Aarushi: Why one must read it

Last few days have seen an interesting murder case managing to gain a lot of headlines. Any of the news medium that one choses to follow, be it the print media, electronic media or web world, one would come across this high profile Sheena Bora murder case. The Times of India group along with its TV partner Times Now seem to have taken up this case as their moral obligation to bring the accused to justice. And in order to do so, they have been coming up with several stories, each adding multiple twists to an already twisted story. Days after days, TOI is dedicating full pages to this story with several senior journalists giving their opinions on the case and the people concerned. A kind of a media trial is on the way and soon, it appears, the murderers would be sentenced on live TV debates on the prime time.

All of this has brought back the memories of another high profile murder case involving some not-so-high profile people that occurred a few years back in Noida. The Aarushi Talwar murder case was the first instance when I saw a media trial. The twists and the turns involved in the case and the hoopla created in the media made it impossible for anybody to just ignore that. The case generated interest from the very first days of its investigation which rose to its peak with the CBI filing the closure report and again re-opening the case with the Talwar parents being accused of the murder that too after the Talwars, themselves, had filed petition against the closure report. The trial ended in the conviction of the accused leaving behind many in doubts about the final decision of the court.

Recently, Avirook Sen, a journalist who covered the story for the Mumbai Mirror, has come up with a book on the particular case named Aarushi. The interest that the case generated at that time compounded with the lingering doubts on the court's verdict didn't leave much option but to have a go at the book. I went into reading the book with a preemptive opinion on the case wherein I, somehow, agreed to the court's verdict. A week or so later, when I came out having finished the book, I must say, I have serious doubts now on the trial judge's decision.

To analyse Avirook Sen's Aarushi, one first should remember the fact that there are two aspects to be reviewed in it. The first one is the legal aspect of the case that CBI put up in the Ghaziabad trial court along with the way the police investigated the dual murders or the concerned people tried to manage the post-mortem reports and witnesses changing their statements etc. The second aspect is to review the book on its literary content, whether the author does a justice to that and whether he managed to remain impartial through the course of the book. The media handling of the story can be the third aspect to be reviewed as far as the case is concerned but for the sake of the book, lets focus on the first two only. 

As far as the first aspect is concerned, there is nothing much new to write. Already many points have been raised that invoke serious doubts in the verdict. There is no doubt that the UP police did huge mistakes from the very first days of the investigations. Probably, they got serious after media showed such huge interest in the case but it was already too late till then. The absurd press conferences of the local police with the absurds theories to explain the murders not only managed to draw attention of the media towards the case but also caused serious damages to the characters of the Talwar couple that was there never to be restored as we saw later in the course.

The case was rightly transferred to the CBI but their handling of the case remained suspicious too. Changing the investigating officer midway in his investigations raise a few doubts especially when he is replaced by somebody who is known for his love of the hook-or-crook methods to solve any case. The first part of the investigation moves in a direction where the house-helps are the suspected perpetrators of the crime but it suddenly changes on its head when in the later part of CBI investigation the parents are the accused. 

However, CBI filed a closure report failing to gather enough evidence in order to grill anybody concretely. The parents filed petition against the filing of closure report demanding further investigations and the closure report is suddenly changed into a charge sheet in which the parents are made the accused and a trial is started. The trial in itself had several points that raise several doubts regarding the affirmity of the final verdict. Some of the instances being witnesses changing their statements, typographical errors on the evidence labels, post-mortem doctor himself changing statements a several times through the full course of the case and then a witness repeating again and again in the court on being questioned, "Jo mujhe samjhaya gaya hain, wahi bayan mai yahan de rahi hoon. (Whatever was taught/explained to me, I am testifying here)."

All in all, these all points raise enough doubt in the conviction of the accused. As the basic tenet of our criminal law goes, it is better to have a hundred guilty go unpunished than punishing one innocent person. In this very case, I think now, that there are several points that raise enough doubt on the Talwars being guilty of the crime and hence they were entitled for that benefit of doubt that our law has provisions for. Plus, the onus of proof lies on the prosecution and the defence needs not to do anything if prosecution fails to prove its case conclusively. In this particular case, it seems the onus was left on the defence to prove their innocence and in lack of such concrete evidences, the final verdict came against them. The book manages to raise all these important questions clearly and hence, manages to influence the reader with some concrete facts concerned with the case. Sen has done full justice as far as the legal aspect of the case is concerned.

