Kabuliwalla and other stories by Rabindranath Tagore – A Book Review

It’s so easy to know you are in love yet so difficult to explain. A plethora of mixed emotions run through your heart and mind, inexplicable ones. It makes you restless, your heart skips at times like a watchful timid deer, at times an invisible needle pricks it causing a sweet pain, a pain you want to elude from but somehow enjoy it, when day dreaming is not an option but inadvertently becomes a need, a time when what you think and what you say are poles apart. You attempt to read a book but you don’t read anything for hours, the clouds have got a new meaning, the sky is suddenly blue and oh, the flowers are so lovely. I have a dried leaf in my hands and I turn it, look at it and then at the sky; I have it in my hands for hours as I sit there lost in my thoughts beside the river and eventually throw it away.

And ‘love’ is just one of the multitudes of emotions. To be able to penetrate through a person’s thoughts and feelings and relive their emotions and to be able to decorate them in words is the mark of a genius and that’s what Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories tells us about him. Set in the rustic Kolkata villages, every story oozes with the innocence of that era, long gone, and the characters are only haunted by the silhouettes of their emotions. So be it the puzzled ghost of the widow Kadimbini in ‘The Living and the dead’, the virtuous wife in ‘The gift of sight’ or the innocent Ratan vying for the attention of the unruffled postmaster in ‘The Postmaster’ or be it the anguish of poor Ramcharan to spend his entire life raising his thankless son like a rich boy, only to hand him over to his master in ‘Little master’s return’;  the upsurge of emotions are felt, the suffering is felt, the motherly love caresses the heart, the distress weakens, the longing breathes through the soul in the stories. The ‘Kabulliwallah’s’ endurance to the coldness of his little friend is heart warming.

Most of Rabindranath Tagore’s characters have been women, and though oppressed in one form or another, they are strong women replete with sentimentality and often a marked sensuousness. Tagore’s writings dive deep into the oceans of their spirited emotions and whether the pearl is found or not, the discoveries along the journey are a treasure of their own.

           Though I generally avoid translated books, I really liked the short stories. Having been in Mumbai since my childhood, it’s a pity that I can’t read and write in Bengali, which happens to be my mother tongue and the original language of Tagore’s writings. I am sure, in Bengali, the stories would be a greater delight to read.

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 8/10

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

Life's Characters - Omkar

Picture courtesy - http://www.cartoonaday.com/tag/job-interview/

I voluntarily teach ‘Spoken English’ to underprivileged youngsters as part of a project. I have been doing this for the last 8-9 months now. But this was the first time I was presented the opportunity to screen learners for a batch, to select them for the class. Hitherto, learners were present in the class and I had only to teach them.

Not everyone who came for the screening was selected. A basic knowledge of English was required and those who registered for the course were interviewed through a small test, to gauge their limited speaking abilities in the language, to comprehend if they would participate in class and how keen they were in learning the language and how much it would help in their day to day life. It was made clear to them that they had to speak in the interview and more so ‘only in English’, else they would not get selected.

It was a truly enriching experience, this first screening of mine. And I particularly write about a boy Omkar who appeared for the test; a lanky adolescent aged around 19. We made him read a sentence and he read it effortlessly. He was then shown a picture of a temple and worshippers and was asked to talk about the picture.

Omkar: Temple...God....Ganpatti

Me: Can you try and speak in sentences Omkar, this is a temple....

And he tried but what he spoke was indubitably miserable. I understood everything he said, or rather was trying to say, but that was not the point. I knew he wouldn’t get selected and maybe, by then, he knew too, but the poor lad wouldn’t give up. It was evident that every piece he tried to deliver had a battle raging in his head. He knew what he wanted to speak but the words evaded him, maybe the words weren’t there and his struggle made his hands dance to compete and complete, to stress what his mouth couldn’t eject. He fumbled, he stammered, but he went on. From the picture of the temple, he moved on to talk about his village temple and the grand prasadam organised every Tuesday.

