It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis is a prescient, prophetic, visionary novel, that embarks on a cautionary tale of a fascist, misogynist, racist leadership that manages to get democratically elected in the United States. The novel was written in 1930s when fascism was on a rise in the Western Europe while communism was growing stronger by the day in the Eastern Europe, and back when, most of the European nations, the US and Japan harbored strong colonial aspirations. Central to the story is the character of Buzz Windrip, the man who becomes the nominee of a major party, then the president, and then a dictator, "in order to save the nation from the welfare cheats, from crimes and sex, from drinkers and bootleggers, from the rising power of women who had just got the right to vote and work in offices and factories, from the ascendant African-Americans, businessmen Jews and the immigrants, from a liberal press, and imports". Buzz Windrip is brought into power with the help of evangelists and with the help of miners, laborers, and the so-called hardworking middle class American who believe in his promise that everyone would make more money under his leadership. In the first quarter of the novel, as the drumbeats around the nomination and subsequently the election of Buzz Windrip get louder and louder, the confounded intellectuals around the country go on mumbling "It can't happen here!"

The novel is a razor sharp political satire from another era, and it imagines the rise of both a dictatorial president and his henchmen from a fully-functioning democractic set-up. The scenarios imagined with a cold accuracy of a truly imaginative and creative writer appear to the a script many leaders around the world have emulated over the past few decades. Sinclair Lewis was the first American novelist to win a Nobel Prize for literature in 1930, for his major, more famous novels like Main Street, Babbitt and Arrowsmith. Although America narrowly escaped the wave of nazism and fascism in 1930s, the script of the novel stays as fresh and as foreboding as ever. Buzz Windrip, who eventually wins the vote, within this novel is said to have ghost-authored a book, written in a folksy, funny, simplified language, with choicest examples and phrases meant to echo in the minds and hearts of common people. Many chapters open with a paragraph drawn from the imaginary book, (titled Zero Hour) and each paragraph seems to have inspired words and phrases we have heard in our times from the leaders who are said to be in touch with the public, the masses, the working classes.  

The novel has a very memorable cast of characters, and works well both as a political satire as well as a saga of families and friends trying to make sense of events and changes around them. The primary actor and thinker in the story is Doremus Jessup, who is an editor of a small New England newspaper. Doremus both bears a witness to the emergence of Buzz as the president and a dictator, and becomes a victim to the influence of Buzz, exercised through handpicked cast of men in administration, each one more cunning and capricious than his predecessor at the job and also the incredible "Minute Men". Minute Men refers to a parallel  armed force of followers created by Buzz, with help of Sarason, his confidant and the supposed brain behind many of the popular songs, sayings and policies of Buzz. Minute men run the labor camps (similar to concentration camps), seize what they will, and they control justice system, and the minute men, with their marches and uniforms inspire awe and obedience in the masses.  Without giving away the thrilling and chilling plot points, including the inspiring and equally well-written female cast, I would add that the friends and family of Doremus, and his foes, provide a perfect orchestra of voices and choices through which the grand drama of the demise of a democracy is played out. I think it is the honored duty of every individual and every intellectual to read books like this one. Highly recommended.

The Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel

Jeffrey McDaniel is a heartbreak, wisecrack poet, and his poems contain a potpourri of metaphors that astound, amuse, hurt, and linger in your imagination. Though there is often a subtext of dysfunctional family, unrequited or unsavory love, crack or alcohol addiction, in nearly every line Jeffrey invents a language for human condition that is scintillating in its originality and imagery. Do not attempt to read these if you are a prude, do not attempt to recite these if your lips have never been silted by tears or blood. In poem after poem, Jeffrey stuns you with his metaphors, and his wordplay brings to page a gorgeous imagination that thrives in the surreal landscapes of "The Utopia of Scars" co-inhabited by desolation and hope. I find his poems intoxicating, and as I sip his punchy phrases, I feel I am at a cocktail tasting, as a special guest of a bartender renowned for discovering savory concoctions, made with unexpected ingredients.

In "Renovating the Wall", he writes: "I enjoyed my time in the uterus, reading / what the previous fetuses had written / on your walls. That's how I learned / to spell. That's how I came out speaking."

In a poem titled "Dear America", Jeffrey talks about addiction: ... In college I took so many drugs / the professors looked at the samples of my urine / just to know what books I'd been reading./"

Jeffrey has a remarkable ear and eye for curious word combinations that are charming, endearing and apt.  "The Scars of Utopia", he says: "... There should be Band Aids // for what you don't know: whiskey breath minds so sober people // can fit in at wild parties; a Smithsonian for misfits: / an insomniac's mucky pillow hanging over a naroleptic's // drool cup, ..."

The collection is as spectacular as his poet titled "The Jeffrey McDaniel Show". "The Archer of Gluttony" or "Old Flame Thrower" enthralls us with sounds and images so crisp and finely crafted that you delight even at phrases that are highlighting desperation or melancholy. The poems showcase the skill of one of the finest metaphor makers of our times, and yet the poems are very readable, very likeable.

The seemingly autobiographical or persona poems are full of razor-sharp observations and unforgettable sentences: "...your tongue,/ ripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts". Or in a poem about Grandma, he says: "I press my ears to her lampshade-thin chest / and listen to that little soldier march towards whatever / plateau, or simply exhaust his arsenal of beats." I highly recommend this collection by Jeffrey McDaniel and also recommend all his other books. Like me, you will discover that within the poems abides a sensitive, compassionate, witty, sympathetic and remarkable, self-effacing voice that must be celebrated word by word, line by line.

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor takes you on an elegiac journey, introducing you to complex personal histories and tragedies. Set in northern Kenyan's dust, darkness and daylight, this novel is a memoir of lives transformed by tribal and political conflicts and colonial processes and imperialistic excesses. The novel presents a tour de force narrative about lost fathers, brothers, sons and women and descends into the labyrinth-like individual stories to present a tale of a family, country, humanity.

A sister Ajany returns to Kenya to find her brother Odidi. She has seen his corpse, but she seeks a closure, an understanding of Odidi's life before his tragic end. The siblings grew up in a dusty Kenyan countryside, in a massive house, where all the books are inscribed with a name of a foreigner or a stranger, Hugo Bolton. Their mother Akai is a mysterious women, who has her own complex narrative of love lost and found, that emerges in bits and parts as we read the novel. Their father Nyipir is a person who in one life acquires many  incarnations, some as he is forced by his own needs, greed and wants, and many to just survive Kenya's turbulent times. Servant of a white man, gravedigger, sepoy, cattle thief, husband, father, a friend to many smugglers and wanderers, a young man who wanted to travel to Burma to retrieve his father and brother's bodies to bury them in their own country. There is a fascinating singer of water songs, Ali Hida Dada, a policemen whose own complex life journey crisscrosses through the personal histories of Nyipir, Akai, Ajany, Odidi and a fifth person, Galgalu who is attached to the Nyipir-Akai household, like a foster son. Isiah Bolton, a son in search of a father who disappeared in Kenya. There are a handful of other characters that complete the list: Justina (Odidi's lady love), Selena (Isiah's mom), a trader (a keeper of secrets) and Chaudhary (a sly shopkeeper). Each character is developed with acute sensibility and sympathy, allowing us to see nuances in their personalities, deceits and shadows, exposing both bitter and sweet versions of their projected and veiled selves.

Dust is beautifully written book. As the narrative advances through present or past, Owour delivers many remarkable, poetic short sentences. Short sentences and paragraphs that puncture your thoughts. You gasp before you carry on reading. You gasp first at the beauty of the wordplay, then you grasp the insight or ache that each needle-shot sentence releases. The novel emerges in all its intricate and articulate richness through lives transformed by a recent colonial experience as well as political upheavals and corruption in an emergent nation. Perhaps you can appreciate this novel more if you have a native sympathy with the fate of people scarred by colonial pasts and a present corrupted, manipulated by economic interests of multinational companies & their local, vocal, powerful, corrupt collaborators. Some very heartbreaking episodes fill this novel, some heartrending scenes, some events that fill you with disgust and disenchantment, and as a counterpoint, there a few passages that bring peace, understanding, pleasure, closure.

