Review: Megalopolis by Cléa Dieudonné

Megapolis is a children’s book which wouldn’t fail to fascinate a grown up. It is a picture book and its conjoined pages open up to 9 feet! It is about an alien landing in the city of Megalopolis. The elite and the press get enchanted with him, and offer him citizenship. And he visits all the places in the city, and finally meets a partner.

However, it is not in words that this book can be reviewed. It is only through sheer love of childhood and its associate memories that one can love this book.

Review: The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

The Buddha of Suburbia was published in 1990. It was contemporary then and still remains so, and will continue as such for its themes will be always relevant. It fortunately doesn’t have a so-huge-you-may-forget-soon cast of characters. It is narrated by Karim Amir, 17, the son of an Indian immigrant father Haroon, who has a revived interest in all things Zen. His mother, Margaret, is a dutiful wife and works in a shoe-shop. Karim struggles to break off from his ‘Indianness’ while racism of modern London pokes its head everywhere. Abject honesty marks Hanif’s writing: he doesn’t mince words to describe Karim’s father’s hanging anatomy while practicing yoga, Karim’s sexual affairs of youth and age, and raw emotions which rummage through the lives of people in Karim’s world.

It is sharp, witty, and brutal. There is an unseen frankness throughout. Karim wonders about his own conceiving when he sees his father in the garden on top of Eva, a friend of Haroon interested in all things, well, Zen: ‘Was I conceived like this, I wondered, in the suburban night air, to the wailing of Christmas curses from the mouth of a renegade Muslim masquerading as a Buddhist?’. After few divorces and lot of pages, when Haroon enquires about Margaret, Karim informs him there is another man in her life. Surprised by this, Haroon wonders if his decision to leave her for Eva was right. It is right then that Karim mentions: ‘He sat there trying not to mind her, but the resentment was going deep. All the same, I was surprised by him. Was it only now, after all this time, that he realized the decision to leave our mother was irrevocable? Perhaps only now could he believe it wasn’t a joke or game or experiment, that Mum wasn’t waiting at home for him with curry and chapatis in the oven and the electric blanked on’. It is the last statement which is reflective of us humans – always sure about ending relationships but the guilt, the pain gnawing at our conscience at all times. It is the last statement which is one of the many highlights of Hanif’s observant writing.

Throughout his life, Karim was confused, questioning himself and his decisions, doubting his self, and lacking confidence. However, after lot of successful theatre plays and romps, he drowns in the drama of family life when Eva and his dad announce they are getting married: ‘I could think about the past and what I’d been through as I’d struggled to locate myself and learn what the heart is. Perhaps in the future I would live more deeply. And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat the bottom of a tiny island. I was surrounded by people I loved, and I felt happy and miserable at the same time. I thought of what a mess everything had been, but that it wouldn’t always be that way’. Again, it is this last statement which is a window to the hopes of Karim, of everyone living, that the future wouldn’t always be so, that the past was an event of sadness and the future would be of elation. It is this last statement which celebrates the human belief in the changing their lives bit by bit or otherwise. However, it is this last statement which I did not expect. I expected Karim to be in the same state of mind as he was when a teenager: confused, lost, and trying to find a way out. I hoped success, in his own way, wouldn’t corrupt his mind to new possibilities. It was in his suffering that I could find company and not in his elation.

And then went over to watch the four-part TV series by the same name. With descriptions of Haroon still whirring around in my mind, I expected Saeed Jaffrey to be playing Karim’s father, but it turned out to be Roshan Seth. Though many episodes of Karim’s life have been not touched, various details missing (like how Haroon came to be in England in the first place; Jamilia’s mother’s life after passing away of Anwar), it is a befitting take on modern life, though is nearly 25 years since the modernity of those years took shape in the form of this series. sometimes what’s shocking in the book, isn’t so in the series. And what’s washed over in the series, is right there in the book, dancing away in merriment full of vivid colours. Like the experimental scene in New York with Karim and Charlie with a girl. It’s a pleasure to read it, but not so much to watch the bland enacted scenes. David Bowie was an unexpected surprise though.

Review: Degree Coffee By The Yard by Nirmala Lakshman

Short books have a way with you. They inform you, of course, but keep company only as long as needed. Not a page more, not a sentence less. And when you are done with them, they leave without any air of superiority. But even among the shorter ones, not all succeed. Degree Coffee, unfortunately, fails in that.

