Jaya Posts

Akil Kumaraswamy’s “Half Gods”

03 11 , 2018 No Comments

“Refugees can’t be picky. . .   .” 

Akil Kumaraswamy’s debut Half Gods is a collection of interlinked short stories. These are stories revolving around a father-daughter duo who are Tamil Hindus of Sri Lankan origin and now based in the US. Along the way the daughter, Nalini, a nurse, has married a Punjabi Sikh and has two sons — Arjun and Karan, named after two demigods from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. They also have a circle of friends, consisting mostly of immigrants. It is a motley bunch that manages to share experiences and find some common ground to have conversations. It is only when their “back stories” are shared that it becomes clear their pasts have been traumatic. For instance, Nalini and her father fled Sri Lanka after their house had been attacked by mobs and her mother and twin brothers had been lynched. It is a horrific past to live with but they do and find a way to get across to the US.

In a fabulous interview with Sara Novic, Akil Kumaraswamy discussed Half Gods. In it Akil Kumaraswamy says she has never been to Sri Lanka but “the war has inhabited such a vast part of my consciousness growing up”. She agrees with Sara Novic when the latter says “I worry about most is how the war is being taught to this new generation of children who weren’t alive during the conflict or in its immediate aftermath. It’s such a complex tangle of money and power and hatreds, and it’s easy to flatten or try and ignore completely”. This is also Akil Kumaraswamy’s preoccupation with histories of conflict especially in South Asia, where many of the countries experienced horrific violence at the time of their establishment or subsequently too such as the Partition of the Indian subcontinent or the 1984 riots in Delhi upon the assassination of the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

The author’s rationale for writing Half Gods as interlinked stories is that “War messes with any conception of chronology, and the past can feel more lived-in than the present. Also, since the work deals with displacement, I knew it would not be fixed by one geographic location. I eventually found that the interlinked short story form allowed me both expansiveness and a tight construction for the work.” Interestingly enough Half Gods began life as “a play and it only focused on the family and the story of the Mahabharata ran tangentially to it. I had these large monologues where Gods in their full regalia talked about their lives on earth. It was strange but it opened up the book in my mind. There is a scene in Half Gods where Karna shows his class a picture of his family and one of the drawings is of the sun dressed up in a suit. I am interested in how the mystical or divine brush up against the ordinary—something that often happens when the pressure is building, when reality becomes unbearable.”

Every story is powerful and it is difficult to choose a particular favourite. But if one were to then it would be the hauntingly powerful “The Office of Missing Persons” ( LitHub, 5 July 2018) which is about the entomologist whose son suddenly disappears. It is eerie for it does not seem like fiction as such stories are constantly being repeated in conflict zones and often reported in the morning newspapers. Two of her other stories that can be read online are “At the Birthplace of Sound” ( Boston Review, 21 April 2015) and “Shade” ( Guernica, 1 June 2016) .

Akil Kumaraswamy is a promising new voice in the literary landscape. As with most debut writers it is always fascinating to know what will be their next piece of work — will it be fiction in a similar vein to their first book or will it be a leap of faith in to narrative non-fiction? Whatever it is to be, will be worth looking forward to since once a writer has waded into conflict literature there is no looking back.

To buy on Amazon India 

Hardback 

Kindle

3 November 2018 

 

 

Sharmila Sen “Not Quite, Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America”

02 11 , 2018 No Comments

When people move they inevitably bring certain things with them, leave a few things behind, and acquire new possessions. My parents had asked me to choose what I wanted to take with me to Boston. I was allotted a single suitcase.  Everything else was to be sold, given to relatives, or thrown away. This is what I chose to bring in my suitcase:

Red plastic View-Master with four reels (Disney World, Japan, Baby Animals, and Mecca)

Four Bengali books –Raj Kahini ( Royal Tales) by Abanindranath Tagore; Aam Antir Bhepu ( The Song of the Road) by Bibhutibhushan Bandhyopadhyay; Shishu ( Child), a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore; and gopal Bhand ( Stories of Gopal the Royal Fool)

My report cards from my old school, attesting to my grades from 1974 to 1982

My beloved collection of miniature plastic animals that came free with the purchase of Binaca brand toothpaste in India during the 1970s

A Misha commemorative pin from the 1980 Moscow Olympics 

A couple of dresses made of printed cotton 

A pair of gray denim pants, the closest thing I owned to the coveted American blue jeans

A pair of blue canvas shoes from Bata, the most popular shoe company in India 

None of these items were going to be of much practical use, as I soon found out. The tools and weapons I needed to survive and flourish in the New World were waiting for me elsewhere. I would find them in the hallways of my new school. And on the small screen of our black-and-white TV. 

