Maps for a mortal moon

Book Review: Fiction/Maps for a Mortal Moon: Selected prose by Adil Jussawalla—Edited& introduced by Jerry Pinto, Aleph, 340pp; Rs495 (Paperback)

Maps for a Mortal Moon should be in the essential reading list.

The worst thing about being a human being is being a human being. ‘I wish I was bird’, as the railway clerk in Nissim Ezekiel’s poem says. But if I were, the worst thing about being a bird would be being a bird.

Adil Jussawalla supremely talented literary world is uniquely diverse and unwaveringly at peace with others’ writing—so you read many such good pointers while turning the pages of this beautiful book. Jussawalla, a prolific poet, columnist, critic—and all together is a person in existence, for moving with the carefully chosen letters.

And no one could have a better choice as an editor like Jerry Pinto to compile the selected prose of Adil Jussawalla—he is another gem from Mumbai, who kept distance from limelight to succeed on humane grounds—in writings and at personal front.

The book is uniquely rich through the essays and entertainments, mostly published earlier as well—but here in collection, those appear giving better sense of collectiveness. And on another count, this book seems getting good success in offering Adil Jussawala’s specific and less known works to the new genre of readers—and while doing this, the coverages go in great deal on language, poetry, ethics, aeroplanes, death, addiction, travel alienation etc.

The protagonists of Jussawall could be anyone and from locale—conventional or exceptional.The book remarkably comes on Bombay of pre 1990—hence we see a greater coverage of Jussawalla’s own perspective on the city. That part charms most, especially when Jussawalla’s appearances surface in different form—from a journalist, book critic to a writer with less noise and all sensibilities.

Earlier, Jussawalla has written four anthologies of poems: Land’s End (1962), Missing Person (1976), Trying to Say Goodbye (2012) and The Right Kind of Dog (2013)—and put together a great book, New Writing in India (1974).

Recalling these five books is meant to see, how elusive and infrequent this writer has been for his untargeted readers, who yet stayed incorrigible and waiting for his books. As Jussawalla’s writing and his own self is inseparable from the unusual urbane construction of Bombay—so a greater degree of attention on this city makes him a near-legendary chronicler of a certain timeframe, in which this city had seen transformative changes.

Unvaryingly, Jussawalla’s writings maintain intelligent poignancy, wit, melancholy—Maps for a Mortal Moon easily gets breakthrough in following his own standard, set effortlessly.

The readers would find like winning an strategy, if they would read this book for the purpose to know the cultural shifts and political changes over the past forty years—that strongly inserted ‘change’ as virtue to be not missed. That has been fairly damaging and we see eruption of unheard complications at individual and at mass level.

Both Adil and Jerry has known their city closely and in daily struggle—can same accuracy one can have on the city from living in a house cruelly priced $2billion or looking on Arabian sea from the thick glasses of Taj Hotel?

The point is not in subverting the ‘grandness’ but bringing back the issues at fore and with fair reasons. The much celebrated tag ‘maximum city’ is certainly a caricature on Bombay, which helps keeping it in a sort of euphoria, an escaping route from its ugly underbelly.

Sometime directly and on occasions with smoke signals, Jussawala puts forward the complex realities, not so obvious to the species lost in efforts of saving their fragile existence. Certainly, Jussawalla is an existentialist but a maverick at same time—that reasonably keep his writings at distance from the fashioned existential philosophy.

Not to gain or lose, Jussawall is a writer with consine—who has seen the suffering and not stopped delving with the harsh realities. This is an extraordinary accomplishment of him— and something, with which, many writers don’t go far ahead. A great gift to the serious prose readers, Maps for a Mortal Moon should be in their essential reading list.

This book is one of the major non-fiction entries in 2014— Adil, Jerry and Aleph publications deserve praise for coming out with this standard project.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on March26,2014)

Teething troubles of a linchpin and beyond!

Book Review: Fiction/Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer by Cyrus Mistry, Aleph, 247 pp; Rs495 (Hardback)
Under the socio-cultural practices in vogue, a corpse bearer seldom is known for a heroic claim-alone going beyond the corporeal construct to look on them too will be not considered less than ‘altruistic’. But against the limiting factors, Cyrus Mistry’s “Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer” makes thing malleable with bringing a reneged as catalyst and his lively overtures as the frame of reference for this beautiful literary fiction. Hitherto, very few novels have written in English on the enterprising Parsi community of Mumbai and certainly the life of a Parsi “corpse bearer” never drawn any workable attention from the writers, who dwelt extensively to work on this city surrounded with hypes and its collapses.

