Word Attack!!

Smell

Naturally I was intrigued by the name of the book when I came across it in the library. It was a debut novel by Radhika Jha, and reading the blurb on the back intrigued me further. I got it back home and was caught up in it, in no time at all.

Smell is an unusual book, one that really had me stunned at times with the evocative language. It is the story of Leela, living a carefree life in Kenya until her father dies and her mother sends her to Paris to live with her father’s brother’s family. Leela’s perspective of Kenya, the wide open spaces and then Paris, the confined living arrangements and how she breaks free form the beginning of the book.

The name of the book comes about, because of Leela’s acute sense of smell. Where others see and merely look, Leela can smell. Some of the descriptions of the smells actually had my nose twitching. Leela escapes the humongous Aunt Latha and her husband(her father’s brother), and with the help of a friend, learns French and then moves in and out of relationships quite predictably. However, it is at this time, that she discovers that she too has a smell. It is fetid and she is afraid of being rejected because of it. Her relationships suffer because of her preoccupation with her own smell, until of course, she finally finds someone she is really happy with. The smell comes in here too, attacks her when she least expects it, and there follows a period of extreme madness in which she travels across most of Paris, on train and by foot, trying to rid herself of the smell.

A very interesting book, written beautifully, and apparently, this was a best seller when it was released. However, there are places where it drags and you kind of lose interest in Leela and her life. It picks up pace languorously and then moves in a steady momentum till the end.

Still, a definite recommendation to read it from me!

A Fine Balance

March 17th, 2006

I picked up this book in Landmark a couple of months back, and realised I had time to read it only now. I finished reading it a couple of weeks back. Let me start with why i wanted to read the book.

I suddenly developed this great interest to know what life was like for people in the seventies and eighties. Well, I’ve been around since the late seventies, but then, I wanted to know what it was to be an adult at that time…you know what I mean…young and raring to go or just young.

I think I was romanticising the entire age, especially the early eighties and I started speaking to a few people (who were already adults at that time, and by default are middle aged now) and started asking them what it was like to grow up then. To me, life without internet, mobiles, computers, satellite TV had suddenly become something so exciting and quite out of the dark ages. But what most people seemed to talk about was the Emergency in India in 1975.

Somehow, that period had left such a deep impression on their lives, that they werent able to think about the mid seventies without thinking of the Emergency. I hardly knew what the Emergency was all about. I had heard about it vaguely, but had absolutely no idea what actually happened, and why it had happened. I guess I wasnt interested enough.

Someone suggested I read A Fine Balance to know more about the Emergency and about the seventies. And dutifully, when I spotted the book at LM, I picked it up. Here’s what I have to say about the book:

The book has an amazing sense of atmosphere. You have to just read it and you can have a pretty good understanding of what it was like to live then. For the few days it took me to finish this book, I was living in a parallel world.

The story seemed to have some sort of knack of falling together and tying up in neat circles wherever you turn. Whichever way you go, someone is connected to someone else, or they will be.

Every character from the main protagonists to the not so important characters develop some kind of reason to exist in the book.
I didnt like the toilet language that crept up in the book every now and then.

The ending depressed me. I know I didnt want a happily ever after ending, and it wasnt even possible. But the sheer dreariness of it made me world weary.

Tears of the Giraffe

April 7, 2006

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this book. And I had no idea who Alexander Mc Call Smith was. Now I know, and I think I’d like to read more of his books.

Tears of the Giraffe is the story of an African lady, Precious Ramotswe, who runs a detective agency called No.1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana. The book took me completely by surprise. Set in modern day Botswana, written in simple, yet evocative prose, the author paints a hauntingly beautiful picture of modern day Africa. It is a place where some people are slowly losing a sense of their belonging, but there are those, like Mma Ramotswe who are entrenched deeply in the past, who can glean the good things from it, like courteousness, and inherent goodness, while equally embracing the practical aspects of modern life.

The story is about an American lady who arrives at Mma Ramotswe’s agency asking her to find out what happened to her son who disappeared on the edge of the Kalahari, nearly ten years ago. She has a feeling that he has died, but still, she would like to know what exactly happened. She wants closure. That in a sense is what the story is supposed to be, in a nutshell. But there is so much more. With each turn of the page, the image of Mma Ramotswe emerges as a strong, and wise African lady who sees more than what the ordinary person sees. No, not in any supernatural way, but just that she senses a lot more than what there really is on the surface.

I really liked her character a lot. Also, her fiance, the mechanic, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni. A cynical part of me wondered if there were such people in the world. Such nice people. Or rather people with such inherent goodness. Maybe there are.

The story is rather straightforward. But what appealed most to me was that it was told with such stark simplicity. Although, at most writing workshops we’re told that we don’t need to use big and fancy words, and I too agree that simple language should suffice. But still, I have read books, feeling uncomfortable when I see the ease with which the writer turns poetic, using words I havent even heard of. I felt reassured when I read Tears of the Giraffe.