Growing up in India I always knew this dust that consumed and subsumed everything, a dust full of broken promises as well as crushed dreams and desires, a dust laced with blood and sweat of the tormented and the tormentors, a dust we miss when we are away from the nation, a dust that masks and hides hurt, longing, feeling and thoughts. As a writer, I struggle to show this dust, capture its prevalence and importance. As a reader, I seek writing that recognizes it, and removes its veil to reveal narratives that remain concealed in our plain sight. Owuor excels as she accomplishes this. In Dust, Owuor delivers a phenomenal saga that touches upon the human condition, deeply appreciative of sibling and parental affection, deeply conscious of tacit and long-lasting friendships, keenly aware of events that shape human destiny. The opening chapter where Odidi runs and runs, the landscapes through which various protagonists walk or night sounds they hear, Ajany's search for her brother's past and especially the scene where she finds the spot on tarmac still covered with his dried blood...  are all crafted with the skill of a seasoned writer.

The overall story, and the novel's many exceptional passages, are so beautifully crafted and delivered that I am convinced that the novel is destined for a long haul, to be read as a classic by our future generations. After the death of Chinua Achebe, I ached to find some other voice in the world literature who could write with his clarity and sympathy about the non-Western world. I always wondered if  Toni Morrison's raw and lucid style can be emulated in fiction written about men and women who live in erstwhile colonized countries. To place Owuor's book on a similar pedestal is perhaps the highest praise I can offer for this work.

Undoubtedly Owuor has delivered a masterpiece, a work of art that inspires and awes you for it touches many a raw nerve, and brings to light events, ideas, thoughts that are too murky to be appreciated otherwise. Though the narrative unfolds in realms and through descriptions unfamiliar to the imaginative and everyday life of many readers (my explanation for harsher reviews), I think Owuor's sparkling writing is capable of awakening many eyes, hearts and minds to such life-stories. Appreciating the novel Dust does require examination of our own biases, created by our readings and upbringings. Perhaps we need more novels like Dust if we really wish to comprehend the cultural and societal changes taking place in many non-Western nations. Even if the novel treads through threads far from your experience and comfort zone, read it for its music, descriptions and haunting prose and marvel at the author for unraveling secrets of human condition, secrets only a writer from a distant, dusty nation knows. 

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Book Review: The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck

The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is a phenomenally engaging and complex account of a scientific expedition by one of the greatest American novelists. The science itself makes it a worthwhile read, but what tugs most at your heartstrings, and fires most sparks in your head is exceptional prose that serves a cocktail of science, philosophy, anthropology and history. The Log from the Sea of Cortez succinctly presents Steinbeck's beliefs about humanity, vanity, intellect, progress, technology, morality and society, and thus this book provides a key to deeper understanding of Steinbeck's novels, life and work.

At the simplest level, the book recounts a 4,000 mile voyage on a sardine boat out of Monterey, California around the Baja peninsula into the Sea of Cortez. This expedition, undertaken by Steinbeck with his biologist friend Edward Ricketts, was aimed at collecting a wide range of marine animals and observing them in their pristine condition. The curiosity-driven adventure provided Steinbeck and Ricketts an opportunity to explore marine lifeforms and their subtle adaptations in various gulfs, bays, estuaries and reefs along the shores of the Sea of Cortez. The book describes daily events and labor that contributed to a rich harvest (or collection) of many species of crabs, shrimps, anemones, corals, sea cucumbers, sharks, string rays, mussels, clams, and other marine animals.

Many critics and in fact, Steinbeck himself, have recognized that the biologist Ricketts exercised a great deal of influence on the creative and imaginative life of Steinbeck. This log and the complete text of The Sea of Cortez are obvious examples of their collaboration. Based on self-consistent evidence, it is clear that Steinbeck himself was a seeker of deeper knowledge of the scientific and biological world around him, and that his interaction and friendship with Ricketts broadened his perspective on science, life and humanity. In our contemporary world, there are fewer than ever individuals who are equally comfortable in discussions that involve bot literature and science. Steinbeck seems equally deft in writing about both realms.

The book is full of passages about research and science that are gems in their own right, and I am sure many scientists would enjoy reading these. Example sentences: "There is a curious idea among the unscientific men that in scientific writing there is a common plateau of perfectionism. Nothing could be more untrue. The reports of biologists are the measure, not of the science, but of the men themselves." Or these sentences from another chapter: "It is difficult, when watching the little beasts, not to trace human parallels. The greatest danger to a speculative biologist is analogy. It is a pitfall to be avoided -- the industry of the bee, the economics of the ant, the villainy of snake, all i human terms have given us profound misconceptions of animals." Somewhere else in the book, Steinback writes: "There is one great difficulty with a good hypothesis. When it is completed and rounded, the corners smooth and the content cohesive and coherent, it is likely to become a thing in itself, a work of art. It is then like a finished sonnet or a painting completed. One hates to disturb it."

There are particularly powerful and evocative discussions and passages about the distance and difference between the timeless, archaic culture of the Native American (aka American Indians) and the hasty, wasteful, money-minded culture of urban Americans. Steinbeck explored similar themes in his other books and in the script he wrote for a documentary titled "The Forgotten Village" (1941).

Steinbeck the writer is as soul stirring here as he was in The Grapes of Wrath. Likewise, his world view expressed in this log will be in conflict with the same people who labeled him as a socialist or a communist. Though many people see Steinbeck as a propagandist who spews venom against the rich and the ruling elite, a critical examination of Steinbeck's writing here shows him as a person who wants to see reality as it 'is'. This reality, be it socio-political realm or biosphere, contains weak and strong, preys and predators, survivors and dead. Though Steinbeck writes about humans or marine animals like a detached observer, his sympathies seem to lie with the underdog. Perhaps that is the reason for his popularity around the world.

The book reaffirms my belief that great scientists and artists have both caliber and appetite for acquiring knowledge in diverse realms. I think the travelogue is an inspirational text and a valuable resource that should be read by all practicing or aspiring marine biologists.  It is a must read for anyone who really cares about the writing of Steinbeck, and I dare say, for all scientifically-minded people.

Book Review: Jospeh Anton by Salman Rushdie

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie is a memoir of his alias-being, a shadow-identity that allowed the author to exist in spite of threats, insults, stress and the fatwa that followed the publication of The Satanic Verses. Shadows are two-dimensional, and their form, size and intensity changes as a day progresses. Shadows are visible only when light is blocked. For years Salman Rushdie lead the life of Joseph Anton, a shadow, haunted by justified fears for his life and the life for his loved ones. The memoir revisits the psychological, social, political, personal, national, international, literary and imaginary landscapes Salman Rushdie inhabited for nearly twelve years. The name Joseph Anton, we learn, was forged by combining the names of two of Salman's favorite authors: Joesph (Conrad) and Anton (Chekov).

For readers like me acquainted with nearly every book and essay Salman has written as a novelist and an essayist, the memoir provides a rare voyeuristic perspective into the workings of a fascinating author. The conception of each novel and essay, especially the ones he wrote during his years spend in hiding, involve stories made poignant and almost tragic-comic in the retelling by the protagonist. We learn about many other authors, their eccentricities and foibles, and the behavioral and political choices authors, politicians and the majority among us make when faced with a death sentence hanging over the head of a writer, thinker, intellectual like Salman Rushdie.

Is it possible to write an autobiographical text without appearing self-obsessed and self-congratulatory? Maybe, maybe not. Let me pick three autobiographical texts from Indian sub-continent to compare with Joseph Anton: Mahatma Gandhi's My Experiments with Truth, Harivansh Rai Bachchan's autobiography in four parts and Baburnama. Gandhiji text provides a glimpse into the development of a leader whose impact on humankind has given this text a stature beyond its literary worth. History will note that his ideas and writing influenced the course of the Indian freedom struggle and served as inspiration to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr as well as countless leaders and commoners in Africa, Asia and Americas. Baburnama, which is supposedly the first autobiographical text by a Muslim author, provides an exceptional account of the life and rise of Babur from a small chieftain in and around Samarkand and Kabul to the founder of the Mughal Empire in India. The richness of the text is perhaps in its catalog of defeats and victories, families and feuds, customs and comments, wines and fruits and landscape and lifestyle of a bygone era, but the longevity of text rests primarily on the exploits of an emperor.

