A very cool cat

2011-12-17T09:36:00.000Z

In defence of a reviewer, reviews and reviewing

This post concerns a topic that is close to my heart, both personally and professionally, and one that I am certain will resonate with reviewers - and writers too - everywhere.

Before I say anything more, here's a link to one of my latest reviews, Salil Desai's 'The Body in the Backseat', touted as India's first 'police procedural'. Some of you may have read it earlier, as I usually post all my reviews on Facebook. At the end, you will see a response by the author. Please read that carefully too. I would like your comments - honest, critical remarks, please, I like to think of myself as someone who can take criticism, as long as it isn't directed at my person; that prerogative is limited to only a few people - on both my review, and on the author's remarks.

http://www.businessworld.in/businessworld/businessworld/content/Criminally-Disappointing.html

Right. To answer any unasked questions - yes, the book really was as dreadful as I made it out to be. It's not the first bad book I've read, and it certainly won't be the last. When BW informed me of the author's ranting, I read his response, but chose to not answer because (i) There didn't seem to be any space left for engagement, as the author clearly didn't want to talk, he wanted to accuse; (ii) The author was as certain of the superior quality of his work as he was of the complete irrelevance of my review, and that isn't a place you can begin a discussion from; and (ii) He got personal, and I do not like personal attacks, especially when they come from people who do not know me. Reviewers, whether of books or films, are routinely attacked by the people whose work they critique, and I am not the first book reviewer an author has taken umbrage at; I share that dubious distinction with people far more qualified and experienced than I. So I didn't really mind - Mr Desai is as entitled to his opinion as I am to mine. Increasingly, though, I am beginning to think that perhaps I should respond, a polite reply answering the various points he has raised, just so readers of the publication get an idea of both points of view.

Matters should have ended there - in fact, I thought they had, and I had put it out of my mind - but they didn't. Because a couple of days ago, Mr Desai's publisher, Gyaana Books, run by Ms Divya Dubey, decided to join the fray, in a thinly veiled attack in a column published in yourstory.in, an online platform for entrepreneurs (http://yourstory.in/2011/12/publishing-entrepreneur-divya-dubey-shares-how-to-do-a-book-review/). So now please, all of you kind enough to read this piece, read this article too.

Once you've done that, you might see why this bothered me. Part of the reason is undoubtedly my irritation at veiled attacks, which to me are tantamount to talking behind my back - if you have a problem with something I have written, why not say it to my face? Why not vent your ire on me, why not give us both a chance to talk something through? And a veiled attack also means (i) The writer safeguards himself/herself by couching the article in general terms, naming no names, thereby disassociating herself/himself from the person/event that triggered it off; and (ii) it gives the person at the heart of the affair no chance to respond (or respond at the risk of being accused of paranoia), while ensuring that all the barbs hidden under the otherwise reasonable tone in which the article is written hit home.

Besides, the hypocrisy of a publisher writing a prescriptive piece on 'how to write a review' is one that is far greater than any hypocrisy that that said publisher has imputed to me. And let me make it clear - as a reviewer, I do not engage with publishers. I am open to discussions with authors - in fact, I welcome them, however vitriolic that response might be (and they're often not; the writer of a book I reviewed recently wanted to talk to me about the critical remarks I had made. She was happy with my review all told, and we are now Facebook friends!).

And so while I definitely do not want to engage with any publisher regarding a review of mine, I choose to respond just to make clear what my role as a reviewer is here - a role as an arbiter of writing, and one that begins where the publisher's ends. Also, the publisher has nothing to do with my review; Gyaana Books might be a small publisher, but had a bigger publishing house published this book, my review would have been exactly the same. As anyone who has read my previous reviews would know. I have given better (better-known, certainly) authors and bigger publishers bad reviews, and never got such a response.

Now, my response, which also sums up my views on reviewing, and my - responsibility, shall we say? - as a reviewer.

First, to take the one (rather perplexing) aspect that seems to have raised everyone's hackles - the issue of giving out a bit of information that added to the suspense in the book, the homosexuality angle. People, it's called a spoiler warning/alert. It's a known, much-used, and perfectly acceptable method while reviewing books and films. You might not like it, you might hate people who use it, you might never use it yourself, but you cannot deny that it's a globally accepted practice. I did the usual and placed the warning right before I began my review, as I have seen done by reviewers all over the world, in various publications. I draw the line at going all the way, which I have actually seen some others do - nowhere did I even hint at the identity of the murderer, or what the motive behind the murder was. Calling me 'unethical', or my writing in 'bad taste' because there were spoilers, which appeared after a clear spoiler warning, is ridiculous - and baffling.

Second, the rules which apparently one should follow while writing reviews, and all of which I have clearly flouted. Who makes these rules? Are there clearly laid-out guidelines issued by a reviewers' forum or a publishers guild stating the parameters within which reviews ought to be written? Or are these rules we make up every time we encounter a review that doesn't meet our expectations? I must have read countless reviews all my life, and every review was as different as the person writing it. I've read reviews that merely rattled off the story; ones that provided an honest opinion; ones that did everything but talk about the book; ones that were more about the reviewer than the work being reviewed; ones that were factually incorrect, showing how little the reviewer actually knew of the work s/he was talking about. We make our own rules, we decide where our responsibility lies, and we give readers our opinion on the work in question.

Two of my rules: I never, ever criticise the author. It would be stupid to do so, since nine times out of ten I do not know the person. My focus is just on the book I have been given to read.
And second, I give my honest opinion on the work at hand. An opinion I am fairly certain of and qualified to provide after decades of reading, writing, and one full decade of working as an editor (and no, regardless of what anyone might say, working in the non-fiction, academic world does in no way mean you do not develop an appreciation of good writing. Some of the best academics manage to combine both terrific writing and research).

It is not my job to provide 'examples and parallels', to 'gently show the hows and whys'. I am not the author's friend, confidant, or publisher. That is their job. What I have with me is a published book, one that demands to be placed alongside quality - and some not so quality - books on shelves, which forms part of the category of 'Indian writing in English', which hopes to be bought and read. It is my job to state whether the book qualifies, whether (in my opinion) readers should spend a part of their precious time on this book, of all the millions they have to choose from. No, I'm sorry, I do not have a responsibility to the author, or the publisher - I'm sure they can commission their own reviews, should they choose. I do have a responsibility to the publication entrusting me with the review, and to the reader, and I try and do my best there by presenting an honest, unbiased opinion.

So yes, if I don't like a book, I will say so. Unequivocally. I don't hold back the praise when I come across a good book, and I will not make any allowances when I encounter a book that does not meet my standards. And I don't feel the need to apologise for this. As I said, my critique is always focused on the work, NEVER on the creator of that work, and I am always open to being questioned, challenged and argued with - provided it's done openly, and with a certain degree of civility.

There is a very good, reasoned argument behind my refusal to accord 'The Body in the Backseat' the status of a police procedural, which is one of the sub-genres of crime fiction, texts within which can, to use Roland Barthes' terminology, be classified as 'writerly texts', as opposed to 'readerly texts', which this one is - a bit of which I have mentioned in my review - but that can wait for later.

To continue with Barthes' thought - is it possible to be entirely objective when reading, especially for an active reader, even when the text in question is a 'readerly' one? Perhaps not. But does that mean that one should excuse oneself from reviewing a book merely because it has moved one to extreme emotion, whether it be distaste or pleasure? I doubt that - I suspect a large number of reviews would never be written if one followed a rule that stated, 'Thou shalt not review a text that thou hast disliked - or loved.' And why, pray, does this debate never come up when the review in question is favourable? Surely good reviews are just as susceptible to biases and authorial subjectivity?

It is all too easy to dismiss a bad review as an example of 'malevolence', 'wild ranting' and 'hysteria'. It is even easier to strip the reviewer who has given the book a bad review of all independent, objective thought and agency by demonising her as 'a biased judge, a failed writer, a disgruntled non-professional, a malicious human being or simply a green-eyed one'. And sometimes that might just be true - sometimes a bad review might simply reflect an inadequate person, an envious, miserable loser.

But sometimes, all it says is that the book in question is a very flawed one indeed.

2011-11-18T09:04:00.004Z

Andaman ramblings II - Port Blair

We reached Port Blair late in the evening, past 7.30 PM. K and I stood at a port hole at one end of the corridor outside our cabin, and watched the Nicobar dock at Haddo jetty, saw the scurrying of dock workers as they ran up to the ship, waited for a crane to come up with a couple of what looked like unsteady gangplanks, and then fixed them in place. Disembarking then began, and we retrieved our luggage from our cabin and trooped downstairs to join the queue, sorry to say goodbye to the big ship that had been our home the past three days. The dock, predictably enough, was chaotic beyond belief - WHY do Indians not understand the meaning of 'queues'? - but we squirmed our way along the sides of a seething mass of people, all talking and waving identification papers of some sort as irate policemen manning the gates yelled and shoved back. One of them caught sight of my peering face and took pity on me, letting us through after a quick look at our passports and a beady-eyed stare at K with his huge rucksack (everyone, but everyone, in the Andamans took him for a foreigner, for reasons best known to themselves, remaining unconvinced even after he spoke to them in Hindi or, as was most often the case, Bengali). We hurriedly made our way out, only to be greeted by another mass of people, this time mostly auto drivers, taxi drivers, and the ubiquitous touts. We found an auto, gave them the address of our hotel, haggled about five minutes, and then set off.

The first thing that struck me a couple of minutes into the journey was - it was cold. All over the Andamans, however hot and humid the days might be, the temperature plummets as soon as the sun sets, and the late evening air felt chilly. The marketplaces we went through seemed much like any marketplace in any Indian small town, with one possible exception - the traffic was very light. I put it down to it being past 8 PM, but later realised that that's the way it is, even in Port Blair - you might even drive a few minutes at a stretch without meeting any other vehicle! Very refreshing, that is, for a city dweller. As K chatted away with the auto driver, asking him all sorts of questions, I stared out trying to take in as much as I could; and soon enough, we left the town proper and made our way down a dark, winding road with no streetlights, no people, and no cars of any sort. We occasionally passed a house or three, lights glimmering through leafy trees - and Prabhu, the auto driver wanted to know why we were staying at a resort located so far away from the town proper. Because we didn't want to stay bang in the middle of the city, we said. Why? he asked in a tone of great bewilderment. Because we live in a city all the time, we said. He said nothing more, but we could see him mentally shaking his head, and going 'These tourists are crazy!' much like Obelix might have. He stopped to ask for directions a couple of times, and in about half an hour or so, we were there, at the Palm Grove Eco Resort.

Palm Grove

All one could make out of Palm Grove that late were a dimly lit path, fluttering moths, lots of trees, and little cottages situated on either side of the path. We were shown to our cottage by a young boy who happened to be Bengali, and after checking out the very cute and spacious bamboo cottage, complete with AC (which didn't work too well), attached bathroom (which was nice and large, although the tap was leaky, much like our tap at home, so we didn't mind), television set (which was promptly switched on) and telephone, we ordered a large pot of coffee (the staff soon learned what inveterate coffee drinkers we are; the little pot was soon replaced with large flasks), and soon thereafter, called it an early night. It is only when you're out of the city that you realise how unaccustomed you are to complete silence; there is always some sound or the other in a city, even in the dead of night, and total quiet, broken only by the relentless humming of cicadas, can be very unnerving. It took me a while to fall asleep that night.

When I woke up and opened the window, though, I was delighted. We seemed to have been transported into a quiet, rural suburb, almost a village - our window looked out onto a little pond, lots of trees flanking it, with hilly fields stretching beyond. As I gazed out happily, I spotted a huge gecko making its stately way down the path beside the pond, while some chickens fluttering around stood aside respectfully. After breakfast, we met the owner-manager Shibu Varghese, a very friendly, warm man, with a phenomenal knowledge of the flora and fauna inhabiting the Andaman Islands. He blamed his knowledge on the fact that his sister was a botanist and his brother-in-law a wildlife conservation officer; but his love for plants, trees and animals was all his own. Palm Grove is covered with trees, bushes and shrubs, all of which Shibu has planted himself, each of which he knows: cinnamon trees, pepper bushes, all-spice plants, bamboo trees, and his joy at our delight was apparent. We were soon firm friends, and our many conversations with him made our stay there all the more enjoyable.

Viper Island

Our first day in Port Blair, we decided to take a boat ride down to Viper Island, which was home to one of the first prisons built by the British for troublesome Indian political prisoners. The name comes from the boat that carried the British officer who actually built the prison - it was called The Viper. While the ride there and back was lovely - clear sky, emerald seas (which changed colour every minute), islands of varying sizes dotting the sea, a few inhabited, most not, covered with dense foliage - Viper Island itself isn't much to write home about. It didn't help that the boat man/guide threatened to leave us behind if we weren't back on the boat in 15 minutes, which is just enough time to race up steep steps to a crumbly red building, stare at a blackened beam which was where prisoners were hanged from, take a quick peek into another room which didn't seem to have much purpose, and race down again. Half an hour later we were back at Aberdeen Jetty, just as the lights were coming on in Port Blair. The next couple of hours were spent rambling around Aberdeen Bazaar, and having a very satisfying dinner at Gagan Restaurant, which was once owned by Bengalis, but now serves the ubiquitous north Indian fare. The food was good though, the place clean, the service quick, so I'd recommend it.

Cellular Jail

Easily the most popular and well-known tourist spot in Port Blair. However, if a love of history, and a desire to see one of the most horrifying monuments to colonial brutality is what calls you there, you'd return disappointed. The Indian government's idea of preserving historical monuments - when they do preserve them, that is - is effacing every bit of history from the bricks and the structures themselves; well-manicured lawns, topiaries, pretty flowering shrubs, and brick structures that had been painted white greeted us. This was definitely not the sight that had greeted political prisoners in the early twentieth century, some of them jailed for offences as minor as 'breaking a police cordon'. It was hard to imagine the horror of it all in the face of such determined white-washing; although little could be done to mitigate the darkness of the claustrophobic cells, the terror you could imagine the prisoners locked in feeling. As we wandered around with cheerful, loud tourists, we tried to find spots that retained their original grimness; and parts of the building, difficult to reach because of the dense shrubbery, gave us just that. I realised I'm getting older when a bunch of loudly laughing - braying, rather - young men by one of the cells filled me with sudden fury - people had died here so you lot could have the freedom to laugh at the site of their misery one day, I wanted to yell. Do people laugh at the things they see in Auschwitz? If they don't, does their respect stem from the fact that the place has been left exactly as it was, and not prettified, thereby leaching it of all horror and shame? Or is it just us Indians who have no sense of history, no respect for the past?

A couple of interesting things about Port Blair: there are no beggars in the city. Not one.

Everyone's uniformly polite and friendly, even the cops. And the traffic police are all women.

2011-11-08T07:27:00.003Z

Andaman ramblings I - M.V. Nicobar

While planning a much-needed, much-awaited vacation early in September this year, we narrowed down the choice of places to either Sri Lanka, or the Andaman Islands. While embarking on the next step, figuring out dates and modes of travel, we came across something interesting during our research on the net - ships (cargo-cum-passenger ones) leave Calcutta twice a month for Port Blair. That led us to call the offices of the Shipping Corporation of India, where, miraculously, someone answered the phone and told us that yes, ships do travel between Cal and Port Blair, and that the journey takes a full four days. And call after the 20th for more details.

Four days on a ship! Sri Lanka didn't stand a chance after that.

Much headache and anxious moments later (the SCI is, after all, a government office, and as such cannot possibly do anything on time, or smoothly; a phone call on the 21st told us they still did not have the October schedule for ships, and to call a couple of days later. Which we did, to be told that the ship would leave on 7 October, and call a couple more days later to find out about tickets. And then one day went by listening to the phone ring away at the other end; the next day someone did pick up, and the day after K went and got us tickets for a deluxe cabin.) we finally had the tickets; but since it was already so late, we got into a tizzy making hotel reservations in Port Blair, doing some (very) last moment shopping, finishing up our Pujo shopping, trying to snatch some moments with family during the Pujo days, all the while finishing up as much office work as I could before leaving. Finally, the 7th arrived, and I phoned the SCI that morning to find out when the ship would sail (everyone K had spoken to out there had been blissfully vague), to be told that sailing time was 4 PM, and we were to be at the Kidderpore docks at 2.30 PM. Panic promptly ensued as there was still a lot to be done to get ourselves ready; K was remarkably calm throughout while I hyper-ventilated - he said the people at the SCI offices had apparently told him 'Eta to ar hawai jahaj noi, lokera shobai to ar thik shomoy ashte pare na, jahaj dariye thake' ('This isn't an aeroplane; not everyone can come on time, but the ship waits for every passenger!'). Somewhat reassured by this, we left around 2 PM - the roads were empty, this being the day after Dashami, and we made it by 3 PM, to be greeted by the longest, serpentine queue I have ever seen, in the largest, most cavernous hangar I'll probably ever be in, at the docks.

After standing in the queue for an hour (it began moving, oh so slowly, about 20 minutes after we joined it), we finally found ourselves at the baggage X-ray, and soon after that climbed a rickety wooden gangplank and found ourselves inside the ship, the M.V. Nicobar (I had only managed a fleeting look at it while coming on board and it seemed massive - although, as ships went, it was a fairly small one, apparently); and several confusing twists and turns took us to the Information counter, where a friendly pursar (whose name we later learnt was Suresh Kumar) asked someone to show us to our cabin.

The cabin was lovely, neat and clean and comfortable, with two bunks and a large sofa; and a tiny TV set, a little fridge, a writing table and an adorable, very small bathroom. And two huge portholes, which we promptly stationed ourselves at. And all the day's panic could have been avoided - the ship moved only at 6 PM, and stopped soon after, finally sailing past 8 PM. Exhausted with the turmoil and activity of the last few days - weeks, rather - we had an early dinner and fell into our bunks (which were super comfortable) and were fast asleep in no time at all. Waking up the next morning was a delightful experience - waking up on a ship!! - we were woken at 6.30 AM by a friendly attendant bearing cups of tea, an unearthly hour where I'm concerned, but who wants to waste time sleeping on the first day on board a ship? We soon realised that the ship's routine was to be our own for the next three days: bed tea at 6.30 AM, breakfast at 8.30 AM, lunch at 12.30 PM, tea again at 3.30 PM, and dinner at 6.30 PM. We had to present ourselves at the dining saloon as soon as the announcement was made; and those in charge clearly believed in stuffing us so full of food that we could barely move afterwards. Slow, lazy, sleepy days those were; all we had to do was eat, sleep, take an occasional stroll on deck, stare at the ceaseless, restless, ever-changing waves in the middle of the Indian Ocean, read, talk - and, of course, K was all over the Nicobar with his camera, taking endless shots.

We learnt during one of our explorations that the Nicobar was 20 years old, originally a Polish ship; it was, as Suresh Kumar told us, a cargo ship which was meant to carry passengers and be a cruise ship of sorts. However, it had over the years turned into a ship that ferried mostly the 'labour class'; 'they make it so difficult to maintain any discpline,' he lamented. Signs exhorting one to not spit or smoke went merrily unheeded, as did signs (which would have shocked the politically correct) asking 'bunk passengers' to not move beyond the third deck. We were supposed to have the 'sun deck' to ourselves, but found it full of the bunk people; which would have been fine, had they not been smoking, taking up all the space, and leching incessantly, desperately. I kept to our cabin for the most part, and went on deck just a couple of times - in any case, it was too hot during the day to sit outside.

On our tour of the ship on the last day, we discovered that the ship had a well-stocked dispensary, and mini hospital wards for men and women, of which the ship's doctor, Dr Mani, was very proud. During that private tour, made possible because of K's journalistic credentials, and the fact that he'd become friendly with everyone on board by the end of day 1, Suresh Kumar told us mournfully, 'My ship has been made according to international standards. Unfortunately, our passengers are not up to those standards', while we giggled helplessly. We were also taken (along with passengers from the first and second-class cabins) to the communications and navigation rooms, where we stared solemnly at various gadgets and thoughts of Captain Haddock went through my mind. We had reached the Andaman seas by then, and watched Suresh Kumar show us just where we were on the chart; I studied a very interesting chart about waves and wind speed, and thereafter spoke very knowledgeably about the wind speed being 'at least a Force 5-6 - look at the white horses!' on a couple of our many boat rides!

And I made a delightful discovery - I do not get sea-sick. Not even remotely. In fact, the choppier the boat, the more fun it is. I would think it difficult to get sea sick on a ship as large as the Nicobar - besides, its maximum speed goes only up to 16 knots. Also, the sea was calm all through, the sky a brilliant blue, the sunshine blinding; I daresay it would have been a different experience had we encountered rough weather. 'The Nicobar is built to withstand wind speeds up to Force 20,' Suresh Kumar informed us, but I'm rather glad she wasn't put to the test.

For people wishing to travel to the Andamans, do consider taking a ship - but only if you like quiet, lazy days, if you love the sea, if watching the restless waves and catching sight of leaping silvery fish fill you with joy. The Nicobar - or any of the SCI ships - isn't a cruise ship; there's no on-board entertainment, the television, if it works, shows one Hindi film and one English, depending on the DVDs the ship has - if you're not travelling with congenial companions and are not readers, you'd probably die of boredom. We loved it, though - loved looking out of the portholes, wandering along twisty, narrow passages lined with green baize, reading all the signs, even the ancient, 20-year plans of the ship, curling up on the bunks to read, laughing at an old tyre which I think was meant to serve as a life belt, feeling the dip and swell of the sea beneath our feet as we walked. I hated saying goodbye to the ship - it had become home for us. And it took days - literally - for the ground to stop rolling beneath my feet.

2010-11-03T04:20:00.003Z

Johan Theorin

My passion for Scandinavian crime fic continues unabated, and I've recently come across two new authors in that genre - Jo Nesbo, Norwegian crime fic writer of the Harry Hole series, which are enjoyable, certainly, but doesn't offer very much beyond that; and Johan Theorin, whose crime novels are set on the little Swedish island of Oland.

And in Theorin, I have found an author who can grip the imagination and create convincing characters in much the same way that Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, in their fantastic Martin Beck series, could. Much of the credit should undoubtedly go to his translator, who has done a far better job than most other translations from the Swedish that I have read so far.

Theorin comes from the little fishing island of Oland, which comprises several small villages which are home to summer visitors from urban Sweden, and stay empty and deserted all through the winter months. There are a couple of larger towns - but they, too, come alive only during summer. While he no longer lives on the island of his childhood, Theorin's books are set here - and in the pages of his 'dark mystery novels with supernatural overtones', the island comes to life. This, I think, is what sets him apart from the other European crime fic writers - they are all, without exception, urban, urbane authors, and cities in their books - Stockholm and Malmo in Sweden, Oslo, Paris, Edinburgh, London - play just as big a role as the characters, whose lives are only too familiar to us city-bred readers. In Theorin's books, though, the slick city pace is missing - the landscape of Oland plays a large role (especially in his first novel, Echoes From the Dead), but what drives (for want of a better word) the narrative forward is the slow, gentle pace that characterises village life in general. Oland is portrayed in such loving, vivid detail - the sea, the wicked rocks that once wrecked ships, the summer cottages, all shut and deserted, the 'alvar' that great expanse of scrub and rocks that one can so easily get lost in, the mists that creep out from the sea, the winter blizzards that can kill - and what is ever present all through is, as Theorin said, the supernatural. Swedish folklore comes to life in places like Oland - myths and ghosts are as much a part of people's everyday lives as daily routines.

In Echoes From the Dead, we are introduced to Gerlof, an old sea captain who is one of Theorin's central characters and the one who gets to the bottom of the crimes committed - again, these cannot be called 'procedurals' in the strict sense of the term - it's hard to write 'police procedurals' when your stories are set in a place with one single police station with possibly five police officers for the entire island. Echoes From the Dead sees Gerlof finally solving the mystery of what had happened to his grandson, who went missing 20 years ago at the age of six. But the supernatural, which was merely an undercurrent here, really comes into its own in Theorin's second, darker novel, The Darkest Room. Socialised as I have been to think rationally and find a plausible explanation for all things not 'dreamt of in our philosophy', I found myself waiting for everything to be neatly tied up and presented at the end before I realised that wasn't the way to read Theorin's books - I had to let go, give in, let the atmosphere draw me in. And once I had done that, the book gripped me, gave me chills, terrified me, upset me, haunted me long after I had finished reading it. I didn't want it to end - and that's not something I can say about a lot of books.

The Darkest Room is set in northern Oland, in an old house situated next to the sea, which had been originally built in the nineteenth century as a home for the lighthouse keeper and his family. Now abandoned, it is bought by a young couple who want to escape city life, and bring up their small children in the peace and quiet that Oland offers. Within a few months, though, a member of the family dies - and while it looks like an accident, it could well be murder. As the others struggle to cope, a young policewoman, Gerlof's niece, in fact, tries to get to the bottom of it - with, of course, a lot of help from Gerlof, in the form of cryptic statements and grumpy suggestions. And all through the wonderful descriptions of the countryside, the sea, the old house - so vivid that it doesn't take much to imagine yourself there - are the ghosts, the spirits who reach out and communicate, who are as potent a force as the living.

I personally love slow, gentle books set in landscapes other than the usual - and not very interesting - metropolitan cities, books which spend time bringing characters to life, which dwell on descriptions, linger on thoughts and emotions. So it's no surprise that I loved both of Johan Theorin's books - I love how unapologetically different they are, I love that there's no rebellious, 'damaged' police officer at the centre of events, how it describes a way of life that's so completely alien to anything I - most of us, I'm sure - have ever experienced. But I'd recommend these to anyone who's a fan of crime fic, who enjoys good writing and imaginative stories.

And apparently Theorin has completed the third book in his Oland series. I can't wait.

2010-10-12T13:10:00.004Z

Top 10 books

Following PD, and after having read her marvellous list, I've decided to make my own list of top 10 books on my blog, in the hope that readers will then be inspired to make their own lists - either here, or on blogs of their own. These books are in no particular order - I'm listing them as they come to mind. And, of course, these are in no way the only books that I've loved, read over and over, and been inspired by - I'll be leaving out plenty more that I will later wish I had included. Ten is too tiny a number.

So here goes.

1. The Art of Murder (Jose Carlos Somoza): I read this book earlier this year, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. In terms of imagination, creation of an alternate (in a manner of speaking) cultural world, and a gripping crime thriller, The Art of Murder is has no equal. It raises deeply disturbing questions about the definition of 'art', the boundaries that we draw - both for ourselves and others - and how far we might be willing to push them. One of the best books I've read in a while.

2. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery): The first of a series of six books, this is the one I love most. I discovered Anne rather late, when I was in college, thanks to a friend - that friend and I have long since parted ways, but Anne has stayed with me. This delightful story set in the late nineteenth century of an orphan girl who gets adopted by a brother-sister pair in Nova Scotia, Canada, never fails to make me laugh and remind me that the world isn't such a bad place after all - no matter how unhappy I might be.

3. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 (Sue Townsend): I discovered Adrian Mole in my pre-teens and found in him a kindred spirit - minus the weird parents - and a couple of years later, when teenage angst set in, this book, and the one that followed (The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, aged 15 1/2), were very reassuring indeed! It was later, upon reading them all over again, that I realised what a wonderful sociological commentary they were on Britain under Margaret Thatcher.

4. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee): There isn't much I can say about this classic that hasn't been said already. Atticus remains my hero - and while I first read it as a precocious 11-year-old, when I was really too young to fully comprehend the gravity and complexity of the book, I remember wanting to be Scout, and wishing I had a friend like Boo Radley. Only when I read it again as an adult did I discover how wonderful it is - and since then, I've read it again and again.

5. The Bartimaeus Trilogy (Jonathan Stroud): I know, I know, I'm cheating here - but how can I mention one of these fantastic books and not the others? This is one of the best fantasy trilogies I've ever read - wonderfully written, quirky, imaginative, with one of the best endings of all times - these books make me laugh, give me goose bumps, make me cry - time I re-read them again!

6. The Dispossessed (Ursula K. LeGuin): I discovered Ursula LeGuin very late in life, but since then I haven't stopped reading her. If anyone were to ask me who my favourite author is, I'd have to say it's her. Her science fiction and fantasy are a world apart from anything that had been attempted either before or after. This book, the best and most incisive treatise on political anarchy I've ever come across, stuns you with its prescience. It's gripping, it's rousing - it's not just the best science-fiction book I've read, it's one of the best books of all time.

7. Tehanu (Ursula K. LeGuin): The fourth in the Earthsea series, the quiet and thoughtful tone of this book makes it different from the other, 'action'-oriented Earthsea books. It's quietness in no way takes away from its scathing feminist critique, though. A wonderful read.

8. Stet (Diana Athill): I perhaps love this one so much because I'm an editor working in the publishing industry - but no one can fail to appreciate Athill's first, and wonderful, memoir. She talks about her days as an editor with Andre Deutsch, tells us interesting anecdotes about authors like Naipaul, gives us insights into the workings of the publishing world, all too familiar to people like us - and I was reassured no end to find that she, too, didn't think too highly of Philip Roth!

9. Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel): Again, a fantastic bit of magic realism. It's not as intense or grim as Allende, but grips you nonetheless. One of the most powerful love stories I've ever read.

10. All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot): All four books (the others being: All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made Them All) are among the best I've ever read, but somehow I love this one most. Herriot's wonderful prose brings it all to life - the mad characters (Seigfried and Tristan, especially), the animals, the beauty of the Yorkshire Dales - the experience is undoubtedly better if you're an animal lover, but you don't necessarily have to be one to appreciate the wonder of these books.

And a few I left out - The Left Hand of Darkness (because there would have been too many of LeGuin's books in the list); Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt); The King's General (Daphne du Maurier); and The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende).

2010-09-18T12:12:00.004Z

In defence of orange

How many times have I been told I look like a right-winger/sadhvi/religious freak when I wear orange? I've lost count. And how many times have I been told I will look like one or all of the above if I wear orange? Again, countless. I haven't cared, though, because orange happens to be my favourite colour - and because my protesting that any group or religion cannot 'own' a colour have fallen largely on deaf ears, I've decided to put my love for this bright, vibrant, sunshiny colour on record.

My love affair with orange began in early childhood - it was the colour of bright balloons and childish pleasure in walking through parks, holding on to the hand of some much-loved adult. It was the colour accompanying the delight of new experiences like the first magical orange ice bar, bought for me by my grandmother one sleepy summer afternoon. Orange is the colour of memories of childhood summers, of long, hot months stretching ahead with no school, and the excitement of making that soft drink that signified happy summer days - Rasna, tall, endless glasses of cool, bright orange liquid, of commandeering ice trays, filling them with Rasna, and pretending to be crunching at home-made 'ice cream' later on. It's the colour of friendship, of sharing Parle sweets, little orange balls of molten sunlight, the colour of childish laughter as we stuck our tongues out at each other to see whose was the orangiest.

It's the colour of that most favourite fizzy drink of all, Goldspot, those first TV commercials featuring happy teenagers, that impossibly cool age we desperately longed to grow up into. It's the colour of winter, the smell of peeling that most evocative and wonderful of fruits, oranges, in the warm sunshine on long, sleepy afternoons. It the colour of that mischievous bundle of fur that used to be my little kitten Simba, and now, again, the little tearaway that is my Catnip's tiny baby. It's the colour that can brighten the dankest, gloomiest day, and warm the chilly days of winter. It's the colour of happiness, of love, of sunshine.

And damned if I'm going to let organised religion co-opt it.

2010-08-14T06:13:00.004Z

On Sexual Politics

I read a really weird piece of news a couple of days ago - actress Portia de Rossi, who's been married to comedian Ellen DeGeneres for some years now, has decided to change her last name to DeGeneres.

Why did I find it weird? I'd have thought that was obvious - the issue of women changing their last names after they were married, taking on their husbands' names and thereby giving up a part of their name, their identity (although one might ask why surnames should be considered part of one's identity in the first place; but that is an entirely different question, and subject matter for another post - perhaps), and subsuming their selves to that of their husbands' has been an issue that has irked feminists for decades now. This is one of the most deeply entrenched patriarchal practices - it has its origins in a time when women were exchanged between groups of men, much like the other commodities bartered; and once a woman made her way to the tribe or moeity of another man, she became that man, that moiety's property - and like all properties, including livestock, she was branded - with the name of her new owner. Since women are still the 'second sex', still bodies that do not matter, this tradition continues - even among otherwise enlightened, educated, urban, supposedly worldly women who somehow do not question a practice this retrogressive, but come up various excuses (it's a way of showing him how much I love him, for instance; and no, merely tacking on your husband's last name after your own does not make you more liberated - all it does is proclaim you're a confused fence-sitter) for giving up a part of their identity, their selves.

So my disbelief and bewilderment at reading that a woman married to another woman, and part of a radical, alternative family whose very existence is premised on a questioning and subverting of patriarchal beliefs, is now about to embrace one of the same traditional practices that feminists the world over - and a large chunk of the LGBT community too, one presumes - have been fighting to eradicate, is understandable. Clearly, far from pushing the boundaries, far from creating a brave new world, DeGeneres and di Rossi's marriage seems little more than a replication of a traditional heterosexual union - one in which DeGeneres is cast as the husband, and di Rossi as the wife, who is now proving her 'love' for her partner by taking on her last name.

