Mr. Tarun Tejpal, the famous editor of Tehelka weekly, recently hogged the limelight for an altogether different reason.
The journalist, who shook the Indian political and military establishment a few years ago with an expose, coolly penned his novel, The Alchemy of Desire, while fighting the establishment's crackdown.
According to media reports, the novel sold out on the day it was released. No wonder as Tarun writes very well and his reputation is unsullied. Critics are already appreciating "the voice" he has used in the narrative.
Tarun's mentor, Sir V S Naipaul, has liked the first part of the book. That is, I guess, good enough a recommendation for Tarun.
I think every English-educated Indian, whether he did or did not study at Oxbridge, is writing a novel or two these days, apart from doing his day job as a diplomat or a journalist.
Arundhati Ray's success has had huge impact on the Indians of all ages. Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi was 17 when he witnessed the phenomenal success of Roy. He was inspired. The result is his debut novel, The Last Song of Dusk. Only God knows, out of 1 billion Indians, how many more she has infected with the virus of seeking publishing success.
To make things clear, let me admit, I was not inspired by Roy. I had decided to become a writer in the pre-Roy India, if may say so. At that time, the only Indian writers I knew were Narayan, Rao, Sehgal, Naipaul, Rushdie and others.
At the rate the Indians are writing novels, the day is not far when it will be de rigueur for every educated Indian to have penned a novel--sort of a rite of passage of being an educated Indian.
Remember the line, "Scratch an Indian and you will find a novelist." (It is like the line from Dr. Zhivago: "Scratch a Russian and you will find a farmer.")
Do you know who said it?
None other than our honourable Tarun Tejpal.
Did I hear you say, look, who's talking?
"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." ― V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Friday, March 18, 2005
Celebrating literature at the ‘fragrant harbour’
Read the snippets (all of them) from the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival 2005 here:
http://www.crimsonfeet.org/article348.html
Enjoy!
http://www.crimsonfeet.org/article348.html
Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
‘My work is not magic realism’
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s first novel, The Last Song of Dusk, won the 2004 Betty Trask Award. Ever since his emergence on the literary scene, Siddharth has been the toast of the media. The Sunday Times Magazine described him as “the next best thing to have happened to Indian writing in English since Arundhati Roy.” A publicity report in the Fringe Club described his books selling like hot cakes in India and the paparazzi waiting outside his house to take his snaps. Tired of all this Siddharth has taken to the Himalayas, working on his next opus. Meanwhile, his mother frets about the marriage of her (in)famous son: “who would like to marry a man who writes on sex?”
I was curious to meet Siddharth. When I reached the Cipriani’s, China Club, on the Bank Street, next to the imposing HSBC Bank building, he was already there. He was wearing a yellow turban and was chatting with Hsu-Ming Teo. Teo was born in Malaysia in 1970 and had emigrated with her parents to Sydney in 1977. She was a research scholar in a university. Her second novel expected to come out soon.
The programme started with Teo reading from her first novel, Love and Vertigo. It was a mother-daughter novel.
Then Siddharth read from his novel. It was a passage where the heroine admires Mahatama Gandhi’s loin cloth, calling it sexy. And so on. The interesting thing about Siddharth is his voice. He reads and talks as if he were in a trance.
After the readings a discussion followed. Everybody, including host Peter Gordon, was asking questions. Peter had read the book last year and was so impressed that he had immediately invited Siddharth for the festival.
Siddharth described himself as a small part of a large family (of writers like Roy and Vikram Seth) whose members were doing exciting things. He didn’t know if he wanted to become a writer. “I am in the process of figuring out what to do in life,” he said with a smile.
He wrote the novel when he was twenty-two. The writing took him about one year. It was his way of dealing with a broken relationship. Then he forgot about the book. In the US, his friend read the manuscript and advised him to publish the book. He found an agent (after interviewing about ten agents) and the rest is history. Now his work is being compared with Marquez and Rushdie.
When Peter called Siddharth’s work magic realism, he protested. “Please don’t call my work magic realism. I don’t like the word magic realism—it takes away from the realism of my story. In India, we have this belief that everything—a house, a tree—has a spirit and we must respect that spirit. So in my novel if a house is talking, it is not magic realism. You may call it heightened realism.”