Zoroastrian faith was a beginning with an inter-community marriage of a girl, which later shaped through the normal growth of her family and turning into a social group in the course of time. Zoroastrian theology considers all dead matter bruising and unhygienic. Cyrus derives the idea of the novel from a Parsi dock worker who married Khandhia’s daughter. The timeframe of novel is set in the pre-independence era, with having a corpse bearer (Phiroze Elchidana) as narrator. Phiroze, the son of a revered priest who fall in love with Seppy (Sepideh), the daughter of Khandia-Elchi agrees to become a Khandia (on his father-in-law Temoorus’s condition for marrying his daughter), but unfortunately loses his beloved Seppy to snakebite soon after the birth of their daughter, Farida. Mistry presents lucidly, and with amazing clarity, dark humour, the social and occupational details of a Khandia and his continuing low position in Parsi community.

Khandias are sort of ‘untouchable’ because they deal with the corpses, which are symptomatic of frenzied biases in favour of standard or sub-standard socio-economic existence, never such heavy dose of emotion allow to accept something like ‘exhuming’ as an important work done by the corpse bearer. Availing the mass-market senses, here too rituals downgrade the potential of rational thinking. Though the Parsis do not officially have castes or sub-castes, barring an overt categorisation of Athornan and Behdin but Mistry’s analysis of Parsis seems dominating those old narrow and misleading systemic beliefs. His verbalization of clear occupational biases are supported by the impressive odysseys, so it would be hard for anyone to let down this well conceived commentary on intrinsically closed Parsi society.

The good thing is, neither this book carries the amount of controversial puts to draw any ban or high sounding resistance of non-reading crowds (which are quite rampant these days) nor the author is acting in haste of dethroning the old set of beliefs, which are outdated and not so venial deserving simple pass off. Parsis have seen high time in India through theirs enterprising quest and the success came along with those merits. However, trade is much open now and drawing the interest of all sections-hence making things competitive in ideas and cronyism as the real plank of action. It’s not the Parsi’s business position has dwindled only because of liberalisation of India’s economic outlook but prominently through theirs persisting reliance on ‘closeness’ still as the order of the day.

Although, this novel is set in the time of greater orthodoxy but it’s hard enough even today to see Khandias lower positional claim caused with the poverty or any other factors-still the ‘rituals’ are the excuse for theirs segregation. Cyrus Mistry, a writer of high senses for those all who follow his works have a sound basis in putting forth his community’s inner life picture-while all this, the absorption of intricate social accounts confirms the high degree of authenticity coming through the author’s long solitary life and his overtures within and outside of the Parsi’s usually acclaimed close circle. Distinct from Mistry’s own earlier novel, The Radiance of Ashes; his present work deals more straightly with the Parsi community through having sharper focus on an unusual and telling subject.

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s blurb aptly defines the qualities of the novel in these scintillating words -“There’s more magic in Mistry’s realism than in magic realism”. His remarks are convincing for the readers and critics who have read this book that totally moves to tell on the margins of history with an amazing level of originality. Tells of tragic love and degradation seldom could be so charming and horrific at the same time, as it appears in the Mistry’s Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer. Beyond recognition, he was being taken for long as one of the leading literary merits of his generation; now this book will also give him the limelight as much he will desire. Still if left with the choices, Cyrus Mistry will be prefer to rove in the world of ideas rather with the noisy acclaims.

It would not be an exaggeration, if said “Indian writing is English is now more diversified and matured with this novel”. This is a kind of literary work repeats not frequently but in sporadic arrival, the level of such high standard works imbue new spirits, essential for the functionalities and excellence alike. The floods of writing can’t do good except making irrelevant interfaces as popular habit-the well shaped and targeted writing like this, certainly has better reach to the readers (even though not very high in numbers). A pure literary fiction on Mumbai celebrated Parsi’s community life is a new phenomenon, here the underlyings are not bollywood, Shiv Sena or the filthy capital-so giving time for a special overview on forgotten Khandias and his personal life. Personally, I will rate this book as the best literary work of the year, written so far…readers seeking insightful reading must spend time with Cyrus Mistry’s Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer..!
Atul Kumar Thakur
August31st2012,Friday, New Delhi
Email: summertickets@gmail.com

Bombay Meri Jaan, Alas!

The protagonist of cinema CID was a beat relaxed singing “Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahan, zara bachke-zara hatake, ye hai Bombay meri jaan”because he only had to save himself from bustling buses, trams, thugs and other worldly oddities; lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri would have been added some extra features in his city narrative song if possibly abled to foresee the current political projection against the non-Marathi speaking hacks in the city of Mumbai-especially against those hailing from north-India.
Even after witnessing advances from the CID {1950’S} era to Gaman {late 1970’s, directed by Muzzaphar Ali} creates only subtle differences of plights-here a typical low end job searcher {Portrayed as Taxi driver in Cinema} from the rural hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh narrates the agony of his alienation on screen as “Sine me jalan aankon me toofan sa kyon hai, ish Sahar me har saksh pareshan sa kyon hai”-same grave uneasiness of adaptability in this unfriendly city.

