Ghachar Ghochar : Vivek Shanbhag / Srinath Perur

 Brave new world

Societies rise and decline over time not unlike people. This involves birth pangs, separations, coming off age, and decline in fortunes among other things. Every so often there is a particular moment in time when a society transforms from one phase to another which is enthralling as well as painful for those people in the middle of it all. Of course this is fertile ground for literature and there are many instances where writers catch this transformation in all its complexity. Occasions include Dickens following the emergence of an England into the industrial age, Tolstoy tracing Russia’s break from feudalism and so on.

India too has gone through such a transformation in the last 25 years brought about by the economic liberalization started in the early 90s. The liberalization unleashed elemental forces that swept the entire population making some raise with the tide and some drown in its ferocity leading to the emergence of a new India. Most notably Aravind Adiga has captured this transformation in English at the macro level but here in this great Kannada novel we have Vivek Shanbhag capture this transformation at the basic unit of Indian society – the Family. ‘Ghachar Ghochar’ captures the opportunities unleashed by the economic liberalization and the joys, anxieties and fears it invokes in the middle classes who are the most impacted by it.  

The story revolves around a small lower-middle class family living in one of the many small rented houses in Bangalore where you could open the door and be on the road in ‘exactly four steps’. It’s a family of five where the father is a diligent salesman with meagre earnings and the mother who manages the household with their son – the narrator – and their temperamental daughter. The fifth member is the father’s younger brother ‘chikkappa’, a commerce graduate with initiative and vigour. The family subsists on the salary of the father who goes out every morning to sell tea powder and tallies the money accrued and sends it to the head office the next morning. They have a hand-to-mouth existence and limited desires but are a satisfied lot since ‘when you have no choice, you have no discontent either’.

The author manages to capture the lower-middle class life of the pre-liberalization era and it deeply resonates with those who lived that life. The small unventilated houses which were barely furnished save for a table and chair, the way the entire family helped the bread winners in their job, the euphoric celebration on the arrival of a ‘gas connection’ (something which is taken for granted now), the numerous tea sessions conducted to pass time, the washing of ‘vessels’ – all these bring to life the India of those times beautifully.

There is an affecting scene early in the book where the father makes an error in his tallying which results in 800 rupees left unaccounted and the entire household toils to find out the error to save the father from having to pay the amount from his pocket. The mystery is solved early the next morning by the chikkappa after a sleepless night of poring over tally sheets and the family celebrates the triumph the next morning as if it’s a festival. The scene touches you because it brings to memory those times when such acts of collective responsibility and collective joy were possible and are no longer possible now. It recreates an era that is gone right in front of our eyes.

Then comes liberalization which gives the educated middle class people who have the enterprise a great chance of social mobilization. And chikkappa is the right man at the right time and he invests his brother’s retirement money (in exchange for a 50% stake) and sundry loans to start a trading company which flourishes beyond imagination making the entire family rich. The rest of the novel is a brilliant study of the effects of the sudden wealth on the family members and how it changes their equation with each other and with society at large. It explores what happens when the lower middle-class crosses that coveted line and becomes the upper-middle class within a short span of time. It explores the impact of new money on age old middle class values such as decency, honesty and thrift. And finally the impact it has had on Indian families. The study is fascinating and all this is done in a little over hundred pages which is a miracle of conciseness.

Probably such a story can only be narrated in an Indian language as it is more suitable to explore the family life of a typical middle class family. Having said that the translation by Srinath Perur brilliantly conveys the ideas and thoughts of the original and keeps the Indian-ness of the original text. The Kannada idioms are translated faithfully hence you have new English sayings like ‘Holes in dosas in everyone’s house’ or ‘the newly rich carry umbrellas to keep moonlight at bay’ or 'this girl is good as gold'. The translation also weighs in on its own by contributing phrases like ‘chemical warfare’ to describe the mother’s use of potions and powders to fight an ant menace in the old house. But the biggest success of the translation is something else. Every piece of art conveys something unsaid and it is the recreation of this unsaid in a language like English which is as different from a language like Kannada is the biggest success of the translator.

The ‘Ghachar Ghochar’ of the title is a nonsense word invented by the narrator’s wife to describe a situation that is entangled beyond recovery. At the end of the book most of the characters find their lives to be in such an entangled state owing to the choices they made in response to the challenges posed by liberalization. It is a beautiful metaphor for modern India and a cautionary tale for the generation ahead as they face the brave new world created by liberalization.

Chinaman - The Legend of Pradeep Mathew : Shehan Karunatilaka

An Ode to Sport

Everyone who follows sport has encountered this inevitable question from family and friends at least once: What is the point of sport? The question acquires an edge especially when one does not play the sport or in any other way benefit from watching it. This amazing novel is a long, rambling attempt to answer this question and as a result it is an ode to sport. It is also the great Sri Lankan novel we have been waiting for as it intimates us with the culture and recent history of the country and the exaggerated role Cricket plays in its life.

WG Karunasena is an alcoholic Cricket journalist who in his heydays has written for the best journals in the country and abroad although he is largely ignored now. He is a lover of sports who sees beauty in “free kicks, late cuts, slam dunks, tries from halfway, and balls that turn from off to leg”. He is a drunk too and claims that alcohol has rid him of cliches and made him into a better writer and unabashedly admires the "drug refined over the centuries by all civilizations".

But he is dying. Thanks to his prolonged drinking habit. However to make the most of the remainder of his ever shortening life he has embarked on a quest to discover Pradeep S. Matthew, an elusive chinaman bowler who has been erased from the cricketing history who he considers as the greatest cricketer ever. On this quest WG discovers startling truths about Sri Lanka, cricket and himself. In the process he tries to answer the above mentioned question about the significance of sport. Time is short and we as readers are not sure whether he will manage to make it that long but he is confident as he philosophically puts it "there is nothing as inspiring as a solid deadline".

