Review of Siddharth Gigoo's Book

The human angle

Abdullah Khan March 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Siddhartha Gigoo’s latest book highlights the mundane struggles of common men and women trapped in a vortex of political upheavals

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A few years ago, in one of his interviews, Siddhartha Gigoo said, “my interest is only human stories. Stories about people, their dreams, their loves, their perfections and imperfections.” And true to his words his writings as well as films always emphasise on the human angle of a story.

His debut novel The Garden of Solitude is a story of a Kashmiri Pandit in exile who flees his homeland to escape a bloody political conflict. At the same time, it is a human story of lost dreams and the author doesn’t, even for a moment, allow his prose to lose contact with the human angle of the story.

His latest book A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories continues in the same spirit of humanity as he tells the stories of men and women who have either been displaced from their homeland or are prisoners of a vicious circle of violent political movements. Poignancy, the author’s belief in the dictum that every single human being is basically good at heart, and a refusal to categorise or give political colour to a human tragedy are hallmarks of Siddhartha Gigoo’s writings.

The Search, the opening story, is about a researcher who comes across many strange incidents during his research and discovers disturbing secrets about a dying clan. The story is somewhat allegorical in content and is dedicated to the people across the world who have been forcibly evicted from the land of their birth due to socio-political reasons.

Another story Poison, Nectar depicts the difficulties of a routine life of a Kashmiri Pandit family in a refugee camp. An old man, exiled from his native place, dies without proper treatment in a tiny tattered tent which is not enough for two persons but has been housing a family of four grown-ups. A heart wrenching story Sleep Robbers is set in Kashmir (author doesn’t name the place but you can guess) where a boy mourns the death of his friend named Firdaus. He observes that this untimely death has shattered his friend’s parents, but in order to save their own lives from the state agencies his friend’s father disowns his own dead son branding him a disgrace to their family.

There are more such stories where the author’s main concerns are to tell the stories of mundane struggles of common men and women who are trapped in a vortex of political upheavals. Most of the stories bring into play the sense of desolation, loneliness, suffering and pain. But there is one story that is poignant and makes you smile with an unexpected climax. An old man’s sons’ insistence that their father should go on a pilgrimage makes the old embark on a journey to visit religious places. But before leaving his home what the old man does leaves his sons and daughters-in-law flabbergasted.

It is the funniest story of the lot giving respite to readers amid the sea of gloom and despair. The story raises many questions regarding the changing chemistry of our social structure in the South Asian countries. The idea of privacy has infected people so much that they consider their own family, like parents, as an intrusive presence in their lives. Titled The Pilgrimage, this particular story reminds this reviewer of famous Hindi writer Amrit Lal Nagar’s collection of short stories called Ek Dil Hazar Afsane which has many stories with deliciously surprising and fulfilling endings.

Siddhartha’s stories are basically about Kashmir and its people though he avoids mentioning it explicitly. It delineates the alchemy of political violence and its impact on human societies and human condition. Violence and counter-violence spare nobody. Everybody, including the active participants in the bloody game of the conflicts and those on the peripheries, has to pay some price at some point of time. For the author any loss is loss to the humanity. In his stories sufferings and deaths are not divided into ‘theirs’ or ‘ours’. And that is why he has not named characters or places in many of his stories and almost prevents readers to read his stories by using glasses fitted with political prisms and personal prejudices.

The way he deploys his language is sumptuous and fragrant with metaphors and similes. The narrative flows effortlessly and smoothly. There are two minor complaints about this collection. One, some of the stories end abruptly and, two, some are too abstract to be understood in one or two readings.

A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories
Author: Siddhartha Gigoo
Pages: 244
Publisher: Rupa 
Publications India
Price: INR195

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Book Reviews in Wasafiri

Daniel Brook A History of Future Cities /

 Amit Chaudhuri Calcutta: Two Years in the City

Amalgamating the elements of social and political history with aspects of reportage and commentary, in his latest book the well-known American journalist Daniel Brook paints interesting, refreshing and sophisticated portraits of four mega-cities – St Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai – which he claims are the future cities of the world.

These cities lie in different geographical zones. Their demography, culture, social composition and weather vary. But, according to Brook, there is one element these four cities have in common and that is ‘dis-orientation’. The word ‘orient’ manifests both its meanings here. They are cities socio-culturally inclined, or oriented, towards the West. But in so being they are also ‘Dis-oriented’, which, in other words, can simply be interpreted as something which is not oriented towards the East. And this is the basic thread that runs through the book.

