Lifting the Veil

Author: Ismat Chughtai
Publishers: Penguin
Publishing Date: 2001
Price: Rs 250
Pages: 261
Genre: Short stories

'In my stories, I've put down everything with objectivity. Now, if some people find them obscene, let them go to hell. It's my belief that experiences can never be obscene, if they are based on authentic realities of life'

These are the first few lines that introduces readers to enfant terrible of the Urdu writing world, Ismat Chughtai and it's hard not to marvel at the original thought process here. However, this also means that Ismat's stories sometimes tend to get too direct, tasteless and pedestrian in both words and thoughts.

In what can be described as a superb introduction (I couldn't site the author’s name here) to this book, the reader is acquainted with the sort of person Ismat was, which in a large way influenced her writing style and choice of subjects. As the book describes, Ismat was a born rebel, who wouldn't accept great works of literature or theories without scrutiny. Highly individualistic, Ismat believed that a healthy skepticism was the first essential condition to arrive at the truth.

Which is exactly why, when she started writing (1945 onwards), she managed to break several existing moulds of writing, thereby shocking the daylights of out conservatives.
The short story that brought her into mainstream writing was Lihaaf (The Quilt), which spoke about lesbianism for the first time. There was a huge uproar and even the post-D H Lawrence British were displeased and Ismat found herself saddled with legal cases for promoting 'obscenity'
The story itself talks about Begam Jaan, who is left lonely and sad at home, by her husband who keeps himself engaged with 'young, slender-waisted' students --(there's a homosexual hint here too).
Finally, Begam Jaan's waning spirits are lifted when she finds a 'partner' in her maid, Rabbu.
Ismat's choice of narrator here is a child, who is witness to not just the ongoing scenes between the women but is also close to being 'molested' by Begam Jaan on one occasion.
Lihaaf is probably one of Ismat's most well-known stories, also one of her her most critiqued ones. Feminists were quick to lap it up, hailing it as one of the primary works in Urdu literature that recognizes female sexual desire and portrays it both convincingly and courageously.

While this is not hard to agree with, I'm not convinced that the story really does any service to the cause of 'alternative sexuality'.
Ismat, using a child as a narrator, views lesbianism both with a certain amount of horror and cruel humour. Also the imagery below supports this argument.

"The quilt crept into my brain and began to grow larger. I stretched my leg nervously to the other side of the bed, groped for the switch and turned the lights on. The elephant somersaulted inside the quilt, which deflated immediately. During the somersault, a corner of the quit rose by almost a foot'
'Good God!' I gasped and sunk deeper into my bed.

Considering the common theme that runs in most of Ismat's stories, it's clear that she sympathises with the sexual repression of women in a middle-class hypocritical society. Viewed under this light, Lihaaf is ultimately a sad story about the desperation that comes over a lonely, sexually deprived woman.

The best stories in this book are The Invalid (a superb narrative that casts a wonderfully incisive look into the psyche of a patient), Tiny's Granny (heart-wrenching), Gainda (on the sexual urge in a child), Homemaker/Gharwali (entertaining, dealing with 'sexual erasure' that is expected from 'clean' middle-class women)

Then, there are two other stories, mostly autobiographical; My Friend My Enemy, which speaks about her love-hate, high-strung relationship with writer-friend Manto and In The Name Of Those Married Women, which deals with her legal troubles involving The Quilt.
These are again great stories, recounted with her trademark bluntness and sharp wit.

Two other autobiographical stories are Hell-bound and Childhood. The former is a hard-hitting, pitiless portrayal of her writer-brother, Azim and while, it is probably one of the most engaging and impactful stories in the book, I also found it a bit tasteless in its ruthless dissection of a man long dead.

"Childhood" is mediocre writing, wherein Ismat chronicles her life as a child and the tough times she spent with her mother.
Now, Ismat's writings are never particularly reflective but this is an utterly charmless story, with poorly fleshed out characters an clichés galore. There are quite a few other stories as well here, which can easily be skipped.

The fact that Ismat belonged to the realist tradition of writers meant that she never adopted any complicated narrative style. In fact, her writing is clearly derived from the oral tradition of storytelling.
With her racy, uninhabited and spontaneous style of writing, she assures that all her stories move at break-neck speed. But her stubborn refusal to adopt certain modernist narrative techniques also means that many of her stories appear extremely formulaic. Also, the bigger trouble is that one never really gets into the psyche of her characters.

Ultimately, Ismat's biggest achievement will remain that she brought out repressed female sexual desire from the curtains of middle-class morality. Her boldness proved to a boon to several other women writers, who were able to free themselves of the existing taboos in literature and give wings to their feelings.

-Sandhya Iyer

The Hungry Tide

Author: Amitav Ghosh
Pages: 403
Year of Publication: 2004
Publishers: HarperCollins
Price: Rs 250

Element encounter



The entire action of the novel takes place in India's Sundarbans. The jacket of the book tells you about the setting, ‘Between the sea and the plain of Bengal, on the easternmost coast of India, lies an immense archipelago of islands. Here there are no borders to divide fresh water from salt, river from sea, even land from water. For hundreds of years, only the truly dispossessed braved the man-eating tigers and the crocodiles who rule there, to eke a precarious existence from the mud’
However, the picture changed towards the start of the last century, when a visionary Scotsman bought a few of these fragmented islands from the British to form a utopian settlement, where people irrespective of race, caste, culture could live together.

Considering the sheer scope that this theme allows in terms of enumerating the legends, folk-lore, history and geological wonders, it's no surprise that it caught the author's interest.
Also, it enables Ghosh to highlight the raging social debate about forest conservation vis a vis human settlement. The story follows Indian-born American marine biologist, Piyali Roy, who is in search of rare river dolphins. During this adventure, she encounters two  different men. Kanai - a smug, urbane Delhi entrepreneur and Fokir, an illiterate but a proud local man of Lusibari.
While Piya is in Sudarbans for her project, Kanai is at the islands at the behest of his aunt, Nirmala. Their paths cross and it is through their interwoven lives that Ghosh looks at the various elements of his theme. Piya, through her conscientious drive to unravel the hidden wonders of nature, is instantly attracted to Fokir's animal instinct and raw charm. Kanai, on the other hand, leaves her cold. Piya is not impressed with Kania’s superciliousness, and between the two men, finds herself constantly  leaning towards the natural, unalloyed world that Fokir represents.
Ghosh brings in the debate about human settlements in forested lands through Piya and Kanai.
Given the vagaries of nature in this place, with its unrelenting storms, changing tides and thriving wild life, Piya believes God probably intended it that way and any human intrusion that harms it must be disallowed.
On the other hand, Kanai supports the theory of human beings getting preference over animals. But again, Piya argues that this kind of short shrift shown to lesser beings will never end, whether they are animals or human beings.
The face-off between Fokir and Kanai that happens during their boat trip, is rightly then the sign of the growing hostility between the ‘civilised world’ and rustics. Here, Fokir’s fear of the outsiders (Kania) can be alternatively read as nature’s resistance to people like Kanai who ‘intrude’ upon its territory.
There’s another story that runs parallel to this one. Kanai reads out notes from his uncles' diary which allows the author to introduce the readers to a different time period in Sundarban’s history, it’s myths, legends, compulsions etc...
Ghosh's novel is textured and effortlessly transports you into the land he describes. Every swish of the wind and swirl of the water are beautifully captured.
The novel does become tedious in the middle with scholarly details of every kind infused in the pages. If pitched as a travelogue this imight have been excusable but otherwise most will just be sifting through these pages.

