Book Review: The Anger Of Aubergines

A slice of life

Author: Bulbul Sharma
Pages: 151 pages
Publishers: Kali
Year Of Publishing: 1997
Price: 150

This wasn't a book very easy to find, what with it threatening to go out of print. But a couple of friends made it possible and man, am I grateful!

It was a very favourable review on one of my favourite book sites, http://www.biblio-india.org/ and my own personal fondness for books that combine fiction with food that made me eager to lay my hands on this. The last book I read with a similar theme (food and women) was The Book Of Rachel by Esther David, which I absolutely loved and savoured. But while in David's book, food is mostly linked to the Jewish ethos and the simplicity of home made cooking, here, in The Anger of Aubergines (very inspired title), food -- while it is inseparably connected with the Indian way of life (ritualistic and otherwise) – takes a life of its own in the passion it evokes in people.

What sex is to man can be food to a woman ( they are certainly interchangeable of course) and beyond the uncontrolable urge the latter can feel towards it from time to time, food is also closely linked to a woman's emotions and her sense of well-being. This is one of the overriding themes in the 12 short stories that Bulbul Sharma so brilliantly pens down. At least 8 of these stories are sheer gems.

The stories abound in so many wonderful references to food – and there's a whole array here – and some pages go into details of how they are cooked, so that in no time you'll be salivating even as you read.
The book is an ultimate ode to food – because it sees its role as far more potent than it outwardly signifies. Between stories, it sees food as a source of power and envy, a thing of pride, a binding force, and many such things. The passion for food in women comes out even more strongly since most of the stories are set in a somewhat patriarchal, middle class ethos, where decorum and ritualistic demands need to be honoured.

The first story, Jars of Gold, sees food – in this case, pickles, as so precious that they are protectively guarded in a store room by the family's matriarch, Bauji. To the young protagonist, who has to make do with a very small piece of the pickle during meal times (the bigger portions are reserved for the men), the glistening pickle jars in the store room are a source of constant amazement. “I caught a glimpse of a row of pickle jars glowing tantalizingly in the dim, brown-paper-filtered light. There was mango pickle in jaggery, a large glass jar of sweet and spicy cauliflower and carrot pickle, and next to that sat the pride of Bauji's store room: ten little bottles of red chillies filled with spices.”

Train Fare – while it again reiterates women and their special connection with food – is really a wonder in terms of character sketch. Here, you have a very nervous Mr Sen undertaking a train journey with his mother, wife and daughter to Haridwar. He is stunned to see the passion for food the women have and the contented glow that their face takes on once their tummies are full. Here, food is seen as something wonderfully liberating to a woman, a permissible indulgence that helps them assert their choices.

Food is seen as power, a show of wealth and excess in Feasting with A Vengeance, where both the bride and groom's side want to outdo the other in servering their guests. “If one party served rabri loaded with pistachios, the other retaliated with kulfi flavoured saffron.....”
Similarly in Food To Die For, the grandmother takes great pains to cook the perfect and most elaborate meal for the pundit who is invited for her husband's shradh.
The author narrates both stories in an ironic vein, showing how the value and taste of food goes far beyond the events it is linked with. More than the eminence of the shradh or the marriage, it is the heavenly food that registers in everyone's mind.

Strangely, even when all other ties are lost, the adour of good food can keep people connected in odd ways. The Anger of Aubergines - the delightfully ironic title story -- describes an estranged couple who meet once in a week, when the husband drops in for lunch. He relishes the aubergines (handpicked from the garden) that his wife cooks for him, but neither of them exchange a single word. They have been following this pattern for years, so the husband is startled when the wife asks him if the 'salt is fine' one day. He is distressed as he wonders if his wife would initiate talk during mealtimes from now on and spoil it for him. Clearly, food is the only thing worth caring for, when relationships lose their meaning.

The most poignant story here is A Taste For Humble Pie, which recounts the tale of young, orphaned Bala, who is passed on from one indifferent relative to another. But as she grows older, her culinary skills come to the fore. She is an expert at making all kind of pakoras and soon enough, she is in much demand. The relatives now want her to remain with them, even if it means she could remain unmarried. So much so, that when a nice boy proposes to her, her relatives prod her to turn him down. The story ends on a sad note and is an anti-climax of sorts but succeeds in bringing out the selfishness that comes with the love for good life and food even if it is at the expense of others.

The only stories that don't really connect that well are Moonfish By Moonlight, Mushroom For Madness and Dead Man's Feast to an extent.
All the others are so acutely described that it makes you marvel at the author's power of perception and irony. Every story carries with it colourful and vivid details, recounted with an obvious sense of joy and wry humour. Also, being a woman, she manages to bring out traits in her sex the way only a female author could have done. And many of these are not flattering qualities...like a rather nasty description of how ravenous women eat in Train Fare. These are things a male author would rather avoid – even if he noticed – to remain politically correct. But women authors don't shy away from making observations that are unmistakably nasty.
Incidentally, Bulbul Sharma seems to love the word 'plump' which is uses at least a douzen times to describe any woman with a healthy appetite.

The book – while brimming with description of food– touches upon a number of relevant themes that makes it a rich experience.

It even has a couple of lip smacking recipes at the end of every story, which I'm determined to try out. The Amchur Alu, Orange Kheer, Spinach Pakoras and Hot Ginger-Honey Drink recipes appear especially delectable.
-Sandhya Iyer

The Age of Shiva

Author: Manil Suri
Pages: 454
Publisher: Bloombury
Price: 399
Published in: 2008

First things first. I think Manil Suri has a tremendous flair for creating drama and an astonishing ability of penetrating into human psyche. Which means, at certain points, The Age of Shiva touches the brilliance of V S Naipaul's A House For Mr Biswas in portraying human despair and chaotic family life with all its colourful and despicable characters. The author's biggest strength lies in creating interesting set pieces and keeping the narrative moving at a frenzied, rapid-fire pace. The language is simple yet wonderfully descriptive. All of this makes the book quite a compelling read.

And yet, the sum total does not add up to make this as ambitious a book as it would like to be.
For one, Manil Suri’s attempt to give the book an epic scale even while keeping it intimate is not always convincing. Spanning a period of 40 years since India's independence, the story somewhat awkwardly weaves in everything from episodes from the partition, the socio-political events around Nehru's time, the Emergency...all of it is there. Now, not all these events have a direct bearing on the characters which is what makes it nothing more than a contrivance. Then there is the evocation of myth, traditional rituals like karwa chaut explained in great detail. All of this makes the story a 'spiced up' Indian fare but authentically served nevertheless.

As I mentioned, Manil Suri has an acumen for dramatic plot points, which should make him a great script writer. The story's main thrust is on the mother-son relationship, so the author makes the unusual but intriguing choice of having the nondescript Meera as a narrator, addressing the story to her son, Ashwin. There are strong undercurrents of oedipal love as the reader will discover in the first page itself.
"Do you know how you thrust your feet towards me, how you reach out your arms, how the sides of your chest strain against my palms? Are you aware of your fingers brushing against my breasts, their lips trying to curl around something to hold on to, but slipping instead against my smooth flesh?"

It's a shock beginning and it would be easy to think of such writing as being titillating. No doubt, the author is a bit of a flame thrower - but the emotional audacity in Manil Suri's work is undeniable. And this is where the 'Shiva' allusion come in. It refers to the myth about Parvati creating her own son, Andhaka to keep her company in the absence of Shiva. That's the only connection here, so it's not really a title that encompasses the entire essence of the book. Not a strong allusion.

Meera, as she recounts her story, is the less fortunate daughter of the influential Sawhneys. Her elder sister, Roopa - blessed with superior looks - is pampered at home and she loses no opportunity in taking the nastiest jibes at her younger sibling. By a quirk of fate, however, Meera ends up marrying the guy who Roopa was going around with. Meera feels no particular love for Dev - though his quiet charm is attractive to her- and her decision to marry him is almost entirely driven by the fact that she managed to whisk at least one thing out of her selfish sister.

Meera, after being used to a lavish lifestyle, suddenly finds herself in very modest surroundings. Dev has a joint family, comprising a sympathetic mother-in-law, a vicious sister-in-law (Hema), Dev' brother Arya and his wife, Sandhya. (Surprisingly, Dev, who one supposes to be a very charming, articulate man going by the affection the two women shower on him, is relegated to the sidelines by the author). It's a bitter sweet life that Meera leads here, feeling frustrated at one point and at another time warming up to the affection she receives.

Meera's father, a well-to-do publisher and a proud rationalist, becomes an imposing presence in her life - something that she comes to grudge soon. Meera and Dev move to Bombay, so that the latter can try his luck as a singer. For all this while, there seems to be absolutely no passion between the couple. That is until their son Ashwin is born and things vastly alter. Dev- who so far is portrayed as a wimp - starts to acquire some positive shades, taking to fatherhood effortlessly. Meera - who so far was a picture of stoicism - is emboldened after turning mother. She sees her son as the sum total of her life, her only achievement and she would let nothing come in the way.

The book poignantly and sensitively portrays the lives of men and women - crushed and confused by their lot in life. The most heartbreaking episode is of course that of Meera's intense love for son, her conflicting emotions when she has to unwillingly separate their beds, her utter despair to see him move on with his life. These moments are wonderfully emotional and it's astonishing how Manil Suri can delve so deep into a woman's heart (his being gay could have a part to play here possibly).

The book really - for all its ambitions - is about a woman and her relationship with the men in her life. And to that extent, The Age of Shiva is a very engaging read. Not that it has no flaws. First of all, the novel has too many hateful characters - the kind of loathsome creatures that are hard to imagine. Again, there are other characters like Arya, Biji and to an extent Paaji that come across as being more real. In all this Meera's father's character (Paaji) is probably the most interesting one but the author burdens him with too much to do. He's supposed to be the political voice of the book and he single-handedly alters his daughter's fate at not one or two but five or six occasions. Otherwise also, some of the characters seem to slip out of their roles and behave in an unlikely manner.

Yet, The Age Of Shiva proved to be a riveting read where I'm concerned. It has some wonderful passages, great exchanges and superb conflicts.
-Sandhya Iyer

Book Review: Home

Author: Manju Kapur
Publishers: Random House
Year Of Publishing: 2006
Price : 395
Pages: 337


Family Matters

I've always felt the best time to read is when one is on vacation, preferably while traveling. And a long train journey is particularly conducive and appealing in this regard. Also, a great deal gets read, unlike other times when there are too many distractions. Much of course depends on the choice of the books. Heavy duty reading is out of question, because I'm certain I want to have a good time without stressing myself. So the idea is to take along books that are simple to read, but not simplistic. Manju Kapur's Home - which a friend recommended and gave to read - was my clear choice recently on a trip. I knew it would be an easy read, but hopefully with some literary merit also.

Thankfully, the book made the cut for me, even if the story is all too familiar --- portraying the kind of exaggerated reality of North Indian joint families that some of Ekta Kapoor's serials peddle (I'm surprised neither she nor Karan Johar have bought the copyright of the book still). It's a quick read and pretty engaging for most part - how many books can claim to be that!

Here, in this Karol Bagh family in Delhi, every kind of tradition - no matter how outdated--- is followed. Honour comes above all individual aspirations and a woman's status in the family is solely judged by her ability to give heirs.
Frankly, at a time when joint families are getting fewer, Kapur's choice of subject for 2006 is a bit suspect. Sure, the book looks at at least two generations of people but still to look at it as a microcosm of what today's Indian homes represent, would be a mistake. The long explanations of Karwa Chaut, the mythological tale of Savitri and how she brings back her husband Satyavan's life back from Yama and so on - all weaved within the story - gave me the uneasy feeling that Kapur is trying to cater to a foreign gaze or expatriates who staunchly preserve the idea of India being untouched by time and still rooted in age-old traditions.

Yet, for all its familiarity and a certain feeling of datedness, Home manages to sustain as a narrative purely because of the vivid characters that are introduced and enumerated in such colourful details. Also, being a woman, Kapur can penetrate better into the petty jealousies, insecurities and compulsions that play a major part in the joint-family set up. The author is acutely conscious of the complex mental make-up of her women characters and reveals the many unsaid emotions that they experience. Compared to the women, Kapur is less preoccupied with the men, so they largely remain in the sidelines.

Even if joint family as a concept is fading, Home's appeal is retained somewhat because all said and done, many of the values and conventions that it upheld haven't entirely disappeared. Also, it's an interesting character study or sorts, in a setting where human proclivity is understood better than anywhere else.

The story kickstarts well with Kapur tracking the fortunes of two sister - Sona and Rupa. The former gets married into a well off trader family, Banwarilals, while Rupa marries modestly to a junior government officer. Each one believes the other is luckier, with Sona especially whining about the step-motherly treatment she receives for being childless. The first 100 pages or more are free flowing, with standard descriptions of how newly married life would be in a joint family. The entire premise of this family life (as well as the book) is based on a woman's ability to bear a child, preferably male - so every daughter-in-law who comes into the Banwari family finds her status judged according to this one standard alone.

This obviously becomes repetitive after a point, and it's a surprise how the novel still manages to keep you glued. There are some bright spots for sure. Kapur cleverly overturns situations just when you think you know what's going to happen next. And it works because the rest of the novel doesn't shy away from stereotyping. So Sona's childless state is coincided with the death of Sushila- the daughter of the house and she leaves behind Vicky, her only son. One would imagine Sona to be delighted but she shows disdain towards the boy and finds it painful to accept him when he is thrust upon her by the elders. At this point, one can't fully comprehend her emotions and you presume Vicky would turn out to be the dark horse of the family. But none of that happens. And in fact, Sona's fears of the boy's nature are justified. This is one of the plus points of the novel.
The best and most poignant part of the novel is the character of Nisha - the prized daughter of the family --- who is the only one to put up a mild battle against the regressive nature of her family.
For most part, Kapur presents the joint family system as both the preserver and destroyer of an individual. In Nisha's case, the effect is adverse and the irony is heightened, as her life takes an unexpected turn for the worse. Fate delivers a cruel blow to her, first when her love is thwarted by the family, as the boy is low cast and poor and second, when she suffers from a peculiar skin disease that robs her of her initial good looks. Meanwhile, from being the centre of the family's attention, Nisha is suddenly relegated to a inferior position because other younger daughter-in-laws come into the family. Nisha is unmarried, not as pretty as earlier and this is the time when the joint family set-up especially seems to crush her spirits.
The ending again beautifully brings out how life can look up again - with a slight readjustment of one's expectations after suffering a blow. Nisha finds her happiness when she least expects it. But this is a conditioned 'happiness' and she succeeds in the terms she has been taught to believe in. The system wins.
Manju Kapoor's attempt throughout the novel is only to 'show' but never 'tell', so the whole book is pretty much descriptive of what goes on, rather than any incisive, ironical commentary. The authorial voice is hardly there, so you are left to gather what you want from it. This is somewhat disconcerting - because it makes the narrative dispassionate and detached even at places which could do with some sharp satire. This makes the tone of the book very flat and it's only in the second half -with Nisha's character - that the irony gathers some steam.

Yet, personally, I give the book a thumbs up - primarily because it holds your attention and you are keen to follow the fortunes of all the characters. Also, I rather liked the simple language Kapur uses, with the understanding that her characters are actually speaking in Hindi. No frills, nothing. It's basic English, but adds a nice texture to the setting.

Finally, I'd say it's a good masala read, with a few undoubtedly sparkling episodes.

Brief thoughts on Anita Desai's Diamond Dust

Title: Diamond Dust and Other Stories
Published in: 2001
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 224

Lot of imagery, lyricism in the language, and very descriptive.....so Desai isn't always the easiest authors to read - especially if you want to get straight to the point. I remember reading Cry The Peacock several years ago and not really grasping much of it - a very mystifying novel with lots of symbols and imagery. Maybe I should re-read it again.
I'd missed almost all her novels in the middle, so when I took up her book of short stories -Diamond Dust, I did it with some amount of hesitancy.
The first story actually put me off with its dialogues - which I thought didn't sound 'Indian' at all. When one writes about Indians and Indian setting in English, there is always a conflict wherein one wants to write elegant English and yet retain the local flavour. I think Desai just discounts this, using Indian words sparingly, whereby some of the dialogues don't ring true. But don't let that put you off. The rest of the stories got better for me.
There's a great deal of artistry in the book, the themes are different....the language is exquisite at points (yet, some metaphors seemed forced). While some stories may not be that easy to get through(Desai says her story visually and that takes time getting used to), there are at least a couple of them which are very accessible and enjoyable. My favourites were The Rooftop Dwellers about a single girl's predicament in a big city like Delhi and Winterscape, a evocative tale of two sisters, their shifting fates that ultimately becomes one.
Ultimately Diamond Dust is about lingering prose and themes.

Strike

The Tamil ticket

Author: Anand Mahadevan
Publishers: Penguin
Price: 199
Pages: 274

One of the most striking aspects about Strike is that it has this delightful vein of humour that runs throughout the book. So even when sad events occur, they happen in such a comical manner that one fights hard to supress a smile.


This tragi-comedy form is true for both the beginning and the end of Anand Mahadevan's proficient debut novel. Set in the late 80s, Strike revolves around the quotidian life of a Tam Bram (Tamilian Brahmin) nuclear family in Nagpur. The novel follows the life of 12-year-old Hari and his somewhat painful initiation into adulthood. Much of this is evocative of R K Narayan's splendid novel, Bachelor Of Arts (BOA) and its teenage protagonist Chandran, who tries to broaden his horizons and look beyond the comforting but conservative setting of his Tamilian upbringing. Much like in Bachelor Of Arts, in Strike too, Hari, on one occasion, teams up conspiratorially with his buddy, Mohan to see an adult film - Ram Teri Ganga Maili .
A quick word about Mohan– an impish, irreverent character who shrugs off the caning he gets at their convent school saying that the 'Sister' probably has a thing for his bum! Truly laugh out loud moment this!
But unlike Narayan’s ‘reading’ of his community in BOA where he points towards the limitations of human aspirations and how one must try to nogociate within that space, Mahadevan’s ideas actually run contrary to that.

Early on, Hari has to fight his urge to try out the 'much-vilified' non-vegetarian food when his Bengali neighbour serves him with crisply made fish. He eats it, only to see his mother raise hell and make him vomit it all out. His grandmother steps on it accidentally, falls on the hard ground and dies. So the family - along with their Kollu tatha (great grandfather) - embark on a train journey to immerse the ashes in the Ganges.

Most of the action in the novel happens in the train, where Hari's curious mind starts to question many of the adult practices, only to be shushed by his mother. He wonders how the Ganges can be considered clean when so much dirt gets thrown into it. The adult world is somewhat satarised from the prism of Hari's enquiring, non-judgmental view. Mahadevan is especially uncharitable towards the women characters - starting from Hari's own mother whom he mostly portrays as 'typically' orthodox and nagging. Another sharp observation Hari makes is about the women in his colony who seem to suddenly become sexually uninhabited on Holi day.
In the days leading to his uncle's return with his American wife to their maternal home, Hari is both amused and surprised seeing his mother and grand mom poking some fun at her expense. "If they are so upset with mama, why are they making so many sweets," asks Hari innocently. "To make him feel guilty," says his grandpa crisply. Yet, to Mahadevan's credit, no one comes across as a caricature.

The men in comparison are portrayed with far more affection by the author. The men in the novel always 'understand' things and are less fussy. Whether it is Hari's father Girish, Kullu tatha, grandpa, all are presented as calm, empathetic beings.

