Butter Chicken in Ludhiana by Pankaj Mishra

"I can't bear to read Indian writers," she said.
I pulled my eyebrows back into position before anyone else in the group registered that they had risen to my hairline. Nobody else seemed to be perturbed by her statement, almost all of them were doing the Indian yes-no-maybe nod. They were all Indians, including her. They were all writers, or trying to be, including her. So why was nobody offended by that statement, including her? I stayed mum too I regret to say. In my defense though it was my first meeting with this group. I had just discovered that I wanted to write, the others had been pursuing writing and getting published for a few years. I did not stay in that group much longer.

Her statement had bothered me but I realised that I had not read many Indian authors myself, and would have struggled to come up with ten names. That patriotic feeling was primarily why I chose Pankaj Mishra's Butter Chicken in Ludhiana in my list of books for the year. Butter chicken... is an account of the author's travels through small Indians towns. The author does not give the dates of his trip, I wish he had, but it seems to be sometime in the early 90s. He presents the real small town India and the real small town Indian with all the blemishes as seen through a microscope. Nothing escapes. Nothing is romanticised. Including Simla, India's honeymoon destination of that decade. Mishraji does not go looking for touristic attractions to write about. His book is more a descriptive tale of things and people that come in his line of sight. It would definitely not endear India to prospective tourists, in fact quite the contrary. The narrative moves at a good pace and the author's insight and subtle humour keeps it interesting. It is not a must-read but it is an interesting read for its different take on travel writing.

I am hopeful that Karma has made a note of my nationalist effort and some day when there is a book with 'by Himali Kothari' on it, many an Indian in small towns and big will pick it up from a pile of those by Johns and Janes.      

1984 - From the future

1984 is not one of those books that grabbed me from sentence one and pulled me along. In fact, the first 4-5 pages had me trudging along and the thought of quitting often crossed my mind. But, the memory of Orwell's Animal Farm goaded me to stick on. And I am glad I did.

George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, which makes the novella futuristic. Unfortunately in this future, people don't drive flying cars, eat pills for food and vacation on the moon, something my school essays about the future always had. The author in his book projects a grim future. And he projects it so well that as I visualise the protagonist Winston in his home, at work, the park even, all I see is grey. Not the sharp lines of black and white. But, grey, blurry grey in its many shades. 

As the plot unfolds, and the extreme future that Orwell projects comes to light, my first thought is 'Bah! That's a bit extreme'. But as I go further and the layers under the plot become more evident I think 'Genius! This man saw the future.' Censorship, corruption of power, extreme surveillance...Orwell spoke the language that has become a part of our existence today. The story moves and the parallels between the reality of the story and the reality of today become more evident. And that scares me. 

The one thing that Orwell could not foresee was the evolution of the language. Winston's use of terms like 'deep-bosomed maidens' and 'old boy' and when he says of Julia that 'he would ravish her' don't fit into the future of 1984. They existed in Orwell's times but soon fell out of favour.

Trivia: The character of Big Brother in the story is the inspiration behind the UK-based reality show Big Brother, also known as Big Boss in India.

Indigo by Satyajit Ray

It was with some trepidation that I started this one. The ghost of my last experience with a translated book (Gulzar's Half a Rupee Stories) was still haunting me. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I said a little prayer anyways. It worked. Indigo is a good translation of some of Satyajit Ray's short stories. Somewhere in the first few pages, I forgot that I was reading the translated versions of Ray's original creations. The voice of the translator and author merged into one. 

Many of the short stories in Indigo revolve around the theme of the supernatural. Haunted houses, spirits, past-lives, spells, strange creatures take centre-stage. Other stories pivot on the evil that can emerge from the most commonplace appearing minds. I had always associated Ray with serious issue-oriented subjects on which his films are made. This, despite the fact that I don't remember seeing any of his films but that's the impression I held. These stories revealed a different facet of the creative genius. 

The only complaint I have is that the last few stories were a tad predictable. Maybe because they were read as a collection and so after a point if was easy to predict what way the author was likely to go. Since the stories were not written as a collection but as individual works over a stretch of a few years, they should have best been savoured like a course-by-course degustation rather than a happy meal from the drive-thru? 

Sea of Poppies

One of my favourite reads last year was Amitav Ghosh's first, Shadow Lines. In fact it made its way to my shelf of all-time favourites. What I loved about Shadow Lines was the unusual flow in the narrative. The story moved between different time periods with a nonchalance that made me envy the writer's genius. I have read one more book by the author, The Glass Palace. In this one, the author displays his prowess in placing created characters against actual events and real people. I remember wanting to visit the Burmese King's palace in Ratnagiri after I finished the book.

Sea of Poppies, thus, had a lot to live up to even before I had read the first line. Ghosh once again experiments with the narrative. The story starts off with three-four different threads which appear unconnected in the beginning but soon it is clear that at some point they are all going to intertwine. The author gives space to the back stories of all key characters so much so that as the reader I felt a bond with them and I connected with their angst. And by the end of it I was rooting for each one of them to get their desired resolution.