“What do you think about your novel now?” I asked him.
“I haven’t read my novel,” he said. People guffawed.
He admitted he had a lot to read, a lot to catch up. He doesn’t dig short stories and so he has never attempted one. At present, he said, he was attracted to the idea of the deviousness and viciousness of Bombay. That may well become the theme of his next book. “To be a writer, you have to be alert to your emotions,” he said. “You don’t write a book. The book gets written.”
Hsu-Ming Teo said that she never thought of becoming a writer. After submitting her Ph.D. thesis, she was unoccupied and that was when she started writing her novel. Surprisingly, she works without an agent.
“What do you think about your novel now?” I asked her too.
“It could have been better,” she said.
She said she enjoyed the finishing part of writing more than anything else. Yes, the act of writing is hard work and most authors love to reach that part of the story where they can write ‘the end’. Later, I also had the opportunity of listening to a chapter from her second novel. It was about making love in a toilet. It was really good, much better than her first read.
I was curious to meet Siddharth. When I reached the Cipriani’s, China Club, on the Bank Street, next to the imposing HSBC Bank building, he was already there. He was wearing a yellow turban and was chatting with Hsu-Ming Teo. Teo was born in Malaysia in 1970 and had emigrated with her parents to Sydney in 1977. She was a research scholar in a university. Her second novel expected to come out soon.
The programme started with Teo reading from her first novel, Love and Vertigo. It was a mother-daughter novel.
Then Siddharth read from his novel. It was a passage where the heroine admires Mahatama Gandhi’s loin cloth, calling it sexy. And so on. The interesting thing about Siddharth is his voice. He reads and talks as if he were in a trance.
After the readings a discussion followed. Everybody, including host Peter Gordon, was asking questions. Peter had read the book last year and was so impressed that he had immediately invited Siddharth for the festival.
Siddharth described himself as a small part of a large family (of writers like Roy and Vikram Seth) whose members were doing exciting things. He didn’t know if he wanted to become a writer. “I am in the process of figuring out what to do in life,” he said with a smile.
He wrote the novel when he was twenty-two. The writing took him about one year. It was his way of dealing with a broken relationship. Then he forgot about the book. In the US, his friend read the manuscript and advised him to publish the book. He found an agent (after interviewing about ten agents) and the rest is history. Now his work is being compared with Marquez and Rushdie.
When Peter called Siddharth’s work magic realism, he protested. “Please don’t call my work magic realism. I don’t like the word magic realism—it takes away from the realism of my story. In India, we have this belief that everything—a house, a tree—has a spirit and we must respect that spirit. So in my novel if a house is talking, it is not magic realism. You may call it heightened realism.”
“What do you think about your novel now?” I asked him.
“I haven’t read my novel,” he said. People guffawed.
He admitted he had a lot to read, a lot to catch up. He doesn’t dig short stories and so he has never attempted one. At present, he said, he was attracted to the idea of the deviousness and viciousness of Bombay. That may well become the theme of his next book. “To be a writer, you have to be alert to your emotions,” he said. “You don’t write a book. The book gets written.”
Hsu-Ming Teo said that she never thought of becoming a writer. After submitting her Ph.D. thesis, she was unoccupied and that was when she started writing her novel. Surprisingly, she works without an agent.
“What do you think about your novel now?” I asked her too.
“It could have been better,” she said.
She said she enjoyed the finishing part of writing more than anything else. Yes, the act of writing is hard work and most authors love to reach that part of the story where they can write ‘the end’. Later, I also had the opportunity of listening to a chapter from her second novel. It was about making love in a toilet. It was really good, much better than her first read.
Monday, March 14, 2005
The Craft of Writing Satire
Hari Kunzru, the Wire-geek turned writer, was to speak on the craft of writing satire at the Fringe Club, Hong Kong’s contemporary arts space. Kunzru is an interesting writer. He was born and educated in UK. His father had migrated to UK from Agra in India. Kunzru opposes any attempts to pigeonhole him as a coloured writer or an Asian writer. He knows that being labeled as a writer of particular race/origin makes it easier to market him by publishers. However, he doesn’t want to be a party to this marketing gimmick. His fame has only been increasing. In 2003, Kunzru was named by Granta Magazine as one of twenty ‘Best of Young British Novelists.’ His novels The Impressionist and Transmission have been well-received.