He went on for quite some time and we didn’t have the heart to stop him but not a single correct sentence, not a single complete one and still he kept at it. His face, his eyes manifested a strange seriousness and slight fear. His fervour to answer was such that his life depended on it. He wanted to pass; he was desperate to join the course, to improve his English. This was an opportunity he wanted to grab with both hands. When he spoke, his eyes reflected that small glint of hope, they were screaming, “I want to join this course, I want to better myself, I want to show the world I can”. He didn’t want to give up till all his pawns and horses and elephants and camels were back in the box. I was amazed at his temerity when others would so easily give up.

Hearing him speak and looking at his hopeful yet cautious face, I was finding it difficult to concentrate; like rays and rats, thoughts were racing through my head. How difficult it would be for youngsters like Omkar to be in their colleges, in their work places with all the myriad confrontations, when they failed to strike a conversation, to be in a conversation. Imagine the rebuke and reproach they would be facing day after day and this is not an exaggeration because I have heard first hand experiences. Indubitably smart otherwise, they would probably have all the answers but the inability to mouth them could be so frustrating. I can only attempt to imagine the angst that these situations could provoke. And what about their confidence? Probably being shattered and diminished each single day. I really felt for the likes of Omkar who had most of the answers but probably not that many opportunities in life. Impecuniousness has its own slaves.

In contrast, I thought about some of the volunteers of the same age who had undergone training to be teachers. The other side of the coin! How easy it was, how impeccable their English was and how articulately they spoke. How privileged they have been, we have been to receive this formal education, how effortless it is for us to communicate and how conventional it is for us to dream big when we have no dearth of options and opportunities and the only dilemma is to choose from them. How many of us realize how privileged we are? While learners like Omkar would possibly be uncomfortable and apprehensive facing such articulately speaking teachers, some teachers would probably dread having learners like him, not because they won’t be able to teach but possibly the student may not be able to learn which acts as a failure on the teacher’s part too.

At times, in my classes, when my learners failed to provide the right structures, the right sentences, I invariably thought they lacked seriousness. But I realise now that though it may be true for some, it may not be so for others. No one wants to give a wrong answer when they know the right one. A mistake can’t be deliberate, and if it’s deliberate, it can’t be called a mistake. I need to be more patient and keep going at it like Omkar did. Thanks Omkar for teaching me this!

“Thank you sir” he smiled and shook hands before he left.

A Star called Henry by Roddy Doyle – A Book Review

          I am water. I need to flow. I don’t have the leisure of thought; I don’t have the capacity of it. I am a part of the picture. I flow to the edge of a cliff and I fall, I swerve and dance besides mountains and fields, I am guided by the rocks and pebbles. I entertain sundry for a dip into my wetness. Sometimes I am placid and calm to the guy with the hat and boots and jacket as he patiently holds the line for a catch. I merge into the sea or the ocean and though I may look sedate on the surface, I have an inner turmoil. I save but then I destroy too! I have a journey, a long one but it is never defined by me. I am water. I need to flow.

And I am Henry Smart, named after my father Henry Smart, the original one, the one legged one, the bouncer standing at the doors of the whorehouse where every girl’s name is Maria. My father, a mere pawn, his ferociousness is not as celebrated as the ‘tap tap’ of his wooden leg. Melody, my mother looks out for her dead born children in the stars, in the sky. “That’s your brother Henry”, she points out above, my beautiful mama. I am the first born, the celebrated one, the first who managed to stay alive and suckle at her breasts. Born in the slums of Dublin, in its muck and dark alleys, I survive on its streets. I flow. My brother Victor is my ally, but not for long. Soon, on the streets I lose him like most others have, to the wild coughing that has infected Dublin. Alone, I am ruthless on the streets, lesser a kid, more a fighter, I am a thief, I am an urchin, I need to survive, I survive!

