, Shahbaz himself stays at the centre of it all as he curiously enough indulges into opium binges and sex, despite his not-so-worldly-wise outlooks. “As a child in Paris, I didn’t so much yearn for a secret life... Now in Karachi I seemed to be stuck only in its darker part...” Shahbaz says at one point. And so gradually he gets stuck in a mire: he bribes the police officer; and he meets the members of the Jamaat-i-Islami, a hardline group that opposed Bhutto’s secular ways and called for an Islamic Pakistan. With their help and that of the brigadier, Shahbaz gets rid of the squatters in the orchard. In return, he is asked to betray driver Ghulam Hussain for his suspected support to Mukti Bahini — the freedom fighters in East Pakistan, thus leaving Shahbaz feeling guilty towards the end when his conscience wakes up. He carries that feeling of being connected with whatever happened — the violence and the betrayals — with him even when he returns to Paris. This then is also a story of loss of innocence: that of Shahbaz and that of Pakistan which gradually veered towards turbulence as its eastern wing fell apart to become an independent nation, Bangladesh.

Fazli’s writing is not lacklustre. There is enough action. But the book will not qualify as a page-turner; the narration seems to be dragging unnecessarily, at times. Despite the interesting characters and their eccentricities, what is missing is a sense of urbanity; the city life doesn’t come alive that much. What one gets is a basic idea of the place and maybe a slice of life in a charged atmosphere.

Still, one must give credit to Fazli for his ability to retain the reader’s interest, especially because of the historical backdrop against which the story is told. Where Fazli succeeds is in giving the reader a sense of lost opportunities to hold back Pakistan from becoming an intolerant, regressive nation that today exports terrorism. And it leaves me wondering what if Pakistan had learnt a lesson from its defeat in 1971 and rectified its mistakes.

Invitation
By: Shehryar Fazli
Publisher: Tranquebar
Pages: 385
Price: Rs 495

A PEEK INTO COMICS

2011-03-06T04:23:00.000-08:00

A PEEK INTO COMICS
Tintin joins hands with Tipu Sultan and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose to free India of the British rule. Ditto for a certain Asterix who can easily outsmart Lord Clive or Lord Curzon. Pardon my childhood reverie and blame it all on the comics books that I hankered for shamelessly every time I passed by a bookstall in Calcutta years ago. And trust me, even in last week when I was doing my usual rounds at the local bookstores in Pune, I was once again tempted get hold of Tintin and Phantom, just like good old days.

Nothing then seems to have changed except that the comics book have become glossy; and the prices have gone up ten fold. But has the interest in the comic books increased ten fold? Or has it declined among the modern kids who have all that I didn't have as a child: Internet, video games and cartoon television channels.

Narendra Chandan, the proprietor of the Book World on the FC Road in Pune claims that “everything is fine” with the comics books. “There is a steady demand for them,” he says pointing at the stacks of Amar Chitra Katha, DC Comics, Archies, Dilbert, Phantom, Tinkle, Calvin and Hobbes and the rest of the colourful comics books that can keep us engrossed across the pages just like any other page-tuner. Mark the word 'us' as Chandan admits that the “buyers are mostly adults” and not the kids. “The parents, say of your age group, come to buy the comics that they themselves grew up reading, and now want their children to read them as well,” he says. “Children do not show much interest, sadly”.

Agrees Louis Fernandes, the editor of the Tinkle magazine that has remained popular across the decades. “It is a sense of nostalgia that plays among the adults today. They had no access to the Internet or video games when they were growing up. So, magazines like the Tinkle or the comics strips of the Amar Chitra Katha were the attractive options for them to entertain themselves. And that is why they want their kids to go through those experiences,” Fernandes says from Mumbai. But it is not easy attract the modern kids, he adds. “They are smart and sharp, and they may not prefer the printed comics over the moving images on the television and computer”. Therefore, Amar Chitra Katha and the Tinkle (which is part of the ACK stable) have “consciously made efforts to keep the stories shorter” than the earlier versions of the Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle comics. Additionally, new characters have been introduced to make the comics interesting. “One of our noted additions is the character of 'Defective Detectives.' The stories are set in modern context to which the children can relate,” Fernandes explains.

But, even a veteran like Fernandes sounds a bit sceptical when he says that in the “foreseeable future there has to be some drastic step to compete with the cartoon animations”. According to him, the Indian animation is “not that great to compete with those from the West or from Japan”. “We cannot afford to make costly animations like them,” he adds with a sigh when I ask him about the recent effort to turn the Amar Chitra Katha comics into animations.

Aditi Ray, senior editor of the Campfire Graphic Novels, however, doesn't think that the animation on television channels or on the Internet or even the video games can threaten the dedicated readership of graphic novels. “It all depends on the attractive visuals, and simple storyline. The moment the visuals become monotonous then children will lose interest,” she asserts from Delhi. “I would say the animation of the comics actually foster the interest in the graphic novels and get the otherwise reluctant reader into the habit of reading. An Animator need to stick to the original illustrations of the graphic novels and that will lend them credibility”. Ray then confidently rolls out the list of titles from Campfire --- mythologies (Ekalavya, among others), classics (Merchant of Venice, among others), biographies (Conquering Everest, among others) and the originals --- that have been received well by children in India and in the USA.

According to Pran Kumar Sharma, who created the famous characters of Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu, there is a symbiotic relationship between the printed comics and animation. “The animations of Chacha and Sabu boosted the popularity of the characters and sales of the printed comics shot up. That in turn enhanced the popularity of the animated series,” Pran confirms from Delhi.

Similar view is echoed by Jatin Varma, founder of the Comic Con India that recently organised the First Indian Comic Conference in Delhi. “Printed comics and graphic novels are here to stay. There can be attractive comics in the applications in the gadgets like the iPad or the Tablet, but not many among us use such gadgets. Publishing graphic novels in print is always the better option,” Varma points out, adding, it is a “long way” before comics on iPad or Tablet or even the Internet becomes the usual platform for publishing comics. “There can be slight competition from the comics that are put on the web, but then though they are easy to put on the Internet and are easily accessible, the commercial viability of such efforts are questionable,” he adds. “It is not easy to make money from the comics on the Internet. So, we do not see comics on the new media as the rivals to the printed comics. Personally, I would prefer to own and hold a comics book, rather than viewing it on a Tablet or on iPad”.

Lalit Pawar, a young entrepreneur and father of a four-year-old child, says he would like his son to read the mythologies and the biographies first from the comics books, because he did the same when his parents introduced him to the ACK titles. “Sometimes, old things are better than the new things,” he says. Also, the “colourful graphics will be interesting for the kid and he can pick up some of the values that these stories offer,” Pawar adds. While his wife Sneha has nothing against the books or the gadgets, she sounds a bit doubtful about the “authenticity of the stories” that are told in the comics books. “They may not be all that credible and I will remain sceptical whether my son will learn correct history from these comics,” she says. To this, Fernandes refers to the “mammoth task of consulting the scholars and using the most credible resources to gather material for the mythological and historical titles”.

But comics is not just about history and moral values. They are also about thrilling stories, the daring acts, the mind games: be it Tintin or Gordon Flash or my dear Feluda. Noted illustrator Tapas Guha, who has been illustrating the comics books on Feluda adventures (originally created by Satyajit Ray), mentions the international competition that has been challenging the Indian comics. “Today's kids are exposed to international stuff. So they always compare with what we offer them. So we have to be conscious about the storyline, the crisp text and very attractive visuals,” he says from Delhi. “One of the disadvantages of Feluda stories is that there is not much of action, if compared with say the Transformers,” Guha elaborates in this context. True, 'private investigator' Pradosh Chandra Mitra aka Feluda depends more on his 'brain power' than ammunition and fists. “Now, to deal with such passivity is not easy in comics books where the children look forward to action. Therefore, I try to add lots of colourful backgrounds, like trees, flowers, cars and shining building to retain the young readers' interest,” Guha explains.

Moreover, he mentions how in the Feluda stories that he illustrated, modern gadgets like the mobile phones, laptop computers have been added though they were not mentioned in the original stories written several decades back. Indeed, today's kids must feel that the stories are recent and not written decades ago. That then, in a way, compensates for the absence of constant chase of the villains and the fights, he adds. But despite these constraints, the artist thinks that the Feluda comics will attract the children. “I also see that the comics books on mythologies are still very popular among the kids,” he says. The only problem area, Guha admits, remains the stories with plain narrative of morals. “That can be a tad boring. Children want modern stories”.

However, modern stories may not always work. As I check out the other bookstores in the city, I come across Amar Chitra Katha title on the late astronaut Kalpana Chawla. “But that one didn't do well,” informs Fernandes. Even then, the media group is introducing new titles to keep the flag flying. “What we have seen is that our titles in Indian languages don't do that well as compared to those in English. And financially too it is not viable as the costs for translation into different Indian languages is quite a lot”. And when that cost translates into Rs 40 for one slim book, many may not like to spend that. “In fact, I have also seen that many parents scold their children if they want more than one title of the comics books,” adds Chandan. “Not many would like to spend Rs 885 for one volume of Tintin compilation, or Rs 250 for a slim volume of a Phantom title,” he explains as I browse through the books. Heroes do come for a price, more so if they are from the West.

“I do not counter the superheroes of the Western comics with heroics,” says Pran. “I wanted the Chacha Chaudhary to be different when I launched him in 1970... I wanted him to be simple. Later, I added the character of Sabu who brought in power punch in the stories,” he says. “Also, I think humour is a great way to entertain,” Pran adds. This is then the simple formula for this veteran to reach out to more and more youngsters: Make the characters simple, just like any other common man in this country; and add dash of power and humour. Plus, the plots must have connection with the recent happenings so that the target readership of children and young adults can understand the context. Pran says this formula works pretty well. “You see, there are television news channels and the Internet. But the newspapers are still very much around. So will be the printed comics,” Pran assures. “All is well in the comics world”.

(An edited version of the article was published in Sakàl Times, Pune, India)

CITIES AND HUMAN MINDS

2011-03-06T04:01:00.000-08:00

CITIES AND HUMAN MINDS

Lakshmi pushed open the glass doors of the restaurant, watching her face split in two. She is thinking of the man she kidnapped the night before, now lying trussed up in her bathtub. That is how CP Surendran’s recent novel, Lost and Found, begins.

Let us get the basics of the plot: Lakshmi is a porn writer for an online site; her boss offers her job security in return of physical favours. She has kidnapped a man from a party the previous evening thinking him to be the same person who raped her on a moving train 16 years ago. We learn that the man is Placid Hari Odannur, a freelance journalist from Kerala who contributes to the tabloid, Bombay Express. The story then unfolds as Lakshmi, her neighbours, Placid and a teenage actor, Nirmal, find themselves as hostage to Salim, a terrorist trained in Pakistan by a fanatic called Abdul Razak. Salim is leading a siege of Bombay.

How does he define the novel, I ask Surendran. “Lost and Found is the story of a handful of colourful characters, a social satire and a tragedy, all at the same time,” Surendran asserts. However, “many critics have failed to see its complexity”. According to the novelist, the critics “see it as just satire and miss out on the other aspects... or vice versa”. “Says a lot for our critics”, Surendran quips.

The novel is set in Karachi as well as in Bombay, as he prefers to call the city. Besides Karachi — where hatred is preached in the seemingly regressive social settings, Bombay assumes the role of a character in the novel. The fanatical Cow Sena in Bombay, the congested streets, the seafront, and hectic and competitive life in the city — bring alive Bombay. I wonder how different the novel might have been had it been set in some other cities. Surendran says both Karachi and Bombay are “irreplaceable” in the scheme of the novel. “Both are teeming complex, coastal cities. In Bombay, Bollywood assumes that aspirational function. Karachi foments terrorism, which is one way of reaching Allah in a hurry,” the novelist tells me.

And not just because the “substantive action unfolds in Bombay” against the backdrop of a terrorist attack (like the one on 26/11), not even the digs at the outfits who are like Shiv Sena, Bombay is truly unparalleled because, “no other city in India comes close to the frantic energy that Bombay spews out, and some of that energy is what makes the hyper action of the novel just,” Surendran elaborates. “And I’d like to believe that the language too shows a certain manic dimension modelled on the city”.

There are several characters in Surendran’s novel besides the main players. There is the autorickshaw driver Sunil Shinde; Lakshmi’s neighbours Githaa and her husband Rajgopal; and there is Fatima in Pakistan who is Salim’s mother and love interest of Razak. “The characters of Lost and Found discover who they are through a series of dispossessions. Quite a few of heart-shaking experiences in identity formation are accidental. But, then, one of the central arguments of the novel is about the decisive influence of chance in our lives,” Surendran explains. “And it is the chanciness of life, the dark, comic improbability of the most probable things that lends Lost and Found a certain tenor of gallows humour: the ironies of the accident”.

Let me not play a spoiler by divulging the story. But with the twin brothers coming face-to-face, sudden revelations about the identities and the rest of the twists and turns, it reads like a film script. The language is often conversational; descriptions are a bit graphic. I put this to the author. “That is the way I write. I see the scene pretty clearly as I write. It is only in writing that I observe details,” he says. Surendran then mentions Graham Greene, “a great master of highly visual writing” who “might have influenced” him as well.

An interesting part of the novel is how Surendran depicts the relationships between Bombay Express editor Shantanu Roy and Arun, a senior staffer in the tabloid: There are so many ways of defending the freedom of the press, and, of late, Arun’s chosen method has been to go along with whatever his editor said. Has Surendran taken a dig at the way in which the media houses function? “Well, we live in a profoundly dishonest society. Even the democracy we constantly talk about is strangely ineffective. But we will never admit that we are in that sense undemocratic. This is because we believe in tokenism,” he says.

Having said that Surendran admits that there is a “real conflict” between his journalistic self and his novelist self. “To some extent that finds a representation in the novel,” he adds.
(Photo courtesy: CP Surendran)

Lost and Found
By: CP Surendran
Publisher: HarperCollins

LOVE, THRILL AND AN EMPIRE

2011-01-30T00:44:00.000-08:00

LOVE, THRILL AND AN EMPIRE

History becomes satiating when it lets the reader imagine along with the text. Acclaimed author, the late Saradindu Bandopadhyay did that with élan whenever he picked up his pen to write, in his words, a “historical fiction”. One such work is Bandopadhyay's 1965 classic Bengali novel Tungabhadrar Teeré. The award-winning novel has been recently translated into English by Arunava Sinha to let the thrill of reading the classic spill beyond the Bengalee milieu.

The story of By the Tungabadhra is set around 1430 AD in and around the kingdom of Vijaynagar in southern India. Princess Bidyunmala of Kalinga kingdom journeys on sea and through the river Tungabhadra to reach Vijayanagar as she gets ready to marry King Devaraya II of the southern kingdom. The princess is accompanied by the royal entourage: her step sister Manikankana being companion and confidante. As they travel, a young man, Arjunvarma, is rescued from the rough river by an able-bodied blacksmith Balaram who is part of the entourage. Arjunvarma becomes part of the group: it leads to complexities as Bidyunmala seems to be in love with Arjun.

Meanwhile, trouble brews up in Vijayanagar as Devaraya II is threatened by a treacherous brother, Prince Kamapanadeva, and the kingdom is threatened by external invasion. Bandopadhyay, who lived in Pune and created the famous fictional detective character of Byomkesh Bakshi, sets the pace of the novel as if it is a thriller, interweaving fratricidal conspiracy, spies, legends about the spirits of Hukka and Bukka --- the founding fathers of Vijayanagar, the mysterious setting of the Hemakut hills, with history. They may not be acutely dramatic, but the suspense remains an important strand in the story as it unfolds seamlessly.

There are narrated tales of brutality that the Yavana (non-Hindu) rulers had unleashed in certain parts of the land what we know today as India. In 2011 that may read like a simplistic classification between the 'good' and the 'bad'. But one has to consider the period to understand the perceptions. At times the author tempers it with the beautiful descriptions: the vitality of rivers, the throbbing Vijayanagar market, the grandeur of the royal palace, the serenity of nature, the happiness of the local women, music, and the like. I remain a bit doubtful whether Bandopadhyay wanted this novel to be primarily a love story: there are ample doses of romance that keeps flowing till the end. No matter what, they all make for a pleasant reading.

I had read the story in Bengali. This translation follows the original storyline; the flavour of the 15th-century India comes out well and the reader is almost transported to the period. The language is simple yet not without the gloss that one expects in such novels. However, I was slightly amused to see that the translation has been often a bit too literal: If a thoroughfare in Vijayanagar is called Beetelnut Avenue --- as we see in the translation, then Vijayanagar must be called Victorycity.

On the whole, this four-act novel is worth reading. Those interested in history will enjoy the book.

By the Tungabhadra
By: Saradindu Bandopadhyay
Translated by: Arunava Sinha
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Pages: 253
Price: Rs 299

INDIA'S MILITARY AFFAIRS

2011-01-13T21:48:00.001-08:00

INDIA'S MILITARY AFFAIRS

Between November of 1986 and March of 1987, the Indian Army conducted the massive Operation Brasstacks in the deserts of Rajasthan, pretty close to India's border with Pakistan. It was largely believed that a war was imminent with our neighbour as Pakistan responded by deploying its forces along the border as well. I remember staying glued to the radio --- even while travelling in crowded Calcutta buses --- to know whether we are indeed going inside our neighbour's territory. Our Army didn't cross the border, as we all know. And I kept wondering whether it was just a show of coercive diplomacy on part of the Rajiv Gandhi government --- without really intending a full-scale war, or was it our political leadership's policy of “restraint” that didn't let the Indian Army cross the border into Pakistan. Or was it really a military practise to check our military manoeuvres?

Two well-known commentators on defence matters, Stephen P Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta of the Brookings Institution, has dealt with this idea of Indian's military restraint in their recent book Arming Without Aiming --- India's Military Modernization. The authors argue that India must get rid of its policy of “restraint”, if she wants to be a global power. And that will involve procurement of defence equipments, rather than depending on indigenous productions; reforming the existing sectors of the three services rather than expanding them; coming up with transparent defence policies; allowing the defence establishments to be part of the decision-making process, and the like.

The book charts India's military policies and engagements post Independence, leading up to India's nuclear programmes, its role in Afghanistan and cooperation with the USA. The authors have added their views and predictive ideas all along. However, several of such views are questionable. For example, I have doubt as to whether India's perceived “restraint” is really a restraint. Going by India's post-Independence military history, I cannot say that the authors are fully correct. There was no restraint in 1948, 1965 or in 1971. India did not restrain herself during Goa's liberation from Portuguese rule. The 1962 war with China was largely due to Chinese objection to India's Forward Policy along the India-China border. India's humiliation in that conflict was due to bad management of the war, and ill-preparedness to fight the Chinese in the high altitude battle theatre. But then where was the “restraint”, really?

The present situation is different, because India, Pakistan and China have nuclear capabilities and unless something untoward happens in Pakistan --- say, the nuclear weapons go in the hands of the religious fundamentalists --- there is hardly any possibility of nuclear war in South Asia. Moreover, Indian focus is more on economic growth than browbeating its neighbours with show of military strength. India is not some expansionist nation who would claim foreign territories and subjugate foreign nationals. All India tries to do is defend its territory. Had India followed an expansionist policy, then scholars like Cohen and Dasgupta would have made loud noises from their academic high tables in the USA; and powers like the USA would have done everything to contain India, as they did by imposing sanctions against India following our nuclear tests.

The authors have depended on several media reports to reflect on India's defence strategies. But in the process, they have based their arguments on incorrect information. “India's Vietnam”, as the authors have dubbed India's Peace Keeping Mission in Sri Lanka, was nothing compared to the United States' engagement in Vietnam. Over 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War. During India's mission in Sri Lanka, a little over 1,100 Indian soldiers died. That is even less than the casualties India suffered during any full-scale war. More importantly, India was helping to establish peace in its immediate neighbourhood, rather than poking nose in a faraway land. And Indian forces were not defeated. They left Sri Lanka when it was mutually decided by both the Indian and Sri Lankan governments.

I don't know from where the authors got the idea that the Kargil conflict didn't have Pakistan's support (pg 42). But they kept contradicting themselves by stating elsewhere in the book that the Kargil conflict began with Pakistani intrusion. In any case, that the intruders during the conflict in 1999 were Pakistani Army personnel is established.

The authors have denounced India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for their failures in producing indigenous defence equipments. But their claim that the DRDO failed to produce the Main Battle Tank Arjun is dated. The tank has been successfully manufactured and tested, and the Army has placed order for the tank with the DRDO. It is one thing to point out the glitches in the DRDO and another thing to criticise with typical western bias.

Having said all of that, however, I agree that it is important to balance between the three service while allocating funds and planning defence procurements. Also, there must be better coordination among the services, the intelligence agencies and the political leadership. Diplomacy is fine, but at times India must think in terms of its military capabilities. And there cannot be any place of complacency in indigenous defence research programmes and establishments. But these things are already known. Aren't they? So, what's new in the book?

Arming Without Aiming
By: Stephen P Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta
Publisher: Penguin-Viking
Pages: 223
Price: Rs 499

ABSOLUTELY ON THE TOP

2011-01-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

ABSOLUTELY ON THE TOP

He dreams of reaching the North and the South Poles, along with the top 13 mountain peaks of the world. Certainly Arjun Vajpai can think big, because this 16-year-old student of Ryan International school in Noida is the youngest Indian, so far, to have reached the peak of the mighty Mount Everest. He has shared his experiences during the expedition in his recent book, On Top of the World --- My Everest Adventure.