In the Fringe Club theatre, Peter Gordon (the chairman of the festival), introduced Kunzru to the audience. Kunzru started with the definition of satire: satire is writing or comic writing that illuminates a social subject. He said that one must know the subject intimately to write satire (“If you don’t know Hollywood, don’t write about it.”).
With intimacy, he said, comes complicity. Using the intimate knowledge of the subject, the writer is supposed to bring out the guilt. He read passages from Evelyn Waugh’s and Joseph Heller’s works. He discussed the works of satirists such as Jonathan Swift, Nobokov (his Humbert Humbert in Lolita), George Orwell (1984), and Michel Houllebecque (Platform). “Obscenity is central to satire. You need one kind of obscenity to expose another kind of obscenity,” he said. He quoted from a placard that he had seen in an anti-war protest rally: “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.” A shining example of satirical writing!
So what was Kunzru’s final suggestion: “Take what you know and make it grotesque.”
Side bar: Kunzru looked dashing in a black suit. He wore glasses but his trademark scarf (seen in his previous photos) was missing. Next day I saw Kunzru along with his girl friend alighting from the Peak Tram at the Tram station.
In the Fringe Club theatre, Peter Gordon (the chairman of the festival), introduced Kunzru to the audience. Kunzru started with the definition of satire: satire is writing or comic writing that illuminates a social subject. He said that one must know the subject intimately to write satire (“If you don’t know Hollywood, don’t write about it.”).
With intimacy, he said, comes complicity. Using the intimate knowledge of the subject, the writer is supposed to bring out the guilt. He read passages from Evelyn Waugh’s and Joseph Heller’s works. He discussed the works of satirists such as Jonathan Swift, Nobokov (his Humbert Humbert in Lolita), George Orwell (1984), and Michel Houllebecque (Platform). “Obscenity is central to satire. You need one kind of obscenity to expose another kind of obscenity,” he said. He quoted from a placard that he had seen in an anti-war protest rally: “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.” A shining example of satirical writing!
So what was Kunzru’s final suggestion: “Take what you know and make it grotesque.”
Side bar: Kunzru looked dashing in a black suit. He wore glasses but his trademark scarf (seen in his previous photos) was missing. Next day I saw Kunzru along with his girl friend alighting from the Peak Tram at the Tram station.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Celebrating literature in Hong Kong
“When you fly to Hong Kong, try to get a window seat,” I remembered these words of advice from the Fodor’s Travel Guidebook while looking down the window. The airplane was losing altitude for the landing that was to happen in the next few minutes. “As you approach the coast of china you’ll see a few small, rocky islands, tiny fishing boats, and sailboats in the channels leading into Hong Kong Harbour—one of the Most spectacular harbours in the world.” I was enjoying the transmogrification of these words into reality as the plane approached the Chek Lap Kok airport.
I was going to Hong Kong to attend the HK International Literary Festival. The festival was in its fifth year and was soon becoming one of Asia’s most important literary festivals. For me the highlight of the festival was the predominance of writers from India or those who were writing on India. Though the Australian writers were also a force to reckon with, led by the Booker Prize winner, Thomas Kneally, I was more interested in the Indian voices. The festival was to sort of culminate with a speech by Alan Hollinghurst, last year’s booker prize winner.
Chek Lap Kok is really sophisticated and mammoth. “The passenger terminal is a mile long and could encompass those at Heathrow and JFK combined,” claimed the Guidebook rightly. I was impressed even though I was coming from Singapore’s Changi International airport.
Without much ado, I checked out of the immigration. I had been advised to buy an octopus pass that would allow me unlimited travel in the underground train. I bought the card and I took the airport express train to the Hong Kong island. The train was quite comfortable and sleek. It gave me scenic views of the seaside and the high rises. In half an hour I was in Hong Kong central where my hotel was. Once I was in my hotel, I readied myself for a plunge into the literary events.
March 7, 2005
I was going to Hong Kong to attend the HK International Literary Festival. The festival was in its fifth year and was soon becoming one of Asia’s most important literary festivals. For me the highlight of the festival was the predominance of writers from India or those who were writing on India. Though the Australian writers were also a force to reckon with, led by the Booker Prize winner, Thomas Kneally, I was more interested in the Indian voices. The festival was to sort of culminate with a speech by Alan Hollinghurst, last year’s booker prize winner.