The central episode in the book again revolves around a second train journey, which Hari undertakes with his mother. Lots of small things happen, charming vignettes. The story doesn't really move ahead but the author keeps the narrative interesting enough, introducing a discussion on MGR - the great matinee idol of Tamil cinema and the then Chief Minister, carried out by co-passengers playing cards. There's interesting Tamil folklore that is talked about by the women, even as the trains chugs along. This is also where Hari has his first sexual encounter with a eunuch!

All of a sudden, the passengers hear about MGR's death and the next thing they know, the train has been stopped by strikers - the actor's fans. Now, this part is inspired from the real-life seige that happened in 1987 and Mahadevan as a child was travelling in that train along with his parents.
One of the most amusing episodes of the book happens here, when one of Hari's uncles brings them sharkara pongal (sweet rice) since the train has been halted. In fact, he brings enough for the whole compartment since the order was taken in his factory before MGR died and a holiday was declared. The rioters are livid as they think sweets are being distributed on the day of their Idol's death.

The last part is a bit cumbersome to read, as Hari's fascination for checking out the inside of the train ends in a tragedy. It's fine till here, but the part following this is unnecessarily long. Also, the story seems to shift gears unannounced. So what was so far completely from Hari's perspective becomes a regular but stretched out narrative.

Yet, since most of the book hints at the conformist, pious and non-adventurous nature of his Tam Bram family, it's an ironic twist of fate when the family is advised to move base to Canada, following the train incident. From being over cautious, now the family is fored to throw caution to the winds.

Mahadevan novel is nice, easy read about Indian sub-culture - the Tamilian ethos - recounted with both affection and wry wit. The flavour really comes out in the author's description of food - with delectable images of South Indian delicacies - which he enumerates with obvious passion. (A bit surprised that there are so many Tamil words used and none of them italised or explained)

Talking of flavour, there were a few places (and I mean just one or two) where I thought the dialogues didn't have enough of the Tamilian twang. Since South Indians anyway talk a fair bit of English in real life, you aren't looking for 'translated Tamil dialogues' for every character but in the case of say kollu tatha, I thought just plain English didn't quite work.

Again, some of the straids in the story are never picked up - like one never knows what happens to Hari's best friends even in the epilogue.

But these are minor quibbles, in what is otherwise, a very entertaining first attempt from the author.

Interview with Anand Mahadevan

1. If you can tell us a little about how the novel came into being. The seige is a real-life event and I believe you were part of that train....

The novel came slowly to life sometime in 2002-2003. I was just beginning to think about writing as a career and wanted to capture a time of strong personal and public emotion. And without a doubt, the most "revolutionary" moment I could think of was the strike in 1987 when MGR passed away and life itself seemed to drain away from Tamil Nadu. I was in the train then, a nine-year old with his family and I have vivid memories of being stuck in that train for hours, the iron carriages heating up intolerably as the water in the toilets ran out and the pantry car attendants barricaded themselves inside when the food ran out. In fact the Ashok Leyland factory next to Ennore station did send us vats of chakra pongal (rice sweetened with jaggery and cashews) as food. I had been up exploring with my brother - we were pretty much given the run of the platform and the train back then - and I still remember the visceral shock of coming back to my parents compartment (my father had fetched us) to see our mother eating the pongal. Usually -and how traditional we were! - she would wait till we had all eaten, but that day the stress had worn her out. The rules with which we had grown up had changed, and I remember that still and wanted to capture it with as much truth that I could bear to bring upon it. So the public revolution is the death of MGR and the dreams he wove together with light and sound on the silver screen, the private revolution I chose to cast as a sexual revelation for my pubescent protagonist Hari. Once these elements were set, I started creating a world before and its destruction through the strike.

2) The Tam Bram sub culture was an integral part of R K Narayan's works. But while he seemed to appeal for a certain passivity and comformism (In Bachleor Of Arts, Chandran is soon made to realise the limitations of his horizons and he backs off), you do the opposite with your book - almost satarising the community's lack of adventurism, isn't it? The more they try to be cautious, they seem that much more vulnerable to accidents - all externally brought about. For example, Savitri's chain gets stolen, there's fear of Hari's arrest and finally the family has to move out of India. It seemed you were making a statement there.

R. K. Narayan's works are clearly infused with much greater insight into the workings of Tam Bram sub culture than mine are, partly because I was raised in Maharashtra (Nagpur, Pune) rather than in Madras and I did leave India at age seventeen and so missed a large part of the adult interactions in this world. There is also the difference in time to consider with Narayan's stories set in a more timeless India. I wanted my hero Hari to be a provocateur in the sense that he channels disturbance into the family and the novel by allowing himself toexperiment. His sense of smell, taste, sight and hearing are not yet restricted by cultural norms and no-go areas and thus he reveals the futility of his family trying to barricade themselves behind physical walls of concrete and mental walls raised with tradition and ritual. I wanted to question that system through Hari and reveal the parts that the adults had blinded themselves to through the child's eye.
I feel that Tam Bram is a warm and rich sub culture that is very supportive of its members (as long as they toe the line) but ultimately an exclusionary culture that still embodies the collective memory of an old India with clear caste and class delineations which may or may not have existed. Some aspects are quite at odds with the rich democracy ofIndia now and I could not reconcile the two in the pages of the novel, hence the flight out of India for my characters.

3) You yourself moved to Canada later on....was that the impulse behind having the family and Hari 'uprooted' and moved to another country? Or could it be read as Hari's journey to an 'open world' - a new world without the shakles of the past - something he seems to be at odds with all along?

There were several reasons for the move to Canada in the novel. I was struggling to match up Hari's actions on the page with their consequences in the context of the Indian community then. His actions had grown to have impact in the adult world around him and yet he remained a child protagonist, an actor in the adult world without recognition or power. And rather than trying to wait for him to grow up and return to these days as an adult (and face Radha, Vishu and theother characters - which I felt would turn the novel into a morality play but which happens in an entirely new and plausible way in RebeccaNesvet's theatrical adaptation of The Strike called revolutions perminute), I took the route of escape from India - one that many TamBrams have used to find greener pastures, but in this case it is a punishment for both Girish, who never evidenced a desire to leave, and for Hari, who is cut from everything he knows to start all over in Canada. It is a form of a "golden-cage" punishment, attractive on the outside, but still without the freedoms he is used to in India.

4) I read somewhere you mentioning that Hari's attraction towards other young men is a kind of surrogate sexuality to give release to his sexual urge. You say that this may not be because of his orientation but because of the fact that there is/was a taboo if one were to be caught doing anything with a girl - ironically so. Is that what you wanted to convey? Because there is a definite chance of it being read as Hari’s homoerotic feelings. Personally, I think a lot of boys/girls are confused about their sexuality when they attain puberty. Were you alluding to that predicament as well?

I think of Hari's sexuality as being queer rather than gay. As you point out, he is very young at 12 and so doesn't quite fit into our adult conceptions of sexuality as straight/gay. Rather I think he is still very much experimenting with his sexuality and the newly discovered idea of maleness. And of course as sex is a taboo topics amongst the adults he is curious and yet scared of it all. I think what I meant earlier was that it was (and still is for the most part) taboo for young boys to hang out with girls and so there is a homosocial environment into which the budding sexuality of children is allowed to express itself. So the "hanky-panky" occurs among same sex social groupings not necessarily because the kids are homosexual but because it is just socially easier. I do think that Hari goes beyond this and has a queer sense of sexuality and over the course of the book becomes much more comfortable with alternate sexualities like Radha the hijra represents, but I still am not sure what his adult sexuality would look like.

5) I thought you, almost refreshingly, do not extol mothers. Here of course, you make Hari’s mother the primarily the object of satire and save for maybe one charitable mention, she's mostly presented as nagging and typically orthodox. On the other hand, the elder men in the book are almost uniformly kind, gentle and ‘understanding’. Was this a choice (of characterisation) you made purely seeing it from Hari’s point of view or was there more to it?

I must be honest here, I felt I was writing from a young boy's perspective who does not want to be coddled and thus has a slightly more cruel perspective on his mother's affection than is warranted. I did not want the mother to be a caricature of a nagger neither be a "mother India" type figure of kindness and love. I wanted her to be frustrated with her own lot and have human frailties too but which are hidden from Hari for the most part because he is a boy's boy. He enjoys the company of men and boys because he finds them to be less complicated than women - and in that he is a boy more than anything else, after all the other boys and men have experiences closer to his own. Hari is also at the stage where girls and women both frighten and excite him and so there is a reticence to engage with them.

6) The fact that you use a lot of Tamil certainly brings a certain flavour to the narrative. But I'm curious why you haven't explained any of it in a Index?

My editors and I took the conscious decision to try and impregnate the text around the Tamil words with the meanings of the words themselves. In the North American edition, the Tamil words are italicized for a western audience but we chose leave out the italics for an Indian audience. I also feel that in India, we never really stick to one language. Our conversations borrow freely from the multitude of languages and the richness of such vocabulary is a non-issue in verbal communication in houses, in the media and on the streets. I wanted to make it a similar non-issue on the page. Yes, the reader may be unfamiliar with the dictionary meaning of the word, however, the flavour of the word will not escape them as they read the sentence in the context of the storyline. That is my hope.

7) Many NRI authors when they talk about experiences in their home town tend to become nostalgic or sentimental. Somehow, even though you clearly have a certain fondness for the Tamilian culture and the socio-political ethos, you choose to go in for a tragi-comic form -wherein even serious scenes are treated in a wry, irrereverent, funny way. Is that how you percieve life itself?

I do think life has its serious moments and it has its funny moments. In this novel I was trying consciously to think about the actions as a child and my own childhood was filled with moments of such adventure and fun that I could not keep that sense of joy far from Hari. But yourquestion is rather astute and I am reminded now of the fact that in the novel that I am currently working on, one of the characters says toanother, 'It's true, life is a tragedy if one only feels it, one must think about it to turn into a comedy.'
I am nostalgic about India in the sense that the India I remember growing up in, barely exists now. But I also think that is a good thing. India needs to move and change just like us NRIs need to grow and open in our new homes and lands. The love for the country of our birth, its richness of culture and smells, and the warmth of its people will remain with us as long as we remain on earth, but I do think that one must never forget that such warm blankets of nostalgic memory sacrifice living in the present for the dreams of the past.

8) Two quibbles I had . One, I was wondering why you left the thread about Hari's friends (Mohan, Anamika) mid-way, never refering to it again.

I agree with your quibble, I too wanted a way for Anamika and Mohan toreturn, but what would they say to each other? I look at the Strike as being a cesarean cut, one that has severed Hari from his childhood. And with the trauma of this experience he has changed more than his friendscan imagine. In truth, I do feel that they would have accepted him back without question, and that their friendship would remain strong, butthat Hari would be the one to hold back, to be on his guard, to check himself lest he taint them with his experiences.

9) Also, the whole novel is from Hari's prism but towards the end - after the train accident, the authorial /adult voice just takes over. How do you percieve this sudden shift?

Yes, there is a dramatic shift in voice (although the remarkable point here is that while Indian reviewers note this with some sadness, Canadian reviewers have accused me of not making such a shift in voice at all and demand it instead!) because of the dramatic shift in Hari'splace in the landscape of the story. It is as if an earthquake has happened that has changed the social order. The moment of revolution turns the narrative topsy turvy and affects the way the story is told as much as what happens in the story itself. My inspiration for this was from a German novella written long ago by Heinrich von Kleist called Das Erdbeben in Chile where he uses a physical earthquake to show the breakdown of classes and civilized ethos.
The change in voice is also meant to suggest the change in power, as a child living in a child's world, Hari has a voice, an agency and anability to effect change within it. But as a child, he is voiceless and bewildered by the events. In the trauma of the events at the trainstation in Ennore, Hari goes silent, his actions are primeval in this adult world and the narrative now belongs not to the child's world but rather to this new world that Hari has cast himself into.

10) Would love to know what you will be writing next....

I am currently wrapping up a manuscript looking at the lives of two cousins, both from a Sufi mystic family that has a hereditary role in taking care of a shrine in Pakistan. One goes to London and becomes radicalized and the other goes to America and becomes westernized. Both return to Pakistan and are forced into conflict over the land and lucrative revenue from the shrine and must reconcile their personal growth and ambition with their obligations to family and religion. The story is partly inspired by the struggles faced by a Pakistani friend of mine in the post 9-11 world. In working on this novel, I had a chance to visit Pakistan (a few weeks after the Bombay blasts) and I was surprised by the sheer generosity of the people and the horror they felt at the actions of the militants. My hope is that we can, as a people, begin to erase the boundaries that separate us and learn more about how similar we are through conversation rather than through wars and bullets.

11) A little about the literary works that have influenced you...

I tend to read widely, growing up under the influence of the magic realists but also with a strong awareness of German literature and music(one of my majors at University was German); I read Indian authors with great interest and now am quite pleased to see the roster of Pakistani writers who are adding balance to the South Asian narratives that have dominated world literature. I tend to read books where a writer wields a formidable pen in the English language, not just in terms of plot but in terms of the sheer beauty of the prose. I am referring to authors like Shirley Hazzard and Andre Aciman published by FSG in New York who clearly are in love with the English language and whose books you want to take to a quiet corner so you can read them out loud to yourself.

The Thing Around Your Neck

The choke within

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Pages: 218
Publishers: Harper Collins
Price: 299

My initiation into African literature started with Ama Ata Aidoo’s No Sweetness Here, a raw, deeply poignant collection of short stories that spoke of a land reeling under the after-effects of colonial rule and a population tormented by its past and inability to recogonise itself.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's new book, The Thing Around Your Neck, again a collection of short stories about Nigeria, comes almost 40 years after No Sweetness Here. And yet, much like Ama Ata Aidoo’s portrayal of a beleaguered population, reeling under a primitive mind-set or not being comfortable in their own skin and hence aping the West, Adichie’s book too touches upon many of these issues.

If Adichie’s brilliant last book, Half Of A Yellow Sun was a deeply affecting document of the Biafran war of the 60s and early 70s, her new book has the action shifting to America –where the author herself spends most of her time now as a professor. The past seems to weigh heavily upon all the characters, which makes them uncomfortable even if they’ve moved to a new world (US). In The Arrangers Of Marriage, a newly married girl is constantly urged by her husband to speak and act like the Americans, because that is the only way ‘they will be accepted’. He changes both their name to something that the Americans will find easy to pronounce. He insists that she eat ‘pizza’ and not cook Nigerian food, as he doesn’t want them to be known as ‘the couple who fill the building with smells of foreign food’
Adichie’s portrayal is a cruel one, one that mirrors the third world’s western fixation. But beyond that, it is also a very sad story where one would rather debase and toe the line in a rich country than revisit the horrors of their past.

The book’s title story, The Thing Around Your Neck is about a young Nigerian girl trying to make a living in America. Her new boyfriend is White, rich too. However, the excesses of the country and its abundance start to choke her, especially when she thinks of the rigours in her own country. The pain of the past is too deep for her to embrace the new world.

Every story that Adichie recounts is deeply evocative of the country’s past. Even personal stories have characters that are uncomfortable with their present because they has a gory past to hide. Tomorrow Is Too Far, Ghosts and The Shivering are all stories about longing and regret.
Adichie is also critical of present-day Nigeria and her disgust clearly comes out in Cell One, where she talks of police torture and cultists. There are also observations about the corrupt education system and so one – where you can slip a brown envelope and get an ‘A’

However, her most acerbic and hard-hitting story is Jumping Monkey Hill, where the author points out at the westerner’s need to stereotype Africans and other third world countries. An African Writer’s workshop, helmed by professor Edward Campbell, is held to encourage local English writing talent in the continent. However, Campbell dismisses many of the stories calling them either ‘irrelevant’ or ‘passe’ . When someone writes about lesbianism, he says that ‘homosexual stories of this sort aren’t reflective of Africa’. All this while Campbell keeps making passes at one of the female students, Ujunwa. The other contests notice his behaviour and explain to her that ‘what he felt for her was fancy without respect’

Every story carries a wealth of information about Nigeria and its socio-cultural evolution. Adichie’s stories are all deeply personal and political at once. Her easy style of writing – free of fuss – but with a keen understanding of human proclivity – is what makes this 31 year old one of the most important and engaging writers of her generation.

India on the 'write' path

From its elitist bearings, Indian Writing In English has successfully expanded in the last few years, not only adding great variety to its lists but creating a lucrative Indian mass fiction category as well

When best-selling author Chetan Bhagat saucily commented that he was determined to pull Indian Writing in English (IWE) from its high horse and bring it to the masses, one simply smiled.
IWE has been a niche affair for a long time; the bastion resting with expatriate writers- its only visible and known representatives. Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amitav Ghosh and Anita Desai… all came with undeniable literary merit and brought a great deal of credibility to the genre of IWE very early on.
Its appeal in India, however, remained restricted to the wine glass-clinking literati. This had to be disconcerting to an independent observer, firstly because it didn’t seem fitting that authors residing in the first world – no matter how good – should be the presiding literary masters of the third world. But more importantly, one was left baffled at how a ballooning English speaking class in India was bereft of a wider palette in the IWE segment.

The shift from the diaspora

The gap was so galling that one expected things to change sooner than later. The obvious question was why there isn’t a stronger presence of home-grown writers and why isn’t there enough variety to choose from in IWE? Is the publishing industry in India encouraging of desi English writers at all?
These were concerns one had until only a few years back, but since, the whole literary scene has seen a dramatic turnaround that has made the genre not only a fairly lucrative one but has given it a kind of ‘completeness’ it never had before. Like Crossword Prize winner for A Girl And A River, Usha KR says, “From graphic novels, gender lit, the young adult novel, thrillers, biographies and so on; the pre-eminence of ‘literary’ fiction is being challenged all round.”
Such variety bodes well for the genre and the industry as a whole. A special mention needs to be made about the ‘mid-brow’ mass Indian English fiction that most publishers admit “is where the numbers are.” Chetan Bhagat with his three best-selling books, Anurag Mathur with The Inscrutable Americans, The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan, Manju Kapoor with Home and Difficult Daughters, and Abhijit Bhaduri’s Married But Available have sold in thousands. This has not only widened IWE in terms of what it stood for but has also enabled a welcome ‘democratization’ where more voices are being heard.
The non-fiction segment is getting equally strong with erudite academicians, politicians, corporate head honchos and scholars writing books. From Amartya Sen to Shashi Tharoor, Mukul Kesawan to Ramchandra Guha and recently Nandan Nilekani and Narayana Murthi, India truly has an enviable body of world-class writers in the English language.
Seeing a receptive audience, publishers are even translating classics in regional languages like Bengali, bringing a hitherto unexplored world to the fore.

What really changed for IWE?