A straight woman in a heterosexual marriage doing the same would be censured for giving up her identity and giving in to patriarchy; or, at best, condoned for being a 'victim' in an unfair social system that gives her few choices and little agency. What do we say to the women with plenty of choices and definite agency, who had subverted the system only to resurrect it through an insidious back door?

2010-06-23T14:24:00.003Z

The end of innocence

For those of us growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, a few memories stand out (and since these were pre-globalisation, pre-cable TV days, all children and adolescents, whichever part of India they might have been in, did much the same stuff, wore clothes that looked similarly weird, and watched the same shows on TV - and so you have a couple of generations with shared memories, united by giggling fits over Doordarshan 'fillers') - printed 'frocks', summer holidays with Rasna, Doordarshan; and later, when we were 'older' and hipper college students, Flying Machine jeans and Beverly Hills 90210.

I remember with what eagerness we used to wait for 8 PM on Sundays - because then, for one hour, we could lose ourselves with Brenda, Brandon, Dylan, Kelly, and the gang in yet another episode of what to us was the best show EVER. And Monday mornings meant excited discussions in college - Oh my God, Brandon is so self-righteous! Wasn't Brenda's dress cute? What was Kelly thinking?? Would Andrea get over her crush already? And Dylan ... sigh, Dylan!

So I was intrigued when last year, I learnt that Beverly Hills 90210 had been re-made - the new avatar was to be called simply 90210, to distinguish it from the original. The characters were cast in similar moulds - instead of the Walsh family, you have the Wilson family who've moved from Kansas; there's a brother and sister (not twins, though!) - Annie and Dixon; there's the glamorous, rich, spoilt prom queen - Naomi Clark; the confused, messed-up friend - Adrianna; the geek - Navid ... and so on. But there's one thing the new, glitzy, super glamorous, slick version lacks - and that's innocence. And heart. Remember how refreshingly real and down-to-earth Mr and Mrs Walsh were? How we could actually see our own mothers in Brenda and Brandon's mom? How we could identify with Brenda in everything she did; how their parties and sleepovers seemed so much like ours? And several episodes over the first two seasons actually dealt with issues - alcoholism, breast cancer, growing up and becoming independent, losing friends, death - apart from the usual high school stuff that we identified with only too well - boyfriends, relationships, break-ups, friendships.

The new show, though, focuses only on two things - high fashion and sex. Lots of glamorous clothes and hair styles, and lots of sex. The group of friends is still there, but now all they do is go out with each other, make out like there's no tomorrow, break up, and then move on to someone else - usually within the same group. Sometimes new people become their friends, and the incestuous circle is expanded. Apart from Annie and Dixon, no one else appears to have parents - at least, none that might ask them why they were late coming home - or why they didn't come home at all; and the dialogues and story line are so shallow they make Stephanie Meyer's Twilight seem positively intellectual. There seems to be a complete absence of any values or ethics - the teenagers drink, lie, cheat, manipulate and whine their way through the show - all of which leads me to ask - is this what young people are like these days? Seriously? Are there college kids actually watching this show with as much fervour as we watched Beverly Hills 90210 15 years ago? Who do they identify with - the dumb Annie, the nasty, bitchy Naomi, the messed-up Adrianna (who's actually one of the few watchable people on the show), the confused Dixon? What happened to the sweetness, innocence, light-hearted fun of the original?

Or maybe this is just me growing old. But I can't but say something I've said earlier - I'm glad I'm not a child or a teenager in this day and age. I'm glad I lived in the times of high-waisted jeans and puffed sleeves and over-sized T-shirts and Beverly Hills 90210. I'm glad my childhood and youth was the way it was supposed to be - innocent.

2010-04-01T15:10:00.002Z

Literary conundrum

For most of us, a few basic rules apply when it comes to people we choose to have in our lives - as an important part of the our lives, that is - we need to get along with them, trust them, be able to depend on them; a shared ideology often comes in handy; and we have to respect them, as individuals and humans beings. Now here's my question - does this apply to our relationship with fictional characters as well?

I say 'relationship' because for most of us avid readers, whose best friends are probably books rather than people, who have favourite genres, favourite authors, favourite fantasy worlds and characters, who return to the comfort of much-read books very like one would to an old memory - or an oversized, shabby, warm sweatshirt on winter nights - for us, characters are real and close and perhaps as dear to our hearts as real people we love. While growing up, I considered a lot of the Enid Blyton characters my friends, and then came my beloved Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple; I never tire of reading Alice's Adventures ... (which is probably why I'm a bit wary of watching the Tim Burton movie); and I still think when I'm upset - now how would Anne (of Green Gables) deal with this situation?

To come to the point now. On my recent visit to Delhi, I was introduced to more Scandinavian crime fiction writers by my aunt, who has an enviable collection - and among them were books by the duo Roslund-Hellstrom. Edgy, gritty, disturbing, the books leave you shaken. Unlike Sjowall and Wahloo, or Henning Mankell, who have clear notions of good and evil, these books have no definite moral compass; the whole point, as the authors say, is to show that the perpetrators are often as much victims as, well, the victims. I don't want to throw out any spoilers here, but in one of the books the two lead detectives do something that, to me, was totally reprehensible. Sitting and brooding over the book I'd just finished, I realised I was - disappointed in them. And that I didn't want to read any more - because how I can sit through books featuring characters I no longer had any respect for?

Martin Beck would never have done this, I told my aunt. Nor would Kurt Wallander, or even Inspector Rebus. Almost like they were real people, people to be emulated. Except they are, as far as I'm concerned. And now I no longer want to read otherwise good crime fiction because I'm disgusted at the conduct of the central characters. I don't respect them any more. Not the authors, the characters.

So. Is that weird? Or does anyone else feel that way?

2010-02-19T12:03:00.006Z

Kolkata Book Fair

I think it's safe to say that for us Calcutta Bongs, there are two major events that mark each year, events that we look forward to and which our lives revolve around - Durga Pujo and the Book Fair. As a child, I didn't know which I loved more, which got me more excited - the prospect of five days of fun, food, revelry and new clothes with family and cousins at the pujo bari, or three-four days of fun, food, dusty joy and new books with parents at the Maidan. A decade spent in Delhi meant that I invariably missed the Cal book fair - I'd listen to my parents tell me about it, how good or bad it was, what the food stalls were like with nostalgic longing, and wish I was back home. Well, now I am, and since our return two years ago we have spent many, many happy days waiting for the book fair, and then happier days throwing ourselves into it once it started.

Going to the Cal book fair is, unlike, say, the Delhi book fair, an event in itself. You don't go just for the books - you go for the sheer experience of it. Where else would you find a book fair that invokes an almost festive atmosphere, where entire families, including ancient grandparents, show up to make a day of it, where you can rub shoulders (literally, that) with people of every class, every socio-economic background imaginable? What unites us all at the book fair is the love of books and the printed word, yes - you'll find everyone carrying bags that will contain at least one new book - but also the peculiarly Bong trait of turning every event into a large, communal picnic where gastronomic delights preside. Food is about as important as the books - from samosas to rolls to fish cutlets to biryani to ice cream to the ubiquitous Bengali sweets - you name it, you'll find it at the book fair, along with large crowds of people slurping away as if their lives depended on it. (We join in enthusiastically - I've had the best biryani in Cal at the book fair, and this time we traipsed every inch of the fair ground, carrying heavy bags of books, just so we could locate that particular stall.) There's an infectious camaraderie pervading every bit of the book fair - you smile at strangers browsing the same shelf as you; you exchange remarks with someone you see buying a book you're interested in; you grin at the delighted squeals of children as they pounce on books they want to buy - and grin wider when you hear parents stepping in with a firm 'Porikkhhar age kintu ekdom porbe na!' (You're not to read it before your exams are done!).

Our pilgrimage spot at the book fair is a stall called Book Line, which offers the most amazing titles at the most unbelievable prices. K and I are favoured customers, mostly because we spend the greater part of what we earn all through the year at that stall, but also because the owners, who know their books, have learnt that we're serious, discerning readers. We're greeted like long-lost friends, our bags taken from us and stowed away, hot tea appears out of nowhere, and solicitous helpers are assigned to look after us. We spend about three to four hours at that stall and emerge, triumphant and tired, with three big, heavy bags of books and an evening of messing about with them, looking over what we've bought, smelling them, writing our names inside to look forward to.

One comes across avid readers who one would never meet otherwise: every year, I meet a scholarly gentleman at Book Line who looks around for classics; seeing a Borges (which K had picked up) among our piles of books, he told me a gentle story of entering a Paris roadside cafe which has carefully preserved the table Borges used to sit at. His eyes shone with pleasure when he talked of sitting on that very chair. I saw a young boy, perhaps in his mid-teens, picking out books he thought his mother might like (R.K. Narayan) and then begging her to buy him a couple of books that were a little more expensive than they'd budgeted for; a group of schoolteachers on a mission to stock their school library were busy buying up every children's book in the store, from Enid Blytons to Roald Dahls to Harry Potter. Then there was a sad-looking young man looking for 'electric-er boi', and the bunch of giggling teenagers whose sole form of entertainment was huddling together, getting in everyone's way, and picking up random books, bursting into giggles, and then replacing them. And 'Cheton Bhogot', of course, remains infuriatingly popular.

But what I love most is the festivity, the way the entire city joins in the fun of buying books; the book fair might be a localised affair, but a large chunk of the E.M. Bypass is brightly lit up, traffic jams all over the city are worse than usual, loudspeakers make all sorts of announcements, sometimes playing songs, the only distinguishable lyrics of which are 'Kolkata ... boi mela ...'. The local news channels devote sections to the book fair, the daily papers make it a front-page affair. And it's not just about books (and food!) - art lovers go to see if they can spot anything good among the works young, struggling artists put up for sale, you can even get your portrait sketched if you want, or buy bits of terracotta jewellery and knick-knacks.

Ten days go by all too quickly, though, and we're left feeling low and flat - till our eyes fall on the piles of books with their as-yet unknown riches waiting to be discovered - and then we immediately cheer. After all, ashche bochor abar hobe!

2010-01-11T14:55:00.002Z

FOX's blatant homophobia

My first post of the year - and it's to be a rant of sorts.

I've lately grown quite addicted to the TV show So You Think You Can Dance, another of FOX TV's successes, a sort of dance-oriented version of American Idol, and even created and produced by the same people. But I'd grown to like this one so much more, chiefly because it was warmer, friendlier, without any of the arrogance and patronising so characteristic of American Idol. The judges don't sit on a pedestal and talk down to the contestants - they treat them like equals, and criticism is always constructive. Everyone genuinely seems to be enjoying themselves, and you can almost believe in the 'we're all one big happy family' myth American TV shows insist on peddling. And Cat Deeley makes for an infinitely more charming, accessible, funny, down-to-earth host than snooty Ryan Seacrest, who never lets anyone forget that he's as big a celebrity as the judges.

So I was doubly upset at being left with a particularly nasty taste in my mouth after last week's episode.

Season 5 is being aired at the moment, and the auditions are on; and last week, two men, clearly gay, clearly partners, came along to audition. They dance together, and were hoping the judges would appreciate the novelty of watching two men dancing together. Except, they didn't. After looking visibly uncomfortable throughout the audition, Nigel Lythgoe pronounced that he didn't think the audience who watched this show were quite ready for an act of this nature; that neither was he, since he liked the male dancers on the show to be 'manly' (this wasn't the first time he'd voiced such an opinion - he'd remarked in a pleased tone on Season 3 that he was glad to see the male dancers 'this year dance like guys'). Mary Murphy echoed his sentiments and, surprisingly, so did Sonja, a choreographer who'd come on the show last season and had been invited to judge a few audtions this year - going by her mohawk, tattoos and piercings, you'd have been forgiven for presuming that she was a radical of sorts - except she turned out to be as retrogressive and strait-laced as the rest.

The two men in question were asked to return for the choregraphy round, where they would have to do a routine that involved dancing with girls - 'you might even like it' was the patronising remark. Strangely, though, the men took this rather blatant attack on their sexuality, their lifestyle, their very identity lying down, listening calmly, returning for the next round, and even appearing pleased when one of them made it to Las Vegas. They promised to return the next year - although it doesn't seem likely that Lythgoe and team would be getting over their homophobia anytime soon.

Not that one expects anything more from FOX - but what was shocking was the blatant display of homophobia. There was no lip service paid to political correctness - and that was strange, considering that so many Hollywood ceebrities are openly gay or bisexual, or staunch defenders of alternative lifestyles. It's as if they've decided to take up where George Bush left off, with the blessing of their Bible Belt audience. But what was even more shocking (to my mind) was the way the two men took the insult lying down - if people who espouse a certain way of life don't thmselves stand up for it, how can they expect anyone else to?

I'm certainly not going to be watching So You Think You Can Dance with the same pleasure as earlier.

2009-12-27T05:52:00.002Z

Winter calm

Winters in Calcutta are unpredictable. First, because you can never be sure there will be any winter at all; this year, for instance, we had to wait till Christmas for the weather to turn colder, for sweaters and thick blankets to be dragged out of storage, dusted and aired. And then, when it does get colder, you can never be sure how cold it will be - two years ago it was so chilly that one wished for a heater, which are unheard of in this city. And then, of course, you never know how long this blessed respite from heat and humidity will last - we like to say that the weather remains cool and pleasant till March, but that doesn't always happen.

But there's one quality to Cal winters that never changes, regardless of temperature and chill factor - that peculiar peace that surrounds the city, a stillness that permeates the very air, a quiet that soothes and calms. And at no time during the day is this more apparent than the afternoons, that quietest time of the day, when the morning chores are done, baths taken, lunches eaten and cleared, leaving people free to choose a spot in the sunshine to snooze, read, or converse quietly. Sitting in our room, I can see sunny ledges and balconies, pigeons sitting huddled in the sunshine, disembodied voices of people in various flats floating up now and then; and over it all, the occasional sound of traffic, which somehow seems to lose its strident quality at this time of day.

The calm and quiet are more apparent where my parents live, where I grew up, which is still far from main roads and busy traffic. Winters afternoons in my childhood were incredibly pleasant - we would make our way up to the terrace, dragging a mat and pillows along, armed with books and that most evocative of all fruits - oranges. Once up, the mat would be unrolled in a sunny spot, pillows placed wherever one wanted, books opened, and oranges peeled. And the only things that broke the silence were quiet voices and the rustling of pages being turned. If you looked over the ledge, you could see one or the other of our cats sleeping soundly in the sunshine on some ledge or wall, or washing themselves thoroughly prior to settling down. Occasionally one could see a neighbour or someone's maid appear on their terrace with a bucket of washing, which would be hung out to dry on clotheslines - and perhaps they would then stop to call out to us before settling down to their sunny siesta.

A warm, wintry sun, crisp clean air, the smell of oranges, quiet voices that carried, cats stretching luxuriously in the sunshine - these are what made up Cal winters. And they still do. Nowhere else have I noticed this gentleness to winter, the lulling, soothing quality that leaves you warm and peaceful, somehow glad to be alive - and after a decade in Delhi, I'm glad to find that some things haven't changed.

2009-12-26T14:53:00.003Z

Blog meme!

This is all because of PD tagging me on her blog - now I have to follow suit! Okay, so maybe I don't HAVE to, but I'd like to! So here goes.

Favourite song right now?
The Call, by Regina Spektor (from the soundtrack of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian)

What did you last eat?
Lunch! The usual, regular stuff, but then I had one of Nahoum's lemon tarts, followed by some lemon tea!

What kind of books do you read?
What kind of books don't I read might have been a better question! I read everything except inane, mindless racy thrillers and soppy romance. Very partial to crime fiction, especially good, old-fashioned police procedurals, fantasy fiction, and some sci-fi.

What are you reading right now?
Just started reading a new Swedish crime writer - Hakan Nesser; his first novel, The Mind's Eye.

Favourite Television show right now.
If I had to choose among those being currently aired, I'd have to say House MD. But I also love Brothers and Sisters, Supernatural, CSI, Monk. And I'm pretty hooked on to Desperate Housewives too! :D

What are you wearing right now?
Jeans, tee, sweater.

What’s your current fandom / obsession / addiction?
Fandom: Adam Lambert; Obsession: Farming games on Facebook; Addiction: Reading

What did you really want to do today that you didn’t?
Believe it or not - get a certain amount of work done!! :( Which never happened.

What are you most excited for?
Nothing. Seriously.

If you could be a mythical creature, what would you be?
A Centaur. They're fascinating; and so majestic, noble, and beautiful.

What was the last thing you bought?
Some baking stuff my mom wanted, some foodie stuff for us (mayo, pasta sauce, etc.) and plum cake, sponge cakes and lemon tarts from Nahoum's.

If you could have any pet, what would it be?
A tiger cub. We already have three gorgeous, adorable kittens, and more cats at my parents' place, and I've always wanted a little tiger cub to bring up.

What do you want right this minute, off the top of your head?
I want to be completely relaxed and at peace with myself and the world.

Where is the place you like to return to in order to calm down / relax / etc.?
Home, which is my parents' place. I need to have family around me - husband, parents, cats - to relax and calm down.

Who was the last person you visited?
Parents, yesterday - we spent Christmas with them, eating our way through the day!

Are there any bits of childhood that you miss?
Oh, so much. School, vacations, pujo holidays, all the spoiling and love, the joy and innocence of those days. Why did I have to grow up?

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter?
Spring.

Say something to the person who tagged you:
This was fun - and thanks for providing the motivation that finally dragged me back to my blog!

2009-10-06T12:48:00.004Z

Fun ways to waste time!

Confession time - I'm as addicted as the next person to Facebook, particularly to the various apps (applications, for the uninitiated) they offer, despite K's amused disapproval and warnings on what great time sucks these are. But these apps are fun; they're relaxing; and there are times when you actually get to learn things about people you thought you knew - who's competitive, who's obsessive, who's bitchy, for instance.

Farmville, my favourite - and that, I suspect of thousands of others - is, as the name suggests, all about farming and the farm life. You have your own plot where you grow cereals, fruits, vegetables; plant all sorts of trees; and tend to your livestock. The trees and animals/birds mostly come as gifts from friends, who are your Farmville neighbours, while the seeds you buy from the market. You buy at lower rates and sell at market prices, thus increasing your store of FV coins and cash - with that money, you grow your farm, buy all sorts of essentials (like wells, hay wagons, fences, etc.) and buildings (like your own little cottage, or a barn for the cows), and steadily climb up levels (because all this activity rewards you with experience points). You work on your neighbours' farms for coins and XP, which is fun - and it also gives you an opportunity to see what they've been up to on their farms. It is competitive, since you are climbing levels, after all - and you can crow over each achievement on your home page - but on the whole, it is a peaceful, happy, friendly game. Unlike some other farming games (yes, there are more - many more!) where you can actually sabotage your neighbours' crops and steal their animals! (closes eyes in horror)

Sorority Life, on the other hand, is not so - well - friendly, or peaceful, or happy. As the name suggests, it is about joining sororities, and asking your friends to be your sisters - you can dress your avatar in cool clothes, get a cool job, and 'socialise' for money and influence points, which again helps you climb levels. But here's the flipside - it is fiercely competitive, and downright bitchy. You can 'fight' other girls - especially those with houses smaller than yours - and each win nets you cash and more influence. And, as my house is pitiably small, I tend to be 'fought' rather often, and 'destroyed' with dismal frequency. You learn some rather amusing details of American life - for instance, a waitress makes more money than a research assistant, and therefor is a more lucrative career option; and being an art gallery intern, however exciting that sounds, ranks way down than a wedding planner. The game cleverly stokes the competitiveness that's unfortunately inherent between women while harping, at the same time, on sisterhood and solidarity - and while Sorority Life is the only place where I (or my avatar, to be precise) can dress in Christian Dior, wear Manolo Blahnik sandals, carry a Prada bag and drive a Cadillac Escalade in this lifetime, this game is getting a tad too annoying - and boring - for me.

But why, as I was asking K recently, do resolutely urban people, who take pride in their country's rapid urbanisation, their mushrooming malls, branded clothes, pedigree dogs and fancy cars, get addicted to a game about farming and tending animals? Granted, you're not really expected to muck out or get down and dirty in real fields - everything's done with the click of the mouse in air-conditioned confines - but still, farming?? Seriously? Because it represents an idyll, K said, that we all secretly - and some of us not so secretly - long for; or is perhaps because you can be in total control of what goes on in your farm, without having to contend with, say, the vagaries of the monsoons, a control you cannot extend to any other aspect of your life; or perhaps because a gentle, friendly game like Farmville takes one away from the relentless competition and expectations that permeate most people's lives.

Or perhaps I'm reading way too much into an essentially mindless game that is, above all else, FUN! :D

2009-08-18T10:43:00.003Z

A nightmare journey

After a recent visit to Darjeeling/Siliguri, K and I were returning home to Kolkata on the Darjeeling Mail, which leaves New Jalpaiguri at 8.05 PM and arrives at Sealdah station at 6.00 AM the next morning. My cousin, whose house we were staying at in Siliguri, had us dropped off at NJP station, and armed with our baggage and one rather fragile gift for a two dear friends, which I clutched to myself, we entered the train. The first sight that greeted me was that of a short, fat, pot-bellied man dressed in a tee and - get this - boxer shorts, performing some ablutions at the sink immediately before the door. I remember thinking vaguely how weird some people were - I mean, what's the point of getting into your night clothes in public on a train, for God's sake? - before following K in to find our seats.

Now, I hate trains. Always have. Being cooped up in a compartment with so many people makes me claustrophobic, and since I've never had much luck where co-passengers were concerned, the journey becomes, at best, tedious. Plus there's the close proximity of strangers in 3-tier coaches, which I find horribly intrusive. Planes might be just as bad at times, but at least it's all over in a few hours. So anyway, we find our seats, tuck our luggage away, I squirm my way into my window seat (luckily we had a lower and a middle berth) - not an easy task, since someone had helpfully wedged a suitcase right where I was supposed to keep my legs. K settles down next to me, we start talking, and then Mr Boxer Shorts comes in and plumps himself across from me. K's eyes widened, and we grinned at each other. And then arrived two other men, all clearly from someplace in UP, judging by the language they spoke - one in a loose white kurta pyjama, with hennaed hair and a tiki/choti at the back, marking him out as a Brahmin; and the other a huge fat man with a stomach to rival Boxer Shorts'. They plonked themselves down, began talking loudly, interspersed with loud chants of 'sri radhe radhe' every now and then. Across from us, on the two side seats, was a Marwari couple, who had begun eating their dinner quietly.

So far so annoying. But now, just a little while before the train was to depart, arrived another man, clearly of the 'sri radhe' party, completing the cosy foursome, again a potbellied, slightly seedy, but otherwise ordinary looking person. He stands there, talking as loudly as his pals, and then I notice him beginning to unbutton his shirt. 'Here's another about to wear his night-suit,' I remember thinking. Except he didn't. Wear anything fresh, that is - the disrobing, on the other hand, continued. While K and I watched aghast, this person calmly removed his shirt, sat himself down on the seat opposite, rucked up his undershirt almost to his shoulders, and, as if that wasn't enough, proceeded to unbutton and unzip his trousers. I shot one appalled look at K, who was staring expressionlessly at the man, dived into my bag, yanked out The Wizard of Earthsea, and stuck my nose resolutely into it. Bless Ursula le Guin for being brilliant enough to even engage my attention at that moment; and I came up for air only when K asked me, in perfectly normal tones, if he should 'tell that pig to wear some clothes and behave himself'. I asked him not to - I didn't think we could take on four enormous ruffians. Just then, a respectable-looking Bengali gentleman came in, and it turned out that his was one of the seats that one of the barbarians had occupied. There was a scramble to get his luggage out so he could go sit where he rightfully belonged - and I'm not usually so provincial, but I have to admit that the sight of a decent Bong man filled me with unutterable relief.

I didn't look up from my book even once since then except to talk to K, and then I didn't look ahead, pretending - and I can do that very well if I choose - that the people crowding my space didn't exist. Nauseous sounds of chomping, slurping, burping a while later told me the cave men had sat down to feed; Ged had just reached Roke, and I followed his efforts to find the Archmage with a desperation that rivalled his own. After a while K pokes me and says - again in his normal baritone - 'Look at that fat pig. He doesn't even know how to eat properly.' I refused. K continued staring, still without expression. Once the burp fest was over, loud post-dinner chatter ensued; the Marwari couple had settled down to sleep, but their noise disturbed the lady in the lower berth so that she sat up, looking at them - K tells me her look was one of horror, and then she apparently looked at us with much sympathy. At some point they clambered onto their respective berths and relative peace ensued. The Bong gentleman made his bed on the top berth with much apologies for taking up our space while doing so; and then he climbed up and firmly switched off the lights. The Marwari lady lay down in relief, I emerged from Earthsea, and we had a quiet dinner in the relative privacy afforded by the darkness.

The medley of snores kept me up all night, but I didn't care; and when the train pulled into the station, I leapt out almost before it stopped. White kurta Brahmin was still snoring, incidentally, regardless of his pals' attempts to wake him. The last thing I saw was a coolie poking him - hard, I hope.

So. WHY can Indian men not behave themselves in public? I mean, is that so hard to do? As K said, if a foreigner had seen these buffoons, would s/he not have been justified in believing that Indians are an uncivilised race? And, as K said later, that disgusting disrobing was, in a way, a complete denial of my existence in the same shared space - women, in their world, are clearly invisible, inconsequential entities. I think there was both a denial and an affirmation operating at the same time - the entire episode was also for my benefit, a form of sexual intimidation targeted towards the woman so far removed from their own social milieu. As a student of sociology, I am aware of culture-specific behaviour - but I fail to understand what role 'culture' has to play in the lives of people who know as little about the norms of public behaviour as a caged animal. And if it comes to that, give me a caged animal any day. Nor was this display about class/caste - in the minds of most people, even today, the people lower in the socio-economic hierarchy are the ones who're considered 'uncivilised', 'uneducated'. These people were middle-class, and of the Brahmin/Kayastha castes. How could they have been brought up - or not - so badly? And the scary part is that these aren't the only specimens - most Indian men are this disgusting. My paradigm and theirs are so far removed that we might be living on different planets - and our worlds collide only rarely, for which I am thankful. I'm glad I don't belong to their world, for - and I'm stereotyping, but I think this time it's justified - these men, without doubt, are chauvinistic, misogynistic, patriarchal tyrants.

I'm never travelling on a train again, unless accompanied by people - and then we can travel in the 2-tier coaches, and hopefully we'll fill up all the seats around. Oh, and here's another bit of irony - there they were, these right-wing, Hindu, crude specimens of humanity, with their sri radhes and their talk of 'Shri Krishna ki Janmashthami', and there I was, in my cool Tantra tee which said, 'God is too big to fit into one religion'.

2009-07-31T07:17:00.003Z

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

David Yates, I thought, did a fine job with the fifth film, The Order of the Phoenix, which is a difficult book to translate into film, being the largest and the most unwieldy of the lot - so it was with great expectations that I went to watch The Half-Blood Prince, which happens to be based on the book I love best in the series. Except - it turned out to be a big disappointment.

The first half wasn't too bad, really - the screenplay had been tweaked to open the film in a subway cafe, instead of Privet Drive - and I think a few, like me, might have been disappointed at the omission of Dumbledore's impromptu tea party with the Dursleys; but Jim Broadbent's Horace Slughorn more than made up for it in the very next sequence. The sixth story is really about the coming of age of three, not all that different in very many ways, teenagers - Harry himself; Tom Riddle (the future Lord Voldemort, whose story is told through Harry's forays into Dunbledore's memories through the Pensieve, lessons that Harry had to learn if he was to ever defeat him); and Draco Malfoy, who, while facing the task given him by Voldemort, discovers the great gulf that exists between aspiring to evil and the actual doing of it. It is also the last 'normal' year the Hogwarts students are to have, so the usual activities that make up a school - Quidditch, classes and, for the 16-year-old sixth-year students, teenage romances - abound.

And that last is where the problem lay. Because the - to use a rather reprehensible phrase - 'Hollywoodisation' of the Harry Potter series meant that a decision was taken to highlight the 'snogging', at the expense of more important matters. So half the film dealt with the Ron-Lavender, Ron-Hermione, Harry-Ginny sequences, some of them concocted for the audience's viewing pleasure, while grimmer, crucial details were unceremoniously cut.

The film had some great moments, though - as mentioned earlier, Jim Broadbent excelled as the bumbling, egoistic, well-meaning Slughorn; Alan Rickman's Snape was perhaps even more chilling; Helena Bonham Carter brought the evil, half-crazed Bellatrix Lestrange to life; and one could see very clearly just how comfortable Michael Gambon had grown in his role as Albus Dumbledore. The initial sequence with Narcissa Malfoy, Belltrix and Snape was beautifully done, with Helen McCrory managing to bring out a mother's desperation in the short time allotted to her. But outstanding were the two boys who played Tom Riddle at ages 11 and 16 - Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane, respectively - as were those Pensieve sequences. The menace, evil, and quiet power that both boys brought to the screen were phenomenal - one only wished there could have been more of them, and less of, well, love potions!

But to my mind the actor who stood out was one who has, strangely enough, been written about the least, strange all the more when one thinks of the key role he plays - Tom Felton, as Draco Malfoy. Over the years, Tom Felton has grown into the role of Draco as surely as the three central characters have grown into theirs; and his portrayal as the increasingly unsure , vulnerable, and confused Draco was powerful, and entirely convincing. His racking sobs as he tried to come to terms with the depths to which he was being forced to sink; his contempt, that of one 'chosen', for his clueless classmates, a contempt laced with fear as he searches for the evil he hoped was within him, only to find it missing; his fury at Harry's discovering him at his most vulnerable - and, at the very end, the pleading in his voice and eyes as he tells Dumbledore, 'I have to do this. If I don't, he'll kill me' - all touch you in way that none of the other, more touted performances do. It's a shame that so fine an actor and so complicated a role has been allowed to get lost in the flurry of accolades heaped on less deserving ones.

While Yates captured the wild cliff face and the green cave where Harry and Dumbledore go to hunt for a Horcrux beautifully, complete with the terrifying Inferi, the climax, which never fails to move me to tears when I read the book, left me cold because of the ridiculous omissions - couldn't Yates have spent five minutes (cutting out the superfluous and entirely unnecessary scenes concerning the attack at the Burrow, for instance) showing how the students were taught to Apparate? How on earth is one to believe that Dumbledore, in his weakened state, could apparate Harry back to Hogwarts? And why, pray, did Dumbledore not stupefy Harry? Are we to believe that all Harry did through Dumbledore's final moments was gape open-mouthed at the proceedings, without even, at the very least, running for help? And speaking of help - where were the Aurors who were supposed to be patrolling the corridors and grounds, and who were shown at the beginning? Isn't it crazy that a group of Death Eaters could calmly kill Dumbledore, tear up the Great Hall, stride out of the front door, pursued by a lone Harry who had finally found his feet? David Yates' biggest mistake was doing away with the battle at the end, between Aurors and Death Eaters - the film leaves too many unanswered questions without it. And it's also sad that Dunbledore's death was not made more of - Hermione discussing Harry's snogging Ginny and whether Ron would approve bang in the middle of a talk about Horcruxes trivialised the gravity of the situation.

Given the hype that surrounds every major film release, it becomes very difficult to separate a film from its promotion, and to watch the characters on screen and not remember the actors. On reading the interviews, reviews, etc., one can forgiven for thinking that the films have just three actors - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint (in that order of appearance). Too much rides on their shoulders, and here, at least, they fall woefully short - Daniel is, to quote the delightful Luna Lovegood (played to perfection by Evanna Lynch), 'exceptionally ordinary', Rupert clowns his way through, and Emma really hasn't much to do, except stare in a lovesick fashion at Ron and cry. Perhaps they have become a tad too confident of their ability to play these characters? Or perhaps the media conflation of these three with Harry, Ron and Hermione means they don't need to work too hard at their roles? Or perhaps they're plain bored. Any of these could explain the careless performances, made all the more apparent by the superb supporting cast, even those given very little screen time. Watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince only for these 'other' actors - both the established great actors and the younger, newer ones - and not for the three who usually hog the limelight.

The Harry Potter films are losing their charm. Or maybe it's my disillusionment with the whole series, brought on by the disastrous seventh book, speaking. Either way, give me Narnia or His Dark Materials any day.

2009-07-02T10:58:00.003Z

Nostalgic for Rath

The Rath yatra festival came and went this year without most of us coming to know of it. My friends and I often talk of the happy childhoods we had, despite the absence - or perhaps because of it? - of cable TV, the Internet, reality shows and malls; and I realised sadly that the total disappearance of rath from the lives of people symbolises the passing of a way of life that was so much a part of our growing-up years.

As children, we didn't care much about the giant rath being pulled out of the Jagannath temple in Puri; what was important was us dragging our little rath models, with tiny idols of Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra ensconced inside, down the rutted lanes of our neighbourhoods, a fun evening with friends and sweets and fried papad before us. The excitement began with the onset of the monsoons, and when the first delicate white flowers known as furush made their appearance in our garden, my happiness knew no bounds. And then the first rath models began to be seen in the market - they were rickety wooden affairs, hand-painted in bright colours, and in various sizes - little ones, almost as tall as I was when I got my first rath; others were taller, with two to four vertical compartments built into them. I still remember how proud I felt when I was considered old - and tall! - enough to be bought a 'three-storeyed' rath; and how carefully I placed my little idols, one in each compartment, with a tiny plate of sweets in the topmost 'storey'.