“There are so many wonderful mountains and high altitude locales that people are not aware of,” Arjun says. And so bloomed the idea of penning down the book on his expedition to the Everest. “I thought, this book will help motivate the young Indians to go out for such adventures,” the young author adds.

Interestingly, Arjun was motivated during his trek in one of the hillocks here in Pune. “That was my first experience and it felt as if I was on the top of the world,” he recalls. It is then, this son of a former Army officer realised where his heart lies. So at the age of 15, he got himself enrolled with the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering at Uttarkashi. “I was pretty confident that one day I would be there on the Everest,” he says. “But before that, I ventured to several other mountains. My parents and my school have been very supportive. And it all helped me to reach to the top of Everest,” Arjun confirms.

During his Everest expedition, as part of an international group of mountaineers, between April to May this year, Arjun meticulously noted down his experiences on his mobile phone. “It was like a diary. And it came handy later as I began to write this book,” he says.

Writer Anu Kumar helped Arjun to write the book. “Frankly, I mustn't call myself an author, She made things easier for me,” he says with humility. ““Whatever I felt, I saw, I learnt... I put them in this book. We ensured that the language remains simple, so that it is understood by the readers across age groups,” Arjun informs. “We explained the technical terms as easily as possible”. And so far as the places are concerned, the book tried to help the reader visualise the places. “I hope readers can imagine the places as if they have been there,” Arjun adds.

It took about four months to complete writing the book, informs Arjun, for whom the experience of writing the book was “nice”. “It was like going back to my expedition once more,” he asserts. So, each time he will go to some expedition, we can expect new books from Arjun. “We don't conquer any mountain or any terrain. What we do is to connect with the nature, and experience its beauty. Each experience is unique. So, hopefully, the books will bring out a variety of diverse experiences,” Arjun says.

RENDEZVOUS AT SUNSET

2010-12-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

RENDEZVOUS AT SUNSET

On a bench in Delhi’s Lodhi Gardens, Pandit Preetam Sharma, Nawab Barkatullah Baig Dehalvi and Sardar Boota Singh are busy talking about a lot of things under the sun: old age, infirmity, youth, politics, history, sex and more. And the regular twilight rendezvous of these friends results into Khushwant Singh’s latest novel The Sunset Club — a story of four-decade-old bonding shared between these men, now in their eighties.

A quick backgrounder here: Preetam was a senior government bureaucrat, and post-retirement he has become a supporter of Hindu ideals and traditions; Barkatullah is a rich person who inherited his father’s business of Yunani medicine pharmacies; and Boota had served Indian missions abroad before returning to Delhi and taking up writing for newspapers and publications.

Therefore, we learn about a wide range of experiences when these men share their worlds — past and present — with each other. And along with it, we revisit the events in India and beyond that unfold between January 26 of 2009 and January 26 of 2010. The author employs his mastery over storytelling through conversation to let the three men express their divergent views on the events: the general elections of 2009, the Nano car, the change in law to allow same-sex relationships and the like. There is cynicism, but not senility. Perhaps the author wanted to send across a message: old age need not come in the way of a person’s ability to analyse facts.

At the outset, Singh mentions that he mixed facts with fantasy. As I was reading, it seemed that the author modelled the character of Boota on himself. Boota’s non-conformist ideas remind of Khushwant Singh’s own forthright views. Some of the remarks are caustic; but they are honest nonetheless. Singh doesn’t make any attempt to sugar-coat anything. It makes the story all the more engrossing.

There is not much of a plot. But tales are told, as Singh skilfully lets the three men move in and out of the present and go back to their younger days: their past sexual adventures being the primary theme when Boota and Barkatullah recount their youth. As they do it, you may either laugh (it can be hilarious, at times), or you may just dislike the idea of old men discussing sex. But you cannot deny the role of ‘basic instinct’ in our lives. Singh shows it again without any hypocrisy.

What I found interesting is the way Singh blends the excerpts of some of the beautiful works by Kalidas, Amaru, Yogeshvara, Sudraka, Mir Taqi Mir among others, with the story. They add poetic aura to the men who look back to their lives wistfully, yet with lot of fondness.

Singh’s sense of humour, his ability to minutely observe human nature — mannerisms and foibles — are evident in all the characters in the story. His description of the historic Lodhi Gardens — the Bada Gumbad and the three tombs next to it, as well as bits and pieces of Delhi indicate Singh’s affection for the city. With all that, the author’s love for nature becomes clear: sudden rain in Delhi, the blooming of flowers and greenery, the sky, the birds... they become vivid through Singh’s words. That is where Khushwant Singh has an edge over lot of other writers: his simple language and his eye for all those things that we often overlook. This story, then, excellently exudes simple realism. Nothing seems to be imposed, as may otherwise happen due to jugglery of vocabulary, or dreary narration.

As I was riveted to the lives of the three men, the story ended suddenly, leaving me a bit disappointed. But life itself can be like that — sudden, abrupt and uncertain. Singh just portrayed that without much ado.

On the whole, this is yet another fine piece of work from one of the best storytellers of our times.

INDIA, AS HE SAW IT

2010-11-28T23:58:00.000-08:00

INDIA, AS HE SAW IT

Journalism is often dubbed as the ‘first draft of history’. But while a historian looks into the past with academic interest, a journalist deals with the events as an impartial chronicler. “So, this is not a history book, but my personal narrative of India as I saw and experienced, as a journalist, since 1948,” the redoubtable BG Verghese says as we sit down for an interaction at a bookstore in Camp, Pune, where the ‘grand old man of Indian journalism’ recently presented his latest book, First Draft — Witness to the Making of Modern India.

“I never maintained any diary. But the clippings of my writings across the decades came handy as I wrote this book,” he informs. The motive for writing this book was to “inform the Indians” about the history of post-Independence India. “Besides the one by Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee along with Bipan Chandra (India after Independence), and in recent times one by Ramachandra Guha (India after Gandhi), all history books stop around 1952”. Verghese then refers to how archives of other nations have been opened up for public, but India’s archives are governed by the secretive ttitude, with the documents tagged as ‘Classified’, “We have the American and other foreign views of India after 1947, but not an Indian view of modern India”, he laments. “That is extremely dangerous, considering many people at the decision-making level do not know the context of the problem they are facing now,” Verghese elaborates.

Since the base materials for this book have been his writings penned across the decades, I wonder whether he still agrees with what he wrote several years ago. “One changes one’s views over time. I was once opposed to India’s Nuclear tests, and I was not in favour of Communist leader EMS Namboodiripad. But as many things happened in this country, I realised that I was wrong,” Verghese says. “There is no shame in admitting it”.

Verghese was one of the two Indian journalists who were at the frontline during the Chinese invasion of India in 1962. The book contains his first-hand account of the events that till date remain a political-military failure of India. “Everything went to wind... the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Panchsheel or the five principles of peaceful co-existence as was agreed upon in 1954 by India and the People’s Republic of China”. How relevant is the NAM to India now, I ask. “It is no longer relevant in the old sense. We are now an emerging and stronger nation, and we cannot always stay neutral... we have to take a stand on several issues. On some such issues we can go along with, say, groups like G8 and the rest, while on other issues we can be part of the NAM’s approach,” Verghese replies.

As a reporter and later as the editor of leading publications, Verghese stressed on highlighting developmental issues in media. A part of the book deals with ‘water resource management’ and the north-eastern States of India. Referring to the people in the north-eastern States Verghese says, “For them, India stands for an aspiration... it’s about the future. We must remember the future and think of an inclusive India. Adopting democracy was a fantastic achievement, but a lot of our goals are yet to be achieved. And we must remember that Indians constitute one-sixth of the world’s population. That means, we have a responsibility to uplift the mankind”.

Verghese sounds disappointed with the trends in Indian media, particularly the Indian television news channels. “They look for sound bytes, but not news. And sadly, Indian media mostly sees the bad things in the country, while the foreigners see the good things,” he tells me. However, just as he is “optimistic about India’s future”, Verghese is “hopeful” too about Indian journalism. “The current phase of advertorials and private treaties between media houses and business establishments will pass, and the journalists will uphold integrity. My message to younger journalists is, ‘Don’t give up and don’t look for instant fame’,” he says.

Over the years Verghese has served several Commissions and Committees. He was former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s First Information Officer. “I had to write her speeches among other things,” Verghese recalls about his days when he was privy to several of Mrs Gandhi’s decisions. “I welcomed Mrs Gandhi as the prime minister and I remember her with great nostalgia. I did admire her strengths. But I could not support her decision to impose Emergency. Her office was driven by all sort of people who formed the coterie around her,” he says, before getting busy with the evening’s event.

OUR POLITICAL TRADITIONS

2010-11-07T23:32:00.001-08:00

Ramachandra Guha at the Crossword bookstore
on SB Road, Pune, India
**

OUR POLITICAL TRADITIONS
It is a fact that the British did bring in political unity to the land that we know as India. But it was the splendid leadership and ideas of several of our own thinkers, writers, reformers and politicians that provided the solid foundation for the Indian nationhood and enlightened the citizens of one of the most diverse countries in the world. Noted historian and author Ramachandra Guha has edited and introduced the works of some such leaders to relook at the history of India between the 1820s and 1970s, in the recently-published book Makers of Modern India. The author was in Pune recently to launch the book and I caught up with him.

“The citizens of this country must know about he ideals that were behind India. One need not join politics to know that, but one should be curious and be told about the political traditions of this country,they must know about this great political experiment called India,” Guha says. But why experiment? “Because, India is so diverse --- socially, economically, yet the leaders thought of making it a democracy, allow voting rights to all, let the all the languages and cultures flourish within the nation,” the historian elaborates. “The world can learn from India in this regard, how to deal with diversity”.

According to Guha, though the historians have written extensively on the events and lives, rarely have the history of ideas been tilled. “I hope that this book stimulates the minds so that we can have similar works on the ideals of those who contributed to the different regions of India,” he says.

In the book we see writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehu, Rabindranath Tagore, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Phule, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Tarabai Shinde, Ramaswami, Syed Ahmad Khan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jay Prakash Narayan, C Rajagopalachari, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, BR Ambedkar, Verrier Elwin and Hamid Dalwai among others. “They all wrote extensively on different topics, from caste, gender, economics, religion, democracy to nationalism. They all were influential, but to my mind, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Tagore and Nehru have been more influential among them,” Guha tells me.

He mentions Dr Ambedkar who “warned” about the effect of worshipping political leadership which leads to dictatorship. “That is a tendency among the Indians”. And it leads to parochial labels. “But Ambedkar is not just a Dalit leader, he's a national leader. Similarly, Tagore is not just a Bengalee poet, he's nation's poet, or for that matter he's views are of universal appeal. And Nehru is not Congress party's property,” Guha explains. “I tried to rescue them from those labels”.

I ask him about his choices of the figures --- the inclusions and the exclusions some of which seem to improper to me. “I took a judgement call, when it came between Justice MG Ranade and GK Gokhale. I included Gokhale. I will be happy if my exclusions lead to new works by others on them. Moreover, since my purpose is to make all of you read, the size of the book must remain manageable,” he replies in his defence. Similarly, he excluded the Indian Marxists because their written works were “derivative” in nature and “not original”.

Referring to the figures featured in the book Guha says, “They were all open to the outside world. The exposure to foreign rule challenged them to reflect upon the the idea of India and provoked them to think on how to deal with a dynamic military power (the British)”. And in the process, they influenced each other: Justice Ranade to Gokhale to Gandhi, and the rest. “Gandhi was open to criticisms, Nehru used to write letters to the chief ministers on several issues. Hamid Dalwai, the Muslim modernist from Konkan who wrote in the 1960s, referred to Raja Ram Mohan Roy, thus transcending the centuries. There used to be exchange of ideas between the thinkers and leaders,” Guha adds, declining to comment about the present political leadership's abilities.

Discarding the classifications of 'popular historian and 'academic historian, Guha says, a historian, must be “open minded” about all sorts of idea that he or she has to deal with. “It is not easy to keep one's own views out, but an ideal historian cannot fit in the facts to suit his own ideological beliefs. It is for the readers to make up their mind whether to accept someone or not,” he asserts. “Nation building is a work in progress. It never ends. Similarly, history cannot define a character or events with finality. It is a continuous process of analyses, debates and interpretations,” Guha says.

Photograph by: Biswadip Mitra

FELUDA IS HERE, FINALLY...

2010-10-31T02:57:00.000-07:00

Dr Mohan Agashe releasing the Feluda stories
in Marathi at the National Film Archive of India
in Pune, India

FELUDA IS HERE, FINALLY...
Looking at the book’s cover I try to figure out which story is it. Kathmandutil Kardankal... oh... it’s that story... Jawto Kando Kathmandute. I loved that one. In fact, I still do... all the adventures of Feluda, the fictional private investigator that master filmmaker Satyajit Ray had created several decades ago. And now Feluda is here, in Marathi, to enjoy a wider readership that missed him till now. Twelve of the Feluda stories, under the title Fantastic Feluda, have been translated by veteran journalist Ashok Jain. Noted illustrator Tapas Guha has designed the covers of the books that were released in Pune recently.

Feluda is actually Pradoshchandra Mitra, a young, good-looking, suave Bengalee guy from Calcutta. Felu is his pet name. A bachelor, he lives with his uncle’s family; his teenager cousin Topeshranjan, or Topshe, is the chronicler of the adventures; he narrates the stories. And there’s the thriller-writer Lalmohan Ganguly alias Jatayu, who completes the group that goes about solving mysteries across Bengal, across India and beyond — Kathmandu to London. He has been a sharpshooter, very agile and has enough knowledge about lot of subjects. And in case he needed to know something that is unknown to commoners, Felu would depend on Sidhujetha, an elederly man, who is like a treasure trove of all sorts of information.

Ray penned 35 Feluda novelettes since the investigator’s first appearance in the Bangla-language children’s magazine Sandesh in 1965. There are some shorter stories as well. Several stories appeared as part of another children’s magazine called Anandamela. All the adventures were gradually compiled as collections. They are part of my prized possessions, even now.

“These 12 stories in Marathi were translated from the English translations of the original Bangla stories. We got the rights from the publisher of the English translations,” says Pradeep Champanerkar of the Rohan Prakashan that has published Feluda in Marathi. “Our purpose has been to fill in the vacuum that now exists in Marathi literature for teenagers,” he says about this project that took “one year to complete”.

But for translator Jain, it was “just a matter of four months” to make Feluda speak in Marathi. “I was careful that the original flavour of the stories should not get diluted during the translation,” Jain says. “I went paragraph-by-paragraph to translate, be it the descriptions or the conversations. The stress was more on the content than on specific words that the Marathi-speaking readers may not understand. And there were some difficulties with names of places and people,” he adds from Mumbai. But “people who know both Marathi and Bangla helped” him. Dr Veena Aalase, Vilas Gite, Neelima Bhave, Mrunalini Gadkari, Aruna Juvekar, Pabitra Sarkar, Aparna Ghosh being some of them, informs Champanerkar. “My experience as a translator got enriched with this project,” says Jain who is now busy translating the adventures of Byomkesh Bakshi into Marathi.

Some of the Feluda stories were adapted for big and small screens. Veteran actor Dr Mohan Agashe played the roles of Jatayu and also the villainous Maganlal Meghraj. “It was a unique experience to act in those films,” he tells me. “With Ray, one gets to see the power of script. It’s rare to see in one person the sense of lighting, detailing about visuals and good script”.

Referring to the stories, he says, “They are a wonderful combination of child psychiatry and adult world”. All these stories are like “nourishment for the teenage mind that is usually curious and adventurous” and “they make the youngsters learn about life”.

How true! Didn’t I get to know the good-bad-ugly world from the Feduda stories? And why just me? So many like me in Bengal swore by him. Now, it’s your turn.

Photograph by Biswadip Mitra

LIBRARY BONDING

2010-10-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

LIBRARY BONDING

I didn't see doves the last time I had visited this place in 2007. But now they are freely flying inside the hall; the sound of their flapping wings echo a bit. No one seem to take notice, as they remain engrossed in reading the books, magazines, newspapers in the spacious groundfloor hall of Cowasjee Dinshaw Hall and Library on East Street in Pune. No one seem to mind the noise of traffic from the street either, or an inquisitive journo with pen, writing pad and camera standing at one corner of the hall, observing the actions there.

Beyond the rickety gate, there is a world of books in this building. The old bookshelves in the T-shaped hall have lost the shine; the dust on the racks and the books from ages gone by perhaps indicate the change in readership preferences. Along with several volumes of Life of Sir CJ Napier, the dusty, bound volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Small Years by Frank Kendon stand side by side like unattended souls. I guess, it's the same for old books in Gujarati language and the rest of the tomes that stare at me as I try to figure out what they are about.

I look around the hall. The ‘old world’ feel is offset by young people all over, like Mugdha Shah, the final-year Chartered Accountancy student. “I come here to study. This place is not congested and very peaceful,” she tells me on learning about my intrusion into their world. What about the books that are lined-up in the shelves? “There is a good stock of Marathi novels. I take them too from the library,” she adds before getting back to her study materials.

I leave her to her studies and check the walls denuded of colour at places. The light from the fluorescent reflect on the paintings of notables, including one of the Mahatma. They seem to be like the witnesses of everything that happens here --- success stories, failures, happiness, whispers, little jokes that people share. There are others too: the electric switches that hang just above the reading tables; ceiling fans; the glasses on the door panels; the large board mounted on the wall, announcing the names of the donors; a round, varnished circular table; the long rectangular tables that appear to have borne the brunt of decades; the chairs...

Ah... the chairs. They are made of plastic. They don't seem to be too old, despite the scratch marks on them. In fact, one such chair is shining bright. Curiously, its design is very old as if it is trying to go back the Victorian age. Maybe at some point of time there were heavy, wooden designer chairs in this hall. After all, this institution dates back to 1875. I heard tales that this building once housed some prison and somewhere here the convicts used to get hanged.

“No, we haven't heard anything like that,” Santosh Pawar, a chartered accountant and a regular at this precinct, says when I tell him about the tales. He asks his friends --- Vishal Arivalagan, Amit Gaikwad and Rahul Jagtap --- who also frequent the library. They look amused on hearing about the building's past. “We are happy to be here...we spend hours together from morning to late at night. We eat here... we read here. This library has shaped so many lives for decades...” they say almost unison, as they bring out their dabba or lunch box.

Walking past their table and those graced by some middle-aged men busy with Crossword in newspapers, I reach the back doors of the Hall that leads to a small verandah. Three years back this place was filled up with elderly men leisurely reading newspapers. Now, there's just one man sitting quietly, reading nothing, but glancing at the small garden in the backyard. The greenery seem to have helped to dim noisy world outside. No doves here; just few sparrows chirping intermittently to make their presence felt. And sitting under a tree shade, Neelima Singh, a marketing professional, is “trying to refresh mind with literature”. Neelima is reading a collection of Philip Larkin's poems; the book looks fresh, like the surrounding. “This is my personal collection. I bring my books here as I love this ambience,” Neelima says. “I hardly get time on other days. So I make it a point to be here every Sunday and read,” she adds.

I walk into the hall again and cross the floor and reach to the verandah at the front that overlooks the noisy street. The worn-out wooden fence, the arched pillars and the musty-smelling walls surround the verandah where young minds are honing their knowledge. Ayurvedic professionals Bhushan Ramteke and Leena Panpatil are among them. Looking up from the pages of the books they inform about their plans: both are gearing up for the Public Service Commission examinations. “Convenient and peaceful” is how Leena describes the library. Bhushan agrees. “I will always remember this library. This is like my second home,” the bespectacled guy from Gondia says.

He then points at others inside the hall who are visible through the doors. “We all know each other very well. We share our lunch, happiness and sadness,” he says. “When one gets a job, we all throw a small party. We are a family,” Leena adds with beaming sincerity. Two doves sitting on the fence make a noise, as if in agreement.

Photographs by: Biswadip Mitra

A CITY DURING MUTINY

2010-10-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

A CITY DURING MUTINY
The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, or the ghadr as it is otherwise known, is mostly about the heroics or savagery, as you will, of the people who fought against each other to oust or buttress the British rule in India. But there were millions of quotidian facts that filled in the Uprising days between May and November of 1857. Among such facts are those that detail the lives of people in Delhi who went through the upheaval. The thoughts and experiences from all walks of life were documented in Persian and Sikastah (cursive) Urdu; they are known as the Mutiny Papers --- that the British collected after they regained control of Delhi --- and are kept at the National Archives in New Delhi. Now for the first time, these papers have been translated and published in English, thanks to scholar Mahmood Farooqui who has come up with the book Besieged --- Voices from Delhi 1857.

As Farooqui takes us through the city, a reader almost sees the events as if it's a virtual tour. One goes through the pains of the common folks: shopkeepers fearing loot by the mutineers, the agony of the citizens to see their city careen into chaos, tales if infidelity, accounts of prostitutes, and the killings of the Englishmen, their families and those who tried to protect the English lot. All of that get enmeshed with the efforts that the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and the administration under the Commander-in-Chief --- Mirza Mughal, the fifth son of the Emperor --- faced to keep the mutineers under control.

Beyond the Introduction, the book is divided into The Proceedings, The Imperatives, The Dramatis Personae and the The Ideologue. Each of these parts have their distinct tone that Farooqui's translation brings out quite well. The Proceedings sounds official with the orders of the King (the Emperor was referred to as the King in British writings), and the orders of other functionaries. There are also the depositions of people arrested, as are the appeals and letters from the Mughal officers and other functionaries to the higher-ups. Farooqui has painstakingly arranged them according to timeline to give us the varied perspectives about what was happening in Delhi of 1857.