I picked it up, thinking it would be a chronological essay of events, but it wasn’t so. Not that the other kind doesn’t entice me, but this one turned out to way too different. This book is history, yes, but not in the traditional sense of history books. It is more about the author’s reminisces about spending childhood in Madras / Chennai. It is more about reflections about the culture, the places, the language, the drama of life. It is less about plain historical writing. It is, however, also about what the current generation likes to do in Chennai, what the famous places and cafes are, and where the cultural melting pot is.

If you want a short history book about Chennai, then this does not make the cut. If you want to know the names of movers and shakers who have been and who still are, then you may pick this up. It seemed like reading a mish mash of names and places than coherent structured reading.

Review: Amritsar to Lahore by Stephen Alter

When I went to Wagah Border, to witness the oft talked about army retreat, I was left more amused by the patriotic fervor which commoners displayed when confronted by a symbol of divisiveness: the border between India and Pakistan. It is referred to as Atari on the Indian side, and Wagah on the Pakistani side; though more commonly known as Wagah on both sides. The crowd soon became unruly and started shouting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ in loud tones, as if the border crossing would crouch in shame as a testimony of hatred and disappear in the verdant lands.

Stephen Alter traveled to Pakistan from India via the Wagah in 1997, 20 years ago, and his entries form the basis of this book. He was born in India and schooled in Woodstock in Mussoorie. He went to America for lot of years and came back to India to teach. He starts his journey from New Delhi, taking a detour to Mussoorie, then to Saharanpur to catch the Frontier Mail to Amritsar, where he crosses over the border in Samjhota Express (I would have preferred the spelling ‘Samjhauta’) and alights in Lahore. From Lahore, he visits Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Murree, and then back to Lahore to cross over at Atari, to reach Delhi again.

It is not just a travelogue, as a healthy mix of cultural and political history is sprinkled over a personal one – to visit his grandparent’s house in Pakistan. His astute observations about Indian life and Pakistani life, not much different in their ways, skillfully placed amongst the ironies of the history of the region, make for a thoughtful read to say the least. He writes about his journey after crossing over the border and on his way to Lahore in a Pakistani train: “The two opposing families crushed into the compartment had given up their battle. One of the women from Rampur twirled a bamboo fan in front of her. The Pakistani woman across from her spoke, in a low voice, a word or two of reconciliation, and together they rearranged their bedding rolls on the floor between them and laid the children down to sleep”. The women he refers to were arguing and threatening to go at each other only a few paragraphs ahead for a berth. When the train finally picked up speed, ‘time had begun to move forward again’.

When waiting at the Atari border crossing, his observations about innocence and the mockery it pokes at otherness: “on the other side of the fence I noticed two armed policemen with rifles slung over their shoulders. After a few minutes the boy turned his attention in their direction and pointed the barrel of his gun through the wire-mesh fence. Before anyone could stop him he fired at the policemen, who happened to turn around just as the dart landed at their feet”. His personal interactions with drivers, workers, students, those affected by partition, the traders, and businessmen – all of them bring in a sense of a keen quest to unravel what lay beneath the garb of hatred and longing.

I wish though there were photographs from the journey and maps to chart the author’s journeys.

A gem of a book.

Review: Periyar by Bala Jeyaraman

Periyar by Bala Jeyaraman is a short book of 124 pages, including endnotes and references. However the length should not be a judging factor here because what it lacks in depth (of pages) is more than made up by the succinctness of writer’s prose.

The chronological narration and the easy-going style make it a quick but informative read. As he has mentioned in the preface, Bala has tried to be objective about a man of Periyar’s stature. ‘Periyar was born at Erode on 17 September 1879. His family was a Kannada Balija Naidu family that had settled in Erode. His father, Venkatar Naicker, was a wealthy merchant – a self-made man who had started his life as a labourer in a stone quarry’. The mischief-laden childhood, the young Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy Naicker’s entry into business, and then taking over a larger role of a social reformer, catching the eye of the Congress party, and his forays into state and national level politics – all written about not in detail, but short paragraphs deft enough to give a broad understanding of the social and political milieu in which EVR Naicker transformed into Periyar. His founding of Dravidar Kazhagam’, which was later broken away from by Annadurai to form DMK, and then much later by MGR to form AIDMK give you a background of politics of Tamil Nadu. The demands for a separate ‘Tamil’ state, the anti-Hindi agitation, the inter-party wars, the pre-Independence days are explained lucidly.

This is a good introductory book without a doubt.