In contrast, Bachchan's autobiography is perhaps the only one that is both a literary masterpiece and a personal testimony, and at both levels it is full of otherwise inaccessible perspective about the author, his life & work, and his world. Rushdie's Joseph Anton succeeds like Babur's and Gandhiji's text do, as notes that will be remembered primarily in contexts of other deeds and words enacted off the page. Unlike Bachchan's autobiography, where the author explores his own weaknesses and incongruities, along with those of his friends and family, Rushdie's writing is aimed at setting a record straight about the impact of fatwa on his being and writing. In Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie shows (not tells) how his personal life was altered completely, irreversibly and how the writer came to terms with a relentless barrage of opinions and counter-opinions that considered him a trouble-maker rather than a victim. Though the larger issues about artistic values, freedom of speech, religious fundamentalism, political ambivalence, national security, terrorism and exile are all integral to the narrative of Joseph Anton, the personal struggle of Salman Rushdie is too distant from the experiences of even his most ardent readers, giving it a flavor of "unmagical unrealism", if such a phrase can be used to describe Joseph Anton. They who condemn him for writing The Satanic Verses believe he  launched himself into an orbit of nearly no return by writing what they consider blasphemous book, and unfortunately, the people who condemned him earlier would neither show empathy towards the author nor compunction for their behavior after reading Joseph Anton, if they ever read Joseph Anton.

By writing Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie reinforces his demand on all intellectuals, liberal and otherwise, to take a stand against the practice of silencing voices, banishing authors and burning books. Salman's own survival we learn here has been made possible by the efforts of multiple governments, efficient and nameless security officers & guards, staunch friends and a great deal of expenditure. Attacks on ideas and writers have continued nearly unabated in our times. Unfortunately, even after so many authors have been sacrificed at the altar of literature and truth, most of us continue to bide time in silence. Jospeh Anton is a strong and a soul-stirring reminder of how even the most advanced and liberal nations (and citizens) can be held hostage by a small group with strong opinions or by the threat of religion-related or sometimes superstition-related violence. 

Though we must feel free to disagree with writers like Salman on many issues and take time to criticize their words or choices, we owe it to the humanity to provide safe passage to all ideas and ideologues. Even though it is convenient to believe that the callous and shallow ideas, harmful and deceitful writings and the power or influence of dishonest and vicious writers/politicians will disappear in time, it is only through free speech and active engagement with all facets of an argument that we can turn tables sooner rather than later. Read Joseph Anton and see how many spark plugs in your mind are set ringing by Salman Rushdie, who I love to call a blasphemous apostle. If you haven't read him already before, to really appreciate the extraordinary skill, wit and intellect of Salman Rushdie the writer, pick Midnight's Children or Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for these will be valuable reads even a thousand years from now.

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (translated by Royall Tyler, Penguin Classics)

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, in an impressive translation by Royall Tyler, is a classic of world literature. The tale from eleventh century Japan recreates (in over eleven hundred pages) a time and a region long lost, distant from memory and everyday life, and yet full of timeless and contemporary human passions and feelings. Before talking about the tale itself, we must commend the translator for imbibing prose and poetry within text with a clarity and a fluidity rare in translations. The elegant, lucid and engaging English translation provides ample footnotes to guide readers unfamiliar with names, places, idioms, customs, laws, culture and court life of the eleventh century Japan.  While reading a massive novel from another language, written in another century, we always worry about how much is left untranslated or is not communicated at all. Most translations from Indian languages into English give me a massive heartburn. Here the original is far beyond my reach, and I admire the quality of both the text and translation. Maybe I know it is best to gain what I can by reading the translation, than not read it at all. Perhaps the whole process of reading The Tale of Genji for me resembles a typical passionate communication between a suitor and a beloved described over and over again in the book. Two bodies sit separated by many blinds and customs; the conversation is carried on through calligraphed messages and through intermediaries. When one puts his or her heart into it, this conversation, however indirect, provides relief, knowledge, insight, understanding, pleasure and peace, exactly as The Tale of Genji manages to do for me, possibly for any reader.

The Tale of Genjii is a magnificent work of art, full of romances and songs, music and poetry, and yin and yang. It is a highly readable saga of princes and commoners who rise in regard and rank through their own actions and through influence of whoever holds them dear. The talks and deeds related to renunciation of the world and Buddhist penances are interspersed with a narrative where characters display a strong attachment to the world stemming from their family ties & cares and beloveds. Genji, called the Shining Prince for his exceptional beauty and charm, is a son of the emperor. His life is the centerpiece of the tale, and the narrative is primarily built around his trials and triumphs in politics, love and religion. The list of romances described in the book runs long, and on every page, appears a phrase or a verse, often a line or a couplet, mostly inspired by some famous poem seemingly known to one and all, written as part of banter between lovers, or as complaint or praise by suitors. Several different string instruments (biwa, kin, etc) and flute are held in great regard, and exceptional musical ability is admired and encourages in princes, women and nobles. Painting, dance, calligraphy, poetry and dress-making are all integral to the tale. There are no wars, no duels, there is almost no blood-shed, and there are no peasants, few commoners, no armies. The Tale of Genji has many memorable, moving and majestic sentences and passages on or about: the vagaries of weather, the charms & effects of changing seasons, festivals full of regal splendor, pilgrimages, impromptu or planned concerts and performances, monks and monasteries, births and deaths, dresses and fragrances, gifts and messages, the meanings and resonances of symbols like cherry blossoms, pine trees, acorn, bridges, rivers, mountains and wisteria leaves, admiration for Chinese tales and dresses, silks, and so on.

Some of the most striking things in The Tale of Genji for me are about the role of women in family and society. Women are secluded and hardly meet any men, they are seen only by their lovers (ideally their husbands), while the princes and the nobles grab every chance to go after anyone they get even a faint whiff or glimpse of. Often a prince appears in the bed of a woman without warning, (usually with the help from trusted associates/ helpers/ nurses of the woman) and by returning back on the next two nights, makes the chosen (fortunate or unfortunate) woman his bride. Finding good husbands for daughters is a big concern for fathers, and the progress in rank at court requires strong support of a wife's family. There are a few positions at court available only to women, and multiple wives who surround the powerful princes vie for his attention. Perhaps I note how women lived behind blinds and curtains, away from eyes of any men, including their close relatives, as it is often assumed that such practices exist or existed only in the Near-Eastern, South Asian or in the Middle-Eastern cultures. Also by reading the tale you discover how committed the Japanese men were (maybe still are) to the so-called gallantry. The men go shooting-off love poems to anyone they take a fancy to, including wives of others (including close relations), and when courtship fails, they sometimes end up taking them by force. Given how men behave, the need to seclude and protect the women seems to be justified.  A lot of action in the novel happens at night, behind closed doors, in forbidden chambers, and the author often leaves off a description by saying the details did not reach her, or the details or verses spoken were trite enough to be left out. Such remarks however never break the narrative. Another striking thing in The Tale of Genji is the mention of spirits who take hold of other peoples bodies (minds), afflicting them, and how Buddhists priests drive such spirits out with prayer and chants, after making them to confess their whims. I grew up seeing such things in the Himalayan villages and towns, and a mention of every appellation and rites like that in the book drew my attention.

In the world literature written between eighth to fourteenth century AD, a few other exceptional books come to my mind. The Conference of Birds by Attar is a Persian classic, a sufi composition, full of fables and instruction, is very inspirational and to my eyes, it is also sensational in how sexuality is described therein. Geet-Govinda by Jayadeva in Sanskrit is probably the most important text among many that are counted in Radha-Krishan romance, Krishan-bhakti or God-as-a-beloved tradition. Decameron by Boccaccio in Italian has a string of tales, and some are quite risque, and yet many have moral connotations as well. After reading The Tale of Genji, and thinking about all the classic medieval texts I have read, I conclude that though our ancestors were quite given to romance, there was always a stream of spiritual aspirations within them. Perhaps we have become more hypocritical and prudish than our ancestors when it comes to sexuality, and at the same time, we have become more withdrawn from religion and spirituality. The classics mentioned here, along with TThe Tale of Genji in respective cultures have influence every writer and poet who came after them, and thus these continue to influence the corpus of human thought, feeling, morality and memory.

