Jaya Posts

“Bene Appetit” by Esther David

19 04 , 2021 No Comments

Award-winning Indian Jewish author and illustrator Esther David was awarded the Hadassah Brandeis Reserach Award (USA) for studying Indian Jewish cuisine. In India, Jews first settled in Kerala before the Christian Era began. These are the Cochin Jews. In the late eighteenth century, the Bene Israel Jews arrived in western India, settling along the coast in areas like Alibaug and Mumbai. The Baghdadi Jews first settled in coastal Surat, then moved towards Mumbai and Kolkata. The Bene Ephraim Jews chose the seashores of Andhra Pradesh, while the Bnei Menashe Jews of Mizoram and Manipur.

Esther David’s Bene Appetit is part-travelogue and a detailed recipe book, collating recipes from different parts of the country. She discovers that despite having set their roots in India, many centuries ago, Indian Jews abide by the strict dietary rules that govern Judaism. The Jews have adopted locally available produce in their recipes and to some degree adapted the dishes to their tastes. Jews insist upon kosher meat, a strict demarcation between meats and milk, eating fruits after their meals, making unleavened bread, consuming only certain kinds of fishes, avoiding shellfish etc. Esther David has meticulously documented her search for recipes, meeting people, being introduced to strangers who spontaneously welcomed her warmly into their homes and serving strict Jewish fare.

David discovers the immense variety that exists in Jewish cuisine. Indian Jews have readily substituted milk with coconut milk. They also use plenty of rice-based dishes, jaggery, some of the local herbs and spices such as gongura leaves in Andhra Pradesh and panch phoran in West Bengal. Fruits of all kinds are used after meals or even to make the sherbet to offer at religious occasions.

This is a seminal book for its documentation of a dying culture in India. The Jewish population is dwindling. At the time of Indepence (1947) there were approximately 50,000. Today, there are few left as many have emigrated to Israel. So much so that at times it gets difficult to have a quorum of ten Jewish men or a miniyan to fulfil certain religious obligations. There are other signs of the community disappearing. For instance, local bakeries that made unleavened bread for Shabbath, no longer do so. Cloths used for religious ceremonies are not easily available locally any more. So are brought from Israel by relatives or visitors. Time-consuming dishes like malida are made on exceptional occasions. The Jews now simply use chapatis or a similar bread as it is technically unleavened too. Hence, “Bene Appetit” is a critical repository of socio-cultural practices. Future generations will appreciate this book.

Apart from Jews, anyone interested in experimenting with new recipes, reading cookery books and seeking healthy alternatives, may find this book useful. Even Hindus who are looking for satvik recipes, will find Bene Appetit very useful to consult. Most often the recipes provided are fairly easy to comprehend but there are some recipes that required careful editing. Even experienced cooks may get mildly confused by the manner in which instructions have been given. For example, the recipes for Pastel and Pastillas seem to have repeated their instructions. It is a bit of a fog. There is another unexpected editorial glitch when David visits the synagogue in Mizoram, she observes that the prayer book was in Mizo but the “words were spelled out in English”. It is well-known that the languages of northeast India did not have a script till recently. This is an oral tradition and it is after 1947 that the languages began to require a script and the Roman script was quickly utilised. It is the same script used for the English language. Save for these minor hiccups, “Bene Appetit” is a stupendous addition to any cookery shelf. I would put it in the same league as the late fashion designer Wendell Rodericks “Poskem”, where he shared recipes from Goan Catholics and those that he recalled from his childhood. These books bring out the beautiful diversity in India that has thrived over centuries.

Note: The photograph of the book has been taken against a wooden Star of David that used to hang in my husband’s childhood home. Jacob’s maternal grandfather was an Afghan Jew who used to often travel to India with his brothers. They use to trade in jewels. But little is known about them. Jacob’s grandfather married a local Christian girl and settled in central India. The only signs of influence his faith left upon his descendants are in these symbols, occasional visits to the local synagogue to meet the rabbi and observing a few Jewish dietary laws. No more. The descendants are practising Christians. Yet, it is fascinating to watch at close quarters the assimilation of Judaism into Jacob’s family. BTW, the Afghan Jews are not mentioned in “Bene Appetit”.

