Review of History of Hate in The Hindu

FAST PACED NARRATIVE

As you look at the pitch dark cover with blood splattered all over and a spooky HATE written in bold, you have an inkling of the kind of book this is.

Characters

Between the covers you meet two bizarre characters, portrayed quite credibly, whose favourite pastime is making other peoples' lives miserable. Ash, a 20-something boy with suicidal tendencies, and Sonny, a middle-aged brooding housewife with a depraved mind, have nothing in common except ‘their love for hating everything'. Ash is perpetually confused about his sexuality. Sonny has complains against almost everybody including her chemist husband who doesn't earn as much as she wants him to, and her terminally ill mother-in-law who by delaying her death is a burden on her family's limited financial resources.

To vent their frustration and dissatisfaction with their lives, both Ash and Sonny try to make as many people unhappy as possible. Here the protagonists don't play pranks or cause mischief but they do something more perverted and serious and, in one case, their victim commits suicide.

As the misdemeanours of these two dysfunctional sociopaths continue unabated, the author drops hints about their background without disturbing the flow. And that generates some sympathy for Ash who appears to be more a sick person than evil. Undoubtedly, Sonny is pure evil, whom one would love to hate. In between, there are snide but discreet remarks about the pompous and vainglorious lifestyles of South Delhi-type upper middle class. Elsewhere there are also ingenious observations concerning the urban middle class society where a person is not recognised by the content of his character but by the brand of car he drives or by the carpet area and locality of his house.

The notable thing about Kanishka's writing is his ability to create a perfect ambience, before setting his characters into action. The pace of the story is another plus. The narrative moves frantically leaving the reader breathless. The prose is razor sharp, idioms are cleverly chosen and phrases are apt.

For the strong

Unlike many debut authors, Kanishka avoids purple prose like the plague. This novel, however, is neither a leisure read nor is it for the weak-hearted, or emotionally fragile people. It is an exploration of the darkest emotions of human minds supported by some strong writing and perfectly fleshed out characters. While reading, some readers might feel nauseated and might need to take a stroll and inhale a lot of fresh air before returning to the book. Structurally speaking, the novel is character driven and episodic in nature. It doesn't follow the Aristotelian concept of mythos or plot with clearly recognisable beginning, middle, and end. But, literary novels are supposed to be more about characters than plots.  

History of Hate; Kanishka Gupta, Rupa & Co, Rs. 195.

A Satire on Indian Social Class

BOOK REVIEW by Abdullah Khan

Serious Men, Manu Joseph FOURTH ESTATE, Price: INR 499/-

Driven by the IT-boom and the skyrocketing SENSEX, the Indian economy touched new heights during the last two decades. But despite all the progress made by the country, social inequality still exists in the Indian society. There is a darker underbelly amid the shining India where people are not even entitled to two square meals. From that underclass comes Ayyan Mani, the protagonist and anti-hero of Serious Men, the impressive debut novel of journalist Manu Joseph.

Sitting at the bottom of the caste pyramid Ayyan Mani, is perpetually disdainful about the extra-ordinary clouts Brahmins enjoy in the public sphere of Indian society. Leading an unremarkable life in a one-room flat of a Bombay slum, Ayyan is an achiever by the yardsticks of the social class he comes from. A personal assistant to a renowned astronomer Arvind Acharaya, he is some kind of celebrity for his fellow residents of BDD chawl that mostly comprised of factory workers and labourers. To overcome the boredom of a lower class quotidian life and add some sparkle to his miserable existence, he embarks on a dangerous journey, weaving an outrageous fantasy around his only son. And to an extent he is able to convince everybody, including his innocent wife, that his son is a child prodigy.

At the Institute of Theory and Research, where Ayyan works, he is a peeping tom and takes unhealthy interests in personal lives of his superiors. He is a mirthful witness when the game of vicious office politics unfolds at the institute, between the formidable director of the institute, Arvind Acharya and his deputy. For Ayyan it is a war between Brahmins, and he has nothing to do with it. But when reputation of Arvind Acharya takes a dip involving controversy relating to a project about finding microscopic extraterrestrial, he jumps in to the fray. Ayyan not only saves Arvind but is also able to use this opportunity to make his son a national celebrity.