In the Proceedings, there is an interesting order, dated August 9 of 1857, in which Bahadur Shah Zafar, asks the mutineers to release the guard of the King's Hakim, in defiance of which the King would become the sweeper at the shrine of Khwaja Saheb, or will eat something and die. It sounds almost like an aged, sentimental patriarch chiding his family for neglecting him. Similarly, the rivalry between Mirza Mughal and Bakht Khan, the King-appointed governor general of the city comes out from a letter written by Mirza Mughal to the King. A Constitution of the Court of Mutineers and its Rules and Regulations read equally interesting.

Some of the orders and letters are short: like the appeal for arranging of water at the Jama Masjid, or prevention of forced searches by the soldiers, urging soldiers not to believe in some rumour, and the like. But they all give a clear insight as to how the bureaucratic arrangements under the Mughals functioned at the crossroads of history of this land. This is where this book stands out among the works on Mutiny that generally focuses on the implications of the uprising. Farooqui shows us through his selection of documents that despite the anarchy that prevailed in Delhi, there was sincere attempt of ensure governance in the city.

This saga of organising the day-to-day running of the city comes alive more in the Imperatives part. It almost reads like the chronicle of some municipal body, with the documents showing how the supply of materials and labour was dealt with, be it how workers are to be rounded up every morning to be despatched to the kotwali, or intimation of setting up of grocers' shops at the regiment, or those on procuring money from the rich and the bankers.

A revelation of sort could be The Dramatis Personae in which we find the numerous complaints that poured in from Delhi residents --- elite and subaltern --- to the higher echelons of the administration about the ubiquitous mutineers and soldiers who arrived in Delhi from different parts of the country, and were plundering and engaging into unlawful activities. Also, there are the documents that show how the police administration functioned, the activities of the spies, the volunteers and jihadis, unhappy wives and the rest.

Farooqui provides notes at the beginning of each chapter, but he doesn't take any stand. It is not an easy task to deal with such a body of documents and yet not be opinionated. But Farooqui has kept his role restricted to that of a translator-compiler, and has allowed the documents speak for themselves. It makes, the book even more credible.

For journalists, the excerpts from the Dehli Urdu Akhbar is bound to be interesting. The Akhbar was not part of the Mutiny Papers. But Farooqui has been quite right in including them in the book to show how the nascent print journalism in India dealt with the turbulence. The Akhbar's editor Maulvi Mohammed Baqar took upon himself to role of an ideologue as he voiced his support for the rebels, and used the combination of jihad, secular values and his views on British exploitation of India to exhort the citizens to support the rebellion, at the same time urging the soldiers to maintain discipline and not to harass the public. They all make for interesting read.

At times, I felt that the different parts in the book overlap each other and a reader may wonder why a certain document has been included in one part instead of the other. Moreover, unless one is cued to history, the series of documents may look repetitive. But for those who love history, this book is a fascinating read. Farooqui must be wholeheartedly commended for his effort.

Besieged --- Voices from Delhi 1857 By: Mahmood Farooqui
Publisher: Penguin-Viking
Pages: 458
Price: Indian Rs 699

REASONABLY RECOMMENDED

2010-10-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

REASONABLY RECOMMENDED

Sandeep Shete prefers to have a climax to the short stories he writes. “There should be some sort of closure,” the Pune-based ‘amateur writer’ says. So he must have been eagerly waiting for the climax of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition 2010 in which Shete participated with his story Being Reasonable. The climax was reached recently when the results were out and Shete’s story was recognised by the eminent jury as a Highly Recommended entry.

Being Reasonable deals with the “daily harassment suffered by Pune’s commuters at the hands of the city’s autorickshaw drivers”. The idea to write a story on this subject emerged when one of Shete’s friends narrated her plight to him. “I wrote the story from the point of view of the driver,” the writer informs. And as he wrote, Shete tried to bring out the local flavour in English “without taking too much of liberty” in using the Puneri lingo. “I knew the competition was tough, with some many entries from the 54 Commonwealth countries. So, I read the winning entries form previous years and tried my best to match the standards,” Shete adds.

But what made this marketing professional write stories in the first place? Shete goes back to his school and college days when he used to write. The full-time job had put that creative self to the back burner for a while. “But I was feeling the need to explore my talent,” he asserts. So began his writings for several publications. Several recognitions came in the way. “But this one from the Commonwealth Foundation will boost my confidence.” he asserts.

When asked, Sethe refers writers like Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Yann Martel and Malcolm Gladwell as his favourites, and possibly the literary influences. “As a writer I want to take the middle path between serious and light writing,” he says, adding, short story is his preferred format, “because it is less time consuming and novel is a bigger commitment”. Still, he wants to write novels one day, I learn from Sethe who is now working on other short stories and an anthology.

IN SEARCH OF SCIENCE

2010-10-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

IN SEARCH OF SCIENCE

The glossy covers of the books at the Science section of a bookstore in Camp look inviting. But amid stacks of such attractive science books, school student Shrey Manthalkar tells me that he prefers “watching science-based television shows to reading books about science”. It is then a question suddenly pops up: How much interest do youngsters have about science-related books, beyond their school or college curriculum, in this era of multi-media content.

I begin to check at the bookstores. From Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins, all the major theorists, scientists and writers are present on the shelves with their bestselling titles. But they do not seem to attract any attention from buyers across the packed stores, as I spend an entire day to do the reality check.

“That’s not the case usually,” assures Narendra Chandan, proprietor of the Book World at a shopping arcade on FC Road. “Copies of books by Dawkins or Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan and the rest have enough buyers to make the science books commercially viable for us,” he says.

What strikes me at these bookstores, is that science-related books displayed are only in English; those in Marathi or Hindi are not easily visible. My searches in the ‘Marathi’ sections of the stores yield just few copies of Agnatache Vijdnyan by Dr Sureshchandra Nadkarni, Preshit and Akashashi Jodale Nate by Jayant Narlikar, and a translation of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.

I enquire with the store managers. “Science books in English are in demand among the young and the old, but there is hardly any demand for science books written in Marathi or Hindi even though there is no dearth of such books,” says one of them requesting anonymity. I hear similar words from others, like “physics student” Mayuri Joshi. “The science books in English are easier and often well-illustrated. So I opt for the original in English rather than the translations,” she says.

It makes me think: if science literature is mostly popular in English --- and that too mostly those by the big names --- what drives the relatively unknown or never-heard-of writers who pen books on science? I put his question to poet and retired headmaster Jaikrishna Pathak ‘Vipra’ who has written Bharat Ke Shresht Vaigyanik, a lean book in Hindi about nine well-known Indian scientists. “I loved science since childhood,” he says. So, with the help of his son Mridulkant Pathak, the senior Pathak “rummaged through old books and newspaper clippings” for two years to begin a journey in writing books “to inspire” the future generation. “But it wasn’t easy to get a publisher” for the book, Mridulkant tells me.

“Kids who have no access to television and Internet, can read about the scientific heritage of our country and the unknown nuggets from the lives of the great scientists from my book, or such other books written by so many other writers like me who have scientific bend of mind,” senior Pathak says with confidence. I somewhat cannot ignore that point. Who knows, maybe a young Indian is right now reading such a book and resolving silently to move beyond the syllabus, bring out the best of his or her innovative mind and join the group of ‘scientific Indians’ of future.

DISSECTING THE RAJ

2010-09-05T21:26:00.001-07:00

DISSECTING THE RAJ

How could a small country become the ruler of a vast Empire with the Indian subcontinent at its centre? Was it because the British were really “superior” as they claimed? Was it their military skill? Did the British offer better governance in India? English historian Roderick Matthews has studied these questions and the history of the British Raj in his book The Flaws in the Jewel — Challenging the Myths of British India.

Matthews begins by rightly pointing out that it was primarily the ‘English’ business interest — as the English East India Company (EIC) and not a ‘British’ ambition — that began India’s gradual colonisation; the process began almost a 100 years before the Act of Union in 1707 created the nation of Great Britain.

Right from the book’s onset what strikes is the author’s ability to avoid the skewed British or the ultra-nationalist Indian perspectives of India’s history. Matthews minces no words while showing that the English-turned-British ideas about India were improper in many ways: the foremost among them being that Indians are “morally inferior” and “incapable of ruling themselves”. India, as a political union, may have been the result of British rule, but India of 2010 has proved that the 18th- and 19th-century British colonisers were shamefully wrong.

Though the book refers to innumerable records to support the analyses and the questions it raises, Matthews never narrates the events of history in a typical fashion that one finds in history books. His language remains lucid which makes the book engrossing and enlightening for those interested in the flaws and puzzles of a bygone era.

One such analysis dwells on the conflicting views among the English polity about what to do with India. There were those who opposed the EIC’s trading monopoly; there were the Benthamites with ideas of public welfare who wanted to free Indians from the perceived immoral ways and religious superstitions. But at no point of time, any of these people thought it proper to give back India to the Indians. Matthews skilfully navigates through and dissects each of the views vis-à-vis the phases in British politics and India.

According to Matthews, the English-British rule in India comprised four phases: greed, scorn, fear and indifference. This classification of the history that is linked with using the concept of the different generations of imperialism — extermination of the opponents (including the French challenges), absorption of the native population to some extent, and seeking a faux legality to Empire-building — is brilliant.

The author didn’t over-simplify the history, rather made it more accessible to the common readers like me. And in that effort, Matthews has analysed the economics of railways in India from its advent to the Independence. He has also brought to fore a well-balanced view of George Nathaniel Curzon, the Viceroy of India (1899-1905), a mediocre but proud and self-obsessed man who was instrumental in Bengal’s partition in 1905. Matthews’s analysis of Curzon’s failings — how he unwittingly sabotaged his own policies — could be educative for all those who intend to play a role in public life as administrators.

However, my personal favourite is the chapter on Partition of India that led to the creation of Pakistan. Whether accepting the Partition was a folly or not is a different issue. But this chapter shines in its ability to bluntly show that some of our most revered leaders were not infallible, a fact that often gets hidden by the stream of eulogies.

Perhaps to liven up history, Matthews also plays a little game by trying to understand what if 10 historical events would have been different. It makes for an interesting reading — with facts, counterfacts and projections — that I enjoyed along with coffee and chips. But even without those, this book is unquestionably refreshing.

AN EVENING OF WORDS AND WINNERS

2010-08-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

Child musicians of the NCPA Suzuki initiative performing

Ruskin Bond inauguarating the event

Sunanda K Datta-Ray delivering the acceptance speech
as Rajni Bakshi (in pink saree) looks on

Siddhartha Sarma at the Award

AN EVENING OF WORDS AND WINNERS
It took a while for Kalpana Swaminathan to realise that she had been declared the winner of The Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2009 for Fiction. She checked and cross-checked with other contenders for the award before she went ahead to receive the trophy, a cash award of Rs three lakh and a citation for her collection of short stories Venus Crossing. Later, when I spoke to her amid the post-awards buzz at the Tata Theatre of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai where the event was held last Friday, Swaminathan didn’t hide her happiness. “I am absolutely delighted,” she said. “I can’t be modest about this,” she added.

Instituted in 1998, the award has recognised an array of top-notch writers over the years. Like any other prestigious literary award, the Vodafone Crossword Book Award follows the regimen of juries drawing up a longlist and then a shortlist before declaring the final winners, said R Sriram, the former CEO of the Crossword Bookstore Limited. Chandrashekhar Navalkar, the current CEO of Crossword added to it, “The shortlist for the 2009 Award included 21 nominated titles spread over the four categories of fiction, non-fiction, translation and children’s literature. Also, there’s the Popular Award that is voted by the readers”.

The tension among the audience in the packed auditorium was palpable as I overheard numerous conversations about which writer could win, which book was worth reading and the rest of the relevant comments. Perhaps to soothe the worried minds, author Ruskin Bond — who was the chief guest at the event — recounted a funny tale of what he did when he saw his own book lying at the bottom of the book shelves at a book store. “The owner of the store had told me that the book doesn’t sale. I wanted to teach him a lesson, so I bought the book,” Bond said as we all laughed and cheered for the septuagenarian author.

More cheers followed when a group of 26 children — part of the NCPA’s Suzuki initiative — took the centrestage and performed bit of western symphony under their mentor Zane Dalal, the resident conductor at the NCPA.
And then came the decisions. First the nominations for the awards and then the winners. Okay, let me shorten the long stories of backgrounders narrated by the juries, acceptance speeches, reading of citations, excitement and bit of happy tears. The winners for The Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2009 are:
* Rajni Bakshi for her Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom. She won both in the Popular and the Non-Fiction categories.
* Sunanda K Datta-Ray for his Looking East to Look West. He won the award in Non-Fiction category jointly with Bakshi.
* Valson Thampu for his English translation of Sarah Joseph’s original Malaylam novel Othappu.
* Siddhartha Sarma for his The Grasshopper’s Run. This Delhi-based journalist was nominated for two of his books in the Children category — a new addition to the Award.
*Kalpana Swaminathan, as you know by now, for her Venus Crossing in the Fiction category.

Among those who didn’t win, but were happy to be part of the contention were Nonica Datta, Gurcharan Das, Mimlu Sen, Anita Sharma, SMM Ausaja, Amit Chaudhari, Abha Dawesar, Mridula Koshy, Biman Nath, Arunava Sinha Maitreyee SC and Lakshmi Holmstrom.

Once the awards got over around 10, the inimitable Ruskin Bond prepared to leave for the day. But before that I approached him. “As a writer, it’s nice to be visible in this era of visual media and I was very happy to be here” he said, “especially when people get to know about the otherwise unknown writers,” he told me almost echoing Swaminathan. “It wasn’t the case earlier when only newspapers supported the writers, and no one would notice if a writer walked by,” Bond added with a wry smile.

I caught up with an evidently elated Rajni Bakshi as she was receiving congratulatory words. “I am not a writer of books. I have been working for a long time on an alternative mode for socio-economic development. I had a question and began to look for answers. It’s then that I had the opportunity to study the nature of the markets across the world,” she told me. “The journey was exciting. But I know, we cannot change the system,” Bakshi added.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray, however, remained hopeful about India’s Look East policy. “We are slow in developing our ties with the ASEAN nations, but I hope we will hasten it,” he said when I asked him about the road ahead for India in fostering mutually beneficial relations with the East Asian nations, “Singapore being the gateway to that” — an issue that is the subject of Datta-Ray’s book. “We can no longer be like a tortoise,” he added before making a call to his son in England “to inform him about the awards’ result”.

Swaminathan, a surgeon by profession, is also known for her Lalli series in which the woman detective investigates mysteries as if it’s a cake walk. I quizzed the author a bit about her choice of writing detective stories. “I love detective stories, just as you do. But one day I didn’t have any such story to read while at home. So, I began to write one,” she told me with a mischievous smile. Her professional experiences do help her “in building up the plot and the characters”.

For an amiable Valson Thampu, it was his wish “to highlight the richness of the literature in Malayalam” that got him into translating Sarah Joseph’s Othappu — a story of a woman who leaves the regimented life devoted to orthodox faith. “I think, translations are like cultural liberation, and readers must take translations seriously,” Thampu told me. “This is my first attempt in translating. And I realised that it is almost like creating an original work. It was a challenging task to maintain the original flavours in a different language,” Thampu added.

It was almost 11 in the night and the crowd had got slightly thinner when I could locate Siddhartha Sarma in one corner of the dining space. “Today’s children are much more intelligent. So, I thought of writing a story meant for the young adults,” Sarma explained about his book that has enough history and action connected to the Second World War. “I had contacted the Imperial War Museum in England to get the data about the history and war tactics,” he added before we parted and I moved out of the venue to head back home.

Valson Thampu with his trophy after winning in the Translation category;
the author of the original novel Sarah Joseph standing next to Thampu

Photographs by Biswadip Mitra

THE ETERNAL WOMAN

2010-08-22T01:32:00.000-07:00

THE ETERNAL WOMAN

With her unbroken presence through the ages, Sita — the daughter of Janak and the wife of Rama, has been part of the Indian ethos. But, Ramayana’s Sita is often equated with the womanhood that suffers the patriarchal juggernaut silently. “Actually there’s a double aura around Sita”, says writer-editor Namita Gokhale. “Sita is usually interpreted as a victim in the mythology as she had to prove her chastity and was forced to live in exile. But she’s also a strong character both mentally and physically,” Gokhale says. She along with Dr Malashri Lal edited a collection of essays, dialogues, versions and creative interpretations on Sita in the book In Search of Sita — Revisiting Mythology. The editors were in town yesterday to talk about the book and Sita. I interacted with them prior to the event.

“We wanted to bring together the different voices on Sita... a mass interrogation into the complex-yet-simple character,” informs Gokhale about the anthology.

Irrespective of the selective patriarchal reading of Sita, “in many of our folk versions of the Ramayana, she is actually portrayed as a symbol of strength who makes her own choices,” explains Lal. And it is this strength that makes Sita a role model, even if not a prescriptive one, to the modern, urban Indian women. “We spoke with many urban women... college students and professionals. All of them find Sita to be an inspiring character,” Lal informs. And Sita’s inspiring role as a woman doesn’t quite contradict her status as a deity. “She’s also a human and a secular figure,” says Gokhale. The Ramayana is “not a religious text,” says Lal in this context.

I ask both of them about Sita’s appeal beyond India. While for Gokhale, Sita does have a universal appeal — she mentions about the film Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley “from which the Indian diaspora can relate to Sita” — Lal thinks that the ideas of a pan-Indian woman or universal woman are “rather complex”. She refers to the “varied interpretations of the mythology based on the readership of the different communities — linguistic or otherwise, which in turn leads to multiple interpretations of Sita”.

Talking about how the feminists can deal with Sita, Gokhale makes a distinction between the Indian feminism and the Western feminism. “For us, family remains at the centre, and a woman’s individuality and her strengths come from her abilities to nurture her family and to perform her duties, just as it is for Sita,” believes Gokhale.

That takes us to the role that Rama played; he is often at the receiving end as he allowed his duty as a monarch to overrule his affection as a husband. He let Sita go through the ‘chastity test’ to conform to public values; he let Sita languish in exile but kept a golden statue of the lady next to his throne. “While that all may sound disturbing, one has to remember that Rama didn’t remarry when Sita lived in exile,” says Lal. That in a way, perhaps, helps to revive Rama’s sullied image.

The epic of Ramayana almost invariably brings in a comparison with the Mahabharata. So we veer towards comparing Sita and Draupadi, the two ladies of the two great epics. “The two epics were written from different contexts. The Ramayana is about a monogamous marriage where family is at the centre. In case of the Mahabharata, Draupadi is married to five husbands,” says Gokhale. “Draupadi rebels more actively against the foundations of the society. The story is more about the dharma and the values attached to it. Sita, on the other hand, rebels more subtly,” adds Lal. “That makes her enduring”.

So, with her subtle-yet-firm ways, Sita remains the eternal woman who is revered, loved and doted upon, “and continues to exert a powerful influence across India”.

TALE IN A DARKER SHADE

2010-08-08T01:22:00.000-07:00

TALE IN A DARKER SHADE
Colour of a relationship... this may have been the headline above. In fact, as Paritosh Uttam confirms, Dreams in Prussian Blue — his first published novel, is “primarily about relationship though it deals with the art world and the perspective of a painter”. And colour remains an integral part of it all — be it on the canvas, or in the minds of the protagonist Naina and her partner Michael, the painter.

Why Prussian Blue? “It could have been any colour, preferably a darker shade. But Prussian Blue had a mysterious tone to it, and blues and dark moods go together,” Uttam explains to me. “That was the title of my short story too (from which the novel evolved), and we stuck to it as a working title. Later, the editor also liked the title and suggested not changing it,” he adds.

Uttam is a software engineer by profession. But he is in his elements as an avid reader; writing follows as a natural corollary to it. However, unlike the hyped techie-turned-authors, who thrive on their experiences in some engineering college or in some outsourcing unit, Uttam “consciously decided not to get typecast as another IIT grad-turned-writer”.

But didn’t he ever get tempted to put in few things of the ‘techie world’ in his writings? Uttam pauses before replying. “Well, I have an unpublished novel where I have written about the ‘techie world’,” he admits. “But I don’t think that my experiences as an IIT-grad or a software engineer can be interesting to a reader,” he says candidly.

The novel sees how Naina supports Michael’s passion for painting; she has to sacrifice a lot — financially, emotionally and physically. I ask Uttam about how he deals with such characters while creating them. “I prefer to write from one character’s point of view... about his or her psychological motivation,” he explains. “Along with it comes the plot and a dash of X factor,” he adds. But is an ‘X factor’ necessary for a story? Uttam thinks, “a bit of it helps to keep the story moving... to keep the readers hooked through a fast-paced narrative”. He also thinks that a story must have a “lingering effect in the mind of the reader, even if there is no concrete finality to the story”.

According to him, ‘good literature’ is the one which has a balanced character-driven plot that is enriched with a writer’s style. “Good writing can be witty or evocative or profound, something that touches and affects you,” Uttam elaborates. “Writing about an ordinary subject in a different way, something that is special and yet you can identify with is also ‘good literature’.”

Talking about literary influences, Uttam mentions Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. “Among the modern writers, I love the works of Naipaul, and also the realistic fiction,” he says. “I love to read stories that move back and forth in time”.

