Give me one good reason why anybody should read The God Of Small Things

On a reckless evening when I could have just about done the craziest thing, I went to a library and got myself a membership. The regular vanilla that some people think I am (not without reasons), this was the most reckless thing-to-do that I could think of.

As a result, I treated myself to this new rush and made a list of books that I would like to read before I die. Since there is no possibility of attaching an exact date to that event, I started thinking - technically speaking it could be anytime now. I started with 'The God of small things' by Arundhati Roy.

I knew roughly the outline of the story and the cause that the book stands for. Ten years ago, when I read a passage of the book and wondered what it meant, I had the good sense to put it away. I had however put it down in my mind's 'read when you are older' list of books. Not because I would not understand the story, but because I could not enjoy the prose. A book, in my mind, is a piece of dark chocolate, one with 72% cocoa..something that has to be relished.

As I said, a social cause is weaved into the story - untouchability. As I tested waters with the first pages, I enjoyed the rich prose and the layered style of writing, the setting is in Kerala, there is liberal usage of malayam words and phrases. As I kept reading, I realised that it is a very dark tale indeed. It is the story of twins Rahel and Esthappen, their misfortunate life and the misfortunate lives of others in their family. all of their lives are muddled in despair and darkness. It is very disturbing to read and having to know the characters.

I have not completed the book, but it has left me with only sad and depressing images..A lecherous police officer who taps on a woman's breast with his stick as her two children watch, a spinster aunt who had never had anything in life to cheer for and thus enjoys others' miseries, husbands who beat their wives, for the kick of it, another who does not hesitate to push his wife into prostitution, children taught by their mother never to trust or love anyone easily, the low caste man who gets killed for the sole reason that he loved a woman from the upper caste, and the ultimate act of incest where the twins end up having sex with each other at the age of 31, having met after a long gap

I understand that the issue of untouchability had been addressed and probably the author was against untouchability and perhaps thats why she weaved such a disturbing tale around it. Now, why should we tell such dark and complicated tales to address our issues?? So that people read it and the awareness is spread that untouchability is indeed bad?? The book's prose is so intricate and complex that the people who appreciate it already have a very clear idea that untouchability is bad.. Even if they didnt know about it, there is really no need to tell them dark and shady stories to explain to them how bad untouchability actually is. Arundhati Roy, respecting their intelligence, could have just painted a bright banner that said 'Untouchability is a sin, It affects lives' and leave it at that.

All people who ever lived on the face of the earth have gone through their share of disturbing incidents in their lives. What is the necessity of reaffirming their back-of-the-mind belief that life is a bitch?? Yes, the writing is excellent, maybe we can call it art. But why does art has to be profanity? So glaring and so disturbing?

As I turned page after depressing page of the book, I kept looking at the face of the author that was printed at the back cover. How disturbed and distraughted should one be to express such depressing filth in a story? What ghosts have haunted this pretty lady that she wants other people to experience it as well?? Because she can really make us experience her book, such is her writing. plush and intricate. I found just one reason to read the book, but that does not necessarily mean that I will finish reading it. This is going to be the second book in my life that I never wanted to finish. And believe me, I have read my share of absolute trash, but have always completed reading them, for reasons I do not know..

Ok, call me shallow, call me a blockhead, call me boring, downright normal, someone who does not appreciate the complexities. But what the heck! why should I appreciate it if its complex?? Agreed, I appreciate Chetan Bhagat, but that does not go to say I do not appreciate Ayn Rand or Abdul Kalam's books. We live in a world that is stranger than fiction, it is dark, it is complex, it is disgusting, but why should we document and celebrate pain and muck? Isn't it best not prosed, taught and handed over for generations to come?

Sneha

The White Tiger

Courtesy to a kind friend, I got to read the book The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. This book has won the Man Booker prize for the year 2008. So I had absolutely no doubts about the literary quality of Adiga’s writing. After all, how many books have been so honoured? Another thing I knew without any doubt even before reading the reviews and comments was the fact that the book was strong on a social cause. For obvious reasons, you cannot blame me if I thought the social cause was wild life conservation. It does voice about life conservation. Conservation of millions of lives that are treated less amiably than wild animals – the poor, people whose lives are lived by the rich because of the fact that they do not have the money and power to live their own lives. The white tiger is all about the ocean wide divide of the rich and the poor in the biggest democratic nation in the world.

Balram Halwai, the protagonist of the novel is born into a financially deprived household in a village on the banks of the river Ganga. How his life progresses from innocence to psychopathic to prosperity in alterations of darkness and light is narrated by Balram himself. The book is an extensive letter to the Chinese emissary, Mr. Wen Jiabao. Jiabao comes visiting India and his agenda includes meeting the highly successful entrepreneurs of India, to learn the nuances of entrepreneurship. The emissary will also be enlightened on the ‘success’ story of the way of India's governance, that is the democracy in the nation. Owing to the irony here, I am forced to quote Balram’s ex employer - ‘What a fucking joke!’ indeed.

