Between Write and Wrong

The Skin Room by Morgan Fleetwood

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:11:00 +0000

The distinct smell of the postmodernist masterpiece, ‘Perfume; The Story of a Murderer’, by Patrick Suskind, is hard to forget. Equally difficult it is to miss the unmistakable similarities of Morgan Fleetwood’s debut novel ‘The Skin Room’ with Suskind’s story. Both the protagonists, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille and Alex Melville, are in search of a personal identity; one which seems true. Their motives are born of the lack of maternal attention, and their urges driven toward seeking out the elusive essence that makes them. In a more cinematic sense, this book reminds one of the ‘Psycho’ too, with a macabre meticulousness that made the 45 seconds long shower scene unforgettable. ‘The Skin Room’ reminds you of some of the suspense thrillers that preceded it, but it hooks you at the edge of your reading chair with its own stamp of screams, suspense, secrets and spiraling ennui.

The document that Alex, a multi-lingual translator and murderer, is writing forms the narrative of the novel. Like a diary, if you may. His blood-stained and action-packed account, as well as his confession to killing Valentina, is addressed to an Inspector. It is this Inspector that Alex holds responsible for his sister Sonia’s death, who Alex spends most part of the story looking for. The book begins in a ‘bad part of town’ where Alex is looking for a ‘bad girl’ and ends in Sonia’s apartment, where Alex reaches his ‘final incarnation.’ Between the first scene and the spectacularly disturbing climax three things don’t let up – points of suspense with the imminence of something to come, sudden twists in the tale and Alex’s strange, strange voice in our heads.

The points of suspense oscillate between action and thought, bloody deeds and memories. There is always a ‘maybe’ trailing Alex’s every move, and one sitting lodged in the reader’s head. A preparedness for a surprise twist, yet none the less exciting for coming in unfailingly. Unexpected arrivals and departures, blunt hits and sharp misses are a constant. But what is most unexpected? ‘I wanted to have her, and I was had, by her. L’arro seur arose.’ The hunter turns hunted. The murderer gets soaked in his own blood. It is around this axis that the plot flips, and rotates.

Sometimes, we gallop from one scene to the next, travelling between cities or in and out of rooms with equal speed. Contrarily, Alex slows down the pace so much sometimes that we want to nudge him to move on. Because any more guess-work to do with, say, his father’s dementia (Does he know? Does he remember there was a woman Alex brought into the house?) frustrates the reader. Any more tardiness in unravelling his next move in the cave with Valentina suffocates. Just another minute’s delay by Sonia’s boyfriend in telling Alex about her whereabouts makes our lungs burst.

We readers are impatient pawns in the hands of the narrator’s clock. Maybe because we have tasted blood. And surely because of how Fleetwood decided to create Alex and his voice.

Alex, the ‘humble translator with a unique obsession’, ends up opening the widest window to his own mind – not just its bloody deeds and ‘filmic rushes’ of ‘peeling the skin away’ but also its follies, frailties, fears and failures. His narration is not conceited, because he is not. You will catch him looking at his hands, asking, ‘were they capable of murder?’ while on the next page all doubts would have been laid to a dark rest. In that, Alex is a “different” kind of a criminal, crisscrossed with contradictions, doubt and helplessness.

Remember Grenouille’s utter confidence in seeking a scent? Alex has none of that. While the former moves ahead testing his limits, Alex gets his limits tested, instead.

No doubt he is a sick person, with pouches full of his mother’s and sister’s nail clippings, satisfying an ‘illness’ he recognizes as just that and finding ‘a favourite comforter’ in a dream where Sonia scrapes her knee, and ‘the exposed layer, the pinkness...a revelation to me.’ However, his mind often surprises itself, catching itself off-guard, with its calmness or its rage. His is a mind which is as much trying to unravel itself as it tries to unravel the events for ‘Inspector Sin’. And for us. So you too may wonder - Is he actually a wielder of his sickness or its victim? No, you won’t feel sorry for him. But you will fail to not see in him a human being, a brother, an ignored sibling wanting to be ‘cradled. Kept.’ As if he is one from amongst us, turned thus circumstantially. A ‘monster capable of reflection’.

The final chapters see him spiraling into a very dark labyrinth of thoughts, spectacularly put together with nuanced madness and a breathless loss of method. His acute perception of and documentation of both people and events which occupied the narration till now are replaced by his turning within, many moments of mindless acts looking for an order; alone. The dizzying sequences culminate in blood and a terrifying ‘living work of art’ that makes your gall rise, but takes your breath away.

‘I guess you’re building up a picture of me slowly, and that’s the way I want it.’ Alex says this at the start of the book. By the end of it, it is not just the picture and the events which disturb. It is the fact that somewhere the reader has been held spell-bound by a criminal revealing his mind and motives, and totally fascinated with the most unsettling of revelations and scenes. This reader got involved in every bit of the telling, every bit of Alex’s “becoming”. It says a great deal about the power of Alex’s narration (and Fleetwood’s craft). But what does this macabre enjoyment tell us … about us? ‘Even if I laid down all my justification, you probably wouldn’t understand,’ says Alex almost at the start of his narration. No, we don’t. The complete depravity. But how do we as readers justify our fascination for reading about it? Or even to have found a haunting depth in a paragraph such as ...

‘What’s wrong with imperfection? … What’s wrong with down, with lines, with veins? Show me them all, I want the lot. These are the surface stresses of the soul… I'm for the removal of skin as a barrier to internal beauty, setting free the leaking reds, the swilling pinks, the oozing folds.’

‘The Skin Room’ by Morgan Fleetwood is a well-written thriller. If it is just shy (by the skin’s thickness no more) of being great, it is because maybe the time has come to think of better motives for male derangement than a lack of maternal love. The mother-angle has been done to death in countless movies and books! It is Alex’s parallel (though related) need for becoming his ‘authentic self’, to find his ‘underlying solidity’, which firmly puts the ‘why’ back in this ‘whydunnit’ and turns revenge to a resurrection.

Alex is the character you want to turn inside out. His psychological drama is the heart, the hands, the very flesh that makes this book what it is. A good one!

'The Skin Room' by Morgan Fleetwood is published by Howarth Press, 2017.

[Review was commissioned by the publisher. Views are my own.]

How do I keep the right balance between YES and NO

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 22:11:00 +0000

Being a parent isn’t easy. Forgetting that you’re one is even more difficult. Once a parent, you will always think, feel, assess, react, celebrate and even cook like one. But despite this 24 X 7 roller-coaster ride, you never get off the seat at the end of the day and say with triumph – ‘Now I know it all’. Because, you cannot. Basically, if every parenting issue we have to face was a bulb, we’d be lighting our way to the moon!

Someone wise once told my husband, and he makes sure he reminds me every day, ‘the smaller the child, the smaller the problems. The bigger the child, the bigger the problems.’ Strangely, he thinks it’ll help me cope with my young kid’s issues much better. Even more strangely, it helps because I know ‘the bigger-the better’ war is lurking in the future. What also helps this social media addict is turning to the online community for everything - from the tried-and-tested tips to the latest trending issues. That’s when I came across this video:

The video shows the very common problem of children interpreting their parents’ basic instructions about their health and well-being in their own way. The misinterpreted instructions lead to social and psychological effects, which were neither intended by nor known to the parents.

For instance, a mother’s advice to not eat outside food is taken by the child to mean that she is not to share her friend’s dabba in school. The girl sits alone to eat- this was never the point. The video includes examples which are commonplace, making it rooted in our urban parenting realities. It also shows both - the parents’ as well as the children’s side of the story, clearly juxtaposing the cause, the effect and the real meaning, which went missing somewhere in between when they communicated.

The video’s crux about providing your child with the right food and resources to develop immunity is enough to make you a #YesMom - letting them eat at ease or play without worry with a sick friend. A better understanding of their physiological needs, which are completely connected with their psychological well-being, is something parents are arriving at as times move forward. What is also getting the right limelight through videos such as these is the question - How do I keep the right balance between a Yes and a No?

Nothing is worse than giving your children mixed signals. For instance, you generally do not allow your child to binge on junk food. But when on a holiday you don’t care if he downs two colas over one meal. What is the child to believe? That it’s usually not okay but completely okay some other times? So, is it really harmful or is it okay? Worse - are my parents just fickle or is it that they don’t mind that I drink something harmful sometimes?

When parents give mixed signals, the children develop mixed feelings and become confused about what is valuable. Firstly, I try my best to be consistent with my views. Which means I’m not flexible with allowing and disallowing the child the same activities. A conditional approach to the basics of health and well-being is unhealthy! Secondly, my approach towards such sticky situations, where ‘yes’ and ‘no’ battle it out, has been to explain in the simplest terms my reason for the ‘yes’ or the ‘no’, depending on the issue at hand. I invite my child’s opinion as to why he wants to do something, or not do it. I do my best to understand his mind’s wishes, which often to him seem logical. And then, I work hard to explain to his tender mind my reasons for my beliefs; priority one being that I care.

Children trust their parents, implicitly. And as a parent it falls on me to not let that trust down. To know what I am talking about. To say that ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with conviction backed by information. To make him feel convinced, and eventually happy and healthy. That is why I am always on the look-out for products and processes which cater to our children’s care and help me avoid the constant debates of Yes and No.

And for now, thanks to this video, I have found one way to become a #YesMom. Join me, be a part of the Yes Mom Movement !

God is in the details in Rajiv Mittal’s ‘Brahmahatya’

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 06:26:00 +0000

The Prologue to Rajiv Mittal’s ‘Brahmahatya’, with its absolute finality of ‘what is over is over’, draws you in, immediately. Is it a sigh of relief, this sense of closure right at the start of a book? Or is it a tone of defeat the book whispers in? The curious unhurried juxtaposition of a priest getting dressed and a man trying to be ‘old enough to be his father’ just a page later only adds to what seems like a very unusual start to a book.

The story of ‘Brahmahatya’ is at once tragic and triumphant, banal and sacred, real and unreal, of this world and another. The book is ripe with episodes from Hindu mythology and excerpts from ancient scriptures which are appropriated by the characters to understand their circumstances, or by the author, in order to move the story forward.

Govindarajan Memorial Residency (GMR) is an old age home in a Southern state of India. Most sponsors of the aged residents, like Ravi the protagonist, live overseas. The fee for care-giving and for funerals is duly sent, keeping oiled the wheels of this plush retirement home, comfortable but speckled with greed and politics. The residents ‘were historical but they definitely were not works of art in a museum; these were crumbling.’ The atmosphere is one of a ritualistic sameness of routine and a smell of medicines, decay and death.

Bhavna, an employee at GMR and a single mother to a child with cerebral palsy, is struggling to keep her home and work in order when Ravi enters GMR with a sick father. He’s looking to admit him there so he can go back to his life of work, insomnia and loneliness in Dubai. Dr Chari, a temperamental man with little love lost for his patients or his profession, whimsically refuses Ravi’s father admittance. Mr. Narasimhan, who turns out to be Bhavna’s maths tutor from school, is left in a ramshackle old-age home instead, where he dies a silent death. With nothing but an intense sadness and a roaring rage against Dr Chari, Ravi comes back to GMR. The story follows this ‘confused and confusing man’, with his 'tamasik’ tendencies threatening to crack him, and the world of GMR. There is a sense of the macabre, a derangement, something sinister always in the air. Something being plotted, something else being subverted. The mad old lady from unit number three adds to the plot her own stories, going from ominous to comforting, seemingly without method.

God is in the details when it comes to the characterization in ‘Brahmahatya’. We compliment an author’s characters when we see them in flesh-and-blood. Rajiv Mittal’s characters go beyond that. Of course, each of them has his trademarks. There’s Sridhar, the Secretary, with ‘the habit of nodding his head whenever he had no idea what was happening’. Dr Chari has never been seen in public ‘without his srichurnam, the single thin vertical red line drawn in the middle of his forehead’ and Dr Kasturi who used ‘the word ‘strange’ in the same way I would use the word ‘wonderful’. Each character plays a role. But what is most noteworthy is how their internal conflicts are portrayed such that they become the characters. In this post-modernist world where a meaninglessness envelops lives, the character portrayals often lead to a spectacular, and touching, revelation of their souls! Ravi’s father is mortality shirking its own reality, with a child-like defiance to be independent yet a secret acceptance of fading times. Ravi, an epitome of loneliness and guilt, ‘yearned to feel wanted’. Revenge gives his life a purpose, and him a motive. Bhavna dithers between being good and sinning, remaining torn and tested. The old lady from number three, symbolic of disregard, ‘was not a woman who had gone mad; this was a woman who had chosen madness’. Her stories help others in GMR understand their predicaments. To find answers. To hold on to … something! Anything!

God is not just in the details, but also omnipresent in ‘Brahmahatya’. The book is an exploration of many kinds of relationships, including that of the very real characters with the Divine.

First, between humans. Many bonds are presented beautifully, like Bhavna’s with her daughter, Laxmi, and Ravi’s with Kasturi. However, it is the complexities of Ravi’s relationship with his father which stirred this reader the most. Guilt, awkwardness, hesitance, faux indifference and secret love mark it. From the day Ravi ‘slowly’ goes to meet his hospitalized father to the day of his cremation, an unhurried unravelling of their relationship grips you … till you choke on the realism of it all. The sudden mood change from the assurance that ‘Dad would know … his outbursts in front of the old man were always triggered by concern and fear’ to the old man starting ‘the next cycle of making him feel small again’, the battle is constant. Both, the intricacies of growing old and growing up are heard as silent sobs in their throats. One becomes the other, ‘the indentations on the right slipper were deeper, same as dad; the same spinal curvature’, as Ravi seeks a desperate reconciliation with his father’s death, and his memories of him.

‘Brahmahatya’, through its many references to ancient scriptures and the use of Sanskrit words, is also a narrative on man’s conflict-ridden relationship with the Divine. It is this that gives the book a timelessness, even as it raises ever-pertinent questions about rituals, faith, free will and karmic destiny.

Faith is almost a character in itself, arriving as a strengthening presence when Bhavna is looking for it, or when Ravi has given up on it. The idea of sinning is not far behind, then, and neither are superstitions. There is some humour, like Shridhar, while watching a porn film ‘was feeling Bībhatsam; disgust whose aura is blue. Is that why they called them Blue Films?’ But mostly, there’s gravitas, and lovely philosophical questions. ‘Is one of the messages of the Samudra Manthan that to get nectar, it is first necessary to consume poison; if you survive the poison, it becomes nectar?’ becomes the spine that the plot turns around. The appropriation of ancient scriptures to this contemporary story is painstakingly done. This is apparent through the voices in the characters’ heads, which the readers are made privy to, and where debates between "right" and "wrong" rage. Where their relationship with god is forever in flux…

‘Ahalya. As usual, a man’s interpretation of a story written by men for men. She had felt like laughing at his self-indulgent stupidity, and then she felt like a sinner because of that.’ This is Bhavna, shuffling into rebellious domain and then ‘striking her head on the floor several times in penance, although unsure why.’ Lost? Confused? Real! The ropes of faith and superstition for her are stronger than the threads of subversion. Perhaps the significance of rituals and symbols was to impart to life’s circumstances a comforting pattern of hope and wishful thinking?

Every character you meet is surprisingly well-versed in the scriptures, and mostly at ease with the teachings. Except Ravi. His struggle with faith and no faith forms the crux of the book. As a son listening to the ‘inconsequential murmurings of the indifferent priest’ over his father’s pyre, he needs god ‘not for help. For explanations.’ He’s angry. ‘Why don’t you show your presence here? Come on out, I dare you.’ As always, the gods used silence to silence.’ For the most part of the novel, the reader is his closest confidant. The unhurried pace of the story complements the unhurried unravelling of Ravi, and the reader only feels closer to him. Will there be an affirmation of the Divine in the end, as the events of the book spiral towards a climax? And just like the white smoke from his chillum, a fog of questions emerge to surround us.

And one of my favourites is the classic destiny versus free will debate. The causality in ‘Brahmahatya’ would make for a worthy study!

While getting his father admitted ‘Ravi hoped his dad’s karma was good’. When karma fails them, he swears to fulfill himself the few wishes that he had. While Ravi contemplates one crime to the next, he never stops othering the causes - 'What were the forces that were forcing him to actions that would have such terrible consequences? Was this just another act in a play that started with the death of his father? Maybe the play had started as soon as he was born, perhaps it started earlier...’ Human agency versus the divinely ordained. This is where the philosophical weight of the novel rests.

Bhavna, for the most part, negates human will, which also leads to the scientific and the supernatural warring within her. She’s a woman of science, but believes it was god’s hand that her daughter was born thus. She believes Ravi ‘has no right’ to punish evil. Only by the end of the book does her final resolve to ‘liberate my daughter from the curse… I will do it myself’ becomes the point where free will and destiny meet. At a point of duty and love. Hadn’t Kasturi remarked, ‘Fight you will, your nature will make you fight. Your karma will make you fight. You will fight in spite of yourself’. They are not mutually exclusive, after all.

There do appear a few things about the book which bother me.

Is the book suggesting that a loss of faith in the Divine can only lead to violence and self-annihilation? You also find references to the superiority of Brahmins and Brahminical qualities in the characters, almost to the point of wondering if Ravi’s problem with Dr Chari was not so much that he failed him but that he failed Brahminism and its aspirations. Is this the author’s belief or is this his critique? Answer for yourself as you read!

Then, was Dr Chari really responsible for Ravi’s father’s death? Could the son not take him to Dubai? And what if his death was simply pre-ordained? Ravi managing to live unnoticed in GMR, with no test revealing his age, is implausible, but not as difficult to digest as the supernatural turn of events in the last part of the book. My biggest problem remains with this last aspect. I wish the book ended not with a twist of a fantastical magnitude but with the same quiet, unhindered and steady chant that runs through the book. Unnecessary details about GMR’s functioning and some odd sentences like – ‘Thursday whole night, she could not sleep,’ or, ‘The forgiving voice of Mr Kasturi again.’ could have been edited away.

‘Brahmahatya’ is a stirring book, at once heavy with sadness and light with a beauty which one may call … divine. How the universe and all its beings conspire to make a son understand his father in his death, and understand his death itself seems personal … and felt. It ends on a note of calm reconciliation, even though it remains upon the reader to weigh the cost at which this peace has been reached. Some discomfort will ensue. Some suspension of disbelief will be needed. Some bits of faith will be tested, and some reaffirmed. But that’s what you’re looking for in a book when you’re looking for a book to last you your time. Isn't it?

'Brahmahatya' by Rajiv Mittal is a self-publication, 2017

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

The Curious Case of Hanging Laundry

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 13:06:00 +0000

I am extremely perturbed today. I have learnt from various sources that it’s against gentle manners to dry your laundry out on balconies, your balconies of your houses, out here in Brussels. I also learn that this is true for many countries around the world, but about those mennu kee. I’m not looking for comfort in numbers here. I am, right now, looking at the sun shining on my balcony, and with a gentle wind calling out to the washed laundry piled in the bucket near my feet, waiting to be freed.

