La Langue Française

Why is French such a complicated language(with such impossible to conceive pronounciations)?

Oft has this question been posed to me and I've always shrugged in response, saying that the people responsible have long been interred and are by now decomposed to the point that even if you tried tracking them down in hell (they couldn't have gone to heaven, surely, after having been this cruel and come up with such impossible words!), there wouldn't be much of them left to question. An answer that has frustrated many of my students, I'm sure.
I finally have the beginnings of an informed answer, thanks to, The Story of French, by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, a brilliant treatise on the evolution of the language I teach and love, but often do not fathom!

According to historian Ferdinand Brunot, members of the Academy steered away from phonetic spellings because they were afraid of looking ignorant of the historical roots of a word. But this orientation was also the expression of a class struggle. The lettered class promoted complicated spellings as a way of holding onto power; by making it hard to learn French, they made it harder for anyone outside their class to enter the circles of power.

Bloody snobs, is the first reaction, isn't it? But to understand this better, I must explain some more, even if briefly. French, as the language we know today, hasn't always existed in this form. Far from it infact...the language of the common people, patois, or the regional languages were consciously removed from first, the courts and then the common parlance by François I in 1593 with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts. Thus began the process of imposing a single language on the people, which gradually became purer in form.

Interestingly, while it is commonly thought that L'Académie Française was responsible for the purification of the language, the entire credit can not be given to them.
François de Malherbe started the process, which was later carried on by his followers. A true tyrant when it came to language, it is said, he spared no one in preaching the "bon usage du mot," not even the King! The process of purifying the language was later carried forward by enthousiasts and purists and thus was formed the Académie Française. Interestingly (again), it is widely and commonly thought that Cardinal Richelieu established the Academy in 1635, but the real founders of the Academy infact were Valentin Conrart and his friends.Richelieu offered his support, which they were obliged to take, coming as it was from the Cardinal itself and thus, they became a public institution from a small, private club that met to discuss the language and create a dictionary for the language. This, in fact, became one of the main missions of the Academy even though the Academy's dictionaries have never really been respected, published as they are after decades at times and often with outdated information.

Yet another interesting anecdote to narrate before I go back to the book:

The word anglais (English) was missing from every edition, but is expected to appear in the latest edition, slated for release in 2010s.

Now that's what you call pure French snobbery.

Booked by the Mother Hen

Tagged by Extempore, a.k.a the Mother Hen, to :-

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

She declares having struggled with the choice of book since she often reads more than one book at a time. I must admit, a similar dilemma awaited me, since my bed-side table currently hosts a couple of Penguin's Great Loves series, The Story of French as well as Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad...and then I stopped and asked myself why I was confused. No prizes for guessing which book this is coming from...

"Figuratively speaking, of course. Making up for all those mangled corpses. I hadn't realised you were capable of guilt."

Quintessential Margaret Atwood, this is from an exchange between Penelope and her much more famous cousin, Helen with reference to the battle of Troy and the thousands who were massacred because of her vanity/folly. A detailed review of the novel shall follow in a couple of days :-)

I now pass on the baton to Idle Mind, Jo, Madusa, Pranab and Wandering Dervish.

The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood (1993)

Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, offers us a feminist version of the fairy-tale The Robber Bridegroom. Familiar with the world of fairy tales, this isn’t the first time Atwood has been inspired by one, having spun off the Blue Beard tale in her collection of short stories, Blue Beard’s Egg. While the original fairytale is about a band of robbers with predatory, cannibalistic characteristics, here it is a woman who preys on men and sucks their life force out of them.

The story starts at a restaurant named Toxique, where three unlikely friends meet up for their monthly lunch - Tony, a diminutive war historian, Charis, a flower-child who believes in the powers of the soul and Roz, an entrepreneur with Catholic-Jewish origins. What unites the three is their experience with Zenia, who has over a span of three decades entered and wrecked havoc in the lives of each one of them, draining them on the personal front, making away with their men, as well as financial front, cheating, robbing, embezzling them of money and resources. It is almost apt then, that Zenia makes her re-appearance after having faked her death some years ago, at Toxique, for what is she after all, if not a toxic substance that has poisoned their lives, leaving them scarred?

Justifying her choice of a “villainess” who wrecks havoc instead of the standard fearsome villain (à la Blue Beard), Atwood questions the disappearance of the Lady Macbeths and Ophelias from the gory world of literature, saying that presenting a woman in dark shades doesn’t mean you are anti-female, merely that you truly believe in the equality of the sexes. “Equality means equally bad as well as equally good.” Zenia, is an embodiment of the evil in every way possible – armed with a beauty and an “aura” that men can’t resist, she knows how to work the field (pun intended), choosing her victims carefully, doing her homework well, leaving no chance of failure once she’s on the battle field, slipping through their defenses, disarming them skilfully before launching her attack. The novel, built in a Russian doll structure, slowly unveils the individual tales of Tony, Charis and Roz, revealing a horrifying tale of childhood neglect and abuse that has moulded them into the women they are, as well as their own encounter with Zenia, coming to a full-circle with the death of Zenia.

I embarked on the Atwood journey in 2004, with The Handmaid’s Tale and there has truly been no looking back, for each and every on of her books has held me in their spell. Witty, grotesque, chilling and horrifying, the novels have made me laugh with delight and sent cold shivers of horror crawling down my back moments after. Each and every book has been devoured, leaving my literary senses satisfied and satiated. The Robber Bride appealed particularly for several reasons. Tony, as a character – the tiny woman who faded into the walls but harboured an unlikely passion for her size and gender, and could methodically, unsentimentally chart inquisitions and conquests and recount tales of blood and gore, appealed immensely, making for a strong and rich character. I must confess, the choice of the female villain also tipped the scales - having always found fascinating the idea of the Femme Fatale, the she-devil who twists her victims around, wrecking complete havoc in their lives, Zenia, as the villainess was as perfect as she could get.

Would I recommend the book? Indulging in redundant questions are we? After The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride, in my opinion is her best work.

From the Literary Desk

Oft do I miss my Literature days, the thrill of discovering yet another brilliant author, the awe that coursed through my veins discussing the genius behind the words, the complete satisfaction after having discussed, interpreted and analysed a particular work. The module on francophone literature that I had taken up during my stage at Montpellier not only gave me the opportunity to go back to those days, but also made me realise that without literature in my life, it is quite incomplete. While several incidences kept me away from literature after my return, and my failure to read as fast as I used to disappointed me greatly, the persistent prodding by someone whose opinions and advice mean much to me, made me turn once again to the world of literature, to read (steadily and constantly if not as voraciously as before) and to widen my horizons. The Literature Course recently started at AFP has given this attempt a further boost – we are working with Charles Perrault’s fairy tales from The Mother Goose Tales. I wasn’t very sure what I should expect from the course, and I almost backed off (but once again the said person prodded me on and I stuck around much to my contentment) but I am absolutely delighted with what we are doing and what I’ve been exposed to and what has been brought back into my life. Just being back in a class, with a teacher whose knowledge is worthy of much admiration, reading and discussing a literary work is joy enough for me – but when it is something in which I take keen interest, brings back my knowledge and allows me to put that as well as my own intelligence and literary instincts to work…it really couldn’t get better!

I already had some background in the origin of fairy tales having discussed the genre when we studied African, Australian and Canadian folk tales at the MA level, and knew that the fairy tales we know today (mainly those penned by the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Anderson) find their origins in the oral tradition of narrating stories (often very grisly and horrifying) around a fire to keep the guards awake and entertained through the night, as also in the famous Arabian Nights. It really is fascinating how these tales have evolved to a point that today we recognise them as children’s stories, despite their completely different origins. While I also knew that many versions of these fairy tales exist (no need to look far – we already know about two such versions, those of Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers) I was really amazed to find out just how shocking (and sometimes feminist) the earlier versions were – for instance, did you know that in the earliest version of the Sleeping Beauty, a married prince rapes her while she’s in her induced slumber and it’s one of the two progeny from this illegitimate relationship that finally wakes her, and not the prince? Or that the oral version of the Red Riding Hood has an ingenious and smart girl who saves herself (and her grandmother) from the wolf and has no need of the Grimm brothers’ woodcutter to do the needful?