17 April 2021

Digonta Bordoloi’s “Second World War Sandwich”

19 04 , 2021 No Comments

Elsewhere, the blacksmith of the village busied himself with a small glob of brass, shaping it into the form of a head. Each head a warrior claimed was rewarded with a small brass replica, worn as a pendent on a red beaded necklace.

Digonta Bordoloi’s second novel, Second World War Sandwich is set against the backdrop of the Kohima War. It took place in stages from 4 April to 22 June 1944 in and around Kohima in northeast India. Later, in independent India, Kohima became the capital city of Nagaland. The battle was fought between the British forces and the advancing Japanese troops. It was a fierce battle fought over the hilly terrain for Kohima’s strategic importance in the wider 1944 Japanese Chindwin offensive lay in that it was the summit of a pass that offered the Japanese the best route from Burma into India. During the Battle of Kohima, the British and Indian forces had lost 4,064 men, dead, missing and wounded. Against this the Japanese had lost 5,764 battle casualties in the Kohima area, and many of the 31st Division subsequently died of disease or starvation, or took their own lives. ( Source: Wikipedia)

Second World War Sandwich revolves around Captain Timothy Hastings, a former tea-estate manager; his wife, Sandra, a nurse, who too had grown up on a tea-estate in India; Raan, who is far happier being a cook, carrying pots and pans, rather than wielding a gun; Chetri, a Gorkha, brave as any legend about the Gorkhas is; and Mongseng, a Konyak, a prince, heir to his father’s throne, the ang of his village, Poilung. They are thrown headlong into battle with the Japanese and are a motley troop. Everyone is wary of Mongseng at first but after a certain turn of events, they discover that this naked, tattooed, “savage”, whose only weapon is an extremely lethal dao/machette, does not intend them any harm. Also, lo and behold, Mongseng speaks a smattering of English, taught to him by the Padre in their village.

Now therein lies the extremely fascinating history of the Christian missionaries who visited north east India from the nineteenth century onwards. In Nagaland, they were mostly American Baptists who would roam around, although in the novel, the Padre is an Italian. His denomination is never made clear even when constructing the church in the village. The description exists but no more. Mongseng is a Konyak — one of the many Naga tribes but they are unique as in they used to be headhunters. This was the only way of life that they knew. Their village was constructed and still exists like this — with wooden huts, thatched roofs, intricate carvings on their door posts, carcasses of kill drying in their “verandahs”, with the kitchen being the centre of their homes. The hearth or the embers upon which the food is cooked is in the centre of the room. Above it hangs these large metal plates upon which the meats are slow cooked. And tea remains a constant offering. Something that Mongseng compares too when offered a rather watered down version of tea by Raan. He yearns for his freshly roasted tea leaves, bitter morning brew. The ang, or tribal elder/king, presides over the village and rules in a just and fair manner. At the centre of the village is the morung, or the male dormitory, where the unmarried men congregate and spend their time. It is also the place in the novel where the village elders gather for a chit-chat and more often than not to drink the addictively bittersweet brew that the Padre plies them with. It turns out to be rum. In fact, if you visit any of the Konyak village cemetries as I did with my father ( Romesh Bhattacharji) in the late 1990s, the headstones very proudly bear the inscription that the recently deceased scalped so many individuals but also was a Christian. A dichotomy if there was ever one! In fact, the brass necklace in the picture was gifted to me by a minister in the state government when he discovered I had completed my post-graduation. He was so impressed that I had achieved so many degrees whereas he had only cleared his eighth grade that the following morning as we were departing he put a parcel wrapped in newspaper in my hands saying this is for you. In it were a bunch of necklaces that I treasure decades later. We were all staying in the same guest house as dad was an Election observer and the minister was on the campaign trail. The villages we covered on this tour were those of the Konyaks — Chenmoho, Chenwenyu and Chenwengtu. So when I came across the description of these brass heads being fashioned in the village when Mongseng made his first kill, I realised the signficance of this brass necklace that I have had for many years.