Brook links Mumbai and Shanghai because they were built by Westerners for people who wanted to have their own versions of London or New York in India and China. Famous British architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, like T Roger Smith, F W Stevens and Sir Gilbert Scott, created some of the landmark buildings. Britain's leading practitioner and proponent of the Gothic Revival style, Sir Gilbert Scott, for example, designed the historic University of Bombay and was also one of the designers of the majestic Holy Trinity Cathedral in Shanghai. Importing the architectural sensibilities of European and American cities – like Vatican City, London, Manhattan and Oxford – what the colonial powers created was meant to make them feel closer to home. In doing so, they often ignored local cultural traditions.

Built on reclaimed land, Bombay (now Mumbai) was divided into two parts: the prosperous district, which boasted the best amenities and which looked like a European city; and the other, mostly inhabited by the native population who were crammed into ghettos which were infested with disease. In Shanghai, similarly, the Chinese lived in the segregated impoverished quarters and were treated as second-class citizens. But, by the early twentieth century both Indians and Chinese began building ‘their own versions of the institutions Westerners had imported but held beyond their grasp’. Today, these cities are cosmopolitan financial hubs of their respective countries.

Brook argues that St Petersburg and Dubai share similarities because both these cities were the culmination of their rulers’ desire to recreate a European city in their courtyards. The Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great, was so enamoured by ‘the tree lined and canal-laced’ city of Amsterdam that he built his own version in Russia and called it St Petersburg. Amsterdam at the time was a cosmopolitan trading hub and hosted people from around the world. The Tsar spent a year there, incognito under the name of Pjotr Mikhailov, and was employed in the ship building industry, mastering the art of ship making while also imbibing the city's liberal spirit. Modelled on Amsterdam, Peter the Great's St Petersburg became known for its openness and tolerance towards worshippers of different Christian denominations who were allowed to build their own churches, despite opposition from Russian Orthodox clerics. Like St Petersburg, Dubai was also a dream of its crowned head of state, Sheikh Rashid, who modelled it on London. When his vision began to take shape, the Sheikh started ‘to foster a freewheeling internationally linked economy while monopolising all political power’. He bartered the loyalty of his citizens with a lavish welfare state. While maintaining Islam as its official religion, Dubai welcomed people from all over the world and from all religions and nationalities. Today, Dubai's position as a global business hub and financial capital of the Middle East and South Asia is clearly established, and it has become one of the world's most ethnically diverse cities with ninety-six per cent of its population being foreign-born. But, in order to become a global metropole, Brook argues, the emirate of Dubai has separated itself from its roots by whitewashing its Arabic identity and culture.

Despite all the material progress and cosmopolitanism, Brook suggests that each city ‘experienced periods of loss of faith in modernity’. He reminds us that the Bolsheviks emerged in St Petersburg, the Communist Party of China came into existence in Shanghai and the Indian National Congress was born in Bombay. The October Revolution brought a brutal end to the Tsarist era in Russia and the army of the Communist Party led by Chairman Mao, claiming to represent both the poor and those living in the countryside, seized political power in China. The author terms the city Dubai as ‘an urban Frankenstein’ and warns the rulers of the possibility of similar revolutionary changes in the Emirate.

Like Mumbai and Shanghai, Calcutta, now Kolkata, was a colonial creation, an outcome of the deep yearnings of the British colonial rulers to create a home away from home. Once the capital of British India, this city has been left behind in the race to modernise. It is no more the cultural capital of India, and the typical ‘Bengali Bhadralok’ with a fine taste in music, art and literature, is fast becoming a rare species. Instead businessmen who care little about the art and poetry now populate the social circuits of Calcutta.

In his book, Amit Chaudhuri writes about this new Calcutta/Kolkata. Born in this historical city, Chaudhuri spent his formative years away in Mumbai and Oxford, but Kolkata remained an integral part of his identity. Indeed he returned to his beloved city to live in 1999 but was dismayed to observe how it had changed, and not for the better. Tastefully built colonial buildings had made way for ugly sky-kissing apartment blocks and multiplexes. Many of the city's famous bookshops had vanished and those which survived were more interested in selling stationery and greeting cards than serious literature. The city was losing its left-leaning temperaments and had discovered the ‘goodness’ of capitalism. These changes compelled him to write Calcutta: Two Years in The City.

This book is not an historical account of the city nor a sociological study of its people. Rather, it displays Chaudhuri's personal engagement which at times flows into broader narratives about marginalisation and urban decay. He walks the streets, keenly watching how the lives of the less privileged, bypassed by the city's economic progress, have fallen under the new social order. He portrays the mundane existence of street beggars, road-side food vendors, servants and rickshaw pullers with empathy and understanding. He also examines the lavish lifestyles of the city's élites with microscopic precision. He feels disturbed by what he sees but finds himself incapable of initiating any change.

As always, Chaudhuri's prose is comparable only to the sweetest of the cupcakes at Flurys, the city's best-known cake shop, his observations are insightful and intellectually stimulating, and, his arguments are sharp and to the point.