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)

Kashmir:A tale of travesty

Discussions on how the Kashmir issue has been represented over the years

The beginning of a new age of violence in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989 took off with the mayhem ensued by the permission of the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, for the intelligence apparatus of her country to export fighters outward from the Kashmir valley. Since then, Kashmir is visible more like a chessboard for a large malicious game of intrigue, where the official truth appears manufactured narrative rather than it should be in its natural shape.

The tug of war between India and the opposition forces from Kashmir along with the clear support of Pakistan and its allies can be understood lucidly through Edmund Burke’s quote conveyed in the House of Commons on April 19, 1774: “The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.”

History does not flow in straight lines, but in outlines—and in Kashmir’s painful history there are many forgotten references due, to negotiate. Since October 1947, when the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir conditionally acceded to the Government of India, there has been a gap between India’s democratic and secular ideals and the reality of New Delhi’s relationship with Srinagar. This has led to various bouts of disillusionments, the first of them as early as the 1950s—largely in the Muslim dominated Kashmir valley.

Persistent calls for Kashmiri secession only intensified through the next three-and-a-half decades as disenchantment with assertive Indian actions and lures from the unhygienic communal supports from cross of the border mounted and finally took a violent turn in November 1989. Though the Indian state may not always have got it right in Kashmir, the dissent’s tailor made delineation represents intellectually dishonest simplification of the real issues, leaving aside the hazards associated with the intensely aggressive geopolitical forces at work.

The fateful periods of the independence of India on August 15, 1947, and Kashmir’s accession to it on October 26, 1947, is still fogged in mystery. But the most genuine truth at that time was that no one wanted Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. Majority had a preference for its independence, but for different and complex reasons—Kashimiri Pandits were in favour of Indian state albeit on the covert condition of not losing Kashmir’s unique native identity.

Not even a tint of deviation from syncretism they would like as on line of the rest thinking Kashmiris—so far, there was not much hype of communal programming in the valley, this began and intensified only with the blunder of making Kashmir an international issue by moralistically overcharged Nehru in early 1950’s.

Consolidation of a nation like India had to happen through the diverse maneuverings on endless impediments—then inclusion of independent royalties in India was the most crucial among many citable challenges. Sardar Patel, a straight forward man, had tirelessly succeeded in making India with an impressive geographical size—he made the idea of sovereignty a complete prerogative of this newly born nation. But alas, this man was neither a sage nor an immortal being—so he passed away when the complete inclusion of Kashmir was still in progress. That shrewd political executioner passed away, rest the lead on Kashmir was transferred to Nehru, though as said he was by birth a Kashmiri but hardly a native in typical sense.

He had pious ideas, which were broader in outlook but unfortunately—people with whom he had to deal with on Kashmir—were of dishonest merits. Had he relied on the referendum or on hard action against the first attack of Pakistan in 1947, he could have easily escaped the unfortunate internationalization of Kashmir as a formidable dispute. Moreover, shady and impractical deals with Sheikh Abdullah at wrong times and most importantly the division of Kashmir sabotaged peace forever from these regions.

Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s interview with Mountbatten for their book, “Mountbatten and Independent India” (Vikas; page 37) makes clear the fatal motive of this unholy colonial moron, as in a conversation to Maharaja Hari Singh, he said: “the majority of your populations are Muslim”, but Hari Singh had replied “I don’t want to accede to Pakistan on any account…. I don’t want to join India either, because, if so (sic), I would feel that perhaps which’s not what the people of Kashmir wanted.

I want to be independent." Mountbatten told the authors, “I must tell you honestly, I wanted Kashmir to join Pakistan…(Sir Cyril) Radcliffe (Chairman of the India-Pakistan Boundary Commission) let us in for an awful lot of trouble by making it possible for them to accede to India,” by awarding to India a part of Gurdaspur, which facilitated the land link to Jammu and Kashmir.” Unfortunately those virulent designs were misunderstood by the high ranked and nosed politicians, particularly by Nehru and Jinnah that finally lead the Kashmir to a dangerous trajectory of conflict.

In 1971, India facilitated the secession of Pakistan’s easternmost province (now Bangladesh), which was another turning point that immensely affected any veritable advancement on Kashmir for many decades. India’s strategic win provoked Pakistan’s humiliated army and intelligence officials to pursue a policy of creating ‘strategic depth’ against India by seeking Pashtun clients inside Afghanistan for using them in Kashmir valley—that was not a squeak but a full-fledged design of proxy war directed to Kashmir through multiple active channels, including those of “communal interference”.

In the 1990s, many of the same Pakistani officials who helped supply the Mujahideen during the CIA-led anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan turned to fuelling the popular Islamic insurgency in India-ruled Kashmir—which in turn claimed more than 80,000 lives and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley since1989. Throughout the last two and half decades, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, trained and financed militant groups for jihad in Kashmir, even as it settled on the Taliban as its proxy in Afghanistan, which had been abruptly abandoned by the United States following the Soviet withdrawal.

Since then, once known for its opulent beauty and peace, the valley of Kashmir was forced to host the military occupation awkwardly against the theoretical democratic ethos of India. It’s indeed an unfortunate truth; the killings fields of Kashmir supersede those of Palestine and Tibet. Curfews, raids, and checkpoints have been routinely enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers—the valley's staying populations are harshly exposed to extra-judicial execution and torture. India has contained the insurgency provoked in 1989 but the growing disenchantment of the average Kashmiri from endemic military occupation of India is not comforting in any manner.