Second World War Sandwich begins incredibly grippingly with a fine description of the landscape and an introduction to Timothy and his team. Mongseng drops into their lives. The establishment of the relationship between the four men, the varying degrees of masculinity that shines through the text is absolutely fascinating to read. It is as if the author has spent hours working upon the details and trying to get the tenor right. The battle outside makes it presence felt often enough in the narrative with falling mortar, wounded crowding the makeshift hospitals, the dead piling up, the horrific mix of the raw and trained soldiers who are battling against a very sophisticated enemy etc. The immense knowledge and experience that Mongseng brings is dealt with respectfully and at par with the white man. It is interesting to see this equilibrium being set by Digonta Bordoloi even if it is a tad hard to believe that there would be so much trust between a white man and a native in British India. Nevertheless, it makes for an interesting read.

After a rollicking good start, the plot begins to drag. The extremely long backstories about every main character while interesting by themselves are so unnecessary beyond a point as they are distracting about the battle itself. The inter-personal relationships can easily flourish under the brutal conditions of warfare. These long-winded descriptions needed to be worked out elsewhere and then only significant portions used in the main narrative. Having said that if the backstories are read as short stories, they are lovely digressions. The particularly sensitively drawn one is that for Mongseng. It makes sense when the author acknowledges the wangra ( village chief) of Hamphui and his fellow village elder-men — Nagaland’s last surviving headhunters. The fine descriptions of the Konyak lifestyle are worth reading. But then the second half of the book dissolves into a chaotic mess where the frenzy of battle overtakes the characters but it also makes the author lose his grip on storytelling. It is as if he is getting pulled into the personalities of each character more and more while at the same time very eager to get his facts right about battle strategies. There are neat illustrations accompanying the story marking out the terrain and the peaks that were crucial in the real battle. But sadly, they do not help retrieve a potentially good novel. Maybe if the possibility of narrating the past by a dying Mongseng to his grandson, Angsen, had been pursued a little more aggressively, the structure of the plot would have fallen into place, much as it did for Art Spiegelman’s Maus. It allowed for the possibility of there being lapses into modern day and thereby offered a perspective on historical events.

Perhaps those with a greater in-depth understanding of the battle may appreciate the book. But for now, there is confusion between “Second World War Sandwich” being a literary fiction, commercial fiction, historical fiction, war novel or rescuing the history of the Konyaks. Having said that this is a book worth recommending as it puts the spotlight on a part of India’s history that is little known about. The last time a stupendous novel on this very same subject was written was by Siddhartha Sharma, “The Grasshopper’s Run”. It won the Crossword Prize 2009 and in 2011 was shortlisted for the Sahitya Bal Puraskar. Hopefully, Digonta Bordoloi will be recognised to a certain degree for his strong writing and he will be on some literary prize lists. This book deserves to have a long life. Meanwhile, it is crying to be optioned for a limited television series.

Read it.

19 April 2021

Celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Baudelaire

09 04 , 2021 No Comments

On 9 April 2021, I was invited by the French Institute in India to moderate a panel discussion on Charles Baudelaire. It was to celebrate the French poet, essayist and translator’s bicentenary. His dates are 1821 – 1867. It was a daunting task as the panelists included poets/writers such as Jeet Thayil, Amrita Narayanan, Ranjit Hoskote and Anupama Raju. Nevertheless the conversation went off beautifully. It was almost magical. Here is the link to the recording. It is available on the French Institute of India’s Facebook page. Take a look:

https://www.facebook.com/IFInde/videos/762611194439425

In anticipation of the event, I had prepared a bunch of questions to pose to the panellists. Fortunately, the need never arose since many of the points were addressed in the individual speeches everyone gave. Anyhow, I am posting the list of questions here as well:

  1. Love is a significant portion of Baudelaire’s poetry. Would you say that it is a crucial element in your own writings? If yes, what is the ideal form of treating love as a subject in poetry, assuming that there is an “ideal” notion to be achieved.

