Onekei Eka

Book – Onekei Eka

Author – Samaresh Majumdar

Published by – Ananda Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

ISBN – 8-177-56078-6

Language – Bengali

Length – 147 pages

Genre – Fiction, Drama, Family

Cover Price – INR 125

“Jokhon keu aamake paagol boley,

taar protibaad kori aami..

Jokhon tumi aamay paagol bolo -

dhonno j hoy shey paaglaami..”

'Paagol' shobdo-tar maane ki? Nijer ekta duniya’y thaka, jekhane shob rong, shob onubhuti-guloi churantoh? Jekhane kono kaaj kora'r aage ba pore kono kichhu bhaba'r proyojoniyota-e haariye jaay? Jekhane dishe-haara jeebon-er proti muhurte jukti-heen daabi-daowa korata-e ekmatro upaay boley monn a hoy? Jekhane nijeke chhara onno shobbai k matha’r byamo’r rogi boley monn-a hoy? Jekhane bhogobaan-er shonge kotha bola'r shaadh jaage?

R paagol-er shonge ghor koratai ba kotota duhshadhhyo kaaj? Kotota bhalobasha jaay ekta paagol k? Kotohdiin porjontoh? Bhalaobasha e ki, naki sneho-koruna meshano bhalobasha'r mukhosh pora kichhu? R shetai ba chirokaal thaake ki? Shob kichhu ki mene neowa jaay? Shudhumatro paagol-er prolaap boley?

Erokom-e aaro onek proshne'r jhor tole Samaresh Majumdar-er "Onekei Eka". Uttor o dyay kichhu'r. Opor-opor noy, rokto-maangsho'r, chaowa-paowa'r manush-er hoye.. Onek dukkho mishe aachhe ei boi-er line-gulote. Onek otychaar, onek jontrona, onek raag, onek kaath-gora, onek mene-neowa, onek proshnottor, kichhuta bhoy. Ek-aadh jhilik aanondo. Onekta paaglaami. Ekta nibir bhalo-laaga, r shekhan theke gorey otha ekta naam-heen shomporko. Ondhokaar shuronge'r sheshe ek chilte aalo, ekta notun kore bancha'r ichhe. Shomaaj-er badhyo-badokotaay joriye thaaka kichhu manush-er doinondin jeebon..

Ek-kotha'y ‘opurbo’. Du-kotha’y ‘aami montromugdho’.

“Jokhon chokh bheshe jaay chokh-er jol-a, keu aamake dukhi boley -

omni heshe uthe di bujhiye shey obhinoy kotoh daami..

Jokhon tumi aamay dukhi bolo -

bhalo korey kaandi aami..”

Moth Smoke

Book – Moth Smoke

Author – Mohsin Hamid

Published by – Penguin Books

ISBN – 0-374-21354-2

Language - English

Length – 256 pages

Genre – Fiction

Cover price – INR 250

Acclaim – “One could not really continue to write, or read about, the slow seasonal changes, the rural backwaters, gossipy courtyards, and traditional families in a world taken over by gun-running, drug-trafficking, large-scale industrialism, commercial entrepreneurship, tourism, new money, nightclubs, boutiques... Where was the Huxley, the Orwell, the Scott Fitzgerald, or even the Tom Wolfe, Jay McInerney, or Brett Easton Ellis to record this new world? Mohsin Hamid's novel Moth Smoke, set in Lahore, is one of the first pictures we have of that world.” – Anita Desai

When I read ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’, through the pages of which I was first introduced to Mohsin Hamid, I was bowled over by the strength of the narrative, by the author’s refusal to take a moralistic stance (which would have been by far the easier option). It was therefore only natural that I was waiting to get my hands on this book. It was worth the wait.. More so after feeling let down by Hosseini’s ‘And the mountains echoed..’, this book was a welcome relief. More than welcome, truthfully. Laced with a generous amounts of hypocrisy, hedonism & resentment, Mohsin Hamid’s ‘Moth Smoke’ is an absorbing read.

The novel begins by attempting to draw a parallel between Dara Shikoh & Abul Muzaffar Muhi-ud-Din Mohammad Aurangzeb, the fratricidal sons of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, & Darashikoh & Aurangzeb (or “Daru” & “Ozi” as we get to know them by), two of the characters central to the plot. A few pages in, we are introduced to Mumtaz, Ozi’s intoxicating wife & essentially the glue that holds Hamid’s story together; no prizes for guessing where she gets her name from. Later, we also meet the Obelix-minded Murad Badshah (the similarity lying in the I’m-not-fat syndrome), proud owner of a fleet of auto-rickshaws & a hash-dealer on the side, without doubt an intentional reference to Muhammad Murad Baksh, Emperor Shah Jahan’s youngest son who had joined hands with Aurangzeb to vanquish Dara Shikoh.  Although these allusions to the famed Mughals are made only once more, & that too right at the very end, it only adds to the overall grandeur of the setting.

