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.

The Japanese Wife

Author: Kunal Basu
Price: 395
Publisher: Harper Collins

Spaced-OUT

From the moment Aparna Sen announced that she would be making a literary adaptation of Kunal Basu’s The Japanese Wife, one saw an immense curiosity for the book. Not unexpectedly, copies of it were instantly lapped up at literary fests and now when it has finally hit book stores, business remains brisk as ever.
Now, firstly, this is a disappointment for people expecting to read a full-fledged novel on The Japanese Wife because it's a book of 13 short stories. The theme that runs here is that of unexpected, inscrutable love and situations brought on by quirks of destiny. This is of course an interesting premise to base ones stories upon, only that most of them are so isolated, so out-of-the-ordinary and so never-landish in describtion and characters that none of them emotionally engage you. Most of them have strange titles and names –The Pearlfisher, The Last Dalang, Lenin’s Café, Long Live Imelda Marcos and stranger stories, situated in different continents - there's a certain Babel like quality here but just that none of the stories seem wholesome enough.
Some of them start off showing some promise but turn unclear, unexciting and plain tedious after a couple of pages. Given that most stories here are themselves so bizarre, it’s no surprise that the attempted ironic twists fall flat on more than one occasion.

The only story to recommend here is the title one –The Japanese Wife, which is truly admirable.

It talks about a Maths teacher Snehamoy Chakrabarti, who through a series of letters befriends a Japanese girl, Miyage and even marries her without seeing her. Neither of them consider it consequential to meet and it’s a proposal that is merely kept hanging in balance. Snehmoy lives with his ageing aunt and carries on his wholly epistolary relationship for more than 20 years feeling mostly content to have a wife who he can share his feelings with, without actually having to take on the pressures that come with marriage. Now, it’s easy to read this as escapism but the bond of love he feels for his Japanese wife is real. The village is enchanted with the colourful kites and other gift packets she sends him by post.
Meanwhile, Snehamoy’s house has an unexpected guest – the same girl who he was supposed to have married, now widowed with a son. Physical proximity with her leads him to develop some feelings but he quickly restrains himself knowing he’s married.

The story has an unexpected twist but this is one that rings true inspite of it being a rather peculiar love story. That the bonds of love transcend every conceivable boundary and matters of heart follow a rhyme and rhythm of their own is an intensely poignant theme. Also, there's a certain lyrical, surrual beauty to the story here.
Wish one could say the same for all the others.

The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone

A pocketful of India

Author: Shashi Tharoor
Pages: 380
Publishers: Penguin
Price: 495

This book by former under-secretary general of the United Nations and prolific author Shashi Tharoor is a compilation of several of his essays and columns that he wrote in the last decade or so (Tharoor writes for a number of national and international newspapers.)

I, for one, had not read much of him, save for a column here or there. So for me personally, this was an enormously enriching experience with its wealth of knowledge and keen insight on a variety of subjects. It helps that Tharoor is such a P G Wodehouse fan because his writing invariably sparkles with wit and flamboyance. In addition, there's such ease and elegance to Tharoor's writing that anyone with the slightest ardour for the English language will take to his style immediately.

Tharoor demonstrates how intensely protective he is about his roots - and that goes beyond his feelings for India alone. He extols the virtues and spirit of Hinduism and the sense of plurality that it propagates. He adds how fundamentalism that divides people on the basis of religious and other identities, is in itself, against the principle of Hinduism.
He says, "No one identity can ever triumph in India; both the country’s chronic plurality and the logic of the electoral market place make this impossible. India is never truer to itself than while celebrating its own diversity."
Tharoor displays his love for his native land-Kerala, pointing at how the place has shed many of its Labour Union problems --one of its biggest banes in its route to development --- and is being viewed as a hotshot destination by investors. Tharoor constantly points towards the pristine beauty of the land (that attracts foreign investors against over-populated and polluted places like Bangalore or Mumbai) and the fact that it's the only State whose demographics comes closest to that of the US, in terms of education and sex ratio.

The interesting part of Tharoor's writing is that there is not only much insight to be found here, there's also a clear stand that he presents at the end of every essay.

The only places where he stumbles is in his assessment of the Hindi film industry. It’s clear that Tharoor's understanding of the Mumbai film industry is limited and his perception narrow. It's especially difficult to digest what he says about the Big B of Bollywood, " To appreciate Amitabh Bachchan, you have to confuse action with acting and prefer height to depth"
That apart, there's much to reflect and take home from this book. An exceptional guide in the understanding of India and its myriad moods.

Interview with Shashi Tharoor

A Riot of words 

In an exclusive interview, diplomat and writer Shashi Tharoor talks to Sandhya Iyer on what it means to be passionate about books and literature

When one gets a private audience with a man who the whole world pays to listen, it is a unique privilege to get him to talk just on books. But that’s exactly what we did, and Shashi Tharoor, the strikingly handsome former under-secretary general of United Nations and prolific writer/columnist, fell for the suggestion without much persuasion. “It is great when newspapers promote a book page, especially because space for these things are drastically reducing,” he says, as we meet up with him at Mahindra United World College of India, where he had come at the behest of good friend and Harward batchmate, Anand Mahindra.