The Tale of Genji, like War of Peace, Mahabharata, Shahnameh or Odyssey, is endless and immortal. Murasaki paints a masterpiece with a wide canvass that continues the stories through multiple generations, including hundreds of characters, developed quite remarkably within this story, portrayed with beauty and grace. The author named Genji's most beloved Murasaki. Though Genji and Murasaki attract our deepest interest and sympathies, the book is like a garden with many characters, each prone to seasonal changes in favor and form, and though all trees have their own stories of spring blossoms and autumn leaves, and  snow or rain drops or dew, the narrative binds them together quite nicely. Murasaki seemed to have written the tale with a lot of empathy for human condition. To love who must not be loved, to carry guilt of yielding to a forbidden desire, to raise another's child as your own, to love a lookalike sister or a cousin in lieu of the lost or dead beloved, to leave safety of palace and guards and go out on escapades that can destroy reputations, to steal your best friend's love interest, to become a monk and yet keep worrying about renounced relations, or to haunt your beloved after your death: there are many dark shades to the characters and their thoughts and actions in this tale. The characters often talk of cherry & plum blossoms, of fleeting life, of nature of beauty and romance, of poetry and skill, of music, and wile reading The Tale of Genji the reader begins to respond to the thoughts and words of the ancient world. Reading The Tale of Genji then becomes an experience rich in mixed emotions, of tenderness, joy, sympathy, melancholy, sorrow, nostalgia and enchantment. Wonderful and overwhelming tale, highly recommended!

Nacropolis by Jeet Thayil

Nacropolis by Jeet Thayil is an opiate, a page-turner, a hookah-smoke-filled exploration of Bombay through adventures in grotesque and conversations of the underbelly. The metropolis is presented as the beloved city of drug- and dream- addicts. Jeet recreates Nacropolis from a realm of nostalgia often neglected by the middle-class moralists, censored by the self-righteous white-collared archivists and invariably ignored by the anglicized writers whose familiarity with Indian multitudes on streets matches the know-how acquired by weekend foreign tourists. In Nacropolis, each page is like a new puff, each puff leads to a new insight or cough or nightmare or hiccup. In the backdrop of storytelling by sedated characters, unfold the inescapable, newsworthy events of the nineteen seventies and eighties (including riots, movies, politicians, cricket). Each event pushes the protagonists from one level of addiction to another, for it is the cocktail of politics, economics, society & religion that provides kicks sterner than any dope can deliver. This portrait of the dark-alleys on Bombay, written with a lyricism and condensation of a poet, is a brew too strong for average readers, addicted to a Bollywood reality, televised farces and to endless narratives penned by a cult of schooled writers who view the real world through tinted glasses of their high-rise, high-minded lifestyles.

Nacropolis by Jeet Thayil struts its hijra hero/heroine through smoke-filled corridors resonant with echoes of paid-sex and free-style storytelling. After Khushwant Singh's Bhagmati in his novel 'Delhi', Jeet gives Bombay her own Dimple to rule the land of hukkah and blah. Like G. V. Desani and Rushdie, Jeet offers a fantastical recreation of Indian kitsch and kaleidoscopic reality. Jeet takes a wide-lens exposure of the hitherto unlettered realms of the city, zooms into the folds of flesh that present their share of secrets and sin, fantasy and filth, joy and depravity. Though written with an intoxicating sincerity, certain passages do reach out beyond the seams of reality and fantasy; maybe that is to be expected while reading the ramblings of a feverish cast. To those who believe that chauvinistic regionalism and choice religion can be stamped onto the 'Mumbai'-dwellers, Nacropolis presents a needle-prick protest by invoking transnational deities and homegrown demons that exist and persist in the city streets.

In Nacropolis, the cast of memorable characters include a Mr Lee who escaped from China when it turned communist (and he provides a heady portrait of his nation in transition), Rashidbhai, a drugdealer whose life and business are transformed first by Dimple and later by the emergence of heroin, Rumi who is full of violence, vapor and jazz (and is a US-returned Brahmin unhappily married to a Jain), choicest hippies & junkies, and a Bengali who delights in literature and opium. By reaching back to the twenty years Jeet spent chasing opium and oblivion in his beloved Bombay, he has retrieved an ode and created an elegy to a lost world of addictions and aspirations. Like any great work of fiction, Nacropolis combines wordplay, narration, imagination, tone, music and wistfulness, to create a masterpiece that will force readers to reassess their own experiences of, and perspectives about, their cities, histories, addictions, acquaintances and memories. 

First appeared in Reading Hour, Fall 2012

Fireflies, Honey, and Silk by Gilbert Waldbauer

Fireflies, Honey, and Silk by Gilbert Waldbauer is an entertaining and engrossing description of how insects have forever been of the utmost importance for human survival and progress. Ink, wax, honey, fibers, certain foods and medicines, colorants, music and jewelry are a few products that insects have provided us over the past fifty centuries or more. The author describes myriad ways in which we have used insects and products derived from their habitats. For example, honeycomb of a bee supplies both beeswax and honey. The gall made by wasps has forever been an ingredient of inks. Cocoons of silkworms have given us clothes that many poets have written about, many beauties have craved for.

Be it Indians of Americas or Asia, the natives of Africa or Australia, Chinese or Mayans, tribes -- ancient or contemporary --, all have depended upon insects for countless products. In nature too, most of the flowering plants need insects for pollination, and hence survival of their species and most ecosystems. The book provides a delightful journey into the historical, economic and cultural influences and transitions that have guided the rearing of silkworms for obtaining expensive clothing (successfully in China, less so in US), cochineals for scarlet red dye (big profits were made by the Spanish at the cost of South Americans), crickets for producing music (in China and Japan), bees for wax and honey (everywhere on earth), fireflies and jewel beetles as decorations (in India and South East Asia), termite chutney (in Africa), honeydew from ants (in Americas) and maggots of blow flies for cleaning festering wounds (sometimes works better than all antibiotics). The author writes with an enthusiasm and erudition that comes after a lifelong passionate pursuit of topics in etymology. The author writes with an inimitable joy and clarity that every every science writer must adopt and emulate, and if we do so, I am sure more readers will flock to the scientific literature.

Read and own this treasure trove for its fascinating chapters, informative illustrations, rich mixture of folklore, myths and current science, quotes from many texts, times and authors (yes, Pliny makes an appearance as does Mark Twain) and highly quotable information (be it sex habits of beetles, synchronous flashing of fireflies in South-East Asia, profits made in rearing bees, inventions and discoveries including paper making and degradable sutures attributed to watching insects). Highly recommended reading for everyone remotely interested in the world around us and in the science and study of insects.

Book Review: The Agricola and The Germania by Tacitus

The Agricola and The Germania are two accounts of first century Britain and Germany respectively left to us by Tacitus. He was a Roman career diplomat/senator turned author who wrote about these territories with a lively, timeless wit. Though the author was selective in his choice of subjects he described, the prose has a particular charm because of its historical insight and its narrative style. My favorite sentences are the ones that sound like a pronouncement of senator, those comments that ring true even now, but were set down in writing with such force by the author. Here is an example from the second page: "We have indeed set up a record of subservience. Rome of old explored the utmost limits of freedom; we have plumbed the depths of slavery, robbed as we are by informers even of the right to exchange ideas in conversation. We should have lost our memories as well as our tongues had it been so easy to forget as to be silent."

Agricola was a Roman general and the father-in-law of Tacitus. In writing this book as a eulogy, the author manages to create many quotable lines, that shed light on Roman society and military. "I remember how he would often tell us that in his early youth he was tempted to drink deeper of philosophy than was allowed for a Roman and a future senator, but that his mother, in her wisdom, damped the fire of his passion... In time, age and discretion cooled his ardor; and he always remembered the hardest lesson that philosophy teaches -- the sense of proportion." Agricola found his initial fame in military exploits in Britain and Tacitus tells us: "...his spirit was possessed by a passion for military glory -- a thankless passion in an age in which a sinister construction was put upon distinction and a great reputation was as dangerous as a bad one."

Tacitus describes the geography and anthropolgy of Britain (accuracy is not his strong point): "Britain is the largest of the islands known to us Romans... These remotest shores (the northern shores) were now circumnavigated, for the first time, by a Roman fleet, which thus established the fact that Britain was an island." In another place he writes: "Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, is open to question: one must remember we are dealing with Barbarians. But their physical characteristics vary, and the variation is suggestive." Centuries later, the British authors wrote similar sentences about America, Africa, Asia probably without realizing a resonance with their ancient cousins! Also, Tacitus compares their language, customs and religions with Gauls and concludes: "In both countries you find the same ritual and religious beliefs. There is no great difference in language, and there is the same hardihood in challenging danger, the same cowardice in shirking it when it comes close. But the Britons show more spirit: they have not yet been enervated by protracted peace. History tells us that the Gauls too had their hour of military glory:.." The twentieth century jingoists mined Tacitus for such lines and used it to promote nationalism in Britain and Germany among others (Germania as several such quotes about Germany). Back in the day, the English weather was no better than it is now. Also Tacitus tells us how British often lost wars because of their inability to cooperate with each other; we all know how "divide and rule" was a policy Britain later used to spread its territorial control. Also we hear of rebellion once led by Boudicca, "a lady of royal descent - for Britons make no distinction of sex in their appointment of commanders." 