 Ghosh puts his interest as an anthropologist above the story, which brings the action to a complete standstill at one point. 

As for the characters, Ghosh approaches some of them with great understanding –Piya’s character is beautifully etched but there are others like Nilima, whose character slips into melodrama. Also, the manner in which Kanai is established as a cad in the novel is also a bit tastelesly done.
Ghosh, while offering no real answers through his novel vis a vis the larger issues at hand, does offer an engrossing work of literature about a lesser known world.

Gifted

Author: Nikita Lalwani
Published in:2007
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 272
Price: 395
Genre: Fiction





With quite an uninspiring title and zero buzz around it, it wasn't likely that I'd have picked this book up anytime soon. But given that it's in this year's Booker long list (whatever that's worth), and considering my growing fondness for Indian literature, I gave it a shot in the dark.

For most part, the novel’s central theme is a brutal examination of how bright, young minds can emotionally collapse, under the weight of exacting parental pressure and isolation. That the story is set in London in the 80s is relevant to the extent that the family here is among the first generation NRIs, who believe their children, being born in a western world, have a greatly enhanced and realistic chance of making it big. It's another thing that the period feel didn't come across too well for me.

The fact that the intellectually inclined Mahesh grasps the potential of his 10-year-old daughter, Rumi, as a maths protégée and prods her to ‘focus’ at every point, appeals at a certain level. But as he takes over her life completely, breaking up her every free minute into exacting schedules, lowering the room temperature to keep her ‘alert’ and constantly keeping her mind engaged in equations, you know there’s something eerily wrong. Mahesh and Rumi’s relationship has its tender moments but when fatherly hands are raised to desperate wails on one occasion, something snaps here permanently.

While psychotic levels of academic excellence is demanded from Rumi, unfortunately, that's not her only point of crisis. An adherence to strict Indian values is another burden she has to carry.
Rumi’s mother Shreene, while apathetic to the constant number churning in the house, is portrayed as so backward that she comes across as one of the most despicable characters in the book. There’s a scene where 15-year-old Rumi, walks up to her mother firmly telling her that it’s time that she got a bra! Shreene’s reaction to this ‘suggestive’ request is one of shock and disdain! Obviously, the author's choice of period offers such scenes a semblance of rationality but thereby Lalwani ends up putting Rumi through situations that expect inhuman levels of stoicism from her.

Rumi's relief comes when she can finally leave home as a Maths protégée to Oxford at 15! There's a brilliant scene here where she starts making different faces at the mirror, spouting the most obscene expletives. This is her first moment of freedom! It's especially touching to see her unleash her suppressed sexuality through free physical expression of it whenever she gets a chance, only to be misunderstood and spurned by different guys. Also, Rumi's addiction of cumin seeds, indicates her severe depression and rage.

Figures don't make sense to Rumi anymore and she struggles through her Oxford lectures, until she decides to completely release herself from the web of numbers.

The book scores heavily on originality. But more importantly, it possesses a rare emotional power that makes it both a heartbreaking and deeply affective read on several counts. Also, it's quite a mad story really.
Of course, this is not to say that Nikita Lalwani's debut novel is perfect. Besides some of the conversational pieces that have been very ordinarily handled (yet, there are some brilliant ones too), I also had issues with such a lopsided narrative, that offers absolutely no respite to its young protagonist.

The story remains uniformly engaging, with grim family showdowns, and a certain element of suspense running throughout, qualities probably derived from her work as a producer of documentaries for BBC.

All in all, this is a prominent debut by a writer this year and I for one, would be interested in Nikita Lalwani's next offering.

The Namesake

In nameless conflict

Author: Jhumpa Lahiri

Price: 395

Pages: 291

Published in: 2003

Publishers: Harper Collins

It would only be fair to mention here that I saw Mira Nair's adaptation of the book before I actually got down to reading this novel recently. Having loved the film, I was keen to see how Lahiri had approached her characters and where its cinematic version stood in comparison.

I'll say two things. First, I feel this is one of the few times when the film more than does justice to the book and second, that the book itself is a deeply involving and affecting experience. In fact, so compassionate and compelling is the writer's understanding of her characters and their complexes, that the novel stays uniformly engaging till the very last page. Also, it helps that this is an extremely easy read and I for one, found myself going through it at a ravenous pace.

Jhumpa Lahiri, being an NRI herself, is adequately at home in tackling the theme of re-location and search for identity. As a reader, one gets instantly drawn into the lives of young Ashima and Ashoke, who are a bundle of nerves in an alien country, far from adoring relatives and friends in Calcutta. The writer's description of how the couple grapples with the ways of a new world yet tightly holding on to their roots is deeply moving and rings true at every point.

When a letter from their grandmother in India, enclosing the name for their first born doesn't arrive in time, Ashoke instinctively and naively (as their son says later in life) names him Gogol- a name, derived from the Russian author, Nikolai Gogol, with whom the latter feels a deep connection. The name comes to embarrass their son as he grows older and is a reminder of his confused being -it's not even a proper Bengali name, he protests!

Gogol's agony is not so much about being born to Indian parents, as much as being saddled with a name that seems to convey nothing, in a way accentuating his feeling of "not really belonging to anything"

After much internal struggle, he changes his name to a more acceptable Indian name, Nikhil and feels it would enable him to face the world more confidently.

In all this, Gogol has started seeing the narrowness of the world that his parents inhabit, their fear of adventure, their lack of 'openness' --qualities which are in complete contrast to some other Amercian couples he's come to know --in this case his girlfriend, Maxine's parents, who live life king size on their own terms. Gogol sees before him a whole new way of living, which he starts aspiring for.

The fact that he is no longer 'Gogol'- the name his parents gave him---enables him to distance himself from them more easily than he ever did in the past.

The writer captures all these parts brilliantly and it's fairly easy to relate with Gogol's confusion and predicament.

Nevertheless, a total surrender to an Americanized life, nullifying any attachment to his roots, is also not acceptable to him, as we see later.