Sri Lanka is in the middle of a civil war, a consequence of the high-handedness of the Sinhala majority who "knew the Tamils could out-bat, out-think, out-everything" them. Amidst this war cricket is the only outlet for normalcy and the country is indeed blessed with a talented bunch of cricketers one of whom is Pradeep Matthew. A Tamil, he practices the rare art of left-arm chinaman and owner of numerous mystery deliveries including the unearthly double-bounce ball. However he does have a reputation for brushing the people in authority including fellow players the wrong way and after a promising start to his career has mysteriously disappeared. But WG knows he is a genius as he has watched him live in a match where he bamboozled the visiting team by taking 9 wickets including his famed delivery. The match is abandoned for some political reason and it is forgotten in everyone’s mind except WG’s who is now inspired to discover him and write about him.

WG is aided by his friend Ari and together they embark on this quest overcoming major squabbles (‘Murali chucks or not?’) and talking to various people connected to Pradeep including his family, fellow players and coaches. In the middle of this quest comes the 1996 world cup and to everyone’s surprise Sri Lanka "whack the cup" and cricket becomes even more popular in the country. Monetary rewards chase the players, even lesser known ones become millionaires, except Pradeep that is,  who stays out of it all and thereafter undergoes a slide in form and finally disappears. The rest of the book is about if and how WG tracks Pradeep down, how he comes to term with his family and whether he will have a happy ending to his life’s innings.

The book is remarkable about its insight into sport as WG admits that "Of course there is little point to sports" but hastily adds "there is little point to anything. In a thousand years, grass will have grown over all our cities. Nothing of anything will matter." But sport he says produces magical moments that can be remembered for hundreds of years and that is the whole point of sports. As he puts it…

“Sport can unite worlds, tear down walls, and transcend race, the past and all probability. Unlike life, sport matters.”

It’s a beautiful sentiment and one that we sport lovers can use to counter when someone inevitably questions why we follow sport.

The novel also explores the state of the Lankan nation and also on the Sinhala-Tamil tension. He laments the Murphy’s law of nations which Sri Lanka seems to have followed where by the colonized country becomes a parody of the colonizers and instead of inheriting their good traits they inherit their bad ones. As he ruefully says "we inherit the power lust of our conquerors but none of their vision". This I dare say is true of India too. 

He says that although the British as part of their ‘divide and conquer’ policy created a fissure between the communities, "by the 1950s, we begin to develop our own dangerous ideas without any foreign assistance. The idea that the nation belongs to the Sinhala or that Tamil deserve a separate state." The novel cites the example of India which despite more diversity has managed to create a united, peaceful state. Finally the author compares how similar the two communities indeed are and hopes for a reconciliation in the not too distant future.

In the end, this novel can be described as the arrival of Sri Lankan literature in English, indeed it is the ‘Great Sri Lankan Novel’ and all that English literature aficionados like us can do is echo that famous quote ‘Let a thousand flowers bloom’.

Last Man in Tower : Aravind Adiga

 The Old man and the Building

At a vertiginous moment in this brilliant Novel the eponymous last man in the tower - Masterji - looks at the neighbors he has lived with for 30 years and asks the question “Am I looking at good people or bad?” It is the sort of question we find ourselves asking about people around us whom we feel we knew who change drastically when circumstances change and to our dismay they become strangers. 'Last man in Tower' is a devastating portrayal of shifting morals of shifty people in the city of Mumbai. A city which is always asking “What do you want?” and goading you to get it and in the process enriching you and itself thereby making it into a megalopolis. Here is when a person like Masterji stands out as an anachronism as he wants “nothing”.

Yogesh Murthy or Masterji is an obdurate teacher and widower belonging to the Vishram society in the northern suburb of Mumbai. Vishram society is “a dreadnought of middle class respectability” built in the 1950s and by the start of the Novel already creaking under infrastructural problems. The society is home to a kaleidoscope of people belonging to various castes and creed who over the years have shared each other’s joys and sorrows and have generally got along like one big family.

Enter Dharmen Shah who sees in the acquisition of this society for redevelopment a chance to become the biggest builder in the city. He has in fact called the new luxury apartment building he is set to build on the site ‘Shanghai’, a tribute to the Chinese who he idolizes for their sheer will power. He is no novice in such matters as he believes that “human greed must be respected” and hence makes a generous offer to the residents of the society. Eventually all but Masterji are goaded to accept the offer by appealing to their basest selfish desires. Only Masterji holds out despite his neighbors’ pleas and eventual boycott as he is the one who has least to gain from the offer as the building is “pregnant with his past”. A past with his loving but deceased wife and daughter. Also he sees in this final battle a chance to redeem his lifelong timidity in dealing with similar situations earlier in his life. A chance to become a man again at the age of 61. So much is his stubbornness that it seems to border on Nihilism making him an ambivalent hero whom we are not sure whether to sympathize with or not.

Masterji hails from the Karnataka coast and has made it as a teacher in Mumbai. He has old world virtues and moralities and a penchant for acquiring knowledge. His son has inherited none of his qualities and has moved out with his family which has left Masterji alone. He has recently retired and spends the time teaching the society kids and despite being agnostic reads spiritual books about transmigration of the soul to understand what became of his wife and daughter. He is the kind of man who does not trod over a Times of India copy because one of his students writes for it now.

Dharmen Shah on the other hand is also a self-made man who came from his Gujarat village to the city with a handful of rupees and made it as one of the most important builders by a combination of “charm and brutality”. He can charmingly breakup a mutiny of laborers as well as threaten people with violence to leave their homes.  He believes that “deep down, everyone admires violence”. He divides the world into two kinds of men “those who can get things done and those that can’t” and he places himself proudly in the former. On the verge of greatness he encounters a man who has the same stubbornness as him but on the other end of the morality spectrum. And he knows he has met his match in Masterji in whom he sees, “a weak man who has found a place where he feels strong”.

As Hegel used to say a tragic situation is one when two rights collide. And here in the collision of the builder and the old teacher we have a classic tragic situation which Adiga brilliantly delineates. Along the way Adiga shines his light on the amoral nature of human beings and the collusion of vested interests in the city and society in general who will eventually get what they want even at great human cost. Hence Adiga is ringing a gong about the kind of society we have become and it is gripping as it is disgusting to see what unfolds.