Dark, ironic, sarcastic, sad, wicked, humourous in parts, innocent in parts: these are the words and phrases that could possibly describe Aravind Adiga’s debut novel. One word that I have left out so that I can singly highlight it is ‘Angry’. It is an angry book, that anger will reflect even from you when you read it. When you see the author’s face that is printed on the back cover, you will surely find it difficult to believe that this work of calculated anger is a product of that smiling person’s brain.

The language used is very fundamental, only rarely does few big words creep into the work. The very first few pages set the mood of the narration. From there on the book oozes with ridicule for the whole governance system and its leaders. Adiga has brought so many topics to the surface, not really examining them, but thrusting them on the face of the readers. Some of them are topics which nobody dares to probe and question fearing the uproar of communities, majority and otherwise. Exploitation of the poor, child labour, the practise of dowry, half-baked politicians as leaders of the country, overrating of the polluted river Ganga, religious divisions, people worshipping multiple gods with no sense of spirituality whatsoever, employers framing servants for crimes, the corrupted-to-root police force - For all these and more, the author uses the mouth piece of the illiterate, oppressed and psychically challenged Balram to sound off his concerns about the ‘free’ India. Though subtly, he has also questioned extremely delicate topics like the supposed effectiveness of Gandhian principles.

The book essays how the ignorant Balram’s mind gets twisted due to oppression and how it leads him to being irrational and radically evil. Reading through the book, you will tend to stop and think that though shameful, what has been narrated could well be the true story of a good percentage of people living in the Independent India. The writer points out that India has always been two different countries, he describes them as the light and the darkness.

In one of the reviews on the internet, a book seller admits that the sales of this book has risen since the honorary recognition given to it, but he personally does not like selling the book since he thinks that the author has insulted our country. This has been the case for the three most recent Indian books that won the Man Booker prize. Arundhati Roy's "god of small things' and Kiran Desai's "Inheritance of Loss' suffered the same fate in the hands of the angry Indian reader/reviewer. In another review a popular daily has rightly noted that the Indian tourism board will not like Aravind Adiga for what he has written in his book. It is sure to raise eyebrows across borders too, though what I hope Adiga wanted was to raise some Indian eyebrows, forcing people to think, follow the thoughts by action.

Three mistakes of my life by Chetan Bhagat

Option 1. Heavy, hard to understand, complicated.

Option 2: Funny, simple, for kids.

That was desi English fiction for you. Then Chetan Bhagat happened. Well, he happened over two (or 3 ) decades ago, but he surfaced as a novelist with “five point someone” and then quite a number of Indians read Indian authored books. His writing was termed as witty and dark.

His funny lines oozed with sarcasm, but that was what exactly made us laugh.

Yes, somewhere on the road to civilization in the recent century, comedy turned sarcastic. Ironic eh..

Then he wrote “One night @ the call center”, a book that represented/reflected the state-of-mind of almost half of the confused generation x in the country. similarly witty, dark writing.

The end of the book is impossible, it had God calling up the gang to a mobile phone to settle things. but then, that’s why its called fiction! I didn’t mind the God character in the book. He’s equally funny as the others, he can stay, no problem.

So! 2 books and I was hooked. He announced his third book last year. I read it in some tabloid. I kept checking the stores/websites but nothing happened for sometime. I just wished he would just hurry up and release it. I want to read it I say!

“Three mistakes of my life” a book about Cricket, Politics and Religion hit the Mumbai stores first. May be because Rupa&Co (the publishers) are based there. Chennai and I waited for a week and I got hold of the book as soon as it was stacked up on the shelf.

Expectation is a funny thing. Its like eating a candy and then sipping on a sweet drink, the drink isn’t sweet anymore. After I finished reading this new book, I still was thinking about the first 2 books.

Unlike the time when I read the second book and it took the first one’s space in the mind’s Chetan bhagat’s book section.

It just felt like an extension of five point someone, as if Alok, Ryan and Hari had started a business and the three mistakes is actually their story. Or perhaps Vroom and Shyam went to Gujarat and took up a trade. Only this time, the wit was not as witty as before. Is this what people call run of the mill?

The same seemingly weak protagonist (Hari in Five point../Shyam in one night../Govind in three mistakes..), the same seemingly hopeless friend who hatches up seemingly smart plans in the ultimate crisis (Ryan/Vroom/Ish), the same lady love who initiates the moves all the time (Neha/Priyanka/Vidya)

The official third book didn’t leave me waiting for the fourth; instead, I am still waiting for the third one. I wonder if he has announced his next book yet.