As far as the second aspect, the literary content of the book, is concerned, Sevanti Ninan in her article about the book on her website rightly says, "Reporters in this country should write more books.They nail the system quite devastatingly when they piece together their notes after the story has run its course." The book raises a very important question on the journalism that we see in our country. The attrition rate of stories in our news media is so high that even the viewers/readers tend to forget the stories quickly. The most concerning point is a lack of follow-up of the cases by our journalists. This book is a beautiful example of how a story is followed-up even after the interest attached to the story has completely faded down.

As far as his being impartial as an author is concerned, I think Sen fails somewhat on this front. From the very first page, it seems that he has written the whole book in order to prove that the Talwars are innocent. Knowing the whole story completely himself must have made it real difficult for him not to have that preemptive opinion but then writing the book meant putting and analysing all the facts wholly and impartially. It seemed that he gave a lot of importance on how corrupt the practices of that CBI investigating officer (Kaul) were who changed the case upside down and made the parents the accused but the character of that CBI investigator (Kumar) who suspected the servants to be the murderer were put into the books just as passing remarks. Much importance was given (in fact more than few pages were dedicated) to Kaul's management of the witnesses in the cases he was involved in the past but not much importance was shown to the fact that even Kumar was found to have letting loose the rich influential people in his earlier assignments. Similarly, a lot of importance was given to what Nupur Talwar felt of Kaul but again Kaul's thoughts about Nupur were mentioned as passing remarks only.

"He would later tell Nupur that he had a bad feeling about Kaul. She told me, ‘I also felt it, in fact we talked about it. I said why is he giving us these dirty looks? He asked, what kind of bed sheet did Aarushi use? I said blue bed sheet with a Disney print on it . . . He gave me a look as if I was lying. I said ya, that is what she was using. I knew there was something wrong, immediately.’ That first meeting would define not just the relationship that Kaul and his team would have with the Talwars, but also the line of investigation. Kaul, like so many other people, may have got the impression that Nupur Talwar was cold and manipulative—and a little too assertive for his liking."

Sen questions the court proceedings also at some points. At one such instance, he questions, "prosecution never gave any indication as to which witness would appear at the next hearing and then be expected to cross-examine them the day they appeared." But nowhere does he mention whether it was according to the court proceedings or special exceptions were made for this case only. The epilogue of the book with Rajesh Talwar's diary seems to be an attempt at gathering sympathies for the Talwars. But then we must remember, there are always two sides of a story.

Who is the real murderer is a question that can be answered correctly either by the murderers themselves or the ones who where murdered. The prosecution and the defence, both, have their own sets of stories that explain the murders. Avirook Sen with his book appears to put forth the defence side of the story. A fabulously written story with complete facts is what this book is all about. He succeeds in putting forth all the points concerned from the defence point of view. Sadly, Mr. Kaul the CBI investigating officer is no more with us and we would never get a book from the prosecution point of view but what an interesting idea that would have been.

In the last, a passing remark on this article that I stumbled upon most recently relating to the book, its completely your loss if you don't chose to read the book just based on something immaterial that occurred in a panel discussion on the book. Do read this book. It would certainly force you to question the ways police handle different crime investigations and the level of forensic practices that we follow in our country. Seriously, a lot needs to be done on these aspects.

The Possessed...

There have been too many posts on my blog about starting some novel and then not going on to finish them. Well, this one is about starting something. A novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Possessed. The english translations have come in different names such as Devils, Demons etc. I got a hand at the oldest translation of the russian story, the one by Constance Garnett in 1916.

This is not the first time that I have put my hands on Dostoevsky. Ever since, I was told of him by my elder brother and in a way recommended by him, I never left an opportunity to get a possession of his novels whenever and wherever it was available. Crime and Punishment and The House of Dead are with me for long times but still unread. The first time I read Dostoevsky was his short story White Nights. The movie Saawariya was based on the story. I was told about this fact by my brother who also asked me to go through the story. I must admit, it was a great experience.

Since then, Dostoevsky's persona has intrigued me. I've got to read few articles on him and all of them have posed so different an identity for him that it has really been difficult for me to create a clear idea in my mind as to what he actually was. It is simply not possible to characterise a varied talent such as him by reading just one of his short stories. Maybe, in future, when I have read a few more of him, I would be able to have a better idea about him.

