Apu’s World

Many years ago, when Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ ‘News of a Kidnapping’, was first published in English, I remember enjoying it immensely and wondering why not too many books of this kind were written in India. That was 10 years ago, when Indian writing in English was still all about Rushdie and Seth, and non-fiction was largely restricted to biographies or academics writing.

Now, Indian writing is beginning to be so much more than only the ‘literary’ novels, and non-fiction too, is covering a wider range of subjects. When I picked up V. Sudarshan’s ‘Anatomy of an Abduction’, the incident around which it revolves, the abduction of 3 Indian truck drivers in Iraq, had almost faded from my mind.

2004 is not that long ago, but one disaster eclipses another, and I had to really think, to remember the kidnapping, and the subsequent media coverage and public frenzy that had then erupted in India. Probably one of the strengths of Sudarshan’s book is that he has managed to interview all the key participants in the drama, the victims as well the team from the Indian government/embassy which managed the situation, 2 to 3 years after the incident, before memories are dulled.

That gives the book its sense of really being on the ground; indeed, many of the narratives almost sound as if they are following the protagonists around as they go about influencing negotiations. The other area this book excels at is in giving the reader a very clear sense of all the members of the investigating team. Frankly, one would expect Indian sarkari babus to be boring, but Sudarshan depicts them very humanly, with all their idiosyncrasies and anxieties. 

One of the issues that the team has to contend with is that they have strict orders from the Indian government not to negotiate directly in any manner; the negotiations are actually happening between the kidnappers and the Kuwaiti logistics company that the truckers worked for. The team is charged with the responsibility of ensuring their safe return, but they do not have the authority to take any direct action. They can only “influence” the negotiation. Their task is complicated, because, there is no clarity on who the negotiators for the kidnappers are; further they also have to contend with the Egyptian embassy, which is playing its own game (some Egyptian drivers have also been kidnapped). How the team manages all this and ensures the safe return of the drivers is something the book throws light on, in the process revealing the workings of the government and diplomatic circles.

The only grouse I had was that perhaps the book was a little too complimentary to all the government members involved, and did not really present much of the politics or acrimonies that would necessarily have been there. Otherwise, it comes across as a very well-researched book that almost reads like a fiction thriller, though you know that it isn’t!

apu The Literary life

I haven’t yet read any of the Booker-shortlisted novels, not one. Partly because all of them seem to be out of stock at my library (and I’m trying to be very cautious while buying books these days, I am scared that my home-office-library is soon going to run of space!) and partly because, well there’s just so much being written about them that I want to let all the hype die down a bit, and then maybe I’ll read them when I’ve forgotten much of what was said.

What I have been reading instead, is Hanif Kureishi’s ‘Something to Tell You’, (Warning: That links to a review with a fair amount of plot details) a novel that didn’t make it to the Booker list, though there was some speculation that it would. Although Hanif Kureishi can no longer be called a ‘new’ writer, I discovered him only recently, when I picked up ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’, his first novel, and enjoyed it very much. Though the Indian/South Asian immigrant experience in the UK is a theme extensively explored, I thought The Buddha worked very well, because it was more than simply an account of this experience. While centering around a second-generation Asian kid in the UK, it was also a fantastic exploration of dysfunctional families, life in the stagnating suburbs and the desire of the young person to define his/her own life, a universal theme. (One other novel which takes the immigrant experience, yet goes so much beyond it, is Niven Govinden’s Graffiti, My Soul, one of the best I’ve read in recent times).

So, I came to ‘Something to Tell You’ with high expectations, and on reading the first few chapters, it felt as if they were going to pretty much be dashed. The novel, which revolves around a part-Asian, born-in-the-suburbs psychiatrist, starts off very slowly. For atleast six or seven chapters, I couldn’t figure out where this was going. There is an eccentric sister, a needy friend, patients with all kinds of issues and the doctor-narrator who seems to be having a fairly stable life in the midst of it all. Though he is dealing with issues in his own personal life (I am not going to give away too much here) and with a secret that he mentions casually (this is the ’something’ to tell), you don’t feel that these are of much consequence.

As the novel unfolds, the novel jumps between the past and the present and we are presented with the doctor’s somewhat chaotic past in contrast with the calm present, and gradually, we realize that the present is only deceptively calm; the ghosts of the past mingle with the weight of desires that can be liberating, yet must flout some norms to be successful. In that sense, the unfolding of the novel somewhat mirrors the exploration into the subconscious which the doctor deals with, everyday, in his sessions with his patients: it’s slow to come about, but when it does, there are rich dividends.

I found the ending a little too pat - the issues from the past, and indeed, the ’something’ to tell, which preys on the doctor’s mind, is resolved a bit too conveniently. The love of his life, Ajita, around whom the ’something’ revolves also never really emerged as a person to me, she is always a kind of fantasy seen through the doctor’s eyes. Though the doctor obsesses about her a great deal, she is actually the least interesting character in the novel.