Chek Lap Kok is really sophisticated and mammoth. “The passenger terminal is a mile long and could encompass those at Heathrow and JFK combined,” claimed the Guidebook rightly. I was impressed even though I was coming from Singapore’s Changi International airport.
Without much ado, I checked out of the immigration. I had been advised to buy an octopus pass that would allow me unlimited travel in the underground train. I bought the card and I took the airport express train to the Hong Kong island. The train was quite comfortable and sleek. It gave me scenic views of the seaside and the high rises. In half an hour I was in Hong Kong central where my hotel was. Once I was in my hotel, I readied myself for a plunge into the literary events.
March 7, 2005
Friday, March 04, 2005
Narayan's legacy
There are those who love R K Narayan's Malgudi. And there are those who hate it.
For a long time I was in the latter category.
When I was in Delhi, living in a shack with a friend, an engineer by profession, I was astounded by my friend's love for Narayan's novels. That guy had bought a number of Narayan's novels, and in the dingy room, used to read them with great relish. One reason was surely the price. Narayan's novels came for less than US$1 a copy while other novels would easily cost you more than US$4. Now the prices have gone further up. The other reason, I guess, was the novels' accessible language. And Narayan's novels were never fat (as compared to, say, Midnight's Children, or Trotternama, or better still, A Suitable Boy). They were slim volumes about life in small town India, written with gentle humour. I guess my friend appreciated all these qualities in Narayan's novels.
As a kid, I had seen Narayan's Malgudi days as a television series on Doordarshan. I had liked it. The humour was lost to me but I had liked the South Indian culture wherein the stories were set. Later, I saw the Dev Anand movie, The Guide. I found it only so so. The only interesting thing for me in the movie was the character of the archeologist--It was rare kind of character in a Hindi movie--who was finally cuckolded in the story.
In those days, I was reading the novels of Krishan Chander, the Urdu writer. I used to fantasize about his stories being made into movies. For example, I was especially taken up by his novel, A Violin by the Sea. It's protagonist was a history professor in a US University. If I remember correctly, the story was based on the themes of love and reincarnation. The novel was begging to be made into a Hindi film. Alas, no one ever paid any attention to it.
One day I decided to read Narayan. I picked up his (supposedly) best work, The English Teacher. It was well-written, and I was enjoying the read until it began treading into the metaphysical world. Maybe Narayan was trying his own (Indian) style of magic realism which bored me. I guess nobody has looked at this aspect of Narayan's work and it is time someone did.
I have reserved Narayan on my reading list. Maybe with age, I will be able to enjoy his brand of homour. Something like this happened to Jaithirth Rao. Read his essay here.
For a long time I was in the latter category.
When I was in Delhi, living in a shack with a friend, an engineer by profession, I was astounded by my friend's love for Narayan's novels. That guy had bought a number of Narayan's novels, and in the dingy room, used to read them with great relish. One reason was surely the price. Narayan's novels came for less than US$1 a copy while other novels would easily cost you more than US$4. Now the prices have gone further up. The other reason, I guess, was the novels' accessible language. And Narayan's novels were never fat (as compared to, say, Midnight's Children, or Trotternama, or better still, A Suitable Boy). They were slim volumes about life in small town India, written with gentle humour. I guess my friend appreciated all these qualities in Narayan's novels.
As a kid, I had seen Narayan's Malgudi days as a television series on Doordarshan. I had liked it. The humour was lost to me but I had liked the South Indian culture wherein the stories were set. Later, I saw the Dev Anand movie, The Guide. I found it only so so. The only interesting thing for me in the movie was the character of the archeologist--It was rare kind of character in a Hindi movie--who was finally cuckolded in the story.
In those days, I was reading the novels of Krishan Chander, the Urdu writer. I used to fantasize about his stories being made into movies. For example, I was especially taken up by his novel, A Violin by the Sea. It's protagonist was a history professor in a US University. If I remember correctly, the story was based on the themes of love and reincarnation. The novel was begging to be made into a Hindi film. Alas, no one ever paid any attention to it.