Lately, as I already told, I have started The Possessed. It is a long novel and hence, for a person like me who is so irregular with reading, I don't know whether I would be able to finish this one. Still in the very early parts of the book where still the character building is going on, there have been some instances where in one can have an idea of the author's opinion on issues like nationalism, rebellion etc. One such instance of his opinion on nationalism is being shared here. An excerpt...

“...It all springs from the charming, cultured, whimsical idleness of our gentry! I'm ready to repeat it for thirty thousand years. We don't know how to live by our own labour. And as for the fuss they're making now about the 'dawn' of some sort of public opinion, has it so suddenly dropped from heaven without any warning? How is it they don't understand that before we can have an opinion of our own we must have work, our own work, our own initiative in things, our own experience. Nothing is to be gained for nothing. If we work we shall have an opinion of our own. But as we never shall work, our opinions will be formed for us by those who have hitherto done the work instead of us,...
...For the last twenty years I've been sounding the alarm, and the summons to work. I've given up my life to that appeal, and, in my folly I put faith in it. Now I have lost faith in it, but I sound the alarm still, and shall sound it to the tomb. I will pull at the bell-ropes until they toll for my own requiem!...”

These lines written for Russia in the 18th century still hold true for any other country in the modern world. Everybody is running behind someone with some ideas. So what they are unrealistic and only rhetorical, everybody just celebrate the ideas. Nobody is ever going to perform their part of the duties and think that everything will come to them served in the platters. They tend to forget that the ideas will remain only ideas till someone starts to work on them. It is not the ideas that are important but the thought of the hard labour that should go behind the execution of ideas is what makes the difference. Nothing is to be gained for nothing.

A Tale of Two Cities

The recent surge rather resurge of my enthusiasm towards literature has led me to finish yet another novel. This one is a classic from Charles Dickens, written in the middle of the nineteenth century (1859 to be precise) about a period somewhere six or seven decades further earlier. A Tale of Two Cities, at the outset is a story of the French Revolution (at least as told in my ebook copy that I got from the internet). Searching on the internet for something to read (that too for free) led me to this book, the author of which I had heard something about. In our school textbooks there were some of his stories in the curriculum to be read, Christmas Carol being the one that I still remember.

Due only to the familiarity with the name of the author, I started reading the novel. I had only the slightest of the ideas about the context of the storyline that I got from the small description of the novel at the site from where I downloaded it. I searched about the book on the internet and categorically avoided the plot of the story. The ideas that I started the novel with included the fact that it was a story of comparison of lives and times in the two cities, namely London and Paris in a period just before and during the French Revolution and that it was written by Dickens as weekly instalments to promote the sale of his magazine 'All The Year Around'.

The very first lines of the novel give you the idea about the comparison of the state of the two cities at that time. The differences as contrasting as they were and the similarities between the two cities as parallel as they were were quite evident in the opening lines of the novel. A thorough search about the novel that followed my finishing it revealed to me that these opening lines written more than one and a half century back are one of the most popular lines ever written in english literature.

"...It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to the heaven, we were all going direct the other way...  

...There were a king with large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever..."

The description of the differences very well explain the tortured condition that the people of France were living in. The way Dickens has drawn similarity in between the two places here must only be his foreseen warning of the fact that if aristocracy is continued in the same manner, even England one day could fall to a similar revolution of sorts.

The whole plot of the story can be found here. The story moves slowly and steadily from being one of comparison between the two cities to one filled with humanly emotions of love, sacrifice, sufferings, life and death. The first half of the story is spent in building up the whole melodrama that the latter half is all about. The extensive build-up of the first half sometimes feel boring and one tends to loose connection with the book altogether.

There were a few times in my reading the novel when I seriously wanted to just put it way. The sheer number of novels that I have kept unfinished became my biggest motivation to finish this one off and I must be thankful that I finally managed to finish it and experience the melodrama that Dickens has put in the climax of the story. Altogether, it is really tough for an early bird like me to comment something on an age-old classic like this one. I must admit, the way the climax of the story has managed to amaze me, it was out of proportions from what I had expected while reading the earlier half of the novel. Must recommend it to those who can have the patience to tolerate the somewhat trivial first half to enjoy the more than exciting climax.

The Unfinished Ones...

“...I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan--the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past--and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. 

In the end, I ran...”