But, other than that, the rest of the novel is very readable with a little patience. I like novels where the main character has an interesting vocation - it offers so many avenues for storytelling. Hanif Kureishi also reassures me that the immigrant novel is not just about alienation and identity, it can be an interesting story without those as the only themes; and that’s as it should be, for beyond style, language, narration, isn’t the writer ultimately a teller of stories?

apu The Literary life

The 67th Carnival of Feminists is up at Jump Off The Bridge - it has a bit more about the US elections than non-Americans may be interested in, but other than that, it has some pretty interesting stuff (Including a piece from me). And, even if you don’t get the time to read all the good stuff there, and if there’s just one piece you have the time for, check out this interview with Seyran Ates, a German feminist of Turkish origin, who makes some very important points about multiculturalism, assimilation and women’s rights in that context.

apu Women & Feminism

What comes to mind when you think of famine, of people starving, of death from hunger ? Africa, isn’t it? Harsh as that may sound, most of us tend to associate that unfortunate continent with the misery of famine and hunger - Ethiopia, Somalia - these are the names that come to mind. Though we see poor people all around us, somehow, our own country, India, doesn’t figure in our minds, because, oh, we are not short of food, are we? There is no famine here, there is plenty of food in the shops - if only you can afford to buy it. I am ashamed that I fall into this category myself, the category which sees, yet somehow doesn’t really see.

Which is why, I was shocked to read a week or so ago, the findings of a global study on hunger, which revealed that not only does India figure in the list of 88 countries which fail to meet standards, it ranks 66th on this list, with many Indian states ranking below countries such as Gabon, Ethiopia and Chad. What does it say about us, that 60 years after Independence, our populations continues to rise steeply, but we still cannot feed the millions entering this world? Does it not indicate a huge lack of political will as well as systemic failures that prevent social welfare schemes from really reaching the poor?

The causes are many. Populations are huge, making implementation of our Below the Poverty Line (BPL) food programme difficult. Mid-day meals, which are a huge incentive for children to go to school, are not uniformly or well implemented by all states. Rural areas continue to be excessively dependent on low-paying, subsistence agriculture. Worse, there are many landless people, who are under-employed. India’s long history of license-quota raj meant that manufacturing has grown very slowly, and is still much lower than what is needed to employ such a large population. No jobs, no land - no food is a natural result.

Does it not tear your heart to hear that “India…does not have a single state in the ‘low hunger´ or ’moderate hunger’ categories?” After all, food is the most basic of needs. Parents who cannot feed their children are unlikely to be able to afford other expensus such as sending them to school. Hunger leads to malnutrition and lesser immunity to diseases; it also stunts mental growth.

Too often, we think of patriotism as fighting at the border, indulging ourselves in rants against Pakistan, or insisting that everyone should sing Vande Mataram; but if true patriotism is love for this country that has give us, privileged ones, such a good life, surely, this love has to reflect as concern for its masses of under-fed people, whose only crime is to have been born on the wrong side. There is no way we can claim to have become a developed country, till this problem is addressed.

But, I don’t work in the government. I do my bit by paying my taxes, which are supposed to address such issues. Occasionally, I contribute to charities, especially those that work with children. Is this enough? What else can we, individual citizens do? The scale of the problem is so large that individual efforts at charity may not make much of a dent. Ever since I read this report, I find it difficult to get it off my mind. What can we really do to bring about the change we want to see?

apu Other Social issues in India

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham… I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life…I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse… you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountainside…”

“Granted; but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?”

“Certainly not.”

“No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured like a hothouse plant; taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?”

“Assuredly not.”

“Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation…. it must be, either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation…. whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude…”

“Heaven forbid that I should think so!” I interrupted her at last.

“Well then, it must be that you think that they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the mere shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while character of the other will be strengthened…. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others… that they should know beforehand to refuse the evil and choose the good… I would not send a poor girl into the world unarmed against her foes…nor would I watch and guard her till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself… “

Some excerpts from one of the early chapters in Anne Bronte’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’, where two characters argue on the right way to bring up children. I was much struck by the way Mrs. Graham points out the inconsistency in the way girls and boys were (are?) brought up as well as the double standards applied to them. Astonishing for a novel written in the first half of the nineteenth century, isn’t it?

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is not what I’d call a complete delight to a feminist; yet, it brings in a very, very strong female character, Mrs. Graham (the tenant, of the title), with very definite views on many things and confidence in her ability to make her own way in the world. The novel deals with some of the very real concerns that women of that time would have had - in an age when women from the upper classes couldn’t really work, and all property was usually controlled by men, marriage was the ‘proper’ goal for women. Yet, it is evident that many of these marriages may have been unhappy or incompatible, and in cases where they became abusive, there would have been little recourse for women, either financially or socially.

The Tenant deals with one such marriage, and though it falls short of approving of divorce (and in fact, Mrs. Graham’s sense of duty, driven by piety is sickening to a modern reader), it does show her as willing to take some strong actions to safeguard her child, defying the husband and risking social disapproval and even ostracism. There is also a tremendous sense of women’s ability to go out into the world and deal as an equal. Considering the times it was written in, it must have been a bold statement to make, and I believe, did draw condemnation from a whole lot of people. I haven’t read Anne Bronte before and I was delighted to find The Tenant a work of such strong opinions.

apu The Literary life