One day I decided to read Narayan. I picked up his (supposedly) best work, The English Teacher. It was well-written, and I was enjoying the read until it began treading into the metaphysical world. Maybe Narayan was trying his own (Indian) style of magic realism which bored me. I guess nobody has looked at this aspect of Narayan's work and it is time someone did.
I have reserved Narayan on my reading list. Maybe with age, I will be able to enjoy his brand of homour. Something like this happened to Jaithirth Rao. Read his essay here.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Miller and Monroe
Liked this joke from Vinod Mehta's diary. Enjoy:
The great American playwright Arthur Miller, who passed away last week, used to regale his friends with a story about the time he was courting Marilyn Monroe in the early ’50s. He took Marilyn to his mother’s New York apartment for dinner. The walls were thin and Monroe was obsessed by the fear that people would hear her peeing, so when she went to the bathroom she turned on all the taps to disguise the sound.
A day or so later Miller’s mother wrote to say that she thought his new girlfriend was very beautiful and very nice, "but Arthur, she pisses like a horse".
The great American playwright Arthur Miller, who passed away last week, used to regale his friends with a story about the time he was courting Marilyn Monroe in the early ’50s. He took Marilyn to his mother’s New York apartment for dinner. The walls were thin and Monroe was obsessed by the fear that people would hear her peeing, so when she went to the bathroom she turned on all the taps to disguise the sound.
A day or so later Miller’s mother wrote to say that she thought his new girlfriend was very beautiful and very nice, "but Arthur, she pisses like a horse".
Monday, February 21, 2005
Of Novels and Kebabs
Writing a novel is an arduous exercise. Reading about the process of writing a novel is so fascinating. I am a sucker for such details. Here's the latest one by Justin Cartwright:
"The other day an Argentinian woman asked me how I get my inspiration. The implication of the question was that basically all you need to write a book is some inspiration, by which she meant a marketable idea. It was impossible to say that actually the process of writing a book is similar to what goes on in a kebab shop: you carve bits of yourself away and present them in envelopes of pitta. The lettuce and the tomato and the hot sauce are style. This simile is - clearly - not going very far, but the point is that writing is not about a Great Idea which writes itself. Writing is, as Philip Roth put it, self mining."
A very novel way of looking at the process, isn't it?
"The other day an Argentinian woman asked me how I get my inspiration. The implication of the question was that basically all you need to write a book is some inspiration, by which she meant a marketable idea. It was impossible to say that actually the process of writing a book is similar to what goes on in a kebab shop: you carve bits of yourself away and present them in envelopes of pitta. The lettuce and the tomato and the hot sauce are style. This simile is - clearly - not going very far, but the point is that writing is not about a Great Idea which writes itself. Writing is, as Philip Roth put it, self mining."
A very novel way of looking at the process, isn't it?
Tokyo Cancelled
With Tokyo Cancelled, a new Indian literary star is born or so it seems. The proof is in the fact that even a curmudgeonly dame like Shashi Deshpande has good words to say on his work:
"But it is unfair to judge a first novel by what it has not, only right to look at what it has. This one reveals enormous confidence, crafting skill and, above all, promise. One hopes that the writer will soon realise that magic realism is not unbridled imagination (the son of Robert De Niro and a Chinese laundress meets the daughter of Isabella Rosselini and Martin Scorcese!) but an absolute control over it. "
That is good news for the lad. Meanwhile, I checked Rana's website: www.ranadasgupta.com
The site doesn't have more than what you already know about him, but it has an impressive slide show. Rana has showcased some of his photographs from around the world. You bet, the guy has got an eye for detail. Good luck Rana!
"But it is unfair to judge a first novel by what it has not, only right to look at what it has. This one reveals enormous confidence, crafting skill and, above all, promise. One hopes that the writer will soon realise that magic realism is not unbridled imagination (the son of Robert De Niro and a Chinese laundress meets the daughter of Isabella Rosselini and Martin Scorcese!) but an absolute control over it. "
That is good news for the lad. Meanwhile, I checked Rana's website: www.ranadasgupta.com
The site doesn't have more than what you already know about him, but it has an impressive slide show. Rana has showcased some of his photographs from around the world. You bet, the guy has got an eye for detail. Good luck Rana!
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Saturday, February 12, 2005
I am back
This is the first post in 2005. I am dedicating it to bibliobuli. He woke me up.