So how and when did this change come about and what does this mean for a genre and industry that is seeing a healthy 10 per cent growth even in times of a global meltdown?
There are quite a few reasons that writers and publishers cite for the growth and expansion in the genre of IWE. The most important one is a change in the demographics over the last few years. “We forget how vastly the literacy rates have changed in the last two generations. We’ve gone from less than 30% literacy to less than 30% illiteracy, and a good bit of that is in English. So there is a larger potential audience, and the publishers and writers are now talking to a different demographic,” says author Omair Ahmad, writer of A Storyteller’s Tale.
The other important aspect is the attitude of the publication houses in the country, believed to prefer well-known authors to new ones. The aspiring desi writers were left to cool their heels for a long time. “So much so, that it started becoming easier for an Indian writer to find a publisher abroad than in India. There was a toffee-nosed ‘Raj’ attitude that many publishers here cultivated...until their foreign bosses themselves instructed them to look more seriously at the Indian market, which held such enormous potential,” says Janaki Visvanath, avid reader and book store owner of twistntales, Aundh.
The publishing houses may not agree with this assessment but the fact remains that tapping into the desi market was one of the key reasons why major international publishing houses strengthened their Indian divisions. Harper Collins started its functions in India in 2003 – at a time when the market was ripe for change. Lipika Bhushan, Marketing and Sales head at Harper Collins, says, “Until last year, we had about 75 IWE titles. We’ve already seen a jump of 38 titles this year till April, taking the tally to 108. I think the favourable attitude of the Indian readers has led to the change. More and more people are globe-trotting, but the more successful books in recent times are those set in India.”
One of the major reasons readers are gravitating towards IWE is because they find it relatable. These books delve into their collective consciousness.
With more desi Indian Writing in English coming to the fore, will the genre provide a more authentic Indian experience now? “I don’t think it is a question of ‘authenticity’ as recognition of the fact that people want to read stories set in their own milieu – the small town, the metropolis, the Indian family, an IIT or an IIM. They have the confidence to recognize that in today’s world the local can reflect the global,” says Usha KR.
It wasn’t before long that publishing houses smelled the coffee and realized they were sitting on a veritable gold mine.
An important reason for IWE getting visibility is the authors themselves getting savvy and aggressive in their promotional strategies. “It isn’t like earlier when the author would be living in a hill station and write books, oblivious to the world around him. Today’s authors conduct book launches in various cities, interact with their readers and talk about their works. All this helps them ‘connect’ with people and results in more copies being sold,” Janaki says.

The rise of the mass market for IWE

Most in the industry accede that Cheten Bhagat and Anurag Mathur turned the tide in broadening the appeal of IWE and making it commercially viable. “Certainly Chetan Bhagat is a very important name. Being a marketing person, he strategized the release of his books, the pricing and so on… and it bore dividends,” says Lipika.
Pricing is another aspect that has worked favourably for IWE. Says writer and columnist Gouri Dange, “Yes – a Chetan Bhagat at Rs 95 definitely makes a difference. People then don’t mind buying even an unknown writer, perhaps. I baulk at buying so many of my favourite western writers, as they cost no less than Rs 400!” she says. Naturally then, the bar has been raised for IWE. “At one point, a book that sold 3000 was considered a best seller, today that figure has gone to 15,000,” she Lipika.

Market and merit of IWE

The market is growing for sure, but most authors believe a career still cannot be made out of writing. Usha KR believes it may be premature to celebrate the coming of age of the exclusively desi market or that it is no longer necessary to be successful in the West. “What we are seeing today is just the beginning, the overture – the tempo is still to build up. I don’t think it is possible to make a living writing fiction exclusively, except for a few writers who are successful internationally and are the standard bearers of IWE,” she says.
Talking of merit, so far IWE has mostly had a western fixation, where a Man Booker winner automatically becomes a bestseller in India. With the genre growing, isn’t it essential to have our own critical bodies to assess our works than rely on the West? “While there is a great flurry of writing, we still have to go through the churn where the ‘good’ or the ‘long distance runners’ will be separated from the run of the mill. This is where our own critics and literary awards have a role to play in building credibility and establishing standards but that will take time as credibility has to be earned and the readers, the media and the market must come to have faith in the decisions of the critics and juries. The Western environment has managed this interplay very well, and in good faith too,” views Usha KR

Looking into the future

The future of IWE is tipped to have several interesting challenges ahead. Among the new trends that are expected are e-books and audio books. “What this means is that there will be more reading happening - the ultimate democratisation where you can hear a text even if you can't read it,” says Janaki.
For publishers, the challenge will be to tap into newer markers and sub-genres for IWE. Says Lipika, “Look at the childrens’ books, an area we have not explored at all. Why is it that there is such craze for Harry Potter and no Indian book for children? This is something we will be looking into. Besides that, I think our aim in the next few years will be to market our books in tier-2 cities like Chandigarh and Jaipur that carry enormous potential for growth,” she says.
Certainly it will be interesting days ahead for the publishing industry and IWE in particular.

Voices

“Any number of books get published in India in English, find a readership and sell reasonably. Reasonably, or modestly. But it’s important to admit that the bigger sellers among the literary titles tend to be those that have got published elsewhere also, and got attention in international spaces,” says author Geeta Hariharan, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ prize for her book, The Thousand Faces of Night.

“Of late all I read is Indian writing in English. That’s where the most excitement is. It is young, vibrant and in spite of the fact that it speaks to maybe a small section of the 1billion population, it is writing affected by that billion, one way or the other, hence extremely important as a voice,” says reader, Raghu Kulkarni

“The Indian reader is still a toddler in many ways, so the mass market of Indian English fiction --- even if some of it may be “mid-brow”--- is a good enough beginning for this ever widening segment of readers. Edutainment is always the best way to attract any new audience. Slowly but surely, some of this readership might graduate to better stuff – reader and filmmaker Abhishek Bandekar

Bombay London New York

The Page Turner

Author: Amitava Kumar
Pages: 220
Price: 250
Year of Publishing: 2002
Publishers: Penguin




This was my first introduction to Amitava Kumar, since I haven't got a chance yet to read his first few books and neither his last release, Home Products. But this particular one left me quite impressed and I intend to check up on his other works at a later stage.

What makes Bombay London New York (not a title I particularly liked but with a georgeous cornflower blue cover) unique is that it is a book about books, so plenty of references of Indian fiction in English get thrown in with some literary criticism to chew over as well, making this quite a bibliophile's delight. A small part of the pleasure was to see the author referencing many of the books I'd read but it also helped in identifying several authors and works I was not familiar with. So by the end of it, I made a mental note of at least half a douzen books that I might want to take up.

So is it a book only for literary buffs? Not really. Sure, the author - both by virtue of being a professor of English literature abroad and a well-known writer- is deeply passionate about books and even sees a lot of the world through that prism. The influence of books is especially felt when he describes his struggle to become a writer. In places where he talks about family and friends, the book takes on the form of a memoir and for me these are easily the most engaging parts. Whether it is his "shame" in growing up in Patna or his desire to experience a life abroad seeing the plush postcards that his Aunt sends him from US, or his struggle to write, there's a rare power in the writing that is as candid as it is touching.

This is a stage in his life when V S Naipaul and his books like A House For Mr Biswas and Finding The Centre have a deep influence on the author. The former one is about a man's struggle to become a writer and his helplessness while the second one is about moving to London after living in a village. Both offer great inspiration to the author and prove to be catalysts in his decision of going abroad.

Even though the autobiographical elements are the most interesting parts of the book, Amitava Kumar's real purpose through his work here is to touch upon several significant larger socio-political issues in his physical scape. And where ever possible, the author tries to bring in a literary perspective either to give voice to a particular issue or to assess it from a critical stand point. For example, the book starts on a rather heavy-duty note with the author taking a strong stand against the nuclear bomb testing under the Vajpayee government. He refers to Arundathi Roy's criticism of it in her essay, 'The End of Imagination' and how her writings had a definite impact, paving the way for activism through writing. It's obvious that Amitava Kumar believes in the greater power of writing, as his admiration for playwright Safdar Hashmi and his didacticism suggests. This is also one of the reasons that makes this book quite ambitious in scope.
The other central aspect that the author focuses on is the immigrant life. Since the author is himself living this life, he offers a perspective on both the personal and political side of things. He speaks about the Indian diaspora attempting to preserve an 'idea' of an India that no longer exists. "At least among first generation immigrants, India remains the space of wholesome purity."
Citing films like Taal and Pardes, he says, "The grand portrayal of NRI nostalgia is emplematizes by the presentation of a single imagine: the desirable Indian woman as an icon of docility and traditional charm, one manufactured on celluloid as an updated image of the mythical Sita"

And this preservation of "nostalgia", the author believes, is expressed by the diaspora through their support to the Right Wing parties. BJP gets its greatest support from this segment, he notes. "I am disturbed that the 'soft' emotion of nostalgia in the diaspora is turned into the 'hard' emotion of fundamentalism"

Some of these discussions are extremely insightful, even if I felt that the first 50 pages of the book are very essayist in nature.
The literary references find the deepest resonance when he talks about his own journey and experiences. There are various literary figures he discusses and how they impacted and shaped his personality. One of them is Hanif Kureishi, whose candid and liberal ideas on love and sex affected the author who himself was trying to make a connection with women. Kureishi's book, Intimacy - about an extra marital affact - made quite an impression on him.

Amitava Kumar doesn't use the opportunity to criticise any of his colleague's works but he does show his irritation with Salman Rushdie's use of stereotypes when he describes small town India or its characters. The chapter essentially is about how it would be a mistake to see the small towns as a sleepy provincial place - again as part of one's nostalgia and 'idea' of a village. These places are rapidly changing, he observes, becoming more aggressive than ever and changing the equation of politics.
The other literary observation that caught my eye was when the author asks Hanif Kureishi to compare himself with V S Naipaul and the former says that he likes women and sex, an aspect that is always missing from Naipaul's writings. "Naipaul can't write about marriage," is his crisp reply.

As I said, the book's finest moments come when the author describes his own journey and the intimate moments he shares with a few people. He isn't scared to bare his feelings, even those that could seem embarrassing. Also, he's not judgmentmental or too harsh on anyone. Not even in his wry description of Laloo Prasad Yadav, whom he visits in Patna. This could be because most of the times the author is in an insecure state, fighting his own demons.

The Epilogue is curiously the high point in the book, where the author narrates his friendship with a couple in US, giving a glimpse into the immigrant life and the inability by most to disconnect from their past. This is also true about his uncle and aunt, a very poignant episode.

Amitava Kumar's book is undoubtedly rich with references and insights. Also, there's a great fluency to his writing that allows him some success even with a theme that is difficult to pull off. Of course, not everything about the book is perfect. As I mentioned the first 50 pages are almost devoid of any literary connection, so it's difficult to ascertain what direction the book is taking. Amitava Kumar flits from topic to topic - some even unrelated ones ---so it becomes frustrating to find the connection each time.
But the rest of the book flows well, with some particular episodes really standing out. My admiration for Amitava Kumar is mostly for his writing, which I really think has a lot of flair and finesse.

-Sandhya Iyer

Subhashitavali: An Anthology of Comic, Erotic and Other Verse

Translated in English by N. D Haksar
Publishers: Penguin
Year of Publication: 2007
Price: 200 Rs

Verses on marital sensuality

The common understanding has always been that Sanskrit literature is serious. For primarily that reason alone, Subhashitavali (quite a tongue twister this) is a standout work in the oeuvre of Sanskrit classical literature. In fact, this can be a showcase work to prove how the language has produced its share of fun and flippant verse.

So what is the book all about? Written over 2000 years ago, this consists of a unique compilation of epigrams (circlet of well-said verses) by Sanskrit scholars and poets, including some very famous ones like Kalidasa, Vyas Muni and Vaalmiki.

Though reputed in literary circles, Subhashitavali is hardly known to general readership and was never translated in English, until very recently by N. D Haksar – a well-known translator of Sanskrit classics.

While the book has a definite ‘heritage’ value attached to it, its easy, readable content is probably what has led to its English translation. Also, its rich compilation of erotic verses that must have been a tempting proposition for the publishers. While tackling a number of themes – from nature to morality to worldly truths (a la Bacon’s essays), quite obviously, it is the erotica that is its central highlight.

Warring lovers making up in bed seems to be the predominant theme here and the result is a touching yet titillating peek into marital sensuality.

“Lips with colour kissed away,
Eyes bereft of kohl, tresses straggling on the face;
But at dawn, contented,
Their glory is more
Than of the night before
When merely ornamented.”

There are other sage observations as under;
“In pain, look at the greater pain,
In pleasure, on some greater pleasure
To grief and joy not surrender—
Both are your foes in equal measure.”

While there’s no reason you cannot enjoy these translated verses, one can never dismiss the chance that some of the original’s essence may have been lost here. Also, while some verses are extremely enjoyable, there are many others that are pretty ordinary.

Sample this:
“Tell me truly, O my love
what is it you do to me:
to hear you is a real pleasure
to see you is pure ecstasy.”
Or
“Though they hide the heart’s desire
To begin making love,
The couple understands each other
Just by fleeting glances.”

So what makes Subhashitavali worth a read? The very fact that these verses were written thousands of years ago, offering a timeless perspective into marital eroticism (with its sexual politics, concept of beauty and issues of morality) makes it readable enough.
Also amidst all the moral policing that one sees today, with self-interest groups using India’s cultural past to thrust their own agendas, this piece of work quite remarkably lends a perspective into the sexual sensibilities of the time.
From a purely literary point of view, this is a mixed bag. The verses range from the pious to the profane, the earnest to the cynical, the elegant to the crass and the lyrical to sententious.
But for most part, this is a welcome diversion from the regular stuff.

-Sandhya Iyer

The Storyteller's Tale

Author: Omair Ahmad
Pages:122
Publishers: Penguin
Price: 225

Telling tales

On first glance, this is an easy book to like. It's all of 125 pages and we all like crisp, short reads, don't we. Also, this has to be one of the most elegant covers I've seen in a while, and prettily laid out text too.
Yet, this novel by journalist turned writer Omair Ahmad left me with mixed feeling. I liked the concept of the book, but I couldn't help feeling a bit non plussed at the end of it.

Set in the 18th century, the author recounts the tale of a weary, heart-broken storyteller who wants to escape from the misery of seeing his beloved city -Delhi - being plundered by Afghan Ahmad Shah Adbali. With pain in his heart and no one to talk to, he takes off to another place riding on a stolen horse. He finds himself before a casbah, where a Begam and her retinue of servants take him in. The begam's husband is away - probably looting Delhi, as the storyteller resentfully assumes. But he's enamoured by her looks and hence accepts the hospitality.

Soon there begins a game of wits between the begam and the storyteller, with each telling a story that mirrors their state of mind. The storyteller starts with a very dark story about a wolf and a boy. It's a tragic tale of mistrust resulting from unrequited love that leads to a violent end. The begam is startled by the cynicism of the tale and offers to recount another story of her own. Her story is about filial love that passes the test of time, in spite of the impossibility of their worlds.

The storyteller is thrilled. He's finally met his match - someone who he can talk to through stories. The storyteller's next story takes the begam's tale - a fable about two brothers, one rich and the other poor - and he infuses into it a part of his distraught world. The story brings out his angst at his city being destroyed, a beauty that can never be restored. He knows the tale is too close for comfort for the begam but he reasons, 'who else can one tell the truth to if not the one who you love'
The begam responds with a story of her own and their last few tales gently tether towards a kind of forbidden love, alluding to their own secret feelings. These two strangers make a connection, sharing their innermost thoughts, veiled in stories. The storyteller's tales convey pain and loss...and a desperate need to get things off his chest since he finds an intellegent and a sensitive listener in the begam. On the other hand, the begam's story touches on how love can transcend power equations, probably gently alluding to herself and the storyteller.

The whole 'story within a story' narrative is interesting, even if it's just a reworking of your fables in Panchatantra and Arabian Nights. But frankly, I found the stories a little tepid, and felt a certain 'disconnect' between the characters and the tales they narrate.

However, what this book ultimately testifies is the power of human imagination and expression in an atmosphere of terror and how it always manages to find an outlet in art.

A word about Ahmad's writing. It flows well and he keeps it very simple (almost sparse). For the kind of genre this is - a novella set in a period- it could have done with a little more ornate style of writing. I missed William Darlymple's eloquence here.
My final thoughts are that the book left me intrigued, even if I was not entirely entertained by it.

An alternative review from Abhishek Bandekar aka Abzee. A deeply insightful one at that!

You either have nothing, or you have your freedom’. That is the overriding theme of political journalist Omair Ahmad’s dark novella The Storyteller’s Tale. Fashioned as a fable-within-fables, the long and short of this short story is a sanguineous (in the blood-iest Spanish sense of the word) examination of that most written of human emotions- love. And while one may have certain reservations with some of his curiously bleak reading of the state of being in love (curious because the author wrote this, I’m told, while he was recovering from the end of an affair), one cannot dismiss them. In fact, in the opinion of this humble reader, Ahmad’s novella is one of the finest and terribly profound treatises on love, critiqued with the non-ornate aplomb of a Jacobean tragedy and the heartbreaking regret and acknowledgment of Edith Wharton’s The Age Of Innocence.
So, at a time just after Ahmad Shah Abdali’s men have plundered and destroyed Delhi, a storyteller sets out to a distant unknown. The city he once loved is not what he remembers it to be. The unknown spells freedom. Had Abdali’s men not invaded Delhi, the storyteller would’ve lived on there, in love with the city. Setting out thus, he can look back; ruefully and unexpectedly observe that during his days in Delhi, when he spoke of friendship and love and all those things, love was merely ‘a currency of exchange of looks and glances’. Now… he had nothing… or he had his freedom!
Freedom at once jeopardized when his eyes see the Begum of an isolated grand haveli- a haveli that was probably built from the wealth of the vestiges of many Delhis. And yet, the storyteller was in love, captured… in bondage. This is where Ahmad voices his first paradox of love- of it being something that you are scared of, yet reach for with open arms…giving your whole hearts. The Begum, in a beautiful allusion, becomes the mirage in the desert for our storyteller.
The storyteller is invited to stay at the haveli…and share a story. He starts out with a tale of unrecognized love, a story of two brothers- a wolf and a boy. To which the Begum responds with a story of her own- of a love between brothers that transcends death. And so begins a wonderful game of love, of recounting enlightening stories that overlap each other, revealing, as in a pantimento, all new layers beneath those that have already been bared. Ultimately, what is left is the sheer hopelessness of love and the hope that lives on in that hopelessness!
Even before he’s begun his first story, the storyteller feels that he must escape. While the Begum is out hunting, the storyteller contemplates running away before it’s too late. But he cannot. He’s zapped- unable to look away from the beauty that stands in front of him… like the stag which stands hesitatingly on one hoof as the Begum nocks an arrow to her bowstring. And just like that, the arrow had driven deep inside. The decision was made for the storyteller. It was written for the stag.
And yet, strangely, the Begum was unhappy. The joy of the hunt had given way to a sudden sadness. The stag that looked majestic, a vision of stately authority that she wished to conquer, was unrecognizable now. The vivacity had vanished, the primacy bested.
To the storyteller though, it was a joy to be bested… to be defeated. How traditionally odd the exchange of love is!
An exchange that is made known in its purest innocent state when the little kid in the first story generously gives his name Taka (meaning nameless), given to him by his mother for he was born out of a relationship undefined by love or lust and compounded by silence, to his wolf brother. The irony of course is that the mother fails to see the act as a harmless selfless one, that the ‘name’ is ‘nameless’…and instead allows within her to grow an emotion that is defined by love- the emotion of hate. The kid, very rightly, ‘free’ of this ‘knowledge’ is called Wara (meaning free). The transfer of the name becomes poignant, when the mother kills the wolf cub mistaking him to have harmed her ‘free’ son. The adopted cub never ‘belongs’… he remains ‘nameless’!
This story brings to the fore the anxiety of the storyteller, who like the woman of his story, has set away from the land he once knew… accepting that which is doled out to him. His freedom has been encroached by his new love- the Begum; an emotion that could trigger that other linked emotion, hate. Had the storyteller not chosen to stay and instead continued along into the unknown, he could either have had nothing (Taka)… or he could have had his freedom (Wara)!
The Begum sees through the coded wisdom of the storyteller’s tale- of the primal aspect of love in the story of the wolf and the boy. She chooses to respond by humanizing the primal emotion, almost as if trying to assuage the storyteller’s fear of being the stag. She knows she’ll need a different kind of an arrow- a story with words as her weapon. She too narrates story of two brothers, but both human yet separated by privilege. She subverts being human of the first story to a privilege of riches in her story. So the generous human child of the storyteller’s story is the son of an Amir named Aresh (meaning generous). And the adopted wolf, the son of a lowly woodcutter. But in the Begum’s story, the unprivileged is privileged by fate. So the son of the woodcutter, called Barab (meaning pillar), is fated to be known as a brave soldier who extends the boundaries of his kingdom and whose virtues are extolled by the people of the region. Aresh meanwhile is inescapably doomed to cause calumny to his family name. His generosity for all its worth is left unrecognized. Incongruously, Barab sees himself as a mere copy of Aresh, unable to come to terms with the bloodshed required of a soldier. Unlike the wolf of the storyteller’s tale, he realizes that his name is not his but that which has been generously given to him by Aresh.
The Begum, with her story, responds to the fears of the storyteller in the same coded wisdom as that of his story. She would like him to know that though she is privileged, it is she who is doomed to be defamed in this affair. The storyteller need not assume the ruthless role, for it would only be a mere copy of her. He should accept her generosity, else he might have his freedom… but also have nothing!
The Begum’s story had allayed the storyteller’s fear of being rejected. It had also trapped him, made him overjoyed that he was defeated, bested! And yet, he had to be the hunter again… to best her.
And so he begins with his subversion of the Begum’s tale. Of Aresh and Barab. We are told that Barab was intended to be named Taka by his mother. And Barab, despite not knowing this, senses the Taka within. So the unprivileged of the Begum’s story is also the nameless wolf. It is this acknowledgment of the Taka within that allows Barab to see the honour in Taka’s death when he’s told of Taka and Wara’s story. There’s honour in dying guiltless, in proving your love while it still exists.
In the storyteller’s tale, Barab had awarded honour to Taka’s death, but at the same time had trapped the others in guilt… guilty to harbouring hate born out of love. Even Wara wasn’t free. It was this realization which makes him connect with the Taka within and gives him the sobriquet of a Wolf in battle. But Barab knows that he must seek death while there’s still honour in it, while his love still exists.
The storyteller’s rejoinder had all but refused the Begum’s proposal of love. He couldn’t see her and her haveli (what it stood for), as separate from each other. She stood for destruction and he was unwilling to be destroyed in love. He had to escape, while his love still exists. He’d rather have nothing… and his freedom!
Omair Ahmad by way of his storyteller addresses the tragedy of being in love. Of how you wish to be only true in it, even if meant revealing your true self to the one you love. The storyteller, like the stag, had given no thought to his safety, and had fallen in love. And yet, it was this love, which had made him reveal his inner turmoil.
And the Begum… she wanted to grasp this love before it slipped away. Was she to blame? Could she have resisted pulling the bowstring?
So, in one final retorting story, the Begum makes a case for herself. The story, though of Aresh and Barab, chooses to talk of those who do not make stories, but are only a part of it. A story nevertheless, where the seed of sin– a relationship undefined by love or lust and compounded by silence –is resolved.
Omair Ahmad closes out the novella with a moving revelation that finally, it is in the unloving that love truly triumphs. Until then, love is merely conquest. As the wise maid Mehrunnisa says to the Begum, “Eating another’s heart hardens one’s own!” In The Storyteller’s Tale and the tales within them, Ahmad familiarizes us with the darker facets of being in love. And like the cities left behind in ruins by their invaders, you can either choose to sift through the memories and futilely try to hold on to something or accept the new journey along altered maps. You can either have nothing… or you can have your freedom!