The latter gave an eloquent account of the days he spent with Tharoor. “My first impression of him was that of a distinguished-looking young man in a navy-blue woolen jacket, staring at a notice board with great gravitas---as if all of the world’s troubles rested on his shoulders,” Mahindra said to an amused audience. “He was always ahead at studies and I consoled myself that he was just a prematurely grown kid and would end up aging faster, but as you see, he’s only grown younger,” he said to packed hall of students, faculty and press. Mahindra later recounted to a rapturous audience how as a charismatic young man, Shashi's canvassing message at one of his campus election rallies was a pithy ‘Shashi Tharoor, Jeetega Zaroor’.

And winner he has been. Tharoor had an illustrious career with the UN, having spend 29 years in diplomatic service and coming a close second in the race for UN Secretary General.
He is also a prolific writer and a highly regarded columnist. He has so far penned four works in fiction(Riot, Show Business) and five in non-fiction (Nehru, Bookless in Baghdad).
Growing up in the 60s and 70s in Indian cities like Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, Tharoor has made US his home with his wife Christa. Bristling with wit and wonderful insight, each of his books displays his great pride in being an Indian.
So what is his preferred genre within the scope of what he writes? “Fiction, naturally," he says, "because it gives one the satisfaction of creating another world. But truth is that non-fiction is equally special given its interruptible nature. Even battling busy schedules, one can keep going back to it and pick up the threads. That’s not the case with fiction. Here, you need a space inside your head where you create another world inhabited by different characters and episodes,” he adds. However, the aspect to note here is that Tharoor’s fictional work is also anchored in the real world, so that margin isn’t too pronounced.

As for his childhood literary influences and his eclectic taste in books, he says, “I've always been a voracious reader and my range extends from P. G Wodehouse to Gabriel García Márquez. I haven’t been too great on English classics though. I've always been impatient with them. Their concerns seem so remote. But I've read quite a bit of Charles Dickens. Jane Austen? Nothing apart from Pride And Prejudice, though I can see why she’s extolled to the extent that she is.”

Yet, no great work of literature must be excluded from a scholar’s reading list, believes Tharoor. “I may not have followed every great author or read all their books but I do feel it’s important to know where they were coming from, what their background was. That’s crucial because what they published had an influence on subsequent works and writers. Ultimately, what does a ‘novel’ mean? It means doing something new. So as I said, one needs to have a sense of what has been there before. A well-read person will know the realms of the possible that have already been explored by earlier writers.”

Given his bustling social life and wide interests, does it allow him the leisure of re-visiting some of his favourite books? Much like most of us who carry the guilt of leaving most of the books on our shelves unread, Tharoor too says it was only thanks to a very bad flue recently that he managed to read up Vikram Chandra’s monumental work, Sacred Games. “I always carry books with me but it’s still always a challenge to find time to read,” he says.

Tharoor selects his top 5 books
1. The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru; a profound vision of what has made India and Nehru
2. One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez ; extraordinary, magical reinvention of the Latin-American experience.
3. The Heavy Weather by P. G Wodehouse: One of the great masterpieces, among the many others he’s written.
4. The Saga of Khassak by OV Vijayan: This was originally a Malayalam novel that invented magic realism 20 years before Gabriel García Márquez attempted it.
5. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milind Kundera: A moving, evocative experience of East –European history.

Book Review: The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Who really wrote Wuthering Heights?

The popular belief of course is that Emily Bronte wrote this 19th century classic but if one scratches the surface, one will discover there’s an altogether different story here.

While the three Bronte sisters, Emily, Anne and Charlott met with great literary success with Wuthering Heigths, Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre, biographers suggest that it was actually their genius brother Branwell Bronte who was behind it all.
So why did he alone perish in anonymity? It’s a sad story of a man whose fertile mind and high flights of fancy were never allowed to take wings in the real world. As a child, Branwell was the leader among his sisters. If he cried, they cried. He laughed, they laughed. They followed him everywhere; delighted by the fantastical characters he created and awed by his brilliance. Branwell’s ‘infernal’ world was full of kings, queens, ghosts and worriers. He liked blood and gore in his stories and almost convinced himself and his sisters that such a world actually existed.

Many believe that Heathcliff was his own creation, which Emily developed further. One can’t deny that Emily wrote Wuthering Heigths but the ideas, characters and inspiration behind the story was indeed Branwell’s.
Till the age of 19, hopes were still riding very high on this whiz kid. Everyone knew that great things awaited him and Branwell was almost certain to make a great name for himself. This is one of the reasons why their aunt didn’t deem it necessary to leave any money for him in her death will. So confident was she of her nephew’s prospects that she divided her money among the three girls instead. Ironically, he needed the money most at a later stage.