Ayyan Mani reminds us of Balram Halwai from Adiga's The White Tiger as both of them come from the same Indian social class. But the character of Ayyan Mani is more credible and his approach to climb the class ladder is more sophisticated than the former. Metaphorically speaking, Ayyan's ambition symbolises the dreams of common mass. At another level, the novel is a subtle satire on all class systems in our society. This division of people into haves or have-nots are not exactly based on caste. It may be based on other considerations too, and most important among them is how much resources a person owns. The character has been sketched out well capturing the idiosyncrasies of the protagonist. But, the best-handled character in Serious Men is Arvind Acharya, the scientist par excellence who is as tall as his standings as an astronomer. He is able to inspire awe as well as revulsion at the same time in his rivals. But his jumbo size ego and clarity about his ambition make him not to compromise on his beliefs. As the story gathers momentum and moves to the second half, he emerges out as the main protagonist and Ayyan is relegated to background.

Another interesting angle in the story is Oparna. An epitome of beauty and an astro-biologist, she succumbs to the intellectual aspect of Arvind Acharya's personality. But the steamy affair between them doesn't last long. This has disastrous consequences on the career and reputation of Arvind Acharaya.

The author handles the characters efficiently and the story has a great start. The last few chapters are also dealt with superbly. But in between, the prose becomes laborious, sometimes, even forcing you to skip the pages. The voice of Ayyan Mani, at times, also becomes voice of the author and that sounds artificial. There are some minor plot-holes too. For example, Ayyan Mani's attempt to leak questions for quiz contest doesn't appear to be plausible.

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2010

SUCH A LONG JOURNEY ( Abdullah Khan's Article on Literary Agents in THE HINDU)

Literary agents play god...Photo: Keshav

Writing your book is just the first step in the journey to becoming an author. Finding the right agent who can market it in the right places and take care of your interests is the more crucial, and difficult, part… almost like finding god...

Having finished your first novel, you have polished it to the best of your abilities, got rave reviews from your peer group of ‘wanna be' authors, and you think the most difficult part of your journey, of becoming an internationally published author is over. But, it is not. Before you seek an international publisher in mature markets like London or New York, you have to find a literary agent. ‘Finding a literary agent is akin to finding God…..if you believe in God,' says Anees Salim, whose novel Tales from a Vending Machine is slated for release by HarperCollins India later this year.

Agrees Vikrant Dutta, whose debut novel Dark Rainbow is soon to be published by an Indian publishing major. He says, “We have heard legends about Arundhati Roy. Ms. Roy submitted her manuscript of The God of Small Things to Pankaj Mishra of Butter Chicken in Ludhiana fame, who, at that time, was an editor with a publishing house. Impressed with Ms. Roy's writing, Mishra sent it to a few agents and editors in London; and David Godwin was one of them. The rest is the history we all know.” Vikrant further adds, “But, everybody may not be as lucky to have a Pankaj Mishra vouch for them. For lesser mortals, it is a long and tiring voyage. I have been striving to get an agent for the last fours year, but with little success. Then one fine day I decided to send my manuscript to Indian Publishers, and was fortunate to get an offer.” But he strongly feels that to sustain a long-term writing career, one must find an agent.

Crucial role

Many first-time writers, especially those not familiar with the ‘behind the scenes' of publishing industry, would ask: Why do we need a literary agent in the first place? To answer this question, we need to understand what exactly an agent does. An agent, for an author, is an editorial consultant, a writing coach and a critic rolled into one. She markets your work to the right publishers. She also takes care of your financial interest. Above all, she understands the nitty-gritties of publishing, everything from e-book royalties and permission forms, to movie option agreements. Kanishka Gupta, one of India's prominent literary agents, reflects: “Having a literary agent increases the chance of your manuscript being accepted for publication manifolds. Not only will you be taken seriously by a publisher, but you will also have an advocate with the right connections in the industry, and most importantly, someone who believes in your work.” Moreover, in the West, no publisher will touch your manuscript if it is not submitted by a legitimate literary agent. In India too the ‘literary agent culture' is catching on fast.

Anees cannot agree more. “After being disappointed by the agents abroad, I also started to submit it to Indian publishers, but heard nothing from them. Then I submitted my manuscript to Kanishka Gupta of Writer's Side Literary Agency, and within 15 days my novel was sold in an auction. Ironically, among the bidders was a publisher on whose table the same manuscript had been languishing for last six months. So, being an agented author really helps.”

