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‘I wish I’d written more against Right-wing fascists…’

Writer and former journalist Khushwant Singh talks about his newest book and the one regret of his long writing life.
by Humra Quraishi

Khushwant Singh has always been a writer for all seasons. His acerbic wit and sometimes, hilariously accurate descriptions of the country’s people, its politics and overall persona have been both the subject of several important pieces of writings and books, and touchpoints for debate on the current state of affairs in India.

Singh is now close to 99 years old, but he is nowhere done. He recently released his latest book, The Good, The Bad And The Ridiculous (Rupa Publications), a collection of 35 of India’s most interesting personalities.

khushwant singh The book starts with this introduction: “I have never been a very tactful person. I have never been discreet either. I am a voyeur and a gossip. I am also very opinionated. These are good qualities to have if your aim is to be a writer who is read. I have met a good number of this subcontinent’s most famous (or infamous) and interesting people. I have also suffered famous bores, and sometimes been rewarded with behaviour so ridiculous that it becomes compelling…”

In these 35 profiles, as in all his writings, there is a mix of the absolutely serious with stuff that would make you laugh out loud. He still remembers the blackheads on the tip of Amrita Sher Gil’s nose, and he still remembers Begum Para from Dilip Kumar’s erstwhile clan (and other ‘loud’ remembrances of her), and he can still recount all those  moves that made model-dancer Protima Bedi one of the movers and shakers of the day.

He writes on dacoit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi, and how her life wasn’t just a blur of knives and guns but he presents actual back stories that help the reader understand how Phoolan became a dacoit. In all the profiles, I noticed that the journalist in him has got to the very root of each of the characters he has written about. It is this journalistic training that prompts him to examine why Balwant Gargi committed adultery so blatantly.

Why is this book important? Khushwant is perhaps the only surviving journalist-writer of this subcontinent who has seen history in the making over almost 100 years now. He was born in Undivided Punjab in 1915 in the village Hadali, which is now in Pakistan. He has witnessed the Partition and the subsequent aftermath. He has seen the major turning points in the country’s past and recent history.

His long association, both personal and professional, with the country’s history comes out through his detailed chronicles of the long list of personalities he has chronicled. When I ask him about the book, his replies are as blunt as always. “I regret one thing. I wish I’d written much more against the fundoos…the Right-wing fascists who are hell bent on causing divisions [in society]. These fundoos are a serious threat. I could have written much more against their fascist and divisive policies. In recent times, I have been writing against Narendra Modi, LK Advani because of the communal poisoning they have unleashed in the country.”

He elaborates on Advani thus: “I shun people who are at the forefront of communalism, and this includes the likes of LK Advani. He has done grievous harm to our efforts to create a truly secular India. I have no regret over his discomfiture and eventual fadeout from national politics – it will be as comic a tragedy as any we have witnessed in recent times.”

(Pictures courtesy www.thehindu.com, www.siliconindia.com)

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‘Writing isn’t easy…’

14-year-old student Maulik Jain releases debut book, says he writes as a response to what he experiences in the world.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

One can do something for years, but one needs just one brilliant second for a great little idea to strike. That is exactly what happened in Juhu resident Maulik Jain’s case – he was sitting at the dinner table one night and had a sudden flash of inspiration.

Maulik JainA little over a month later, after he’d let inspiration take over him completely, Maulik (14) was ready with his first book, Imagination Unplugged, a collection of personal essays and short stories. “I had always been writing, and my essays used to be read out by teachers in class,” says the Grade 10 student of Jamnabai Narsee School. “I have been writing a diary for the longest time, and so the habit of penning down my thoughts is an old one.”

This habit held Maulik in good stead, because, as he admits, most of the material for his book was already present in his jottings. “But for the book, I had to revisit a lot of the essays I had written, restructure the thoughts I had previously put down, because I found that what I had thought a few years or months ago, was not what I thought now. I sat down and went through the material, selected the writings I wanted to include in the book, then fine-tuned them,” he explains.