Once the battle lines are drawn both the teacher and the builder dig their hoofs in. Masterji takes recourse to what he thinks are institutions of democracy – Police, Law and Media – who all disappoint him showing how hollowed out with corruption they have become to be of any use to the weak. Shah himself is trapped in his own image as a builder who will be the first suspect if anything happens to Masterji. Hence he relies on psychological tactics to influence Masterji’s neighbors to do what he himself cannot do. The denouement of the Novel deals with how these two opposite men face off each other and who wins in the end. However ironically they never meet through ought the Novel and their fight is carried out in the shadows of the city and its institutions. They are like two massive celestial beings circling each other trying to gobble each other up without ever meeting.

Although this book does not have the biting satire of the White Tiger it is one of the finest examples of character studies ever attempted in fiction. The characters are put inside the cauldron created by the clashing moral universes of the two protagonists, allowed to simmer in their hypocrisy and in the end stripped of their basic human decency. They look like the people Adiga characterizes in his other Novel 'Selection Day' while describing the Indian middle class 

“What are we, then? We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbor's children in five minutes, and our own in ten”.

This Novel is a moral playground of epic proportions and is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the decadence of our times. 

Karvalo : Poorna Chandra Tejaswi

Science and Philosophy in the Ghats

Karvalo is a story set in the interiors of Karnataka, along decrepit towns dotting the beautiful Western Ghats. The Ghats with their teeming flora and fauna provide the perfect backdrop for this amazing Kannada novel that combines nature, philosophy and science. Poorna Chandra Tejaswi the writer of this amazing novel was a nature lover himself and his love for nature comes across in every page.

The novel is set in the sleepy town of Mudigere where resides the eponymous scientist  Karvalo, a Mangalorean catholic which is somewhat of a rarity in these parts. He talks in the crisp Kannada of his native Mangalore peppered with generous English phrases like ‘My dear young man’ and ‘Yes yes’. A brilliant scientist he is somewhat of a mystery to the townspeople who cannot understand why a man of his talents is wasting his life in this decrepit town.

The answer is revealed by Karvalo himself in the middle of the Novel. The scientist is in search of a ‘Flying lizard’, a mysterious creature belonging to the age of the dinosaurs which has survived unscathed through the ages but also considered to be extinct by the scientific community now. Recent sightings of a similar creature inside the jungles has aroused the interest of the scientist.

Equipped with this knowledge the scientist and his assorted band of unlikely explorers set out to the jungles to capture the creature. This merry band includes the narrator and his dog curiously called Kivi (“Ear” in Kannada), Mandanna , the local bee keeper and Karvalo’s trusted lieutenant , Prabhakara an assistant of the scientist specializing in photography and the eccentric Biriyani Kariyappa who specializes in cooking “hot foods”.

This bunch of explorers roam the forests in futility it seems in the beginning enduring hardships and along the way ruminating about such things as the nature of God, evolution and man’s relationship with nature. In the end the creature is indeed sighted and is caught on camera but it has one final trick up its tail!

The novel impresses you with its humanity and its concern for nature that man is now hell bent on destroying. Considering that the novel was written in 1980 it does come across as remarkably prescient. Tejaswi continues the humanistic tradition of his father the great writer Kuvempu who created the philosophical concept of ‘Aniketana’ – the universal man who is at home everywhere in the world and is one with nature.

In one vertiginous passage Karvalo is chided by one of the townspeople for mixing with the lowly Mandanna who with his low caste and sparsely educated background the townspeople see as a bit of an upstart and a rascal who is indulged by Karvalo. The scientist retorts back dismissing labels like ‘Scientist’ or ‘Uneducated’ assigned by society and instead urges them to see the true self of any person and in this case Mandanna who is a born naturalist in his eyes thereby compelling us to slice through the smoke screen of society in order to  approach the real truth of human existence.

In another passage when the explorers are spending time in the forest the narrator asks the scientist if he believes in God to which Karvalo being true to his scientific self replies that he trusts nothing without evidence and when proffered with ‘evidence’ for God’s act on earth he tersely replies that only the acts are real but the proofs are all illusions. How many of us who think ourselves as 'scientific' can be true to ourselves and reply with this clarity without fear of society?

Evolution too is dealt with in the novel where the scientist gives an explanation of the mechanics of evolution and the role of historical chance. Of how man due to some chance broke from his ape siblings and descended to the ground resulting in his weak arms due to which he developed tools and weapons hence kicking off our civilization whereas his ape siblings delayed their decent a bit longer – thousands of years in evolutionary scale - hence missing the chance to create civilization.  

The essence of the evolutionary process is caught perfectly in the last paragraph of the book where the narrator seeing the flying lizard in flight notices that its wings were evolved from the rib cage and not the forearms as with birds thus reasoning its stunted growth through the ages hence concluding that it took a bad evolutionary turn when compared to birds who ‘won’ the evolutionary battle. When pointed this observation Karvalo simply sighs saying there is no right or wrong in evolution and the evolutionary process never ends. How true.

This is a remarkable novel which needs to be read for its humanity and scientific temper, both attributes sorely going amiss in today’s world.

Selection Day : Aravind Adiga

Exploring the great nastiness

In the middle of the novel Tommy Sir, the talent scout scouring the maidans of Bombay "who was given to the truth as some men are to drink" ruefully says this about the game he loves:

"How did this thing, our shield and chivalry, our Roncesvalles and Excalibur, go over to the other side and become part of the great nastiness?"

Tommy Sir is the puritan fan who believes in old-world virtues of principles and righteousness hence does not fit into the modern world and is definitely setup to fail. The above lines capture the wretched transformation in a game "invented by medieval shepherds" which has been corrupted beyond recognition from the gentleman’s game it used to be.

Having said that this is not just a cricket book but the story of modern India told through its most popular game. Since the game now cuts across classes and reaches new audiences and participants alike it is a great lens through which to look at the country as a whole. Hence the corruption in the game is a mirror to the corruption that infects the body-politic of the nation at large.