If finding an agent is such a mammoth task then what should one do? Nothing, but keep trying. Persistence is the key. There is no other way, feels Vikas Swarup, the author of hugely successful Q&A that was made in to the multi-Oscar winning movie, “Slumdog Millionaire”. Vikas himself was lucky to find an agent rather easily. Peter Buckman, a former editor who had just started a literary agency at that time, had him signed on as his first client. For aspiring writers from India, he says, “It is not easy to get an agent, as most of them will take on a new author only if they are 100 per cent sure that the manuscript will sell. Every new writer should get hold of the latest edition of the Writers Handbook and send the first three or four chapters of the manuscript to as many agents as possible and hope one of them will take him on. That is the only way, unfortunately. Alternatively, he should try his luck in the Indian market first with Penguin, HarperCollins, Rupa and Tranquebar and, having been accepted by an Indian publisher, foray into the international arena.”

There are many examples when, after more than a hundred rejections, a writer has landed a very good agent. Even J. K. Rowling had been signed by Christopher Little Literary Agency after collecting dozens of rejection slips. Susan Abulhawa, the Palestinian-American novelist whose novel Mornings in Jenin has been translated into more than 20 languages, had to go through a very agonising phase on the way to find an agent. Narrating her experience she says, “It was a long journey.  I was published first by a very small publishing house that went out of business just before the book was due to be distributed.  So, all my work seemed to be dead on arrival.  But luckily, it was translated by Buchet Chastel in France during that time and, through them, I was able to get an agent.  My editor at Buchet Chastel, Marc Parent, introduced me to Anna Soler-Pont in Barcelona and she agreed to take on my book.  Shortly thereafter, she sold it to Bloomsbury and to about 19 other publishing houses around the world for translation rights.”

For a beginner, it is very important to understand the basics of ‘How to approach an agent'. “You should know whether a particular agent is right for your kind of work. An agent specialising in young adult fiction or romance will never take on a writer of ‘high-brow' literary fiction, even though it is well written. Further, you should follow the submission guidelines of the agent you are submitting to. For example, if an agent wants a query only at the first instance, sending sample chapters to him or her will certainly not help,” says Zafar Anjum, an author and journalist based in Singapore. He further adds, “An author should submit to an agent only a fully polished work. If there is an iota of doubt in the mind about the readiness of manuscript, I would like to advise him to avail the services of a good manuscript assessment agency. They will not only point out the loopholes in the plot but also take care of structure, grammar and give the manuscript a professional look.”

“Ninety-nine per cent of manuscripts are rejected simply because authors approach wrong agents,” says Noah Lukeman, a New York-based agent who represents many big names, including Pulitzer Prize winners.

Good first impression

Writing a well-crafted query letter is the first step to success while submitting to an agent. According to Noah Lukeman, it should be brief and to the point, three paragraphs to be precise. “Don't send a long cover letter, long letters are annoying anyway, unless you are sending it to someone special,” warns Ahmede Hussain, a Dhaka-based author and editor. Siddharth Banerjee, a London based freelance writer and aspiring novelist, adgds, “Most of the submissions are accepted or rejected on the basis of query letters or covering letters. So, they are certainly very important.” Further, your credentials as a writer also help to land an agent. An aspiring author with dozen articles and short stories in prominent newspapers and magazines will always have an edge over the ‘to be' writers who have published nothing so far.

Knowing somebody in the industry is another factor that dramatically increases your chances of finding an agent because in the publishing world, in Susan Abulhawa's words, having a connection works. Take Ahmede Hussein for example. Ahmede's friend introduced him to Pinki Virani, author and journalist, who was kind enough to tell Jayapriya Vasudevan of Jacaranda, a literary agency, that he would be a good catch. So, unlike many first-time authors, his was a smooth sailing.

During last two decades, the success stories of Indian authors like Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Aravind Adiga, etc. have inspired many an Indian author to try publishing in the markets abroad. All well known agents are swamped with submissions from India. “Many Indian authors believe that there is a huge demand for books written by an Indian or a novel based in India; which is a wrong notion,” says Siddhartha . “Recently, I attended a writing conference in London and got a chance to interact with a few big literary agents. And they opined that there was limited market for Indian novels in U.K. The market in the U.S. is even tougher.”

Good fiction sells

Noah Lukeman has different views on this issue, “There is always a market for great fiction (and great books, in general), regardless of whether they are set in or outside of the United States (as has been proved by many recent bestsellers set in other countries). There is no reason why your novel's being set in another country (for example, India) should be a deterrent to its sale, or should make it harder for you to land a literary agent. As an agent, I myself was never biased against a particular work because of it being set in another country. Of much greater importance to me was the strength of the writing, the depth of the characters, the richness of the plot, the authenticity of the dialogue. If all of these (and other) elements were there, then the country was of no consequence. What is important, however, is that, artistically, the country (or the setting, in general) be authentically inherent to the other elements, and not forced onto the work simply for the sake of it.”