Indian-born American Sharmila Sen’s memoir Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America is an absorbing account of her trying to negotiate her way through her new life in USA while her ties were still strong with India. She was twelve years old when her parents decided to move from Calcutta to the US. Having been born in a bhadralok ( cultured and well-respected) Bengali family she took certain privileges for granted. These were mostly of respect accorded to her cultural inheritance and the family she belonged to. She was not necessarily exposed to the rough and tumble ways of existence. Whereas in America the mere shade of her skin immediately put her in a different category. Her first experience of the classrooms where segregation was not visible as students had no choice in their seating arrangements was small consolation when it came to lunch time or other breaks for then the students promptly clustered in racially segregated groups.

Not Quite Not White is fascinating while moving account of Sharmila Sen negotiating her way through a new culture. She arrived as a young girl bewildered by the customs and social rules of engagement. By social standards of acceptance she did very well for herself as a non-white immigrant, primarily by learning to smile always. She taught herself to learn the rules. Ultimately she found herself being accepted by everyone so much so she heard remarks like “I always forget you are Indian” or “But I see you as white”. Sharmila Sen was educated in the public schools of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and studied in Harvard and Yale. She taught at Harvard for a few years too. Currently, she is the executive editor-at-large at Harvard University Press. Yet her memoir brings out the painful negotiations she has learned to make on a regular basis, imbibing much of it, so as to survive.

To buy on Amazon India 

Print

Kindle 

2 November 2018 

Patrick Ness’s “And The Ocean Was Our Sky”

29 10 , 2018 No Comments

For there are devils in the deep, 

but worse are the ones

we make. 

Award-winning writer Patrick Ness’s latest novel is a retelling of Moby Dick and it is called And The Ocean Was Our Sky. It is a tale about Bathsheba, an apprentice whale, who lives in her all-female pod, led by the wise and much experienced Captain Alexandra. It begins with the opening line “Call Me Bathsheba” echoing the legendary opening of Moby Dick “Call me Ishmael”. It is a slim novella acconpanied by Australian illustrator Rovina Cai’s stunning illustrations.

Bathsheba and her pod are out on a hunt with a specific mission. They are in search of Toby Wick, a human being, a whale hunter and their arch enemy. Bathsheba is particularly keen to find him as he is responsible for embedding the harpoon in her when she was still an apprentice. Along the way they find an abandoned ship in which they discover a man, tied to a pole, and he is still alive. Apparently kept alive so that he could pass on a message to Captain Alexandra and her pod.

And The Ocean Was Our Sky is a coming-of-age story about Bathsheba who has to learn to be a killer in order to survive in the open sea. She has to learn to obey, follow instructions and not offer an opinion, as she is constantly being reminded by Captain Alexandra. She learns very soon what it means to grieve when she watches her mother hunted but also realises that along with her grandmother, Captain Alexandra, she has to persevere and remain focused on their mission.

Whether you are familiar with Moby Dick or not is immaterial to reading And The Ocean Was Our Sky. It is a powerful story that leaves you feeling caught in a swirl — it is not just with the constant swimming of the whales and sharks feeding upon the dead sailors or carcasses of whales thrown back in to the water after being stripped of their blubber but it is also the fluidity with which the story is narrated that can leave the reader feeling rather giddy. It is a curious heady feeling that develops from reading the very horrific descriptions of violence, the pure rage and thirst for revenge coupled with the magnificently hypnotic double-page spread illustrations of Rovina Cai. It is an experience reading like no other. It is a retelling combined with very real twenty-first century environmental concerns such as modern day whale hunts and the so much unnecessary terror that man unleashes upon wild life.  Mahvesh Murad in her review calls it “a book about prejudices that lead to generations of hate and death; about who monsters are, and what makes them so; about loyalty and single minded, determined violent obsessions that can never end well for most, but make a great story for the ones who survive to tell.” But I have to agree with Tony Bradman when he wrote in his review that “This is a book for all ages, although some scenes contain graphic violence, so it might be a little too strong for children under 10.”