2. There is a very modern quality to Baudelaire’s essays and poems especially in his emphasis on the present. It permeates the style of his writing and the vocabulary he chooses. It is not what you expect in nineteenth century literature, especially French literature, with its emphasis on the formal. Would you say that this “modern” tenor is to be emulated and if yes, is it harder to do so than it seems? (Of course, I can only access his works in translation.)

3. In his essay on “The Universal Exhibition of 1835”, he asks, “What are the laws that determine this shifting of artistic vitality?” It seems to be a question that he ponders over even in his poetry. What do you think? Are there any such laws governing “artistic vitality”?

4. For a poet, how important is the imagination and how important is it to remain alive to events, stories, people etc? These could be contemporary or historical.

5. Role of a poet/critic as a social commentator? Is it essential to communicate with readers in the language that they will understand and appreciate or deign to create flowery poetry? 

6. What is the function of a critic? What should be the nature of his/her criticism? Is this reflected in your poetry and prose?

7. Playing with form comes naturally to Baudelaire, as it seems to all of you. Is it a natural progression for a poet to prose or are there a different set of rules governing each form? Are rules meant to be broken as exhibited by Baudelaire?

8. Does art have to be useful or can it focus upon being aesthetically pleasing?

9. What is the responsibility of the poet/writer in defining the cultural landscape? Or do they only create for themselves solely?

10. What is the purpose of art? Is to create beauty, pursue truths? Be concerned with the ethics of goodness and morality?

11. For Baudelaire, a work of art was measured by the impact it had upon its subject rather than how it conformed to objective standards of proportion. Do you agree with this statement vis-à-vis your own works and its impact upon readers?

12. Baudelaire believed that the poet and critic within him are inseparable. Would you agree with the statement while analysing your own body of work?

13. Do you think technology has in anyway impacted the speed of movement and execution it imposes upon the artist? It is a conundrum that Baudelaire addresses in his essay, “The Painter of Modern Life” where he advocates time is spent fruitfully in creating something of beauty as it will make it more valuable. Yet, external factors do not necessarily permit this to happen. This was in the nineteenth century when technological advancements such as the printing presses and mass production were happening at a very rapid pace. It is much like what we are witnessing today as well. Almost like a second Industrial Revolution, if you will. So has the speed of the Internet dissemination, affected your creativity?

14. Always Be A Poet, Even In Prose!

9 April 2021

In conversation with Sandeep Dutt, Kalinga Literary Festival

09 04 , 2021 No Comments

Here is the link to the recording:

20 March 2021

“Impetuous Women” by Shikhandin

09 04 , 2021 No Comments

Shikhandin’s new collection of short stories called Impetuous Women is a slow, quiet, exploration of the relationships, situations, experiences that many women find themselves in. It is “slow”, not necessarily in the pace of the storytelling, but the nature of the lives the women live. The incidents that are focussed upon in the stories are so ordinary and yet Shikhandin, gets the tiny twists brilliantly. She gets their scheming, viciousness, spunkiness and sometimes the despairing loneliness of the women very well. These are stories of women who mill around us all day, or perhaps is one of us readers too. Who knows? There are always little jolts of recognition, in terms of characterisation, attitudes, comments, scenarios and reactions that make one wonder if these stories are truly figments of Shikhandin’s imagination or not?

There can never be enough of women’s writing. There are always more and more spaces that need to be explored. The true beauty of these stories lies in Shikhandin’s acute observation of her womens’ characters personalities and the manner in which they act with other women. She gets their pathetic snarkiness in trying to playing one upmanship, the friction other women can create within a man-woman relationship, the physically and emotionally exhausting lives women lead without ever being able to truly comfortable in their marital homes — “wondering how your position was any better than that of a refugee”.