The hundreds of thousands of demonstrators that fill the streets of Kashmir's cities today are overwhelmingly young and desperate, most of them in their teens, and armed with nothing more than stones. Yet the spanking goes on, such sneaky approaches must be stopped and the different voices should approach our conscience. It’s true that Pakistan has lost its undeserving war in Kashmir from India and native Kashmiris, so now India must bolster its ties with the aspirations of Kashmiris, like it does with its citizens, atleast notionally.

Looking back on the ‘Chenab model’ would be worthwhile for knowing the conflation that disturbed the lives of Kashmiri Pandits from 1990 onward. This was aimed to partition Kashmir along the river Chenab, was conceived by political leaders, mostly from Pakistan to promote a communal agenda. “Most of the districts in Jammu and on the left bank of the Chenab are Hindu majority in the state of Jammu and Kashmir while in most of the districts on the western side of the Chenab, the Muslims are predominant,” wrote Sartaj Aziz in his book ‘Between Dreams and Reality’ (page 228).

“In short, the River Chenab will form the separation line between the Pakistan and Indian held areas …Since India was no longer willing to go back to the concept of Hindu versus Muslim majority, the Chenab formula basically converted a communal formula into a geographic formula since most of the Hindu majority is east of Chenab and Muslim majority districts are west of Chenab.” Unfortunately, some partial aim of this guff was come into reality through the incessantly untamed involvement of Pakistan and India’s own casing of the burning situation in Kashmir from any constructive public discourse.

The dispute over Kashmir is not just the most enduring flash-point in the relationship between India and Pakistan; it is, equally, the largest question-mark next to India’s claims to secularism and democracy. Nationalist passions, political imperatives, security concerns and emotions of bitterness and distrust (including those between Kashmiris themselves) have undermined much policy-making and scholarship. Kashmir, today, is known through the prism of triangular political relations: between Srinagar and New Delhi; between politicians and the public within Kashmir; and between Kashmir’s different regions and identity groups.

Autumn normally leaves dual effects on mind. This season in Kashmir once used to be the time of rejoice that continuity broken in 1990 with the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and subsequently with the end of syncretism from valley. Never to forget, that was the culmination of incessant political follies directed towards the Kashmir which distorted the Kashmiriyat from the region where once Lal Ded and Noorudin Reshi were reflexive of all humane convictions in collective lives.

Introspection on the essence of Kashmiriyat could be too deep. It could be looked as far back as the time of Rajtarangini or Akbar’s colonisation of Kashmir, but here the focus should be unanimously channelised to draw the points: how the harmony in collective lives was the essence of Kashmiriyat and how it started losing those specialties of universalism with the partition in 1947? Post partition, Kashmir was one among the many troubled royalties but not most shaky in any terms. Then few would have thought about the evolvement of this paradise, as India’s weakness and centrepoint of notorious cold war politics!

These all developments happened in Jammu and Kashmir after India’s independence, and more resolutely with the most brutal catastrophe took place in the valley with the Kashmiri Pandit’s unfortunate exodus in 1990—down the twenty-four years, hibernation is still going on among the opinion makers and those cry for secularism and human rights for these people who are living outside their homeland. Those who made Kashmir a living ruin are being taken as leaders by the pseudo polemists of high caliber—only solace is such voices is not being taken seriously any longer and their low capacity to interface with the Kashmir’s history is a moving example of persisting ignorance among these noisy New Delhi/Srinagar based intellectual/separatist cohorts.

Over the decades, politics and high class but baseless discourses have produced mostly the trashes on Kashmir—the devoid from realities remains a harmful trend which is yet to be over, but chances are dim for such change. A better part of Kashmiriyat is already extinct from the valley, or it could be said, the loss of Kashmiriyat itself that used to bind together the religious diversities in special fold, caused for the outbreak of communalism in late 1980s.

In the course of time, the soft side of socio-cultural structure gave easy passage to the virulent mix of political-communal beliefs for replacement.

The devastating changes came into existence under the guise of horrible conspiracies from Pakistan. In response, the regime in Delhi and its unworthy ruling puppets in Jammu and Kashmir did alarmingly unwell in getting rid from the third party intervention that was being directed on almost war scale from the fraternity of crooks for their own illegitimate interests.

By playing under-capacity game, India has only become able to weaken the external conspiracies in Kashmir valley but still has to fight hard to foil it from the root—force alone can’t do it, whatsoever may be its might-ultimately, only the radical repulsion of masses from the nasty role of ‘third party’ and belief in their own capacity to negotiate with Indian state can lead to a point of peaceful accord.

It is daunting to take a stand on it, because related issues have been moulded so badly in the last six decades in various policy circles in India and outside that finding genuine ground and its non-categorized expression can be possible only on the self-risk of getting strictly good or bad points from the largely ‘undefined progressive blocks’.

Though those who parted from the valley in unimagined circumstances to save their life, dignity and successors, still carries the native originality alive with them. However, now the young generations of Kashmiri Pandits appear more part of the cosmic world than of those lost interwoven life of valley, Kashmiris’ were entitled for, before the insertion of full scale communalisation.

