(From The Hindu. Link to the complete article given below) Towards the end of her account of being […]
Category Archive: Indian writing
Karthi was in love.
Whether it was right for him to be in love, being only eight years old, was a different matter.
He thought Mari was the most beautiful thing he had ever set his eyes on. And though he was trying hard to do his maths homework (the terrifying prospect of facing Varadarajan sir with a blank notebook urged him on), he just couldn’t. He had been sitting in the corner of appa’s room with his back against the wall, his books spread out around him, chewing the end of his pencil and trying to focus on the problem at hand.
‘Joseph had three dozen roses. He gave half of them to Alice. How many roses did each of them have?’
Oh, lucky boy Joseph! He had three dozen roses to give away to whoever he liked. Whereas he, Karthi, could not find a way to get hold of just one rose to give to Mari. It would look beautiful in her hair that swung down her back in a thick, long plait. She would pin it just behind her ear, like the heroines in the black and white film songs paatti watched on TV.
But where could he find a rose?
There were all sorts of plants in the yard outside, but no rose among them. On his way home from school, he had seen women selling large, colourful baskets of roses. But the school bus did not stop anywhere near the market and asking the driver to let him down midway was out of the question. The driver was an annoying fellow with a knowing laugh and a hundred questions; he would want to know what business R. Karthik from III-B had in the flower market, whether his parents knew he was making such a strange request to the bus driver, and what the school principal would say if he found out.
No, it would be foolish to even try.
Getting an auto from the stand outside the school was also risky—the auto drivers had regular riders and knew most of the students by name. They knew he usually took the school bus and if he dared ask one of them to take him to the market, there would only be more questions. Briefly, he considered walking to the market but no, it was too far—even by bus, it took twenty minutes. He wished he had a cycle like some of the older students—that would make things so much simpler.
By Vinayak Dewan
Title: The Town that Laughed
Author: Manu Bhattathiri
Publisher: Aleph Book Company (2018)
Pages: 262 (Hardcover)
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Manu Bhattathiri’s latest novel leisurely reveals deep insights into the human mind through its dysfunctional army of sleepily adorable characters.
The cover page of Manu Bhattathiri’s The Town that Laughed depicts the novel’s protagonist-antagonist duo: Yemaan Paachu, a retired former local police chief; Joby, the town drunk that Paachu takes on the job of reforming. Standing true to its promise of being a twenty-first century novel, it does not betray which is antagonist and which protagonist — a complexity that extends to many of the sleepy town’s residents. Instead, they are simultaneously comical and troubled, happy and sad, silly and incredibly intelligent.
The Town that Laughed evokes nostalgia for Malgudi, the titular setting of Malgudi Days (1943), a collection of short stories by Padma Vibhushan winning novelist R. K. Narayan. India has come a long way since 1943, and has, in the process, concocted its own multiple Englishes. As a postcolonial novel, The Town takes a big leap from Malgudi that hesitated to speak English, often italicizing, parenthesizing or poorly translating many aspects of Indian rural life for the western audience — diluting idlis to rice cakes, for instance. The Town, on the other hand, finds an audience situated closer to home and more adept at understanding the novel’s cultural milieu. Dialogues in the vernacular often find no translation or explanation in English. This might sometimes alienate a non-Malayali speaking reader such as me but allows the writer to write his story with confidence.
Provided by a robust toolkit, the omnipresent narrator is kind and funny and honest: ‘… you must be completely honest if you are seeking to give the reader a true picture.’ Bhattathiri is seamlessly able to don the skin of the novel’s diverse characters, revealing insights into their psyche with a heart winning tenderness. A case in point is the aunt-niece duo Sharada and Priya, Yemaan Paachu’s wife and niece respectively.
The Primeval Call by Faiz Ahmad Faiz Ahmad is the founder of healthcare start-up Orbuculum and has a […]
SIX
During the month of September, Arif shut himself in his tiny study room, spending all his waking hours preparing for the mains. The previous month Amma had made Abba buy two large cylindrical steel containers to store grains, and these were then placed in the corridor outside his study room. A mason had been deployed to cut through the brick wall and construct a window that opened into the backyard. Amma had also got the study room whitewashed and the table and chair had been given a new coat of polish.
‘My son needs privacy to prepare for a prestigious and difficult exam like this,’ Arif had heard her saying to Abba.
He stopped going over to Mritunjay’s place, fearing he might run into Sumitra. He knew that if she was around, he would not be able to stay away from her. Whenever Mritunjay complained about his reduced visits, Arif invented new excuses.
But Sumitra kept popping up in his mind. The scene from that rainy night played in his mind continuously. Whenever he conjured up the moment she had embraced him, he got goosebumps. At times he also recalled Simran, his childhood crush from Darbhanga, and felt nostalgic. He convinced himself that Sumitra would vanish from his memories the way Simran had.
October finally arrived and Arif felt that he had performed exceptionally well in the exam. He was sure to get an interview call. The very next day he went to Ashok Rajpath and bought the books required to prep for the interview. He also created detailed notes on his personal and academic backgrounds, the areas he would be questioned on during the interview.
‘A part of our ancestral house in Jamalpura has collapsed in the rain. One of the walls requires immediate repair. I want you to go there and oversee the construction,’ Abba told Arif.
Arif was eager to leave for Jamalpura instantly. This way he would be away from Sumitra. He also wanted to test Zakir’s hypothesis – maybe staying away from her would help him forget her. He would also be able to concentrate on his studies. His ultimate dream to join the civil services was just one hurdle away and he couldn’t mess up all his hard work and his family’s dreams now.