Interview with Omair Ahmad




1) You mentioned somewhere that just before you wrote The Storyteller's Tale, you suffered a heart break in real life. If I may ask, did that in any way have a bearing on the subject you chose. Is Delhi and its destruction in any way a personification of those feelings? In any case, how did the theme come about?

I'd like to avoid the first part of this question, if I may. The setting of the story came about when I was doing a short research project about the poets of Delhi, from Amir Khusro in the 12th century to Daag Dehlvi in the 19th, and how they dealt with the realities of
their city. One of them, Mir Taqi Mir, left Delhi in pretty much the circumstances I describe in the beginning of the book, and it is his poetry that I've used. He was a fascinating figure, the only poet that Ghalib ever praised, and who had deep feelings about his city, as well as being a great poet on the theme of unrequited love. I had initially written the story without a historical context, simply beginning with a storyteller coming out of the wilderness and seeing a beautiful house. There were no side characters, and the politics came in only later when I contextualised it in 18th century India.

2) Mindless violence is a central point of the book and also a recurrent motif in all the stories. Does that aspect pertain to the period alone or were you conscious about the theme resonating with our current crisis --- with wars and human rights violation in Pakistan, India, Afganistan and now Sri Lanka.
Was that the point where you "became" the storyteller in the book in a more pronounced way?

Oh yes, I certainly wanted to highlight the theme of violence, and the fact that it is also a contemporary feature of our life even today. As I said I only contextualised it in South Asia later, but it's amazing that Ahmad Shah Abdali (or Ahmad baba) is considered the
founder of the modern Afghani state, while to us he is the personification of violence. These contradictions are still with us, and I think that humanity will always contain this seed of destruction.
Hard to say where I 'became' the storytller more, but I have worked on international politics and militancy for a major part of my life, and so violence is something that I've had to confront and think about.

3) While the stories allude to the deep pain that the storyteller feels on account of his beloved city burning, the narratives in between have both the lead characters (the begam and the storyteller) pleasuring the thought of having a new 'lover' in their lives. Their stories are meant to offer a hint into their inner feelings. But the choices of the characters in the stories are queer. One is about a wolf and a boy, the others are about two brothers. Did you wonder if this could make it difficult for the reader to draw a metaphorical association to the central characters?

I'm not sure that it was meant to be a conventional love story. And really I was only writing this for myself when I started out -- I didn't think about it geing published. So no I really didn't think about the audience, I was only exploring old ideas of pain in various fables, myths and stories I'd heard as a child.

4)What prompted you to use fables as stories?

Well I think that fables are very powerful. Sometimes there are ways of something very powerfully in a fable that we can't in any other way. Think of Karna's rejection by Kunti and his relations with the other Pandava brothers, in the Mahabharata and how powerful that idea is. I was powerfully moved by fables when I was a child, so when I sat down to write the first of these stories I retold a fable that had affected me in my own way.

5) Both the stories are about two brothers, one more privileged than the other. Can you elaborate on this motif? Also, while the stories seem to carry a definite political overtone, the private narration (by the begam and storyteller) seems to mitigate it somewhat, making it appear that it’s really about the matters of the heart. How were you approaching this as a writer?

Yes, a lot of the book is about privilege and power, and how that affects love. Whether it is power that is the overriding principle or love, and who pays the price? In the first the wolf is the weaker one, and pays the price, in the second the Amir's son is the powerful one and yet he pays the price, and so on. I'm not sure, by the way, whether we can divide the political and personal so easily. How we deal with power, in a relationship that has to do with love or with politics, is a constant.

6) If you can tell us about what you’re currently working on…

I'm currently working on a novel, "Jimmy the Terrorist" dealing with issues of alienation, radicalisation, religion and politics in eastern Uttar Pradesh from the 70s to the 90s. That, and a non-fiction book on Bhutan, partly a travelogue and historical narrative about the country emerging into the world and its push towards democracy.

-Sandhya Iyer

Paulo Coelho’s The Winner Stands Alone

Glam - 'Sham'

Author: Paulo Coelho
Pages: 373
Price: 325
Publishers: Harper Collins


Personally, I’ve never been a fan of The Alchemist or its “life-altering profundity”
But yes, I do recogonise it as a hugely successful book, given that almost everyone out there who can read has read it (and much like with Chetan Bhagat’s bestsellers or Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, mass popularity of books in India is not something to be undermined given how precious little is read anyway).

The other Paulo book I've read is Eleven Minutes, which a friend gifted some years back. I don’t remember much of it except that I was riveted by the story initially. But quickly it spiralled downwards, and then just became a sorry excuse to peddle soft porn.
Unfortunately, Paulo’s latest, The Winner Stands Alone, turned out far worse than I expected. Given that his works are basically translated from Portuguese, one probably ought to give him a bit of a leeway but it’s still annoying how the story is narrated in present tense (but this is something you will probably get used to as the story progresses).

The bigger issue is that that the setting and story ring totally false. So what’s it about? A one line summary of the book would read as 'a gathering of the rich and famous at Cannes even as a multi millionaire serial killer is on the prowl to reclaim his wife'. And the glitzy backdrop of the festival offers Paulo an opportunity to ruminate on many of the superficialities that lurk beneath the surface glory and glamour. Sadly, Paulo’s narrative turns out just as synthetic as the world he wishes to critique.

The characters are predictable, namely, a small town girl - embittered by the experience back home is determined to become a model. Another one wants to be an actress and is anxious she might miss the bus, as she’s 25 already (judging from the two books I’ve read, one can’t be too pleased with the way Paulo portrays young women….in Eleven Minutes especially, I found a definite attempt on his part to titillate the reader). There's a filmmaker, who is trying to get her movie financed by a leading distributor.

These are some of the important characters but the major one is that of Igor, a rich businessmen who is at Cannes in search of his wife Ewa, who left him a couple of years back and is living with a hot shot fashion designer, Hamid Hussain. Each of the characters comes in contact with the other and their destinies collide in small and big ways. All this while, Igor is quietly going about his business of murdering at least four people in separate incidents.

As I mentioned, the story never really strikes you as authentic and the reason (among many) is because there is an awkward distance between the author and his subject. Paulo betrays a definite inadequacy in the understanding of his setting and characters, which is why a redundancy and tedium creeps in ever so often. Most of the players are stereotypes and the only character who could have probably held your interest is Igor but he’s portrayed as so cold, unidimensional and staid that you don’t look forward to any of his encounters with the other characters. In general too, there is not a single character you feel for. This is because they are just too typical, potrayed without any real nuance, depth or imagination.

The only way this quasi thriller could have been salvaged was if it was a quick fire read. But that’s not the case, as there’s a colossal amount of preaching that follows every character’s action. The language tends to be heavy and along with the rambling, it makes for an uneven, uneasy read.
The only positive perhaps is the structure of the narrative, which moves back and forth, tracking a character’s back story and so on – the sole mental exercise that the novel offers you.

With Paulo, you expect him to tell a story, pause and then throw up an existential quandary.
That’s exactly what he does here but sadly, this story cuts no ice so there’s not much pop spirituality to look forward to either.

The only one remotely interesting page I found was on Paulo’s assessment on what human beings consider ‘normal’. Most of what we do is governed by what is ‘acceptable’ rather than what we think is correct.
But barring that, not recommend at all. At least with Eleven Minutes, I felt I had entered a real world for some time but with this one, you get the feeling of being stranded with a clueless bystander.

Short interview with Paulo Coelho

Your latest book basically looks at the superfluous lives lead by the rich and famous….Is that the only overarching theme of the book that you were trying to explore and emphasize or are there other things that drew you towards this subject as well?

In this book I wanted to explore how dreams can be manipulated and how people get shattered in the process. I’m not condemning vanity – since all under the sun is vanity as Salomon said. What I am interested in is in how people allow themselves to be dispossessed of themselves. In our current society there are collective standards that are completely anonymous and yet many try to subscribe to them. Some people believe their happiness is conditioned by money, fame, beauty… How does that happen? This book arose from this central question.

Your central character, Igor ‘destroys worlds’ How exactly do you perceive this character?

When I started to write the book, I had no clue where it would lead me. Somehow the characters take their destiny from the hands of the creator. My main surprise with Igor is that he justifies his crimes in the name of love. This contradiction gradually unfolded page after page. In a way I was a spectator of my character: he had a will of his own and led me towards very dark places. I needed to follow him – in order to see how far we can go in our insanity. I’m a writer and it’s not because I write a novel that it means that I justify all the characters’ actions. There are no justifications for Igor’s murderous acts and I never pretended throughout the novel to “judge” any of the characters in their cravings, illusions, and achievements.

All your books have some philosophical insight to offer. Since you are looked upon as a ‘healer' of sorts by millions of readers, I'm curious to know if that is the role that you primarily assume while writing or choosing a theme - ie to send a message and influence.

With success, the dimensions change but the inner feeling of sharing my soul with others remains intact. I’m living the dream I had in my youth but I never look upon this dream as something that has an end. As long as I’m able to live, think and love, the spark will continue.

What’s coming up next? And what are the themes you would like to explore in the future?

I can’t say since I’m not currently writing. I don’t like to speculate about what I may or not write. It takes away the “momentum” when I actually sit down and start a story.

Some thoughts on 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'

The Veil of Disenchantment

Author: Khaled Hosseini
Pages: 420
Publishers: Bloomsbury
Genre: Epic- drama
Price: 495

Given that I had mixed feelings about the author's last bestseller, The Kite Runner and the not-so-positive reviews that his second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns met with, I didn't show the inclination to read the latter immediately.
But since it was a long weekend and I wasn't reading anything else, I took it up. Also, one kind of guessed that it would be a quick, breezy read - so even if it turned out to be bad, there would be no colossal waste of time I gathered.

But in a pleasant surprise, I actually enjoyed this one and thought it to be a far more subdued and graceful effort than his debut novel. I don't mean to say Hosseini is a 'subdued' writer - that would be an antithesis of what he represents but yes, compared to The Kite Runner which resembled a potboiler -with forced ironies and cringe worthy melodrama --- this one is far more restrained and if I may so, tells a far more important story too.

For all my reservations about The Kite Runner, I've said in my review of the book too that it probably has the best 100 pages I've read in popular fiction. The kind of emotional sweep and stirring passion that Hosseini achieves in some situations and characters is awesome but the kind of shoddy contrivances that he introduced later made his debut novel a very suspect piece of work for me in the end.

Somehow, I felt differently about A Thousand Splendid Suns. Sure, Hosseini's stories still resemble the good old Bollywood film with the 'oh-so-it-was-him!' kind of eye popping twists, but here, fortunately, there isn't too much of such contrivance and importantly, the few that are there take nothing away from the central premise of the novel - ie the wretched state of women in Afghanistan and the shocking inhuman nature of their existence.

Where The Kite Runner' story appears almost manufactured, with his second novel, Hosseini keeps his narrative more flowing - capturing well the vulnerable state of his two spirited women protagonists. For better or worse, their fates are intertwined with the erratic and ever fluctuating socio-political situation in the country. It's more poignant to see Marium and Laila being stifled under regimes like Taliban (that won't even allow them to step out of their house without a man to take them!) because both of them grow up as smart girls in relatively happy conditions. The author draws your attention to an erstwhile Afghanistan in the 60s, 70s and 80s where you had educated women who were doctors and lawyers. Having seen a better life in their childhood, both Marium and Laila are but naturally shocked by the cruel blow of fate that falls upon them in adulthood.

Marium is the illegitimate child of a rich father, and following the death of her mother marries a much older man, Rasheed. The latter is a prototype of a male chauvinist - perfectly happy with the status quo of a woman being treated subservient to a man. Which is why, he never quite criticises the gorilla army of the Taliban when they take over the country much later. He views their rigid, inhuman laws with ' a sort of forgiving bemusement' as Hosseini so fittingly describes. And yet, to the author’s credit, Rasheed never slips into being a caricature. In the initial stages of the marriage, he displays some tender fibres - even if he expects complete submission from his wife.
It is when Marium fails to deliver him a child after a douzen miscarrages that he unleashes his cruel male side, stinging her with sarcasm and crushing her spirit at every turn.

The Soviet invasion in the 80s incites a freedom struggle. Late towards the 90s, the Muhajadeens take over from them but it doesn't last, as different factions (based on caste and ideology) emerge, leading to a civil war. Families are destroyed, many of them flee to neighbouring countries like Iran and Pakistan..some even to US and UK. But the crisis mounts as many borders are sealed and refugee camps come up.

It is in this crossfire that Laila, the novel's second protagonist finds herself in. With her family dead and lover declared dead, she agrees to marry Rasheed who gives her a home. Marium and Laila are now step-wives sharing the same roof, each one living in sorrowful silence. In The Kite Runner, the novel's heartbreaking moments involve Amir and Hasan's childhood. In this novel, things are more tempered but still there are moments of great intensity that the author manages to build up. For example. Laila and her relationship with the crippled yet serenely sensuous Tariq comes closest to being one of the most touching parts of the novel.

The union of their souls - Marium and Laila-- coincides with the disintegration of Afghanistan into an abyss of religious fanaticism, propagated by the regime of the Taliban. It is amidst this chaos that both women form a bond and ultimately find their redemption.
Laila and Tariq return to Kabul (they settle in Pakistan in the meantime) after the US take over Afghanistan after 9/11 and the place starts to appear safer. This is obviously an autobiographical element - as Hosseini and his family had come visiting their homeland in 2003 to see how it had changed and if they could offer any help to its people.

What is commendable about the author's writing here is that even though the theme allows him to probably go all out and be emotionally manipulative in his treatment, he shows restraint - never losing focus of the bigger picture. Given Hosseini's present work as a US envoy for a UN refugee agency, you know his concerns are heart-felt and that clearly comes forth in the novel.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - in its theme of displacement, human suffering on account of wars and human rights violation ----is much like another favourite book of mine, Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I like how both these books weave in a fictionalised dramatic story mirroring the real life human crisis around them. Obviously, Adichie's book is in a literary league of its own, in terms of the complexity, realism and astounding emotional power.

But Hosseini's is a worthwhile effort too. It's a fairly expansive, textured setting that he achieves once again and his skill as a writer - finding the exact words to describe something (great dialogues) or never letting his leads slip out of character- it all works well for the story. Importantly, he opens up an interesting window into a country and its people, telling stories with much passion and yes, readability.

-Sandhya Iyer

Hindi Cinema - An Insider's View

Author: Anil Saari
Published In: 2009
Publishers: Oxford
Price: 495
Genre: Essays


Method In Madness

Along with the fact that Hindi cinema seems to fall in a rut of its own ever so often, the other major disappointment comes from the fact that unlike in the West, film journalism in India languishes in a kind of ignominious state.
The electronic media today thrives on minute-to-minute film gossip, displaying a sort of obnoxious aggression that has never been seen before. The paparazzi culture exists all over the world but in India, it seems to be blurring lines, leaving precious little space to any sort of analysis or thought.

It is in this context that I would like to introduce film journalist Anil Saari and his posthumously published book, Hindi Cinema - An Insider’s View - that is a compilation of his essays right from the 70s to as late as 2005 - the year he died. Most of these writings have appeared as columns in various newspapers and magazines.

The book has an comprehensive introduction from filmmaker and critic Partha Chatterjee, enumerating Saari's vast and in depth knowledge of cinema and most importantly, his ability in recogonising the Hindi film idiom as an important indicator of socio-cultural trends.

In an important pointer to why popular Hindi cinema mirrors life as it is and does not deptart from it dramatically (thereby never really being progressive), the author argues, “Mass media cannot introduce a greater rationality than that which already exists within society. Indeed, in many ways, the media must place itself on the lowest level at which certain mores and values are commonly accepted.”

He also has something interesting to share about the relevance of songs in films. “Given the episodic, fragmentary structure of our films, the sprawling patchwork of plots and sub plots are ultimately anchored and united thematically through songs which provide the philosophical world view that the film subscribes to and expostulates,” he says in the essay. For this reason, Saari believes songs have a definite and important role to play in Indian films.

The other noteworthy essay he writes is about 'Hindi cinema and its compelling world'. Even though films never tampered with the established social fibre, it still fired the imagination of the common man taking him through sensations he had never felt before. So Shree 420 became one of the biggest money spinners of the times, "blending traditional Buddhist ideal of renunciation with sensuality” Also, “in its own inelegant way, it taught a million young Indians how to accept their natural attraction for the other sex.” “Shammi Kapoor may well have been the terror of the middle class mothers. But his brashness in Dil Deke Dekho prompted youngsters to discard the Devdas concept of the suffering lover”
So he concludes that even with its conservatism, Hindi cinema became the standard bearers of fashion and modernity.