Still, those lived the community values, earnestly feel the absence of non-existent Pandits in valley and they want returning back of normalcy and calmness of old days. Most of the Kashmiri Pandits too, though settled across the world and leaving their mark in different fields have more sense of disbelief than any consolidated amount of anger for their lost neighbourhood. That’s the most positive social understanding still exists among the Kashmiris—even though they are living in distance through unnatural causes.

Even superlatively, politics can provide at best a kind of “turf” that ends with either the ‘state of solipsism’ or between tussle of stakeholders. This is only the socio-cultural combine that constructs the proper psyche of the social values, but most often they neglected. Not least, because in idealization process, good thoughts hardly considered for practical optimisation.

Low emphasis on the other components such as culture, shared past etc—which formats and strengthens the social order and falls beyond the direct purview of new state could be forwardly termed as contempt against the ancient fabric of old social realities.
Here is need of revisiting the truth: India as a nation is still very young, if comparing it with its very unique continuance as society for long through the stretches of history. In respect of Kashmir, crux of this little bit theorization could assist in forming a new ground of recuperating its socio-cultural distinctness back—and on later stage—coming in terms at collective level to decide on political course, without losing the sight from realities.

The conspiracies of various sorts caused for the turmoil inside once a living paradise, but now need is to look around what forced at social, cultural, psychological level that frozen and broke Kashmir? With impressive past and articulate lifestyle, the land which should have been the role model for peace, how turned to be among the most dangerous places of the world?

After the folly of last six and half decades, Indian side must deal with Kashmir in straight terms—without stretching the existing approaches of public diplomacy, which otherwise will keep downgrading the genuine aspirations in incompetency to engage effectively.

Searching nativity should be the main plank of displaced Kashmiris who tagged for long with an unjust and illogical suffix, Sharnarthi! Never was it justifiable inside a free state like India—only it was an illuminating stance of center’s failure to reach on the basic flaws of Kashmir issues and getting involved for a constructive way out. What we have witnessed rather a consistent derailment of the sensible concern, substituted by Hippocratic rise of local leadership which remains devoid to attain any rational purpose.

For Pakistan, Kashmir is an escape route from its ruined state of affairs—for India, it’s the profound entity of its secular credential—and for the local leadership, Kashmir is nothing more than a survival object. Puzzles are still there, so people must show the temptations of realignment with the Kashmiriyat and to continue their reliance on the democratic values. Circumstances may have made Kashmir a difficult terrain, but still it would be improper comparing it with a place like Palestine on many terms—as whenever something went wrong from the Indian side, public opinion always stood against it from all over India.

The issue of nation and nationalities could not be brokered by sentiments alone, history gives the choices based on facts and those facts are clearly in favour of India on Kashmir. Before Independence, consolidation of Indian territories through such grand centralization was never a reality—it’s not alone Kashmir that lost its royal rule and witnessed a sort of break-up in local rule. Most of India’s princely states merged and aligned in nation-making but the Kashmir took the different route with no clear destination ahead.

Agha Shahid Ali, a Kashmiri-American poet who has written ‘The country without post office,’ died at a young age in the USA. He could be a very apt frame of reference in knowing what the idea of native belonging is. How does it appear from a distant land and in adverse time? Amitav Ghosh’s long essay, The Ghat of the Only World: Agha Shahid Ali in Brooklyn (February 11,2002, The Nation), which he has written as he promised his friend during his last days in Brooklyn provides the intricate details of looking on one’s troubled motherland with vivid charm and apprehensions.

Agha was a believer in composite culture, not surprising, as his drawing room had more Hindu deities than Islamic icons—there was nothing religious about that, rather merely it was a continuance of liberal collective bond. It’s true, Shahid wanted his last days to be spent in Kashmir and that was quite a normal wish for a sensible soul like him. The Pandits, those in forced exile too feel similarly despite having lived away from the valley for a long time. Do the separatists have any answer for such basic needs which a major chunk of Kashmiris lacking badly? Infact not, and why they are they supposed to look into this?

It’s hard to get a forethought on what would be the shape and sequence of separatist politics in Kashmir but it’s an open secret and no conjecture that neither those who left the valley found any political representation, nor who stayed in the valley—from mainstream political parties. From political standpoint, it’s bewildering. A democracy essentially should mean for the people and alongside for its institutions. Over the decades, Indian democracy has stablised well, though fissures are still many and in coping those, the centre has not kept so impressive track record.

Whether in North East or in Kashmir, the major fallout of keeping aside the people’s aspiration proved detrimental in reaching out the right kind of solution. State has primarily to learn how to deal with its citizens uniformly and not by vindictively treating the dissent voices, whose demands otherwise could be considered very benignly. Those throwing stones in valley or updating posts on social media against the state’s repression are not the enemies of the Indian union—rather enemies are those who serve through legitimate channels and consistently betray the real issues related to the fate of Kashmir.

The bone of contention that could be drawn from Kashmir is that those who are in valley are living in quagmire with alienation towards the nation’s progress. They are not being able to entitle with the good dividends that the economic rise of India is giving-up to young population in its rest part. For most of stone palters, life could be more smooth and promising have they provided an alternative way of thinking and opportunity to succeed. Unfortunately state is doing abysmal on this by taking such protests more as ‘security issues’ rather politically-economically generated dissatisfaction.