School gave over by 1 PM that day, after the morning classes; the pleasure of a half-day was heightened by the anticipation of decorating our raths at home, readying them to be taken out later, towards evening. I'd pester my mother and Didi to start helping me cover every inch of the rath, barring the front and the top, with strands of white furush and leafy stalks immediately after lunch; sweets would be bought from the closest shop and arranged on the tiny plates my mother had kept ready; and all the while I would be driving everyone crazy, blowing on the 'bhyapoo' - a long pipe-like object made of banana leaves with a plastic cone stuck at the top which, when blown into, made an infernal, ear-splitting noise, anathema to adult ears, but music to ours. By 4 PM my friends would be banging on our door, and out I'd scamper, the rope tied to the rath front clutched in my little hand, and off we'd go, importantly dragging our raths behind us, blowing on the bhyapoos and talking incessantly. Frequent stops had to be made to set our raths right - the ramshackle wooden structures and rutted roads meant that every five minutes, someone's rath would topple over. We'd meet other kids, look derisively at their raths and their decorations; neighbourhood adults would stop us to tell us how beautiful our structures looked; the older boys would find ways to distract us and steal the sweets so lovingly placed inside (running away before we could discover their perfidy, and before the consequent wails brought concerned, yet amused, parents out to refill those plates). By 5.30 it would start to get dark and we'd be called in - but then my father would carry my rath up to our large terrace, and I'd pull it around, with Sheru, our Alsatian, loping along, trying to get at the idols and sweets inside.

I always refused to take off the 'decorations' till the leaves and flowers had dried, clinging on to the festival for as long as I was able to; and then the rath and idols would be wrapped up carefully and stored in the loft, where it would remain for the next one year.

Children don't know what rath is any more - and I suspect that if they did, they'd find the idea of pulling a rickety wooden toy down the streets both embarrassing and ridiculous. Colourful raths are no longer to be seen in markets or on streets. The furush flowers sway gently in the breeze, but no one picks them any more to adorn little raths. The defeaning bhyapoos have fallen silent. And when they did, a part of childish innocence and fun was lost forever.

2009-06-10T10:42:00.003Z

J.R.R. Tolkein, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

This is the latest marvellous offering from Christopher Tolkein - two unpublished and unknown poems written by J.R.R. Tolkein sometime in the 1930s that were based on a corpus of poetry called the Poetic Edda, dealing with Nordic mythology. The poems are flanked by detailed commentaries written by Christopher Tolkein, and are preceded by an Introduction by J.R.R. Tolkein himself, taken from a lecture he delivered to the English faculty at Oxford University, titled 'The Elder Edda', which includes a fascinating discussion on how, as pagan religions in Scandinavia and Iceland gave way to Christianity, the wonderful world of old Norse mythology and folklore died out, coming to exist merely as disjointed fragments of what was once a rich oral tradition.

Lovers of fantasy fiction who are ardent admirers of Tolkein's works will love this, not least because it sheds a lot of light on the etymological and creative origins of Middle Earth, and some of it's much-loved characters. I just reviewed this book for BusinessWorld online, on their books site, so shall desist from rambling on here; but those interested in reading my review can visit the site at http://www.bwbooks.in/index.php/book_reviews/BOOK-REVIEW-The-Legend-Of-Sigurd-And-Gudrun.html.

And those of you nice enough to read the review, do come back and let me know what you thought!

2009-06-09T12:03:00.003Z

On films

I must be among the very few not celebrating the return of Bollywood films to the multiplexes - I've been enjoying myself, actually, watching the good English films that the plexes were being forced to screen in the absence of suitable mindless fare - but now it'll be back to waiting impatiently for the odd good English film that pops in for about a week or so amid the gaggle of Hindi blockbusters. It wouldn't have been that big a deal had we still been in Delhi - most English films do make their way to the various PVRs, regardless of the presence of Bollywood; unfortunately, most Kolkata people, despite their many cultural and intellectual pretensions, are singularly unable to appreciate good films - for most, the 'best film' they have seen in 'a long time' is Dev D. English movies are, for most, merely an opportunity to make out in a semi-empty hall or, for those groups of badly-behaved, horny men so peculiar to Bengal, to catch sight of Kate Winslet's lovely legs.

But K and I've had a lovely time catching all the Oscar-nominated films, which begs the question - HOW did that very ordinary (at best) Slumdog Millionaire pip these fabulous films to the post? Granted, Danny Boyle did little else but lobby for nearly a year before the Academy Awards - but seriously, did everyone leave their brains behind when they cast their votes? Slumdog didn't have the depth, pathos, or the disturbing quality of The Reader; it had none of the joie de vivre, social relevance, energy or sheer brilliance that made up Milk; none of the slow narrative power, cinematography or wonder of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (and this despite Brad Pitt, who, despite special effects, resolutely remained Brad Pitt all the way through, allowing Benjamin not a chance to get under his skin); even Revolutionary Road, which proved disappointing (primarily because of all the expectations riding on it), had way more intensity and powerful moments than Slumdog could ever dream of. I guess all one can be thankful for is that they handed out the Oscars for acting to the people who truly deserved them.

But now it's back to sadly going over the movie listings and finding not a single one I'd like to see; growing ever more depressed at reviews of films that were long released but would never grace a theatre near me; asking hopefully for DVDs that take forever to appear in shops, if they ever do; and longing for that nice cheese popcorn that Inox serves.

But I suppose Star Trek will come to Cal theatres, right? I mean, even Cal people would want to catch Captain Kirk and Spock in action! And who doesn't love Wolverine?? And the Terminator - especially now that Christian Bale's playing John Connor? Right?

One can only hope.

2009-04-20T10:17:00.002Z

The Delhi trip

After a gap of a year and half, I returned to Delhi for a short visit about a month ago. It had primarily to do with family matters, and was a whirlwind trip of a week, in which I had to pack spending time with family, catching up with a few friends, swatting off pesky work-related phone calls, getting a certain amount of work done, browsing at Midlands, and feeling incessantly homesick. I didn't, of course, manage to do quite a few things I had really, really wanted to - like eating loads of golgappas and plates of papri chaat, for instance - I didn't manage even one - and shoe shopping, and meeting or even talking to every friend of mine in the city, as a result of which at least one friend has stopped talking to me for what I fervently hope is the time being. But the net result is a feeling of utter relief at the knowledge that I no longer live in Delhi, that our decision to move out wasn't, after all, a mistake, in that we are definitely much happier at having moved out.

Most of south Delhi - which, being where I had lived for the last ten years, was where I confined myself - seemed to have become one large construction site; everywhere I went, roads were blocked off on both sides by PWD boards; the city seemed to be given over to the construction of flyovers or the extension of the Metro line - either way, it was a commuter's nightmare. There is frenzied building all over in an attempt to be ready for the 2010 Commonwealth Games - most residents, however, are pretty doubtful as to whether the city will be ready in time. Never a friendly city where pedestrians are concerned - after all, if you're so pathetic as to be walking on foot instead of driving or being driven in big, fancy cars, you may as well resign yourself to a life of invisibility, shorn of all humans rights - the blocked-off roads and deep trenches mean that it is well-nigh impossible to walk down some Delhi roads, even if there's an emergency. I was told that once all the construction is completed, Delhi will be a city to behold - an ariel view will show a cityscape akin to any mega city in the world, with beautifully laid-out roads and interconnecting flyovers, and gleaming malls boasting of every luxury brand imaginable. I think there must be something decidedly wrong with me - because at that image, I uttered a silent thank you to whatever powers-that-be do or do not exist that in that future, I will be living in chaotic, confusing Kolkata, teeming with people jostling for road space with rickshaws, rattly, noisy buses and cars - and little shops and dhabas lining the sides of nearly every street, selling you everything you would want, and a lot more you wouldn't.

I enjoyed my desultory amble down Green Park Market, though, and hanging out at Midlands, wishing I was a millionaire so I could buy up half the shop - but since I wasn't, I had to remain content with two books (Ian Rankin) and a graphic novel (Mauss) for K (after all, we had pretty much bankrupted ourselves at the Kolkata book fair, and it's not right to be too greedy, is it?) - followed by a fun afternoon at Dilli Haat with a friend, PD, where we ate our way through a couple of food stalls and wandered around in the misting rain (and, of course, it had to rain the one day I decided to spend outdoors, dressed in my summeriest best) - however, after the first couple of days of going out, while walking down the crowded Khan Market with its glitzy shops (but not a single decent shoe shop anywhere; I mean, seriously, what's gone wrong??), I realised that I was, quite unconsciously, comparing myself to the women around and coming up short, even in my mind - my hair looked stupid, my clothes were shabby and uncool, and I did need a pair of good shoes. I'm not sure if the first two were true, but that's how I felt - and I realised that just a couple of days in Delhi had reduced me to defining and judging others - and my own self - by my appearance; suddenly, what I was wearing, where I was wearing it to, and how I looked was so much more important, because that's how it is in Delhi - clothes and cars and shoes and hair and brands make you who you are, separate you from those who are with it and therefore worth it, and those who aren't. It's funny how I never think along those lines in Kolkata, no, not even if I'm going out to some so-called 'happening' place; but despite knowing where my insecurity stemmed from, I couldn't stop myself staring miserably at my hair and my supposedly pitiful collection of clothes all through the week.

And here's another thing about the visit - I was careful to make sure I was back home before dusk, unless we had a car or I was being dropped back, because I was told time and again that Delhi, never a 'safe' city for women, had grown worse over the last couple of years. There was a murder just a couple of days before I left - and the one evening I made my way back on my own somewhat late (after 8 PM) after meeting a couple of friends, I clutched at my pepper spray nervously through part of the auto ride that took me through a desolate stretch with a woody patch on either side, cars zooming by at full speed, and not a soul on foot - not that that would of any use, in a city like Delhi. Halfway through the journey, I received an anxious 'where are you, it's getting late' call from my aunts, and was greeted with 'we were getting a bit worried' once I returned home. I don't recall being this nervous in Kolkata, ever, not even later in the evening. It's sad that the capital of the country, the future mega-city, cannot assure its citizens the basic safety they're entitled to.

I miss my family - my granny, my aunts, my uncle - and my friends, and a few favourite places - but on the whole, as I told Mary, another friend, this return visit brought home to me all over again just how much I'd grown to dislike Delhi and everything it stood for, and how relieved I feel to no longer be living there. My apologies to those who love the city and cannot imagine living elsewhere - as far I'm concerned, home is where the heart is, and my heart is lodged firmly in Kolkata.

2009-04-07T09:22:00.004Z

Fred Vargas

I've been deep into crime fiction, one of my favourite genres of literature (yes, I said literature. So there.) of late - and European crime fiction at that. Americans, I find, can write good thrillers and potboilers, which become all too predictable after the first three or four books, but when it comes to police procedurals, complete with imagination, ingenuity, detailing, characterisation, it's the Europeans who rule. And I have recently discovered yet another writer of police procedurals - a Frenchwoman, an academic, who goes by the decidedly unfeminine name of Fred Vargas.

Vargas' books are set in Paris, and her main character, Commissaire Principal Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, is clearly modelled on the detective who set the whole concept of urban police procedurals with a flawed, damaged even, policeman at the centre in motion - Chief Inspector Martin Beck, of the wonderful and canonical series of ten books written by the Swedish pair Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Like the Martin Beck series, where the city of Stockholm plays as huge a role as any character, Paris, with its quirks, its alleyways, its cafes and the various arrondisements into which it is divided, is a constant presence in the Adamsberg books. Like Beck, Adamsberg has a disturbed personal life; again, like Beck, he goes on to head a murder squad; couldn't care less about rules or his appearance or the image he portrays; is intuitive; solves pretty much every case assigned to him; is, by all accounts, an attractive man. That's where the similarity ends, though - but more on that later.

That Vargas is an academic is made abundantly clear in her plotlines, which very often have academics with esoteric specialisations and references and quotes from medieval tomes peppered liberally throughout - sometimes they even form the pivot around which the plot turns. Like her detective Adamsberg, who is prone to daydreaming and functions for the most part with 'his head in the clouds', Vargas' tales often take meandering turns down flights of fancy, with whole paragraphs devoted to disjointed and vaguely confused thoughts invested with the task of propelling the narrative forward. Adamsberg, we are told, is a gentle yet restless man - his voice has a peculiar soothing quality that lulls the listener to tranquillity and pushes them to confiding in him - a trait that comes in very useful during interrogations - yet he cannot stay still for a moment, preferring long walks to desk work, and constant activity at particularly pressing moments, when he most needs to think. His train of thought follows no apparent logic - intuition, of the almost mystical, clairvoyant kind (unlike Beck, whose flashes of insight were always rooted in reality, in fact and experience) is what leads him to an understanding of how, and why, the crime was committed.

Adamsberg's counterfoil is Inspector Danglard, his second-in-command - as addicted to logic as Adamsberg is to woolly chains of thought, a firm believer in the routine his superior holds in mild disdain. Danglard, with his alcoholism ('Tell me what you need me to do before four in the afternoon - I don't function too well after that'), his five children (two sets of twins, and one, the blue-eyed boy, 'was clearly not his', but his wife had dumped him on Danglard anyway) who he adored and who kept him sane, his unhappiness at his lack of physical attraction, which his impeccable clothing did nothing to compensate - is, somehow, a far more believable and endearing character than Adamsberg - as are the various other members of the Murder Squad - the intrepid Violette Retancourt and the wide-eyed Estalere, for instance. However, unlike the Martin Beck series, where Beck is a part of a team, whose other members are just as important - sometimes even more so - than the central character, Vargas tends to devote more space to Adamsberg dreamy soliloquies, which tend to grate at times - especially when some of the perpheral characters turn out to have much more heart than the principal one. This, perhaps, is one of the biggest flaws in Vargas' writing - that she has created a central character who is very difficult to identify with, or even like.

This flaw in a way also diminishes the rigor of police work - the dull routine slogging, which forms the bulk of police work, so carefully and intricately detailed by Sjowall and Wahloo (and by writers like Ian Rankin, P.D. James, Peter Robinson, Henning Mankell) is pushed to the background, and Adamsberg and his imaginative forays down paths where the proverbial angels fear to tread dominate - and so, at the end, you're at times left dissatisfied, unable to connect the dots that led to the denouement. Rigour is also sacrificed at the altar of what has clearly become the modern-day version of witchcraft - hacking. Hackers, the twenty-first century shamans with their codes and encryptions and viruses taking the place of spells and rites are now increasingly being turned to in the solution of murder mysteries - why follow clues or deal with forensics when you have someone to sit before a computer and almost intantly - CSI-style - provide you with all the answers you need, generously supplied by people too stupid to know better than to confide their deepest, darkest secrets to their computer's hard drives. I'm not sure, being almost a Luddite, if this is at all possible - all I know is that taking this easy short-cut has sounded the death knell of ingenuous police procedurals. It isn't just Vargas, but otherwise brilliant writers like Stieg Larsson who succumb to this temptation - thereby substantially eroding the charms of the good, old-fashioned detective novel.

The Adamsberg books are typically French, though, with their emphasis on the pleasures of a good cup of coffee or a glass of wine; the importance attached to people's clothes and styles of dressing - Adamsberg, who for the most part goes around looking 'like a pig's breakfast', is regarded as a curiosity because of his total disregard of what he wears; his sandals once moved a junior sufficiently to exclaim, in tones of great horror, 'You're surely not going out in those!'; sexual relationships are a necessary, but hardly all-consuming parts of characters' lives; and the French disdain for and amusement at English people and Canadians are all too apparent.

Vargas' books are interesting and informative, although sadly lacking in humour of the sort that was so apparent in the Martin Beck books - but then, aren't the French supposed to take themselves very seriously? - and well worth reading if you're a fan of police procedurals; however, if you like this genre to be rooted in solid police work, and if you like your detectives to be real and endearing like Martin Beck and his murder squad, or gritty like Rankin's Rebus, or as dogged and stubborn as Mankell's Kurt Wallander, you'll probably come away wanting more.

2009-03-17T13:06:00.002Z

A feline interlude

A couple of mornings ago, I was awakened at an hour that, by my reckoning, is quite unearthly, by the frightened miaows of a little kitten - inside our house. I jumped out of bed to see K holding a little month-old kitten against him - he had heard the little one's voice from the bathroom, and upon venturing out to investigate, saw it crying piteously while moving dangerously close to the railings on the floor just below ours. He immediately rushed downstairs to rescue it - and just in time too, as the baby was being frightened even more than it already was by a hulking, fat boy who, strangely enough, was just as terrified of it. We knew who the little one belonged to - the mommy cat, a very friendly, pretty young thing, had often been petted by us on our way up. A gentleman who lives on the ground floor, and who clearly likes cats, had told us once while we were talking to her that she had delivered babies 'oi oi dike' ('somewhere that side'), a vague description made even vaguer by hand movements in pretty much every direction.

While trying to comfort the kitten, we decided to troop down and see if we could locate where 'oi dike' was - or find someone who knew where the cat lived. We even considered ringing every doorbell on the ground floor to see if we could locate the cat-loving gentleman, but decided it might not be such a good idea to wake people up just to ask - 'Apni ki beral bhalobashen?' ('Do you like cats, by any chance?'). Our plan wasn't much of a success, though - no one knew where the cat had had her babies, or that there was a cat at all. And all the while, the little one clung to me and cried her/his heart out. So back we came and then the plan was - we shall hunt one more time, and if we don't find the mom, we shall take her to the original mommy of all creatures feline (and canine and bovine and err ... goatine and monkey-ine) - my mom. So back we went. And the little one was still crying, and scared, but was looking around curiously in a typical kitten-fashion - and upon being set down on the bed, s/he ran across to K's pillows, climbed up the stack of magazines that were sitting beside it, and proceeded to go to sleep. S/he opened her eyes now and then warily, began crying when s/he found her/himself all alone, stared solemnly at our maid and maiowed as if to ask what she was doing in 'our' house, and was clearly getting used to us. The trust that animals place in us humans, a trust that most of us do not deserve, never fails to amaze, and move, me.

Manadi - the maid - ran in after a while saying she had heard a cat calling out loudly; K ran out to see the mother cat wandering around, yelling at the top of her voice. The little one was snatched up all over again, and we rushed out and down the stairs - and no mommy cat. But there were helpful people around the lift, the kuda-wala, for instance, who told us, yes, there is a mommy cat and she had been wandering around crying for her baby for a while now; and unsettled by the noise and the people, the baby began wailing in my arms. The next moment, what do we see but the pretty mother running towards us - towards the sound of her baby, that is; I held the kitten out to her and watched the joyful reunion - the delighted mother sniffed her baby all over, maiowing anxiously all the while; the equally delighted baby, back in the security of her/his mother's presence, began showing off tremendously, stretching, scratching its little ears, all the while pretending that it had been on a fantastic adventure; and a delighted me watched the little tableau. The mom let me pet her, but looked at me suspiciously - she probably thought I'd been trying to kidnap her baby. She soon moved away, followed by the kitten, as frisky as a little lamb now - I tried to follow, to see where she'd take the baby, but she turned around and maiowed at me once as if to tell me to stay away. She was a mother protecting her young, and she didn't want to trust any human in her space just yet. Respecting her space, I stayed back.

We felt happy the rest of the day - it was such a lovely sight, that mother and child reunion. It's also good to know that most people out here don't mind cats; in fact, some actively like them, unlike in Delhi, where cats are feared and disliked, and, by extension, hurt. I still don't know how the little thing got up to the second floor, though - someone must have picked it up and brought it up, it's paws were too small to manage the stairs. We're keeping our ears pricked, though, for further maiows, which might signal the return of our much welcomed house guest.

2009-03-02T09:57:00.004Z

Rooting for Freida

My dad's a journalist, of the old-fashioned kind - he's from the time when journalism really meant the things the word still implies - the pursuit of truth, moral courage, social responsibility, ethics. K's from a different generation, but journalism still meant something during his time, which is probably why he finds it easier to talk shop with my dad than with the young, cocky twenty or thirty-somethings who call themselves journalists these days. The degeneration of journalism into pointless muck-raking; frothy, nonsensical, never-ending pieces about Bollywood and the incomprehensible world of fashion; and partisan reporting has been around for very many years now, but I was reminded of it all over again this morning when I read the cover story published in a supplement of one of Cal's leading - and still much-respected, a respect it's increasingly ceasing to deserve - dailies, on Slumdog Millionaire's leading actress (or should I say one of the leading actresses) Freida Pinto.

Quite unnecessarily spiteful and vituperative, it proceeded to make the point that Freida Pinto is a mere flash-in-the-pan, a nonentity who merely got lucky (and, through barbs and innuendos, managed to convey the impression that she did not deserve that luck - after all, she's just like hundreds of other young women, and hey, all she had was 15 minutes of screen time, in which she was really not given much to do), and is now living it up. Laced at appropriate intervals with nasty comments by people, most of whom happen to be columnists of the paper in question, the article left a rather nasty taste in my mouth, not least because of how pointless it was. Considering that all of India's rushing to lay claim to Slumdog, which is, to all intents and purposes, a British film, and not a very good one at that, one would have thought that the success of one of the Indian actors would have made the country legitimately proud. I guess not, though, at least not while we have vicious, envious people who can write - or get someone to write - scurrilous articles aimed at pulling people who've surpassed them down.

It's undoubtedly true the Freida's got lucky. It's also true that she didn't have much to do in the film, and that the younger Latikas outshone her. But the same can also be said of Dev Patel. Is the reason why Freida's 15 minutes is being sneered at while Aishwarya Rai's 15 minutes in the mediocre The Pink Panther 2 is being lauded because Freida was, before the phenomenal success of Slumdog, a virtual nonentity? And because she's making it to the Tonight Show and has caught Woody Allen's attention while the other Bollywood actresses who routinely talk about their 'Hollywood projects' haven't? Or because, while our esteemed media loves talking about 'feel-good', 'rags-to-riches' stories, they haven't found it in themselves yet to embrace the people who actually make it? How can the same media be so proud of A.R. Rahman and Resul Pookutty, who it hadn't even heard of previously, but not of Freida Pinto?

I've shot off a letter of protest, which I'm certain will never be published, the concerned newspaper not being too bothered with opinions different from theirs; I do hope, however, that Freida's Hollywood ventures pay off, and she emerges a star - then, when the very same media falls over themselves to court her, I shall take an especial glee in writing them another letter, reminding them of the time when they informed her 'there's nothing to be so kicked about', as her success was merely due to 'luck by chance'.

2009-02-26T11:52:00.003Z

Lance that freedom

There's a new four-letter word currently doing the rounds in my life - an 'f' word at that - 'freelancer'. I first realised just how scurrilous a word it can be when, from the respectable confines of a 9-5 job, I joined the despised ranks of those who 'work on their own', the people who spend all day 'just chilling', the freelancers. My responses to the question 'But why are you not looking for a JOB'? - that I really needed my own space, away from stifling and nonsensical office rules; that I was tired of battling office politics and never getting anywhere or doing what I wanted to do because I could never be what higher-ups wanted me to be; that, on a less sombre note, I really hate waking up early in the mornings - cut no ice with well-wishers who were firmly convinced that I was 'too young' to take such a step, that I was throwing my life away.

Two years after I took the decision to 'throw my life away', I find it's working out pretty well, at least as far as the quantum of work and the issues of space and freedom are concerned. Where it's not working out, however - and other freelancers will no doubt know exactly what I mean - is in the total lack of respect I am accorded by the very people who think I am 'mature and experienced' enough to be trusted with 'very important' projects. And this lack of respect, this invisibility, comes only because I work on my own, without the imposing edifice of an organisation to 'have my back', as the Americans would say. Had I been doing sub-standard work, but from within a cubicle, I'd have mattered more.

Why are people so reluctant to embrace the idea that options that are a tad different from the run-of-the-mill definitions of what constitutes 'work', 'success', and 'professional' are just as real? Why can people not appreciate that even without a desk job, I am just as professional - if not more - than the people who give me orders from the air-conditioned confines of their office spaces? And that that professionalism deserves the respect and courtesy that would be due any of their colleagues with office spaces similar to their own? That when they have no problem flattering me with talk of how 'valued' I am, how needed, when there's a dodgy project they need to palm off to someone whom they can subsequently blame if something goes awry, they shouldn't have any problem saying a simple 'thank you' when I turn in work that is of decidedly high quality?

Since beginning my career as freelancer, I've realised that people don't value risk-taking, independence and discipline, all of which form an integral part of a freelancer's life. That my work is not considered 'work' because I do it from home; that my work deserves absolutely no credit because I do it from home, on my own, in my time; that people actually feel it is absolutely all right to dismiss me as 'just chilling' (and this after I had spent time detailing some of the books and journal issues I had recently worked on; that person had no idea how close I came to punching that fat face in), take the credit for my work while giving me absolutely nothing in return; that so-called professionals think it's all right to renege on payments or, at the very least, be tardy about it, while having the gall to ask me why I wasn't prioritising their organisation when it came to accepting projects. (Here's one excuse that never fails to mystify me - 'I was too busy to pass your bill/reply to your email/send you the cheque'. Which category, pray, did my email/bill fall under, if not that of 'work'? Giggly timepass with bosom buddy??)

I've decided, though, that I am not going to let these people - well, most of the world, I guess - tell me how I should feel about myself and my work. I am bloody good at what I do, which is why these same people seek me out - and I am proud of my skill. I take immense pride in my work and my professionalism, and it's perhaps time to demand that respect that is my due. I work harder than a lot of people who sit around in offices collecting pay checks they never earned, and I am not going to allow people to say anything different.

As a friend once remarked, 'working on one's own does not mean sitting around eating potato chips and watching soap operas!' A truer statement has only rarely been uttered.

2009-01-24T09:31:00.003Z

The 'common' existence

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel annoyed at being referred to as 'common'? And being lumped together in one category with most of the world's - certainly the country's - population, as if we were all one homogeneous, amorphous mass, robots, all, cast in one mould by an indifferent, bored Creator? Or are most people so used to this 'common' label that we don't really care to dwell on the connotations - the signifieds, if you will - of this simple word, an exercise that would, in all likelihood, cause us to ask belligerently in our best Eliza Dolittle manner - ''Ere! Oo are you callin' common, then'?

A few second on dictionary.com gave me 22 results, of which only a few suited my needs:

1. of mediocre or inferior quality; mean; low: a rough-textured suit of the most common fabric.
2. coarse; vulgar: common manners.
3. lacking rank, station, distinction, etc.; unexceptional; ordinary: a common soldier; common people; the common man; a common thief.

Note the juxtaposition of words here - inferior quality, mean, low; unexceptional, ordinary; and the gradual degeneration of the common people into the common man and then the common thief. Consider, then, the obviously non-ordinary, very exceptional people who us 'common' types are pitted against, the same people who speak patronisingly of the 'common man' (where, pray, are the 'common women'?), citizens, fans, without knowing the first thing about who - or what - they're talking about: in our country, it's the politicians and celebrities, who all, with very few exceptions, hail from the over-hyped, over-rated and, to my 'common' mind, the very mediocre world of showbiz. Although, considering that politicians are all uncommonly self-serving, uncommonly corrupt, uncommonly ignorant and uncommonly stupid; and showbiz celebrities are uncommonly lacking in talent, uncommonly parasitical, uncommonly self-indulgent, uncommonly ignorant and stupid, that distinction does make some sense; however, it's precisely for this reason that my 'common' self rebels against this unflattering label.

Isn't it absurd that most of us who are better educated, decidedly more intelligent, and worthy and useful members of society than the preening members of the category supposedly signifying 'station and distinction' should agree to this demeaning label thrust upon us by the latter group? The term 'commoners' might make sense in a country like Britain, where it's used to separate the royalty from the rest of the people, but in democratic countries - however farcical that democracy might be - this label has no meaning. We should rebel. And ask for this term to be brought under the 'politically incorrect' category - perhaps, from now on, we should agree to be called, say, 'financially challenged' (because, as we all know, one of the biggest, and possibly the most important, factors separating the 'common' from the 'uncommon' is money - it's money, and the power and resources and luxuries it brings in its wake that gives the 'uncommon' ones their 'distinction'), or the 'Thinking, Educated, Socially Aware Section'.

A digression - the discipline of sociology eschews the term 'common', and its various definitions - the very first seminar that was held at the beginning of our MA course at the D'School was on 'Sociology vs Common Sense' - it was believed that we wouldn't be on our way to being good sociologists till we purged everything commonsensical, commonly believed and accepted from out systems. After all, every student of sociology knows just how difficult it is to categorise any group of people, more so in a country like India - there are castes and sub-castes - varna and jati - communities demarcated and split again and again on the basis of region, religion, sub-sects, languages, dialects, cultural specificities; but let's leave that discussion for later.

In the meantime, if any of you agree with me, do come up with more names for our own sub-group!

2008-12-21T15:33:00.004Z

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

We've all known for a few years now that the Man Booker prize is no longer what it used to be - in fact, it's a given that the book actually winning the award will be less deserving than the other four shortlisted works of fiction put together. That's certainly been the case with the ones I've read - the last Booker winner I picked up, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, was a predictable and too-long ramble, made readable - memorable, even - only by the sheer beauty of Hollinghurst's prose, and the subtlety with which he evoked the atmosphere of 1980s Britain. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that redeems this year's winner, Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.

Allegedly 'blazingly savage and brilliant', and a work that exposes 'India's rotting heart' (much to the chagrin of jingoistic Indians, who spent the better part of newsprint condemning Adiga for having pandered to 'Western' conceptions of a backward and corrupt India while not uttering a word about the literary merit - or otherwise - of the book), the book tells the story of Balram Halwai, a man from one of the innumerable poverty-stricken villages dotting India's rural landscape, this one in the heart of UP, who lands a job as chauffer to one of the local landlords' sons, and with him arrives in New Delhi where he learns of the darkness that lies beneath the sophisticated, glamourous cityscape, as well as that which lies within his own heart. Balram's story - and his life - appears to be a allegory for an India that is furiously developing and growing at the expense of the greater number of its citizens, and those Indians who, seduced by the consumerism that this 'development' brings in its wake, give in to the soulless hedonism that money can buy. In itself a great concept, in the hands of an experienced - and good - writer, this could have been the masterpiece it's masquerading as. In Adiga's, on the other hand, it turns into a shallow, confused, unbelievable ramble along paths that Adiga has certainly never trodden.

There's no denying that the 'seamy underbelly' of India that Adiga wishes to expose does exist. What is in dispute, however, is his knowledge of it. His description of Balram's village, Laxmangarh, for instance - the river, the sewage, the tea shop with its huddle of young men, the main road down which the bus arrives, passengers greeted by emaciated rickshaw-pullers, the Hanuman temple, the pigs, the buffaloes - is that of a generic Indian village, a description culled from books and films focusing on the same sights. How many Laxmangarhs, one would like to know, has Adiga visited, or even lived in? How many Balram Halwais has he interacted with? Adiga's Delhi, too, is the Delhi experienced by an NRI, who flies in for short visits, and hangs out at the places most frequented by those of his ilk - the Gurgaon malls, Connaught Place, and - no, that's it. Just how limited his knowledge of Delhi's geography and even the lifestyles favoured by rich yuppies, among whom Balram's master, Ashok, and Pinky, Ashok's wife, feature, is revealed when one considers two instances: in The White Tiger, all Ashok and Pinky do on their days out is spend an inordinate amount of time at the mall; and on Pinky's birthday, they decide to go all the way from Gurgaon to a TGIF outlet located in CP. Anyone who's spent even a year in the city knows that CP's dead by 11 PM, and that TGIF, Vasant Vihar, is way more happening than a lot of Delhi pubs. And which politician, pray, lives on Ashok Road, that beautiful avenue given over to headquarters of political parties and a few colonial bungalows that serve as residences of high-profile judges?

Adiga's corrupt politicians are larger-than-life, his evil landlords straight out of a 1970s Bollywood movie. One is only too aware of the fate that befalls the bulk of the country's poor - but Adiga's descriptions are strangely devoid of emotion, or empathy. While devoting large sections to rigged elections in rural areas, he misses out one crucial reality in rural India of present times - the panchayati raj. One could be forgiven for suspecting that Adiga's knowledge of India is gleaned from Bollywood, news footage of elections held about 10 years ago, preferably somewhere in Bihar, a few months spent in Delhi, and a few conversations held with bored chauffers and south Delhi residents. No wonder, then, that the book fails to connect with anything remotely real, including the imagination of discerning readers. I mean - where in India could you begin a brand new life, complete with a new identity and a whole new business enterprise on a mere sum of seven lakh rupees, a sum that Balram ends up selling his soul for? And going by Adiga's own reckoning, wouldn't the rich and the powerful have spent every resource they owned to make sure that he paid for that most heinous crime of all - dared to think for himself, stand up to, and hurt a member of, the upper class?