One of the most important sections in my view is his take on art cinema vis a vis popular cinema. Saari believes that mainstream commercial directors did a more sincere job of assimilating some of the strengths of art cinema into the commercial mould than what parallel filmmakers achieved in terms of reaching out to a wider audience. According to him mainstream cinema - taking a cue from art cinema- curbed its tendency to be too verbal and switched course and became more visual in its approach. The camera came alive and even the crassest of stereotypes was given some semblance of social relevance and reality. This naturally helped popular cinema to revive and rejuvenate itself.

Saari, while appreciative of the efforts of parallel filmmakers, is vocal in his criticism of them too. The New Wave movement - that relied on state sponsorship in the 80s - did not throw up even one name who tried to bride the gap between art and commercial, he says. And this remains his biggest grouse against the art film movement. “They could not reach out to a wider audience because many of these makers alienated themselves from the very people for whom they were supposed to be making the films for....they forgot that a genuine movement in film could come only through a strong relationship with the people.”
While he's extremely appreciative of the earliest art film movement brought about by masters like Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, he remains disappointed that though their works found acceptance internationally, within their own country, the masses at large couldn't really be drawn in to see their films.
His emphasis through his essays in this section is that art need not stand in opposition to popular cinema and in fact, parallel films can offer mainstream films with an array of styles and ideas that can enrich it.

Another insightful essay is on ‘violence in cinema’ and how for the longest time there were no action sequences in Hindi films. But this he says was only a temporary ‘repression’ - the influence of Gandhi and emphasis on non-violence. “Violence has been an obvious, but unfortunately ignored characteristic of the actual history of the subcontinent.” Action came to films towards 1968-70 and this curiously coincided with the political atmosphere in the country. It was the time of the Naxalite upsurge, then there was the Bangladesh liberation. “The new consciousness responded to new motifs and new visual patterns on the screen,” he notes.

There are also interesting observations he makes about screen idols, right from the troika of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand to screen goddess, Nargis, Madhubala and Waheeda Rahman. He also shares his deep appreciation for filmmaker Guru Dutt, who served his art above all other considerations.

To give an example of how he offers valid criticism on a film, his essay on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas is useful. According to him Bhansali's (undeniably gifted, he says) interpretation of Sarat Chandra’s novel tries to be closer to poetry than to storytelling. “What almost invariably happens when an Indian filmmaker wants to create ‘poetry on celluloid’ is that he wishes to make every single moment in his film a great moment. - of high emotion, grand gestures, extraordinary feelings.” According to Saari, such intensity creates its own one dimensionality, a monotony that in a short time destroys the dramatic rhythm that is so essential to any work of art.
In T S Eliot's words, poetry happens when ‘a work transcends from the ridiculous to the sublime’ And our cinema follows Eliot's recommendation. ...wherein amidst the ordinariness of living, a great film sets its dramatic surprises, narrative twists and heart wrenching moment. This juxtaposition is important and Devdas sadly ignores that aspect, he feels.

There’s a great deal of insight in Anil Saari’s book. Though academic in nature, it’s a valuable read for anyone looking for comprehensive analysis on Hindi cinema. The essays that have been compiled are all mostly written at least a decade ago, which means some of its contents, concerns and the book’s overall tone could appear a bit dated. For example, while the art verses popular cinema is an interesting part of this book, that distinction has all but vanished in today’s multiplex era and Saari would be the one to be most delighted by it.
Also, there are chapters like ‘the Southern locale for Hindi films’ ‘Rags to riches made Real’ ‘Black money as mainstay of Hindi cinema’ - which don’t really say much other than the obvious.
Another gaffe is the title of the book. Hindi Cinema – The Insider’s View – which gives a grossly unfair picture. If anything, Saari’s observations are so fair and well thought-out precisely because he is no ‘insider’ beyond his great love for cinema.
Ultimately, this kind of writing is refreshing to revisit at a time when there is near bankruptcy of ideas relating to film criticism in popular Indian cinema.

Mythology and cinema

(In the photo) Kamal Haasan with filmmaker Mani Kaul

The session on ‘Mythology and Cinema’ at the recently concluded FTII seminar was replete with quotable quotes, anecdotes and useful insights

FTII’s recent seminar on Literature And Cinema; a question of adaptation also touched upon the subject of mythology, a genre that has had tremendous influence over popular Indian cinema - especially in creating familiar templates. What also made it special was the panel of invited speakers. There was Kamal Haasan, fresh from last year’s Dasavatharam, along with his close colleague, actor-writer Gollapadi Maruti Rao. There was also mythologist and writer (The Pregnant King) Devdatta Patnaik and film professor Suresh Chabria who shed light on how mythology has been depicted on screen and its social and cultural impact.

Since the evolution of cinema, for the longest time, mythology has provided a treasure trove of themes for our films. Today, mythology as subject matter may be looked upon as archaic or 'uncool' but the panelists agreed that not only did it succeed in bringing in the early audiences - given its narrative familiarity and appeal--- it created templates that find resonance till date. For example, ‘the wronged son’ is Karna, ‘a woman’s test of fire’ is Sita. These are culturally imbedded images now and all are modern mythological imports. When India’s first talkie was made, it was no surpirse that it was the mythological Raja Harishchandra.
Describing mythology as the golden metaphor of a society - that tells you the ‘subjective truth’ of its people, Gollapadi Maruti Rao said, “The aphorism, ‘Tell me who your friends are and I will tell who you are’ fits perfectly with mythology, where one could say, “Tell me your mythology and I’ll tell you what your society is” So mythology is the mirror to a civilization.”

Kamal Hasaan, who chaired the session, did not give a speech but he did introduce each of the panelists in his own inimitable style - peppering the session with a few one-liners. “Mythology is nothing but a spiritual cosmetic surgery on history,” he said smiling. A self-confessed atheist in real life, even in his last film, Dasavatharam, the actor’s attempt was to question blind faith in God.

One of the most interesting panelists proved to be writer Devdatta Patnaik, who kept the audience in splits with his anecdotes on mythological films. “What is mythology? It is the subjective truth of a people revealed through stories. It is how they see ‘their’ world,” he began. He pointed at how unlike Biblical Mythology, Indian mythology is more relaxed in it various manifestations. “Look at our mythology. It is tacky, loud, our gods even gossip about each other. We treat our gods like friends. We are lovers of the shringar ras and enjoy our stories with all the colour and drama possible. Hum raseele log hain (We're colourful people),” he said, adding, “Compared to Biblical mythology, which frowns upon any humour directed towards it, Indian mythology takes on forms like nautanki and others and no questions are asked. This is also because, our mythology is seen more as fantasy, while in the West, it is viewed as a historical and is never promoted through folk and classical theatre.”

A very vital point came up in Suresh Chabria’s speech, where he spoke of mythology being the most political of all film genres. According to him, it brought a certain visual culture that ultimately creates and feeds our thinking about culture and politics. “The spectacle and narrative familiarity is the reason why mythological films were being made for more than 20 years. But there was a political agenda to it as well. Our Painters like Raja Ravi Verma and other - who depicted our mythology and gave it a form --- promoted ‘magic realism’ of a kind through it, as opposed to Western realism -enlightenment. So in a way that itself was an escape from the prison house of colonialism, one that was contesting western ideas. So mythology, both in its formal aesthetics and appeal was a political project,” he said.
The anti-colonial discourse promoted by mythology saw a change after independence. “Cinema in the South took to mythology and here the agenda was ‘regional identity’. Today, in its televisual avatar, the genre is used to mobilise Hindu ideology,” he said about the uses and abuses of mythology.

All, in all, the session saw some interesting commentary and insights.
-Sandhya Iyer

Literature and Cinema - the question of adaptation

FTII’s seminar on literature and cinema drew a fantastic response, with Javed Akhtar speech clearly standing out.

“Literature in cinema can only survive when its audience understands and respects it,” was scriptwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar's strong-worded argument when he spoke to an enthralled audience at the just concluded seminar on literature and cinema at the Film And Television Institute Of India

(FTII). The event saw some of the most erudite and well-known names from Indian cinema, expounding on various aspects of literature (plays, short-stories, mythology, novel) and the question of adaptation. The impressive list included Kamal Haasan, Anurag Kashyap, Vinay Shukla, Kamlesh Pandey, Mani Kaul, Vishal Bharadwaj and many other notable names in the field of writing.

So why is it that literature that thrived in cinema in the early decades fade away so easily? Akhtar explained, “The profile of the middle-class in the 50s and 60s was very different. This was a class that was rooted and educated. Cinema, literature and audiences form a trilateral relationship and they all touch each other. Only audiences who appreciate and respect literature will like to see it in cinema. The middle class of the 40s, 50s and 60s had that respect, which is why good literature through cinema thrived.”

But somewhere as India itself started to get pulled in a thousand different directions, the complexion of the country slowly started to change and that was reflected in cinema (being a mass-medium) more than any other art. “I think the triangle broke somewhere around the 70s and especially 80s, when a whole new middle class emerged. Industrialisation produced a 15 crore strong middle class and this was a section that had not come up by way of education. They had no connection to literature. And hence, by sheer brute power of numbers, they changed the course of cinema and what it should mean. A different aesthetics came into showbiz, the language changed and cinema’s relationship with literature was totally broken. 80s saw some of the worst films ever made, it saw the worst songs, worst lyrics, worst dialogue,” he observed.

And have things improved? Not quite, said Akhtar. “The worst is surely behind us, but we haven’t reached where we should. One can only hope that literature and cinema will have a healthy relationship.”

Akhtar also had a very interesting take on the emergence of new-age films and filmmakers, where he spoke about his own son Farhan Akthar.
“Yes, we have filmmakers making the so called ‘cool’ films but I feel this sophistication is only skin deep. When I speak to Karan Johar or Farhan and ask them if their cinema is ‘representative’ enough, they say they can only make films about the world they know about. They tell me, ‘How can we make films on villages when we’ve never been to one?’
I understand their dilemma but also find it quite tragic. It is sad that when 70 per cent of our population lives in villages, we have filmmakers who have never been to a village! I think our present society is giving rise to two demographics – one, is the educated class from the vernacular medium and the other studies in convents and public schools. So while the former is the more rooted class – with the gift of the language (after all language is the ultimate vehicle of culture) — they unfortunately also tend to be parochial, narrow-minded and with no world view.
The problems are different from – for those who study in elite English medium schools. They probably are more liberal, have a world-view but they are not aware of many of the ground-realities, they are not rooted to their culture. So ultimately, we are left with trees that either have branches or only have roots. Only a complete tree can give us the fruit of cinema and this is something we must ponder over,” he said.

One of the reasons Akhtar gives for the erasure of literature in cinema is that unlike in literature, films don’t have their protagonists belonging to the middle-class anymore. “We had great writers like Manto, Ismat Chugtai, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir in the past. They all had a certain social and political consciousness, which they brought into their film writing as well. In the 40s and 50s, the protagonist was the personification of contemporary morality and contemporary aspirations. For example, Devdas came in the time of decadence where feudalism was taking its last breath. Dilip Kumar was the rebel star, Amitabh –the angry young man. Today, that middle-class does not exist, the working class does not exist. We have directors and producers who refuse to the spoil their party in their newly acquired affluence, so then, where is the door for literature? Good literature is the record of a common man’s hurts and humiliations, love and dreams. But call it compulsions of commercial cinema or whatever but there just isn’t enough scope for these kind of subjects yet.”

Finally, Akhtar made a point on how he finds it strange that while a short story or a novel or a play is called literature, a good screenplay isn’t. “Why isn’t the script of Mughal-e-Azam considered literature? Why is Anand’s script not literature? Is it that only material that comes out of a publishing house can be called literature? In my opinion, a lot of writing is pure junk, waste of paper. I really feel that good screenplays must be considered as literature,” he emphasised.
With such pertinent and profound observations, it wasn’t a surprise that the seminar kicked off on an outstanding note, setting the tone for the rest of the two days.

“I couldn't spoil the texture to enhance the structure”

Revered novelist and poet Dr U R Ananthmurthy spoke about how the challenge to cinema doesn't come from cinema itself but from rich writing. According to him, there is a whole ‘backyard’ - comprising underclasses, women etc - that is waiting to be heard. “They are waiting to speak and it will be challenge to integrate this backyard and bring it to the foreground,” he said.
He also observed how both literature and cinema have a role to play and the adapted work must be viewed through that perspective. Citing Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed film, Pather Panchali, he explained, “When Pather Panchali was screened in America, most people were of the view that the novel was much superior and richer to the film. But does that diminish the glory of the film? No. Because ultimately, what Ray does is to bring you a great literary work and make it accessible to the larger audience. This is both the strength and inadequacy of cinema,” he noted.
He also recounted the experience where his novel, Samskara was being adapted by Girish Karnad into a film and some major differences he had with the filmmaker. "I remember being very unhappy with the film. Many of the ideas were lost. Girish wanted to delay the death of one of the characters , thereby keeping the suspense alive but I thought that was taking away the essence of my story - I didn’t my ideas to be tampered with. I understood his compulsions but I remember telling Karnad how ‘I could not spoil the texture to enhance the structure'," he said, on the perennial ego tussle between the writer and the filmmaker.

Another point he raised was regarding many of the current filmmakers being hesitant to make a story about a village or a small place, thinking it will restrict the film’s appeal. “The smaller the place, the greater the universe. Filmmakers must overcome their fears, only then will great films emerge,” he said.

Finally using a reference from Javed Akhtar’s earlier speech about how only a tree with roots and branches can give us the complete fruit of cinema, Ananthmurthy concluded his speech by adding, “Watering the roots of a tree is most essential and the water is nothing but imagination,”

Past Perfect: A Passage To India

From Darkness to Light

Author: E M Forster
Published In: 1924




Many critics believe that without A Passage To India, E M Forster wouldn't have perhaps been the author of eminence he is today. This novel, based in India during the British rule, is easily one of the most definitive works that documents the period and offers more than a glympse into the prevailing colonial attitudes.
Not that Howards End and A Room With A View do not contain merits but A Passage To India - by having a dark. impenetrable core (the caves) - right in the middle of the book --- breaks away from Forster's otherwise Edwardian conventionality and takes on modernist hues. It's a mature breakaway for the author and what we have here is a mytho poetic novel that unravels a wealth of meaning.

Talking about myself, my first interest in E M Forster's works came about when I watched that brilliant literary adaptation by Ismail Merchant of A Room With A View. Later when I read the book, I found it quite disengaging. I felt the film was far more entertaining. Again, when I picked up A Passage To India, I gave it up after reading a few pages, as it just wouldn't draw me in.
But last year, I felt the urge to take it up again. Only this time, I savoured the book - loving how Forster creates the mood and setting. A certain mysticism pervades the novel, as each character battles with their two worlds - internal and external. The incident of the Caves is the culmination point where things come to a head.

When Adela Quested and her would-be-mother-in-law Mrs Moore come to India, they express their wish to see 'the real India'. Compared to the snobbery around - among the British class about the natives (Indians) - Adela and Mrs Moore seem much more open and courteous towards their Indian acquaintances. Dr Aziz, one of the major characters in the novel appears in many ways an embodiment of Forster's impression of India --- a kind of 'muddle' yet affectionate and emotional. His judgments are not always based on facts, as he tends to follow his heart too much. He overreacts and his feelings swing in extremes - from childlike joy to undiluted anger and hate.

The other character, Mr Feilding is portrayed as the rationalist - a friend to both Aziz and the two women. All four of them are happy with each others acquaintance and it's one of these days that Aziz proposes a trip to the Marabar caves. When they agree, Aziz makes a lot of preparations for the journey. But things turn disastrous. When Mrs Moore comes out of the Cave, she feels dizzy and disturbed. But Adela's reaction is extreme. She comes out shouting and later accuses Dr Aziz of sexually molesting her. The Britishers stand by Adela, using the opportunity to tighten the screw on the natives.

However, as days progress, Adela isn't sure anymore whether she was really molested or whether she just imagined it. Mrs Moore is convinced that it was all in Adela’s mind. Dr Aziz is let off by the court to loud cheers by fellow Indians. The British community feels humiliated and targets Adela for 'changing her mind'
The third act, mostly constitutes the central characters drifting away and then crossing each other's paths after many years. This part does not flow seamlessly with the rest of the story but if seen like an epilogue, it works in portraying how the British-Indian equation was writ with misunderstanding, mistrust and miscommunication.

So, what exactly happened in the caves? Forster never tells you and even when he was asked about it in interviews, he only said, "I don't know!"
But the author's rich setting and characters do reveal a lot, in terms of what could have possibly happened. One of the central clues is Mrs Moore's character, who is going through a period of disenchantment with humanity itself. She has intuitive powers and feels a certain spiritual decay that disturbs her. She possibly expected to find peace in the caves but instead is horrified at the feeling of 'nothingness' it suggests. Adela, on the other hand, only has a certain superficial rationality to her and her sexual feelings are also repressed (in Jungian terms, her animus is more pronounced), which is why the caves probably brought her at the end of her conscious state -ie towards the unconscious (mind you, the cave can also be viewed as a primal womb - a darkness before existence as much as nothingness after existence) and that makes her unstable.
In general, two of these characters, in particular move in an out of their consciousness and unconsciousness.
Adela's fear could have also emerged out her distrust for Aziz and all Indians, a feeling which may not seem obvious on the surface.
So essentially, Forster starts off by creating a rich period drama about British India and the relationships that crumble under the weight of their cultural phobia.

For this and more reasons, A Passage To India is an illuminating read and opens up a treasure of meanings.

The Summer Of Cool

Colony capers

Author: Suchitra Krishnamoorthy
Pages: 205
Publishers: Puffin
Published in : 2009
Genre: Teen fiction

After proving herself as a decent actress (Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, My Wife's Murder) a pop singer, and even a painter, Suchitra Krishnamoorthi gives us a glimpse of her talent as a writer with her just released debut book, The Summer Of Cool. And she does well!

It's a breezy 200 odd pager about teenagers and their eventful summer in the upper middle class neighbourhood of Swapnalok Society. The book wastes no time in introducing the denizins of this nestled housing complex, each character and home delineated with their own peculiar traits and quirks. So there are the exiting Malhotras, also teased by the kids as 'Underwear aunty and uncle' because they have a habit of hanging their undergarments in full view in their balcony. Then there's the hyper Sita Maami - whose cola water recipe is a hit at all the colony get-togethers. The excitement grows a little more with the entry of a charming, bachlor in their midst Varun Vadola.

The place has its share of one-upmanship, jibes and politics and their earnest Secretary, Mrs Subramanium always seems to have her hands full with demands of getting leaking bathroom repaired, not allowing dogs in the lift...and so on.

Suchitra is very successful in creating this setting - and all those who have lived in co-operative societies at any point of time will appreciate the author's skill at evoking many a familiar image. Most importantly, Suchitra knows how to keep the proceedings interesting, introducing new characters and plot points.

Swapnalok Society has many families who would make for an entertaining story by themselves but the author chooses the troubled Varma family, with its two lovely daughters - Chitangana, the doe-eyed, and feisty eight-year-old and her more compliant elder sis, Smita. Both are extremely smart and imaginative kids, except that their lives haven't been the same ever since their father, Siddharth left them. Their mother has been a wreck, shutting herself from the world and venting her anger at her daughters. Chitrangana finds herself constantly at the firing end, given her curiosity about her dad’s disappearance from their life. Her agile, innocent mind is baffled at how her mom “treats their father as a ghost who doesn’t exist”

Things become more interesting with the entry of their Amamma (mother’s mom), with a morbid fear of strangers. The slinging matches get worse, until Chitrangana decides to find her father and set their crumbling house in order. Feeling suppressed at home, she starts to talk to the cloth doll, named Seema that her sister gifted her on her birthday. And in Chitrangana’s inventive head, she hears the doll replying to all her queries. Heeding her doll’s advice (which is really her heart dictating), she goes on a brief search for her father. The episode is painful but it proves necessary for many of the central characters and their lives.