Madras on Rainy Days

May 5th, 2006

They say, we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But that is exactly what I did a year ago, when I traipsed into Landmark with hubby and Sab.

I took one look at the cover of Madras on Rainy Days and immediately bought it. The cover intrigued me, and well, it turned out to be a good buy after all.

Madras on Rainy Days is the story of Layla, an NRI muslim who’s life is divided into 6 months of America and 6 months of Hyderabad, India.

Layla is now in India, for her marriage to Sameer, a handsome engineer who dreams of moving to America for the untold riches it can offer.

The story begins with the reader’s learning of a strange affliction that Layla has. A stomach pain, accompanied by bleeding that doesnt seem to stop. Her uptight mother, a divorcee, takes her to a renowned alim to exorcise the demons within her. But the demon within her is the America she has left behind forever. Although she will return, it will never be the same as before.

Layla’s story moves on with the different days of celebration of marriage. We see her father, with his young, pregnant second wife, flaunting his virility in the view of his first wife. We see her mother, who is divorced, but who has not revealed the fact to anyone in India, for fear of being looked down upon. We see Henna, her cousin, and confidante, and now married at 18, heavily pregnant, her husband away at work in Saudi and her uncaring in-laws who have sent her back to her parents home.

The characters in this debut novel are etched finely, and we see the forms emerge one by one. Layla is not very sure of the marriage with Sameer but she enters it, and we see that all is not well there either.

We see Sameer, the young man with big dreams, who has some shameful secrets he is hiding. We see his overzealous mother, his quiet and unassuming father, and we see how Layla learns to adjust in the new house.

Layla and Sameer are expected to travel to Madras for the application of their visas to the promised land. And this is where, we see the vague patterns that had appeared before, erupt in bright colour, the turning point of the novel.

Samina Ali brings out the relationship between the husband and wife with a lot of ease, capturing the uneasy beginnings, the new intimacy, the awkward attachment.

I googled for Samina Ali and found out that she suffered from a life-threatening neurological condition after her son was born. Her only concern when she started recovering was whether she would be able to write again. And Madras on Rainy Days is a vindication to the illness that she had conquered. I am waiting to read more from her.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

May 28, 2007

This book has been getting a lot of attention in the media, with most authors, critics going ga-ga over it. I picked up the book recently, and found it riveting enough ( and easy to read also) which made me finish it within 2 days.

Firstly, Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer whose earlier novel Moth Smoke also got a lot of recognition. I had borrowed it from a library about 4 years back and read it then, when I was going through a phase of reading a lot of Indian, Pakistani, Muslim, ethnic fiction. The novel was intriguing, but I didnt like it very much. I cant pinpoint the reason now.

Anyway, coming to this book, it is the story of Changez, a young Pakistani man who is a Princeton graduate, and is working in an upmarket evaluation firm in New York. This is just before 9/11 and post 9/11, how Changez changes and why he changes forms the crux of the story.

The narrative is in first person, with Changez striking a conversation with an American outside a busy Lahore restaurant. However, conversation is not what it is like. Its more of a monologue, with Changez repeating the American’s questions to us. ( We dont hear the American speaking at all). While decidedly an innovative technique, I personally felt that it was too strained. And to make an entire novel hold on to that conversation, where events wove in and out of Lahore and New York, …I’m sorry to say, it smacked of artifice. Also, Changez’s tone is mismatched with Changez’s character as is revealed in the novel in the latter half. His belligerence towards America is in direct opposition to his attitude towards the American. And this is where I feel the story has failed. The entire premise of the story built around that seemingly one-sided conversation feels out of place.

Anyway, the good parts…I have to admit that the book paints an elaborate picture of the post 9/11 world, particularly towards Pakistani muslims. Changez’s self discovery, and his increasing feeling of betrayal towards his own country, his realization that making money in America forces one to live in a microcosm, where one has to wear blinders to avoid looking at what the world is doing…all strike a feeling where one knows what he is talking about.

His love story with Erica the young American girl is complex and interesting. Where she is caught up in the past with her own demons, and unwilling to live in the present, these feelings are transferred to Changez when he moves back to Lahore.

The novel has a languorous pace, but it picks up speed especially towards the end, which makes one feel that we have rammed into a hurtling train. I still wish the author had not focused so much on technique(the conversation), because his content is worthy of better.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

August 6th, 2007

If the saying goes that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, then one shouldn’t judge an author with his first book in mind, either. Stories like the Kite Runner are written only once in a life time I suppose. But stories like A Thousand Splendid Suns are still stories that should be told. Even if they may not have the lyrical prose of Kite Runner which often had my throat choked up, A Thousand Splendid Suns is still a good read.

