Q&A by Vikas Swarup - book review

I just finished reading Vikas Swarup's Q&A. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read and a complete page-turner.

The winner of the largest prize in a quiz game show is arrested on the grounds of cheating. Nobody believes that Ram Mohammad Thomas - a waiter in a Mumbai restaurant has answered all twelve questions correctly to win one billion rupees. This is how Q&A begins. The book is divided into chapters based on each question which Ram Mohammad Thomas was asked in the game show. I found this somewhat odd in the beginning but it is the only way the novel could have been organized.

Each question in the game show relates to a slice of Ram Mohammad Thomas's past and all these slices are quite enjoyable to read in a first-person narration form. Most of the stories have a suspense towards the end and though, one could guess the suspense as one moves on, they are a pleasure to read nonetheless.

Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and this is his first novel. As I've found in novels about India like Shantaram and City of Joy , Q&A tries to excoticize the Indian poor but thankfully it does not dwell onto that for long periods and given the fast pace of the book, things generally happen quickly. I quite like the author's dry humor and his matter-of-fact style of writing bereft of long boring monologues.

The book has generous references to bollywood and many a times the stories read like a good bollywood movie - full of drama, dashes of thrill and tragedy but entertaining to the core. The small bio on author at the end of the book says that they are going to make a movie based on Q&A. It would be interesting to watch out for this one.

Dus Kahaniyaan, which came out recently is an anthology of ten completely unrelated stories, each story having a different star cast. Then there are movies like Salaam-e-Ishq and Teen Deewarein in which the stories though seemingly unconnected end up being joined by a common thread in the end. Q&A would be somewhere in between the two - the common thread joining the different tales is revealed in the beginning itself but the stories themselves are all independent.

Huzefa

Us and Our Films

Recently, there were protests (and subsequent bans) in some North-Indian states against song lyrics from the movie Aaja Nachle. The controversial phrase goes like- "...bole mochi bhi khud to sunaar hai...". The protests by the dalits were justified and Anil Sharma, the director of the movie did the right thing by apologizing. The bans were revoked in most states after this.

This post is not about debating the the ban itself in more detail. I want to write about the huge part that our movies play in defining our culture, entertainment and to an extent our politics and identity too. I recently read Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi and in the last chapter he talks about the forms of entertainment that we Indians have enjoyed and still do. Movies feature prominently among them. The fantasy and the escapism in our films provided just the right kind of entertainment and getting away from the daily troubles and turbulence of life in India- both in rural as well as urban areas.

Guha writes that themes constantly depicted in Indian cinema- the fight between good and evil, a boy and a girl marrying outside their caste, etc came to resonate with the aspirations and hopes of Indians. The heros in these movies- the depiction of good, became very popular among the masses. Rajnikanth, Amitabh Bacchhan, Rajkumar, NTR and MGR have all enjoyed huge fan followings. People have come to venerate their film stars.

Given the emotional attachment of Indians with our cinema, it would then sound very natural that when a film shows or even hints at discrimination between castes, the members of the offended party would not take it lightly. Indians of all castes and religion love their films inspite of all their shortcomings, and they cannot bear the fact that even the films discriminate among them based on their caste and religion. This is why I think the improper reference in Aaja Nachle provoked such a wide and quick response.

In a lighter vein, music is what make our films special. The rich lyrics, so many different musical styles, highly gifted musicians and singers have all contributed in making our film music unique and great in its own right. I cannot imagine my life without film music. More specifically, I cannot imagine what would I sing in the shower.

Cheers,
Huzefa

Quoted

Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
- John le Carre
from Gargi Shah.

In the end, all our stories, they are the same. No matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story : of youth and loss and the yearning for redemption.
-Rohinton Mistry.
from Satyabrat.

How Industrialism in England Affected India

I am reading Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India these days. I knew before starting the book that Jawaharlal Nehru was an excellent English writer, what I did not know was that he wrote the entire Discovery of India in five months when he was in Ahmadnagar prison during 1944!

The book is a detailed account of the India, its people, its culture, its philosophy and its values from the time of Indus valley civilization. He has written very passionately about how ancient India and Indians have been one of the leading civilizations in the world. A large portion of the book is devoted in examining how the British occupation of India weakened and drained India socially, economically and even culturally upto an extent.

In chapter seven of the book, Pandit Nehru explains how the rise of Industrialism in England sapped out the Indian economy. The very purpose for which the East Indian company was established was to buy goods and textiles made in India and sell them in England. Indian goods were much in demand in England and Europe during the early period of East India Company.

With the rise of Industrialization and with the availability of cheaper production techniques in England, the pressure at home on the British government grew to promote the cheaper goods made in England. Heavy import duties were levied on the goods coming from India. However, the goods made in England had free entry in India. This double whammy crushed the Indian manufacturers affecting a large number of small scale artisans.

The British made no effort to introduce the modern methods of production in India. In the process, an increasingly large number of artisans, weavers and craftsmen who had been employed in the manufacturing industry started returning to agriculture. However, the land was not sufficient to support all of them. As a result, poverty grew and standard of living fell to very low levels. Agriculture became the sole occupation of a very large proportion of the people in the absence of other profitable vocations.

Pandit Nehru then goes on to say that due to the British policy, the development process in India was reversed as the country became increasingly more ruralized and poor. He gives us a statistic too. In the middle of nineteenth century, about 55 % of the population was dependent on agriculture; this number jumped up to 74 % a century later.

-Huzefa

Hindi Literaure Links

I've been reading some Hindi short stories and novels recently. It is difficult/expensive to get hard copies of Hindi books but thankfully I've found quite a collection online. I am giving the links with a brief introduction.