Aravind Adiga as in his master piece 'The White Tiger' manages to capture the voice of the aspirational underclass of the country who have migrated to the big city and demand their share of the prosperity pie. This time though this happens through the agency of two brothers who have migrated from a village in the Karnataka coast along with their father who amidst selling chutney in Bombay spots the natural talent of his boys for Cricket and then pushes them into the game. So unlike ‘The White Tiger’ the aspiration here of the two boys is forced by the obsessive father. 

The father Mohan Kumar wants to develop his elder son Radha into the 'best batsman in the world' and the younger and more complex son Manju the 'second best batsman in the world' using his home-grown eccentric techniques (“No shaving until Twenty-one”). In steps Tommy Sir who has a lifelong dream to uncover one real talent who will make it to the Indian national team before he dies. Tommy Sir also introduces the family to the visionary entrepreneur Anand Mehta whose vision is to support young cricketers with a monthly stipend in return for a portion of their marketing revenue when they make it to the big stage. Anand Mehta is himself the son of a wealthy stock broker who has rebelled against his father and gone to the US and on his return spends his time squandering the family wealth by investing in flop schemes. But with this new vision of sponsoring budding cricketers he thinks he can fulfil his lifelong ambition of gaining entry into the exclusive business club of Bombay. He is also given to spouting insightful social commentary on modern India. Sample this:

“Indians, my dear are basically a sentimental race with high cholesterol levels. Now that the hunger for social realist melodrama is no longer satisfied by the Hindi cinema, the Indian public is turning to cricket.”

At one point Mehta says that Cricket is essentially 'state-sponsored lobotomy' and its chivalrous ways are ideally suited for male social control especially in a country where the sex ratio is so skewed. So the only way to maintain the sanity of the nation wrecked by this crisis of masculinity and to keep the "rogue Hindu testosterone" in check is "Bread and Tendulkar" and hence a steady dose of live cricket. Such observations make you realize the social impact of the game on the country which might be bigger than even Football’s impact on Brazil.

The elder boy Radha is indeed the protégé but soon Manju overtakes him much to the displeasure of the elder brother. But what everyone fails to notice is to ask whether Manju himself wants to play the game. Manju himself is much more interested in Science and forensic science at that in the mould of TV series CSI.  So he halfheartedly takes to the game and perhaps for this reason does not feel any stress and this ironically makes him excel in the game.

Manju also has his growth pangs as he is ambivalent about his sexuality and this reaches a head when he meets an equally talented but disinterested in the game cricketer, Javed Ansari. J.A. as he is fondly called makes Manju question whether he loves the game at all or he plays it in fear of his maniacal father. He tethers between the poles while answering this question and in the end his indecision leads to his tragic fall to mediocrity. Radha on the other hand feels fate has been unkind to him and blames Manju for usurping his space. The father in the end feels if the God of cricket Subramanya he trusts "gave one boy the talent and the other the desire". This adds up to a tragic climax for each of the protagonists and the boys themselves realize all too late that they have "martyred ourselves to mediocrity'.

If anger marked ‘The White Tiger’ then fear marks this novel. As Manju’s father is driven not just by the desire of the riches but also from fear of what will happen if his sons do not succeed and as the end shows this can lead to nothing but tragedy.

Adiga also revels in biting satire as in when he says:

'Nothing is illegal in India. Because, technically, everything is illegal in India... See how it works?'

Or

'Revenge is the capitalism of the poor: conserve the original wound, defer immediate gratification, fatten the first insult with new insults, invest and reinvest spite, and keep waiting for the perfect moment to strike back'

Or when he describes the boys' father :

“Because Kumar’s eyes had in them what Anand Mehta called a ‘pre-liberalization stare’, an intensity of gaze common in people of the lower class before 1991, when the old socialist economy was in place”  

This is genius in one line!

There is also a rejoinder from the man to his critics who panned his first novel for bashing the dreamy eyed Indian middle class:

'What we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English, is not literature at all, but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant and funny beings. All that Jhumpa Lahiri stuff. But the truth is, we are absolutely nothing of that kind. What are we, then? We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbor's children in five minutes, and our own in ten. Keep this in mind before you do any business in the country'

Personally for me this novel is also a depiction of millions of Indian kids who lose their childhood in pursuit of the goals set by their over-ambitious parents who do not care about their real ambitions and in the process manage to push them into a life they do not want but who still labor on courageously knowing well that they might end up as tragedies.

So in the end this is the work of a genius, our own Flaubert who dissects the hypocrisies and ironies of modern Indian life like no other!   

This Divided Island : Samanth Subramanian

Hand grenade country

Somewhere in the middle of this riveting biography of a nation at war Samanth Subramanian dismisses the  banal expression terming Sri Lanka a 'teardrop island'. He instead views it as a hand grenade with Jafna being the safety pin. Suddenly this becomes your image of Sri Lanka too as you view from the bloody prism of its three decade old civil war and it feels like an accurate description of the country. It is moments such as these that make this part war book , part travelogue such an interesting read.

Samanth simultaneously explores the civil war, it's aftermath and the social conditions which led to it in the first place. Although this appears to be a daunting task he pulls it off with spectacular finesse giving one a whole new perspective of the country.

The book starts with a look at modern Sri Lanka as it copes with the aftermath of the civil war. The Sinhalese are in a triumphant and brash mood after vanquishing the Tigers in the bloody endgames of the war while the Tamils are a sober lot learning grudgingly to play second fiddle to the Sinhalese even as they stew in their new insecurities. The urban landscape is undergoing a transformation to reflect the emerging Sinhala majoritarianism where a 'brawny and purposeful'  rather than the serene Buddha is making conspicuous appearances. The creation of an overtly Buddhist landscape is also accompanied by cleansing of any Tamil remnants. As he ruefully observes - 'where there was nothing Buddhist to reclaim, there was always something Tamil to destroy'.

For novice outsiders like me Buddhist fundamentalism was a revelation. Buddhism is often cited in religious debates as an example of a truly peaceful religion compared to the other lot(the religious minded miss the delicious irony that by making such a case they in fact worsen their brief by accepting the violence of the other religions). This simple minded assumption is credibly questioned in the book as Buddhism employs casuistry to shamelessly legitimize the war effort by terming it speciously as a 'war for peace' effort and the war being carried out in the name of the Buddha himself.  Buddhist moral high ground is ripped apart layer by layer as monks are presented as specimens who rival the bigots from other religions.

