Naipaul, in India: A Wounded Civilization, analyzed MK Gandhi's obsession with himself and observed caustically that there were just two or three descriptions of landscape in his autobiography. Whether in England or South Africa, Gandhi was so immersed in the duel with his self that he failed to observe what went on outside him.
Naipaul could not have made this observation about the other great, modern Indian, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru wrote his remarkable and voluminous autobiography, running to 600 odd pages, within a short, uninterrupted, and largely undisturbed period of eight or nine months that he spent in the Naini Jail from June 1934 to February 1935. It is a story in which Nehru resorts to the plural "we" to include the collective involvement of his less articulate colleagues in the nationalist struggle. And a story in which amidst the confusion, uncertainty and chaos of the times, he could be lyrical, longing for things he misses or things he observes anew -
"Once I remember being struck by a new want. I was in the Lucknow district gaol, and I realized suddenly that I had not heard a dog bark for seven or eight months."
Nehru imagined and longed to see the trees and mountains beyond his confinement, described the cool breeze he felt on his face while being moved from one jail to another, and retains his good humor even while recollecting the first lathi-charge he faced as an activist. More than its considerable literary worth, Nehru understands and describes the contemporary nationalist currents better than any history book. There is intellectual rigor and a sense of historical purpose in him. He analyzes the political situation in India before the advent of Gandhi and how it changed after him. In fact, Nehru gives us better insights into the "Political Gandhi", and his magical hold over the masses, than Gandhi himself. Nehru frankly looked at his vanity, arrogance, and his susceptibility to compromise his strong beliefs to move forward, to be his key weaknesses.
MK Gandhi’s autobiography, on the other hand, is at the other end, and reveals a primary, child-like, instinctual mind at work. Gandhi’s subject is no doubt Gandhi himself, and describes his most personal events in meticulous detail. Whether it is his lapses from vegetarianism or petty thievery in childhood, or struggle with his sexual passion, Gandhi remains convinced about their impact on his inner life and conscience development, even while it may make the reader uncomfortable or even bored at times.
However, as Ramachandra Guha has pointed out, in spite of his seeming idiosyncrasies, Gandhi's memory has been treated more kindly by his countrymen, even as his ideals lay tattered. The more militant of our middle classes may look at his frailty and seeming physical weakness with derision, his sexual struggle as hypocrisy and his concessions to Muslims as treason. But, by and large, his reputation as a great apostle of peace, tolerance and non-violence remains unchallenged while his ideas on ecology and sustainable development have received delayed interest.
Nehru, on the other hand, in spite of irregular, obsequious gestures from the ruling Congress party, is mostly an object of ridicule, derision, anger and hatred today. The more sympathetic consider his idealistic approach "naive", while the more vocal and hostile consider him responsible for every ill facing India from bad roads to dynastic politics.
However, in spite of their obvious differences in thought and approach to nation building, Gandhi and Nehru were united in their fundamental quest for a moral and ethical life. Gandhi contested, in his own unique way, the "maleness" of the western colonialism in greed, power and violence. How endless consumption can minimize life, making it nothing more than acquisition and ownership of stuff valued by others. How centralization of power begets corruptibility, and how violence begets violence. He centralized the importance of means over ends.
Nehru's aspiration of morality and ethics extended to the kind of state he envisioned India to be. This is of course at odds with the view expressed by most of our rationalist commentators today, who consider the nations not to have any morality, but only “self-interest”. This view also perhaps governs pillorying of Nehru for all his supposed mistakes, whether on Kashmir, Organized Development, Hindu Code Bill, pragmatic socialism, Non-Aligned Movement, UNSC Permanent Seat, or Panchsheela.
In this revisionist narrative, real history of India begins with the liberalization in 1990s when India unshackled the license-permit-raj of “Nehru’s” legacy. It is perhaps true that last twenty years have opened doors to entrepreneurship and innovation, enabled upward movement of lower-middle and middle classes, and created a situation of plenty for an enthusiastic, consumerist class. But twenty years is also perhaps also a good time to take a hard look at what an unbridled quest for “self-interest” has resulted in.
A corrupt polity. An intricate, compromising nexus of political establishment, corporate czars and fourth estate. A moneyed culture where heroes are judged solely for their ability to make money regardless of morality. Celebrity-obsession. A stressful, spiritually vacant life mushrooming with spurious Godmen, astrologers and soothsayers. A booming industry of self-serving, bad books on self-help and management. A reputation for being a bully with most neighbours.
A nation at war with its own people. A nation ravaging itself to satisfy its consumption needs.
Is it that while we have been busy making money, we have lost something of the way of a soul or an inner life? We perhaps need to re-posit a few questions to ourselves.
What is a nation, if not a community of individuals united by common territory and sense of purpose? And, if that is true, what remains, if that nation is drained of morality and ethics?
Perhaps, we still need Gandhi and Nehru, if not for anything else, then to be our super-ego. Nehru’s idea of an inclusive, egalitarian, industrially developed, socially conscious and morally alive nation, tempered with Gandhi’s ideas of personal virtue, sustainability, devolution of power, and compassion towards the underdog, remains enticing and an ideal to remake ourselves and our nation.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Losers: The First Story
It is early evening in one of the villages in Delhi. Sun is there in full force, but they are sitting in a Buddha Jayanti park like park, an old favorite of repressed lovers, under the ample shades of trees. Rahul is sitting tensed with his head down, full of that nervous energy that indicates coming of a climactic event, and asks hesitantly, so, who is the boy, you love. She smiles, says, the boy is so stupid, does not even know she loves him, walks to a nearby tree and starts carving a name on it. Rahul gets up, sees his name printed as a solid proof, and a new lightness comes into his being.
A commonplace event that happens to countless commonplace couples every day. But it still moves you when brought to the screen with bare honesty by Dibakar Banerjee. It is truly disconcerting to realize the banality of our "most precious" experiences. But then, the experience, for all its' cliched nature, is still unique to us. And capturing it with honesty is perhaps also what lends it the special poignance of the sense of it being shared with others.
There are three stories in Banerjee's Love, Sex Aur Dhokha. Each told with his quirky, earthy sense of humour, connected very tenuously and perhaps having separate lives of their own. In all three stories, he plays off the intense sexual tension between couples, whose love hovers in a rapidly changing, uncertain world between the old and the new.