At 14, I am over 6 feet tall and a man, I am a part of the republicans fighting for freedom and I kill at will. I am the most handsome of the lot and most of the girls fall for my eyes. I am ready to give up my life for Ireland. At the GPO, where we are garrisoned, my friends die one by one and Paddy’s brains are spread on my shirt sleeves as we run for our lives. I am the only one who escapes and is not jailed. My father, Henry, the original one with the wooden leg had shown Victor and me the hidden route to the river, wading through the slime of Dublin. I carry my father’s wooden leg with me.

I escape the war only for a while and stay with Piano Annie, yes, that’s what she’s called and fuck her everyday and work at the docks. Her husband is probably dead, in some other country having fought another war. But Ireland needs me and I am found, not by the enemies, but by my brotherhood and I join them again. I flow. Thinking is a leisure I can’t indulge in. I am a mercenary, an assassin; they give me pieces of paper with names written on them and I carry out the executions, just like my father used to; “Alfie Gandon says hello”, the message delivered for every man he killed. They tell me we are almost there, on the road to freedom and we will have Ireland to ourselves. I believe them. I am a trainer, I train new recruits to fight the war, to stay ambushed, to shoot, to burn, to bomb; I pass on the doctrines of the struggle for freedom.

I meet Miss O’Shea and she is 10 years older to me, but she had been my teacher once for a day, a teacher for me and Victor and she had taught me to write my name; ‘I am Henry Smart’. I don’t want to fight anymore; I have decided my war is over. But I am water, I have to flow, I am not allowed to think. Miss O’Shea gives birth to my lovely daughter between her bombings and gunnings and her escapades.

Ivan, the bright one, one of the recruits I have trained has grown into a house of power. I see him after a long time. He is on a mission. He says I need to be killed; he has orders from the same brotherhood of republicans I fought for. He respects me, but I have been a twit, he says. He says there is no freedom struggle, it’s all about power, it is business. Like Ivan, the Generals, my bosses have been creating history but now I don’t figure in it. I never had, says Ivan. The Captains and Generals now hold important posts in the government, and business and transactions are being carried out by who we thought were our enemies. Ivan is richer now; a county is under his control.

I meet Jack Dalton after a long time, my friend, the one who induced courage and made me meet new people, powerful ones. When I met him first, he sang songs written about me; I was a hero, he had said. The slips of paper had come from him. And now he hands me a slip of paper.

“Can you do it by yourself”, he asks. 

I look at the paper. ‘Henry Smart’. 

“I can’t”, I say and walk away. 

Jack tells me “If you’re not with us, you’re against us. You have no stake in the country, man. Never had, never will. We needed trouble makers and very soon now we’ll have to be rid of them. And that, Henry, is all you are and ever were. A trouble-maker.”

I am Henry Smart, son of Melody and Henry Smart and I was willing to die for Ireland.

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 7/10

Roddy Doyle

Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde – A Book Review

           Here I mark my salutation again; Oscar Wilde is a remarkably witty genius, a true observant and a sly story teller.

How easily he read not only the lips of society but the rationale hidden in their words, the cause for the effect and how beautifully he reverberates in his witty words, the incomprehensible fillers we miss in the thoughts behind the mouthing of the gaudy characters to submerge their ostentation and bring out the real ugliness or the real goodness. How sharpened his skills were as an observer, every character lying naked to the soul in his presence. He was a cynic who understood the value of everything.

I had read somewhere once, “If people saw in the mirror their true characters rather than their images, there wouldn’t have been many mirrors left in the world”.

This short play undulates between trust, deceit and forgiveness. Mrs. Erlynne, out of nowhere has pronounced her presence in the lives of Lord and Lady Windermere and her bearing is having a catastrophic effect on their love and relationship. Love, the overrated emotion has its own trying asks and one may spend his whole lifetime just proving it. Who is this scandalous seductress who is so popular among the men, where has she come from and why is she imposing herself on their lives, what are her intentions?