The entire process of coming out with the book took about eight months, with Maulik and his parents being an integral part of the decision-making process. “There was a lot to learn from the overall process. I got to know about the various parts of book publishing, took decisions on typeset and jacket designs, sat down for editing discussions. It was a great learning experience for me,” he says. The biggest learning, however, came from the ‘writing’ part of it. “I realised writing is really not that easy, especially writing a book,” he grins.

Once the book was printed and delivered, Maulik’s parents Deepak and Pooja arranged for a grand launch for the book. “Everybody was so supportive, and we were surprised to see Bhawana Somaaya with Maulik Jain at his Book launch of Imagination Unpluggedover 300 people turn up for the launch,” says Pooja. “Bhawna Somaaya spoke to Maulik about the book, and though he was a bit nervous at first, he really held his own when he answered her questions.”

With studies taking up most of his time, Maulik hasn’t had the time to promote his book. “May be in the vacations I will,” he shrugs.

His mother says that though he hasn’t ruled out writing as a career option, he would ideally like to join his father’s construction business when he grows up. But if he does take up writing, here’s what we could expect from him next: the straight-A student loves murder mysteries and counts JK Rowling and Anthony Horowitz among writers he admires. “If I write another book, I wouldn’t write a sequel to the first one. I would like to write fiction. May be I will write a murder mystery next,” he muses.

 

 

The launch of Imagination Unplugged:

 

Imagination Unplugged is available at all major bookstores for Rs 175. All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to Angel Xpress Foundation.

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How well do you know our Raj Bhavans?

Two coffee table books on State’s three Raj Bhavans to be launched; will be uploaded on the Raj Bhavan website.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The most enviable private residence in Mumbai is, without doubt, the Maharashtra State Governor’s home, the Raj Bhavan. The Governor has three Raj Bhavans in Maharashtra – Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune – and a summer residence at Mahabaleshwar.

But since these are closed off to the general public and are open only to visiting heads of countries and occasionally the members of the Press, not many are aware of just how stunning these official residences really are. Now, everyone has a chance to feast their eyes on the palatial Raj Bhavans in Maharashtra; the State’s CM Prithviraj Chavan will formally launch two coffee table books on Raj Bhavan on Thursday, October 17. The books, one in English and the other in Marathi, document the heritage, architecture, flora and fauna and other interesting aspects of all the Raj Bhavans in Maharashtra through a series of stunning photographs. The English book is titled Raj Bhavans of Maharashtra: Witness to Glory and the Marathi one is titled Maharashtrateel Rajbhavaney: Vaibhavshali Itihasachi Saakshidaar.

The books will be presented as souvenirs to national and international dignitaries visiting Raj Bhavan, and will be shortly uploaded on the Raj Bhavan website.

See some of the pictures from the books:

(Pictures courtesy Sudharak Olwe)

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Do our youth need spirituality?

Three writers pen a tome, aimed at the youth, on the holy places of all religions and faiths across India.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Everybody follows a religion. While religion is a deeply personal issue, and so is the visiting of holy places as per one’s faith, the undertaking of a pilgrimage is generally considered to be a task for old people. It is not an activity associated with most youngsters.

But, found three writers, the opposite is true.

Anju PoddarIt was this line of thought that led the three writers – Anju Poddar, Sethu Vaidyanathan and Mukul Singhal – to explore India’s several religious faiths and the holy places associated with each. Their observations, made over a period of two years, were laid down in the stunning book 108 Shades of Divinity, which is a collection of the 108 holy places in India across nine faiths. We spoke to Mumbai resident Anju Poddar, whose brainchild the book was, about writing this particular book and discovering several interesting truths during the writing process.

Excerpts from the interview:

How did you hit upon the idea of this book?
Mukul Singhal (one of the authors) who is my friend Parul’s brother, had read my earlier books on Manasarovar and Traditions of India. I have written seven other books prior to this one. Mukul had visited the chaar dhams and the 12 Jyotirlingas as well. He contacted me about this project which was already in my mind. Then my daughter Avantika introduced me to Sethu Vaidyanathan (the third writer) who also had a passion about visiting places of worship. The three of us made a good team. Once we discussed the concept and the contents, we got started. We worked in total harmony, complementing each other.