The first story is that of an artist, whose dream fails him. He is a lower middle class boy, who lives with his single mother, and nourished by bollywood love stories and a scholarship that allows him to pursue his film studies. Considering "Adi Sir" his Guru, he is paying homage to the iconic 90s mainstream love story, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in his own humble way. With Shahid Qureshi, whose father has a big shop in the Atta Market, as his Raj, and Shruti Dahiya, daughter of a big Jat businessman cum robber baron, as his Simran. Shruti is his muse, his Simran, with whom he falls in love irresistabily. The boy is dreamy, shifty looking, lies easily, and knows how to curry favor with the big men of the village. You look at him with suspicion, and may even have some sympathy with the big father, who looks hideous but honest. This is a story of puppy love, where bollywood logic is inverted with uncompromising failure and a denoument that is as horrific as it is unexpected.
While it is a great indictment of the tremendous damage which a movie like DDLJ may have brought to popular culture, it also left me dissatisfied. It seemed to play on the mythical rich vs. poor conflict of bollywood love stories. From anecdotal experience, the real conflict in Indian love stories is social - caste, region, religion - most often caste, in mofussil towns, with class usually playing a subservient role. This unsettling aspect of the closeness of the killers and the killed is what perhaps brings in the pathos, apart from just anger.
In "Maps for Lost Lovers", Pakistani writer Nadeem Aslam's telling of an honor killing in a small, sleepy British town, the killers are not some invisible henchmen of an impossibly rich businessmen. They are friends and brothers of the killed couple, who were apparently "living in sin" before marriage. You see the parents of the killers returning from jail after visiting their sons. Sons have been beaten up, racially abused and taunted not only about their crimes, but their origins. Their parents are unable to understand why their sons have to go through all this, when they probably did what was right. You also see the sister-in-law of the killed man, who loved him like a brother. She is grief-stricken, but has very ambivalent feelings about what he was doing and perhaps even considers his killing as a just retribution from the lordly powers up there. And this ambivalence is all around, unlike the screaming media headlines. You constantly feel something churning inside you, burning you, making you feel not just angry but deeply uncomfortable about yourself, your family and your society.
This ambivalence and duality of the situation is lost in LSD. We go back to the nostalgic images of the lost couple to reflect on what could have been, with anger towards the perpetrators, but never really to examine aspects of our selves that are part of both the killers and the killed.
A commonplace event that happens to countless commonplace couples every day. But it still moves you when brought to the screen with bare honesty by Dibakar Banerjee. It is truly disconcerting to realize the banality of our "most precious" experiences. But then, the experience, for all its' cliched nature, is still unique to us. And capturing it with honesty is perhaps also what lends it the special poignance of the sense of it being shared with others.
There are three stories in Banerjee's Love, Sex Aur Dhokha. Each told with his quirky, earthy sense of humour, connected very tenuously and perhaps having separate lives of their own. In all three stories, he plays off the intense sexual tension between couples, whose love hovers in a rapidly changing, uncertain world between the old and the new.
The first story is that of an artist, whose dream fails him. He is a lower middle class boy, who lives with his single mother, and nourished by bollywood love stories and a scholarship that allows him to pursue his film studies. Considering "Adi Sir" his Guru, he is paying homage to the iconic 90s mainstream love story, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in his own humble way. With Shahid Qureshi, whose father has a big shop in the Atta Market, as his Raj, and Shruti Dahiya, daughter of a big Jat businessman cum robber baron, as his Simran. Shruti is his muse, his Simran, with whom he falls in love irresistabily. The boy is dreamy, shifty looking, lies easily, and knows how to curry favor with the big men of the village. You look at him with suspicion, and may even have some sympathy with the big father, who looks hideous but honest. This is a story of puppy love, where bollywood logic is inverted with uncompromising failure and a denoument that is as horrific as it is unexpected.
While it is a great indictment of the tremendous damage which a movie like DDLJ may have brought to popular culture, it also left me dissatisfied. It seemed to play on the mythical rich vs. poor conflict of bollywood love stories. From anecdotal experience, the real conflict in Indian love stories is social - caste, region, religion - most often caste, in mofussil towns, with class usually playing a subservient role. This unsettling aspect of the closeness of the killers and the killed is what perhaps brings in the pathos, apart from just anger.
In "Maps for Lost Lovers", Pakistani writer Nadeem Aslam's telling of an honor killing in a small, sleepy British town, the killers are not some invisible henchmen of an impossibly rich businessmen. They are friends and brothers of the killed couple, who were apparently "living in sin" before marriage. You see the parents of the killers returning from jail after visiting their sons. Sons have been beaten up, racially abused and taunted not only about their crimes, but their origins. Their parents are unable to understand why their sons have to go through all this, when they probably did what was right. You also see the sister-in-law of the killed man, who loved him like a brother. She is grief-stricken, but has very ambivalent feelings about what he was doing and perhaps even considers his killing as a just retribution from the lordly powers up there. And this ambivalence is all around, unlike the screaming media headlines. You constantly feel something churning inside you, burning you, making you feel not just angry but deeply uncomfortable about yourself, your family and your society.
This ambivalence and duality of the situation is lost in LSD. We go back to the nostalgic images of the lost couple to reflect on what could have been, with anger towards the perpetrators, but never really to examine aspects of our selves that are part of both the killers and the killed.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The insubstantial life
Michael was born slightly disfigured. His mother, poor, single, looked at him as a burden, with his unlovely face and slow mind. Unwanted and unloved, he spent his childhood in a special institution, Huis Norenius. Most of us remember childhood fondly, suppressing the many cruelties that accompany innocence with the magic wand of selective memory. Michael is bereft even of that imagination, and Huis Norenius hangs on his head like a cloud that keeps on growing but never bursts. Derision of others, real and imagined, sits on him tightly, and he lives alone without friends or any companion.
In the thirty first year of his unobserved, unreflected life as a Gardener Grade B in Cape Town municipality, he discovers his sick mother, and with her, the meaning of his life.
"The problem that had exercised him years ago behind the bicycle shed at Huis Norenius, namely why he had been brought into the world, had received its answer: he had been brought into the world to look after his mother."
Michael resolves to fulfill her stated desire to leave the city to go back to her native village by building a makeshift barrow for her when they don't get a permit to leave the city. At that point, one may sense the onset of a new, redemptive, journey for the unfortunate man. Reader's hopes are to be belied of course. JM Coetzee does not provide easy journeys or easy answers to the mess of modern life. Particularly one that takes place in a war-torn, race-torn, country.