Over a long debate with one of my journalist friends from Kashmir, he asked me why we should celebrate Sachin Tendulkar’s performance on the cricket ground— though he wished, if he could do it and other matters where India has lead. His point of view was hard to denounce, as he was speaking more clearly from the heart and by knowing the existing situation on ground —but I finally made my point with citing that the same aspiration that is not flourishing today among the young Kashmiris would be not static forever and very soon the change will make it happen that Kashmir may host all the symbols of ‘new mainstream’: from cricket, fashion to industry. Apropos of our statements, we finally agreed that wariness is still high but hope shouldn’t be ruled out from the future either.

The new generations of Kashmiri Pandits are upwardly mobile and whatever was their difficult past, now they are availing the right fruit by converging with the changing times. But naturally they still have quest to involve with the Kashmir, and that’s for good. As the shape of political cunningness is well evident now, there are feeble chances for separatist ideology to remain in mainframe for long in Kashmir. However, the state’s insensitivity would be a big deterrent to thrive on the positive chances. Still, the truth-telling should be wishfully continued and the stunning disclosures too must be acknowledged properly by the concerned affiliates on Kashmir.

Despite the major breakup of opinion, it is still nice to see Kashmiri Pandits more apolitical than falling as piggyback of fundamentalist forces, which plays wrong politics and generates hate on the similar line that Islamic fundamentalists have been doing in clusters. The true justice either for Kashmiri Pandits or for every Kashmiris would only take place with stronger denouncement of communal stands in political negotiation and by searching the true secular ideas, which will make the state and its citizens’ passive with religious over-exhibit.

The issue of Kashmir is indeed political in nature but intensification of all wrong precedents could thrive and strive by the crafted communal agendas—the cold war politics ended long back in 1991, but Kashmir sustained its wounded legacy and India’s weak stand to curb militancy in its early days. Once it reached to the valley, it took time to get solemnised. The barbed wires replaced the scenic beauties of Dal Lake and Nishat Bagh and all the Kashmiri Pandits become homeless overnight—all what communalism has given to the Kashmir.

In post independent India, the forced eviction of Pandits from the Kashmir valley was one amongst the most brutal tragedies. As it happened under a consolidated democracy at that time, the state had lesser excuses than during India’s partition way back in 1947. It is shocking to ponder why their plights are still not part of large secular discourse that makes aghast in calling ourselves a nation with democracy. All humans are equal, as idealist as it may sound but with believing this, the cruel play of communal politics could be halted.

The US realised that terrorism exists, only after the 9/11attack took place on its land. Since then, it played the role of a good consensus ally with India on Kashmir. It is wishful India too should realise though not in the spellbinding influence of USA—but through own approaches that the greater common good is possible, only through practicing secular ideas and not through the hypocritical preaching. Essentially, Kashmir should be taken as a living space which has a recognizable past and many set of people, including Pandits and other suffering masses. With remorse on what happened in 1990s, the valley is waiting for its
Pandits—only the state can make it or not. And the people are waiting for justice, for their voices to be heard.
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on February24,2014)

The holly sinners!

Book Review: Non-fiction/ Nobody can love you more by Mayank Austen Soofi, Penguin, 225p; Rs399 (Hardback)
Mayank is not laconic as a writer and he also breaks the stereotypical views. His book-Nobody can love you more on Delhi’s red light area, Garstin Bastion Road confirms it. GB Road, as it’s known popularly considered generally the work place for ‘fallen women’, pimps and visitors without identity or moral position.

But it’s an existing world, with running oldest profession of the civilisation and also of other petty trades. Here flesh traded and could be seen from the corner, unlike Delhi’s alternative elite flesh trade market, which was estimated last year for more than 500crore rupees per annum. Those are nut run from ‘red light area’ and the stories from that part of the world could not be made ‘vulgar and bawdy’.

Indian writing in English has followed a trend of pacifying the difficult subjects through prejudices-this book appears in contradiction of such odds by humanizing the narrative on unknown catalysts from a famous street for inglorious reasons. Sabir Bhai’s Kotha#300 and his five women tenant are the central characters of the book.

Mayank is not alien for them, they know he is a different person and he is here for chronicalising their live and knowing the plight from close quarters. So the interaction between writer and his characters come so natural that a reader may find an easy position on those conversations. They observe happiness, despair and also care for the baggage of history-their beingness as ‘holy sinner’ is not by-chance, rather which routes through the social norms of looking ‘weaknesses for ugliness’.

Earlier, I liked Louise Brown’s The Dancing Girls of Lahore on Lahore’s Heera Mandi but on Delhi’s similar grim truths, I had no proper book to refer until I read Nobody can love you more in a single seat and with deep engagement. Even though, momentously, the beauty of writer’s humane concern for these women and their affiliates stop devolving them beneath the optimal of existence.

The reading of this book allows ones to know, choices alone don’t make the fate. Sometime, even treading in particular direction happens unknowingly and that finally converge the bigger reality for streamlining with those miss-stepped. Still, the compulsions of life stay and these determines the state of ‘wretchedness or escapism’ amidst bitter turn-up of situation.

The author’s lively account of spent time with those residents of G.B.Road allows seeing a much different and genuine picture of the inner world. Like everything, G.B.Road also has a history and surprisingly it’s rich in the sense, it had once better reputation among the middle and upper classes. It was not that those days, flesh was not into trade, but then it was not taken so hypocritically and not given the fringe as destination.