Why do young people need to read this book?
For a while, I had been observing that a lot of youth were getting increasingly inclined towards visiting these holy places. The reasons could be that may be they suffered from too much stress in their lives, or may be they did it in a spirit of adventure. Or may be they did it just to connect with their roots?

When we were kids in the 1960s and 70s, my father KN Modi used to take us to all religious places when he could. Later on, we carried this tradition forward with our children also. So my daughter Pallavi once told me. ‘Maa, your grandkids have seen the three Disneylands in the US, Paris and Hongkong, but none of the Jyotirlingas. Why don’t you write about them and inspire the youth?’ That was how I got the idea for this book.

Why did you self-publish this book, instead of taking the traditional publishing route?
Self publication gives more freedom and flexibility in terms of content and choosing the top designer as per requirement. In our case, buying images was a mega cost which a From L- R. Lara dutta, Amish Tripathi, Anju Poddartraditional publisher would not have okayed, and the publisher also may have objected if we said we wanted to go to the best of printers and use expensive paper and hire a good editor. I say this from past experience.

All three of us pitched in (for the costs of production), we got the ISBN number and started work.

Despite it being a self-published work, the response to the book has been good so far. Apart from launching in Mumbai and Hyderabad, we launched in London on July 5 and we will launch it in Delhi on July 25.

Did you meet a lot of religious leaders/priests/imams in the writing of this book?
We had over 70 people helping us in the research and information gathering of this book, across religions. We had consulted Shankaracharayaji of Dwarkadheesh and Badri Ashram for the writeups on Hinduism. Likewise, for every other religion we went to various fathers, imams and priests, apart from experts for their inputs. After we wrote our articles, we sent them writeups to these people for their approval.

Why is the knowledge enshrined in 108 Shades of Divinity important in today’s times?
108 is an auspicious number, and this is known across our faiths. Even the beads in the jap maala are 108 in number. People should be aware of the location and significance of their holy places. My daughter Avantika suggested this name and we worked around it.

(Pictures courtesy Anju Poddar and www.alasr.info) 

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Angrezi chhori in an Indian car

British journalist Vanessa Able drove the Tata Nano 10,000 kilometres all over India, then wrote her first book ‘The Nanologues’. We speak to her about her experiences and about putting the book together.
by Vrushali Lad

Vanessa Able read up on the Tata Nano, the ‘world’s cheapest car’ and decided to take the car on a test drive in 2010 – across 10,000 kilometres, starting from Mumbai, on a circuitous route from the South to the East to the North and back to Mumbai. Vanessa’s trip lasted three months, and in the interim, she had a host of adventures with the car (she lovingly named her ‘Abhilasha’), had a run-in with several crazed Indian drivers on the roads, drove through the Naxal corridors with some trepidation, and at the end of her travels, even met Ratan Tata at his Mumbai office.

We interviewed Vanessa over email about her book, The Nanologues, which chronicles her journey and which was culled from a blog she maintained during her travels. Do look out for an excerpt from the book at the end of this piece.

Excerpts from the interview:

First of all, congratulations on an excellent and entertaining book. I’m not even a driver and I still loved reading about your adventures. How has the response to the book been?
Thank you. It’s been great. Which is quite surprising for me, as a foreigner. I was never sure how people in India would receive the writing, but both the blog and the book seem to have gone down well so far.

Can you describe the general feeling in the UK about the Nano, when the car was first launched?
I’d say that most people in the UK, although they’ve heard about the Nano, tend to not know so much about it. For sure Tata as a company is on the British radar, especially after their acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover, and the innovation of the Nano has contributed to many people’s view that India’s engineering industry is on the rise.

Mostly, I think people are excited at the prospect of a similar car being brought to Europe, though in reality that still seems to be a way off.