The book then tracks the origins of the conflict and it's surprising to note that rather than being a recent phenomena it has a 2000 year history dating to the founding of Sri Lanka. The Mahavamsa,the Sinhala epic exhorts fellow Sinhalese whom it deems to be of superior Aryan stock to actively hate the much inferior wild Dravidian Tamils and stake their claim as the first sons of the soil. The British true to their policy of divide and rule favor the minority Tamil community which angers the Sinhalese further and once freedom arrives the  Sri lankans feel it's their time to redress the balance. What begins as preferential treatment for the Sinhalese turns into outright institutional discrimination towards the Tamils by the 70s.

Thus the middle of the 70s is all set for a showdown between the two communities and confrontation does come in the form of riots across the country. As Tamils realize the failure of constitutional methods of their moderate politicians they are drawn to the extremist ideology advocated by the Tigers spearheaded by Prabhakaran. This of course is a catastrophic choice and the remainder of the book deals with this horrific cycle of violence which culminates in the defeat of the Tigers three decades later with the world questioning the purported war crimes committed by the Sinhalese. 

The books also holds out a lesson for India which has - thus far - been saved from majoritarian excesses. India proves the need to have a feminine accomodative touch rather than an aggressive masculine approach in handling diversity. Lest we forget it we just need to have a look at our southerly neighbor.

The book in the end explores the psyche of the two communities and arrives at the surprising conclusion that the civil war has rendered both with the same temperament marked by extreme insecurity, fear of the authorities and loathing of the other. It is here that the book ends with neither hope nor despair for what is to come as it leaves time to decide on either path.

Samanth's writing in the best words of Orwell is as clear as a window pane and he peppers it with flourishes of imagination like a novelist. As he describes his intellectual friend M whom he meets in Jafna who he tries to pin to English to get the 'materialistic' information of the country even as he tries to defy him and  'soar in Tamil'. Also the description of the mechanic Nirmaladevan who is so purposeful in his daily chore that interrupting him would be like interrupting a phenomena of nature 'like a disruptive boy stopping the path of purposeful ants'. He is affecting when describing small actions of people that touches you like the 'beautifully futile act of resistance' of a Muslim butcher who hangs the key prominently outside to indicate a degree of ownership as 'he had ceded the house, rather than having it snatched from him'. Or the poignant request of a man who's leg is blown away by a tiger raid as he requests for a copy of the book when it eventually makes it to print. These and other such moments make sure that the book and the people it endeavors to describe stay in your mind for a long time to come.

To the Finland Station : Edmund Wilson

The History of an Idea

The history of man is the history of Ideas. However tracing the intellectual journey of an Idea is always complex but unfailingly interesting. The idea of Socialism is one such idea which has gripped mankind since the renaissance and continues to dazzle us even to this day. Here in this brilliant book Edmund Wilson tells the story of a succession of eccentric revolutionaries diverse in their temperament but united by the conviction that they have cracked the code for human prosperity. The idea that humanity need not depend on the mercies of celestial beings but in fact seize the engines of history and sprint towards their own progress. The idea of socialism.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the early socialists continuing in the renaissance tradition and deriving their inspiration from the French revolution. The second section and the crux of the book is the life and times of Karl Marx. The final section deals with the Russian revolution spearheaded by Lenin.

The section on the early revolutionaries is good and is an eye opener about the early socialists and shows how the idea existed long before Marx came along and made it his own so to say. The chapters on the great French historian Michellette and the irrepressible agitator Babeuf are especially good and exemplify French revolutionary thought. Their selflessness and passion for their ideas even as they fight the repressive regimes they find themselves under is truly inspirational.

The hero of the book really is Karl Marx and the middle portion and the biggest of the book is entirely dedicated to him. The picture that you get is neither the divinity ordained by his followers nor the ogre despised by his detractors. Instead you get a man of flesh and blood born at the end of a depleted rabbinical line who loses his religion to embark on a career of radical writing enduring poverty and displacement, all the time fighting for the cause of social justice, democracy and human freedom. A man who excoriated those who denied "human rights to human beings" as he endeavored to break the manacles binding humanity in order to release the genius of human creative energy. Wilson explains what made Marx a truly great writer as he combined his immense knowledge of social processes and history with an eye to pick the regnant issues of the day and to render them in witty, muscular and evocative prose.

This does not mean Wilson blindly worships Marx, he criticizes him for his gross simplifications and erroneous predictions regarding the classes and about his overbearing and fractious tendencies which duly got passed onto his followers. However he recognizes the genius in the man who spotted the trend of history like no other and pursued it with unprecedented drive. As Engels seems to ventriloquize beautifully Wilson's thoughts - "Marx was a genius, the rest of us were talented at best". Engels himself gets a sympathetic summary as the man Friday who supported Marx both financially as well as intellectually. In fact the section describing one of their rare and serious fights is touching as it shows Marx the sociopath genius who is suddenly terrified by the knowledge that he can lose his friend.

The last section of the book tells the story of the Russian revolution with Lenin at the center. The opening chapter beautifully describes Lenin's childhood in provincial Russia and provides a background into why he became what he became. Lenin is depicted as the iron willed revolutionary who brooks neither the theoretical hurdles of dogma nor the practical hurdles of personal calamity as he focuses on bringing to fruition the revolution Marx predicted. One feels this to be a far too generous assessment as his dictatorial tendencies and plain cruelty against those who disagreed with him are air brushed by Wilson who directs these aberrations to Trotsky's machinations. Nevertheless Lenin is brought to life in anecdote as well as deed as seen in the final paragraph of the book which has an ecstatic Lenin and his wife who have just arrived in a room in a palace even as the revolution has swept away the Tsar who formerly owned it. Finding no words to express themselves in they simply look at each other to realize that "everything was understood without words".

Edmund Wilson is a great writer and infuses this historical account with the urgency and human drama of a novel. The great historical actors leap out of the pages and fill our mind with their presence and their idea grips you like a vice. This is a rare book which needs to be read and re-read for generations to come.