Branwell was rejected at a premium painting school that came as a shock. After that, there were a series of disappointments. Wordsworth to whom he sent a selection of his poems for his opinion gave him no reply. Several publishers rejected his work and slowly disappointment started to set in. He was 23 and nothing was working for him still. Not that the young man was not trying but there was no reassurance that was coming forth from the literary world.
In his late twenties, a slow resignation started to creep into his poems. A particularly poignant line was
‘I lost the race I never ran’

The sisters were tiring of him, though they did bail him out at several points. They were sympathetic but couldn’t understand why he was living the life of a wastrel.
Charlott, who published Jane Eyre under a pseudonym, met with great success. Emily’s Wuthering Heights got some critical acclaim but overall, it was considered a far-fetched, weird sort of story when it was first published. Later of course, it won its rightful place in literary history.
The sisters preferred not to tell their brother about the success of Jane Eyre. As Charlotte said later after his death, “We could not tell him of our efforts for fear of causing him too deep a pang of remorse for his own time misspent and talents misapplied. Now he will never knew…”

But the truth was different. Branwell knew about these novels. How could he not? Especially when most of it consisted of his own thoughts and ideas?
He too preferred to stay quiet, not letting them draw any happiness from the fact that he already knew it.
At 31, he was still languishing after the failures of a couple of jobs.
He said in one of his letters, “I know I also had stuff enough in me to make popular stories, but the failure of the Academy plan ruined me. I was felled, like a tree in the forest, by a sudden and strong wind, to rise no more. I simply degraded me in my own eyes and broke my heart,” --- source Daphine du Mauriers’ biography on Branwell.

A few days later, he died suddenly.

Many feel Branwell’s trouble started when he couldn’t differentiate between childhood fantasy and adulthood but personally I think fate too acted brutally towards this affectionate, sensitive and brilliant man.

Interview: Sonja Chandrachud

Taking fancy to fantasy

Sonja Chandrachud, whose new book on the wizard world –The Potion of Eternity, released in Pune recently says how J K Rowling’s Harry Potter has opened doors for several other fantasy writers.


“One of the best things that emerged out of the success of J K Rowling's Harry Potter is that it has allowed several writers with similar interest and capabilities to explorer the genre of fantasy,” says Sonja Chandrachud, whose book, The Potion of Eternity – ‘a hilarious haunting adventure’ as she calls it, released and made it to all leading book stores recently.
Having traveled to several parts of the world, Sonja says she didn’t feel the need to ‘Indianize’ her story. “These names and places just came to my head and they seemed right, so I went ahead with it,” she says, adding that she was looking at a certain universal appeal for the book.

The story line is a rather simple, one that is filled with powerful scorcerers, yogis, vampires and witches. In that sense, anyone who is familiar with The Lord of The Rings or Harry Potter won’t feel timid to go along with this little escapade. So what’s it about? The Wizard Organisation Worldwide(WOM) finds its magic potion –one that promises eternity to the children of wizards- contaminated. Count Drunkula Von D’eth is entrusted with the potion and he goes underground with his large crazy family to conoct the Antidote and brew a fresh lot the Potion. But things aren’t easy, considering he’s up against some serious black magic and an enemy right in his house, all trying to pinch the potion from him. On the home front, things are worse, what with him having to contend with his hot-headed Indian tantrika wife and her sharp-tongued, revolting mother-in-law.

Within the genre of fantasy, this isn’t a terribly novel plot and neither do the Count’s enemies comes across as defined but it still has its strengths. For one, this is a wonderfully racy book, a quick read. Secondly, the author succeeds a great deal in creating interesting characters like the well -meaning but harried Count, his loyal but irascible Indian wife, Sinistra, who walks out on him angrily when she cannot cope up with the pressures of his job and handling her Twins. The most inspired bit of characterisation here is that of her mother-in-law Hag. “All the characters that you see in the book are inspired from my own life. I have twins in real life and even the mother-in-law’s character is hunderd per cent real,” she says laughing.

Coming back to her choice of genre, she says, “I have always been drawn to the genre of fantasy and let me say that it has always existed even before Harry Potter. J K Rowland herself was inspired by Eva Ibbotson’s book, Secret of Platform 13. Eva also wrote WhichWitch, a story about a Whizard looking out for the right witch to marry. Then there have been writers like Rold Dahl who have also dabbled in the genre. Indian itself is a treasure trove of these kind of stories,” she says.

Fortunately for her, publishers Penguin liked her manuscript when she approached them. “You have to play it by their rules –wherein you cannot call them once you submit your manuscript, they will get in touch if they like it. But things worked out well for me. No changes were suggested at all and the book has been marketed quite well as you can see,” she says.
But for the average person, looking to get their book published, she agrees it’s still a struggle in India. “We have no literary agents here, so it’s always difficult. My husband was there to support me, so I could go ahead and work on a story. But in any case, eventually, I do see myself turning my writing into a full-fledged career,” she says.

In fact, Sonja has already started work on the second part of what looks like a series now.
Based in Pune, the author had a rather interesting book reading session, preceded by a dramatised performance of the story at Crosswords recently. The interest that the event elicited clears shows how interest in the world of wizards is at an all time high among children.

Shakespeare, Bill Bryson

The Good, Bard and the Ugly

Author: Bill Bryson
Publication date: 2007

Publishers: Penguin
Price: 325
Pages: 196

The obvious question that comes to mind for a new biography on Shakespeare is "Why one more?"

After all, this Elizabethan playwright is, without a shred of doubt, the most studied, researched and debated man in the whole of English literature. In fact, Bill Bryson provides some interesting statistics in this regard in this slim, compact book of his.

So admittedly, the author himself understands that writing another book about Shakespeare can easily slip into being an exercise in sheer indulgence. Which is why he spends considerable time building a case on how even though there's a staggering amount of literature in regards to the Bard, most of it is clouded in mystery and confusion. And that begins from the legitimacy of Shakespeare’s spelling itself!