And The Ocean Was Our Sky is another lyrcial masterpiece by Patrick Ness even though it is so full of sorrow and heartache.  It will definitely be on a few literary prize shortlists in the coming months.

To buy on Amazon India: 

Hardback 

Paperback 

29 Oct 2018 

“Steed of the Jungle God” by Raza H. Tehsin with Arefa Tehsin

29 10 , 2018 No Comments

Wildlife conservationist Raza H. Tehsin’s Steed of the Jungle God: Thrilling Experiences in the Wild  is a collection of essays written along with his daughter, Arefa Tehsin, which recount his days in the jungles of Rajasthan. It has been illustrated splendidly by Sumit Sakula and Sonal Goyal. These are stories that are told as they were lived. It is a form of oral history being recorded which does not seem to have been edited much later. The sense is of a flowing commentary, plucking memories that have left a significant impact and stringing them together in this book. They are stories that are about discovering species, encountering ghosts, putting to rest local folklore, and learning to co-exist peacefully with superstitions, ghostly presences and wild life. It is also an encount of a man who is deeply committed to preservation of wild life and by sharing his experiences hopes it is not too late to save this planet from the eccentricities of mankind.

There is something special about the tone of storytelling, something soft, understanding, full of kindness and empathy which exists in Raza Tehsin’s accounts of wildlife and of the people he meets. There are stories here of his going on trips into the jungle with his father, later with his family. As a young man in the jungle he learned to live as a hermit, doctor and hunter. Later these experiences came to the fore when he became a wildlife conservationist.

He shares many, many stories. One of them that is particularly moving is that of the panther cub who was as yet not fully trained to hunt, had to very soon learn the skill as he had to look after and feed his mother after she had been injured by a bullet in her front leg. Later the affected part had died and fallen off leaving a stump in its place therebey preventing her to go hunting. Ultimately mother and son decided to live in a cave where the panther cub would bring his kill. Later after reviewing the cave Raza Tehsin discovered that the place had been kept spotlessly clean with all the bones of their kills cleared away. This unusual relationship was discovered when the local tribals began to lose their goats. So Raza Tehsin was summoned to track the big cat and kill it. It was then that the hunting party to their astonishment discovered not one but two cats esconced in the cave. It is a very sad and haunting tale that must be read.

Another one is of his descriptions of trying to help the tribals who lived in abject misery infested with guinea worm. While sharing one such episode he shares a telling experience about the status of women — something that has not altered decades later. Guinea worm infestations have been cured but not the mindset of people vis-a-vis towards women.

I remember another instance when an old village woman was brought to me. She was not able to swallow food as her food pipe was burnt. I was told that she lived with her husband, who was infected by guinea worm. He was the only working hand and both of them had starved during his illness. He finally got better and went to work. But he was too weak to earn much. He bought two or three fistfuls of the cheapest rotten maize and asked her to boil it with a little salt. Driven by hunger and afraid that her husband would not give her a share, she gulped most of the maize piping hot. 

A terrible encounter more so made vile knowing that Raza Tehsin came from a family where his mother was quite progressive by contemporary standards. Raza and his siblings ( sisters included ) were educated, his mother did not observe purdah and despite being an invalid was an excellent markswoman. She would use a small calibre shot gun, also called a Ladies Shot Gun No. 28 gauge.

In 1942, she formed Bazm-e-Niswan, a women’s study group with a library, to spread the message of Gandhiji and increase awareness about the country’s socio-political situation. She started a girls’ literacy movement in Udaipur, especially to mobilise the conservative Muslim families. This led to cent percent literacy in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community of Udaipur in a short span of time. She was also one of the founders of the Residency Club formed by the wives of British officers. The club had women volunteers working to help those affected by World War II. After independence, she became President, Udaipur branch, and Vice President, state branch, of All India Women’s Conference. 

Steed of the Jungle God has been co-written with Raza Tehsin’s daughter, Arefa Tehsin, who is equally passionate about wildlife conservation. She has already published a couple of books for children including the most recent one being a middle grade novel The Globetrotters that involves a school bully Hadud whose new history teacher at school decides to set him straight. Hadud is sent off on a quest that basically takes him on a life changing journey through various ecologies. With her immense knowledge of the environment the precisely detailed descriptions in the novel a delightful. It has been magnificently illustrated by Nafisa Nandini Crishna.