The Indo-Pak nuclear arms race provides the perfect easel on which Hamid’s untiring pen paints a flesh-and-blood picture of the Pakistan as we have come to know, a sentiment that is best expressed by Ozi when, in an acute matter-of-fact way, he says “You have to have money these days. The roads are falling apart, so you need a Pajero or a Land Cruiser… The colleges are overrun with fundos… so you have to go abroad… The police are corrupt and ineffective, so you need private security guards… People are pulling their pieces out of the pie, and the pie is getting smaller, so if you love your family, you'd better take your piece now, while there's still some left.” Ozi’s Pakistan is a fortress, money being the only way in. Daru’s Pakistan is a victim of circumstance, ever uncertain with the ground always shifting beneath its feet. Mumtaz’s Pakistan is a claustrophobic cage, much like her dysfunctional marriage, that is trapped palpably between the real & the desirable.

There is a definite Mughal-esque touch to Darashikoh Shezad’s dissolution, what with the primary factors being a woman & a hash-turned-heroin addiction. And the woman herself as a self-immolating addiction. Indeed, it would be a severe understatement to term Daru’s plight as a rags-to-penury story; if anything, it is a tale of his plummeting finances, his crumbling social position & consequently his rampant appetite for self-destruction. For those of you who have read R. K. Narayan’s witty short-story ‘Out of Business’ and believe that, like Rama Rao, losing one’s job is but a temporary setback in the bigger scheme of things, you have another thought coming. As Daru loses his job & his life goes for a free fall, he goes from a mid-level banker to willing adulterer to self-deprecating drug-peddler to a stoned criminal languishing in prison, the disintegrative process turning him into a bitter man who hates everyone & everything. And as the last page begins with “At the ends of their stories, Emperors like empires have the regrets that precede beginnings”, we realize that we couldn’t have done anything other than watching on in mesmerized fatalism..

In Act III Scene II of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’, Mark Antony famously says “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. Were I in charge of laying this book to rest, the epitaph would read - Better to burn out that to fade away..or so they say. That’s what a candle does, you know. Burn out. & while she burns, there are always those who are willing to fling themselves at her feet. Moths. Drawn to the flame. Inexorably. Willing to die for her. Literally. & when the dust settles on her burnt out wick, the smoke smells of the last lament of moths.. A longing. An annihilation. Dead poetry. “Moth Smoke”.

Hansie: A True Story

Movie – Hansie: A True Story

Directed by – Regardt van der Bergh

Genre – Family, Sport

Wessel Johannes Cronjé was a good fielder, a handy bowler, an average batman (which he more than made up for by sheer grit).. but, head & shoulders above all his other cricketing credentials, he was the consummate leader. Thorough, charismatic & inspirational, Hansie (essayed in the movie by the square-jawed Frank Rautenbach) was the most revered youth icon & a household name in South Africa right through his six years at the helm of the national cricket team. Cronjé, then Coach Bob Woolmer (played by Nick Lorentz) & then Chief Selector Peter Pollock (played by David Sherwood) took the prodigal Proteas from being a bunch of unsure, recently Apartheid-returned cricketers to almost becoming World Champions.

The curse of a movie about a deceased much-loved-hero-turned-anti-hero is that whenever there is someone from the immediate family behind it, one invariably tends to question the authenticity of its truth-telling abilities, for personal bias is an ever-present threat. ‘Hansie’ is not only produced but also written by elder brother Frans Cronjé, & it is therefore perhaps unsurprising in its treatment of the disgraced captain as more of a victim of Indian bookies’ persistent pursuit than a willing participant. Also, Hansie being mostly a private man, his interactions with wife Bertha Cronjé (played by the very pretty Sarah Thompson, whom some of us may remember as Ranbir Kapoor’s firang girlfriend in ‘Rajneeti’), brother, father, Peter Pollock, Dr. Ali Bacher (played by Andre Jacobs) & others as depicted in the movie are something that only writer-producer Frans could’ve had access to.  He has used many such moments, and how! Hansie is portrayed as a Christ-fearing man who suffered great internal strife, right from when the bookies established contact to his fall from grace to his retreat into depression to his attempt at redemption & decision to board that fateful airplane. And when the disturbed, brooding Hansie, stripped of his captaincy, shorn of his nation’s respect & banned from cricket for life, confesses to his wife “I had the world at my feet, & I threw it all away..”, you cannot help but remember the bold newspaper headlines of the day - ‘Why, Hansie?’.