All great writing has been born of great conviction and relentless hard work. Aspiring writers should focus on creating the best possible work, and then try his/her luck. The key is to keep trying without losing heart. There is no alternative to self belief backed by perseverance and commitment. As Anees Salim says, if someone writes well, he will certainly find an agent and a publisher one day. Susan Abulhawa in her message to all new authors says, ‘Write, write, write, even when rejection letters mount.  The one thing to always have — and this is truly essential — is a core belief that your work will be published.  The universe has a special way of turning an unshakable belief into a reality.'

Keywords: author, literary agent, publishing

AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN ABULHAWA IN THE DAILY STAR

In this interview with ABDULLAH KHAN, Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa talks about her novel and Palestine.

Is there any similarity between Amal Abulheja, the protagonist of Mornings in Jenin and Susan Abulhawa the author?

Mostly, Amal is very separate from me. There are some parallels between her life and mine, but as people, we are very different. There is one chapter in the book that is entirely autobiographical. I placed Amal in my life in the chapter called “The Orphanage”, which chronicles my life in a Jerusalem orphanage for girls, where I lived for almost three years of my life in the early 1980s.

Novelist Robin Yassin-Kassab in his review of your book in The Sunday Times, London says, 'The Zionist story has Palestine before the state of Israel as “a land without a people awaiting a people without a land”. Writers from Mark Twain to Leon Uris, as well as Hollywood studios and certain church pulpits, retell the tale. But Palestinians, in the West at least, lack a popular counter-narrative. Palestinians are reported on, met only on the news.' And my question is why it is so?

The people behind the creation of Israel had their origins in the west. As part of those societies, they understood western culture and languages. They could communicate in the nuances of those cultures. So, it was natural then that the predominant story heard in the west was one propagated by Zionists because by in large, Palestinians were an eastern society that spoke primarily in Arabic speakers. So their voice remained limited to Arabic-speaking world. In addition to these practical limitations, the West was consumed with its own guilt over the Nazi holocaust that few would have been capable of seeing Zionists as anything but victims. For these reasons, Palestinians were not able to counter the Israeli propaganda, and the first narrative to dominate in the west was the Zionist lie that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”.

Now, however, with first and second generation Palestinians in the Diaspora having been born and raised in various western societies, we see a whole new crop of Palestinian authors, artists, musicians, dancers, academics, and more, who effectively communicate our narrative, the story of the indigenous society of Palestine.

How well has Morning in Jenin been received across the world? What kind of feedback you got from your readers?

The book has been well-received in most European countries where it is published. It was the number one bestseller in Norway and is in the top 10 books in India and Iceland so far. On the other hand, little attention has been paid to it in the US. However, letters I've received from readers are very heartening and uplifting. Most express a sense of having their eyes opened to a world they knew little about or a people whom they saw only as terrorists. Many talk about the impact of the prose and individual characters.

As I expected, some readers accused me of being anti-Semitic and the book of being biased. The first instance, I will not dignify with a response and leave it to readers to judge for themselves. I'm not sure exactly how a novel can be “biased” but the bigger absurdity is that Palestinian perspectives and narratives of their own lives should encompass the world as seen through Israeli eyes! No one writing from a Jewish point of view, for example, would have ever been criticised for writing a “one-sided story” about life under German occupation. Or a black South African writing a “one sided” novel about life under the Apartheid government.

On a literary level, some readers have complained that the way the story jumps from one point of view to another is confusing. This is a fair criticism and a matter of individual preference. Additionally, some readers, particularly Westerners, do not like my “florid” writing style, which is more in the Eastern writing tradition. Again, this is a matter of personal preference of each reader and therefore a valid criticism.

As a writer what do you want to achieve through your writings?

What every writer wants to tell a story. In some ways, I hope to give voice to those who have been muted.

Susan Abulhawa

How do you see the unprovoked Israeli attack on the flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the Israeli siege on Gaza? Why was there a lukewarm response from Americans when the entire world was condemning the attack?