We all err, but only the one who gets caught is termed a thief, gets beaten up and is scarred for life. Oscar Wilde drives home the point that even the best of persons cannot be a Puritan in society for long, we all are misled sometimes and we all shed our values sporadically for our situational conveniences, we have to! It is a mental flaw to label someone as good or bad; even the worst of people have done some goodness in their lives and the best of people have been uglier. Patience is a virtue and to find goodness is another.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”.

I had watched the movie ‘A Good Woman’ featuring Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson and had liked it immensely but didn’t know that it was based on this play, now I do!

Some witty excerpts from the play:

“Lord Darlington: Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good or bad. They are either charming or tedious.”

**************************

“Cecil Graham: Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain.”

**************************

“Cecil Graham: Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if, we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.”

***************************

“Dumby: In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!”

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * -10/10

Oscar Wilde

The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch – A Book Review

Is it good to be nice, nice alone, or is it nice to be good?

Come to think of it, our goodness almost at all times is an action, more so a reaction. It is for a purpose, it expects, it judges, it is hardly forthcoming and shies away from forgiveness. How miraculously difficult it is to be good to someone not so good to you and how difficult it is to be so when one is in control. As Murdoch quotes, “The only genuine way to be good is to be good ‘for nothing’ in the midst of a scene where every “natural thing”, including one’s own mind, is subject to chance, that is, to necessity. The good has nothing to do with purpose”.

The protagonists of ‘The Nice and the Good’ are lively, except for the dead Radeechy of course, each managing through their intricate lives to communicate to the reader their plights. The story begins with the enigmatic suicide of Radeechy, a follower of necromancy and magic. This incident drags in John Ducane, a colleague of Radeechy, to investigate and unveil the cause of this suspicious death and to unfold if there is more to it. Octavian the Head of the Department has assigned this to Ducane; Octavian who has herded in his huge place by the sea many friends with broken hearts and broken lives; the same Octavian who willingly and uncomplainingly witnesses the infidelity of his wife Kate with Ducane. So, in the Trescombe cottage, we have the widowed Mary and her adolescent child Pierce who is madly in love with Barbara, the beautiful lass of Kate and Octavian, and there’s the divorced Paula with her twins, Theo, Octavian’s brother and Willy Kost, a sufferer of war, a liver in the past than now. Each one is fused but their eccentricities mark their individualism and beautifully so. It’s a story of their discoveries of their own selves, getting rid of the veils of niceness to discover the real good, the good for them.

John Ducane is a civil servant of high regard, who his friends and companions look up to, for his goodness, for his righteousness, his truthfulness. He unconsciously likes to be in control or rather people who know him place the reigns of their decisions and emotions in his trustworthy hands. As Ducane’s investigation progresses parallel to the not so eventful happenings at the Trescombe cottage, the lives of the sundry are strewn threadbare by their intimate confessions to Ducane. Dark secrets, blackmails and a murder are revealed. How much of it can Ducane make visible to others, how much is he ready to? Richard Biranne, Paula’s divorced husband lies at the mercy of Ducane’s decisiveness.

How difficult it is to choose right over comfort, over that little safety that everyone invariably desires to hide into, is something that Ducane will have to struggle with to keep his goodness alive. How easy it is to plunge into revenge, to shatter lives without a second thought when one is in control and how unmanageable is it to surrender oneself to goodness and protect and let go for the larger good, to see something as naïveté and give a second chance. Trapped in a cave by the sea to save Pierce from his unwarranted foolishness and almost thrown at the pangs of death, Ducane’s conscience makes some discoveries. Will Ducane succeed in sustaining his rightfulness?