It is the story of Mariam and Laila, two women of different generations, both only vaguely aware of the other’s existence, as it often happens in life. I’m sure all of us have neighbours whom we meet on the road, and just say ‘hello’. We go our way and briefly wonder what their lives are like. But as A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel in which the political undertones, the historic events of Afghanistan play a major role in determining the course of the protagonists’ lives, we see how the two different lives meld into a common household, where survival is the first instinct. Friendship, companionship and love only come later.

Mariam is married to Rasheed, the husband from hell. However, I do presume that a majority of husbands are like Rasheed, and lives of women like Mariam are pure hell because of them…still, one cannot discount the good men too, like Tariq, or Laila’s father in this book.

The story is very simple, and once again, inevitably I revert to a comparison with The Kite Runner, because the underlying complexities in Kite Runner are missing here. The father-son relationship, the love for Kabul, they are all here, but with a different perspective and feel, which somehow doesn’t ring true. Is it because the protagonists are women? And Khalid Hosseini’s insights into a woman’s mind and life seem superficial, despite a sincere attempt. There were places where I found both heroines to resemble the cardboard heroines in a Sidney Sheldon novel and thats where I have my biggest grouse with this book.

Despite all this, the story of Afghanistan and its people is a deeply disturbing and moving story. I feel sympathy for the Afghanis, who have been oppressed by some faction or the other, throughout history. When the Soviets overthrew the monarchy, people hailed them, thinking they would be helped, their lives would become better. No. That didnt happen. When the Mujahideen overthrew the Soviets, people hailed them, but again, no. When the Taliban overthrew the Mujahideen, once again people waved flags and banners proclaiming ‘Taliban Zindabad’ but we all know what the Taliban did right?

If you have to read this book, read it to know the plight of women in Afghanistan, of how they cannot even deliver a baby in a hospital, unless its a hospital meant for women, where doctors have to wear burkhas in the OT and women agree for Cesarians without anesthesia.

The bond between Mariam and Laila and how they’re lives emerge out of the dust, after being trodded upon by Rasheed is good, but not unique or surprising. But there are moments in the novel which are very evocative, especially, the title of the book, which is part of a Farsi poem, an ode to Kabul. Let me quote it here :

‘One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls’

I remember reading a review of this book when it came out. Only one sentence remains in my head :’A Thousand Splendid Suns is pulp fiction at its best’. And thats what it is. Good pulp fiction, but pulp fiction nevertheless.

The Kite Runner

June 16, 2006

I was curious about this book. I hadn’t read any reviews of it, but the name was interesting. I picked it up by chance four weeks back in Landmark, when I actually wanted to pick up Sonia Faleiro’s ‘The Girl’. Finally, The Kite Runner came back home with me, where it was delegated on a shelf, with a few others I own, but don’t feel like reading.

Last weekend, my family drove down to Visharam ( a small town near Vellore) where my uncle has built a house. I took the book along with me, just in case I would be bored. I started reading it in the car, and was surprised at how much I was enjoying it. Also, when we reached there, I found out that there was no TV (Not that I watch much of it). That evening, the rest of the family ventured out to a mazaar on the outskirts of the town. This mazaar had to be reached by climbing a small hill, and so I opted out of it. I stayed back home, reading this book, enjoying every moment of it.

The Kite Runner is the story of two Afghani boys, Amir and Hassan. I’m thinking of how to describe Amir’s father here. He’s the embodiment of every young boy’s ideal father. Yet, Amir finds that whatever he does, it does not meet with approval in his father’s eyes. Hassan is the son of their servant Ali. Hassan and Amir are born a year apart, and they are constant companions. Hassan is a Hazara, a shiite and low-caste muslim. The class distinction is rather evident as we see Amir going to school, while Hassan stays at home, cooking and cleaning with his father. Amir’s mother is not alive, and for Amir, his father means the world to him. He is willing to go to any lengths to win his father’s affection.

Winter in Afghanistan is the time of kite tournaments. Amir and Hassan are partners in the kite flying contest. Amir flies the kites, while Hassan runs them for him. The contest starts in the morning with a large number of kites dotting the sky. It continues until there is only one kite left. Every time a kite falls, the kite runners run and retrieve them, and Hassan is the best of them all. That fateful year, Amir and Hassan strive to win the tournament. What follows that afternoon, will change their lives forever. The choices we make determine who we become eventually. A well-used cliche, but one that nevertheless encapsulates what The Kite Runner is all about.

The Kite Runner is the journey of a boy into a man, in every sense. From a coward, to one who can stand up for himself and those who need him, the novel captures every nuance without any melodrama. Yet, I felt my throat catch at certain moments. The backdrop of turbulent Afghanistan is portrayed with a lot of feeling. I could feel the pain in the author’s words when he recalls the Kabul of his childhood to the monstrosity it has become.