The attack by highly trained Israeli navy commandos on an unarmed civilian flotilla in international waters was an act of piracy. Pure and simple. The killing of nine unarmed civilianas were nine counts of murder. Again, pure and simple. If this attack had been perpetrated by anyone but Israel, we'd be watching a tribunal at the Hague instead of blaming the victims for their own deaths.

What according to you is solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict?

The solution is written in the various tenets of international law and essential human decency. Palestine was always a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country where people of many backgrounds existed in relative harmony. This is the ideal that other nations strive toward. Other nations fought wars and struggled through civil movements in order to attain a situation where all citizens are treated equally under the law. This is what we want and expect. To be accorded the same basic human rights that are the applied to the rest of humanity. We are the natives of that land and we expect to live in dignity in the land of our forefathers. This is the solution - That we live as citizens, equal under the law, whether we are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or any other religion. Measuring the worth of a human being by their religion should not be accepted in the 21st century.

What is your next project as a writer?

Unfortunately, I still have to work a full time day job and that has made it difficult to find time to do much more. But I have, indeed started another book. It's just that it will likely to take me a bit more time to finish it.

Susan Abulhawa's debut novel Mornings in Jenin is story of a Palestinian girl called Amal in the backdrop of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It has been published by Bloomsbury in the UK and USA. The book has also been translated in to more than 20 languages. Susan is founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an organisation dedicated to upholding of right to play for Palestinian children who are living under Israeli military occupation. Born to the Palestinian refugees of 1967 war, she moved to USA as a teenager and still lives there.

Originally published in The Daily Star, Dhaka:  

http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2010/08/03/interview.htm

My Review of Seasons of Flight in The Hindu

Love and longing in Los Angeles

Seasons of Flight is an account of a journey undertaken by Prema from a scenic Nepali village to a culturally and socially multi-hued metropolis in the U.S. The journey in this case is not only the geographical distance, but also the mental and the cultural one.

When Prema's name is drawn in a diversity lottery for green cards, she decides to leave her village, a caring lover, an absent sister who has joined a Maoist group, an old father and memories of her long dead mother for a place where she will be a complete stranger.

She arrives in the U.S. and finds that things are not as she imagined them to be. And so begins her struggle to survive and find her place in this totally different and new milieu.

Confused, she is never being sure about what she is doing. But one thing she is sure about is that she is not going back. As she drifts from one place to another, physically and psychologically, she meets people with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and tries to understand the “American way of life”.

Unlike most protagonists of novels by non-resident South Asian authors, she does not mourn the loss of her homeland nor does she regret her decision. On the contrary, she gets rid of the cultural baggage of her home country and adopts the new social mores of her adopted country.

She doesn't think twice while having affairs, including one-night stands, with various American men.When Luis, an affable half-Latino, comes into her life, she is strongly attracted to him. She decides to move in with him. Strangely, her Nepali friends don't see anything wrong with her move. Back home, the same people would have branded her ‘a whore' for the same act.

This makes it clear that parameters of morality are not static in nature and changes as we move across cultures and societies.

Though the story mostly follows the protagonist in Los Angeles, we constantly hear echoes of the war in Nepal. The conflict between the Maoists and the Nepali military has been interpolated so discreetly that it doesn't disturb the narrative of Prema's journey. This is what gives this novel, which is largely apolitical, a slightly political angle but the author stays on the fence, refusing to take sides.

Prema's sexual awakening is dealt with in a forthright, but delicate, manner. The sex scenes are direct and devoid of pretension, without shades of vulgarity or obscenity. This is something few writers can accomplish. This is a delightful read about self-discovery, sexual awakening and search for an identity in a foreign land. Lucidly written, the book also gives new insight into an immigrant life in America. After finishing this book, I felt guilty about missing Manjushree's debut novel The Tutor of History. Now, I will certainly reach out for that.

Seasons of Flight; Manjushree Thapa, Penguin/Viking, Rs. 399.

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/article541889.ece

MY REVIEW OF MORNINGS IN JENIN IN THE HINDU

The creation of Israel, for Jews, was the fulfilment of 3000 years of yearnings for a Jewish homeland. For Palestinians, it was El Nakba, the catastrophe, which rendered them homeless and forced them, to live in perpetual misery. The Jewish version of the Israel-Palestine story has found a place in English fiction umpteen times; the most popular being Exodusby Leon Uris, a book that generated a huge wave of sympathy in the U.S. for Israel. But there was no novel of mass appeal originally written in English, from the Palestinian perspective until Susan Abulhawa decided to write one.

