Generally About Books

The Shoe Project

2012-02-13T13:23:00.000-05:00

Last August I went to India for a month – my first trip after I came to Canada.

I had a long list of stuff to buy, and on the top of the list was ‘Buy shoes from Bata’.

I belong to a generation that grew up before the big four global shoe brands (Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Puma) came to dominate the minds of consumers.

I’ve only wore Bata shoes (or sandals).

In Canada, I could get everything I wanted but no Bata shoes.

In India, where market segmentation is multilayered, Bata is still a powerful brand.

When I was growing up, Bata was such a huge brand that during the socialist phase in India (in the 1970s), there was even a song in a Hindi movie about flour being made available in a Bata shop – flour in Hindi is ata, and rhymes with Bata.

(Bata ki dukan par bhi ata mile ga a rare Rafi-Kishore duet from the 1978 Heeralal Pannalal).

During our first month in Canada, we took a sightseeing tour of downtown Toronto and saw the Bata Shoe Museum from the outside.

I made a mental note to visit the museum, but visiting museums is one of those things that forever remain on the ‘must do’ lists.

Then, I heard about the Shoe Project from my friend Yoko.

Novelist and short story writer Katherine Govier, who has worked for many years with newcomers to Canada, was spearheading an initiative for the Bata Shoe museum.

The Shoe Project is a collection of memoirs of women immigrants about the shoes they wore (or brought with them) when they came to Canada.

The project started last fall when “Katherine met with twelve women, ages eighteen to sixty, who came to Canada from the Ukraine to Japan and many places in between...(O)ver tea and cookies the group discussed writing and immigration. Each woman found that she had a shoe-inspired tale. By the end each member had written a personal essay and provided the footwear to match.”

The exhibition came about when Katherine met Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum; Elizabeth “had long considered doing an exhibition featuring the shoes that brought people to Canada.”

Last week, the Shoe Project was officially unveiled.

And I finally visited the Bata Shoe Museum to see the Shoe Project – it is an absolutely fascinating exhibition.

Contributing writers to the Shoe Project

There are 12 stories by immigrant women from across the world.

They are by Filiz Dogan from Turkey, Maryam Nabavinijad from Iran, Sayuri Takatsuki from Japan, Gabi Veras from Brazil, Tanaz Bhathena from India, Elizabeth Meneses Del Castillo from Colombia, Miliete Selemon from Eritrea, Teenaz Javat from India & Pakistan, Freweini Berhane from Eritrea, Nada Sesar-Raffay from Croatia, and Tanya Andrenyuk from Ukraine.

Teenaz Javat and Tanaz Bhathena (both Parsis and both originally from Mumbai) read their shoe memoirs.

The exhibition has become possible thanks to a generosity of an anonymous donor.

I also met Sonja Bata, the force behind the museum that was started in Toronto in 1995.

Read more about the Shoe Project here: The Shoe Project

Read more about the Bata Shoe Museum here: Bata Shoe Museum

Read more about Katherine Govier here: Katherine Govier

Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151283174910105&set=oa.382013625147425&type=1&theater

Dickens bicentennial

2012-02-04T18:50:00.001-05:00

Estella & Pip: Great Expectations

Who else but the BBC would do a program on Charles Dickens to commemorate the bicentennial of English language’s greatest author?

(The bicentennial is on February 7. And this is the omnibus site for the celebrations: Dickens 2012).

This afternoon, the BBC World Service, had a 30-minute discussion on Dickens’ best novel – Great Expectations. (To listen to the program, click here: Dickens on BBC)

The program had a live audience and panelists from Kenya and India, besides England, of course.

Sambudha Sen, Professor of English, University of Delhi, suggested that Dickens is today more relevant in the developing societies such as Delhi and Kolkata than to London, or any other city in the developed world.

He argued that the societies in the developing world are going through a churn that reflects Dickensian drama in the everyday existence of its people.

On the other hand, the societies in the developed world have homogenised almost completely and have little left of their 19th century milieu, especially after nearly a century of the welfare state.

That is true at so many different levels. For instance, the ongoing Kala Ghoda Festival in Mumbai – which is a celebration Mumbai’s unique cosmopolitan identity – is holding a Tributeto Dickens film festival that will show some of the classic Dickens novels turned into films by master filmmakers.

And the lineup includes Great Expectations (1946, Dir: DavidLean), Pickwick Papers (1952, Dir: Noel Langly), Nicholas Nickelby (2002, Dir:Douglas McGrath), Oliver Twist (2005, Dir: Roman Polanski).

The festival will culminate in conversation on A Tale of Two Cities between British author Craig Taylor and Indian academic Dr. Mitra Mukherjee-Parikh.

Unfortunately, there are many events being planned to commemorate the bicentennial in Toronto, at least nothing on the net. A Charles Dickens Tribute Concert by the Counterpoint Community Orchestra is scheduled on Saturday March 3, 2012. Here is the link to the concert. Counterpoint.

Dickens is my favourite author and Great Expectation my favourite Dickens novel. I’ve written on several occasions on this blog about Dickens. (Read previous entries here: Dickens on GAB). I’ll be a good time to thank a dear friend – Pranav Joshi – for gifting me the novel at an age when I could read it as any other book, and not as a classic of English literature, which it is.

About the image: Pip and Estella Walking in the Garden by Charles Green c. 1877 7.6 x 4.6 inches Dickens's Great Expectations, Gadshill Edition. These plates have neither captions nor pages, being inserted into the text. The Annotated Dickens provides the following caption, which is not in the original Gadshill Edition: "Estella walking in the garden at Satis House: her other hand lightly touched my shoulder as we walked" (Ch. 29). Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

Source: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/green/5.html

Kayt Burgess wins 3-Day Novel contest

2012-01-30T23:29:00.002-05:00

Kayt Burgess

Announcing the winner of the 34th International 3-Day Novel contest

Grand prize winner: Heidegger Stairwell by Kayt Burgess of Aurora, Ontario

About the Author

Kayt Burgess is a writer, artist, opera singer and musician. She studied classical music at the University of Western Ontario and earned her Master’s degree in creative writing from Bath Spa University in the UK. Kayt was born in Manitouwadge, Ontario, grew up in Elliot Lake and now lives near Toronto after stints in New Zealand, England and Scotland.Heidegger Stairwell is her first novel. It will be released by 3-Day Books in September 2012.

About the Book

Music journalist Evan Strocker has almost finished a memoir chronicling his time with Heidegger Stairwell, an indie-rock legend from small-town Ontario whose members he has known his whole life. But the band thinks he’s left a little too much of himself on the page—allowing his experiences as a transgender man and his complicated romance with the lead guitarist eclipse the story of the group’s dramatic rise and fall. Through graphic notes and colourful marginalia, the musicians weigh in on their friend’s version of the truth, and fight to put their own testimony on the record. As Strocker’s manuscript finally comes together, both band and writer are forced to face a shocking new event that will once again change their fortunes.

Second prize winner: Street Dogs by Brandon Hobson

Brandon Hobson is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing atOklahoma State University. His fiction has appeared in NOON, New York Tyrant, Puerto del Sol, Narrative Magazine, Web Conjunctionsand elsewhere. He lives in Hennessey, Oklahoma, with his wife and son.

Third prize winner: She felt like velvet by Karen Cressman

Karen Cressman is a marketing writer with a fascination for all things Alice In Wonderland. She is currently developing three novels-in-progress and, of course, dreaming up plots for the next 3-Day Novel Contest. She lives with her husband in Brampton, Ontario.

Our Top-10 Runners-Up

Full Moon Rules by Lenore Butcher of Woodstock, Ontario

Alice’s Adventures Through a Very Big Mirror by Victoria Dunn of Ottawa, Ontario

Darius to the Max by Cathi Radner Castrio of Argyle, New York

Not by Terry Leeder of Oakville, Ontario

Rounds Down Range by J.L. Myer of Tulsa, Oklahoma

Half of No by Kari Pilgrim of Brooklyn, New York

Happily Destroyed by Evan Purcell of Bullhead City, Arizona

Deadfall by Rachel Slansky of San Francisco, California

Lords of Ironfire by Rudy Thauberger of Vancouver, British Columbia

Banquet of Consequences by Anderson Todd of Toronto, Ontario

http://www.3daynovel.com/2012/01/30/announcing-the-winners-of-the-34th-annual-international-3-day-novel-contest/

In support of Salman Rushdie

2012-01-20T23:57:00.004-05:00

Salman Rushdie was invited to the Jaipur literature festival, but the rector of India’s leading Islamic seminary, the Darul Uloom of Deoband objected to his presence. Many Muslims have found Rushdie’s Satanic Verses offensive.