All these days I did not feel like writing here. The end of 2004 with a destructive tsunami, the death and devastation--all left me shaken and cold. I did not suffer any personal loss but the pain was nevertheless there.
Then, what did I do all these days? Of course, the office work kept me occupied. Read a few good books: The Idea of India, Anthology of Indian Short Stories (edited by Rushdie et al.) and some other novels.
Out of the anthology, I loved Anajana Appachana's Sharmaji. I had been planning a similar story on a character called Sharmaji, from the same milieu of Delhi's bureaucracy. Anjana's story has raised the bar for me. I have to do better!
Another lovely story was called The Collecter by Rohinton Mistry. It is pure and brilliant.
I saw more of Kurusawa. My love for his talent is increasing with every new film of his that I watch. I find his work more in-depth, layered, and dramatic than Satyajit Ray's. I should write about this some day.
All these days I did not feel like writing here. The end of 2004 with a destructive tsunami, the death and devastation--all left me shaken and cold. I did not suffer any personal loss but the pain was nevertheless there.
Then, what did I do all these days? Of course, the office work kept me occupied. Read a few good books: The Idea of India, Anthology of Indian Short Stories (edited by Rushdie et al.) and some other novels.
Out of the anthology, I loved Anajana Appachana's Sharmaji. I had been planning a similar story on a character called Sharmaji, from the same milieu of Delhi's bureaucracy. Anjana's story has raised the bar for me. I have to do better!
Another lovely story was called The Collecter by Rohinton Mistry. It is pure and brilliant.
I saw more of Kurusawa. My love for his talent is increasing with every new film of his that I watch. I find his work more in-depth, layered, and dramatic than Satyajit Ray's. I should write about this some day.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Faulkner's Words Moved Me
William Faulkner delivered the following moving speech on accepting the Nobel prize. So relevant for writers of our generation too!
"I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
William Faulkner - December 10, 1950
"I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
William Faulkner - December 10, 1950
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Interesting News on Muslims
I found the following as interesting developments (copy and paste the urls in the browser window to access the news items):
Now, universities to enrol imams
Url: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=39320
Non-Muslim students fast during Ramzan in US
(http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=38221)
Now, universities to enrol imams
Url: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=39320
Non-Muslim students fast during Ramzan in US
(http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=38221)
Monday, December 06, 2004
Why write?
I often wonder: why write? Why write when you can watch a movie or eat a gourmet dish or have sex or work overtime and earn more money? Why write if the written piece might not be read by even one person, other than your wife (if you are not divorced yet)?
What is it about writing that attracts us?
Writing is hard work, to me at least. Many people say: I love writing. The hyper prolific Stephen King is one of them. I say that too. Maybe it is about the whole process, this professed love for writing. But it is hard work. I have Maugham on my side. And end of the day, it seems all so irrelevant to the world outside. How does it matter what I write to the hooker who waits for her client at the cafe outside my house? How does it matter to a bunch of waiters who live in the apartment next to mine? My colleagues don't even know about it, and they couldn't care less.
So what?
My writing is, so it seems, as important to others as my taking a crap.
If you turn to Naipaul for help on this, he is of no use. He wanted to become a writer, ever since he could remember. But why? He doesn't know.
I saw a little book in Kinokuniya recently. It was pertly titled, So many books or So much to read (something like that). It was written by some Latin American writer (I had never heard of him, not that I am an authority on Latin American writers). The small sized book, slim enough to be carried in palms by the less-stout and weak-elbowed, seemed awfully tired of all the books in the world. I love slim books. They look so readable- betraying my prefernce for the slim than the fat (Don't rush to call me demented and hit me with a copy of The War and Peace). Anyway, the point that that book was making was that at the rate at which the species of (general book) readers is vanishing, the day is not far when there would be more writers than readers in the world.
Another point that cute little book made was that in these unfortunate times most people are writing (also reading) non-fiction. This is a fraud. These buggers (found on university faculty lists in profusion) are writing not to get readers but to "puff up" their CVs.
Anyway, I always suspected this. And you can't believe it, whenever I see a person lurking around the literature shelves of a bookstore, I immediately pigeonhole him/her as a wannabe writer.