Apart from this, the professor, who herself is keenly interested in the origin of languages and etymology, has reawakened my own slumbering interest in the subject and made me finally pick up and start reading The Story of French by Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau, a book that I purchased over a year ago and has been gathering dust ever since. Needless to say, the book has completely grabbed my interest and I’m making my way through it steadily, absolutely delighted with what I’m reading, coupled with information I garner in class!

I’m simultaneously working my way through my fifth Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye as well as an anthology of Moroccan poetry. I must admit that the tone of some of the poems took me by surprise, especially those that dealt with the themes of God and carnal pleasures. I was struck by the frankness of Mohammed Achaari’s “Douceur Sauvage” a poem of complete raw sensuality, and the hard-hitting tone of Mohammed Aziz Lahbabi’s “Dieu, l’Absolument Grand” in which God has been stripped bare of his mercy and has instead been presented as someone who is not only indifferent to his believers suffering, but almost cruel and inconsiderate in his demands, and as someone who has imposed a burden of responsibilities on us without so much as asking us our opinion. Perhaps I’m indulging in prejudices, but I found it really remarkable to see such themes being tackled with such frankness and almost brutality by poets from a Muslim culture. Whether they are representative of a small minority of rebellious thinkers in their countries or whether they truly represent a changing trend of thoughts and attitudes in their country, I do not know. What I do know, is that their work is brilliant and worthy of recommendation.

Perfume – Patrick Süskind (1985)

In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of mouldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlours stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber-pots. The stench of sulphur rose from the chimneys; the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouse came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. The peasant stank as did the priest the apprentice as did his master’s wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the King himself stank, stank like a rank lion and the Queen like an old goat, summer and winter. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder the bacteria busy at decomposition, and so there was no human activity, either constructive or destructive, no manifestation of germinating or decaying life, that was not accompanied by stench.

And thus begins one of the most sensuously delightful novels I have read. Patrick Süskind’s Perfume, first published as Das Parfum in 1985, and translated into English by John E.Woods in 1986 takes the reader on the most mesmerising journey into the world of perfume. The novel’s protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born on the streets of 18th century Paris as we could never imagine it, curiously enough possesses no human odour which leads him to being rejected by everyone who comes in contact with him. But if he himself as no personal scent, he is blessed with the sharpest olfactory sense and can smell distinguish between the smallest and slightest of odours.

…when the wind brought him something, a tiny hardly noticeable something, a crumb, an atom of scent than the scent itself; no even less than that: it was more the premonition of a scent that the scent itself – and at the same time it was definitely a premonition of something that he had never smelled before. He backed up against the wall, closed his eyes and flared his nostrils. The scent was so exceptionally delicate and fine that he could not hold onto to it; it continually eluded his perception, was masked by the powder-smoke of the petards, blocked by the exudations of the crowd, fragmented and crushed by the thousands of other city odours. But then, suddenly it was there again, a mere shred, the whiff of a magnificent premonition for only a second…and it vanished at once. Grenouille suffered agonies. For the first time, it was not just that his greedy nature was offended, but his very heart ached. He had the prescience of something extraordinary – this scent was the key for ordering all odours, one could understand nothing about odours if one did not understand this one scent, and his whole life would be bungled, if he, Grenouille, did not succeed in possessing it. He had to have it, not simply in order to possess it, but for his heart to be in peace.

The odour came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon, unmistakably clear, and yet as before very delicate and very fine. Grenouille felt his heart pounding, and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding, but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. He tried to recall something comparable, but had to discard all comparisons. This scent had a freshness, but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates, nor the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch of camphor or pine needles, nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water…and at the same time it had warmth, but not as bergamot, cypress or musk has, or jasmine or narcissi, not as rosewood has or iris…This scent was a blend of both, of evanescence and substance, not a blend, but a unity, although slight and frail as well, and yet solid and sustaining, like a piece of thin, shimmering silk…and yet again not like silk, but like pastry soaked in honey-sweet milk – and try as he would, he couldn’t fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable, indescribable, could not be categorised in any way – it really ought not to exist at all. And yet there it was plain and splendid as day. Grenouille followed it, his fearful heart pounding, for he suspected that it was not he followed the scent, but the scent that had captured him and was drawing him irresistibly to it.

Grenouille’s quest for the “perfect” scent takes him on a mesmerising journey of discoveries, till he realises that the scent that can drive anyone wild with desire and that makes men worship the ground the wearer walks on is that of a virgin girl and thus begins a horrifying quest to possess that scent. He cold-bloodedly murders several young women in order to possess their scent, all the while working his way in the perfume industry, learning how to extract and preserve perfumes from the best in the industry in Paris and later Grasse, the capital of perfumes in 18^th century France. The novel takes on a horrifying twist when he finally succeeds in concocting the perfume for himself.

From the very first page I was entrapped in the overwhelming descriptions that took me on my own journey of olfactory discoveries, so powerful was the imagery, as is evident from the brief excerpts I have pasted here. The ease with which Süskind has woven in the cold menace into a sublimely beautiful prose is remarkable. The novel makes you alternate between the desire to lose oneself in the world of perfumes and a creepy horror at the drama unfolding before your eyes. Perfume, is unlike any other novel I’ve read, and definitely very high on my list of recommendations.

The Girl from the Chartreuse – Pierre Péju (2005)

Translated by Ina Rilke from the French original La Petite Chartreuse (2002), The Girl from the Chartreuse is a heart-breaking story about Vollard, a book-seller who accidentally runs over a 10-year old girl with his van. The novel revolves around the three protagonists of Vollard, the little girl Éva and her mother Thérèse. Struck by the accident, Vollard reads fairytales to Éva, who sinks into coma after the accident, in the absence of her mother a rather aimless wanderer who abandons her child in her search for her own identity.

A profoundly moving novel that deals with the themes of life, childhood, loneliness and above all the question of how to accept oneself and understand differences, what struck me the most about the novel was not the story, as much as the sheer poetry of the oeuvre. Pure brilliance shines through every page, as Péju evokes tears with his poetic prose and makes your heart ache at Éva’s situation and Vollard’s loneliness and his pain. Poignant and beautiful, this is a book worth reading.

As the tradition goes, I leave you with an excerpt that has stayed with me even a year after I first read the book. It won’t take a genius to understand why…

"The Verb To Be" was the name of an old bookshop. A murky place, due not to a lack of lighting but to all the nooks and crannies. A deep space with dark,worn floorboards and secluded niches. Books everywhere, spread on tables and upright in rows, thousands of silent observers on wooden shelves.
An ongoing battle between dust and the printed word at "The Verb To Be," cardboard boxes overflowing with books, piles of volumes threatening to topple. Anarchy reigning supreme. Grandiose anarchy. A profusion of genres and titles. A joyous alchemy. It was here that people could drop by any day to procure their reading matter,highbrow or popular, arcane or classis, in exchange for a modest sum.

I rest my case…

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood (1996)

I really didn’t expect to come away impressed this time, specially when I was still crawling slower than a snail through the book a 100 pages down – but Jesus, this woman knows how to spin her tales, for just when I was beginning to desultorily flip the pages and start preparing myself to either trudge through the book or abandon it completely, she reached out and ensnared me in the fine web of her words. I put the book down a couple of hours back, and I knew the smile on my face mirrored pure content. I’ve just spent the last one hour reading about the history behind the novel and am craving more fodder to feed this hunger.