The disconnect reveals itself in Adiga's style of writing - as a first-person narrative, the book veers widly between two extremes - exaggerated 'Indian English' ('See, when you come to Bangalore, and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car and knock on your window ...'), and youthful, urban American colloquialisms ('Don't waste your money on those books. They're so yesterday.), strangely out of place on the lips of a supposedly semi-literate man. Until you remember that Adiga has spent a large chunk of his life abroad - clearly, this is an author who cannot quite distance his character's voice from his own. The language is banal, the syntax barely there, and punctuations virtually absent - or is a semi-literate chauffer, though well-versed in yuppie lingo, not supposed to know his commas from his semi-colons? Editorial slips-up rule - why, for instance, does Balram encounter his fellow-chauffer 'Vitiligo Lips' everywhere he goes, even when Ashok demands to be driven to TGIF on a sudden whim late at night? Perhaps Vitiligo Lips' master is stalking Ashok? Perhaps Adiga - and certainly his editor - should have paid a wee bit more attention to the details?

Adiga's complete ignorance of north Indian cultural norms comes through in his treatment of north-eastern women - defined as 'slant-eyed Nepalis', they apear to be the stuff that most north Indian men's fantasies are made of. And why is that so? Because of their eyes, of course - their beautiful eyes that drive men wild. Again, one doesn't need to have lived in Delhi for a decade to know that most 'slant eyed women' - derogatorily called 'Chinks' or Chinkies' - hail from the north-east of India, in Delhi either for higher education, or for jobs; and one knows all too well why these women are viewed with either suspicion or naked lust - no, it's not their eyes, but the commen stereotype of them as 'cheap, loose, fast and easy', all because the matriarchal societies and culture from which a lot of them come ensures that they're comfortable with their bodies and with men, dress in 'Western' clothes, and do not consider themselves inferior to men, least of all those from north India. For Adiga to to lump them all under the category 'Nepali' and romanticise the sexual aggression they encounter on a daily basis is offensive, and his ignorance of cultural codes, especially coming from a writer who claims to know every bit of India, down to its murkiest depths, laughable.

As a first novel, and left to itself, the book would have gone relatively unnoticed, a mediocre effort on the part of a first-time novelist. But awarding it the Booker, and hailing it as one of the greatest things Indian writing in English had to offer in recent years, was ridiculous (on a recent visit to Crossword, one of the young boys at the counter asked us if we'd read the book - 'I read about 150 pages, and it was nothing special! Why would this win such a big award?' he asked in bewilderment. Our feelings exactly.). Adiga's second novel was given a quiter launch - the first chapter, printed in the Sunday Brunch a month and a half ago, read better than The White Tiger. But was it tempting enough for me to pick up yet another Aravind Adiga and spend four more hours of my life reading through it? I don't think so.

2008-12-18T13:17:00.003Z

Mumbai – the aftermath

Three days ago, K and I went to pick up my aunts, who were arriving at Kolkata on an evening flight for a visit, at the airport. Having reached early for a flight that was to eventually land late, we ensconced ourselves on the battered seats outside with cups of that peculiarly plasticky coffee that one usually finds at kiosks at airports and railway stations to warm ourselves up on a (finally!) chilly evening. While sipping at the coffee, talking, and watching people, I became aware of a niggling feeling, which eventually grew strong enough to encroach on the conscious, thinking part of my brain – a feeling that can only be described as jittery. Or nervousness, perhaps. A couple of minutes' reflection led me to the surprising conclusion that I was nervous at being in an exposed, public space, surrounded by innumerable strangers, any of whom could, at any given moment, transform himself/herself into either an exploding device or – that loaded word – a terrorist. The fact that security – or what passed for it – was virtually absent at the airport didn’t help.

I soon made K get up and we made our way inside the terminal, to the arrival lounge – I had this irrational feeling that I would feel ‘safer’ inside. Stupid idea, really, because one is more trapped indoors in the event of an attack than one is in the great big outdoors; and strange, considering that agoraphobia isn’t something I’ve ever encountered. Once inside, though, sanity returned – to an extent – and my feeling of astonishment. I’ve been in Delhi when blasts took place, most notably at Sarojini Nagar, where I was often to be found – and I was never nervous on any of the subsequent occasions that I shopped there. Nor have I ever been jittery or fearful in any well-lit public place with lots of people before – before the Mumbai attacks, I guess. What surprised me was that I should be feeling this way – I mean, I was far removed from the Mumbai attacks, both in terms of geographical distance, and the fact that no one I knew was directly affected by them – so why should I, a reasonably rational, intelligent person living in an entirely different city altogether, suddenly look at perfectly harmless (in a manner of speaking) strangers askance, while nervous thoughts like – ‘Does that young man have weapons in that huge rucksack?’ ‘Why did that man refuse to move one seat away and allow those women to sit together? Is there any reason why he needs that seat?’ – flitted though my head? Is this merely another manifestation of the mass hysteria, mostly orchestrated by certain sections of the media, which continues relentlessly, and to which I have unwittingly been exposed; or is this because in a world where terrorist attacks have become commonplace, security of our own being, taken so blithely for granted, have become yet another casualty? Is fear now to be part of us?

I am against witch hunts, draconian laws made in the name of national security, and the targeting of certain members of society just because they have been born into a particular religion. I can explain my fears, deal with them. But what will happen when very many others, believing in the constantly hammered message that ‘we are not safe’, demand ‘action’ (as very many already have) to quell those fears?

2008-12-01T11:25:00.004Z

Mumbai - some reflections

Mumbai, and the recent terrorist attack it had to withstand - yet again; as I asked a friend whose safety I was anxiously querying, 'how many times I have asked you this same question in the last two years'? - has taken over my thoughts, and much of my conversation, as it must have with every Indian over the last few days. The attack is over - for now - and now we wait for the repercussions, for the inevitable promises on the part of the government in words that mean as little as the actions accompanying them. I doubt that we'll ever know all that transpired, and why - and just how many unfortunate people lost their lives because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

A couple of thoughts are uppermost in my mind - the first concerns the media coverage. We tuned in to NDTV and, predictably, found the news channel concerned with sensationalising the issue - as if it wasn't sensational enough already. Hysterical anchors screamed into their microphones, telling us there's been an attack, here's where it happened, look you can see it right behind me, oh, there's smoke billowing, oh god, I can hear gunshots, and look, here are the NSG commandos; the execrable Barkha Dutt moaned on about how there was a distraught man looking for his sister, how she had received word that there was some foreign woman inside the Taj with her baby, 'with no idea how to get milk for the baby' (as it turned out, there was a baby, but with his father, and miraculously untouched by it all); in the studio, indignant newscasters asked us when it would end, how much more of this are we supposed to take; but in the melee, what was missing was what we had tuned in for - news. Calm reporting of facts, that could tell us what was going on, what we could expect, when we could expect it. We had to turn to the BBC for that.

The BBC gave me the facts I wanted; correspondents in Islamabad told us what was going on at that end and whether it boded well for future India-Pakistan relations; there was incisive analysis and all the while, viewers were kept abreast of events as they unfolded. They interviewed survivors too, but allowed them to tell their stories without butting in with questions about blood and dead bodies, and while NDTV was busy covering every funeral around and exhorting us to invade the privacy of the grieving families and stare at the dead men's wives and children, here's what the BBC did - followed the of a young Muslim man who had been killed, and who was being taken to his village to be buried. There were no intrusive questions, just the picture of yet another grieving family. The only difference - was not someone from the armed forces (and I couldn't be prouder of Karkare's family for refusing Modi's compensation, or Unnikrishnan's father for standing up to the Kerala CM), or someone with Bollywood connections, but an unknown person, and a Muslim. The message couldn't have been clearer. Terrorists, as everyone keeps saying, have no religion. This tragedy has affected people from all religions, from all rungs of the socio-economic hierarchy.

'The media made things worse,' one of friends told me while we were talking about the tragedy. When will the news channels learn that we need facts, not emotionalism or fear-mongering in times of crisis? People watching the news need to know what's going on, and why, and not be told how to feel - not being emotional cretins, we can feel devastated, stunned, worried, and unhappy on our own without being asked to do so by a bunch of so-called journalists yelling into the cameras. And the last thing that people who actually had friends and relatives in the thick of it needed was to be told that there was 'blood everywhere and bodies strewn all over' time and time again.

Here's something that did make me stop and think, though - a ticker on the NDTV channel ran a stream of what seemed like opinions, presumably sent in by viewers. One of them said, 'So far the blasts that have taken place have affected ordinary people. Now that the rich and powerful have been affected, maybe the government will make some stronger policies.' This is a truth that we know all too well - but at times like this, when we're called upon to come together as a nation, it has a greater impact - that we really are a nation where we cannot expect protection, or justice, unless we come from the upper echelons of society. Looking at the NDTV catchline, 'Enough is enough', I couldn't help thinking - have we had enough because this is one attack too many, or is this blast the last straw because it has invaded the sanctum sanctorum, the lives of the rich, the famous, and the powerful? My heart goes out to the people who have lost loved ones, to lives that were snuffed out becaues of motives that I certainly cannot comprehend, and I cannot begin to imagine the terror of those stuck inside the Taj and the Oberoi for three days - and I felt as deeply for those killed in Assam, in Bangalore, in Delhi. But why has there never been a process of identification such as the one that has been taking place with the Times of India journalist ('this one has hit hardest because she was one of us') with victims of the previous blasts? Perhaps because they, for the most part, came from the lower socio-economic rungs and therefore were most emphatically not 'one of us'. Every Indian life is precious - it's sad, then, that the government gets hauled up and the people responsible unceremoniously removed when it's the lives of certain 'important' Indians that have come into the line of fire.

And I do hope there will no retaliatory action taken against Muslim members of Indian society. The last thing we need is more violence, more innocent lives lost, more families shattered.

Postscript - And here's a quote from half-in-half-out-of-the-closet filmmaker Karan Johar, published in today's newspapers: 'We now feel unsafe in our cars with tinted windows and our buildings with multiple watchmen. We now feel what a section of the city's lower-middle class felt on July 11, 2006, when their security was threatened (in the commuter train blasts)'. Clearly, there are two kinds of Othering going on here - one Other is obviously the terrorists, who invariably subscribe to a distorted vision of Islam, and the other Other, much closer home happens to be the 'middle classes' regular, ordinary, unwashed masses, whose insecurity and vulnerability the upper classes have so far exploited in films, novels and art, but have never in the wildest dreams contemplated identifying with. Which, I can't help thinking, has hit them hardest - having the us/them divide breached, or having to contend with terrorist attacks right in their own seemingly secure, luxury backyards?

2008-11-28T12:09:00.002Z

The Jethro Tull concert

Yesterday, all excited, and broken toe notwithstanding, I trooped off with K for what for me was certainly an experience of a lifetime - the Jethro Tull concert, where a part of their performance was to have been with Anoushka Shankar, at the Science City auditorium. We wisely left early and got there at 6 - the show was to begin at 7.30 - only to find ourselves stuck behind a long line of cars that moved so excrutiatingly slowly that one felt like screaming in frustration - seriously, does it take that long to park cars? As it turned out, it doesn't - the slowness was due to confused-looking security people who were checking cars, taking money and then passing them through - our tiny, battered car obviously didn't look very threatening, because we were waved through rather soon. We queued up before what seemed like hundreds of people - most of them older, clearly Jethro Tull fans, and those quintessential Bong aantel types who are so unmistakable to any true-blue Calcuttan. And, of course, the young college-goers. We shamelessly eavesdropped on conversations around while the queue inched forward and then, once inside the auditorium, were confronted with young ushers who had absolutely no idea about where to seat everyone - they were earnestly squinting at seating plans which clearly made little sense. We made our way through four people before getting our seats - which turned out to be the wrong seats, and we - and the people seated next to us - had to shift later, after the concert had begun, much to our annoyance.

The concert, though, was worth it all. Anoushka Shankar kicked it off with two extended raags, which found little favour with most of the audience, myself included - don't get me wrong, I think she's very good, and certainly her two pieces (especially the second one; but I know next to nothing of Indian classical music, so can't tell you which raags she played) were excellent - but when one has gone to see Ian Anderson and listen to Tull, one does tend to get restive after an hour of sitar. 'We want Ian Anderson!' yelled someone from the audience towards the end of the first - and longer - piece, to rumbles of agreement from the rest of the crowd. Tull finally took the stage at 9 - the show having begun around 8 - and if the yells from the crowd were any indication, the wait was jugded to have been worth it.

I haven't really heard too much of Tull, though I have of course heard their better-known numbers, and who doesn't know that legendary silhouette of that most famous piper of all, Ian Anderson? They played some of their earlier numbers, and then some of their later ones - classics like 'Too Old to Rock'n'Roll, too Young to Die' (dedicated to Mick Jagger - 'pop singers are growing younger every year, sitar players are growing younger, it just seems us rock stars who're growing older with each year!'), 'Thick as a Brick', 'Heavy Horses', 'That Sunday Feeling' - and throughout it all one had Ian Anderson prancing around impishly all over the stage, for all the world like an Irish leprechaun complete with the music; his flute entranced, his vocals had people clapping and roaring in appreciation, that dry British humour interspersing each number had us laughing - and never mind that his lines were, for the most part, so obviously scripted - and his phenomenal lead guitarist, Martin Barre's, riffs were mind-blowing, to say the least. I found it hard to sit still - couldn't understand why people unhampered by hurt toes weren't standing, or prancing around themselves. Last night was all about Ian Anderson the performer, the showman, the man who had a sizeable chunk of Calcutta eating out of his hands.

The third part of the show was the 'fusion' part, with Anoushka playing with Tull - and that was a bit of a washout. Tull's sound doesn't lend itself too readily to fusion of any sort, being largely unstructured and and the rhythm not following any linear pattern - Anderson had composed two pieces especially for the India tour, which the band and Anoushka could play together - the first, 'Tea with Anoushka', didn't, after the arenalin-pumping excitement of one hour with Tull, really take off. The second, 'Celtic Cradle' (meant to bring together the music of the East and the West), was much better, but again, the good parts were Tull's magic flute, and the guitarists' riffs. The sitar somehow did not sit very well through it all - if anything, it sounded forced, interventionist. They moved on later to the signature 'Bouree' ('a piece written quite a long time ago - about 300 years ... I think Bach would have liked what we're about to do with it') where, mercifully, the sitar was given a minimal role to play. That was to be the final piece, but predictably, the audience howled for an encore, and they returned, willingly enough, for a spectacular rendition of yet another Tull classic, 'Locomotive Breath'. Ian Anderson was at his faun-like best during this recital - he made every bit of that stage his own, and at times, it was hard to tell whether it was he playing the flute, or the flute playing him. Some of the best parts were when he jammed with Anoushka's flautist, who ably held his own alongside Anderson, and the guitar solos. The crowd suddenly seemed to wake up to the fact that the show was nearing its end and clapped, yelled, stamped, and sang along for all they were worth, much to Anderson's obvious delight. And then it was over. The lights came up, they took a final bow, Anderson ran off the stage, while his band members began packing up, and hugging the tabla player (the well-known Tanmoy Bose) and the flautist at having pulled off a very successful show.

As for us, we walked out into the chilly night in a happy daze with memories that we'll be reliving for quite some time to come. Had Ian Anderson suddenly metamorphosed into a Pied Piper of sorts - albeit a merrier and more energetic one - we'd have danced along behind him without a second's hesitation, following wherever he chose to lead.

2008-11-22T14:45:00.003Z

Delhi at the receiving end

Those Indians - especially Delhiites - infuriated at Aravind Adiga's heinous crime, that of painting a less than laudatory picture of India in general and Delhi in particular (a crime for which he has received so many threats that he has purpotedly placed himself under voluntary house arrest), should have watched the last couple of episodes of The Amazing Race, currently being aired on AXN Monday nights. Not because it would have cooled their righteous anger, but because it would inflamed them to the extent that Adiga, whose only crime as I see it is to have written an unreadable book, could have basked in the glory of the Booker prize money, even as the rest of us 'celebrated the death of the Booker', as K put it.

The Amazing Race, for people not in the know, is this very exciting programme where 10 couples (they don't have to going around or married; children and parents, friends, colleagues, etc., can all participate, as long as they're a twosome) set off for a race around the world - they fly to different countries, are given various tasks to perform, and the last team to come in every week gets eliminated. Three teams make to the finale, where the winning team receives a million dollars in prize money. This hugely successful show started an Asian franchise, The Amazing Race Asia, where participants come from Asian countries, and are on the whole far more intelligent, polite and charismatic than their American counterparts. They get only 100,000 USD, though, and they're pretty much confined to Asia and the UAE. So anyway, in the current season of The Amazing Race, six teams were asked to fly to India from Cambodia, where they had successfully completed the last leg of the race. They had to go to Delhi.

Now, the countries hosting the participants understandably look upon this opportunity as a tourism venture - the lovely parts of the city the teams are in are highlighted, so-called 'cultural' tasks set them - but not so in Delhi. The country's capital, which is a beautiful city for the most part, and boasts of historical ruins and momuments by the dozen, to say nothing of the lovely expanse of Lutyens' Delhi, unearthed the shadiest, dingiest parts of itself to send the AR teams to. And what did they do there? Paint autos the CNG green, go to the dhobi ghat and iron clothes, go to a gurudwara and give out water in dirty glasses, run through a field where people were playing mock Holi to retrieve their next clue, and in the quest get drenched in colour and mauled by grinning Kalkaji ruffians, try and spot little tags on electric lines in Nai Sarak, Daryaganj - all accompanied by random shots of monkeys, stray dogs, cows, and shanties (the last had divorcees Kelly and Christie holding their noses), and commentary that went like - 'Teams must now make their way through Delhi's crowded streets'; 'confusing roads'; 'dingy neighbourhoods', and so on. The Indian stereotype of dirt, crowds, ogling men, cows, snake charmers, poverty, beggars were held up for Western consumption, particularly for an audience that didn't have much knowledge of ... er... anything at all! For example, here's how conversations between frat boys Dan and Andy usually go - 'Where's Cambodia, man'? 'Man, India's big!'

The funny thing is, The Amazing Race Asia teams came to India too, to Cochin and Pune, where things were handled much better. They went to temples, did a rangoli, washed elephants, and went to the fishing bay in Cochin; went to Buddhist caves, the beautiful Shanivar Vada in Pune, and wandered around Pune's posh, glitzy neighbourhoods, finishing up at the pottery bazaar and crushing sugarcane to make juice that they subsequently sold. So why were the Indian crew, who were obviously part of deciding the tasks and arranging the practicalities, so singularly malicious when it came to Delhi? Clueboxes could have been set up in Janpath, or Connaught Circus, tasks devised in Hauz Khas Village, for example, but no. Don't get me wrong - I haven't suddenly discovered a love for the city after a year of being away. But I do hate that whole Indian stereotype of dirt and poverty and spirituality - and let's face it, there's far more to the country and it's people than that. So when TV programmes can get away with glorifying India's crowds and slums and poverty, why blame Aravind Adiga?

2008-08-28T07:05:00.001Z

The reunion

Like most people on this planet, I belong to the social networking site, Orkut (and Facebook, but as I find it way too complicated and yet absurdly juvenile, I tend to mostly give it a miss). I joined back in 2006, on an invitation sent me by one of my colleagues, and since then have taken part in various communities, and found ‘friends’ from all over the world. But the best part of my Orkut foray was getting back in touch with several of my school friends and classmates, people whom I hadn’t seen – and sometimes hadn’t even thought of – for over 15 years, but people who, now I find, are as inextricably part of my life and memories as anyone can hope to be.

It began with delighted messages passed back and forth among a couple of us – that number soon grew, and now there are many of my classmates and friends among my list of ‘friends’ – some I was friends with in school and subsequently lost touch with; some with whom I stayed in touch with till a few years’ back, and am now thrilled to have found again; some I don’t remember, but our shared school bond makes that fact somehow irrelevant; some girls I wasn’t friends with in school, though I remember them clearly, but now, after a space of a decade and a half, find I have a lot in common with – and we catch up, talk about what we’re up to, talk about family, work, look through photographs and exclaim over how much someone has changed and how little someone else has.

Since my return to Kolkata, there have been talk of the few of us left in our city meeting up – those abroad have promised reunions when they come down, as they invariably will, families all having been left behind – but it took one of my friends who’s now settled in the US, and who seems to have the memory of an elephant where classmates are concerned, 15 years notwithstanding, to make it happen on her recent trip. Just five of us could make it, though – but since none of us had ever thought we’d see each other again, much less spend an evening together, we weren’t complaining! We met one wet, balmy evening last week at City Centre, the friendliest and nicest mall you ever could imagine – and it truly was an evening to remember. Apart from one of them, Trisita, the one who made it all happen, I wasn’t really friends with any of the others – but that somehow did not matter in the midst of the talk, the laughter, the ribbing, the joking, and endless – mone aches (do you remembers), the bizarre details that one remembered of old classmates who now hold solemn and responsible positions; and endless memories of our beloved school. We talked of other classmates that we were, collectively and singly, in touch with – and received news, some good and some not so good, of where life had taken them. What stood out, though, was how easy and comfortable we instantly were in each other’s company – and never mind that the last time we’d met we were in school uniforms, gawky, innocent teenagers all, at a time when life stretched out before us and the choices were endless and the possibilities boundless.

Photographs of our ‘reunion’ have become huge hits on Orkut, with all our other classmates professing themselves envious of us, and longing for a similar get-together. Those settled abroad but planning to come down in the near future have promised to meet up with the few of us here in Kolkata – and the ones in Kolkata who couldn’t be a part of the meeting are now clamouring for another. While I’m not really one of those tech-savvy, living-on-the-Internet kinds, I cannot but applaud Orkut for bringing us all together – schoolmates, I have come to realise, people you grew up with, people who were part of your most embarrassing, happiest, confusing moments, are probably among the few people in world ready to accept you as you really are.

2008-07-29T15:21:00.002Z

Taki Diary II

We were woken at 5.30 AM – an unearthly hour as far as we’re usually concerned – by my mom banging on the door and yelling at us to wake up and come outside and see what a beautiful world we were in. So we did. And it was.

Early mornings in villages have a peculiarly fresh quality – it’s as if the world’s been freshly laundered. The breeze is soft, cool; people’s voices are muted, almost as if to not disturb the beauty of the dawn; the grass seems greener, the sky bluer; and that gentle, friendly river rippling and shining under the new sun made for a breathtaking sight. We stood on the balcony of my parents’ room drinking it all in – along with tiny cups of tea that materialised out of nowhere. My parents had already been out for a walk – my dad was still out, and could be seen in the distance, talking to a close friend of his who’d been out on his morning run. We decided to go for one too – I wanted to take K all over Taki before it got too hot to do any exploring.

Taki is bounded on all four sides by zamindar houses, all owned by the Roy Chowdhury family, most of which are crumbling now. Named after the four directions, they’re known as Puber bari (East House), Paschim bari (West House), Uttor bari (North House) and Dokkhhin bari (South House). Situated almost opposite our house in Taki is yet another, Ghosh bari; Puber bari has been claimed by the river; Dokkhhin bari was actually built on the embankment bordering the Ichamati. When it was built, a couple of centuries ago, the river wasn’t this close – climatic changes have led to this proximity, till the waves began lashing the great old house during high tide, and during the monsoons. Unable to withstand that onslaught, and the erosion of its foundations as the river came nearer, part of the house broke, and toppled into the river. Ten to 15 years ago the house was a dangerous, shaky affair – my eldest cousin was married into that family, and I remember visiting her once; most of what remained of the house was locked up, and they never ventured into the part that lay closest to the river. I remember peering down dungeons and being told to not even think of going down – most of the passages had caved in anyway, and there was constant danger of roof-falls. We have to pass this zamindar bari on our way into Taki, and I saw to my dismay that nothing remained any longer, except a boundary wall on the Taki side. The river had claimed most of it, and the family did not have the resources to restore or renovate the other half.

My grandfather was the village doctor. He belonged to that generation of educated Bengali intellectuals for whom participating in the nationalist movement and practising a Gandhian way of life came as naturally as breathing. I have never seen him wear anything but a cotton dhoti and kurta; he followed a rigid everyday routine and for the people of Taki and adjoining villages, he was nothing less than an incarnation of god. I remember him sitting on the verandah every single day from 9 in the morning till 1 PM, seeing one patient after another, and never charging anyone more than two rupees – most, stricken by chronic poverty, didn’t have to pay even that. They paid him in kind, though, when they could – mangoes or woodapples from their trees, fresh fish caught in their nets, a chicken. Daktarbabu was ‘bhogoban’, and daktarbabu’s family was equally loved and respected simply because we had his blood running through our veins. ‘We’re Taki’s first family,’ my mom says, laughing, and she isn’t exaggerating. Not much, anyway.

Ghosh bari was where we spent most of our time during pujo. Each zamindar bari had its own pujo, and every morning we’d wake up to the wonderful sound of the dhaak – excited, we children would run out as soon as we could, and rush into the huge dalan through the enormous studded main door that was kept open constantly during pujo. The dalan was fronted by a big, grassy lawn, one corner of which was a depression meant for the kumro boli (pumpkin sacrifice) on Nabami – it is said that a zamindar once vowed some 170 years ago to not let a single drop of innocent blood be spilled within his premises, and so the ritual of animal sacrifice came to an end, in that household at least. It was replaced by a symbolic sacrifice, with the pumpkin standing in for the sacrificial vessel. That was probably one of the reasons I loved that pujo so much – Durga pujo is not usually a time for blood sacrifices, but some of these old zamindar baris and rajbaris still go in for it – being an animal lover, I hated the thought of innocent animals being killed for no fathomable reason. The dalan, built of circular red brick was at the other end; the pujo was a magnificent affair, and the entire dalan would have been cleaned till it gleamed. We’d run around the courtyard playing, or sit in the dalan watching the arati or the women cutting mounds of fresh fruit for prasad during the day. There wasn’t much left of Ghosh bari even then – just a few rooms at the side where the surviving descendants, poor as the proverbial church mice, still lived and scratched out a meagre living. There were apparently rooms underground too, but we never did find the entrance. And trust me, we looked hard.

As K and I walked down the lane that led in front of our house to the dalan, I was telling him all of this, and much more. Just before reaching the house we met one of the Taki women, who I call pishi, who said she’d show us around. I saw to my shock that there was almost nothing left of the zamindar bari – the great door was shut, and still there, but barely; the rooms at the sides were no longer there; the boundary wall had met with a similar fate; the courtyard was all scruffy; and the dalan was dark and dank, and wore a forlorn and desolate look. It had lost its roof, and the floor was dull and dirty. Imagining the place as it used to be, I was almost in tears – a few years later there will be nothing left of the once beautiful and imposing palace. There must be countless heritage sites falling into ruin all over the country – and with every house that falls, a part of our history dies. The pujo still continues, though, and so does the kumro boli – that charred depression is still intact.

In a sombre mood, we walked down the road that swung to the left a little way ahead, and turned into a narrow lane that led to the cremation ground. The river embankment was to our left, and as kids we’d clamber up its rough sides and down the other to the shores, where we’d play or watch the fishermen ready their boats and nets for a day’s fishing. At high tide those shores became dangerous, and the boats were pulled up high to escape the enormous waves – but we knew just when the tides came in and kept out of its way. The Taki cremation ground is very old, and has an ancient banyan tree at its centre – that tree must be at least 300 years old. We gazed at it in awe, while K took several pictures. In my childhood, the shashan had a spooky feel to it – we’d saunter nonchalantly as close as we could get to the smouldering pyres – if there were any – in an attempt to prove our courage to the others. There’s a silly, modern plaque in the middle of the shashan now, which quite spoils the atmosphere – any self-respecting ghost would have retired in disgust at the sight of that eyesore. (There’s one that’s still supposed to live there, though, in the banyan tree – he’s called Kelo bhoot. If I was him, I’d take serious umbrage at that ridiculous name.)

Flanking the shashan is Didi’s house – we met one of her brothers there. The highlight of our pujo holidays was Dashami, when we’d all go out in boats for the bhashan (immersion ceremony). Didi’s father would take us out in his big boat – I still remember him standing pulling the oars at one end, while I sat between my parents, chattering away with my cousins, occasionally leaning out to trail my hand in the cool waters. When we returned home, we’d change into fresh clothes – we wore old ones for the boat ride, as the shores were often muddy – and tuck into the goodies that Amma would have got ready for us. There was this Dashami ritual that my grandparents had instituted – big bowls of fruits, sweets, and corn sweetened with jaggery would be prepared by my mother, aunts and Amma, and soon after sunset, scores of the poverty-stricken people from Taki and beyond would start making their way into the house for their share of the food. And it was our responsibility to make sure they got enough food. We enjoyed that – at least I know I did – and we’d seat ourselves importantly on the wooden benches in the verandah, waiting impatiently for the first people to walk in. My grandparents wanted the children to do this because it would teach us the importance of giving, my mom told me. And to teach us how lucky we were to have a home and regular meals, and to always try and do our bit for those not as privileged as us.

K and I climbed on to the embankment – there’s a narrow path along the top and earlier, you could make your way down it from the shashan all the way to the guest house, beyond the Puber bari. But since most of that house fell down the sides and into the river, that way has become impassable – you can only walk into Taki along that road now. Steps have been cut on the sides, and little shaded enclosures built for the convenience of trippers – Taki is a favourite picnic spot, and the scenic river has made it the preferred haunt of various commercial film-makers. We walked along the path in single file – there was a scary bit where the path became crumbly and narrow, and the tiled roof of a mud hut built into the embankment took over most of the space; holding on to the bamboo beams of the roof, we gingerly edged past, hardly daring to breathe lest we topple down the other side. We clambered down at a point where the embankment led into a lane that opened out just in front of our house – it’s a pretty lane, lined with trees on both sides, and houses behind them; there was the ubiquitous pukur (lake), where we saw an elderly man and a women standing in waist-deep water, scooping something up in nets from the bed of the lake. K asked me what they were doing and I told him they were digging up snails – the poor people in the neighbourhood often dig up snails and molluscs to eat – they’re free, and plentiful. Isn’t it ironic, K said, that snails should be a delicacy abroad and cost the earth, while it’s the only food that doesn’t cost these people anything here? A little further down we heard someone calling out to us – to our left, I saw a man and a woman standing by a tubewell outside a house – I didn’t recognise them, but their voices were familiar, and a childish memory of being carried around in someone’s arms rose to the surface. These were clearly more people who’d seen me grow up – addressing me in the familiar ‘tui’ form, they demanded to know why we weren’t staying longer. Unconditional affection such as theirs still makes me marvel – they might be ordinary, unremarkable village people, but I’m glad I know them, and am part of their lives.

My parents were at the house with Chotoma when we arrived, talking to various people who’d gathered around. K took the opportunity to see all around the place – the back yard with it’s huge tree where a brahmadotti (some sort of nasty tree goblin with big feet) was said to live, according to Gita pishi, who used to cook for us when we were children – an attempt at climbing the tree to see if he really lived there got two of my cousins and me roundly scolded – and the front garden, all dilapidated now, but which once used to be my Dadu’s pride and joy, where the cousin nearest my age, and the one I was closest to, and I had once found a baby frog that we decided to adopt. (That frog grew into an enormous creature and was quite happy in its enclosure.)

We left for Sodepur soon after, and departed for Kolkata later that evening. We promised to be back soon, a promise we intend to keep at the earliest.

2008-07-08T08:13:00.003Z

Taki Diary – I

My father hails from a picturesque little village bang on the Bangladesh border on the banks of the beautiful river Ichamati in the South 24 Parganas region of West Bengal, named Taki. For the first 16 years of my life, Taki, for my cousins and I, remained the symbol of happiness – the spot where the entire extended family would congregate to celebrate that most special festival for Bengalis the world over, Durga Pujo. My grandparents’ big rambling house became the backdrop of our various adventures and misadventures; and the gardens and roads that we’d run wild on during the daytime would become dark, creepy (there were no streetlights) and forbidding come evening, and the only sounds to be heard were the fireflies buzzing, the crickets chirping, and my grandmother’s gentle voice telling us ghost stories while we snuggled as close as we could get to her and listened wide-eyed.

My grandparents died within three months of each other when I was 16, and those happy, carefree holidays came to an end. I, too, was going through the typical self-centred, adolescent phase, and apart from the sadness at my grandparents’ deaths, I don’t think I missed the childhood I’d left behind in Taki very much. A couple of months ago, after exactly 16 years, I returned to Taki, along with my parents, my aunt, and a very excited K, to meet a cousin of mine (my dad’s eldest brother’s son), who’d built himself a house in Sodepur, a hamlet situated about 10 minutes from Taki, and was now about to open up a small shib mandir (temple dedicated to the worship of Shiva) within the compound. We were to stay at my cousin’s place for a couple of days. On the day of our departure, after kissing the cats and Didi (who’s been with our family forever, and pretty much brought me up – she’s from Taki too, and told me to show K their house) goodbye, we piled into a rattling old Tata Sumo driven by a skinny, friendly young man with a singularly dreadful mullet (seriously, what is it with Bongs and mullets? Clearly Mithunda still reigns supreme) – my dad glowing with happiness at the prospect of going back home, my aunt (who’s usually great fun to travel with, as she can leave you in splits of laughter with her crazy sense of humour) and mom chattering and laughing like magpies and talking about the last time they’d been there, the various people they’d met, who they were likely to meet this time, etc., K., crouched uncomfortably at the back with the luggage, but still very excited at finally going to a place he’d heard so much of, and I, happy, yet somewhat nervous – things would have changed, and one never does like one’s sacred childhood memories desecrated.