But for me personally, the best part of the novel was Gogol's marriage to his childhood family friend Maushami Muzumdar. The latter is far from a conventional Bengali girl and Gogol is attracted to her individualitic streak and high living. In many ways, Maushami bridges a certain important gap in his mind and presents to him the best of both worlds --- she's Bengali like him, so in a strange way that's a comforting feeling. At the same time, she displays the same excessive, broadminded living of the Americans.

However, the fact that this relationship collapses and leaves no mark in their individual lives whatsoever, is also a telling statement about how, ultimately, coming from a similar background provides no guarantee for marital success. On the other hand, his sister Sonia's marriage to an American proves to be quite blissful.

The ending, which shows Gogol browsing through the pages of the book on Nikolai Gogol that his father had presented to him before he died, does appear a bit simplistic in its symbolism. Is he finally coming to terms with his dual identity? Is he finally growing to be comfortable in his own skin? These are answers to questions that can only be guessed.

Cinnamon Gardens

Author: Shyam Selvadurai
Peguin: Peguin
Price: Rs 325
Pages: 389
Genre: Fiction

 Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy remains my most favourite book, and it naturally stoked an interest in me to read his second book, Cinnamon Gardens. Which I did recently. It did not disappoint me, but it lacks the spontaneous and emotional appeal of Funny Boy.

But I love the period that Selvadurai chooses for his second. The book is set in a rich suburb of Sri Lanka in the 1920s. The country is still under British rule, but stirrings for independence have begun. The author captures a lot of the politics of the period, but he is essentially interested in creating a novel of manners.  So greatly influenced is Selvadurai by Jane Austen, that he not only borrows  the central theme of Pride And Prejudice but also makes the novel resemble an 18th century British family drama.

Selvadurai has done his research on this Sri Lankan period and specifically about families who stayed in Cinnamon Gardens (a locality that actually existed) to 'get a sense of what went on beneath the polished veneer'

The novel has two parallel threads, one is about Annalukshmi, a 20 something feisty, independent girl who resists the idea of conventional marriage. 
Her sisters (Kumudini and Manohari) don’t share her ‘odd’ ideas. There's a high-strung, critical aunt by the name of Phelomena who constantly adds fuel to fire. Her mother Louisa, herself a victim of a tumultuous marriage tries hard to protect the interests of her daughters even as she has to constantly worry about getting them the ‘right’ husbands.

 A Victorian propriety runs through the proceedings.  Here reputation is a fragile commodity and even mild gossip can harm matrimonial prospects.

The other parallel story is about Balendran (Bala), the son of a wealthy patriarch, Mudaliar. The latter is a self-important, hypocritical sort of man, who believes in exerting his power and having his way each time. His elder son Arul rebels against his double standards and marries a low cast girl, resulting in him being banished by the father. Mudaliar’s second son, Balendran is much more plaint and remains loyal and abiding, much to chagrin of his wife Sonia.
In his days as a student in London, Bala carried on a relationship which his partner Richard. When it was discovered, all hell broke loose and Mudaliar made sure the 'filth' ended.

Both stories move in an alternating fashion and it's interesting to read about the Sri Lankan politics of the time. The elite Cylonese claimed right of self-rule from the British, even though they were opposed to universal franchise, that would allow women and low castes the right to vote. Similarly, the Tamil Cylonese among the elite were worried that they had a disadvantage with numbers and if they went for public voting, their powers would be largely reduced. Naturally, men like Mudaliar wanted the Britishers to rule, giving Tamils like him all the patronage they needed.

The two stories are not naturally connected and the gay love story doesn’t fit in at all. Also, it’s not quite clear what the novel is trying to say. I mean, with Funny Boy, every character held an important thread to tie the novel thematically. Here you're not so sure.

Yet, the novel stays engaging enough and Selvadurai's greatest quality is the ease and elegance of his prose.

 

Beastly tales from here & there

Author: Vikram Seth

Pages: 124

Price: 250

Genre: Verse

Publication :Penguin India

Publishing Date: 1992 (first)

Fun with fables

I've never been much into verse, if you exclude that brilliant satire by Alaxander Pope, The Rape Of The Lock or Milton's Paradise Lost.

Barring these classic works, I haven't really bothered with verse, especially when it comes to modern writers. Which is why, this quite simply escaped me and in any case, I'm yet to really sink my teeth into any of Vikram Seth's works.

But a very heavy recommendation by a friend, who insisted that there was possibly no better writer of verse in India than Seth prompted me to check it out.

The book is a compilation of ten fables, retold and reinterpreted in the author's own inimitable style, lending it a lot wit and some clever twists. While two of the stories come from India, there are other fables taken from China, Ukraine and Greece. (The fact that Vikram Seth learnt Chinese poetry during his stay in the country might have had some bearing here).

Quite obviously, as Seth himself says, his decision to write this Jungle book fable was an impulsive one, prompted by a hot, sleepy day. He says."I decided to write a summer story involving mangoes and a river. By the time I had finished writing 'The Crocodile And the Monkey', another story and other animals had begun stirring in my mind. And so it went on until all ten of these beastly tales were born"

Among all the stories, at least four of them are extremely entertaining and Seth's rhyming scheme is a delight. I especially enjoyed The Hare And The Tortoise, which the author writes with much chutzpah and there's a nice little twist in the end.

Sample this:

"After the announcer’s gun
Had pronounced that he had won,
And the cheering if the crowd
Died at last, the tortoise bowed,
Clasped the cup with quiet pride,
And sat down, self-satisfied.
And he thought:: That silly hare!
So much for her charm and flair.
So much for her idle boast.
In her cup I’ll raise a toast
To hard work and regularity.
Silly creature! Such vulgarity!
Now she’ll learn that sure and slow
Is the only way to go---
That you can’t rise to the top
With a skip, a jump, a hop

But it was in fact the hare,
With a calm insouciant air
Like an unrepentant bounder,
Who allured the pressmen round her.
“Oh Miss Hare, you’re so appealing
When you’re sweating,” said one, squealing.
“You have tendered gold and booty
To the shrine of sleep and beauty,”

Or check out his verse in The Elephant and the Tragopan, where the animals describe mankind :

“He grasps our substance as of right
To quench and spur his appetite,
Nor will he grant us truce or grace
To rest secure in any place.”

Two other wonderfully told stories are, The Frog And The Nightingale and the first one, The Crocodile And the Monkey. I didn't care much for many of the other fables in the middle portion, which I thought were sort of violent and also repetitive. Make no mistake, this is not necessarily a lighthearted, feel-good read. Some of its stories are very much in the vein of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which we know was a hard-hitting political allegory.

Of course, there are fables here which offer plenty of personal lessons. If The Crocodile And The Monkey talks about the ugliness of greed, The Frog And The Nightingale (a personal favourite from the book) is a particularly moving story about a nightingale, who loses her voice and her audience, by heeding to the selfish frog's advice.