Suchitra does a nice desi Enid Blyton here, sketching the lives of unban Indian kids quite accurately (this could be largely aided by the fact that she is mother to a teenage daughter in real life)

However, for a setting that is so nuanced and characters so well-developed, the central plot and resolution are quite basic and even simplistic. From a very rooted and realistic setting, Suchitra broadens the scope of her story, with Chitrangana going in search of her father. This is where the author loses some of the grip over the story and is forced to introduce elements like coincidences and so on.

There is fair share of suspense that the author manages to create, but the ending is probably not befitting a story that starts off so well.

All the same, the book won't insult your intellegence either. Don't look for a very complex plot, and The Summer Of Cool works out to be a crisp, page-turner that keeps you quite hooked.

Interview The Write Move

Suchitra Krishnamoorthy gives us an insight into her new book, The Summer Of Cool, telling us, among other things, why she keeps her writing so racy. Also, she’s all set to turn her latest book into a series.

1) It looks like the theme for the book was drawn from your own childhood experiences...

Yup. I grew up in a very interactive multicultural co-operative housing society in Mumbai and the ambience of the Swapnalok Society Series is drawn from there. Even many of the characters...

2. Was The Summer of Cool always supposed to be your first book or were you looking at some other subjects too?

I toyed with a couple of ideas and then went with this one. It had been playing in my head for a while and I needed to do something about it. Once I had the first draft I sent it to a friend of a friend, who happened to be Commissioning editor at Penguin. She loved it and that’s how the whole thing fell into place.

3. You have a teenage daughter, Kaveri. Are some of the episodes in the book drawn from what you see of her and her peers?
My daughter has just turned eight. She is way too young but a lot of the language I have used is from observing her and her friends and also my nieces.

4. Did you use anyone as your sounding-board while writing the book?
Yes, Mahesh Dattani. He is a kind of creative mentor to me and gave me able guidance.

5. One of your central characters, that of Chitrangana and Smita's mother, is an extremely troubled yet poignant character. Was there any particular reason for portraying her as a wreck?

Nobody is bad. There are circumstances that cause people to behave in a particular way. It’s what I wanted to explore.

6. I read somewhere that you finished writing the book in six weeks flat?

The first draft was written in six weeks yes. I had the basic plot ready and the rest emerged as I wrote. Even the end was something that emerged as I was writing.

7. Was there any point in the book where you couldn't decide which way your story should move or how a particular character needs to be approached. For example, the character of Sandy Khan is left quite ambiguous? Was that deliberate?

Sandy Khan is ambiguous because he is seen in this story from the point of view of Chitrangana. He is a hazy figure in her life and she lives in his shadow in spite of his absence. Wait till you read the next book in the series-things will become clearer.

8. You've kept the book extremely racy, introducing fresh characters and situations all the while. Is that how you wanted your book to be and are you conscious of not rambling when you are writing?
I am a very restless person, and it rare for something to hold my attention unless its riveting and I am emotionally hooked. My writing therefore emerges out of a need to keep myself engaged as well.

9.What are the books you enjoy reading and is there any book that has impressed you lately?
I read a lot. Am currently reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

10. What more can we expect from you as a writer in the time to come?
The Summer Of Cool will be a series. I guess you can expect a substantial body of work from me as a writer. But don’t ask me what I’ll write about next because I really don’t know. I will wait for inspiration to strike and Ganesha to guide my pen.

-Sandhya Iyer

A House for Mr Biswas

Heartbreak House

Author: V S Naipaul
Pages: 563
Year of Publishing: 1961

Having read V S Naipaul’s A Million Mutinies Now (a epic travelogue for its sheer scope and detailing) and An Area of Darkness (an unforgiving, somewhat crude description of post-Independence India), one surmises that whether one chooses to agree or not with his highly provocative, opinionated views, there’s never a dull moment around his writings– a major asset for any author. Also, Naipaul very successfully manages to articulate his thoughts in simple, lucid language, and yet dazzles you with the richness, complexity and sheer emotional expanse of the text.

For a long time now, one has been hearing about A House for Mr Biswas being undoubtedly his best work. Also, since I had only read his non-fictional works, there was a certain curiosity to see his fictional writing. Of course, A House For Mr Biswas is not wholly fiction and in fact, borrows a lot from Naipaul’s own childhood.

The central character of Mr Biswas is based on the life of his father and novel tracks his life from birth to death. Right since he is born, he is considered a bad omen for the family. By a quirk of fate, the prediction indeed comes true with Biswas’ father getting drowned while trying to save him. The family goes through very trying times, even as his mother Bipti appears totally detached and whining at all times. Biswas is often sent to his wealthy aunt’s place, where he does odd jobs for the family. Biswas loves the ambience of the place and dreams of being able to afford the same lifestyle someday. But in every scheme that his mother finds to get him 'settled' – one of them has him as an apprentice to a mean-minded Pundit (this whole episode is hilarious as much as it is ironic) – ends up frustrating Mr Biswas even further.

That's when Biswas' life takes another dramatic turn. A harmless bit of flirting with his employer's daughter plunges him straight into marriage. Biswas is not prepared, but his in-laws, the affectionate yet firm Mrs Tulsi and her commanding son-in-law, insist on the match. This, even though Biswas is penniless.

He moves in with the Tulsis – a queer, noisy extended family where the Tulsi daughters are welcomed to stay with their husbands and children. Since most of the son-in-laws are not very well-to-do, they are employed either in one of the family’s shops or fields.

Mr Biswas is enraged seeing that he has to follow the rules set by his wife’s family. He abhors the tasteless food they serve, helplessly cribbing that it ruins his stomach and in general leaves no opportunity to deride them or pick up fights with the elders. The family is more often than not patient with him, trying to buy peace by giving him a fresh opportunity. Many a times, Mr Biswas gets so outraged by the family that he moves out, only to face hardships outside and return back defeated. He finds scant support from his wife who is practical about their financial condition and stays put at her mothers’ place with her kids.

The only time Mr Biswas’ life looks up is when he lands a job as a journo at the Sentinel. Tired of the Tulsis, he attempts to build a house of his own at least on two occasions. But always short of cash and saddled with a million troubles always, he ends up making a mish-mash of it each time and lands right back with the Tulsis.

However, Mr Biswas does manage a house of his own towards the end and nothing gives him more happiness than to live in a place where he doesn’t have to be indebted to the Tulsis. Strangely, Biswas finds more peace and cheer in the last few years of his life (with his son Anand and Savi) than he ever gets in his lifetime.

The novel is a marvel in character creation and Naipaul’s ability to penetrate through human psyche and proclivity with such searing candor makes A House For Mr Biswas an immensely rich work. The description of the Tusli family with its varied and colourful characters is especially ingenious.

Also, the novel can be read on a number of levels. Even without any special emphasis on its historical context, it still holds true as a novel about frustration and tragic vulnerability that lies at the core of all human existence.

The subtext is never overt, but it’s possible to read the Tulsi House as a symbol of colonialism. Trinidad was under British rule and Naipaul could possibly be driving home the point about how restrictive and controlled such living could be. Mr Biswas’ constant failure with every new endeavour hints towards the ill-preparedness of the Trinidadian populace when left on their own. Without adequate training or experience, Biswas is always clueless.

Yet, reading A House For Mr Biswas can be exhausting, for the tedium it brings at several points. The novel is too long, too repetitive. The same things keep happening to Mr Biswas all through the novel. In addition to that, the overly discriptive style of the book tends to tire you out.
But then again, there's another way of looking at the novel. The book moves at snail's pace , but so does Mr Biswas' own life that refuses to take off. Somewhere in the tedium felt by the reader lies Mr Biswas' own frustration at seeing his life languishing.
Naipaul's subject matter is grim but the author's trademark dark humour and ironic wit ensures that A House for Mr Biswas remains as entertaining, as it is enriching.

-Sandhya Iyer

Gouri Dange's 3 Zakia Mansion

Home truths


Gouri Dange’s books draw as much from her skills as a talented writer, as much from her profession as a family counselor

Gouri Dange’s views as a city-based counselor and a columnist writing on a variety of social and other issues have always been a much-valued one. Hence, one welcomed her foray into fiction writing with her debut novel, 3 Zakia Mansion earlier this year with her close friends Shabana Azmi and Tanvi Azmi releasing the book in Mumbai and Pune respectively.

By her own admission, 3 Zakia Mansion evoked drastic yet interesting responses.
The book recounts the journey of a young Muslim woman, Shaheen, leading a somewhat repressed life with her parents and hoping for a better future by way of marriage. But this is nothing short of a disaster, as Shaheen’s life takes a turn for the worse with a cowardly husband and an offensively dominating mother-in-law. There’s no real respite for Shaheen as her young daughter too briefly turns against her. But towards the end, life looks up, as Shaheen not only discovers new relationships, but herself too.

The middle portion of the book reads like a soap opera but Gouri says none of it is exaggerated. “There are people who are irredeemably horrible, so I presented them as black. I know people saw that portion as a saas-bahu drama but believe me, I was drawing from people I have met in real life. Almost 70 per cent of these are vexed relationships and the mother-in-law here is a symbol of someone who cannot see beyond her son.
But didn’t she fear reinforcing the ‘saas’ stereotype? “Not really, because I counter- balance it with Mrs Kher – Shaheen’s second encounter with a potential mother-in-law – who is initially appalled at the 12 year old age gap between her son, Manav and Shaheen but quickly comes around. Many people look at their families and wonder why they are so abnormal, but that's how most families are. Abnormal is the new normal,” she says.

With 3 Zakia Mansion and her next book, ABC of Parenting, Gouri draws aspects from her experience as a counselor. “My daughter (her neice whom she adopted) is 23 year old and married – so there weren’t many elements I could take from there. Of course there is a certain home-grown wisdom that you gather while parenting but most of it of course came from meeting real people and problems,” she says.

And fascinatingly, Gouri has infused several of her ideas in her first fictional work. “There were a couple of things that I absolutely wanted to include in the novel – one was the childhood element. As a child and a teenager, Shaheen is in shallow waters but with marriage, she’s thrown into the deep end. Overnight, her life takes a 180 degree turn. That was a construct I wanted in 3 Zakia Mansion. Anybody who gets into a new situation – whether marriage or migration-- only to run away from his/her present life is taking a huge risk. A lot of young women go into marriage as an escape from their reality and that’s nothing but jumping from the fire pan into the fire. Which is why I have always been an advocate of pre-martial counseling, only to be met with resistant parents who think ‘why let the couple think so much?’ That doesn't mean I was punishing my character (Shaheen) for using marriage as an escape route. In fact, I was literally throwing nice people in her way towards the end because she is defiant in her own way,” she says.

The other thing Gouri was sure she would be doing in her novel is of having Shaheen date a man much younger than her. “I see so many great relationships where there is a definite age difference. Two unlikely people can be so right for one another sometimes. In the West of course, this is a prevalent phenomena but I think we too in India must ‘loosen’ up to aspect like these. Why reject a good relationship over something like age?”

Gouri says she’s undecided about her next book but in all likelihood, it will either be a book of short stories or another fictional work.

Review: Breathless In Bombay

Author: Murzban F Shroff
Pages: 306
Publishers: Picador India
Price: 295
Genre: Short stories (fiction)

Of magic and mayhem

Of late, one is getting more and more sensitized about how Mumbai – by far India’s most multicultural and economically vibrant cities—is slowly slipping into the abyss of bad governance, terror scare, crammed spaces, and heavy concretization…all of it which is steadily eating into the essence of this dream city. People living here rue the fact that many of the city’s authentic places are being sold off to builders who are constructing residential skyscrapers and shopping centers for the ever-bourgeoning class of the brand-flashing, mall hoppers.

Nishikanth Kamat made a poignant portrayal of it in his wonderful, Mumbai Meri Jaan and here again, writer Murzban draws to attention this utter hopelessness, a tragically increasing class-divide that is threatening to deconstruct everything that the city stands for – peaceful co-existence and the spirit of brotherhood. All of Murzban’s 14 stories draw to attention various aspects of the city. Dhobi Ghat and The House Of Mine refer to the problem of displacement where in old structures ---emblems of the city's sparkling authenticity --- are being sold off. There is a strain of regret and sadness in Murzban's narration, as he sees his city being stripped off its uniqueness and warmth and replaced by cold affluence and almost sickening homogeneity.

Class divide seems to be one of Murzban's overarching concern, as he highlights them in his chapters, Breathless in Bombay, The Great Divide, Busy Sunday, The Queen Guards Her Own. This disparity of income -wherein one sizeable class indulges in all kinds of obscene accesses while another grovels in squalor (the author takes the readers through some extremely poverty-ridden, crime-infested, morally depraved streets and lives). Busy Sunday is especially interesting because it brings to light the repercussions of this unsavory class divide and an all round atmosphere of distrust and fraudulence it promotes.

Not all stories deal with problems that are necessarily about Mumbai. For example, there's a highly charged story, Traffic about a live-in couple and the bitterness that seeps in after the scent of idealistic togetherness. Now, this is a story that could have happened anywhere but it nevertheless finds a resonance with the city's fast-paced life, where survival and self-advancement is the only mantra and human emotions are daily crushed under the weight of clinical practicality and opportunism.

The biggest reason to recommend this book is because it draws you in within no time. Murzban - with his ability for detailing -- manages to create a setting that grips you from the word go. It’s obvious the writer feels a great amount of sadness and angst at the city’s dismal state on various fronts but Murzban tackles it with a great compassion and understanding of human frailties. Also, he makes sure to create extremely well fleshed out characters, studying their motives with care and empathy.
Yes, not all stories end well. There could be a feeling that some of them have ended abruptly after starting off so well. But Murzban succeeds in acquainting readers with the colours, flavours and temperament of the city.
A well-mixed Bombay Bhel and some food for thought as well!
-Sandhya Iyer

Salaam Memsaab

Author: Marjorie McCallum
Pages: 125
Genre: Autobiographical

English essence

Having greatly loved E M Forster’s A Passage To India, I was a bit curious to read about the Raj and the social scape that had emerged around that time. This was before the independence struggle had begun and a certain smugness had crept in the attitude of the British who believed the Indian soil was theirs –as long as they wished. The English community in India was growing, with families coming down to join the commanding officers. And between them, they constituted an affluent world far removed from the people and land they ruled--- almost a miniature England.

That’s the universe Marjorie McCallum, an English officer’s wife, inhabits in her breezy 100 odd page book where she offers readers a close look at their general lifestyle. She rarely goes beyond descriptions of her domestic life and like others of her club, is unquestionably happy to accept the political status quo.

She talks of how while their officer-husbands were at work, the ‘memsahibs’(as they were called) ran their sprawling houses with a large entourage of servants. Once it would be summer, the officers would start hunting for cozy yet affordable hotels in the hills for their wives. It would mostly be Masoori for her where she would stay for five-six months---hanging around with co-officers' wives at the markets or go for pleasure walks.

Unlike what one would imagine, the salaries paid to British officers (especially junior level ones) in India appears not to be exactly lucrative, considering young Marjorie and her husband are forced to make a few compromises while choosing her place of stay in the hills. But Marjorie comes across as a pleasant, optimistic woman who wants to make the best of her time in India and enjoy whatever privileges that are thrown her way. She is obviously delighted to have so much help around her house and describes their duties in great detail. She talks about the daily 'Chotta hazri' (early morning tea with biscuits) which she and her husband relish together, before the well-laid out breakfast that comes later.
Her only real distress arises when she falls sick with a stomach infection and her new born contracts it too. Also, the time when the Second World War breaks off seems like a distressing time for English families in India, with many being hastily packed off to England or South Africa by ships. Marjorie too is faced with the same predicament and prays to God when she survives the sea journey -which itself had turned into a war-zone around the time.

Barring that, her narration seems like a reiteration of the rosy lifestyle the British led in India.
She describes a special tour she and her husband bagged to the Kashmiri King’s palace and the scenic beauty they enjoyed. Later, when her husband gets transferred to Mumbai, she gets used to the hustle-bustle of a city in a prosperous locality, comprising Parsees and effluent Indians. She says she was tempted to befriend her Indian neighbours but resisted as ‘socialising with Indians was frowned upon by the English community’
Marjorie remembers her stay in India with great fondness and produces several pictures during her decade long stay. Some of the friendships she struck with the wives of officers continues till date, she says.
One only wishes the author had opted for an alternative title (this one sounds awfully snobbish) but one guesses she was particularly pleased about the regal lifestyle that India afforded her.

Book Review: A Girl and A River

Author: Usha K R
Pages: 324
Published by: Penguin
Price: Rs 295

This River runs deep

It's been a while since I've read a book where the author displays such fine sway over her content and craft. Usha K R has been writing for more than a decade now (her last novel was The Chosen) and while she has always received rave reviews for her works, it is her latest book, A Girl And A River that has come in for some much-deserved critical attention. The author was the recipient of the Crossword Award recently, where she won in the Fiction category for the same book --- while William Darlymple received the award in the Non-fiction section.

On the surface (and as the book cover demonstrates), it is a straightforward story --- that of Setu and Kaveri's life -- a brother and sister duo brought up in pre independence Mysore and the unexpected turns their lives take. Nothing prepares you for the complex, ironic web of human relationships, emotions and the play of fate ---- influenced by circumstance as much as by character--- that the author so elegantly unravels.

Usha draws up an exhaustive social scape of the 1930 and '40s with meticulous detailing on every level, studding it with keenly fleshed out characters- their actions closely linked with the moral and social fibre of the time. So you have the patriarch, Mylaraiah -- running his prosperous household-- happy to be a beneficiary under the Britishers and hoping things will run as smoothly as they are. He’s surrounding by charismatic men like Narayana Rao and CG K Sir (the history teacher at school who writes anonymous letters in newspaper columns in support of the freedom struggle), who play a proactive role in getting rid of the British. Mylaraiah, if he feels a sense of inadequacy and guilt about supporting the English, quells these emotions by making donations to welfare projects (soft issues like Khadi and so on) undertaken by Narayana Rao. Mylaraiah’s teenage son, Setu is too overwhelmed by his father's aura to defy him and join any of the prevailing freedom struggle groups. He watches them from a distance - with a glint of envy.

Not surprisingly, the two women of the house –Mylaraiah’s wife Rukmani and their free-spirited daughter Kaveri grow up (since Rukmani too came to the house as a child-bride) finding the outside world with men like Narayana Rao and C G K’s son Shyam respectively irresistibly attractive. To their imaginative, idealistic minds, these were the men of real action, men who could change the course of history with their fiery speeches and ideals. These were local heroes who thought nothing of sacrificing their personal lives and comforts in the wake of the freedoms struggle.
The men of the house dismiss the rising nationalistic fervour in their women as something stemming from 'a vague notion of patriotism' and think it appropriate to nip such feelings in the bid.

Rukmani’s disillusionment comes when Narayana Rao marries off his 12 year old daughter, inspite of preaching against the practice of child marriage. To her mind, this is a breach of trust from the man she loved and respected. It causes her ill-health and she loses her vitality forever. However, the fate that befalls her daughter, Kaveri -- fed on stories of valour in novels-- is the more poignant one. Having lived in her own world of dashing heroes (and nearly found and lost one in Shyam), she is unable to bear the emptiness and drudgery of a loveless marriage - in some measure brought on by her own family.