Take for instance:

His eyes were fixed on a large crack in a distant rock when his vision got distrubed by a flutter of wings. A young Arctic tern, her white wings moving like waves against the sun, her red beak stuffed with moonbeams of fish and her red feet swaying in the wind, rose above the cliff. Hudhud’s beak dropped as he looked at the elegant bird in her liquid motion. Just after her, rose three seagulls that took a dip at her one at a time. Seeing the avian pirates trying to steal the tern’s fish, Hudhud ducked behind a small jutting rock. 

Thank heavens for wildlife conservationists like the Tehsins who are using their experience and knowledge of earth’s biodiversity and sharing it with younger generations in the hope that the planet’s environment will not be completely destroyed. To create a younger team of wildlife enthusiasts is an effective way of controlling the rapid pace of environmental destruction.

Buy and share these two books — Steed of the Jungle God and The Globetrotters !

On Amazon India:

Steed of the Jungle God  

The Globetrotters 

29 October 2018 

 

Shubhangi Swarup “Latitudes of Longing”

29 10 , 2018 No Comments

Former journalist Shubhangi Swarup’s debut novel Latitudes of Longing is a plot spread across a few decades, loosely held together by some characters particularly the scientist Girijia Narain Mathur. The novel is a tramp through different climatic belts and geological formations while firmly remaining within the latitudes that define the subcontinent. It is also a walk through time and political upheavals in India and Burma. While the reader is a mute spectator to the events, it is fairly obvious that a man’s lifespan is just a blip if the forces of Nature are to be considered. The book is divided into four sections with each section focused on a different part of the subcontinent; beginning with the Andaman Islands, then Burma, Nepal and finally, Ladakh. There are a handful of characters but it is Giriraj Narain Mathur who remains a steady presence throughout, even after death. This is a novel which is a mix of fact, fiction and generous dash of magic realism so there are plenty of ghosts, or colonial ghosts as the author loves to refer to them. ( She first researched the colonial ghosts of Andaman islands in 2011.)

On Monday, 22 October 2018, I was in conversation with Shubhangi Swarup at The Bookshop, Jorbagh, New Delhi. Shubhangi Swarup is soft spoken but when it comes to describing the Panagea or the geological formations of the subcontinent she begins to speak animatedly. It excites her knowing that man is just a tiny being in this vast cosmos, geological formations are a testament to how long earth has been around. Or for that matter the landmass called India we take for granted is still in the process of formation with the tectonic plates constantly hitting each other to push the Himalayas higher and higher. Years of being a journalist and an activist have ensured that her first novel has innumerable incidents with plenty of backstories. At the beginning of the evening when being called upon to read an extract from her book, “I am not a performer!” but soon caved in and read a short piece about the drug smuggler in Thamel, Nepal.

Latitudes of Longing has been seven years in the making. While writing the book she also filed several articles and inevitably did stories that would help her travel in the areas she wished to research further for her book. There are portions in the book that seem heavily inspired by folklore. Whether it is the shapeshifting turtle or the appearance of Yeti or even the creation myth that Giriraj churns out to explain to his daughter Devi how she was conceived:

‘Where did you find me, Papa?’ she will ask, mildly annoyed by his grip. ‘Why did you bring me home?’

In conversation with Shubhangi Swarup at The Bookshop, Jor Bagh, New Delhi on 22 October 2018

Girija Prasad will weave a story from the embers of twilight to pacify her. ‘It was a beach just like this, an evening just like this, when your mother and I came across an empty bottle, half-buried in the sand. We opened it to find a note inside: Please put all the ingredients of your dreams in this bottle and shake vigorously. And so we did. Using a prism, I trapped sunlight in the bottle. I closed it with a cork and shook it vigorously for hours. Then your mother opened it. She took a deep breath and exhaled into the bottle. That was your first breath.’ For the ingredients, Girija Prasad will concoct a fantastical list to arrest her wandering imagination: golden sands from the dunes of Rajasthan and white sands from Havelock Island; shreds from the swiftlet’s nest and petals of a fuschia pink rose; a piece of bark from the oldest padauk tree on the islands; ash blessed by the riverbank baba; a crocodile’s tooth, an elephant’s eyelash; and drops of the monsoon mingled with Himalayan snow. 

