Jhoomur Bose - Confessionally Yours - Recalcitrance - Anurag Mathur

A few months back while researching on the tale of Gulfam and Sabz pari, I found the story belonged to a ballet created during the time of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.  He was a colourful character and surely worth reading up.  The wiki page linked a book called Recalcitrance which was supposed to be about Wajid Ali Shah.

I followed the link and was led to the twitter page of the author of the book, Anurag Kumar.  A bit of a dialogue (the book was not available online or in bookshops) led him into sending me a copy of his book.  It was extremely kind of him.  Thank you Anurag.

I am quoting from the blurbs here: "Anurag is a freelance journalist.  He belongs to a very old family of Lucknow which witnessed the events of 1857.  Ever since childhood he was fascinated by the Great Uprising"

1857 was indeed a very tumultuous time and there were surely some great stories that can be written on that period.  My favorite is Ruskin Bond's "A flight of pigeons".

Recalcitrance follows the lives of two friends Chote Bhaiyya and Narinderlal who happen to witness the events that take place in Lucknow at close quarters.  Chote Bhaiyya finds himself smitten by a muslim girl, but cannot find the courage to act in time to get close to her.

The problem with the book - despite a story that should practically tell itself, after all the events were happening so rapidly at the time - is that it gives out a very disjointed feel.  It proceeds from one event to another without any apparent link. There is no attempt to bring together the events at any later chapter either. Several characters are not named  but referred to ambiguously like, "a holy man", a "general" etc.  I got the feeling that the author is trying to point to some important historical figures of the time, but I failed to place them.

This incoherence spoils the story and I wish the author had worked harder on it, because it is apparent that the subject is very close to his heart.

Confessionally Yours by Jhoomar Bose is a fresh release and I was recommended it by Samit Basu via a tweet.  Not personally of course, it was a general tweet and I picked it up.  The book starts like a typical pulp fiction with a blogpost of a woman who recounts her first sexual experience.  From then on, the story moves to a very amusing account of a typical day in a newpaper office, starting with a staff meeting, with the editor, called Ed, swearing after every two words. Polly Sharma, our heroine, is a new recruit in this newspaper called, well, Tabloid.  Her boss, Leena, the features editor is not the easiest boss to work with.  Her penchant for being a grammar nazi has given her a nickname Comma.

As is the case, the tabloid (or Tabloid) is always on the lookout for racy stories to help the sales. Polly, who has been following the blog of a woman who has been very confessional about her sex life in her blog, wants to profile the blog.  Her boss agrees.

So far so good.

Then comes a peek into Polly's own life.  Her husband has been aloof for quite a while, and Polly has been excusing him for it, thinking he is busy with his office work and should be given space.  In the meantime, she has to adjust with her mother-in-law, aptly named Dragon, who pops in for visits ever so often.

Her maid Mini is facing domestic violence and Polly tries to help her out.  In the meantime, she learns that her husband had a torrid affair with a girl before he got married to her, and she finds herself trying to match up to the woman who was once the love of her husband's life.

The story starts on a simple note, with Polly trying to get a grip on her work.  Her early chapters are full of funny details about her work life.  But the humour peters out soon, and story takes a rather serious turn; serious and even sleazy at times.

I liked the early chapters a lot, and although its nice to read a book where a lot is happening, I wish SO much didn't happen.

The best part about the book is that it is very well written.  Indian fiction is not always well edited, but that is a fault this book does not, thank god, suffer from.

The book is classified as a 'Metro Read'. On a few trips on the metro in Delhi, I have seen girls reading books.   So I suppose, given the category, the book is pretty good.

Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca

I got a parcel of 4 books from my mother when I turned 15.  Among them were two books by Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca and House on the Strand.  I got through with these two books and Daphne Du Maurier shot up to the top of my favorite writers list.  I have devoured several of her books therafter and loved each one of them.

w

Daphne Du Maurier

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."  This is the famous opening line of the novel.  The story is narrated by a nameless heroine, who then launches into a description of a lovely house and its garden that has now run to rack and ruin.  From there she goes into a flashback where she describes how she met Maximillian De Winter in Monte Carlo.  At the time our heroine was a companion to Mrs. Van Hopper who was holidaying there.  Mrs. Van Hopper happens to be a snob who loves to befriend important people and forces herself upon Maxim.  However, Mrs. Van Hopper is laid up in bed, sick, and the heroine has to spend time alone.  She finds herself in the company of Maxim who seems to enjoy taking her around.  When it is time for Mrs. Van Hopper to go away, the girl goes to Maxim to say goodbye.  To her utter surprise, Maxim proposes marriage to her.