Tacitus provides delightful examples of  scientific (or non-scientific) beliefs of Romans in the first century. Here is an example from the book : "But report has it that this sea is sluggish and heavy to the oar, and even in a high wind does not rise as other seas do. The reason, I suppose, is that the lands and mountains, which produce and sustain storms, are further apart here, and the deep mass of an unbroken expanse of sea is more slowly set in motion. To investigate the nature of Ocean and its tides lies outside my subject and the matter as often been discussed."

Tacitus details steps taken by Agricola to enslave the minds and habits of British chieftains and their sons. Similar methods were often employed by the colonial powers. These included preference for "Latin language", "togas were everywhere to be seen", "And the population was led to demoralizing temptations of arcades, baths and sumptuous banquets. The unsuspecting Britons spoke of such novelties as 'civilization', when in fact they were only features of their enslavement." In our world, many features of this enslavement remain (or appear at every opportunity), and twentieth century shows, in countries like India, we continue to fall prey to methods Agricola demonstrated twenty centuries ago.

In Germania, the opening passages describe Germans as "indigenous" with "very little foreign blood", who "have never contaminated themselves by intermarriage with foreigners but remain of pure blood, distinct and unlike any other nation" a belief used centuries later to promote genocide and segregation. Of course, Tacitus cannot be blamed for what his writing was used for centuries later. Tacitus tells us that name Germani was used by a tribe that fought Gauls by crossing Rhine and later the name became associated with the whole group of people in that nation.

The lines that would intrigue anyone familiar with ancient Indian mythology (or history based on Hindu oral & written tradition) follow on the second page of Germania. "In the traditional songs which form their only record of the past the Germans celebrate an earth-born god called Tuisto. His son Mannus is supposed to be fountainhead of their race and himself t have begotten three sons who gave their names to three groups of tribes -- the Ingaevones, nearest to the sea; the Herminones, in the interior; and the Istaevones, who comprise all the rest. Some authorities, with the freedom of conjecture permitted by ancient antiquity, assert that Tuisto had numerous descendants and  mention more tribal groups as Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi and Vandilii -- names which they affirm to be both genuine and ancient." In Hindu mythology, Manu was the fountainhead, the word Man is derived from the same word root as Manu. Manu had many sons, Ikshvaku probably was the most famous one. Rig Veda mentions Tvastr or Tvastar as the progenitor is the universe, and again the similarity with Tuisto has been commented on by many before me. 

In Germania too, Tacitus creates a narrative on various aspects of warfare, society, industry, agriculture and family life, all of which are engaging and worth-reading. I will mention a few select sentences/ phrases here. On women: "... they believe that there resides in women an element of holiness and a gift of prophecy; and so they do no scorn to ask their advice, or lightly discard their replies." On religion: "...count it no sin, on certain feast days, to include human victims in the sacrifices offered..." On clothes: "The universal dress in Germany is a cloak fastened with a brooch, or failing that, a thorn. They pass their whole days by fireside wearing no garments but this. It is a mark of great wealth to wear undergarments..." On family life (where Tacitus moralizes thinking of the Roman counterparts): "They are almost unique among barbarians in being content with one wife apiece..." "dowry is brought by husband to wife"... "Clandestine love letters are unknown to men and women alike. Adultery is very rare..." On economics: "The employment of capital in order to increase it by usury is unknown in Germany; and ignorance here is a surer defence than any prohibition". The present world has made usury possible, though history and theology is full of arguments against it, and I guess Tacitus marvels at the lack of practice in Germany as it was widely practiced among the Romans. Germania by Tacitus details many tribes that live north or east to the Germany. Again the historical perspective offered on these tribes gives a flavor of customs, corruptions, myths, languages, and classes that existed among the Europeans in the first century. 

Reading ancient books provides a sobering realization of the limitations of man's vision and understanding, and also a hope that immortality can be achieved in and through the written word. What we know and recall from human past was handed down to us in words scribed by individuals like us. Technology changes, intrigues and instincts don't; we are not too different from our forefathers in the way we love, fight, dress, marry and pray, but we have changed our symbols, and call the old ideas by a different name. Writers like Tacitus allow readers to recreate in their imagination a version of a lost world, experience a nostalgia for a time that exists only in unconscious memory stamped either into our language or into the biochemical concoctions within our brains and bodies. To experience that nostalgia, to appreciate the connection between colonialists of every era, and to contrast humans belonging to different coordinates in space and time, read "The Agricola and The Germania" by Tacitus.

**

Based on translation by H. Mattingly, published as Penguin Classics.

Read on a road trip to Newport, Rhode Island in May 2011.

Poems of Nazim Hikmet

Poems of Nazim Hikmet (translated from Turkish by Randy Blasing and Multu Konuk, 2nd edition, Persea Books / New York)

Poets like Nazim Hikmet have a deep understanding of human feelings, failings, optimism, dreams, desires and contradictions. Poets like Nazim Hikmet know their words can rend a heart as easily as they can mend a heart. Poets like Nazim Hikmet appear rarely on earth, and when they do, their songs conjoin the undying spirit of humanity as eternal echoes of their rhymes and times. A collection of hundred poems appears in a translation here and for readers like me who must rely solely on translation, the poems present flavors, sights and a sensibility that fill our hearts with a mixture of sorrow, serenity, loss and hope. The ability to create hope in a reader or a feeling of serenity is indeed a testament to the power, generosity and depth of the poet for he manages to do so, even though he spent thirteen years of his life in jail and thirteen more in exile. Only great souls can bring out humane words after living through hardships and bitterness, and bunch them into words as melodious as of Hikmet.

His biography can be deciphered by reading some of his own poems. He wrote (It's This Way): "It's this way: / being captured is beside the point, / the point is not to surrender." In a Rubaiyat, he said: "Between us just a difference of degree -- / that's how it is my canary: / you an unthinking bird, with wings, / and me with hands, a man who thinks..." and in another rubaiyat he wrote: "Me, one man, the Turkish poet / Nazim Hikmet / I'm faith from head to toe --/ from head to toe, struggle and hope ..." and of course, the best rubaiyat: "I don't mean to boast, but I've shot / through ten years of bondage like a bullet. / And putting aside the pain in my liver, / my heart's the same heart, my head still the same head..." In another place, he writes (Angina Pectroris): "I look at the night through the bars, / and despite the weight on my chest / my heart still beats with the most distant stars."

The poems in this collection are arranged chronologically. The poems written before 1945 or so (first third of the book) are perhaps not as moving or as potent as the poems in the remaining two-third of the book. In Hikmet's case, one can see the sapling young bard turns into a banyan-like mature poet after weathering a succession of historical storms, personal winters and amorous torrents of springs. Hikmet poems talk about melons and pomegranate seeds, Istanbul and Bosphorus, Berlin and Moscow, Marxism and solitary confinement, son and wife he cannot meet as he lives in exile, wife waiting at home while he sits in prison day after day keeping himself alive with songs. When Hikmet talks about freedom or blue skies or hope or hunger and cold felt by his people or death without meeting his beloved or change or love, when he talks of the same cliches at we all poets are moved by and use in our verses, the wordplay is an incidental embellishment to a deeper song of the human spirit he symbolizes within the poems and we aspire to, as readers. Hikmet uses as his source a stream of experiences and feelings which uncommon as they are, provide him with a connection with universal, and sip after sip from his every poem (especially later poems) brings to us through sounds and translated sense a recognition of what lies outside the cage of our own personal limitations or sensibilities. 

I can provide only glimpses from his repertoire. He wrote (Separation): "finer than silk thread sharper than a sword / separation is a bridge between us / even when we sit knee to knee" in a series of poems written in 1945, when he was in prison, he writes:"Today, not broken and sad -- / no way! -- / today Nazim Hikmet's woman must be beautiful/ like a rebel flag..." Or a Rubaiyat: "My love's image in the mirror had its say: / 'She's not real -- I am,' it said to me one day. / I struck, the mirror broke, her image disappeared / but, thank goodness, my love stayed in her place..." We can say he passed a comment on the strength of his will, that kept his quill overflowing with love for humanity and Turkey when we said (From Sofia): "Exile is not an easy art to master..."