The novel, is based on a true story – the protagonist Grace Marks, has been modeled after a woman of the same name in the 19th century who was convicted for murdering her employers in the most brutal fashion. A sensational story in its time; it captured the attention, imagination and curiosity of people across Canada, USA and UK and kept the presses running hot for months at end. The novel takes off rather peacefully, gradually building up its pace and pulling you deeper into its whorls. Sticking quite faithfully to contemporary reality, Atwood presents 19th century Canadian society, struggling to find its feet with the shadow of its past looming large over it, and the big brother from down south ever ready to stamp down its burgeoning identity. In a time when poverty ran rampant and standards of morality were flexible, the country convicted a young girl for murder, painting her as black as they could, even while they struggled painstakingly to bleach clean their own dirty linen – the forays into an every-increasingly open world of psychology and science which clashed openly with old beliefs and superstitions about the mind, make the novel all the more interesting.

I can’t say this one impressed me as much as the previous three - the plot, could have been tightened a little, specially at the beginning, where I feel she has spent too much time trying to build up her characters. However, the characters truly stand out on their own – every last one of them, even the non-descript Ms Faith Cartwright who only appears as a mention in letters. Dr Simon, the doctor who set out to understand the mysteries of the mind and ended up losing his way in its labyrinth; Nancy Montgomery, the housekeeper with a murky past and murkier present; Thomas Kinnear, the apparently gentile man who paid for his sins; Mary Whitney, whose vibrant presence first lit up the plot and whose shadow haunts it right up to the last page…and ofcourse Grace Marks, who struggles above the squalor and misery of her world, pulled down time and again - she does succeed in finding peace at the end.

The historical details and characters did the trick this time – read it if you have a taste for historical novels with strong characters, and if you have a feel for Canada’s social, spiritual and political history.

Links for Extra Reading :-
Letter written in 1843 describing the murder
Grace Mark’s interview after she was released from prison

Lady Oracle – Margaret Atwood (1976)

The third Margaret Atwood I’m reading after Handmaid’s Tale and Bluebeard’s Egg, it has lived upto my expectations. When I started the novel I didn’t expect it to hold my attention for long – I was sure that one author couldn’t possibly churn out novel after novel, all of which would succeed in pulling me into the intricate mesh of its plot, make my chuckle, smile, shed the occasional tear…feel. Margaret Atwood is apparently a pro at that, for when I finally did give Lady Oracle the attention it deserved, I devoured it in one sitting, one long cozy Sunday afternoon.

If Handmaid’s Tale sent shivers down my back, and Bluebeard’s Egg captured my imagination, Lady Oracle took me spinning along the fantastic world of Joan Foster, a closet-writer and bored wife of a confused communist. Going back and forth in time, the novel traces Joan’s life right from her strange, lonely childhood, her love-hate relationship with her own body/image to her adult life, her love life and her career. Her trysts with blackmailing reporters, strange lovers, a serious literary career in place of her more successful career as a Costume-Gothic novelist, not only gripped my attention, but had me chuckling and yes, at times, even rolling with laughter. And yet, the novel isn't meer candy floss material - there lies beneath the main text a very obvious subtext with a very obvious feminist text and a tongue-in-cheek parody of literary forms and hence literary snobbery. (But then, that's evident, since this is an Atwood oeuvre we're discussing!) Atwood’s descriptions are par excellence, the way she twists the plot is sheer genius – there isn’t a single moment in the book where I could predict what would happen next, and definitely not even a nano-second when ennui could possibly set in vis-à-vis the narrative.

The Globe and Mail says in its review:-
“Read it for its gracefulness, for its good story, and for its help with your fantasy life.”

Read it for all that – but read it mainly for Atwood’s genius!

The Fairy Tale World of Children's Literature

Charles Perrault. Jean de la Fontaine. The Brothers Grimm.
Do these names mean anything to you? If not, then I must say you've had a very deprived childhood, for they are the names of the authors of the world's best-known and most-read fairy tales...or maybe not so deprived after all.

For quite a while now, even before the arrival of my nephew I'd been taking little jogs down memory lane thinking of all the stories that fired my imagination, the authors I adored and the books that were worn by repeated reading sessions during the vacations. On one of these many jogs, I chanced upon a collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers - the stories as it turned out, did complete justice to their name! I was quite appalled at the rather grim and depressing twist to all the stories! It was then, that I started thinking about the other fairy tales I knew - and surprisingly most of them had a depressing twist and very few actually had happy endings. I recently simplified the original story of Red Riding Hood (otherwise known as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) by Charles Perrault, to narrate to my students and ofcourse it ends with Red Riding Hood being devoured by the wolf. My students didn't quite stomach the abrupt ending - most of them recalled a different, happier ending!

Over the centuries some of the stories have been adapted and changed to end on a more happy note - but the originals were not as optimistic in their outlook towards life. I was actually quite disturbed by this - to think that this was the stuff children grew up on, stuff that told of children being eaten up wolves and witches, of wishes granted by fairies being wasted because of one's foolishness, of nasty stepmothers and evil godmothers! But then I realised that they didn't present a lop-sided image of the world (though imaginary) where everything went well and everyone was good. While some stories had grim endings, others ended on a happy note. Compare Red Riding Hood and The Sleeping Beauty. Even Blue Beard, that scary tale of the evil man who killed his wives, ended on a happy note.

Further reading into the subject revealed that the stories when first written weren't necessarily intended for the juvenile audience they are associated with today - a majority of the stories were penned for the purpose of narration around the community fire, and many were actually transcribed after years of being passed down by the oral tradition. It would be interested to study this further and understand how and why the stories evolved into being stories for children!

Having recently read some new books under the genre of Children's Literature, namely, The Giver and Walk Two Moons given to me by Extempore, I have been trying to find books like that. I was in Manney's recently (perhaps the best bookstore in Pune, dating back to 1948) and browsing through the children's section, where apart from the Enid Blyton's, Malory Towers, St.Clare's, Anne of Green Gables and the many classics that I associate with my own childhood, I saw the other books that today fall under the genre of Children's Literature.Without taking names, I must say I was glad I was born in a different century when children's literature was not so complicated, and even with the grim endings fairy tales were that and nothing more!

Tagged!

I've done this before, on Geebaby, but my dear friend Aristera tagged me sometime back, reminding me that Keya too had tagged me before that, and I thought to myself - Why not?
Why not on Literary Mosaic, my much ignored second baby? So here goes, the Book Meme -

1. What is the total number of books you've owned? I've not counted them in a while, but I'd say more than 300.
2. What is the last book you bought? Anne of Green Gables (abridged and unabridged) for my two nieces. I've decided I must play the role of Bookie Aunty to the hilt! :-)
3. What is the last book you've read? The last book I read and finished reading was so long ago I don't even remember which one it was :-(
4. What are you currently reading? Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood - never read so abysmally slow ever before! It's a disgrace!
5. What are the 5 books that have meant a lot to you or that you particularly enjoyed?
There are many, but from the top of my head right now :-

• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott (for filling my childhood days with lovely images and for Jo - she rocks totally!),
• Diary of Anne Frank (I think it's what got me interested in the Holocaust),
• Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (for making my world view so much larger),
• The Lord of the Flies - William Golding (it's one of the rare classics that I devoured at one go!)
• Golden Gate - Vikram Seth (I had my doubts about a novel in verse form, but all of them were laid to rest within the first ten pages through this one - Merci Aristera pour me donner ce roman!)

6. What book(s) would you wish to buy next? For now, I've promised myself to finish reading all those unread books on my bookshelf before buying any more books - let's see how long I stick to this resolution!
7. What book(s) caught your attention but you never had a chance to read? Oh, so many!
8. What book(s) that you've owned for so long but never read? The complete works of William Shakespeare, to start with...it's actually quite a long list. *embarassed*
9. Who are you going to pass this stick to and why? To all those who actually dropped by Literary Mosaic and read this post!

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) - Selected Short Stories

Bengali poet, novelist, short-story writer, dramatist, painter, philospher and nationalist - Rabindranath Tagore is almost synonymous with the Indian Literature, being the first Indian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He is also known as the founder of the experimental school, Shanti Niketan, in which he tried to impart an education that was a blend of Indian and Western traditions. The school went on to become the Vishwa Bharati University in 1921.