The drive there took about a couple of hours and was, for the most part, beautiful – along a new road built off the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, which led through little rural hamlets and the bustling marketplaces of various suburban small towns. We passed through fields of that wonderful verdant green that you only see in Bengal, sparkling lakes given over to fish farming; and best of all were the glimpses we caught of houses and everyday life through the hanging fronds of trees that lined both sides of the roads. Every now and then the trees would thin out and we would be given a view of a tiny hamlet – small part brick, part mud houses clustered together, little children running around, playing, women washing clothes or dishes in the ubiquitous ponds – the men were presumably at work at one or the other of the various brick kilns that we could see in the distance – tall structures emitting smoke that hung forbiddingly over the sky, they were quite an eyesore, and reminded me for some disturbingly unfathomable reason of the chimney stacks at Auschwitz. I caught myself thinking, not for the first time, what the lives of these people – part of India’s teeming multitudes yet, for the most part, invisible, uncared for - must be like. This thought was to recur forcefully during my stay at Taki/Sodepur.

As we neared Taki I discovered, to my delight, familiar landmarks that were still around – my dad pointed them out to K, along with little histories of each old building we passed. And then we were there, except, instead of turning right into the lane that led to our house, we turned left, on the road to Sodepur. Our driver (incidentally, he, too, was called Mithun!) was asked to drive along the narrow path that curved dangerously beside the Ichamati river so that K could catch his first glimpse of it – and it was a sight to behold, really, that broad expanse of sparkling silver river, glittering in the sunshine, looking deceptively gentle. My cousin’s place was built along traditional lines – it was long, low, open on all sides, surrounded by land enclosed by a low wall, and, best of all, had a huge pond with stone benches beside it to the right. K and I, delighted at the sight of it, sat ourselves down on the benches for a while – despite being a hot day, a cool breeze blowing towards us meant we were eminently comfortable even out in the open. The day was spent mostly eating – the traditional Bengali breakfast of luchi-tarkari followed by a lunch for which all of Taki and Sodepur had been invited; meeting people – my dad, surrounded by people from his childhood days, had disappeared in the throng, and my mom and aunt, having launched themselves with shrieks of delight at various people (all of whom, incidentally, had known me since I was a baby, and continued to treat me as such; K, as jamai, was given more respect), were now talking nineteen to the dozen; and the puja happened at some point too, but we weren’t a part of that.

Come evening, and K and I decided to go over to Taki, to spend a couple of hours at home. My uncle lives there now, dad’s youngest brother, and his wife, who I call Chotoma – so along with her and several other Taki women, we clambered on to the primary form of transport – the van, which is nothing more than those cycles with wooden carts on wheels attached behind them that you use to transport goods in cities. I enjoyed my first van ride immensely, though I did find myself clutching the sides nervously now and then – and it was so beautiful, that quiet, balmy evening, trundling down a narrow, winding track with the river flowing softly beside us, the breeze wafting off it cooling the temperature, catching a sight of houses – mostly mud, or wattle and daub; Sodepur is a decidedly poor hamlet – people on the roads calling out to those on the vans (Kothai giyechile? Tomader gache aam hoyeche ebaar?) – and I felt all the tension, the stress that’s so much a part of our everyday lives, so much so that we aren’t even aware of it anymore, draining away, leaving me lighter, calmer, and happy, being here with people who were simpler, unencumbered with the stifling social expectations and etiquette that plague us every step of the way, people who were happy to see me simply because I was me.

After a couple of hours spent at home, where I rushed around nostalgically though K could see very little, there being a power cut, one of the major problems affecting Taki and adjoining areas, we returned on yet another van, this time in the pitch darkness so peculiar to villages – Ichamati gleaming silver on our left while lanterns glimmering through trees in the houses to our right and the occasional voice carried on the breeze provided the only signs of human habitation. Now and then we’d pass a surly BSF guy – because Taki is bang on the Bangladesh border, there’s a sizeable Border Security Force camp there, and sullen guys in the uniforms and high boots, with their rifles slung menacingly across their shoulders is a common sight. ‘They harass the local people a lot,’ my youngest cousin’s wife, herself from Sodepur, had told us. ‘We can’t be out on the road after 8.30 pm.’ Later, we were driven to the Taki guest house, where we were to spend the night, and I promised K that the first thing we’d do in the morning was walk across to Taki, and explore every inch of it.

2008-05-12T07:13:00.000Z

Size zero and all that jazz

Am I the only one deeply uncomfortable with the current glorification of Kareena Kapoor’s starving body? Not a day goes by without our being confronted with yet another picture of Kareena in itsy-bitsy shorts and skimpy top or a swimsuit, ribs protruding on her painfully thin body, her skinny legs jutting out at decidedly odd angles, lips puckered in what is clearly meant to be a sexy pout. It is ironic that at a time when the international look is veering away from the skinny, unreal, androgynous female figure towards real women, India should have embraced the waif-thin look. But then, that’s hardly surprising – its aspirations to the status of world leader notwithstanding, India has always lagged at least a decade behind the West, particularly in matters relating to culture and fashion.

Kareena has supposedly looked to the likes of Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss for her ‘look’ in Tashan. Again, ironic, considering that Kate Moss has left her waif-thin days behind, and Victoria Beckham was recently in the news, protesting that it was her natural body structure, and not anorexia, that kept her thin, after she was accused of being a bad role model for young girls. It’s another matter that Kareena Kapoor, a strapping Punjabi girl, lacks the delicate frame and petite structure of either a Kate Moss or a Victoria Beckham to pull off the waif look – what is more distressing is that her attempts at coming down to a size zero are being lauded and held up as the greatest achievement ever. Kareena supposedly combined a yoga regimen with a special diet to bring her weight down from 60 to 49 kilos – which basically means that at this moment, her BMI (body mass index) is way lower than is supposed to be for someone of her height, and that clinically, she would be termed underweight. In a country – in a world, rather – where girls and young women are being constantly bombarded with messages from every possible medium telling them they are overweight and ugly, that dissatisfaction with their bodies and aspirations towards an unreal, socially constructed, deeply sexist body form is desirable, do we need our already flawed self-images reinforced by gushing reports of how good Kareena looks now that her clavicles and rib cage stick out a mile? For most women who do not have access to fancy diets or expensive yoga trainers, what choice do they have except starve themselves or join gyms, where they exercise till they drop and then starve themselves in between workouts so they, too, can get boyfriends who will tell them they ‘have never looked so good’?

We live in a rather peculiar country, I think. We have no dearth of teachers, academics, social workers, intellectuals, musicians, writers – and yet, when we look for role models, we invariably end up choosing people from either of two categories – cricketers, or people from the glamour industry, most notably film stars. The latter, inhabitants of Bollywood, the Hindi film fraternity, are made up almost exclusively of ex-beauty queens who don’t quite know what to do with themselves, or sons and daughters of former stars, for none of whom an actual ability to act appears to be a criterion to qualify as an actor/actress. It’s sad, then, that these people, while lapping up the adulation, should have absolutely no social responsibility, no awareness that their every action is being followed and emulated by impressionable young Indians. And what of the media? We get to read plenty of articles about eating disorders in all our leading dailies, so why is it that no one has seen fit to point out that Kareena’s actions, far from being laudable, are highly irresponsible, and detrimental not just to her health and well-being, but to countless others who will now look upon her as their ideal? Come to think of it, what of those poor young men who are, even as I type, killing themselves in gyms trying to get the washboard abs that Shah Rukh Khan immortalised in Om Shanti Om? K, himself health conscious and a regular gym goer, tells me that he and his gym buddies are rather bemused at this current craze for a six-pack – you can get them in three months, yes, but short of killing yourself with regular doses of fat-burners and steroids, it’s virtually impossible to sustain it. Tell that to the media, which is hailing Shah Rukh as the new Adonis, or the men who think getting a six-pack is probably more important than a college degree.

Having been through the fat, insecure teenage phase myself, the after-effects of which continue to haunt me, my heart goes out to all the girls – and boys – who are probably staring at themselves unhappily in the mirror, hating the way they look and, by extension, everything about themselves. Meanwhile, Kareena Kapoor continues to preen and pout from every newspaper and magazine cover – Tashan's dismal failure at the box office notwithstanding.

PS – And just a couple of weeks ago I read a report in the newspapers that said that the French government is all set to put a law in place that will make pushing anorexia, size zero, etc., as a lifestyle choice a criminal offence. This law will be primarily geared towards the fashion and glamour industry, which is seriously jeopardising the health of countless young French girls with its emphasis on being – and staying - thin. Go figure.

2008-02-13T11:50:00.002Z

When the lights go out

Kolkata has recently been hit by a spate of power cuts, some of them pretty massive. The papers are busy reporting on shortfalls and how many hours a day we can expect to be without electricity; the West Bengal Power Department even issued a huge notice in one of the leading dailies about the unfortunate power cuts, and how the inconvenience is deeply regretted – and what they are doing (or not) to rectify the situation. It’s true the these power cuts are annoying, to say the least – our increasing dependence on electricity means that even five minutes without power can throw our entire schedule out of gear. This is more so for families without an inverter, like mine. But here’s the weird thing – despite all this, I don’t mind the power cuts. In fact, in the evenings, I rather enjoy them.

K and I returned to Kolkata for keeps late last year. This is the first time he’s been here to stay on a long-term basis, and as for me, I’ve come home after 10 years. We’ve been at out parents’ place while we look for one of our own – and the crazy experiences we’ve had house-hunting in north Kolkata will form the subject of a later blog – and I must say it’s been rather nice being home again after so long, back with, as Gerald Durrell would say, ‘my family and other animals’. So what do power cuts have to do with it? Simply this – in the evenings, when there’s no electricity, and therefore no way for our laptops to function or the television switched on or any reading to be done, we all perforce get together in one room lit by a flickering candle, and talk.

We do talk a lot with each other in my family, share everyday events, jokes, problems – but it’s mostly in a scattered fashion. In the normal course of things the days are taken up by work, looking after all the various dogs and cats, watching TV – but when you cannot do any of that because the lights are out, you have no choice but to sit around talking to each other – and that’s the part I enjoy most about the enforced inactivity that these power cuts have been putting us through. There’s something cosy about it too, sitting grouped on one bed, the candle flame dancing eerily in the background, the cats all cuddled up on the bed, too, filling the room with the sound of their companionable purring – and talking, laughing, discussing issues, problems, work. Sometimes we can prevail upon my dad to tell us a few ghost stories from his endless repertoire, stories he always claims are real and experienced personally either by him, or someone he knows, with my mom’s disbelieving cackles of laughter puncturing what were to be the creepiest moments. Holiday plans have been made, health issues discussed, jokes exchanged, the greater family talked about endlessly, work stories swapped, kittens played with, legs pulled – all till the lights come back on. Then everyone disappears to do their own thing, the television is switched back on – and I for one feel a little disappointed. I know things won’t be quite so comfortable during power cuts in summer, but for now, I’m not complaining about the power department. It’s providing the family with a good opportunity to come together and enjoy being together every now and then.

2008-02-13T11:35:00.002Z

Two Obits

Are there really such things as omens, disturbing signs that all is not quite right with the world at large? Not that, in this day and age, in the midst of political and social upheaval the world over, we need the presence of a few extra signs to warn us of bad times to come; however, I have, since end-2004, had a somewhat fanciful feeling that there’s been a dark cloud of sorts hanging over the world at large, and over a lot of people I know since the new millennium began. On a global scale, it started with the events of September 11, the results of which have been nothing short of catastrophic, continued with the tsunami, and the end of 2007 saw Benazir Bhutto being assassinated. My sentiments with regard to the hype surrounding the beginning of each new year have already been documented in an earlier blog – but that’s not what I wanted to rehash here. I want this blog to be about two people who never did get to usher in yet another year – two people with whom I’ve had a fairly long association, and whose untimely deaths added considerably to my pall of gloom.

In November 2007, I received the news that Dr Jayoti Gupta, sociologist and on the faculty of the Delhi School of Economics, Department of Sociology, had passed away. She had contracted a rare blood infection that is more common in European countries and, while curable, went undiagnosed here. She had been in and out of hospitals for three months, had even had a surgery – but it wasn’t until it was too late that the real problem was diagnosed. I had known Jayoti for the last 10 years – she had been a very close friend of one of my aunt’s as well as living right next door to my grandmother and aunts’ place, where I lived once I moved to Delhi after my graduation. Everything about her spelt vitality, and the joy of living – she was big, tall and plump, with a shock of frizzy hair, a booming voice and throaty chuckle, and perpetually twinkling eyes. As K said, the one word that could describe her perfectly would be ‘jolly’. I cannot bring her to mind without recalling her smile, and her gusts of laughter – it’s hard to believe someone so full of life is suddenly no longer around.

I cannot call myself a friend – having met me when I was barely out of college, I guess Jayoti tended to look upon me as something akin to a niece. But with my aunts, I got to spend a lot of time with her – at her cosy little barsati that she’d livened up with plenty of the potted plants and herbs that she obviously adored, at our place where she’d drop in every now and then, at D’School, and at various seminars. I soon grew very fond of her – it was difficult not to – and I look upon the little dinners she’d call us to (she was a fantastic cook – I don’t know anyone who can whip up such brilliant Thai curries so effortlessly), where she’d generously share her cigarettes with me after trying – and failing – to deliver a stern admonishment, as being among the truly happy times I spent in Delhi. The last time I met Jayoti was a good two years ago, at my wedding – there’s a picture of her with Tripti, her close friend and companion, and I, all of us smiling happily for the camera, with absolutely no idea of what the future held. No, she wasn’t a friend, or someone I kept regularly in touch with, but for all that, I miss her. It’s unbelievable, and painful, to think that I won’t see her any more, that Jayoti’s friendliness, her intelligence, warmth and laughter, are just not there any more. One doesn’t know what happens after death, if there is a ‘better place’ that she’s gone to – what I do know is that the world is a tad colder because she’s no longer in it. It is said, though, that we are never truly gone as long as there are people to remember us – so going by the number of people who mourned Jayoti, I’d say she’s going to be around for a pretty long time.

Publishing legend Tejeshwar Singh passed away in December 2007. I had known him since 2001, which was when I joined Sage Publications as Editor. Again, it was sudden, a massive heart attack that took him away one night in Mussoorie. I remember debating the wisdom of his chain smoking and drinking endless cups of black coffee, not to mention his workaholism, when he already had a heart condition with my colleagues at Sage – but nobody expected his death, not this soon, certainly not this suddenly. As I said to a couple of ex-colleagues, it’s hard to think of someone as large (pun not intended) as life as TS (as he was known at Sage) not being around any more. Most people remember him from his Doordarshan days – strangely enough, I seem to have missed all the bulletins he read, so for me, he will always remain inextricably tied to the memories of my days at Sage.

I doubt even the most loyal employee at Sage could have called him a good boss. Alternating between demanding, infuriating, unreasonable, high-handed and bad-tempered, TS nonetheless managed to bring out the best that was in us, and instilled in us a quest for perfection and a regard for quality in whatever we did that I am sure will stay with us for the rest of our lives. He could be singularly charming when he wanted, and much as I hate to admit it, I have to say that for most of us, myself included, there was very little that was more gratifying than appreciation, or a simple word of praise from him. The story of how Sarah and George McCune picked him out of countless others to begin the South Asia division of Sage became the stuff of legend. ‘I started Sage from my own house in Defence Colony,’ TS loved to tell us, ‘there were just the two of us then; and now we grown to the extent that Sage Publications supports 107 [give or take a few] families.’ He was proud of his empire, of the ‘Sage family’, as well he ought, having built it up from scratch with a devotion that was inspiring, to say the least. Not for him the easy route of handing the day-to-day functioning of Sage to any of his all-too-willing subordinates – TS probably worked harder than any of us; he knew, at any given point in time, exactly how many books were in production and the details for each; and he knew just what was going on in every department of the organisation. His knowledge was phenomenal – learning from him was one of the greatest pleasures of being at Sage.

My parting with Sage, and with TS, was unfortunately rather bitter. I did meet him once after my departure, several months later, and thankfully that last memory is of a convivial nature. Despite my anger and bitterness at events preceding my resignation, I could not but feel sad at the news of his having to relinquish his command, and the changes, not all for the better, that inevitably followed. And now looking back, all I can think of are the good times, the way TS would laugh when something amused him; his patience and encouragement when he discerned genuine interest in us; the respect he managed to inspire in all of us regardless of his various frailties; the deep affection with which his daughters always spoke of him; of the way he managed to run his business ethically at a time when publishers all around were busy selling out; of the democratic way in which he always ran the organisation; of his various ‘pds’ – the ominous ‘please discuss’ notes that he would mark for one or the other of us, notes that always got our knees trembling; the memories, good, bad, funny, are endless. A publishing era has ended with TS, and he will undoubtedly be missed by everyone who ever came in contact with him.

2007-09-21T04:30:00.000Z

The little ones – III

Moody’s eldest baby, a grey and white male, is also the biggest of the lot – and that was probably why she rather neglected him as a baby, focusing most of her attention on her weaker children. At three weeks, while gazing at me with steady blue eyes (which were soon to turn greenish, and then a tawny yellow), he looked so like a tiny lion cub that I, fresh from my reading of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, had no doubt what his name had to be – Aslan.

Baby Aslan was the loveliest kitten you ever did see – exactly like one of those adorable little guys who adorn picture postcards. He was also the most sickly – a rather bad chest infection when he was barely two months old permanently damaged his vocal cords, because of which his maiows are still rather cracked. Not that that mattered much to our lion king – baby Aslan grew into a gorgeous tomcat, fiercely protective of his little brother and sister, headstrong, fearless yet trusting, and very, very affectionate. He would run to his mother, lick her lovingly, and then have a mad game of roll-me-over with her – and later, he would jump on our laps, butt his head against our faces, and contentedly go off to sleep in our arms. Aslan was always the most patient of the three, and the most accepting. He would wait patiently for his turn to eat (we soon stopped feeding them together when we realised that murder and mayhem would ensue if three mad little kittens were let loose together on a bowl of fish or milk), and would then eat neatly, slowly, and with a gravity that accompanied all his actions.

For all his leonine majesty, though, baby Aslan is the most homebound of the lot. For him, home is where his heart is – he hated the outdoors, and always refused to accompany his siblings on their adventures, preferring to stay in with us instead. He’s also extremely naïve and innocent, with a firm belief in the goodness of all living beings – quite like his namesake, the lion king of Narnia. Aslan’s mortal enemies were towels, socks, and trousers – his strong little teeth would soon rip anything flapping in an unseemly manner, or anything furry that didn’t have a tail. Once he realised that we were less than pleased at this systematic destruction of our towels and clothes, he began dragging his prey off under the bed, when he would gnaw peacefully for hours until, much to his annoyance, we would decide to play spoilsport and drag him and whatever remained of our towel out.

Tawny-eyed Aslan is also incredibly possessive and jealous – especially of K. He didn’t mind me petting his little sister, whom he adores, but would always leap into my arms whenever he saw Ariel being cuddled – whereupon Ariel would then be unceremoniously smacked out of the way, and I would feel a reproachful yellow glare on me. But K – he couldn’t even give me a hug without Aslan knocking him over, jumping into his arms, and staying put, growling if anyone dared come close. He periodically gets into these mad fits when he rips up newspapers, and plays like – well, like a mad kitten – joined by his siblings, whose wild, crazy games would send us alternately into fits of laughter, and screeches of horror when they landed too close to something breakable.

Aslan hated the journey to Kolkata, and being the fearless warrior that he is, he let everyone in the airport know just how displeased he was. He has now attached himself to my father, and having discovered the joys of an open kitchen after the strict dietary discipline that he had been under while they were with us, he soon set to figuring out how to open the larder door using his teeth and all four paws – and once that was done, Aslan would get the food out (not steal it – my little ones have no clue what ‘stealing’ is – as far as they’re concerned, food that they see before them is meant for them), and then, like a feline Robin Hood, gather all the other cats around, and proceed to feed himself and his merry men (and women). My parents actually had to get a stout padlock for the larder, much to Aslan’s anger!

Unfortunately, baby Aslan still remains the weakest of the lot – he has fallen ill about thrice already, twice rather seriously – and we spent plenty of anxious, sleepless nights here in Delhi, calling my parents twice every day, asking for daily reports. While he is a big tomcat, he doesn’t see the point in all the male posturing, preferring to eat, sleep, play, and have his head and shoulders stroked instead (did I mention Aslan loves being scratched? K was the only one who could do it well, and Aslan lying with closed eyes, purring away, the picture of happiness, while K scratched his furry head and back was such an adorable sight!). He’s quite the favourite grandchild of my parents’ – but who can resist those grave golden eyes, that silky fur, and that gorgeous face?

2007-09-12T04:30:00.000Z

The little ones – II

Moody’s only daughter is beautiful, her coat a rich orange, black and white. Unlike her gentle and steadier brothers, this little one, ever since she was a tiny little thing, barely able to toddle on four paws, has been hyper, loud, demanding, and imperious. Had she been a human child, we would definitely have had to take her for counselling sessions for her hyperactivity. She was the last of them to be named, all because we just could not come up with a name that suited her, that somehow was her, till, suddenly, while playing with them, we came across an absurd name, but one that was her – Piglet, Piggy for short.

Babysitting Piggy was a bit like Calvin’s mom trying to tire him out before bedtime – we were exhausted long little Piggy was even remotely sleepy. She was a tiny bundle of limitless energy as a kitten, jumping around everywhere, clambering on our shoulders, running around playing, all the while yelling at the top of her lungs. She had a rather unfortunate penchant for biting people’s toes and fingers – as a friend of ours discovered one night when Piggy, annoyed at his sleeping on what she considered her and her brothers’ bed, decided to get him out by nipping sharply at his toes and his fingers all night. Mealtimes were the most exciting part of the day for our little princess – she would sometimes caper around so madly that she wouldn’t even notice her bowl till she – quite literally – fell into it.

Piggy’s relationship with K is delightful – she is, to put it simply, his daughter. He adores her, spoils her rotten, lets her get away with pretty much everything – and she knows it. The love is reciprocated in full measure, of course – little Piggy would only sleep once K had picked her up, and she was nestled comfortably in his arms, purring loud enough to wake the neighbours. We knew our little princess was sleepy when we saw her come running to K, calling loudly to him – and within five minutes of his picking her up, she would be fast asleep. She’s just as trusting as Aslan is, rushing up to play with whichever human comes before her – she even won my grandmother, who isn’t all that fond of cats over when she rolled on her back, grabbed my granny’s saree hem and began playing with it, all the while watching her with her enormous, liquid green eyes that can melt even the most hardened hearts.

Piggy is the darling of the family – her brothers let her get away with pretty much everything, too, especially Ariel, who even lets her eat his share of the food once she’s speedily demolished hers. It was wonderful watching how Ariel and Aslan always took care to not throw her down too hard, or roll her over gently during their mad games – the ‘rough’ stuff they kept for themselves. Despite her hyperactivity, Piggy is quite the lady – she doesn’t go in for tearing or destroying things around, like Aslan, or eating everything in sight, like Ariel. As she grew older, she would take frequent breaks during their games, when she would climb on to my lap, sit in a proper fashion and groom herself – till her kitten instincts took over and she bounded into the fray once more.

K, always the protective father, lay down eight rules of dating for Piggy when we left Kolkata – no dating, no dating, no dating, no dating, no dating, no dating, no dating, no dating, till the cat age of 45. He threw a fit when my mom told him she was seeing a rather gorgeous black tom called Hyper – but Piggy, good girl that she is, soon broke it off. Now that she’s an adult, a rather unexpected side to her has surfaced, one that we had never anticipated – our Princess Piglet has a very strong maternal streak to her. The once spoiled baby is now adopting all the little stray kittens that my mom regularly rescues from the streets – she’s grooming them, looking after them, even hunting mice and birds for them (and, when she gets lucky, she manages to snag a packet of hilsa fish, or some freshly fried luchis [Bengali puris]). She and Aslan are still the best of friends, and she helps him in all his Robin Hood-like activities. We will be seeing them all soon, and something tells me that regardless of the fact that we haven’t met them in months, Piggy will soon be nestled in K’s arms, purring away, Ariel will come running to me, wanting to be held, and Aslan will be trying to knock them both away so he can have us all to himself.

2007-09-11T23:09:00.000Z

The little ones – I

This is another of those long-overdue blogs – for all those who have been waiting for me to write a post on my cats, here it is, finally.

Moody gave birth to three lovely kittens on 15 April 2006 – not at home, though, much to our worry. She came home for her meals, spent some time with us everyday, and then would run off to where her babies were – till a week later, when, hearing the familiar thump that was Moody jumping in through a window that was always kept open for her, we turned to see her with what looked like a tiny furball in her mouth. She had finally brought the babies home.

We had a huge cardboard box lined with newspapers and an old T-shirt of mine ready, and Moody settled into her new home within a home contentedly with the little ones, who we loved immediately. One looked exactly like her, one was grey and white, and the other, multicoloured (and therefore obviously female). They were smaller than the palm of my hand, and their eyes were still shut tight. As that was 23 April, Shakespeare’s birthday, we decided to call one of them, the littlest one, the black and white baby, Ariel.

Ariel, the spitting image of his mother, is a bundle of contradictions – at once gentle and stubborn; the sweetest-natured and the most timid, yet the most intrepid; the most cautious yet the most curious, a born explorer; the most intelligent of the three, yet the most impetuous. At the age of one month, Ariel was the first to learn how to climb out of his cardboard box into the big wide world outside – there was nothing so high that Ariel couldn’t climb it, no place so hidden that he couldn’t find on one of his adventuring forays. K always said he had some mountain goat blood on him – a feeling that was reinforced after he ate our money plant. From the time that Ariel was two months old, he could often be seen at the top of our ceiling high curtains, slowly making his way around the length of the room, while his siblings watched him admiringly from below.

As a little baby, Ariel was the weakest and smallest of the lot, which is probably why Moody loved him the most. He was the one she would nuzzle first, and she’d make sure he always lay closest to her so she could give him the first lick, and sleep with her arm around him. He hardly ever mewed, and was content to cuddle up at my back on the occasions that we took them out of their box and let them play on the bed. A month or so later, though, and all had changed – he became a bright, inquisitive, little thing, whiskers quivering with excitement and eyes bright with delight at the prospect of getting into some more mischief. He never did learn to not repeat the same mistakes ten times – and each time would look so heartbroken and terrified while being scolded that I didn’t have the heart to do so. And he was just as fussy about food as his mother – he was the first to tire of his Lactogen (which was their regular diet once Moody began weaning them till they were around three and a half months old); and he was the first to refuse Mother Diary milk, preferring, like his mother, DMS milk instead. And once they began going outside, we realised that little Ariel was quite the lone ranger at heart – he slowly began exploring the world outside, preferring to stay out by himself for long hours at a time, returning home every now and then with scratches on his nose, or eye infections that we tended to.

Though he is fiercely independent, he loves being cuddled – of the three, he’s the only one who would come running up, and hold out his arms, asking to be picked up. Quiet and thoughtful, he’s also the most sensitive, quick to pick up on moods and emotions. My little prince, as I call him, is also extremely fastidious – he hates getting his spotless fur dirty, or being in messy surroundings. That fastidiousness doesn’t hold when it comes to food, though – Ariel still eats everything around him, including bean bag balls (once he and his big brother had made a sizeable hole in one of our bean bags that never could be sat on again afterwards) and cotton wool. Like a little boy, he often threw tantrums, doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to, all the while keeping an eye on me to see if I was watching, and playing with a stuffed ladybird that was his special toy. While he loved K just as much, he was also scared of him, and was nothing but beautifully behaved when he was around – and very delighted on the occasions that K picked him up for a cuddle.

Ariel’s in Kolkata now, along with his siblings (and the story of how we all got there will form the subject matter of another blog), and my mom tells me he’s still quite the adventurer, staying out by himself most of the day, coming in only for his meals and to sleep. He was the first to get friendly with the other cats, and the first to accustom himself to his new surroundings. While his nature is as sweet and gentle as ever, my mom says he’s not all that demonstrative of his affection, something that secretly rather pleased me – that means his displays of love were for me only, that he still loves me the most.

2007-08-27T22:42:00.000Z

Addendum to Deathly Hallows

I know it's possibly bad form to return to a review that's already been written, but in this instance, there are far too many questions and issues that have come up at a later stage for them to not be discussed. While I don't want to change any of what I said in my previous review, the lot more thinking that I've done on Deathly Hallows, the discussions I've had with friends and on various forums, and, most importantly, my second reading of DH - which allowed to me to notice sundry details and mull over missing links and gnash my teeth over irritating parts way more satisfactorily than the first, frenzied reading had - have all left me feeling very disappointed, frustrated, and badly in need of answers. So this post will not be anywhere near as positive as my first review was.

What was most inexplicable and disappointing was the treatment meted out to Voldemort. In previous books, the Dark Lord had been an ominous, menacing, chilling figure - powerful, evil, completely devoid of a conscience or any human frailty - apart from megalomania, I suppose. He was evil, but also supremely intelligent, 'terrible, but great', as Ollivander had once remarked. Despite not having any choice but to dislike him, one couldn't help admitting that the man - wizard, rather - had style. Not any more, though. In DH, he was little more than a pompous, screeching, petulant tyrant, constantly missing his target, constantly goofing up, content to leave everything in the hands of his bumbling followers while he chased fairly tales that he had not even taken the trouble to get to know well. Tyrants seldom trust, or have confidants, and Voldemort was no exception - so why was he content to leave the matter of hunting Harry down in the hands of his Death Eaters? Voldemort was privy to the darkest magical secrets, and was in the habit of planning ahead - so why, then, did he allow the connection between his mind and Harry's to open up all over again, when he knew full well that doing so would allow Harry to glimpse his every move? He had been practising Occlumency all this while, so why would the greatest Occlumens of all times grow careless at this, the most dangerous period? Voldemort never left anything to chance, so it seems a bit absurd that he would actually believe that no one but he knew the secret of the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts. The very fact that that particular room in question was crammed full of things that desperate students over the years had hidden and then forgotten should have told him that he was not the first to use it - and that he wouldn't be the last, either.

I believe Rowling resorted to the cheap trick of reducing Voldemort to little more than a 'glorified snake charmer', as one of my friends put it eloquently, to highlight the contrast between the stoic, fairy-tale hero, Harry, and the ignorant, pitiful, bullying big bad, Voldemort. Which is why Voldemort was constantly depicted as screaming in rage, in frustration, while Harry, even in moments of intense grief and tension, kept his head, and his gravity. By juxtaposing Voldemort's high screams with Harry's very masculine silences, and his desire for physical labour to work out his anger and grief, Rowling seems to be almost emasculating Voldemort while elevating Harry to the level of the fierce warriors of yore. But by doing so, she took away from a lot of the series' mystique, and appeared to be catering to popular tastes, especially those of pre-pubertal children. It is quite incomprehensible how the greatest dark wizard of all times could be thwarted at every step by three teenagers - it took a wizard like Dumbledore to defeat Grindelwald, but the wizard far darker than even Grindelwald was ultimately felled by - wait for it - 'Expelliarmus!' And correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Death Eaters supposed to be powerful dark wizards themselves? Not all of them were bloodthirsty savages like Fenrir Greyback or McNair, or moronic bullies like Crabbe and Goyle Seniors. Lucius Malfoy had been a Prefect at Hogwarts, and we all know just how skillful a witch Bellatrix was. So the idea that in a battle, they would all go down under a barrage of body-bind and stupefying spells (which is all that Dumbledore's Army seemed to have learnt under Harry's tutelage) when they had dark arts at their disposal seems patently absurd. One would have expected more displays like Crabbe Jr's Fiendfyre, but unfortunately the Death Eaters were reduced to a group as pathetic as the 'Chief Death Eater' himself.

About as infuriating is Rowling's blatant sexism, and the way she sidelined the only strong female character in the books, Hermione. Hermione, the most intelligent, perspicacious and talented of the trio, continued to think and plan ahead, and save Harry and Ron's hides the way she had since 'Philosopher's Stone'. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that without her Harry would have been a sitting duck from the very moment the MOM fell, right after Bill and Fleur's wedding, it is Ron who continues to be the 'best friend', Ron whose transgressions Harry forgives far more easily than he forgives Hermione for accidentally breaking his wand. Quick to criticise Hermione's words of caution as yet evidence of her narrow, closed-in, unimaginative mind, Harry seems to almost welcome Ron's self-centred, moronic suggestions during every discussion. Hermione's steadfast loyalty and unwavering courage is taken for granted, while much is made of Ron's decision to return after having deserted his friends when the going got tough - 'He saved my life, Hermione,' Harry tells her reproachfully when confronted by her anger at Ron's betrayal, quite forgetting that that was exactly what she had been doing when his wand got broken.