Maybe Hikmet was in solitary confinement or in prison or lived as an exile for years, but his poems are usually set where his heart truly is: either outside the confining walls, back in the streets where his imagination walks uninhibited and unrecognized. Indeed most of us being prisoners of our ambition, exiles made so by our own desires, can identify with a poet whose personal life itself becomes a metaphor for so many feelings that are suppressed or strengthened by our own deeds, thoughts and desires. Hikmet seeks neither pity nor praise, neither power nor reverence, tries to be no martyr or reformer, but his every poems seeks for people love, joy, peace, liberty, justice and above all empathy. In his lifetime he says in his poems he touched the two extremes of poverty and riches, insults and solitary confinement as well as international travel and recognition, hunger for a simple morsel as well as the flavors of choicest delicacies. He also died as a poet whose poems were translated into forty languages, whose books in translation were found in shelves in many countries and yet they were banned in his own country. In a poem (You're) he said:

"You're

You're my bondage and my freedom,

my flesh burning like a naked summer night,

you're my country.

Hazel eyes marbled green,

you're awesome, beautiful and brave,

you're my desire always just out of reach."

The opposites, the contradictions meet in Hikmet like parallel rays of light meet at in a distant star. His skill as a poet and his life as a person, have made him into one of the brightest stars of Turkish and twentieth century world literature. He will forever be a guiding light for many people across the globe. Like Darwish of Palestine, Hikmet never surrenders his faith in humanity, and indeed after reading this collection by him my feel that as long as poets like him continue to arrive to sing, we can hope for and progress towards a better and just world. His poems (the lines quoted below are from 'Message') will continue to speak to us, for now and forever:

"My fellow

       patients,

             you'll get well.

The aches and pains will cease.

Ease will come

       softly, like a warm summer evening

       descending from heavy green branches."

Book Review: Chef by Jaspreet Singh

Chef by Jaspreet Singh is a lyrical novel, set in 1990s, expressed through the landscape of memory of Kirpal Singh or Kip. The shortened hip name Kip is a name he acquires after joining as an assistant to a chef in the army general's house in Kashmir. The body of Kip's father lies somewhere in the Siachin glacier, which Kip eventually visits at a crucial juncture in the story. When Kip first arrives in Kashmir, the memory of his father who was a decorated soldier/ officer in the army invades his conversations and interactions with armymen around him. The Sikh recruit, Kip, learns to cook local, national and international dishes from Kishen, who had trained in various embassies in Delhi to acquire the skill to blend flavors and prepare delicacies. The mentor Kishen, also a Sikh, extends his scope far beyond culinary arts, for he provokes Kip to think about women, about Muslims in Kashmir, about battlefields where soldiers like Kip's father die each day while "civilians" go on living unperturbed by the bloody reality at the troubled border between India and Pakistan. While Kip is the main character and the narrative emerges from his memory, it is Kishen who makes the eyeballs of a reader throb with emotion of every kind.

The army general has a motherless daughter who grows up in the shadows of the house, while the father is busy administrating Kashmir. While their personal fates are important elements of the novel, for Kip one presents his boss, the other who grows into a poetess, a foster daughter. Kashmir was once central to Hindu imagination, for many celebrated scholars emerged from Kashmiri Pandits, and in the last twenty years, (and a few hundred years leading to it), the Pandits and other Hindus were driven out from the peaceful land of their ancestors. In the new Kashmir, remain only the army and the Muslims. The Muslims who are half-unhappy with the military-dominated presence of the rest of India, are half-sympathetic to cause of freedom expressed by their leaders or youth for various selfish or selfless reasons, are perhaps half-motivated by propaganda from across the border, half-raged by the apathy from the rest of India, are being stifled by conflict, dwarfed by the unreasonable expectations of two nations. In this land of contradictions and conflict, Kip cooks curries with a military precision and churns dish after dish using Kishen's recipes. While the kitchen keeps him occupied for most of the time, it is his trips outside the kitchen that take the story forward.

Kip learns Kashmiri, and is called upon to talk to a infiltrator, a Muslim woman from across the border who ends up in India, washed to the shore of a river after her failed suicide. Till her emergence, Kip stayed secure in his anger and hatred for the enemy. But now a frail woman was the enemy, and her emergence upset his preconceived notions. In a jarring, haunting narrative, that one experiences while reading rest of the novel, (but cannot capture in a review of the novel), Jaspreet Singh creates a compelling masterpiece where love, scars, disillusion, hope, loss and compassion compete for space on every page. Sadness settles on a reader as the story unfolds, but the lyrical writing and an attachment to Kip's memory and fate, carries the reader into a somber night, not restless, not restful, just somber.

A good debut, a good read...

The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner

The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner presents ideas of Adam Smith, Parson Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter, among others, with clarity and brevity. The book educates you about the historical development of the subject of economics with a very readable, quotable and imitable prose. Heilbroner takes the readers on a remarkable journey from the islands of unformed ideas to an understanding of economic realities of preceding generations. Once the knowledge of relevant forms and forces underlying different societies is shown together with methods of production, consumption and taxation; the seeker is introduced to various modes of thinking about profit, loss, welfare, capital, labor, supply, demand, stock and imperialism. 

The greatest thinkers (limited to Western/economic thinkers of the last three centuries) were people of flesh and blood, and in general most scientific (/and economic) texts ignore the persona behind the idea, principle or axiom. Every philosopher who has contributed to the unraveling of the mystery cult of market where profit is a virtue is revisited and celebrated as a prophet in The Worldly Philosophers. Prophets, not soothsayers, bring insight into existing situations/problems by providing perspectives that are either not available before them or are not pronounced with the same authority or clarity. Yet not all philosophers are ready for the realities of the world, just as not all the societies are mature or conducive for arrival and survival of their philosophers. The last ones are nevertheless worth being aware of, and the book introduces a remarkable cast of such characters as well. 

Reading the book makes one realize that a few fundamental questions remain unanswered in the field of economics: What is good and bad (in terms of choices, decisions, profit: personal vs labor force vs society? Where does the profit arise from: is it always causing injury to someone somewhere? Are market forces ever seeking profits for a marginal few? Can capitalism survive the contradictions brought about by rational or irrational self-interest versus welfare of humanity or society? Does capitalism always lead to imperialism, the nineteenth century version or the new one where multinational companies play a similar role? Is the customer always the king or is it only a ploy to rob the customer of his rightful profits? Can socialism exist unless many of the economic problems are first solved so that there is enough labor and enough work and enough food in the system? Will technocrats take over the world one day (or should they)? Does a perfect economic system exist only as a utopia? 

The book emphasizes how the current economic system is in fact only a century or so old, and is ever evolving, increasing in complexity, and when it comes to the distribution of wealth, the present times are no different in the West than were the days of the mediaeval Europe. We are forced to examine our notions of progress, property and propriety, and we are forced to admit that we have evolved varied ways of exploitation of masses and resources for achieving gains for a select few. Yet by its very nature, such a book provides an example of why intellectuals, why philosophers, why scholars are so central to directing and controlling human activity. In the clamor for justice in distribution of wealth we sometimes forget that we humans value things differently in different times, and equality and justice require equal opportunity for receiving any reward (material or spiritual). Perhaps we need a new worldly philosopher who will inspire a mode of production and distribution that allows education and opportunity to everyone when they are growing up, care and medicine to all old people after their share of tasks are done and sensible distribution of necessities to enable humans to live with honor, dignity, honesty and health. Before such a philosopher takes the center stage, he or she will find this book as a useful guide to the lives and works of thinkers before him/her, and I am sure he/she will nod and say, reading this made damn good economic sense!

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel opens with a line "Henry's second novel, written, like his first, under a pen name had done well". The prophecy, in the terms of sales receipts and author advance, may hold true for the author of the celebrated, award winning Life of Pi. But in this review, we'll examine if this novella would enter a reader's world as "had done well" and since the author banks on our familiarity with Life of Pi, we'll like to know if both books can be placed on the same bookshelf? To read every book as a stand alone piece of work is always my attempt as a reader. The pleasure in reading multiple books from great writers lies in the possibility of entering a different world through every successive novel. The great pleasure in writing lies in chartering characters and casting scenes that live on the page irrespective of what you had created once or will create later in life. Yet in equal measure, we love books when they evoke or stir emotion and intellect through images and words. Yann Martel has skills with words, many pages reaffirm his ability in weaving pretty sentences, but as far as the story goes, Martel fails to deliver a masterpiece expected from his desk. 