River of Smoke : Amitav Ghosh

On the Opium Trail

'River of smoke' is the second installment of the fabulous Ibis trilogy by Amitav Ghosh. It follows the lives of the 'jahaj-bhais' aboard the famed Ibis setting off on a migratory journey to Mauritius. Although the Ibis plays less of a role here than it did in the 'Sea of Poppies' much of the same cast of characters exist and are joined by a few more.

The book starts with the storm that ended the first book with Neel and Ah Fath escaping the Ibis under cover of the storm and eventually making their way to Singapore and in Neel's case to Canton. Here we are introduced to the central character of the book , a Parsee merchant from Bombay called Bahram Modi who is aboard another ship at the time of the storm heading towards Canton. He is carrying a big shipment of opium which is his gamble at setting himself up as an independent businessman. His ship too gets caught in the storm and the vivid description of the swaying opium carts as Bahram evades his way through is one of the highlights of the book. Eventually Bahram reaches Canton after suffering minor damages with Neel in tow who he has employed as a munshi en route.

In China itself, the opium trade is under great danger as the Chinese have finally realized the effects of the substance. The British themselves have no compunction over the trade as they do it in the name of 'free trade' which is as much a religious credo to them as Jesus Christ. As one merchant pithily says 'Free trade is Jesus Christ'. Even though he too is an opium merchant Bahram is troubled by the nature of the trade and somehow convinces himself by comparing it to the uncontrollable wind upon which he has simply set his sails, in essence detaching himself from morality.

The drama reaches another level with the arrival of commissioner Lin who is a smart and canny administrator who has promised the king that he will root out the opium scourge. Then begins a cat and mouse game between the merchants and the Chinese administration with each upping the ante. As the commissioner tightens the screws the merchants forced to yield more and more eventually leading to a minor victory for the commissioner when the book ends with the war very imminent.

Amitav Ghosh's prose is lush and wonderfully evocative of 18th century China. The bustling Hutongs with the china-men speaking in their pidgin, the boat women's course hand and tongue, the tactful notices of the mandarins make you feel you are indeed in the middle kingdom. It is quite easy to see the similarity between the opium trade of the 18th century and today's oil economy as both have a bunch of western countries setting upon Asian countries in the name of free trade and indeed freedom proving Marx's dictum of history repeating twice.

There are other small details too that stay in your mind like the multi-course meals served among the merchants, the effect of the inhaled opium, the Indians with their diversity trying to conjure a little India foreseeing the Indian nation a century later, the underlying racism of some of the British merchants, these and many more details are vividly written.

This book will invariably be compared to the first one. As brilliant as 'Sea of Poppies' was this book should be rated higher. Although few of the characters from the first book like Deeti and Neel don't get too much prominence you understand it is for a reason as Bahram becomes such an overpowering character in this book. The moral dilemmas are more starker as they are played out in all its complexity in Bahram's mind which takes the novel to an altogether different plane. He realizes in the end the falsehood of his rationalizations and tragically realizes that the trade is nothing but a deal with the devil for which he has to pay. Bahram's dilemma is beautifully summed up towards the end as he says overlooking the young Indians playing in the maidan 'what was it all for, was it just that these fellows could speak English, wear hats and trousers and play cricket'.

In the end with the opium wars looming in the background the stage is set for a fantastic denouement in the final book of the trilogy which will bring to an end one of the great works of modern literature.

Sea of Poppies : Amitav Ghosh

In the shadow of Opium

Historical fiction is that rare thing that is difficult to research, hard to put into fiction and harder still to make it gripping. Amitav Ghosh has succeeded in doing all three and more in his Ibis trilogy and the 'Sea of Poppies' is our entryway into the great world that he creates.The Ibis trilogy aims to bring alive the opium trade, from its origins in India to its eventual destination of China along the way exploring the migratory history of the Indian people across the Indian ocean. This novel in particular traces the origins of the opium trade which Ghosh himself calls 'the dirty secret of capitalism' across the towns, cities and plains of 18th century British India.

The story starts in Ghazipur on the banks of the Ganga whose fertile lands have been turned into poppy fields grown to satisfy the increasing demand of the drug in China. The British have run a trade deficit with China as they don't have anything to exchange for the enormous quantities of tea they import and have thus zeroed in on the opium trade to offset this deficit. The trade helps them both ways as they have a near monopoly on opium cultivation in eastern India which they sell in the Chinese markets at enormous profits. Of course no morality pricks them as they are doing all this in the name of free trade even as they have hypocritically banned the drug in their own country.

The story of opium is told through a diverse cast of characters who happen to end up on a slave ship called the Ibis as it set sails to Mauritius. Chief among them is Deeti who is widowed of her opium addicted husband soon after the novel begins and escapes her relatives who are hell bent on forcing sati on her. She is joined on the Ibis by Neel Rattan Haldar who is a rich landlord fallen on hard times who ends up as a convict meant for deportation. A mulatto American called Zachary Reid rides on the ship looking for adventure. The ship is also boarded by a young botanist girl called Paulette who is escaping a dreaded life in Calcutta after her father passed away. These and many others come to share the Ibis and become in the evocative words of Ghosh himself 'jahaj-bhais', a term still used by their descendants in Mauritius.

The rest of the story traces these characters as they make their way across the Bay of Bengal. Their suffering inside the ship, their almost mythical attachment to the Indian landmass and their deep sadness when they finally leave behind that land and enter the 'black water' all these are captured in a spell binding manner. The novel ends in a great big storm with Neel and his fellow convict friend attempting an escape. The next two novels in the trilogy will pick the threads from here and string together the story culminating in the opium wars.

As good a prose as it is from Ghosh it is the extent of his research that impresses the most. The details of the poppy crop, the way it is harvested and even the way it looks and its many usages are an eye opener for anybody. Also the way the opium is then processed in the factory and made ready for export is simply fascinating. The scene at the factory that vividly describes the processing of the opium as Deeti hurtles from room to room looking for her husband is one of the best written passages I have read and just this scene is worth the effort of picking up the book.