Impetuous Women will make a perfect companion volume to Shikhandin’s previous short story collection called, Immoderate Men“. The ease and yet, intensity, with which she inhabits the minds of her characters and flits between genders, creating characters with empathy, is probably explained by her strong belief and the selection of her nom de plume, Shikhandin, that “the writer in me doesn’t have a gender, or is made up of all the genders“. ( 12 Sept 2017)

Impestuous Women is a remarkable collection. Read it.

9 April 2021

“A Ghost in the Throat” by Doireann Ni Ghriofa

25 03 , 2021 No Comments

A Ghost In The Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa is an extraordinary book. It is the Irish poet’s debut as a prose writer. Some call it auto fiction. Some a memoir. I doubt it can be classified as anything except what it proclaims itself to be, “a female text”. It defies being boxed in. It defies boundaries. It evolves. It is unashamed to detail the domesticity involved in bringing up children. The peace and calmth she finds in picking up the mess of toys or even having bathed, scrubbed and neatly combed babies. It is with equal frankness that she talks about her body, breastfeeding the kids or expressing milk for a bank of premature babies. Or even talking about her sexuality and her desires as if it is the perfectly normal thing to do and does not deserve to be shushed for being unladylike behaviour.

It is graceful yet intense, it is elegant and yet brutal with its single-minded focus on telling the unwritten story of the 18th century Irish noble woman Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill who is credited with composing the greatest poem of its century from.Brirain or Ireland — Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire. Eibhlin composed this keen for her murdered husband , Art O Laoghaire, and after drinking some of his blood. Art was a member of the Gaelic gentry of County Kerry and had been killed at the hands of the Anglo-Irish official Abraham Morris. If I have understood correctly, the caoineadh or lament is usually sung by women and passed on from generation to generation, rarely written down, but transforms ever so slightly depending upon the singer/storyteller.

A Ghost in the Throat is about Ghriofa’s research and putting together Eibhlin’s story. All the while, Ghriofa was mother to an ever expanding brood. The grief is searing when she describes the premature birth of her fourth child, her only daughter, and the days they spent together in the hospital. It is the channeling that deep and utter sadness of Eibhlin’s experience that also seems to well up from an unexpected depth within Ghriofa. It shows in her writing. This is one particular moment in the book that despite it being a slim chapter, the sharpness and clarity with which it is written, makes it an unforgettable incident. It sears itself in the reader’s mind just as good poetry always does. Ghriofa brings the poet’s skill of using minimal number of words to convey layers and layers of meaning to this prose text.

Ghriofa has also translated the “Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire” and it is included in the book. The act of translation is also powerful as it makes the translator intimately familiar with the writer. It is a kind of closeness that rubs itself onto the translator possibly in more ways than one. In all likelihood, Ghriofa understood Eibhlin better than anyone else has so far. It is not just the very act of displaying her intense grief by commemorating her recently deceased husband in a poem but as women, mothers, poets, separated across centuries too. These are points of commonality amongst the two women. Sadly, there is little trace of Eibhlin’s existence and this is exactly what Ghriofa hopes to rescue and create a patchwork of. And she does a phenomenal job of it.

The Ghost in the Throat won the best Irish Book of the Year 2020 Award and was on the Rathbones Prize 2020 shortlist. It will probably make its way to more award lists but for now, read it.