You mention that you planned your trip using a Lonely Planet guide book and a map. What other research did you conduct before deciding on the trip?
Very little. I was more interested in letting the road and the trip itself lead me. I knew that as I drove, the places I wanted to go and the things I needed to do would become apparent.

How have your driving habits changed after your India tour? You give an account of how you loved to cut across other cars and toot your horn when cars took too long to move out of your way? What is it like now?
Well, since getting back to Europe, I’ve had to tone down my Indian habits a bit, as the English don’t take too kindly to being honked at in traffic or being mercilessly cut up at junctions. Having said that, my husband and I now live in Rome, Europe’s most notorious city for reckless driving. In my opinion, it has nothing on India, but I have to say that my training in the likes of Mumbai and Delhi certainly primed me for Rome, which is a cakewalk by comparison.

Has anyone written to you asking for help/tips on undertaking a similar road trip?
Not really, no. And I don’t blame them 😉

Say Abhilasha had actually given you the kind of problems drivers don’t want to encounter out on the Indian roads. Did you have a backup plan in place?
None whatsoever. I have a lot of faith in the spirit of the moment.

You mention a (quite hilarious) meeting with (journalist and former editor-in-chief of Time Out Mumbai) Naresh Fernandes in Mumbai. Post your trip, did you get the chance to meet him again?
We’re Facebook friends now, and we chat from time to time. He’s a great chap with a wicked sense of humour. I hope to meet him again next time I’m in India.

Did you ever face problems from men in India, seeing as you were an unaccompanied white female?
None. I’m not sure if it was pure luck or the aura of my naiveté. I know that many women in India do face dangers when they travel unaccompanied, but then that’s also a global phenomenon. My advice to my sisters is to always be cautious, but not to let fear get in the way of doing what you want to do and going where you want to go. An empowered woman has an energy about her that is more likely to put off predators.

How long did it take for the blog to translate into a book? Were there any revisions/rewrites required?
About 3 years! Yes, it required a lot of revision. The blog was a visceral account of the adventure, whereas the book required a lot more in terms of structure and narrative. And I discovered that the editing process can be long, much longer than the writing part.

How many photographs and videos did you shoot during the trip?
Thousands, literally.

You were in Mumbai twice, at the start and the end of your journey across India. What were your impressions of the city?
Mumbai makes my head spin through its sheer size and the implications of so many diverse people living together in one metropolis. As a foreigner, the city only gets interesting to me when I’m able to penetrate the surface through the friends that I have there and the other people I meet. But for sure I’d like to spend more time there and get to know the place better.

What is your next project? Are you working on a new book?
I’m still working on the UK and US editions of this book. It’s a never-ending job. It’ll be released at the beginning of 2014 under the title Never Mind The Bullocks, a play on the name of the Sex Pistols album.

Would you say an Indian on the road is a very different animal than the Indian at home?
I’d take a chance to say that, yes. But I think that people in general are very different behind the wheel to how they are in person. Driving depersonalises people: the vehicle becomes an avatar and gives us the courage to behave with previously untested vigour. Road rage is an excellent example, and I’ve experienced it myself. I would never act in front of a human being the way I do when they’re in their cars, but somehow when you’re driving, you never see the person, you only see the car.

If you hadn’t teamed up with Abhilasha, which car (in retrospect) do you think you would have chosen on a trip like this?

I’d like to see if an Ambassador could take the pace. Or a nice jugaad.

Do you plan to undertake another journey, with say, another route, in India?
I’m coming over for ‘Literature Live’ in November, so I might be tempted to go for another spin then. Perhaps through the centre of the country.

Where is Abhilasha now? Have you sold her yet?
I sold her on to a friend who lived in Auroville, near Pondicherry. The last I heard, the lady in question moved to France and left Abhilasha with her son in Chennai.