What alarms one is the extent to which opium played a role in the creation of modern India and China and also its huge impact on Britain and US. The entire Indian economy lead by its leading families and royals was driven by opium, China of course suffered immensely from the ill effects of opium and opium kicked off its 'century of humiliations'. On the other side, the English effectively ran a 'drug wielding cartel' across Asia which helped them run their empire. Even the leading American families like the Coolidges and Roosevelts amassed their wealth upon the trade so much so that the great riches of the American east coat were built upon the opium trade. Even more alarming is the fact that this story of opium has completely vanished from public memory across the world and more so in India. Hence kudos to Ghosh for bringing alive this forgotten page of world history.

The language of the novel is another fascinating aspect of it. The pure well of the queen's English is mixed with a plethora of words from Hindustani, so you have the pleasure of finding words like 'khidmatgars', 'tankh-wah', 'afeem-khor' and 'Kaala paani' among others including quite a few imaginary expletives. Add to these the words of the sea faring sailors or lascars and you have a fascinating cacophony of words and languages.

All in all, the sea of poppies makes for a gripping read and tells the story of opium that needs to be told in a world that is very much it's creation but has sadly and dare we say conveniently forgotten it.

Arzee the Dwarf : Chandrahas Choudhury

Convicted by reality, pardoned by imagination

Arzee is a dwarf working the projection room of the once great but now declining Bombay theater called 'Noor'. As one of his poet-philosopher-driver friend memorably says, he is 'chained by reality but pardoned by imagination'. He imagines himself being thought of as a special person despite his height, imagines working as the head projectionist at the Noor some day and dares to imagine marrying and settling down too. He is a thinking man who ponders about people, god and life, even as one of the other characters derisively calls his mind a 'theater of emotions'.

But too often reality jolts him like a thunderbolt. His dreams for the Noor come crashing down as the owners want to sell off the loss making theater. He is hounded by the betting cartel to whom he owes money. The girl he loves is wrenched away from him by her father and finally he gets to know of a family secret which makes him so despondent as to appear as a 'dissident' to happiness. Arzee finally manages to somehow get out of these difficulties and attain some kind of closure when the book ends.

Chandrahas Choudhury has created a character in Arzee who reflects all of us who have some kind of inadequacies. Arzee's inadequacies are externally manifested in his dwarfness which forces him to 'talk to the asses and crotches of the world' but many of us too suffer inadequacies internally and we like Arzee try to overcome them throughought our lives with varying degrees of success. Arzee's anxieties are the same as ours - a decent job, someone to love and a life of happiness. These are our anxieties too and this makes Arzee a very relatable character despite his dwarfness.

The novel also is a quintessential 'Bombay novel' where the city is as much a character as the others. The cast of characters with their varying backgrounds and thoughts could only have been assembled in the great metropolis. There is a wonderful description of the bustling train station which is a superb piece of cityscape writing. The great theater and the wonderfully evocative 'great beam' inside it can also be looked upon as a distinct character. The fascination with the movies and the effect it has on mass culture is beautifully depicted and is an ode to the charm of the erstwhile single screen theaters. 

Although its a very good novel with lot of layers, it does have a few shortcomings. The ending seems a bit contrived and has an almost bollywoodish feel to it. Also a few characters could have been given a longer run , like Arzee's poet-philosopher-driver friend Dasharatji and the blind daughter of the head projectionist who light up the only scenes they appear in, an extended role for each of them would have given an added dimension. Nevertheless the novel heralds the arrival of another English speaking voice to the welcome cacophony that is Indian writing in English and we should all welcome it.

Between the Assassinations : Aravind Adiga

Subaltern biography of an Indian town

Kittur, sitting on the western coast of India 'between Goa and Calicut' is Aravind Adiga's Malgudi whose host of characters bring out the preoccupations of little town India with its plethora of caste, religious and moral conflicts. Purportedly a collection of short stories set in the seven- year period between the assassinations of prime minister Gandhi and her son however the stories translate easily to contemporary times as the issues involved are still very much alive.

Mangalore is the clear inspiration for Kittur not just in terms of geographical locale but also for its mix of religions , languages and castes. As with any collection of short stories some of the stories are sublime and others ordinary however the sublime ones clearly triumph and they live on in your mind.

Although not as biting as 'The White Tiger' Adiga still retains his feel for the pulse of subaltern India. Many of the themes and characters remind one of his most famous novel and it is a delight to see how they incubated in the author's mind and seeped into the novel which he wrote a few years later.

The effecting moments are many. For instance in the first story where a muslim boy in a desperate need of dignity develops a surrogate pride in Muslim achievements in far away north India only to be jolted back to reality when he finds himself tempted by an Islamic terrorist. The shuddering inferiority complex of a low caste mother in front of her Brahmin son and the conflicts wrecked on the boy himself as he tries to locate his true being holds a mirror to the continued prominence of caste in modern India.

Or the arresting story of a honest journalist who after realizing perchance the untruth of whatever he has written thus far seeks redemption by writing one true story at last. Or the sigh of a cart puller who laments the injustice in the world when he sees an elephant with almost no load striding in front of him even as he pulls a humongous load.

Or the touching story of a quack sexologist who sells fake sugar filled tablets to credulous youth finds himself assisting a young man to find a cure for an ailment that could be AIDS as he questions the justice in it all with the youth getting this terrible disease on 'his very first time'. Or the disillusioned communist who after a lifetime of keeping the faith rues that 'Americans had somehow won' and 'Marx had become mute'.

The white tiger showed a man who rose from the underclass with all it's attached miseries to break the glass ceiling and secure a good life. However the characters in this book barely attempt to break the mold and instead wallow in their travails with little hope in sight. However in the process they give us a glimpse into the lives of subaltern India.

The White Tiger : Aravind Adiga

India's Flaubert explores the 'darkness'

Every once in a while comes a book that challenges what passes for mainstream opinion. 'The White Tiger' is one such book which came around the time when India was hailed as a rising power with the holy grail of Superpower-dom just a few steps away. Adiga's novel throws cold water on the face of the people with such grand delusions and forces them to stare hard at reality. It definitely deserved the Booker prize as it presented the stark realities of modern India much to the displeasure of the 'shining India' crowd raised on fantasies of superpower-dom.