Well, there have been times, in fact too many of them, in my life when I have strived hard to be a reader. A simple reader. Hearing something about some novel or biography or anything has always managed to intrigue me with trying my hand at reading it. Some of my earlier posts on this blog have been on my time-outs with certain books some that I started and a few that I managed to finish.

To go on with a book to the level where it actually finishes has always been difficult for me. Lack of concentration towards reading can not be blamed for this in any way. Being in a profession wherein you are a student for life, you just can't have that lack of concentration. But then yes, reading and studying are totally different things altogether.

Anyways, there has been many a books that I have started in the past and left them without ever finishing them. I remember Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. I probably started reading that book somewhere in 2001 and then I had to restart it a whole lot of times before somewhere in 2009 that I finally managed to complete it. There were a few books that I started and completed too but recently, over a couple of years, again that same string of starting and then leaving a book unfinished is  continuing with me as if it was a curse.

I remember, I started them all, Dickens' Great Expectations, Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mario Puzo's The Family amongst others. The Family is still placed in front of me on my table but all of them have been left unfinished. I just don't know where did I lose them. Anyways, even after all these unfinished books all in front of me, I have been starting new ones. There is the hope that they won't end-up like these and then there is the fear of the contrary.

Siddharth Mukherjee's The Emperor of all Maladies: A biography of Cancer and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner are the recent addition to the ever increasing list of my tried books. Incidentally, this time both these books have managed to mesmerise me in some way or the other. Hopefully, both these books will not remain in that same expanding list of my tried books but will find an entry into a somewhat constant list of my finished books.

I am really close to finishing The Kite Runner. I am totally mesmerised by the way this beautiful yet grotesque story has been written. The way it leads you to feeling really bad about the protagonist and the way the story unfolds and leads you to the lively scenes of a politically unstable and socially robbed Afghanistan is simply awesome. More on the story and my thoughts about the book, I will try to put in my next post once I finish the book. Till then, another excerpt from the book giving the vivid details of the street of Kabul that must have been present there in the tougher times.

“...RUBBLE AND BEGGARS. Everywhere I looked, that was what I saw. I remembered beggars in the old days too--Baba always carried an extra handful of Afghani bills in his pocket just for them; I’d never seen him deny a peddler. Now, though, they squatted at every street corner, dressed in shredded burlap rags, mud-caked hands held out for a coin. And the beggars were mostly children now, thin and grim-faced, some no older than five or six. They sat in the laps of their burqa-clad mothers alongside gutters at busy street corners and chanted “Bakhshesh, bakhshesh!” And something else, something I hadn’t noticed right away: Hardly any of them sat with an adult male--the wars had made fathers a rare commodity in Afghanistan....”

The Picture of Dorian Gray - An Excerpt

Starting a novel and not completing it has been my forte since long. There have been one-too-many a novels that I started with full enthusiasm and then could not continue with that due to lack of time or mostly lack of enthusiasm. The start of this year has been a good one to me in this regard and I have, unexpectedly, completed more than a few novels, some in Hindi and others in English. Now only time will tell what is in its store for Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Going by the recent trend, I, myself, am not quite sure about completion of this novel by me but whatever few pages that I have been through, it seems quite promising.

I must admit this fact, that my knowledge about English literature is too less to know about different authors and their style of writing. So, it always has been a problem for me to choose a particular novel at a book shop amongst thousands. I was going through Shashi Tharoor's 'Riot, A Novel' at that time when I saw this book by Wilde. Shashi Tharoor has quoted Oscar Wilde too many a times in his novel that I was fascinated by this name. Finding his novel in the book store at that time compelled me to buy this one and once again I would like to admit that I am not at all disappointed with whatever I have been through.
Here is an excerpt from this novel where Wilde writes about the contradiction of beauty and intelligence and a strong sarcasm on church and its people:

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delighful."