Shubhangi Swarup’s reliance on folklore and local storytellers who could tell her neverending stories comes through stupendously in the story. Once she met an 8yo shepherd who was legendary in his village for the stories he told, mostly to entertain himself. He is like an intellectual jukebox. According to Shubhangi “You give him the elements you want to hear in a story and he immediately sets off. At some point he has to be told ‘enough’ and he switches off leaving the tale hanging in the air for the next time.” There are moments of pure beauty in the language used that seem to come from some place else, of having withstood time and developed a life of their own and found a place in this story. Whether it is that of the shape-shifting turtle or the Yeti that comes visiting and many other instances.

In her obsessiveness with faultlines and geological formations Shubhangi manages to weave a story across various geographies. In fact many of the episodes in her novel can be directly linked to a story she wrote as a journalist. For this she had a very valid explanation as in that she required to do the research but did not always have the necessary resources to undertake the trip. Being a journalist travelling on a story helped her tremendously. It is no wonder that Latitudes of Longing was on the JCB Prize 2018 shortlist. After this impressive debut many readers will await Shubhangi’s second offering but it will probably be some time in the making as she said “She has nothing on the cards for now. It has been seven years to write this book.”

Till she does opt to write, we will wait.

To buy on Amazon India

Kindle

Hardcover 

 

26 October 2018

“The Overstory” by Richard Powers

26 10 , 2018 No Comments

They read about myrrh-tree transplanting expeditions depicted in the reliefs at Karnak, three thousand five hundred years ago. They read about trees that migrate. Trees that remember the past and predict the future. Trees that harmonize their fruiting and nutting into sprawling choruses. Trees that bomb the ground so only their own can grow. Trees that summon air forces of insects that come to save them. Trees with hollowed trunks wide enough to hold the population of small hamlets. Leaves with fur on the undersides. Thinned petioles that solve the wind. The rim of life around a pillar of dead history, each new coat as thick as the maker season is generous. 

Richard Powers The Overstory is a novel weaves through it stories of various families/individuals spanning more than a century. It is a fine example of eco-fiction that is preoccupied with discussing the perennial Man vs Nature argument. It is a vast novel not only for the subject it tackles but the vastness of the landscape Powers creates. It flits from an immigrant family to that of environmental activist to an Indian software entrepreneur who amasses a fortune by creating games to the most mesmerising character, dendrologist, Patricia Westerford. While all these lives are being described it is impossible not to draw comparisons with the peaceful and vibrant descriptions of Nature that Thoreau wrote about in the nineteenth century or even perhaps with the truly talented writer Nell Zink. But now we are at the brink of a possible ecological disaster, possibly manmade due to the wilful damage done upon the environment by man. The LitHub describes it perfectly as “Henry David Thoreau meet Georgia-Pacific“.

The genesis of this novel Powers describes in an interview to The Chicago Review of Books:

I was teaching at Stanford and living in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Just to one side of me was one of the greatest concentrations of wealth and technological might in history: the corporate HQs of Google, Apple, Intel, HP, Facebook, eBay, Cisco, Tesla, Oracle, Netflix, and so many more. To the other side were the Santa Cruz mountains, covered in redwoods. When the scramble for the future down in the valley was too much for me, I would head up to walk in the woods. These were the forests that had been clear-cut to build San Francisco, and it seemed to me that they had grown back wonderfully. But one day, I came across a single tree that had, for whatever reason, escaped the loggers. It was the width of a house, the length of a football field, and as old as Jesus or Caesar. Compared to the trees that had so impressed me, it was like Jupiter is to the Earth.

I began to imagine what they must have looked like, those forests that would not return for centuries, if ever. It seemed to me that we had been at war for a long time, trees and people, and I wondered if it might be possible for things ever to go any other way. Within a few months, I quit my job at Stanford and devoted myself full time to writing The Overstory.

Yet the gloomy moments of the book are more than compensated for by the hope written on the last page of this stunningly magnificent book.

His friends begin to chant in a very old language. It strikes Nick as strange, how few languages he understands. One and a half human ones. Not a single word of all the other living, speaking things. But what these men chant Nick half grasps, and when the songs are finished, he adds, Amen, if only because it may be the single oldest word he knows. The older the word, the more likely it is to be both useful and true. In fact, he read once, … that the word tree and the word truth came from the same root. 