Review: Lajja by Taslima Nasrin

 

Lajja by Taslima Nasrin is a novel about characters which I felt are sensitive. And sensitive they better be as they live in turbulent times and places ripe in communal tensions. The destruction of Babri Masjid by Hindu right-wingers in 1992 and the subsequent riots all across the country and the anti-Hindu hatred in neighbouring countries form the backdrop. The chief protagonist Suronjon is overtaken by a stupor of inaction when Bangaladesh is gripped in a fever of anti-Hindu riots. His sister Maya insists to him to take away the whole family to their friends’ houses to be safe – to those who are Muslims and will be safer there. His father, Sudhamoy, a doctor, is old and his wife, Kironmoyee, not too young either.

There lives was uprooted earlier from their village when their acres of land was eyed upon by a cunning neighbour. In the midst of the drama of mob violence, Maya is abducted by goons and never found again. Sudhamoy, adamant as a mountain, refuses to move out to India – his country is above all. However how long will one’s determination stand against mindless desperation? How long can one fight systemic prejudice?

A novel which reeks of realities and is not too far away from depicting senseless violence. A little too drab in its narration, but saddening none the least.

Review: The Good Immigrant

21 public figures write about their experiences of race in the UK. As UK is going through a resurgence in acceptance of far-right views, this book couldn’t have come at a better time. The experiences of these artists speak of how race is still relevant in the world, and will stay relevant for a long time to come.

Whether it is Riz Ahmed lamenting about US visa procedures, or Coco Khan about her affair with a supposedly right-winger, or Nikesh Shukla’s namaste-trotting neighbours, or Darren Chetty’s coming across a kid who thinks stories could have only whites, they all speak of the subconscious acceptance of racial bigotry in our belief system. Most of the accounts are thoughtful, barring a few which have nothing new to offer.

A timely read for the disturbed times.

Buy on Amazon.

Review: Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson

Acemoglu and Robinson have blended economics, history, and politics in an interesting mix to arrive at the reasons which lead to a nation being poor or, as they say, a failure. They give examples from far and wide: Mexico, America, Britain, Japan, China, North Korea and South Korea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ethiopia, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Uzbekistan.

To sum it briefly, they say that extractive institutions, which levy unfair taxes and provide undue advantage to the people in power, result in a dismal economic performance, while respect of intellectual property, the right to land, just laws provide a conducive environment for growth.

A good read, though repetitive in many places.

Buy it on Amazon.

Review: Myself Mona Ahmed by Dayanita Singh

The life of eunuchs, the ‘other ones’, is not easy. Not in any part of the world, but more so in India and the subcontinent. It is difficult to gauge what led them to start demanding money from wedding processions or in trains or at traffic junctions. Though it is not difficult to gauge when one considers forced marginalization and ostracizing. In my younger days, I used to hear of eunuchs (‘hijras’) visiting hospitals and demanding money for blessing the newborns. However, it wasn’t much of a choice as one couldn’t not give money to them without a scathing attack on moral sensibilities. The cuss words, the threats of outright stripping – they were enough to wheedle the families to give in. Though now I don’t hear of such tales.

Myself Mona Ahmed by Dayanita Singh is a photo-book, covering the travails and misfortunes of Mona Ahmed, a eunuch of Delhi. It isn’t only about dejection though. The human spirit of the lone against the formidable whims of the society. The faith in upliftment against the downtrodden gaze of rejection. Or of a desire of love pushing against the rights and the wrongs. Mona was born as a boy, but the mind of a girl. Mona always referred to themselves as the ‘third gender’, rather than just a mind trapped in a body. Mona fought struggled for acceptance with their family, school, and the larger mass of human populace, which calls itself ‘society’ to put a label on itself. The label which grants it, the society, the right to pass judgements.

It is a heart-wrenching tale told through black and white photographs. Mona writes to the editor Mr. Walter, penning the pain and anguish which life has to offer. The joys of Mona celebrating the birthdays of their adopted daughter Ayesha, become yours. The sorrows of Mona lamenting the loss of Ayesha to their ‘guru’ Chaman, become yours. The drifting life of Mona living in a graveyard, with nowhere to go, becomes your life.

The sparse words and the sparser photographs of Mona are witness to the madness of this society, and to the struggles of happiness.

The letters published are one-sided: Mona writing to everyone who they think care about them. It is not much different than the world around Mona – one-sided and cold to their dreams, wishes, and loneliness.

A piece of art.