Quite charactertistically, his mother dies on the way cutting his life's meaning in the middle, and Michael's lonely journey takes unexpected turns subsequently. There is no great action that ever happens in his life, and his physical condition gets worse with struggle and malnutrition. There is complete absence of any romantic interest, and one charitable sexual encounter. Once, while locked in a camp of unemployed refugees, Michale is struck by a woman, who had lost her new-born recemtly. Michael feels compelled to wait and watch as she comes out of her room every evening, silent, tearless. He feels he may be falling in love finally. But then, one day, the woman, who remains unnamed, grows out of her meloncholia and merges with the crowd. Michael never notices her again. Coetzee describes life like this. As it unfolds pitilessly in a humdrum, but still unique way.
You are also struck by the pictures he draws of loneliness. Intense, deeply evocative, they remind you of Dosteyvsky and his embitterd, lonely, men. Men carrying deep grievances in their hearts, and running away from people. Men watching life pass by, without entering into it, without engaging with it. But the greatness in Coetzee is that he also makes one realize that, in a deeply rooted way, these are also the men who recognize, most acutely, the futility of struggle and existence.
The nature of Michael's rebellion also dawns slowly to you. He leads an insubstantial life, yes, but this inarticulate man also stands outside the ravages of history, refusing to join a camp, refusing to become a slave. He is attached elementally to very few things - his mother who refuses to leave his mind, a small farm he creates in wilderness. When he had to leave that "patch of earth", he felt that a "cord of tenderness" was being cut. Very affectingly, "it seemed to him that one could cut a cord like that only so many times before it would not grow again."
The exterior world is always like a shadow to Michael. As Robert, one of his camp mates, who was growing closer to him, comments, "I have never seen a man so asleep". And Michael instantly recognizes the truth in that. It is solely his interior life that feeds him and also cuts him. Even when his physical self dwindles to a skeletal figure with sustained malnutrition, there is still life in him that thrives and seeks to be free.
"Life & Times of Michael K" is a luminous novel, even if not Coetzee's best, that raises important questions on the notion of social progress and individual rebellion, of the supposedly irresistable march of history, and what it does to the people sitting at the margins. I have read only three novels of JM Coetzee, but can perhaps say this for him more than any other writer that reading him makes living worthwhile.
In the thirty first year of his unobserved, unreflected life as a Gardener Grade B in Cape Town municipality, he discovers his sick mother, and with her, the meaning of his life.
"The problem that had exercised him years ago behind the bicycle shed at Huis Norenius, namely why he had been brought into the world, had received its answer: he had been brought into the world to look after his mother."
Michael resolves to fulfill her stated desire to leave the city to go back to her native village by building a makeshift barrow for her when they don't get a permit to leave the city. At that point, one may sense the onset of a new, redemptive, journey for the unfortunate man. Reader's hopes are to be belied of course. JM Coetzee does not provide easy journeys or easy answers to the mess of modern life. Particularly one that takes place in a war-torn, race-torn, country.
Quite charactertistically, his mother dies on the way cutting his life's meaning in the middle, and Michael's lonely journey takes unexpected turns subsequently. There is no great action that ever happens in his life, and his physical condition gets worse with struggle and malnutrition. There is complete absence of any romantic interest, and one charitable sexual encounter. Once, while locked in a camp of unemployed refugees, Michale is struck by a woman, who had lost her new-born recemtly. Michael feels compelled to wait and watch as she comes out of her room every evening, silent, tearless. He feels he may be falling in love finally. But then, one day, the woman, who remains unnamed, grows out of her meloncholia and merges with the crowd. Michael never notices her again. Coetzee describes life like this. As it unfolds pitilessly in a humdrum, but still unique way.
You are also struck by the pictures he draws of loneliness. Intense, deeply evocative, they remind you of Dosteyvsky and his embitterd, lonely, men. Men carrying deep grievances in their hearts, and running away from people. Men watching life pass by, without entering into it, without engaging with it. But the greatness in Coetzee is that he also makes one realize that, in a deeply rooted way, these are also the men who recognize, most acutely, the futility of struggle and existence.
The nature of Michael's rebellion also dawns slowly to you. He leads an insubstantial life, yes, but this inarticulate man also stands outside the ravages of history, refusing to join a camp, refusing to become a slave. He is attached elementally to very few things - his mother who refuses to leave his mind, a small farm he creates in wilderness. When he had to leave that "patch of earth", he felt that a "cord of tenderness" was being cut. Very affectingly, "it seemed to him that one could cut a cord like that only so many times before it would not grow again."
The exterior world is always like a shadow to Michael. As Robert, one of his camp mates, who was growing closer to him, comments, "I have never seen a man so asleep". And Michael instantly recognizes the truth in that. It is solely his interior life that feeds him and also cuts him. Even when his physical self dwindles to a skeletal figure with sustained malnutrition, there is still life in him that thrives and seeks to be free.
"Life & Times of Michael K" is a luminous novel, even if not Coetzee's best, that raises important questions on the notion of social progress and individual rebellion, of the supposedly irresistable march of history, and what it does to the people sitting at the margins. I have read only three novels of JM Coetzee, but can perhaps say this for him more than any other writer that reading him makes living worthwhile.
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Big Fight
One day, some time in the evening
He: Get the hell out of my life.
She: I don't want to see your face.
He: Your face depresses me. The sound of your voice annoys me.
She: I really wish we had not married.
He: My words! Marrying you is the worst mistake that I have ever made!
She: Don't grind your teeth while you speak!
He: Why the fuck are you laughing? You know, we need to take a break from each other.
He walks out.
30 minutes later
He: Were you serious when you said, you wish we had not married?
She: Are you crazy or what?
He: I didn't hear you.
She: Were you serious when you said, "Get out of my life, I don't like your face, I don't like your voice"?
He: I never said, I don't like your face. I said your face depresses me.
She: Same thing.
He: It is not. And, I was the one who asked the question first. Were you serious when you said, you wish we had not married?
She: So what, you also do the same thing. Whenever I point out something to you, you always pinpoint back something or the other. You never accept your fault.
He: Ok, I don't think you are interested to resolve this. We will talk later.
40 minutes later
He: You know, when we go to my mother's house this weekend, I think you should stay on for a week or so.
She: And, what about my Yoga classes that have just restarted?
He: I don't think chucking your yoga classes matters that much. This is more important.
She: Look, my Yoga teacher was on vacation for 10 days. He just came back this week. If you wanted a break, we could have taken it last week.
He: This is only going to get worse, we are falling apart. If you don't agree to this break, it will only get worse.
She: I cannot miss my yoga classes right now. If it has to get worse, let it get worse.
1 hour later
She: Tell me one thing. Who started saying all those things, "I don't like your face", "Get out of my life" and all.
He: Didn't you say you wish you had not married me?
She: But I said it only after you said all those things. And I was laughing while I said it. You were grinding your teeth.
He: You know I become extremely unhappy when I use this kind of language. I don't like saying these things.
She: I know. Thats why I was laughing. I knew you were saying these things because you were angry. You didn't mean any of it. Did you?
Silence
She: Tell me, did you mean all those things?
He: I don't know. At that point, I was very serious. May be. I don't know how to get angry.
(Waits for some time)
She: Why didn't you take me seriously when I asked you to be back before 5? You knew I had a doc appointment. You never take me seriously.
He: Ok, I will stop joking now completely with you.
She: I am not asking you to stop joking. I am just asking you to take me a little more seriously.
He: (Laughs) Taking your words so seriously landed us in this. And you want me to take you even more seriously? You will kill me one day.
(Remains serious)
He: Get the hell out of my life.
She: I don't want to see your face.
He: Your face depresses me. The sound of your voice annoys me.
She: I really wish we had not married.
He: My words! Marrying you is the worst mistake that I have ever made!
She: Don't grind your teeth while you speak!
He: Why the fuck are you laughing? You know, we need to take a break from each other.
He walks out.
30 minutes later
He: Were you serious when you said, you wish we had not married?
She: Are you crazy or what?
He: I didn't hear you.
She: Were you serious when you said, "Get out of my life, I don't like your face, I don't like your voice"?
He: I never said, I don't like your face. I said your face depresses me.
She: Same thing.
He: It is not. And, I was the one who asked the question first. Were you serious when you said, you wish we had not married?
She: So what, you also do the same thing. Whenever I point out something to you, you always pinpoint back something or the other. You never accept your fault.
He: Ok, I don't think you are interested to resolve this. We will talk later.
40 minutes later
He: You know, when we go to my mother's house this weekend, I think you should stay on for a week or so.
She: And, what about my Yoga classes that have just restarted?
He: I don't think chucking your yoga classes matters that much. This is more important.
She: Look, my Yoga teacher was on vacation for 10 days. He just came back this week. If you wanted a break, we could have taken it last week.
He: This is only going to get worse, we are falling apart. If you don't agree to this break, it will only get worse.
She: I cannot miss my yoga classes right now. If it has to get worse, let it get worse.
1 hour later
She: Tell me one thing. Who started saying all those things, "I don't like your face", "Get out of my life" and all.
He: Didn't you say you wish you had not married me?
She: But I said it only after you said all those things. And I was laughing while I said it. You were grinding your teeth.
He: You know I become extremely unhappy when I use this kind of language. I don't like saying these things.
She: I know. Thats why I was laughing. I knew you were saying these things because you were angry. You didn't mean any of it. Did you?
Silence
She: Tell me, did you mean all those things?
He: I don't know. At that point, I was very serious. May be. I don't know how to get angry.
(Waits for some time)
She: Why didn't you take me seriously when I asked you to be back before 5? You knew I had a doc appointment. You never take me seriously.
He: Ok, I will stop joking now completely with you.
She: I am not asking you to stop joking. I am just asking you to take me a little more seriously.
He: (Laughs) Taking your words so seriously landed us in this. And you want me to take you even more seriously? You will kill me one day.
(Remains serious)
Friday, June 4, 2010
Becoming whole
I am becoming whole again. Fragmented, broken, angry, I was for the last four months. Anger, not of the righteous kind that nourishes you, anger, of the impotent, diminishing kind that makes you smaller.
I stopped writing, which I had begun after years of hesitation. I read scraps of tabloids, watched movies disinterestedly, and listened to whatever noise played out in the garb of music. I also became quieter, which some say was not very noticeable and akin only to another degree of silence.
I felt as if I was fighting a losing battle against monsters, both real and imagined. Frankly speaking, this is what I feel now. Then, I did not really feel much. Just something sore inside, when pain refuses to go away but is always around, popping up every now and then. Staring at you, mocking you.
Rather then bore you further with the "why" and "what", let me tell you a little, borrowed, story.
In Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, Mr. Hamidi is looking for an accomplice to help him commit suicide. More accurately, to bury him, to cover his grave with earth, once he has killed himself. In the industrial wasteland of outskirts of Tehran, he seeks the lonely and impoverished, who would be desperate enough to accept his offer of money for little help. Adolescent soldier away from his native town, rag-picker, exiled Afghan seminary. Some get scared, some discourage him. One of them asks, why don't you share your pain, may be, it will make it subside? Mr. Hamidi desists, even if I tell you, you will never be able to feel what I am feeling inside. You will sympathize, you will probably feel pity towards my condition, but you will not understand me. Mr. Hamidi does not tell anything, but he lays bare the ultimate loneliness of human condition, and its accompanying pain and suffering. But, he still finds something in the "taste of cherry" to go on living.
Suddenly, I am also feeling that the happiness, that I have longed for and tried to attain, is returning. Perhaps in half measures, not fully, but I am losing the resentment towards happiness that I had built so assiduously. And I can feel a void getting filled within, I still don't know by what. I just feel that I am slowly coming back to life.
I stopped writing, which I had begun after years of hesitation. I read scraps of tabloids, watched movies disinterestedly, and listened to whatever noise played out in the garb of music. I also became quieter, which some say was not very noticeable and akin only to another degree of silence.
I felt as if I was fighting a losing battle against monsters, both real and imagined. Frankly speaking, this is what I feel now. Then, I did not really feel much. Just something sore inside, when pain refuses to go away but is always around, popping up every now and then. Staring at you, mocking you.
Rather then bore you further with the "why" and "what", let me tell you a little, borrowed, story.
In Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, Mr. Hamidi is looking for an accomplice to help him commit suicide. More accurately, to bury him, to cover his grave with earth, once he has killed himself. In the industrial wasteland of outskirts of Tehran, he seeks the lonely and impoverished, who would be desperate enough to accept his offer of money for little help. Adolescent soldier away from his native town, rag-picker, exiled Afghan seminary. Some get scared, some discourage him. One of them asks, why don't you share your pain, may be, it will make it subside? Mr. Hamidi desists, even if I tell you, you will never be able to feel what I am feeling inside. You will sympathize, you will probably feel pity towards my condition, but you will not understand me. Mr. Hamidi does not tell anything, but he lays bare the ultimate loneliness of human condition, and its accompanying pain and suffering. But, he still finds something in the "taste of cherry" to go on living.
Suddenly, I am also feeling that the happiness, that I have longed for and tried to attain, is returning. Perhaps in half measures, not fully, but I am losing the resentment towards happiness that I had built so assiduously. And I can feel a void getting filled within, I still don't know by what. I just feel that I am slowly coming back to life.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The Night's Beginning - A Story
The white Indica slowed down and took the right turn from the dark, empty highway to move onto the village kachcha road.
As the car stumbled its way between the golden mustard fields, Shama wiped her shirt sleeve on the February midnight mist and crowed excitedly to Riaz, 'See! You always ask where are those mustard fields of Yash Chopra's DDLJ. Your own village!' Riaz absent-mindedly peeped outside, gave no intimation that he saw or understood anything, but smiled at Shama to assure her that he agreed as usual.
'Almost twenty five thousand', said Riaz to himself for the third time, 'if only we had taken the two hours later Spicejet flight instead of the 0815 Air India flight, it could have easily cut two thousand. But then we would have also missed the afternoon Gharib Rath to Allahabad, and then Amma's 'mitti' also tomorrow morning.'
Amma had lived a long life and died slowly over the last one month agonizingly. Twice, Riaz had made plans to visit, and each time, he had put it off for some or the other reason. Truth be told, her death was constantly on his mind, but he felt that he could not take two long leaves from the office within a short period. One for visiting an ailing grandmother, the other for burying one. He had somehow always felt it more important to be by her side when she was dead than when she was critically ill. He could stand death, not the process of dying.
Now, Amma was dead, and he was irritated at himself for thinking about money. He put on his special, serious pose and tried to concentrate on Amma to prepare himself for the mourning. Tears did not come easily to him, and he did not want the look of the dry-eyed, unfeeling grandson.
As they crossed 'Pasiyana', literally the abode of the 'Pasis', and slowed to a halt in front of a large, white house, he saw his uncles coming out in white. As he embraced them one by one and got his shoulders wet from their wept tears, he felt his guilt and uncertainty dissolving. The Uncles pointed him to go inside where his mother and aunts had started wailing in anticipation. He moved gingerly from aunt to aunt, aunt to mother, mother to aunt, consoling them in turns with gentle embraces, making sure he followed the age hierarchy religiously. He then went to the inner room to look at Amma, and was astonished to see her thin face, gaunt from the recent illness, but still severe and serene, the only visible part of her body, covered from head to toe in a white shroud. He felt her death intimately for the first time and felt a vacuum growing inside his chest that expanded outwards.
His chest swollen, his gaze uncertain, he moved outside the house to look at the village stars and a place to sleep the night. As he stood looking with invented fascination at the deep orange object in the sky, which he guessed to be Venus, he felt somebody nudging him. Only when his uncle whispered, 'Abba, Abba', into his ears did Riaz turn around, and saw Abba leaning on his stick. Abba had woken up from the commotion and come outside. Riaz moved slowly towards him for the ritual embrace. When Riaz buried his head in Abba's chest, he found Abba immovable and heard no tears for the dead wife, his constant companion for the last sixty six years. Astonished for the second time, Riaz looked up gently and saw eyes that were unslept, dead and that were going to be closed permanently within the next one year.
As the car stumbled its way between the golden mustard fields, Shama wiped her shirt sleeve on the February midnight mist and crowed excitedly to Riaz, 'See! You always ask where are those mustard fields of Yash Chopra's DDLJ. Your own village!' Riaz absent-mindedly peeped outside, gave no intimation that he saw or understood anything, but smiled at Shama to assure her that he agreed as usual.
'Almost twenty five thousand', said Riaz to himself for the third time, 'if only we had taken the two hours later Spicejet flight instead of the 0815 Air India flight, it could have easily cut two thousand. But then we would have also missed the afternoon Gharib Rath to Allahabad, and then Amma's 'mitti' also tomorrow morning.'
Amma had lived a long life and died slowly over the last one month agonizingly. Twice, Riaz had made plans to visit, and each time, he had put it off for some or the other reason. Truth be told, her death was constantly on his mind, but he felt that he could not take two long leaves from the office within a short period. One for visiting an ailing grandmother, the other for burying one. He had somehow always felt it more important to be by her side when she was dead than when she was critically ill. He could stand death, not the process of dying.
Now, Amma was dead, and he was irritated at himself for thinking about money. He put on his special, serious pose and tried to concentrate on Amma to prepare himself for the mourning. Tears did not come easily to him, and he did not want the look of the dry-eyed, unfeeling grandson.
As they crossed 'Pasiyana', literally the abode of the 'Pasis', and slowed to a halt in front of a large, white house, he saw his uncles coming out in white. As he embraced them one by one and got his shoulders wet from their wept tears, he felt his guilt and uncertainty dissolving. The Uncles pointed him to go inside where his mother and aunts had started wailing in anticipation. He moved gingerly from aunt to aunt, aunt to mother, mother to aunt, consoling them in turns with gentle embraces, making sure he followed the age hierarchy religiously. He then went to the inner room to look at Amma, and was astonished to see her thin face, gaunt from the recent illness, but still severe and serene, the only visible part of her body, covered from head to toe in a white shroud. He felt her death intimately for the first time and felt a vacuum growing inside his chest that expanded outwards.
His chest swollen, his gaze uncertain, he moved outside the house to look at the village stars and a place to sleep the night. As he stood looking with invented fascination at the deep orange object in the sky, which he guessed to be Venus, he felt somebody nudging him. Only when his uncle whispered, 'Abba, Abba', into his ears did Riaz turn around, and saw Abba leaning on his stick. Abba had woken up from the commotion and come outside. Riaz moved slowly towards him for the ritual embrace. When Riaz buried his head in Abba's chest, he found Abba immovable and heard no tears for the dead wife, his constant companion for the last sixty six years. Astonished for the second time, Riaz looked up gently and saw eyes that were unslept, dead and that were going to be closed permanently within the next one year.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Peeping at life
His chin holds the vest, while he tightens the strings of his drawers. One eye towards the standing bus, the other towards the small group sitting cross-legged on the earth, wet by the leaked water from the tanker. A bunch of used utensils on a half-broken rack, a bundle of clothing, pot being stirred on the fire burning in the middle. Life on the move under the flyover. I lock eyes with him, look at his exposed emaciated body. The light turns green, and the bus moves away from the flyover crossing. The image of the child standing with his back against the makeshift railing again comes back to me. He was gazing intently at us, curious at the flood of traffic surrounding, or rather, going past his home, constructed of the used tin sheds by the roadside near the faux Greco-Roman structures of Powai. I was sitting in the air-conditioned car, stuck for the last quarter of an hour, and irritated by his curious, impish, smile. What is he doing here? Does he realize the absurdity of the situation?
Covering up anything personal, life, emotions, opinions, from the public gaze and scrutiny is a lifelong project for most of us middle-class Indians. We live in large well-secured apartment complexes, take up higher floors to avoid peeping toms, erect safety doors beyond the already formidable locks, draw dark curtains on the windows, and build thick walls around our homes and ourselves. We long for that personal space we call home, where we get transformed from engineers, doctors, managers, brokers, into mighty kings whose every wish is a command.
I sometimes wonder what desperation compels these men and women to abandon their safe havens in far-off villages to come to Mumbai and live like this. To open their life for everybody to see, comment, get amused with, trample. While India keeps shining, Sensex keeps touching new heights, the life stories of these men remain untold and un-addressed. An old doggerel (or, is it a hindi movie dialogue?)says nobody sleeps hungry in Mumbai. May be. But a lot of them do sleep shamed, humiliated, insulted.
Ashis Nandy once commented that the personal and the public, the village and the city, are always close, ready to converge, in India. He could have added that they remain separated by visible and invisible boundaries.
Covering up anything personal, life, emotions, opinions, from the public gaze and scrutiny is a lifelong project for most of us middle-class Indians. We live in large well-secured apartment complexes, take up higher floors to avoid peeping toms, erect safety doors beyond the already formidable locks, draw dark curtains on the windows, and build thick walls around our homes and ourselves. We long for that personal space we call home, where we get transformed from engineers, doctors, managers, brokers, into mighty kings whose every wish is a command.
I sometimes wonder what desperation compels these men and women to abandon their safe havens in far-off villages to come to Mumbai and live like this. To open their life for everybody to see, comment, get amused with, trample. While India keeps shining, Sensex keeps touching new heights, the life stories of these men remain untold and un-addressed. An old doggerel (or, is it a hindi movie dialogue?)says nobody sleeps hungry in Mumbai. May be. But a lot of them do sleep shamed, humiliated, insulted.
Ashis Nandy once commented that the personal and the public, the village and the city, are always close, ready to converge, in India. He could have added that they remain separated by visible and invisible boundaries.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Engineers lost
The below reminiscences owe not a little to the movie '3 Idiots'...
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It is the story of three friends - N, B and M. Engineering came to them without choice. Quite like Religion. Coming from middle class families, they were automatically marked as 'engineer material' for their capability to get good marks in exams. They were fed specially prepared milk, suitably mixed with almond paste, given extra pocket money hidden from their envious siblings, and paraded proudly as the eighty-percenters before the relatives and family friends. They were not particularly gifted with any obvious talent and convinced themselves of their calling as Engineers. To be fair to them, they did not see it as anything more than a few advanced Physics-Chemistry-Maths lessons for four years, with some additional cars and motors thrown in for good effect, which will give a well-paying job.
All three of them passed out as mechanical engineers from a fairly reputed state engineering college, lesser than IITs, better than most others. While B was amongst the branch toppers, N and M also managed distinctions throughout their tenure. B diligently triangulated information from his seniors, batchmates and self to develop notes that were in three different colours and best-in-class. N worked by himself and concentrated more on calligraphy then content to write his A's and G's with the pride of a schoolboy who has recently learned writing. M did nothing semester after semester and just shamelessly let his head hang low in front of B while he berated him with 'Saale, you could also develop these notes, if you don't be so lazy...' B, of course, always rewarded him for his humility with select notes to copy and make the grade.
They were best friends though and through. Even when some bitterness crept towards the end between B and N, they crosschecked all their answers before submitting their papers. Their different marks, B usually got 90 percent to N's 75, remained a mystery though. B was one step ahead even in the workshops. While N usually broke three models before finishing one, B got his models finished finely by his roommate. By the end of second year, B had dispensed with that courtesy as well, and simply stole all the previous models from the workshop to reproduce as his own. M was a little more diligent, even if equally un-endowed with any talent in his hands. He managed to get one of his fingers crushed, while he purported to count the number of gears of his colleague's machine lathe. Later, he redeemed the pain by entering his 50-member class with a middle finger that was heavily bandaged and unable to look anywhere but at the god almighty.
It is not that their engineering knowledge, or the lack thereof, took some time in coming out. Early in the second year, M discovered the use of a starter when his considerate friends simply made it vanish from his tube light. For three days, M slipped his chair a little more towards his roommate's desk to get a little more light. He did not go beyond the plug-and-switch routine in his investigations over the lost light of his life until given a physical demonstration by his incredulous friends. N was inclined to show his talent more in Mechanical drawing when he managed to become the only mechanical engineering student to get an ‘ordinance’ (pronounced 'audi' and implying failure marks) in the first year itself. Later, he was to enhance this reputation further when he made a two-dimensional drawing for a perspective figure, and considered it absolutely ok even later with a shrug 'I mean it looks 'perspective' from certain perspectives'. B, on the other hand, developed a reputation for being exceptionally diligent and getting things done for himself. He got hold of all the right notes, studied hard, had all his drawings glass-traced by juniors, and his room sound-proofed with thermacol by his friends.
By the third year, having brutally lost the case for 'mechanical engineering', they strove for and got jobs in 'Software Programming' and 'Sales'. Couple of years down the line, they convinced themselves of their new calling in 'Management' and went on to do post graduation from various reputed colleges. Now, they lecture their teams on how to stay focused, align their goals with their organization's, and derive happiness from their jobs. And they earn fat pay packages for doing this.
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--------------------------------------------------------------
It is the story of three friends - N, B and M. Engineering came to them without choice. Quite like Religion. Coming from middle class families, they were automatically marked as 'engineer material' for their capability to get good marks in exams. They were fed specially prepared milk, suitably mixed with almond paste, given extra pocket money hidden from their envious siblings, and paraded proudly as the eighty-percenters before the relatives and family friends. They were not particularly gifted with any obvious talent and convinced themselves of their calling as Engineers. To be fair to them, they did not see it as anything more than a few advanced Physics-Chemistry-Maths lessons for four years, with some additional cars and motors thrown in for good effect, which will give a well-paying job.
All three of them passed out as mechanical engineers from a fairly reputed state engineering college, lesser than IITs, better than most others. While B was amongst the branch toppers, N and M also managed distinctions throughout their tenure. B diligently triangulated information from his seniors, batchmates and self to develop notes that were in three different colours and best-in-class. N worked by himself and concentrated more on calligraphy then content to write his A's and G's with the pride of a schoolboy who has recently learned writing. M did nothing semester after semester and just shamelessly let his head hang low in front of B while he berated him with 'Saale, you could also develop these notes, if you don't be so lazy...' B, of course, always rewarded him for his humility with select notes to copy and make the grade.
They were best friends though and through. Even when some bitterness crept towards the end between B and N, they crosschecked all their answers before submitting their papers. Their different marks, B usually got 90 percent to N's 75, remained a mystery though. B was one step ahead even in the workshops. While N usually broke three models before finishing one, B got his models finished finely by his roommate. By the end of second year, B had dispensed with that courtesy as well, and simply stole all the previous models from the workshop to reproduce as his own. M was a little more diligent, even if equally un-endowed with any talent in his hands. He managed to get one of his fingers crushed, while he purported to count the number of gears of his colleague's machine lathe. Later, he redeemed the pain by entering his 50-member class with a middle finger that was heavily bandaged and unable to look anywhere but at the god almighty.
It is not that their engineering knowledge, or the lack thereof, took some time in coming out. Early in the second year, M discovered the use of a starter when his considerate friends simply made it vanish from his tube light. For three days, M slipped his chair a little more towards his roommate's desk to get a little more light. He did not go beyond the plug-and-switch routine in his investigations over the lost light of his life until given a physical demonstration by his incredulous friends. N was inclined to show his talent more in Mechanical drawing when he managed to become the only mechanical engineering student to get an ‘ordinance’ (pronounced 'audi' and implying failure marks) in the first year itself. Later, he was to enhance this reputation further when he made a two-dimensional drawing for a perspective figure, and considered it absolutely ok even later with a shrug 'I mean it looks 'perspective' from certain perspectives'. B, on the other hand, developed a reputation for being exceptionally diligent and getting things done for himself. He got hold of all the right notes, studied hard, had all his drawings glass-traced by juniors, and his room sound-proofed with thermacol by his friends.
By the third year, having brutally lost the case for 'mechanical engineering', they strove for and got jobs in 'Software Programming' and 'Sales'. Couple of years down the line, they convinced themselves of their new calling in 'Management' and went on to do post graduation from various reputed colleges. Now, they lecture their teams on how to stay focused, align their goals with their organization's, and derive happiness from their jobs. And they earn fat pay packages for doing this.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Ransa: dead or tamed?
N. was of my age. He weight-trained, ate 'Rajdarbar' Gutka keeping at least five packs in reserve, smoked hash, drank beer with abandon, did petty thievery when occasions arose, was quick to anger, and made lewd passes at girls he considered available because of their short dresses. He said No to every possible convention, and did all these things before he had finished school. He was a great friend of mine. Apart from a great love for Chicken Biriyani and Tandoori Chicken from a certain Punjabi Dhaba in Govindpuri that I shared with this Brahmin boy, we had little in common. I was a cold, dry as dust, conventional, puritan.
I sometimes wonder now what drew me to him. Perhaps his irrational loyalty and die-for-you kind of senttimental friendship, which works well in a certain age with certain kinds of romantics. I also prized him as a good-at-heart vagrant, who I was going to reform with my conventional goodness. But what really drew me to him was a sense of power that emanated out of his physicality, his half-invented sexual exploits, his reputed links with some notorious Gujjar politicians from Gadhi and a capacity for raw, physical violence. He walked with a swagger and was everything I could never be. He was, seemingly, the 'Ransa' of my school days. Ransa or Rananjay Singh, who, apart from Piyush Mishra, really made Anurag Kashyap's Gulaal work for me.
But there was an important difference between Ransa and N. Unlike Ransa, my hero could never revolt against his father, and was subservient to him even at the height of his seeming debauchery. His father imposed his will over the whole family, and ran the home like a regular tyrant. In due time, N. shed his old habit, friends and love like a snake skin, and entered into a new, conventional life which his father desired and imposed. Perhaps, most rebellions are not the rebellions in the way we see them but only a desire to age faster and show off. But, why does it sadden and anger me more to see a rebel getting tamed rather then be killed or destroyed? And is it right to feel that?
I sometimes wonder now what drew me to him. Perhaps his irrational loyalty and die-for-you kind of senttimental friendship, which works well in a certain age with certain kinds of romantics. I also prized him as a good-at-heart vagrant, who I was going to reform with my conventional goodness. But what really drew me to him was a sense of power that emanated out of his physicality, his half-invented sexual exploits, his reputed links with some notorious Gujjar politicians from Gadhi and a capacity for raw, physical violence. He walked with a swagger and was everything I could never be. He was, seemingly, the 'Ransa' of my school days. Ransa or Rananjay Singh, who, apart from Piyush Mishra, really made Anurag Kashyap's Gulaal work for me.
But there was an important difference between Ransa and N. Unlike Ransa, my hero could never revolt against his father, and was subservient to him even at the height of his seeming debauchery. His father imposed his will over the whole family, and ran the home like a regular tyrant. In due time, N. shed his old habit, friends and love like a snake skin, and entered into a new, conventional life which his father desired and imposed. Perhaps, most rebellions are not the rebellions in the way we see them but only a desire to age faster and show off. But, why does it sadden and anger me more to see a rebel getting tamed rather then be killed or destroyed? And is it right to feel that?
Monday, January 11, 2010
Miseries of Heart
Why do all songs have to end? Not only literally, but also in terms of what they have to say. Some of the rare ones prefer not to conclude though, particularly when it concerns the matters of heart. They achieve and retain a difficult balance with ambiguity and uncertainty that characterizes any great work of art till the end.
'Dil to bachcha hai jee' is one such song. I am currently drooling and tripping over this 'Ishqiya' ditty. Very overtly, it has the feel and melody of a classic 50's Raj Kapoor melody, mixed with a melancholic Western acoustic strain. It starts off innocuously enough on a low flute-like (is it flute?) sound, to which slow strumming of Guitar is added steadily in the background. Then, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan lends his melodious voice to articulate the confusion and angst of an old man falling in love. Falling irresistibly in love, experiencing feelings which he thought were long dead.
The lyrics are playful and profound, in the fluid, conversational style of Gulzar, who, by the way, is in top form here. In spite of a superlative composition by Vishal and excellent singing by Rahat, slightly reminiscent of Rafi, this really is a Gulzar song.
Consider this gem which I fear will get killed in translation:
'kisko pata tha pehlu mein rakha dil aisa paaji bhi hoga
hum to hamesha samjhte they koi hum jaisa haaji hee hoga'
I was not taken in much by Kaminey's soundtrack, which seemed a little disappointing to me, apart from a couple of tracks, after Maqbool and Omkara. But this is a true gem. In as much as it is about a malady that neither gets cured by the passage of time, nor controlled by the bounds of religion or propriety, it sears the heart as much as it gives extreme pleasure.