If one wanted money, glamour and fame, one would be "better off working at the drive-through window at McDonalds!"
So how? Why write? Why bother?
The answer comes from Kurt Vonnegut, one of my the authors I have heard so much about that I am afraid to read his books. In his book, Timequake, Vonnegut describes his experience writing and teaching writing. To the question, “Why bother?” Vonnegut says:
“Here’s my answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.’”
So, there we are. We write because we want to say and feel that you are not alone, that we share the same stupidities and idiosyncracies.
Maybe. Maybe right. Maybe wrong. I still don't know.
In Richard Attenborough's (f...k the spelling) Shadowlands, Anthony Hopkins plays C S Lewis. Lewis roars in his Oxford university tutorials-"we read to know that we are not alone."
So, both the reader and writer is paid in the same coin. Both basically try to ease each other's lonliness, and in the process, the publisher laughs off to the bank.
I think the movies, video games, and even the belly dancers are doing a better job in this. No wonder Naipaul said: the novel is dead. he is right. The novel is dead. Long live the novel! And in case you did not notice, Naipaul's latest novel is Magic Seeds.
And yet, I stand where I was in the beginning, none the less wiser.
So how? Why do we write?
What is it about writing that attracts us?
Writing is hard work, to me at least. Many people say: I love writing. The hyper prolific Stephen King is one of them. I say that too. Maybe it is about the whole process, this professed love for writing. But it is hard work. I have Maugham on my side. And end of the day, it seems all so irrelevant to the world outside. How does it matter what I write to the hooker who waits for her client at the cafe outside my house? How does it matter to a bunch of waiters who live in the apartment next to mine? My colleagues don't even know about it, and they couldn't care less.
So what?
My writing is, so it seems, as important to others as my taking a crap.
If you turn to Naipaul for help on this, he is of no use. He wanted to become a writer, ever since he could remember. But why? He doesn't know.
I saw a little book in Kinokuniya recently. It was pertly titled, So many books or So much to read (something like that). It was written by some Latin American writer (I had never heard of him, not that I am an authority on Latin American writers). The small sized book, slim enough to be carried in palms by the less-stout and weak-elbowed, seemed awfully tired of all the books in the world. I love slim books. They look so readable- betraying my prefernce for the slim than the fat (Don't rush to call me demented and hit me with a copy of The War and Peace). Anyway, the point that that book was making was that at the rate at which the species of (general book) readers is vanishing, the day is not far when there would be more writers than readers in the world.
Another point that cute little book made was that in these unfortunate times most people are writing (also reading) non-fiction. This is a fraud. These buggers (found on university faculty lists in profusion) are writing not to get readers but to "puff up" their CVs.
Anyway, I always suspected this. And you can't believe it, whenever I see a person lurking around the literature shelves of a bookstore, I immediately pigeonhole him/her as a wannabe writer.
If one wanted money, glamour and fame, one would be "better off working at the drive-through window at McDonalds!"
So how? Why write? Why bother?
The answer comes from Kurt Vonnegut, one of my the authors I have heard so much about that I am afraid to read his books. In his book, Timequake, Vonnegut describes his experience writing and teaching writing. To the question, “Why bother?” Vonnegut says:
“Here’s my answer: Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.’”
So, there we are. We write because we want to say and feel that you are not alone, that we share the same stupidities and idiosyncracies.
Maybe. Maybe right. Maybe wrong. I still don't know.
In Richard Attenborough's (f...k the spelling) Shadowlands, Anthony Hopkins plays C S Lewis. Lewis roars in his Oxford university tutorials-"we read to know that we are not alone."
So, both the reader and writer is paid in the same coin. Both basically try to ease each other's lonliness, and in the process, the publisher laughs off to the bank.
I think the movies, video games, and even the belly dancers are doing a better job in this. No wonder Naipaul said: the novel is dead. he is right. The novel is dead. Long live the novel! And in case you did not notice, Naipaul's latest novel is Magic Seeds.
And yet, I stand where I was in the beginning, none the less wiser.
So how? Why do we write?
Wolf's wedding
In Kurusawa's "Dreams" the first story is about a boy who, in the first scene, comes out of a house and stands at the entrance of the courtyard. The sun is shining and it is raining at the same time. The boy's mother tells the boy that it is both sunshine and rains because a wolf's wedding is taking place. The boy is curious and he goes to the woods to see for himself if anything like this is really taking place.