____________

An excerpt from The Nanologues:

‘A horn parped from behind and a motorbike appeared in my side mirror, squeezing itself through the space between the Nano and the Ashok Leyland. Ten tiny fingers and then a larger pair of hands walked their way across Abhilasha’s back window, steadying the bike that was already wobbling under its hefty load. From what I could see, the vehicle was being steered by a five-year-old girl with braided pigtails, gripping the handlebars from between the legs of her father who was deeply involved in some kind of transaction via his cell phone. Behind him sat a woman, presumably his wife, who was holding a baby to her chest, recognizable as such only by the appearance of a set of minute toes that peeked out from under a blanket. The woman was wearing a pink-and-yellow sari that flapped around her and beat against the number plate, while the tail end of the fabric danced teeth-clenchingly close to the spokes of the back wheel.

She was sitting side-saddle with a look of nonchalance more appropriate to the resigned boredom of a doctor’s waiting room than to moving among large vehicles along a main road with nothing to hold on to, wrapped in five metres of hazardous fabric. The hands that should have been clutching her husband or a pillion bar were instead occupied with clinging onto her newborn child with the kind of relaxed composure I could only replicated embedded in an armchair, sleepily thumbing a remote control. They were like a campaign family for suicidal bike riding.’

 

 (Pictures courtesy Vanessa Able)

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Review: Jobless Clueless Reckless

Debutant novelist Revathi Suresh tells us about writing a book for young adults ‘with exactly no story in mind’, among other things.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Writer Revathi Suresh’s book, Jobless Clueless Reckless, was released very recently. It’s a sweet little story of a teenaged girl living in an (apparently) dysfunctional family – her father and mother are almost separated, neither have enough time for their two children, her brother is strange, to put it mildly, and her life is as different from her friends’ as could possibly be. (see review at bottom).

In an interview, the author tells The Metrognome about  writing her first novel, how a story was born out of nothing at first, why she thought writing would be ‘easy-peasy’ and why the suspense of not knowing what she’ll write next is killing her.

Excerpts from the interview:

What inspired this story?

I don’t know about inspiration, it was more that I was at loose ends. Or at least that’s what the people around me seemed to think and I sort of fell in with their idea of me, you know? I had quit my last part-time job and had plans to retire and be a stay at home mom-wife and swing on a swing because housework gets done on its own magically, right? Luckily for me, everyone else around me had better plans for me and kept going, ‘So what are you planning to do now?’, and brushing aside my claims of being a homemaker.

I guess their hopeful looks got to me at some point until I gave in and decided one fine day that I would write a book because that’s what the whole world and its mom are doing right now. Have you been to bookstores lately? (There are) So many new books by so many new authors. I think even the guys who work there moonlight as novelists. So what I’m saying is, I thought writing would be easy-peasy and so cool because I wouldn’t even have to change out of my night clothes to open my laptop. And that’s how I started banging away at my keyboard one fine day with exactly no story in mind. Somewhere along the line it became a book, so I guess magic does happen after all.

How long did you take to write this book?

Two years. Mostly because I didn’t write for a good part of that time. About 40 pages into the first draft I gave up and decided I was never going to finish it, so what was the point. It took me around six months to get the courage to open that particular Word file again. Then I took another I-can’t do-this-anymore break around page 117 or 118 and returned after many months. I’ve figured out that’s my style. Ditch, don’t write. I must say it works spectacularly well.

How close is the central character to you or someone you know?

Kavya is no one I know and she’s every teen I know, if you get what I mean.

The Manisha angle is very interesting, especially since there is no happy ending to it. What was the inspiration for this part of the story?

Again, no inspiration as such. I wanted a first chapter that would suck a reader into the book right away. Only, having created that mysterious opening I struggled for a bit to close that story. I had a few options and I tried them all out. One was that I leave it open-ended but that did not go down well with some of my draft readers. Two was to make her out to be what all Kavya’s friends think she is. But that would mean agreeing that Kavya’s delusional and I wasn’t happy with that at all.

Three was to actually follow through and write a mystery, but that requires some clever planning and plotting and I wasn’t up to that. Finally, I managed to conclude the Manisha story with the help of another hanging thread I need to tie up – Kiran. In an earlier draft, Kiran kind of faded away but that wasn’t working out either, so it’s nice that one chapter took care of the two of them in the end.

What are you working on next?