Anything from the world of art or music that influences him? “Not so much. In fact, to write this novel I had to depend on the inputs from the artists and also did bit of research over the Internet,” he reveals. That research included studying the history of painting, the theories on colours and the like, I learn.

While his unpublished first novel is with an editor, Uttam is now busy writing. “I am planning a new novel,” he informs before we part.

CALLING ALL CHILDREN

2010-08-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

CALLING ALL CHILDREN

I hope one day Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer meet Sana Juwale. And then, almost 10-year-old Sana can infuse more imaginations to her stories. “I would love to write,” the student of fifth standard confirms her wishes as I quiz her a bit, on a rainy morning.

But why Huck and Tom of all people? Simply because I have come across a recently-published collection of classic stories meant for children. The 10 stories in the collection include excerpts from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and Boyhood Days by Rabindranath Tagore, besides The Open Window by Saki and Little Men by Louisa May Alcott among other works.

The publishers have marked the collection as Classic Stories for Boys. But as Paro Anand says in the Introduction, even the girls read the so-called ‘boy’ books. In any case, I thought it proper to cross-check first with the little ladies about whether they read stories, or they love watching stories. “I would prefer reading stories than watching on a DVD,” says 10-year-old Shweta Deshpande, who uses her free times to read. Sana too echoes a similar choice.

To avoid being labelled as ‘gender-biased’, I then seek the opinion of 11-year-old Varun Arora who also loves reading “more than the cartoons”. “I will become a writer,” he declares as his parents smile indulgently at the University campus where I chance upon the happy family.

So what do today’s children read? While Sana mentions English stories like The Smiling Star that she reads on her own, Shweta refers to stories like Coraline, Charlotte’s Web by EB White and the adventures of the Famous Five by Enid Blyton. A very chatty Varun reminds me of my first engagement with a Charles Dickens story; for me it was Nicholas Nickleby, while for Varun it’s Oliver Twist.

Despite this commonality, there are differences: Varun never read anything by Jerome K Jerome; or he hasn’t heard of May Alcott’s creation Nat Blake, one of my favourite fictional friends. Nat, a boy from an impoverished background finds a place in the happy school of Plumfield run by the Bhaers. There are other characters like Tommy Bangs, Stuffy Cole and Demi Brooke; there are weekly pillow fights, a music band and wonderful meals. Good to find the kids once again in this collection.

The collection includes Satyajit Ray’s story Pterodactyle’s Egg. The story is about Badan, a Calcutta simpleton, who’s bought in by the idea that he can view the past and the future — hundreds and thousands of years — through a tube that a ‘time traveller’ is wielding one evening along the riverside. About 29 years ago, as a 10-year-old, it was heartbreaking for me to know that Badan actually got conned. I still wish that the ‘time travelling’ was for real.

In a way, I did a bit of ‘time travelling’ while reading The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb from the collection. This 1892 short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sees Sherlock Holmes tracking attackers of an enginner and unearthing a gang of counterfeiters. Besides the thrill of detection, Sir Arthur’s style of describing Victorian England kept me engaged once again. I hope Shweta, who reads Holmes’s adventures and rightfully thinks that “he’s a smart detective,” will enjoy the thriller.

I cannot single out any one story in the collection as being the ‘best’. Still, the one that touched my heart is Big Brother by Munshi Premchand. The elder brother’s constant nagging is amusing; one can laugh and even get annoyed by the ways of the big brother. But at the end, it all turns into happy tears when the affectionate relationship of the two brothers comes to fore.

Some of the stories are translations into English from Hindi and Bangla. But thanks to the translators — Rakhshanda Jalil, Deepa Agarwal, Radha Chakravarty and Gopa Majumdar — these stories do not lose charm; they smell of the wonderful innocence that we grown-ups often yearn for.

MUSH IS FOREVER

2010-08-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

MUSH IS FOREVER

Daring men, svelte women and a perfect setting... enough to keep the romance blooming over the decades for millions of starry-eyed readers — girls and ladies across the continents — who swear by the Mills & Boon titles. And this loyal readership has remained unaffected even though the characters have changed keeping pace with the society at large.

Clare Somerville, general manager, India, UK and Export Sales of Mills & Boon shares the secret behind the fan-following. “The stories are entertaining, dreamy and uplifting,” she tells me during our recent interaction while she was in the city. “Besides, the availability of the books and the easy pricing also help. We ensure that there’s a dedicated space for the M&B in a bookstore which becomes a destination for the readers. We also follow the typical FMCG marketing strategy to reach out,” Somerville explains.

When asked, Somerville says that there has been “an evolution in the concerns, needs and sexual behaviour of women that get reflected in the M&B titles.” That means, the ladies in M&B stories are “no longer the subservient lot as they used to be, say, in the 1950s”. Modern ladies are “upfront, they have fulfilling career, and the heroes no longer dictate the terms.”

Incidentally, M&B titles have a short shelf-life of about 30 days; new titles are introduced every month and old titles are moved out from one geographical location to the other. “In India, readers often pre-book the titles to avoid missing a story. Also, we come out with the anthologies,” Somerville says in this context.

The Harelquin Mills & Boon launched its ‘India operation’ officially in 2008. In the last two years, the publishing house has “doubled” its sales, Somerville informs. “Earlier, we didn’t have any marketing support in India and had to export the titles to India. Now our titles are printed in India for the local market and things have become much better. We are happy to be in India,” she adds.

Talking about the future projections, she says that there are plans to add up more series to the existing four — Modern, Desire, Romance and Special Moments — in the Indian market. “Currently we come up with 14 titles in a month in India. Series expansion will mean more titles for the Indian readers,” she informs. And M&B is “open to the idea” of translating its titles into the Indian languages.

The M&B has had a successful tie-up with the National Trust buildings in the UK under which the stories are set in those buildings and sales from the M&B titles help to raise funds for the Trust. Somerville “can’t say whether similar tie-up is possible in India,” but she sounds excited about the “talented Indian writers” who are likely to contribute to the M&B titles. “We ran a writing competition last year and Milan Vora’s short story called Love Asana won. It’ll be published as a full-fledged novel this year,” she confirms.

So ladies, get ready for more of passion, mush, intimacy and rest of all that turns on your dreams.

SEX GETS YOUNGER

2010-07-25T04:39:00.000-07:00

SEX GETS YOUNGER

At one dimly-lit corner of a buzzing café on the FC Road, the girl presses the guy's private part. He then presses her thigh and moves his hand all over her. She keeps adjusting her position to help him. They are oblivious to the fact that like old spy thrillers, I am watching them between my share of coffee and pretension of reading a newspaper. This 'couple-in-action' has been in my radar for a while only because they are in their school uniforms.

I am perhaps not the right person to talk or write about sex. The fact of my life, so far, is that I never had sex. There were opportunities and possibilities too. But, somehow, I slipped out of the passion's lure. Still, I am the one who's been doing rounds at the malls, parks, cafés, streets, multiplexes and poorly-lit public spaces with one sole purpose: to spy on amorous couples and monitor their body movements.

Anyway, as I move in the public spaces, I witness more such acts of sensual pleasures. There is nothing new in that, except to see much younger people exploring the world of physical intimacy, rather openly. It is not just walking hand-in-hand and saying sweet nothings as my friends did during their teenage. I am also not talking about the pillion-riding girl who tightly hugs the bike-driving guy and kisses his neck at every traffic stoppage. That is just a dated 'public display of affection' or the PDA. Today's teenagers --- and they are not few in numbers as I realise --- know which condom suits them better and which pill won't cause trouble. The age of sexual experience seems to have gone down. That is a revelation of sorts to me. So I decide to start talking with the young people. Talking sex, that is. And in the process, I learn new things about people and ways. Here are the excerpts of those conversations:

Delhi-based mediaperson Neelabh, a young man in his mid 20s, thinks “pre-marital sex is not wrong, if the two people are committed to each other”. He, however, thinks it is wrong to indulge in sex during teenage.

A young Afsana in Pune doesn't approve of the pre-marital or teenage sex. “I shall not go for it, unless I get married. There must be some restriction on our behaviour,” she says, though she isn't judgemental about young people --- many of her friends including --- who indulge into pre-marital sex. “Several of my unmarried friends, both girls and guys, have a 'sex life'. The girls are little wary of the entire thing. The guys think it's 'cool' to sleep with several girls,” Afsana adds.

Eighteen-year-old Ajay “cannot imagine” that one can claim to be a 'mature person' without having experienced sex. “How can I claim to be strong and mature, otherwise?” he asks. Ajay shares a bit of backgrounder: “Every guy of my class in the school was doing it. So I also did it with a girl in my school two years back. I liked it so much that I do it regularly now, and the girls enjoy it. They all say that I am good at it,” he informs candidly. Just as a 'mature man' should be talking, perhaps.

But his 'maturity' doesn't give Ajay enough courage to look at me directly; he gazes at the menu card of the eatery on the SB Road as he divulges his secrets: how he procured the first set of condoms using a decoy, what he says to his parents after returning late from a 'study group' that covers up for his sex sojourns, and how he approaches the “hot chicks” through titillating text messages or by deliberately exposing his brawn self or by showing them “that kind of photographs in tabloids”.
'Do you ever doubt your actions with several girls?' I ask him.
“No. But sometimes I think whether I should confess to my wife, when I get married. That's all,” Ajay replies.
'Where do you do it all?' I ask. “There are good places... you have to spend a bit of money,” he replies and doesn't say anything more. I don't press further. “Please don't print my real name,” Ajay requests me as he rides his sleek bike to leave. That was already assured before our common contact arranged for this meeting.

The same evening, I meet Nidhi and Neelesh who claim to be in a relationship. “But our relationship would have been incomplete, if we didn't get to know each other very intimately,” the guy explains. The girl agrees. This intimacy do not get hindered by the fact that both are yet to complete their pre-University schooling. “There's no right age for first sexual experience. If you are ready, just go for it. It's nobody's business as long as we are doing it in private,” Neelesh says.

They don't seem worry about the associated health issues. “We are not into multiple partners,” the guy tries to assure me. “Our parents are okay about our friendship. But they don't know everything that we do,” he adds. “Two of us know each other, and that's all should matter,” Nidhi finally opens up in a shy voice. She is “not even used to talking sex with other guys”, I learn, though she reveals that she is into pills. How does she gets them? Nidhi won't tell me that.

For 17-year-old Aziz, “sex is all about making love”. His “first experience was with a senior girl in the school,” he says. “We have a storage room on the roof that remains open... we did it there. That was about a year ago,” Aziz informs. There is “nothing wrong in pre-marital sex or teenage sex”, as Aziz contends, “if the people concerned agree to have the pleasurable experience”. So he has no qualms in talking openly about his kind of girls among his friends. “It helps to send the message to the willing chicks, you see,” he says. And he “boldly” goes to medicine shops to get his condoms. “My motto is 'It's My Life', so I must enjoy,” the bright student of a reputed school in Pune tells me over coffee. But, “sex should not be a loveless act or become an addiction”, he cautions. That sounds somewhat like a dichotomy. Or maybe, it isn't.

It took a bit of cajoling to get a young Rachna --- whom I know personally, talking and that too over the phone. “Sex takes me to a different level,” she says. “The first time I had sex with my guy, we forged a special bonding,” she maintains about her foray into pre-marital sex.
'Was there any peer pressure to conform?' I ask. “No,” replies Rachna. “Initially, there was some resistance from both of us, but because our relationship was stable, we thought that sex will be a good adventure. And it was really so good,” she affirms. “No regrets,” Rachna sounds happy.

Mumbai-based Ronit became curious about sex when his friends “began to crack vulgar jokes about women”. Till then Ronit --- now a student of Standard 10 --- had no idea at all about sex. “I started to look at women differently. I wanted to experience sex. I had told that to one my friends who's a girl,” he says in a hesitant voice. “Then one evening, last year, I was at the home of that girl. There was no one else then. She suddenly kissed me... you know. And then she began it... she wanted it and taught me everything,” he reveals. Gradually, “it became an addiction” for him. “But, we broke up later. Now I feel bad about it all. I am trying to avoid it as much as I can, and concentrate on the studies,” he says. “But it is difficult... for me it was not just physical,” Ronit says, thus hinting at the agony such situations can bring about.
(Some of the names of the respondents to this survey have been changed to protect their identities. My thanks to all the respondents and the contacts. Much appreciated)

EXPERTS TALK SEX: “Teenage sex is bound to happen as we are opening up to the world and are observing how societies beyond India behave,” says Dr Samir Parikh, psychiatrist and chief of the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at the Max Healthcare, New Delhi. “The Indian school children find young people elsewhere indulging in sex. So, they too want to join the league,” Parikh explains. So just as it is 'cool' to smoke and dope because others are doing that, for the modern boys and girls in schools, it is 'cool' to explore each other's body with or without protections. “And it is not just few young people. The entire generation is going through the change in mindset, but the society is in denial mode,” Parikh believes.

Is that the case really or are we reading too much, I ask Dr Shekhar Seshadri, professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru. “Yes, more and more young people, including the teenagers, are experimenting with sex,” he confirms. Being an expert in 'child and adolescent psychiatry', and an activist against child sexual abuse, the professor knows it well.

He ascribes several reasons for the increased teenage sex. “There are lot of inappropriate images in the media, and it's not just pornography. Moreover, there is no culture of discourse within the families to discuss sex' across the generations,” he says. “In some cases, the control of the family over the children is low. The situation gets compounded by peer pressure”. Interestingly, Dr Seshadri also refers to the decreased age in puberty: “In case of girls, it can be as early as nine-and-half to 10 years of age. There have been biological-psychological changes in women”. But even after all of this, the “situation is not out of control as yet,” he assures. “However, for special population of children, like those living on the streets or in the slums, instances of sexual and substance abuse are alarmingly high,” he warns.

Dr Parikh avoids the use of words like 'morality' and 'immorality' while discussing. Dr Seshadri too doesn't prefer to use the word 'promiscuous' while referring to teenagers indulging in sex. “That will be judgemental. For that matter, even a marriage can be promiscuous, if the couple keep indulging in sex, say, thrice a day,” the professor says. “However, it is sad that some young people tend to build their identity on the basis of 'Been there, done that'. In the UK, in a study, the respondent teenage girls said they all had sex. Later on they said that they actually didn't have sex, but had said so earlier only to conform to the general trend in their age-group. No doubt that this sort of compulsion out of peer pressure is bad,” he adds.

“The approach in such situations”, says Dr Parikh, “must not be restrictive”. Teenagers “will not listen, if they are told to abstain from sex because it is 'not right' or it is 'not moral'. They must be engaged into responsible decision-making process,” he explains. According to Dr Seshadri, that essentially means “children must have the right to know about sex and sexuality, so that they can make informed choices”. He says, in countries where children make informed choices, the age of first sexual experience is higher than that in countries where children don't have access to information.

In this context he mentions that the 'sex education' programmes of the government and the UNICEF are flawed because they look at issue from the reproductive angle. “They look at the thing as an 'act'. But sexuality is more than reproduction”. There are, indeed, several other dimensions to human sexuality: discovery, dreams, peer experiments, fear of rejection and at times, unfortunately, sexual abuse. “A repeatedly sexually-abused child can have a disaffirmed 'sexual identity'. So there is need for personal safety workshops and some sensitisation for the kids,” explains Dr Seshadri.

“You have to make them understand the harmful effect of sexual activities at an early age when the body is not fully prepared,” echoes Dr Parikh, adding, “Give the children the space to take the decision. Sense of responsibility will not develop, if parents and teachers shut out the children”.

Dr Seshadri cites an example of his workshop on 'life skills' where curious teenagers are made to reflect upon several aspects like commitment, relationships, honouring women, health hazards and the like. “The ultimate idea is to create a responsible framework”.

DIMENSIONS AND PROBLEMS IN SEX: “Our conventional understanding of human sexuality is not even 15 per cent of the potential sexual experiences. We generally look at sexuality in terms of gender, marriage, procreation, use of genital organs, relationships, consensual activities and male primacy. But there's lot more dimensions that are often left out. Like, sex between a married couple who don't want child; relationship between a person and a sex worker; non-genital sex; masturbation, and the rest.
“There are lot of problem areas: in case of consensual sex there can be situations of abuse, be it child abuse or marital rape; in case of relational sex there can be case of incest. There can be situations of loveless sex; the act may not be mutually pleasurable. Then, there are cases of sex addictions which is dangerous. Moreover, in India, male primacy dominates a sexual relationship; a 'good' woman is not expected to talk of or demand sex. Our society is not egalitarian. It is patriarchal. Only when we begin to understand sexuality in these wider frameworks that our views become more nuanced”.
--- Professor Shekhar Seshadri of NIMHANS

(Part of this article was published in the Sakàl Times, Pune, India)

HER LIFE, HER 'INNER VOICE'

2010-07-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

HER LIFE, HER 'INNER VOICE'

Anuradha's life revolved around her husband Pranab, her son, and the routines of a marital life in Patna. Other than the occasional visitors, there was not much in the young housewife's life till author Sharmila Kantha decided to add in more characters in Anuradha's life in the recently-published story A Break in the Circle.

Kantha, wife of a diplomat and herself a corporate consultant, has strong links with Patna. Through the characters in the story the author offers us bits of life in Bihar's capital city. I begin by asking her the reason to choose Patna for the story. “The story is set in a non-metro city of India and could have been any city. I chose Patna because it is familiar to me,” she replies. “But some characteristics of Patna have been included to introduce its ambience”.

The ambience gets slightly spiced up with the introduction of a professor, Girija, who was once based in Patna but later went to the USA to pursue PhD. It is rumoured that the professor left his native place owing to a failed affair with his female student. The professor --- erudite and well-meaning, as we understand from Anuradha's husband --- is now set to visit Patna after a gap of 20 years for a research work. And, he intends to stay with Anuradha and her husband. Interactions between the professor and Anuradha begins via the Internet and the young housewife begins to view the world around her from a different perspective. Interestingly, the readers never get to meet the professor in person.

Will the author define this professor as a catalyst to give voice to the suppressed 'inner voice'? “Quite correct,” says Kantha. “The professor is working on a research project on cross-cultural formation of self-identity, a rather unexplored topic. Anuradha's identity is framed by her interaction with her society. The email exchanges between the two characters reveal to Anu that her life is rather circumscribed by societal obligations. Also, the story of the professor's rumoured romance sparks a feeling of dissatisfaction in Anu,” the author explains.

Among the several characters, there is that of one Gautam whose wife remains depressed and the couple don't have a child. So they decide the adopt one. Gautam --- with his thoughts and experiences --- seem to be a parallel strand in the story. Gautam and Anuradha meet each other, but their thoughts don't appear linked. I ask Kantha to explain. “It is interesting that you picked up on this. I have tried to show that Anu and Gautam are somewhat similar in the way they observe people. But Anu is primarily just an observer while Gautam in contrast is a doer,” she replies. “Anu's contact with Gautam is important to her realisation that it is not enough to merely observe life, but be an active change agent as well,” Kantha adds.

As the sub-plot around adoption of a child unfolds, there are subtle references of background of a child. I ask Kantha whether she has deliberately tried to attract our attention to the caste issue. She says that “caste is not really mentioned” in the story. “It was more the closed community I wanted to bring across,” Kantha says, adding, “Also, I wanted to show adoption as a way of getting out of one's fixed comfort zones. It is all to easy to get entrenched in a certain way of life without looking for existing doable alternatives”. In this context Kantha says that her “style is more good-humoured satire on middle-class Indian propensities”.

The story doesn't seem to reach to any finality. Readers are left to imagine as Anuradha and her husband go to the airport to receive the professor from the USA. “The ending may appear incomplete but that is the way life is structured, with many things going on simultaneously, some stories getting resolved, others developing continuously,” explains Kantha. “It is enough that one episode in the protagonist's life ends as it does. Readers are too intelligent to have to be hand-held through a story”.

The author is currently working on a sequel to her earlier book Just the Facts, Madamji. “I hope readers will be able to appreciate the take on middle-class life in Delhi,” she signs off.

A STORY ABOUT HIM

2010-06-06T03:34:00.000-07:00

A STORY ABOUT HIM

On the back side of the book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, it is mentioned that This is a Story. Indeed it is, in which bestselling British author Philip Pullman has looked into the life of Jesus and how he was betrayed.

“I suppose this story is a progression from the trilogy His Dark Materials, in that having castigated organised religion, I thought I should examine the character of the person... man or god... who was responsible for Christianity,” Pullman tells me from Oxford in England.

In Pullman’s story, Jesus and Christ are twin brothers. Jesus is boisterous; Christ is much quieter, more of a well-read boy who often comes to Jesus’s rescue. Gradually, Jesus begins to preach about the imminent advent of god’s Kingdom. A stranger then influences Christ to record all of Jesus’s preachings, and later persuades Christ to betray his brother for the sake of organised religion of the faithful.

How should readers react to this story? “Well, I hope they’ll go to the Bible and read it carefully to see what I’ve got wrong,” Pullman replies. “Many people, who claim to believe the doctrines of the Christian church, have never actually read the gospels or the epistles carefully and thoughtfully, comparing the different stories, wondering how such contradictory accounts can all be true. I hope this book will encourage them to do just that.”

If the church goes, then what will stand to give an image to faith? Or is it that we don't need any image at all, I ask him. To this, Pullman says that he “personally doesn’t require any image to depict faith”. If at all he needs any, then he shall find it “in the literature and in folktales... in every sort of narrative”.