1. http://mobilelibrary.cdacnoida.com/bookHindi.html
This is a CDAC project and has a good collection of short stories. I've read a few by Munshi Premchand and I was awed.

2. http://ragdarbaari.blogspot.com/
This is a work in progress. At the time of writing it has 13 out of 35 chapters of Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari. The book is a milestone of Hindi literature and anyone who understands Hindi will laugh nonstop on the abundant wit and humor on every page. But the book is a Satire. I've read a couple chapters which I enjoyed a lot.

3. http://www.abhivyakti-hindi.org/vyangya/index.htm
This page has links to more recent works by people like Harishankar Parsai and Kaka Hathrasi among others. I haven't had a chance to look at this one more thoroughly as I found this link just before writing this blog entry.

Happy reading,
Huzefa

Generation Gap- Revisited

This is in part, a continuation of my previous post. In family matters Coomy treats her step-father- Nariman Vakeel very shabbily. One of the reasons is that Nariman became her step-father at the late age of 11, so she didn't have the child-father feelings for her. But the major reason was that though Nariman had married Yasmin, he could not forget Lucy which was the woman he loved. Lucy was always there in his mind and he had not accepted his married life whole-heartedly. He went to such lengths to meet Lucy which would be considered nothing short of scandalous. Chaeteu felicity was constantly strained- so were Nariman's relations with the family.

What child could be expected to love her father if she cannot respect him. It is possible for adults to love someone in spite of shortcomings; but for children it is a different case. Children see in their father a man who is perfect, who is all powerful, who can do nothing wrong and who is the answer to all their questions. But when parents fight and children watch them abusing and hitting each other, it is the children who suffer. The image of perfect parent is shattered. Forever.

Coomy draws her hatred from this. Nariman, on his part does not make any conscious effort to build the bridges with his children which he is intentionally or otherwise burning. Coomy holds Nariman responsible for her mother's death. Anyone in Coomy's position would do that. With this past, can Coomy be expected to nurse her bed-ridden step-father? One would say that time heals, so Coomy would also forget the past and become friends with Nariman. But she does nothing of the sort. She is too human for that. And fate treats her appropriately in the end but that is a different story.

Please read this summary before proceeding:

"Story of Pao" is the most critically acclaimed film produced in Vietnam
during 2006. It centers on a young girl, Pao, a member of an ethnic
minority group living in the Vietnamese highlands. By recalling Pao's
memories of her parents and their emotional life, the film deftly explores
the concept of love from different points of view." Courtesy: Christina Skourou

In stark contrast to Coomy is Pao. The woman whom Pao's father married could not conceive. Her infertility was almost a curse in the highlands. So Pao's father brought home another woman- Mrs Kim who bore Pao and her younger brother. Mrs Kim would not live with Pao, instead she left them all after living with them for a short while. Pao grows up resenting the presence of Mrs Kim in the house. She is oblivious to the fact that Mrs Kim lover her father too much to live with them.

Pao falls in love with a guy from the local market. Let us call this guy A. Shortly after Pao finds that Pao's mother (not Mrs Kim) loves A's father. This discovery shatters Pao and she becomes more and more withdrawn. The mother, with her conscience heavy, disappears under mysterious circumstances. Pao's father and the rest assume she has died. The death affects Pao's father badly and he takes to drinking heavily. Pao's world is disappearing in front of her eyes. What does she do?

She decides to find and bring Mrs Kim, her biological mother back- for her father. Not for her and not for her brother but her sick and weak father. She is gone from her home for weeks and faces many difficulties but she is finally able to track Mrs Kim; only to find out that she is living with another man. Defeated and hopeless, she prepares to return to her village- empty handed. While returning, she finds that her mother who is living with A's father. She had not died. But escaped with her love!

When Pao reaches home, she finds Mrs Kim nursing her ailing father.

This is the power of love. It was love which made Pao's mother run away with A's father and it was love which made Mrs Kim return to Pao's father. Pao never tells her father the truth about her mother . This is the difference between Coomy and Pao. Pao could forgive, Coomy could not.

On a different note, If Nariman had defied his parents and married Lucy.. if....

Huzefa

Family Matters

I just finished reading Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters. At first when I picked up the book, I had tried figuring out the phrase 'family matters' as in the matters of the family or the importance of family. I think its the latter, that the author wanted to say.In his own style of writing which contains a lot of dialogue and use of a simple language mixed heartily with Parsi and Gujarati and Hindi words, Rohinton Mistry has written a beautiful novel.

I think of the Parsis and the image which comes to my mind is an old man- a little eccentric bt very amiable and one who always loves children, of a cranky woman swearing gadhera, gaanda. Guess what! both these characters and some more are present in Family Matters. The novel explores the importance of family in the lives of an old man who is suffering from Parkinson's, his step-children, his daughter and her family. The characters are all very realistic and their life in Bombay- all too easy to connect with.

Money isn't the solution to all of man's problems. It is not the final destination but the journey wherein lie the little joys of life. Yezaad is barely able to make the ends meet with his meagre salary and when his father-in-law suffering from Parkinson's is forced into his house, it becomes a strain for everybody in the house. Toast without butter, meals without meat, a bath on alternate days- such things. But this hardship brings the family closer than ever. All members pitch in-even Yezad's 9 and 13 year old sons.

Jehangir in the epilogue says he misses his old father- one who used to laugh, get angry, shout at him used to tell jokes. Now, he is not the same man. This is when they are living much more comfortably than before- in the seven-room chateau felicity home. A man never learns from his mistakes. I couldn't help feeling this way towards the end. Children become adults and their parents feel something slipping out of their hands.

I say it is wrong in the first place to hold on to them.

Huzefa