24 March 2021

Anita Agnihotri’s”The Sickle”, translated by Arunava Sinha

25 03 , 2021 No Comments

The Sickle by Anita Agnihotri, translated by Arunava Sinha is a very powerful story. It is hard to believe that it is pure fiction. There are far too many instances in the book that seem like a thinly veiled account of reality. For instance:

The sugar mill owners had in fact opened up a toddy shop right here inside the toli. There may not have been taps or toilets, water for bathing, or a dependable roof over one’s head, but the men still dropped in to drink on their way back to their shanties. It was the only way to get rid of their aches and pains. …The men weren’t concerned about how the women managed to keep their households running in the toli. No matter how hard they worked, they would never have hard cash since they had taken their payment in advance. And yet they needed flour and rice, vegetables and kerosene. And it was the women who would have to do the cooking. What they did was save the tips of the sugarcane stalks, which had no juice but only leaves, from the acquisitive hands of the farmers and sell them for a little money. The inhabitants of the districts on the West turned up here to buy cattle fodder and kindling. From sugarcane leaves to slices sugarcane bristles, all of it could be sold. …

The kitchens in the banjari households are under the control of women. It is the men who say this proudly. Of course, they’re the ones who continue to keep the women behind the veil. From leaving the house to going to high or college, it all depends on the whims of the menfolk. But their writ doesn’t run in the kitchen. Many banjari kitchens don’t allow meat or fish. The men are not permitted to bring any home, though they can eat it elsewhere. But they cannot enter the house immediately after eating meat — summer or winter, a man’s wife must upend a bucket of water over his head first to purify him.

The kitchen’s in your hands — this is how the banjari men boast. In behaviour, rituals and modes of worship, they have fashioned themselves after the Maratha community. Which is hardly a tall order. Running the kitchen means that everything from fetching the water to getting hold of kerosene, vegetables, flour and rice is the headache of the women. They are shackled for life in exchange for the privilege of being able to pour a bucket of water over their huabands’ heads now and then. The implication? Whether at home or in the toli, the husband will never check on whether there are enough provisions, or where the kindling is coming from. The woman calls the man malak, for malik, her lord and master.

Somethings never change. Anita Agnihotri, an ex-bureacrat, is known for depicting social realism in her novels. One of the responsibilities she held was member secretary of the National Commission for Women. She retired in 2016 as Secretary, Social Justice Department, Government of India.

The Sickle is set in the Marathwada region of India. This novel about migrant sugarcane cutters emerged after extensive conversations with farmers, activists, women leaders, students, researchers and young girls from Marathwada, Vidarbha and Nashik. She also consulted Kota Neelima for her research on farmers suicides. The details that are in the novel range from the horrors of sexual violence where women are preyed upon by the men as the shanties that they live in are flimsy structures and do not provide any security. Another form of sexual violence is that the women are actively encouraged to have hysterectomies, so that they do not impede the work flow by absences due to menstrual pain or more pregnancies than are necessary. The drought afflicting the region, the corruption that runs so deep that economic exploitation has become a way of life, even if it is unjust, are narrated in all their brutal honesty. As Anita Agnihotri said in a recent interview to The Mint:

In our profession, we were told, ‘If you see something, don’t carry it back’,” …. “But I followed precisely the opposite advice as a writer.” Just as there can never be a “non-committal bureaucracy,” she adds, “there is no non-political writing.

The Sickle can only be read in small doses as it is extremely disturbing in the truth it portrays. This is not going away in a hurry. Hence, it is unsurprising that the anger welling up in the ongoing farmers protests in Delhi ( on other farming related issues) is summed up by the image of women farmers on the cover of TIME magazine. It was published to commemorate Women’s Day. But the equal rights and liberties that women seek is a long time coming as Anita Agnihotri shows — the patriarchal attitudes towards women are deeply embedded in society. Such systemic violence can be combated but for it to be completely done away with is still a distant dream. It is a long and at times a debilitating struggle, but it is worth fighting for.

Read The Sickle. It has been translated brilliantly by Arunava Sinha .

25 March 2021

Tisca Chopra’s “What’s Up With Me?: Puberty, Periods, Pimples, People, Problems and More”

18 03 , 2021 No Comments

At the best of times parenting can be exciting, thrilling and challenging. It is a heady cocktail that is a constant but wow! It can get explosive, unpredictable and at times, unmanageable, when the kids transition from childhood to adolescence. For no fault of theirs, their mood swings and irascible temperament coincides with their hormones kicking in. It requires immense amounts of patience and emotional reserves that no sane adult ever thought they were capable of possessing. Inevitably, there are moments when parents and child clash. It is all part of growing up.

