Posted by apu on Nov 23, 2008 in
The Literary life Yesterday, I managed to visit the Bangalore Book Festival, right on the last day, though it was raining so hard that I feared the canvas roof would come down! I’m very proud of myself for having given myself a budget and managing to stick to it - on previous such occasions, I’ve been known to go berserk and return home with a staggering load of books, some which I would discover later that I didn’t even want. This time, the discounts were good too. So, the haul was as follows:
Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adhichie - this is a novel set in Biafra, a province in Nigeria that tried to break-away and set up an independent Igbo country; both the historical context and the story itself are very good. I’ve read this one before and thought it is a book really worth having on one’s shelf. Price: Rs.225.
After the Ice, by Steven Mithen: Ever since reading Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, I’ve become really interested in pre-history and the beginning of human societies; coincidentally, I’ve also been looking to read about the Ice ages and their impact on human evolution. This book promises some good information on those lines. Price: Rs. 350
Irandaam Jaamangalin Kadai, by Salma: The festival had a good number of Kannada and Tamizh book stalls as well. This Tamizh novel, by a Tamizh Muslim writer, deals with issues of family, society and Muslim women. It’s been published by Kalachuvadu, a magazine and publishing house that deals with alternative/ progressive literature. Price: Rs. 225
Breaking Barriers, by Parvathi Menon: This is an account of 12 women in India, who were among the pioneers of the Indian feminist movement, and broke social norms and taboos, in a far more conservative time. This has been published by Leftword, a leftist-marxist publishing house. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Price : Rs. 75
The Travels of Ibn Battutah, Edited by Tim Mackintosh Smith: Along with Fa Hien and Huan-Tsang, Ibn Battutah was one of the illustrious travellers we learnt about in school. From an India-centric perspective, certainly, these travellers appeared more interesting than people like Columbus and Marco Polo. This book is an abridged version of Ibn Battutah’s ‘Travels’, his account of his journey over West Asia, India, China and parts of Europe. Price: Rs. 125
One of the interesting things about the festival was the diversity of stalls, from well known names like Oxford University Press and S.Chand to much smaller presses. I got to see quite a few books which most large bookstores don’t stock. Overall, a really well-spent afternoon!
Tags: bangalore book festival, books
Posted by apu on Jul 21, 2008 in
The Literary life A couple of weeks ago, I read the extremely well known Tamizh novel “Chithira Paavai”. This was written by the eminent writer, Akilan, sometime in the 60’s I think. I read novels mainly for their entertainment value - I am one of those terrible readers who is always impatient to know ‘what happens’. However, I enjoyed Chithira Paavai as much for the language and story, as I did for the window it gave me into life in Madras a.k.a Chennai at that time.
As a Madras girl, some of the stuff was really funny to me. Did you know that in the 50s, the road from Madras to Mahabalipuram was still being laid? The ‘regular’ way to travel was by boat, an overnight journey on the Adayar! Today we race to Mahabs on the swanky ECR Road in 2 hours, while the Adayar river is a stinky mess that no one in their right minds would really consider a river.
The price of a ground (a 60*40 sq.ft piece of land) with a built house, in the Mylapore Tank area, was about Rs. 50,000. Shock, shock, naturally - since at the rate Chennai land prices are moving these days, soon a few feet of land is all that will be available for 50K.
Many of the characters, especially the older ones, still view the city suspiciously - their rural roots are still very visible. I suppose this was the time when the first large scale migrations out of agriculture happened. That’s very clearly reflected in the novel.
Young girls wore saris, and men still wore the traditional veshti (dhoti), some even to college. While I know from my mom that even in the 70s, wearing saris to college was very common, I thought Indian men had already moved to Western clothes.
Some spoilers…
One of the main characters, Anandi agrees to marry a man she feels little for (and dislikes in some ways), because he forces a kiss on her and she has been “spoilt.” Anandi is depicted as the “ideal” Tamizh woman - graceful, soft-spoken, cautious, helpful, sacrificing, ever thoughtful of others. A reflection of the social milieu? The good thing of course is that though she goes through enormous hardship as a result of this marriage, eventually she has the courage to break it up. Commonsense and the emerging feminist stance is showcased through another character, Anandi’s friend Sarada, who declares that it is stupidity to sacrifice oneself to another’s idiocy.
In every sense, I got the feeling that we’ve come a long way.
* When a novel from the 60s could end with such a progressive declaration of Anandi walking out, I wonder why Tamizh films today persist in portraying rapists as just-too-passionate gentlemen who make everything all right when they marry the victim. Grrr.
Tags: books, feminist, indian society, tamil culture, tamil society, tamizh books, tamizh society, women