The best compliment he could ever have received was from fellow novelist Barbara Kingsolver who reviewed his book for the New York Times. Upon reading her review he was ‘beside himself with gratitude to Kingsolver. “I just feel so lucky,” he says. “She makes a case for a broader way of reading me.” Taking issue with Powers’ reputation for cold, science-y novels, Kingsolver writes The Overstory “accomplishes what few living writers from either camp, art or science, could attempt. Using the tools of story, he pulls readers heart-first into a perspective so much longer-lived and more subtly developed than the human purview that we gain glimpses of a vast, primordial sensibility, while watching our own kind get whittled down to size.” ‘

The Overstory is a powerful testimony to the decades of environmental activism and the damage man can cause. Yet it is not a novel meant for all readers. It is not an easy book to read and requires intense engagement. Even Powers has had to admit that it was a life-changing experience for him writing The Overstory, akin to a “religious conversion“. Award-winning novelist Powers is known to combine his passion for philosophy with science. In his 12th novel he has done much the same opting to talk about the environment, a subject that is not only dear to his heart but extremely relevant now. No wonder it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018.

To buy on Amazon India: 

Paperback

Hardback

Kindle

26 October 2018 

“Milkman” by Anna Burns

26 10 , 2018 No Comments

Man Booker Prize winner 2018 Anna Burn’s novel Milkman is about a nameless eighteen-year-old narrator, most often referred to as the “reading-while-walking” girl who prefers to read nineteenth rather than twentieth century literature because she does not like the twentieth century. Milkman is set in a nameless Irish city —-p robably Belfast just as the era is never confirmed. It is about the city caught in the battles between the IRA, the Renouncers and the British Army possibly during the 1970s judging by the clues peppered throughout the story. It is about the girl observing and commenting upon her neighbourhood. Unfortunately she begins to be stalked by the forty-one-year-old “Milkman” — not the real one. ( The IRA delivered petrol bombs in milk crates. ) Then to her dismay tongues begin to wag and even her mother is not willing to believe her — that there is no truth in the rumours being circulated. Immediately after winning the prize Anna Burns was quoted as saying “Although it is recognisable as this skewed form of Belfast, it’s not really Belfast in the 70s. I would like to think it could be seen as any sort of totalitarian, closed society existing in similarly oppressive conditions … I see it as a fiction about an entire society living under extreme pressure, with longterm violence seen as the norm.”

Milkman was many years in the making and is the stuff literary legends are made of. The fifty-six-year-old Anna Burns acknowledging the fairy tale Booker win said “‘It’s nice to feel I’m solvent. That’s a huge gift’” It is an extraordinary novel for very early on in the story it is as if the reader is an invisible companion to the narrator observing the proceedings with insights into how they think. There are large portions of the narrative that are running text, a single paragraph that runs across pages, which at first may seem daunting to read but is not so. Very often Milkman is being referred to as being Beckettian but Anna Burns clarifies in her interviews that she only read Samuel Beckett once her novel had been written. Whereas in fact it would be worthwhile to notice how the form of her prose, the fluidity of it, the mildly digressing style while observing and reporting incidents dispassionately, and at other times conveying neighbourhood gossip and events as is, in a detached dead pan manner, without any analysis is ultimately a very womanly quality.

Milkman is much like the commentary many women inevitably internalise. The novel merely makes visible that which is mostly kept out of public spaces for women as it would be mostly perceived as idle chatter. It is also remarkable how effectively Anna Burns portrays a reading-while-walking girl who is in all likelihood absorbed in her book but is also able to observe the landscape and people around her as she walks past. There is violence which she acknowledges in many interviews post-Booker win were because of the Ireland she grew up in. There is a particularly horrific and violent scene involving the butchering of dogs and left in a pile. In The New Statesman interview she says:

… I remember seeing that as a child. It was down the bottom of our street. I was seven or eight, so I don’t really know how high the pile was, but it did look like a mound of dead dogs, with their throats cut – I couldn’t see any heads, so I thought all their heads were missing. It was one of those images that stay with you.

The remarkable effect Milkman has upon its readers is for its relevance to the #MeToo movement is purely coincidental as Anna Burns has reiterated this novel was completed in 2014, well before the movement began. At the same its powerful impact is for its visibilisation of the silences most women are trained to inculcate. Most often women across cultures are socially conditioned to keep their opinions to themselves and conform to what is expected of them. Also their word is very likely dismissed especially when it involves as in the case of a creepy, older man, a stalker, who also happens to belong to the IRA. So the young narrator gets pushed more and more into a corner with everyone including her mother disbelieving her about the false rumours being circulated about her and the milkman. Also by resorting to use the interior monologue style of writing for most part of the novel Anna Burns makes the reader privy to the innermost thoughts of the girl thereby stripping away any pretence the narrator may “normally” have adopted in real life.