Vikram Seth displays mastery in poetry and this is especially a good book to read out aloud to children or anyone, so that the lyrical and rhyming quality of the words are effectively brought out.

So great repeat value.

Keep this for one of those rainy days (literally! if you must!). :-)

-Sandhya Iyer

The Last Mughal

Author: William Dalrymple
Publishers: Penguin Viking
Published In: 2006
Price: Rs 695
Pages: 586
Genre: Historical
BY Sandhya Iyer

Last glow of light

Being fairly intrigued by Mughal history, Dalrymple has always been one author whose books I’ve wanted to read. I missed out on his White Mughals but got an opportunity to read The Last Mughal and must say, it turned out to be every bit the rich, luxuriant and fascinating experience I imagined it to be.

I must confess here that I have no problems with a Westerner writing about Indian history --- I say it because this seems to be everyone's pet peeve against Dalrymple-Now, as long as the author approaches his subject with honesty and doesn't adopt a patronizing tone, as the likes of V. S Naipaul, E M Forster so often do, it's really fine by me. And as I see it, this author is not really guilty of any of the above charges.

Having read the book, I will say that this is undoubtedly one of the most interesting, informative and entertaining works on Mughal history. No other book probably has approached the 1857 revolt and the disastrous impact it had on a culturally thriving Delhi, the way Dalrymple has in The Last Mughal.

Besides the fact that it extensively covers and nostalgically looks back on the wonderful city that Delhi was in the 1850s and 60s under the rule of its benign, tolerant and pluralistic Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, it gives in-depth sketches of the prevailing British officers of the time. Importantly, it directs our attention to several of our presend-day issues and attitudes, a direct result of our legacy.

That there's a wealth of historical information to be derived out of this book is a given, but truly astonishing is also Dalrymple's ability to weave in so many cobwebs of events and characters with such clarity.
Not to add, his meticulous, hypnotic attention to detail, with some of the passages sparkling like pure gems -----much like the Mughal arts he describes in his book.

The story begins in the early 1850s, a time when Delhi's political fortunes had started to plummet. The Britishers were fast spreading their tentacles and tightening their hold over the Mughals. The bonhomie that existed between the Bitishers and Muslims in the city was starting to wane and Victoria's men were under no obligation to please the Emperor any more. In fact, the king, Zafar Bahadur was rendered powerless now.
Yet, for all its political decline, "the city's reputation as a centre of learning, culture and spirituality had rarely been higher".

The peace gets disrupted when rebel sepoys from Meerut (mainly) and some other regiments request Zafar to support them in their fight against the Britishers. As history tells us and the recent Bollywood film, Mangal Pandey showed, there was discontent brewing among sepoys of North-west provinces. Dalrymple records this in detail and abundantly agrees that Victorian Evangelicals had indeed been speeding up their plans to convert Hindus and Muslims.

While the sepoys were disgruntled about their low salaries among many other things, it was the issue of religion that really sparked off the revolt.
Now, coming to a point I've always reiterated ---- Mangal Pandey was no icon of the 1857 revolt and the book not only succinctly states that, it adequately proves it.

"For a century, this fact has been partially obscured by nationalist historians for whom the idea of Hindu sepoys flocking to Delhi to revive the Mughal Empire was more or less anathema"

"Since the time of V. D Savarkar's book, The Indian War Of Independence 1857, the March outbreak in Barrackpore has been seen as the crucial event of the Mutiny and Mangal Pandey Pandey its central icon. This is a position that was further cemented by the recent Bollywood film, Mangal Pandey. Yet, in many ways Pandey was almost irrelevant to the outbreak, which took place two months later in Meerut in May"

"If Mangal Pandey was the sepoy's inspiration, they certainly did not articulate it, nor did they rush towards Barrackpore or Calcutta."

Zafar, already in his 80s, clearly had no real say in whether to support the sepoys against the Britishers or not. But in the end, he lend his tacit support to the rebels and what followed was one of the bloodiest massacres witnessed in Delhi, with Englishmen being pulled out of their homes and killed mercilessly by the sepoys and jehadis.

Retribution follows and the Britishers swear to take revenge and destroy everything the city stands for.
At least two chapters of the book describe in minute detail the progression of the war --- For a long time, the sepoys succeed in restricting the Britishers to a Ridge. The fact that the sepoys outnumbered the British force by a great number was also putting pressure on the Englishmen. But going by Dalrymple's version of the war, the sepoys were courageous, but they made several tactical errors. The Britishers soon get the better of them and invaded the city again.
The sepoys, in a desperate bid, ask Zafar to lead them in a final assault. Left with no choice, the king agrees but is soon fraught with a sense of fear, and retreats. “Zafar’s catastrophic failure of nerve was the decisive moment that marked the beginning of the end of the rebellion,” writes the author.

What follows is one of the most vengeful attacks by the Britishers on the jehadis and locals. Every man is shot dead and the women and children are forced to leave the city. Dalrymple infuses several ‘real-life conversations’ made by Englishmen in the narrative by way of letters they wrote to their wives, father to a daughter etc.. describing the turn of events throughout the book.
One such letter says about Delhi, “The town now presents an awful spectacle”
The city that was at the height of its cultural vitality, with arts, literature and poets such as Ghalib and Zauq, was in perfect shambles now.
The book also acquaints us with how senior British officers had almost made up their minds to demolish every standing edifice in the city, including architectural wonders like the Red Fort and Jama Masjid but were prevented by an influential officer in the nick of time.
However, this still was an event, which changed destinies forever.
For one, Mughal arts “never really regained their full vitality and artistic prestige even after independence”
More significantly, as the author points out, after the revolt, “The Indian Muslim became almost a subhuman creature for the British, tagged along Irish Catholics or the ‘Wandering Jew’”
Correspondingly and gravely, “this profound contempt that the British so openly expressed for Indian Muslims and Mughal culture proved contagious, particularly to the ascendant Hindus, who quickly hardened their attitudes to all things Islamic”
Quite rightly, the seeds of suspicion that got sowed then, came to show its ugly face with the 1947 Hindu-Muslim Partition.

But the book’s most decisive statement is about how from pre 1857 and after to even today, Islamic Fundamentalism and Western imperialism have closely, and dangerously intertwined.
“Again Western countries blind to the effect their foreign policies have on the wider world, feel aggrieved to be attacked –as they interpret it-by mindless fanatics.”
No need to mention 9/11, is there? Most certainly, there's an urgent need to learn from history and not repeat it.

Half Of A Yellow Sun

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Harper Collins
Prize: Rs 250
Date of Publishing: 2006
Genre: War drama

‘I wrote this book because I wanted to engage with my history in order to make sense of my present, because many of the issues that led to the war remain unresolved in Nigeria today’ says 29 year-old Adichie, about what prompted her to write about one of Nigeria’s most bloody civil wars that happened in the late 60s.

The Biafran civil war, a terrible blot on Nigerian history and humanity has not surprisingly found voice in almost all major literary works produced in the country so far. Adichie was not born when the war happened but says that she grew up in its shadows and could never forget how she lost several of her family members to a situation, which was entirely man-made. This naturally, allows the author to recount incidents with unusual fervour, giving graphic images of the horrors that descended on Biafrans, following the breakout of military action.

What was this civil was about? While the Housa Muslim tribe populated Northern Nigeria, the South consisted of the Igbo, a Christian race. Ever since the country got freedom in 1960, there was deep resentment brewing between the Housa and other tribes who believed that the Igbos held all the prime positions in the country. A military coup by an Igbo colonel follows a counter coup by the Northern army, supported by the West. Soon, Igbo soldiers are brutally murdered all over the northern territory. Col Ojukwu, puts forth the idea of a separate Igbo state called Baifra and takes control of all the oil rich territories. The Nigerian government is not willing to take the rebellion lying down and what follows is a deadly war, which tests its victims in a shockingly inhuman way.
Even as the Nigerian army captures one Biafran region after another, the Igbo population is pushed into a corner, literally and all food links are blocked, leading to intense starvation with people scrambling for food. So while people in other parts of Nigeria worry about silk laces and their golf sessions, the other part hopelessly scrambles for food.
This is the story Adichie narrates in her book and she does it through the lives of four people living in Nigeria. The author’s central characters are twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene, daughters of a rich businessman. However, none of them are especially interested in their father’s wealth and choose their own paths. While Olanna starts living in with prof Odenigbo, her anti-colonial, ‘revolutionary boyfriend’ ---as the brazen Kainene prefers to call him, the latter herself dates Richard, a bashful British expatriate, who is sympathetic to the Biafra cause.
To give a glimpse of the colonial Nigeria that still existed, the author introduces us to Ugwu, a teenager, who is brought from his village to be a housekeeper to ‘master’ Odenigbo.
The book starts in the early 60’s, a comparably idyllic time when Odenigbo’s friends come over each evening and engage in heated, intellectual debates. In the dim-lit room, amidst the clinging of beer bottles and exotic, herbal stews, it’s a time, when the generation’s finest brains are working out Nigeria’s future. The coup throws the characters apart. Ollana and Odenigbo first move into a humble three-room house, quite content as long as they know they are part of the Biafra cause. But as the Nigerian army closes in, the couple, with a child (Odenigbo’s illegitimate one) in tow and Ugwu, find it find it impossible to retain even a semblance of dignity to their lives.
To the author’s credit, she weaves this long forgotten human-interest story, with a sultry, lush family tale, about love, betrayal and redemption. In fact, Adichie is clearly at her best here.
In the end, while it is important to realize the sheer magnitude of disaster that was brought down upon unsuspecting souls---this is an eerie reality we live in even today---what is also heartening is that people actually survived through it all. Olanna's character is especially remarkable, as someone who keeps the family standing even amidst insurmountable problems. With time, Odenigbo loses his revolutionary zeal and resigns himself to his fate. Ugwu, who is always a support to Olanna, is taken away forcefully to join the Biafran war. Unable to bear the stench of the toilets, Olanna is forced to bath out in the open. When a man terms her 'shameless', she screams back asking him why he wasn't supporting the Biafran forces, rather than staring at women bathing. In her steely determination, she's something of a Scarlet O Hara, only, more compassionate.
When the war recedes and the links are opened, the Biafrans are 'officially' assimilated as 'brothers and sisters' into Nigeria, but not without enduring some amount of humiliation.

The book is spectacular, epic-like in scale and monumental in design. Yes, there are portions, which go on and on…..yes, there is an attempt to have graphical images…..yes, the book is controversial and political, which could be viewed as a shameless Booker bid.
Adichie in her skill as a writer and her social consciousness is rightfully considered the literary daughter of Chinua Achebe and the future of African literature. Incidentally, this book has just won her the Orange Book Prize and looks like a hot contender for Booker as well

The book's last section, PS, has a fairly detailed interview with Adichie and other info about her favourite authors and works.

Men In White

In Crackling Form

Author: Mukul Kesavan
Pages: 278
Publishers: Penguin
Price: Rs 395
Publishing Date: 2007


It’s hardly arguable that the frenzy around cricket has significantly died down in the last few years. Our team's timid performance in the recent World Cup only sealed its fate further.
Quite naturally, everything cricket-centric has lost some of its sheen. Which is why, I wondered if a book on cricket is such a good marketable idea.
Obviously I was wrong, because Men In White makes for fantastic reading, much like a compilation of crisp Sunday newspaper columns that one devours with joy. Given that its author Mukul Kesavan teaches history at Jamia Millia Islamia and blogs passionately on cricinfo.com, makes this book a fascinating blend of piquant cricketing insights along with sharp observations on the game’s social impact over the last few decades.
Without a shred of doubt, this is a book meant for avid cricket buffs but such is the elegance in Kesavan’s writing, that even semi-cricket buffs would consider this pretty much ‘unputdownable’.
The cause is further helped because the author is never overindulgent in his writing and barring a few chapters, the rest of the book is racy, informative and sparkles with delightful one-liners. This is especially true when he describes yesteryear and modern day cricketers. While he talks of Vinod Kambli as 'the definitive example of the corrosive triumph of style over substance’, he defends Saurav Ganguly’s attitude towards arrogant teams like Australia with the following, “Ganguly had neither Imran’s authoritative hauteur, nor Ranatunga’s smiling, beatific ruthlessness, but his talent for in-your-face insolence served India well through his captaincy."
Among the senior cricketers, Kesevan’s absolute favourite is quite apparently Sunil Gavaskar, whom he describes as the man ‘who supplied Indian batting with a backbone’ and ‘Never does he look clumsy or crude as Tendulkar so often does...’
Another interesting section is on Azharuddin, where he talks of how this young Muslim lad from Hyderabad lost his eminence, no thanks to his commitment to flamboyant aggression. “From the movie mannerisms young Indian men affect--- Azhar made an unusual move for a cricketer: he bid to live that life. It is the difference between imitating the flash street-cool of the Rangeela character and actually wanting to be Aamir Khan. In India, there’s just one model for metropolitan bon vivant: the Bollywood star, so Azhar married an actress and began living like a hero.”

This is, of course, just one chapter of the book. Kesavan talks with great passion about the elegance of West Indies cricket through the 60s and 70s and how Indian cricket fans like him worshipped their players. On the other hand, Australians, as world champions, brought certain coarseness to the game, he says. You can respect their commitment to win but you cannot love them. With West Indies, you could do that.

From why the format of Indian first class cricket needs to be abolished to why there’s no place for the cricket referee in the game to how one day cricket is getting painfully boring…Kesavan provides his pithy comments and possible solutions for each of the above…and there’s lot more.

The fact that Kesavan is a huge fan of the game naturally prompts plenty of nostalgia to creep in but it’s the sort of stuff cricket buffs will sniff out in a jiffy. For the others, there’s cricket commentary at its very best.

-Sandhya Iyer

The Kite Runner

Flights of fancy

Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published in: 2003
Pages: 324
Genre: Fiction

It's not difficult to see why this Hosseni book is such a monster hit all over. The Kite Runner reads almost entirely like a Bollywood potboiler, with its thrill-a-minite twists & turns and emotional dramebaazi.

In any case, given that Hindi cinema is hugely popular in Afghanistan (the place Hosseni lived in and has written about in this book), it’s almost certain that the author's sensibilities have been greatly shaped by them.

But the above feeling gets overwhelming only somewhere in the middle of the novel. Its 100 pages or so, are sheer magic. No doubt even these are parts 'set up' to garner an emotional response, but Hosseni still manages to weave in a rivetting, emotionally charged narrative.

From a critical standpoint, The Kite Runner's merit lies in the fact that it offers a glympse into 1970s Afghanistan, an age and milue that not too many may be acquainted with.

The story is about the 8-year-old Amir (who serves as the author’s alter ego) and his loving servant-friend Hassan. Their childhood appears a picture of bliss, though Hosseini constantly draws our attention to the fixed power equation between the two. While Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman, Hassan is not only poor but also cursed to be born as a Hazara (Shi’a Muslim) in a place where the community is constantly taunted and ill-treated.

Amir’s father, a generous but emotionally withdrawn man, treats Hassan with unusual kindness. The latter, in turn, shows undying devotion and love to his little master (Amir).

The author, who quite obviously, has a penchant for irony as a literary device (and he even mentions this through one of his characters), uses it excessively all over the place. Here, he employs it to bring out the slightly perverted streak in Amir’s character.

Amir knows Hassan’s unstinted love for him and hence loves to tease him.

'Would I ever lie to you Amir agha?’
Suddenly, I decided to toy with him a little. ‘I don’t know. Would you?’
‘I’d sooner eat dirt,” he said with a look of indignation.
‘Really? You’d do that?”
He threw a puzzled look. “Do what?”
“Eat dirt if I told you to.” I said…..
“If you asked, I would,” he finally said, looking right at me. To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.


But a great act of betrayal from Amir changes their lives forever. Hassan is brutally raped by a bunch of bullies but Amir is too scared to launch an attack and just helplessly watches on.
The guilt kills Amir slowly and it pushes him further and further into an abyss. The fact that he didn’t stand up for Hassan in his desperate hour of need fills his heart with remorse.

What starts on such a promissing premise simply spirals downwards once Amir and his father flee to America. I didn’t care too much about the dozen pages dedicated to explaining Baba’s illness or even Amir’s marriage to Saroya.

In all this, the reader misses Hassan immensely. But the author has other ideas. When Amir comes to Peshawar, at the request of his mentor-friend Rahim Khan, he comes to understand truths that both shock and unsettle him.
From here on, the novel is so tastelessly manipulative that its plot points will seem jarring even to the most charitable and indiscriminate of readers.

Hosseni's intent is only to bring redemption to his protagonist and in this blinkered approach, he mangles the story to such an incredible degree that it rings a totally false note. Moreover, his attempt at irony is so literal and the effort is so obvious, it fails to move you. As a saving grace at least, I was desperately hoping he wouldn't employ the ending that he does.

Also, his craft has its share of problems – Hoseni's writing lacks subtely and he ends up spelling out things that should really just be a whiff of suggestion.

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Ultimately, I’ll say this is a commendable novel for its first 100 pages, parts which have tremendous emotional power. The rest of it is trashy, though still a page turner, in a low-brow sort of way.

But coming back to its huge popularity, the driving force behind the success of such works is the accessibility they offer for the non-serious reader, in terms of it being an easy read.

If only Kite Runner's bestseller status is not used to overemphasise its critical merit, I'm willing to give it credit for one thing --- even the most apathetic of readers have actually cared to read this one!

Sandhya Iyer

The Match

Lost in No Man's Land

Author: Romesh Gunesekera
Pages: 307
Price: Rs 365
Publishers: Bloomsbury
Publishing Date: 2006
Genre: Fiction


When I picked up The Match by author Romesh Gunesekara, I did so with considerable curiosity and expectations. Though I haven’t read any of his earlier works, I believe his debut book of short stories Monkfish Moon, published in 1992, became quite popular. Then two years later, he recieved a Booker nomination for his book Reef. From there on, I understand, the author’s works have evoked mostly mixed reactions.

His reputation as a writer aside, the fact that the book talks about cricket and how it helps the protagonist to reconnect to his past through the game, appeared interesting enough.
However, as I discovered, cricket is only a very small part of this novel and most of it is about the feeling of displacement and rootlessness that the protagonist goes through. The theme seems partily derived from the author's own life, who was born as a Sri Lankan, then spend some of his childhood in Manila (Philippines) and finally settled in England.

The novel essentially traces the difficult journey that its protagonist (Sunny) makes; right from his teenage days to the time he gets married and becomes a father. In many ways, Sunny suffers from a certain Hamlet-like state –both including inertia and confusion about his relationship with his parents.

The only time one really sees him excited is for an amateur game of cricket, which he plays along with his friends and father’s buddies. For Sunny and some other Sri Lankans based in Manila, cricket is a game that helps them stay connected to their roots and hence there’s a great deal of passion as they play it.

From there on, the novel goes into a completely different territory. It looks at Sunny’s feeling of displacement, his inability to cope with the standard demands of a career and marriage among other things.
Finally, it requires a high profile cricket match at Oval, between England and Sri Lanka, for him to grope back into his regular life ans make sense of it. Something as simple as cricket brings him face-to-face to a world that he loved but feared he had lost.
The author captures well Sunny’s turmoil and inability to find relevance to his displaced living. His sudden decision to visit Sri Lanka, even when it isn’t quite cleared of violence, mirrors a desperate urge to hold on to whatever is left of the past.
But having said that, the problems with his novel are manifold. Firstly, the prose slips at various places, with some shockingly inferior writing like the conversation quoted below;
'Yes, I’ll… get the guys going. My friend Junior wants to learn to’
‘Don’t forget the girl. What’s her name? Tarka?’
‘Tina’
‘Tina? Yes, whatever. Anyway, she’ll be a great surprise. Keep her up your sleeve’

Also, there's a lot happening here but nothing's exciting enough. There is Sunny’s friend Ranil and mentor-guide Hector, who bring a semblance of hope to his life. But these parts just keep meandering. Then there’s the aspect of Sunny dropping all contact with his father, Lester, whom he blames for his mother’s sudden demise. Also, Gunesekera brings in the violence and terror that Sri Lanka and Manila are faced with from time-to-time to establish his connection with his past. Then there's an inane track of Sunny's childhood crush, whom he meets after many years at the Oval match.
None of this is wholly convincing.

While one can empathise with Sunny’s slow drift into abyss and the author’s effective portrayal of it, it ultimately ends up being painfully indulgent and sluggish. Certainly not for the one seeking thrill-a-minite, pulsating cricket drama.

-Sandhya Iyer

The Bachelor of Arts

Author: R K Narayan
Pages: 166
First Edition: 1965

Genre: Fiction

Lessons of life

Among R K Narayan’s most popular books are Swami And Friends and The Guide, of which the latter saw a grand, cinematic interpretation in the classic Dev Anand-Waheeda Rahman film.
While there’s no doubting the genius of the above two works, it needs to be said that even some of R K Narayan’s lesser-known works are little gems that just cannot be missed.
Personally, I have a great fondness for this novel, which not only makes for riveting reading but also mirrors the post-independence mood in Southern India wonderfully.
The Bachelor Of Arts is the second part of the trilogy of novels that R K Narayan wrote, along with Swami And Friends and The English Teacher. Yet, the novel stands perfectly well on its own, without any references needed. It would be useful, however, to know that these three novels are R. K Narayan’s most personal works, derived heavily from his own life. After capturing some unforgettable childhood images in Swami And Friends, The Bachelor Of Arts sees him as a youth, a collegian (Chandran) in the 1930s. Understandably, it’s a time when the effects of colonialism ,with its accompanying modernity are seeping into the sleepy, insular world of Malgudi.
Chandran is a bright, young boy, who has grown up in the comforts of a warm, traditional Tamilian family. Since this is a very secure word, with humble aspirations, it’s a culture that lays great emphasis on following the beaten path and generally tends to frown upon any sort of wayward activity.

Chandran symbolizes the new generation of the time, who with their growing consciousness, have started to feel disenchanted by the smallness of their world and want to break free. This feeling rises in him when he goes through a severe heart-break.
Chandran falls for a girl whom he sees at the bank of a river and desires to marry. However, the horoscopes don’t match and the girl’s parents politely decline the offer. The fact that he can do nothing about the situation and has to quietly submit before traditions, fills his heart with bitterness and confusion. Interestingly, R K Narayan met his wife Rajam in a similar fashion and the same horescope issue had cropped up in his case as well. He, however, went ahead with the marriage and the couple spend some very wonderful years of domestic bliss. But tragedy did strike, and Rajam died of typhoid making the author distraught. Narayan’s third book, The English Teacher, captures this part of his life and the deep sorrow he experienced quite vividly.

Chandran’s rebellious spirit takes over and he feels determined to unleash revenge on the world that deprived him of what he wanted so badly. He quits Malgudi and starts staying in a hotel. Then, shaves off his head and starts living like a sanyasi begging for alms.
However, over time he realizes the futility of this exercise and returns back to his own little world. He takes up a challenging job as a publishing agent and agrees to marry again, much to his parents delight.

In Chandran’s process of self-exploration, challenge and reconciliation, R K Narayan makes a broader statement about the spirit of adventurism that grips us but most of us quickly realise the smallness of our horizons and quietly slip into a world of 'quiet and sobriety'
The best recourse here, as suggested by Narayan, is to manipulate one’s own space in a familiar world -much like what Chandran does. This theme, in many ways, mirrors Narayan’s own struggle with the rigidity and practices of his society. However, none of that took him out of Malgudi, did it?

-Sandhya Iyer

Shooting Water

Love's Labour Found!

Author: Davyani Saltzman
Published by: Penguin Books

Publishing date: March, 2006

Price: Rs 295.00

Classification: Non-Fiction/Memoirs

I must confess that I was a bit bewildered as to why a book like Shooting Water needed to be written, even if it was by Deepa Mehta’s daughter, Devyani. On first glance, it seemed like an attempt to probably piggyback ride on the enormous curiosity generated by Water. Also, I had already read Bapsi Sidhwa’s book, Water – an adaptation of the screenplay. But having gone through it, I will say that this proved to be one of the most engaging reads for me in a long time.

It's ‘selling point’ of course is the whole Water fiasco in Benaras which happened in 1999, when members of the RSS vandalized the shooting, until the whole film was scraped. It’s an episode that Devyani vividly describes and her disgust for the BJP government, which gave her mother so much heartburn, comes across clearly. A particularly interesting episode in the book mentions how Deepa Mehta had a meeting with head of RSS, K S Sudharshan to see if he could intervene and stop its various wings like Vishwa Bharat Parishad etc to back off and let the film’s shooting continue.

Narrating the episode, Devyani writes: Mr Sudarshan sat down and told her (Deepa) not to have any preconceptions about the RSS’s ignorance… “

Why did you make a film like Fire? It’s not what our culture is about,” he said in a calm, measured voice.

‘The Ganga is very precious to us,’ he said.

‘Have you read the script for Water?’ Mom asked.

Mr Sudharshan placed a copy of the script on the table.

‘Where did you get that?’ she asked.

Only one script had been submitted outside of the production, and that was to the Ministry of I&B. Mr Sudharshan replied, ‘After all, whose ministry is it anyway?’

It seems the RSS chief added that the script was good and with some minor changes there would be no more problems. But obviously, Deepa and her crew’s joy was short-lived, as the UP government pulled out support.

The second part of the book looks at how the film was revived again in Sri Lanka. Again, an interesting bit here is about Deepa deciding to change her entire cast this when she revived the project. Devyani talks about how Nandita could not be cast as the young and innocent Kalyani anymore and Shabana was too high profile and the producers didn’t want her in the film.

‘In fact, that was one of their conditions’, she writes in the book. ‘Mom’s decision not to cast Nandita cost them their friendship,’ she says.

While the book is primarily about Water and how it got made inspite of insurmountable problems, there’s a very sensitive, tumultous personal layer that Devyani reveals.

Not able to completely recover from the divorce of her parents and the choice she made (she chose to stay with her father when she was asked who she’s like to live with), Devyani says she found refuge in books and traveling. The coming together of mother and daughter during the shooting of Water was an emotional moment for both of them. Devyani writes about how her mother had probably never forgiven her, so in many ways, the revival of Water, she says, was the renewal of their relationship as well. Whatever issues they may have had, it’s abundantly clear that Devyani is fiercely protective about her mother and that element comes shining across.

I find it particularly interesting the way she defends her mother on the issue of her ‘selling India to the West by choosing controversial themes’

“After 250 years of British rule, it was clear that India still had a love-hate relationship with the West, eating up its pop consumer culture while at the same time pandering to it… all nations indulge in a bit of myth-making to bind their people together. Water was one of the casualties of maintaining that myth’

Quite refreshingly, Devyani makes no attempt to put a show of neutrality while discussing the BJP and the whole Water experience. In fact, she describes a scene when the entire Water team celebrated when BJP lost the election in 2004.

Her tumultuous relationship with her mother aside, one gets a glimpse into Devyani’s inner self when she so movingly describes the intense feeling of love she experienced for a member of the crew. She is besotted with Vikram, a well-read, intelligent, wannashine director and follows him to Mumbai, even though he tells her that he is engaged. These portions are marvelous and it’s touching to see how Devyani manages to be so unflinchingly honest about her emotional lows.

There are also interesting bits about her interaction with filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who was helping Deepa with the Hindi version of the script. Devyani, being just 19 then, Kashyap instantly gave her an affectionate handle ‘Chutku’ which stuck on for some time.

All of the parts and characters mentioned above make Shooting Water a tantalizingly interesting read. However, I would not say that about the whole book.

A self confessed perfectionist, Devyani gets into tedious details of inconsequential events. This is done almost naively, presuming the reader would be interested in gathering every tid-bit about the production of Water. I found myself sifting through most of these pages. The second part of the book is especially lackluster with an excess of these particulars.

All in all, I liked Devyani’s earnestness that comes across clearly through her narrations. Also, there’s no doubt that she is a wonderfully gifted and sensitive writer. Shooting Water will hopefully not be the last we will hear from this talented author.
-Sandhya Iyer

The Legends of Pensam

The Call of the Wild

Author:Mamang Dai
Pages: 192
Published by: Penguin Books
Date of Publishing: 2006
Price: Rs 200
Genre:Mythology

Compared to other parts of India, the North-East still remains largely unexplored but like many others, I too have held a fascination for its rich bio diversity and wild life.
Mamam Dai's book provides one such rare glimpse into the life of a tribal community, residing in far away lands in Arunachal Pradesh.
While there are more than 29 major tribes in this part of the world, the author brings to focus intricately woven stories of the ‘Adi’ tribe with their myths, legends, oral history and daily living patterns. This is a community that lies at the foothills of the Himalayas, sharing borders with China, Myanmar and Bhutan.
The word ‘Pensam’ in the title, means ‘in-between’. As the author herself puts it, ‘It suggests the middle, or the middle ground, but it may also be interpreted as the hidden spaces of the heart’
Truly, as the book will reveal, this is a small world where anything can happen. Being adherents of the animistic faith, the tribes here believe in co-existence with the natural world along with the presence of spirits in their forests and rivers.
The first few chapters introduce readers to this strange phenomenon as people get killed mysteriously inside thick, dense forests. Then there is an episode where Kamur, a perfectly normal man, hacks his baby girl and attacks his wife. The elders in the village realize how heinous his crime is, but also believe him when he says that he did it in a 'haunted' moment.
To readers of modern sensibilities, these chapters can seem a bit alien, though it’s still intriguing for sure.
What one can emphatize with, however, are the vagaries of the weather that people living here have to contend with.
The rain lashes ferociously day in and day out in this region, followed by times when the sun and heat become unbearable. This throws the tribals into a mad rage.
"Is this a place to live? Arsi had asked. ‘Why did our forefathers choose this place? Surely, we are outcasts dumped in this bone and knuckle part of the world!’
‘By what reason are we here with the rain, the mud and the fungas, can you tell me that?’
No doubt, the weather, with its constant fear of earthquakes, landslides and floods, is a part of nature’s cruelty that the people here have come to accept.
But the book also brims with descriptions of breathtaking natural scenes and Dai, being foremost a poet, has penned them in great lyrical style. The blue hills with its lush greens, the wild berries, the spring waters and the orange trees...all have a soothing effect on its inhabitants.
There’s also a story here about the intense love affair between a tribal girl Nenem and a British soldier called David. I must say that I loved this portion of the book the best, as it’s very vividly narrated.
The last few chapters of the book show how even a distant, far flung land near the Himalayas cannot escape the influence of the ‘new world’. The people staying here meet this change with both trepidation and hope.
Mamang Dai’s book, then, is useful in the understanding of the tribal community and how life functions in this lesser-known world. I liked it for its queer appeal and the author’s ability to transport its readers to this rain drenched land. Not to forget, it's beautiful front cover, taken from a painting.
-Sandhya Iyer

Funny Boy

Heart of the matter

Author: Shyam Selvadurai
Publishing Date: 1994
Price: Rs 250
Genre: Novel

For a long time, Shyam Selvaduarai’s semi-autobiographical novel Funny Boy has remained my most favourite book. The novel’s backdrop is 80s Sri Lanka, a time when the cracks between the majority Singhalese population and minority Tamilians had started to widen. This external intolerance is mirrored in 12 year old Arjun’s innocent, private world, whose need for natural expression is stifled against the oppressive air of rigidity that adults unleash.
Divided into six chapters, the first few parts capture Arjie’s (Arjun) childhood and the growing confusion in him regarding his sexuality. Arjie does not like playing with the boys, he prefers decking up like a girl and playing bride-bride. However, once Arjie’s ‘queerness’ is recogonised by his family, things start to change dratically for him. His concerned yet stern father makes it amply clear that he does not want a ‘funny boy’ in the family and packs him off to an All Boys Public school. Arjie’s father believes that the strict ways of the institution will “force him to become a man”. But, quite ironically, Arjie’s sexual realization and awakening happen right here, amidst the brutal, rigid setting of the school.
Arjie’s relationship with a fellow Sinhalese student, Shehan Zoysa is probably one of the most touching episodes in the novel. Arjie is initially hesitant about accepting his homosexuality and shuns Shehan’s advances. But when he sees the latter being bullied and cruelly punished by his principal, Arjie’s love for Shehan (Zoysa) comes gushing through.
The author does well to captures the undercurrents in the Tamil-Sinhala relationship in Sri Lanka around the 80s. The prevailing ethnic tension is evident when Arjie’s aunt, Radha is strictly dissuaded from having anything to do with a Sinhalese man. Again, Arjie’s father cannot provide a level playing field to one of his favourite Tamil employees and surrogate son, Jegan, for fear of offending his Sinhalese employees, 'who refuse to take orders from Jegan’.
Then in Arjie’s school too, there are ample traces of racism. Ultimately, Arjie’s family is forced to migrate to Canada almost penniless when a riot breaks out in the last chapter.

Funny Boy has no political axes to grind. More than anything else, the novel is about the gagging of individual free will by the use of brute force. The central theme is primarily how society straitjackets individuals, valourising the macho and lampooning the sissy.
Selvadurai's writing is elegant, real, with an emotional power that compels you to connect deeply with the characters and their situations.


Certainly a book everyone must read.