For the most part, though, the movie sticks to acknowledged facts. On the one side, there is Cronjé’s unprecedented rise in the cricketing ranks, his & Woolmer’s uncompromising stand on fielding standards, his insistence on selecting players on merit regardless of the colour of their skin, the heartbreak in the ’99 World Cup Semi-Final. On the other side is the temptation of the bookies’ ever-increasing offers, the fact that one was actually discussed by the entire team before being turned down, his implication by the King’s commission. Hansie’s “I haven’t been completely honest with you..” & Judge King’s “..the truth shall set you free.” are also present, as is the most widely circulated picture during the enquiry – that of a stone-faced Hansie, eyes downcast, his chin on the palm of his right hand. Towards the closing stages of the movie, he says that the old Hansie must die for him to start afresh; the old Hansie did indeed die on Cradock Peak on that 1st of June, but the new Hansie never came back to us.

As the credits roll, photographs of Hansie at various stages of his life serve as the backdrop. The talented boy, the young skipper, the family man. In each of the photographs, that trademark wide Cronjé smile plays on his lips. And, for a moment, one might be lulled into believing that all is once again right with the gentleman’s game..

Asura: Tale of the Vanquished

Asura: Tale of the Vanquished

The story of Ravana and His People

by Anand Neelakantan

Genre – Fiction / Epic

Cover Price – Rs. 250

“..in the pages of history, as always, it is the version told by the victors, that lives on. The voice of the vanquished remains lost in silence. But what if Ravana and his people had a different story to tell?

The story of the Ravanayana has never been told….”

What is the first thing that you do when you pick up a book pertaining to a genre that appeals to you, but by an author that you haven’t even heard of before (let alone read any of his/her works)? Indeed, what is the first thing that you do when you pick up any book by an author that you haven’t even heard of before? If, like me, you also have the tendency to go straight to the back page in the search of a summarized version of what to expect in the pages of said book, the quoted lines stated above are what would have drawn you in. It definitely drew me in..

Yes, Anand Neelakantan, in his ‘Asura: Tale of the Vanquished – The story of Ravana and His People’ begins with this promise. The statement is made, and you can almost be pardoned for expecting the proof to follow. The problem with creating a ‘Wow!’ effect however (as my B-School Marketing professor always used to say), is that it only ups the expectation of the consumer. Neelakantan begins with the ‘Wow!’ premise of showing us the other side of the anti-hero, the man behind the mask, the method to the madness, and I must concede that he starts off well (in the well-practiced format where the first chapter is essentially the last scene, and the story actually begins from the second chapter), but it is quite evident that the writer in him is spread far too thin over the 496 pages of this book.

Neelakantan makes a very conscious effort to bring to light the human side of the much-maligned Emperor of Lanka (as opposed to the ‘holier-than-thou’ side, and therefore above the humane emotions, of Rama).  The book begins with a brief explanation of why Ravana is portrayed as ten-headed, which is very much in line with the above-mentioned effort. We are then transported to the battleground of Lanka, where the dust has settled on a defeated, broken & bleeding Ravana, jackals & other scavengers eating him alive. A dais steeped in poignance, from where we look down on the plains below where scenes from Ravana’s birth, childhood, youth, & middle-age are played out, the rise & fall of a race of men often lacing his every decision. By turns, he is portrayed as naïve, ambitious, brave, angry, impulsive, tyrannical, benevolent, repulsive, shocking, vengeful, regretful, obnoxious, indifferent, passionate, caring, lustful – a rollercoaster of emotions that run amok and make him ‘human’, as the author would have us believe. The effort would indeed have been commendable if only it had been less of a letdown – far from being a believable flesh-and-blood character, Neelakantan’s Ravana is frequently comical and mostly absurd, with generous amounts of ludicrousness thrown in for good measure. Goes without saying, the same applies to the depiction of his internal struggles, his kingship &, ultimately, his swan song. The author tries to bring some novelty into his narration by putting a new spin on the Rama-Sita-Ravana equation, or the reason why Kumbhakarna is believed to have slept half the year and remained awake the other half, but all such attempts fall flat in the face of his shortcomings as a storyteller.

“For thousands of years, I have been vilified and my death is celebrated year after year in every corner of India. Why? Was it because I challenged the Gods for the sake of my daughter? Was it because I freed a race from the yoke of caste-based Deva rule? You have heard the victor’s tale, the Ramayana. Now hear the Ravanayana, for I am Ravana, the Asura, and my story is the tale of the vanquished.”

Neelakantan has a story to tell, oh yes, but alas, he does not know how to tell it.