So, it seems unusual when a young working journalist is chasing these lives with darkness in background. He shares the experiences, perspectives with few of the persons, for G.B Road holds a separate existence from rest nieghbourhood of swiftly changing Delhi. At some point, distinction diversifies and then author makes quest to see these lives vis-à-vis the world around them.

Here he finds the ‘civilisational gap’-the meaning of civilisation, though would be difficult to reckon and decode in general understanding. Sipping unfried daal at kotha ,if gives a particular sense of humanity it soon evaporates under the heavy commercial pressure, while sipping coffee at a plush restaurant of Connaught Place.

But Mayank keeps trying to proximate the two types of world, for better sake and reaching closer to the lives outpaced G.B Road. Writing on living things with difficult details is such a daunting and unfashionable task. It’s nice, this book has start getting attention from serious readers-nevertheless, unlikely that many more books of this taste would be written on the similar theme. As bearing the lives of marginalised is painful, and not taken by the majority for worth doing, alas!

Still hope is somewhere that the cities would stop making areas, red light or unholy for shock& awe magnetism. The beginning is remarkable here with Mayank Austen Soofi’s Nobody can love you, so it should be remain imminent as a formidable entry in non-fiction category. This book deserves reading, a bit of following too but never ‘clapping’!
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on May8,2013)

The rash upturn!

Book Review: Fiction/ How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid, Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, 228; Rs499 (Hardback)

How the books, in general are meant for? They are for ‘self-help’, reveals the narrator of Mohsin Hamid’s How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, on a less cryptic note. Though he doesn’t assert its universal supremacy, but cites it’s fallible and can be deviated as well.

The later conclusion, Mohsin’s third novel gives that narrator is ‘other’ and reader is ‘self’-the book progresses under this existential arrangement, and through taking meticulous care of locale.

The locale is, rising Asia (a greater misnomer), where chances are invariable for the aspirants of filthy richness-the sole requisite is to follow the model (which is not hindered by the shabbiness of surroundings, and knows thriving on suspicious commerce, violence and destiny) of that rash upturn.

As the impressions of Asia story is heavily influenced with the new economic swing (often as it taken) in the South Asian countries, so it seems apt, if this novel is set away from a different Asia (beyond its southern part, which is in prime focus here).

Unlike Hamid’s acclaimed previous novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist that was characteristically woven tough around the named countries-US& Pakistan, his latest fiction has no such specific geographic bound. Though both his novels exude the specialties of plain-narration, but it’s contextualization that makes them varied in interest and appearance.

Nevertheless, the vital facts remain at core in Hamid’s novels, irrespective of his narrator’s predestined position, in first or second person.

The story starts and furthers this way-a poor young boy moves from the rural hinterland to a slum dwelling in the city (migrated for survival, not for adventurism initially), gets incomplete education, trysts with militancy, and eventually sets up a bottled water business.

Mohsin does big services by terming this horrific trade as ‘the ultimate symbol of the modern South Asian city’, which forbids ones’ natural right over a commodity, like water. But architects of the new game in rising Asia sees this as mainstreaming of underused resources, alas!

Anyway, the unusual protagonist of this novel leaves his past behind, but his love for the girl he met as teenager remains vigorously persisting. As the prime mover in the self-help guide set-up, his rise (which believed true in various myopic quarters) becomes the sarcastic feed, portraying the awkwardness of belief that is attached today with the notion of success in the rapidly rising part of this world.

The ugliness of Asia’s weird statistical progression or terrible idleness of Western world forwards the case of mishandled growth management over the long course of history. The life makes or breaks with no definite set of rule here-all are lucky, who survives and rest are wretched. This is a new formulation, albeit it is extremely disastrous and has sharp impact.

The complexities stop even that ‘luck’ to be faithful, rather filthy rich or aspirants are supposed to play with the system. They are expected to commit misdeeds outside, but have to be seen orderly with the household responsibilities.

The author seems well acquainted with the prevailing economic insecurity among the common folks, who sees no other way around than trying out a hand with filthy way of richness. The title forwards the acuteness of desperate competency- ‘Move to the City’, ‘Get an Education’, also ‘Avoid Idealists’, ‘Befriend a Bureaucrat’ etc.

The chapters have nomenclatures, which fall close to the ‘articles of an imagined wisdom book’ but in deep senses, share the horror from mainstreaming of the misconceived trade or collective ethics. That is nothing short than a systemic failure, in making few individuals filthy rich and rests all, paupers (in relative deprivation).

The brilliantly witted and amazingly focussed, Mohsin’s Hamid’s How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a straight-forward anti-thesis of the new world order, now being known for following its intrinsically inequitable mandate. The strength of this book lies in its reliance over simple narratives.

It’s simpler than most of the non-fiction works have written on furious scales in recent time. With this novel, a self imposed inertia in fiction writing would end and the genre of fiction would be revitalized for better reasons.

As an exemplary chronicler of inner impulses and insecure self, Mohsin Hamid in big deal knows the exciting or dull time around, How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia confirms it beautifully.

In reading this book, you can learn coping with the ironies, which not always arrives tangible or perfectly timed…read this book, and know the structural collapse of rationalism!
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on April 15,2013)

In Kashmir, power holding craps are not holy

The violence knocks Kashmir, and commentaries enter like free bee-such obsession for ‘breaking news’ stops the chances to come in terms with the situation on ground. After Afzal Guru’s secret hanging, now the attack on paramilitary forces that killed five and left many injured have started another cycle of ruthless attack and counter-attacks in verbal debate.