The two decades journey through these songs reflect best the abnormalities of contemporary material life in the maxims city called Mumbai which for decades has been dreaming to be the worlds biggest financial destination before a normal flood drenched and messed this city to unmanageable scale; thanks to other contemporary divisive political agenda for late arrival, at least these two protagonist have been shaved from the atrocities of new linguistic ruling by the government which seems like its convergence to the wish lists of Thackrey’s.
Compulsion of Marathi language for new entrant taxiwalas pioneered by the India’s political avantgarde Congress party which usually manifests deep secular and socialist temperaments-Ashok Chavan, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra hadn’t hesitated for a moment before the plan of its execution; remarkable passivity from centre also fueled this divisive spirit.

Being an ordinary Indian citizen, I am shocked to see little resistance against the political misadventurism being played on the land of Maharashtra-amazingly the plights of common Maratha folks cited as reason behind this which could be hardly a conceivable judgment. In2006-2008, Maharashtra saw 12,493 suicides, this is eighty five percent higher than the 6,745 suicides recording during 1997-1999; and the worst three-year period for any state, any time {P.Sainath, The Hindu, January 25th 2010.
Despite the fact that since 2006, the state has been the focus of many lucrative initiatives, overall the amounts committed to fighting the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra exceeded Rs, 20,000 crore across 2006, 2007, 2008 {excluding financial leverages to the sugar barons}, yet that proved to be the worst three year period ever for any state at any time since the recording of farm data came into existence. How can an Aam Aadmi chosen to be laidback? Where gone these billions of rupees, was the amount so meager for brushing the fortunes of farming class in rural Maharashtra? The possible answer from political side would be a stretchy hush or tricky and trivial makeshift narratives that must floats without judging the gravity of matters.

Infact scenario in urban landscape have been equally distorted that became evident from six-seven man led suicidal terror attack in the city of Mumbai {November26, 2008} when the reality of security system came across the world…we kept loosing our precious lives {both civic and security personnel} in absence of proper counter terror planning and basic equipments till National Security Guards {NSG} took command over operation.
Like most of Indians, I was also stick with the situation and keep viewing the news from different sources for entire three days of operation and felt irritation by the sluggish political decisions like calling NSG guards past midnight and later opening the doors of Hotel Taj to a second grade cinema maker to observe inferences for his next cheap blockbuster. Country felt the pain of attack on Mumbai, hardly matters that majority of them were non-Marathi speakers-I mean to say that politics of hatred blossomed in the time of void ness which is inherently challenging the ethos of democracy in India.

Personally and collectively it’s very shocking for me to see the name of Maharashtra for all the bad reasons that is strikingly contrast to its retro impression and contribution of Marathi peoples in nation making-from Bal Gangadhar Tilak, B.R.Ambedkar, Lata Mangeshkar &sisters, Vijay Tendulkar, Amol Palekar, Sunil Gavashkar to Sachin Tendulkar etc.
Along with the other maligning affluent, Congress has to out speak about the motive behinds this ruling because peoples could be puzzled only to a limitation otherwise a culture of segmentation and bias would be institutionalized that indeed weaken the national spirit to the subversive level. Ashok Chavan, both at personnel and political level have degenerated the broad thinking from public scene-all fouls, from news sponsoring to linguistic hatredness.

The only credit goes to the ruling Congress party in there last three years rule in Maharashtra to conquer the some awards like OSCAR for Slumdog Millionaire which entirely canopied the city’s fifty-five percent slum reality and their inhuman nexus with capital in out rightly subversive way which for a while healed the depressions of recession struck western world.
For them India transform only from a land of snake charmers to a repository of slum culture…definitely this is not our achievement nor it could improve the lives of deprived Marathi’s-they needed instead a consistent access to the rudimentary resources of life by having chances to dwell better with education, high end aspirations and careers instead of marching against their non-Marathi counterparts. Political spoilers must mind their action as Maharashtra including Mumbai is as much India as Delhi, Bihar, U.P, Kerala, Jammu Kashmir or any other parts. I am still firm that we all Indians have right to be a Mumbaikar…essentially we should think better for it.
Atul Kumar Thakur
January25th 2010, New Delhi
atul_mdb@rediffmail.com