And come to think of it, what of the other women in the books? Fleur Delacour, Triwazrd champion, is reduced to a simpering maiden who graduates into a harassed housewife; Tonks' only role in DH was to get pregnant, give birth, and then, inexplicably, die; and even Mrs Weasley's defeat of Bellatrix was in the guise of a mother protecting her children. It's rather strange that a twice-married, independent, creative woman like J.K. Rowling should be so conventional at heart - the only non-conventional, strong woman unfettered by the normative ties of marriage or motherhood in the books was Bellatrix Lestrange - and who in their right minds would want her as a role model? The only road left open to every character, man or woman, was the one that led to the altar and subsequently, to parenthood - and every generation seemed to excel in falling in love at school, and then marrying their childhood sweethearts by the time they turned 20. And here I thought that the chances of teenage romances working out were fairly remote - or perhaps knowing how to do magic does give you a toehold in the land of happily-ever-afters.

While I still think that the concept of the Deathly Hallows was brilliant, and I loved the way she humanised Dumbledore - and the episode in Godric's Hollow was easily the best part of the book, in turn moving and chilling - I have to say that DH, for me, is the weakest book of all seven. And I do wish Rowling would stop answering questions and giving out tidbits of information in every interview that she's giving - does she really expect every Harry Potter fan to be doing little other than avidly trawling the net every other day in the hope that they'd stumble upon some loose end being tied up? These are issues that should have been dealt with in the book, not post-publication interviews! But I daresay it's Rowling's not-so veiled approval of the blatant commercialisation of the Harry Potter franchise (she's given over the rights to the name to Warner Bros, and is enthusiastically participating in planning hugely expensive Harry Potter theme parks that will be inaccessible to most fans, for example) that's led to the dilution of the books' content - most people would agree that her later books were nowhere near as good as the earlier ones. In fact, I doubt the later books would have been as huge a success had it not been for the hysterical marketing hype - much as I still love Harry Potter, I have to admit he faces stiff competition - Rowling does not have Philip Pullman's radical desire for subversion, to push the boundaries of fantasy fiction; nor does she come close to Jonathan Stroud's delightful, imaginative, quirky trilogy. These are books I find myself recommending heavily these days - and where satisfactory endings are concerned, few have come close to Stroud's The Bartimaeus Trilogy. What a glorious, ambitious, heart-warming, rousing finale that was. Would that I could say the same about my beloved Harry Potter!

2007-08-04T00:55:00.000Z

Political (In)correctness?

This is going to be yet another complaint about one of my pet peeves – if people, even those view other, overweight, people with disdain, can refrain from commenting on their appearance (either because it’s not politically correct to hurt a fat person’s feelings by calling her/him ‘fat’, or for some other reason known best to themselves), why can they not extend the same courtesy to those others who happen to be (un)fortunate enough to be slender? As a slender person, I’m often the target of remarks that are at times downright rude; most of these come from people who don’t even know me, yet have absolutely no qualms in making presumptuous statements that they would otherwise cringe from making in polite society. So what is it about slenderness that makes rudeness acceptable? Are our feelings supposed to be as non-existent as the amount of excess fat we (don’t) carry?

I first heard this sentiment being voiced aloud by a young woman in her early twenties some seven years back – I was volunteering with a help-line in those days, along with a bunch of other people of all ages and from all professions. This poor woman, being stick-thin and rather fragile looking, found herself bombarded with remarks from people she had just met, statements ranging from the relatively innocuous ‘Oh boy, are you thin!’ to the pathetic ‘joke’ – ‘I bet you don’t try venturing out in a storm – a gust of wind would carry you away’ – accompanied with sniggers; to others who kindly took it upon themselves to apprise her of the dangers of being underweight. She lost patience after a couple of days and her furious ‘You know, thin people have feelings too’ finally put an end to the audible remarks. This is exactly what happens to me – I’m constantly told at dinners, lunches, etc., that I surely won’t be eating as obviously I’m on a diet; at the gym I’m asked why I even bother to come, since I obviously don’t need to exercise – and by the way, do I eat at all?; an ex-boss made a derogatory comment on the way I dress and later, at an official dinner, passed snide remarks concerning my refusal to order dessert (and that was only because I had stuffed myself with a pasta with cheese sauce, and everyone knows that cheese – see what these constant remarks have done to me? I can’t stop being on the defensive even in my own blog!)

Not that all people are kind to all their overweight fellow humans – as a plump teenager, my cousins made me the butt of ridicule and cruel jokes that added considerably to my pre-pubertal and teenage angst; and an outraged plump friend told us recently how tired she was of her colleagues’ remarks about her weight and their advice to hit the gym at the earliest, because how could she survive in the ‘marriage market’ unless she was thin? And I know full well all the dangers associated with the pressure to lose weight and conform to the stereotypical norm of female beauty – but this post is not about that. I’m genuinely perplexed as to why people, who know full well how ill-mannered it is to make personal remarks, relax that rule when talking about a slim person’s appearance. Why would they do that? What makes them think they immediately know what my eating habits and personal obsessions are – and why do they presume I’d welcome a conversation on the same? My husband says it’s because most of these busybodies, being overweight themselves, are jealous, and that may well be the case – but what of the slim ones who do the same? Why are most people unable to feel good about themselves unless they’re running someone else down?

I don’t go around commenting on people’s appearances – if I’ve ever asked a plump friend to visit the gym, it’s been out of concern – being overweight is not a good idea not because it’s not cool, but because it can lead to various health-related issues. So if I can behave myself, I don’t see why others can’t. And I’ve decided to stop being polite and make equally rude remarks in return – and I would really love some suggestions, so please, everyone, pitch in with your ideas!

2007-07-24T17:30:00.000Z

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I was, strangely enough, singularly loath to begin reading my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final instalment in J.K. Rowling's immensely popular Harry Potter series. For I knew that once I'd begun, I wouldn't put it down till I was done - and that wouldn't take more than a couple of days - and then, it would all be over. No more Harry Potters. No more waiting, no more arguments and endless discussions with friends and on public forums, no more anticipation, no more excitement. Having discovered Harry Potter before the advent of all the media hype that turned the publication of every new book into a veritable circus, I count myself among the group of original Potter fans, and I didn't want it all to end. But I didn't really have a choice, did I? So, after having stared at the cover illustration for as long as I could, trying to glean little details of the plot from the design, and having read the blurb, the dedication, and even the copyright page, there was nothing left for it but to dive in.

We all knew what Harry was expected to do in Deathly Hallows - at the end of Half-Blood Prince, he had resolved to carry out Dumbledore's final instructions, and now, aided by best friends Ron and Hermione, he sets out in search of Voldemort's Horcruxes, each of which he had to destroy before he could confront - and ultimately vanquish - the Dark Lord himself. Meanwhile, with Dumbledore's death Voldemort's powers had reached new heights - after taking over the Ministry of Magic, and the press, the new regime proceeds to unleash their reign of terror, particularly targeted against Muggles, and Muggle-born wizards, offensively termed Mudbloods, a term that belongs to the same category as, say, 'nigger'. Amid all the persecution a huge hunt is launched for Harry, the 'Undesirable No. 1' who has a bounty on his head - for the Boy Who Lived, the symbol of hope around whom the resistance was rallying, could not be allowed to continue living if Voldemort was to reign supreme.

Taut and dark, the book offers no respite, no breathing space from the very beginning, with the deaths of known and loved characters beginning from the fourth chapter itself. You realise then that this is how it has to be - in a world taken over by the Dark Arts, there can be no Hogwarts Express, or light-hearted moments. We are given a short breather during the run-up to Bill and Fleur's wedding, after which the action begins in earnest. Rowling's gift lies in her storytelling - while she isn't likely to get an award for the beauty of her prose, she does manage to communicate the tension that every one of her characters are going through - indeed, it is sometimes hard to remember that we, the readers, are outside the events being described.

But are we, though? No writer can escape the influence in her/his writing of the world that they live in, and Rowling is no exception. When you take into consideration the fact that despite the magic, the spells, robes and wand-waving, Rowling's work is firmly rooted in reality, a decision taken years ago when she decided to set the books and the characters in our world, our time and our dimension, the events that she describes become that much easier to relate to. I once argued that Voldemort's obsession with pure-blood witches and wizards, and his evil henchmen, the hooded Death Eaters, are symbolic of the racism that has been prevalent in every part of the world at all times - the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan - and nowhere is that brought home more strongly than in Deathly Hallows. The setting up of the Muggle-born Registration Commission (headed by the evil, sadistic Dolores Umbridge, whose brush with the centaurs had clearly left no lasting impression), the refusal to allow Muggle-born witches and wizards a place in Voldemort's new wizarding order, the unceremonious arrest and deportation of all Muggle-borns and those holding out against the regime to Azkaban, the derisory way of addressing the few witches and wizards who had escaped arrest but been reduced to begging as 'it', thereby robbing them not only of their identity as members of the magical community but also of their humanity, brings to mind the horrors of persecution the world has been witness to - Nazi Germany, the compulsory registration of all Jews, the Holocaust, the Iraq war, religious persecution and Guantanamo Bay - our own government had, following the barbaric murders of the Staines family, decided to have all Christians living in the country register themselves - Nurmengard, the prison where Grindelwald's supporters, and Grindelwald himself, after his defeat at the hands of Dumbledore, were imprisoned, bears phonetic resemblance to Nuremberg, the place where the trials of those Nazis who had participated in mass genocide were carried out. In Voldemort's regime, Rowling envisions a future not unlike the dark world that Jonathan Stroud describes in his The Bartimaeus Trilogy - one where 'magic is might', and commoners/Muggles have to accept their rule, their superiority, and acquiesce to a life of subservience, where fear and suspicion prevails, and where resistance brings with it the firm promise of death.

Harry himself, an adult at 17, finds himself cast adrift without the magical protection that, thanks to Dumbledore's spells, Privet Drive had offered, and bereft of the wisdom and guidance that the headmaster has always held out to him, and that he had taken for granted. Now, robbed of his one true father figure, he realises what it is to have people look to him for guidance instead, and feels the weight of the burden he bears, perhaps for the first time. Lost and lonely, and faced with unsettling facts about Dumbledore's hitherto unknown past, Harry reacts in an all-too typical fashion - he rails against Dumbledore for not having made his task easier, for not having taken him into confidence, for not having trusted him - part of the anger is directed against himself, for not having asked, and learnt, enough about/from Dumbledore when he had had the chance. Ron and Hermione, always true, always supportive, learn that Dumbledore, who knew them better than they realised, intended the mission to teach them more about themselves - Ron, having deserted his friends, gathers strength from his moment of weakness and emerges a true Gryffindor; and Hermione, while understanding that myths and legends can have as much of a basis in truth as facts and theories, finds within herself the courage to withstand even the torture that Bellatrix puts her through. Deathly Hallows is as much their journey as it is Harry's.

The slow, descriptive tone of Deathly Hallows in no way takes away from the grim tension - Harry, Ron and Hermione seem to be living on borrowed time, and each narrow escape from Voldemort could well be their last. The introduction of the deathly hallows, three objects that can allow the wizard/witch who manages to unite them 'mastery over death' provides a twist to the narrative - as Harry now has to make a crucial decision, and choose between Horcruxes and Hallows, power or his journey, and the knowledge that he will ultimately gain from it. It takes the death of Dobby, the house-elf so beloved to them - and us - who gave up his life while trying to save Harry's, to give Harry the enlightenment that he had been desperately seeking. The journey ends where it began - at Hogwarts - and it wasn't only Harry, but I, and I'm sure many, many others, who had a feeling of having come home in the familiar corridors and grounds. The last battle at Hogwarts, with the teachers, the DA, the Order, and every other student who refused to give in without a fight ranged against Voldemort and the Death Eaters was glorious, rousing, spirited, easily the best thing Rowling has ever written. The final confrontation, with Snape's vindication (no surprises there for those among us who had believed, if not so much in the likelihood of Snape's 'goodness', then certainly in Dumbledore's wisdom) and Voldemort's defeat, which came, as Dumbledore had predicted, through the former's complete ignorance of the power of love, comes as a fitting finale, everything that one could have hoped for.

Rowling had once stated that she hadn't read much of fantasy fiction, except for the canonical masters of fantasy like Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, and their influence is apparent in Deathly Hallows. The Slytherin locket Horcrux that weighed down the wearer, possessed their thoughts and imagination, and turned friends against each other is reminiscent of the ring of Sauron; and nowhere are the Christian allegories more stark than in Deathly Hallows. The constant emphasis on the power of love, of white magic that ultimately triumphs over the Dark Lord; Harry's choosing to sacrifice himself to save the lives of his friends and everyone else who loved and supported him, a choice which bestowed on them the same protection that Lily's sacrifice had bestowed on him, and, indeed, the entire episode in the Forbidden Forest reminds one very strongly of the Stone Table in Narnia, when Aslan chose to sacrifice himself to the White Witch in order to save Edward. Harry's subsequent resurrection mirrors Aslan's (and Aslan, as those who have read Narnia would know, was supposed to have been a metaphor for Christ), a resurrection that symbolised the return of hope, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. The power of a pure, and whole, soul was constantly harped upon, brought out in the chapter 'King's Cross', where Harry meets Dumbledore after his 'death' in a place that could only be limbo. Accompanying them there is Voldemort, in the form of a ravaged, mutilated, whimpering, tortured foetal-like creature, for whom 'there is no help possible'; and in fact, the importance of keeping Harry's soul whole and pure is also iterated in the fact that Voldemort dies not at Harry's hands, but at his own, when his Killing Curse rebounds on him, bringing us full circle to the events of 16 years ago at Godric's Hollow, and the chain of events that Voldemort chose to begin himself through the murders of James and Lily, and his attempt on Harry's life.

Several of the question we had been debating for the past two years were answered satisfactorily - where Snape's loyalties lay, and why; the meaning of the triumphant gleam in Dumbledore's eyes at the mention of Voldemort having taken Harry's blood; the bond that Harry had created between himself and Wormtail by having saved the latter's life (a debt that Wormtail, in his turn, repaid, a moment of pity that he paid for with his life); we learn, as promised, a little more about Aunt Petunia. The surprising revelations about Kreacher and Dudley's characters drive home the fact that even the most unexpected people have the power to astonish us; Mrs Weasley's duel with Bellatrix is nothing short of brilliant; and the delightfully irreverent Potterwatch, the underground radio channel run by members of the resistance, bears testimony to Rowling's ample wit. However, there were several unanswered questions and disappointments, not least of which was the way most of the deaths were handled. Dobby and Fred's deaths were moving, and would have driven most people to tears, and Snape's death, and the memories that he left Harry were beautifully written. However, were Hedwig, Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin and Tonks so insignificant that their deaths were dispensed with in just a couple of terse lines? Despite all the hype surrounding the deaths, it seemed as though Rowling had taken the easy way out, killing some of the most lovable, yet supporting characters while the major ones all escaped virtually unscathed. And if Harry escaped death only because his blood ran in the living Voldemort's veins, how did he not die when Voldemort did? Or, after resurrection, are you supposed to stay resurrected? And why would the blood-thirsty Death Eaters, who cheerfully struck everyone they could find with the Avada Kedavra without a second thought, not kill Hagrid when they had the chance but tie him up instead? And what on earth was Colin Creevey, a Muggle-born, doing at Hogwarts when the school was only open to pure-bloods?

Rowling's epilogue, 'Nineteen Years Later', her attempt at providing the series with a fairy-tale ending, bordered on the cheesy. Amidst the news that everybody had, most incestuously, married one or the other of the Weasley family, and that they all had at least two to three children with rather predictable names (except for the touching Albus Severus; and surely it's reasonable to presume that almost two decades later, teenagers would not still be using that most irritating word, 'snogging'?), many questions went unanswered - what, for example, had Harry, Ron and Hermione taken up as professions? It was wonderful knowing that Neville, the hero of the resistance, was Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts - but who was the current Headmaster? Did Kingsley stay on as Minister for Magic? Where was Luna? Where was George, and how had he coped with losing a twin? And surely it wasn't mere coincidence that led Rowling to give Teddy Lupin the same fate that had befallen Harry himself, the sole exception being that Teddy had a godfather, in the form of Harry, who could, and did, provide him with a family. Perhaps Rowling will give us some answers in the Harry Potter encyclopaedia that she has been thinking of writing - but the fairy-tale happily-ever-after made for a very anticlimactic ending for a dark, yet positive book. Had she left that out, it would have been pretty much everything fans the world over were hoping for.

2007-06-11T14:33:00.000Z

American Idol - Season 6

Does anyone else watch American Idol? And did anyone else, apart from me, think Season 6, the latest season that was just wrapped up three weeks ago, sucked big time? From mediocre contestants to obvious rigging to Republican propaganda to feel-good 'we Americans are so great, we're still carrying the white man's burden' hogwash, this season was everything a reality show that's got too big for its boots shouldn't be, but was. Warning: those not interested in this show would probably get bored, and fans of Jordin Sparks very offended.

Season 6 started out in much the same manner - there was the always effervescent Ryan Seacrest, the three judges, true to type - Randy Jackson, whose vocabulary didn't seem to have improved in the slightest in the last one year, and who warned everyone that this time, he was 'going to keep it real'; Paula Abdul, as flaky as ever (seriously, what IS she on?); and Simon Cowell, as smug as they come, sarcastic British wit still firmly in place. Hollywood Week was the usual melodramatic event, and then you had the top 24, only to realise that there were just two people worthy of note - Melinda Dolittle, a shy, humble background singer whose stage presence and brilliant vocals just blew you away; and Lakisha Jones, a black single mother with a powerful voice reminiscent of Aretha Franklin's. And I had yet another personal favourite - a big, curly-haired, gravelly voiced guy called Chris Sligh, who was more intelligent than all the contestants, judges and producers put together, and whose one-liners kept everyone in splits throughout.

Surprisingly, most of the people among the top 24 - and these, apparently, were the 24 'best' singers in North America - were insipid, with weak vocals, and entirely forgettable. Not surprisingly, the judges reacted to the high-school level singing with a barrage of criticism, and pretty soon 12 had been eliminated, leaving behind the top 12, at least two of whom definitely did not belong there. Within a couple of weeks into the competition, though, it was clear - at least clear to anyone who had been watching this show for a few seasons - that the judges had their own agenda, in all likelihood spelt out for them by the producers, FOX network, and Sony - and so the winners had been chosen, and were now being sold ('pimped', in the words of angry AI watchers who haunted the message boards) to the audience. The winner had to be either the enormous Jordin Sparks, a 17-year-old who could undoubtedly sing, but who needed a lot more training before she could make it to the ranks of the better singers of the day, which included her fellow contestants Melinda and Lakisha. Plus, she had a lot more growing up to do - poise and maturity were qualities she sorely lacked. The other contestant marked out for the big prize was Blake Lewis, a goodlooking young man who had been born to sing in boy bands, whose idea of 'singing' was beat-boxing after every two lines, and who had tons of screaming girls falling all over him from week two.

So there was the giggly, incoherent Paula Abdul, who, as everyone knows cheers and dances to the songs that only the young, attractive boys sing, and marks out her special pretty boy every season, who then can do no wrong in her eyes - last year it was Ace Young, and the year before that Constantine Morales - getting up to dance to Blake's beat-boxing before Blake had even stepped on to the stage, thereby proving to all who cared to notice that no matter what Blake sounded like, he was getting her vote for sure, and telling him while there were still eight or nine contestants left - 'I'll see you at the finale!' Jordin was told after every rendition of yet another soulful love song, which clearly was her genre, that 'that was a bomb' (Randy), 'you're so adorable, you're 17 and you're so great' (Paula), and 'you're definitely in the same league as Melinda and Lakisha (Simon). In fact, Simon Cowell went a step further and did 'his thing' - abuse his position as supposedly neutral judge - and told her he thought 'she could win this competition' when there were at least seven people, some of them far better than her, left on the show.

It wasn't that this was the first time something like this was happening - the judges have their favourites every season, who they shamelessly peddle to the audience. Simon, who is only too aware of the fact that he's the judge with the most power to sway public opinion, doesn't hesitate to cash in on it. He's the one who helped Carrie Underwood win Season 4 with his 'predictions' ('you're going to win this competition, and you'll be the winner who sells the most records'); and last year he tried gamely to push Kelli Pickler before realising that (a) she was almost embarrassingly dumb; and (b) that she really couldn't sing too well, after which he transferred his attentions to Katherine McPhee and Taylor Hicks (who ultimately won). But the problem with this season is that the 'fixing', and the pimping, was incredibly blatant - it's almost as though they'd thrown all pretence of the show being a democratic one, where the audience gets to choose the winner, out the window, and were doing all they could to make sure their favourites won. And here's my take on the reason behind this desperation: last year's winner, Taylor Hicks, didn't do all that well, especially compared to Chris Daughtry, the most talented person on the show, who had been among the top four before being eliminated. Chris' album has sold almost 3 million copies, and he's been at the top of the charts for a very long time. Even Katherine McPhee, the runner-up, had her single debut at No. 2, right behind Daughtry - but Taylor Hicks, on the other hand, sold only 700,000 copies of his album, and wasn't anywhere near the top of the charts.

Quite a huge let-down for AI producers, who conspicuously left Taylor out of the show this year, despite the fact that the previous year's winner always makes an appearance the next year. They yelled themselves hoarse about how Carrie Underwood is a Grammy-award winner, how Chris Daughtry's done so well, how Elliot Yamin's album's just been released - but not a word about Taylor and his failure to leave a mark on the music world. And we all know that the winners don't get to make an album of their choice - rather, Clive Davis decides their sound, and what he thinks will sell most copies (his recent, much-publicised falling out with Kelly Clarkson because she decided to write all the songs on her new album and sing them her way provides ample testimony to what happens when AI winners decide to show some individuality). Stands to reason that after last year's debacle, FOX would take no chances - they'd deliberately plump for the ones they thought would be the most saleable, the most popular, and the most amenable to being moulded. Jordin Sparks, at 17, and not a very mature 17 at that, was the most likely choice, more so than Blake, who, though by far the most marketable and popular, had a rather distinct style of his own. So while the judges were busy telling the world that Jordin was the one to vote for, the studio did their own not-so-subtle version of hard-sell - the camera would focus more often on Jordin than anyone else - the audience was treated to an incessant display of Jordin giggling, pouting, beaming, preening, occasionally trying hard to squeeze out a tear when someone got eliminated; Randy Jackson, on a television interview that he gave while there were still 10 contestants left, stated that in his opinion, Jordin had it in her to win; Ryan Seacrest moved away from his duties as a host to state on his show that Jordin was the one to watch out for, that she had shown the most 'growth'; Simon began deriding every other contestant in his usual charming fashion while praising Blake and Jordin to the hilt; when interviewing people on the streets about their favourite contestants, studio executives, through careful editing, showed us how young people loved Jordin and were dancing to her songs on the streets, and how they only managed to find a lone barmy old geriatric when they went in search of Melinda's fans. The message was clear - she's the next American Idol. You'd be dumb to vote for anyone else.

I'd predicted victory for Jordin to anyone who'd care to listen weeks before the finale, but there still are a few niggling questions left. Why were so many of the top 24 so very mediocre? Surely, among the thousands who auditioned, there would have been some really good singers? Or did the judges deliberately select some weak singers who they began trashing from day one so as to make it easier for their chosen ones? I mean, take the example of Antonella Barba. When she came to audition with her best friend Amanda, she told the judges guilelessly - 'Amanda's the better singer, she's trained. I'm not.' Pretty Antonella muffed up her lyrics, a crime for which better singers had been eliminated, she was among the last two left before the final 24 were selected, and even a moron could tell that the other girl, Marisa, was a better singer - yet Antonella made it. And here's the twist - before she even appeared on the stage (where her singing was promptly trashed by the same judges who had chosen her for her, well, singing), controversy broke out. Semi-nude pictures of Antonella had been published on the Internet, supposedly by her best friend, whom she had beaten in the competition. The controversy made sure of one thing - AI was in the news. People were watching, visiting the official site, thronging the message boards. And people were voting. Would people be too far off the mark to suggest that maybe, just maybe, she had been taken in because the producers had got wind of the published pictures and wanted the controversy? After all, she wasn't a good singer - she'd never make it to the top 12. But this incident would attract a lot more people to their television sets.

Or take Sanjaya Malakar, who I'm furiously defending these days. Granted, he couldn't sing that well - but then he didn't sing all that well during Hollywood Week either. Why choose him in the first place? The judges are part of the music world, they've been on this show for the last six years - do you seriously mean to tell me they can't recognise good singing from mediocre? I suspect he was taken in because he was weak. Unfortunately, their plan backfired - Sanjaya might not have been a good singer, but he was far more endearing and charismatic than Jordin could ever hope to be. People loved him - and voted for him. While the judges watched in horror, he stayed safe - and no amount of howling about how 'this is a singing competition' (yeah, right!) could make a dent in Sanjaya's popularity. And all through the brickbats, that young teenager did not lose his cool - or his impish smile. Dragged into a controversy that he certainly had not anticipated, Sanjaya is still the butt of ridicule - and he takes it all in his stride, and laughs at himself along with the rest of the country. I admire that boy - especially given the fact that he's only 17.

Haley Scarnato, yet another popular contestant with little talent, was driven to tears when Simon, in his most disgusting avatar yet, told her it was clearly her strategy of 'wearing as little as possible' that was keeping her in the competition; Chris Richardson, a quiet guy who was giving Blake a good run for his money, was dismissed as being 'too nasally'; a bewildered Lakisha was told her 'dancing' was not good enough; and Melinda, about whom Simon had once petulantly complained 'We'll never be able to criticise you!' was faulted for her humility, and the fact that she had been a professional back-up singer. Blake, on the other hand, and told he was original, quirky, prone to taking risks, even when he was busy butchering songs or covering his lack of singing ability with generous dollops of beat-boxing and copying moves that every self-respecting boy band member had worked in at least one, if not all, their dance routines. And when Jordin sang so badly that the judges had no choice but to tell her so, they sugar-coated their criticism with remarks like 'But never mind, everyone had a bad week now and then'; 'You're still wonderful, and we still love you, and I'm sure America feels the same way'. Now why did Melinda not hear that the only time she was a tad less than perfect?

Why am I making a big deal out of a reality show? Because I used to love American Idol, that's why - and like every other Melinda fan, I'm disgusted with the outcome. And don't even get me started on the 'Idol Gives Back' propaganda, where they collected money for people affected by Hurricane Katrina and the 'poor, starving children in Africa'. What about the poor, starving, orphaned children in Iraq, one wanted to ask. The Republican propaganda reached its lowest ebb with a shot of George W. and Laura Bush, who thanked Americans for raising money 'for charities they themselves are too mean to support' as a Salon.com reader put it. That, more than all the rigging in the world, is why I'm never watching this show again.

End of rant.

2007-05-26T22:05:00.000Z

Moody Cat

A very long time ago, I promised readers posts on my cats. I never did get around to writing those posts for various reasons - but I've decided to rectify that by doing a post on our Moody Cat, the cat who adopted us soon after we got married. People who don't care all that much for cats/animals might want to skip what will definitely be a long, rambling, maudlin post.

I first saw Moody one winter afternoon - she'd got into the house somehow, and seeing me, a complete stranger, she was rushing helter-skelter to try and find a way out before I chased her or hurt her in any way. I opened the terrace door for her and stepped aside so she could have the space to run out, and hoped she'd visit again. She was on our terrace a couple more times, once with a rather goodlooking gold and white tom, who was clearly enamoured of her. Next time, I called out to her - she came closer, wary yet curious - and graciously lapped up the bowl of milk I held out to her as a friendly overture. She became a regular visitor from then on - and delighted to have a cat around again, we took to feeding her. She was astonishingly well-bred and well-mannered - she would wait patiently outside the door for us in the morning, drink her milk, allow herself to be petted, and then curl up in the shade. She never asked for anything more - and while we repeatedly urged her to come inside, she never did - till enough time had elapsed for her to trust us, approve of us, and decide that we really did want her. I remember the first time she came in - tail erect, she wandered around, peeping into the kitchen, sniffing around - and that night, after dinner, she jumped onto a chair in the foyer, curled up, and regarded us with a solemn happiness that clearly said - 'I like you. This is my home now.' And it was.

We soon discovered just how quirky and moody she was, especially when it came to food - hence the name - she'd drink a bowl of milk one day, sniff at it suspiciously the next; eat her fish and rice happily one day, and the next day refuse till we sat beside her and coaxed her into eating; discover a love for paneer and sweets, only to go off them just after I'd fixed a paneer meal for her. Moody became our child, companion, friend - we went fish shopping, got her her own plate, fussed after her, took care of the colds to which she was prone, chased away the horrid old tom who beat her up and stole her food, increased her protein intake once we realised she was pregnant - and in return Moody was affectionate, trusting, looking to us for love, shelter and protection; she was always there to greet us when we returned from work or elsewhere, there to curl up beside us while we were watching TV, to jump onto our bed and sleep alongside us at night.

She soon figured out that I loved her unconditionally, and would forgive any transgressions - she was simultaneously a pet, companion and almost a friend to me. With K (my husband), though, it was a different ball game altogether - she loved him, felt secure around him, yet feared him, because he was the authoritarian one. Quite a stormy relationship they had, too - Moody's naughty fits were always noticed and punished, whereupon she would sulk and look the other way whenever she caught sight of him, till he had cajoled her and grovelled enough to merit forgiveness (one of the funniest sights was that of K's rump sticking out while the rest of him was under the dining table, coaxing Moody out of her sulky fit with a fat pork frankfurter). When, however, she decided he had gone too far with the disciplinarian act, she'd punish him the best way she knew - by peeing copiously on whichever pair of his shoes was closest to hand, glaring defiantly all the while. As for the fireworks that usually followed - let's not go there.

Moody's babies, of course, were just as much our children- they took over our lives completely. Ariel, Aslan and Piglet will form the subject matter of another post - suffice to say that Moody was a very good mother, till they turned three months old, which is when she decided it was time they were weaned. After that she would content herself with sniffing them all over to make sure they were alive and healthy, and then smack them out of the way. They got a bit too much for her in the end, though, especially when they were over four months old and running all over the place, giving neither her nor us a moment's respite - she decided she couldn't share her space with them any longer, and left. She'd drop in initially a couple of times a week, but then stopped coming altogether. I, of course, promptly went out of my mind with worry and misery, till I accepted it as one of the things that regularly occur in the feline world. K spotted her around the place a couple of times - she seemed to be okay, he told me.

I still miss Moody. I loved her happy maiow of welcome when I'd return from work, loved her affectionate moments when she'd butt her head against my leg and purr contentedly as I stroked her soft, silky fur. She'd keep me company in the kitchen whenever it was my turn to cook - I'd sometimes sing to her (she was the only one who seemed to enjoy my very tuneless singing), or talk to her, and she'd respond with a twitch of an ear or the flick of a tail - but mostly we did our own thing in companionable silence, she either stretched out, grooming her already spotless fur, or sitting upright, paws folded beneath her, contemplating the mysteries of life in typical inscrutable cat-fashion. I remember one time when K was late returning home from work - attempts to reach him on his phone had been unsuccessful, and I was really worried. Moody stuck close to me throughout - when I was in the room she was sitting next to me, brilliant green eyes fixed on me, when I paced out on the terrace, she paced with me, occasionally rubbing herself against my leg. Even after I got her dinner ready she didn't leave my side - she only ate after K had returned, and she sensed my relief.

But the sweetest, and most incredibly touching thing she ever did - I was home alone one evening, and I'd ordered a chicken I intended to cook for dinner. When the delivery guy appeared, Moody went with me to answer the door. Once I'd opened the door, I went back inside to get the money, and on returning to the door, I saw Moody standing squarely in the entrance of the doorway, staring straight at the delivery boy, tail swishing from side to side slowly, dangerously. She was guarding the house, guarding me. My little Moody, who certainly would not have been a match for an adult male, had decided I needed protection, and had appointed herself guard-cat. I never loved her more than I did at that moment. Wherever she is now, I hope she's well, and safe - most of all, I hope she's found another family to love and be loved by, another family who's discovered she likes DMS milk, not Mother Diary, loves pork, not chicken, and loves having her head stroked and her cheeks scratched, but hates being picked up.

2007-05-20T13:29:00.001Z

Things people may - or may not - know about me

This is going to a fun blog, quite different from any of my other posts in both content and tone. Inspired by a friend, who wrote a post entitled '10 random things about me' on her blog and then asked if any of her readers/friends would be brave enough to do the same on either her blog or their own, I've decided to go ahead, indulge in a bout of narcissism, and list out 10 things about me, in no particular order. Actually, while I'm at it, I'll go a bit further, and list out 15 things. So here goes.

1. I love editing. Seriously. It bothers me when an article or a book is so well-written that there is no need for me to intervene.

2. I love crying at the movies.

3. I abhor violence, but am morbidly fascinated by criminology, and addicted to all the crime serials on television - all the American and British ones, that is.

4. I have a very short attention span for pretty much everything.

5. I adore television, and even insist on staying in to watch my favourite shows while on holiday. Hotel rooms have to have cable TV, else I'm not staying there.

6. I've always liked animals more than people, but after 31 years of living, the last 10 of which have been spent in a moral cesspit called Delhi, I'm a confirmed misanthrope.

7. I'm the biggest procrastinator that ever lived.

8. I'm also a chronic, obsessive worrier - there are times when I wish I didn't have such an active imagination, for I'm always thinking of a million reasons why something should go wrong, and a million more ways in which it can go wrong.