Yes, freed. I’m sure wet clothes have feelings too. That they like to hang freely after what they go through in the washing machines. To wave their arms and legs and hems and holes as they dry in the wind and sunshine. And what about their daily dose of Vitamin D? No, this isn’t my angry state of mind muttering untruths to me. This is the absolute truth. It pinches as hard as the hardest clothes-clip the very moment you have to push your clothes rack into your drawing room, and start hanging your soaking laundry there, hoping this summer of 09 will last forever.

For a city which barely manages to get enough sun in a year to make rai ka achaar, I find this tradition absolutely unbelievable. Or maybe, they just don't know what they're missing!
We who have been line-drying our clothes in India since the planet of the apes know what it’s like. The wafer-crispiness of clothes dried in the warm embrace of sunshine is orgasmic to hold. The towels become prickly happy, the separated socks feel loved, the bermudas reach their sandy beach of dreams and even the underwear, for once, feels wanted in public gaze, with nothing to hide!

Why, our clothes proudly unfurling their insides outside is as much a part of our core identity as a flag is made out to be. That is why I say to whomsoever it may concern, that this foreign rule of drying clothes inside the houses is nothing but an affront to my patriotic spirit, my nationalism, my national song, dance, drama and costumes.

Costume makes me wonder. Consider the salwar of the salwar-suit fame. It has many, some even secret, parts which need proper wind and sun to dry. The amount of cloth which goes into making just one of those could cover a whole war bunker against attack. Something so valorous about it, in keeping with the sex which wears it. See how ‘nada’, the string, or ‘bookrum’, said in the right tone, can veritably be war cries. Rebel! Nada! Charge! Bookrum! How is it then expected to humbly hang on a clothes rack, in a forgotten corner of the house, waiting to dry without bellowing with invasive might in foreign winds? It’s just mean.

A man’s most prized all-purpose possession, again nothing less than a steel armour, the baniyan, is also to be met with the same fate. No matter that the vest has been with the man since his mother darned the fifth hole that it got with age, as it went from white to less white to yellow in its first three washes. It is forced to swallow its ‘VIP’ tag, forget that it was once a ‘Boss’ and hang alongside other wet bits of a man’s inner world. Sadly, the new-born sixth hole teeming with curiosity to have a peek at the world around is to suppress its desire and get denied its basic education. Heart-breaking! Here they call the vest ‘gilet’, and assuming the ‘t’ is silent, because just anything in French can be silent anytime, it’s sad they don’t see the message the vests are screaming through their names. ‘Geeley’, we are wet! Dry us outside! Learning Hindi needs to be made compulsory here, for equality and fraternity sake!

Talking about equality... nothing acts as a bigger leveler than one, long, sturdy clothes-line. Like a traffic red light in New Delhi, where Maruti 800 meets a Jaguar without reservation, the clothes-line quietly works on a similar principle of erasing class boundaries. On your line, be it a rusty wire or a plastic rope, the Zaras and the Rupas hang shoulder to shoulder, sans prejudices and biases, with a message of gender-equality subtly thrown in. So here will be your precious Benetton pair of socks bought for the price of your kidney and next to it you’ll see your Lee jeans, custom-made in two hours at Mohan-Singh Place, CP, choice of tag included! And you know as well as I do how now, more than ever, we need to stand visibly together against any kind of oppressive regime.

Like this anti clothes-line rule, for instance!

For now, I have hung my washed laundry on a rack and placed it in the warmest part of the house, inches away from the balcony. Like a ‘nearest to heaven but farthest from god’ approach. But the nationalist in me is itching to twist and tease some gentle-manners, and hang one, just one, piece of my clothing on the railing outside. Like my banner of protest; of rejection of some things foreign. That will be my war-cry against this mind-boggling rule.

That will be my Nada!!

From 'Aliens Love Underpants'

Hairy Legs, Brussels and ‘I think she likes me’

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 09:46:00 +0000

The hair on my arms is the length of my toes. The hair on my legs has reached my toes. I wouldn’t say it is a completely new experience, but it is certainly most novel to experience it when a country is celebrating, yes celebrating, all 13 degrees of its summers with skin and sunshine. On the cobbled streets of Brussels I am probably the only one wearing stretch denims while the world is sprinting ahead of me in airy, breezy and frivolously delicious summer clothes. The moment I spot a pair of smooth legs enjoying the sunshine, it is as if the jeans grow four sizes smaller to kill me with asphyxiation, or whatever the hell tight jeans can do to your health when the heart burns green.

But my hands are tied.

I am thousands of kilometres away from a long-trusted tin of Shabnam Cold Wax (Rs 70) and a packet of disposable white waxing strips (Rs 25). Are there no salons in Brussels, you ask? There’s one in every Rue, but with my level of fluency in French I believe I might as well discuss foreign policy with a plant, and succeed in having a path-breaking dialogue, than explain to la fille successfully that I need a wax. Um, there is another reason why I have been Google translating salon menus but not garnering the courage to enter and ask for a pure and simple wax.

It seems to me to be a secret kind of … something. It caught me by surprise. And I have been trying to unravel it as much as I have been my overgrown eyebrows from my lashes.

When you shift to a foreign country for the first time, complete with lock, stock and barrels of homemade ghee, you are ready and raring for the new life ahead. You are confident that it’ll be a great experience. So happy you are that it’s not wind under the wings of the airplane but actually your excited panting which floats your craft ahead, right till you land.

Then a few days later you land again, with a minor splash into the pool of reality that surrounds you. It is different!

There is newness at every step of the way. This is not that kind of newness which tourists make happy selfies or informative photographs out of. Their tryst with newness is temporary. It happens with a bang and begins to fizzle once the trip is done, all #nofilters dusted and suitcases of fridge magnets unpacked. I talk of a more permanent interface between you and The Foreign – a kind where from bread and beer to office and school, everything has to integrate harmoniously and seamlessly into the language of your everyday life. Much has to be done, made possible, understood and learnt. And this includes ideas about your sense of self. Very basic and visible ideas too, I do sheepishly confess.

Like my hairy legs.

‘Gosh! No one has body hair here, unless it’s golden and invisible! Were they dipped in bleach before being sent to Earth?’ and ‘Can I really walk my legs into the salon without having the ladies there run out scared of King Kong?’ … just two of the many thoughts which rattle my mind as my caddy rattles behind the French and Dutch ones at supermarkets. During one such musing, with a twang that a thread on an in-growth feels like, I heard a loud ‘What will they think?’ inside my head.

The loudness echoed inside me. I caught it lingering longer than the smell of tadka in an 8-storied building. What will they think? What will they say? It stalked me all over the park, walked behind me right to my building, went up the same elevator and even entered my flat. It is only later that the stress shifted itself, and thank Gouda that it did! What will they think? Hold on! When before have I been so conscious of what people think? Have I not managed to live and let live most of the 34 years of my life confidently and sans self-consciousness? So why am I now eager to theorize ‘A comparative study of hair growth between French and Indian legs’?

More importantly, who is this ‘they’ that I talk about? Who is this … Oh Crêpe!

I realized how, rather easily, I created an entity. I attributed to a whole population homogenous characteristics and in doing so created an absolute ‘other’. In my head! Simultaneously, I ‘othered’ myself in the process. A kind of alienation, where I was alienating not just the others from me but my own self from them too. Hello wall, I built you for free. And now I’m wondering why…

It felt odd. It felt wrong and unfair. Especially so when I looked back on my few weeks here only to realize the locals never made me into a ‘they’. If anything, they had been kinder to me than many of “my own”. Be it book shops or tram stops, Carrefour queues or bars, nowhere and not once did I get a feeling that I am being seen as different. Forget a second look, even a first look doesn’t come your way. You’re just going about your day, like everyone else. At first it feels unflattering, as if everyone else is invisible to everyone else and it’s a very self-centered life out here. But gradually, you realize how it also means you’re being taken as a part and parcel of everyday life here. You’re being integrated as a ‘resident’, a person among others, and not an ‘exotic import’ who ended up guilty of training a magnifying glass on her own Indian identity when no one else cared.

And yet, there continues an acknowledgement that we are new and may need assistance. Where language was a barrier, the toy shop owner drew a map on a napkin to show us the mobile recharge kiosk. Where language wasn’t a problem, people made sure to tell us with pride that they’ve seen the Taj Mahal! If Shakespearean Mercy droppeth from heaven above, then this is Merci heaven itself. It’s what you hear for the smallest of gestures. It is also what you feel right back.

To even linger on the border of a limited world which propagates difference and divisiveness, of any kind, is but missing out on the vast expanse of a very warm and welcoming world, around the world. But then it is easier to commit this crime, than to not commit it at all. I confess guilty to that.

A few moments before I wrote this my son and I bumped into our concierge in the elevator. She only understands French, while I am yet to not pronounce oui as oye! Lots of animated gestures and smiles and words (without comprehension) were shared. She kept pointing at my son, kept circling her face with her hand. Her eyes wide and happy. I have no idea what we spoke but felt good anyway after our “introductions”. There was something more than looks, language and identity at play. And as if to confirm it all my son beamingly chimed soon as we entered our home - ‘I think she likes me’.

Recently, we were given a very old copy of ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. We have been reading it aloud, together. This precious copy has lived more than half a century, with a handwritten note that is older than me. This personal note to an ‘Auro’ quotes from the book and says:

‘It’s only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’

It is with this thought that we begin our short stint in Brussels. It is this that I hope my child learns. And as we go about acquainting ourselves with a new world which is our home now, something tells me he already understands that. [Apart from believing what the little boy in this book staunchly does - ‘Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is so tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.’ Oh well!]

As for my legs, I’m sure this social media addict will update you with a picture soon. But in case I don’t, you know where they’re headed, don’t you?

A lovelier world

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 15:36:00 +0000

Everybody has their own definition of Indulgence. For some, it’s busying themselves with their hobbies, and for others it’s about exploring the world and finding their true selves. You know, long drives in their beloved cars! I must confess, though, that there are moments when Indulgence seems like the very reason I wait for the 1st of every month. Pay cheque time! And food, (good food) served at beautiful places brings out the best in me. The best black dress to wear, a limited edition car to transport me, and a most exclusive culinary experience at the end of it. Sigh. Somehow, the mundane makes way for a lovelier world when you accept how divine indulging yourself can be. Here are five fine food places in Delhi for finding it!

1. Tamra, at Shangri-La’s Eros Hotel - Tamra is a ‘world in your platter’ place, offering Asian, Japanese, International and Indian fare, straight out of its five interactive live kitchens. It's fun and vibrant.

Pic - shangri-la.com

2. West View, at ITC Maurya –The exquisite view and the fine variety of mouthwatering delicacies make West View a must-go. But better be a proper meat-eater if you’re coming here. The European style menu is focused on meat dishes and all you need to do is pick your meat cut and how you want it cooked. For the rest, get here in style lay back and enjoy the scenic Delhi range.

3. Dakshin, at Sheraton – This one’s for the lovers of authentic South Indian cuisine, and I mean way beyond dosas and idlis. The dishes served are uncommon and from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. Some exclusive traditional dishes which usually don’t make restaurant appearances will make way to your table here!

4. Spice Route, The Imperial Hotel – It’s not just the exotic Thai and Asian cuisine here which will grab your attention. Imagine sitting in a restaurant designed to reflect the journey of spices from the Malabar Coast in Kerala through Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia to Thailand and Vietnam. Yes! This is an architectural marvel made over 7 years and now serving an exclusive menu crafted by the President’s Awardee Thai national, Chef Veena Arora.

Pic - imperianindia.com

5. On the Waterfront (OTW), Lodhi – This place is great for lunches and lavish Sunday brunches. The menu is vast and includes kebabs, sushi, cold cuts, curries, grills, soups, stirs, biryani, pastas…yes, exclusively vast. There’s also a jetty here, by the way.

You know how the finer things are always limited. So I’m wondering if I do manage to get two of them – free time and good food, I may also go a step further in my indulgence and need a car like the recently launched limited edition Dzire Allure, to take me places I desire to go. I hear that its stylish exteriors are equipped with a chrome bumper corner protector, lower lid garnish, stylish body graphics and side skirts. These features add an elegant touch to this beautiful car. Hm. Now that completes the picture of a lovelier world.

Payday, I’m waiting for you!

'Oh! My Name' is fabulous

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 03:38:00 +0000

Children love to own things. (So do adults I know, but let’s not go there!) The little ones want to be proud possessors of things they enjoy, can boast about and later stack and add to their burgeoning numbers. There is always a wish-list on display under the fridge magnet and another one ready to be scribbled after the best friend’s birthday gifts are opened or inadvertently an advert for the latest in children’s goodies watched. (You should have caught the TV remote in time!)

They just want! They know what they want and how they want it. Only sometimes they may know why they want it. Nonetheless, they want and that’s explanation enough. And you, loving parents, need to give, or to put it in the blackmailer’s language, provide. But wanting and getting isn’t always so bad. As a parent nothing makes me happier than my child asking me for books to read, for instance. It is a “demand” I love to meet and never argue against because I always feel like I’m pandering to my childhood love too as I cater to my child’s. Plus, it’s a great first love to have. Books! So be it book fairs or book shops, jumble sales or Children’s Day coupons, this mother hunts for good books with a zeal which she doesn’t even show for good food. Ahem.

So, what is a good Children’s book according to me? One which excites them, frees their imaginations, makes them feel, makes them question and maybe makes them learn a thing or two about their world, about gentle manners, values like team work and Quantum Physics, why not? They grow up so fast! And these days, academic pressure... Sorry. But you get the idea. That’s a good book there for me, minus the Physics, that is.

What is an even better book? A uniquely personalized book. No, not one which simply copy-pastes your child’s name in place of Prince Charming but something like ‘Oh! My Name’ by Nikhil Mittal, which takes personalization to a level beyond mere labeling. It’s a concept which instantly caught my attention and later my appreciation for how it involves tiny readers.

When I ordered the book online, I was asked to write a Dedication which would actually be printed in my copy of the book. You could write anything under the sun and over the moon, addressed to your child and signed off with your role of ‘Papa and Mama’, or whatever your relationship is with the kid you are ordering the book for. I thought it was a great opportunity for me to give him my list of Life’s 10 Most Important Lessons but his father disagreed. So a sweet little wish for his dreams to come true it was to be. This idea of creating a dedication not just personalized the book but also added an emotion to the giving of the present itself. The printed words making owning this book even more special.

But it doesn’t end there, the promotion of a lovely ‘this is my book!’ sentiment.

‘Oh! My Name’ makes your child a part of the book. Literally.

‘I didn’t forget my way, but my name.’

This is the story of a boy/girl who has forgotten his/her name and is looking for it. The name is put together letter-after-letter and page-after-page in an adventurous tale. The wonderful twist is, your child is the protagonist of the story and it is he/she looking for the name. No surprise then that it is his name spelled bold and bright in white at the end of the tale!

The boy in my book, with a unibrow and wearing a red cape, meets different creatures as he journeys ahead. His friend and ‘ally’ Dabi goes along; a favourite toy magically turned real. With expressions of bewilderment and wonder, he meets some animals that he knows and some fantastical creatures like Ila Pika who he is happy to now know. Everyone gives him a letter to take along, in return for what goes on. What goes on is a secret I’m keeping!

The story is brought alive with big and beautiful illustrations in a book which is printed on a wide landscape format and is super easy to hold. The story is brought home in a child’s mind with its rhyming sentences and simple expressions. Invented sound words like ‘Ho Ho Hokeya’ make reading aloud fun and some conversations are bold and big to be read even louder, perhaps.

There are lessons and messages gently tucked inside the story, without making it sound like school curriculum. Each tiny episode of meeting a different creature makes the boy in my book make the boy reading it learn something. Take help when you need it, but don’t forget to lend your helping hand when another needs it more. So if in the first part it’s the boy taking help, in the second he has learnt to help back. Both appreciation and gratitude abound, along with thank yous and awards. Dabi, the magical toy, stands for that magic which shows itself when you most need it. It tells children that friends help. Strangers become companions. The universe comes together to lead you on to happiness. Even a snake can give you something that ‘will help you make progress.’ The important bit is to move onwards. And even more, to know yourself. But for now, your name would be enough.

‘Oh! My Name’ is great for pre-schoolers who are just jumping into the sea of phonetics as well as early-readers. This book will certainly make them identify the letters of their name, in the correct sequence at that. Of course, adults will have to help them read the rest of the book. It can make for a good first introduction to many animals too! Words like ‘Organic’ and a picture of Shakespeare made my reading session with my five-year-old digress into unchartered territory. Even more fun! The mystery keeps them hooked, even if the older clever clogs realize the spelling of the name rings a bell. So if by the time NIS have been found and Nishad guesses it’s his name, how the rest of the letters will appear in the story keeps him reading on. For those who don’t make an effort to start putting the letters together as they read, well, the book holds a bigger surprise then! Who says being lazy is bad, huh?

There was one thing though, in NISHAD’s story that caught my eye. The transition from I to S, only, seemed like a jump. If the book is created by stringing letter-episodes together, it should be seamless. ‘The boy was looking at a creature’ could begin ‘Just a few steps ahead…’ for example. That would help maintain a continuity to the journey. However, such nuances are for the adults to notice in their boring grown-up critical worlds. Children don’t have time to waste on such nitty-gritties. All mine had to say when I asked him about it was ‘I don’t know what you mean. I only wish my name were very loooooong’. Request denied, of course.

While ordering the book online I could read the complete thing with just a ‘tap to open’. Just a sample page as preview would have been enough, or it takes away the charm for adult readers who love tales written for children. (Pssk! It did make me create one in my name to read.) I also found out that the same letters in two different names have same episodes in both books. But repeat letters in the same name have different episodes. Which means multiple stories have been created for the many letter combinations. Which also means siblings with common letters in the name will share a little more than just their parents.

What if siblings could become characters in the same book, looking for letters of their names appearing all jumbled up? Fighting to own the first shared ‘A’ or ‘I’? Oops. Sorry. I digress there.

‘Oh! My Name’ is a lovely book created with much thought. It came along with a muppet of Dabi, who has now occupied pride of place in my child’s bed. He felt immense surprise followed by interest and joy on receiving and reading this story which brings together the real and the magical. A real him in a magical story! The tiny adventure in this good-looking book is very personal and at the same time very important too. Because what’s in a name? A lot, especially if it belongs to a child.

'Oh! My Name' by Nikhil Mittal is self-published (2017)

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

A Ball of Wool

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 06:47:00 +0000

Some say there are no random events in the universe. It follows then that there are no random thoughts either. All thoughts have an origin, a place where they come from and a reason they are born. Now, I may not know why I have this gnat-of-a-thought buzzing over me like I’m its gnu, but it’s there. This thought. By talking about it I want to share its buzz.

Let’s consider our Self as a ball of wool. Soft, bright and snugly wool. Over the years this ball of wool uncoils itself in all eight directions, and then eight more, and more, and so on. By uncoils I mean this self ‘lives’ life. It um ... gives, takes, talks, keeps silent, does, doesn’t do, learns, unlearns, writes, erases, wants, rejects, makes, breaks, grows, plucks, cooks, burns, works, shirks, smiles, keeps smiling, runs, sits still, opens up, closes in, uses mascara, rubs the lipstick, falls, gets up, makes friends, manages friends, switches on, or off, carries on, and on.

Your Self as you knew it long back when you learnt what self means constantly becomes and unbecomes. But ‘unbecomes’ is no word so let’s just say our Self constantly becomes. It sounds more positive anyway! So when we do all those things (separated above with tiny commas) over our lifetimes our Self becomes. Some would say evolves and grows. Okay. Good. But then what is left of that ball of wool – the soft, bright and snugly wool we began with, after all the slow uncoiling and fast uncoiling and mediocre uncoiling happens and happens and maybe on a very cold, contemplative morning it begs to be noticed? What does it become, really?

Tiny.

Perhaps the size of the zygote where it all begins. Perhaps tinier.

Over the years, while the thread of wool spreads around forming a messy maze which may have its own method and past motivations, the ball of wool constantly spins to finally become minuscule at the end of the day. Somehow, without you noticing, you’ve made your Self out of sight! Or to obsess over the metaphor (winters!) uncoiled so much that you’ve forgotten what the ball of wool was about in the first place. It’s barely there now. No magnifying glass, no microscope will make you see what’s left of what was once so … different!

It is a terrifying thought, of this sense of vanishing Self, despite the knowledge that you remember close to nothing of what you once were or wanted to be. This thought shakes the chair you sit on, makes its legs jelly and you sink, heavy with gravitas. All you see are the endless loops and hoops of the thread all around you. So much of it that it doesn’t even seem to be yours! Did it really come from you? Is it you? Was it? Who is you?

Oh boy! I did that? Why would I say that? Oh no that was loony of me. Sheesh! Magenta? No. No. That idea could never have been mine. Are you sure? Positive? Really? It’s okay to not know. Wow, I didn’t know? But I never supported such differences. Oh. I did? Of course I believe in my opinions! I said yes! I said no? Ho! Organic food sucks! I hate that woman. I really hated that woman? Why? Oops! I got drunk? But that’s so not me! Seriously? Why would I close my door on their face? I made a face at her? You’ve got to be mistaken! No? Oh!

Ahem. Phew. So much.

So on a certain day, the age and stage of which may strike you by surprise, you decide to start coiling the thread back into a ball. Give it some pattern, some semblance of order. Like a ‘this is me!’ moment where the said 'me' may be as unchanging as the sea, but still. Order order. You don’t have to be old and wise. You can be young and wiser and just start pulling back your threads - slowly, sneakily, sassily or sagely. Knit it back. Or just yank it into a hank like our grandmothers used to do using their knees, perhaps never otherwise sitting with their legs so apart but their hands as ever dexterous. I wonder now if by some Jungian connection they had originally thought of this "Self= ball of wool", much before I claim copyright to it some generations down. Would this metaphorical connect explain the passion with which they knit and undid sweaters and mittens and shrugs and shawls with their bony, wrinkled fingers? What were they thinking when they did that? What were their thoughts?

Winding up our Self into a whole.

Sounds oxymoronic! Could it mean anything, though?

Well, you could be honest and straight more often than not. Forget politeness and remember to call a faded sweater a silly, raggedy, useless blot in the name of all sweaters of the world! Choices of yore which now seem compromises to the core can be picked and thrown away like lint on your old fleece. Give in that resignation! If your anxiety has been reduced to a ‘usual habit’ make sure you don’t invite the nitpickers when the next prickly party in the head-heart region strikes. If the tray of sweets was slipped away from right under your nose, don’t bother to serve that gajar ka halwa when your door bell rings next. If your heart says sleep you tell the imp to go fly a kite (but keep away from the boundary wall and wear your sneakers will you!) and you sleep. If they read you to shred you, you make sure you make mental noodles of their books! If they think you talk too much stop talking to them entirely. If they mock those you love then rip open the new set of knives. If someone else wants peace and not your dissent, give them a piece of your mind and then the peace. If another your pound of flesh, take it instead. If they think your hair...

Lord! I sound mutinous… but I guess what I’m saying is, when you wind up the many loops you’ve surrounded yourself with, knowingly or otherwise, you start seeing yourself better. You recognize what you feel and you give priority to the sounds of your own silent sighs behind the smiles. Because you hear them now. Because maybe sometimes only you will hear them and understand them.

Of course, you can’t really become a zygote in a fallow tube or some such, so you leave just enough thread out there to know and be known for who you choose to be at that point. Just enough thread to roll back. Just enough to be an extended hand. Never enough to be tugged away. Gradually, you find that lost Self shaping up. May not be a perfect round figure anymore. Nope. But a sphere’s not so bad either.

And while you wind up your Self into a whole, if you feel like rambling publicly about it in one thousand words without a second look, well, you go ahead and do that too. Self-help, you know!

The Nude Figure in Anurag Tripathi’s ‘Kalayug’

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 03:09:00 +0000

The golden spine of Anurag Tripathi’s ‘Kalayug’ catches the eye instantly. It glitters on the shelf, till you pick it up and notice the dark silhouette of a man against the headlights of cars. The contrast of gold and black is palpable. The juxtaposition even more significant when you read the book. For what lies within is a story that takes you deep into the labyrinth that the art industry is according to the author – glam and gloss on the outside but with a murky underbelly behind the sheen.

‘Kalayug’ enjoys a great plot, with only a handful of characters and a deceptively simple story line. There is no visible effort to complicate things or confuse the readers, and yet there are wheels within wheels; or to put it differently, paintings within paintings. Intrigue is a constant, with the first chapter itself setting the pace, the tone and the characters for what is to follow. And what does follow?

‘The global art world was transforming…this transformation had replaced aesthetics...with economic considerations of value and marketability…’

Jay Malhotra, a sharp and astute banker, enters the unregulated art market of the Navaratnas, hopeful of turning his fortunes around with the help of his personality and unflinching ambition. He knows that ‘the Navaratnas could be the next big trend in the art industry.’ But what he doesn’t is that ‘the purchase of the Navaratnas was so out of the ordinary, it had the potential to spoil the harmony in the art fraternity.’ So many unexpected colours mix on his palate; those events which surprise him, make him soar, make him struggle and finally shock him! As he makes his way from one art gallery to the next dealer, one warehouse to the next businessman and finally to the courtroom, Jay meets an array of characters who make or break his deals and add both style and suspense to this novel. There’s Patty, a savagely competitive art dealer and owner of two of the biggest art galleries. ‘There is no dearth of people, but there is only one Patty’, as she believes and the book later confirms. There’s Arun, a disillusioned artist. Deepak, the first-generation entrepreneur desperate for social acceptance. There are art collectors ‘hoping to ride the wave of increasing prices in the future’. And then there is Biswas, the academician who hopes for the ideal in the art world…

Every character in this book is manipulative. And so everything is manipulated. There are no free lunches and few relationships to trust. Which makes the book a page-turner, more so towards the end. Which makes the characters risk-takers. Which is also why every partnership – in bed or business – sets the reader wondering about ulterior motives and agendas. The guessing-ahead never really abates!

Consider Jay and Patty, both representatives of the contemporary, urban, educated world of business and art. Their ‘passionate battle for dominance’ in a world where ‘a bank balance is more tangible than goodwill’ is a constant note that drives them to turn the art tide their way. To even buy peace by selling their souls! How an outsider tries to succeed on a project that 'the queen of the market' herself had failed at is the exhilarating journey the book takes us on. Does he? Can he? That remains to be found out.

‘Kalayug’ not just makes for an entertaining story imagined well. It is created well too, the primary reason for which is Anurag Tripathi’s scholarship. Anurag knows the world of art - totally unregulated, fragmented and growing - like an insider would. His book is based in a context which is actual. Like Dan Browns’ books, ‘Kalayug’ is full of facts and analyses of artworks, artists and eras. From the calculated seating arrangement at complex auctions to the psychology of bidders. From the development of Tagore as a painter to the lack of documentation plaguing his paintings. From scientific methods of authentication to the underground forgery market often run by the painters’ families themselves. And from motives behind buying art as an alternate asset class to master painters languishing in penury on the roads. There’s much that is told to the readers, often in slightly repetitive chapters dedicated to information. Some may feel it slows the pace of the novel, but may change their minds when they realize how everything that is told is significant to the story unfolding with every turn of the page.

The author’s voice comes through the narrator’s - acutely observant, subtly satirical and with a tinge of regret that ‘all was fair in the unregulated art industry.’ Anurag’s social commentary is unmistakable. People who received fancy invitations made sure everyone knew about it. Perhaps, the applause wasn’t for the paintings but for the amount they sold for? ‘People without experience, expertise, reading or aesthetic exposure became art dealers.’ And the one question - ‘Were people buying art for its aesthetic beauty or merely paying for the signature of the Grand Master’? So many times you hear the narrator but you listen to the voice of the lesser sold artist that Anurag Tripathi is standing up for. Almost creating this story for. Even a forger is but ‘an artist…used his knowledge, talent and imagination to interpret’ because these days ‘being talented was not good enough’. It was Kalayug, after all. The world of art. The age of downfall. Or… both.

The only let-down in ‘Kalayug’ was, perhaps, the character of Patty. The blurb introduces her as a ‘fiercely competitive art dealer who will defend her turf at all costs’ and raises expectations for a great female character. However, the more you get to know her successes the more you realize – Patty is a stereotype speaking a typical script. She is smart and ambitious but ‘she did what was required to survive in an unforgiving world, exploiting her beauty and sexuality to her advantage…a go-getter, known to play dirty.’ Why? Does a female survivor of misfortune have no other way to success, except using and abusing those around her, much in the language of the abuse she may have faced? Plus, her dialogues lack charm, her retorts spunk. Even in her final gesture towards Jay, Patty befuddles rather than attracts.

One cannot consider ‘Kalayug’ as solely a thriller. It is a convincing exposé of the fickle and impulsive art industry, where money speaks and relationships go from symbiotic to parasitic in one stroke of the brush. This in turn makes the book a reflection of human nature itself, with adult ego, ambition and opportunity driving the characters to possess ‘institutionalised and objectified cultural capital’. The portrait of the art world in this gripping thriller is a nude figure of ‘the commercialization and degeneration' of this very world.

‘No one knows for certain the extent of these (forged) works currently afloat in the art market.

Biswas smiled as he read the last sentence and wondered if it should have read ‘no one wanted to know’ rather than ‘no one knew’.

The final twist to the tale ends it on a hopeful note. Utopic. Idyllic. (Naïve?) But hopeful, nonetheless, of ‘a new beginning.’ This is a book with a spine, which says it as it actually is.

Must read!

'Kalayug' by Anurag Tripathi is a Rupa Publication, 2017.

[Review was commissioned by the PR agency. Views are my own.]

Bringing the Rainbow; The Hindware Story by RK Somany

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 11:36:00 +0000

Once, while driving along a rutted mud road to Bahadurgarh in a bouncing old Morris Minor, RK Somany saw a rainbow suddenly appear. The heat, the dust and the fretful uncertainty of getting land for his plant was forgotten, and ‘a chore became exciting. Ever since, the rainbow became my guiding mantra. In whatever I do, as a businessperson, a father, a husband, a friend and a family man, I ask myself: ‘Am I bringing the rainbow to this? The passion, the excitement, the colour?’

No wonder then that RK Somany titled his autobiography ‘Bringing the Rainbow; The Hindware Story’. And no doubt he tried to bring the rainbow into this book too. The story is about how Hindware went from a newbie to a market leader, surpassing the country’s economic handicaps, everyday business challenges and even personal impediments from within the Somany family.

Autobiographies create a glorious canvas of context – historical, political and cultural. The story of a person comes riddled with important events from which he, and thus the reader, draws valuable lessons. They provide us with a deeper understanding of the subject they are written around. And they make for interesting literary reading in that the reader looks for omissions in the narration and hesitant gaps in the narratorial voice; those moments which make you wonder – is this his recollection as an adult or an uncoloured version from his childhood?

The telling of the tale. The home and the world.

RK Somany tells the story as if it is being meticulously recalled for a live audience. So while sometimes the narration is linear at others he shifts between the past and the present. While he does that, a panoramic picture of not just his life’s events but those happenings which beset the times also gets painted. What comes through is a visual of both how the businesses were run and how families were too.

RK Somany was the ninth among eleven children, brought up by his eldest brother, Hiralall, after his father’s death when he was seven. Those were times of ‘centrality of morals’ and when older brothers were near-bosses, who set standards and conditions! But who also patrolled the house with a rifle during crises like the Great Calcutta Killings. Good words carried worth, good families even more. School admissions and membership of Exchanges and Clubs happened based on reputation. And yet, under the same strong family umbrella came a scheming sibling, two mysterious deaths and some more “bad blood”.

Business was never usual in times of historical flux and ‘life wasn’t all glamour and fun.’ Red tape, black markets, ‘blinkered government policies’ and socialism made private industry seem suspicious. There was very little market intelligence and data to base decisions on. Add to that infrastructural woes like power cuts and ‘inspector raj’ in a place like UP, and later the Emergency with the ‘draconian MISA used to intimidate businessmen’ and the financial crisis of 1991. Hindware had many tides to overcome, and ‘Bringing the Rainbow’ shows how RK Somany did just that.

As one reads what comes across as a ‘business saga’, one notices significant events, professional and personal, which made Hindware a household name. And which made RK Somany the man who is speaking to us through this book.

Important events for him. Lessons for all.

‘In retrospect, I am really grateful to my family for its decision to move me out of Calcutta more than half a century ago. I wouldn’t have become who I am had I remained there.’

In ‘Bringing the Rainbow’, as with all autobiographies, we sense a bildungsroman. From boyhood to his businessmen years, the book clearly chronicles RK Somany’s growth. But if you pay attention to the teller, the tale makes you privy to pivotal points of time in his life which stand out as peaks. His early days reveal how the psychology of this second youngest sibling evolved, as a ‘fierce determination’ was born over fighting for a mere chance to play. Private tutors would teach his siblings and he would sit around, listening. Learning. A ‘template for my behavioral responses to adversity’ was created as violent and economically stressed historical eras unfolded. In him also developed a streak of individuality away from his brothers’ footsteps - to become a graduate even as he helped his family in business!

It was the physically taxing days spent in England which helped him learn the ropes of the ceramic industry. The discomfort and ‘enforced thrift’ of those times led to a success which comes when one is ‘in the thick of action’. The aim always remained to provide world class products at Indian consumer prices, and not compromise on customer goodwill because of the more profitable black-marketing. Trysts with Jaycees and the Rotary Club brought out the public leader in him. Exposure to the differences between workers in England and India made him understand and deal with labour strikes too.

An eye-opening event was that of buying back his own brand at a high price from a Chinese company, which was using it. Hindware’s wings had spread and problems were fast increasing. ‘The big boys of the global sanitaryware industry soon entered the Indian market.’ Often, the obstacles were political, like he found out when the sales tax department of Govt of Haryana raided his plant. Countless such important events in his life left him learning and unlearning, and leave us doing the same too.

‘I am humble enough to know that I do not have all the answers. The HSIL board comprises men of rare distinctions. It would be foolish not to leverage and take advantage of their combined wisdom. This is simple common sense…’

The voice. The person.

‘I wasn’t certain that the familial ties and the strict Marwari culture that had kept us brothers closely bonded would endure into the third generation…maybe the time had come to divide…’

The straightforwardness with which the story is told makes RK Somany seem a friend by the time we finish reading. And we his confidants! No, there are no sensational revelations eager to please the reader. But there are many moments where the already-thin guard of autobiographies is down, and where the narrator truly shows himself in flesh and blood.

You sense relief when he says his family was ‘without any choking orthodoxy’, and gratitude and admiration for his brother when he says ‘it takes a rare human being to put his own education and possible future on the line to bring up his siblings.’ There is honest admittance of being well-off from the time he was conscious to the time he first signed a cheque for one crore of rupees. No mincing that, because ‘in the tradition of all the great Marwari businessmen I admire, I believe cash is king.’ No mincing either the candid revelations of ‘strains (that) had begun to surface in this united and happy family image we portrayed to the outside world.’ Forgiveness shows when he speaks about his estranged brother Chandra Kumar. ‘I’m sure he has his reasons’ is what Somany leaves it at.

‘To find smuggled products in a government-owned facility in the Pakistan capital was both a cause for shock and delight’, he admits. Regret is visible when he notices that ‘the quality of trade and the people involved in it has deteriorated’ and anger when he says ‘what really gets my goat is the unrestricted import of cheap Chinese sanitaryware.’

There are gaps in the narration too. Hesitance. A mechanical telling not suiting the events. Spaces where there’s less revealed and much concealed and absence of it is conspicuous. For instance, while we know meticulous details of how the business progressed, we barely know anything about the wives, how they felt about his ‘huge personal sacrifices’ of mostly working through the days, or their mysterious deaths. Did he try finding out what happened? Why aren’t we told? Is it because it has no direct bearing on the Hindware story? Is that the reason why his children also occupy a marginal place in this account? What I also missed reading about were the trusted hands like managers and workers and clerks and guards who probably were an important part of this journey but who have not found space in the book.

Interesting business talk.

‘Being the youngest of the four surviving brothers, my claims were often overridden by the others in favour of their own plans for the companies they ran. It may surprise many readers but this is the way Indian business families operate.’

There’s much that readers will learn about businesses in general and sanitaryware manufacturing, designing and trade in particular from ‘Bringing the Rainbow’. How, first, the idea of sanitaryware needed to be introduced to Indian consumers. How vitreous china which ‘didn’t absorb water even if the product was chipped’ could be marketed. How when competition heated up superior technologies and designs had to be introduced. Why HSIL wasn’t comfortable in giving dealers sole selling agencies, while also visiting dealers of rivals to understand ‘market trends’. Why a close watch had to be kept on allied sectors. And ‘the one clause that has remained unchanged for 52 years is the one on not allowing dealers to charge more than the MRP – a clause we introduced decades before it became mandatory.’

The book also contains nuggets of information on hunter and sportsmen rifles, the structure of ammunition strong rooms, motors of submersible pumps and goes into angry details of some ‘bizarre laws’!

The book ends in the present, where RK Somany sits talking to us, confessing that ‘I try to teach myself something new every few days.’

His rise, in many ways, signifies India’s post-Independence industrialization drive. ‘Goodwill takes decades to build’ and this book is a glimpse into how it can be. HSIL’s rise, made possible with ‘close supervision, constant innovation, investment in the best technology and strong systems’ is also the journey of a man whose goal ‘was, and remains, to stay ahead of the curve’. This man intends to retire when ‘God retires me.’ But for now ‘I intend to lead HSIL into some new areas.’

A good book for those interested in the Indian business history as well as those who love a good story well told!

'Bringing the Rainbow' by RK Somany is a Maven Rupa Publication, 2016

[Review was commissioned by the PR Agency. Views are my own.]

Mind; The Final Frontier by Ravi Singh

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 02:37:00 +0000

‘What does it all mean? What is going on in the world? Is a human being merely an advanced and complex robot, which processes information and doesn’t have free will, and choice is merely an illusion? It doesn’t make any sense. But why does it have to make any sense?’

Once upon a time, we said ‘to my mind’ before we expressed our opinions. Acronyms like IMHO (In my humble opinion) or TBH (To be honest) were yet to be invented. Probably, we owned our minds much more back then, what with borrowed opinions flying amok now. We invoked the thinking-space before we expressed it. My mind, where my thoughts came from. Which in a way defined us.

So, when I asked myself what came to my mind immediately when I said the word ‘mind’, the social media addict in me took no time to say ‘Hey! Facebook’s persistent question What’s on your mind? In the status window.’ Which was usually answered with a picture of my dinner or my pet! Thankfully, I got to read Ravi Singh’s ‘Mind: The Final Frontier’ to make me think beyond the visible. To make me disassociate from the given and delve deeper into the unseen… less facile bits of what I call my mind.

In the Acknowledgement section of the book the author confesses that he is prone to ‘weird’ ideas in his mind, about the mind. In it he isn’t alone, for thousands have before him and many more will in the future too try to ‘decode the human mind’. The mother of all answers is curiosity and the human mind is not just the confirmed seat but also the most popular subject of it. Ravi believes ‘answers don’t lie outside but within us. For that, we must understand how the mind works.’ With a beautiful request for open-mindedness, Ravi asks us to ‘… dispel any preconceived notions about the mind, and agree that we do not know what the ‘mind’ is. That should be a good starting point.’ And then ‘see what follows.’

The book is divided into three main parts – Part I: Decoding the Anatomy of the Human Mind, Part II: The Universe, God, Love and Morality, Part III: Authentic Life. Each part is further comprised of short and succinct chapters dealing with specific ideas. One look at the chapter names and you know a wide-angle lens has been used for this deconstruction, something that is confirmed once you’ve read the book. Various mental states have been evaluated, as have been over-arching concepts like logic, faith, guilt and even god.

The basic premise used to unravel the mind was unique for me. Ravi tries to make us see the mind as a computer which processes information. He uses this approach to simplify ideas like self and consciousness while also discussing problems like fear, anxiety and even boredom!

The Information Processing Approach (IPA) assumes that individuals are, well, information processors. So, an individual receives input information either from his external environment or from internal memory through an interface (say, ears). This input information is processed by a specific processor to produce a change in the individual. This change (physical, chemical, etc), then acts as input information for another processor and so on. For instance, if you like a song the change produced by the processor would cause a sensation of pleasure. As for what a processor is in terms of the human body? While in computers it is a set of instructions, Ravi calls it a ‘mental construct’ and an ‘abstract entity’ here. He divides them into low-level (primitive habit) and high-level (thought-level) processors. Low-level processors include language and pain-pleasure, among others, whereas high-level ones help us analyze, chart-out and choose.

While I understood the definition of his IPA till this point, a huge part of me doubted if this seemingly simplistic approach could make me see my mind in a new light. And IMHO, it did rather interestingly!

For instance, how can ‘self’ or ‘I’ be explained using the IPA? Ravi will derive that the notion of self is non-permanent! The mind, with its competing processors and multiple outputs makes the ‘state of mind’ give a cumulative sensation of ‘I’ in a particular context and time. Thus ‘self’ represents reality, rather than being reality itself. So you’re right when you ask ‘Who am I?’ And you’re right if you wonder, if there is no one ‘I’ then whose free will am I talking about?

This then connects with his idea of consciousness. He infers that it is ‘based on the level of consciousness (that) we have the conception of ‘I’. And further, if the 'window of consciousness’ expands, external time stands still, as we feel 'completely absorbed in the present.’ This state of being devoid of any expectations is a sustainable happiness. Because, ‘fulfilment of high expectations actually makes it difficult to sustain happiness.’ See how one idea connects to the other?

Ravi Singh’s explanation of ignorance through IPA is about understanding how ‘there is a difference between knowing something at the thought level, and knowing something at the level of lower processors, or the experiential level’. How falsehoods may become truth statements ‘if over a period of time one processor keeps winning over another’.

Something about decoding psychological fear stuck to me. As a product of a self which by default tries to avoid pain and experience pleasure, here’s what he says about fear: ‘Next time when you experience a fearful thought, try to observe that thought closely. You will see that that very thought is the thinker itself (of that thought). There is no separate self that experiences that thought, rather, it is the thought that experiences itself…and fear will dissolve.’

Ravi also argues how logic and emotion are not contrary to each other and with the help of a simple semi-mathematical equation infers that ‘for the doer every action is logical. For the perceiver it may seem logical or emotional based on their own calculation.’ The same equation is used in the analysis and understanding of guilt and faith, till he involves you to a point where you too question in one voice – then is logic itself based on faith?

To my mind, the chapter called ‘Nature of the Universe; Press Start to Begin’ stands out in the book. It begins thus - ‘Everything in the universe including inanimate things can be governed by information processing.’ You have to suspend all disbelief before you move on; on to more questions. If the universe is a closed system then how did information first enter it? The Big Bang? In a closed system, based on the four dimensions, there cannot be a truly random event. And so ‘if there is even one truly random event in the universe, it indicates that some information from outside the system has leaked into it.’ Between saying it and implying it, Ravi Singh draws us into his idea of evolution, a Matrix World, free will, love and even god.

I do wish the book ended with this big bang, though. The last three chapters on relationships, job satisfaction and meditation techniques just seem to fade in comparison to what preceded them. Perhaps, they lack the novelty which most of the other chapters shine bright with. The list for references for meditative techniques at the end of the last chapter has one sole reference, and oddly seems incomplete, as if a page went missing. What may also seem missing for some readers who enjoy flourishes and flair even in the most logical and scientific narrations is a certain style – one which uses examples and creative props to drive home the point. Or even humour for that matter! Because, while Ravi Singh’s book hooks you with what it is saying, it may not with how it says it. There are no fancy detours. Examples are repeated in order to explain different concepts. There’s stream-lined focus and purposeful, no-nonsense writing. Almost, as if it is an abridged guide to a larger, more voluminous research.

Be that as it may, by the time you finish reading ‘Mind: The Final Frontier’, you feel glad to have done that. Ravi Singh gives no grand theories. He makes you see, co-derive and be amazed at how IPA can be used to re-examine ideas which you long thought self-evident. How human minds and machines may not be as far apart as one imagines. This book, the size of an “impulse-buy” in a book shop, belies its conciseness as it begins a large thought-storm, where questions are answered only to give rise to more and more questions. After all, ‘it is preferable to stay in uncertainty than to settle for a truth which one is not convinced of,’ believes Ravi Singh.

A good read for those who like their thought-level processors provoked. Read and then 'see what follows.'

'Mind; The Final Frontier' by Ravi Singh is a Partridge publication, 2016

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

In Air with Air India

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 04:12:00 +0000

How noticeable it is that only to humans 6 years and below, the thought of flying Air India is not depressing. To the older population the idea brings such moroseness that it makes them forget to tag their airport presence and holiday destinations on FB. Oh the international scale of omission! Why the long face one wonders. After all, it’s our national airline! It has a cute little Maharaja as an original mascot - smiling, supplicating, hand-on-the-heart; exactly what we love and vote for in the elections. The air hostesses wear Indian dresses with unique motifs of peacock feathers and peahen ~~frowns~~ browns. They usually serve us our very Indian idli-sambhar. Why then does our Patriotism take flight the moment we learn we’re flying AI?

Recently, for a flight at 5:00 am we woke up (from a sleep we never slept) at 1:30 am. We reached the airport at a similarly ungodly hour. ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ taught us back in 2005 that 3:00 am in the night is the devil’s hour. It is when we stood at the serpentine baggage check-in queue that we realized Hollywood can be right sometimes and also serpents in any form are satanic! With about 40 people, and their 40X3 bags, before us, this was going to be long. But why? There was only one check-in counter functioning for multiple flights. One! Not that the missing AI staffers didn’t know how many flights take off then. Probably just … striking? We stood, obviously, like others did before us, regularly looking at the length of the queue behind us for morning motivation and not in front. The kid by then made the trolley his bed.

After 500 years or so of waiting, some AI flights were about to take off without passengers. Non VIP passengers, I mean. So someone obviously lost her patience and screamed ‘why is there only one counter running?’ A man who had by now tied his muffler around his waist in a Kalaripayat style joined in with his thunder. Fortunately for the high dome of IGI airport, the manager on duty standing safely, and invisibly, a kilometre away from the queue heard the echo. Poof! Another counter came alive, almost as if the guy was sleeping behind it all this while, waiting for the question to be asked. As if it was routine. He rubbed his eyes, settled his hair and began staring unblinkingly at his screen. (Solitaire does that to me too.)

If the queue was moving at a snail’s pace before, it began moving at two snails’ pace now.

When our turn finally came and we crossed the thick yellow line, we felt like we were Indian Idols selected for the Big Boss house. We sent a silent prayer of gratitude to the Maharaja and this prayer was still on its way when... ‘Check-in baggage toh nahi hai?’ spat the counter no. 1 man. Once the fire from his mouth abated we with guilty voice said yes and with shivering hands put our sole suitcase on his belt. Hand-baggage tags reached us like bullets and we felt ever-so-sorry for having taken His Highness’s precious time and humongous favour. How remiss of us!

We almost walked away without turning our back to him, humbly bending again and again, retreating from the august presence and fortunate encounter till we finally bumped into the security check sign-board. And another queue, of course.

So going back to paragraph 1, many of us have our reasons, accumulated like adipose tissue over the years, for forgetting to tag our airport presence and holiday destinations on FB.

For instance when you reach the door of the AI air craft you find an air hostess or two standing there to welcome you. Except, it may sometimes feel like wiping bare feet on a coir mat which reads ‘Oh well! Come!’ Namastey is said as if there’s snot all over your face and if you’re lucky it’s said to the air on your right.

You settle in and look at those mini-TVs with hope in your eyes, as does your kid. You realize they aren’t coming on and it’s no surprise. Kids take longer to deal with harsh truths of life. They press all the buttons. Press press press punch. Then they press all their parents’ buttons which miraculously may have been left un-pressed still, before deciding to watch the dark night outside instead of the Dark Knights next to them. Blankets and pillows are rare and need Raffle Tickets to get lucky enough to land some!

But surely food is the salvation? Woe befalls you if you’re sitting in the middle of the plane, no matter that it’s the Emergency Door seat and the lives of 300 passengers depend on your pulling the handle in time. That proud-y feeling sinks away as the food carts start rolling your way. You look back. You look in the front. Coming. Coming. Still coming. Almost here. Here! ‘Sorry ma’am. We’ve run out of veg. We can give you bun and jam.’ You’re a Punjabi steam engine in a seat belt but the cork of English-speaking decency keeps the chimney blocked. A meek okay later you decide to mew ‘Excuse me. May I have two buns, please?’ And you know, in your deepest gut you know that was a wrong question to ask and bam! She says as she moves away, louder than before, ‘Sorry! We don’t give extras.’ 8 people hear it, 10 decide to look at you. No one dare look at the air hostess. Suddenly, a vision of your subzi bhaiya comes up. With a halo behind his head. A saint who gives 5-ka-dhaniya free. A saint!

Not that getting food is any guarantee of gastric satisfaction. You see, we were recently served rice with baingan ka bharta. I eat both happily! But together? They are scientifically unmixable and especially with a fork which weighs two times the weight of the whole food tray! I did find 1/4th of a parantha tucked between two rice grains. It was a perfect triangle the length of my middle finger. It was cute. But it didn’t unfurl into a circle. Coffee was served alongside our dinner with a kaam khatam karo zeal and we were left with the supernatural task of mixing-mixing to eat our dinner before the coffee went cold. Or before the trays are collected and the lights turned off. Because they were!

You see, as soon as the last tray was picked, or maybe even before that, the plane went dark. Helped with using the toothpicks but still! Did I hear an air steward announce ‘Lights out! Off to bed!’ No no. It must be my memories of the nunnery interfering with my sense of reality. Anyhow, nearly all the reading lights came on immediately. People had things to do. Important things to read. Funny things to say. Fun holidays to plan. Strange dinner things to wipe off their mouths. In that silver haze what followed is sleep. It better follow, actually! To sleep is human but to snore in an AI flight is divine, because it’s that deep sleep only which can take you away from the goriest and grumpiest of …

Anyway. Just like all nails scratching a wall must reach the floor some time and stop, so comes to an end your Air India flight. You land. Once before you heard the Captain’s voice asking the crew to just sit down now for takeoff. You again hear a thank you for being in air with Air India from the said Captain, who is impeccably dressed and bordering on handsome but who sounds exactly like a doctor’s handwriting.

The seat-belt sign is off and everyone is up as if they spotted an ATM machine with no queues. The plane is full of hustle and bustle and truant burps and sighs of relief. And amidst all the din and ado, there suddenly shines a ray of hope. Unexpectedly. You realize you hadn’t seen that shine for the longest time.

The air hostess at the door has a big wide smile for you. A smile! And so do you! For her!

I guess some goodbyes are sweeter than hellos. Especially when in the national carrier, the nation has finally reached where it wanted to go. Chalo. Kaam khatam hua. Asha kartey hain aap ek baar phir humein …

Pic from Memegen

'Band, Baaja, Boys!' by Rachna Singh

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 15:37:00 +0000

If you’ve read Rachna Singh’s books before, that she is funny enough to make all bones turn into ticklish ribs is a fact that needs no establishing. Her humour flows easy, is derived from life as we know it and makes no attempt to fashionably offend. If it does, and when it should, at best it feels like a pinch! So when I picked up ‘Band, Baaja, Boys!’ I was expecting it to ‘launch a million laughs’, as Rachna herself aimed. It did! What it also did was create a most memorable portrait of Allahabad such that we see it as if sitting in a rickshaw, riding through its narrow lanes, missing the paan spittle by a hair’s breath, peeking into the houses as we pass by and all that with an expert guide.

‘Band, Baaja, Boys!’ is a filmy-sweet story with a baraat of characters and a high dose of Hinglish. Each character is created unique in his localness or her quirks, his love angles or her bra straps. Man, woman or neighbor, every one you meet contributes to the Bajpai family’s story; that of 21-year-old Binny’s parents, Brajesh and Kumud, looking for an eligible match for her, while she herself tries fixing one for herself from a handful of bachelor boys. Simple, often silly, day-dreams define the characters, making them sweet as sherbet and bumbling in their small-town aspirations. They endear you individually and yet together paint a picture of the many gully-mohallas that still exist in evolving cities like Allahabad; those spaces living hesitantly at cusps of modernity even when the posher areas hurtle towards an English-speaking “open-mindedness”.

The portrait of Allahabad then is the portrait of its people; these people in Manphodganj going about their daily businesses and who Rachna brings alive. This portrayal happens in two ways. Mostly it is the hilariously detailed descriptions of characters and the episodes unfurling around them that immensely entertain while showing us Allahabad at close quarters. But at various places in the story of Binny (of parental match-making and romeo romances) the reader also senses the presence of ideas and customs which keep this society where it is - enveloped away from forward-looking views about marriage, daughters and even love.

The fun and funny first.

Rachna’s magnifying glass leaves nothing uncooked in this Allahabadi sun. Whatever comes under it becomes smoking funny! And a lot does in this place where ‘From Delhi’ was the ultimate style statement’. Girls and boys sat on separate sides, and while ‘the girls took notes the boys watched them taking notes.’ In the Bajpai family ‘an alcoholic was one who could spell r-u-m’ and precious Coke was served in glasses which ‘might as well have served eye-drops’. On the roads ‘Vikrams’ not only transported you to the ‘Minorities Institute of Technology’ but also ‘imparted sage advice via words of wisdom on their rears’. ‘Van Halen’ on t-shirts was understood as ‘forest that is shaking’ and people were rechristened ‘bijli-ghar-waley Sahay’ if the place of work was so enviable! Parents had folders called ‘Tarun Chaubey: Virtues, Merits and Assets’ for daughters and ‘padosi sun lenge’ was the surest way to calm the mother of a truant daughter down... and so on and such fun!

However, amidst all the comic happenings of the book was a note that sometimes broke the laughter, a poignant presence throughout the joy ride.

‘Band, Baaja, Boys!’ uses humour through witty one-liners and topsy-turvy events to train our lens on what still teems in many, many societies in our cities. How ‘a fair complexion almost makes up for the missing tube of flesh between the legs’. How ‘ignore the dogs’ was the precious advice parents raised their daughters with. But no parents told their son, Don’t be a dog.’ In times of need it was caste which defined friendship and in Manphodganj ‘I can make your life miserable if you come in my way’ was no empty threat. Directionless boys like Raja came to the cities to study with dreams of feudal love in their eyes while marriageable girls like Binny were kept from joining hobby classes. Mothers like Kumud fantasized about NRI grooms and foreign lands where they could wear jeans with their bindi and so proudly showcased their decorated daughters to prospective parents in law, while yet they swore to not let them go through what they themselves did at the hands of the in laws. Sonless and childless mothers stayed a distance away from new born babies. The elite watched the poor die in floods. The rich-and-spoilt lured gullible girls into shameful acts. And so …

‘Binny had pushed out her feelings of inadequacy caused by not being the boy her parents wanted. Brajesh had pushed out his frustrations that arose with the monotony of his existence. Kumud had pushed out her yearnings for a son. Each life operated within the safe, clean niche it had resolved to whittle out for itself.’

In such a scenario, where Brajesh sleeps fitfully, equally worried about the market for his bras and his beti, Binny as a heroine could have been a swash-buckling, sword-wielding leader. You know, someone who freed her sex (or herself!) from marital objectification and even from being seen as second to boys. But Rachna’s Binny isn’t that heroine, and as you read you realize the author herself did not aspire to create her that way. Her motivations for falling dupattas and flickering eyelids begin from something as simple as a need to feel wanted by someone, and end there too.

Binny is happy enough to be the ‘mistress of deception’. She is no trend-setting girl who shatters the glass ceiling and sets an example for pious friends like Manjul. At best, Binny is like a pocket patakha, a girl from a Hindi-medium school ‘who got no attention and resolved to show the boys how dumb they were.’ Aware of her sexuality and sweetly manipulative enough to enjoy her moments of escape, Binny nonetheless has no aspiration outside of what her parents have for her – that of being a married VIP. So, even as she does the unthinkable when the novel spirals to a punchy climax in Delhi, Binny only manages to somewhat scratch the glass ceiling she was born under.

Women in ‘Band, Baaja, Boys!’ are in control in their own sweet ways, but it’s more like enjoying the freedom to ride the Scooty till the end of town, and duly turning back home before it got dark. Or wearing the nightgown of your choice but with the big bindi intact. While they fail to become powerful-progressive heroines of novels, they remain successful in reminding us of how they are, with their limited controls and cushioned dreams, from among'st us all. We also correct ourselves as we realize how Manphodganj isn’t just in Allahabad, but in our "modern" cities too.

‘Band, Baaja, Boys!’ was also about another realization, for me. This is the first book with a heavy reliance on Hinglish that I have read, with even chapter titles all mixed up! My relationship with the English Language is rather like a schoolmarm’s, and from a distance Hinglish was but a hybrid I viewed as foreign to my reading taste. As I saw the characters converse in their vernacular styles, with their geographically unique words (‘bhaak’) and in indigenous accents (blew colour), I sensed how reading them in their language made them flesh-and-blood to me, even when one of them ‘suicided himself’! I could hear them, almost, as one sold bras on the road with ‘Bra…braaaaas….Taaze Braas…Bra le lo’. I could visualize Allahabad going ‘Axe-kyuj me?’ And I could see how many jokes got a punch because how can ‘paisa chaddi ki chor jeb mein hai’ be said any other way. Humour in vernacular and vernacular in humour!

There’s another thing. It is very difficult to write a language you know correctly so incorrectly that it garners the sought response. Know what I mean? Rachna’s book includes instances of such literal translations as would make you roar with laughter and in turn create a very true-to-life image of the context. For instance, Raja, preparing for the Civil Services, insists on writing letters to his mother only in English - ‘How can I tell Amma but I am telling. I am fixing daughter in law for you. For last six months, I am fixing a girl for you. I am seeing her from my coaching centre window, seeing her fatherji, then also going and seeing her house. Quality of all is good…caste is not the same Amma…but she is having our same caste sanskaars.’

I remain in an Open Relationship with Hinglish without fully committing myself to its merits, as yet, because I also see how this book can truly be appreciated only by those who know Hindi, however little. ‘Band, Baaja, Boys!’ thus becomes not just a book about the Hindi heartland but also belongs there in its truest sense. In this, and this alone, lies its limitation.

All of Rachna Singh’s books seem to be inspired from personally experienced cities and situations. The author and the narrator are always one and stories read like memoirs, even when they aren’t. This lends her works a flavour of authenticity hard to ignore, even if it makes you wonder as her regular reader if she is unable to dissociate her personal self from her art. For this book too she admits in typical coinage ‘I belongs to Allahabad and I am proud of it’. After reading what she does with it you see that it is actually Allahabad which belongs to Rachna instead!

Read it to enjoy its hilarity and its delightful frivolousness. But also read to wonder with Binny ‘Marriz…marriz…why human beens need to do a marriz? Why?’

'Band, Baaja, Boys!' by Rachna Singh is an Amaryllis publication, 2016.

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

The beauty and power of Nandita Bose’s ‘Shadow and Soul’

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 02:52:00 +0000

It is not often that you read a book and admire it not just for what it is but also as a part of a larger, ever-growing storm of women’s writing. A book that enjoys its firm individuality thus while simultaneously adding its voice to the generations which came before is Nandita Bose’s ‘Shadow and Soul’. And it does both with immense beauty and power.

Devika is Gautam’s obedient and quiet wife, spinning her world around her son’s meal times and her husband’s exacting nature and busy medical practice, which keeps him away and her alone. Their lives are led with clockwork precision, a routine which the majestic Meera Mansion sees day after day. The interruption walks in in the form of Shaurjyo, a young man on a vacation and half-heartedly looking for direction to his life. Till he meets Devika, that is. The book begins with Shaurjyo’s narration from 2008, five years after this first visit to the house, this time with his film crew. The chapter sensually hints at ‘half-remembered tastes’, mutating dreams and unpaid debts. There is a story behind the story and Nandita makes Devika and Shaurjyo narrate it to us in their own sweet sense of time and space, like a ‘sequence of introspection of pain and the loss within’. All this while real is being recorded as reel, as Shaurjyo and his crew shoot their movie. After all, isn’t that what brought Shaurjyo back to Meera Mansion?

In the process gets created, in language rich with symbolism and literary tastefulness, a tale of violation and loneliness, responsibilities and obliterated identity and an unhurried awakening towards a sense of self; a reclamation of the myriad aspects of Devika’s self that had vanished. Because marriage and love are two distinct spaces in Nandita’s ‘Shadow and Soul’ and while one self-abnegates here the other empowers!

What is this ‘awakening’ I talk about?

Way back in the 19th century, American columnist Dorothy Dix wrote about how unselfishness in women was a cult. How they wore it ostentatiously, went out of their way to become martyrs. Somewhere around then women were also awakening to the fact that ‘they have been overdoing the self-sacrifice business’ and while a ‘reasonable amount of unselfishness is all right’ (for it could be out of love, really!), the woman who is imposed upon has only herself to blame. For there are ‘middle grounds’ available where they can ‘propose to take their stands’. And even options to fight for their rights!

So many centuries later we meet Devika as the woman Dorothy was writing about, and we see she has little vestige of personal liberty left. ‘Shadow and Soul’ is Devika’s journey of recognizing this plight, stepping away from it gently, choosing to control her circumstances and in turn awakening Shaurjyo to the inescapability of his life’s truths!

How it happens?

A few pages into the book and we see Gautam’s ‘invisible hostility masked as teasing’ and Devika’s silence ‘a tentative compromise with reality’ as the norm in the house; the one who spent the money to run it owned it too, and her with it. Over a beautiful scene, where Devika sits sketching a face (because Shaurjyo introduced her to this art) we see the juxtaposition of her married years with the creation of the face on the paper. The more she draws, the more the realization dawns – ‘my silences had become eloquent while his verbiage turned incomprehensible.’

The desire to share her solitude gains strength, and the thirst to feel whole trails on its heels. What follows is one of the loveliest book depictions of two people moving towards each other, in mind and body, ‘gripped by an unknown dread … and hope’. With delicious slowness Nandita unravels the turmoil and temptations that mark Devika and Shaurjyo and this ‘interlude of madness’. The impulsive reader will miss the beauty that this hesitant, tip-toeing relationship is full of; of ‘a thousand wishes masquerading as misgivings.’ A patient reader would have ‘tasted the truancy’ of a relationship which resists labels; which is defined by its very undefinable nature! And because it is not events and twists and turns which are moving the story forward at this point, we are left undisturbed to soak it all in, as if we were invisible confidants to the scenes where a sense of well-being comes to these two characters sip by sip, safe-keeping each other’s needs …

In the dark she spoke softer, almost in a whisper. ‘Can we forget for this one night?’

‘What do you want to forget?’

‘Reality. My age. Yours. Our situations. Responsibilities. Right and wrong. Everything external.

Everything but what we need to mask all the time. What we feel inside.’

Something is different five years later, when Shaurjyo returns to Meera Mansion as a lost, angry and misfit man. More worldly, so to say. Faced with truths beyond their helping, Devika and Shaurjyo’s relationship now stands in the very world they made unseen the last time they met. Gone is the delicateness. The escape. Arguments ensue, with Shaurjyo torn with contradictions. But Devika? More aware than ever!

‘I didn’t realize that certain experiences are viewed in isolation such that everything that precedes it is negated. I have learnt only now, the woman’s situation always classifies the act at some level between tawdry and sublime, irrespective of how or what the man felt at that time.’

It is this rude return to “worldliness” that makes the dual acts of awakening in ‘Shadow and Soul’ commendably rooted in reality, and Devika a much more meaningful protagonist than simply a woman who comes across an alternative and runs to it. The act of reading this book is involving at not just the level of the senses but also at the level where self-examination and dangerously subversive thoughts exist. Both the power and the beauty of this book, seen in the creation of the central characters, their relationship and the strength of the closure, are also reflected in Nandita’s unmatched expression and style that she uses to tell this story.

Nandita Bose owns her style.

‘Shadow and Soul’ is full of the most beautiful expressions of love and longing, thoughts about marriage and relationships and lyrical contemplation into what could be our own life’s situations. The author takes you inside her characters’ mind, till you lose yourself, and gently draws you out with the slightest touch of the fingertips. The chapters, named after works of art, end not on threads which create curiosity to know the story further, but at points of expression which leave a lingering impression. Which go beyond the mere tale and make the telling of it the point! She commands her words thus, reining in or letting gallop the pace of the story, till ‘everything else does not exist. Not even concepts of possibilities and impossibilities.’ Just beautiful language!

Nandita’s use of symbolism can gladden many a literary heart. There are dragonflies and sketches, the river and chapter titles. And then there is the unmistakable connection between Devika and Meera Mansion. Both ‘properties’ of her husband according to the ‘rules of engagement’. Both have character, a sanctity, age, experience and a routine. Later, Devika and Shaurjyo’s explorations of spaces in the house parallel Devika’s awakening to yet-undiscovered feelings and wants within her. Says Shaurjyo – ‘When I first saw you I didn’t know which was more beautiful – the house or you.’ But it isn’t its beauty alone that gets him back to it as a filmmaker. It’s what he experienced there. Meera Mansion with its river nearby becomes that feminine space which nurtures, feeds, provides and cares, and much more when it is awakened and aware.

I wonder why I feel no need to include in my review the film actors’ stories or the events which ensue around them. After all, it is a part of the story of this book and not entirely avoidable. But most characters, other than the two central ones, seem lazily drawn bordering on typical. The mutual dynamics of the actors and actresses are neither apparent nor enrich the premise of the main story. If it wasn’t for the blurb I would not even have realized their relationships, yearnings and interests at all! Is this true, or am I too smitten by Devika and Shaurjyo who made dull in comparison all else that came in the book?

Much about Nandita’s ‘Shadow and Soul’ is reminiscent of Kate Chopin’s ‘The Awakening’, both novels of their times. Like Nandita, Chopin too wasn’t terribly explicit about the mechanics of sex. What her novel showed, like this one here, is how to be free in one’s self and for one’s self, yet remain meaningfully connected to others. Devika’s evolving relationship with her grown-up son, Gaurav, reflects this in the end. However, while Chopin’s Edna reaches her autonomy with a terrible price to pay, Nandita’s Devika manages to integrate her awakened self to the physical and social realities which surround it. Because Devika knows, what Edna in her times probably could not, that ‘we have the prerogative of self-determination.’ Where intentions are explicit because of action, and human agency far superior to mere Fate, or even suicide following a destructive solitude...

How difficult it is to write a review of a book you loved! First, I could not begin. Then, I was besotted with countless resilient echoes of women writers who added their voice to the immortal feminist discourse. And now, I struggle to conclude my thoughts about Nandita Bose’s ‘Shadow and Soul’. Devika believed ‘Moonlight and paintings are dreams. Reality is stark. Maybe it is tough too. But in the end, that is all there is, all that endures.’ This book will endure that test of time, for like good literature, it draws from and depends on shared forms and representations of experience – yours and mine, our shadows and our souls.

'Shadow and Soul' by Nandita Bose is an Amaryllis publication, 2015.

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

A mixed call on 'Curtain Call'

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 03:03:00 +0000

My feelings for ‘Curtain Call’, 20 short stories compiled and edited by Rafaa Dalvi, are mixed. Juicy apples and bland oranges don’t mix. It’s true that most anthologies with works by first-time authors tend to swing between the good and the average, thus. That they introduce us to new writers and fresh writing is an undeniable benefit, as is reading some memorable stories! While both these positives hold true for this multi-genre collection, what is also noticeable is that the editor’s claim of only ‘quality writing’ making the cut rings hollow a few stories into the book.

Good things first! Eight stories stood out for me, for reasons unique to each.

The Stage Leads

‘His Leela’ by Karthik begins with a man snapping at everything that is amiss around him, while his wife finishes off the household chores to escape to college. ‘Do you have no respect for your husband?’ he bellows. We watch the wife closely. We feel her silence, her submission, her patience. But only until Karthik turns the lens towards her husband - the brooding man who stands looking at a dark tower he ‘resented deeply’. The wife is forgotten, as the reader is welcomed into his innermost recess – where a past of unfulfilled dreams gnaws at his insides. Where his misery stems from. And which he habitually uses to repel people and animals. And then suddenly, Leela walks in, becomes ‘his Leela’ and unknowingly turns this couple’s lives around. From what seemed like the picture of many homes at the start to one which ends on a beautiful note affirming a different kind of friendship and love, Karthik’s story is written with much sensitivity and understanding. It removes the curtain from the mundane, scratches the surface of human bitterness and shows us how hope to feel new and see oneself anew always exists.

If ‘His Leela’ is like a slice of our middle-aged lives, one hopes ‘Office Visit’ by Bruce Memblatt is just a bad, though very creative, dream! Short snappy sentences and microscopic details introduce us to Rosie, a twelve year old girl who is sitting before Gloria, the school therapist. Rosie’s ‘obviously rare maturity’ patiently discussing ‘the futility of it all’ hints at something mysterious. Whispers about ‘old souls’ and ‘old bones’ pique curiosity to dangerous levels. Till Gloria screams – ‘How are you possible?’ and we scream with her. Cruel in his quick pace and without letting the fantastical grip loosen around our necks, Bruce manages to suffocate his readers with the events in the room which follow this ‘cosmic typo’, this … Rosie. You’re left asking – Was Gloria herself in need of therapy? Did this really happen? What did?! And you know this was a story well-told, that’s what it was!

‘The Lifeless Living Sculpture’ by Bhavya Kaushik is different. It involves you with its intensity, saddens with its beauty and leaves you floating in an ocean of interpretations. A sculptor manages to create ‘a physical manifestation of my own thoughts, my obsession’ till the lifeless woman starts living! What follows is like a lover’s monologue – on yearning, obsession, patience and sacrifice. If you can ignore the ‘moral’ at the end of the story, this piece becomes an introspection into the relationship between an artist and his art, the pleasure and hope of creating and the despair that sets in when the work is ready; Ready to belong to the world as an entity in itself, and not just to the artist, who is by now left with nothing but empty hands and a heavy heart.

‘Cooking up a Storm’ is a well-written story by Shawn Pereira, which draws you in from the word go. Meticulous detail, regular doses of suspense and no overt reliance on a twisty closure! That it is about the Italian Mafia made it run the risk of wallowing in images borrowed from cinema. But it doesn’t! Salvatori, who seems to have had his cook, the narrator’s father, killed is the object of the son’s revenge. So the son steps into Salvatori’s kitchen, serves ‘succulent meat’ and by a horrid turn of events, well, cooks up a storm. In just over four pages the author shows the many layers of truth and lies which powerful families live with, the assumptions their every action comes shrouded in and most importantly, the oft-ignored sensitivity and humanity that lies within.

The most delightful pair of characters in the book are the two boys in the story ‘Boys will be boys’ by Dr. Roshan Radhakrishnan. All misgivings about feeding stag stereotypes are forgotten in loud guffaws as we see the incorrigible Renjith’s persistent ‘fatherly tone’ to make his colleague Sunil reveal the ‘private’ details of his date night. Their relationship, endearingly portrayed through jokes and hyperbolic references to cartoons and kings, paints an enviable camaraderie while yet reflecting on the wide mental canvas of the author. You want to read further because it’s super fun, and later because there is strip-poker happening too. In the end it’s Roshan who wins the hand!

Sharath Komarraju’s ‘The Sitarist of Palem’ is not just one of the best-written stories of the anthology but also complex in its plot and subsequent multi-genre interpretation. It also stands out as a piece where context and setting are characters in themselves, with ‘Palem certainly needing cleansing’, adding to the whispers of conversion, Christianity and the eerie charm of something secret. A women’s wellness centre, run by Sister Agnes, is at the heart of the story and Lata, a mysterious overgrown girl reaching there one night, the pivot. What unfolds is at once reminiscent of human violence and yet has an unearthly, macabre feel to it. Says Lata - ‘Yes, what am I? What am I, woman? I was a woman five days ago, until you gave me that sitar to play. Now what am I?’ till the goosebumps on your hands feel like scales. This story plays with your mind and leaves you struggling for answers.

‘The Last Rock on which the Universe Collapsed’ by Siddhesh Kabe is a highly inventive story which concludes with infinite profundity. It propels you into the future of space exploration with zany instruments but begins where ‘the most accurate frequency for a decoupling motor was calculated by an uneducated 13-year-old’. The author beautifully paints Capt. Anant Mahajan’s lonely life in space, whose only mission is seeking out ‘something … or someone’. The reader is soon suspended on an upside down motionless mountain, with a cabbage patch and a forgetful old man who confirms ‘God? That is good, an old concept, older than creation … and no, I am not God.’ This story transports you into its world with its creativity and opens itself to many light years’ worth of interpretation.

Suresh C has to have been either a Manager, or one of those his Manager managed, to have written this very fun and true-to-life ‘Office Games’. With a unique sense of humour and well-fleshed out characters, the author writes about Arup, that young man from your own office with no fancy degree but a whole lot of grit, crawling his way upwards. Why? Because the girl he loves has a father who wants him ‘to double my salary overnight’. Beyond the amusing events of the story, and an unexpected revelation at the end, is a poignant sentiment. Of how weddings come with T&C and aspirations get killed by others’ expectations. Where parents may be ‘inflamed haemorrhoids’ but you cannot let them down. Where slimy imps like Piyush will sabotage your promotion. And where bosses often cannot discern how a cow citing experience of chewing its cud for 10 years cannot really run a dairy farm!

Three other stories in ‘Curtain Call’ came in a close second, if you may.

In the Second Row

‘A Crimson Affair’ by Rafaa Dalvi is a murder mystery with Birbal in the lead. Imagine lending your story to historical characters and ‘owning’ them, by endowing them with real and imagined traits. I liked the idea and also the simplicity at the heart of the mystery. It’s the telling that lacked in grip and finesse. ‘My Fair Husband’ by Renu Sethi is about a couple who ‘somewhere in the safe confines of their heart enjoyed the arguments’ they always get into. It’s a very real, endearing portrait of marriage, even after the husband dies and becomes ‘even more painful than before’. It’s a pity the events seem borrowed from the very Hollywood movie mentioned in the story. ‘Agent W’ by Rahul Biswas is a suspenseful and well-written story about senior RAW officers, moles and patriotism which is ‘no less injurious to health’. The narration is tight and the end surprising. But points in the story remind you of the many movies made on the subject. After all, how many of us can really know how RAW works, if not from the silver screen?

All other stories can be shoe-boxed together, according to me. They are for readers who primarily like twists in the end rather than the turns used to get there. Which is to say, the end defines the story for them, not how they got there. Such stories do not adequately involve the sensibilities of some readers. They do not linger longer than a gasp. Short-term entertainment, quite typical, often predictable, but then who is to say we don’t need that? Here are those which cater to readers looking for a quickie.

In the Wings

Vivek Banerjee in ‘Mahua’ takes us into the thick jungles of Chattisgarh, for a survey for building a dam on River Indravati. But the story is flat and predictable, and very problematic for ‘using’ Mahua the way it does. An opportunity lost! ‘Mistaken Identity’ by Deepa Duraisamy is about two characters who meet over a train journey. While the author successfully manages to draw us into their relationship, typicality and predictability mar it. ‘Time after Time’ by Aniesha Brahma begins on a note of sibling love and ends on a supernatural one. But there’s much more that can be done with it. ‘Ablaze Within’ by Sanhita Baruah held the promise of showing us an unforgettable portrait of a prostitute. But while Razia’s stand at the end of the story makes you applaud, the story simply reinforces stereotypes through copied imagery.

‘Reminiscence’ by Mehek Bassi has a strangely nonchalant protagonist in search of an old man. Poorly executed where a story there was none, it even ends with a page-long moral. ‘Ookleeboo’ by Diptee Raut seemed so cute it made me wonder if a child wrote it, or a mother narrated it. But neither the conversational style nor the invention of Ookleeboo save the story from seeming under-developed and incomplete. ‘Another Chance’ by Ketaki Patwardhan is a very short story which explores the theme of ‘what if?’ time could be turned back? Again, diluted by predictability. ‘FLAMES’ by Amrit Sinha captures the innocence of school crushes. But while on the one hand his school-going characters are naïve to a fault, on the other they mouth (Amrit’s?) most profound takes on love and life. Contradiction, just like with the boy's abruptness in the final scene.

Out of all the stories, it is ‘The Princess Bride’ by Ekta Khetan which remains the weakest link. The theme of a married woman ridden with self-doubt and thoughts of betrayal was a lovely one. Sadly, it fails miserably not just the idea of a short story but even the language it is written in. All stories in the book have their own grammatical problems, with fingers pointing at a lazy editor. But to print this piece full of appalling mistakes makes the editor a criminal! Usages like ‘gasped a breath’, ‘asleep off in his arms’; vagaries like ‘sleeping in absolute realm’, ‘work upon her intimacy with him’; mistakes like ‘them’ for single objects, ‘couldn’t help but got carried away’, ‘this ups and downs’, ‘gape of the neck’ and similar others turn readers into teachers.

And so I think aloud ... A badly written story not just makes the reader feel cheated by robbing her of an otherwise okay experience but also does disservice to other writers in the collection, who have attempted and succeeded in delivering works which at least entertain. Of course, it all points to a larger malaise. The hurry to be published, the insistence that ‘simple is good’ and ‘complex overrated’, that rules of language are for the Queen alone and a lie readers and reviewers tell each other – that grammatical errors don’t interfere with the reading experience. Well, if they don’t then they should! Perhaps then the 'quality' we seek, as writers and readers, will be within reach.

Rafaa Dalvi intended well to compile this anthology, give new writers an audience and introduce readers to some good writing and promising authors. He did all that! But we cannot ignore the lack of critical eye with which it has been done. ‘Curtain Call’ will find its readers, no doubt. Those for whom a book is an open-and-shut case, where characters needn’t involve them, trouble them, challenge them or stories be unforgettable in their layers, novelty and style. Some prefer that momentariness of relationship with their reading while others want books to remain open long after they have been read and shelved. Most stories in this anthology are for the former, not the latter.

'Curtain Call' by Rafaa Dalvi is a Half Baked Beans publication, 2016

[Review was commissioned by the editor. Views are my own.]

Anya’s Lyric by Nikhil Kumar

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 04:19:00 +0000

‘I was born because of one man’s inability to read.’

With these lines opens Nikhil Kumar’s ‘Anya’s Lyric’. If the gorgeous cover image couldn’t grip you with curiosity enough, these lines do. Not just with curiosity, though. Notice how in just a blink you have been welcomed into an intimate world by an ‘I’ who perhaps will tell all, beginning right from why that ‘I’ was born. The ‘I’ wants you to listen. The ‘I’ has a story. And you are already an audience even before you said yes.

Nikhil could not have begun his book better. Everything that this petite book impressed me with is contained in its opening lines. The causality behind events which drive the story; the characters ordinary yet significantly identifiable by a singular trait; the narration personal, heartfelt and sad. Like this man and his ‘inability to read’, who is nameless yet has played a pivotal part in giving birth to none other than our narrator - Anya.

Anya? ‘A girl who couldn’t understand her actions’. You know, a ‘special girl’ who needed ‘a different kind of education’ along with the other ‘retarded kids of school, social rejects, all of us.’ This story is Anya looking back to those times when her ‘brain was incapable of grasping threads of reality and logic … Back then (when) it was scary’ as a grown-up who is only partially out of her ‘condition’ now because of…

Because of. Causality.

The relationship between cause and its effect is the defining aspect of this story. Rather, all the many stories within this story, plaited neatly into one. ‘Anya’s Lyric’ is a collection of fast-moving, very gripping events happening to an array of characters, with the various threads eventually and sometimes surprisingly crisscrossing each other. Like synapses in the brain! Those points of meeting, often between unrelated characters or unconnected events, help stitch Anya’s story into one patchwork quilt. Very symbolic of how a ‘special’ mind works and talks, wouldn’t you say? Trying to maintain eye contact but almost always failing to. Trying to converge to and thus convey one idea but through many, not entirely insignificant, diversions.

No surprise then that the story in ‘Anya’s Lyric’ relies heavily on coincidences, to the extent that patters, as if predestined, appear. Nothing is as it seems, or won’t be a page later. But it was all meant to be, one starts believing. And Nikhil Kumar is cruel! He hurtles the story forward. With no breathers and intrigue a constant companion, the reader finds herself guessing what will happen next.

What is happening? Disruptions. The well-established routines which each character had before are shorn of all comfortable predictability with a simple ‘but that day’ or ‘at the precise moment’ or ‘this had never happened to him before’ … leaving the attentive reader reading more attentively. These disruptions not just move the story ahead but also spell trouble. Like for the postman with the pink letter, who suddenly finds himself doing what he was not supposed to be doing. Suddenly. A Godot-esque meaninglessness and madness ensue. A sense of eerie providence envelopes all the lives bumping into each other, and not just Anya’s life – conceived on an odd day and born on a strange day too.

Anya’s story, like the many others which meet it, is replete with a dreariness – a primal monotony of sadness featuring men and women we see every day; people on the road, in the fruit market, along railway lines, in temple queues, ‘dreaming of a better life’. Which makes the characters ordinary. Yet, Nikhil doesn’t let them enjoy their facelessness. By endowing each with a story of his/her own which in turn feeds his protagonist’s story, the author gives them a spotlight which an onlooker at a red light doesn’t care to. A lot of them have no names but most of them have been given something which makes them momentarily stand out in our universal studio of reality. We may only know them as ‘the woman with the mole on her left cheek’ or the man who had ‘never gotten greedy’ or ‘the pot-bellied man’ or ‘the boy with a twisted leg’ but we have been shown their lives and minds. Enough to make us realize they are products of the filth in our own backyard. In their hatred and crimes, their superstitions and greed, and their love and longing they are very real!

Of course, among all of them Anya is special. She has been given a voice. She narrates her own story. Now, when you begin reading you notice how Anya is a little girl struggling to make herself understood to the world. But, why does she come across as so articulate to us? Is this an author contradiction? Is it because she is hiding her clear head from those around? Or, is the story a looking- back, from a wiser point of view? When you are convinced it’s the third, you start noticing her clinical, disjointed way of receiving the gravest of situations in her life.

‘Three important things happened to me on the twenty-ninth of February, the year I turned sixteen: I fell in love, my father died, and I fell out of love.’

The matter-of-fact tone makes you sad. Her not knowing how to react right makes you see the terribleness of her situation. And yet you see beauty in all her staccato sadness. She keeps you close. Much like a lyric, her words are heartfelt, even when she is a ‘filthy girl, almost a woman, sitting in the mud and dirt and playing with sticks and stones’, ignorant in her derangement. She confesses to us how ‘I try to remember my story as best as I can’, so we know some things may not be as they seem to her. But then again, that’s the sentiment running below the complete story of ‘Anya’s Lyric’, all along. Of invisible eddies of fate becoming whirlpools and subsuming lives…

The role of language in portraying Anya’s mind was an important one. Even keeping all the stories tight and cleverly connected required craft (and craftiness). Nikhil Kumar has managed both well. Sometimes he’ll just show without telling, leaving the reader loitering around, guessing. At other times, he’ll revel in the repetition of words over the course of long sentences.

‘In a forgotten part of town, where it was dangerous for respectable people to wander, stood a forgotten, derelict building, concrete-grey and falling apart at the seams, on the second floor of which was a forgotten apartment with a dirty blue door which had a Bugs Bunny sticker stuck on it by some forgotten soul, inside which, on the far room on the right of the long corridor, the man who smelled like milk just finished raping a forgotten thirteen year old girl who wore braces on her teeth.’

Forgotten, and the author’s insistence to not let us forget. Similarly, ‘insignificant’ on page two is repeated so many times you realize those things are anything but insignificant. Phrases like ‘as he did each morning’ reinstate the idea of a routine, only to be broken a line later. Anya harps on the word ‘underdeveloped brain’ to show how acutely aware of it this protagonist is. Not a speck of dust or a hue of colour evades Nikhil’s eyes, and scenes are created visually though without extra embellishments. The end of every chapter leaves a thread dangling or a reader reaction unattended.

There are a couple of episodes in ‘Anya’s Lyric’ which work well as back stories but in themselves are not very unique, and rather predictable. Thankfully, they are few and far between. But a graver problem appears when you are nearing the end of the book. Somewhere around there Anya appears to have gained clarity of thought, access to good vocabulary like ‘endorphins’, and sane responses to reality. It is too sudden to not ask – how come? Charitable feelings towards another girl in the book and a love angle with one of the boys also seem sudden in the last few pages. The book ends itself hastily, with an enigmatic scene in a shack on a beach, highly interpretative in all its vagueness and mystery but lost in effect if seen for just what it is.

Anya confesses how ‘people are strange and I don’t understand them’. Nikhil Kumar writes this book to understand those very people, to present their stories within stories, wrapped in an all-encompassing connectedness that none of the characters can escape. This book is like ‘that part of town where the social rejects make their home’. You see how everyone is significant, yet no one is. How depravity is universal yet misery individual. And also how while ugliness is a constant in this needy-greedy world sitting on a social fabric full of holes, special souls like Anya just ‘sang my song through it all’.

It is Anya’s Lyric, after all, and it must be heard.

'Anya's Lyric' by Nikhil Kumar is a self-published book, 2016

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

Once, as a Paying Guest in Delhi University

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:25:00 +0000

I came to New Delhi for my Bachelor’s Degree, as a wide-eyed girl who had miraculously got admission in Lady Shri Ram College. The heart was beating like it had already got free entry into the hip and newly opened The Sugar Factory next door. Or received a proposal from the dark haired Darcy himself! The head was more cautious in its celebration. Delhi was the size of a Kingdom as compared to my home hamlet. One lady in The Doon Club had told me it’s full of cheats, cheap women and madmen. ‘Be careful, beta. You know what you need to guard.’ And she had looked at my belt. My own main worry was grades. LSR inspired and thus expected excellence. And being a hard-working, above-average girl may no longer be enough to hold my own.

But what pooped completely what was a half-party anyway, was the fact that I did not make it to the college Residence Hall. Utni bhi achhi rank nahi thee, I imagined Belt Lady (from above) telling her Bingo friends. I had to look for a PG accommodation. My father was silent as a mountain, and as supportive. Only the best had to be picked. Safe. Comfortable. No compromises! That another girl from Dehradun had booked one in National Park, right behind LSR, was enough to judge the book by its marble floor and bathroom tiles which no other PG offered for miles. Three months’ rent was paid and a two-seater booked. Diamond fingers pointed us to the various facilities which were being offered to the ‘girls who are like my own daughters’, as my parents and I followed our PG aunty much like Pip did Miss Havisham.

Alas! Soon enough it was evident this aunty had three daughters and no room for more. All promises made to parents-with-wallets started dying till they became invisible like the rajma in the gravy. That is, before the gravy ran out completely for those girls reaching the PG late. Just plain white rice in the common room, followed by jam with Parle G in the room. Room? A third bed had been shifted in with a girl on top. Now we three slept so close we could share one quilt. After all, where was the cupboard space to hold three separate ones anymore? Where will the books go? And reams of notes? Cold drinking water would often run out, specially during exams, but never for aunty downstairs. Always positive, she would instead show us the 6 pairs of shoes she got for nothing from the sale at CP. We girls would be torn between requesting for a cold water bottle, or asking for the shoes!

If life inside the PG wasn't exactly comfortable or conducive to studies, the walk to and from college was downright unsafe. With a shady Hotel V next door and a desolate nallah with pants-down men hissing and pissing inside, it wasn’t for nothing that the area was called The Rapists’ Paradise. So the “freshers” would wait in college for other PG mates to get done with classes, and then we would walk back together. It never stopped the mucky comments from being passed or random hits-n-touches by bikers, but it softened the blow a bit. Plus, running alone down the road felt worse. It was when a friend walking beside me got dragged by her umbrella down the lane one lonely afternoon, with me helplessly running after a screaming her, that all the leftover mirth and fun, of late-night gossips about who has a boyfriend or who wears a padded bra and whom PG Uncle winked at, went completely bland. Completely.

I decided that day I needed to get inside that Residence Hall. Thanks to the powdered-milk water and cornflakes I had for breakfast for a year to help put my soul into getting the grades, and my hosteller cousin who pushed me to it, I miraculously made it. I topped the internal assessments! Our Victorian Poetry class was interrupted when a hosteller (always late!) sashayed in with the news. My name was on the hostel list. The whole class cheered like I had battled a crocodile alone. I cried big tears. It had felt exactly like that!

By the time my graduation was done and I became a post-graduate student of Delhi University, Arts Faculty, with some library-cum-bank-cum-canteen allegiance to Hansraj College, I knew what to expect when I didn’t make it to the Post-Graduate Women’s Hostel in the first go and took up a room in Malka Ganj. Meanwhile, Belt Lady (from above) fainted over her Bloody Mary just hearing the name of the place, and Mill gaya kamra bahut badi baat hai, yaar, remarked a senior in college.

But was I really prepared, still?

No beds. Only string cots. Four girls in a room with a broken window which let in not just the bugs and bees but also the hoots of prospective suitors downstairs, night after night. One fridge, but use at your own risk. Eggs vanished as did Pepsi and rosewater. (There were whispers that it was aunty!) One phone charging point and two cupboards standing on bricks. And a rickety gate and staircase keeping us and our Maggi all safely in. Itney paisey mein itna hee, please, the seepage seemed to say. Where was one to go anyway? Any kissa that would happen in a neighbouring PG accommodation and uniformed men would come to make us fill up forms, ask random questions, and leave. That fine day we would see our aunty’s face, properly, without a face pack, even as we thirstily stole secret glances at the chilled Roohafza she served the cops, teasing us right under their noses!

Only a month of it and so I lived to tell the tale. PGW's latest list was up and I was in! That same afternoon, even before the glue behind the list which was put up was dry, I moved all my worldly belongings to its D-Block. One rickshaw, one superman ricky-bhai, one kilometre and 50 bucks later I breathed.

All this was more than a decade back. I am that much older today, and enough to acknowledge that whatever problems beset students in their life at the university also shape them. Chisel them. Give them extra layers of hide for survival, stomachs of steel and a confidence to ‘manage on our own’ where once we were like deer in the headlights. It is only when the shit starts flowing out of the pot to enter your room, and there’s no water in the taps for two days, that you scream the loudest scream. To ask for what is right, and your right. That's exactly what's making news today and reading which made me write this.

Girls protesting against regressive and discriminatory hostel rules, rallies against the lack of basic facilities in colleges and fee hikes are headlines. Even though I read about them on a chair far removed from the broken, shared ones I studied on, I cheer and support these students’ demands wherever I sit. I applaud groups like ‘A Room of my Own’, trying to get accountability in the PG business. And I respect that they found their voices, which are only getting braver by the day. You see, it's not just about 'managing on your own', somehow adjusting. College is about finding your wings for life. And nothing should come in the way of that!

I wish I were still a student of Delhi University. This would be my postcard to the VC. One among the 10,000 which reached him recently.

Nature and its fruits. And Love?

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 11:44:00 +0000

I just finished reading today’s newspaper. The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits.

Nature and its fruits?

I close my eyes and imagine...

Hundreds of mango trees stand pregnant with fruit in front of me. The sun is sweating to somehow reach the undergrowth. To touch it. To nourish it. Here and there, in those yellow patches, I spot fruit flies drunk on juice. They are dancing around plump mangoes which have fallen, as if hungry to be consumed, so ready they are! My nose smells grass and moss and bark. My ears hear the bees, the parrots, the falling fruits and also those faint whispers when the wind meets the leaves, making them shiver with an ‘I love you. I love you so much, Meenu’.

Wait, who said that? Is someone there? I see a red stone bench, a little in the sunlight and a little in the dark, as if yet to make up its mind to show or not to be seen. A boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. Lovers, of course! Lovers professing love, discussing love, feeling love. Just the trees hear them. Only the mangoes understand. And none of the parrots can repeat their secret passion to the big, bad world of honour and blood …

Nature and its fruits. And love.

I walk up to my book shelf and neck bent, finger the spines.

Kalidasa’s ethereal Sakuntala, in a bark-garment, walks in the forest of her hermitage. Her girlfriends tease – ‘With you beside him the mango looks as if wedded to a lovely vine.’ King Duhsanta, spying on Sakuntala’s beauty, is smitten. He sees ‘how her lower lip has the rich sheen of young shoots, her arms the very grace of tender twining stems, her limbs enchanting as a lovely flower.’ 20 pages later there is an invitation to share the bench, if there ever was one, as Duhsanta says – ‘O girl with tapering thighs! … out of kindness, you offer me a place on this bed of flowers sweet from the touch of your limbs, to allay my weariness.’ She blushes with fire, he burns with it and her friends excuse themselves and leave. Love happens. Marriage follows soon after, but alas, it belongs not to the sylvan, fertile surroundings but to the world of the court, and its many laws. Many androcentric laws. About purity of roots, ‘varna’ and ‘uninterrupted succession’. And a woman who is ‘never free to do as I please’.

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing.

To lush regions of harmony, spiritual health, love and fancy, Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ belongs. Fancy, did I say? Yes. Make-believe! The woods, so symbolic of wilderness, are seemingly away and apart from the city-bound civilization. The traditional pastoral festivities release the escaped lovers’ energies for the continuity of life, but which in the end, sadly, are held in check. How? The city has its rules for the formal bonds of marriage. Very strict bills one needs to fit! This ‘contagious fog’ of terms and conditions can creep through the world of shady trees and reach the bench … brutal quarrels, a deranged lover, predation, jealousy, shame and disgust ensue to kill … ‘And therefore is love said to be a child because in choice he is so oft beguiled.’ Therefore.

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing.

I suddenly remember what this guy in Siddharth Chowdhury’s ‘Patna Manual of Style’ saw in Indraprastha Park, New Delhi. In his words – ‘I heard some voices from the covered pavilion that is right in the middle of the park. I thought I heard a faint female shriek for help … I found a young couple on the floor, the girl still in her school uniform, with her nylon zebra-striped chaddi and salwar around her knees and the boy bare-assed on top of her. Without thinking of consequences I ran in to save the girl and gave the boy a tremendous kick. The girl started saying ‘please, please, please’ and the boy … tried to run away… but not before some choice slaps from yours truly.’ He was just a goodly confused passer-by. No. He wasn’t a cop with a baton. But he could have been a cop, or someone serving the opaque and impermeable code of morality, of which one size fits all, and flouting which leads to such ‘dheeli chaddis’.

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing.

The newspaper flutters in the fan’s wind to draw me back. I read yet again.

The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits.

Nature and its fruits. And love?

Home-searching with HDFC RED

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 03:46:00 +0000

Once upon a time, looking for a house meant phone calls followed by visits to family friends and long-forgotten relatives in the new city. Could they please ask around their neighborhood if anyone was looking for an educated, decent family with a steady-income to buy their property in Delhi, for instance? If yes, what luck! If no, it meant riding pillion on a scooter with broker after broker, each of whom was ‘your most trusted option’ and ‘like a brother in a big, disorganized city’. After scores of lists of areas and specifications and requirements such frustration and exhaustion would set in as would make you want to live in a cave!

Now, if you are a parent who thinks the best for your child, the process of house-hunting acquires two more aspects. One, the child as a physical presence while you hop from one prospective abode to the other. And two, specific features and facilities the house needs to have for the child’s safe and happy stay and which need to be ensured. So, you don’t just want the experience to be less physically involving and more time efficient, you also want the end-result to match your parental idea of a home.

As a parent, there is much that I want to ensure my new home to have. Room and ample space that the kid can call his own, lots of windows for good ventilation and daylight, undisturbed power and water supply, some greens to expend that extra energy, proximity to schools and hospitals, overall safety and security … the list goes on. Children have schools to go to, birthday parties to attend, camps to learn extra-curricular activities in and television to watch, why not! And so as a parent I also want a process of house-hunting which doesn’t hamper my child’s routine and well-being.

If you too wish for a stress-free one-stop shop where you can just look for a property, with informed guidance, efficiency and meticulous organization, check out HDFC RED!

HDFC RED is a home discovery and buying portal and app for home seekers to access all information relevant to every step of the home buying process. Users are given the tools to enable a convenient and hassle-free home search experience, from a database of over 24,000 types of properties across 23 cities! So if you are looking for row houses in Pune, builders in Bangalore, apartments for sale in Hyderabad,or even land for sale in Chennai, this is where you need to be.

The HDFC RED Mobile App, available for both iOS and Android phones, gives you the freedom to browse on the go their comprehensive and unbiased database!

The ‘Priority Search’ feature is designed to help users prioritize their preferences. Which means, for parents like myself who make lists the length of epics, it logically organizes things for us. How?

One can view properties in an order indicating the extent of relevance, with results even personalized to each user. So, each property has a relevance score and feedback mechanism, which is tailored according to the priorities identified by the home seeker!

It’s interactive and simple to use, with property images, lists of amenities in and around the house (like schools, train stations, hospitals) and even floor plans and approximate EMIs duly mentioned. Using HDFC RED also makes sense for it gives each property a ‘Relevance Score’ based on our priorities, shows you special deals available in your city and even comes with a home loan calculator.

All this simply an app download away. No more settling for the second-best, because you ran out of patience or time. No more drowning in incorrect information or being swamped by too much of it. And no more riding pillion. Let HDFC RED become your ‘brother in a big city’!

Yama’s Lieutenant in Anuja Chandramouli’s world

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 05:55:00 +0000

Anuja Chandramouli’s latest book, ‘Yama’s Lieutenant’ begins on a note of sibling love. Agni and Varuna are burying their pet goldfish over thoughts of separation and death. ‘I will never leave you!’ promises Agni, at the end of an innocently poignant scene, making Varuna happy. Little do the twins know (or the readers realize) how swiftly their promises will be thrown into a world beyond their imaginations, with mysterious events and creatures who will change their lives, and even deaths, forever.

Agni Prakash, languishing in depression after Varuna’s death, is summoned to be Yama’s lieutenant. What he thought was a strange dream becomes a stranger job – that of sending the inhabitants of the thousand hells, who have escaped to ruin the three worlds, back to the torture chambers. While fulfilling a mandate he little loves, he chances upon a manuscript his sister wrote before she died. It’s the story of the celestial twins Yama and Yami, re-told! Connections and coincidences start appearing, as we read about Agni’s deadly journey and also the chapters from Varuna’s manuscript. They form two distinct plot-lines in the book, ‘taunting with veiled hints of the things they concealed’. That is until Agni figures out how they both trail towards the epicenter of an action-packed climax.

Fantasy, yes. And also reality. There is much of both in ‘Yama’s Lieutenant’. Which one wins our hearts?

The real and the fantastical primarily merge at the level of the story, where mere mortals are given magical powers and powerful roles to play. They don’t just coexist but are interlinked tight! Suspend all disbelief. The world in 'Yama’s Lieutenant' is not for those ‘corrupted with the taint of science and logic’. It is about ‘magic which will reflect the heart and soul of the wielder’ and which will always ‘extract a price’. Out of mythology and arcane lore come creatures which exist beyond rational realms, like fiendish Narakamayas and Hatakas, necromancers like Naganara, guardian angels and benevolent goddesses, all making the real human world of Agnis and Varunas their own. How? By spreading evil, or contrariwise giving destitute orphans like Minothi ‘powers’ for good.

Much creativity has gone into making the many fantastical scenes in the book come alive. The names of places are naughtily close to real places but their descriptions so magnificent that they are not just a pleasure for readers who appreciate good language but also successful in making the readers become a part of them. From the beautiful to the macabre, from descriptions of hell to idyllic palaces and icy caves, fantasy in the book is a visual treat which draws you in! Epical, really!

It is because of this power of fantasy that all coming-back-to-reality scenes in the book - of big cities, riots, murders and suicides - feel like a sudden leap. While some readers may see that jump as a not-so-seamless merging of fantasy and reality, others would commend the author for making us get lost in a highly invented world as if it were the only reality we knew. While Anuja has also made her book pregnant with the realism of (and subtle social commentary about) lower-caste reservation riots, honour killings, mob frenzy, superstitions, labels like dark-slut-witch and even the evil of child-trafficking, we cannot help but see ‘Himsa and Adharma (which) have taken control of the world’ not as concepts from the human world but as ugly monsters from mythology that now walk the earth.

Of course, there’s Agni to deliver us from such evil! But then, is he the hero of this story? Alone?

At the beginning of the book Agni is a lanky, long-haired depressive who had ‘trouble articulating exactly what it was that he had been chosen to do’. Except, he knew that time was always short, and ‘he was no longer flirting with death so much as consummating his union with it,’ as he went about the world making people pay the price for their actions. By the time he begins battling the dark army the intoxication of magic starts making him feel ‘like a god on earth and more’, who not just captures but destroys!

However, while Agni may have been gifted Yama’s danda and the title of this book, the powerful women in the book outshine his valor, for this reader, and lend the book a unique touch. Most women who play a part in the story rise from states of oppression and suppressed desires. Sanjana, Surya’s consort no less, frees herself from the bondage of being used and abused. She turns into a horse so she could roam the three worlds, wild! There’s Minothi, born to a mother who ran for days to save her child ‘nobody ever knew how’, who then becomes a pivotal magic wielder in the book, ‘a typhoon of unstoppable destruction’ but who could even ‘nurse a dying tree back to life’. Yami, Surya’s daughter and Yama’s twin, knows that ‘marriage and its attendant horrors are not for me’, neither is having sex with a stranger ‘just because Father promised me to him!’ There are Nitara and Dharami and there’s also Varuna who ends up doing the unthinkable taking all of us by sudden …

The mention of Varu reminds me of another important observation.

Anuja Chandramouli’s previous books have been what I have called ‘mythology from below’, using delightful wit and satire as a subversive tool to make a social comment by pulling down the gods to the level of humans. ‘Yama’s Lieutenant’ makes you miss that irreverent wit. Yes, Varu’s voice in her manuscript reminds you of classic Anuja-isms (from her previous books) but that’s about all in this department. However, two important aspects from the previous novels do make prominent appearance in this newly-tried genre by this author.

One, humanizing gods till we cannot tell their fates and plights apart from mortals, and which then also helps twine the two plot-lines together. If foolish humans believe in happy endings, gods ‘are cursed with the knowledge that “forever” is a long time and heaven is not all that it is cracked up to be!’. Both mortals and immortals are shown sharing dreams, dislikes, disastrous habits and set destinies. No wonder then that the sibling relationship of Agni and Varuna mirrors that of Yama and Yami. After all, ‘gods and men alike are always in a state of conflict, either with themselves or with those around them because it is in their very composition.’

Secondly, profound ideas discussed or debated in dialogues appearing at important junctures in the book. Anuja’s ‘Shakti; The Divine Feminine’ had enthralling dialogues on contentious ideas. ‘Yama’s Lieutenant’ may be a poorer cousin in this regard, but it comes with its own share of thought-provoking conversations tucked within. You read you question - Is the author saying a certain divine-deadly ‘madness’ is behind the violence on earth, and not people’s own deeds? That men are but ‘playthings of fate’ or puppets to a sorcerer’s will? Then what about free will, if it is the soul which ‘propelled the individual to the allocated destination’? And if that is indeed true, why does Anuja, in a rather self-contradictory way, blame man for rising to the ‘top of the food chain with a savagery’ in a different part of the book? When Agni bemoans the deaths he inflicts are you looking at a perpetrator of violence or a victim himself? ‘The only thing worse than unanswered questions were the unpalatable, soul-crushing answers.’ So answers we get none, even as we dwell upon the many questions.

What didn’t work? A glossary of mythical names would have helped, at least in keeping the initial chapters less confusing. I found a discrepancy between the barricaded world that Sivagami Math was and the language, slick expressions and even city-knowledge that the women seemed to acquire there, somehow. As an off-shoot of that, how Agni and Minothi go sassy in deadly situations breaks suspense, and thoughts like those of having a bath or losing weight in the necromancer’s cave seem misplaced. Most importantly, while the reader has been privy to Varu’s manuscript throughout, at some points near the climax Agni just admits to having read some important-to-the-plot instructions in her book, when the reader never did. Also, the all but final war that Agni fights, and which the book was preparing us for, seems to be won all too easily.

When Agni is given the role of Yama’s Lieutenant and told about how mankind will be wiped out at the hands of evil forces, he ‘shook his head in disbelief. He could not help thinking that if he had read such a thing in the pages of a novel, he would have thought it ludicrous.’ The strength of this book is that it is not ludicrous! By marrying reality to fantasy it holds up a mirror to how we live and hate. It provokes us to question free will, ideas of justice, significance of death and the role of violence. It even leaves a lingering message - are we so far gone in our destructiveness that only magic of the most powerful kind can save us now? By the time you finish reading the book, you ask, as Agni does – ‘creatures from the world of fables and mythology! Can it really be possible that they walk among the living now?’ You might catch yourself saying 'It's possible!'

‘Yama’s Lieutenant’ by Anuja Chandramouli is a Random House India publication, 2016

[Review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

Ordinary. Extraordinary!

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 06:54:00 +0000

Every morning our alarms go off with military precision waking us up to another day which usually promises to be as full of event schedules, office rosters, to-do lists under fridge magnets and a stainless steel routine as the day before. Or the day after. Every morning, like Del Amitri said, ‘the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before.’ An impermeable membrane of sameness envelops our daily lives.

Ordinarily, from this predictability we draw comfort of the known and warmth of permanence. A pattern is manageable. The known is a blessing. The next step ready. The train of schedule running smoothly from Platform A; never derailing on to Plan B. It is what lends our life a solidity, like the big teak dining table standing on its four strong legs. Dependable. Or the three kinds of latches on our home doors. Secured.

But someday, say once a month, you digress from planning the day’s menus and meetings over your morning cup of tea to thinking … thinking how growing up feels good. But how come settling down seems so unsettling, at times? How come what we aspired for, worked towards and built on our own terms suddenly seems like a record of monotony, turning and turning and turning? Where is the sound, the music, the beat, the spontaneous dance?

Where is the … the … extraordinary!?

And the thought leaves in its wake a shot of yearning. The tea turns tasteless. The biscuit unappealing. The ritual of consuming them boring. Just like the day that looms ahead. Same-to-same-to-same.

That yearning? For something different. For a ripple of excitement. For a breath of change. For a charge on every atom. For stimuli which enliven. For awe that lasts even if for a blink. Like a cross stitch that suddenly interferes with the beautifully sewn pattern of the peaceful running stitch, to only add to it the uniqueness of a positive disruption. A moment to remember. Or something said. Or done. Or felt. Or not done. Some … interruption!

E.x.t.r.a.o.r.d.i.n.a.r.y.

Funny how when the ‘extra’ is married to ‘ordinary’ it makes it not extra, or more, ordinary but actually beyond ordinary. Which means the starting point is the ordinary. So someone would have you believe that within the folds of the ordinary hides the special extra. Now surely we can’t go hunting for the extraordinary in the ordinary, right? I mean it isn’t like picking up the brown rug and finding gold doubloons under them. Or using the broom under the bed to get the magic wand out.

What does it take, then, to find the extraordinary beyond but from within the everyday?

Gaston Bachelard, a little known French philosopher of the twentieth century, wrote ‘The Poetics of Space’, which is full of passages which celebrate housework. Yes, housework! See what he says:

‘The daydreams that accompany household activities … keep vigilant watch over the house, they link its immediate past to its immediate future, they are what maintains it in the security of being.’ And this happens during the most mundane acts and most mechanical actions, like dusting the table, because our consciousness is woken up. We want to set the objects right! We want to shine them, lend them beauty, or what he calls ‘a human dignity’ for the role they play in preserving a comfortable continuum. In the regular act of polishing the china, then, ‘we can sense how a human being can devote himself to things and make them his own by perfecting their beauty. A little more beautiful and we have something quite different.’ Thus, even plain housework becomes a creative activity, not just for the thought-processes it gives birth to but also for the objects being re-imagined anew, with intimacy and with love.

Consciousness!

It takes being a truly and fully conscious person to see the extraordinary. Marry that to a thirst for observing and perceiving and with an openness to pick and experience the “different” stimuli in the humdrum, and the impermeable membrane of sameness becomes porous. You almost feel more … awake!

Usually, my milk man with his thin moustache and even thinner frame exudes impatience. After all, he’s a milk man in the morning, an electrician during the day and if we are to believe his reasons for absenteeism, a hassled husband the rest of the time. And so his feet are always moving even when he’s still. So I always keep the change ready. Recently, when my son walked to the door I noticed that all his hurry vanished. He shook his hands like an old friend and asked him about the plans for the day. That connection-over-little-in-common was brewing over time, right under my nose and next to my busy hands. I hadn’t noticed it before! And when I did there was something delightfully warming about the unhurried conversation happening at the slightly ajar door.

Just like a mere sprinkle of vodka is all it takes to make the water melon more divine.

Like opening a suitcase of old clothes and feeling the rush of warm memories from a decade back, the sensation akin to travelling. Feeling charged on reading a message from a stranger - ‘you looked into my soul when you wrote this’. Sitting idle on a sidewalk in a busy market just watching the world’s side-profiles go by. The moving, the still, the profundity of it all! Or taking the SLR for a walk in the park, to catch the squirrels playing peep-o, or the good-looking father with his child. Come on, the weather demanded it! Or simply going for a coffee date with your book, drinking it ever so slowly, because 30 minutes away from schedule, in your own company, on your own sofa, is precious time gained.

Wonderful whorls swirl around our lives waiting to be found (indeed, like magic wands under beds!) And readiness to see them is all it takes to actually see them. When these conscious epiphanies of thoughts or surprising spectacles for the eyes unfold, they are like the gentle wind which suddenly turned excited, making the grass shiver and the sleeping fire flies rise up in the air to fill up the skies. Their torches aglow.

Kafka said this to a friend –

‘Life is as infinitely great and profound as the immensity of the stars above us. One can only look at it through the narrow keyhole of one’s personal existence. But through it one perceives more than one can see. So above all one must keep the keyhole clean.’

An extraordinary thought!

Saurbh Katyal’s ‘The Invisible Woman’, on the mobile

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Fri, 27 May 2016 03:29:00 +0000

Readers need books. Books need to be read. No surprise then that what were unimaginable media of reading, once, are now a reality. Where once it took heart to give up paper for screens, we’re now embracing reading even on mobile phones! Saurbh Katyal’s The Invisible Woman is the first book I read on the Juggernaut App. Let me tell you how it satisfied my twiddling thumb, for I cannot dissociate the book from its medium this first time.

We met Vishal Bajaj, the detective-protagonist of this book, in Saurbh’s previous novel ‘Seduced by Murder’. He continues how we remember him last - real, believable, intelligent and also vulnerable. With Pranay, his partner in solving crimes, he is ‘forced to work on any case that came our way’. Money is tight! Along comes Sangita one rainy afternoon, with what seems like a simple spy-on-an-old-lady-in-Juhu-and-get-me-a-picture request, in exchange for a huge amount of money. Obviously, there is nothing simple about this woman’s request. There are wheels within wheels, sub-plots inside the main plot and a thick rope of mystery looping around the handful of characters at a steady speed to finally tighten like a noose around the murderer(s). All this happens in 48 hours at breath-taking speed! But not before Saurbh Katyal delivers a murder mystery with his characteristic imprint all over.

What are the elements of this characteristic style, which not just make his book an entertaining read but also well-suited to be read on a phone?

A sepia-coloured simplicity, which takes you back to old Bollywood mystery movies, coats his stories. Those times from long ago when more than gadgets (unless a magnifying glass can be called one!) it was the detective’s ability which sniffed out a crime trail. Murder investigations had tools like the investigator’s hawk-like vision, intelligent foresight and a talking gut. A detective wore an over-coat, but it didn’t spill out radars or thermal goggles. It just helped him spy in the rain, or keep his face disguised. Vishal Bajaj is one such creation, and rather unique in his ilk. More often than not, it is the talent he has seeing two and two add up to three, and not just when he is delightfully inebriated, which helps propel the mystery forward in the urban belly of ‘The Invisible Woman’.

‘I may be wrong but I want to be sure,’ says Vishal, before following a trail. Alongside we follow. The reader is Vishal’s constant companion, privy to his thoughts, observations and vulnerabilities much before anyone else. Like a confidante for his most unflattering thoughts about women or more importantly, the strewn clues to the murderer. The book is teeming with blink-and-miss details. There are scorpion tattoos on fair skin, people gone missing or secretly colluding, Aadhaar Cards and Facebook, gun shots and cliff hangers, motorbikes in the rain, dustbins and garbage, alcohol and organs, eyes in peep holes, corpses in Lotus position and then those innocent confessions of servants like ‘But when he was lifting the trunk and placing it on the carrier . . . I heard a sound of something moving . . . something rolling across the trunk . . . so I know that it was not completely empty.’

A lot is going on, and the reader is not just involved but occupies a position of privilege I’d say, one which even Pranay does not. If Vishal could share a drink with us, he would, as freely as he does opinions in his characteristic I-don’t-care-if-you-judge-me style. I will ‘always remember that men in ponytails and tight pants are either yoga teachers or fashion designers. Not cops.’ Well, it helped him solve crimes, so!

The sparsely-populated story moves back and forth at a gripping speed, with short, snappy chapters closing on open threads, and quick-changing scenes taking us to myriad locales in Mumbai – from plush bungalows to apartments, from dangerous suburbs to seedy hotels where ‘the room was only supposed to be used, not admired.’ The story thickens as the role of every character in the bigger puzzle comes into sight and Vishal has to separate wheat from chaff, knowing how so many characters ‘talk a lot and say too little’. A well-laid plot leaves the reader match steps with footprints, with Vishal. The story of ‘The Invisible Woman’ is not as linear as that of ‘Seduced by Murder’, but it isn’t too fashionably complex to make you feel the effort either.

Unlike in his previous book, Saurbh’s latest closes with a series of action scenes, the dhishum-dhishum kind! So while in ‘Seduced by Murder’ we saw little muscle about Vishal, endearing the readers towards this very ordinary yet extraordinary man, in ‘The Invisible Woman’ we see him landing blows and ducking bullets with a superhero-ish zeal. A filmy feel is predominant towards the end of the book. If ‘curiosity could never kill this cat’, it seems neither could a bullet hit Vishal. But then ‘I always submit to drunk, angry men who have tied me to a chair, so I sang like a canary.’ Which is to say, he always knows what he’s doing, and why.

Frankly, if I were to choose between the story and its detective, I would pick Vishal!

I remember observing with regret the last time around how Pranay as his detective partner simply faded away to finally vanish out of the readers’ range in ‘Seduced by Murder’. Now, ‘The Invisible Woman’ begins on a note of great camaraderie between the two partners of the agency, but yet again, though Pranay is around, he somewhat recedes into the background. For instance, even in the deadliest of scenes where Vishal could simply call him for help, he doesn’t think of keeping Pranay in the loop. Why? Some other problems I saw as I read are to do with descriptions of gory scenes not being, well, gory enough and Vishal's physical description totally missing in the book. Also, when all the threads are being tied up, I wish we weren’t eased into the revelations but awed into them. That bit fell flat on impact.

‘The Invisible Woman’ does carry forward Saurbh’s classic mystery-writing style, and one which I as a reader enjoy with nostalgia in a world of overtly convoluted and complex crime thrillers. What is also apparent, and Saurbh always has an underlying “point” to his mysteries, is the aim to remove facades – which hang like expensive drapes or appear like cheap lipsticks – from our urban living. To really show what lives and transpires within. Just like his star detective, Saurbh’s stories come from our very Indian context, showing much more than just telling a tale. Certain social issues form the premise on which a woman’s revenge unfolds in this book. Once all threads are tied up we are left musing over the very human foibles that form each of us, the questionable motives that can drive us and the conscience we must keep alive, at the end of the day.

Made for a quick, unpretentious, entertaining and marginally thought-provoking consumption, my expectations of a mystery-on-the-mobile were met rather well with ‘The Invisible Woman’.

'The Invisible Woman' by Saurbh Katyal is published on the Juggernaut App, 2016.

[The review was commissioned by the author. Views are my own.]

The Life of the Over-Anxious Types

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Tue, 03 May 2016 07:53:00 +0000

Some people get ‘too worried’ about too many things. The list of things which gets such over-anxious folks, well, over-anxious, seems endless to others. Even if there are just 957 items (and counting) on the ‘List of Worries’, those around such palpitating folks prefer saying ‘you have to worry about EVERYTHING?’ It isn’t everything we worry about, but truth be told we do worry about a lot!

We? Okay then. Time to own up, confess and also confide. I am the over-anxious kind, but because there is comfort in numbers, let me use ‘we’ instead.

We like the usualness of the everyday. We are low-maintenance that way. A routine sans ‘interruptions’ is good for our hearts’ health. Interruptions? They come in all sizes, and the XS ones are present even in the normal day-to-day. For instance, those to do with timing. Waking up 10 minutes after the alarm sends us into a tizzy. No, we are not sure we are late but we worry that we can be because 10 minutes of usual get-the-house-folk-ready time has been lost. We berate ourselves, beat the coffee harder, bathe like standing on live coals and generally go scurrying about the house like rats. Worrying rats! ‘We are all going to be late!’ While we do that, those around us go about, or certainly seem to go about, at a shamefully languid pace, staring at the rampaging monster frothing at the mouth. ‘Can’t you do your potty fast? You are late!’ Needless to mention, by the time the bye-byes happen, usually still at the O’clock, even the sweat droplets on the nose are fatigued from the work-out. They simply want to drip away.

This worry to do with keeping time extends to bus depots, railway platforms and airport terminals too. On an average, we reach our places of departure an hour in advance; that is after spinning like a crazy top while preparing for the trips. All lists crossed out two times over. Our bags packed for WW III. Our pockets worried full of peanuts in case a dinosaur blocks our car en route. And anxiety tucked in the top pocket, with the tickets. By the time it’s departure time, we have moved ourselves so much we don’t even realize the train is moving. And then ‘Do you think it will be raining there? We haven’t kept an umbrella!’ That's a size M for the rest of the journey.

Then there are the Size L interruptions. Like exams! As teenagers the gut takes the kick. As adults, Lomotil becomes your best buddy. Anxiety for scoring well makes your hands shake, your hand-writing drunk and your examiner impatient, and thus often plummeting your scores. (Not for me though. I was always above average!) Vicious circle. Invoke your favourite gods, chew your nails, wear your lucky shirt, do what you may. With eyes stuck on the clock and mind on the consequences, you lose all control on your nerves. And bladder, if it’s Physics, Class XII, Board. Similar to your wedding day, cold feet included!

But some of us have not felt The Anxiety till our kids fall ill. Sneezes to infections, flu to grazed knees, weird worst-case scenarios drawn from Google or Biology books make traumatic appearances in our over-anxious eyes. Perhaps, this is why I confide today …

My son got the tummy bug a week back and has been languishing at home, with no appetite for food or fun. His parents have been doing what is needed, but it is his mother who has been doing more than what is needed. Or in other words, what is generally considered 'not needed'. I have been poring over poop and pee, pressing his tummy to generate reactions, putting each morsel in his mouth with shaky hands (Will it stay? Why won’t it? WHEN WILL IT?), touching his forehead every 30 minutes and making lists of questions to ask the doctor on the next visit. Obviously, my over-anxious behavior is generating reactions. My son’s response to ‘How do you feel?’ has gone from ‘I feel fine’ to ‘Fine!!’ My husband with his well of patience has, as usual, asked me to not worry for ‘how will it help?’ about 899 times and is now metamorphosed into his quiet helpless presence around me, passing ORS, indulging the kid with Battle Ship, sending SMSes from office and generally trying to be helpful.

But what helps an over-anxious person? Can something?

If it is a man they call him a birch-rod ‘disciplinarian’ and if it’s a woman on the go she’s got to be a reactive ‘menopausal’! Our worrying and worried persons are seen as child-like, predictable and unreasonable and our often shed tears common and thus needing no one’s hankerchiefs. All our worries are either unfounded or balderdash. Our very presence itself is believed to add to the grim (to us!) situation rather than take away from it. Even the doctors must be whispering under their breaths ‘Here she comes again!’ readying their best placating methods for the child’s mother’s child-within.

We over-anxious kinds sound like awful people to be around. Don’t we?

But you know, it is equally awful to be this kind too. Pretty painfully awful. Taxing! That too to be punctual, or concerned! Oh, helplessness!! To not be able to control your disorderly heartbeat even if it’s about bringing the house to order in the mornings. To not be able to not sweat when the ticket screams a departure time. To keep the hands from shaking while entering the exam halls. To not be able to fully-freely enjoy your own weddings, parties, farewells and book launches because ‘what if…?’ To not panic when the kid pukes. To not cry when he does it again...Yes, EVERYTHING! GRR!

What helps an over-anxious person not feed on worry? Can something?

Hm. No one’s answered that satisfactorily yet. But of course, if you’ve read this and you worry for my BP, you’re welcome to gift me a weekend at the spa in the hills or fly me for a solo beach holiday.

(Um, what time exactly does the flight leave and which Terminal, please? Just asking. I guess.)

Once, at this museum in Delhi…

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 03:09:00 +0000

When news of a midnight fire destroying Delhi’s National Museum of Natural History broke, and images of the building’s façade black with soot went viral, I was struck with a strange sense of loss. Strange it seemed, for neither did I grow up in Delhi for my childhood memories to feature trips to this museum, nor was it among the popular places I frequented as a student of Delhi University for five years, and later as a journalist. Why was I sad then? What was it that made me lament the mishap as if the loss of a museum is a personal loss? Was it because it made me remember a visit to another museum, once…

The National Museum, New Delhi, was the first museum my son saw, one afternoon in the month of April. He had just turned two. My husband and I had strapped him in the car and converted an otherwise lazy afternoon into one where we were ‘doing things’ with our bubba. I had teased him for his nine years in Kolkata, which that day proved him a Bengali-parent-type by taking a tot to teach in a museum before the said tot’s molars were out! He in turn had smiled and ventured with conviction how much fun it’ll be. Come on! So I packed a WW III survival kit with finger foods, juice, hat, spare shorts, mosquito repellent cream, wet wipes, water and his favourite book. I knew I would be sitting reading to him in a cool corner, as his father fulfilled his own childhood fantasies, not having got enough of those while growing up with his face shoved inside a museum window in museum land!

And guess what? The book wasn’t needed at all!

The feet which climbed the few stairs at the entrance went thappad-thappad, excited just to be climbing. But the steps matured into slower taps once inside. Suddenly, the roof was soooo high, the huge room had more than the usual four walls (one, two, three, four, FIVE, SIX…) and the shiny corridor leading us in was lined with rows of statues. Hello! Are you stone?

Suddenly, there was so much to see! Further and further in and up and up towards the sky.

The moment we entered the grand building, my son entered his own grander world of imagination seldom disturbed with facts or need to eat or pee. Curious. Quiet. Contained. With his head turning angles to really, poperly see. With his toes taking his weight so inside exhibits he could do peep-peep. With ‘what’s that and that and that?’ the only question, whispered so as not to hear his unnerving echo, and with an enthu-father ready at his service with simplified answers. Enjoying the company of his thoughts he walked. Enjoying his ‘serious’ side we followed like followers.

He had to see everything, right till the tiniest of artifacts which never before had seen so much attention. And we saw everything too through his eyes, as we looked at him seeing and describing everything in his limited vocabulary but with limitless joy. It is a joy I fondly remember when I think of it. I look at these to remember it…

Those who are remembering their visits to the National Museum of Natural History probably have memories of the place to turn back to in their most boring, idle, happy or lonely times. But no more do they have the same place. A lot of history has been lost in this fire, of course. Objects of immense value, which preserved within them a lifetime of stories, reduced to ashes. And then comes a question...

When places vanish into clouds of smoke or wars of time, what happens to our personal histories; individual histories created as we live? Isn't it good to believe that even though places of note may be no more, or change faces like our hometowns, or be named anew on a whim, our memories of them cannot be taken from us? They are ours to own, like undocumented, dormant, sometimes silenced but always intimate thoughts which make precious home in our hearts and minds. Those bits which remain inside us till we remain, like unwound movie reels, sometimes forever, and other times flowing before our mind’s eyes in high speed. Triggered into limelight. Woken into remembrance.

Just like this morning, when I watched one museum burn, I stepped into a different one. That was the first museum my son saw…

Belonging to the Middle Class

noreply@blogger.com (Sakshi) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 12:48:00 +0000

I don’t know what being a part of the middle class in a statistical sense means. I think it has got something to do with economics, sociology, demography, perhaps history with government policies, subsidies and electoral speeches thrown in. I leave the division of the pie chart to those who know their numbers. I don’t.

What I do know, totally personally, is what belonging to the middle class is all about. And that is the pie I’d like to talk about!

In the days of Chitrahaar and Krishi Darshan on Doordarshan (let’s say late 1980s, give or take a few ‘rukawat key liye kheyd hai’) we all seemed to be living very similar lives, where class as a label or a designer handbag was never important enough to be acknowledged. We didn’t even know what class was! It was only when a handful of oldies got together at the chowk to discuss the latest budget would we kids hear ‘where will us middle class folks go?’ Of course, the moment we over-indulged by buying a Chocobar instead of an icy Cola Bar we would be frowned upon by prying aunties - ‘Look how our middle class youngsters indulge these days!’ That didn’t really help to explain middle class to us imps, except hinting to us that none of the 23 rusty trunks in the house, with at least one turned into a settee, carried gold bricks. Money was precious. Chocobars could wait for occasions. Clothes could be handed down and Casio casseroles, cycles and curtains never gave up on a few generations.

But who cared! We all seemed to belong to one, big, happy class. Except the heroines cast opposite actors, who drove open cars, wore big shades, with perms on foreheads and Pomeranians in their laps. They must be upper class! Us? No. No. Every man in every household drove a Bajaj Chetak or an LML, of the "Ley Matt Leyna" variety with one long scooter seat, instead of two with a safety handle in between. One helmet and many heads rode it, together, and the wife compulsorily had to hold on to her husband to stay aloft. Romantic! The cars on the road were Fiat Padminis, and Maruti 800s the rare show-stoppers. Especially the red ones, remember?

A sepia film of sameness of class seemed to cover complete townships in our child eyes, prominent tell-tale signs of which were present in every house we visited in my small town at least – languidly carrying freshly made idli-sambhar or for urgently exchanging coloured chalk for WWF trump cards.

What were those signs, tucked below mattresses like old gift wraps waiting for a new gift or filled up in trunks like 4 extra razais, with bleached white covers? Every morsel left after a meal found home in the single door Kelvinator, which served more humans successfully than the number of katoris stacked in pillars inside it. Two ladles of leftover besan mix or one half of a boiled potato could be turned into a snack for friends after the evening’s hopscotch, served in solid steel plates. Just like left over threads of gota-zari or sari borders, in a separate packet marked ‘needlework’ could convert an old suit into a new fancy dress for the little girl, puff sleeves included. Just about anything – from ink pens to brass show pieces to Tobu cycles to rectangular school bags with metallic clips which pinched fingers – anything could be handed down and received with love.

Trunks as the best bet for storage were trusted like god himself, who resided in every kitchen in a small and sober temple in the corner farthest from the sink. Old utensils with broken handles were as important as LICs and debts, never forgotten, and old toothbrushes which could scrub just about anything (especially white PT shoes) never thrown. Umbrellas could always be mended, just like gaping shoe toes, lacy TV covers with piping and even relationships. A watch simply told the time, a car transported us, a ladies bag carried floral hankies and Relaxo rubber slippers could travel everywhere without cringing, after their boxes became robots for playing with! Telephones, those black beauties (maybe beige) made for good neighbours and loud trunk calls.

When middle class became a puckered up ‘so middle class!’ as a term for looking down upon another’s status, I know not. But I regret it. Because the moment it did, those valuable characteristics which defined a middle class household and showed through these spots and signs got ignored as irrelevant. And worse, useless.

Those days, one of the most precious things in our lives, enough to be kept in the locker of the dark grey steel almirah, were our school mark sheets and character certificates; given a better plastic folder than even our passports! I look back today and find this symbolic…

Hard work was worship, merit was god. Only then came well-deserved vacations, mostly needing no passport. Over a typical day, all members of middle class homes were following routines which seemed to aim at one thing – to contribute to the house as an organic whole; to keep it together. In a happy way. Because all parts of it were equally important and present and needing care and attention. We ate together, often on the beds spread with newspapers. We watched the same soaps, same prime time. We shared rooms without fussing and slices of water melon with kaala namak without a dreg of regret. We were never alone. We almost never wanted to be.

Our families were like that big polythene bag behind the kitchen door, forever open to welcoming more into its fold. We wanted to keep it together no matter what it took, because it’s what mattered.

That meant being thrifty and minimizing wastage, and which then took preservation and storage of things (and values!) to huge heights of importance. We were assured of a shelter from the rains for our little paper boats made of newspapers but there was also a continuous effort to ensure that shelter for the future too. Yes, some hand-knit sweaters for men were preserved beyond their threaded destiny, but then things became objects of desire precisely because granny made them or both father and son used them; objects became a sentiment, like my first block-printed table mats, dear and dearer by use till only their memory could outlive them.

And we of the middle class variety were happy, once. Perhaps, a touch of humility came from acknowledging that in the social ladder this is what we are with what we have, a black and white TV with a family photo on top and a springy sofa with hand-embroidered covers sitting on mosaic-grey floors. There was always enough of the things that we needed. There were better jobs than our fathers’ to work towards and marriages and kids to dream about. Obviously! But there was also this plain and simple Contentment to aspire for, and that pretty little feeling was actually reached every rainy Sunday evening, 5pm, when bread rolls and chai tickled the noses of the neighborhood kids, and adults, to make them walk into our verandah chiming with a watering mouth - ‘What lovely weather. Feels like heaven!’

Yes. Heaven seemed within reach.

It’s different now, perhaps because I’m writing this through an adult’s spectacles and viewing all those years with pigtails on my head.

A lot of us seem to be constantly climbing into the next higher levels of ‘class’, class being something we are acutely aware of, making our kids aware of; something which has replaced the wish for a lovely rainy evening on cane chairs with wine-n-dine parties overlooking a rain-soaked valley from an air-conditioned room on the ninth floor. Through the glass windows. The hands never wet. The wind never felt. The property prime. The soaring ambition in place. One wonders if there is a definite ‘middle’ anymore (or was there ever?). If there is, why does it appear like the girth of a prosperous man wearing a Gucci belt, increasing, living in a home with much lesser space for old things, and even less space for extended families?

Even as my son plays with a clown his father grew up playing with, I have stowed away some of his toys for my brother’s kids. Who is yet to get married! I’m thinking aloud as I catch those signs. Wondering, if in our bid to leave behind ‘where we come from’ we aren’t really shedding the life-jacket we rode the mobility wave in. And just maybe those very middle class values still flow in our systems, secretly, struggling to keep us grounded. Beneath the comfort of plenitude and beyond the layers of fineries.

Because after all to them we once belonged. Without even realizing it!