To not realize love can well be termed as the ignorance of the mind than the heart but to suppress it is a crime. The characters in this story, and quite a few at that, ruefully and in some cases compromisingly bind themselves to what they think are the obvious loves of their lives; only to chaotically discover ultimately by the melancholic yet loud thundering of the right chords of their hearts that they have been strumming the wrong strings all this time and the symphony of mutuality lies somewhere else, with someone else. While the act of forgiveness is almost a myth in real life, it isn’t in Iris Murdoch’s story as at the very end everything and everyone falls in place and is on the verge of leading their ‘and they lived happily’ lives. Wish this resembled vividly to us puppets in real life too as we strain to comprehend our mere existence and the glories in the pain that we undergo to find true love and then sustain it.

The author writes in a simple manner and yet it has an enchanting effect. Not for a single instance, did I feel weary of any of the characters and their endless confusing emotions. The multitude of characters reminded me though of David Lodge’s ‘Small World’, since, like here, his stories also end in ‘All’s well, that ends well’, amidst a lot of confusion though!

A few days back, out of the blue, I saw a thick rainbow in the sky. Literally out of the blue! It was drizzling and the sky was a messy gray and then suddenly as I chanced to look out of the unclear glass window, a clearing blue appeared and then there it was, emanating from a tall concrete rise, this amative merging blue, cushioned between the consummating violet, indigo and the other colors of the palette that concluded it.  It reminded me of being in love, of a soothing gentleness, of happiness. That’s the goodness of nature. It surprises and amazes. Without a reason, without a purpose!

My Rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 8/10

Iris Murdoch

'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway – A Book Review

The ‘Old Man and the Sea’ is a classic, a 1953 Pulitzer winner contributing to Hemingway winning the Nobel Prize in 1954. It was Hemingway’s final published work during his lifetime.

The story is of old Santiago, a cheerful, strong willed fisherman, although an ill-fated one. ‘Salao’, they call him, meaning the unluckiest one since he hasn’t had a worthy catch since the last 84 days. His only companion, a young boy Manolin who looks up to him and probably the only person who cares for him, has to abandon him as his parents have ordered him to leave the doomed old man and find another worthwhile boat. Santiago goes out to sea on the 85^th day like all days with an undying hope in his heart, thinking it will be his lucky day this day and while he has purposefully strayed far into the sea and has made a great catch of a marlin, but alas, it is lost on the way to the brutal sharks.

‘Hope’ is a strong word! This is a simple yet great story of hope, of keeping it alive in the worst of times. Santiago’s solitary struggle and undying spirit in holding on to the huge fish symbolizes the hardships, the numerous insurmountable challenges faced by people from all walks of life. Whether it be a singer struggling to get his/her first break, an artist wanting his art to be praised worldwide, a youngster wanting to play for his country or a father wanting to do all that he can for his child's secure future, there is no end to the demanding situations and the bitter challenges of everyday life and what Santiago tells us like the Johnie Walker tagline is to ‘Keep Walking!’, to believe in oneself, to build a strong willed character, to pay no heed to the one’s laughing at you or your failures. And it takes a lot to earn respect, even though from a very few. Luck may change, upheave or bring down your condition in life but it is unlikely to change your character if it is unshakable and that is what will define you in the end.

It stresses on the fact that disappointment will come in every possible way and knock you down, but like the grass you have to stand strong with your grounded roots when the wind has calmed. The character Santiago reminds me of lines from a song written by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore which goes as:

‘Jodi tor daak shune, keu naa aashe,
            Tobe ekla cholo re...’

meaning

‘If nobody heeds to your call and refuse to accompany you, don’t give up...just            keep walking alone’

My Rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 7/10

Ernest Hemingway

Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey

            I somehow thought, when I had the book in my hands, considering the praises on its cover, that it would be a fun ride, a journey of guffaws and cunning smirks but alas, deceived and dejected! In a single sentence, I didn’t find anything great about the story.

So, Michael ‘Butcher’ Boone is an artist, a cranky profane one, is recently divorced losing a substantial count of his paintings and his child to the “Alimony whore” as he puts it. And Hugh ‘Slow’ Bones is his brother, slow in the mind and Michael is the one responsible to take care of him.