To Kill a Mockingbird

Being an Indian and being a movie buff, I have already seen a lot of movies that have been adapted from many other works of art. Mostly they have been (without any reference) taken from a foreign film and hence the use of the word stolen instead of adapted won't be much wrong. However, having said that, there have been quite too many indian movies that have taken a prior work of art as their bases and with due respect and reference too. Movies like Guide (from R.K. Narayan's novel of same name), Devdas and Parineeta (both from Sharat Chandra Chatterjee's novels of same name), Bees Saal Baad (from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound Of Baskervilles) and a whole lot of other well known hindi movies are amongst them.
Having said all this about the hindi movies, there have been a whole lot of movies in the foreign language that are based on some literary works. With me not having a habit of reading much, most of these movies (as well as the hindi ones) were seen by me before having read the novel or the story. Contrary to the normal course of action that most people follow, I have always drawn parallels in a novel from the film that is based on that novel. Comparing the novel with the film already seen, observing the differences that the scriptwriter has made in his adaptation, and then quantifying and then balancing the impact left by the novel as well as the movie is what I usually did. The difference from most of the people being the fact that they do this with the novel as their baseline whereas I used to do this as the movie as the baseline. After doing too much of this 'reverse' thing, I finally got to watch a movie that was based on a novel that I already had read. 'To kill a mockingbird.'
The Harper Lee's novel is about the neighbourhood experiences of a young girl from an imaginary city of Maycomb in Alabama. The story deals with the issues like racism and rape and the reaction of the small neighbourhood to these happenings. Despite having such bold issues as the backdrop, the story, having written from the point of view of a young girl, never leaves its tone that for the most time of it is calm.
The girl's father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer, is defending a black man, Tom Robinson, from the allegations of rape of a white lady. The white people of the society are opposing Atticus' this action but he stands firm with his principles and presents to the court of law a case where clearly the alleged is not the convict. The jury, all consisting of white members, still, pronounces Tom as guilty. Surprisingly, no one is surprised. The whites laugh at Atticus for taking a case he knew he was to lose and the balcks applaud Atticus for atleast trying. They all knew the result of the case, the whites, the blacks as well as Atticus Finch except for the young girl and her older brother. They could not understand the jury's decision. They stand by the side of their father all through this and believe in him and hence are shattered when he loses the case and thats how they start to see the ugliness of the society they live in. Despite all this, Atticus, a wonderful father that he is, manages to keep the innocence of the children. He talks to them, tells them the truth about everything, passes on to them his own principles and really lives like friends to them.
The character of Atticus Finch has been one of the most influential characters that has left some impact on its reader. A model for the lawyers for his principles, he has been a model father that every child would like to have and on the other hand, every father would like to become to his children. The novel was first published in 1960 and went on to become the international bestseller and also won the Pulitzer Prize. The movie adaptation was released in 1962 directed by Robert Mulligan having Gregory Peck in the role of Atticus Finch. The movie is an able match to the beauty of the novel and there must be only a few examples where both the novel and the movie adaptation are as wonderful and acclaimed as this one.
Being one of the very first novels that I completed reading, I was much happy with it. And then having got the opportunity to watch the movie so soon after added an extra curve to my smile. And also reading the novel before watching the movie, being a new experience to me, was too wonderful to explain. Surely, this is a practice that I definitely want to acquire in me and hope that I continue reading and then also watching the movies.

Riot, A Novel

The death of an american women, Priscilla Hart, serves the pretext of Shashi Tharoor's 2001 novel, "Riot, A Novel". Of the many things that is good about this novel, the first and the foremost is the fact that its written by Tharoor. A thoughtful, sociologically precise novel that not only brings with it a great flavour of Indian social stratification, the religionism, the conservativeness of a small Indian town, but also manages to present the very Indianness that lies at the heart of a middle class Indian society. Tharoor holds a grip over this very Indianness and continues to show his great understanding that he has on India,  its people and their mindset.
In September, 1989, a 24 yr old american, Priscilla Hart, working with an NGO, is stabbed to death in a riot that erupts in the town of Zalilgarh near New Delhi. Priscilla's divorced parents, Katherine and Rudyard Hart, then visit the town to find out what happened and in the course of their stay at the town meet all the people associated directly and indirectly to her. They meet and talk to everybody and try to learn the conditions in which their daughter was living in there and also the one in which she was murdered. A mystery in itself, the reason of the murder is not told till the end and leaves the reader with so many possibilities. A story that deals with love-hate, social norms, communal riot, political issues all at the same time gives everything of these one or more reasons for Priscilla's death.
Riot comes out as a novel knit with the threads of completely different contexts. The writing of the novel is unique in its own sense. So far, I have not read many novels but I am very sure that there will be, if any, very few novels written in that style. It starts with the newspaper cuttings of The NewYork Journal about Priscilla's death and the news of her parents visiting Zalilgarh a few weeks after. And then follows a mixture of too many accounts of all the characters involved in the story without much regard to the timeline. The story goes into flashback, comes back to real time, then again goes further back and keeps on jumping time all through. A total story of around a year being presented in a screenplay style was something different to me but without doubt interesting.
The last time that I was reading Tharoor was his first novel, The Great Indian Novel. Sadly, I could not finish the major part of it, still, whatever I did, I was too much involved in it and liked it. His understanding of the Indian culture and tradition was pretty much evident in that book and so came the anticipation of a similar understanding in this book also. I must admit the fact that this book managed to fulfill my anticipation and I am pretty much content by with this one too. All in all, if not a great book, it surely is a readable book at least.