Mornings in Jenin opens in 1941 and centres on a Palestinian family, the Abulhejas, a happy farming family in a picturesque and serene village named Ein Hod near Haifa. But their happiness comes to an abrupt end with the birth of Israel seven years later, as they are forcibly evicted from the land of their forefathers and made to live in a refugee camp in Jenin.

In Jenin, Amal Abulheja, the chief protagonist, is born. With her, we embark on a journey through the tumultuous history of post-1948 Palestine. In between, we also witness the personal losses Amal suffers: her father goes away never to return, her mother becomes insane, her husband is killed in a bombing, her sister-in-law and niece are slaughtered during a massacre and much more. When the journey ends after 325 pages, we are left wondering: How can someone be so brutal to his fellow human beings? How can the victims of a Holocaust metamorphose into the instigators of a catastrophe? How do some people not lose their humanity even in times of extreme adversity?

Of course, the book is a work of fiction but the events, from the forceful dispossession of Palestinians in 1948 to the killings at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982, are facts and many real people inhabit this story of heartbreak, exile, and human tragedy.

What struck me most is the honesty of the author's voice. Despite being born to Palestinian refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, she has tried hard not to let her personal feelings fill the text. All individual Jewish characters are portrayed in sympathetic light. Nowhere in the story has she lost the touch of humanity.

Another bright aspect of Susan's writing is her ornamental use of language in the tradition of contemporary Arabic writing. For instance, here is a taste of the opening paragraph from the chapter, ‘‘The Harvest'': In a distant time, before history marched over the hills and shattered present and future, before wind grabbed the land at one corner and shook it of its name and character, before Amal was born, a small village east of Haifa lived quietly on figs and olives, open frontiers and sunshine.

In the nutshell, a remarkable novel, which will help us understand the Israel-Palestine conflict better.

(Originally published in Hindu Literary Review dated 02.05.2010) http://www.hindu.com/lr/2010/05/02/stories/2010050250220500.htm

MY REVIEW OF KILLING THE WATER APPEARS IN THE HINDU

BOOK REVIEW

Name of the book: Killing the Water

Author: Mahmud Rahman

Publisher: Penguin Books India

Price: Rs. 250

ISBN: 978-0-143-06503-6

War, Migration and Displacement

From being a witness to a bloody war that led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 to being a third world migrant in the United States, Mahmud Rahman has had first-hand experience of what is called “the effects of war, migration and displacement.” This is why he is successful in weaving credibly all those experiences together in the beautiful and illuminating set of stories for his debut collection.

Insightful Tales

‘Killing The Water’ starts off on an auspicious note. The opening story ‘City Shoes in the Village’, is set in the undivided India of the 1930s, and tells the story of a boy, Altaf, who returns to his impoverished village somewhere in the eastern part of Bengal to see his family after having lived in Calcutta for many years. Altaf is remorseful for shying away from his duties as an eldest son, and the author is able to portray with lucidity the guilt-stricken conscience and dilemma of the protagonist.

The best story in the book is the one titled ‘Kerosene’. Set against the backdrop of the 1971 war and told from a Bangladeshi nationalist’s point of view, it exposes the chilling horrors of war, and shows how even a society as non-violent and mild-mannered as Bangladesh (the erstwhile East Pakistan) can lose its sanity at a time of great socio-political upheaval. In the very first paragraph of this story, women and small children, all post-partition refugees from India, are burnt alive by a Bengali mob. This scene is a powerful reminder of the fact that says that the equations between two social groups can change drastically with change of time and circumstances.

Amid the post-partition euphoria of 1947, the Bengalis of East Pakistan had welcomed Urdu-speaking Muslim migrants from Bihar and UP as their co-religious brethren in the promised homeland for Muslims. But in the late sixties Bengali nationalism reared its head demanding a separate country for Bengalis, owing to wrong-headed political policies of West Pakistan. In those difficult times, non-Bengali Muslims were at the receiving end of the Bangla anger, as they were perceived to be culturally closer to West Pakistan than to Bengali Muslims, and hence were seen as a natural ally to the Western Pakistani establishment. In this changed scenario the binding factor was not the religion of Islam but Bengali language and culture.