 

Suddenly, the girl is plucked from a subservient position to become the wife of the rich and handsome Maxim De Winter, the master of the famous house Manderley.  Even though she loves Maxim and adores Manderley, she feels like a fish out of water in the fancy surroundings and feels intimidated by the the rituals of a big house, the servants and the social duties thrust upon her.  It is not just the sudden upgrade in her social standing that is unsettling to her; she has to cope with the ghost of Maxim's first wife Rebecca who had died in a boat accident.

Rebecca was beautiful, tall, well dressed, had impeccable taste and manners, threw grand parties and everyone loved her. Our heroine finds herself being compared to her constantly by everyone.  She finds Maxim acting distant and assumes that he too, like the others, finds her very unattractive and cannot get Rebecca out of his mind.  Until some old secrets come tumbling out of the closet and she finds out how wrong she was about things.

The novel is narrated in the first person, from the point of view of the heroine who is hesitant, unsure of herself and a very young girl.  Her own inadequacies colour her view of what is going on.  Her strength lies in the purity of her love and the very things that she felt were her drawbacks, i.e. her unworldliness, her simplicity and her lack of vanity.  These things come to the fore when she is tested and she comes out of her troubles with flying colours.

The style of the novel is perfect, simple and taut.  The romance, mystery and thrills keep you flipping pages till you reach the very end.  There are several unforgettable characters, Maxim De Winter, remote, aristocratic and so desirable; Mrs. Danvers who is always around to see to it that our heroine never forgets how inferior she is;  Frank Crawley, Maxim's friend and Manager, who is the only true friend she has;  Beatrice and Giles - Maxim's sister and brother-in-law - bumbling but affectionate;  Favell, Rebecca's brother who is always at hand to stir up trouble;  The eponymous character, Rebecca, Maxim's first wife who casts her shadow on everything that goes on, even though she is long dead.

This book is supposed to be based on Jane Eyre, a favorite of Daphne Du Maurier's.  This book lives up to its inspiration in every way.  It is a classic, that's for sure.

Happy Birthday Charles Dickens

There is no dearth of material about the life and times of Charles Dickens, one of the most popular novelists of all times, one of my top favorites for a long long time.  He was a master storyteller and so dearly beloved that when my MA Lit. lecturer announced in a class that he had many flaws as a novelist, the whole class let out several exclamation of dissent.  Dickens wrote many iconic novels and has enjoyed a readership that even J.K. Rowling can envy.

To honor this unparallelled master Google depicted this picture on its site:

I have commenced reading The Pickwick Papers today after many years.  Here is a paragraph out of this highly amusing book.

“On his right hand, sat Mr. Tracy Tupman; the too susceptible Tupman, who to the wisdom and experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm and ardor of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses – love.  Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of Tupman's vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat, but the soul of Tupman had known no change – admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling passion.”

In a few skillful lines, he sketches the form and character of Mr. Tracy Tupman.  This was his most endearing quality.  It made his novels feel like a visual feast, it made imagining the characters easy, it made them vivid and it made them live in our memory forever.  Happy Birthday Charles Dickens, I am sure your novels will live forever.

Khushwant Singh - Sunset Club

About a week ago, I was loitering in Sector 17, whiling my time away, window shopping, waiting for a friend to arrive.  I usually stop by at the bookseller that spreads his 'wares' on the pavement just outside the Mochi showroom.  One time I was lucky to get a one volume, second hand, prime condition set of Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien for just Rs.125/-.  This time round my eye fell on Sunset Club, a book by Khushwant Singh.  I leafed through the book and liked what I saw, so I picked it up.

Khushwant Singh wrote this book about the events that took place in the year 2009, seen through the eyes of three old friends who make it a point to meet every evening in Lodhi Garden.  There is Pandit Preetam Sharma, an Oxford Graduate, retired from Civil Services, a bachelor who lives in Khan Market with his sister.  There is Nawab Barkatullah Baig Dehlavi an affluent businessman who lives in Nizamuddin with his devoted wife.  Last but not the least there is Sardar Boota Singh, a widower and a retired newspaperman (ahem!) who lives close to Sharma.  These three men like taking a walk in Lodhi Garden every evening and have taken to congregating on a bench right opposite the Bara Gumbad.  In their honor the bench has been renamed as 'Boodha Binch'.

There is one chapter for each month which recounts the political happenings, weather, and whatever going on in the lives of the three men.  The men talk, argue and reminiscence about their lives.  They talk about politics, love, women, nature and of course, their ailments.  The book starts on 26th January 2009 and ends, a bit sadly, on 26th January 2010.  (For this reason, it is fortuitous that I am writing this on 26th January as well.) There is not really much happening here, but the events are an interesting mishmash of the political scene and weather during the year 2009.  Khushwant Singh throws in a bit of religion, some lovely poetry and nice descriptions of trees and flowers.  In fact, the book is quite like his column.

I enjoyed his book Delhi very much which I reviewed on mouthshut.com.  I have pasted the writing onto my blog here.  This book is not a patch on Delhi, but yet, if you compare it with the kind of stuff being printed these days, it is miles ahead.  KS's language is pretty non-decorative, but has the advantage of being direct and functional.  The poetry he has picked to describe seasons is lovely.