For generations, Indians have gone through various stages of life, without any conversation revolving around the body and of course, sex, as taboo. It is simply not spoken about. So the dangers of experimentation and being ill-informed can lead to disastrous consequences. Or even hilarious instances as I discovered years ago while reading a newspaper report. The article was about precisely this — starting a helpline for youngsters to educate them about sex. One of the girls who called in was terrified that she may become pregnant as she had worn her brother’s trousers. This was an anecdote printed on the front page of the morning newspaper. The level of ignorance is abysmal. Fortunately, this scenario is changing slowly and steadily. Misinformation continues to exist but at least middle-class parents are actively seeking literature meant for youngsters that talks about bodily changes and sexuality. Schools too have taken the initiative to conduct sessions with students, in the presence of their counsellors and parents, discussing the body. Interestingly these classes are organised for children of upper primary onwards. Of course, the information is graded according to the level of the children. Even so, the point is that it is becoming a tad “easier” to introduce these topics of conversation rather than facing a complete shut down. The classic argument being that we do not talk about such things in our culture. And God forbid if these topics are to be introduced or discussed in the presence of girls or even about girl sexuality. These are conversations that lurk in the background, even now.

This is why books like What’s Up With Me?: Puberty, Periods, Pimples, People, Problems and More by Tisca Chopra are created. ( Published by Westland Books.) The author is a young mother. Realising that her daughter would soon be hitting puberty, she decided to create this book. It is written in a fun style. Flip any page and there are short entries that speak clearly to the young reader. There is no shame in talking about the body. In fact, Tisca Chopra actively encourages viewing one’s body and being familiar with it. It is an integral part of self-love and self-care. Of course, the book focuses upon personal hygiene, discusses the various kinds of changes the body will undergo such as sprouting hair and bleeding, describing the menstruation cycle etc. There are other aspects too that address the emotional and psychological changes that will occur such as friends drifting apart, emotional roller coaster, crushes and matters of the heart, its okay not to be okay, shout out the doubts, maintaining one’s mental equilibrium, developing good physical habits, exercise, being disciplined about using digital devices, and of course the big one —- (mis) understanding parents. Essentially communication is the key to navigate the choppy waters of adolescence and trusting the advice elders, especially parents, impart.

This is a slim book and for some inexplicable reason, very pink. But that should not deter children and adults alike to pick it up, read and have frank conversations. Sometimes it is easier to leave accessible literature lying around conveniently at home or in schools for kids to browse through. It is easier to read and glean information than have “embarassing” face-to-face conversations. Hence, it is imperative to have well-made material. In this case, the book has been created with inputs from gynaecologist, Dr Mala Arora, and practising counselling psychologist, Malavika Varma. No wonder the tenor of the book is spot on. So much so, when my eleven-year-old daughter browsed through the book, she asked in amazement, “Mum, have you been giving the author inputs on what to say?!” Err, no, I had not. But that is where the value add lies in this book. It validates what parents, especially mothers, have to say to their daughters. When they are at the cusp of childhood and adolescence, kids begin to shut their parents out. So a book like this is helpful as it speaks directly to the kiddos and enables constructive conversations within the family. Akanksha Agnihotri’s illustrations are smart and not girly at all. Yet, very expressive and never distracting from the text. The illustrations, in fact, complement the text beautifully.

It is a good book.

Having said that it may be apt at this juncture to recall an absolutely fantastic book on the female body that was created by Kali for Women in the 1990s. It was called “Shareer ki Jankari” ( “About the Body”). It was written by 75 village women and sold at a special price. It was a very simple paperback that discussed the body, especially menstrual taboos. It had these little paper flaps that you could lift and see the particular part of the body beneath and the changes it underwent. It was a phenomenal bestseller and if I am not mistaken, was translated into multiple regional languages as well. It was a path breaking book and if still available, continues to be relevant.