The author explores all these threads using one common story - that of Setu's grown-up daughter (in the 1980s) trying to unravel the tragic mystery behind the woman who was not just her 'aunt' but something more too.
Usha K R - while recounting the story - gives a vivid picture of pre-independence South India -introducing characters like Dr King (an Englishwoman who treats patients in the town, riding from place to place on a bicycle) and her snobbish niece Ella. Then there other interesting ones like Rukmani’s flame-throwing, quick-witted cousin Shivaswami or Setu’s childhood friend Chapdi Kal.

It’s truly remarkable how Usha crafts this story, never hitting a wrong note once. Yet, for all its wonderful strengths, this is not the easiest of reads. Its language is impeccable but tends to get too wordy at various points. Also, the detailing can be a bit tiresome and heavy for those who want to get on with the story. This book could have easily been 25-30 pages short.
Also, the story keeps moving between two different time span and that can be confusing for the first time reader.

The book's true worth really unfolds with a second reading, if you ask me. The first time I found myself grappling to keep pace with the numerous characters and time-shifts. That's another thing--- this book seems to run at a stretch and it doesn't help that the words keep tumbling on each other. So while it's awe-inspiring to see the writer's command of her subject and language, I wished she’d allowed her narrative to breath easy at some points.
But again, to her credit, Usha constructs the story in a manner wherein some amount of tension pervades the entire story and the suspense is intact till the very end.
Finally, this is a riveting book, one that is dexterous and rich. More importantly, it respects its reader's intelligence by saying a lot and leaving a lot more unsaid.
-Sandhya Iyer

Interview Usha K R

You recently won the Vodafone Crossword Award 2007 for Best Work in English Fiction? Was the honour expected? The reviews to the book of course were very encouraging…

UKR: The book was shortlisted earlier this year for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2008. So I had a faint hope. But the short list for the Vodafone Crossword Award was very strong – it showed the sweep of the judges’ expectations. So the honour was unexpected.

You've been a writer for a while now. Would you say it's the first time that your work has won such an honour /visibility?

UKR: Whatever critical attention my novels have received so far – Sojourn in 1998. The Chosen in 2003 and now A Girl and a River has been positive, but the award has brought my work visibility that it did not have before.

You've written two books and other short stories prior to A Girl And A River. Can you tell us a little about your journey as a writer so far?

UKR: If I have to ‘read’ my work, I’d say the broad theme is the contradiction and the constant friction between character and circumstance. I seem to be exploring aspects of this theme almost without realizing it. My preference is for grounded storytelling with an intriguing but organic structure.

A Girl And A River is a complex, rich work of fiction on all counts and functions on various levels at the same time. Was there a single point on which you started the story, after which you weaved in other elements?

UKR: What first came to me with this book were the two children Setu and Kaveri in a 1930s setting – and I knew that I had to work their story along the lines of cocooned lives being torn apart by the tides of history and their own bewilderment in the face of change. This had to run parallel to the larger story of the nation, the country coping with independence.

The book's narrative style, going back and forth, and divided into two different time spans shifting from first person to third, is interesting. How did that choice come about? While it adds more depth to the story, it can be a little confusing to a first-timer….

UKR: You may find it strange but writers often conceive of the story and the structure simultaneously – one growing out of and feeding on the other. I knew that I had to have two distinct voices, not just to separate the chronology of the book but also to signal the different sensibilities and moods of the characters and the times. I also wanted to carry the reader along, inviting her to unravel the mystery along with me, and I feel it has worked.

The book has the backdrop of pre-independence South India…what kind of research went into the book and how much have you drawn from your own life-experiences?

UKR: I had to read quite a bit of local history but the spirit of the book comes from the experiences of many who had lived through those times – I have to thank them for the authentic feel of the book.

7)From the past few years, Indian lit in English has been dominated by diasporic authors. Do you see a problem of 'authenticity' when they write on India? Also, when too much of Indian writing is done by authors based abroad, it can create a skewed vision of things. Do you see it essential that Indian fiction in English must have more books written by authors based in the country itself?

UKR: The question of ‘authenticity’ arises when we are talking of straightforward, realistic accounts. Writers like Rushdie circumvent it with the mode they choose to write in. So long as the end product is convincing and has literary merit, it should not matter whether you live in India or abroad, whether you write in English or any other Indian language. The problem is that of visibility. Books by ‘Indian’ writers do not get noticed and reviewed as much. Which is why I was surprised when ‘Girl … ‘ won the Crossword award. We still look for some form of endorsement from the west.

How 'Indian' is Indian Writing In English

How 'Indian' is Indian writing in English?
Are diasporic writers still its commanding masters or are desi counterparts finally finding a voice? Sandhya Iyer strikes a debate, only to discover that the literary scene is ridden in complexities

For a while now the 'outside', 'insider' debate has been raging across literary circles. For more than three decades now, diaspora writers --- born in India but settled abroad --- have dominated the literary firmament. They have undeniably been the 'face' of Indian Writing in English (IWE) and its most visible representatives. Clearly, we ought to celebrate the immense prestige that writers like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amitav Ghosh, Chitra Divakaruni, Amartya Sen have brought to IWE. In some measure - inspite of the fact that writer Shashi Tharoor resides abraod, he ought to be included here. He has been an Indian 'official' after all.

It would be fair to say that the entire 'A' list of commercially successful writers function from the West. However, this has brought in its share of criticism on issues like authenticity and the idea of NRI authors selling Indian exotica to the West. "How can a writer sitting in the first world write about the third world?" native writers ask.

Back home, we've had commendable authors like Ramachandra Guha, Kiran Nagarkar, Shashi Deshpande, Usha K R, Ira Deshpande, Esther David, Upamanyu Chatterjee and so on. But, the success ratio remains tilted towards prize-winning NRI novelists --- with greater brand appeal and possibly snob value even. Save for a Arundhati Roy (The God Of Small Things), Khushwant Singh, to an extent Shobhaa De and now, Chetan Bhagat (Five Point Someone, One Night @ A Call Centre, The 3 Mistakes of My Life), no writer in India has really entered the collective consciousness where English writing in India goes.

However, writers and others in the know here believe that things are changing for the better and publishing houses are looking at tapping into the all-strong English-educated base in the country. So have 'midnight's children' finally come of age or is there still a long way to go?

The question of 'representation'
The common refrain is, why don't we see more writers like R K Narayan, Arun Kolatkar, Ruskin Bond, Mulk Raj Anand etc? All their writings being deeply rooted in their own culture instantly connected with readers. Post '70s, there came a new wave in IWE by way of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children that caught the world's attention. Rushdie revitalised and rejuvenated IWE.
Unfortunately, the publishing industry in India was hardly as robust as it is today (we've never been a serious market for English language books), which meant not too many desi writers could get noticed globally.
This naturally presented an unusual situation where it was left to our NRI writers to explain 'us' to the world. Doesn't that create a stilted vision?
"It is obvious that Indian writing in English is not 'representative'--- but this raises the question of whether it is even the function of writing to be 'representative'; one might say it is not --- there is a difference between writing and representative democracy. Perhaps the problem arises because of our insistence on using the term "Indian", and then complaining when various writers (be it Jhumpa Lahiri or Amit Chaudhuri or Rushdie) are insufficiently Indian. But "Indian" means many things, and it shouldn't surprise us that reality does not conform to our abstractions. An authenticity litmus test would be intolerable -- by that yardstick, Chekhov and Joyce might have failed Russian and Irish literature, respectively." says literary enthusiast and avid blogger Umair Ahmed Muhajir.
He believes that lack of English translations (except for small tokens) for regional literature is certainly distorting. "It's a world missed," he says.

Aspiring filmmaker and literature student Abhishek Bandekar believes writers -whether diasporic or India come with their own strengths and that needs to be recogonised. "Indian Writing in English(IWE) or Indian English Literature(IEL) is a troubled breed of literature. It has to grapple with concerns of authenticity and identity. But it’s an ironic struggle. The classification of IWE as post-colonial literature limits its scope; restricting authors(native or NRI) to recount merely that which is nostalgic or ‘imagined’(in as much as ‘imagined’ is that which is not ‘exoticised’). Even if one were to leave aside the whole native IWE vs NRI IWE argument for a moment, one is still confronted with the problem of ‘different’ truths. A Salman Rushdie is radically different from an RK Narayan. The former’s works while championing the hybrid of pidgin English nevertheless falls prey to cultural imperialism, in that it interprets the ‘past’, without ‘imagining’ the future. The latter’s works on the other hand, may employ 'standard english' but stays true to its cultural roots, in that the works require and expect cultural familiarity," he views.

Does location matter for 'authentic' literature?

Devyani Satzman, writer of the book Shooting Water and daughter of filmmaker Deepa Mehta, lives in Canada. She says, "Fundamentally, I think all perspectives and voices are valid. Ultimately, stories should introduce us to new worlds, and I'm not as concerned about where the writer resides as long as they do a good job taking us into that world."

Renowned poet Dilip Chitre says, "First of all, non-resident Indian describes two kinds of people: 1. Those who have migrated to other countries; and 2.Those whose parents were immigrants. Salman Rushdie belongs to the first category (but so do many physicians, surgeons, space scientists, managers, software engineers, teachers etc); and V S Naipaul to the second. He adds, "Just by living in India, nobody becomes a representative of Indian writing. If you are a good novelist, poet, playwright, or a poet the language you write in is secondary to your talent. Artistic authenticity is primary; nationality and/or mother-tongue culture are incidental."

However, Murzban Shroff, whose book Breathless In Bombay got rave reviews believes location is an important criteria for authenticity. Shroff stays in Mumbai and feels that enabled him to come up with a 'solidly researched book' "I wish people like Rushdie and others could base themselves in India and recount stories from here. That way, we'll have Indian content and Western craft and in my view that's the perfect balance," he says.

Are desi writers in India close to bringing about a change?

Many authors believe much has changed for the better where IWE is concerned for desi writers. Chetan Bhagat, who seldom gives up an opportunity to criticise the elitist club of NRI writers makes it clear that his target readers are only Indians. And the fact that he's one of the highest selling authors the country has led to several people from all walks of life picking up the pen.
Says Gouri Dange, who recently published her book 3 Zakia Mansion, "Honestly, I was daunted at the prospect of writing. Since I was simultaneously reading Rushdie's Shalimar, The Clown, I kept feeling my language was too seedha-saadha but then I soon got over it, thinking 'that exists but this can exist too."
Publishing opportunities have vastly grown in the last five-six years, says Janaki Vaswanath, owner of the bookstore twistntales and she believes it is a natural outcome of the country getting dominant on the world stage.

Sampurna Chattarji, a poet, fiction-writer and translator, adds another dimension to the discussion. This proliferation can have a flip side as well, she believes. "In the rush to compete for genre-slots especially, a lot of sub-standard work is getting published and that can only be detrimental to the growth of IWE in the truest sense of the writing going from strength to strength. What we need is perceptive editors and agents who will be able to identify and promote the best writing being done in India today. Unfortunately, IWE is still seen as a territory largely ruled by fiction, when the truth is that exciting new work is also being done by poets writing in English."

But not all are equally optimistic about the flowering of IWE here.
Murzban Shroff says the draft for his book met with a cold reaction when he submitted it to Indian publishers. On the other hand, international publishers were more than forthcoming.
He adds, "Even if Indian publishers were to give you an opportunity to write, they expect you to do your own marketing --- getting a star to launch your book and so on."
He also rules out writing predominantly for an Indian audience, observing that the market here is still to evolve.

Binoo K John, who recently wrote the witty Entry From The Backside Only, categorically believes that diaspora writers are still ruling the roost. "All of this year's major releases have all been from NRIs: Jhumpa Lahiri (who got a big award last month for Unaccustomed Earth), Chitra Divakarunni, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie. Diasporic writings have their own place in literature and in IWE. One genre does not grow by stymieing the others. The two genres have parallel lives and why not? In fact diasporic writing has consistently scored over Indian writing (due to advantages of being in the first world)," he says.
Ultimately, one would have to submit to Dilip Chitre's view that only the future can take this story forward.
"The fact that English is a global language, with more speakers between Mumbai and Shanghai than in the entire United States, will sooner or later affect publishers' marketing strategies. The fate of writers may still be decided in London or New York; but the franchisees of publishing corporates operating in vast potential markets such as India will start betting on local talent," he believes.

Past Perspective: An Area Of Darkness

An Area of Darkness

Author: V S Naipaul
Published in: 1964
Genre: Travelogue

Nai-appalled

V. S Naipaul has always been a controversial figure. Whether it is for his rude behaviour towards fellow writers at conferences or his show of support for India's Hindutva ring, Bharatiya Janata Party or his admission in his autobiography that his callousness killed his wife, this Trinidadian author has always been some sort of an enfant terrible of English literature. For all his genius, he also remains a vilified figure in India and not without reason. The Area of Darkness, when it was published in 1964, created an uproar among Indians and was intensely criticised for its unkind, deriding and supercilious view of India.

Naipaul's literature, much like his personality demonstrates a certain extremism -where there are few or no grey areas. And that is most evident in The Area of Darkness. (His subsequent work, India; A Million Mutinies Now was a far more objective and detailed read -in many ways, this is his best book, apart from A House For Mr Biswas). The book is about how Naipaul built a 'mythical' image about India staying in Trinidad (Naipaul's grandfather was from India and they re-located to West Indies - in a small British colony called Trinidad) and how his one-year visit to India shattered his childhood image of the country. The entire experience is a deeply personal one -- and Naipaul himself behaves like a rather fussy, ungenerous foreign-returned guy(he was just about 30 years old) who criticises the loss of his 'imagined world' without bothering to delve into the reasons for it. This was a plundered country that was struggling to fight its colonial past and tackle some enormous problems at hand.

From the moment he arrives in the country, he applies his own litmus test on it and decides it's a failed nation on every count. So to Naipaul, the weather is oppressive, the poverty is horrifying, people squat defecating all over the place, they serve food with unclean hands, they overcharge customers and what more, even their films don't offer a respite! Naipual has not one good thing to say about the country but doesn't show the slightest hesitation to indulge in gross overstatements and ridiculous generalisations with comments like 'Indians lack in courage...they have been known to go on picknicking on a bank while a stranger drowned' or that 'Indians defecate everywhere'
And this is a bit strange considering half the book is dedicated to his three-month long stay in a cozy, pampered House Boat in the picturesque Kashmir valley. Yet, Naipaul sees no beauty in the land!

Naipaul makes some very sound points when he talks of India being a country of symbolic, speech-making gestures. Whether it was the '60s or today, action is by way of symbols rather than concrete measures. He's also right to be irritated about Indians and their stubborn unwillingness to see what is obvious. They turn a blind eye to what is painful or disgusting and go about their business like nothing happened. This is important because not much has changed for in India in this respect. They continue to be escapists. Economically of course, the country has progressed by leaps and though I don't share all of Shobhaa De's exuberance on this, India is surging forward more confidently than it ever did.
It's difficult to take Naipaul's criticism seriously because most of it seems like an effort to deconstruct the notion of India. There's perverse cynicism at work and the author -while criticising the country's present-- makes no effort to understand its tumultuous recent past or look into its prospects. Hence, even as a piece of work, it remains a highly personal account which unjustly creates and reinforces colonial prejudices.

Two of his observations in particular are condescending and unjustifiable. Naipaul talks of how incongruous India's premier buildings appear in the face of its squalor and poverty. "It is building for the sake of building, creation for the sake of creation....In the North, the ruins (forts etc) speak of waste and failure and the very grandeur of the Mughal buildings is oppressive. Europe has its monuments of Sun-Kings, its Louvres and Versailles. But they are part of the development of a country's spirits."
In a display of unimaginable bad faith, he even suggests that the Taj Mahal could be transported slab by slab to United States and re-erected and it would seem wholly admirable. There, he implies that the edifice would serve a meaning. Here, he says, it is only a despot's monument with poverty around it.

Again, he talks of how the English language is the 'greatest incongruity of British rule' and has caused 'psychological damage' to the country through its continued official use. English, Naipaul should know was never thrust upon Indians. Other countries resisted it, Indians were attracted to it. Today, India constitutes one of the largest English speaking nations and this has had tremendous impact on its global appeal and economic progress. It's unfortunate that Naipaul chose not to see at all the fascinating side of India- its splendid diversity, it colour and cuisines, its incredible warmth and festivity - which today has made it one of the top most tourist destinations in the world.
The only aspect about India Naipaul seems to have really liked is its Railway system which he describes as 'too fine and complex' for a country like India. Phew!

Review: Superstar India; From Incredible to Unstoppable

Author: Shobhaa De
Publishers: Penguin
Pages: 456
Price: 350
Published In: 2008 (April)

India wears Prada

One of the early lessons one learns in one's career as a feature writer is that no amount of style can compensate for substance. Clearly, there's no rule there, as De proves week after week in her saucy Sunday column for a leading newspaper. That she's a frisky personality, with a penchant for fame-throwing and interesting phrase-making ('careeristic bitch' -that's what she said in reference to Preity Zinta's role in KANK) --- not to forget an incorrigible contrarian streak -- make her a quick-fix masala writer.
Now, that's perfectly fine when she restricts herself to themes about backbiting friends in a kitty club (Starry Nights) or catty advice on how men should be 'handled' (Surviving Men) but writing a book on any aspect of India needs to be done with more understanding and insight.

De's new book draws a co-relation between the author and the country's age (60) and how India is evolving into a superpower. The book's title is ominously similar to BJP's 2004 election campaign, Shining India and we know how misplaced that idea turned out to be. Similarly Shobhaa De's notion of linking the country's prosperity with the spending patters of a miniscule population (Bentley cars, Fendi bags) is equally that of naive exuberance. De takes a view on everything from the prism of her own affluent lifestyle and that of her inner circle of friends and acquaintances ---- trips abroad, living in posh star hotels, visiting spas, shopping in Milan and Paris.
Now what I found funny was that De takes great pains to emphasize her own credentials as one from the upper crust -- 'The Ambanis live in their palatial residence--not far from where I stay' or talking about her globe-trotting with specific attention on the place of stay (either a five star or expensive clubs). There's also an awful lot of reference to various high-end brands ---everything from Cartier watches to Fendi bags to Gucci ---- stuff that is clearly out of reach for 99 per cent of India's population. To use this as a barometer for any kind of progress is in itself very skewed.

In slightly broader terms, De's view can be held in perspective. As she says, more Indians are traveling abroad; people are willing to spend for luxury items, the younger generation is financially better off. Most of it is a result of India's growing clout in the IT, BPO and entertainment industries. She also maybe right when she says that India once viewed as a third world country is today an attractive proposition for not just foreigners to invest, travel etc but also to NRIs --- who feel their own motherland has a lot to offer now. That India is evolving and growing is a sure sign, but the reason why not many are breaking into any kind of jubilation (De wonders why Indians are apologetic about their success...and feels we badly need our cheerleaders) is because there are several aspects that are still screaming for attention.
De keeps mentioning how this phenomenon in not just a Delhi-Mumbai niche. I would be prompted to think that it is and real progress entails development and prosperity for the country as a whole. The country is still reeling under concerns like traffic, poor infrastructure, inflation, corruption, hygiene. (Not that De completely turns a blind eye to the startling poverty and squalor...in the middle of her hi-tea with a certain country's ambassador or the other, she suddenly seems to feel that she isn't taking enough about the less privileged.)

With its limitations, the author makes a few valid points about urban lifestyle - about how junk food is eating into the health of urban kids, on how children in India are a spoilt lot - with parents taking most of the burden on themselves.