Life of Pi is a delightful read, as the voyage of a boy with three animals, including a tiger, presents endless situations and scenes that surprise, scare, excite, amuse, educate us. Animals play an important part in Beatrice and Virgil as well, but the mere presence of animals in a story does not always make the allegories effective. In search for a story that would be as gripping as his former novel, Yann Martel wanders into a taxidermist's shop, and creates a feature full of stuffed animals and stinted humans. The holocaust angle in the story is perhaps the weakest plot device used by the author, for it leaves the reader dissatisfied with the whole series of events and dialogues chartered in the book. In the first chapter, the author shows the protagonist (who is an author too) grappling with the idea of writing about holocaust "in a non-literal and compact way." Later, when publishers wish to know what the book is all about, the protagonist says: "My book is about representations of the Holocaust. The event is gone; we are left with stories about it. My book is about a new choice of stories." Perhaps Martel's protagonist expresses the author's own intentions quite well, and while one cannot doubt the intentions of the novelist here, the final piece lacks the harmony and humanity he wished to capture and portray. Martel within the novel as well as as an author raises the expectations that he fails to meet! Sorry Yann, I will quote by paraphrasing from your book again: "as it stands now the novel lacks drive and unity."

The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, Edited by Jeet Thayil

The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, edited by Jeet Thayil, includes an eclectic, exciting and incredible anthology of poems by seventy-two poets from India and Indian diaspora. These voices that span the last fifty-five years includes works by all the major poets, (more familiar names) of Indian English including Nissim Ezekiel, Dom Moraes, Arun Kolatkar, Agha Shahid Ali, AK Ramanujan, Arvind Krishan Mehrotra, Adil Jussawala, Keki Daruwala, Jayanta Mahapatra, Kamla Das and R. Parthasarthy. The collection also includes many younger poets and and many upcoming voices including Vikram Seth, Jeet Thayil, Ravi Shankar, Meena Alexander, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Kazim Ali, Daljit Nagra, among others.


The voices bring forth influences and feelings excavated, collected, cultivated, imported, ingrained or extracted from a rich and varied landscape of Indian heritage, culture, philosophy, religion and echoing the daily chaos and beauty of Indian existence. Diversity in temperament and tastes, rich colors and varied textures, aroma of spices, shingle of bangles, Hindu and sufi mysticism, Kamasutra or censored sexuality, chutnified or dignified English, free verse and sonnets, and a grand tour of modern and ancient world is served in this collection. Voices that are of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, Indians, Americans, Britishers, and World citizens versify such that each poem both represents the local, particular idioms, icons and ideas and transcends these in creating literature that is human, universal, eternal.


Adil Jussawalla, perhaps speaks for every Indian writer, who spend his lifetime pursuing poetry in a country, where there is little reward for bards writing in this 'phoren' language, and whose English poets, are yet to be welcomed in international circuits, where a bad translation from another language gets more audience, than original writing in English from a poet born in India/non-Western countries:
"Bright sparks /
 on the international back-slapping circuit /
 are picking up prizes like static. //
 He's for the dark."
 
Arundhati Subramaniam, in a poem titled "To the Welsh Critic Who Doesn't Find Me Identifiably Indian" provides a succinct portrayal of both Western prejudice about who they consider is Indian and what is not, and the frustration of an Indian writer seeking to speak in this language about his or her complex existence that is not bound by what textbook definition proclaims to be his or her territory or ideology. The anthology also includes essays by Jeet Thayil, Bruce King and Arvind Krishan Melhotra. These essays provide insight into the life and work of few of the famous poets as well as the state of/ regard for English poetry writing in India. Similarly there are poetic tributes to the likes of Nissim Ezekiel and Agha Shahid Ali by poets touched and transformed by their work, and other poems that stake claim on English as language of expression, exile, migration, longing, learning and spirituality.


"Considerthefemalebodyyourmost /
 Basictextanddontforgetitsslokas"
suggests Rukmini Bhaya Nair, whereas

"You are no plagiarist of dusk. /
 Nothing in the sky equals itself."
writes Kazim Ali. At once, homage to a thirty century old tradition of Sanskrit verse form, shalokas, is made and in another poem, the limitlessness of possibilities is hinted at. The collection contains a large number of quotable lines, and startling sentences, each embedded in nicely sculpted lines and word images. Moreover, the collection includes works by poets who deserve way more attention than we have given them. Not many of us know of the poems by G. S. Sharat Chandra, who was once nominated for Pulitzer Prize. He writes:
'My good shoe has run away /
 with the tacks /
 of its slutty twin.'

Similarly Agha Shahid Ali is quite unknown in India. He, like G. S. Sharat Chandra has a prize named after him (by University of Utah). Shahid was a Kashmiri-American poet, best known for his Ghazals in English. He was devoted to the cause, and taught many Americans that this form of verse is not merely about rhyming couplets, but about rendering a lament that stretches the personal grief, till it becomes an umbrella over everyone who reads the poems.The collection does not contain any of his Ghazals, but his accessibility and depth is reflected in these lines I often quote from 'Stationery',
"The world is full of paper. /
 Write to me."


Works by Mamta Kalia, Leela Gandhi, Eunice de Souza, Kamla Das and others have an edge to them, a revolt against the Kaushalya-Sita-Sati-Savitri (ideal mother/housewife) image of Indian women, a celebration of contemporary movements in celebration of right and freedom of women. Eunice de Souza has lines like:
"'O Universal Lover /
 in a state of perpetual erection! /
 Let me too enter into /
 communion with the world /
 through thee.' "

and others like:
'It pays to be a poet. /
You don't have to pay prostitutes.'

Leela says:
"Our desire wanting we tried our love /
 and found it good enough without /
 this sex thing, this hip and lip thing. /
 Let other lovers sweat and grind, /
 our love's refined, raising virtues from necessity."

In a poem titled Brat, Mamta Kalia, has a daughter say:
"You, perhaps, were hardly proud /
 Of your creativity -- /
 Except for the comfort /
 That I looked like Papa /
 And not like the neighbour /
 Who shared our bathroom."

While Vivek Narayanan celebrates the vamp from silver screen in "Three Elegies for Silk Smitha", Arun Kolatkar picks an "Ogress" from a poverty-striken street and describes her
"has always been a kind /
 of an auxiliary mother, /
 semi-official nanny //
 and baby-bather-in-chief /
 to a whole chain of children /
 born to this street".


Reading the poems included in this collection helps us arrive at answers to our own quest in poetry, as well as in life. Jayanta Mahapatra, who is another pillar of Indian writing, usually keeps irony to minimum, but in a poem titled "The Quest" he says:
"Even computers begin to understand our castes and prejudices. /
 The voluptuous figures of women in stone  /
 only wish to save our feelings of love and freedom;"

While Nagra and Ezekiel provide glimpses of Indian English, countless lines, similes, metaphors and allusions scattered throughout the book emphasize the "Indian" (in English). Indian poets writing in English have had a few guiding lights in the subcontinent. The inimitable Nissim Ezekiel as a mentor, and the tireless P. Lal (Writers Workshop , Calcutta) as a publisher are two significant pillars. The anthology is a tribute to the lifelong struggles of these and other poets. Jeet has done a commendable job in compiling biographies, digging out unpublished and published poems from known and obscure sources and highlighting how poetry defies the artificial constraints and bounds of time, space, age, location and traditions. Philip Nikolayev, the editor of Fulcrum, who inspired the project, and everyone else who contributed to its completion deserve the gratitude of every Indian (especially of the poets). Other anthologies that deserve our gratitude include collections edited and/ or translated by AK Ramanujan and R. Parthasarthy.

I highly recommend this Bloodaxe anthology for its reach and range, and for a comprehensive and erudite introduction to Indian poetry in English. It includes most of the important poets born before 1975 (or as I jokingly tell myself, all poets older than me!), and provides exemplary poems about every imaginable theme and subject that poets and readers will remember and relish in years to come. I have often returned to the poems included there, and I have learned more about Indian poetry in English language from this book than most others.  I think the anthology should on the shelf of every Indian poet, irrespective of the language they write in. I will close this review with another set of memorable lines from Ranjit Hoskote, who in a poem titled "Ghalib in the Winter of the Great Revolt" writes:
"The friend, with a spy at his shoulder, writes back: /
 When did you become a poet of adjectives /
 roosting in the rafters of a broken house? /
 Ghalib, the owl must hide in the tamarind for now, /
 but the genie of havoc will go on furlough soon. /
 You say your ink-well is empty, but your dry quill /
 still claws at the fibers of the heart."