Nothing right now. But who’s to say what I might cook up in a year or two from now? It might just be the family dinner or another of these I-want-to-escape-writing-so-badly-that’s-why-I-keep-going-back-and-doing-it-all-over-again-books.The suspense is killing me.

What have you written prior to this book?

This is not the first book I’ve written but this is my first novel. I have written commissioned books for IETS and a few years ago I worked with them on this really exciting UNICEF-Karnataka government sponsored Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan project for reluctant readers in rural Karnataka. Many years ago I also wrote a commissioned biography of an industrialist (and it wasn’t as boring as it sounds) which was particularly challenging because he’d been dead twenty years and trying to get a picture of his childhood and early life was pretty difficult because none of his contemporaries were around. In another lifetime (I really am a relic) I was an editor at a Chennai-based publishing house where I worked with Subashree Krishnaswamy to bring out a magazine called Indian Review of Books. The two of us also edited fiction (mostly translation) and non-fiction for an EastWest imprint called Manas.

Why I suddenly became a teen, I don’t know.

Review of Jobless Clueless Reckless:

Not being a writer myself, I’ve always wondered about something: how does one write about a subject or develop a story around a character without a) The subject being autobiographical and b) The writer being even a little bit like that person.

I wondered this especially after I read books like Khaled Hossaini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, the story of which revolves exclusively around women. Hosseini’s written that story with such sensitivity and dignity, it seems astounding that such a tale – of suffering in silence, of hiding great secrets in an aching heart, of gracefully submitting to a terrible fate, all because one is a woman – could be told by a man. That might sound childish in an increasingly gender-neutral world, even insensitive to some, but that’s just my opinion.

I wondered this again while picking up Jobless Clueless Reckless by Revathi Suresh. By her own admission, Revathi is ‘well into her dotage’. So how has she written about the life of a teenager?

The answer? Quite well.

The book is about Kavya, a teenager living at an embarassing address – Kansas, Grand Canyon, Bangalore, India – with, according to her summation of the matter, an embarassing brother and workaholic mother. You expect a teenage crush, some catty friends, trivial incidents blown out of proportion, and even a ditzy pair of parents, and Revathi gives the reader all of these and more.

Kavya’s parents have very decided ideas for their children, one of which includes homeschooling Kavya and Dhrittiman, her younger brother. The parents have all but divorced each other, and the two children live with their mother in a home that doesn’t encourage much intimacy – largely owing to the fact that Kavya’s mother has seemingly abandoned her earlier, jollier self for a career-driven woman who works at all hours to the exclusion of everything, even her children.

Several twists and turns later, while Kavya battles the ‘weirdo’ label imposed on her by peers who think she is quite possibly dangerous, to a wild night out with a seemingly demure behenji types who shows Kavya a wild night on the town, to finding out who her real friends are and what her heart tells her about Kiran, the big crush of her life, the story resolves itself to an almost satisfactory (for Kavya) end.

I thought some parts of the story dragged on a bit – the bitchy interactions between the girls, for instance – and the characters of Lara (Kavya’s best friend) and even Drittiman are slightly hazy around the edges. But I thoroughly enjoyed Kavya and Drittiman’s relationship – it is both gruff and touching – especially the way they unconsciously cling to each other in a crisis, and the missing Manisha, who Revathi opens the story with (plus the unresolved nature of her disappearance) is all too real. After I finished the book, I realised I actually didn’t want to know where and why Manisha vanishes, though I wanted to know at the beginning.

Revathi also touches on the subject of older children becoming unwitting ‘parents’ to younger siblings, the pitfalls and pleasures of homeschooling a child in system-obsessed India, and how it is possible to lead a double life and keep the two comfortably separate. All of this is done very well, without sermonising.

All in all, this is a good book to recommend to young adults, especially if you’re trying to wean them away from such horrors as the Twilight series. Jobless, Clueless, Reckless is a good read because it is frank, humorous and does not pretend to be something it is not – much like its heroine.

Duckbill Books, Rs 175

(Pictures courtesy Revathi Suresh, thehindu.com)

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