Marlene Leibovitz walks into their lives one fine evening as the divorced, devastated and exiled Michael is trying to get his career back on track painting one of his geniuses. And Marlene, whom the Boones discover, more so the elder Michael Boone, is a wily art authenticator, a crook, a lovely one though as they generally are. She is the wife of the great artist Leibovitz’s son.

 A ‘Leibovitz’ is stolen from Michael’s neighbor and somehow Michael knows that the sly Marlene is responsible for the theft. He is cognizant of her chicanery, yet indulges himself in the strength of her mind and beauty. And the more he discovers her through their closeness, the more he slips into her contrivances, the bigger and uglier get her deceptive and guileful plans, eventually leading to his grudging realization as she parts with him finally that a thick wad of cash always weighs heavier than the irrepressible pumping of the heart and the inscrutable feelings thus generated.

Peter Carey’s writing appears ostentatious and loud almost throughout the book. The carefree language didn’t go well with me, I guess, since I was more eager to finish it than to savor it.

My rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 4/10

Peter Carey

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry - A Book Review

          

          Oh what a wonderful story! And such a tragic one! And so beautifully composed!

Power! What the possession of it by some can have a horrendous effect on the lives of others. A priest is a man of God, the closest we can get to Him. So can he ever err, go wayward with his judgement? Oh no, never!

What is truth? Is what we see always the truth, what we hear always the truth, what we feel, what we believe – no, yes, perhaps? And what if one harnesses their impositions based on this ‘perhaps’? A possible destruction – maybe, surely? Isn’t there something between these hard drawn lines of truths and lies, rights and wrongs – isn’t that what we live as a life, don’t we?

Roseanne Clear was a beautiful lass, well she was, still is as can possibly be at the age of an approaching hundred. This is her story, her own rendition of a life of which the most part was spent in a lunatic asylum. Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital run by Dr. William Grene, is where she is at present and from where she pens down her life. And this hospital is to be brought down and it is put down to the doctor now to decide who stays in the new place and who is to be set free. Set free, ha!

The journey begins from Roseanne’s childhood, during the war, her happy days spent with her parents, her closeness to her father. And then one remorseful event after other strikes the family, her father being ushered spinelessly yet tactfully by the priest to lose his dignity till the day he is found hanging from the ceiling of a neighboring house.

As Dr. Grene is on this personal mission to dig out the aging Roseanne’s true story, he figures out the prominence of the priest, Father Gaunt’s intrusion in her life and the dear ones surrounding her. So which one is true, the account that Roseanne pens down in her sheets of paper or the asylum records where Father Gaunt has glorified his belief of the truth. What then finally caused Roseanne to land in the asylum or was it a planned plot to teach her the lesson for being bad. Bad? Married for years only to be told later by the man of God that there has been no marriage – oh! The Church has passed some law for which he had fought tooth and nail. Being seen with a person other than her husband, well, isn’t she rightly termed a nymphomaniac by the priest? Marooned, exiled, broken, oh what has each one of the McNulty’s done to her. She stays in a tin hut watering her roses. Some people are doomed in whatever they do or they don’t, Dr. Grene finds out.  As he digs deep and the people he meets put the last bits of the jigsaw puzzle in place, the truth, yes this time the truth, the real one shatters him; a tragic reality confirming what a small world this is!

The beauty of Sebastian Barry’s prose is in the fact that it is not his, it is Roseanne’s, and the words are hers, and the feelings are hers, and the sanity in the madness are hers as she talks to you, the helpless reader. Her beauty, her simplicity, her love are in those lines, her presence presides all over those pages of ‘The Secret Scripture’. 

And at the end, her's and everyone else's, when it is to come to an end, would it really matter to any of us, what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what wasn’t, when we or she has already lived the pain, borne those ugly rashes on the soul, had those non-healing deceiving strikes and cuts on the heart? It wouldn’t, I say, with an unforgiving smile coz I ain’t a priest!

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 8/10

Sebastian Barry