When I was a child, living in a village, I was told the same thing about the wolf's wedding at such sunshine-with-rains times. Is this a common myth? I was wondering.
When I was a child, living in a village, I was told the same thing about the wolf's wedding at such sunshine-with-rains times. Is this a common myth? I was wondering.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Badhwar wins French award
Journalist-turned-author Inderjit Badhwar has won the prestigious French literary award Le Prix Litteraire for his debut novel La Chambre Des Parfums (The Chamber of Perfumes).
The novel was selected for the best foreign debut novel of 2004 by a jury comprising France's leading writers, intellectuals and filmmakers in Paris.
Previous winners of the award include India-born Salman Rushdie for his novel Shame and London-based poet and author Lavinia Greenlaw.
Badhwar's novel was first published in India by India Research Press last year under the title Sniffing Papa, IRP said in a release on Wednesday announcing the award.
It was later published in French under the title La Chambre Des Parfums which received critical acclaim.
An alumnus of St Stephens College, Badhwar worked in several television channels in the US and was the executive editor of India Today magazine.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1108942,00110004.htm
The novel was selected for the best foreign debut novel of 2004 by a jury comprising France's leading writers, intellectuals and filmmakers in Paris.
Previous winners of the award include India-born Salman Rushdie for his novel Shame and London-based poet and author Lavinia Greenlaw.
Badhwar's novel was first published in India by India Research Press last year under the title Sniffing Papa, IRP said in a release on Wednesday announcing the award.
It was later published in French under the title La Chambre Des Parfums which received critical acclaim.
An alumnus of St Stephens College, Badhwar worked in several television channels in the US and was the executive editor of India Today magazine.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1108942,00110004.htm
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Bride and Prejudice
Last night I had a chance to sneak preview Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice (B&P).
I didn't go in with much expectations. I anyway don't like wedding films. After being brought up on a solid diet of Hindi films, full of weddings and funerals, I can't take wedding films any more.
The film had already been panned by the Indian film reviewers. Many said that they were happy that the film didn't do well, fearing it will spawn a spate of clones.
Well, the poster at the cinema's box office proclaimed B&P to be UK's No. 1 box office hit. Who do you believe?
Anyway, I found the film interesting because of its music and some characterisation. Technically it is shoddy. Even a David Dhawan does a better job compared to this film. Cinematography and editing are substandard, and you don't expect this coming from a film made in US and UK.
The music by Anu Malik has translated my juvenile fantasies into reality. I used to imagine how English songs would sound if they were rendered with a Hindi filmi music style. Lo and behold, Anu has (over)done that. There is an item number too. Not bad!
All the characters are larger than life, unrealistic. I am not saying anything about Aishwarya's acting. The snake dance was amusing, and Mr. Kohli is terrific. He is the saving grace of the film.
The film does not has even an iota of subtelty. It is a spoof of Indian weddings, Indian music, Indian cinema, India itself.
You will like this film only if you are able to laugh at yourself!
I didn't go in with much expectations. I anyway don't like wedding films. After being brought up on a solid diet of Hindi films, full of weddings and funerals, I can't take wedding films any more.
The film had already been panned by the Indian film reviewers. Many said that they were happy that the film didn't do well, fearing it will spawn a spate of clones.
Well, the poster at the cinema's box office proclaimed B&P to be UK's No. 1 box office hit. Who do you believe?
Anyway, I found the film interesting because of its music and some characterisation. Technically it is shoddy. Even a David Dhawan does a better job compared to this film. Cinematography and editing are substandard, and you don't expect this coming from a film made in US and UK.
The music by Anu Malik has translated my juvenile fantasies into reality. I used to imagine how English songs would sound if they were rendered with a Hindi filmi music style. Lo and behold, Anu has (over)done that. There is an item number too. Not bad!
All the characters are larger than life, unrealistic. I am not saying anything about Aishwarya's acting. The snake dance was amusing, and Mr. Kohli is terrific. He is the saving grace of the film.
The film does not has even an iota of subtelty. It is a spoof of Indian weddings, Indian music, Indian cinema, India itself.
You will like this film only if you are able to laugh at yourself!
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