The irritation in the story-telling was the use of vernacular dialogue followed immediately by its translation. As a writer it is something that I fight to not do with a vengeance, however tempting it may be at times. And as a creative writing teacher, I have had many a classes run into overtime, because of a discussion on this subject. I wonder what Ghosh's reasons were to write so much of the dialogue in this manner. But, the plot was the winner, it gripped me and compelled me to push through the dialogue to reach the end.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

I am apprehensive about reading books or watching films on prevailing topics like terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism were just after 9/11 and rape was just after the Delhi rape incident. I often, find these stories gimmicky, written not because the writer had a story to tell but because it was a story that the audiences would like to see or read. Such stories read contrived and thus disappoint. So, it was with some trepidation that I added 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' to my reading list, the excellent reviews swayed me towards it.

And the story does not disappoint. For one, it is not about a young, innocent Muslim boy who is wronged by America or administration, turns into a radical but is killed just before he can bomb an American city into  oblivion. The story is about Changez, a Pakistani student who graduates among the top in his class at Princeton, and lands a dream job, but 9/11 happens and changes everything. In this story, unlike most others on the topic, the catalyst for the change in Changez is his inner conflict. Should he align himself to his inherent sense of allegiance towards his land of birth? Or should he continue on his professional journey in the country at war with his homeland? Or is there a middle path?

The hero of the novel though is not Change, or the plot, it is the narrative style that Hamid chooses to tell the story. By making Changez the narrator of his story, he gave me a singular point of view and allowed me to imagine the rest based on Changez's narration of events.
'Is he to be believed?
'No! He is he an unreliable narrator.'
'He sounds genuine enough, doesn't he?'
As the story twisted and turned towards the climax, I oscillated between the options, but not even after the end could I make up my mind. The author's movement between the present and the past is smooth. And, the clues he gives about Changez's listener through Changez's eyes are enough for the reader to get an inkling about his identity without it being revealed.
"Run, Changez, run," I almost screamed out. "Get away from this man." But, the warning stayed stuck in my throat.

The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara

Twenty pages into the book and I was afraid that it was going down the same path as '12 Years A Slave', down being the key word there. This again seemed to be a potentially good story written by someone who was not a writer, though wikipedia does describe him as 'able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill'. I was tempted to give up, especially considering I need to catch up with my week a book target. I decided to stick on only because I had not seen the movie and wanted to know how the journey would end.

Today, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, is most recognised as the bearded silhouette on t-shirts, probably one of the most popular silhouettes ever. He rose to fame when he became one of the key players in the Cuban revolution, second-in-command to Fidel Castro. But, much before that, he was just a young medical student who wanted to see the world, he started with South America. The Motorcycle Diaries chronicles the 9-month, 800-odd km long journey of Che and his friend Alberto Granado across the length of South America. Most of the journey was on a beat-up motorcycle nicknamed, La Poderosa i.e. The Powerful One, before it gave way and they had to abandon it and continue on trucks, buses and boats.

The feat accomplished by the two friends is incredible. More so, considering it was the 1950s, mobile phones did not exist, even calls on regular phones were too expensive, all communication was by letters. South America was largely rural and lacking in all facilities. Only the audacity of youth can prompt such an expedition. The story did not work for me. Every chapter read like a repetition of the previous one. They start off, reach a place, scramble for food and lodging, have some trouble with the motorcycle, go to sleep, wake up, start off...and so it goes on. Very few anecdotes stick. The writing in most parts is blah, except one sentence that makes me aha - "Gold doesn't have the gentle dignity of silver which becomes more charming as it ages, and so the cathedral seems to be decorated like an old woman with too much makeup."

Perhaps for this story, the book should have been skipped and only the movie made?

Next: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh

The first book by Khushwant Singh that I remember reading was a collection of jokes. I was about 14-15 then and there was one joke which I still remember: 

Q: What is the definition of table tennis in Hindi?

A: Batti ke neeche...takht ke oopar...idhar se thaka-thak,udhar se thaka-thak.

Since then I have read his autobiography and 'Death at my Doorstep', a collection of obituaries written by him. The last obituary in the book is of the author himself, maybe he does not trust anyone else to do justice to it. Or maybe he wants to have the last word on himself. The obituaries are written in his natural style. There is no glorification, he states it as he saw it, perhaps, with a little malice as he was wont to do.

Train to Pakistan is set at the time of the partition of India, into India and Pakistan. At the start of the story he places the reader in an almost non-existent village with no more than three brick structures and a railway station. But, it is clear that the village is on the brink of losing its sleepy status when the author informs - Of the many slow passenger trains, only two, one from Delhi to Lahore in the mornings and the other from Lahore to Delhi in the evenings, are scheduled to stop for a few minutes.

The story does not address the political or social aspect of it. It is about some of those people who knew least about the goings-on but were probably affected the most. And that is why it strikes a chord. The story is written in his threadbare style. He writes without bias, without taking sides and without passing judgement. He plays the role of the commentator and leaves the reader to judge and opine. He paints graphic images, without any inhibitions, that made me cringe and shudder and vow not to read it before bed. 

Train to Pakistan was Khushwant Singh's third novel, and it makes it clear that the man never did hold back. His ability to express himself without reservation was not acquired with fame and experience, he was born with it.