‘See, Arif, you are close to your goal. In Jamalpura, you’ll have a comfortable space to study for the interview. Here, the continuous footfall of guests will distract you,’ Abba said. ‘Sometimes I feel guilty for not sending you to a good coaching institute like Mritunjay’s father did,’ he added with a heavy sigh.
‘Don’t say that, Abba. You have been a wonderful father.’
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The bus crossed Gandhi Setu over the majestic Ganga and entered Hajipur. It turned and speeded towards Muzaff arpur. Between Muzaff arpur and Hajipur, there was no road, only a long stretch of potholes and cobbled paths. The bus jerked like a horse cart. A bespectacled old gentleman cursed the chief minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, for the condition of the roads and ridiculed Yadav for claiming that he would make Bihar’s roads as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks.
(From The Hindu, by Parvati Sharma. Link to the complete article given below) The Mughals have garnered many […]
(From The Hindu by E.V. Ramakrishnan. Link to the complete article given below) This year marks the eve […]
Reviewed by Ananya S. Guha
Title: Shillong Times: A Story of Friendship and Fear
Author: Nilanjan P. Choudhury
Publisher: Speaking Tiger (2018)
Pages: 237
Nilanjan Choudhury’s novel Shillong Times, as the subtitle suggests, is a ‘story of friendship and fear’. Friendship’s association with ‘fear’, then, seems to be a thematic focus.
Set against the backdrop of Shillong in the volatile times of the 1980s, the novel is an addition to what is now turning out to be a fairly long list of fiction, including short stories which revolve around this town. Anjum Hasan’s Lunatic in My Head, Siddartha Deb’s The Point of Return and Janice Pariat’s Boats on Land come readily to mind.
Choudhury, however, builds a more conscious landscape than the others to take us to the world of his fourteen year old protagonist Debojit Dutta, who in Blakeian terms leaves his ‘innocence’ behind to ‘experience’ his new found world, thanks to his friendship with two other teenagers, Clint Eastwood Lyngdoh and the empathetic Audrey Pariat. It is the former who introduces Debojit Dutta, when they meet in mathematics tuition classes, to the world of Pink Floyd and the out-of-bounds restaurant Kalsang.
I mentioned the volatile times of the eighties that forms the backdrop of the novel. Choudhury poignantly interfuses community relations (tribal and non tribal, the Bengali superiority syndrome, the Sylheti speaking Bengalis and the Calcutta Bengalis, etc.) with personal ones. Yet these personal friendships are among teenagers, which their adult counterparts or forebears seem to look askance at. Debojit’s mother reprimands him for this, so does his school teacher (lampooned effectively) Mr. Chakravarty. Clint’s father refuses to help in getting the trading licence of Debojit’s father renewed, although he saves him in a potentially violent squabble.
As ethnic tensions rise in the town of Shillong, resulting also in conflict of relations between Debojit and Clint (thanks also to the meddlesome Mr. Chakravarty), Debojit’s parents contemplate shifting to Calcutta and remove him to a school in Calcutta despite his protestations. Debojit also suffers taunts from his locality members for befriending a tribal, a Khasi. All this while, the petite Audrey plays a quiet mediating role, playing across the broken friendship of Debojit and Clint and building bridges.
About the book:
The Bride’s Mirror (Mirat ul-‘Arus) was the first bestseller in Urdu. First published in 1869, within twenty years it had gone into several editions and sold over 100,000 copies. An English translation was published in England in 1903 by G. E. Ward, and the book has been almost continuously in print ever since. The novel tells the story of two sisters, Asghari and Akbari, who are married to two brothers in Delhi. Akbari, the spoilt, mean-tempered and impetuous sister, fritters away all the advantages she is offered and makes a mess of her life. Asghari, who has to contend with all sorts of disappointments and setbacks, prevails in the end and makes a success of everything she turns her hand to.
All through its existence, The Bride’s Mirror had been hailed as one of the most important works of Urdu literature ever published. The portrait it provides of the lives of those who lived in Delhi over a hundred years ago is an indelible one.
…
When the news of Batúl’s death reached him, Dúrandesh Khán sáhib was very greatly distressed, and it was with a troubled heart that he wrote to his daughter the following letter:
Chapter 13
Where’s Your Milk Moustache?
There has never been any doubt about the great love that we Indians have for all things dairy, from milk to all the products that milk can churn out—yoghurt, buttermilk, butter, cottage cheese, you name it. Perhaps this has always been so because of the abundance of buffaloes and even cow milk here. There never was any doubt about its importance in our diet, and the goodness it bestows on our body, for both children and adults alike.
However today, like all good things, milk and its need is also being questioned. Why do you think this milky white elixir is tainted all of a sudden? There are no easy answers here. Perhaps, it just succumbed to unnecessary research and even more unnecessary shunning of fat that has gone on an overdrive over the last few decades. When you scrutinize a food too much, you are bound to find something amiss, or rather construct an anomaly using half-baked evidence. That is probably what must have happened with milk as well. Suddenly, it is being associated with weight gain, high cholesterol and multiple other ills in spite of the fact that there is no ‘clear’ reason for it.
No, you are never too old for a milk moustache!
There is no one who is unaware of the benefits of milk. It is the first source of nutrition for humans and continues to be an important food all through their lives. However, it is wrong to think that milk is unnecessary or maybe even harmful for them, and that they can do away with it. It is a healthy snack, a fulfilling appetizer and a perfect breakfast drink. Nothing else can compare to a wholesome glass of milk. Our elders knew and followed this, and we should be smart enough to go back to this school of thought as soon as possible.