9. I'm a very good mimic.

10. I'm very, very shy, a trait that most people interpret as arrogance or snobbishness. That irks me, because shyness and snobbery are two entirely different things - when I'm being snobbish, trust me, you'll know.

11. And here's a weird thing - despite being shy, I love being the centre of attention (which, sadly, hardly ever happens). I loved doing presentations, both at the university, and the few brief times at my workplace.

12. I love early mornings, even though I'm not a morning person.

13. I still don't know how to drive, and I'm terrified at the prospect of learning.

14. If I could choose a superpower, I'd want to be like Jean Grey (of the X-Men).

15. I don't have a favourite colour.

So, to ask my friend (and everyone else who might be reading this) the same question she asked - do I come across as odd, or, as I like to think, fairly normal? And if people want to tell me 10 - or more - things about themselves, you're welcome to do so in the comments section - I'd love to know!

2007-04-28T20:40:00.001Z

Eragon - and 300

I watched a few rather disappointing movies recently. Some readers will remember my review of Christopher Paolini's Eragon, which, despite it's flaws and lack of originality, I had quite liked. So of course I had to go and catch the film Stephen Fangmeier had made based on the book, which finally released here a couple of weeks back. Boasting of a sterling cast, which included legendary actors like John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons, and special effects that would bring fire-breathing dragons to life, the film appeared promising. It didn't live up to that promise, though - to put it briefly, it was terrible.

I now know why the film Eragon has received consistently bad reviews. Everything that made the book enjoyable and complex has been cut out, leaving only the bare bones that made for an insipid, two-dimensional film. I know that movies based on books rarely live up to expectations (except for films like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lord of the Rings trilogy) - but surely they can at least stick to the plot and try to make it work? And if Peter Jackson could have made such fantastic films out of Tolkein's incredibly complicated The Lord of the Rings, a book that Paolini himself drew liberally upon in both Eragon and its sequel, Eldest, couldn't Stephen Fangmeier have given us a passable movie version of Eragon? Everything went wrong in Eragon - Ed Speeler, who played the title role, was wooden and amatuerish, the script was shoddy, the backdrops all too clearly created in a Hollywood studio, the acting, with the exception of the big names, pathetic - and Saphira was just not blue enough! From a sapphire blue dragon whose scales would shine as brightly as gems, she was transformed into a blue-grey dinosaur with a tail, who was just not awe-inspiring. At various points majestic, frightening, lovable, stubborn, impish, quirky, wise yet child-like, Saphira, Paolini's best and most original creation, was reduced to little more than a talking winged steed. Much as I like Rachel Weisz, I have to say that she didn't bring Saphira to life - and the beautiful, loving relationship that Saphira and Eragon, as Rider and Dragon, shared, was dealt with in only a few perfunctory lines of dialogue.

John Malkovich's Galbatorix was menacing enough - more so when you consider the fact that he did not have much to go upon, as in the books, Galbatorix, despite being a constant presence, never does make an appearance - but then, when has Malkovich ever disappointed? Jeremy Irons made for a brilliant Brom, but here again Fangmeier slips up - the bond that Brom and Eragon come to share, as mentor and protege, surrogate father and son, Riders with shared powers and destinies, is not allowed to develop. So we never get to see how Brom shaped Eragon, a mere farm boy, into a Rider, or how they both learn to trust each other with their lives; instead, we are supposed to believe that Eragon learnt how to wield a sword all on his own, and began using his magical powers quite, well, magically. Brom's death fails to move because we never get a sense of the kind of person he is, and Saphira's last gift to him is puzzling, because we don't understand why she should do so much for him. And key characters, who make Eragon the book such an exciting read, are unceremoniously dispensed with - Roran, Eragon's cousin, whose transformation from village apprentice to warrior is as powerful as Eragon's, only appears in the first 10 minutes of the movie; Angela, the lovable herbalist/fortune-teller is reduced to a Barbie look-alike in a lot of gold bling who enters and exits within a confusing span of two minutes; the fearsome Razac, modelled on Tolkein's Nazgul, and who are as indestructible as the latter, are casually killed in a very short battle; the Urgals were, as my husband said, nothing more than tattooed WWF wrestlers; and Solembum, the wonderful were-cat, is absent altogether.

Sienna Guillory's Arya leaves a lot to be desired - it is very hard to imagine her as the beautiful, brave, clever and inscrutable elf princess. And while Garrett Hedlund is capable enough as the tortured Murtagh, his character, too, is glossed over - the announcement, 'he is Morzan's son', is met with next to no emotion. The one who stands out, however, easily the best thing about the film, is Robert Carlyle, in the role of the Shade Durza - he is chilling enough to send very real shivers down your spine. Powerful, arrogant and cruel, he sweeps through the film dripping scorn and disdain for the mere mortals that dare to stand in his way - Durza was so brilliantly played that I actually hated to see him die. It's hard to tell why the people responsible for this film actually made it, since they robbed it of its very essence, leaving in its place yet another action adventure meant for children, and not a very good one at that. Did Paolini have any role to play in the making of Eragon? Did he react at all to the destruction Fangmeier and Peter Buchman (the scriptwriter) had wrought upon his book? There probably will be a sequel to the movie as well, as Eragon ends with a shot of Galbatorix and Shruiken, his black dragon, both roaring with anger at their defeat - but unless, like the Harry Potter movies, Eldest is made by another, and better, director, I think we can safely presume that it will be as big a disaster as Eragon is.

Far more disappointing, because there were far too many expectation attached to it, was 300. After the gritty, in-your-face, dark Sin City graphic novels, made brilliantly into a film by Roger Rodrigues and Frank Miller, I have been a die-hard Miller fan. While I haven't read 300 yet, the film didn't come anywhere close to the celluloid version of Sin City. Dripping testosterone, the film was all about CGI, male bonding, the glorification of war, and the age-old divide between the mythical 'East' (in the form of the Persians, led by the god-king Xerxes) and the 'West' (exemplified in the Greeks, particularly the Spartans, the repository of all that is brave, and good, and noble). Laced heavily with rather blatant racism (the Persians, who all look suspiciously like members of some long-lost African tribe, are cowards, at best; at worst, they embody in themselves every form of depravity known to man - be it treachery, barbarism, or kinky sexual fetishes that would make even the Marquis de Sade look like an unimaginative schoolboy), 300 is actually considered by some to be part of a psychological warfare being levied against Iran, in tandem with the impending threat of attack from the US government. This very male film, made by a man for men of all ages (there is only one female character in the film, King Leonidas' wife, who sums up her role, and that of all Spartan women, in one sentence - 'Only Spartan women can give birth to real men') takes off from the socialisation that all little boys are subjected to, which says that unless you go aggressively charging through life bloodying every demurring nose within sight, you're not worthy of being called a 'MAN'. So there's loads of rhetoric, lots of decapitations, artistically spurting fountains of blood, severed limbs, battle-cries, in the midst of which the noble 300 fight their beautifully choreographed way through, ankle-length cloaks, which, if worn in real battles, would trip the persons wearing them right under the closest sword, swirling gracefully. Yet somehow the battles fail to move, the war-cries don't elicit a corresponding stirring of hearts (the way they did in LoTR, for instance). All one can ask at the end of what a newspaper report called 'the Spartan workout video' is - which self-respecting Spartan would go into a battle fought with spears, swords and arrows wearing only the briefest of chaddis?

2007-02-25T11:57:00.001Z

Closet Voyeur(s)?

I've recently discovered this television channel that I didn't know existed. It's called Zone Reality, and it showcases events that have actually happened, and people who are real and, more often than not, seriously moronic, sometimes to the point of being deranged. This is the kind of channel you discover while idly fiddling with the remote (or rather, while my husband's idly fiddling with the remote) when your regular shows are over, and you want to be sure there's nothing interesting going on before you switch the TV off. After the initial couple of days of watching Reality, which mostly consisted of my tossing sardonic and superior remarks in the general direction of the TV, I found myself, to my increasing horror, actually getting curious, interested, what have you, in a couple of shows. The one I actually sit through is called 'Cheaters' and, as the name suggests, is about Americans (who else?) who call this show and get them to investigate their spouses/partners who they suspect are cheating on them. It's corny, tacky, sordid - but I still watch it if I come across it. I suppose there's nothing left but for me to admit that yes, I possibly am a closet voyeur.

But see, I cannot possibly be the only one. This show's aired nearly every day, and there are loads of people who call these guys, which means there must be lots more watching it. So what is it about these reality shows that appeal to people? Reality television is quite the buzz word these days after the furore over Shilpa Shetty and Celebrity Big Brother - and everyone was interested, even the ones who wrote about how incredibly tasteless the show was, and how it appeals only to the lowest common denominator. I know we all have the option of switching off the TV - but we rarely do. Why? Does it have to do with mere voyeurism, the guilty pleasure we all experience at being allowed a glimpse into someone else's secrets, salacious and otherwise? Or is it a genuine curiosity about human nature, about the way people across the world, people we'll never ever meet or know, lead their lives?

Take 'Cheaters', for instance. I find myself actually getting involved with what's happening on the show, with the people - who are all ordinary, often from the lower end of the socio-economic hierarchy - on the show. 'She should leave him,' I remark to my husband, or 'How could he be so dumb?' or, in less charitable moments, 'You mean that guy actually has two women willing to sleep with him?!' It's led to the two of us discussing the boundary between truth and deceit, infidelity, human insecurities - in real life, literature, and in the movies. The producers of the show like to pretend they're providing the people who call them with a form of social service - albeit one that fills their coffers like no 'real' social service ever could - 'exercise your right to be informed', they state with ponderous solemnity after exhorting viewers who suspect their partners of infidelity to call them. They actually provide the 'investigative' services free of cost, which only proves just how lucrative this business is - not to mention the fact that all the investigators on board are licensed, and the equipment they use, even for a prurient television show such as this, is more expensive and up-to-date than any that even our cops possess.

Two things stand out - first, how very similar people across the world are. Regardless of who you might be, or what you might be working as, or where you might be living, the key to happiness for most people has to do with their jobs or the absence of it, money or the lack or it, and relationships, and whether or not one person's cheating on the other. Second, it's amazing just how much time people spend in deception, in concocting tissues of lies, in clandestine behaviour, when the simple truth could make life so much easier for everyone. So many of these relationships that 'Cheaters' highlights are clearly on their last legs, but the person who wants out only comes out with it after having been followed around by mysterious men with cameras for weeks and having had their escapades broadcast before the whole world - not to mention the final humiliation of being confronted by their furious lovers armed with a camera crew, who proceed to berate them loudly in public spaces.

The makers of the show take a morally upright stance, often letting viewers know at the end just how beneficial this exercise has been for the people concerned. I daresay most viewers feel the same way - we always like the thought of wrongdoers being punished, unless, of course, it's our sins in the spotlight - in which case it takes only a split second for them to be whitewashed into socially acceptable behaviour. Apart from getting a glimpse into the murky depths of people's lives, viewers are also provided with an opportunity to play judges in the security provided by familiar surroundings, far away from cameras, unsympathetic strangers or hostile environments - and castigate strangers while being secure in the knowledge that it's not you who's been dumb enough to get caught doing something you shouldn't, or pathetic enough to be cheated on. And I think that accounts, in large measure, for reality television's phenomenal popularity.

2006-12-30T00:00:00.000Z

A long time gone

And I'm back after a hiatus of - how long has it been, about three months or so? Though it certainly feels like longer! And to all my friends and readers who inquired after me - thanks a lot for the enquiries! Though I normally desist from forays into my personal life, I'll break with my blog tradition and go into a few details about the rather astounding, shocking, and bizarre turn of events that, among other things, had kept me away from normal routine, which includes blogging.

Of course none of what is to follow will be news to a few good friends who also regularly read and comment on my blog - nor will they react to my oft-repeated statement that around three and a half months ago, my blessedly ordinary life suddenly took on hues that are more in keeping with an execrable Ekta Kapoor soap opera. In a nutshell, I (and my husband, of course) suddenly found (ourselves) right in the middle of that most sordid of affairs, a raging dispute over property (no, not mine - I personally don't own any, and nor do I wish to after what I've just encountered). And I realised just how low people can sink when they're grubbing for money - especially if they've nothing much else going for them. It also brings to the fore a rather frightening truth - that you never really know people, no, not even if you've been around them all your life; which leads on to a more disturbing fact - that apart from very few people, who you can possibly count on one finger, you can never trust anyone. Sometimes the people who consider closest to you (whether by virtue of blood or otherwise) are the ones who hurt you most.

Without going into the sordid details (and sordid is a word that's going to crop up regularly all through this sad story), let me just ask - what is it about property and money that brings out the worst in people? Several people who know the details of what happened to us have mentioned friends and relations who've been through similar experiences - and all, without fail, have shaken their heads sorrowfully at the thought of the corruption that money invariably brings in its wake. So do you have to be moral reprobates to begin with (as the people involved in this instance, the 'other side' so to say, undoubtedly are) for the greed for material wealth to get a hold on you, or is it that money, property, etc., are powerful enough to corrupt even those we would unhesitatingly term 'nice people'? At this point in my life I sincerely believe that greed for money is quite stupid - I mean, we're all going to die someday, right? And we won't be taking wads of cash with us when we do. So is there any point spending whatever time's given us plotting and scheming just to make those mythical millions? Besides, if one is healthy, intelligent, qualified, and not afraid of hard work, there will always be jobs and, therefore, opportunities to make money, available constantly. (Of course, if you're desperate, middle-aged, fat, balding, unemployed, quite incapable of crossing over to the local market all by yourself to buy daily rations let alone holding down a job, and yet are an egomaniac to boot, you might be compelled to look for alternative means, which means will invariably consist of impinging on the fundamental rights of people within trampling range. That, incidentally, is a fairly accurate description of one of the chief perpetrators of the crime committed against us. And no, I don't care if I sound melodramatic.)

However, do I feel this way only because I'm not even remotely wealthy? Will I turn into my worst nightmare if I ever come into a huge sum of money - or am faced with the prospect of doing so? I don't know - but I'd certainly like to know!

A caveat - I know every story has two contrasting sides. Everyone the world over is firmly convinced of her/his innocence, and the depravity of the Other. Hell, even George Bush believes all his egregious actions are sanctioned by none other than God Himself! And it's the done thing for both parties to go around self-righteously defending themselves, and asking the heavens to strike down those opposing them. We should know - we've been maligned and slandered from here till kingdom come to all who'd care to listen - and never mind that everything that was said were lies. If only our country had proper slander and libel laws, and a functioning judiciary - I'm sure I could sue the pants off these people!!! Unfortunately, these are the perks low-lifes get from living in a developing nation - they can get away with murder, even. But in this instance, I can say with a completely clear conscience that we did not do a single thing to bring this upon ourselves; that in the clear-cut demarcation of right and wrong, we are firmly in the right; and that we emphatically did not deserve the abuse that was heaped on us. And I guess that's one of the reasons why we received the support of friends and well-wishers when we looked for it.

My feminist ideals have had rather a confusing time of it as well. Since the days I discovered Simone de Beauviour, I've had a healthy contempt for the stereotypes that women the world over are traditionally expected to conform to - and one of them is the stereotype of motherhood. Reading academic discourses about how women carry an additional burden of bearing the responsibility of the nation on their shoulders in their avatar as caring, nurturing beings - the trope of 'Mother' India - also led me to debunk enthusiastically the notion that all women want nothing more than to bear children, and are 'naturally' loving, sacrificing beings. However, when faced in reality with a woman who connived against her own offspring just for the sake of property, who abused, vilified and maligned her child who had nothing but love for her, I found myself resorting, like everyone else, to horror - 'how can a mother desert her son?', as a hymn we used to sing in school went. But I guess what horrified us was not so much a stereotype as the subversion of certain basic expectations we have of a few chosen people - we unconditionally love, trust, and are loyal to a few people, like parents and spouses. And when that bond is broken, when that trust is betrayed, it's a shock that shakes you to your very core.

So what have I learnt from this experience we could have done very well without? Trust no one (as Fox Mulder would say)? Perhaps. It certainly has strengthened my belief in the inherent rottenness of human nature. Yet we received overwhelming support and love from other quarters as well, and that we shall never forget. I'm also never going to take anything for granted, no, not even something basic like turning on a tap and having water flow out (I should know - since our water supply was cut off, and we had to live without water for a couple of months before we finally could shift out); or crib about mundane everyday routines. When we were living in the midst of unbearable tension and stress, with nerves stretched taut and emotions running high, how I longed for the good old days when my biggest problem was office politics! And yes, I did understand why the police in India are so hated. I mean, can someone please explain to me why we even go through the charade of having a police force? They do no work except abuse the power their uniform gives them - in the last three murder cases I read about in the papers, the police had refused to do anything, and in two cases had actually tampered with evidence. I know from our experience that they're rude, ignorant and prejudiced, they reluctantly take down complaints when it's obvious you won't go away without filing one, complaints that they're not ever going to follow up on; they take bribes from just about anybody (this one cop had obviously been bribed by the other side, and was merrily informing them of our every move within the police station, before us and the other cops who, of course, couldn't give a damn) - they're the last people you can turn to if you need help - and they're all we apparently have!

I know this is turning out to be one long blog, but I guess the situation warrants it. We've put at least some of this behind us - the problem is far from being solved, and obviously will not go away in a hurry, but as long as we're not in the thick of it, I'm all right. The trauma will of course take a while to dissipate - I've unfortunately led rather a sheltered life, because of which I was completely unprepared to deal with the seamier side of life - and yes, I'm still angry, upset, tense, and very bitter. But I guess it's when things are really bad that you learn to appreciate the good things all the more - I remember, in the middle of the crisis, looking at a handicapped beggar at a streetlight and saying a grateful prayer for being so lucky myself. As long as you're healthy, as long as you have a job you enjoy, and at least one pastime that you can get really passionate about, as long as there are people around you, be they friends or family, who love you and who you can count on, you can get through a lot. I'm almost sorry for people who chase ephemeral things like money - just shows how vacant their lives really are.

And of course, since I've bared a lot on a public forum, I can't end without thanking a few of the people who saw us through - Dodo, mashi and mesho, Mukta, and of course, my wonderful family, without whom we'd be nowhere (sound exactly like I've won an Oscar, don't I? :-P).

2006-08-25T15:10:00.000Z

On marriage, fidelity and such

I know I promised people a post on my cats, but earlier this week I caught the last half of Barkha Dutt's We the People on NDTV, which perplexed me one hell of a lot, and raised rather a lot of questions that I would like to discuss. So that is what this post is going to be on - I'll give you all the lowdown on the feline half of my family next time, I promise.

The issue was marriage and fidelity, prompted by the release of Karan Johar's much-hyped Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna - or so I gathered from the fact that Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan were part of the panel - along with some esteemed people who the media clearly considers specialists when it comes to matters pertaining to emotional well-being - Shobaaaa (did I get the number of 'a's after her name right?) De, some tarot card reader whose name I've forgotten, and the creator of shaadi.com. Anyway, what I want to discuss is the issue of fidelity. We've all been brought up tp believe that cheating is BAD, seen enough films and telelvision shows that show marriages breaking up thanks to extra-marital affairs, and have a well-defined contempt for the greatest vamp of all times - the 'other woman'.

Yet here were people blithely asserting that fidelity isn't such a huge issue any more, because 'everyone cheats'! And, since everyone does so, it ceases to be wrong - in fact, the tarot card reader, who doubles as a counsellor (presumably because of the qualifications deciphering pretty coloured cards load her with), stated emphatically that she never encourages women with straying husbands to leave them - quite the opposite, in fact, even if the wives are clearly shattered by the incident. Ms De (when she wasn't busy promoting her latest book) supported this statement. And everyone imputed this recent sociological change in the family structure and roles to modernity, since it's the youth who are supposed to be indulging in merry cheating everywhere you look.

Shah Rukh was actually the only one who made any sense, and certainly the only one who came across as honest - after candidly confessing to being 'old-fashioned' and 'conservative', he exhorted people to be clear in their heads about why they were getting married - did they genuinely believe in the commitment they were making, or were they doing so because everyone in India is expected to marry at a certain age, in much the same way that they're expected to graduate or get a job? Because if you believe in the commitment you make, you will honour it. But his was a lone voice - even people from the audience calmly said they wouldn't leave their partners if they discovered them cheating.

Now this is where my perplexity lies. Because I always thought marriage - any relationship - was a pretty sacrosanct deal. You become responsible for the happiness and well-being of another person, and the commitment you make is not so you can break it at the first available opportunity. When I got married, I did so to a person I loved, someone I wanted to share the rest of my life with. The commitment I made was a promise I'm not going to renege on. And one of the essential components in a relationship is trust. You trust your partner to be with you, to honour his/her commitment towards you, to never hurt you in any way. Cheating means s/he's done all the above. How, then, can you stay on in a relationship with a person who's betrayed your trust? How can you ever trust her/him again? Does anyone else feel the same way, or is it true that fidelity has become a bit of a joke these days? Is it true that, despite the sanctity social norms have bestowed on the institution, marriages are increasingly becoming a sham? I know my friends feel much the same as I - so where is this 'everyone' who cheats as a matter of course? Is this yet another sign of the moral turpitude of our times?

Here, I'm not taking into consideration 'open marriages/relationships' - if people have stated their intentions of eschewing monogamy to their partners, and if the partners are happy with the arrangement, there is nothing else to be said. But that isn't the case here, obviously - surely women wouldn't be tearfully asking the tarot lady if divorce is a good idea if they knew what they had signed up for?

It came as no surprise when, later in the discussion, one found that divorce was much frowned upon. Bad word, that - still is, strangely enough, even in the liberated 21st century where everyone cheats. People were even more firm when it came to children - a couple has got to stay together if they have kids, was the unanimous opinion. Except for Karan Johar, and I agree with him (can't believe I actually said that!) - wouldn't living in the company of two adults who just do not get along, in an acrimonious, tension-riddled household, actually harm the children in the long run? Contrary to what most adults think, children are not stupid. Far from it. Their parents' unhappiness and hostility would communicate themselves to them - and imagine living the better part of your life in constant tension and stress. Wouldn't it be better, given that scenario, to separate and give children some form of resolution?

Tough choices, I know, and complex issues, but - what do you think?

2006-07-31T16:00:00.000Z

Thoughts

I've recently been beseiged by complaints stating that my blog posts are always 'angry' and 'serious', and that I never write 'happy posts'. Now I know the correct reponse to such accusations is: 'it's MY blog, my own personal space, and I shall write what I choose, so there!' But I choose not to be that rude, since the ones making the complaints are friends, people whose opinions I solicit and value. So here's my take on the situation - if by 'happy posts' is meant lighthearted anecdotes about people in the office or what I had for lunch yesterday, I cannot oblige. When I began this blog, I wanted this to be a space where I talk about what touches me, issues that I consider serious, problems that I wanted to bring to the fore and incite discussions. I did not want this to be a personal diary of sorts - because, as my friends can testify, I'm a rather private person who emphatically does not want her life to be put on display for the whole world to gawk at. Not that I'm judging those whose blogs are well-maintained diaries of their innermost thoughts - I'm simply not one of them.

Unfortunately, we live in a world that's far from perfect - I think I can safely presume that everyone will agree with me. Rather more unfortunately, I happen to live in one of the most imperfect cities in this already way-too-imperfect world - New Delhi. It's the city which has had the dubious distinction of having made it to the cover story of Outlook, which focused on everything that was wrong with it - and everyday life in Delhi is nothing short of a battle and series of disillusionments. Unless you are deaf, blind, or utterly insensitive and stupid, you cannot but help noticing things that bother you, things that place you on the road to cynicism. I could, of course, leave such things be and write instead about the antics of my kittens - who are absolutely adorable, and a tiny demolition squad in themselves. I could go on and on about how gorgeous my solemn little Aslan is, how hyperactive the quirky little Piglet is, or how mischievous the little monkey of an Ariel is - and tales of their mother, my lovely Moody Cat, could take up several posts. But I'd be boring everyone, wouldn't I? (And that's a rhetorical question - the first person to say my kittens are boring will be in big trouble! Seriously, let me know - if anyone's interested, I'll put up a few pictures of my little ones.) But I took the decision to write about less pleasant subjects, for the simple reason that these are the topics that are never thought about, and not talked about all that often. And I invite debate and dissension in response - in fact, the more opinions, the more thoughts on the subject, the merrier!

And then, while I was pondering about such issues, the government, in a colossally stupid move that they're now blaming the ISPs for, went and banned blogsites, thereby depriving me and all other bloggers of their personal space, and daring to presume that some bureaucrat somewhere actually has the right to decide what we should or should not say where, when, how and why. And now that I have my space back, I'd rather have it stay the way I want, and write what I want to write about - who knows, someone somewhere might just decide to play God with our fundamental rights and take it away all over again, so I should just make the most of my time, shouldn't I?

Parting shot for the whiners - my next post will be an update on my one of favourite television shows, Desperate Housewives. Chortle, chortle. *Rubs hands in glee* Wait for it!

2006-06-30T23:35:00.000Z

Copycats?

Is there something intrinsic in the world of entertainment and creativity these days that causes people to eschew all attempts at originality and look to the Western world for ideas they can filch? I mean, look at some of the biggest releases in the Hindi film world in recent times - Fanaa, for instance, has been taken from Ken Follett's extremely well-written and gripping spy thriller, Eye of the Needle. Alag is a direct lift from the 1995 Hollywood film Powder, which starred Sean Patrick Flanery (see photographs above - note, especially, the similarity not only in the lead characters' appearances, but in their stances in the picture right at the bottom of the Alag poster, and that in the poster for Powder. Talk about dead ringers!) in the title role. Kaante, as everyone knows, was taken from Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. What I don't understand is, first, why people in our country have to resort to plagiarism at the drop of a hat - and that too, do so without any compunction. Is it that we have a genuine dearth of good ideas in the so-called creative minds ruling the roost in our country? Or that these minds are just too lazy to exert themselves so as to come up with something original when it's so much easier to have someone else do the thinking and visualising, and just copy their end results?

I tend to believe it's the latter - and here I'm not considering great film-makers like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, but the ones churning out the mainstream Bollywood flicks. And somewhere, we tend to view this mindless copying as something laudatory. Just a couple of days ago, I read this gushing article on Rakesh Roshan's new film Krrish - and it was all about how the visual effects in this film are exactly like the ones in Hollywood films. India can finally make films whose visual appeal matches that of Hollywood, the writer stated proudly. And sure, we know that - all of us have been reminded inexorably of Neo (of Matrix fame) when we've caught sight of Hrithik Roshan in the film's trailers. I agree that the fact that we now have the technology to rival that of Hollywood is a source of pride - but why can we not put it to some original use? We've all seen the marvellous things American and British film-makers can do - how about finding out what the Indian ones can do with the same resources?

And why do I say that we don't think there's anything wrong in plagiarising? Because I haven't yet come across anyone who's asked this question before. Because the same people who plagiarise with such impunity actually have the audacity to claim ownership - the Alag director, for instance, went on record telling the media how it's his special project, how a friend of his gave him the script and he loved it, how intense the whole experience of preparing the lead character's 'look' was - yeah, right! I mean, how intense could copying Sean Patrick Flanery's albino look have been? Though, of course, the well-muscled hero with the cool shades in Alag couldn't come even remotely close to capturing the vulnerability that Flanery brought to his performance (again, see the last picture of Flanery as Powder) - and no one, not even the film critics, ever slam them for it, not even when they calmly state in their reviews that such-and-such film was a rip-off from so-and-so. Remember what happened when the Kaavya (she of the plagiarised Opal Mehta fame) story broke? As someone in the publishing industry, I was extremely interested - I read every article, participated in discussions in forums, spoke to friends - and I was appalled by the fact that there was hardly anyone prepared to condemn her for her actions, or consider her culpable. Mitigating circumstances, everyone screeched, lack of ethics in the publishing world. All right, but what about her own ethics? She was old enough to know right from wrong - and there are mitigating circumstances in everyone's lives. Do we then make excuses for everyone who does something not quite right?

Yet another example - last week HT City carried a story, complete with photographs, on how fashion photographers have been copying photos taken by photographers abroad for their calendars - so there was Bipasha Basu doing a J Lo, and Priyanka Chopra aping Britney Spears. And the photographers went a step further by actually claiming copyright for these pictures! I'm actually genuinely puzzled at this lethargic attitude and steadily declining originality in everything we do. Are we denegerating into a nation of copycats? And am I the only one, to quote the Dixie Chicks, who ever felt this way?

2006-06-12T15:55:00.000Z

The Bookseller of Kabul

This weekend I read Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad's The Bookseller of Kabul, published in 2004, and subsequently reprinted no less than 25 times. It focuses on an Afghan family in the days immediately following the defeat of the Taliban by US forces - the family patriarch is the bookseller in question. The author looks at the lives, loves, hopes, desires and aspirations of the family members, and intersperses the account with dollops of Afghan history that anyone with the ability to trawl through Internet search engines can have access to. Shah Mohammad Rais (the bookseller, named Sultan Khan in the book) was so incensed after reading the book that he flew over to Norway with lawyer in tow, and sued Seierstad; they reportedly also got into trouble with the authorities and their neighbours. I can understand why.

To begin with, the author makes up pseudonyms for everyone in question so as to maintain anonymity, but then describes them in such great detail, down to their professions and area they live in, that the entire exercise is rendered redundant. I'm also not sure why Seierstad chose this particular family - as she herself claims in the Foreword, the family, being an urban, educated, rich one, isn't representative of Afghan families at all. As an author, she is well within her rights to choose the story she wants to tell, and focus on characters that are best suited to take the narrative forward - but if the story is a true one, and the characters real people, holding them up to the world's scrutiny without any well-defined rationale can just be a mere exercise in voyuerism. Which, to my mind, is what this book is all about. Coupled with this is the trap all white, Western people fall into - that of gazing at the 'other', the developed nations, through their detached, culturally-specific, and all too often ill-equipped lenses, and interpreting cultural nuances with their aid. In her attempt to fit Afghanistan within the stereotypical vision that most people outside the country, especially those from the global North, have of it, the author highlights only those incidents that conform to the stereotype, and focuses on just that evidence that confirms her hypothesis - that Afghanistan is a backward country still in the grip of religious forces, where men rule and women are treated worse than cattle.

All of which might well be true, but is a journalist really allowed to choose only those facts that best suit her at any given moment in time? There's a thin line between reporting on another culture and using the facts to reflect your own bias - The Bookseller of Kabul is an indictment of Afghan society in general and this one family in particular. Seierstad stayed with the Rais family for several months - I cannot believe that in all these months she came across just these smattering of incidents to write about. As a white woman, her primary concern was the way 'women were treated' - a fact that's not new to any of us in the Indian subcontinent, but which must have elicited gasps of horror from the so-called progressive white world - the target audience. While Sultan Khan is held up as a man brave enough to defy the Taliban and court imprisonment in an attempt to preserve his country's history and culture, that facet of his personality is subsumed under detailed descriptions of his despotic behaviour towards the rest of his family, his lasciviousness where his beautiful, teenaged second wife was concerned, his materialistic bent of mind that caused him to sacrifice humanity at the altar of business and profits. We get to hear all about how his sons hate him (has anyone who read the book notice how peculiarly ambivalent her attitude towards Mansur was? Was she sympathetic or did she disapprove of his selfishness? Was Mansur a confused teenager whose will was steadily being eroded by his tyrannical father, or was he a spoilt, self-centred boy who believed everyone in the world had been created for his pleasure alone? He took on several guises, much in the manner of a chameleon, depending on the point the author was driving home at that given moment) and the women in his family fear him - all helpfully repeated with every anecdote just in case you missed the point the first, second, or fifth time.

My major problem with the book is that it adds nothing to our knowledge about Afghan history or culture - as I mentioned earlier, the bits of history the author rather monotonously recites are stuff we all know about, or facts easily available on the Internet. There is no analysis, no critical commentary - just a mere presentation of facts, whether they be about the history of Afghanistan, or about the Rais family. However, how is getting to know the little domestic details of one family in Afghanistan going to help anyone? How is it enriching the corpus of literature that already exists on this topic, and sundry related others? The only thing it does it satiate our desire to see into other families, to satisfy the voyeur present in all of us. Seierstad doesn't disappoint here. She lingers deliciously (much like the Afghan women she describes gossiping) on stories of young women's transgressions in matters of love, and the punishment that befell them thereafter; on the 'dirty thoughts' that flit across the minds of young teenage boys; and, most obviously, in the whole chapter devoted to the hammam. Now, all of us with some knowledge of the world know what the hammam is all about. It's no different from the bathhouses of Rome, or the saunas in the West. It's a communal bathing area. Fatima Mernissi and Bouhidiba, among others, have written marvellous articles critically analysing the role of the hammam in Islam, and the gender relations that become manifest through it. That, however, is not what Seierstad had in mind - she chooses to focus on the hot and steamy interior, scenes of women scrubbing each other's backs, breasts and thighs, talk about how married women strip completely while unmarried ones don't - if this isn't blatant voyeurism, what is?

I'm not surprised Mohammad Rais was furious. Instead of a book on his family he could proudly show off, he was presented with constant references to his cruel and tyrannical character, accounts of his family's alleged feelings towards him as well as their illicit desires, all of which he would rather not have known, and, as if that wasn't enough, he had to be presented with rather negative descriptions of the naked body of his mother! If that's not going to drive a traditional, god-fearing, conservative man to apoplexy, I don't know what is. Would Seierstad have done the same with the mother of, say, a bookshop owner in Soho?

