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