His collection of verse, titled Geetanjali, Song Offerings, was hailed by W.B Yeats and André Gide, bringing him the much deserved attention from Western Critics and paving the way to his Nobel Prize.

I've read many of his poems, particularly from the collection Geetanjali and it won't take a genius to guess what motivated that choice ;-) I've also read a couple of plays. Recently I finished reading a volume of selected short stories.

Tagore, known best for having liberated Bengali literature from the shackles of traditional rules and models based on ancient Sanskrit literature, is said to have been greatly influenced by his contact with the "humble life and their small miseries" of the village folk he was in contact with, after taking up residence near the Padma river. His stories have a distinctive poetic lilt, poignantly capturing those elements of their lives, laced with a gentle irony at times. Most of them deal with life of the middle-class family man, and often with the position of the not-yet emancipated Bengali woman in a patriarchal society.

Despite his apparently supporting stance towards women, his stoires have a rather one-dimensional view of women classifying them under the Madonna-Whore dichotomy. Many of his stories seem to be attempting to lift the veil from the hypocrisies of Bengali (and thus, Indian) society, yet their rather simplistic and one-dimensional view, in my opinion, restricts the goal from being achieved. Yet, when I think of other short-stories I've read dating from the same era (or before) that attempt similar reforms in ways of thinking, I have to accept that the trend in short-story writing was rather simple and one-dimensional.

Another possible reason, for what I perceived as a rather soft-handed approach in exposing the evils of a class-ridde, superstitious society, is the fact I am reading a translated work, and it is a well-acknowledged fact that translation robs most, if not all, the essence of the original. You only need to compare the impact of Tagore's Amaar Sonaar Bangla in its original and in its translated English version to understand this - you don't need to understand Bangla to feel the difference in the rhythm, tempo and most importantly the soul of the song in its two version. (Having said that, let me add that I'm still glad to have access to the translation - and feel rather grouchy when denied access to such translations of other pieces of literature and thought in vernacular languages that I come across!)

Tagore's collection of short stories didn't exactly lift me to ecstacies of literary delight, but I'm glad to have finally read the volume that has been on my Must-Read list for as long as I can remember! I guess I can now move on to other such works on that ever-increasing list :-)

(You can read more about Tagore on Wikipedia Here's what Brittanica online has to say about him and what the Nobel society says about him. )

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Lord of the Flies has been on my “To-Read” list ever since I first studied about it way back in FYBA…I went onto graduate, complete my Masters and a Diplome Superieur in French, before I finally picked it up. And once I did, I found it difficult to put it down unfinished. Deepak once remarked that it’s a book to be devoured in one go, a slim novel that has you engrossed in the twists and turns of its plot as soon as you have commenced reading it. With most books, it takes time to settle into the intricacies of the plot and familiarize yourself with the labyrinth of its plot – not so with this one. Golding didn’t have much time to waste with this slim novel and so he mesmerizes in the first page itself.

Golding had described the theme of the book as “an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” And so with Ralph, Piggy and Jack leading the way you enter the ravines of an isolated island where a plane carrying children has crashed. Left to survive on their own wits, the children choose their leader, divide themselves into groups (Biguns and Littluns, hunters, fire-protectors and so on) and struggle to survive on the island. Not surprising is the conflict between the strongest of them, the hunger and the eventual fight for power, that assumes greater importance once the initial charm of their adventure has flickered out.

The title, weaned from a Hebrew symbol for the Devil, and thus decay, demoralization, destruction, hysteria and panic, fits the theme perfectly. Apart from this symbol, the many allegories, in what seems at surface level an adventure story, reveal Golding’s supreme control over his form and matter.

Disturbing and terrifying at times, almost gruesome in certain portions, yet the novel is beautifully written and held me rapt till its climactic end.

Would I recommend it? Definitely – if it is already on your list, bump it up; if not, shove it in the top-ten!

P.S. My Penguin copy of the novel includes a critical note at the end, by E.L.Epstein that not only analyses the novel but also draws very interesting parallels with another classic “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. If you can lay your hands on that, then go for it.

Bluebeard's Egg - Margaret Atwood

Handmaid’s Tale was the first book by Margaret Atwood that I read, and as I posted in my review, I was a riveting work. As I resolutely put back a Peter Mayle and an André Gide I mentally crossed my prayers that I wouldn’t be disappointed by Bluebeard’s Egg. That this was a collection of short stories assured that I wouldn’t abandon the book mid-way, letting it languish uncompleted on my bookshelves because it failed to excite my literary palate.

I needn’t have worried, for I was hooked from the very first story and devoured the book quickly. The dozen short stories in the collection delivered in a distinctive Atwood style, captured my imagination, intellect (and yes, even feminist sensibility at times) with an easy élan. Themes ranged from childhood memories to the reality of the cruel adult world. Atwood successfully guides you along the journey of emotions that range from warm and nostalgic to faintly disturbing, from humorous to starkly horrifying.

As before, here is a random collection of excerpts from the collection, to tease your curiosity:-

“Some of these stories, it is understood are not to be passed onto my father, because they would upset him. It is well known that women can deal with this sort of thing better than men can. Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them…Men must be allowed to play in the sandbox of their choice, as happily as they can, without disturbance; otherwise they get cranky and won’t eat their dinners. There are all kinds of things that men are simply not equipped to understand, so why expect it of them?”

“She started out re-doing people’s closets, and has worked that up into her own interior design firm. She does the houses of the newly rich, those who lack ancestral furniture and the confidence to be shabby, and who wish their interiors to reflect a personal taste they do not in reality possess.

“What they want are mausoleums,” Marylynn says, “or hotels,” and she cheerfully supplies them. “Right down to the ash-trays. Imagine having someone else pick out your ash-trays for you.” ”

“Why an egg? From the night course in Comparative Folklore she took four years ago, she remembers that the egg can be a fertility symbol, or a necessary object in African spells, or something the word hatched out of. Maybe in this story it’s a symbol of virginity, and that why the wizard requires it unbloodied. Women with dirty eggs get murdered, those with clean ones get married” *

“Should civilization as we know it destroy itself, he informs us, ladling the gravy – as is likely, he adds – it will never be able to rebuild itself in its present form, since all available surface metals have long since been exhausted and the extraction of deeper ones is dependant upon metal technologies, which as you will remember, will have been demolished. There can never be another iron age, another bronze age; we will be stuck – if there is any we, which he doubts - with stone and bone, no good for aeroplanes and computers.”

The London Free Press says that this is “a book to be read and re-read, to be talked about and savoured.” I see no reason not to concur.

* Related reading to this statement, and ofcourse the Bluebeard fable - here

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie on Wikipedia

In his Defense of Poetry, Shelley emphasized the importance of the role of imagination in the discovery and direction of our lives. According to him, laws and conventions derived from ‘ethical science’ may be necessary for the conduct of ‘civil and domestic life’, but it the imagination that unlocks our full humanity.

At the end of the 20th century, many wars, revolutions and anathemas later, it is more evident than ever, that the active exercise of imagination is indispensable to the realization, establishment and defense of those values which define us and according to which we lead our lives. Salman Rushdie insists that the imagination, ‘the process by which we make pictures of the world…is one of the keys to our humanity.’

According to Rushdie, imagination liberates us from the crude ‘facts’ of history and may even absolve us from the unredeemed diary of our own lives. As a postmodern writer, Rushdie recognizes no unqualified fact or absolute fiction; the 2 categories overlap and leak into each other. To illustrate this, he quoted Graham Greene, in his Imaginary Homelands – ‘Novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.’