Excerpts

Eleven minutes by Paulo Coelho

I stood for a long time by the roller coster and I noticed that most people got on it in search of excitement, but that once it starts, they are terrified and want the cars to stop.

What do they expect? Having chosen adventure, shouldn’t they be prepared to go the whole way? Or do they think that the intelligent thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their time on carousal, going round and round on the spot?

Life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; its taking chances, falling over and getting up again; its mountaineering; its wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don’t manage it…

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

As we were drawing closer (to the mangroves which were notorious for tigers), Horen looked at me. ‘Sir’ he said ‘now the time to go ashore is at hand, tell me, do you feel the fear?’

‘The fear?’ I said ‘what do you mean Horen? Why should I be afraid? Arent you with me?’

‘Because it’s the fear that protects you sir; its what keeps you alive. Without it, the danger doubles’

‘So are you afraid Horen?’

‘Yes sir’, he said. ‘Look at me. Don’t you see the fear on my face?’

And now that I looked more closely, it was true that I could see something out of the ordinary on his face – an alertness, a gravity, a sharpening of the eyes. The tension was a kind that communicated itself readily. It didn’t take me long before I could say to Horen, truthfully, that I was just as afraid as he was.

‘Yes Horen, I feel it’
‘that’s good’

Kite runner

Finished reading the kite runner by Khaled Hosseini. The story is set in Afghanistan. The time spans before the war, during the invasion and during the Taliban. One of my friends who had read the book had described the book as 'interesting'.

Before I started reading, i had read the reviews that were printed at the back cover. One of the newspapers had called the book 'painfully honest'. I wondered what that meant, but found out soon.

Its one thing to tell a story as a third person, by naming the protagonists as A, B and C and say A hurt B, so A was such a kind of a person, whereas its an age apart to tell a story as "I did this, I could not stand up for what i loved, I was a coward".

Since I had never read anything so honest, the book impressed me. More than the story, it was the narration that i liked. The language had been kept very simple.

The book also gives you a quick account of Afghan life during the Russian invasion and the Taliban rule, of the kabab loving-community and their values, their short-comings and misgivings, their life and death.

The one line that lingered in my mind long after i read the book came when the first gun shots were heard in Afghanistan- that was the time when Afghanistan was like any other peaceful country (i swear it was difficult for me to imagine a peaceful Afghanistan).

The children were terrified when they heard the gunshots and they huddled together and their care-taker tells them that the sound is because 'they are hunting ducks'.

The author says 'they were foreign sounds to us. the generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born'

Yes, an interesting book, but also deep, dark and disturbing. but i believe you wil grow a little wiser after you read it

And the worst book I ever read is…

If God was a banker. Author: Ravi Subramanian. Publishers: Rupa & Co. Shelf price: Rs.195 (Rupa style)
**Disclaimer: This is only my personal opinion. this is not meant to offend anyone**
First things first. Mr. Ravi Subramanian cant write a book. Its truly unfortunate that he decided to. Rupa & co surprises me! They are the same people who have brought out great books time and again and I definitely did not expect such a bad publishing from them.

I guess the author is a banker and an MBA grad. For the only saving grace of the whole work is the tid-bits of information that he has written on banking and the few strategies employed during the emergence of retail banking in the country.

The book is so bad that it has put ideas into my head. I have been thinking…why don’t I write a book? If Rupa can publish this book, they will sure consider my scribbling, wont they? and if the book does get published, it is definitely bad news for you all, because you HAVE to read it! Dont worry about paying, i will send you free copies. and then i will call you up to discuss what you think about charecter X or the situation Y. If you say you have not read it through, I will be deeply hurt, and will call you again after few hours to see how many pages you finished reading! (evil grin)

I remember the time I started blogging, I used to worry my close friends to read the trash I used to write. My blog entries never take more than a few minutes to read, but a book? Hee hee hee

On second thoughts, since this is just the start of the year, I have decided it is not good to have such evil thoughts. This is the happy new year and such malevolent actions right at the beginning of the year may bring me bad luck, so I am shelfing my book ideas. This is a temporary arrangement and I will let you know when i cease to be good. Till then, have a happy new year!

too many reviews, too bad

Eventually, I read the book, 'The Alchemist'.
Few posts ago, since i got interested in the book, i was contemplating whether to buy the book or use the money for something else- that is, to buy a chicken biryani instead.

A kind soul who read that particular blog was exasperated to see me bring down one of his favourite books to chicken biryani levels and offered to lend me his copy. Thanks pal, people like you make the world go round ;)

Getting back to Alchemist, its a very sweet story of a shepherd boy who literally follows his dreams. He has a repetitive dream of a treasure and decides to follow it and ultimately gets his treasure. Full stop.