All in all, I would certainly recommend Tisca Chopra’s book for girls on the verge of becoming young women.

18 March 2021

“Baby Doll” by Gracy, translated by Fathima E.V.

05 03 , 2021 No Comments

Baby Doll by Gracy is a very bold, sparkling and forthright collection of short stories, written over a span of thirty years. The stories have been translated by award-winning translator, Fathima E.V. The stories have been arranged chronologically, so there is a sense of the evolution of Gracy as a writer. These stories delve into the ordinary lives of ordinary people but go a little beyond. Gracy unearths and makes visible thoughts, conversations, describes actions of women that would otherwise be unheard of in the written word. In these stories characters are persuasively drawn, irrespective of whether you agree with their thoughts, words and deeds. These are very unexpected stories but I am glad they have been made available in English. It is time that storytellers like Gracy were eligible to participate in literary prizes such as The Women’s Prize for Fiction whose longlist will be announced next week, on 10 March 2021. There needs to be a broader literary landscape to be made available to readers worldwide.

Fathima ‘s translation is superb. It reads effortlessly in English while recreating the local landscapes beautifully. Unlike some translations where there is a constant struggle between the original and destination language, it does not occur in Baby Doll. The translator’s note is exactly how it should be — written with care and deep understanding of the writer’s body of work, a textual analysis of the short stories included in this anthology and contextualising Gracy’s style of writing within the world of Malayalam literature. Also, without forgetting the significant contribution that these stories make to feminist understanding of being a woman and making visible to the lay reader the many, many ways in which women are oppressed in the name of tradition and social norms. This is truly an excellent collection.

5 March 2021

Chris Power’s “A Lonely Man”

01 03 , 2021 No Comments

Chris Power’s debut novel, A Lonely Man ( Faber and Faber) gets a little tough to read in the middle due to the complexity of keeping pace with the Russian drama but as a literary construct trying to make sense of this very bizarre new world is fascinating. The clever literary device of distancing oneself from the actual action while naming very real names who have been at loggerheads with the Putin administration is very well done. It is an artifice that enables the narrator/ghostwriter to continually distance himself from the ugly world of Russian mafia and more. Yet, the unsettling ending to the novel leaves the reader gasping with the realisation that there is actually a very, very thin dividing line between reality and fiction.

Seriously, what is there not like about this debut novel. It has all the masala of a staid, boring, writer, a family man, who is pulled into telling the life story of another man, a ghostwriter. Roles are reversed and the original writer, Robert, who is facing writer’s block, suddenly recovers his writing abilities when trying to retell Patrick’s story. One that is unclear whether it is true or not but it is certainly fascinating. So while it has been established through the course of the novel that Robert himself can be prone to exaggeration while ghostwriting biographies that turned into bestsellers, it becomes increasingly hard to prove the truth of his current story. Robert claims to have been hired to ghostwrite the story of a Russian mafiosi, except that the man is discovered dead in a suspected suicide. Ever since then Robert has been on the run fearing for his life. The entire action of the plot takes place in Berlin and Sweden. Also, if one is familiar with the Russian exiles and more, as has trickled into many newspapers and documentaries, it makes this book much easier to read. But no harm done if you are unfamiliar with the names. It is just that then the reader will spend some excruciatingly distracting moments googling for the names.

This elegantly-told thriller, very gently turns a humdrum middle class reality into a sinister, dark world, and needs to be optioned for film pretty soon. Till then, read it. Enjoy it.

Update:

Update: Today, soon after, filing this short review of “A Lonely Man”, news broke that the US says Russian intelligence agencies were behind the poisoning of Alexey Navalny and will impose sanctions on multiple senior government officials.

It is at times like this that it becomes difficult to diffrentiate between truth and fiction. Alexey Navalny is one of the Russian figures mentioned in the novel, as being one of the severest critics of Putin and having to suffer consequences like many others have in the past.

1 March 2021

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