Midnight's Children won the Booker Prize the year I was born - and ever since I can remember it was an ambition of mine to read (and comprehend) the novel. Several aborted attempts later, I finally read it after having gotten a grip over the genre of magic realism. I also read The Moor's Last Sigh as a part of my masters course. Studying Rushdie is NOT easy. But it's also not boring. The palempsestic nature of his works, the constant blurring of boundaries between myth, fantasy and reality make it, if nothing else, an extremely interesting challenge. A sort of mental masturbation, if you prefer that analogy.

Ask me if I am a fan of Rushdie, and I'll most likely reply in the negative. Yet I can't refute his contribution to the literary world as we know it today. The fact that juries of literary prizes were inclined towards post-colonial authors in the 80s does not and can not belittle his achievement, nor can it belie the fact that his success turned the literary limelight towards India, in a way that even Tagore's Nobel Prize couldn't achieve. Let's face it, you can love him. You can hate him. But you can not ignore him. Naipaul with that gigantic chip on his shoulder, not to mention nose up in the air simply doesn't deserve the kind of warm embrace Indians extended towards him. Brilliant he is, but a bit too pompous for my liking.

And so I find myself rooting for Rushdie in the race towards the Man Booker Prize 2005.

(Literary Trivia: In 2002 the Man Group became sponsor of the Booker Prize Foundation, and the prize is currently named the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. It is in no way the same as the Man Booker International which was founded this year in U.S.A. and which will award outstanding literary achievement once in two years. )

Breakfast at Tiffany's

I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's. - Holly Golightly

Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's appeared in 1958, and is perhaps the most influential and well-known of hs works, second only to Cold Blood. Everybody knows about the film and Audrey Hepburn's brilliant interepretation of Holly Golightly - yet I've not yet seen the film. If what I've heard about the film is true, then this is one film I am now dying to own, for the book charmed me completely.

A short novel, it has been beautifully written with heart-warming characters that tend to linger in your memory long after you put the book down. The romantic notions of the narrator can't fail to appeal, nor can the nostalgic descriptions of New York in the 40s. Holly Golightly, a ground-breaking work in characterisation, is a woman who makes a holiday out of her life, treading through it lightly, breaking hearts as she flits from one scene to the other. Yet she can't be dismissed as a one-dimensional character. What makes her so lovable are the shades Capote has painted onto her personality - interestingly some contemporary critics even castigated Capote for sketching a character that was so obviously amoral and promiscuous. Despite that criticism Holly Golightly won hearts - and continues to do so! There is an interesting analysis of the book here.

The edition I picked up (Vintage International, 1993) also includes three of Capote's most famous short stories - House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory. Perhaps the most moving short stories I've read in a long time, they are wonderfully poignant, lyrical and beautiful. My favourite would have to be A Christmas Memory, the tale of a friendship that existed between a small boy and an old woman. It has a very strong flavour of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird - as does A Diamond Guitar, another tale of friendship.

As a last word, I quote Norman Mailer - "Truman Capote ... is the most perfect writer of my generation, he writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany’s which will become a small classic."

The Bus Ride

I

Heat waves seemed to be rising from the tarmac as she made her way to the bus-stop. Weather reports on the Radio had said this was the hottest day that season and she couldn't help but agree. It had been excruciatingly hot the past few weeks, with no sign of relief but today the heat was simply unbearable. A droplet of sweat trickled its way from her scalp down her spine leaving an uncomfortably wet trail on her back. Her hair felt grimy and sticky and her clothes were sticking to her uncomfortably. She wiped her face and the back of her neck, for what seemed like the hundreth time that day and glanced down the road in vain. No bus in sight, just the road stretching out in front of her; all concrete with not a vestige of greenery. Praying fervently for a bus to come soon, she started pacing up and down, fanning herself with the day's Mid-Day. At least when she was in the bus and it was moving she would feel some breeze.

Fifteen interminable minutes later, no. 167, belching out thick dark carbon monoxide fumes, rolled to stop in front of her. It was packed like a tin of sardines with not much hope of getting a seat, but she consoled herself by thinking of the long shower she would take once back home. The bus would take her across the town to the apartment complex where she was sharing a two-bedroom unit with three other girls. Hanging on, she gingerly fished into her huge canvas bag for her wallet so she could pay for her ticket. As she tried to accomplish the juggling act and maintain her balance, a man got up and offered his seat to her. Smiling gratefully at him and murmuring a quick thanks she collapsed into the seat and waved at the conductor so he could come and give her the ticket.

The bus lurched to a stop and more people climbed in. A bunch of school kids from the municipality school who also travelled across town to attend school. She saw them daily on her way back home and marvelled at how cheerful and enthusiastic they seemed, despite their obvious poverty. Most of them were barefoot and wore clothes that were so old that they were almost threadbare at certain places. But they were all clean and when she asked them about what they studied, they happily told her all about the English miss and Maths sir. Today she didn't feel like talking to them. She was exhausted and her head was throbbing. She had been on her feet all day, running around getting work accomplished, with not even her usual hour-long lunch break. She had rolled her chapati and vegetables and hurriedly swallowed it, in between tasks. Leaning back she closed her eyes and before long she fell asleep.

II

He looked down at her and smiled to himself. He had been observing her for two months now. She was there in the bus everyday from Monday to Saturday at the same time. In the past few weeks, she seemed more tired and haggard and was always grateful to get a seat. He had offered her a seat several times before, but she never seemed to notice him. Today, she looked like she'd collapse if she didn't get a seat. Her thin cotton kurta was plastered to her body, making it easier for him to admire her full breasts today. As the bus turned around a corner, he swayed forward, his crotch brushing against her shoulder. He stiffened and tried to hold himself away, but when she didn't react, he looked down in surprise. She was fast asleep; her head had lolled down to the other side, her hands lay lax in her lap, loosely holding her ugly canvas bag. Her dupatta had slipped down and he could see the gentle curve of her breasts and her cleavage. She had a sexy body, this girl.

The bus turned around another corner, tires squealing in protest at the weight and speed they were being subjected to. This time when his body touched her, he didn't move away. Infact he moved closer and pressed his crotch harder against her shoulder. That felt good. For two months he had been looking at her, imagining how she'd feel against him and by the time she got down from the bus he would be in acute pain. It was a good thing he got down just two stops later and could rush home to find relief between his wife's legs. That fat, ugly bitch. She didn't know a thing about giving him pleasure. She just lay there inert while he grunted and shoved over her. He looked down at this girl's breasts and smiled again as his mind filled with erotic visions.

III

She woke up with a start when the lady next to her shook her. As she moved aside to let the woman pass, she noticed that the lady was pregnant. She looked up up to smile at her, instead she found herself looking into the beady eyes of the man who had offered her his seat. He had a wierd look in his eyes and his face was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration. When the pregnant lady had slid past her, the man gestured to her to move in. She slid down the seat so he could sit down. He slipped into the seat and relaxed back with his bag on his lap. He slipped one hand under his bag and spread his legs apart pressing them against hers.

Feeling a little uncomfortable she shrank further into the corner. Almost as if he took this as an invitation, he relaxed even more, spreading his legs further apart so his thighs continued to press against hers. He was smelling funny. When she asked him to move a little and give her some breathing space, he leered back at her with a smile, but didn't move much. Turning, she stared out of the window at the buildings, cow-sheds and fields that passed by.

A few minutes later, conscious of constant gaze she turned and looked at him. He was staring at her intently and that same wierd look was in his eyes. Thinking he must have been affected by the heat, she asked him if he was OK and if he would like some water. He just continued to stare. Feeling decidedly uncomfortable by now, she slipped her bag over her shoulder and got up, gesturing to him to be allowed space to move out. He didn't move, just stared back so she forced herself to move past him, conscious of his knees pressing against her thighs as she slipped out. Her kurta dragged over his legs and as she pulled it behind her quickly, she thought she felt something brush against her backside. She turned to look at him, only to turn away immediately because of the way he was staring at her.

As she walked down the length of the bus she shuddered mentally. She'd been taking this bus for two months now, and never had she come across such a wierd man. This was probably the kind of man her flatmates had warned her about when she had told them she'd be commuting to work everyday by bus. The bus screeched to a stop outside her apartment complex and she hurriedly climbed down. Crossing, she quickly made her way towards her apartment block. She couldn't wait to take that shower.

May '05

One Sultry Summer Evening...

It was a sultry summer evening when the young girl emerged from her French class into the growing darkness of the city. Since she lived on the opposite corner of the city, rickshaws usually refused to go there unless she paid them double fare and public buses that she usually relied on, catered to the unsavoury sorts at that hour. So on days that she had classes in the evening, she usually had to ask either her father or brother to work a little late so one of them could pick her up on his way home. That day both of them were out of town, so she swallowed her pride and asked one of her nice-gentlemanly-sort-of-male-friends to do her a favour and drop her home...

Being the perfect gentleman, the man in question rose to the occasion and agreed to come to the rescue of this dainty damsel. He was there on time. Her professor, as usual, took his own sweet time in winding up the class, so she came out a few minutes late. The first one to leave the class she came out slightly out of breath from running down to meet him, feeling guilty about having made him wait. She shouldn't have bothered for she found him lounging on his powerful bike, admiring the pretty dames that emerged from the other class. Cheekily reminding him that he had a fiancee waiting for him in another city, she tapped him on his shoulder and gestured to him to start up his bike. Her friend grunted in response, revved his bike and then turned around slightly with one eyebrow cocked waiting for her to climb on behind him. Bracing herself with one hand on his shoulder, she swung one leg over his bike, and settled behind him, taking care to tuck in her gossamer fine white Lucknowi kurta underneath her, so it wouldn't get entangled in the bike's tyres.

The bike shot off like a rocket into the twilight zone. He took the longer route via the Cantonment, as he was prone to. This route allowed him to show off his skills on the bike, since it had wider, better laid roads and wasn't subject to heavy traffic. So he could zip from one side of the road to the other, revving his engine up when he wanted and letting it idly coast along the slope when he felt like that. Meanwhile, she leaned back in her seat and let herself get lost in the web of leaves that covered the roads like a canopy. She loved doing that. It filled her with a feeling of exhilaration and made her want to stretch out her arms and let the wind caress her body. She had to restrain from doing that, lest her friend promptly stop the bike and ask her to hop off. Apparently only he was allowed to indulge in histrionics of any sort! The stars twinkled back at her through the leaves and the breeze ruffled her hair into a tangled mess. She'd have to spend a long time brushing her hair out when she got home...

Lost in her own world, she was taken by surprise when her friend suddenly stopped in the middle of the road cursing heavily. She looked beyond him to see a road block and a traffic policeman steering all traffic through a gate stating "Defense Area. Trespassers shall be prosecuted." The policeman informed them that the bridge ahead was undergoing repair and so they would have to take this small deroute that would bring them out into the heart of the city. "Just one left turn and then one right turn, and you'll be out of this Defense locality." Her friend wanted to turn back and go via the main city. She reasoned that if he did so, they'd have a very long ride ahead of them and urged him to take the deroute. After all as the policeman said, it couldn't take them longer than a few minutes to get out of this region and back on their usual track!

Little did she know...the tiny lane that wound it's way through what seemed like a Research campus maintained by the Defense, stretched on for an eternity before finally showing them out into strange surroundings. Densely populated only by trees, there was no sign of human population for as far as they could see. Darkness had spread it's shroud over everything, and they peered into the inky blackness of the night trying to figure out what area of this was. The looked to the left, then right, but all they could see were trees. No sign of human inhabitation. He turned around and glared at her. "And what would the madam like me to do now?" Refusing to see any possible danger in the situation, she relied on her keen sense of direction and asked him to turn right...

They must have been riding down the long road that cut through the trees for nearly half an hour when they passed a bunch of old villagers. It looked like a funeral procession. "At this time? And why are there only old people in the procession?" she leaned forward and asked her friend. "Don't ask me," he shot back, "you were the one who wanted to come this way!" A little later they crossed some men lounging under a Banyan tree. Deciding to stop and ask for directions, they turned around and asked the men which direction was the main city. In response one of the men lurched over and asked her friend what he was doing with a pretty young girl in such an area, after sundown. He was reeking of alcohol. Before she could even understand the man's insinuation, her friend had revved up his engine and shot off again. She wondered if they should have turned back from that road block after all. As though he was reading her thoughts, her friend spoke up and told her in a terse note that this was reminding him of the time when he was driving down such a deserted area and a bunch of drunk hoodlums stopped his bike and beat him up. He turned his head slightly and added, "I was alone that time. This time I have you with me and I'm answerable to your parents..." A sudden vision of a bunch of drunk men beating up her friend, before turning to her, sent chills down her spine.

Surely this little deroute cum adventure to narrate at home wouldn't turn into something she'd regret for the rest of her life? Pulling her Bandhini dupatta tighter around her body, she squinted into the darkness looking desperately for some landmark that would guide them back to civilisation. She shut her eyes, praying fervently that they would approach civilisation soon. Someone up there must have heard her prayers, for suddenly her friend exclaimed in delight. A few metres ahead was a bridge beyond which there seemed to be a small village. As her friend made his way across a cobbled she cursed under her breath, for with every bump her back lightly hit the back of his bike. It was hurting her in the same spot as she'd hurt herself when she'd slipped down a flight of stairs five years ago. She'd have one hell of a sore back the next day.

As soon as the cobbled path got over, they stopped at a Paanwalla and asked him how to find their way back to the main city. He asked them to go straight ahead and turn right at the third crossing...10 minutes later, they saw a familiar building loom up at them! It was a church that lay in the Cantonment region. Had they not been derouted they would have crossed it just a few minutes after that road-block. Instead they had spent over an hour riding through unfamiliar territory, their imaginations subjected to all kinds of horrific incidences and their backs getting screwed on cobbled paths, that were definitely not made for two-wheeler traffic!

Half an hour later, he delivered her safely home, none the worse except for a slight bump on her penultimate vertrebra that would probably require a gentle massage and a heat-pad later that night. Exhausted, she trudged up to her house, while he turned back to make the long ride back, across town to his own pad....

April '05

Reaching for the Stars

(Bellowing out with all the strength in her lungs) HELLO!!!

(Aside) I seem to have mastered the art of becoming invisible. It took me several years to do this, but now that I’m there, its not nice being invisible. Why won’t anyone notice me?? Damn but you there, standing there with the smirk on your face...listen to me! YOU!!!
(Screeching with impatience) Guess there's no undoing it now is there. Invisibility sure sucks though...Christ what I wouldn’t do for a tad wee bit of visibility.... hey...I think that girl saw me...you? Hullo??? Yes, you in the red shirt...odd, she looks at me like she’s seen a ghost...a little inconsequential wisp of humanity-once-been. (Fades away into the crowd of humanity....)

Shaking herself consciously, she forced herself out of the reverie. She turned to sit by the wall, overlooking the horizon. But now, her back was turned resolutely to the waves breaking behind her on the beach. The sea – it represented a myriad of things to her. At daybreak, it held the promise of life. The motion of the waves crashing against rocks, on the beach, retreating, only to return again, represented the cyclic motion of life. She was a firm believer in “You reap what you sow”. It will always come back to you, so do unto others, as you would like them to do unto you. She repeated that often enough didn’t she?

At this hour, when the sun no longer shone on the water, making it glisten and shimmer as the light waves bounced off the waves, the sea held a dark, haunting quality. It was beautiful no doubt, but it no longer beckoned to her. Around her, her friends sighed at the beauty of the sea in moonlight. Not her. She was filled with a sense of emptiness. The sight of the blackness, stretching out endlessly, away from her, reminded her that life seemed to move away from her. It filled her with a loneliness that she couldn’t escape from. It made her feel empty. A hysterical laugh threatened to escape from her throat. She was beginning to think like one of those sappy women on those soaps she held in disdain.

She tried her best to restrain herself from treading that beaten path once again. But failed. Her thoughts seemed to have a mind of their own tonight. Before she knew it she was back…

Back in the classroom. Conversation swirled around her. Mrs. Sharma was late for English grammar II. The others were making the most of the free time – a paper plane flew across the class onto the lap of a girl. She heard the girls giggle over the new boy in Class IX-B. And she sunk in further, trying her best to blend into the woodwork, bent over book. A little nobody, she was good, but not good enough. She has potential, but not the drive to get what she wants. Hadn’t she heard that often enough?

Her friend shook her. She looked at her and smiled weakly. Sorry, I got lost there for a minute. Of course I was listening. The beauty just overwhelmed me…Liar, a voice inside her whispered. She ignored it, but she found herself growing increasingly listless. How many years had it been? She had worked so hard at not being noticed, at staying away from the glare of the spotlights, that no one paid any heed to her anymore. Well she’d gotten what she wanted. She no longer stuck out like a sore thumb. She had a reputation of being safe, dependable, efficient. But that’s it. She could be relied on to do the job, to finish it, but come up with a new idea? HER? All those years had conditioned her to stop just short of reaching for the stars. Today no one thought she wanted the stars – sensible people don’t have dreams do they?

She did. What did that make her? A dreamer? No, that wouldn’t do. She didn’t want to be a square peg trying to fit in a circular hole. Sensibility had always been her armour against the world. Stupid! To allow herself to look over her shoulder after all these years. The darkness was bound to try and drag her back.

Life moves on. The waves continue to come and break on the beach…and stars? They were just gaseous masses in the universe.

May 2003

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

“There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. It stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue.”

Thus begins the narrative of Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a marvelously fantastic tale of far-away imaginary lands, full of allusions and sub-texts. At one level, it an adventure novel about Rashid, the story-teller and his son Haroun and how they find themselves in the city of Gup, where it is always light and from where originates to Ocean of Notions or all the stories we hear, at a time when the Ocean has been poisoned by their dark and evil neighbours, the Chup-wallas who live in the dark land of Chup. They have also kidnapped the princess Baatcheat, and so Haroun and Rashid find themselves embroiled in a rescue mission and battle to save both, Princess Baatcheat and the Ocean of Notions…

At another level, the novel can be read as a very witty retort to the forces of censorship that work to silence voices of dissent such as Rushdie’s. After he wrote The Satanic Verses (1988), the Ayatollah had placed a fatwah upon him, forcing him to adopt a life of seclusion and hiding. Rushdie broke out of the resultant writer’s block in 1990 with Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a children's book written as a means of explaining his situation to his son, largely through the use of allegory.

The numerous incidents in the story carry significant meanings depending on how you look at it – the page Blabbermouth, a girl in a man’s world is so obviously a comment on the increasing presence of women in previously male domain of work (remember we are talking about the late 80s and early 90s when this was still an emerging occurrence). The descriptions of the K country and the Dull Lake, seem to scream and drag our attention to Kashmir and its problems and the deterioration of the once beautiful Dal Lake.

Replete with such allusions and allegories, the book is a sheer delight to read – fantastic, cheeky, witty and brilliantly Rushdie, I’d so recommend it for everyone. If you know your ABCs and can read a novel, pick this one!

P.S I found interesting essays on the novel here, incase you feel like reading more about the novel! (ever the Literature student!) ;-)

La Femme Fatale

Nicola let herself into her penthouse apartment and kicked the door shut behind her. Switching the lights on, as she walked down the length of the room, she kicked her high-heeled sandals off. With a flick of her wrist she flung the crimson red scarf that held back her hair, across the room. Floating lightly it came to rest on the back of her blood red couch. All the furniture in the room was the same blood red. Set against the stark black walls, it shocked the senses. The room enticed with its dark fury and passion and pulled you into its web of evilness. As the first strains of music filled the room, Nicola reached behind her and pulled down the zip of her dress. The black satin slithered down her body, revealing her lithe body covered with a light sheen of perspiration. Stretching herself with the sinuous grace of a cat, she walked down to the mahogany bar across the room and poured herself a glass of wine.

As the bouquet of the liquor filled her senses and warm liquid coated her throat, she closed her eyes and let the weight of her hair pull her head back. She smiled to herself and moved her body sensuously to the music. Her hand slid between her breasts, down to her navel and further down between her thighs. The music reached a crescendo and she snapped her head back up, opening her eyes. They were glittering with success and something else, something dark and mysterious. Her laughter filled the room and bounced off the walls. Reaching out for the bottle of wine, she twirled around and headed towards her bedroom.

Decadent in white, her bedroom was in stark contrast to the living room. Not a hint of colour could be perceived anywhere. Ignoring the four-poster bed covered with a white satin sheet, she moved towards the en-suite bathroom, and stepped straight into the shower. The sharp needles of water pounded her sensitized flesh mercilessly, but she liked it that way. It would soothe away that tender ache that racked her body right now. As she hung her head back letting the water run through her long hair, images from the past flashed in her mind.

A small one bedroom flat in a seedy locality. “Nikita Sharma, you’re next.” Innumerable auditions and waiting for the phone-calls. “I’m sorry we’ve already cast someone else.” Refusal after refusal finally forcing her to start accepting two-bit roles in small inconsequential productions. Endless days of tears and frustration. Auditioning for the leading role in Aurobindo Ghosh’s production – an adaptation of a Mahasweta Devi story. Limbs entwined, bodies covered with sweat, the air heavy with the aroma of scented candles, wine and sex. “You’re never going to make it baby.” Yet another failure. More wine and even more sex. Betrayal. Doors being shut in her face.

She turned around in the shower letting the water run down her face. “You’re never going to make it baby,” the words still haunted her, even though she was reigning supreme over the stage since the past three years. She had finally made her debut on stage in a Luciano Giliani production. It was an Indo-Italian venture. The leading woman with her enigmatic personality had captured the audience’s imagination immediately. There were hints of affairs with the leading man of the play, not to mention with the director. Her performances held them mesmerized. The play was a run-away success, and Nicola hadn’t looked back since then.

They knew her as Nicola. They called her Lady Nick. The feminine avatar of Old Nick – Nick the devil. She could reduce a man to a quivering mass of hormones ruled by his senses with a single slicing look of those sharp black eyes. All she had to do was set her eyes on the man and he was hers. “She’s had more lovers than I’ve had hot dinners,” was how they had introduced her in one talk-show. Lady Nick, they called her. Lady Nick, the home-breaker. You couldn’t cross her without regretting it. Lady Nick, they called her. Lady Nick, the ball breaker.

She was tired of that image now. Tired of performing night after night, on-stage, back-stage, off-stage. Tired of performing in bed and out of it. Tonight she’d finally signed the contract for a role that had been her dream for over five years now. Aurobindo Ghosh’s production – an adaptation of a Mahasweta Devi story. This, she had decided would be her last role. This was it. She’d retire from the stage after this one. The performance of her life, and it would be the last performance she gave.

Stepping out of the shower, she took a long deep swig from the bottle, and turned around to look at her naked body. She liked what she met her eyes. A drop of water rolled down from her shoulder over her breast down to her trim waist. Her long legs didn’t have a spare ounce of flesh on them and were perfectly formed. A lover had once said that having those legs wrapped around him, was all he needed to transport him to heaven. Cocking her head slightly, she raised her hand and smiled at her reflection. “The first day of the rest of your life. Congratulations Nicola!”

*****

The next few months passed in a whirlwind of activities. There were innumerable read-meets at Aurobindo’s bachelor pad that he kept for such purposes. Often with the entire cast, but sometimes it was just Nicola and Aurobindo. It was obvious to everyone from the first day itself – the attraction between them was so strong, one could almost see the sparks flying. They were waiting with bated breath for Lady Nick to swing into action.