India was among the first countries to ban the novel – the ban hasn’t been lifted till now.

William Dalrymple, writer and one of the festival organiser, said in a statement, "Salman is a writer of enormous breadth. His … passionate engagement with Indian Islamic history shows he is far removed from the Islamophobe of myth. This is a great tragedy, and we hope he will be able to come back again in the future."

The Guardian (London, England) reported:

Salman Rushdie pulls out of Jaipur literary festival overassassination fears

“On Friday, the British Indian writer Hari Kunzru caused further upset by reading a section from The Satanic Verses, which remains banned in India. Further attempts by writers to read from the book were stopped by organisers.

"Willy, Sanjoy: why did this happen?", Rushdie later asked Dalrymple and the festival's producer, Sanjoy Roy, protesting against their decision to prevent further readings from the banned work...

Indian officials told the Guardian they feared action by groups run by Dawood Ibrahim, a well-known crime boss living in exile, who they believe is closely linked to the Pakistani security establishment. Security experts, however, described the idea of killers being dispatched by organised criminals to kill the author as "extremely far-fetched.

The struggling Indian government, led by the centre-left Congress party, has made no public statement on the row. There are major state elections in the coming weeks in which the votes of Muslim communities will play a critical role. The festival's organiser, (Sanjoy) Roy, said there was a need in India "to question … why we continue as a nation to succumb to one pressure or another." "This is a huge problem for Indian democracy," Roy said.

As a mark of solidarity with Rushdie, Generally About Books is reproducing an extract from Satanic Verses.

The extract is taken from About.com (http://middleeast.about.com/od/religionsectarianism/a/me080930.htm)

The human condition, but what of the angelic? Halfway between Allahgod and homosap, did they ever doubt? They did: challenging God’s will one day they hid muttering beneath the Throne, daring to ask forbidden things: antiquestions. It is right that. Could it not be argued. Freedom, the old antiquest. He calmed them down, naturally, employing management skills à la god. Flattered them: you will be the instrument of my will on earth, of the salvationdamnation of man, all the usual etcetera. And hey presto, end of protest, on with the halos, back to work. Angels are easily pacified; turn them into instruments and they’ll play you a happy tune. Human beings are tougher nuts, can doubt anything, even the evidence of their own eyes. Of behind-their-own-eyes. Of whyatm as they sink heavy-lidded, transpires behind closed peepers… angels, they don’t have much in the way of a will. To will is to disagree; not to submit, to dissent.

I know; devil talk. Shaitan interrupting Gibreel.

Me?

[…] His name: a dream-name, changed by the vision. Pronounced correctly, it means he-for-whom-thanks-should-be-given, but he won’t answer to that here; nor, though he’s well aware of what they call him, to his nickname in Jahilia down below—he-who-goes-up-and-down-old-Coney. [Coney Mountain in Rushdie’s rendering is a pun on many levels, and a reference to Mount Hira, where Muhammad is supposed to have had his first Koranic “revelation.”] Here he is neither Mahomet nor MoeHammered; has adopted, instead, demon-tag the farangis hung around his neck. To turn insults into strengths, whigs, tories, Blacks all chose to wear with pride the names they were given in scorn; likewise, our mountain-climbing, prophet-motivated solitary is to be the medieval baby-frightener, the Devil’s synonym: Mhound.

That’s him. Mahound the businessman, climbing his hot mountain in the Hijaz. The mirage of a city shines below him in the sun.”

Understanding Gandhi

2012-01-14T11:15:00.000-05:00

I recently read Tariq Ali’s brilliant piece in Viewpoint (“an activist alternative to the corporate-mainstream media”) on Saadat Hasan Manto, unarguably, South Asia’s best chronicler of the horrors of the subcontinent’s Partition in 1947.

Ali’s piece (Manto & ‘1947’) is a mix of the polemical and the personal, in which he adroitly combines personal history, opinion, translations of poems by Faiz and Sahir to profile Manto and contextualise his continuing relevance to South Asian societies in present times.

Non-partisan historians generally accept Ali’s analyses of the causes of the Partition and its fallout five-and-a-half decades later in South Asia.

He states, “Nehru and Jinnah were both shaken by the orgy of barbarism (of Partition riots). It offended all their instincts. But it was Mahatama Gandhi who paid the ultimate price. For defending the right to live of innocent Muslims in post-Partition India he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a fundamentalist Hindu fanatic. Godse was hanged, but two decades later, Godse’s brother told Channel Four that he regretted nothing. What happened had to happen.

“That past now rots in the present and threatens to further poison the future. The political heirs of the hanged Godse are shoving aside the children of Nehru and Gandhi. The poisonous fog of the religious world has enveloped politics. History, unlike the poets and writers of the sub-continent, is not usually prone to sentiment.”

I was reminded of another interpretation of the dichotomy between the ideas of Gandhi and Godse by Ashis Nandy.

Traditionally, most historians have misconstrued (perhaps deliberately) Gandhi as a liberal secularist not much different from Nehru, which is not to say that Gandhi was an illiberal fundamentalist. But there is a fundamental difference between Gandhi and Nehru and Gandhi defies attempts at such compartmentalisation of people and ideas into mutually exclusive and opposing categories.

Nandy gives a penetrating insight in this dichotomy between Gandhi and Godse (Outside the Imperium: Gandhi’s Cultural Critique of the West from Traditions, Tyranny and Utopia Essays in Politics of Awareness – A VeryPopular Exile, Oxford India Paperbacks).

Nandy notes, “Gandhi died, almost necessarily, at the hands of one who represented the modern world and sought a secular-scientific orientation to statecraft. The young assassin, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, supposedly a religious fanatic, gave a spirited last speech in court before the death sentence was passed on him. It was essentially a fervent, rationalist, modern plea to recognise the dangers Gandhi posed to the growth of the modern state in India and to the conduct of ‘normal’ politics along the lines of Professor Henry Kissinger would have approved of. The plea invoked interesting reactions. Jawaharlal Nehru, for instance, called Godse an insane killer who did not know what he had done. Yet, Nehru’s government banned Godse’s last testament lest others should find it too sane. The government knew that it was Godse who was seeking the secular solution, Gandhi the religious.”

Nandy adds, “It is a measure of the success of modern science in India that his ultra-Hindu, Brahmanic assassin accused Gandhi of bringing in anti-scientific ideas like soul force and morality into politics. Nathuram Godse claimed that he had unwittingly to kill Gandhi on behalf of the modern world, especially on behalf of modern ideas of statecraft and rationality, so that the newborn Indian nation could survive. One of Godse’s last wishes was to take the appeal against the death sentence passed on him for killing Gandhi to the Privy Council in Britain – still the highest court of appeal for India in 1948 – so that the world could judge his action impartially. He felt that the modern world would give him a better hearing than the superstitious, effeminate, Hindu admirers of Gandhi in India.”

Image: http://www.text-blog.net/mahatma-gandhi/

Cook / Book

2012-01-05T22:46:00.000-05:00

Sang Kim

I envy those who cook, and I envy those who write fiction.

I can’t cook, and I struggle every morning with my fiction writing.

I compensate for my deficiencies in the culinary arts by loving my food, and constantly experimenting.

My love for food is in inverse proportion to my ability to cook. I love food, I don’t cook.

Over the last three years and some months in Toronto, I've have developed a palate for cuisines I couldn't possibly have imagined I’d ever eat when I was in India.

Primarily, this is because I didn’t even know they existed, or had read about them only in Vir Sanghvi’s food columns when I was in India.

I had Moroccan Tajine at a restaurant in downtown Toronto not too long ago. My friend told me that the meat was optional, but I did the right thing having it with meat. It added substantially to the taste and the aroma.

Tajine is a North African delicacy that gets its name from the earthen vessel in which it is made – not unlike the traditional method of cooking the masterpiece of Gujarati delicacy – the Undhiyu.

A few days ago, I had the Iranian Shole Zard – a delicacy that I’m convinced is a divine concoction that humans only accidentally discovered.

Some time ago, a group of friends had warm Japanese sake in small clay cups and we sat on wooden benches enjoying deep fried oysters with three kinds of sauce.

I compensate for my deficiencies in creative writing (and every day I discover new ones) by enjoying good writing, especially good literature.

Whenever I meet someone who is a natural at both cooking and writing, all I really want to do is just go back to bed, and never get up.

And I make it a point to acknowledge their talents.