The Truth of Truth

"You know, there's an old Hindu story about Truth. It seems a brash young warrior sought the hand of a beautiful princess. Her father, the king, thought he was a bit too cocksure and callow. He decreed that the warrior could only marry the princess after he had found Truth. So the warrior set out into the world on a quest for Truth. He went to temples and monasteries, to mountaintops where sages meditated, to remote forests where ascetics scourged themselves, but nowhere could he find Truth. Despairing one day and seeking shelter from a thunderstorm, he took refuge in a musty cave, There was an old crone there, a hag with matted hair and warts on her face, the skin hanging loose from her bony limbs, her teeth yellow and rotting, her breath malodorous. But as he spoke to her, with each question she answered, he realized he had come to the end of his journey: she was Truth. They spoke all night, and when the storm cleared, the warrior told her he had fulfilled his quest. 'Now that I have found Truth,' he said, 'what shall I tell them at the palace about you?' The wizened old creature smiled. 'Tell them,' she said, 'tell them that I am young and beautiful.'"

The above excerpt from Shashi Tharoor's Riot, a novel brings to us the very truth of Truth. Not that the writing in this very paragraph is splendid yet, it presents the philosophy of truth in most basic style. Yes, truth is not beautiful and yes, truth is not true itself all the time either.

Lately, I have been reading this book and so far, has been an endearing, to say the least, experience that has kept me bound to it. Tharoor's hold on India, its history, its religions, its stories, its people, their mindset and above all the very Indianness keeps you along with itself. Looking forward to writing about in much detail once I finish it...

Great Expectations!

The title of the post derives itself from a yet to be read by me novel by Charles Dickens. A copy of the novel has been under my custody for just under a decade now and I must admit, here, the fact that for all this long time, it has been there in my priority list of the things to do. The last decade has seen me making and then abandoning too many of such lists. All this time, there have been items from the English literature that have formed a constant part of such lists. Great Expectations is one of them. The another one, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, was there in that list till last year when I finally completed it. Its not my laziness that I have not been able to complete these novels in all this time, its only my lack of interest in literature that I have already referred to in my earlier posts on this blog. Things have come and gone from the priority list, most of them bypassing these novels in the process, but one thing is for sure that these novels have always managed to maintain their position there in the list. With time, their glamour decreased and so did my enthusiasm towards them. Still, a hope of completing these novels are present.
Anyways, the post is not, in any way, about Dickens' Great Expectations. It is about my own expectations from two books that I have recently bought. The last weekend saw me visiting Kolkata where an evening was planned for window shopping at a mall. The evening went as was planned except for the fact that I found a real rich book store there. Having already mentioned my lack of interest in literature, it was probably my first time to witness such a rich book store. Maybe, this was the first time when I actually showed some interests towards a book store and hence, such a book store that might seem mediocre to many others, looked rich to me. Finding too many of books at a place felt me with a fear and an enthusiasm at the same time; the fear of books that I have already described here and the enthusiasm of getting over this fear this time round. With a determination in my mind, encouragement by my companion there and suggestions from my brother, I finally managed to lay my hands upon two books, Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead.
Anybody can deduce from the name of the authors itself that I am a complete novice to this field of reading. Two different novels on two different themes by two completely different authors from two totally different era, was all what I could find there. Nothing, at all, common between them. Even for me, it was hard to discern my actual taste. Where Tharoor is a 21st century Indian politician, statesman, columnist, author, activist, Dostoyevsky is a 19th century Russian writer, essayist sometimes a nihilistic, sometimes a rebel, sometimes a cynic. The simultaneous selection of such two completely different authors must be bewildering to many (atleast, it is, to me).
My knowledge about the two authors is also not complete. Whatever I have mentioned about them above is acquired in recent times from various sources on the internet. For Tharoor, the way he and his tweets have managed to create a hype in recent times has let me to know about him more and more. Maybe, this was how, I knew about the book and hence, finding it compelled me to buy it. I won't deny that my love to Indian political history was also a considerable factor for my selection of this book. For Dostoyevsky, the selection was mostly due to the strong inescapable suggestion by my elder brother. Amongst his penned novels, the selection of this particular book was completely based on the volume of the book. This seemed the least voluminous in the lot and hence, came the selection. Having said all this, I must make it clear that I was not completely unknown of Dostoyevsky before buying this book. My first encounter with him was reading his short story, White Nights, a story of the dreamer that it most simply can be described was fairly well liked by me. Reading him once again never seemed a bad idea for me.
Now comes the expectation part. The first and the foremost expectation common to both the book is that I would be able to finish them. For Tharoor's novel, I have already started it and what I could make out of it is that it must be a satirical presentation of an epic that Mahabharata WAS, in relation to another epic that the Indian political game IS. For Dostoyevsky's novel, reading itself, the introduction on the back, fills me with a certain amount of depression, a doom. A character who dies and dies again in the search of real death is all that I can expect from this. Nihilism and pessimism is echoing from the book and giving me a feeling that I could end up being sad at the end. Yet, strangely, a feeling of optimism is what I am getting at present. Its strange but true, maybe this is the beauty of Dostoyevsky, maybe this is the beauty of literature that I have been away from, maybe this is what I am going to witness with it this time.
Will keep posting my updates on the books as I move on with them.