It is written as a dramatic monologue which reminds one of the narrator from 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' but only more angrier. The story takes us through the protagonist Balram Halwai's birth and upbringing in the 'darkness' of eastern India with its stark caste and religious conflicts where 'one cannot be a good man even if one wants to be' to the radiant 'light' of Bangalore bustling with call centers symbolizing new India. The contrast between this 'darkness' and 'light' is one of the central themes of the book and shows two disparate countries within one. The people from each of these Indias might as well been from different planets, such is the contrast.

Balram typifies the plight of the rural poor as he grows up in an impoverished village wrought by landlords termed with imaginative names like 'Stork' and 'Buffalo' who cruelly fatten on the labors of the poor. He is sent to a dysfunctional school where the teacher collaborates to rip the students of the government funds . He is then rudely taken out of school to supplement the family income after they 'suffer' the marriage of a sister. He goes on to work as a 'human spider' working the tables in one of the ubiquitous tea shops and finally ends up in the local town where he learns to drive and lands a job as a driver.

As a driver he experiences the unfairness of the master-servant relationship which seems to mirror the rich-poor relationship outside. The inherent injustice in the relationship is best brought out by an incident which culminates in Balram being asked to take responsibility for an accident caused by the madam of the house. Although the charge is never pressed, just the fact that the master - and shockingly he himself - had found it normal that a driver take the blame disillusions him. Balram starts to relate his own state with that of the poor outside and feels that both of them are like roosters trapped within a coop which condition them to bear the injustices without rebelling.

The 'Rooster Coop' is the most abiding image from the novel. Adiga compares the disillusioned poor tempered by history to be inherently subservient to roosters in a coop. Like the roosters in the coop they do not rebel even in the face of impending doom as the 'coop is guarded from inside'. As Balram says himself, the coop is so sturdy that it would take an extraordinary 'freak of nature' - a white tiger like himself someone who is born 'once in a generation' to break out of this coop. Although one can argue with the means used by Balram to break out of the coop one has to sympathize with his helplessness and also that of the poor in general who have no means of breaking out of this coop. Balram sees his act in a larger context of breaking out of the coop and terms himself as 'neither man nor a demon' but simply someone who has 'woken up' in an unjust world and has decided to act rather than face his inevitable fate of dying a pitiful death like many of his ilk. In other words violence becomes an acceptable currency of transaction for the poor in an unjust world. Although one does not agree with his actions one does understand his motivations.

Adiga's writing is flawless and the images he conjures stick in your mind for a long time. As Dickens and Flaubert exposed the cruelties bred by industrialization in 19th century England and France Adiga does the same exposé with the 21st century growing India. Adiga also doffs his hat in the direction of Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' who he acknowledges as an inspiration. As Ellison brought out the issue of racism from the perspective of the black man Adiga endeavors to bring out the perspective of poverty and caste discrimination from the perspective of the Indian poor and succeeds marvelously.

Joseph Anton : Salman Rushdie

Memoir of a 'multi-rooted' man

Joseph Anton - a pseudonym conjured by the author joining first names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekov - tries to be different things at the same time and succeeds brilliantly.

Primarily a memoir about the almost decade long siege Salman Rushdie was under due to the Fatwa, it is also an eloquent treatise for free speech and its value to the world where it has increasingly come under attack. It also elaborates on the author-publisher relationship and provides insights into the goings on in the publishing industry.Finally to spice things up he also adds details from his personal life and in the process excoriating two of his ex-wives!

Rushdie purportedly kept a diary during the Fatwa years and that would explain his detailed day-on-day account of those days. Although rich in detail it also tends to get monotonous after the first few years what with innumerable parties, home shifts and speaking engagements. This makes the book 100-pages too long but this is a minor criticism of a brilliant book.

It is written in the third person which gives it a novelistic feel with the author himself being the prime actor. There are cameos from the who's who of the literary world and Rushdie always remembers to drop in a good word for someone who helped him or stood up for his cause. On the other hand he dishes out opprobrium to those who let him down during the time.

It also provides wonderful insights into what went on in the author's mind when he wrote his novels, explaining the points of conception of the idea, the way he worked out key characters and their inspirations from real life. The conception of the 'The Satanic Verses' based on a course he took in university is one of the best passages in the book which provides a historical context to the novel and is a fitting reply to those who accused him of coming up with an 'insult' for a novel. As he rightly points out why would he spend five years of his life working tediously on as he says a literary exploration of 'revelation from the standpoint of an unbeliever' if he wanted to come up with a mere 'insult'.

His defenses of free speech are among the most passionate passages in the book where he argues for a free society with a cacophony of varied opinions where everyone has a right to express his/her opinion without fear. He also emphatically points out the importance of 'stories' in our society and warns us against the pernicious attempt by religious extremists to monopolize them. In the process he attacks both the left and the right on letting down the principle at various times and urges the general public to hold steadfast to the principle.

His personal life too is opened up in a frank manner. His relationship with his first wife Clarissa and their son Zafar beautifully done, especially moving is his moments with a dying Clarissa. The relationship with his second wife - and wife at the time of the Fatwa - Marianne Wiggins is the most frantic and he frankly writes about the the strains in their marriage and how it fell apart, their quarrels do provide comic relief at times! Also funny and revealing are his comments about his last wife the model and TV persona Padma Lakshmi whom he calls the 'illusion' who comes across as a self seeking and ambitious. To be fair Rushdie too confesses to being selfish at times in his relationships especially with his third wife Elizabeth who was left stranded after the Padma Lakshmi 'thunderbolt'struck him.

What came as a surprise are accounts of the author as a boy and young man growing up in post-independence Bombay and his journey to boarding school and college in England. His encounters with England rather than making him lose his Indian roots instead provided him with as he says a 'multi-rooted' existence.His love for India shines through, evident in the fact that all his novels had their inspiration from Indian stories. His disappointments with India too come through when at times India rejected him and as he wryly says 'the wounds inflicted by India were the deepest'.

All in all it is a brilliant, moving memoir where the reader will come away much the richer!