“Hi Nicola, it’s Auro here. Not disturbing you, am I?”
“Of course not darling, I was just lounging around. So tell me what can I do for you?”
“I called to discuss the scene in the forest. I think you should be wearing something in earthy tones in that scene. Should I get the designer to come in for the next session?”
“Earthy tones? Darling earthy tones don’t work for me. Black is my colour don’t you know that by now?”
“Nick, be reasonable. This isn’t your personal wardrobe we are discussing…”
“Can you see me in brown lingerie?”
“You won’t be wearing lingerie for that scene…”
“I asked you a question Auro. Answer it.”
“No I can’t,” Aurobindo replied after a nervous silence.
“Of course you can’t. It’s because I’m not wearing brown or anything earthy for that matter. Do you want to know what I’m wearing?”
There was a long silence. Aurobindo couldn’t get himself to say anything.
“I’m wearing a black peignoir. Black lace. Nothing else. You know there’s something undeniably sexy about walking around the house in black lingerie.”

It wasn’t long before Nicola started staying back after the rest of the cast left. Aurobindo would open a bottle of wine and two of them would argue over a section in the play that needed to be worked upon till late into the night. The battle would invariably move into the bedroom before they both left for their own apartments. Aurobindo, to his wife and children and Nicola to her pristine white bedroom, that had never been sullied by a lover’s presence.

Rehearsals started three months later at Prithvi, the hub of theatrical activity in Bombay. The who’s who of theatre was buzzing with rumours of Ghosh’s next production, not to mention his alleged affair with Lady Nick. Aurobindo wanted to keep it under the wraps, but that wasn’t how Nicola played the game.

“You had auditioned for this role before hadn’t you Nicola?”
“No I hadn’t. It was someone else. Someone named Nikita Sharma. She didn’t meet up to Aurobindo Ghosh’s standards.”
“What can you tell us about your role?”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman wronged…”
“We hear there’s a new man in your life Nicola…”
“You could hardly call him a new man…he’s been mine for a few months now. It’s almost time up for him darlings!”

“Nicola, these rumours are starting to create problems for me at home. You aren’t helping by going around making such statements”
She leaned down over him, letting her hair fall over his chest and ran a long nail down his body. “You know you have to let her go, don’t you?”
“Nicola, damn it stop that,” he caught hold of her wrist and pulled her around so she was facing him.
“Hmm…getting aggressive are we? I like that…”
“This isn’t a game Nick. We both know this isn’t love and you’re not in this for the long haul. So why are you trying to destroy my marriage?”
She smiled at him and moved back. Her peignoir slid down to the floor. Raising her leg she rested it on his thigh.
“I don’t like crowds Auro. And I don’t like sharing. It’s your choice…”
She turned around and walked into the bedroom, knowing he’d follow. He didn’t have a choice anymore.
A few days later he had the divorce papers drawn up. His wife hadn’t taken it well. She wanted full custody of the children and a sizeable alimony. Their flat would be hers. Aurobindo moved his belongings into his bachelor pad.

“Oh baby, you’re so good at this…don’t stop. Nicola? Nick?”
He looked around wildly to see her pulling on her clothes and walking out of the room.
“What’s wrong with you? You can’t leave me now – not like this…”
She looked down at him and smiled at him. “Watch me.”
She reveled in her power over him.
She enjoyed torturing him, playing with him till he could take no more, pushing him to the limit of his endurance, making him forget he wasn’t an animal.

*****

Opening night. The play closed to a thunderous applause. The cast was called out thrice to take their bows. Nicola had a long queue of journalists waiting outside her dressing room. They had heard the rumour that she would be retiring from stage after this play.
“Nicola, are you planning to finally throw in the cards and settle down in life?”
“Surely you would continue to be a part of the theatre world once you’re married to Aurobindo Ghosh?”
“Nicola’s dashing debut as a director in a Ghosh’s production. Will that be the next headline?”

For the first time, Nicola didn’t reply to a single question, but walked past them into the car that was waiting for her. Tonight, for the first time, her house was being thrown open to people. She was throwing a party to celebrate the first night of the play.

The living room was crowded, people overflowing outside her house taking the party into the corridor, down the stairwell and the elevator. Everyone was in high spirits, alcohol flowing freely.
“Auro, where’s the hostess?”
“I have no idea. She said she had something to take care of before she came…just her way of ensuring she makes the grand entry even at her own party!”
“Not worried she’s found a replacement?”
He forced a smile as he tried to ignore the fact that he’d been wondering the same thing himself. “She can’t replace me buddy.”
“Looks like someone’s bubble is going to be hard to burst tonight!”
“Make that impossible…”
“I think you spoke too soon Auro. Look who just walked in…”

Aurobindo turned around. Nicola had just walked in with leading actor of the play. Clad in a black evening gown that left nothing to the imagination she had captured everyone’s attention the minute she walked in. As she moved, the material shifted against her skin and he knew instinctively that she was naked underneath. Just like she’d been the day she signed the contract for the play. Ignoring Aurobindo, she walked forward to congratulate the cast and crew for their success. Her presence filled the room taking the party to newer heights. Her laughter bounced off the walls as she threw herself into the party.

Tossing the remainder of his drink down his throat, Aurobindo poured himself another Scotch and turned around to look at her. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Nicola was dancing with her leading man, her body flush against his, one hand around his nape, the other somewhere between their bodies. As he looked at her, she raised her eyes and looked straight at him. Her mouth slid open to smile at him and then her tongue snaked out to circle around her partner’s ear.

Aurobindo closed his eyes in anguish. He should have seen this coming. She never stayed with any man, he knew that. They didn’t call her Lady Nick for nothing. Lady Nick, the home-breaker. He reached for the bottle of Scotch to pour himself another drink…

Hours later, the party had wrapped up. Nicola had just seen off her partner for the night. She shut the door behind him, kicked off her sandals and turned around to face Aurobindo. She walked up to him and looked down at him as he lay collapsed on the couch. He stared back with blood-shot eyes. Raising her leg, she ran her foot up his thigh, smiling when she saw him jerk in reaction.

“You’re never going to make it baby.” He squinted up at her confused.
“Come and get what you want,” she turned around and walked into the bedroom. Stunned, Aurobindo stared after her for a while, not sure if she’d just said what he’d heard.
“You don’t want me to start without you, do you?”

He scrambled off the couch and lurched towards the bedroom. She had goaded him all night with her glances and movements. Every time she had touched that other man, he had wanted to tear her clothes off and take her right there on the living room floor. And now she was letting him pay her back for the misery he’d put her through. She goaded him that night, like never before. She had pushed beyond his endurance and he took her without caring for the consequences, again and again till he collapsed in a drunken stupor.

*****

The maid let herself in at 7am the next morning and immediately started picking up the remnants of the night’s party. She went into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a huge disposal bag and a broom. A few minutes later, she screamed and the broom fell unheeded from her hand. In front of her lay Nicola. She was dead. In the room, she found Aurobindo Ghosh. He was so drunk he didn’t understand what she was saying.

Aurobindo regained consciousness when a bucket of icy cold water was thrown into his face. He opened his eyes to find a police inspector standing in front of him.
“You will have to come with us for interrogation, sir,” the inspector informed Aurobindo. They had found a letter from Nicola, admitting that she was committing suicide after being subjected a physical torture by a jealous ex-lover.

Autopsy reports revealed that she had died of poisoning. Medical examination came up with evidence for forced intercourse and sodomy. The victim had been treated roughly. There were cuts and bruises all over her body. Aurobindo Ghosh had scratches and marks on him, proving that she had tried to fight him off. Semen found inside her matched the samples taken from him. Witnesses from the party reported that Nicola had publicly dumped him and had already moved on to a new lover. The leading actor of the play confirmed this. Aurobindo couldn’t remember a thing. The last thing he remembered was seeing Nicola’s tongue snake into the man’s ear. It was an open and shut case.

They knew her as Nicola. They called her Lady Nick. Lady Nick, the home-breaker. Lady Nick, the ball breaker.

March '05