In fact, his surmise is that the more one gets to know about Shakespeare, the more enigmatic he gets. Naturally then, critics and biographers have been tempted ever so often to fill in the gaps using creative conjecture.
Says Bryson, "Even the most careful biographers sometimes take a supposition that Shakespeare was Catholic or happily married or fond of the countryside or kindly disposed towards animals --- and convert it within a page or two to something like a certainty. The urge to switch from subjunctive to indicative is, to paraphrase Alaistair Fowler, always a powerful one. Others have simply surrendered themselves to their imaginations. Forced with a wealth of text but a poverty of context, scholars have focused obsessively on what they can know."

The book briefly looks at Shakespeare's childhood and then goes on to talk about his rise as a playwright in Elizabethan England. Bryson observes how the Bard couldn't have been born at a more fortunate time in history, a period when theatre was gaining popularity like never before. It was just the right time for the prolific Shakespeare to unleash his creative talents.
Bryson, though he keeps the tone of the biography uniformly unsentimental yet vivid, goes into too many period details in these sections. These might be useful to serious students of literature but personally; I found these parts excessively detailed and a bit mundane.

The book, however, throbs back to life in the later sections, particularly a chapter where the author discusses and analyses Shakespeare's works and makes some incisive comments.
There are two important elements that Bryson talks about here. One, he candidly recogonises that Shakespeare can lay no great claims to originality in the themes that he tackled.

Says Bryson, "His success was not, it must be said, without its short cuts. Shakespeare didn't scruple to steal plots, dialogue, names and titles---whatever suited his purpose. To paraphrase G B S, Shakespeare was a wonderful teller of stories so long as someone else has told them first. But then, this was a charge that could be laid against nearly all writers of the day. What Shakespeare did of course, was take pedestrian pieces of work and endow them with distinction and very often greatness. His particular genius was to take as engaging notion and make it better yet."

Also Bryson's biography, at least in a cursory sense, looks at Shakespeare's heavy contribution to the English language. "Most modern authors I imagine would be delighted if they contributed even one lexeme to the future of the language. His real gift was as a phrasemaker. "Shakespeare's language," says Stanley Wells has a quality, difficult to define, of memorability that has caused many phrases to enter the common language. Some of his phrases like foregone conclusion, salad days, cold comfort, with bated breath and many others are so repetitiously irresistible that we have debased them into clichés.”

Interestingly, the author also considers the condition of 'neologism' that he believed Shakespeare's writings suffered from.
He says, " Shakespeare maybe the English language's presiding genius, but that isn't to say he was without flaws. A certain messy exuberance marked much of what he did. Sometimes it is just not possible to know quite what he meant."

But out of this churning of words, the language itself evolved and Shakespeare aided it in a big way. Unlike other playwrights who stuck to archaic, old English, Shakespeare was quite ahead of his times.

On the whole, Bryson's book is a quick, elegant read that offers some insightful points about the Bard's life. Not all of it is interesting but certainly a refreshing new release on literature.

Saawariya through White Nights

Literary Blues

Having read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s White Nights, I thought seeing Saawariya from a literary perspective might be an addition to the varied reviews we've had on the film.
I’ve noted below a few points that occurred to me when I saw the film earlier this week.

It’s not difficult to see why Bhansali was enamoured by Dostoevesky and White Nights. Given that the latter’s writings are generally characterized by an emotional frenzy, a nervous excitability where words seem to tumble on to each other, Bhansali possibly felt a kindred spirit with the Russian litterateur.
Additionally, White Nights deals, at least partially with the theme of love and separation ie virah, the filmmaker’s favourite rasa (among the nav-rasas), one that runs prominently in at least two of the filmmaker’s previous works.

The filmmaker has doggedly stuck to Dostoevsky’s vision, though one must hastily add that the latter’s preoccupations are much larger than what Bhansali can manage to convey cinematically.
Which is why, if the film disappoints in the end, it is less to do with the director’s abilities (or lack of it) and more to do a making a questionable literary choice for screen adaptation.

Gulabo (a superlative Rani Mukherjee), as the frisky and warm-hearted prostitute and Miss Lolipop (Zohra Sehgal), as the forlorn landlady are two stock characters which are Bhansali’s own creations ---- they aren’t present in the original. But both these characters work faithfully at projecting further Dostoevsky’s profound theme of the alienation of the human soul and the yearning for love. So in that sense, Bhansali does not stray while attempting to flesh out White Nights, a novella which doesn't try to offer much in terms of story and primarily works on a certain abstract level only.

Dostoevsky’s idea through the story is a deeply affecting one, one that alludes to the loneliness of mankind--- the horrific silences that descend upon us once noises around die down, the romantic spirit’s desperate urge to find love and then to hold on to it, even if it is an illusion. Or weaving dreams around it and then desperately hoping it will turn true.

The author’s setting is a simple one, entirely a two-character narrative with the boy and girl sitting together and pouring out their feelings in the comfort of a night and a stranger. The recounting comes close to being a stream-of-consciousness one, managing to wrench out a great deal of emotional intensity as it proceeds.
Dostoevsky’s story is anything by a plot-driven one. What he conveys among other things is an idea of chronic romanticism, and this he does effectively within a small literary scale. The narrative itself is quite verbose, the sentences are long-winding and there’s hardly any action happening here. It touches some very high emotional peaks but there very few external conflicts.