Books, Books and more Books!

What do you do when you go to a railway station to receive somebody and have to wait there for an hour or so for them to arrive? I usually pass my time wandering the full length of the platform, looking at different shades of life there. I have a belief that, in India, if you wish to know the culture of a certain region, the best place to look for that is the railway platform of that region. The kind of diversity in the life form that one sees there is just unbelievable. Anyways, I was talking about my time-pass at a railway station. Actually, one doesn't need to apply too much effort in order to pass time there. Trains come and go and with it hundreds of faces also come and go. You don't really get a free time that you have to pass. This goes about the railway platform but what if you have to wait for an hour or more at a small domestic airport like that of Patna?
Today was a kind of evening for me where I had to wait for more than an hour for the arrival of my cousin at Patna airport. I waited at the airport hall. Being a small domestic airport, it has nothing much to offer for waiting people like me. A restaurant that I can't afford, a small canteen and a small shop for books, gifts, etc and a small hall with some seats is all that it has got. Wandering in the hall up and down and occasional ogling at the air-hostesses bored me after a few minutes. Buying a can of coke and drinking it near the canteen occupied me for another few minutes but what after that?
The small shop that had gifts, books etc remained the only other option where I could spend some time. But, the shop was too small for comfort and just couldn't attract me to inside it. There were books on display towards the outside through the window pane. I chose to stand there and look at them. Books and books and more books! There was Chetan Bhagat (If you are in India and at a book store, you just can't ignore this man even if you want to), Agatha Christie, M.K. Gandhi, Ayn Rand, Naipaul, Rushdie, Paulo Coelho and not to forget the self-help gurus (In Indian literature these days, if someone is worshiped just after Chetan Bhagat, these are those people) amongst others. The list neither signifies their relative importance, nor my choice of authors nor their abundance at the store. It only signifies my poor ability of remembering names. Standing there and looking towards the shop made me realise why exactly the term 'Window shopping' is called so. Its not that I hadn't window-shopped before but living at a place like Patna where there are no malls yet (it doesn't mean I don't like Patna, I just love it!), you have to agree that people here are not so familiar practically with the term. Window shopping is one of the thing that the mall culture has inculcated into us. Anyways.
Standing there and looking at those books, reading their title and the name of the author, I suddenly started feeling frightened by them. Faces came out of the cover pages and started to give me looks, strange looks, staring looks. They were asking me from all the directions why I don't read them. I couldn't answer them because they wouldn't hear me.
I managed to run away from there, terribly frightened and obviously thinking. Thinking again all those things that led to my last post here. I realised, I don't hate these books. In fact, at some corner of my heart, I even love them. I have always wanted to befriend them but have always failed too, sometimes out of paucity of time, most other times out of paucity of interest. I recollected all those times when I had motivated myself towards these books and found out that I still want to be a reading buff. In my last post, I questioned the necessity of such readings and here I admit that they might not be necessary but as a hobby, these readings are awesome. There is a definite hope that, in future, these books would become my friends.
With this hope, the announcement of the arrival of the flight came. I received my cousin and headed towards my home. Such a great time-pass where I rediscovered my love for these books was totally unexpected. Unexpected again was to find, just after reaching home, at my blogger dashboard, this blog from my following list which, in some way or other, was concerned with this habit of reading. Roberto Bolano, in his collection of short stories, The Insufferable Gaucho, has an essay, 'Literature+Illness=Illness'. A beautiful excerpt:

 "travel, sex and books are paths that lead nowhere except to the loss of self, and yet, they must be followed and the self must be lost, in order to find it again, or to find something, whatever it may be - a book, an expression, a misplaced object........in order Rodin anything at all, a method perhaps, and, with a bit of luck, the new, which has been there all along".

    

I don't think I need anything to read

Sometimes some trivial talks about just anything can take you to a place where you ultimately realise the fact that what you have got at the end of it all, is a thought to cherish in your lifetime. Such talks are even more trivial if they happen at a place like facebook or orkut or other social networking sites. These places are full of jerks (and it includes me too) who have nothing to do but to pass their time rather waste it in silly talks with friends. One such silly talk ended quite high for me today.
The thought to cherish for me didn't arrive during or just after the talk was over. It led to a flight of thoughts for me, a flight where one thought came after another and I just kept jumping from here and there. Ultimately, where I ended was never expected of a flight that started at such a trivial place like facebook. Hmmmmm. Sometimes even places like facebook can be quite beneficial!
Actually, what happened was a debate that was going on some friend's wall between two friends. The debate involved issues of spiritualism and the idea of happiness. It was a heated debate in between the two of them and being influenced by it, I managed to sneak into it. There were references from mythology and from literature. The debate somehow ended with a reference from Swami Vivekananda. With the debate ending, I closed the chapter, though, continuing to think something about that. It was then, I realised that I haven't read a thing from Vivekananda. I realised the fact that though I have read a lot about this man and his ideas, I haven't read nothing from him directly. Thinking continued and then, I realised that I haven't yet read nothing whatsoever literature or philosophy has to offer.
There was a feeling of guilt that appeared inside me for not having time for such works of art. As far as my reading is concerned, it is completely limited to coursebook ones. Where people read and get influenced by the ideas of Tolstoy, Nabokov, Tagore or Vivekananda, I have always preferred Robbins, Harrison and Schwartz. Then the thought of what's wrong with it came to me. So far as my reading the coursebooks are going to give me my earnings, I don't think anything is wrong with it. Then the thought of what can I get from reading the others arrived. They can give me a school of thought. They can give me some ideas to base my life upon, to extract from them my opinions on issues of my life and to look beyond my life. Hmmmm. Quite a plausible answer, a witty one too, but not that much to stop my flight of thoughts. Yes, It continued.
The last question that my mind asked me was the toughest one to answer for me. Do I really need such school of thoughts or such opinions which are based upon other's observation and inferences? Any person is driven in his/her life by many different ideas. These ideas are mostly imported from others sometimes willingly, most of the times, imposed. The education plays a great role in formulation of our ideas and opinions and this education involves the ever continued process of reading. Reading the works of art, literature, philosophy and so on. So, it started to seem like necessary to read things in order to get my ideas of life. Then, something struck me somewhere.
I was not feeling comfortable, at all, by inferring all this. The whole idea of borrowing my ideas from someone else looked ridiculous to me. If somebody else can think, can formulate his own ideas and opinions then why can't I? Am I born with some mental disorder so that I will have to borrow my ideas from others? No, I am not. I can have my own ideas, my own opinions. The whole flight of thought recapitulated inside my mind in a flash and then my belief in myself grew even firmer. Inspite of the fact that I haven't read nothing so far, If I am able to think and formulate my opinion on this very issue of reading, I don't think I need anything to read. I have a set of ideas of my own to govern my life. I have a set of opinions of my own on issues of my life. I can, with an insight of my own, look beyond my life. So, why should I let anybody to come and influence me with these. As long as, I have a conviction of my own and I can defend it with logic, I really don't need any influence!