The autumn comes, a maiden fair

In slenderness and grace,

With nodding rice stems in her hair,

And lilies in her face...

-Kalidas

More Reviews More Books

I have been lax in reading, lax-er in reviewing books.  I had picked up Dan Brown's Deception Point on my last foray into Browser, Sector 8. Chandigarh, a private library I am a member of.  Along with it, I took 'Yes Prime Minister' of the famous TV series and Sikhs a book by Khushwant Singh. I had enjoyed his book Delhi very much.  It was nice mish-mash of history with fiction thrown in about the unparalleled and grand city (previously, now it is a state) of Delhi.

The latter two books are still being read by me.  I raced through Deception Point.  It had a good start.  It is election time in US of A.  The contending candidate for presidency, Senator Sedgewick Sexton is a jerk, we realise as we get to know how his daughter views him.  Rachel Sexton is an intelligence analyst for NRO, who soon finds herself embroiled in a series of events that find her nearly freezing to death in the Arctic, and back to Washington DC, to find out who did it.

Nothing wrong with the pace of the thriller.  Its Dan Brown, he knows how to pump the adrenaline into inert bodies lying on the couch and flipping pages of his book.  Its just the premise, finding alien rock with evidence of life stamped all over it is surely a biggie.  But then, the claim fizzles out faster than fizz fizzles out of a coke bottle left open.  The mystery is, who is behind the killings and why.  The suspense ends in a supposed twist, but the twist is not too well qualified with good reasons.  That was the deception point for me.  I must say Dan Brown does better with his ecclesiastical mysteries and his symbologist Dr. Robert Langdon, even if he seems to skedaddle around the world a little to much.

My old old friend, (she is not old, its just that we go way back) Smita of Bookslifeandmore has picked up several formidable challenges for the year 2012.  I wish her all the best, and choose for myself, admittedly the wimpiest of the challenges that seems do-able to me.  Here goes - Amen.

Amish Tripathi - The Immortals of Meluha

Amish has come out with a trilogy (the third one, The Oath of the Vayuputras is still pending publication) that retells the story of Shiva.

All Gods were men once, we assume.  They did extraordinary things which caused them to be worshiped like Gods. In India these myths are still alive.  These stories are integrated into religious tracts and listened to with devotion and complete faith.  In such a scenario, it is difficult to fictionalize mythology further.  The initial mythology is so oft repeated and believed that it is taken as a fact.  If you mess with that, it can be viewed as blasphemy.  A while ago I had read The Pregnant King by Devdutt Pattnaik which was peripheral mythological story expanded into a beautiful novel.  Would the retelling of Shiva's story succeed?  Can Shiva be depicted as an extraordinary man who was later idolized as a God?

The Immortals of Meluha:

The story begins with Shiva fending off yet another attack on his tribe high on the mountains of Kailasa.  He is visited by Nandi with an offer to join his brethren in Meluha where they can live a civilized life.  He is reminded of his uncle who had prophesied that his destiny lay far beyond the mountains of Kailasa.  He decides to accompany Nandi.  On his arrival at one of the border towns of Meluha in Kashmir, his tribe is quarantined and given medicine to cleanse them.  The medicine has a strange effect on Shiva, it gives him a blue throat, a Neelkanth.  He is thence catapulated into centre-stage of Meluhan aristocracy where things are expected of him, where he finds love, but also many barriers.  He has to fight wars for a cause that is rapidly becoming his own.

The Secret of the Nagas:

Shiva finds himself undertaking a journey across India to uncover truths.  Nothing seems to be as he had first perceived it.  The Chandravanshi's are not the murderous terrorists they had been portrayed as.  The Brangas have a genuine reason for being hand in glove with the Nagas, now seen as the enemy No.1 of India.  But are they?  They have a secret too.  Shiva finds he cannot rest until he knows the absolute truth.  His quest is for the evil that he is supposed to destroy.  But where is this evil?  Who are the Vasudevs?  Are they misleading him?


The pace of the books is breathtaking, they are quite a page-turners.  The conceptualization of the story is simply fabulous.  As Shiva is himself learning about the Meluhan and later, many other Indian civilization, we get to learn many 'facts'.  The world of the time, 4000 years BC is well mapped.  The fictional world is drawn with accuracy and confidence.  The author is extremely surefooted about his subject.

The only point where the book falters is the conversation.  It can get a wee bit irritating to read 'You are extremely intelligent My Lord' for the umpteenth time.  At times the intelligence of the reader is insulted when the proceedings are explained painstakingly.  A little more skill in writing could have come in very very handy.  Especially as the subject is so overpoweringly strong.  Despite this, the books are a must read.
They are as heady as Shiva's chillum.