The remaining part of the tragedy is being fulfilled by the insensitive leadership of Abdullah’s. It seems, Omar is enjoying the time of curfew, like many other elites born out through the endemic conflict in the state. As someone following the political affairs of Kashmir, I know how the daily wage earners face severe existential challenges during choked days, slapped by the ugly situation.

Unfortunately, at prime time trash debates on television, no expert feel essential to know the nature of Kashmir’s conflict from the angle of a commoner, who really have no luxury of knowing the intents of separatists or insincere mainstream leadership. These days, nothing could exert greater harm to the Kashmir’s plight than from these self asserted and well networked experts.

Only yesterday, I heard a moderator saying ‘Pakistan is our enemy’, so India must severe its diplomatic ties with its neighbouring country. It could shock to all thinking minds, who would not want to see the configuration of external/internal policies being set out from high evening television shows. Internally, Pakistan is intensely troubled, and it has ‘desperate policies’ to deal with the external world.

Naturally, it is earning the dividend on the wrong policies; it had accumulated over the decades. But that doesn’t mean, Indian intelligentsia, who have access to speak from vital platforms will see their wisdom in making Pakistan, a non-negotiable stakeholders in the South Asian region. Today, Pakistan’s literary creativity is on all time high and interestingly, this comes through in quest to forward the alternative picture of this problem-ridden land.

These literatures, written in the recent times on Pakistan draws attention towards the existing law-less situation, and surprisingly on the ‘surviving innocence’ among victims. Alienation from the truths have been creating and maximizing the flaws in the fundamental political approaches, and such tendencies seem not on wane with increasing sensationalism from media on Kashmir, and subsequently on India-Pakistan relations.

The Abdullah’s been and still are cunning with the words. The long spell of their dualism in conviction, have benefitted them politically. This will be utter folly to understand their rise and persistence in the politics of Jammu &Kashmir only through the circumstantial gains. Unlike the popular perceptions, even
they can exploit the ‘situation of normalcy’-for thriving in authority; Abdullah’s know no definite bond and checks.

They can look anytime beyond the genealogy-so took place their transfer from the camp of Congress to NDA in Vajpayee government. They can betray the causes for Kashmir for remaining pertinent in the state politics-but their birth in Union politics rather comes much easily, as compensation from Congress. The compensation is for the historical blunders, which remained unrelenting from 1947 to now.

Nehru promised Kashmiris but couldn’t secure a good future for the, the leaders of subsequent times followed no different fate. Consequently, in official circle, the clear thinking could not be mainstreamed and hence opened the gateway for multi-level fractures in state polity. Although they have maintained smoothness over the years, and their source of success found many takers in the state politics-so with Omar as Chief Minister, the assembly house of Jammu and Kashmir looks a safe abode for escapists.

Another round of curfew may spoil the normal pattern of life for downtrodden, but the politicians of Kashmir will not face the similar ire, while tweeting from home, rather travelling few miles ways for pursuing their open pastime. In Delhi or Srinagar, the Kashmir will be in news, but sadly never for the good reasons.

The television reporters would be known to the world for running along the fire-lines, the people and history of Kashmir will respectively walk opposite path-the path that is not actual and would lead to more and more troubles. Once, the people of Kashmir had no reason to not mourn on the death of innocents, now things are different.

The people are dying there, and they are being given grief or indifferences with the overt identities they have, not by the non-buzz word-‘humanity’. In Kashmir, human rights stand terribly below the fundamental level. The people have been voicing in its favour and the authority, who rule the course have been offering cold shoulder on those demands. Things were set in painful equilibrium, so tragedies turning like norms in the Valley.

Hence need to realise, power holding craps are real craps in Kashmir, they are not holy!
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on March16 and syndicated in Rising Kashmir on March19,2013)

The Blind Man's Garden: loss of odd times!

Book Review: Fiction/ The Blind Man’s Garden by Nadeem Aslam, Vintage Books/Random House, 415pp; Rs550 (Hardback)
Like his preceding work, The Wasted Vigil, Nadeem Aslam’s fourth novel-The Blind Man’s Garden, follows difficult overtures with the recent history. However, this new book has much bigger geo-strategic and humane canvas, as it draws the ground realities of war torn Afghanistan-Pakistan regions through immaculate sensibility and with unprecedented authenticity. The better strength of the book comes through Nadeem’s relying on his natural impulses rather submerging with the unmanageable amount of views on new world order, which runs on the notorious design of neo-imperialism.

This extraordinary war novel has merit to be listed with the best of literary fiction, the beautiful prose and momentous details of tragic lives completely justify the rating. Nadeem portrays the grimness of social conditions in Pakistan that is an end result of collusion between its army and terrorism. Such circumstances make lives too vulnerable and fragile to be lost. Radicals clearly want war-they push youth for Jihad and subsequently slaughtering by Talibanis or Americans.

Otherwise a brutal scenario, the prevailing starkness of Pakistan makes it super-normal. The insiders’ views are of participants or sufferer and outsiders’ views come with shocking uniformity. They temper with the sentimental inner core and leave the chances of noticing the innocence, which is another sort of violence in high order. This novel walks forth with aiming to deconstruct the stereotypical narratives on these difficult terrains, came into fashion and later developed as trend in the world of post 9/11.