He rubbishes the idea that non-believers have no morality. “This is nonsense. Morality has quite another origin. Religious people are just as likely to be wicked, and non-believing people just as likely to be good,” Pullman maintains. Faith, he adds, “is no recommendation of any kind” for which a 'faithful' can claim any privilege. “Give any sort of power to religion, and bad things result,” he reiterates. “Our recent Prime Minister Tony Blair thought very differently. For him, faith was a great thing, and those who claimed to have it should be given privileges and respect. I do not agree”.

How can an ordinary faithful confront the wrongdoings of religious leadership? I ask Pullman referring to the recent reported news on Papal shield that covered up the abuses by the priests. 'There are numerous such incidents across the religions...' I tell him. “The recent unhappy revelations about the Catholic Church only confirm what I've always said: give any sort of power to religion, and bad things result,” he replies.

“I'm sure many faithful people will be unhappy and disappointed by what they've heard and seen recently. If it helps them see the flaws in the structures of religious power, then it can only be a good thing,” he adds.

The author looks at the controversies over his books 'with interest and satisfaction'. On a lighter note, he says that such controversies will mean “more copies are sold”.

I ask him whether he would prefer to argue with his critics. “An interesting question! It depends on two things: on how intelligent they are, and whether we are in private or in public,” he replies. “If someone is not very bright, and their mind is closed, there is no point in arguing. Similarly, if we are in private, I often don’t want to argue,” he adds.

Argument, according to him, is a “public activity” that demands a “neutral audience, and a firm chairman”. But the purpose of the event is not to change the mind of the opponent, Pullman says. The “aim of the exercise” is to win over the “undecided audience”.

To write this book, Pullman “began with the four gospels in the New Testament, as the fullest sources for the life of Jesus”. He then read “as many of the apocryphal gospels, as I could bear... some of them are very poor as literature, and bare of any psychological or narrative interest. Pullman informs. “Apart from that I read The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, by David Strauss which was the first great critical examination of the story from a non-engaged point of view” he says. Among the modern scholars, he read Geza Vermes, “whose knowledge of the life and times of Jesus is unmatched.”

Apart from that he didn't read anything because he found “from long experience that you can easily become misled, or waylaid, or beguiled by this scholar or that theory, and forget the main point of your study,” he informs. And the point is “always to tell a story as clearly as possible”.

A former schoolteacher, Pullman “always loved” and has been “most interested in” stories both as a listener or a reader, or when he studied literature and also as a storyteller. “Telling a story clearly and without unintentional confusion --- intentional confusion being a different matter --- was the thing I most admired in other writers, and the skill I most wanted to develop. I’m still working at it,” he says.

According to Pullman, “the great thing” about being a storyteller, “as opposed to, say, a footballer or a dancer, is that you can keep on going long after your knees give out or your hips become arthritic”. Besides, he was “no good at football”, Pullman adds jovially. “Dancing is something I only do when my children get married. They are both safely married now, so my dancing days are over”.

ON A FISH TRAIL

2010-05-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

ON A FISH TRAIL

From the Sunderbans to the Sir Creek --- the varied landscapes and the people along India's vast coastline have distinct stories of their own. But there are similarities too, as journalist Samanth Subramanian found out when he travelled to India’s coastal States, “looking at fish in a larger context”. So in his recently-published travelogue, Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast, the fishermen, the fish traders, the boat builders, the fish gourmets and of course the multitude of fishes come together with myths, fact, local history, traditions, culture and experiences. “It is not a food or travel guide though, but a travelogue,” the author reminds me.

Subramanian refers to his rather awful childhood experience with fish that either makes him the best person or otherwise to write on fish. In any case, when he decides to write his book, it begins with the fish-crazy Bengalees. The tricks of cooking Ilish fish, the humdrum at the fish markets in and around Kolkata as well as the well-known fishing points like Kolaghat and Diamond Harbour come alive through Subramanian’s words. For me, these places are so familiar that I could almost see the actions.

How much research was needed to understand the nuances of the places and traditions? It was a “three-part process”, the author informs. “Each chapter began with an idea. Then I read a lot and spoke to people to form a vague idea of the places and people. Then I travelled to those places. And after I came back from that visit, I read again,” Subramanian explains. “The actual reporting part was good,” he adds.

Subramanian took about two-and-half years to complete his book; he admits to missing deadlines after deadlines though his publishers kept the faith in him. So did his employers who supported him as Subramanian worked on the book. “It was not easy though”, considering he had to travel over the weekends, or take leave at times while maintaining a full time job as a journalist. Did the discontinuity in his travels impact his writing? “I wanted to make sure that I do a thorough job. So when I wrote a chapter, I wrote it in full, or else the links could have been lost,” he says.

Among the places visited by the author were Manapadu in Tamil Nadu, toddy shops in Kerala, Goa beaches that are dying, eateries in Mangalore, Sassoon Dock and the eateries in Mumbai, and the boat building yards in the towns of Mangrol and Veraval in Gujarat. 'How easy or difficult was it for you to convince the people at these places that he was not an intruding angler trying to take away some local secret?' I ask him. Subramanian laughs. “I didn't face any distrust from anyone. It was obvious from my notebooks and the suitcases that I am not the intruding angler or a spy,” he replies. “Rather, the people in those smaller towns and localities are less cynical and were ready to talk. For them it was a novelty that someone from the city, who's writing a book, is interviewing them. Writing a book is considered nobler”.

Among his experiences while on the fish trail, Subramanian visited the Bathini Goud family of Andhra Pradesh who are famous for providing the 'fish cure' for patients of asthma. The entire governmental arrangement to facilitate the annual event during which thousands of people queue up to swallow a small fish with a secret medicine, the exaggerations, the expectations and the air of solemnity in the Goud household make for an interesting reading. 'Is it the fish only or you wanted to how fishy are the Gouds' claims,' I ask Subramanian. He laughs out loudly. “I was just passing by. But it struck to me that this event has been going on for so many years... people go there and they believe in the cure. And the Goud family has been carrying it on with a firm belief in themselves. I found it all semi-mystical and interesting. But I cannot comment on whether the cure works”.

Foodies, especially those who love fish, will gorge all the 'food talk' that people indulged into across the pages, as the author relished plates after plates of fish cuisines. Special mention must be made of the lady at Sushegad Gomanatak --- an eatery in Mahim; she made Subramanian to understand the differences between Gomantak and Malvani style of cooking. Gobind Patil, the local leader of the Koli community in Mumbai is another cook-connoisseur who “veers towards food no matter whatever could be the talking point”. I ask Subramanian about which one gets better score --- the upscale restaurant or a nondescript roadside eatery. “That's a very good question. According to me, the nondescript eateries are better because they always provide fresh fish,” he says. “And my favourite dish has been the Rawa fry that I ate in Mangalore,” he affirms.

During his travels, Subramanian met environmentalist among others. They have been concerned with the excessive fishing that is going on. But the fishermen too are concerned, the author says. “They are not only concerned because of not getting good catch, but they also know the ill effects of catching young fish. So, in case they catch a young fish, they throw it back to the sea or else they won't get older fish one day”. In this context he mentions how the number of fishermen has decreased but the number of fishing trawlers got increased.

Being a journalist, Subramanian has been observant. But he has spiced up the travelogue with ample doses of his wit, imagination and also his views. Didn't he ever feel to write a fiction instead and let his imagination take control? “Well, I have been away from fiction for the last five to six years. So, I never thought of writing a fiction based on my travels,” he says. “As a journalist, I have to be objective. But at the same time I have my own mind. So, in the book I tried to balance between reporting and my own thoughts”.

Subramanian is hoping to come up with more non-fiction works. “But they may not be a travelogue,” he says.

We are almost towards the end of the interview.
I tell Subramanian that I liked his book very much.
“Thank you...” he says gently.
Then I divulge a little about myself: 'You know, I don't eat fish...' I tell him.
“But aren't you a Bengalee?” he asks.
'Yes... but in my family I have been an exception... everyone else loved fish... but I never liked it'.
“So it must have been tough for you to read this book?” he asks.
'Not at all. I told you... I enjoyed reading it so much that I didn't give up. I read it almost at a stretch... It's fantastic, I must say again...'
“Thank you so much Biswadip...” Subramanian says in his gentle voice.

THE BHOJWOOD VIBRANCE

2010-05-23T02:17:00.000-07:00

THE BHOJWOOD VIBRANCE

Can Bhojpuri cinema ever reach out to the non-Bhojpuri audience who watch quality Iranian or Latin American or French movies? “Why not?” asks back senior journalist Avijit Ghosh whose book Cinema Bhojpuri has been recently published. But it's not about the language, he adds. “Everything depends on whether someone wants to make Bhojpuri cinema that suits the sense and sensibility” of that category of audience. As of now the Bhojpuri films are catering to the core audience, and “some films have been dubbed in Chhattisgarhi,”

In the 297-page book, Ghosh tells us about Bhojpuri cinema's journey --- from the first film Ganga Maiya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo that was made in 1962, the lows of 1980s, to the recent high-paced spiced-up flicks. The pioneers, and the major and not-so-major players of the Bhojwood make their appearances across the chapters.

The current phase, Ghosh says, is “exciting”, even if the Bhojpuri films are making loses. The budgets are increasing, and the horizons are expanding --- be it the foreign locations for the shoot, or the techniques, or the artistes and producers who are joining in from other parts of country and beyond.

Growing up in the small town of Arrah among other places, Ghosh first came in contact with the Bhojpuri cinema in 1979. And it certainly cast a spell on him, as is evidenced by this book for which the author ploughed through the old documents and magazines (like the Rambha from Benares) on Bhojpuri cinema, and interviewed about 70 people who matter. All of that required a lot of travelling. But it has been a labour of love for Ghosh who hopes that the film buffs will love the book.

Cinema Bhojpuri also navigates through the transformations of the on-screen characters --- from being village simpletons to the slick tribe who wear sunglasses, jeans trousers and short skirts. The music too has changed --- from the folksy melodies to disco beats, the 'item' dances being the crowd-pulling add-on. There are lot of actions too. All of that bring in comparison with the Bollywood: actors get dubbed as Shah Rukh or Helen of Bhojpuri cinema.

It's “merely a way of recognising a person's talent”, maintains Ghosh. “While the new generation Bhojpuri films have partly emerged out of a reaction to Bollywood’s indifference, they are also consumed by its attraction and allure,” Ghosh explains. “Bollywood imitates Hollywood, Bhojpuri gets ‘inspired’ from Bollywood. That’s how it goes”. He ascribes the trend to globalisation and an aspirational society.

But, how much of the recent Bhojpuri films reflect the social realities? “Many Bhojpuri films are family dramas. To some extent, they represent an idealized, and often exaggerated, form of what we want our family to be,” replies Ghosh. And these films often “recreate the sight, sounds and lifestyle of a village in east Uttar Pradesh or west Bihar”. For a migrant labour, who watches Bhojpuri films in places like Ludhiana or Bhiwandi, these images “bring back memories and yearnings” of the land they left behind. “Psychologically, the movie acts as a healer,” says Ghosh. “For them, it is also a matter of regional pride”, though “the educated middle-class prefer Hindi films”.

When asked about the challenges faced by the Bhojpuri films, Ghosh mentions the need to restore the cinema halls in the qasbahs and mofussils in Bihar and eastern UP. Moreover, the plan to set up a state-of-the-art film studio in Bihar must be materialised, he adds.

Ghosh is planning his second novel now. His first novel, Bandicoots in the Moonlight, is, not surprisingly, based in a fictional town in Bhojpur.

PREAMBLE FOR LITTLE ONES

2010-05-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

PREAMBLE FOR LITTLE ONES

It is easy to write for adults, but it is tougher to write for a 10-year-old. My teacher at the journalism school always told so. Justice Leila Seth echoes similar view as she tells me about her recently-published book We the Children of India: The Preamble to Our Constitution. The jurist-activist-author was in the town recently. I caught up with her on a warm evening soon after she landed in Pune.

“My nine-year-old granddaughter Nandini didn't understand anything when I used words like 'citizen', or 'represent',” justice Seth says. “It was then I realised that children need to be told about the values of democracy, justice, liberty, equality and fraternity in a way so that it gets into their consciousness at an early age,” she informs. “Besides the ideas from my granddaughters Nandini and Anamika, the children of a school also told me how they want me to explain the Preamble,” justice Seth recalls with fondness.

Beautifully illustrated by architect-artist Bindia Thapar, the book primarily explains the words in the Preamble to our Constitution; a bit of history about the British rule, Independence and the framing of the Constitution has also been included in this 40-page book. Several historic photographs are part of the book; Mahatma Gandhi walking on the beach in Bombay, Pandit Nehru addressing on midnight of August 14 of 1947, and he's signing the Constitution are some such photographs that are bound to make a young reader curious about the leaders of the nation.

Justice Seth was the first woman judge at Delhi High Court, and first woman Chief Justice in any High Court in India. She served in the 15th Law Commission that recommended amendments to the Hindu Succession Act, giving equal rights to the daughters in joint family property; she headed judicial investigation teams, she served in the National Human Rights Commission; and she has been vocal about education for children. Keeping all of these in my mind, I draw her attention to the issue of reservation of seats for women in the legislatures in India. “Once I was very much against reservation of any sort. But, now I have changed my views,” justice Seth says. She sounds hopeful when she says that “women have really come up”. Still, “there is need for reservation for women in the legislatures, as that will help in the long run,” she feels.

But won't such reservation be counter-productive, I ask. She disagrees. To explain her point she tells me about her experiences while working as part of the Multiple Action Research Group. “In large parts of north India, like in Haryana, girls and women are treated shabbily. But with the reservation for women in the panchayats, the awareness is increasing. Initially, the women were not told about dates of the panchayat meetings. Even if they were told, it was at the last minute. But then the women resolved that they need to take charge”. So gradually, the male domination was countered, she says. “And I am sure that things will change for better if reservation for women is extended to the Assemblies and the Parliament,” the jurist adds.

She then talks about 'death penalty' as a punishment. “Once I was appointed to represent a convicted person who's been condemned to death. I never met that man. But I couldn't sleep. And then the death penalty was confirmed by the High Court...” she pauses. I don't say anything. “I am against 'death penalty' It doesn't serve the purpose. The convicted person suffers much more if kept alive,” she adds. I tell her about the overwhelming sentiment about people in India about what should be done to the captured terrorists from Pakistan. “Even then, I am against 'death penalty',” the former judge affirms.

Referring to the reported atrocities unleashed by the extra-judicial khap panchayats, I ask her how can a girl child, in such a setting, be made aware of her rights. “Education is the key. Children must be made aware about the evil of caste discriminations and the need for gender equality. As they will grow up, these children will assert their rights and carry forward the values of liberal democracy,” she says. “Today, the focus is only on making money. Our children must be told about the need to be humane. Money is not everything,” justice Seth adds. And she hopes, that her book will play a role in achieving this. “I've told my publishers Penguin Group to come up with the Hindi and other regional language versions of this book”.

The last page of the book is illustrated by her granddaughter Nandini showing happy children holding our national flag. Certainly, it was “a happy experience across the generations” to come up with such an enlightening book. There is also a poem on the last page written by justice Seth. As I quietly read it, she tells me how her elder son ((acclaimed author Vikram Seth) has also been part of her writings. “Vikram helped by changing the language of that poem,” she says. “Also, he had edited the last quarter of my autobiography, On Balance, which was published in December 2003”.

Sitting in a spacious hall of the hotel with dim lights shining on her face, justice Seth looks happy to share her views. “One has to be honest while writing an autobiography. When I wrote mine, thinking that I must write something for my granddaughter, I didn't avoid any uncomfortable issue. At 70, you have just nothing to fear,” she says. “One must express thoughts as they come. Don't think about what others are thinking”.

As justice Seth shares anecdotes from her life, I get to know about her days in Kolkata, Patna, England and Delhi. She tells me about her second son Shantum, a peace activist; and her daughter Aradhana, a filmmaker. Getting back to her celebrity writer son, she says, “Fiction writers need their space and time to imagine. Once I returned early from my office (of the Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh, in Shimla) around 4 pm. Vikram was then with us at Shimla to write his book. He was little annoyed to see me. 'Why did you come early? All my characters ran away,' he said,” the happy mother recounts with a hearty laughter.

“Vikram studied at the Stanford University. We wanted him to join the World Bank from where he had got an offer. I was scared that he might end up as a penniless writer. But then, he didn't want to be bound by, as he said, 'Chains of gold'. My husband (Prem Seth, who retired as the top boss of the Bata Shoes) and me, we gave all our children all the freedom. And I am happy that we did so. Vikram's book Golden Gate was awarded, but he didn't make money. His novel Suitable Boy worked so well. And then he realised the need to have an agent,” justice Seth says in one stretch.

“Now he's writing A Suitable Girl. But actually he's just talking about it. He hasn't written anything. He's now studying the Indian girls,” she divulges. 'So is it a scoop that Vikram Seth hasn't written anything of the announced book?' I ask in a lighter vain. Justice Seth roars into laughter.

As we talk, she asks me about my background. I tell her about my days in Kolkata, my legal background, the struggles and the despair I went through. She nods in agreement. “There's no money in legal profession for the first five years,” she says. And then she begins to tell me about her early days as the member of the Bar when she was a junior to barrister Sachin Chaudhuri. “When I could manage to approach him through contacts, he said, 'Young lady, you must get married'. I told him that 'I am already married'. Then he said. 'You must become a mother'. I replied, 'I am already a mother'. He then said, 'You must have another child'. I said, 'I already have two kids'. He then gave up. 'Join my chamber then. You'll be a good lawyer', he said,” justice Seth reminisces.

This interview took place on May 12 of 2010 in Pune, India, between 8 pm and 9 pm, local time.

YOUNG AT HEART ALWAYS

2010-04-18T01:51:00.000-07:00

YOUNG AT HEART ALWAYS

He hasn't changed, confirms Ruskin Bond. We are talking about Rusty, the evergreen boy in many of Bond's stories. “Rusty is me as a boy. He might have grown up as a man, and grown old, but the 'boy' is still there in his heart,” the writer tells me about himself. Indeed, I could hear the boy from Bond's happy and doting tone as he replied to my questions.

Off late, I've been reading Bond's Mr Oliver's Diary. The teacher, Mr Oliver, seems to be a symbol of conformity, while his students at the boarding school are always rebellious. Bond laughs, as I tell that to him. “Yes, Oliver is an old-fashioned fellow, and people make fun of him. But then there are good things in him as well... the set values of proprieties,” he says. So what would the creator of Mr Oliver and the naughty students tell to the younger lot --- to conform or to be rebels? “Kids are now bombarded with so much of television and the Internet, I fear there's no scope for them to conform,” Bond replies. Then he cites an example: “Just this morning I was listening to an FM radio station. And they were playing a salacious song... very suggestive. Within few minutes of it, I heard 10-year-old kids singing the same song as they walked on the road in front of my house. The youngsters now can't escape all of that”.

As I tried to imagine how different Rusty had been when he was literally a boy, Bond perhaps reads my mind. “Well... Rusty was brought up in a sheltered environment. He had adventures, but they were of different nature... very innocent,” he says. “Now, the innocence is lost”. Did I hear a sigh? Perhaps not, as Bond mentions the “bright ideas” that younger people now are full with; “their dreams and achievements” and the rest. He sounds hopeful. Just like my father always did. Interestingly, both Bond and my father were born in the same year. Bond a month older than my father. I know how Bond looks now. I wish I knew how my father would have looked now.

Back to Bond. The septuagenarian author, who began with his novel The Room on the Roof, when he was just 17, penned numerous essays, poems, autobiography (Scenes from a Writer's Life), short stories and novellas. I ask him whether he prefers writing stories for the children than those for the adults. “Frankly, I have no such choice about my reader's age. The Room on the Roof was for the adults. The children's writings are for the young minds. And there are also stories that I leave it to the readers. But, yes the characters and the writer both remain young at heart,” Bond reiterates.

Besides Rusty and Mr Oliver, some of the famous characters created by Bond for children are that of Uncle Ken, the grandfather and the aunt among others. As we dwell on them, Bond mentions how his “childhood experiences helped” him to pen the stories. “They all existed in my life. Now I use those characters to build my stories. However, the stories are largely fictitious,” he informs.

But no matter how fictitious they might be, the stories are realistic; the setting of the serene hilly regions of northern India add to the charm of reading Bond's stories that young and old like to read. I ask him about whether he will set his stories in other parts of India. “There haven't been many writers who've set stories in the hills in India, except Kipling maybe to some extent. So I chose the hills,” Bond says. “But sea also appeals to me. I guess, I will set some of my stories in coastal India... the coastal towns, the people there...” Bond pauses for a while perhaps to visualise the places he has on his mind.

Before the quiet of Mussoorie can take control, I ask the author to choose his favourite story from among his creations. “Each story becomes my favourite as I write them. That happens when one writes and enjoys what he's writing,” Bond says. “But looking back... well... my best writings have been the ones I wrote during my romantic years,” he laughs. “But as one grows older, there's lot more material to write on,” he adds.

Bond went to England after finishing school in Mussoorie in the 1950s. And it is there that he wrote his first book. But the book was about his nostalgia for India. And over the years, it is India that has remained at the heart of his stories. “The Indian in me and the love and affection for my country combine to let me write the stories. It's easy to know the people in India. People accept you more freely as part of their family than anywhere else. And this intimacy is irrespective of the region, language or religion. It's a wonderfully inclusive country to write about”.