My Thoughts after reading Delhi, A Novel by Khushwant Singh

The novel Delhi penned by Khushwant Singh is a story that spans both the grandeur and squalor of the city that it seeks to uncover through a perverse romance. A city that has witnessed at least seven rounds of complete destruction and reconstruction, Delhi, the capital of India, is a city of culture and calamity, of conceit and capability, of poets and pests, of politicians and saints. To capture the manifest and unmanifest faces of Delhi requires a canvas that delights and nauseates in equal measure. Perhaps Khushwant Singh knew of this aspect of his beloved city, when he created a bawdy, old, reprobate protagonist, in love with a hijra (enunch) whore, as the person seeking to describe his love-hate relationship with that whore and this city. While the principal narrator busies himself with unusual sexual acts with his half-man, half-woman partner Bhagmati, he also allows himself pleasures with foreign and native beauties, all leading him into another fold, another fleshy nook, to his conquests another tale. This romance fades to backdrop as the narrator discovers the legends that lurk in various streets, forts, abandoned palaces, embankments, towers, temples, mosques, gurudwaras, memorials, burial grounds and coffee houses of the city.

The greatest delight in the novel, lies in reading about Timur, Mir Taqi, Nadir Shah, Hazrat Kaki, Nizamuddin, Bahadur Shah Zafar & Moghuls, Tuglaks, Lodhis, First War of Indian Independence (or The Sepoy Mutiny), emperors, temptresses, poets, saints, Sikhs who helped British win in 1857, bodies burning on banks of Yamuna, Englishmen, builders of New Delhi, Aurangzeb, neo-converts to Islam or Sikhism, Khusrau, assassins of Indira and mobs who rioted after partition and after Indira's assassination and Mahatma Gandhi. The most captivating details of this novel tell us about these innumerable people who lend their blood, their faith, their best and worst aspirations and actions to provide that special character, mystery, mystique to Delhi. The novel is an ode by a Delhi's son to his fascination with undying and relentless, razed and raging, crazed and craving, old and ageless, brutal and brave, buried and slaved, free and frayed, remorseless and mourning, Hindu, Islamic, Sikh and in equal measure sufi and atheist soul or spirit of Delhi.

The narrative is at its best when Aurangzeb, Nadir Shah, Sikh fighter of 1857 war, Zafar, a refugee who wants to avenge deaths of his family members, or Mir Taqi Mir describe their lives and their times: for writing these pieces alone, Khushwant Singh deserves a permanent place in the literary tradition of India and the World. These characters, chosen from several generations of possibilities, speak with a honesty characteristic of Khushwant's writing: the wanton is as omnipresent as is the sacrosanct. There are many verses from major poets (including Mir and Zafar) that appear in translation. It was Mir who once said: "Dil ki basti bhi shehar dilli hai/ Jo bhi guzra usi ne loota." (Delhi alone is a city of love; all those that have passed through have looted it). While Ghalib is not mentioned outright as a narrator, his times are described quite well as he was contemporary of Zafar, and befittingly, the novel starts with an epigram from Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib: "I asked my soul: What is Delhi?/ She replied: The world is the body and Delhi its life."

For anyone who has lived in India between 1970 and now, the name Khushwant Singh brings memories of his Santa-Banta jokes and his weekly column that appears in most newspapers, with a caricature of him sitting in a light bulb. In those columns as well as here, Khushwant always succeeds in telling us a good story, occasionally writing lines that are exquisite, occasionally saying things that are offensive to many or just seem like an injustice to the caliber that this grand old man of letters definitely has. To love and discover Delhi, one must learn to ignore its smell of piss and shit (New York these days has plenty of that), ignore its hostile, acerbic reception to guests and visitors, ignore its age, bitterness, immensity and obscenity. To read Khushwant Singh, one must learn to ignore the trivia and trivial, that comes packaged with the historical and memorable writing. The notoriety of the writer, in this case, must not stop us from savoring fantastic details about Mehrauli, Hauz Khas, Nizamuddin and Red Fort, among others. For example, do you know the name of five villages that Pandavas asked for after their exile? Do you know who built Hauz Khas? Do you know who saved the British army from total annihilation in Delhi and why? In equal measure, do you know how many types of farts are there and how they must be classified? Khushwant Singh quotes many lines from Saadi, including "O Sage ! the stomach is prison house of wind,/ the sagacious contain it not in captivity,/ if the wind torment thay belly, release it, fart;/ For the wind in the stomach is like a stone on the heart." With Kushwant Singh, even fart is art!

After reading Train to Pakistan and Delhi, I have become increasingly convinced that Mr. Singh is our man for the future: he will be seen as the painter whose canvas is populated with the bylanes and backdoors that whisper realistic details about people and times, that most of his contemporary authors fail to touch or write about. He writes without bothering to explain things to non-Indians, so foreigners will need to work harder to read him, but since he writes about people, politics and religion, issues that are and will remain important to every inhabitant of Delhi, Punjab and India, his writings will redeem him in eyes of one and all. This man in the lightbulb, this lightbulb, who was born in 1915, has translated a lot of great poets from Punjabi and Urdu into English, has written about history of Sikhism and Ranjit Singh, and yes, he has also written about Sex and Scotch with unfailing enthusiasm. He has known every major Indian writer of twentieth century, and outlived most of them, to tell these tales, and when he speaks, we grandchildren can only wonder, how he knows all these details.

If India is a land of unresolved contradictions and organized chaos at work, Delhi is befitting as its capital. The soil of Delhi boasts of sweat and blood of at least twenty six centuries, starting with Indraprasta, as mentioned in Mahabharata, (though earliest archeological remains are, I believe, from the sixth century BC), to the current city that has well over twenty million inhabitants. Khushwant Singh's novel is laced with details about history and monuments of Delhi that take the reader through the familiar names and lanes, providing meaning and mannerism to rocks, stones, bricks, and ghosts from a bygone era. The dead and alive live in harmony in this city, the palaces turn to wilderness and wilderness to townships in manner of few centuries. The dominant Gods change, the language and the tongues change, the spices and kitchens invent new flavors and aromas, and all that appears or disappears, stays as a memory or as song, in dust or in verse, through arts and crafts that traveled out of that time and place. The temples were destroyed to create mosques, mosques razed to create ruins, ruins restored into housing colonies, housing colonies for refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tibet, Pandits from Kashmir. Roads raised over remains of slums, slums planted over public gardens, parks overgrown over unclaimed or reclaimed lands. In such a city, Khushwant Singh's characters receive their share of history by breathing the air that stinks of history and rage, that seduces with mango flavors and rum punches. In this history, they seek their own woes and pleasures.

A city revealed, is a personality understood: it is the relationship with Delhi, that defines the character of a Delhiwallah, the protagonist of the novel, the writer as well as the reader who wanders through a fifteen hundred square kilometer landmass with a population density of ten thousand per square kilometer. Delhi air is packed with centuries of whispers; Khushwant packs many interesting ones into this novel. Read it for Mir, read it for Zafar, Nadir Shah, Timur, Khawaja, Mahatma, and for knowing about crazed Budh Singh, who dies a crazed death at the hands of mob in 1980s. Read the novel to gaze and grapple with the treacherous, bloody, voluptuous, insatiable, inexhaustible, adventurous, amorous, pompous, powerful, poetic, prosaic, potent & impotent, passive and purgative, lurid and lucrative avatars of Delhi, of Delhiwallahs, of Indians, of ourselves.

Let me end this review by lines written by quoting a few poets. First Ghalib and Zauq, who said these verses around the same time; Ghalib: "Hai ab is maamure mein, qaht-e-gham-e-ulfat 'Asad'/Hamne maana rahen Dilli mein, par khaayenge kya?" (There is now in this town a famine of the grief of love, Asad/ We've agreed that we would remain in Delhi-- what will we eat?) & Zauq: "Kaun jaaye Zauq par, Dilli ki Galiyan chhod kar" (Who would quit the lanes of Delhi, Zauq and suffer exile?). But again, let us end with Mir, "Dil va Dilli dono agar hai kharaab/ Par kuch lutf us ujde ghar mein bhi hain" ((Both heart and Delhi may have been worn out/ But some little pleasures still remain in this ruined house).