The Blind Man’s Garden searches the obscure lives; those were forced to be part of the communal war, started with the US’s sudden realisation in 2001 that the world is no longer safe as it used to be for its own sake. The disastrous presumption lead a war not against the ’terror’ but to dismantle the figure and soul of unfortunate terrains in Afghnaistan and Pakistan. It affected all but as the war supported by the state managed financial capital, it stops treating live in equally precious terms, so mostly we know the fabricated sensational stories about the war. Seldom we know, what could be an ordinary point of view in hyper time like this?

The novel sets in a small town of Pakistan named, Heer. Jeo and Mikal are foster brothers, the former received success with academics and love and later failed, hence tracked the opposite path. Joe died in Afghanistan while helping civilians and Mikal offered him a helping hand in warzone and later in family matters. Joe’s widow gets hope of new life and Mikal the reason for life through channelizing the things properly in difficult circumstances. The last few pages of the book, which ends in positive configuration depicts the unusual normalcy of uneasy time.

Rohan, their blind father, who is the owner of a garden in backyard and unrelenting misfortunes without bound appears haunted by the premature death of his progressive wife, and on his mistakes made on the name of narrow religious convictions. Ironically, the blind man’s late wife personifies the life in their garden, which he can feel but not see any longer. In oblivion, he remembers her for secular and humane approaches. Rohan recalls his great-grandfather was in the service of British Empire during the mutiny of 1857 and now the changed equation after 9/11 makes him feeling betrayed.

The narration of loss is poignant and gets deeply expressed in symbolism. The loss of Rohan’s sight or losing loved ones comes outside the primary construct in same way. The turmoil of war goes long way and says lot in his helplessness to keep things on normal. Until the novel ends with magic realism effects, it shows the struggle for basic from commoners in Pakistan. Nadeem shows well the pathetic state of big democratic ideas in Pakistan, which is plagued through wrong leadership and choices of internationalism. Before 1980’s, this country was going better than India in economic terms, socio-culturally too, situation was not bad.

The final years of cold war politics ruined Afghanistan first, and to Pakistan subsequently. The Blind Man’s Garden unveils on many occasions, the ghost of Pakistan’s shadow democracy, which neither respect citizenship nor the dignity of human life. Beyond politics, these all ideas seem on wane. But still these are functional and making perceptions blurred for any changes. A new generation of Pakistani writers is doing amazingly well, for them ‘the cruel distance of geography’ hardly matters.

Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden is a remarkable reading of the existing situation in Af-Pak region. It has quality of pure literary fiction, and strikingly without cornering the wider strategic odds. With inclusion of harsh living scenes, this novel gives uncomfort but never allows to drive for disorientation-as not only Pakistan, but the whole South Asia region is problem ridden in one or other ways, so a compiler like Nadeem will have engaged time in future too!
-Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on March 11,2013)

Glittering nostalgia!

Book Review: Non-fiction/ Glittering Decades by Nayantara Pothen, Penguin /Viking, 268 pp; Rs499 (Hardback)
For majority of the people, the transition time of Indian independence was not filled with the glittering moments. The cunning British bureaucracy, which drove the mass spirit to ultimate low, could be hardly recalled in soft terms by those who feel the trauma of past very vividly. However, a class devoid of similar feelings and those who were carrying the legacy of ‘colonial hangover’ had somehow genuine appreciation for the attributes of British rule, which were offering seclusion from ‘dogs and Indians’!
Otherwise, such practices are untenable in our democracy, but still ghost-structures like, Gymkhana club etc reminds about the exclusionary tendencies, which see better prospects in artificially constructed objects and relationships, rather allowing humanity to blossom. But also possible is to look on the aristocracy with fascination but without actively endorsing its mainframes.

Nayantara Pothen does something on the same line with her book on Delhi’s passed aristocratic decades. Her memories are largely borrowed through the anecdotes and rests around her family’s prominence in the elitist circle. This remained continued in post-independence era too-perhaps the book has wider aim to establish, why that kind of club supremacy is on wane? Also, why it’s equally true with edifices?
The sense of privilege and loss is the basis, on which Nayantara mostly relies for her ‘aristocratic historiography’. With missing ‘social links’, her claim to call this book, a work of ‘social historiography’ seems little strange but it’s equally true that her research is interesting, even-though it’s meant for targeted readers only who have some kind of attached nostalgia. The book talks about the elite people, manners, and institutions in the hay days of colonial era and of little later.

The author relates those passed time with the presently existing affluent culture of Delhi, which is different and in certain sense, appears subversive. That part of ‘fall’, as this book corresponds is coming through India’s democracy, which is based on inclusive principles and notionally not allows the Club enlisted citizens to be seen by others as radically different from them.The believers of democratic principles find it more appealing, rather relooking on the dying over-aged Clubs for ‘false wisdom’ and ‘real exploitative instincts’.
The goodness about India lies in its amazing diversity, and the opposite one can confront by denying that most essential reality. The idea of social history writing in India is quite established now and the practitioner of this discipline can easily distinguish those texts, which have lesser leaning for it.