Elsewhere in the book there are more stories that deserve to be mentioned here. ‘Orangeline’ is a subtle depiction of the scourge of racism in the United States. In ‘Blue Mondays at the Gearshift Lounge’, a former soldier from Bangladesh tries to build a life in America while grappling with some disturbing memories from his past. In yet another story, titled ‘Yuralda,’ a beautiful love story unfolds in a Dominican Laundromat in Rhode Island as a Sri Lankan man woos a Dominican girl, the eponymous protagonist. In all these stories Rahman succeeds in fleshing out the characters from disparate backgrounds.

Missing Sense of History

The collection suffers on two counts. First, the author is not able to evoke a sense of history in some of the stories. The reader fails to see what is different about the different time periods in which the stories are set. For example, the opening story, though well told, is unable to take back the reader to the India of the 1930s. In addition, a couple of stories like ‘Smoke Signals’ and ‘Man in the Middle’ do not come out well, and are nothing to be written home about.

Despite these shortcomings, there is freshness in Rahman’s voice; and his stories leave an impact.

This is a collection well worth a reader’s time.

To read the edited version of this piece in THE HINDU click here...

MY REVIEW OF AMITAVA KUMAR'S LATEST BOOK APPEARS IN THE DAILY STAR

Not Everyone is Innocent by Abdullah Khan

Terrorism, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, is the use of violence for political aims or to force a government to act, especially because of the fear it causes among people. What if a democratic government itself indulges in an act of violence against its own citizenry or people elsewhere as the means to some sort of imagined noble end? Is it still called Terrorism, or will we invent some fancy term like war against terror to cloak the immorality of the act?

Another question: how justified is a state to incite or instigate a citizen to commit a crime, when it suspects that person is likely to commit some crime in the future, and then punish him or her for a crime he or she never committed? Is it not in the penal code of every country that an abettor of crime should be treated on a par with the actual perpetuator of that crime? Then what is the status of the state?

TO READ MORE CLICK Here

The Words On the Margins

हाशिये पर लिखे शब्द

साफ़ सुथरे सच बोलने वाले शब्द

अब हाशिये पर लिखे जाते हैं I

और पंक्तियों के बीच स्थान पाते हैं

वो शब्द

जो कलुषित हैं

विकृत हैं, सड़े हुए विचारों से लैश,

हिंसा की जयजयकार करते हुए I

प्रतिशोध से भरे-पूरे

इतिहास के जंगलों में बहाने ढूंढते हुए,

एक नयी प्रतिशोध कथा लिखने के लिए,

मानव रक्त की स्याही तलाशते I

मर्यादा पुरुषोत्तम के शब्द नहीं पाते हैं,

बीच का स्थान, पन्नो पर,

बल्कि हाशिये पर लिखे जाते हैं ,

और उनका अर्थ आज के परिप्रेक्ष्य में

लगाया जाता है I

रावणी व्याकरण का प्रयोग करके I

Create your badge

The Orwellian City : A piece on George Orwell appears in The Daily Star

Years ago while helping my younger brother with his English assignment, I stumbled upon a story by Eric Arthur Blair, popularly known as George Orwell. After learning that the interesting fable was part of a larger piece of work, I read Animal Farm, and became a lifetime devotee of Orwell. I loved his allegorical depiction of Russia under Stalin, a perfect example of a great revolution going wrong. Surprisingly, he was born in Motihari, my home district town, approximately 170 Kms north of Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar.

Motihari is a typical small north Indian town, relatively poor and devoid of basic infrastructure if compared to similar towns of more developed states like Punjab or Haryana but vibrant nonetheless. For a westerner or a visitor from metros like Delhi or Mumbai, it is a chaotic, mud-infested town, but for local people, including me, it is a city full of life and raw energy. In the evening just stroll along the Gandhi Chowk or travel towards Meena Bazar and you will find the road bursting to the seams with people. Shops are thronged. People would queue up outside the famous Jamuna Hotel to partake Tash-Chewra, the deep fried mutton and flattened rice. The town is also significant from historical and cultural points of view. Besides being Orwell's birthplace, it is also associated with Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji's first experiment of Satyagrah, a philosophy and practice of non-violent resistance, in India was at Motihari, and is known as Champaran Satyagrah. Interestingly, Orwell was also an admirer of Gandhi. The world's tallest Stupa of Buddhism is in Kesaria, 40 Kms from Motihari..............

To Read More...Please Click Here....

Amitava Kumar's new Book

His 'Husband of a Fanatic' remains to be one of my favourite books. This is the cover of his new book, out in India in a few weeks. The US edition, which is a bit different in format and also longer, will be published by Duke University Press in some months. That book will be titled The Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb.