Literature | Jaya's blog

Wendy Doniger “On Hinduism” ( 15 March 2013)

Wendy Doniger is an American indologist who has been writing for over forty-four years. In her introduction to On Hindusim she says that she always wrote easily and joyously. But her prime audience was an American audience, primarily for her students so she was “totally blinded by the passionate Hindu response to my book The Hindu: An Alternative History“. It simply had not occurred to her that Hindus would read it. “I had figured, the Hindus already knew all about their own religion, or at least knew as much as they wanted to know, or in any any case didn’t want to learn anything more from an American woman ( I was right about that last point, but in some ways I had not foreseen).” But with this book published by Aleph, she has “designed a book specifically for an Indian audience.”

The 63 essays collected in this book have been arranged not chronologically but logically. There are seven sections that deal with the nature of Hinduism, explore the concepts of divinity, consider Hindu attitudes to gender, beginning with Manu’s attitude to women in general, desire and the control of desire in Hinduism, the question of reality and illusion, the impermanent and the eternal in the two great Sanskrit epics and finally four short pieces of autobiography, including an essay on her clash with her Hindu critics (“You Can’t Make an Omelette”). She has revised and reworked some of the essays to make them far more accessible and easy to read.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the essays in the section on “Women and Other Genders”. Wendy Doniger’s lucid style makes complicated stories so easy to understand, her academic analysis is sharp and a pleasure but she wears it so lightly that it is not a chore to read these essays. Her autobiographical essays too are just a right mix of the personal and a perspective on her deep engagement with Hinduism and how it has had an impact on her life — personal and professional.

This is a good volume to have, but at a bulky 700 pages of text and a hardback, it is not a book that can be easily picked up. You need to find the time to read it properly, by sitting at a desk. It works as a reference volume but its content is also available to the lay reader. Maybe Aleph could have considered publishing it in two volumes, preferably the notes, the extensive bibliography as the second volume, and presenting the set in a slip case. It would have been easier to read all though a little expensive to produce. ( I would not be surprised to hear if readers do with this volume what they did with Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy when it was first published. It was considered to be too bulky so ripping it apart in to three volumes was not unheard of!)

Wendy Doniger On Hinduism (Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2013. Hb. pp 680. Rs. 995)

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma

14 03 , 2013 No Comments

The Reading Promise: 3218 Nights of Reading with My Father is a gently told memoir by 21-year-old Alice Ozma. Her father was a librarian in a kindergarten school. A giant of man standing at over six feet tall is a gentle person who enjoyed his job — passionately. He passed on his love for storytelling to his two daughters, but it was the younger one, Alice who preferred to hear her father read out to her. Her father began to read to Alice when she was nine and continued til her last day at home, before she left for college at the age of eighteen. They read to each other even if they were separated for the night, for instance if Alice was at a friend’s for a sleepover. She made it a point to call her dad before going to bed so that he could read to her for at least ten minutes. It all began as a promise to read to her for a 100 nights, but once that goal was achieved, it became 1000 nights and then it just continued for nine years till it was time for Alice to leave home.

Jim Brozina was a single parent who adored his daughters. His love for reading was a gift from his mother who used to take him and his siblings to the neighbourhood library. She would make them issue two books, one for them to read by themselves and the second one she would read out aloud. Jim too wanted to start a reading streak in his family. He managed it well with Alice. In his preface to the book he says, “the greatest gift you can bestow on your children is your time and undivided attention.” (He is so right!) Once his daughters flew the coop, he continued his passion for storytelling post-retirement by reading out picture books aloud at an old people’s home. “He wasn’t trying to insult them–quite the opposite actually. He was expressing kindness in the form he knew best, and he hoped that they would try to enjoy themselves.”

This book is about the reading streak, the ups and downs, how literature is used to share, communicate and explain. The special relationship that the father and daughter duo shared. In fact Alice went on to create a website dedicated to the reading promise . It is a lovely peep into what reading and sharing books can do for a relationship. There is a small list of books at the end of the book that father and daughter tried to cobble together from what they recalled reading, but it is not the complete list. I enjoyed reading the book.

Alice Ozma The Reading Promise: 3,218 nights of reading with my father Hodder & Stoughton (Hachette), Two Roads, UK, 2011. Pb. pp.280 Rs 399

“The Yellow Birds” Kevin Powers

06 03 , 2013 No Comments

“The Yellow Birds” is the story of Private John Bartle who is preparing to join the United States Army and be posted in Operation Desert Storm. He is finally sent to Al Tafar, Syria for one year. At the wise old age of twenty-one he is considered to be a senior. Most of his colleagues are barely out of school. They are supposed to be these brave men, soldiers, fighting a war on behalf of their country. But the reality is that they have punishing schedules, the people with whom they seem to engage in combat are the elderly, children, lone adults who are as terrified as the soldiers. For instance, at one particular engagement Private Bartle recounts, “…I wanted to tell everyone to stop shouting at him, to ask, ‘What kind of men are we?’ An odd sensation came over me, as if I had been saved, for I was not a man, but a boy, and that he may have been frightened, but I did’t mind that so much, because I was frightened too, and I realised with a great shock that I was shooting at him and that I wouldn’t stop until I was sure he was dead, and I felt better knowing we were killing him together and that it was just as well not to be sure you are the one who did it.” (p.21)

The violence of war everyone knows or at least thinks that they can imagine. But it has been quite a while that such a powerful book has been published — that which recreates the horror of war, the stench and misery that accompanies it and what it actually does to the young men and women soldiers. Many lose their lives, many lose a limb or two or others lose their mind but if and when they return home they are treat as heroes. But Private Bartle would rather not have anything to do with them. When he returns home he slinks along the rail tracks to get himself some beer, preferably not respond to the cheers of people welcoming him home or calling him on the phone. His mother tells him, “People want to see you. I really think you should. Think about it.” He replies, “Goddammit Mama, All I do is think.”

Kevin Powers, the author, is a Gulf War veteran who says he wrote this book primarily alone. The Yellow Birds is based upon his experiences. Hence the descriptions of the body bomb, Private Murph losing his mind, the nurse being killed at the makeshift hospital are all very frighteningly real descriptions. Their is no room for imagination to soften the blow or distance oneself from the events in the third-person narrative. He describes it as is.

This is a book that fits well in the long tradition of war literature — John Hersey’s Hiroshima, Paul Fussell, Hans Fallada, Erich Maria Remarque, Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut to name a few. Kevin Powers writing is extremely powerful, it must be read and discussed and shared. But read on an empty stomach if possible. It is befitting that last week it won the 2013 PEN/Hemingway Award.

Kevin Powers The Yellow Birds Hachette India, Delhi, 2013. Pb. pp.230 Rs. 595

Derek O’Brien ” Speak Up, Speak Out”

06 03 , 2013 No Comments

I actually enjoyed reading Speak Up, Speak Out by Derek O’Brien. A collection of elocution passages he obviously treasures. There is a headnote with every piece giving his point of view about it. While browsing through the book I rediscovered favourite passages from Shakespeare and more. He has even included speeches made by politicians like the President of United States, Obama and ex-Indian President, Abdul Kalam Azad and of course Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech made in August 1947. It is not surprising to find prominent politicians significant speeches since they are truly good examples of elocution. It also makes sense given that Derek O’Brien apart from being a brilliant quiz master is now a member of the Indian Parliament too.

It is an interesting how such a collection makes one recall favourite pieces too like Shylock’s speech from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. It also made me wonder what are the equally well-known elocution pieces in the regional languages of India? Frankly I think it would be super if there was a Google+ hangout organised where Derek O’Brien actually recited some of these pieces and interacted with students and teachers. Or for that matter created an audio version to accompany the printed book. It would help students also figure out the correct pronunciation. Ultimately this is a collection of elocution pieces which is subjective. Yet a very good start to build upon. It is a must in every school library.

This book has been launched by a new children’s and YA imprint in the Indian market called Red Turtle. It is part of Rupa Publications Pvt. Ltd and the Editorial Director is Sudeshna Shome Ghosh.

Derek O Brien Speak Up, Speak Out: My Favourite Elocution Pieces and How to Deliver Them

Extract from a letter I wrote to a friend about “Market Tales” by Jayant Kriplani

28 02 , 2013 1 Comment

Feb 2013
Helloji,
I received a copy of Jayant Kriplani’s collection of short stories New Market Tales earlier this evening. I immediately picked it up to read and could not stop myself. ( I have a horrendous deadline looming large. But I kept saying one more story, one more story, till I reached the end!)
The stories are so unexpected. They are so in step with that twinkle in Jayant Kriplani the actor’s eyes. You can just imagine him watching and observing the world go by. I really liked the way he lapses into Bengali (without any apologies for doing so), reproduces the English pronounciations of the Bengalis and laughs at them but not in a cynical or mocking way, but like a happy delighted chuckle–as someone who completely understands where they are coming from, whether it is the bhadralok or the noveau riche trader or even the feisty activist daughter of the lingerie seller. (Gainjeewala sounds way better! ) Some of the stories are indescribably weird, for instance Harish or even Zack’s. I bet they will linger with me for a very long time to come. Even the curious wake that is held in anticipation of Mesho’s death kept me enthralled. These stories may be part truth, part fiction but they are powerful storytelling.
The cover illustration is so very reminiscent of Soviet-era publications. It is a crisp and smart cover, much in keeping with the tenor of the stories, but not really a lead in to the stories persay. The book trailer is lovely too. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wbYdW3SyQ )
This is a gem of a book. A wonderful recount of Calcutta in the 1960s and 1970s, but also its connection with Partition and the variety of communities, ideologies, people that you encounter in the iconic New Market. What comes through very clearly in the book is the sense of belonging to one family — New Market– irrespective of religion, beliefs, or trade. I really hope that this book travels far, beyond India. It must. It should.
Affly,
JAYA

Publication details: Pan Macmillan India, Picador India, Feb 2013. Pgs. 206 Pb. Rs 299

Prasoon Joshi, “Sunshine Lanes”

26 02 , 2013 No Comments

The other day some friends of mine dipped into my copy of Prasoon Joshi’s Sunshine Lanes, a collection of his poetry/ lyrics written over the years. The poems are typeset in Hindi and English. It includes some his popular songs composed for music groups like Silk Route and Bollywood films like “Delhi 6”, “Taare Zameen Par”, and “Rang De Basanti”. My friends cannot stop raving about this book. They say it is such a pleasure to be able to dip into Prasoon Joshi’s poetry and discover the words of well-known songs, many of which one hums but rarely knows all the words. According to them this is a book waiting to happen, absolutely delighted that it has and is going to be a steady seller for a long, long time.

Publication details: Sunshine Lanes, published by Rupa Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India, 2013. Hb. Rs. 495

On Reviewing in India, Amit Chaudhuri

18 02 , 2013 No Comments

“Reviewing is often a form of thuggery in Anglophone India, territorial, threatening, a way of roughing somebody up; and the Books pages are a bit like a lawless part of town, from which you have to be thankful to slip away with your writerly life – not to mention your dignity – intact.”
(p.147, Calcutta, 2013, Hamish Hamilton an imprint of Penguin Books)

Amit Chaudhuri, “Calcutta” (17 Feb 2013)

17 02 , 2013 No Comments

Title: Calcutta: Two Years in the city
Author: Amit Chaudhuri
Publication details: Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2013. Hb. Pp. 308 Rs. 599

It has been a while since I read a book focused on a city. (The last one that I truly enjoyed was Peter Ackroyd’s London, but that was a biography.) Amit Chaudhuri chose to write in “real time” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/02/amit-chaudhuri-new-perspective-calcutta ) witnessing the ups and downs of the city. It is actually a riveting book. Calcutta is a city that can leave you exhausted with its hustle-bustle, filth and yet is unexpected with its richness.

I have just returned from a brief visit to the city. It was after a gap of seventeen years. Much has changed in the city and yet it seems as if it is in limbo. I noticed the disappearance of many old and beautiful buildings and the stark harsh and posh-looking apartments, check-by-jowl with malls set in cramped spaces—many of which were in ridiculous settings. Old buildings that have had their innards gouged out to be replaced with “modern” spaces and embellished with cheap façades so that as you turn the corner you see the older and decrepit building beneath. So Amit Chaudhuri is spot on when he says, “This city-Kolkata-is neither a shadow of Calcutta, nor a reinvention of it, nor even the same city. Nor does it bear anything more than an outward resemblance to its namesake, Kolkata: the city as it’s always been referred to in Bengali. I myself can’t stand calling it any other name but ‘Calcutta’ when speaking in English; just as I’ll always call it ‘Kolkata’ in Bengali conversation. Is this because we – cities and human being – have contradictory lives that flow in and out of each other? To take away one or the other name is to deprive the city of a dimension that’s coterminous with it, that grew and rose and fell with it, whose meaning, deep in your heart, you know exactly. (p.96)”

The author chose to write about the city at the behest of his agent who wanted a non-fiction book on Calcutta. Amit Chaudhuri did not want to imitate Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City but he wanted to do something original. He opted to write about two years of living in the city, a place he had returned to live after having lived most of his life in Bombay, England and in patches in Calcutta. So he says “Why, in 1999, did I move to it? Because I’d been rehearsing that journey for years; as a child, in trips from Bombay in the summer and the winter; and later—in my continual search for certain kind of a city—in my reading. …Even later, when I finally became a published writer, that city would be given back to me by my readers, from their strange identifications and instants of recognition.” And this is exactly the flavor, of wandering, discovering, analyzing–that comes through the text. It is about the city but also the “associations of ‘home’, ‘away’. ‘return’ [that] are quite hopelessly mixed up in my mind” (p.44). His anecdotes are as is—whether it is a description of the people living on the roadsides, or the Italian chefs or even a description of his family, he captures what happens in the space of those two years. No further information is provided to that which has already been given.

Like Raghubir Singh the photographer about whom he has a short piece Amit Chaudhuri too has become a chronicler of a new terrain, albeit through words. Calcutta is a book that will like Raghubir Singh’s Calcutta: The Home and the Street become a landmark book encapsulating a moment in time of a very historically and culturally rich city.

Children of a Dreadful Midnight, Ruchir Joshi (31 Jan 2013)

31 01 , 2013 No Comments

Original post on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/notes/ruchir-joshi/children-of-a-dreadful-midnight/10151468364809434

Dear Fellow-citizens,
Let’s be clear about this: yesterday, Calcutta finally completed its downfall from the cultural capital of all Asia to a narrow-minded, spirit-crippled, morally corrupt, goonda-governed provincial town. From being the great city where Rabindranath Tagore wrote ‘where the mind is without fear’ our urban concentration has now become the champion backwater place where the heart is squeezed by fear, paranoia and the over-riding greed for power. This hasn’t happened overnight, we have watched the slow-motion collapse of our culture and our sabhyata over the last fifty years, but the final implosion has been rapid, the final dive into crass, shameful mediocrity has been sharp. The last shredding of any remaining intellectual honour has been forced through at triple-speed over the last eighteen months.
Here are the facts of the last blow, the final hacking that felled all of Bengal’s and Calcutta’s pretensions to cultural superiority.
At this time last year, just after the events at the 2012 Jaipur Literary Festival, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had declared she would not let Salman Rushdie enter Calcutta. This was a bizarre statement, completely un-provoked, since Rushdie then had no plans to visit our city. The chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, had made the opposite statement, that Rushdie was welcome in Delhi any time. But Dikshit then had to revoke the statement, clearly under pressure from her high command. Regardless, within a month of Dikshit’s flip-flop, various state elections now over, Rushdie came to Delhi for a conclave, had a normal, undisrupted and undisrupting time and left. The elections were done and dusted and so was the psuedo-issue that had been raked up in Jaipur to win votes, that of Rushdie and the novel he published in 1987, The Satanic Verses. This demonstrated that Delhi is bigger than Calcutta in more than just size, no one chief minister can hold it hostage.
Cut to this year. The film of Rushdie’s earlier novel, Midnight’s Children is being released in India. Rushdie, Deepa Mehta, the director of the film, and Rahul Bose, who’s acted in the movie, are touring India to promote the film. Mehta and Bose have also been invited to the Kolkata Literary Meet writers’ festival to discuss the adaptation of the book into a film. Rushdie’s name isn’t on the list, but on Tuesday it becomes clear that Rushdie was also planning to come to Calcutta to promote the film. As it is, the only officially announced engagement for the writer was a press conference at a hotel in the city. Late on Tuesday night it became clear that our police had intervened and stopped Rushdie from coming to Calcutta. The end result: a huge humiliation for a so-called city that still deludes itself that it is the home of vibrant culture and intellectual vigour and courage.
So much for the facts one can print.
Fellow citizens, I am a story-teller and also an inept, low-level, sudoku puzzle addict. Allow me to bring a different kind of narrative sudoku calculation to this page. Let’s look at the printed ‘numbers’ and embark on a small adventure of conjecture: Who finally delivered the coup de grace to Bengal’s long failing moral body? Who finally chopped through Calcutta’s ethical spine?
Question 1: was Rushdie only coming to promote the film at a press conference?
Now, if I was an organiser of a literary festival, and if I knew Salman Rushdie was going to be in town during my festival, it’s likely I would have been eager to have him make an appearance. Given how he’s done things in the past, it would have surprised no one had the panelists at the Midnight’s Children session at Kol Lit Meet announced in mid-discussion that they had a surprise guest, and had Rushdie been then led on to the stage. Had I been the organiser, I would have grabbed at this idea, but then, that’s only me.
Question 2: Regardless of whether Rushdie was coming to Calcutta to promote his film, make a theatrical entry at Kol-Lit or just have a quick snack at Bhojohari Manna, who actually pulled the plug on his visit?
a) The Kolkata Police? Fearing a law and order problem? Unlikely. As we know, this police force does not even clear snot from its nose without an okay from Writers’Building. It’s unimaginable that they could make a such a huge decision without serious goading from above.
b) If not the police then the state government? Who in the state government? And how? Not to mention why? Well, let’s keep these squares blank for a moment.
c) The Muslim groups? Maybe. But, wait a minute. In Jaipur last year, the protests against Rushdie attending began way before the JLF festival opened. This year, in Calcutta, we heard nothing till yesterday, and the ‘protests’ only took place on Wednesday morning – well after Rushdie had already cancelled his visit – as if to provide retro-substance to the notion that widespread protests were always going to take place.
So let’s lightly pencil in a tentative sequence. Remember what Mamata Banerjee said last year, unasked and unprovoked? So, could it be that an aide woke her up when he saw the announcement of Rushdie’s visit? ‘Didi, you had said you would not let him come to Calcutta. What should we do?’ Could it be that a phone call went from Writers’, or Kalighat, to Lal Bazar Police HQ? Could that phone call have set off other calls from some department of the police, say Special Branch, to the Muslim ‘leaders’ in the city? Perhaps a conversation like: ‘Maulvi-ji! Imam-sahab! Aren’t you planning to protest at Salman Rushdie’s visit to Calcutta?’ ‘Oh? Rushdie is coming? We didn’t know! When? Of course we will protest!’ Could this have then led to police officers landing up at the office of whoever had (unofficially) invited Rushdie? Could, say, three cops, (played in my imaginary movie by, say, Tapas Pal, Rahul Bose and Parambrata Chattopadhyay) have stood behind the person who’d ‘invited’ Rushdie, (person played by Nandita Das), and glowered at her computer screen till she sent off an email ‘disinviting’ the shaitan Rushdie?
But enough of this guessing game.
Yesterday, Mamata Banerjee, either through action or inaction, kept at least one of the promises she had made to Calcutta’s Muslim community. Of all the many promises she had made, this one was perhaps the most poisonous: Rushdie will not be allowed into Calcutta. What this ‘promise’ actually says is ‘I will use a psuedo-issue to stoke the egos of your leaders, in the gamble that we can shove under the carpet the fact that I have done nothing to improve the condition of Muslims here, which remains worse than the conditions of Muslims in Modi’s Gujarat.’ It’s a vile delivery that cuts two ways into the rotting ‘culture’ of Calcutta: it bolsters the osbcurantists and fundamentalists of all colours, not just Islamic, while snatching away yet more space of expression from that soft pocket of society we call artists.
There was a time when (what used to be) Kolkata understood what ‘freedom’ meant, what ‘free speech’ meant, what ‘imagination’ meant, what was meant by ‘art’. The movement for the stopping of sati started here (it offended the core ‘religious sentiments’ of lakhs of Hindus), the movement for a free India, where people of all faiths and belief and non-belief could live, also garnered huge charge from the thinking of Kolkatiaya minds and hearts. Central to each and everything that Calcutta and Kolkata gave to the yet-to-be-born Republic was the tenet ‘where the mind is without fear’, i.e that you can think and say what you want. What this latest assault on our freedom to think, read and see what we want does is plunge us into a darkenss of a kind we in this city have not yet known. Today, we Calcuttans have really become the children of a dreadful midnight.
Ruchir Joshi for 31st January, 2013

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