That takes us to the label of Indian Writing in English or IWE. I mention to him how Indian writers in English are becoming prominent in the West; their nominations for coveted literary awards possibly are the signs of our inroads into the Western readership. “Ah.. yes... the Booker...” Bond picks up the thread. “For that one has to get published in Britain. My readership is primarily in India,” he says, adding, “I never had any literary agent. They are just interested about the commercial prospect of a book and not the literary values. So the awards are about publicity and sales”.

Getting back to the label of IWE, Bond categorically says that English is now one of the Indian languages. “Do you say Indian Writings in Bengali or Indian Writings in Punjabi? People in the West can refer us as the Indian writers, but within India...” Bond goes quiet for a while. And then, as if he needs to remind us about the quality of English language in India, he says, “In India, English is taught as a language that one can get by with. But the literary English...” he doesn't complete the sentence again.

We turn our attention to filmmaker Vishal Bharadwaj who has made a film out of Bond's novel The Blue Umbrella. “He's a good director. I liked the way he did that film,” the author says. “He's now shooting a film titled Saat Khoon Maaf, based on my story Susanna's Seven Husbands. It is a 'black comedy', and about a lady and her ingenuous ways. I actually expanded the story for him. I think Vishal will do a good job this time also,” Bond adds.

Up next on Bond's list are the short stories that he's writing for the adults. “The characters are the ones I saw during my boyhood period, but they were all too lonely. I am studying loneliness,” he reveals. “But yes, I am also reading Peter Robinson's detective thrillers of Inspector Banks. Have you read Robinson?” Bonds asks me only put me in a spot.'Well no... I am still stuck in Sherlock Holmes,' I tell him. Bond chuckles. “Yes.. Holmes... but then you must also read Robinson,” he says. I promise to do so before we wrap up.

REMINDING US OF OURSELVES

2010-04-10T04:36:00.000-07:00

REMINDING US OF OURSELVES

How much do I know about our country and our heritage? The question stares at me as I read Pavan K Varma's book Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity. In his book, the career diplomat has analysed the nation's history, and the roles of some of the iconic figures --- Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru among others --- vis-à-vis the British domination of the region, and their policy of gradual imposition of English language.

I ask Varma about his choice of English as the language for this book. Referring to his education at the convent schools and at St Stephen's in Delhi, Varma says he's “condemned” to write in English. “I have nothing against English, but my preference would have been to write in my mother tongue Hindi,” he asserts. In this context the author says the target readers of his work are all Indians who are concerned about “what we are”. The book is “certainly not confined to English-speaking elite which is an incestuous and narrow circle which has largely run out of ideas in sync with the interests of our country,” Varma adds.

It is somewhat discomforting to read Varma's analyses of Ram Mohan who is considered as a pioneering social reformer in the 18th century. Ram Mohan, according to Varma, ridiculed his own cultural heritage and identity to win the support of the ascending powers in the English East India Company. Ram Mohan's intentions were good, but, Varma questions the propriety of the erudite reformer's support for western education. The author cites documents to show that Ram Mohan contradicted himself in criticising the ancient texts of Hindu philosophy and religion.

The broad theme of the book being reappropriation our heritage and identity, Varma talks about the need to decolonise our minds. “It must begin with the educated classes, and the government has to make important policy changes to reflect this change in attitude,” Varma says. “The poor are absolutely entitled to learn English, if it helps to get them a job. But English can be introduced in the sixth grade after a child has acquired an effective grounding in his or her own mother tongue,” he maintains, adding that there's a “foundational difference between a language of communication, English in this case, and a mother tongue”. While English helps to interface with a globalising world, the mother tongue helps to understand one's own mythology, lullabies, folklore, history, fairy tales and the rest, Varma affirms.

It seems from the book that the author has made a generalised statement about the Indians who often prefer English over their mother tongue; some of them even feel proud about their inability to communicate in their own language. I express my doubt to Varma about how correct he is in painting all Indians with the same brush. “In our country, people may know their mother tongue, but English has the label of superiority and our languages labour under a self-imposed sense of inferiority,” he replies. “That is why I quote the example of a person in the Shatabdi Express (train), to whom you ask a question in Hindi (in north India) and he replies in English, lest you think that he does not know English” In the same context he says, that though there may be no conscious disrespect of our culture, but if the knowledge of our own culture becomes a matter of tokenism or ritual, then the disrespect becomes inevitable.

Varma, currently based as the Indian Ambassador to Bhutan, had earlier been posted in other parts of the world. The postings gave him opportunities to interact with people across nationalities and cultures. Varma has included several of his experiences to show the asymmetry exists in our relationship with the West; how often we tend to overlook the ignorance of people from the erstwhile colonial nations about us, though it is expected that we will be well-informed about them. Referring to his experiences, Varma says: “When one is abroad, one has the distance and objectivity to observe what is happening in one's own country. However, it is your country which provides one the inspiration to think and write about what needs to change”.

While discussing the question of 'identity', Varma has criticised Amartya Sen's theory on this issue; which is fair enough, considering one can have a different view. In this context he discusses the debates over multiculturalism and race relations in the UK. Varma cites examples of non-White British citizens in the UK who often face the annoying question:”Where are you from?” I draw his attention to the questions over regional identity that often shows its ugly head in India. Are we heading towards hyphenated identities --- Marathi-Indian, Bihari-Indian, Arunachali-Indian? “Indians have an identity which is pan-Indian, even though there are surface difference between us,” Varma says. “We can belong to different regions, but that does not make us hyphenated Indians, because the overall civilisation to which we belong for the last 5000 years subsumes us in spite of our diversities”. The differences, he adds, are “not fundamental”.

The book also looks into our heritage in art and architecture, and the impact of globalisation. Varma critically analyses the architecture of Lutyen's Delhi and the rather “racist” attitude of Lutyen towards the Indian architecture and craftsmen. The general tone of this interesting chapter once again is that of loss of our pride, or what Varma calls our “amnesia”. Perhaps, the amnesia and the blind imitation of the West is due to our own gradual decadence and mediocrity compared to our forefathers, I suggest. Varma replies: “We need to a cultural audit of what have been the consequences of colonialism, in the past and in the present. Only then can we deal with the rampant mediocrity, mimicry, tokenism and cultural rootlessness in our country today”. The 'unfinished revolution' that the title of the book mentions, is the “reappropriation of our cultural space in authentic terms, but without xenophobia or chauvinism, so that we can become a voice in the world that commands respect for where we come from and who we are as a civilisation,” Varma asserts. India being a deserving candidate to claim a high position in the world community, cannot afford to be come photocopy of the West, the author adds.

It is clear that Varma has done extensive research for the book that took four years to write. And it is indeed a thought-provoking book. So it left me wondering: What the author would have done to gain support from the ascending British powers, if he would have been in the situations of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. I also wondered how could Yeats write in 1835 that “Tagore knows no English...” (page 74 of the book; the Index says it's Rabindranath Tagore) though Rabindranath was born in 1861.

Moreover, the author who vehemently opposes the asymmetry in our equation with the West, keeps referring to the British people by their titles of Lord, Sir, Her Majesty. Furthermore, in the book Lord Meghnad Desai seems to have preference over Baron Bhiku Parekh, the latter having been denied his British title all across the pages.

I did ask Varma specifically about all of these.
But he preferred to remain silent.

THE SECRET IS OUT

2010-03-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

THE SECRET IS OUT

Sherlock Holmes can do no wrong. It could offend Holmes devotees, like me, to read that in certain famed cases Holmes actually got used by the clients and that he didn’t really solve the mysteries but unwittingly played the role of a cover-up. But Partha Basu, didn’t flinch in offering a whole new perspective of Holmes’s adventures in his fictional work The Curious Case of 221B—The Secret Notebooks of John H Watson, MD. Basu’s ‘take off’ on eight of Holmes’s 56 adventures unravels the “other side” of things, different from what we know from the Holmesian Cannon. But no, it’s not like some silly sexed-up screen version of the master detective as we saw recently. So please don’t fume.

In the book, some new light on Holmes — that he was error prone — is shed from the two secret diaries of Dr John Hamish Watson, the Holmes chronicler. The diaries are found by Jit, a young Indian, as part of the assets left by his parents who are killed by the militants. As Jit delves into the diaries, we get to read the actual facts behind Holmes’s investigations. Jit then moves from Kolkata to London where he meets Emma Hudson. Her mother Mrs Hudson was the caretaker of the Holmes-Watson household and later became intimate, as we are told, with the ‘lady killer’ Dr Watson. Emma gives a third diary to Jit and more stories come out about the fallibility of the master detective. The narratives in the book are by three people — Jit, mid-word by Emma and Dr Watson. There’s a character called Muddy Madhawan, who’s the founder-member of the Baker Street Irregulars of Bangalore.

Why a new book on Holmes, I quiz Basu who once participated in the quiz show BBC Mastermind India. “Most of the earlier works on Holmes carry his story forward, or backwards as Spielberg did, or fills in what the Canon registers as the missing years with fresh exploits,” says Basu. “The point in all this is that the Canon, as Dr Watson recorded it, is left untouched. This book probes the Canonical truths”.

According to Basu, “Holmes is primarily high adventure”, the hard-core investigators being Dupin and Poirot. Yet, for the corporate boss-turned-writer it was challenging to stay with the original fiction and show that the characters of Dr Watson, Mrs Hudson and others weren’t what we know them to be. “I found this grist for the writer’s mill,” says Basu. “I thought, what about enhancing, if that’s the word, Dr Watson a bit, too, as has never ever been done before?” Therefore in certain take-offs, Dr Watson gets the better of Holmes. Basu explains: “Watson was always being made a poor second best by Holmes and it was inevitable that he’d have his day”.

Talking about his research into Holmes’s adventures, Basu confesses that it was “intense, time consuming, and boring”. According to him, the Canon is “riddled with chronological confusion; names and events are wobbly”. Thankfully, there was large data available that helped Basu.

But the bigger challenge was to get the language of the period which Holmes represents. “The nuances had to be authentic, and consistent. The famed Sherlock Holmes Society, in their otherwise wonderful review, caught me slipping with names and idiom; but they admitted to just eight ‘inconsistencies’ in a 280 page book”, informs Basu who “never consciously chased a writer’s dream”.

DRAWING DARK TALES

2010-02-14T00:36:00.000-08:00

DRAWING DARK TALES

It’s not that graphic novel is doing great in India. “But it’s a cool new thing to many youngsters,” says George Mathen who has joined the growing group of Indian graphic-novelists with his debut work titled Moonward.

Using the pen-name of Appupen, which in Malaylam means ‘old man’, the 30-year-old Bengaluru-based art director has been into “lot of things” before becoming a graphic artist. “I was into films and animation before realising that though I don’t have any training as such, I like to draw and paint,” the Economics graduate reveals.

The first few pages of Appupen’s graphic-novel don’t have any text. “It allows the reader to interpret the way he wants,” he says. Printed entirely in black-and white, the book draws stories from a fantasy world called Halahala where things evolve — “from the beginning to recent times” — after a shooting star crashes on a primordial tree in that world. “The tales are somewhat dark... not colourful and not entertaining. So I didn’t want the book to be in colours,” the graphic-novelist says.

“It’s almost like a social commentary on what happens in our real world,” Appupen explains. “A protagonist named Mahanana of Oumbe links different stories through the ages. He’s like a corporation with no emotions. He wants to reach to his ‘future self’ from the ‘present self’,” the artist-novelist adds. “And to do that, he follows a guiding hand”.

That sounds like as if there’s a tinge of satire in the stories, somewhat like the great O V Vijayan who mastered in political satires and cartooning. When mentioned, Appupen recalls reading Vijayan’s works, but doesn’t quite agree that he was influenced by the late writer.

It took around two-and-half years for Appupen to complete the book. “I could draw only two pages a day. The stories were not written in any order. I first had some of the dialogues. And there were several issues — power, environment, genetically-modified crops, mining, brand promotions, commercials — that I am aware of owing to my stint with the Greenpeace and the advertising agency. Gradually, I used all of them and played with the metaphors to give shape to the stories,” Appupen informs. “For me, the stories came first and then the graphics, though my strength lies in the drawings”.

Given the “serious things” he deals with, Appupen could well have written a non-fiction book. I mention that to him and ask why must we then read this graphic novel? “It’s because the serious issues come alive through the graphics and it reaches out to those people who otherwise might not be interested in the printed words of a serious non-fiction. And if the issues strike a chord with these people, then they will think more about them,” Appupen replies.

A drummer for the music band Lounge Piranha, Appupen hopes to continue as a graphic novelist. “I hope that few years from now, graphic novels will gain strength. And then I can advise young entrants into this field,” he says. “It’s important for anyone in this field to develop their own style and then stick around,” Appupen adds. “The stories must have a message, and must not be just for entertainment. For any storyteller, it’s necessary to look for interesting things”.

Appupen is now working on a collection of “silent” short stories. “They will be light-hearted, colourful with traces of romance and lots of fun. I will try new styles in them,” the graphic-novelist signs off.

ALL FOR FAIR

2010-02-07T04:04:00.000-08:00

ALL FOR FAIR

One of my fondest memories of the Kolkata Book Fair will be that of meeting Tintin. I was a kid, and it was unbelievable to shake hands with Hergé’s creation, reporter Tintin, who stood in front of a book stall at the fair sometime in the early 1980s. I didn’t realise then that it was a fine piece of acting by some talented actor. The memories came back while checking the news about the recent 34th International Kolkata Book Fair and the 19th New Delhi World Book Fair. So I ventured to find out the views on and memories of book fairs from others who are deep into books.

‘With so many book stores in the city, why would you need a book fair?’ I naively ask Kolkata-based poet Subodh Sarkar. “It’s only at the book fair that we writers and poets get to interact with our readers directly. That’s not possible in some book shop,” he says. For him, the Kolkata Book Fair, which is “growing in vigour”, is the “most important” event in the city’s calendar.

And it’s not just the Indian writers. Some of the best known writers from other countries keep themselves happily busy fielding questions and reading books for their fans. Recalls Kajari Mitra, manager, British Library in Pune. “Last year when I went to the Kolkata Book Fair, I was excited to find one of my favourite writers Alexander McCall Smith as the guest. That’s the thrill of the fair,” she says. “I am also attracted by the discounts that the book stalls offer at the Kolkata Book Fair,” confesses Mitra with a hearty laughter. But on a serious note, she talks about how a library can benefit from a book fair. “I remember getting the best of the books and things like puzzles from the Delhi Book Fair when we were setting up the children’s library,” she says. “You won’t get such a connected range of things in a book shop easily,” Mitra adds.

Agrees Lipika Bhushan, marketing manager, HarperCollins Publishers India. “Besides the ‘touch-feel-read’ experience, it’s only at the book fair that a reader gets to see a much wider range of books than the one on display at any bookstore,” she says. “Where else, but at a book fair, will you find all the titles of Dame Agatha Christie or of Paulo Coelho?”

I wanted to know what’s more important to a publisher — sales or visibility? According to Bhushan, a book fair is “about branding”. Talking from the World Book Fair in Delhi, she says, such an event is the ideal place to launch new books. “With young people looking for books by new writers, the book fair cannot be missed. Also, it’s a fact that over the years, we’ve seen an increase of 20 to 30 per cent of sales in the books of Indian writers in English at the book fairs. This year at the World Book Fair, so far, we have registered an incredible 100 per cent improvement in the sales figures,” she adds.

It reminds me how often I wished, as a kid, that I had all the money and space to buy all the books they displayed at the fair. I tell that to poet-critic-editor Ashok Vajpeyi who also heads the Lait Kala Akademi. He laughs indulgently. For him too, book fairs are always wonderful experiences. “No matter what technology might bring up, books and book fairs will stay,” Vajpeyi says.

Having travelled to several book fairs across the world, he finds the Kolkata Book Fair topping the list. “I’ve been to the Frankfurt Book Fair. It’s more like a trade fair where no books are sold except on the last day when I got to buy quite a lot. But that’s it,” he recalls. “The Delhi Book Fair too isn’t that great because Delhi is not a ‘book reading city’ as such,” Vajpeyi contends. “The Patna Book Fair is noteworthy as it’s the largest book fair for Hindi literature. But Kolkata is at the heart of the book fairs. Ten years back, I was at the Kolkata Book Fair for the release of Bengali translation of my poems. The auditorium at the fair was packed with young people. And I was informed that there were at least three lakh people at the fair at that point of time,” he says. “That’s stupendous”.

Given Kolkata’s love affair with all things ‘cerebral’, I don’t find that surprising at all. The book fair is a part of the city’s culture that brings together one and all. Everyone wants to join that open-air festival with artists drawing and painting; little magazine enthusiasts reciting poems; people sitting on the grass and reading books; kids pleading with parents to buy them the latest thrillers; panel discussions by ‘who’s who’ of art and literature; people queueing up to get inside the publishers’ stalls where well-known writers take time to chat and sign copies of their latest books; the loudspeakers blaring some announcement; food stalls trying to entice with the dishes that are otherwise unpalatable but for the books all around. It’s crowded, a bit chaotic and dusty, but it’s fascinating. You’ll surely miss the charm of the Kolkata Book Fair in any other organised fair. Just as I miss it now.

WHAT HAPPENS TO JEFF?

2010-01-31T20:28:00.000-08:00

WHAT HAPPENS TO JEFF?
When Geoff Dyer got sacked from his job, he realised that office work wasn't really what he'd love to do. Rather, it was reading books that gave him the pleasure. “So I began with writing book reviews and realised that I can write. Gradually, I built up a little name for myself,” the British author says. He was in the town for a book reading session of his novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. I caught up with him before the event.

The story is about Jeff Atman, a journalist. He goes to Venice to cover the opening of the Venice Art Biennale. As part of his assignment, Jeff expects to see lots of art and go to parties. But he wasn't expecting to meet “spellbinding” Laura. Jeff falls for him. For the author, the character of Jeff is “not unrepresentative type of men living in London”. Jeff is “cynical, and sardonic, and he's trying to give meaning to his life”. But beneath that veneer, there's a man with a “simple romantic yearning, who's ready to fall in love,” says Dyer.

The same Jeff in the second part is transformed while in Varanasi, and the reader sees a different person, who's unlike the hedonistic Jeff we find in Venice. “In Varanasi, Jeff is led to different forms of articulation and he changes. But I won't say that the novel can be summarised as 'transformation of Jeff'. It's not that simple. One has to read the entire story to interpret what happened to Jeff,” the author explains. “In a way, this book is completion of Thomas Mann's story Death in Venice”.

How did the author balance between sensuality and spiritualism? “The story isn't a strong narrative. There's no straightforward plot. But there are chimes and echoes that keep the story going,” Dyer replies. “Let me give an example. While in Venice, as Laura dances in a party, there's a description of Jeff watching her feet on the rug. Laura doesn't come back in Varanasi. But in the Indian setting as Jeff watches a lady sitting on a rug and singing, Jeff feels as if the voice is dancing on a rug. So there's subtle references to the past and that's how the themes get connected,” Dyer adds.

Why did he choose Varanasi, I ask. “There are several similarities between the two places. For Venice it's the water canal that runs through it and for Varanasi it's the river. There are lots of palaces in both eh places and and both are major tourist destinations,” the author explains. “In case of Varanasi though the tourism is more of a spiritual nature”.

As a writer, Dyer depends on his experiences and is not detached from the realities. “To write my book on World War I and the Battle of Somme, I went to the cemeteries in France. Similarly, I went to Venice in 2003 with my wife to attend the Venice Art Biennale. Later, I also went to Varanasi,” Dyer says. “But that's not the case always. For my book on photography, I used to be at the library going through the books on the subject. And everyday I used to get stuck in the are called American photography. What I am trying to say, places can be formed in the mind in the form of subjects, as I ask 'What's special about this.' You could say, my writings are mostly about sense of places, if not a the place,” Dyer explains. “But my books are not the product of diligent research. They are mostly about my passion for some thing”.

Going back to his recent book I ask, why is it that western writers look at India as a spiritual land? Isn't that dated? Dyer smiles. “To some extent I have to agree that my novel is old-fashioned. But most of the current books on India that depict modernity are too secular. One has to go to a place like Varanasi to see what spirituality means to the millions in India. It's a place where all sorts of meanings converge, no matter how non-scientific some of it may appear,” the author maintains. “Even if you are secular, you are bound to be overwhelmed by that experience, and Varanasi is an indisputable spiritual centre”.

Over the years, Dyer has started to read more non-fiction than fictions. And quite naturally, he has written several non-fiction books. Noted among them are But Beautiful, the book on jazz which won the Somerset Maugham Prize and Out of Sheer Rage which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. His book Paris Trance was supposed to be adapted into film. I ask Dyer about his idea on this. “I don't think it's going to happen. Frankly, I don't want to be a script writer,” he says.

Dyer is currently working on his essays; a collection of his essays is slated to be published later this year.

2009-12-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

TRACKING REAL BHARAT

What could be the towns like beyond the railway platforms? You and me must have thought about it umpteen number of times as we travelled by train and passed by the big and small stations, known or unknown. “But seldom we take time off to venture into those unknown places that are otherwise just names of the railway stations in the timetable,” says senior journalist Bishwanath Ghosh who has penned an interesting book on his travels to the small towns that are dotted along the vast railway network in India

Titled Chai Chai: Travels In Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off, the book offers glimpses of those towns and people there, who, according to Ghosh, have long been inured by the whistle of the train. “Once as I was travelling from my hometown in Kanpur to my workplace in Chennai, I alighted at the Itarsi railway junction in Madhya Pradesh. It was then that I wondered how millions of passengers had killed probably billions of hours at such railway junctions while taking the connecting train to their destinations. Yet they have been clueless about the town where they are waiting for the train,” Ghosh says.

