You

-M.Mukundan (translated by : Nandakumar K.)

It was an unusual name for a novel that caught my eye at the bangalore lit fest. The book was called 'You' and written by a well known malayalam author, translated into english. The name so fascinated me that I just had to pick it up and begin reading it the moment i reached home.  

The protagonist “you” is Unnikrishna, now an old man in his early seventies a who wants to create news by announcing his own death date. Much to his dismay, no one really takes him seriously and the press conference to announce his death is poorly attended. However, two days later, a young female journalist ends up at his doorstep wanting to know the how and why of the when of his death. Unni'shna is not willing to reveal more, Paro is persistent if nothing else.

But Unni’shna was not born old, was he? He was born to stamp vendor Goyindan and his wife Lakshmikutty  in a remote village in Kerala in the 50s..belonging to a generation that spent its prime without a TV, mobile or internet and grew into it past their fifties. The first generation to prosper with the opening of the economy. He is a deep thinker, pondering on existentialism and Camus, so influenced by Victor Hugo that he considers even his clothes an impediment to thinking. He believes clothes are an impediment to deep thought " because, in order to think independently, one needs to be shorn of not only prejudices but also of clothes. Only when you are digambara, can your mind be pure and untainted. “And its sheerly for this reason that he wants a room of his own in his house.  

As a child, he is fascinated by all things hidden- food covered on the counter, money covered under the flap of a conductor’s ticket bad, things hidden inside his father’s locked trunk, a muslim woman’s face hidden under a burqa, the person bathing behind the bathroom door and pays price for each of these uncoverings. As an adult he tries to uncover people’s thoughts and unravel any ideas veiled under these thoughts. This price he pays for this is higher.  

Unni'shna having been the first one to graduate in his family turns out to be a successful author after publishing his first book. His father wants him to have a job befitting his status. His mother, troubled by her elder daughter-in-law’s barren womb, has other demands of him. And people are angered by his fame as a novelist. In the midst of this, one fine morning the young author disappears without a trace, vanishing into thin air. Not even a fly in town knows where Unni’shna has disappeared and why. And now after more than 35 years, Unni’shna has returned back to his village- a village he can no longer recognise and a village that no longer recognises him. So does his impending death mean anything to anybody? How does he know when he is going to die especially when he categorically states that it is not suicide. Where was Unni’shna all these years and why?  

The author has written the entire novel in the second person format where the author is talking to the protagonist as a monologue, narrating Unni’shna’s life to Unni’shna himself. “ Your name is Unnikrishnan. Your mother is Lakshmikutty and your father Goyindan..” , that’s how the book opens and follows the same format till the end. It is only through the narrator’s voice that the reader meets Unni’shna and his whole family and a few friends that he has. The format of a novel inside a novel (Unni’shna’s first novel is a part of this novel) is also very engaging and gives a glimpse into the inner working of Unni’shna’s mind.  

 

 

 

My memories of Secret Santa

Studying in a girls’ convent run by the Apostolic Carmel nuns in the eighties in Goa made Christmas an as important festival as a Diwali or Ganesh Chaturthi. And a large part of Christmas celebrations in the school consisted of playing the Secret Santa. Of course, in those days we did not call it that..we called it Christ mother (  it was a girls school, remember?) and the Christ child- the giver and the receiver respectively. The excitement began about 3-4 weeks before the Christmas. Each class conducted its own event moderated by their class teacher. The names were written on chits and each one had to pick up one. It was of course a secret, so you could tell no one..or you could tell your best friend and tell them to tell no one 😉 Then there were chances you would get your own name, so you quietly put back the chit folded and picked up another one. Sometimes you would get your best friend’s name and that was so thrilling, now you couldn’t share your secret with your best friend too. Sometimes you got that girl whom no one liked and you try to tell the teacher that you wanted to change it- but no, the spirit of Christmas doesn’t allow for that. You have to be nice whosoever name you get- that’s the life lesson for you- your teacher lectures you. Now came the important part – what do you give your Christ child? Well, the Sisters remind you that in the true spirit of Christmas – its not the gifts that matter. The one month that you have that person’s name- you be nice to her. You keep her in your prayers every day. Wish the best for her and her family in your heart secretly. You pray for her without telling her. Such a beautiful thought, na? Also we were reminded that since we were students, we had to make sure our gifts weren’t extravagant. Even if some of  our parents could afford, our teachers reminded us that all parents can’t afford so we don’t want to make anyone feel small- that’s not the point of this exercise. We were reminded to have the backs of our Christ child throughout the month – be a little extra nice to them, watch out for them. Share your lunch with them, forgive them if they hurt you. And the fun is – because we didn’t want the Christ child to guess who we were, we ended up being nice to everyone. Now if that’s not the true spirit of Christmas, I don’t know what else is. Finally on the last day, when school would break for Christmas, it was time to reveal the Christ mother. We made a small gift like an embroidered kerchief or a neat bookmark or picked up some gift that was important to us and along with a homemade sweet, gave it to our Christ child, revealing our true identity as their guardian angel for the last four weeks. In turn, we also found out who our Christ mother was and received our gifts. Just once in a way, it turned out that the person who was my Christ child was also my Christ mother causing much joy at the mutuality. And then we collectively had a pot luck lunch in class with all  the delicacies that our mothers had packed in our boxes for the special event. Even more than three decades later, every Christmas, I still vividly remember how we were taught to celebrate Christmas in its true spirit. And every time, I become a Secret Santa I remember to pray for my chosen Santee.

Best wishes for the festive season !

 

The Elephant Whisperer 

A true story of a herd of wild animals by naturalist Lawrence Anthony.

Conservationist Lawrence Anthony and his partner, the beautiful and sensitive Francois live on the South African game ranch Thula Thula along with the ranch manager David. Anthony is offered a herd of rogue elephants to rehabilitate. If he refuses, the herd would be put to sleep as they have turned out to be unpredictable and dangerous, already having caused enough destruction.

Anthony’s sensitivity to nature and animals is amazing. Here is a man born for the wild. His ability to communicate instinctively with animals makes him the right person to rehabilitate this rogue herd. The book is beautiful from the word go. The journey of the elephants as well as that of Anthony and Francoise along with them is filled with love, poignancy, humour and inadvertent sense of wonder towards nature.

It did remind me a bit of Durrell’s writings – this man is way ahead of Durrell in many aspects though. He has found a kindred soul in the animals – he seems to communicate with animals at a deeper level. Anthony displays an unusual ability to understand the silent communication of the creatures of the wild.  

 #repost of old post

Devdas

 This doomed love story by Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay written in 1917 as been adapted to the celluloid more than once but the one I watched last night was the old classic by Bimal Roy (1955)  – music by Sachin Dev Burman and lyrics by Sahir Ludhianwi- cast – Dilip Kumar in the title role, Suchitra Sen as Parvati (Paro) and the ever graceful Waheeda Rehman as Chandramukhi. It generally doesn’t get better than that. Each of them is a master of the craft and despite the story being a melodramatic tragedy – subtlety is the key word of each and every scene. The entire 210 minutes of screen time- the cameraman has used minimalism to create maximum effect, making sure the pain and sadness dominate the screen and nothing else distracts it. The crisp editing makes sure that at no point does  the movie drag. The melancholy music adds to the torment faced by the silent protagonist as he copes with the fact that he has lost the love of his life partly due to his parents’ and society’s disapproval of  their relationship and partly due to his own folly. A couple of songs are based on the Baul tradition of Bengal. The depiction of the village life in Bengal in the early part of the 20^th century is shown aptly so is the costumes of the actors. Do make time for this classic if you haven’t seen it yet.

-May 2020

 

The Moon and the Sixpence 

– by Somerset Maugham

An old copy of this book which I picked up at a second hand book store – I don’t even remember when- was sitting on my bookshelf for a long time. I picked it up the other day as I wanted a break from the heavy and dry contents of Mein Kampf. And such a good thing I did. This is the story written in first person voice by the author about an artist who pursues his art with an almost  violent passion; an artist who honours his calling only at the age of forty after  living a normal middle class stock brokers life. Charles Strickland lives with his wife and two kids a regular life of an English stockbroker when all of a sudden he decides to give up everything and moves to Paris to become an artist. The author, who has met Mrs.Strickland during the parties she hosts for writers and poets; finds himself in the midst of the Stricklands family scenario by virtue of his friendship with Mrs.Strickland. The rest of the novel traces the life of Charles Strickland and his dogged pursuit of his art.

Maugham explores the madness of Strickland through the narrator’s voice and observation. The story begins with the present time frame and personal interactions between the artist and the author  in the first part but goes on to a retelling in the past in the second part where the author pieces it together from narratives of various people who have met the artist along the way. The story draws inspiration from the life of the artist, Paul Gaugin. While it does have some threads of similarity to Gaugin’s life such as Gaugin too was a stockbroker or he too moved away from his family in order to pursue art, the story in no way is that of the life of Gaugin. I did have to look up the relevance of the title “Moon and the sixpence” and according to Wikipedia “ the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review in The Times Literary Supplement of Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage, in which the novel's protagonist, Philip Carey, is described as being "so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet."[3] According to a 1956 letter from Maugham, "If you look on the ground in search of a sixpence, you don't look up, and so miss the moon." The book pushes the reader to look deeper into what makes the madness of a creative genius justified  and to what end does an artist go to redeem himself and his art. The satirical end leaves one amazed at the nature of the societal memory and ability to twist things to context. A compulsive read!

The Red Haired Woman (by Orhan Pamuk)

 

                    

Pamuk is obsessed with colours and colour names, I am obsessed with Pamuk's writing.

This novel deals with the story of a young boy (Cem) whose father has abandoned him and his mother without any plausible explanation. Is it his political leanings or one of his many mistresses that takes him away from the family? The young boy is struggling to come to terms with the change is his lifestyle when he and his mother are abandoned without any solid financial means. Cem spends the rest of his life – consciously or unconsciously searching for a father figure in his life. But when in his attempt to earn  money for his further education, he turns into an apprentice for an old well digger,  he does come across such a figure -  it is his turn now to abandon the old man. It feels like he is seeking revenge from life for being abandoned by abandoning the old man at his most vulnerable stage.  And how does he resolve this guilt that he carries for the rest of his life?  As the boy Cem grows up in and around Pamuk’s romantic Istanbul, going through college and life in general, he turns into a young man obsessed with the two stories – one of Homer’s Oedipus – where Oedipus who is abandoned by his father at birth, later unknowingly kills his father and marries his own mother to even go ahead and have children with her. Ultimately when he realizes what he has done, he is horrified at his own actions eventually kills himself. The second story is of Rustom and Sohrab – another poignant father son saga in which the father and son who have been separated early on in life finally meet in a fierce duel – ignorant of their relation to each other - the son is brutally killed by the father. The father is filled with remorse when he realizes what he has done but it is too late.  The protagonist Cem is consumed by these tales of tormented father son relationships as his own psyche gets drowned in the burden of guilt and anger. The presence of the mysterious red-haired woman throughout the novel adds intrigue to this fascinating tale. A constant tenor in the novel seeks to unravel the identity of the red-haired woman – to find out who she is and what role does she have in the making and unmaking of the protagonist’s life. Her connection to the lives of Cem, Cem’s father, the father like figure of the well digger and ultimately Cem’ s son runs through the novel like an unseen thread – not always smooth but knotted at times yet unbroken.

The novel explores the Oedipean father-mother-son archetype in a deep narrative that the reader can easily drown in. Pamuk’s inimitable style of creating intrigue and mystery makes this a yet another fascinating tale from this modern master of storytelling. This one deserves a neat 4/5.

Sea of Poppies ( Amitav Ghosh)

 

 

                           

If you are looking for a light, fun read to lighten up your mood and freshen up your weekend, then do not read this book. A gripping and engrossing tale whose protagonist is a ship sailing in the Ganga towards the Indian ocean to go to the land of Mareech (Malaysia). Opium. A prince. An addict. A chamar. A farmer’s wife. A French missy born in India and bought up on a diet of Bengali by her wet nurse. A young wanna-be lascar lad. A convict.  A hideaway pirate. A carpenter-turned-seaman Black American. An English officer. A shrewd money lender in search of moksha. White. Black. Indian. British. Hindu. Brahmin. Muslim. Bengali. American. Parsi-Chinese. Each one as different from the other. Each one from a different part of the world. True identities. Assumed identities. Various events – some likely some unlikely bring these people in close proximity to each other. What are the circumstances that intertwine the lives of such a motley of individuals on the eastern coast of India?

In the first book of his Ibis trilogy, Ghosh doesn’t disappoint. The opium trade, the atrocities of the British Raj, the plight of the poor farmers, the curse of poverty and illiteracy, the hunger for power – each of these forms an important element in the tapestry of this beautifully woven narrative. The novel takes you to sea, slow and languid at times, turbulent at other just like the huge ship Ibis that sails in the Ganga towards the Bay of Bengal and further.  Ghosh has created a gripping narrative of a cultural potpourri which is colourful and quite tantalizing at times. An extremely well researched novel, freely interspersedl with desi dialects and the ‘firang slang’  which brings to the reader Bengal  of the mid-nineteenth century  makes for an intense read.