That apart, one very serious problem with this book is that it just keeps flitting from one topic to the other without making a point. Like she talks about our apathy towards the State and how our leaders are taking advantage of this attitude and then without any cue, talks about a conversation she had with her chauffeur in Singapore and how he extolled Mahatma Gandhi and pointed towards the hardships in his own country. There are innumerable instances of this kind and as a reader it's frustrating when you see topic after topic thrown up without any point being made. Like she says about Mayawati, 'She is the future of India, it isn't an attractive face, but it's an unforgettable one?' and leaves you to guess what she meant.

More annoyingly, the fact that the book is so low on any kind of research makes it difficult to attach any credibility to many of De's off-hand statements. Like she talks about America losing ground, "For America to regain its lost glory much more will have to be done than pulling out of Iraq with its tail between its legs. The world has no forgotten the mess in Vietnam. Well, that has got salvaged over a period of thirty years. But to most America-watchers, the current imbroglio is not going to be that easy to resolve. The slide has begun"
It takes some courage to call what happened in Vietnam just a 'mess'

Like all other De writings, it's an easy read, though it's a bit of an irritant to see her pepper her sentences with Hindi words like, 'Goli Maro to the skeptics' or 'Our attitude to sex is very ajeeb' If this is the turn Indian English is taking, it’s distressing.

In the end, it's a book that doesn't add up to much at all. The tone is too elitist and and too narrow in its assumptions. It's very much like a drawing room discussion where nothing's verifyable and anything goes.

Book review: Three Mistakes Of My Life

Author: Chetan Bhagat
Price: Rs 95
Publishers: Rupa
Published in 2008

Chetan's third is a mixed bag

The best selling feature of a Chetan Bhagat book is its readability. In a world where one is constantly striving to find time, it truly matters when you can actually finish reading a book within a couple of hours. Also, when he isn't getting too filmy and over-the-top, Chetan actually manages to hold a story well enough. That was evident with both Five Point Someone and One Night At A Call Centre. The former especially works as an excellent satire on the education system I thought.

Chetan's third book, the just-launched Three Mistakes Of My Life starts off in the same effective manner as his earlier two books, but unlike the other two, this one starts to appear too
far-fetched towards the middle and then just irrevocably falls apart in the end.

The story recounts the life of three youths, Omi, Ishaan and Govind trying to make a life staying in small-town Gujarat. Given Govind's business acumin and Ishaan's love for cricket, the youngsters decide to open a shop that sells cricket goods. Omi's family helps them to get a rented place outside a temple, and soon enough the place is a hit with the locals. Chetan's biggest strength as a writer is his ability to create interesting settings and situations. And that's true of his latest book too.

Moving on, Ishan takes a great liking to one of the local Muslim boys, Ali with a 'magical' ability to smash the ball for a six each time. Living with the regret of making it himself, Ishan decides to train the 12-year old. Strangely, the lad himself is least interested in cricket but Ishan and his friends take it upon themselves to not only train him free, but even endure great pains to take him all the way to Sydney at the suggestion of one of the Australian players. There, Ali is offered a contract on the condition that he become an Australian national only to have the 12-year-old spout dramatic lines such as, 'Does that mean I cannot play for India?! Then I don't want it!' and walk away.

This is where the novel begins to disintegrate and goes on to become embarrasingly over-the-top and melodramatic. As long as the author only incorporates the Gujarat earthquake and how it brings down the hopes of one of the novel's lead character, Govind -- Chetan's attempt at infusing a natural disaster with the personal is acceptable. But it's hardly likely that both the Godhra episode and the following riots would again have a direct bearing on these very characters.

The last few chapters especially go out of hand. One knows Chetan's a big fan of Bollywood and believes that much like a Hindi film that must have action in the end, a novel too must have its share of blood and gore to make it wholesome enough. First of all, Bollywood itself is moving away from formulaic fares so Chetan's jumped in a bit late here. Secondly, there is no emotional resonance or reasoning to any of the violence that takes place in the temple, with the Hindus trying to attack Ali with Ishan and others trying to save him.
It's never clear why these youths are fussing over Ali so much. There's only one explanation given - that he's gifted. Why would anyone in their right mind take him all the way to Australia or give up their life (yes, one of the youngsters dies trying to protect the boy!) to preserve his talent. None of their sympathies for him are based on the fact that he's a Muslim, nor do they save him out of any moral obligation apart from the fact that he is a potential cricketing great! Chetan's intentions are honourable but his notions of nationalism and patriotism are just too naive and simplistic.

In between, there's a love story thrown in between Govind and Ishan's sister, only to have Omi spout cheesy lines like, 'You can't hit on your friend's sister, that's an unwritten rule' etc.

Honesty, I wanted to like this book. It begins well, it’s setting is wonderfully created and importantly, it truly attempts to give the reader a slice of small-town India (I know I’m going to be slaughtered for saying this, but this even reminded me a lot of R K Narayan where simplicity of language and characterization went).
But Chetan messes it up by taking on more than he can chew and in an attempt to say something thoughtful and provocative, dissapoints. The book won't take you long to read it all, so go ahead and read it for the first 75 pages or so.

-Sandhya Iyer

Interview with Chetan Bhagat

“I can’t say much about Salman Rushdie, I'm more like Salman Khan," quips Chetan Bhagat, who was at Big Bazaar yesterday for the launch of his third book, Three Mistakes Of My Life.

The author’s earlier books,--- Five Point Someone and One Night At the Call Centre--have both been record best-sellers, making him a cult figure of sorts among youngsters. The critics of course haven’t warmed up to him calling his writing everything from 'fluke' to 'naive'. But Chetan couldn't care less. He says, "I want my books to reach anyone who has a moderate understanding of English. Even Hindi medium students can grasp the language in my books."

More importantly, the author is determined to pull down Indian writing in English from its high horse --one that he says reeks of elitism, he says-- and make it relatable to the educated middle-class. Which is one of the reasons Chetan decided to hold his book launch at a place like Big Bazaar, he tells us. "I could have done this event in any five-star hotel but really, that is not what I'm looking at. When my friends heard, I was releasing my book at Big Bazaar, they wondered if I was mad. But this is the real India, so why shouldn't I do it here?"

The unwillingness to accept Chetan into the literary fold also stems from the fact that Indian writing in English has always been very ‘concentrated’ in more ways than one. This is quite unlike, say America where all kinds of fiction –whether for mass consumption or otherwise find a place. In that sense, the Indian literary scene is more of a snoot club, he feels. “You know, the interesting thing is that they don’t know how to deal with me. I’ve studied at elitist institutions like IIT and IIM, so in a way, they know I have all the credentials to boast. Honestly, I find their snootiness sick. For some people, the British never left and nor did colonialism,” he says spewing venom at his detractors.

In one final assault, he says about Indian writers in English “I think we wasted 30-40 years…just chasing awards. That's the truth but when Chetan says it he gets slammed for it. These writers only target the West…they have no interest in appealing to the Indian audiences.”
Finally, about his just-released book, Three Mistakes Of My Life –the story does appear to go a bit over-the-top but Chetan says he didn’t want it any other way. “Firstly, I’m not a perfectionist. Secondly, I needed a dramatic ending. I cannot create a lame narrative when I’m taking about events in Gujarat. It’s over-the-top because the events themselves were over-the-top,” he says emphatically.

Given the growing appeal of his books among youngsters, Bollywood is taking to Chetan like never before. While his One Night At A Call Centre is being adapted into a film called Hello directed by Atul Agnihotri, his Five Point Someone is being made into an Aamir Khan starrer, Idiots, which is to be directed by Raju Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
Says Chetan, "Raju (Hirani) was my first introduction to Bollywood. If it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn't have made any inroads here. He had read my first book and had loved it. When I met him, he asked me to remain quiet for some time and just listen to the praise he had meant to heap on me. (laughs)."

But would Aamir Khan look convincing as a student? He's playing the dare-devil character of Ryan, right? "Yes, he's playing Ryan. I think Aamir is Aamir, he can play anything convincingly. Agar hum chalis ke hain, toh lagtein hain, Aamir nahin lagta. In any case, I believe the story is being approached a bit differently. It has a lot of flashbacks, so the story starts from where the book ends."

In general, does Chetan insist that his story is not tampered with much? The young author shakes his head, saying, "No, I have no such conditions. They can interpret the story the way they like. See I think my book is like my daughter and a filmmaker is allowed to glamourises her. I don't mind if some light-make-up is applied to her, but I wouldn't like plastic surgeries to be done," he smiles.

Interview: Devyani Saltzman

'I think it's important to never be too literal in an adaptation'

Devyani Saltzman is the wonderfully talented daughter of filmmaker Deepa Mehta who came into her own with her debut book, Shooting Water last year. Besides capturing the trying times that the cast and crew of Water faced shooting of the film in India, the book really is about Devyani's emotional re-connect not just with India and her mother but also herself.

1. Anyone who reads Shooting Water will know that you are no writer by accident. You are tremendously gifted. But your initiation into the field seems like one, considering you chose the subject of Water and the incidents surrounding it? Is it that you were looking for inspiration to take flight as a writer?

I had been writing since I was a little girl, mostly short stories and plays. Shooting Water became my first book because it was a story I was passionate about. I've always been drawn to literary non-fiction, and after the five-year journey of making the film, I realised that it was a story worthy of the medium.

2. What has been your formative influence as a writer and what sort of literature has inspired you? Are you an avid reader? If so, what do you enjoy reading?

I am an avid reader. Writing began with reading for me. Books that inspired me to write Shooting Water included New Zealand writer Janet Frame's autobiography An Angel at My Table, for it's emotional honesty. Philip Gourevitch's nonfiction account of the genocide in Rwanda, for giving difficult political situations a human scale and Alexandra Fuller's beautiful memoir Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, interweaving a white Zimbabwean girl's coming of age with the dawning of independence in Rhodesia.

3. For a book that explores so many aspects of human life, did you ever imagine that Shooting Water could be a limiting title? Because besides the obvious incidents and controversies you mention, I saw the book essentially as a journey of a young woman, her tumultous relationship with her mother, her inner urge to fight the demons of her past and reclaim her self-worth, her dejection at love...so many things. Also, considering that so many books are regularly being written on 'Making of a film', didn't you fear Shooting Water could be clubbed among them?

When I sat down to write the book I wrote three things in my notebook: Political, personal and cinematic. I always knew Shooting Water would be a balance of those three themes. My job was to weave them together. Also, I couldn't afford to worry about how someone might position a book by it's title. I spent my energy drawing the story I wished to tell, and hoping an adventurous reader would discover it for what it is on their own terms.

4. For the first time, your book reveals a side of your mother Deepa Mehta which the world had not known -- not just the fact that she was hassled due to the various controversies surrounding the film but also some of the intensely private moments from her life as a wife andmother. How comfortable were you doing that and similarly, was Deepa skeptical on that front?

The beautiful thing about writing the book was that both of my parents were very supportive of it. I am grateful for their strength dealing with the rawer elements of the narrative, but I think they knew that the book was more than just a personal tale, which helped balance it out. Also, my mom and I enjoy a great creative relationship. I'm her first reader for her scripts and she's my first reader for articles and manuscripts.

5. You mention Anurag Kashyap in your book quite a few times. Did he read Shooting Water and tell you what he thought of it? Also, what do make of him as a filmmaker?

I love Anurag. I think he's incredibly talented, and I really enjoy his company. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about the book, but to be honest, we are both far along on other projects and its imperative to let past projects go in order to continue creating.

6. Devyani, most writers today of Indian English are NRIs, every other novel talks about the Indian Diaspora (The Gifted, The Namesake). If not, it tracks the journey of an NRI in search of his/her roots (The Hungry Tide etc). Most Pakistani writers (Moshin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie) are also foreign-based. And even otherwise, there's this whole urge among writers to 'globalize' their stories, creating an artificial fluidity among nations. Do you suspect this alienates readers and creates a skewed vision of India? Also in the process of appealing to a wider readership, does it not offer an Indian experience from a 'specific' prism?

An essential and challenging question. Fundamentally, I think all perspectives and voices are valid. I would think a reader of The Namesake, or Shooting Water, would be aware that these books were written from an insider/outsider perspective on India. If that leads them to explore more writing from authors who are residents of the country, all the better. Ultimately, stories should introduce us to new worlds, and I'm not as concerned about where the writer resides as long as they do a good job taking us into that world.

5. Do you see the above as a natural consequence of more and more Indian writers in English based abroad or is it merely a marketing gimmick to widen the scope of readership? Films weave in NRI pleasing-moments to appeal to a wide segment of audiences there. Do you see books doing the same?

I see it as less of a marketing gimmick, than a reality of an increasingly mobile, globalised world.

6. Hindi cinema seems to have suddenly woken up to literary adaptations. The hitherto formulaic structure of Bollywood could be blamed for it. But internationally of course, literature has always inspired cinema. Now we have everything from Moth Smoke to The Japanese Wife to The Hundry Tide to One Night At a Call Centre being made into films. How do you personally view literary adaptations and what are the challenges one faces here?

I love literary adaptations. I think it can be wonderful when the vision of a book is extended into film. It's not to say they aren't tricky, but when done well an adaptation of a book into film can breath a whole new life into the original work. I just saw Into the Wild, Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book. I'm a big fan of the book and really enjoyed Penn's take on the subject. He interpretation of the story through imagery and casting choices only enhanced the original. I think it's important to never be too literal in an adaptation. It's more important to capture the essence of the story.

7. Lastly, one's dying to know what you're going to be writing next.

At the moment I'm working on my second book, a novel. It's a very new experience telling a fictional narrative, but I love the room it affords in drawing characters and situations. The book is quite rooted in a real political history - the idea of the Shanti Sena, or Gandhi's peace army - and that gives me a solid base from which to explore the characters' individual journeys.

India in Slow Motion

India, as part and parcel

Author: Mark Tully and Gillian Wright
Price: 450
Published In: 2001
Publishers: Penguin

I almost lost interest in this book after reading its first chapter on Ram Janma Bhoomi and Hindu politics (The Reinvention of Rama). It seemed like an extension of the stuff one reads in the papers all the time. So I set the book aside and didn’t return to it until very recently.
While flipping through it once again, I happened to see a chapter on 'Creating Cyberabad' - ie Hyderabad in the time of Chandrababu Naidu’s reign. Mark Tully had met with the CM and also interviewed many of his critics and opposition ministers who believed his IT revolution was nothing but a sham and that unless he tackled problems at the ground-level, he would fail. That seems very prophetic now.

There are two other chapters that held my attention - One on the carpet industry in Mirzapur and the apparent child labour involved in it and another one on Nizammuddin and the Sufi saints.
Then there’s a chapter on the Kashmir valley where Mark Tully interviews Farookh Abdulla, the then CM who he finds in a rather irate mood. There’s another interesting chapter here on Water Harvesting projects taken on by some draught prone villages in Gujarat, driven by dynamic and innovative men.

One that I found particularly engaging was the chapter on Tehelka’s expose of corruption in defense deals. Mully meets Joseph –Tehelka’s man who actually carried out the sting operation-- and gets some precious dope.
Chapters like A ‘Tale Of Two Brothers’ that talks about V P Singh and his brother and 'Farmer's Reward' are mildy engaging but nothing exceptional either.
In this journalistic endevour, Tully and his co-writer Gillian Wright are privy to English breakfasts at their European friend's house in Mirzapur and are generally taken care of by hospitable people too overwhelmed to have the ex BBC man among them.
Tully tackles the obvious themes on India but digs deep enough to give readers an indepth perspective. For example, most of us know about the farmer's plight in India but Tully goes a little further in that he talks to people, gets a sense of the condition and looks into possible solutions.
Admirably, Tully is in no haste to make judgments and for most time, merely presents facts as a balanced observer. Of course when truth stares in the face, he seldom hesitates from making some strong points. He’s particularly scathing in his criticism of the bureaucracy and corruption that are eating into the country’s progress and posing the biggest hurdles in its development.
All the same, there isn’t the same warmth in the writing as say a Shashi Tharoor or Amartya Sen when they talk on India but neither is there any trace of detached neutrality and pessimism of a V S Naipaul.
Mark Tully demonstrates genuine concern for a country that he's reported for more than 25 years and for most part, this is a fairly engaging read, even if doesn’t offer anything vastly original or unknown.

Entry From Backside Only; hazaar fundas of Indian English

We are like this only!

Author: Binoo K John
Publishers: Penguin
Published in : 2007
Price: 95

There are perhaps several things to disagree with author and senior India Today journalist Binoo K John’s latest book, Entry From Backside Only – a succinct, self-assured book on the ‘hazaar fundas’ of Indian Enligh. For one, there are more presumptions than facts and also a tendency to hastily pin down factors and trends to sensationalist generalisations.

But the one thing you can happily agree is that there's never one dull or dispassionate moment here. Binoo's cheeky, charming take on Indian English is refreshing for the simple reason that he turns around an essentially academic theme and makes it entertaining for the average reader.
What is also appealing (some of course might call it verbal showmanship) is his deep love for the Queen’s language that enables him to articulate with a great panache and flair. Moreover, his generous sprinkling of savoury wit and irreverence makes this petite book a crisp read from the word go.

Sample these lines from the book’s jacket: “Backsides have a frontal position in Indian-English. In cluttered, crowded alleys there can be seen the notice “Entry from the backside”, a usage not exactly meant as a come-hither line to gays.’ From the early days of the Raj, the Indian version of English has been on a growth trajectory that has led to the evolution of what is, for all practical purposes, a language of its own. A hybrid form of English stalks the land, flaunting its illegitimacy, brashness and popularity. The rise of Indian-English runs parallel to tectonic changes in social aspirations. English, says the author, is the Porsche on the porch of the arriviste. There can be no social advancement without the glittering sword of English in your hands. This compendium is thus a journey through a sub-genre that has evolved against all odds....”

Binoo's book talks about how Indians overturn grammar and create phrases of their own --- mostly influenced from their mother-tongue.
But he largely concentrates on the fascination that Indians have for English and how the mongrel form of the language evolved so rapidly. Here there are several suppositions. For one, Binoo feels the educated class were largely influenced by national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who wrote in English. Naturally, many aspired to be part of the national discourse and took to the language in the hope that what they wrote would reach a wider audience.
Another aspect the author looks at is how knowledge of English is considered as a 'social marker' in India; a determinant of one's economic status. He's right in that no other South Eastern countries or even European nations have taken to the Engligh as much as Indians.

Really, our deep fascination for the Queen's tongue---with its ingrained elitisim ----transcends considerations of the country's colonial past. Obviously, English wouldn't have come to us without the Britishers but it stayed here and thrived only because Indians found English and everything it stands for, quite irresistable.

There are chapters here that are entirely devoted to letters that citizens wrote in the post-independence period -- in mostly bombastic language that tried to imitate the British. Once the point is established, it seems tedious to go through all these similar sounding letters.
The last two couple of chapters are especially a drag, as it's clear that the author has clearly run out of mattter. There are pages and pages devoted to Arundhati Roy's The God Of Small Things, a book which impressed Binoo greatly. Then there's this totally inane chapter on Bollywood and its usage of English words that doesn't make any point whatsoever.

What keeps this going is Binoo's interesting style of writing, even if you know that some of his beliefs are misplaced.
My biggest beef with this book is that the author for most time can't decide if it wishes to deride users of Indian English or affectionately patronise them. Which is why, you are confused as to what he really expects and what he is pitting Indian English against?
Yet, for all its weaknesses, this is a refreshing addition to the non-fiction shelf which takes a serious topic and gives it a funny twist. The book is already a best seller (it's agressive pricing at 95 rupees helps of course) and it's nice to see something written on the English language, which undeniably is the most precious jewel we stole from the British.