Seierstad, in every work of hers, is annoyingly self-indulgent, a fact her next book, 101 Days, an account of the first 100 days of the American war on Iraq, attests to. Unlike most good journalists, she focuses more on herself than the history she's witnessing, or the people she's interviewing, or even the facts she's reporting. We can't but be aware of her presence throughout - and nowhere is it more obvious than in The Bookseller of Kabul. Cliched, pointless and badly-written, Seierstad's work is a lesson on how journalism ought not to be done. I'm not surprised it became a bestseller, though - after all, the same can be said of The Da Vinci Code, and look where that's at now. Also, there's nothing people like more than to witness someone else's dirty linen being washed in public.

I'd initially intended for this blog to contain short reviews of three books, but this one seems to have taken up way too much space already. So will leave the others for later blogs - and the remaining two, thankfully, have been books I enjoyed immensely.

2006-05-06T23:05:00.000Z

Rang de Basanti

This is a long-overdue post, about a subject that has been discussed to death already. But for various reasons, I got to watch Rang de Basanti only very recently, and therefore it is only now that I can comment on it with any degree of authority.

Aamir Khan fans can stop reading straight away, because this is not going to be one of those laudatory 'this-is-one-of-the-greatest-films-ever' sort of review - quite the opposite, in fact. Let me start with a couple of simple questions - why, pray, was this film such a huge hit? And why did the people who raved about it consider it a serious film of sorts, one that was likely to change your worldview? The film looked, sounded, and felt exactly as though it had been made by an adolescent, for an audience of yet more adolescents.

To begin with, it starts with this huge cliche - an European coming over to India to make a film on a part of Indian history, a cliche that has its roots in the colonial empire, and a tradition of social anthropology that based itself upon the premise that it was only the enlightened white gaze that could shed any light on any aspect of 'native, primitive' life, be it their quaint culture or history, which was almost always oral (note how the details of the history that Sue wants to document come from her grandfather's diary) - and this light would then be carried not only to the outside/Western world, but inwards, to the natives themselves. The presumption here is that since the natives in question are primitive, and, therefore, dumb beyond belief, they would need their lives to be explained to them by the civilised world (again, note how the four young men refuse to acknowledge the gravity of this part of their history that's being highlighted, and continue battling each other on the grounds of perceived or imagined differences, till Sue's angry outburst that brings them to their senses). Orientalism, Edward Said called this phenomenon. Bollywood's now packaging it as a story because of which 'a generation awakes'.

College life is, predictably, full of the stereotypical 'fun' that exists only in Hindi movies - certainly no one I knew behaved in quite that hysterical way in college, and we can all safely say that our university days were some of the greatest days ever. And that's not all that exists in Bollywood - so does the Delhi University that the film professed to showcase. Which institute in DU has hostel rooms the size of a modest (swanky) apartment? Where is that amphitheatre where one can hang around at all hours of the night, making merry before a roaring bonfire (why exactly they needed a fire in summer, I didn't quite get)? And since when has Delhi been all clean and airbrushed with almost empty roads? And incidentally, the International Studies Institute is an institution meant for research, not teaching. The film's supposed to be taking place in Delhi, but meanders bewilderingly all over north India - suddenly you're in some fort or the other in some place that's reminsicent of Rajasthan; the next moment you're gazing at the Golden Temple in Amritsar; and then there are the lush green fields of Punjab; a dhaba situated in the middle of nowhere in particular; and then there you are at Chandni Chowk where guess what? the only Muslim character resides. Whodathunk it?

Only one of the young men has a rich dad, but everyone else also drives expensive cars and bikes; there's the stereotypically doting Punjabi mom who takes pride in her martial race - there no mother in all of Punjab who hasn't sacrificed her son for the sake of the country, she declares; the Sanghi with a heart of gold (he, incidentally, is a very important person in the saffron party who moonlights as local goon - yet he's all naive when it comes to money matters in the party); the lovable young Air Force officer with a widowed mother and pretty fiance, who you know will be sacrificed at the altar of box-office returns the minute you set eyes on him - the cliches just didn't stop coming! We're also treated to a romanticised notion of shirking responsibility - Aamir Khan's over-the-top character apparently graduated 5 years previously, but prefers to spend his days at the university instead of getting a life because he feels safe there, everyone knows him there, he's somebody. Loser, we'd call him in real life. Bollywood calls him a hero. I know the director had to come up with an explanation as to why Aamir Khan does not and cannot look like a college student, but did it have to be so lame?

And then, of course, there were the factual errors. People in India are well within their rights if they wish to hold a peaceful demonstration, candlelight vigil, or protest march. There are scores happening all over the place. The authorities do not have the power to ask people to break it up - and certainly not in the violent way the film showed them doing. Second, every criminal's entitled to a fair trial. Even Abu Salem was granted one, for crying out loud - and here you have four unarmed students who've turned themselves in being gunned down in cold blood, before the entire nation and the press. This can happen in a dictatorship - and while I'll be the first to admit that India has more than its fair share of problems, it still hasn't come to the point where the State can kill anyone it wants, anywhere it wants. We are still a democracy, albeit a malfunctioning one. Third - who the hell listens to the radio, and that too at 6 in the morning?! Puh-leeze! Fourth, no defence minister in his right mind would toddle off for a walk on a deserted street with his dopey bodyguards ambling along a convenient distance away. It's really not that easy to kill a politician - if it were, there would be very few of them left.

Fifth - this isn't an error so much as a deliberate omission - the entire freedom movement is centred around north India, excluding every other part of the subcontinent. As a matter of fact, the violent nature of the movement, which the British had labelled 'terrorism' ) makes you think, doesn't it?), started in Bengal. It was Khudiram Bose who, at the age of 19, killed a British officer and was sent to the gallows. Bhagat Singh had extremely strong ties with the Bengal chapter of the freedom struggle - he, actually, had gone and killed the wrong officer. You wouldn't know any of this watching Rang de Basanti. (Not that this is surprising, really - India's regions are so divisive that most ignore the existence of others. If you go to Pune and check out their interpretation of history, it would seem as though they were the ones to singlehandedly send the British limping back to England!)

As for the forced and contrived parallels drawn between the freedom fighters and the protagonists, the less said about it the better. If people can seriously believe that two completely different contexts, two separate sets of ideologies, and the exigencies of two different points in time can coincide and therefore be dealt with in exactly the same manner, there is nothing that can be said to them.

What I also fail to understand is the message this film supposedly has for the youth. Love your country and do all you can to improve it. Improve it how? By taking recourse to violence and killing the first convenient scapegoat? Because that's what the defence minister was, a scapegoat. He's not the responsible for keeping corruption in defence deals alive - there was a defence minister before him, and there would be one after him. Besides, defence deals are not made by the defence minister alone - the top brass of the army, and the cororate houses, are equally culpable. It would be too controversial and dangerous where the economy's concerned to showcase that, however. Also, let's not forget that these kids only woke up to the fact that things are going horrible wrong in our country when it affected them personally. So the message is - sure, we all know there's corruption, but chill, enjoy life, till it hits you or someone you love. Then, turn into self-styled messiahs and kill the first person you think is responsible without any in-depth knowledge of the situation. Violence, however senseless, is cool as long as you have some sanctimonious reason to back it up with. Does anyone see any generation awake in the wake of Rang de Basanti? I don't - and I know it's because the urban, educated generation this film targets is very much in cahoots with the State - it's the State's economic policies that keeps their daddies and them flush with the money required to maintain their thoughtless lifestyles and lord it over the less privileged, who're too marginalised to make a difference even if they tried.

There are only two good things about Rang de Basanti - the scene where Pandey apologises to Aslam is brilliant, and entirely convincing. Second, this film will lend itself beautifully to a Mad magazine-type spoof. Can't wait for it.

2006-04-11T21:30:00.000Z

Why the comparison?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I was thrilled to wake up this morning to the news that that execrable homo sapien, Salman Khan, had actually been sentenced to five years' imprisonment for having killed a chinkara, which, as we all know, falls under the endangered species category. By the time I reached the end of the news story, however, I was feeling rather disturbed - at the way the news had been presented. Rather than being glad that punishment had been meted out in an instance where the law had been violated, and that too to someone like Salman Khan, who had money, power and connections behind him, the newspapers have been busy drawing parallels with the Jessica Lal case, and asking: so if the death of a chinkara could receive justice, why not that of Jessica Lal? The implication is clear - animals seem to matter more than humans.

Now this is patently unfair. The Jessica Lal case shocked all of us - and anyone who's heard me raving and ranting about it cannot accuse me of dismissing it as not worthy of consideration. But I'm sorry, I have to ask - are these two cases related? I don't think so. So why, then, this comparison? This is not Salman Khan's only offence, people. He killed several chinkaras, a blackbuck (another endangered species) - there's a separate case pending against him for that - and he's also facing yet another lawsuit for reckless and drunk driving, which left three people dead. (It's another matter altogether that the man should have been tried for murder - 3 people dead! - but the indisputable fact remains that the dead happened to be pavement dwellers, whose lives don't matter, and the accused a Bollywood star, whose life and tantrums certainly do.) The man's been going around breaking laws with impunity, be it the wildlife preservation one, or the ones pertaining to drunk driving - and in one instance, at least, he's got what he deserved. I think the blatant misuse of the law and order machinery that we witnessed during the Jessica Lal case is precisely the reason why this is an occasion to rejoice - that somewhere, at least, the law is being upheld, and the accused brought to justice, regardless of who he might be.

I really wish people wouldn't make this an animals versus humans debate. And I'm not just saying that because I'm well-known for my passion for animals, wildlife, the environment. Most acts and bills that are passed are put in place because it serves some function, and protects some essential aspect of society and our lives - be it our right to religious freedom, protection of property and the sanctity of human life, or the preservation of wildlife, to name just a very, very few. Anyone breaking any law that serves to protect and preserve deserves to be punished through the proper channels - whichever they might be, it's hard to tell these days. How do we get to decide which laws are more important, and therefore which crimes more worthy of punishment? Isn't it enough that someone in some court has finally done something right?

And incidentally, animals don't have it good in India. Far from it. Like it or not, they have just as much a right to live on this earth as we do. And no, we do not have the right to play God merely because we're better equipped, for the most part, in terms of weapons, strength or technology to lord it over them. Maneka Gandhi's already done irreparable damage to the animal rights movement, which willy-nilly has come to be associated with her hysteria alone - and now the media seems to be following suit. Sure, go ahead and ask why justice could not be meted out in the same fashion in the Jessica Lal case, in the Sanjay Nanda (he of the BMW notoriety) case, in every case that comes up for trial - perhaps one day those accountable will be made to answer. But please, let's not trivialise the little victories that are taking place, merely because they happen to be vis-a-vis a different species.

2006-03-25T19:30:00.000Z

The Question of Dowry

Earlier this week I attended a two-day seminar on the women's movement and the law, which was graced by several well-known academics, activists and lawyers. There were some very interesting and some not-so-interesting papers presented, some thought-provoking, and some entirely incomprehensible. Anyway, the issue I want to discuss here - rather, some random thoughts I want to note down on - is that of dowry.

There were a couple of points during the discussion on dowry that struck me - the fact that whenever we discuss this issue, or it's brought to our attention, it is almost always the violence that emanates from this institution that claims our interest and indignation - even more than the notion of dowry per se. It seems almost as if through all the protests, the media reports, the so-called sensitisation of the police force, the debates surrounding the efficacy of the laws/Acts against dowry, what is being sought to be highlighted, and eliminated, is the violence accruing from it, rather than the practice of giving and taking dowry itself. Instead of clamouring for an end to dowry deaths, we should be asking for an end to dowry; instead of the filing cases against people suspected of murdering or driving a woman to suicide, we should be involving the law and order machinery much earlier.

Which brings me to the second point - how do we define dowry, exactly? There was a discussion on the benefits of extending the definition of dowry - and this I agree with. Dowry these days can no longer be limited to the exchange of gifts, an exchange which is almost always unequal, reflecting the inequality in status that persists till date between the bride givers and bride takers. Isn't the blatant display of ostentation that characterises the majority of marriages a part of this institution? I think it is - yes, I know the lavish arrangements are all too often explained away as signifying the 'happiness' that accompanies a marriage ... after all, a child will only get married once (though that's far from certain in the 21st century!), and why should the family not go out of their way to make the occasion as memorable as they can? Scratch the surface, though, and you open a very different can of worms. We all know that the ostentation is invariably due to a desire to enhance one's status in the particular community that one resides in; or due to an almost desperate desire to cater to the groom's family's every need, lest their daughter bear the brunt of the latter's displeasure at a later date; in some instances certain requirements are even dictated by the bridegroom's family; or all of the above. Buttressing as it does the lowly status assigned to girls/women and, by extension, their families, this pressure to 'perform' and stage a splendid wedding is no less a form of dowry than the more material demands for cash or goods.

Incidentally, despite all this inequality between bride givers and takers, the law, when it is upheld, looks upon dowry givers and takers as equally culpable. Rather unfair, that - while I agree that aiding and abetting an offence is just as big a crime as the criminal act itself, dowry givers are more often than not presurised into acquiesance, thanks to the patriarchal nature of our society and the obsolete traditions it insists on clinging on to. Which woman, knowing that her parents will be arrested, will go ahead and report a case of dowry?

What this seminar also did was bring out the incredibly fractured and fractious nature of the women's movement - but that complex issue, with all its myriad over- and undertones, is best left for a later post.

2006-03-04T22:30:00.000Z

Eragon

A little while ago I finally finished reading Christopher Paolini's Eragon, the first book in his Inheritance trilogy. ('Finally' because my life has taken this sad, sad turn - all I seem to do these days is work at editing some manuscript or the other, or travel in filthy DTC buses to get to work ... the good old days when I was actually reading, and a lot, appear to have gone on vacation. It took me three months to finish Eragon, and most of my reading was done on said DTC buses - when I was lucky enough to get a seat, that is!) I'd heard so much about the book - and the author, who's almost a child prodigy - he's 21 now, but was only 15 when he began writing the book, and was 19 when it took off. I have to say, though, that I was quite pleased with it.

Despite the fact that this is purely conventional fantasy - Eragon smacks heavily of Tolkien and, in a far more obvious manner, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (which itself owes a lot to Tolkien's LOTR), and sticks to the structure of the traditional fantasy tale (a world that might or might not be our own, rules that are different, yet strangely familiar, an endearing hero who is uprooted from a regular life to find that he has hitherto unplumbed depths of courage and nobility within him, battles, monsters and, ultimately, at the heart of it all, the age-old fight between good and evil), Eragon works. This is mostly thanks to Paolini's imagination, continually creates new situations and characters to capture our own, the fact that he is rather a good story-teller, and because he has discovered what appeals to people - believable characters who hold our interest, who can endear themselves to us, and who we can, at some level, identify with.

Eragon is about a farm boy who discovers a dragon egg purely by accident, and ends up becoming a Dragon Rider - the mythic warriors of yore who were defeated by the rogue Rider Galbatorix, who, having crowned himself king, now unleashes his cruel regime over most of the land. Helped by the mysterious Brom, Eragon sets out on a journey that is as much about finding himself as it is about discovering his destiny. In the gripping, taut narrative, what stands out - a stroke of genius on Paolini's part - is the relationship between Eragon and his dragon Saphira. Their growing love, trust and respect for each other, mutual dependence, and complete synchronicity of thought and action is portrayed quite remarkably.

Nevertheless, the fact that Christopher Paolini was just a teenager when he wrote the book is quite apparent - in the way he can't quite resist showing off his certainly commendable vocabulary, in the almost textbook quality of his treatment of grief and love, especially the latter (you can't help being reminded of the fact that Eragon's creator is not much older than the character himself), and in the fact that he doesn't deviate from the tried and tested fantasy novel formula that has contributed to the success of several writers before him. Despite this, however, it is not too hard to see why Eragon rivalled Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Eragon is entirely believable, romanticising as he does, the qualities of loyalty, nobility, courage, endurance and determination. How many of us haven't yearned for an event that would somehow change our lives, set us apart from the rest of the world and make us heroes, not because we belong to some magical world that we will in all probability not be privy to, but because we embody values that are fast becoming anachronistic?

Is Eragon a great piece of fantasy fiction? No. But is it a good, interesting read that manages to stay with you for at least a while after you're done reading? Yes, it is. Now I can't wait to read the sequel, Eldest.

2006-02-01T19:30:00.000Z

Whose world is it anyway?

I have a theory of sorts, which basically states that the world we live in is at a point of no return. We humans have messed up the earth incredibly badly, and as a race that is supremely selfish, greedy, corrupt and power-hungry, all we care about is making our own lives as comfortable as possible, no matter what the cost. Oh of course there are the good ones - the people fighting for justice, non-discrimination, an end to poverty, peace - but there are way too few of those. The few good things these people have managed to achieve over the decades are being undermined by the majority. Take feminism, for example. Everything that we take for granted have come as a result of bitter struggle, fought by our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers even. Who would not have thought that by now, the 21st century, women would be treated with a little bit of the respect any living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being deserves? Except - not really. And nowhere is this more apparent than the completely obnoxious and appalling show currently being aired on AXN called The Man's World Show.

I'd seen the trailers, of course - of these two moronic men who go by the names of Ash and ... something, I forget what, stating with complete conviction that they had all the answers to every possible question any man may at some point have had regarding women, while a leggy woman wearing next to nothing preened and pouted in the foreground. And then there was the very bosomy Tanisha of Neal 'n' Nikki fame telling people to go watch the show (this, at least, should have warned me - but in my defence, I wasn't really paying that much attention). Last week, for want of something better to do, I decided to catch a bit of the show. I'm still in a state of shock.

If there's anyone who wants to know exactly what the phrase 'commodification/objectification of women' means, go watch this piece of crap. This show has every possible offensive stereotype that has ever surrounded women - from the brain-dead all legs and boobs model who's dying for some attention from these guys, attention that might just catapult her into a film role, to the belief that it's only the sight of almost-nude women that keeps the attention of a man (so, cut to shots of the Kingfisher swimsuit calendar - Vijay Mallya's pathetic attempt at replicating the Pirelli), to the 'advice' these guys give every English-speaking Indian man watching the show (and I bet there are plenty) - 'guys, don't tie yourself to just one woman. Go date lots of them - but remember, keep it to one woman at a time (very important, that). And when you're with a woman, focus your attention on her - women like to feel they're special. So remember her name, her friends' names, what she likes ... and if nothing's happening for you, just move on to the next one'. Ash actually had the audacity to compare a woman with a car.

Then, of course, there's this (again) stereotypically ugly man called Benny (oily hair, nondescript clothes, heavy Indian accent to his English - as opposed to dear Ash's faux American one, which is oh-so-cool-n-sexy - lumbering gait) who can never get a woman to even look at him once. Except he does, not one, but two women, in an elevator. By the stroke of the most wonderful piece of luck, both these nubile nymphs are wearing extremely tight jeans and T-shirts, the kind that gives you ample glimpses of cleavage - and, of course, they don't mind what Benny looks like, after all, he's on TV! That's all a woman would care about - what a man has, never mind what he is or looks like. One of them wants Benny to sign her T-shirt just where it stretches across her breasts - so camera obligingly zooms in on her cleavage.

That's where I lost it and switched off the TV. I wanted to watch more, just to see how far they'd go - but I couldn't. And anyway, I think I have a pretty good idea.

What have we been fighting for? Equality, a better world where men respect us, think of us as human and give us our space - none of it matters, does it? Because clearly, it's been lost on not just men, but women too - the ones who agreed to be on the show, and the ones who watch it (and again, I'm sure there are some who've watched it and are not as apoplectic as I am). Are we progressing, or regressing? How can we call ourselves civilised, developing, progressive, if this is what we endorse?

And where are the protests? Where are the women's groups? Where is the censor board, which otherwise considers a simple kiss an act tantamount to terrorism (the Indian culture does not permit this, blah, blah)? Where are the self-proclaimed guardians of morality who will not even let the words 'pre-marital sex' be breathed on Indian soil? Where are all the people who hail women as goddesses, as mothers? Where is Sushma Swaraj? How does a prime television channel air such offensive, damaging content and get advertisers for it? And don't worry - I might sound naive, but I'm not - I know exactly what the answers to most of these questions are.

But in one fell swoop a lot of the battles feminists and humanists won over the decades was undone. And, as has become the norm these days, everyone just stood (or sat) by and watched.

And for those who might just want to see for themselves exactly why I'm seething, it's on AXN, Wednesdays at 10.30 pm.

2006-01-16T04:15:00.000Z

Ramblings

And here I am, back from the land of viral fevers - funny how this blog, as my creation, feels a bit like a child, and my not having written anything (and therefore having neglected it) for quite a while now makes me feel rather like a guilty mother! Anyone else know what I mean?

This new year's been very weird - for the first time in quite a while there was no excitement leading up to the 31st, no 'what will I be doing', no festive feeling - perhaps that's because last year was easily the worst (and the best, my marriage being the one thing that saved my sanity and kept me whole) in my entire life - friends and family reading this will know just what I'm talking about. So I certainly wasn't in any partying spirit - all I could pray for most fervently was that things would improve with the dawning of 2006 - though, of course, the cynic in me couldn't see how moving from one day to the next could make all the difference in the world. I mean, this Gregorian calendar is an artificial, cultural construct - the Bengali calendar, for instance, is completely different. New Year's going to happen only in April for us Bongs. And the fact that Delhi's been so miserably, unnaturally cold didn't help.

Then, of course, I went and got viral fever and so ushered in the new year from bed, with a temperature that alternated between 100 and 103 degrees. Oh yes, and I watched this thriller called Final Destination 2, which was all about these people escaping death and then Death (yes, that mean guy with a capital 'D') hunting them down and kicking their asses (as Ross would say in Friends). But my good deed for the year where my own self is concerned has been joining the gym where my husband works out a week back - something I've wanted to do for quite a while now - so last week saw me huffing and puffing away at all these clanking machines (some I feel positively terrified of), staring enviously at nicely toned and far stronger people around, and doing some more huffing and puffing in a bit to join their ranks as soon as I can. And I'm a mass of aches at the moment and letting out these screeches if I even so much as lift my arm - I never even knew I had all these muscles in all these spots!

But don't be fooled by my moaning - gyms are good places. And highly addictive besides.

2005-12-12T03:30:00.000Z

Give peace a chance

I've a feeling my blog's going to turn into a site where I do little more than rave and rant and bemoan the state of the world. Oh well, I guess I'd better make the most of this time while my friends are still indulgent enough to read my ramblings - and comment!

Anyway, like many Beatles/Lennon fans, I watched the 8 December programmes Star Plus aired to commemorate John Lennon's death anniversary. While watching the first segment, 'Give Peace a Song', which was basically about the week-long bed-in that John and Yoko had done way back in 1971 to protest against the wars and violence plaguing the world and call for peace, and where the rousing 'Give Peace a Chance' was recorded, I couldn't stop thinking - how come this (hundreds of people coming together with one socially aware celebrity to record a song for peace, a song that went on to become the anthem for everyone calling for an end to war across the world) doesn't happen any more?

'You know what surprises me?' one of the people who'd been part of the recording said while being interviewed for this programme, 'the fact that this song is still as relevant now as it was 35 years ago, when John wrote it. ' I think this fact isn't just surprising, it's profoundly disturbing. Wars and violence have become endemic all over the world - they're just another way for people to make money and get powerful at the expense of less privileged sections of humanity - and no one cares enough to organise protests any more. Oh, I know there are protests all over - there are marches, demonstrations, rallies - but they don't seem to have any effect, do they? Is there anyone like John Lennon around anymore, someone who would protest social evil by simply staying in bed for a week? And if there was someone, would she/he have the same charisma and appeal that John had, to be able to fearlessly proclaim your views and influence thousands of people? I got goosebumps watching all those people - regular people, most of them - sitting around John and Yoko, singing 'All we are saying, give peace a chance' as if that was what they were always meant to do, as if their lives depended on it - and maybe they did. And later, outside the White House, thousands more protesting the Vietnam War joined Pete Seeger in singing the same song. Just that one line said so much more than a hundred speeches ever could.

Yoko and Sean had brought out this new, updated version of 'Give Peace a Chance' after 11 September along with a whole lot of other singers. But somehow, the sight of these celebrities clapping and stamping to the rhythm of 'Give Peace a Chance' on this technologically well-crafted video just did not have the same power that the sight of ordinary people taking to the streets, wearing their beliefs like an armour and singing as if all their voices raised together in a single song could make all the difference did. Violence, civil wars and every possible social ill afflicts every country in the world today. The world's most powerful superpower starts a war in another country for no good reason and is aided and abetted by other European powers - and half the people of the world no longer come forward to ask them to give peace a chance. Why? Have we become that selfish and insular, that uncaring? Surely not?

I was thinking of what John would say if he were to pay the world a visit now and see just how badly we need to give peace a chance. How would he feel to see that his protests, his messages of peace had come to naught? The continuing relevance of his song will bring him no solace, I'm sure.

2005-12-05T23:00:00.000Z

What is wrong with the media?

A few nights back, I happened to catch the late night snippets that Aaj Tak (one of the news channels on television for those who've never watched it). This is not a channel I usually watch, and I caught even this bit purely by accident. But what I saw appalled me, and I thought I should write about it and share it with all my friends and family who read my blog.

To begin with, the way this channel chooses to present these news snippets is pretty awful. Sensationalising the traumatic events taking place in the lives of ordinary, often impoverished, sections of India's population, what Aaj Tak aims to do is not so much garner sympathy and support as appeal to the voyuer in people, and thus increase their TRP. Anyway, this story, which the commentator related with evident relish, was about this woman from an obviously lower-middle class (according to India's class system) background. She and her husband had divorced, but had fallen in love all over again and later remarried ('bilkul filmo ki tarah', 'just like in the movies'). Only, she didn't stop seeing the man/men she had been involved with in the interim period, and one day, after an altercation with her husband, she got her lovers to beat him up. Which they did, only so thoroughly that they killed him, and that too, before their son, who's barely 4 years old. The mother then dumped the child with her in-laws and decamped with the lovers, after telling people that her husband as away on work (or something to that effect).

And now I come to the horrifying part. This small, obviously traumatised child, who'd seen his father murdered in a particularly brutal way before his eyes, was the one who had informed his grandparents of the incident, who in turn had reported the matter to the police, thus setting in motion the whole chain of events that followed. Our media, in the form of Aaj Tak, did not just report the matter with great relish, they actually brought the child before the camera and made him recount the whole grisly incident in great detail, prompting him most helpfully and asking further questions whenever he faltered. A child of barely four was made to relive the horror of his father's murder for an uncaring, soulless news channel whose primary responsibility is to their ratings.

I know it's naive in these days to presume that the media has any social responsibility or even a heart. But surely this was carrying it too far? I know, too, that this is not an isolated incident. The grandparents of the little boy could obviously be browbeaten into submission - perhaps they were told that placing their vulnerable grandchild before the camera could help bring their son justice - but is there nothing anyone can or will do? In western nations the media would never have been allowed anywhere near the child. There are child support centres who would have immdiately come into play. Is there no one who could step in in our country to prevent the media - or individuals, for that matter - from pursuing their selfish agendas with such impunity?

2005-11-29T02:00:00.000Z

Delhi's disastrous roads

All of us in Delhi must've read about the pretty horrific accident filmmaker Pamela Rooks was involved in this morning. She's undergone brain surgery, the papers report, and is in a drug-induced coma at the moment. The newspapers, of course, didn't stop at just the accident: they went on to solemnly report the sorry state Delhi roads are in, and provided statistics for the past two years on just how many accidents there have been in Delhi every year, month, day; just how many are killed, and the vehicles they were driving at the time of death. What they forgot to mention, but what we all know, is that it's not so much Delhi roads as Delhi drivers who are the problem. What they also forgot to mention is a possible solution. Perhaps because there doesn't seem to be any.

Delhi roads, at any given point in time, are crammed with cars (enormous ones resembling trucks in some cases), buses (of various sizes), autorickshaws, scooters and bikes, bicycles, carts, jaywalkers, dogs and cows. Driving in this veritable menagerie is a feat in itself, and the situation is compounded by the fact that, first, everyone - cows, DTC bus drivers, yuppies in their big flashy cars, daredevil bikers and demented auto drivers - thinks they own pretty much every road in the city; and second, most people driving on Delhi roads should never have been given a licence to drive anywhere.

In my opinion, everything boils down to a lack of responsibility on the part of pretty nearly everyone in Delhi - the drivers, the pedestrians, the law and order situation, the way anyone can get a licence without knowing how to drive well enough. (Here's how my husband got his licence - he was told by this guy who was taking his test 'sau gaj aage chalaiye' ['Drive a 100 yards forward']; 'Ab reverse mein karke say gaj peche chalaiye' ['Now put the car in reverse and drive 100 yards back']. And that was it. The test was passed with flying colours, and the licence given. My husband might be responsible on the streets, but a lot of others who get their licences under similar circumstances are not.) The Alto that hit Pamela Rooks' Landcruiser was being driven by a drunk driver. The car had already careened out of control, hit the divider and flipped over by the time the Landcruiser came along. It landed on the biger car, and through no fault of hers, Pamela Rooks in in hospital in a coma.

Two points emerge from this incident. First, that it took a Pamela Rooks to make the story of yet another accident on Delhi roads newsworthy. Hundreds of people die in accidents through no fault of theirs every year, but their lives are never considered important enough to dwell upon. The parents of the young men who were travelling in the Alto (two of them died) are vehemently denying any possibility of their sons having been drunk. And in a bizarre twist (if the Hindustan Times is to be believed), an FIR has been filed against the driver of the Landcruiser. Why, pray, has that been done? What is he to blame for, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Second, what are the odds that people are going to forget about this incident in a couple of days' time and that irresponsible, rash and, yes, drunk drivers will continue to raise hell on Delhi streets? And when accidents happen, the guilty party will buy their way out of trouble with the help of money and muscle (remember the BMW case?). We as a nation - and possibly as a race - have become increasingly self-absorbed. Our social responsibility has become confined to just our immediate circle of loved ones. People in Delhi will continue to do as they please without a thought to the consequences their actions can have - they will drive with complete disregard where rules are concerned, they will take resort to physical violence at the merest hint of provocation, and they will not care less if they've had too much to drink before they get behind the wheel. And when lives are lost, they're usually of hapless people who, like Rooks, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As for the rest of us, we'll just shake our heads sorrowfully and get on with our lives.

2005-11-24T00:35:00.000Z

How 'Desperate' can you be?

Has anyone been watching that much-hailed soap, Desperate Housewives? It's pretty unmissable - Star World repeats the same episode about thrice every week, such is its popularity (Desperate Housewives', that is, not Star World's). I've been watching it more or less regularly, actually, since the day, around 3 months or so back, when Simi Garewal stared me soulfully in the eye during a commercial break and asked me which one of these women was me (or should that be I?). I had to find out- as also figure out why this show is so popular.

So. Am I the wimpy, weepy Susan, whose only role seems to be running after a particular murderer-turned-plumber in the belief that said man was just a very hot plumber and then calling the relationship off when his murdering tendencies became known, going all to pieces and having to be looked after by her extremely sensible 14-year-old daughter, all with this save-me-I'm-vulnerable expression on her face? Or am I the obssessive compulsive Bree, who is so immersed in religion, patriarchy, motherhood, and all things known as 'traditional values' that she (however unwillingly) agrees to participate in her husband's s/m fantasies even after husband has been caught cheating on her and treating her pretty shabbily? Or perhaps the harried Lynette, who decided to give up her career and life so she could look after her husband's home and give birth to his four children, and then live to regret that decision? Or maybe Gabrielle, the rich, spoilt, materialistic, fairly slutty (forgive me for using this term) ex-model, who ostensibly hankers for her husband's love and attention, but is actually far more distraught when faced with the prospect of losing his fortune?

The answer is: none of the above.

So why do I keep watching this show, then? Partly because there's quite an intriguing mystery happening in the periphery of the show - there's this evil, evil man who's a cold-blooded murderer and is messing with his son's head, and I do want to know how things turn out for him. And partly - I don't know. Maybe I'm sticking around to see if I can find some meaning somewhere, though I doubt it. I mean - by exposing the very hollow and shallow life of middle-class American suburbia, and questioning the notion that marriage and motherhood are the greatest achievements any woman can aspire for if she needs to feel 'fulfilled', the show could be called a critique of the middle-class values that most people take so much for granted. But is it, really? Susan was dumped by her husband who traded her for that cliche, his young blonde secretary, but all she can do once she decides to move on, is chase the first available man so she can repeat her history.

Lynette bitches and complains, but does nothing to improve her situation, Gabrielle's answer to every problem is sleeping with an underaged boy, and Bree would rather stay in her dysfunctional family than live what would definitely be a far healthier life on her own. They all return to the same trap that makes them so unhappy - and, at least according to the creators of the show, there apparently is no alternative in this cosy heterosexual paradise. And why the hell do none of these women work? Why is 'career' such a dirty word?

And why do I keep watching this show that I just trashed? (Actually, a lot about it bewilders me, so be warned - there will be more on Desperate Housewives in later blogs.)