What got me interested in the book was the countless reviews that I had read on book sites like amazon and shelfari. If I had not read all those reviews, I would have really enjoyed the book. All the reviews, except a few handful, glorified the book so much and elated it in such a way that it increased my expectations sky high.

While reading the book, with every turning page, i was waiting for the contents to reach my expectations. But as I neared the end of the book, still waiting for the tryst, I realised how influenced i had been by what other people thought and told. That very fact prevented me from enjoying a book that is actually pretty cute by itself.

Certain things in life are best enjoyed when you just look at them with your own eye, critical or not. you should just do justice to your tastes and just forget what your friends and people around you think about it. Ultimately, each one of us are built differently and have different tastes. Some stuff i like, you may hate and vice versa. The same thing affects two people in two completely varied way. Well, we are just made liked that, different people, different opinions. ahem, im not advertising HSBC here.

A last word on the book. I felt its strength is simplicity. though it is a translated book, the language does not sit away from the context. it has got some passages that are thought provoking. On the whole, its a book thats put together beautifully, and the beauty lies in its simplicity. dont expect it to blow away your mind and pick the pieces up again to build a brand new you. Just enjoy it.

The Alchemist fever

Of late, i have been on a reading fever. I feel like reading all the time - this includes magazines, newspapers, fiction, non fiction, comics, etc., etc.,

When I had finished whatever printed matter I could lay my hands on, I started looking in the internet. Initially I read stuff related to work, then started looking for more interesting things to read. Though I had loads of work, I started copying pages of interest and read them in the seconds-long breaks I had!

Now, I wanted more interesting and substantial stuff to read, I started looking for e-books. Since I didnt know any great websites, i ended up reading some really throw away stuff. The free stuff online is really really trash-worth. Or maybe google doesnt list the good ones!

I never believed in buying books, because as far as I am concerned, books once read are completely exhausted. I never found a need to re-read any book, no matter how nice and interesting it was. While online and several websites wise, I grew an interest in the book 'The Alchemist'. I read a lot of nice reviews and I felt so eager that I actually decided to drive up to T-nagar and buy mysef a copy. I know a friend who has the book, but she is away on vacation, and I just couldnt wait!

So before I left, I thought I would read the amazon reviews. and i saw that more than 1 out 10 have given real bad reviews. No one has given a mediocre review, they either love it, or they hate it. No one says, its an OK read. Its either 'amazing' or 'trash'.

Spirits dampened, I am wondering now which category I will fall in - the love one or the hate one.. and have decided that I will buy myself a chicken biryani for the money that I kept aside for 'The Alchemist' and wait till my friend gets back to the city!

I woz. Literally!

I am reading the biography of this great guy who founded the the first ever practical personal computer, The CEO and founder of Apple computers, Stephen Wozniak. The book is titled ‘I Woz’. When I first saw it, I thought it must be some sci fi book like ’I robot’ ;)

It turned out to be a semi-auto biography, it is written by Gina Smith and Stephen Woz himself. It started on a good note and kept me on for the first few chapters. It is always nice to know about the lives of great people. But, I am just not able to bring myself to read beyond the first few chapters.

For one thing, the language is so American, which makes it very difficult to keep the interest. And whoever did the actual writing (Gina Smith, i guess) seems to have taped what Woz spoke and just typed it out to make the book without much helpful editing.

I feel that any language has to be projected carefully when it is written. When you are talking, you have the advantage of an additional medium. It is easy to make people understand things the way you want them to, but it is not always possible while its in script. That does not mean you have to use diplomatic words and phrases. It is still possible to capture all the action in writing. Good writers do it all the time.

Just out of curiosity, i googled this book's reviews and found I was not the only one complaining. Of course there were other ppl who liked the book also. But if you are the kind of person who appreciates a bit of good language along with the subject, I recommend staying away from this book, if you do want to read it, be my guest and get frustrated!

While the actual crux of the content is so exciting, the amateur language puts you off so much that you don’t want to read any further. What a waste of a good book!

Things that we take for granted

I finished reading a book titled "Inside the kingdom" by a lady, Carmen Bin Ladin, who had been married to a Saudi Arabian (Osama Bin Laden's brother, none less!) and had lived a good part of life in Saudi.

The book was not exactly an eye opener. These are facts that we already know: oppresion of women and their low status in their country. how in the name of religion, they are not even allowed to think! every other thing is either a sin or a shame.. and women who dare are punished (killing seems to be the regular punishment for such 'offenders')
I wouldn't say this is the best book written on women's plight in the Middle east. Yet, after reading it, I felt a deep sense of relief of having born in a democratic country like India!

Things that we have always taken for granted, the women there have rarely experienced. For example the freedom of thought, speech, choice etc.,

Well, I am wordless..but I know that I have the freedom to write if I choose to and I am happy about it