I recently discovered that MG Vassanji, the two times Giller winner, is also an accomplished chef – his Hyderabadi-style eggplant recipe is as magnificent as his prose.

Jasmine D'Costa makes exquisite chicken biryani.

That brings me to my friend Sang Kim.

Every time I meet Sang, I feel completely inferior.

He’s everything that I want to be and will probably never be.

This is how he describes himself on his Facebook page: “Author, Playwright, Social Entrepreneur, Restaurateur, Accidental Chef.”

He is also the Co-Director of the Small Press of Toronto (SPoT), a bi-annual book fair at various venues throughout Toronto.

Last month, I visited the fall edition of the SPoT fair to meet Sheniz Janmohamed, Doyali Farah Islam and Ava Homa.

I met Sang. too.

And he gave me yet another reason to crawl back to bed and hide.

He stood in the middle of the book fair, completely oblivious of his surroundings, and recited first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies.

In case you don’t know, that’s one long poem!

I was stunned; as, I’m sure, were Sheniz and Ava.

He later wrote to me, “One of my life's goals is to memorize all 10 Elegies - they say EVERYTHING.”

Sang also told me that he was working on a book and a television project called Cook / Book where he'll be interviewing Toronto writers in their kitchens and cook together.

Acclaimed novelists Katherine Govier, Austin Clarke and Joy Kogawa, have confirmed their participation in the project.

I believe Sang has also convinced Ava Homa to be a part of the project.

It’s a book worth waiting for.

Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150730419885534&set=a.10150354283735534.594165.718330533&type=3&theater

Adrift

2011-12-31T10:38:00.003-05:00

There is a timeless quality to a quietly flowing stream.

It encapsulates time in one free-flowing moment – the continuously flowing water has the past, the present, and the future all subsumed into one perpetual motion.

Loren Edizel

This also true for our lives where the overlap of the past, the present and the future is an everyday occurrence.

One seldom sees this seamless continuity in any narrative piece.

Loren Edizel’s Adrift (Tsar) is like that stream – it doesn’t categorises life in to distinct compartments of the earlier, the now and the then.

It weaves the stories of the characters in the novel in an uneven, overlapping, non-linear and multidimensional narrative that is at once breathtaking and profound.

The novel is about John, who is a new immigrant in Montreal, working the graveyard shift in a hospital.

He seems mysterious because he aloof and alone. In reality he is like anyone else who is new to Canada and has done a night shift survival job.

In the bitterly cold nights, when one battles to stay awake, imagination can be a dangerous thing – it’s better to make it work for you can work (as John does) rather than letting it harm you.

Also, one prefers to keep the baggage of the past to oneself, and avoids small chatter about the past one has left behind. You come to a new land to restart your life, not to re-live your past.

In so many different ways, the novel redefines loneliness – no man (woman) is ever lonely in the mind – every moment in one’s life is a confluence of all that has happened, is happening, and will happen.

The novel is also about the unceasing little tragedies that make up our lives – melancholy is the generally prevailing norm in everyone’s life.

A gentle reminder that while we may all be happy (briefly) in our different ways, when it comes to gloom there isn't much to distinguish between yours and mine.

Adrift is one of the best novels I’ve read in 2011.

Image (Author's photo): http://www.levantineheritage.com/achiev2.htm

Oh! Calcutta

2011-12-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

I’ve never quite figured out what is it that creates a bond between a city and its inhabitants. The bond has a distinctly paradoxical dimension because it’s at once intangible and palpable.

The bond develops into a lifelong sense of belonging and gives an identity to the inhabitant – I’m a Torontonian. I used to me a Bombayite (or, the better sounding Mumbaikar).

Howrah Bridge

Even the most liberal-minded amongst us tend to become a bit jingoistic about our cities and compare them to other cities that we visit – and always feel infinitely superior about it.

When I lived in Bombay, and visited other cities in India, or even outside India, I always felt that my Bombay was incomparable.

It's an emotional thing. So, while I definitely love Toronto more than I love Bombay, I still feel that Toronto doesn’t measure up to that magnificent island city on the eastern end of the Arabian Sea.

Bombay is in so many ways similar to that other amazing city on the western coast of the Atlantic – New York City – the undisputed capital of the world.

Every time I’ve been to the US, I made it a point visit New York – to live and breathe for some time the sheer vibrancy, sassiness, audacity, impudence of a city that defines freedom, expression, energy.

Chowringhee

I think Delhi is like Washington DC, Bombay is like New York, Chicago is like well, not quite any other city I’ve visited, although some parts of downtown Chicago do remind me of downtown Toronto, perhaps because both cities are beside a giant water body erroneously called a lake.

And then there’s Calcutta – quite unlike any other city in the world.

For reasons that are known to many who know me (and therefore entirely unnecessary to reiterate), I’ve had a long and enduring relationship with Calcutta – a city I first visited in 1977 and then several times from the late 1980s to mid-1990s.

It’s a city that makes you fall in love – with itself and with its people and with the Hoogly and the hand pulled raft boats, with the majestic cantilever Howrah Bridge (Shakti Samanta’s Amar Prem, Mani Ratnam’s Yuva), with the imposing Victoria Memorial and the sprawling Maidans, the Eden Gardens, the rusty trams and the gleaming metro, the decaying buildings and the smoke-belching Ambassador taxis, New Market, K.C. Das, Flury’s, Chowringhee, the Puja.

But my relationship with Calcutta is not merely because of my personal connection, it’s a city that is important to anyone who is interested in postcolonial phenomenon because Calcutta defined colonial Bengal, which in turn defined modern Indian sensibilities (G.K. Gokhale’s famous quip: “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.”).

Writers' Building

Bengal’s influence has been and remains ubiquitous in all spheres of human endeavour – from politics (a wide variety – my choice: Jyoti Basu), economics (Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis and Amartya Sen), literature (Rabindranath Tagore), the arts (my personal favourites: Jamini Roy in the past and Bikash Bhattacharya more recent), movies (Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwick Ghatak in the past…Rituparno Ghosh now), religion (my favourite: Ramkrishna Paramhansa), activism (Raja Ram Mohan Roy) to journalism (M.J. Akbar). And this, as everyone will agree, is only an illustrative list.

For me Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar and Shankar’s Chowringhee are the two artistic interpretations that capture the true character of Calcutta’s identity.

And somehow, for me it’ll never be Kolkata.

Recently, after a gap of many years I had an opportunity to return to the Bengali milieu with Tagore aficionados in Toronto at a Tagore film festival organised by Kathleen and Joseph O'Connell of the U of T and saw Rituparno Ghosh's interpretation of Rabindranath Tagore's Noukadubi, Satyajit Rai's documentary on Tagore, Shey by Buddhadeb Dasgupta.

It was an absolutely splendid experience.

Then, during the last week, I read Kwai-Yun Li’s The Palm Leaf Fan and Other Stories (Tsar). Kwai is from Calcutta’s Chinatown and her stories are set in the city.

It revived my memories of Calcutta, and with that revival of memories also a disturbing realisation – that the local Chinese population never quite figured in all my encounters and memories of Calcutta, which seems to strange because they’re quite unmistakably a part of the city.

What’s more, I’ve had one of the biggest dinners of my life at a Chinese eatery on Calcutta’s Park Street.

Kawi’s essay A Brief History of Chinese in Calcutta talks of the steady decline of the Chinese population. This is a collection of heart-warming stories of human beings no different than anyone else in Calcutta, and yet treated differently, neglected and forgotten.

It made me realise that we see only what we want to see, and in the way we want to see. Also, I doubt if I’d ever have become as aware of the different minorities that make our world and societies had I not become a part of a minority myself as a Torontonian.

Images: Sketches of Calcutta: by Sameer Biswas

Book Cover: http://www.kwaiyunli.com/publications.htm

Tagore profile: http://samarjitroy.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html

Lantana Strangling Ixora

2011-12-07T20:40:00.001-05:00

The Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) is an influential organisation that helps shape the Indian Government’s policies on the Indian Diaspora. It has presence all over the world and has a special significance for the Indian Diaspora, more so in North America.

Its e-newsletter is a much-awaited monthly bulletin that gives a roundup of activities of the Indian Diaspora across the world; preoccupied with policy matters, it doesn't usually have any significant mention about culture, and almost never about poetry.

However, the December e-newsletter that I got earlier this week surprised me.

It had a whole paragraph on my friend Sasenarine Persaud (Sase).

“Guyanese born PIO Dr. Sasenarine Persaud has released his most recent collection of poems titled Lantana Strangling Ixora. The poems provide a ready metaphor for the consciousness of the Americas overcoming that of India in the Americas – the main streaming and divesting of yoga from its Hindu origins being the most visible manifestation. This collection ranges widely in its geographical and historical concerns, from Canada to Guyana to India and places in between, exploring the contradictions in our lives: familial influences, terrorism, literature, politics, race, and the power of language and representation.”

I met Sase in the strangest of circumstances. He was attending the Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts (FSALA-11) and I was to pick him up from the airport.

But a misreading of flight schedules resulted in two participants reaching Toronto almost simultaneously from different places and at different terminals.

I couldn’t go to pick him, but met him a day later at the festival and we turned friends instantly.

Sase has an easy charm and wears his creativity quite lightly.

His collection of poems Lantana Strangling Ixora (published by TSAR) was released during the festival, and he read a few poems from his new collection.

I particularly liked this one:

Marco Polo at Rama-Sethu.

Silken threads known

before his journey

to the Emperor’s court

recording on that passage

Rama’s bridge across the ocean

from Tamil Nadu to Lanka

Raghu’s vanaar army – how inebriated

can you be if monkeys talk

in an underwater crocodile wife’s

yearning for monkey-liver soup

to cure an ailment: man shooting

too much breeze with another

must be curbed – building a stone

causeway to confront Ravana –

You do not negotiate with terrorists.

Lantana Strangling Ixora – the poem that gives the collection its name has stunning imagery.

Lantana is a South American flower and Ixora is an Asian flower; Sase is a Guyanese of Indian descent.

Lantana Strangling Ixora

There were times in the morning

we questioned the bloom

of the previous evening, watering

cana lilies, clearing the live oak

acorns from our white wrought-iron bench

How do ripe plantains smell?

Like ripe bananas. You could laugh

until after dinner. I will hold

Radhakrishnan’s interpretations of the Upanishads

until you snap on the ceiling fan

And we swirl on the sheets of a different seeking

scented like lilacs in a north-of-Toronto park

or in the Arnold Arboretum. If you conjure

a dead British poet with the same last name

would you be wrong? American literature

Or flowers in a Florida garden

are all we need to know except

if “papa” is hunting in the “Green Hills of Africa”

or Buck is observing Chinese. You drift

off into a naked sleep where snores sing

And a mouth that has taught us Kali’s secrets

falls open to accommodate blocked passages

or water the definition of a flower cluster

or the naming of a southern plant: datura

as prickly as that morning when the alarm

failed to startle sexed sleep and you are hurried

For a meeting and we barely have time

to glance at the golden marigolds—left foot

right foot brake and accelerate through amber

lights impatient with ancient drivers gaping

At dew on the St. Augustine grass and the aroused

ficus leaves, a replica of Rama’s arrow tips, and

we barely have time to see lantana strangling ixora

Image: TSAR Books

Lingering Tide and Other Stories

2011-12-02T06:13:00.001-05:00

Latha Vishwanathan’s Lingering Tide and Other Stories is an endearing collection of short stories.

Lata takes us to places that are mostly homely, but get lonely and forlorn as we get know them better. It’s a world that we wouldn't want to leave once we’re in because it’s where we meet people who’re like us and yet quite different and distinct, and they stay with us a long time; long after you’ve read the book.

It’s a world of cloistered neighbourhoods; of a lovable though tragic character of Ammini (Brittle), who savours peanut brittle. This seemingly inexplicable addiction, when explained later in the story, leaves us with a lump larger than a brittle in the throat, and one that refuses to melt.

In Eclipse, we meet Divya, the flexible wife and mother who is eager to and therefore successful in adjusting to a new life in Canada. Her husband, Sharma, a maestro of sorts, is unable to make the transition; and is reduced to watch his world transform radically from the sidelines. Suddenly, the difference in age between the not-so-young wife and the old husband becomes an unbridgeable and an ever-widening chasm, and he wonders, “Why had he not seen this, her agility spanning continents, skipping oceans?”

Lata Vishwanathan

These stories are of people in India, North America, East Asia, and one that is of a young alchemist in medieval India, who is an expert at making rose attar. Each milieu as carefully crafted as the characters.

In Lingering Tide, the time difference between India and the US is described thus: “The hours Surya struggles to fill in India have yet to be born in America.” Or Sharma’s brother in Eclipse, experiencing the vastness of Canada for the first time, observes, “Isn’t it odd; I haven’t seen so much of the sky at one time.”

The coming of age of girls is described with subtlety and tenderness. In Bat Soup, Robona’s sister describes her thus: “Sitah noticed how Robona walked since she turned sixteen. She wound her sarong tightly, pulling at the edges before tucking in. Then when she walked, she swayed just a little, thighs brushing, small tight buttocks seesawing; so glad to be alive.”

At the Fall launch of TSAR books, Latha read an excerpt from Cool Wedding; a poignant and hilarious story of an immigrant housewife, writing a letter to her sister.

Here’s a sample from that story:

“You will not believe the competition in America. What with all the smart Chinese children. Thank God for the Americans. Without them, how will our children shine in America? I, personally, am very glad about the one child only per couple in China. Wish the Chinese in America would also take it up.”

You can buy the book here: TSAR

Images: TSAR Publications

Yusuf and the Lotus Flower

2011-11-25T19:40:00.001-05:00

Guest Post by Leo Paradela

The launch of Doyali Farah Islam's first book of poetry was a delightful one. Her verses echoed the melodic voice of the poet as she stood in an ever-so lovely bright red dress before her happy guests as she read several selections from her book Yusuf and the Lotus Flower.

Doyali Farah Islam

Her delicate words lead us through mystical passages filled with invisible threads of her soul drawing the anxious listener to the core of her world of graceful and spiritual richness. Her intricate yet bold poems came as a reminder to all who heard her that GOD is one among all – Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, or any other are all alike in the worship of the Supreme Deity.

Through images from the Qur'an, Doyali managed to unite us all and serve as a gentle reminder of humanity's oneness as we all embark, during our earthly journey, on our search for the soul, the divine, the deeply wise, and the deeply spiritual reason for our being.

We are all one in our greatness as we are all one in our nothingness.

Yet our one common denominator remains the lightness of our existence during the brief time we are given to discover sacred that lies deeply within our hearts.

To put it in Doyali's own words,

"I will crawl up the trellis now,

a salient rose,

and leave the air fragrant

just for your presence".

Indeed, Doyali, with your lovely and sublime verses, you have done exactly that!

Thank you and much success in your future!

Very Sincerely,

Leo Paradela

Leo Paradela is a poet. His collection of poems Hearts & Souls was published in 2011

Follow Doyali's blog: www.doyalifarahislam.com

Puzzle of Murders

2011-11-13T23:11:00.001-05:00

Brandon Pitt’s first novel, Puzzle of Murders, is a haunting, gripping tale.

Sam Giltine is a young man who embarks – rather inadvertently – on a killing spree when he fails to kill the man who raped his sister.

The novel has a multi-layered structure that unfolds rapidly.

There is a strong physical dimension to the book.

The robust, solid descriptions of Sam’s world – Faridemidland, the deadbeat, forgettable and wasted hometown he runs away from, to the polluted and permeable back alleys of Los Angeles.

There is also an intangible, amorphous dimension of the varied ways in which Sam’s mind works.

It is at this level that the book transcends from a story of a serial killer and transmogrifies; it becomes an exploration of transformations of a mind that is prone to involuntary callisthenics.

In this world, religion and spiritualism take on hues that make them unrecognisable from each other.

Brandon adroitly acquaints us with Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the concepts of Avatar in Hinduism, Rasool in Islam, the philosophies of Bodhisattva and Zarathustra.

Brandon Pitts

This is clearly Brandon’s forte.

He makes these discursive excursions into spirituality and understanding the meaning of realisation evocative without ever becoming preachy or pompous or hallucinatory.

The other aspect of the novel that stays with you is the soft, pastel shades Brandon gives to all his women characters, especially Eisheth Percy.

He is masterly when he describes Sam’s love-hate and lust for Lilth Jahl.

I personally would’ve liked if there was a bit more of Kali Naamah, Tamara and the stripper, the Avatar of God.

But, ultimately, the book is about murders – the coldblooded and the random manner in which Sam kills people.

This is what makes Puzzle of Murders a page turner.

There is pure horror in the psychotic pleasure that Sam derives in plunging a knife through his victims and sees the “life force” leave their bodies.

BookLand Press continues to experiment with different genres and manages to unearth undiscovered talent.