Here, the author of this book should understand these practicalities. In detachment, it’s very hard to write the history of India’s capital, which has been charged with the dynamic events and changes. The sense of entitlement through family’s connection is only giving the secondary inputs to Nayantara, so her offering of vision to look into that chunk of history lacks the proper degree of seriousness. It would have much better to read the reasons, which replaced those alarmingly elitist procedures but book keeps silence over that.
Over the decades, India has established itself as a matured functional democracy and it’s not without the active participation of its citizens. Flaws are very much intact here, but also faith is withstanding. So, hope is from the present and the time to come, rather looking back on the discriminatory system that was good for few. In recent times, Overseas Indians have written on

India through alien eyes and westerners have dwelt on the same theme with ‘false local understanding’.Unfortunately this has made the whole historical recollection exercises dubious and unauthentic. Though in patches, Glittering Decades, offer solace to the lovers of Delhi’s power corridors where mannerism matters more than any other specialties.
The book itself does not define the lifestyle of affluents, though it engages strongly with that wherever it finds the space to proceed. The history can’t be written without having a certain sense of nostalgia, its utmost essential as emotional connect.

The book secures this quality. A certain amount of social overtures would have given this book a much needed broadness. In absence of that, this project has greater individualistic leaning. But the history cannot be interpreted through the single set of narration, so this kind of book also has vital rational to exist. With distinct take on the history of Raj, and in simpler narration, Nayantara forwards hope to see on some eventful decades.
The book is good read, if it would be not taken to attain any specific aim. For the enthusiasts of modern India, it could be of more interest. Hope with feedbacks and own impulses, Nayantara will make her next book on India more social and inclusive!

Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Published in The Kashmir Walla on February24, 2013)

The company of a poet

Book Review: Non-fiction/In the company of a poet by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Rainlight/Rupa, 206 pp; Rs495 (Hardback)
This conversation book covers the work and life of Gulzar in high articulation. Nasreen Munni Kabir, w ho is known for her authentic knowledge on cinema has made another remarkable mark by infusing biographical element in a long interview with a timeless phenomenon-Gulzar. The best sense her conversation with Gulzar offers in not making this poet turned lyricist, a geographical indication-rather, he has presented here as someone who carries and express the steam made out of feelings.

Gathering such feelings is a continuous process-Gulzar has been passing through over the decades with similar experiences, and when he looks back, we can’t expect anything in standstill. This long conversation opens wide range of discussion, which begins with undivided India, painful partition days and later on the making of cinema culture in India. Those who know him closely as a poet and in person, can easily assume his reluctance for personification in his favour-probably this makes his height larger than the life.

Gulzar was born in Deena (Now in Pakistan) on 18th August, 1934. After partition, he came to Delhi. He began his film career as an assistant to Bimal Roy-the later found the hidden merit in him. He started writing songs for films with Bimal Da's Bandini (Mora Gora Ang Layee Le was his first song). Although in record, his first film to be released was Kabuli Wala, which also had some all time greats like Ganga aaye kahan se. He also worked with Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the beginning of his career and could succeed in the subsequent phases too by finding the kind of projects, suited to his unusual taste and intellect.

Once the book goes deep down in history, it inquisites about the elements of a rising star in Gulzar. But like him, Nasreen equally appears concerned to not make the better finer parts of a naturally special success story, like a repeating narration. The book talks of Gulzar, with praising his immaculate high senses for verse and conditionalities that makes it valuable, but it also not gives secondary look on the poet’s urge to reach in other domains. Nasreen makes Gulzar speaking on Cricket, also how he actively use Skype, downloaded on his laptop by none other than, A.R.Rehman.

This change is worth of noticing that a poet who started his career by writing his first song on a cigarette case(in scribble), is now relying so heavily on technology for talking on the nuances of new music with a musician, who works in past midnight, and mostly not from the stereotypical locale-Bombay. Like Rehman, Gulzar also knows the limitation of easy acts; so he never forgets that films gave him a mass recognition, though poetry always remained his first love. Albeit it’s not in his command to stop people loving him more for cinema and songs, he has written and directed than for the anthologies of poetries, which he has produced in last five decades.

Nasreen, though has focussed on most of the substantial parts of Gulzar’s work in this book, but she could have written something more about a decade (1987-1996), in which this poet went away from the scene. In this period, he did only seven films as lyricist and two as director-contrary to his timid action on big screen; he has done most outstanding jobs for the small screen, by making Mirza Ghalib, as a tribute to the legendary poet. Naseeruddin Shah appeared great in role of protagonist and immortalized the literary impression of Ghalib among the masses.

Towards the end, conversation allows readers to know, how Gulzar is walking with the time and and without compromising with success in his preserved grace. The mid 1990’s saw Gulzar back in action, behind the camera for the making of Maachis, a sensible study on terrorism in Punjab. The success of Maachis, impulsed Gulzar back to the film industry. After Maachis, he teamed up with new breed of music directors and kept contributing to the new chapters of history. He has patience and energy for writing all kind of songs-it gives no pain to him if his works are criticised or praised for having bouncing diversity.

Continuing his literacy enthusiasm, he has recently done a serial-Tehrir Munshi Premchand ki that shows, like a true creative genius, he gives weight for personal leaning on a particular theme. This book would be of great significance for all those, who take cinema for meaningful entertainment or for reckoning the vital debates, related to humankind. While progressing in the late seventies, Gulzar has chosen a right time to share his precious understanding of life and cinema in different shades. This book serves the wider purposes, reading it could strengthen such notion in all probability.
Atul K Thakur
Email: summertickets@gmail.com
(Also published in The Kashmir Walla, January27,2012)