This is where Bhansali’s problem lies. A short story, by its very nature has a distinct trajectory, one that can be quite unidimensional without too many plot points. Also, my understanding is that not all short stories can be treated in a stand-alone manner, because most of them are just nuggets intricately tied to the author’s extended theme spread across his works.

This is fine when one is making a film like The Blue Umbrella (derived from Ruskin Bond’s short story),which is mounted on a relatively smaller scale. (In any case, The Blue Umbrella covers a larger physical spectrum than Saawariya.)
But here, the story is so thinly laid, it is almost slight, but that doesn’t stop Bhansali from giving his film a grand operatic treatment or creating enough room for himself to satiate his artistic indulges.
The problem here is that the film severely lacks in action and mere artistic showmanship was never going to enable it to touch the pathos or emotional intensity of White Nights. Taking an idea is one thing but adapting a literary piece of work without grasping the limitations it poses for a cinematic adaptation, is quite another.
For example Metro deals with almost the same ideas in many ways but it handles the theme in its own contemporary manner, which is why it succeeds inin engaging an audience.

Yet, Saawariya is worth a watch, given that Bhansali makes it a visually sumptuous experience and his handling of the story (whatever its worth), is mature. There are some huge pluses to take home from the film. Ranbir is quite candidly, the find of the decade. Along with Rani Mukherjee, Ranbir delivers a knock-out performance in a film that offers him very little support in terms of script. Sonam is one of the prettiest girls I’ve seen on screen in a while now but she does have a long way to go as an actress.
Rani is, well, Rani. The screenplay throbs back to life each time she appears. And was it just me, but I thought she greatly resembled Sharmila Tagore here.

Finally Saawariya is a film, which I suspect, will age quite well inspite of its languorous pace and a non-existent plot (Some portions are a big yawn!)
Also, there is something in Ranbir’s character that captures beautifully the spirit of Dostoevsky and for that alone, Saawariya, is watchable.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

When sparks fly

Author: Mohsin Hamid
Genre: Fiction Price: 295
Published in : 2007

Price: 295

I've been trying to read some good Pakistani writing in English for a while now. And I'm glad I made an introduction with Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, who earlier wrote Moth Smoke, a novel, which Rahul Bose is now adapting into a film.

Lately, there has been a flowering of young Pakistani writers like Hamid and Kamila Shamsie (Cartography, Salt And Saffron), and in many ways, this is the first literary stirring that the country is witnessing.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist looks at the increasingly volatile and precariously balanced relationship between the West (United States) and East (South Asian Muslim countries), and how without a certain sense empathy, this equation will steadily spiral downwards.

Interestingly, Hamid’s point here is that a feeling of fundamentalism can arise in the unlikeliest of people, when they feel pushed to a corner.

The novel’s protagonist, Changez is a Princeton graduate, has led a charmed life back in Pakistan and is all set for a enviable career in New York.
He bags a job with one of the premium companies of the city, Underwood Samson and in a short while, is recogonised as one of the firm’s brightest young talents.

If he thought life couldn't get better, he’s proved wrong. Soon enough, he falls in love with Erica, a rich, pretty and artistically inclined American girl. But this relationship is fraught with troubles. Though there is a great deal of affection and even curiosity between Changez and Erica about their respective backgrounds, theirs remains a largely unfulfilling bond. Erica cannot get over Chris, her boyfriend who died some years back and thereby, can never fully 'open up' (sexually too) with Changez. In a moment of frustration and even resentment, the latter asks her to imagine him as Chris and make love.

This is when you realize that Hamid’s constructed an allegory here. Erica stands for America (Erica), and symbolises the deep infactuation Changez feels for her on certain levels. His own company is called Underwood Sampsons, standing for US, a highly competitive firm with a narrow focus on its own progress.

Erica's inability to accept Changez, unless he 'becomes' Chris, quite clearly, hints at the country's unwillingness to accept the former’s identity for what it primarily is.

Till this point, Changez largely shares a love-hate equation with the US. He loves being a New Yorker, both his high-flying job and girlfriend fill his heart with a sense of pride. However, at the same time, Hamid's protagonist is no pushover. Clearly, Changez has a mind of his own and feels a deep sense of attachment to his motherland (Pakistan). The fact that bright minds like him have to desert their own country, to fill the coffers of an already overdeveloped, supercilious country, leaves him frustrated.

This realisation further dawns upon him when 9/11 occurs and Changez feels a strange sense of thrill at 'someone bringing America to its knees'. From there on, life is never the same and his disenchantment with America is complete.

Erica is afflicted with a mental illness and slowly fades away (literally) from his life. This is a period when Changez also develops a certain rebellious streak, refusing to either cut off his beard or focus on his job. News of America's attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan's closest neighbour fills his heart with resentment and from there on, it's only a matter of time before he loses his job.
Once back in Pakistan, Changez becomes a professor at a University, 'who makes it his mission on the campus to advocate Pakistan's disengagement with America'

Though the book does not, in any way, glorify fundamentalism, it subtly points at how sparks of fundamentalism can be ignited in the most placid looking people and circumstances. Hamid succeeds in making his central character-Changez engaging from the word go and it helps that this book is a rather compact, slim one, without too much rambling.
But, while Hamid's attempt at constructing an allegorical narrative is interesting, it is hardly intrusive enough to lend the story any kind of depth. If anything, it slackens its dramatic pace, making it both tedious and essayist.
On the other hand, Changez's professional life has been treated with great flair and understanding.
There are great stories to be written on the increasing east-west gulf and the growing feelings of mistrust between both continents. The Reluctant Fundamentalist only skims the surface, but nevertheless Hamid does enough to prove that he's a writer to watch out for.

Romancing With Life, an autobiography

A Guide to self-love

Author: Dev Anand
Pages: 417
Publisher: Penguin
Published in: 2007

Love or hate this book by Dev Anand but if there's one thing going for it, it is the fact that, unlike most autobiographies that are ghost-written, this one is, without a shred of doubt, penned by the man himself.
How else do you explain the fact that the book has the exact trajectory for his career-- from delightful to delusional?
The fun part of this book is that it doesn't necessarily require you to read it in sequence. I for one, was quickly drawn to pages in the middle where he talks about how he fell in love his protegee Zeenat Aman and was jealous when Raj Kapoor 'made advances' and took her on for Satyam Shivam Sundaram. He says, "A hint of suspicion crossed my mind. A couple of days earlier, a rumour had been floating around that Zeenat had gone to Raj's studio for a screen test for the main role in his movie. The hearsay now started ringing true. My heart was bleeding."
Another part that I noticed while I was browsing it and stayed to read, was the phone call that the actor made to writer R K Narayan, requesting the rights to make The Guide, which eventually ofcourse, turned out to be one of the highlights in the actor's career.

Clearly, the first 200 pages or so of this book are extremely readable and abound in many interesting anecdotes. From his intense love story with Suraiya to his enchanting bicycle rides with Guru Dutt in the serene lanes of Pune (then Poona), from his guilt at driving rashily and hurting co-star Geeta Bali to his child-like excitement at creating avant garde cinema with his charismatic elder brother, Chetan Anand....all of it points towards a man deeply romantic, eternally optimistic, with an insatiable desire to be loved and lusted after.

In many ways, Dev Anand's nervous energy and creative longing to break free from established cinematic norms perfectly reflected the zeitgeist of the 50s and 60s, a period that was looking pregnant with possibilities.

That he had an exaggerated sense of himself and his works even at the height of his stardom is quite obvious. But to give him his due, his passion for cinema mixed a perilous streak for taking risks is what gave him an edge as an actor and producer. Additionally, Dev Anand was blessed to have two phenomenally talented filmmakers as his brothers.

Understandably, Dev Anand talks with great enthusiasm and pride about his milestone, Guide, a film which, he says, everyone thought would come to a big naught. But the actor chose to go ahead in a reckless spirit of creative revelation and the results were there to see.

Undoubtedly, these were the best years of the actor's career and somehow, the honeymoon for the book pretty ends here too.
Yes, it's passable till the point the actor talks about Zeenat, Tina Munim ('naughty, mischievous and frivolous')and his ventures like Hare Rama Hare Krishna (inspired from the hippie culture he saw in Nepal), Ishq Ishq Ishq ('my biggest disaster...but an inspiring, exhilarating experience'). Here, I must add that the actor's penchant for travel allows him to come up with some inspired pieces of writing now and then.

While it's amply clear that Dev Anand's career was fast fading even as a filmmaker by the 80s, the actor isn't willing to entertain these thoughts, in the firm belief that he is still considered God by fans.
Given that the actor is a true blue Libran, a perennial optimistic, who has preferred to see the brighter side of life, this could be viewed in a more compassionate light.

And mind you, it is this very trait that allowed him to tide over several disappointments. Even in the chapter where he describes his searing hurt at Zeenat opting for Raj Kapoor, there is no element of malaise and the actor always ends it on a positive note.
Dev Anand chooses to gloss over his failures and over highlight the achievements, but that is exactly how the actor has led his life.

However, even with this consideration, it's difficult not to be amused by some of the claims he makes. He calls his film, Awwal Number with Aamir Khan as 'ahead of its times' and that it 'found a resonance later in Lagaan'!
Similarly, he's taken in by a supposed comment by someone that India should have chosen his film Censor, as it's entry for the Oscars. He also prefers to defend all his duds (even horrible ones like Gangster and Main Sola Baras Ki), using the convenient excuse that the quality of a film has nothing to do with its boxoffice fate.

But these irritations are minor when you compare it to the actor's incorrigible obsession with nymphets. Without any exaggeration, every second page has a description of a nameless woman who delighted him in some part of the world. He even tries to do a Mills & Boons writing a sexual encounter with a young woman.

Disappointingly, the actor prefers to focus on the likes of his discoveries(?) like Mint and some others of her like, rather than talk a little more about his leading co-stars like Hema Malini, Asha Parekh, Sadhana etc.
There are no great revelations here (In fact, Dev Anand doesn't even reveal his age anytime in the book once he turns 31!) but the autobiography does well to provide a portrait of a man, hopelessly in love with himself and derived his strength from it.

The book is recommended for the wonderful references it brings forth, right from politics to world cinema. The last few pages are especially painful and a film buff is most likely to scoff at it.
Yet, it has its moments, particularly parts that depict the efflorescence of one of Hindi cinema’s most charming actors.

Stars From Another Sky

Bombay Dreams

Author: Saadat Hasan Manto
Pages: 215
Genre: Film writing

Just a few days ago, I read Ismat Chughtai's Lifting of The Veil, a book of short stories, wherein she had dedicated one entire chapter to her contemporary writer-friend, Saadat Hasan Manto. Both were the wild kids of Urdu literature and between them, they shared a unique love-hate relationship.

Whenever they met, along with Ismat's writer-husband Shahid Latif, there were heated intellectual debates between the two, often leading to brief periods of resentment. However, they also established a certain bond, courtesy the common heartache they suffered on account of several legal cases they were saddled with(both were accused of obscenity in their works).However, once Manto left for Pakistan after the Partition, bad days fell upon him and he was reduced to penury. Ismat writes how Manto kept writing to her for help but after a while, she thought it best to avoid him.

It was around this period that Manto wrote Stars Of Another Sky, a chronicle of the best days of his life, when he was a vital part of the Bombay film industry, which was just about beginning to take shape. This was as early as 1940, and several Urdu writers were being approached to write scripts for Hindi films. Manto was in no time sucked into the dazzling world of cinema. He got close to a number of stars and directors, worked on several scripts, then took up job at All India Radio, Delhi and even turned film journalist for a few years.

However, after partition, he preferred to live in Pakistan, a decision he probably came to regret. Tired of being saddled with court cases, Manto decided to write a 'clean' book where in he would recount his experiences about the Bombay film industry, a world which he not only deeply cared about and also something he couldn't get out of his system till his dying day.

Whatever troubles Manto was going through, his writings continued to throb with life the minute he put pen to paper and recollected those glorious days he spent in Mumbai. In fact, the very first line of this book will give you a sense of what a wonderfully impish, chalu writer Manto was.

He says, "When Najmul Hassan ran off with Devika Rani, the entire Bombay Talkies was in turmoil." Of course, for those wondering what eventually came of this girl crooning 'mein ban ki chidiya bun bun boolun re' to Ashok Kumar, well, she was persuaded to come back to her husband Himanshu Rai, owner of Bombay Talkies. This is one of the several hundred anecdotes that this book covers with irony and a dash of humour.

Of course, unlike Ismat, who I felt could get extremely pedestrian in thoughts and quite pitiless in her portrayals, Manto has a certain good-natured charm and kindness about him. Which is why, even when he's being brutally honest about someone, it rarely comes across as purely vindictive or petty. Manto talks with great affection about his friend Ashok Kumar, who he describes as 'an evergreen hero who treated all the women falling over him with the greatest indifference’. Says Manto, "Temperamentally, he was a rustic. His living style and his food habits also had a touch of rusticity. Devika Rani tried to have an affair with him but he rebuffed her rather brusquely."

The film names that crop up here are Chal Chal Re Naujawan, Eighty Days, Sikander, Ujala, Mehal, Begam etc that were made under the few banners and studios that existed. When differences cropped up, practically every major employee from Bombay Talkies walked out to form the Filmistan Studios. But clearly, as a writer, Manto was more fascinated by the numerous love intrigues that seemed to be teeming the film world of the 40s.

The most hilarious one is relating to the incorrigible lady seducer
Rafiq Ghaznavi, a well-known musician of the time who held a disdain towards domesticated, straight women and a great fetish for the wild and the wanton types.

Another hugely entertaining chapter involves the gifted dancer SitaraDevi and her ravenous sexual exploits with her leading men. She came to marry one of her heroes Al Nazir and for a few years, their sizzling bedtime chemistry kept the relationship steady. Manto describes their insatiable sexual appetite with obvious relish and guess who was secretly privy to some of these vigourous love sessions–none other than Nazir's nephew, K Asif, who not only went on to marry Sitara Devi but who came to be recogonised for his masterpiece Mughal-e-Azam.

The other interesting bit is about his sour sweet meetings with Nargis, who wasn't too accessible to Manto, a relatively less successful film writer. According to Manto, it was only Nargis' innocence, sincerity and artlessness that took her through, otherwise he describes her as a very average performer. There are stories about Nur Jahan, whose mellifluous voice generated the craziest of fans all around the country. There's an interesting episode Manto describes where at a function, he compares the shockingly dressed Nur Jahan to the Marathi actress Shobhna Samarth who he says had 'superb manners'
But he also concludes her story saying what a happy marriage she had with two lovely sons.
There's a chapter on actor Shyam as well, one of Manto's closest friends who actually cared to send him some money to Pakistan, when bad times fell on the latter.

Manto, on several occasions has been accused of obscenity and propagating sexist views but in this particular book, I didn't see any of those signs. If anything, I felt he had largely progressive ideas about women working in films. It was indeed a time when girls from 'good, cultured families' wouldn't dream of joining films. And it's also true that many of the leading ladies of the time were either courtesans themselves or had a family background. For example, Nargis' mother was a renowned courtesan, Nur Jahan's sister and brother ran a brothel, Paro Devi was a courtesan....so on and so forth. But Manto preferred to view them as professionals and saw nothing wrong with their chosen field of work. Similar, he takes a hard stand against a friend who left his wife because she couldn't give him a child.

Since all these pieces were written as separate articles also, they do appear slightly disjointed and there are quite a few repetitions as well.
But ultimately, this is a highly entertaining, heart-felt read about an era of cinema one knows little about.
-Sandhya Iyer

An Outline Of The Republic

View from the precipice

Author: Siddhartha Deb
Price: Rs 495
Pages: 320
Genre: Political thriller

'I was going the wrong way, he had said, and the road seemed to offer little to challenge his view'...these are the random thoughts that enter Amrit, a young journalist's head, as he makes a precarious journey through borderline North Eastern states in India. And for many reasons, as a reader, one feels the same sense of futility with the story that Amrit is trying to chase.

Based somewhere in the early 90s, (as the portable typewriter that he carries around would suggest,)Amrit, a correspondent of a Calcutta-based newspaper called Sentinel, is urged to go to the unexplored borderline states and look out for 'light' stories. Nothing beyond adventure travel, folk and festivals, his editor warns.

But Amrit, disappointed by his own idleness, looks at it as an opportunity to explore a world caught in turmoil. He's spurred on further when his German acquaintance, Herman shows interest in a picture about an Indian woman, tied and captured by two masked men from an insurgent group called MORLS. The men announce that they would be shooting the woman as punitive action for acting in a porn film.

Herman sees potential in the story that could be then forwarded to the German magazines he knows of. He expects a story that would be emblematic 'of the mystery and sorrow of India through the story of the woman in the photograph'

It wouldn't need even a journalist's instinct to see this as a pretty weak premise. There's a terrible lack of conviction to the story that Amrit is following and at many points, the events around him appear more relevant than the story itself. Which means the author's attempt to weave in an interesting political thriller, with various characters providing leads to the story, fails to engage. And it doesn't help that the narrator, fighting his own past demons, remains mostly a detached, cynical narrator, barely interested in the people he meets.

Where the novel scores heavily is in its topographical descriptions that provides glimpses (the images come in flashes) into this fragmented, peripheral world that is ' just too far way' for anyone to be concerned with. The apathy, in turn, means a life of constant dread, despair and disillusionment for the people of this otherwise, lush hinterland.
There are several disconcerting accounts here....
Like one gets to know how most of these parts being severely low on voltage manage to generate only dim yellow lights, which feels like ‘the onset of a fever, a sickness….’
Similarly, the desperate state of unemployment around these regions strikes you when you see young, educated people masking themselves, while driving rickshaws. As explained, it is an attempt to keep one’s identity hidden and suggests a search for a better life.
There are more such striking moments in this otherwise languorously paced novel.
To summarize, An Outline of a Republic (also called Surface) is not a wholly engaging read but that is, I suspect, mostly to do with certain creative choices made here. Otherwise, Siddhartha Deb strikes you as nothing but an astute, insightful and talented writer. The fact that Deb grew up in a lower middle class family in the North-East allows him to go through his subject with a certain amount of assurance and control.
Yet, for most part, this elegant novel remains too elusive and unsentimental to touch at the heart of the matter.

-Sandhya Iyer

Lady Susan: Jane Austen's first attempt at writing

Coquette Caper

Author: Jane Austen
Published: 1871 (written much earlier)
Pages: 80 pages

One of Jane Austen's earliest works, this novel, written in an epistolary form, didn't get published as late as 1871.
Austen was trying to find her feet in the literary world and chose a form that was relatively easier to write.

The story has Lady Susan as its central character -- a natural-born coquette who has an easy way with men of all ages. Widowed lately and economically weakened, Lady Susan uses her eloquent charms and grace to entice men, more as amusement and a reiteration of her power over men than anything else.

The fact that Susan manages to entrap the best of men in spite of not being in the bloom of youth surprises everyone around her, except herself.
Three men fall in love with her. One is her sister-in-law's brother, Reginald, a handsome young man, who though initially wary of her reputation, gets so utterly charmed when he meets her that in due course even proposes marriage -much to the dismay and shock of his family.
Her second lover and perhaps the only one for whom she betrays some true feelings is Mr. Manwaring, a married man who is deeply enamoured by lady Susan.
The third one, Sir James is so infatuated by her that he's willing to marry Lady Susan's daughter, Fredrika, on the former's command.

Like all other Austen novels, this one too casts an ironic look at nineteenth century England, with its ingrained hypocrisy. Even though Lady Susan is the author's primary object of satire, all the other characters are satirised in some measure. Catherine Vernon is dead against her brother Reginald marrying Lady Susan but quickly reminds herself that she mustn't antagonize the latter too much amidst the possibility of her becoming her sister-in-law.

Again, Lady Susan's trusted friend, Mrs. Johnson is quick to politely sever ties with her when she sees herself getting into the least bit of trouble.

Though the central character Austen tries to bring out the amorous, illicit, amoral world that lurks beneath the surface respectability and propriety that is projected. For all its charm, the limitations of the form of the writing prevent the story from gaining any real depth and the characters remain far from being well etched. For a lead character, Lady Susan has been portrayed as incredibly unidimensional and flat. Austen is guilty of treating her in a charmless way and it is never quite clear how she manages to trap every man she meets.

While the book is not one of Austen's best, it does not fail to demonstrate her trademark wit, irony and delightful play of sentences.

Sample this:

"Oh, how delightful it was to watch the variations of his countenance while I spoke! to see the struggle between returning tenderness and the remains of displeasure."

"I do not wish to work on your fears, but on your sense and affection."

"But a state of dependence on the caprice of Sir Reginald will not suit the freedom of my spirit"

This should give an indication of why an Austen novel is an irresistible read, in any form

-Sandhya Iyer

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.