To write the book, Ghosh travelled to the featured towns in the year 2007. “During these visits the most that I could note down was few names,” he says. “So when I used to write for this book at night, after the day's travel, I depended on recollections. I relived my time on the roads, checking the shops, talking to people, watching the buildings and life in general,” he adds. How much of his 'journalist self' do we see in the book, I ask. “I am a journalist true, and I agree that there's a thin line between journalism and writing a book. But for this book I was an observer first. This book is not about my opinions,” Ghosh explains. “And while writing it, I took certain liberties which otherwise as a journalist I cannot”.

According to Ghosh, and I couldn't agree more, the sound of the railway stations across India is that of the tea sellers, hawking in their shrill voice to attract the attention of the thirsty travellers. “Be it Mughal Sarai, Jhansi, Itarsi, Guntakal, Jolarpettai, Arakkonam or Shoranur --- that's one sound that every train passenger can relate to. The book got it's name from that hawking sound,” the author affirms.

As Ghosh crisscrossed India, he came across interesting sights and sounds. “I found Mughal Sarai to be the very colourful,” the author reminisces. “It's a big junction station between Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. And the Bhojpuri culture is dominant there. One would hardly hear any Hindi. I was charmed by the Bhojpuri language and the colourful dresses they wear,” he elaborates.

I ask him about his realisation after the travels and while writing the book. “The big cities in India have become like have become like colonies of the great globalised empire,” Ghosh replies. “The smaller towns are thankfully still rooted to real India that's not concerned with the pizza or the colas,” he says. “In smaller towns one can go back in time and know how our ancestors lived, something that we miss in the crowd of malls and highrises”.

Interestingly, the book doesn't have any photograph of the places Ghosh visited. When asked, the author explains: “I think, photographs kill the story. It's the collection of written words that should convey the picture to the reader, who in turn will add some of his own imaginations to it”.

An avid blogger, Ghosh feels that “blogging helps to develop a writing style that is different from what typically a journalist would write”. And it was blogging that encouraged him to write a book, he informs.

Ghosh is writing a book on Chennai next, which will be followed by another book on train travel. “It's going to be different as I want to write about fellow train passengers,” Ghosh informs before we part.

A FRESH STUDY OF THE NATION

2009-12-26T01:38:00.000-08:00

A FRESH STUDY OF THE NATION

The history of India that the British had told was “too old and concocted”, and is “irrelevant now”. So Lord Meghnad Desai wanted to re-look at India's history that included not just the north of the country, but also the south and the north-east. The result has been the fascinating work The Rediscovery of India.

“I am very satisfied with the work and I hope people see it as an effort to affirm my faith in the newer generations that will come and lead this large multi-religious, multi-linguistic country,” the author tells me about this recently-published 498-page book.

The 16 chapters in the book are divided into two parts. “Much of the book was written between July 2007 and December 2008,” informs the author. “However, the idea of writing the book was germinated with the demands of linguistic States in the 1950s and I kept thinking about how India became a nation,” he adds. I ask him about his views on smaller States. “What is India today, once comprised of regional sub-economies. So, there's nothing wrong if there are smaller States,” says Lord Desai. “Let people have their space. However, I think there should be a statutory commission to look into such demands rather than someone fasting, some other people counter-fasting,” he adds. “But do not lose the idea of India. Every Indian can live and work in any part of the entire nation,” he adds”.

We get back to his book and I mention that while reading, I felt that the author somewhat praises both Lord Bentinck and Lord Dalhousie. Which of the two was better, I ask Lord Desai. “Of course it was Bentinck. His reforms, especially the abolition of Sutee and stress on English education for the Indians are commendable,” he replies. “Dalhousie was good in unifying the territories, as we all know. I think, had the later British administrators followed Dalhousie's way and had there been no Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the concept of 'nation state' in India would have been much stronger. Who knows, India might not have had to face the Kashmir problem at all,” the professor emeritus of the prestigious London School of Economics says.

According to the author, “the Sepoy Mutiny was the last throw of the Old Order”. Was it an end to the Muslim India? “To some extent yes, though I think in the Muslim mind, 'India' was part of the the larger concept of the Khilfat. In any case, the Mutiny made sure that the Muslims were severely defeated,” he contends. In his book Lord Deai reiterates his view, as he cites examples of how the Muslim elite tried to win back the trust of the British, following the Mutiny that saw participation of both the Hindus and Muslims.

Among the numerous references in the book, the one that caught my attention was what King Emperor Geroge V had said about the out-of-touch British bureaucrats and the need to share power with the Indians. I ask Lord Desai to elaborate. “You see, the British was overwhelmed by the increase of Indian population. So they were not performing their duties properly,” he says. Is t here a reflection of that in the present times? “Well, I must say they were better than the bureaucracy India has today. At the same time it's true that the political process in India today is much stronger and there are other agencies to supplement the bureaucrats,” he replies.

In the chapter titled The Settlement, the author mentions how some historians look a rather dim view of the British 'plot' of reserving seats in the legislative bodies for the Muslims. I refer to that and ask for Lord Desai's views in the context of the recent recommendations of the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission. Lord Desai takes no time in replying. “I would always prefer to look at the 'backwardness' as the criteria for offering reservation, rather than 'caste' and 'religion',” he says. “And education is where it's all needed, not for government jobs,” he adds.

In the book, the author has provided several interesting Counterfactual Boxes to analyse what could have happened had certain events in India's history taken a different course. So there are his analyses about the possibilites if prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had not died and continued in office, or had prime minister Indira Gandhi given up her office to someone else. I draw his attention to what he's written in those analyses about the Partition in which he seem to suggest that Partition has done India good, and how Lord Mounbatten impressed upon the leaders that Partition was inevitable. “It was very tragic that India came close to not being partitioned,” the author says. “However, since that's what the leaders wanted, it's a fact now. I think it would have been better if there were threee nations and we were under a loose confederation,” Lord Desai says almost echoing similar views expressed by a section of Indian intelligentsia. He then mentions the European Union where the countries want unification but not any dominating central government.

We turn to his views about what would have happened if the late prime minister Lal Bahadur Shahstri would have lived longer. “Sadly that didn't happen, and India saw and is seeing dynastic politics,” Lord Desai says, adding” the brand name of the Gandhis --- Indira to Rahul --- has an overbearing presence in our minds, especially in the minds of a section of the illiterate population, so time and again India has voted them to power. But having said that, I must say that if could have been difficult for a non-Gandhi Congress party member to become the Prime Minister,” the Labour peer says. “There's a divisive mind at work and caste, community, regional considerations could have made things uneasy”.

But, in spite of the “dynastic politics”, Lord Desai sounds hopeful about India. “The robustness of Indian democracy makes sure that even the dynasties need approval of the people. The citizens can throw the dynasties out of power, if necessary”.

In the book the author has mentioned how the 'All India' tag became a way to express geographical unity for the political parties in this country during the British rule. I ask him about the feasibility of 'All India' political parties now in the face of regional fiefdoms within the national parties. Desai says: “I was quite surprised by the election results in 2004. I wondered how Sonia Gandhi could make the Congress party win when regional parties are popping up. I feel there can be a time when the 'All India' tag will become meaningless and the South will control India's politics, not just the North”.

I was curious to know how the author perceives the Left in India. Can they reinvent themselves following the recent debacle in General Elections, especially in West Bengal, I ask. “I don't think so. They are dependent on anti-Americanism. Other than that, whatever they say about economy and social welfare is nothing different from the policy of the Congress party,” Lord Desai sounds dismissive. “I think the Left will be in trouble unless they realise that without the help from the Congress party, they cannot survive. We all know there are several CPI(M) sympathisers within the Congress party. So they might come to the Left's rescue,” he adds before we veer towards further discussion on West Bengal.

DHARMA IN OUR LIVES

2009-12-12T01:50:00.000-08:00

DHARMA IN OUR LIVES

“Envy and jealousy are different”, says author Gurcharan Das as he cites the mindset of the Duryodhana of the epic Mahabharata. “He was envious of the Pandavas, just as Hitler was envious of Jews most of whom were successful professionals. One can excuse if a man is jealous that his wife is having an affair with another man. But Duryodhana was intolerant about the successes of his cousins,” the author of The Difficulty of Being Good---On the Subtle Art of Dharma says. “And that's not justifiable at all”. Das was in the town recently to launch the bestselling book.

The Difficulty of Being Good looks at the great epic Mahabharata from a modern perspective. I ask the author about his choice of the epic. “After I wrote India Unbound, in which I had prescribed ways to prosperity, I was depressed to see corruption all around us, especially in the government set-up. So I felt the need to look in the epic to understand dharma. The Mahabharata is obsessed with dharma. It doesn't look up to god to know dharma. The characters are left to their own devices to find out about the moral reasoning of what is right and what isn't,” he explains. “The epic gives us an idea about the universal and the societal natures of dharma. You could say, this book is about how we live our lives”.

The concept of dharma in usual parlance means 'religion'. But in the book the author has explored into the evolution of the concept --- how it changed from being the rituals to the virtues. “In my book I have looked at dharma as both civic and personal virtues. While for Yudhisthira the dharma meant not violating his promise, for Draupadi and later for Krishna it meant performing one's role --- that of a warrior,” Das says. “Yudhisthira was initially hesitant since he didn't want to offend his dharma, but later he accepted the need for violence”.

Discussing the flaws in some of the characters in the epic, Das mentions Draupadi “rightly questioning Yudhisthira's decision to stake the lady”, who was also wife of other Pandava brothers. “Moreover, I deal with the issue of failure to perform one's duty. When the epic demands that Dhritarashtra should thrash Dushasana for molesting Draupadi, the old man sits back”. Das then refers to Rishi Kashyap who prescribed how a punishment should be apportioned between the real offender, the accomplice and those who remain silent.

In the book, along with the central story of the Mahabharata, Das seeks answers to the questions that stare at the reader. “So while telling the epic, I stop and deal with the question of 'moral emotions' --- about Karna's status anxiety, the humiliation he suffers at Draupadi's swyamvara, or that behind Ashwathama's revenge,” he says. “The study of Karna shows that we all want to be 'somebody' but not 'nobody'. And the story is still continuing in present India when the Dalits are made to feel that they are 'nobody',” Das adds.

In order to understand issues such as these, and the entire epic, from a more cosmopolitan view point, Das studied the Mahabharata for a year at the University of Chicago. “It was a wonderful academic break for me when I met and exchanged ideas with the great scholars there,” he says in this regard.

His study in the USA as well as in India revealed some interesting facts about the epic's history. “What was first called Jaya, then Bharata before becoming the Mahabharata, got influenced by several sects through the ages --- be it the Vaishnavites or the Brahmins. “But I don't think that any part of the text, as we find now, was unduly inserted. It was always a pleasure to read the epic,” the scholar affirms.

In the book there are references to the corporate battle between the Ambani brothers or the bad corporate governance of the Satyam. I ask Das to elaborate. “The Ambanis and other names are just examples to make the book more accessible in a way to the readers,” he says. “The younger Ambani envies the older one. Initially it helped the younger one to build his own enterprises. But gradually it has become destructive. I feel, Anil Ambani just wants to bring down Mukesh Ambani --- just as it was in the case of the Kauravas in the Mahabharata,” the authors explains. “Raju of the Satyam scam was like Dhritarashtra. He loved his son and that destroyed him”. In this regard Das mentions how he also drew parallels between the characters in the epic with some important political players in today's India.

It leads me to ask about how credible is the corporate governance in India. Can unscrupulous businessmen survive? “No way. Shady people can't keep doing business. The fundamental dharma of capitalism lies in quality. We all seek best quality in lowest price. If the seller gives you bad stuff, will you go back to him again? “ Das poses a question. “So, the corporate world must ensure that they stick to the dharma of not cheating others and treating the employees well,” the former managing director of Proctor and Gamble tells me. “The Mahabharata is a dark tale. It tells us what happens if we do not remain good. It tells us the amount of reforms we need in our lives, in the functioning of the state and politics”.

OF MARKETS AND SOCIETIES

2009-11-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

OF MARKETS AND SOCIEIES
The next time you enter a shopping mall, remember that there's a silent battle going on between the retail giant and your neighbourhood grocer who might not offer the shine of the superstore, but possibly won't mind to deliver goods at your doorstep on credit, simply out of trust, and not because of any credit card they accept in the malls. And there are similar such battles all over the world between the 'big' and the 'small' --- battles that evolve around the 'market'. Rajni Bakshi's recent book Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom tries to offer us some perspective about the markets in the context of globalisation, and the alternative views that want to curb the dominance of 'free market' and make economy more humane.

The author, who is known for her writings on a multitude of issues, began her “journey”, as she puts it, in the summer of 1998, when there were protests outside the Enron's power plant in Dahbol that was allegedly sanctioned through corrupt methods. But the protests were defeated and that, according to Bakshi, became her “turning point... as the chronicler of struggles” where rural communities demanded control over water, forest and land of their neighbourhoods. This bit of information in the Author's Note sets the tone of what the reader could expect from the book.

Divided into seven chapters, this book enlightened me about range of issues --- the ancient market system as was in Greece or in India, and the American 'gift culture', the flaws of 'free market', the efficacy of corporate social responsibility; the affect of consumerism on this planet. There are valuable insights of those people who ventured to try fix the problems that ail the modern day markets where currency reigns the supreme. From Wall Street icon Geroge Soros to Nobel laureate Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus, the author has effortlessly dealt with the initiatives and views of several of such greats who have challenged the concept of 'free market'.

Soros, interestingly, has been one such person despite he being a star of the 'free market' system. As Bakshi writes, Soros has been persistently warning the world about the instability of capital markets which in turn will affect societies and democracy. Soros's view on “making rules for common interest”, in contrast to “improving rules for self-interest” when it comes to competition, makes for an interesting read.

Bakshi has done well in bringing together similar views about cooperation and competition, as that of the Dalai Lama in the chapter titled Competing Compassionately. The dialogue between the Dalai Lama and some of the business leaders highlights the spiritual leader's views on cooperation and empowerment where he says that there cannot be limitless giving to another without any kind of initiative on part of the recipient. The author then goes to explore the principles of cooperation-competition that laid the foundation of the VISA card venture that began in the 1960s. There's an incisive section that deals with the relevance of the cooperative movement. The stories of Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), Mondragon cooperatives of Spain, and the collective arrangements of the warkaris during the annual march to Pandharpur provide apt examples for the discussion.

Among other chapters that I found interesting was the one titled Cosmopolitan Localism of which I mentioned at the onset of this review. Here, Bakshi dealt with the issue of a distressed local economy that is often overshadowed by the bigger economy --- what the Americans call Main Street versus the Wall Street --- with a global perspective. Whether it is the plight of the farmers in central India or that of those in the USA, the issue is the conflict of mindsets and priorities, says Bakshi. The author has nicely interwoven the stories of several such cooperation across the world.

But I am particularly fascinated by the story of one Aaron Feuerstein, who rebuilt his gutted factory in the USA in mid 1990s, did not retrench the employees, rather paid them their salary during the reconstruction. Needless to say the employees returned their gratitude by working hard to double the production. Aptly titled Who Cares... Wins! the chapter provides examples of how conventional business leadership that only thinks in terms of profit can learn few things from the humane approach of some of the entrepreneurs who decided to walk the Main Street and flourish. It is here that Bakshi rightly points out that the corporates, who talk about their social responsibility, often tend to lobby for trade and investment rules that lead to inequity and curtailing of freedom for the smaller players in the market. The recent turmoil over land acquisitions across India proves the point.

All in all, this book is not just about stories. The author has made a sincere effort to deal with many questions from an Indian perspective that could interest experts and lay-yet-curious readers alike. The book isn't difficult to comprehend as Bakshi has provided sufficient space in discussing the issues in simple language. All I can hope that the book prompts some of the the market players to understand the need to serve the society rather than making society subservient to the cycle of greed and profit.

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Book: Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom
Author: Rajni Bakshi
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 447
Price: Rs 450

SANITY DURING INSANITY

2009-11-05T02:15:00.000-08:00

SANITY DURING INSANITY

The first time Naseeruddin Shah saw the film starring Humphrey Bogart, he didn't understand much of it. “I was too small then for appreciating The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,” the veteran actor says about the screen adaptation of the novel written by Herman Wouck. But over the years, the story and the deeper meaning of this work became clearer to Shah, more so when he set out with his production of the stage play of this 1953 novel. Shah and his team of actors of the Motley Productions are now all set to bring their performance of this play to Pune on November 7, at the Ishaniya Amphitheatre, courtesy Entre Nous. The play will be directed by Shah, though he's not acting in any role this time.

“Usually, there's no specific reason for choosing a play. This play is no exception. But, there are few reasons for this production. Firstly, the quality of the production has improved now. The cast has become better. Secondly, I wanted the students at my acting school to act in such a production. It makes me happy to see these kids of average age of 25 to perform in such an intense play. I owe it to them,” Shah explains, adding, “They must be on their own, and the group must not exist depending on my identity”. Besides his students, actors Kenny Desai and Aseem Hattangadi will also be part of his production, he informs.

The play, in which one Lt Stephen Maryk of the fictional navy minesweeper USS Caine is tried on charges of questioning the sanity of the ship's commanding officer Captain Queeg. The Captain is disliked by the ship's crew for his arrogance and somewhat paranoid behaviour. “The play shows that no Army or military force can tolerate individualists. You need obeying soldiers who, sadly, are turned into killing machines,” Shah says about the storyline. “We haven't deviated from the original,” he adds.

The novel was written soon after the World War II. I ask Shah about the relevance of this work in 2009, especially in the South Asian context. “I am really not keen to think about this play in terms of its relevance,” he replies. “There can be no two opinions about the evil nature of a war, in any part of the world,” he adds. “War is inevitable. The point is what kind of people will fight that war”.

How does he defines this play? “I won't say it's another anti-war play. It's more about the human condition, the stress one goes through during a war,” the director says. “The question that this play asks is that whether one can retain sanity when he's involved in the insanity of war?” Shah adds. And this question has had its impact on Shah personally. “As I did the play, it gave me an insight about insanity,” he says. “Sometimes we go into, what I call, an 'alternative reality'. I am known to be an angry and arrogant person. I see no reason to deny that. But this play did help me realise that there were occasions when I could have transgressed that thin line which divides anger and insanity,” Shah adds.

In this production Shah won't be acting in any role. Which character he would have loved to play, I ask. Shah laughs. “All the characters in the play are my favourite. However, in the earlier productions, I had played the role of Captain Queeg. But now, I am content with not acting,” he replies. And if he were to choose between a stage production and directing a film, the stage would always get preference. “I don't think I am a good film director,” Shah says rather candidly.

When asked about his target audience for this play, Shah says this is for the “niche” audience. “We produce, act in and direct plays for the sheer joy of being part of a theatre. Therefore, making a play in English is very much valid, because English has become an Indian language. However, I have plans to produce this play in Marathi,” he affirms, before signing off.

CRACKING THE SECRET LIVES

2009-10-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

CRACKING THE SECRET LIVES

Nine characters spread across five locations in India, and actions revolve around them in a time span of 24 hours. Keeping that as the basic “structuring principle”, poet-novelist Sampurna Chattarji combined her experiences and imaginations for her debut novel Rupture which was published recently.

“I think the story chose me. Or rather, the characters did,” Chattarji says. “A lot of what propelled Rupture was my ongoing concern with the way people construct secret selves, and how those secret selves are subject to the pressures of reality, under which they crumble, change or long to change and cannot. I was asking myself was not so much, 'What happened next' as 'Why is this person the way he/she is?'.”

According to Chattarji, “everything is material” for the fiction, “the real, the imagined, the remembered”. And while the author “never experienced” certain psychological upheavals as in the case of the character Biswajit’s trauma over a suicide in the family, or Tennyson’s trauma of perhaps having killed a person at a very young and gullible age, or Partho’s trauma of being unable to love his family, Chattarji could “vividly imagine them all” for her fiction. In the fiction, the foreigner remains “marginal and almost shadowy, even though he exerts a huge influence on the trajectory of Nazrul's life as well as on that of his parents Aslam and Mehjubin”. According to Chattarji, it is “irrelevant what the origin of the foreigner's character might have been”. Rather, it is important to “suggest through the foreigner what the enormous tug of the 'foreign land' could be in the imagination of someone like Aslam who has never travelled outside Bengal”.

Almost all the characters in the novel are Bengalees and some of them stay outside Bengal. Is it an attempt to show the lives of Bengalees beyond Bengal and a sense of loss among them? “I don’t think I had any such intention. But it is a fact that I myself have been a probashi Bangali (non-resident Bengalee) for the better part of my adult life. As you would know, being one yourself, Bengalees can be found in any part of India, and they are amazingly adaptable, while often remaining amazingly linked to their origins,” Chattarji tells me.

For the author, it was “fairly easy” to weave the story without losing the threads at any point of time. “I had the outline of the characters and the end in my mind. Also, I had the idea of a possible nuclear showdown as the backdrop for their personal anxieties and unease. The linear time helped me to stay on course over this terrain, within the units or segments of that time. I could move backwards and forward into emotional, dream and subjective times, and into the nature of memory and so on,” Chattarji maintains.