'Dil to bachcha hai jee' is one such song. I am currently drooling and tripping over this 'Ishqiya' ditty. Very overtly, it has the feel and melody of a classic 50's Raj Kapoor melody, mixed with a melancholic Western acoustic strain. It starts off innocuously enough on a low flute-like (is it flute?) sound, to which slow strumming of Guitar is added steadily in the background. Then, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan lends his melodious voice to articulate the confusion and angst of an old man falling in love. Falling irresistibly in love, experiencing feelings which he thought were long dead.
The lyrics are playful and profound, in the fluid, conversational style of Gulzar, who, by the way, is in top form here. In spite of a superlative composition by Vishal and excellent singing by Rahat, slightly reminiscent of Rafi, this really is a Gulzar song.
Consider this gem which I fear will get killed in translation:
'kisko pata tha pehlu mein rakha dil aisa paaji bhi hoga
hum to hamesha samjhte they koi hum jaisa haaji hee hoga'
I was not taken in much by Kaminey's soundtrack, which seemed a little disappointing to me, apart from a couple of tracks, after Maqbool and Omkara. But this is a true gem. In as much as it is about a malady that neither gets cured by the passage of time, nor controlled by the bounds of religion or propriety, it sears the heart as much as it gives extreme pleasure.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Going home
Crossing Majiwada, my beady eyes begin to open by habit. As we move beyond Manpada, the air is getting rarer. Traffic sparser. With a little tilt of my head, I can view the Western Ghats to my left beyond the newly constructed apartment blocks. I open the window little more and cool my lungs with deep intakes of fresh air. I feel a chill on my back, with my sweat drenched shirt getting dried in a huff. The road is well-lit, better than most in Mumbai in fact, but everytime I come home, I feel I am going back to my village. My wilderness. My space for life.
I get down the bus at Vijay Garden, and walk the road to home. The atmosphere is that of a well-developed small town evening. Alive with the night chatter and selling, it is quite unlike the deathly silence of dark nights in my actual, native village. My apartment complex is also humming with activity, with night work going on to build the next tower. I move beyond the derelict, half-built buildings to my quarter, and move straight to the play area. Seeing me, my kid is forcibly taken off the swing, which he has occupied majestically for the last one hour. Giving my laptop bag to wifey, as I pull him towards myself, he has still not had his full and wants to break free. I persist shamelessly in smothering him with kisses, while he bares his teeth to attack me. I take him towards lift by which time he has started screaming a little. We go up, I put him down to open the locks, he looks around. We go in, he immediately spots his drum stick and moves towards it happily. He has forgotten the swings, and realizes he is back to his kingdom. I enter my home, my hearth.
I get down the bus at Vijay Garden, and walk the road to home. The atmosphere is that of a well-developed small town evening. Alive with the night chatter and selling, it is quite unlike the deathly silence of dark nights in my actual, native village. My apartment complex is also humming with activity, with night work going on to build the next tower. I move beyond the derelict, half-built buildings to my quarter, and move straight to the play area. Seeing me, my kid is forcibly taken off the swing, which he has occupied majestically for the last one hour. Giving my laptop bag to wifey, as I pull him towards myself, he has still not had his full and wants to break free. I persist shamelessly in smothering him with kisses, while he bares his teeth to attack me. I take him towards lift by which time he has started screaming a little. We go up, I put him down to open the locks, he looks around. We go in, he immediately spots his drum stick and moves towards it happily. He has forgotten the swings, and realizes he is back to his kingdom. I enter my home, my hearth.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Brief Notes on Orhan Pamuk
I picked up 'My Name is Red' more than three years back on the basis of blurbs promising something along the lines of Umberto Eco like literary medieval mystery. I read it after the book had graced my shelves for more than a year. By this time, he had grabbed the headlines for bemoaning the lack of discussion and self-criticism on Armenian genocide in Nationalist Turkey. He seemed a modern hero to me, and I picked up the book with great anticipation.
The book did deliver on the expected pleasures of Eco like intellectual-philosophical mystery, and still more on solid, emotional punch. The novel is set in the world of medieval miniaturists of Turkey's Ottoman empire, slowly getting exposed to Europeans and their new techniques. It doubles up as an investigation into a series of heinous murders committed by one possibly disgruntled miniaturist, and the subtle impact of European intrusions into indigenous life and arts. In some sense, it is also a masterpiece in 'perspectival' technique where you view the world from the representations of a ferocious dog to the murdering and murdered miniaturists.
It is a set of partial, half-understood stories of half-aware people, where there is always something getting added, and something missed from the narration. The novel also powerfully illustrates how unhappiness or grief is often caused by the asymetry between what we believe and what we end up doing. How instinct and passion can give lie to your most cherished values. The irony and humour are never lost on the situation - whether it is the soft-spoken, guarded lover behaving overtly sexually with his widowed, childhood love, or the tyrant master illustrator waxing eloquent on creativity to buy time from would-be murderer.
However, this often brilliant novel gets undone when Pamuk's authorial voice becomes too strong and disrupts the flow. Then, he moves from the specific to the general too soon, and leaves too little for the reader to chew on. Also, the medieval city life, with its bylanes and smells and coffeehouses, becomes banal at times with description that is too often and too ornate. To me, these intrusion made both 'My Name is Red' and 'Snow', which I picked up later and will talk about some other time, a little under-whelming.
The book did deliver on the expected pleasures of Eco like intellectual-philosophical mystery, and still more on solid, emotional punch. The novel is set in the world of medieval miniaturists of Turkey's Ottoman empire, slowly getting exposed to Europeans and their new techniques. It doubles up as an investigation into a series of heinous murders committed by one possibly disgruntled miniaturist, and the subtle impact of European intrusions into indigenous life and arts. In some sense, it is also a masterpiece in 'perspectival' technique where you view the world from the representations of a ferocious dog to the murdering and murdered miniaturists.
It is a set of partial, half-understood stories of half-aware people, where there is always something getting added, and something missed from the narration. The novel also powerfully illustrates how unhappiness or grief is often caused by the asymetry between what we believe and what we end up doing. How instinct and passion can give lie to your most cherished values. The irony and humour are never lost on the situation - whether it is the soft-spoken, guarded lover behaving overtly sexually with his widowed, childhood love, or the tyrant master illustrator waxing eloquent on creativity to buy time from would-be murderer.
However, this often brilliant novel gets undone when Pamuk's authorial voice becomes too strong and disrupts the flow. Then, he moves from the specific to the general too soon, and leaves too little for the reader to chew on. Also, the medieval city life, with its bylanes and smells and coffeehouses, becomes banal at times with description that is too often and too ornate. To me, these intrusion made both 'My Name is Red' and 'Snow', which I picked up later and will talk about some other time, a little under-whelming.
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