There are so many portions in the story that will resonate with women readers while being revelatory to male readers. As novelist Idra Novey points out in her Paris Review essay “The Silence of Sexual Assault in Literature” ( 4 Oct 2018) it is the silences that are critical in literature — what is glossed over and that which is hidden from view.

Though the story [Flannery O’Connor’s story “Good Country People”] was published over sixty years ago, the sick abuse of power is disturbingly similar to any number of testimonies that have emerged this past year. O’Connor artfully elides what exactly the Bible salesman does, or doesn’t do, to Hulga in the barn. That elision evokes the roaring silence that she will now endure, returning to this horrifying experience within the solitude of her mind.

It is exactly this silencing of the women that has remained quietly hidden away from the “public” view —- a view that has been mostly defined by patriarchal codes of conduct. Although these sorts of conversations, thoughts and ideas being expressed freely now in literature are and have always been familiar to women.

Milkman is a powerful book that begs to be read widely.

To buy the Milkman on Amazon India: 

Paperback

Kindle 

26 Oct 2018 

 

Book Post 15: 14 – 20 October

23 10 , 2018 No Comments

Every Monday I post some of the books I have received in the previous week. Embedded in the book covers and post will also be links to buy the books on Amazon India. This post will be in addition to my regular blog posts and newsletter.

In today’s Book Post 15 included are some of the titles I received in the past few weeks and are worth mentioning and not necessarily confined to parcels received last week.

Enjoy reading!

22 October 2018

“Puu”, picture book by CG Salamander and Samidha Gunjal

19 10 , 2018 2 Comments

Manual scavenging and rubbish pickers are a sad reality of our world. Yet these stories are rarely heard. In India it is only recently these stories have begun to make their way into “mainstream” discourses. Of late the newspapers have been reporting of the horrific deaths young men are facing while cleaning sewers. Or via Dalit Literature, an emerging and distinct form of literature, which mostly consists of testimonies for it is extremely difficult even now to offer an analysis on the demeaning life most Dalits lead. Most of this literature is restricted for adult readers which is a beginning but still insufficient. If the sensitivity towards such social ills and hopefully long term change in attitudes towards marginalised communities are to be wrought in society it is perhaps best to address young readers too. Decades earlier Gandhiji tried by renaming the Dalits as “Harijans” as they were at the time commonly referred to as and treated as “Untouchables”. It is exactly this space that comic journalist and fiction writer CG Salamander and  illustrator and animator Samidha Gunjal’s picture book Puu hopes to fill.

In Puu a nameless little girl who is drawn to be similar to other children of her age is shown to be scavenging for “flowers” in garbage dumps, sills and sewers. All the while she dreams of building with her hands recycling waste materials discarded. She is warm and affectionate but her only companions seem to be the pigs living in the garbage. Unfortunately her classmates do not see or are too prejudiced to see this side of her but treat her like a pariah by keeping their distance from her.

Narrated in the first person with minimal text used but laid discreetly within the beautifully designed pages, with a generous profusion of rose pink, does take away from the stinging harshness of the subject. But once immersed in the magical beauty of the book the hard reality of the girl’s circumstances hit the reader. It is immaterial whether this book is used by a primary school reader or older readers, the truth will hit home and it will hit hard. Despite various attempts by civil society groups and the government to encourage inclusive practices, the truth is poverty, economic hardships and social exclusion continue to be a sad fact.

The epigraph encapsulates the authors’ sentiments well:

 

To all the rationality left in the world.

No one should have to clean, carry or dispose

flowers manually . . .

Not out of homes, not out of streets and not out of sewers. 

Especially not children. 

 

Read Puu. Share Puu. Buy and distribute copies of it widely.

To buy Puu ( published by Scholastic India) on Amazon India 

Paperback

19 October 2018 

 

 

Book 14: 1-15 October 2018 / children’s literature and young adult literature

18 10 , 2018 No Comments

Every Monday I post some of the books I have received in the previous week. Embedded in the book covers and post will also be links to buy the books on Amazon India. This post will be in addition to my regular blog posts and newsletter.

In today’s Book Post 14 included are some of the children’s literature and young adult titles I have received in the past few weeks and are worth mentioning and not necessarily confined to parcels received last week.

Enjoy reading!

15 October 2018

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