I can go on and on and on about this book. The simplicity of language, and yet the profound thoughts that the author conveys so effortlessly made me a mite jealous! One really should read this book. This is Khalid Hosseini’s first novel, and his second one is expected to come out this year. I’m waiting eagerly for it.

Such a Long Journey

17th May, 2006

I’m relatively new to Rohinton Mistry’s style of writing. But after reading A Fine Balance, I think I can fairly well understand a lot of commonalities. I picked up ‘Such a Long Journey’ over the weekend, and finished reading it sometime yesterday.

This is his first novel, and well, for a first novel it reads really well. Mistry offers valuable insight into the world of Parsis, combined with life in Mumbai in the early seventies. I admire writers like him who offer such a wide glance into the not so distant past, for us readers who were born in the late seventies. It does make me wonder that this is what our parents must have pondered over. This is what made the news of their lives.

Ordinary people like Gustad Noble and their ordinary lives, and yet, thrown into a turmoil which is a small part of a larger plan. That would be the gist of the novel. Gustad has big dreams for his eldest son, Sohrab, to join IIT, Mumbai, but Sohrab is more artistic and defies his father, creating a rift between them. His other two children, 15 year old Darius and 8 year old Roshan are yet to grow up into the angst of the early seventies. Playfully unaware of the war with Pakistan over formation of Bangladesh, they both collect newspapers for a raffle in school which would help the Bengali refugees.

Gustad’s wife Dilnavaz would probably be the ideal wife and mother. Loving her husband immensely, and yet, daring to defy him when the need arises, but still, acqueiscing to him again when the need arises.

This first novel is not peopled with numerous characters like ‘A Fine Balance’ and for that, I’m almost relieved. Yet, there are characters well wrought out, who have some sort of important role to play in the final outcome of the novel.

There’s Dinshaw, Gustad’s friend and confidante in the bank where he works, Major Bilimoria, an ex-army major who lives in the same apartment complex as Gustad, and who is an extremely close friend of his family. Yet, he goes away without a word, leaving Gustad angry and confused, more so when he receives a letter from him after a year, asking for a favour.

There’s Mrs.Kutpitia, an eccentric old lady who’s brash and abrasive, but friendly with Dilnavaz. She offers a lot of superstitious black magic advice to Dilnavaz on how to bring her son back into the family. Then, there’s Tehmul, the lame and slightly deranged fellow, who is sort of disgusting, but there’s an overwhelming sense of pity for him, and what happens with him eventually.

I dont know what other books Rohinton Mistry has written. I still dont like his sense of toilet humour which makes me very uneasy. But I really admire his sense of history and the way he brings it alive for us.

The Nanny Diaries

I’ve listed ‘The Nanny Diaries’ on my list of favourite books on Y!360. But now, I’m not so sure. The first time I read it, I loved it. I thought it was a very good take on the nanny scene in NY, where rich and affluent mothers, hand over their children to hired nannies, and just forget about them.

I re-read it a couple of months ago, and I realised that the book depressed me. Where its self-deprecating humour, quite like most chick-lit books on the scene had earlier made me smile and maybe even grin, now, I saw the sadness lurking behind it. Most of all, I felt sad for the little kids, who would fit in the cliche, ‘poor little rich kids’ perfectly. They have all the toys they want, all the custom-made furniture and designer clothes, but no mommy. Mommy apparently is busy getting herself some valuable ‘me-time’ while she palms off the child to a harried nanny who feels that being a nanny is the only job that she can do with her clothes on that pays so well!

The Nanny Diaries is the story of Nanny who is on the look out for a job that will help her get through college. She likes kids, and becoming a nanny is thus natural. In the park, she bumps into Mrs. X who feels that Nanny could be a very good substitute for Caitlin her present nanny. Her four year old son Grayer is wary around Nanny at first, but slowly, the lines blur. Nanny becomes the most important person in Grayer’s life, ofcourse, after his mother. Mrs. X reels off child psychology to Nanny, but doesn’t have the time to actually get down on her knees and see her son.

At the backdrop is the X’ es deteriorating marriage, and Mrs.X’s feverish attempts to keep things looking smooth, fighting hard to dribble gloss into the cracks that have appeared in their marriage.

In my first reading, I was simply amused by reading the account of Nanny’s experience with Park Avenue mommies who dont blink before spending huge sums of money on body treatments, but waver before paying up money to the person who has become their child’s primary care-giver. Now, I felt angry and annoyed.

The last chapter of this book has been my favourite. I realised thankfully that it still is. The book reads easily, rather like Bridget Jones Diary and it does seem like a variation of a chick lit book. But read it for the depths hidden underneath the light prose. Read it if you dont feel like bashing up all those mommies who give birth to kids, and then hand them over to others to raise. I guess I feel so strongly, cos I became a mother once again!

( I just googled for it, and found that its been made into a movie too!! Didnt know that!)