Several of Chattarji's stories have 'violence' as a theme. I ask her about the reason behind. “I find it impossible to stay immune to the levels of violence around us, at so many levels, on personal and global levels. It is an inescapable theme,” says the novelist who is “currently in the process of editing and fine-tuning” her second novel The Land of the Well that is due next year.

One of the interesting characters in the novel is a foreigner who visits Baruipur, a location south of Kolkata. There this fictional foreigner tries to adapt to the local lifestyle --- smokes bidi, puts on local dress, speaks in Bangla and then decides to take a local boy Nazrul to Germany and provide him all the opportunities so that the boy flourishes there. I felt there was some similarity between this foreigner and real-life experiences of Nobel prize-winning German writer Gunter Grass. “I have never encountered Grass except through his work,” informs Chattarji, adding the fictional character was not modelled on Grass. “But the idea for the character of the foreigner, was triggered off by my knowledge of Gunter Grass’ visit to Kolkata many years ago,” the author says. “It made me wonder what kind of impact his presence might have had on the people who looked after him --- humble, hardworking people like the gardener, the cook, the maid”.

In the fiction, the foreigner remains “marginal and almost shadowy, even though he exerts a huge influence on the trajectory of Nazrul's life as well as on that of his parents Aslam and Mehjubin”. According to Chattarji, it is “irrelevant what the origin of the foreigner's character might have been”. Rather, it is important to “suggest through the foreigner what the enormous tug of the 'foreign land' could be in the imagination of someone like Aslam who has never travelled outside Bengal”.

Almost all the characters in the novel are Bengalees and some of them stay outside Bengal. Is it an attempt to show the lives of Bengalees beyond Bengal and a sense of loss among them? “I don’t think I had any such intention. But it is a fact that I myself have been a probashi Bangali (non-resident Bengalee) for the better part of my adult life. As you would know, being one yourself, Bengalees can be found in any part of India, and they are amazingly adaptable, while often remaining amazingly linked to their origins,” Chattarji tells me.

For the author, it was “fairly easy” to weave the story without losing the threads at any point of time. “I had the outline of the characters and the end in my mind. Also, I had the idea of a possible nuclear showdown as the backdrop for their personal anxieties and unease. The linear time helped me to stay on course over this terrain, within the units or segments of that time. I could move backwards and forward into emotional, dream and subjective times, and into the nature of memory and so on,” Chattarji maintains.

Several of Chattarji's stories have 'violence' as a theme. I ask her about the reason behind. “I find it impossible to stay immune to the levels of violence around us, at so many levels, on personal and global levels. It is an inescapable theme,” says the novelist who is “currently in the process of editing and fine-tuning” her second novel The Land of the Well that is due next year.

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QUIZ

Gunter Grass and Kolkata

1. Gunter Grass described his stay in Kolkata and adjoining areas during August of 1987 to January of 1988. A diary of that visit along his drawings by Grass was later published. Name that diary.

2. During his stay in Kolkata in 1987-1988, Grass co-directed the Bengali version of one of his plays. Name the play.

3. In his book The Flounder, Grass wrote: How it swarms, stinks, lives and gets bigger and bigger...Delete Calcutta from all guide books... When was the book published?

4. Name the Bengalee protagonist in Grass' novel Call of The Toad.

5. In his book Zunge zeigen, whom does Grass describe as: A rider, all in bronze on a horse too small for him, his head too large under his military cap...

Answers:
1. Zunge zeigen (Show Your Tongue). The book was published in 1988.
2. The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising. The play was translated by professor Amitava Roy.
3. The English version was published in 1978. The original German edition Der Butt was published in 1977. The book was a result of Grass' first visit to Calcutta in 1975.
4. Subhash Chandra Chatterjee.
5. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Grass is actually describing a statue of Netaji in north Kolkata.

MOMENTS TO THE FINALITY

2009-09-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

MOMENTS TO THE FINALITY

One of Time magazine’s Icons of the Century — Erensto Guevara de la Serna was born in Argentina on June 14, 1928. A doctor by profession, he played an important role in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Later, he became the minister of industry in the Communist government under Fidel Castro. But, trappings of power did not subdue his dream of a world that is free of imperialism. So, Che ventured first to Congo in April 1965 to lead a struggle there; later, he went to Bolivia in November 1966 to organise a revolution against the military dictatorship in that Latin American country.Che recorded his day-today experiences during the Bolivian endeavour in the form of a diary. The diary has now been published in English, after additions and corrections, as The Bolivian Diary — The Untold Story of His Final Campaign.

The first entry in the diary is dated November 7, 1966; the last one is dated October 7, 1967 — a day before Che was captured by the Bolivian forces and executed summarily. And between these two dates, the entries show how Che and his companions did their best to plan and organise forces to uproot the military dictators. There were moments of hope, anxiety, despair, joy and introspection — that offer the varied facets of the man. In the entry dated February 15, Che remembers his eldest daughter Hilda Guevara Gadea. The diary reads: Hildita’s birthday. And it reminds the reader that the tough revolutionary Che was also a caring father.

And there are several dramatic moments too that vividly describe the battles between the revolutionaries and the US-trained Bolivian counterinsurgency forces. The entry dated April 25 is one such record where we see how the camping rebels’ plan to ambush the advancing soldiers go wrong and one of the rebels Ronaldo (Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez) is shot at the femur and bleeds to death, before the rebels can do anything. Che writes: “We have lost the best man of the guerilla force, one of its pillars, my companero since basically he was child, when be became the messenger for Column 4 [during the Cuban revolutionary war], through the invasion, and now to this revolutionary venture”.

One of the strong points of Che’s diary is that there is no effort to project himself as some sort of a hero. He is candid in his admissions of mistakes, for example, when an ambush is planned near a place called Taperillas on April 22. While reading the book one has to keep track of the numerous characters, like Monje Molina who resigned on January 1, 1967, from the revolutionary initiative. He was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Bolivia (PCB); he thought that the leadership of the revolution belonged to the PCB, and not the Cuban rebels.

I also found several references to Jules Regis Debray, the French left-wing intellectual who had met Che in March 1967. In the diary Che expressed his anguish over Debray’s trial after the Frenchman was captured in April 1967.

This book is a reader’s delight with the Preface by Camilo Guevara, and the Introduction by Fidel Castro. They offer the world view of those figures who were either closely associated with the watershed events, or themselves acted to change the course of human history. Adding up are the rare black-and-white photographs of the revolutionaries in Bolivia. Properly captioned, these photographs show Che in disguise, Che in La Paz Bolivia, a guerilla preparing hammock in the forest, Che fixing his rifle, the comrades posing happily in the jungle and many such moments that depict the rugged terrains and the hardships faced by the guerillas.

All in all, this book and other diaries of Che are worth becoming part of any collection.

****
Book: The Bolivian Diary
Author: Ernesto Che Guevara
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 303
Price: Rs 295

WRONGS AND RIGHTS

2009-08-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

WRONGS AND RIGHTS

Human Rights is an uneasy subject, especially when the government and its agents are accused of violating it. And as noted advocate-activist Nandita Haksar has claimed in her recent book Rogue Agent, such violations can often go unnoticed due to media apathy in highlighting them.

Thankfully though, India being a democracy, one can expose denial of rights and betrayals even if they are meted out by any government and its agents. The author has done exactly that by letting us know about the cause of Arakan and Karen “freedom fighters of Burma” (or Myanmar as it is officially called) who have been fighting against the military junta there. But the book is somewhat disturbing as it portrays the stonewalling attitude of our bureaucracy, and how the Burmese rebels were allegedly “double-crossed” by one Lt Col Grewal, whom the author calls a “rogue” member of the Indian intelligence establishment.

In September 1999, the Burma Lawyers Council had requested Haksar to represent the 36 Burmese nationals who were imprisoned in Port Blair's jail. Since then Haksar has been trying to seek the release of the detainees. This book describes her experiences of dealing with the Indian bureaucracy and intelligence officials, the alleged misdoings of the “rogue agent”, the complexities of our judicial set-up and the role of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Along with that, Haksar passionately presents the grim picture of the sufferings of the detainees and the background information of each one of them. Her zeal to uphold rights of the suffering people under one of the most ruthless regimes is evident in every page of this book.

To offer a clearer perspective to the readers, Haksar has referred to history of Burma (she prefers to reject the name Myanmar), the demographic divisions in that country, the players in the ongoing resistance movements of the Arakans and that of the Karens, India's connection with that land, especially during the days of the Indian National Army (INA), and the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi. While, the cause of the detainees has been an emotive issue for Haksar, she is balanced in not shying away from the questionable role of certain western governments vis-à-vis Burma, that often aid and foment several uprisings across the world in the name of promoting democracy.

The Burmese detainees, as the author claims, have been part of the Burmese resistance movements that once received tacit support from India till the early 1990s. But then there was a change in foreign policy at New Delhi, and our government preferred to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the Burmese junta. In the book Haksar tries to find an answer to India's change of heart. And we learn about the factors that are possibly behind the policy shift: insurgents in north-eastern States of India; concern for growing Chinese influence in Burma that India needs to tackle; and Burma's importance as a source of natural gas. Furthermore, Haksar says, for many Indians, it is difficult to accept the armed resistance in Burma as “freedom fighters”.

However, she finds support in Dr Lt Col Lakshmi Sehgal of the INA, the late sports minister of West Bengal government Subhas Chakraborty, the State government there, activists and several advocates of the High Court at Calcutta who worked and are still working to ensure release of the Burmese detainees. And the book ends on that hopeful note.

The book may be a cause of discomfiture for many, especially those politicians and the media houses who claim to be high priests of equality, liberty and fraternity, as well as those who are vociferous about human rights violations elsewhere but are silent about India's silence over Burma. But, it is really nice to find that the author isn't bogged down by the adversities she faced in her fight, rather took the citizens of India into confidence by delving into an issue that baffles many among us who keenly follow international relations.

While I cannot vouch for the claims made by the author, the book is certainly enlightening. And it is indeed a book loaded with stuff for a thriller.

****

Book: Rogue Agent
Author: Nandita Haksar
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 242
Price: Rs 299

BITTER PILLS OF REALITY CHECK

2009-08-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

BITTER PILLS OF REALITY CHECK

Beyond her literary domain, Arundhati Roy is known as an activist and a strong voice for those hapless millions who often suffer the heartless actions and apathy of the administrative juggernaut in India. Through most of her essays, appearing in several publications over the years, Arundhati raised several uncomfortable issues within and without India, especially the human rights violations by the security forces, exploitation of natural resources by the profiteering multinational business establishments and communal violence. Some of these essays have been now compiled in a book titled Listening to Grasshoppers---Field Notes on Democracy.

The book contains 11 essays and a fictional text (titled The Briefing) that were written between 2002 and 2008, along with the Introduction and Endnotes. The essays are scathing, supported by fact and mostly offer an alternative view of the world as we see it today.

The first essay (Democracy---Who's she;When She's At Home) deals with the ugliness of the communal hatred in reference to the Guajarat riots of 2002. While writing about the violence there, Arundhati has delved into the history of the players who allegedly perpetrated hatred. While she praised the national press who “startlingly” has been “courageous in its denunciation” of the Gujarat riots, Arundhati has cautioned that fighting communalism will also mean “not allowing your newspaper columns and prime-time TV spots to be hijacked by their spurious passions and their staged theatrics, which is designed to divert from everything else”. I wonder, how that statement will go down with those media bosses and editors who hanker for TRPs and readership, and love to fill in the time and space with frivolous content.

Among the other essays, perhaps the most controversial will be the one on Kashmir. Titled Azadi, the piece suggests that India must give up its hold on Kashmir. She describes the mood in the Kashmir Valley in summer of 2008 and how people there are opposed to India. According to Arundhati, India is occupying Kashmir and spending “unimaginable sums of public money” for that. This money, she argues, might have been spent on the schools and hospitals, and food for the impoverished population of India. Point noted. But welfare measures need not stand in contradiction to the sovereignty of a nation. Arundhati's criticism of the Indian “deep state”, as she puts it, doesn't seem to have appreciated the diversity of this vast country. If religious affiliation would have been the criterion for territorial integrity, then there wouldn't have been any Bangladesh.

Being an author of international repute, Arundhati has also delved into the situations in other countries of the world. An interesting essay, titled Listening to Grasshoppers---Genocide, Denial and Celebration looks into the parallels of atrocities meted out to minority communities by powerful people in Turkey, Nazi Germany and in India. An interesting observation in the essay is the connection between “progress” and “genocide”, especially in the Ottoman Empire where the Armenians were murdered in thousands by a political party that called itself Committee for Union and Progress. It is such historical facts viewed in modern context --- as when India visibly aligned with Israel and the USA after the collapse of the Soviet Union and there was a surge of Hindu nationalism and economic reforms --- that makes the book interesting, whether or not a reader agrees with Arundhati's opinions.

The strength of the essays, and hence the compilation, lies in clarity of Arundhati's language and her no-holds-barred views, many of them being “written in anger, at moments when keeping quiet became harder than saying something”. Among noted other inclusions in the book is the essay on custodial confession; the fictional speech of US president George W Bush before his visit to India in March 2006 is rather hilarious. My pick is however the essay titled Scandal in the Palace. You have to read it to vouch for or discard my choice. A little clue: It is all about the travesties that we all know of, but cannot talk about.

All in all, Arundhati's essays are thought provoking and can be an useful reference material for anyone studying modern India. One last point though: Arundhati has been sarcastic about democratic India; she calls it “demon crazy”, as was described by one protester in Kashmir Valley. But if wasn't for our democracy, Arundhati wouldn't have been free to express her views and I to review her book.

****

Book: Listening to Grasshoppers
Author: Arundhati Roy
Publisher: Penguin-Hamish Hamilton
Pages: 252
Price: Rs 499

INNOCENCE OF IMAGINATIONS

2009-08-09T03:30:00.000-07:00

INNOCENCE OF IMAGINATIONS

Like any other individual of my age group, my childhood was not just gruelling exams and mindless competition to be ahead of others. It was simple and innocent world of a kid, complemented by numerous books of fiction, poetry and comics. Beyond the real world where I lived in, there were stories of Panchatantra, reporter Tintin and his adventures, Amar Chitra Katha and other comic strips, short stories in the noted Bengali children's magazines Anandamela and Shuktara, and the timeless monster-dominated fantasies of Thakurmar Jhuli (Grandma's Sack) penned by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar. The monsters, the princes, princesses, the old woman on the moon and the rest of the characters seemed real to me, just like the bustling city life of Calcutta or London where the fictional sleuths or Tintin chased the baddies. I could relate to the stories of youngsters like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn who behaved just like my friends and me; the unknown places --- from the Arctic to the jungles in Africa or some small town in America --- came alive because of the super writers. And with the stories they all offered a set of values that helped me to evolve as a person. I guess, the same was true for most of you.

But my childhood was a time without the computers, Internet, video games or other gadgets that could have distracted me from the reading pleasure. And then there was no broom-riding Harry Potter who is ruling the roost now. J K Rowling's overbearing presence seems to have dwarfed other writers and their creations from the past, and I keep wondering how different are the reading habits of today's children in India from that of mine, when I was a kid. 'Are the stories of Panchatantra moving towards oblivion', I ask Karthika V K, the publisher and chief editor of HarperCollins India. “Not at all. They continue to backlist on most children’s publishers’ lists,” she assures. “It hasn’t changed much over the years, if you look at the focus on traditional tales, reference and activity books. The mythology and folktale lists are still the strongest in the young readers’ segment,” she says. Agrees in general Manas Ranjan Mahapatra, editor of the National Centre for Children's Literature of the National Book Trust (NBT). “Fantasies will always remain popular with the children through the ages,” he says. However, there have been changes in the themes of the children's books published in the country, he adds. “In the 1960s and 1970s, the stress was more on the freedom struggle fairy tales and mythologies. In the 1980s and 1990s it veered towards science fiction and other information-based content,” Manas Ranjan explains. Now children read books “more for entertainment unlike the earlier generation who used NBT books for learning,” he adds. “For older children, Enid Blyton still rules, though there are newer fantasy and adventure lists. Amar Chitra Katha is another long-term staple,” Karthika informs.

It reminds me of my first engagement with the great Indian epics through the well-known comics series. It was through the colourful panels that I met King Shivaji and got some idea about his empire; the comics told me the wonderful tales of Birbal; Chanakya's mastermind was easier to access through the pictorials. Just few days back I had the opportunity of going through an illustrated edition of the Mahabharata. Suddenly, it was like reliving my kid days when I tried to imagine how big must have been the palace of the Pandavas, or how fast was the chariot of Arjun... So I got back to journalist-turned-author Namita Gokhale, who retold the story of Mahabharata in that recent book for children. “I wrote the story in a simple, contemporary style for young readers and first-time readers,” she says. But while doing so, she had to communicate it in a “modern and contemporary way”. I ask her to elaborate. “Indian mythology is always re-interpreting itself, as it has been doing through the ages. That is why it is always contemporary and current, never dated,” Gokhale says. “Continuity and change is a hallmark of Indian culture and so it is not difficult to look at ancient stories from a present and modern perspective,” she adds.

Over the years, the epics have been told in different versions, through drama, folk theatre and even the Pata Chitra --- a form of indigenous comic strip. “So I think it’s really appropriate and wonderful to have cartoon and animated film versions of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchatantra etc,” Gokhale maintains when asked about the impact of audio-visual medium on children's literature. At the same time she sounds confident that the “written word continues to have a special meaning” since it is “more demanding and challenging then the comic strip style, and yields more depth and meaning for today’s very intelligent and articulate young people”. And the good news is, informs Karthika, “A new crop of writers is emerging, who write fresh contemporary stories for today’s kids. Hopefully there will be a lot more of them and we will see much more adventurous publishing in the future”. In a nutshell, there will be changes in the content and writing styles; kids of fictions and their actions will reflect the signs of the time that is increasingly materialistic. But at the end, it will be the innocence of childhood that will define their literature.

Attracting the youngsters

From the view of marketing strategy, “the prospects of children's literature is favourable but we have a long way to go in India,” says Lipika Bhushan of HarperCollins Publishers India. According to her, they are “seriously looking at expanding” the children's literature. Titles from both Indian as well as international authors are being “promoted in a more focussed way” and there is sufficient demand for several titles by C S Lewis (Narnia series), Michael Morpurgo and J R R Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), Mary Kate and Ashley series, and Sleepover Club series. “They all sell consistently year after year. In case of Lewis and Tolkien, the demand goes up eight to 10 times at the time of release of a movie,” Lipika adds.

So, these publishers don't lose the opportunity to catch the maximum eyeballs as they did by introducing the Narnia books in Hindi last year along with the English edition around the same time when the Prince Caspian film was released. There were tie-ups with Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media, and contest for Lucky Seats at multiplexes for both the English and Hindi versions of the movie. And the Tee-shirts added up to the attraction quotient, informs Lipika.

The NBT that published over original editions of 600 children’s books authored by Indian writers in 24 Indian languages besides thousands of reprints and translations, has also taken various steps for promoting reading habit. “We have set up Readers' Club in several government primary schools where we provide free magazine and books to the children,” informs Manas Ranjan. Moreover, the organisation hosts workshops, seminars and events of creative writing to get the children involved with the literary creativity, he says. “And for those interested to work in the field of children's literature, we have set up a national library-cum-documentation centre in Delhi,” he adds. However, more needs to be done and Manas Ranjan thinks children's literature deserves more serious approach. “There can be awards for the writers and other measures need be taken to motivate them so that more material are generated for the reading pleasure of the children,” he opines.

We turn our attention to the Indian authors. Aren't they losing out to foreign literary invasion? Lipika rolls out a list of Indian authors who are writing for children, to counter my scepticism. “HarperCollins India published M Acharya’s Ramayana for Young Readers a few years back after which last year, in collaboration with Mapin, we have published four more titles by Indian authors --- The Kidnapping of Amir Hamza by Mamta Mangaldas and Saker Mistri, Traveller The Tiger and The Very Clever Jackal and In the Indian Night Sky by Reshma Sapre, and Suhag Shirodkar’s Captured in Miniature: Mughal Lives through Mughal Art.” she informs. And in 2009, the publishers have come out with Balraj Khanna’s Rajah: King of the Jungle and Rohinton Mody’s Moneky Tales. “We also introduced the seven Narnia titles in Hindi last year under our HarperHindi imprint,” Lipika says.

So let's put it in this way. If there is a choice between Ruskin Bond and Roald Dahl, children are likely to tilt towards Dahl. “Yes, foreign writers win almost always,” Karthika admits. “But children’s publishing in India is strengthening day-by-day and things are bound to get better,” she sounds hopeful. “In fact, Ruskin Bond is a good case in point. He’s mobbed wherever he goes, kids love him, and all his books sell steadily,” Karthika adds.

I look back to my childhood days again. I was an avid reader, but never got a chance to meet any writer then. Frankly, I don't regret that because it was their words in print that made my imaginations more colourful. That is more important than the hype that is at times created around some writers now. I was a reader, not a customer in the market. Still, I cannot but appreciate the initiatives to get younger people into the habit of reading. At least, that might help to make reading a lifelong passion for modern kids as they will grow up. From fantasy fictions they would move into teenage adventures and graduate into some realistic novel. And then one day, amidst all the humdrum and complexities of adulthood, they will suddenly recall simplicity of the good old childhood story books that filled in the afternoons of their idyll vacations or that they grudgingly guarded in their treasure troves. Like photographs, memories of such books will be their cherished connection with the days that will never come back. Just the way it is for me now.

(Part of the article was published in
Sakal Times of Pune, India, on August 9, 2009)