Images: http://brandonpitts.com/Brandon_Pitts.html

Ninth Hindustani Drama Festival 2011

2011-11-13T17:35:00.001-05:00

Consul General Preeti Saran with Jawaid Danish
and the cast of Jeevan Saath Clinic

The ninth edition of RangManch-Canada’s Annual Hindustani Drama Festival held Saturday commenced with a lively debate on the Challenges of Staging Indian Drama in Canada and Experiences of Desi Talents in Mainstream Showbiz.

Participants in the debate included Jawaid Danish, the artistic director of the festival Juhair Kashmiri, Jasmine Sawant, Nisha Ahuja, Mukesh Aspoa, Beeyah Mirza, Nass Rana, Samrina Qureshy, Vishnu Sharma, Nitin Sawant and Naval Bajaj.

The challenges that those involved with South Asian theatre in Canada are manifold – lack of acceptance from the mainstream Canadian and the South Asian community; lack of support from private donors and from the art councils of the local governments; apathy of interest from the theatre-loving audiences. The discussion also revolved around some basic issues of identity and language; the mainstream theatre versus the art theatre movement.

Everyone in the panel agreed with Bajaj’s contention that for South Asian theatre in Canada to remain relevant and find a larger following amongst the second and third generation South Asian Canadians there is need for more English adaptions of classic plays from different South Asian languages, and also more original English plays that depict the life of South Asians in Canada.

Then, the festival began and in one evening there were five plays in five languages:

Jeevan Sathi Clinic: Urdu, Anarkali: English, Adhi Mitti, Adha Sona: Punjabi, Magazine vendor: Bhojpuri, I No Inglis: Gujarati

The first play – Jeevan Saathi Clinic – ran to a packed house (Maja Prentice Theatre at the Burnhamthrope Library, Mississauga). It’s a simple story of a lover’s tiff between a newly married couple – Fareeha and Shaharyaar – and their eventual meeting at a matchmaking boutique. Vishnu Sharma as Gulfaam – the lead in the lighthearted comedy with a social message – was plain brilliant, as were the others (and all of them have a day job and were doing this for the love of theatre).

Preeti Saran, the Consul General of India in Toronto, inaugurated the festival and was the chief guest.

Image: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150385190233409&set=t.656559781&type=1&theater

Isabelle of Bombay - A Cosmic Conflict

2011-11-11T22:22:00.001-05:00

Every immigrant hopes to someday return home.

She lives in the hope that when everything is over and done with, she’ll return to her roots, even if there’s nothing left to return to.

Her past belongs to a miasma of imagination and is addled mixture of regrets and nostalgia.

Her future is a lost in hope – hope to somehow return to her world that actually never was.

And her present is lost between an implausible past and an impossible future.

As I read Isabelle of Bombay, I couldn’t help thinking about this quintessential immigrants’ dilemma.

Colleen Ansley’s first novel captures this dilemma eloquently.

Isabelle leaves her Bombay and comes to Canada (Ottawa-Montreal and finally Toronto), but her struggles continue; her life changes and its gets worse -- much worse before it gets better.

Perhaps the true reason why Isabelle finally succeeds is the 'Keep Calm & Carry On' spirit that is essential to Bombay and Toronto.

Ansley is able to capture the true character of both the cities in the novel.

The book is peppered with innumerable such examples.

She illustrates Toronto’s culture of tolerance by a remarkable anecdote.

Isabelle’s colleague Harry narrates an incident to illustrate to her to teach her to stand firm for her rights.

“As Vice Principle of a school, I attended the annual teacher’s conference. At one session, participants stood up to give their view on a particular issue. I stood up and gave my opinion too. My Scottish accent was much stronger at that time. I had barely finished speaking when someone in the crowd stood up and questioned me.

“Hey! You there with a Scottish accent. Aren’t you a Displaced Person?”

“Before I could think of an answer,” Harry continues, “Another person in the crowd stood up and inquired of that man.”

“And may I ask your name sir?”

“Oliver Greenhill,” the man responded.

“Well Oliver, you certainly are not from here either. You don’t have an aboriginal name.”

“People in the crowd stood up and cheered. That was the day I realised how many others were in the same situation as me. Since then, I decided I was going to stand my ground and not flee again. Don’t let anyone step on your toes Isabelle. Speak up. Everyone here has come as an immigrant. You have a right to this country just like everyone else.”

She reveals and Bombay’s vibrant multi-religious, multi-ethnic composition with an evocative example of multi-faith healing.

When a friend of the family – Bernard – is taken ill and in addition to the doctor, holy men from different faiths come and administer their special panaceas – and Bernard is miraculously cured.

“Whose God cured Bernard? In each case, prayers were said to a God with a different name. When it came to saving a person’s life, religious barriers were easily discarded.”

The cosmic conflict between Kali and St. Brigid is in reality a friendly contest to protect Isabelle from both real and perceived threats.

This is the second self-published book I’ve read in the last month. Just Matata by Braz Menezes.

Both the books have better production quality that books published by mainstream publishers, and should ideally been included in their oeuvre.

Five Good Ideas

2011-11-11T18:28:00.001-05:00

Working for a not-for-profit organisation has its charms as well as challenges.

Among the positives, there are considerable more opportunities innovate, to choose a different path, and even do something audacious.

On the flip side, there’s never enough money, enough people, enough resources, enough anything.

Moreover, the pay sucks.

For the same results, the corporate and the government sectors pay more.

On the balance, I think, those who prefer the not-for-profit sector do so because of the freedom it offers.

Running a not-for-profit requires better skillsets than running a private or government sector organisation because you’re expected to do everything.

But there are few, if any, opportunities for training.

The Toronto-based Maytree Foundation’s 5 Good Ideas is a training program for those who work at not-for-profit organisations.

It’s simple, effective and free.

I’ve attended a few of these sessions and have always benefited from them – both from the main speaker as well as from the exchange of ideas that emanate from the group that I sit with.

But with all such workshops, there’s always a problem of retention. There’s a lot one learns, but not everything stays with you.

And there’s never enough time to compile notes from the workshop and keep them handy for reference.

With the publication of Five Good Ideas, Practical Strategies for Non-Profit Success that problem is solved.

Edited by Alan Broadbent, founder chairman of Maytree, and Ratna Omidvar, President of Maytree, the book is a manual for all professionals working for not-for-profit organisations.

The scope of the book is exhaustive. I doubt if any aspect of a not-for-profit is left uncovered.

But instead of a tome full of treatises, the book is an easy-to-read compilation of five good ideas on seven issues that a professional working for a not-for-profit organisation encounters daily.

These include:

Leadership & Vision
Organisational Effectiveness
Human Resources
Resource Development
Communications
Advocacy and Policy
Governance

All the contributors are stalwarts in their chosen field of expertise.

If you have anything to do with a not-for-profit, read this book.

Love conquers all…

2011-11-05T23:40:00.000-04:00

Love conquers all is a line from Leopoldo Paradela’s poem Amor Vincit Omnia.

Here’s the poem:

Let me look at you and

make sense of my theology.

No matter what I do,

I can never empty my heart.

Good for me is good for all.

Silence! My heart speaks;

Love conquers all.

It was the theme of an evening of poems and music organised by the enterprising Jasmine D’Costa’s Trade Architects.

Jasmine is by now a master at infusing an evening of poetry reading with a touch of chutzpah and turning it into something that stays in your mind for long.

Love conquers all brought together poets from diverse background – Jasmine from India, Leo Pardela from Brazil, Colin Carberry from Ireland (and now in Mexico) and Goran Simic from Bosnia.

Violinists Mary Elizabeth Brown and Laura D’Angelo complemented the poets and gave a new dimension to the evening by playing pieces from Mozart and some folk interpretations of Bartok, one of 20th century’s foremost ethnomusicologists.

The venue of this splendid evening was the spectacular St.John’s Cathedral of the Polish National Catholic Church on Cowan Avenue

The poetry was brilliant, as was the music.

The poem that touched my heart was Goran Simic’s My Accent.

My Accent

(for Visnja)

I love my accent, I love that wild sea

which attacks my weak tongue.

It doesn't reside in the morning radio news

as much as in the rustle of the job offer flyers

stapled to the street poles.

In my accent you can find my past,

the different me who still talks with imagined fishes

in a glass of water…

My grandfather was a fisherman

and I grew up on a dock

waiting for him to come back.

He built a gigantic aquarium when I was born

and every time he brought a fish

he named it immediately by some word I had to learn

until the next came...next came...next came.

I remember the first two were called "I am"

and after that the beauty of language came to me

through the shining scales.

I learned watching the aquarium

and recognizing the words by the silent colors.

After returning home

my grandfather would spend whole nights

making sentences by combining the fishes

who would pass each other.

It's how I learned to speak.

I left the house the day when my grandfather went

fishing for a black fish he was missing

and never came back.

Now I am sitting in the middle of my empty room

as in an aquarium

and talking with ghosts of the fishes

I used to recognize by words,

talking with the shadows floating

over the flyers ripped off street poles.

"I love my accent....

I love my accent.."

I repeat and repeat again

just not to ask myself :

Who am I now.

Am I real or just the black fish

my grandfather failed to catch.

Indovation: The Best of India in Services

2011-10-20T23:20:00.002-04:00

This week, I’m taking a break from the usual literary books; after all, the blog is “occasionally about other things, too.”

Although, let me hasten to add that it's still going to be about a book.

This week, India dominated the Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show (CMTS) in Toronto. Over 150 Indian engineering companies participated in the show – all of them from the small and medium enterprise sector. On display was Tata’s Nano, the world’s cheapest car and Mahindra Reva, an electric car.

The Best of India in Services is a coffee table book (why not tea table book? It’s India, after all) brought out by the India Brand Equity Foundation. Ernst & Young has prepared the compilation.

It was released at a media conference earlier this week, following the inaugural of the India Show at the CMTS in Toronto.

It gives a glimpse of the enormous changes that are taking place in India led by the exponential growth in the services sectors.

It updates the latest trends in sectors such as business and professional services, education, engineering, real estate and construction, financial services, healthcare, innovative concept services, media and entertainment, research & development, retail, technology, telecommunications, transportation and logistics, travel, tourism and hospitality.

Here’s a passage that best illustrates the deep roots of Indovation (Indian innovations in technology that lead to affordable apps).

It’s about Mumbai’s dabbawallas.

“A small but unique business idea that the traditional dabbawalas (lunchbox carriers) of Mumbai introduced way back in 1890 is a thriving industry today. Mumbai dabbawalas deliver customised, home-cooked meals to the clients for a monthly fee. The dabbawala in his Gandhi topi (cap) is a permanent feature of Mumbai cultural landscape. Popular among school children as well as as working people, these packages meals delivered in special boxes are carried in trains to an unloading station, where they are sorted by distinctive coloured destinations.

“In 1998, Forbes Global magazine conducted an analysis of the system’s efficiency and subsequently awarded it a Six Sigma rating. The concept has also been featured in the Guinness Book of World Records. Various media channels, such as BBC, Zee TV, CNBC TV 18, CNN and Sony have made documentaries on Mumbai dabbawalas.

"The world-renowned dabbawalas have lectured in management institutions and even charmed Prince Charles! Inspired by the dabbawalas of India, women in Canada have initiated the Tiffinday service.”

The book is full of many such factoids that underscore the depth of India’s determined march forward as an economic powerhouse.

West of Wawa

2011-10-15T00:22:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks back I went to the launch party of West of Wawa published by Inanna Publication and Education Inc. It was a great event for a great book. The novel is written by Lisa De Nikolits.

She is the most ‘un-writerly’ writer I know. She is vivacious and friendly. That’s rare in a writer. She has an infectious smile. That’s rare, too.

And, of course, she is a brilliant storyteller.

Lisa is from South Africa and is a prolific writer. This is her third novel. The first – Single Girls Go Mad Sooner – was published in 1995.

The second, The Hungry Mirror, published in 2010 by Innana, was awarded the IPPY Gold Medal for literature on women’s issues in 2011 and shortlisted for the 2011 ReLit Awards.

West of Wawa has been extremely well received and was chosen as one of the editor's pick in the September issue of Chatelaine.

Lisa De Nikolits reading at the launch

The Chatelaine book club also interviewed Lisa, and many other book blogs also featuring her.

The novel is about Benny, a young immigrant woman on the road across Canada, running away from herself and her past.

During her trip across the vastness of Canada spread over nearly three months and covering thousands of miles, Benny discovers herself. Despite everything that continue to go wrong – thanks to her guileless naivety – she eventually emerges a winner.

The launch event was a big draw, and Dawn Promislow and Danila Botha were among the many writers present.

Here’s an extract from Lisa’s interview with Lori Ann Bloomfield, a novelist and blogger of First Line Fiction.

FL: What is your favourite word?

LDN: An interesting question! If you were to look at West of Wawa prior to editing, you’d be inclined to say that my favourite words, (albeit unconsciously) were, ‘looked’, ‘little’, ‘happily’ and ‘cosy’. They’re actually not my favourite words at all and once I spotted this weak-word trend, I weeded them out vigorously!

My favourite word is ‘serene’. I have loved it ever since I first read it in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – I was so moved by this opening paragraph and I’ve always thought it’s one of the best openers:

“Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912.

Everyone was talking about
Lisa's book and her shoes

Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn’t fit those words into Brookly. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.”

After reading that, how could serene be anything but one’s favourite word? There isn’t too much call for the word these days but I found the perfect place for it in West of Wawa:

The ruined and the destroyed had always held a fascination
for her, even before the devastation of her own world. She liked to stand among
the decay and pick through the aftermath of vanished lives, searching for clues
to uncover what had made it all go wrong. And finding the perfect images to
capture her imaginings, well, those were moments when she felt close to serene.”

Images: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2259151370278.118791.1593233926&type=3

The Amazing Absorbing Boy

2011-10-07T20:11:00.001-04:00

Rabindranath Maharaj

I met Rabindranath (Robin) Maharaj at The Word on the Street last month for the first time.

We had been exchanging emails over the last few months about his participation in the recently-concluded Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts (FSALA-11).

Joyce Wayne, friend and novelist, had introduced me to Robin.

Robin’s The Amazing Absorbing Boy is an absolute marvel.

I’ll be seriously disappointed if it doesn’t win the City of Toronto Book Award. It’s already won the Ontario Trillium Award, and gathered a bouquet of fabulous reviews, with Philip Marchand claiming, that “For the record, (Maharaj) is a more accomplished writer than Vassanji and a livelier novelist than Mistry.” Now, that is serious praise.

Moreover, Robin has an engaging style of reading his work. At the TWOTS reading, Robin read a part of the following extract from chapter seven of the book. The chapter is titled Auntie Umbrella.

“It was Auntie Umbrella who appeared like a puff of sulphurous smoke. I was making my way to our apartment after work and when I spotted her outside the door I thought at first it was my imagination because I had been thinking so much of Mayaro but there was no mistaking Auntie Umbrella. Although she was my father’s sister she was the total opposite of him in looks. She was black like tar and had stumpy bandy legs that made her resemble one of these evil Dalek robots from Doctor Who. When I noticed an umbrella reinforced with bicycle spokes parked right next to a scrape-up brown suitcase, I knew for sure it was my auntie. She was trembling like mad either from vexation or the nightcoldness and when she spotted me instead of giving a hug she said, “Open the door fast, buy. This is not weather for man nor beast.” Then she pushed me aside, dragged her suitcase inside, took a long look at the apartment, and headed for my father’s bedroom.

“What you doing here, auntie?” I asked when she came out.

“What?” She had a habit of closing one eye whenever she was about to quote some criticizing verse from her Bible. Instead she launched into a long speech about my father; it seemed he was supposed to meet her at the airport.

“So he knew you was coming?”

“You hard of hearing, boy?” She glared at me with one eye.

“So how you find this place?”

“The Lord always protects his shepherd.”

He read another piece from the same book at the inaugural session of FSALA-11.

His reading style adds to the humour inherent in the novel.

Quite simply, amazing!

Image: http://rmaharaj.wordpress.com/

Just Matata

2011-10-07T19:18:00.001-04:00

Just Matata

Matata means trouble in Swahili. Just Matata Sins, Saints and Settlers is a novel about growing up in Kenya and Goa in the 1940s.
Braz Menezes is the author of this breezy novel that narrates the life and times of colonial Kenya where the hero of the novel Chico lands in the early 20^th century.
Chico’s son Lando is the narrator of the story of the family’s lives in colonial Kenya under the British and in colonial Goa under the Portuguese.

Just Matata is the first part of a trilogy. If the first novel is any indication, the other two that will follow will be as good.

Braz Menezes

I’m reading the book right now and find it at once evocative and hilarious; it’s a delight although I have no connection to either Goa or East Africa.
(But my friend Jasmine will argue that I like the book because I have connections to Bombay's Dhobi Talao)

For those with connections or nostalgia about either of the places, the book will be an absolute delight to read.

Braz is an emerging writer in Toronto and his work has been published in Canadian Voices Volume 1 & 2, Goa Masala, Indian Voices and the forthcoming Canadian Imprints.

The novel was released last month and I bought it at The Word on the Street, where Braz was enthusiastically selling it.

For more information about the book and how to order your copy, click here: Just Matata

Images: http://www.matatatrilogy.com/

Indian playwright Girish Karnad in Toronto for South Asian literary meet

2011-09-29T18:47:00.001-04:00

GirishKarnad, the legendary Indian playwright, will be the star attraction at the Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts (FSALA-11) to be held in Toronto from September 30, 2011 to October 2, 2011.

Karnad will be reading from his recently published autobiography at the Robert Gill Theatre, University of Toronto on October 1, 2011 (7:00 pm – 9:15 pm). His reading will be followed by a dance ballet Fallen Rain by inDANCE under maestro Hari Krishnan.

Girish Karnad

Septuagenarian Girish Karnad is a Kannada language playwright, poet, director, actor, critic and a cultural administrator.

Karnad is the recipient of innumerable awards including the prestigious Jnanpith Award – the highest literary award in India, similar to Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award.

Along with Mohan Rakesh (Hindi), Badal Sircar (Bengali) and Vijay Tendulkar (Marathi), Karnad is credited for creating a national theatre movement in India.

His plays such as Yayati, Tughlaq, Nagamandala changed the course of Indian theater. Karnad earned encomiums for using Indian legends, fables and history to depict the social realities of 20^th century India. He has had an equally illustrious career in films.

Born in a Konkani (an Indian dialect) speaking family in 1938, Karnad’s ambition was to become known as an English poet. After his initial education in Karnataka, he went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

He won his first award for his play Yayati – published in 1961, when he was 23-years-old. Yayati is story of a king who is cursed to old-age in the prime of his life but deflects the curse by asking his son Puru to sacrifice his youth for him.

It was followed by Tughlaq – the play which earned Karnad international and lasting fame. It is named after Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq, one of the medieval kings of Delhi, and is a metaphorical depiction of the initial idealism of and subsequent disillusionment with the post-Independence India’s Nehruvian era.

Nagamandala, a story of a neglected wife’s affair with a cobra who transforms into her husband, is considered a classic. The English translation of the play was staged at the Guthrie Theatre (Minneapolis, USA) as part of its 30^th anniversary in 1993.

In 1970, Karnad directed and acted in his first film Samsakara which is based on U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Kannada novel. His foray into films also brought him accolades. He is remembered for his role as Dr. Rao in Shyam Benegal’s Manthan (1976), where he co-stared Smita Patil, and as Swami’s father in the television serial Malgudi Days (1987), based on the works of R.K. Narayan.

Image: http://theaters.top-talk.net/t34-jnanapeeth-award-winner-shri-girish-karnad

Celebrating Canadian South Asian literature

2011-09-24T21:45:00.000-04:00

The Toronto Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts 2011 (FSALA-11) will bring renowned Indian playwright Girish Karnad and other literary stalwarts to Toronto

Toronto: The second Toronto Festival of South Asian Literature and Arts (FSALA-11) will be held between September 30 and October 2, 2011.

GirishKarnad – one of India’s foremost playwrights of the 20^th century, renowned for his plays such as Yayati, Tughlak and Naga-Mandala among several others – will be the main attraction at the festival where over 25 Canadian writers will participate.

Several writers from the subcontinent and the United States will also read and participate in several discussions. These include Meena Alexander (US), Kamini Dandapani (US), Mahesh Dattani (India), Asif Farrukhi (Pakistan), Neerav Patel (India), and Harish Narang (India).

FSALA-11 is a Canadian arts festival, whose purpose is to present to the public the works of writers, musicians, and other artists. The panels and lectures will discuss vital topics on Canadian and South Asian arts. It is as well a forum for the public to meet artists from across the country and for the artists to meet each other.

Special readings and recitals from the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Faiz Ahmed Faiz will also be held at the inaugural session of the festival. 2011 is Tagore’s sesquicentennial and Faiz’s centenary; former Governor General the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson will give a short welcome address.

On October 1, dance maestro Hari Krishnan’s dance troupe will perform Fallen Rain, following a reading by Girish Karnad from his recent autobiography. This is the only ticketed event of the festival and the tickets for the event are available on FSALA-11 website: www.fsala11.com

Readers and participants include:

Canadian: Navtej Bharati (Windsor), Nandi Bhatia (London), Rana Bose (Montreal), Cheran (Toronto), Cyril Dabydeen (Ottawa), Ramabai Espinet (Toronto), Andrea Gunraj (Toronto), Sheniz Janmohamed (Toronto), Sally Jones (Toronto), Shaista Justin (Toronto), Surjeet Kalsey (Vancouver), Chelva Kanaganayakam (Toronto), Kwai Li (Toronto), Anand Mahadevan (Toronto), Rabindra Maharaj (Toronto), Ashok Mathur (Vancouver), Julie Mehta (Toronto), Ameen Merchant (Vancouver), Ananya Mukherjee (Toronto), Arun Mukherjee (Toronto), Uma Parameswaran (Winnipeg), Sase Persaud (Toronto, Florida), Ajmer Rode (Vancouver), Nuzhat Siddiqui (Toronto), Dalbir Singh (Toronto), Suwanda Sugunasiri (Toronto), Priscila Uppal (Toronto), Rahul Varma (Montreal), Padma Viswanathan (Toronto/US), Nalini Warriar (Quebec City), John van Burek (Toronto)

International: Meena Alexander (New York), Kamini Dandapani (New York), Mahesh Dattani (India), Asif Farrukhi (Pakistan), Girish Karnad (India), Harish Narang (India), Neerav Patel (India)

Scotiabank is the main sponsor of the event. The Canada Council for the Arts and the Writers’ Union of Canada have provided additional financial assistance to the festival. Other sponsors include Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, Random House of Canada, The Writers Forum, Sheridan College and the Humber School for Creative and Performing Arts. FSALA also acknowledges the following sponsors – Anil Balolia, Chandaria Family, Iqbal and Zinnat Dewji, Azim Jeraj, Atul Tolia, and Anonymous Donors.

The festival will be held at The Munk School of Global Affairs and Trinity College are next to each other and centrally located in Toronto.

The three-day festival’s program is:

Friday, September 30:

Inaugural, readings and recitals from Tagore & Faiz

Afternoon
Discussion: Whither South Asian Drama in Canada? Time: 3:00 to 4:00 PM Venue: Combination Room, Trinity College Participants: Nandi Bhatia, Sally Jones, John van Burek, Rahul Varma Chair: Julie Mehta	Lecture: Mahesh Dattani Time: 4:15 – 5:30 PM Venue: Combination Room, Trinity College Lecture: Mahesh Dattani
Evening
Formal Welcome Time: 7:00 to 9:00 PM Venue: Seeley Hall, Trinity College Reading 1. Rabindra Maharaj Reading 2. Kwai Li Break Faiz Ahmad Faiz Centennial: Recital Tariq Hameed, accompanied by Nadeem Shah at Tabla Rabindranath Tagore Sesquicentennial: Poetry Reading: Ananya Mukherjee

Saturday, October 1

Literary Sessions, Readings & Discussions, Art Exhibit

Morning
Readings Time: 10:00 – 11:30 AM Venue: Combination Room, Trinity College Participants: Priscila Uppal, Sheniz Janmohamed, Uma Parameswaran, Ashok Mathur, Nalini Warriar Chair: Suwanda Sugunasiri	Panel: The Problems of Translation and Audience Time: 10:00 – 11:30 AM Venue: Campbell Room, Munk School of Global Affairs Participants: Ajmer Rode, Baidar Bakht, Neerav Patel, Harish Narang, Asif Farrukhi Chair: Chelva Kanaganayakam
Discussion: Is there a case for a Canadian South Asian literary identity? Or does one think of a national or secular literary identity. Whither Multiculturalism? Time: 11.30 AM – 1:00 PM Participants: Priscila Uppal, Sheniz Janmohamed, Uma Parameswaran, Ashok Mathur, Nalini Warriar Chair: Suwanda Sugunasiri Chair: Rana Bose	Readings in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, and Tamil Time: 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Participants: Nuzhat Siddiqui, Navtej Bharati, Cheran, Arun Mukherjee Chair: Harish Narang
Afternoon
Readings Time: 2:00 – 3:15 PM Venue: Campbell Room Munk School of Global Affairs Participants: Meena Alexander, Asif Farrukhi, Neerav Patel
Readings & Discussion: South Asian Canadian Literature: Concerns of a New Generation Time: 4:00 – 5:30 PM Venue: Combination Room, Trinity College Participants: Padma Viswanathan, Anand Mahadevan, Ameen Merchant Chair: Shaista Justin	Readings & Discussion: The Indo-Caribbean Phenomenon Time: 4:00 – 5:30 PM Venue: Campbell Room, Munk School of Global Affairs Ramabai Espinet, Cyril Dabydeen, Andrea Gunraj, Sase Persaud Chair: Rabindra Maharaj
Evening (ticketed) event
Lecture & Presentation: Girish Karnad Dance recital: Fallen Rain, inDANCE under maestro Hari Krishnan Time: 7:00 – 9:15 PM Venue: Robert Gill Theatre, University of Toronto

Sunday, October 2

Readings, interviews, music, book launch

Afternoon

Venue for all events: Campbell Room, Munk School of Global Affairs

On-stage interview & classical vocal concert

Time: 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Participants: Girish Karnad, Mahesh Dattani, interviewed by Dalbir Singh

Refreshments

Classical vocal concert: Kamini Dandapani

On-stage interview

Time: 2:00 – 3:00 PM

Participants: Meena Alexander, Neerav Patel

Book launch

Time: 3:00 PM

Cheran: You Cannot Turn Away

(bilingual Tamil/English poetry);

Sasenarine Persaud: Lantana Strangling Ixora (poetry);

Surjeet Kalsey: Colours of My Heart
(poetry in English);

Suwanda Sugunasiri: Untouchable Woman's Odyssey (novel)

For more information:

E-mail: fsala2011@gmail.com

3-Day Novel Contest - 2011

2011-09-10T19:10:00.002-04:00

Yes, I participated in the 3-Day Novel Contest again this year. My third year. And for the first time I enjoyed the experience.

When I participated for the first time, I was tensed because I tried to get as many words in as possible.

In the process, I just didn’t know what to do with a few of my characters, and they were abandoned – lost in needless verbiage - when I ran out of time.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed turning around a novel in just three days.

The novel was set in the backdrop of the outbreak of plague in Surat (the western Indian city in the state of Gujarat) in 1994.

The second year wasn’t particularly productive because my experiment of weaving several ghost stories into a short novel didn’t work out particularly well.

The editor of the contest wrote a small note to me saying she liked the ghost stories (which, I guess, meant she didn’t like the main novel).

This year – fresh from a visit to India, which was both exhilarating and disturbing – I wrote a story about a star-crossed couple who marry clandestinely but commit suicide when they can’t fight caste rigidities and orthodoxies.

Adopted Daughter is a story is about the man who gets the couple married and his accidental encounter with the couple’s daughter, more than two decades later while on a trip to India from Canada.

My writing pace was even – clocking close to 6,000 words each day. After some severe editing, I managed about 17,000 + words which I uploaded in the afternoon of September 9.

It may not win my any prize, but I enjoyed the experience and am feeling good about my effort.

Image: http://www.3daynovel.com/

Reading in a church

2011-09-10T18:19:00.002-04:00

Pratap Reddy, Jessica Westhead & Mayank Bhatt at Brockton Writers Series (September 2011)

I read a short excerpt from my untitled novel (which is far from completion) at the Brockton Writers Series last week.

I had the privilege of reading at a session where award winning authors Pratap Reddy and Jessica Westhead also read.

Pratap’s book of short stories is ready. Jessica’s third book (a collection of short stories) And AlsoSharks was published recently by Coromorant Books.

The reading was followed by a Q&A session and that was deeply introspective.

Jessica will be reading at The Word on the Streets (TWOTS) on September 25.

Generally About Books has “adopted” Jessica for this annual celebration of books at Queen’s Park.

When you’re there please drop by. Jessica will be reading from her collection and also join short fiction writers Julie Booker and Matthew J Trafford in a discussion on YOSS (Year Of the Short Story).

“YOSS aims to unite fellow writers and readers everywhere in one cause—to bring short fiction the larger audience it deserves.”

Farzana Doctor, novelists and activist, curates the series which celebrates its second anniversary next month.

The next session of Brockton Writers Series is on October 5 at St. Anne’s Church, 270 Gladstone Ave, just north of Dundas. Patrick Connors, Ann Shin and Aisha Sasha John will be reading.

Image: https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150800520180704&set=oa.10150293017797857&type=1&theater

Noon

2011-08-29T08:46:00.000-04:00

Aatish Taseer’s Noon is a remarkable novel because of an absence of linear narrative and also because of its sparseness.

It’s unsettling because it doesn’t offer any closures.

Despite its experimental form, it’s a great read and effortlessly involves the reader in the lives of its characters.

I continued to wonder what could've happened to Kalyan in India and Mirwaiz in Pakistan - the two characters most exploited by circumstances and people they serve.

Rehan Tabassum is a young man whose mother is an Indian and father a Pakistani. He has lived with his mother as a child, grown up in the US and returns to both India and Pakistan as an outsider.

Anyone even remotely aware of the lives of the rich and famous in the subcontinent will immediately recognise several familiar characters – some of them seem to have been derived from the novelist’s life.

However, Taseer is able to transcend the personal (and the prurient), and take on a persona of an observer to describe the life of the sub-continental rich and those who serve them.

There is evocative poignancy in the manner in which Taseer portrays the relationship between those who serve and their masters – it’s a relationship of servility and subservience on the one hand, and cunning connivance and concealment on the other.

In Notes from a Burglary Taseer depicts the grime beneath the flashy success of an India that has turned into an economic powerhouse, putting more wealth in the hands of the already wealthy, and their disdain for the underprivileged.

Concomitantly, the chapter also narrates the utter incomprehension of the lives and values of the rich by the poor who share their space.

The following description of Rehan's mother's reaction to her stolen jewellery is masterly:

“Her pain at what had been lost became keener when she considered that the great part of her jewellery’s value lay in the people who had made it, jewellers such as Bulgari and Cartier. But this aspect of their value had no importance in India and would have meant nothing to the people who stole it. In fact it was fair to say that only a handful of jewellers in the entire country were capable of assessing the jewellery’s value in these terms. And it was not to these places that the thieves would go. Where they would go, the jewellery would be broken up like scrap metal into gold and precious stones and sold piecemeal. And in this form, now with irony spread evenly among victims and culprits, it was not really worth much. My mother could not manage a smile at the philosophical implications of this: the special pain of losing the things into which we breathe hidden value; and India, ever prepared to cut down to size anyone clinging to alien refinements.”

The elaborate charade of investigation conducted by the local police and its casual, random violence on the farmhouse’s staff is riveting as is the relationship that Rehan has with Kalyan – a relationship that is transactional, based on dependency on both side, and yet one in which the master, who appreciates the servant’s deft culinary skills, doesn’t care too much when the police want to give him the “third degree.”

Rehan, the eternal outsider, leave India when the goings-on become unbearably intolerable.

When he goes to Pakistan, his alienation is more acute not merely because of his strained relationship with his father, but also because his inability to understand the deeper nuances that defines relations in a feudal society.

He seeks solace in the meaningless and the mundane.

In Port bin Qasim: An Idyll Taseer captures the true essence of Pakistan’s existential dilemma in a conversation Rehan has with his brother Isffy (“a brother from yet another mother).

“…Everyone has some high idea or the other about what the country was founded for, but it’s always something completely divorced from the reality of the place, something we have to be and are not.’

‘Isn’t every place like that?’

‘No. In other places, what you have on the ground becomes the foundation of your aspirations. Here, it’s the other way round. There’s always something abstract that needs to be imposed on the existing reality. And it fucks up everyone’s moral compass. Because if you’re always setting out to be something you’re not, and are never going to be, if you’re always chasing some Utopia or the other, after a while you get fed up and stop bothering even to be what everyone is, which is human; your most basic morality starts to erode. And, Rehan, you know what they’re about, these unobtainable Utopias?’

‘What?’

‘They’re an excuse for retreat, for more nihilism and futility. Rumi says – though it could just as well be our founder speaking: “That which is not to be found is what I desire.” So what do I do instead? I build high walls and retreat with them, I occupy myself with futility.”

Although always in the background, Begam Akhtar is the only constant for Rehan both in India and in Pakistan.

Noon is an immensely readable and an interesting novel.

Literature Live Mumbai had organised a reading and a discussion with Taseer in Bombay recently at Olive, a restaurant inside a former horse stable at the Racecourse. The event – expectedly – was attended by the who’s who of Bombay.

There was an unusually large component of young women at the reading. I was later enlightened by a friend: They were all there primarily to oogle at the handsome author.