Serious Men

Ayyan looked with eyes that did not know how to show a cultured indifference. He often told Oja, 'If you stare long enough at serious people they will begin to appear comical.'

Serious Men is the debut novel of Manu Joseph ,former editor of The Times Of India. 
As I try to interpret the story,it appears to me that it highlights some very prominent emotions and philosophy of mankind in general ,though, in a very engaging and at times funny route. On a precise viewpoint the story is based on the backdrop of two society -India's  large lower middle class, which still mostly consists of lower castes, and secondly the well to do educated scientific people.

The protagonist, Ayyan Mani, is a person belonging to low caste or Dalit and works as  a personal assistant  to the Head of Institute of Theory and Research, Arvind Acharya,a Brahmin. Now here I would like to mention the basic psychology of Ayyan Mani as this psychology only is the whole driving force of story. Ayyan Mani lives in a small room in a very old chawl with his wife and a ten year old son and leads a very ordinary life just like a typical poor, middle class Indian  but his ambitions and  desires were not as small as his current reality.He blames his poor up bringing and lack of opportunities (in a peculiar way he relate it with his caste which is quite true ) , for his misery as  he never believe or shows   any lack of confidence in his own abilities.

So this whole situation triggers something in him to try  to get out of the melancholic dull life as he ,somewhere inside, have always believed that, had he been born in some well to do family,he would have been at top. To avoid his dull life he choses his son ,and through his uncanny wiles , make him popular as a wonder boy ,a genius .Although the situation goes out of control towards the end but he handles it in a very tactful manner and this faux pass only, connect his story with the other central character Arvind Acharya in the climax.

Arvind Acharya is a proud ,confident ,even arrogant kind of person who is a great physicist and  has ideas very different from his other colleagues.He believes  that alien microbes falls continuously on outer atmosphere of the earth and aims  to catch the samples by sending gas balloons. Almost all other scientist in the institute do not believe in it but due to the kind of stature Acharya has, among the scientific community across the globe ,no one dare to take him by head. Nambodri is a fellow scientist and college mate of Acharya but has been shown to be always envious of him ,whether it be for his genius or his stature.

Arvind Acharya has been shhown as a very powerful character who kind of have strong  beliefs and likes and dislikes but ultimately fails to the age old reason of a man's downfall ,that is to say, a woman's infatuation. Oparna Goshmaulik, is  a beautiful ,young and talented astrobiologist who has recently joined the institute and has been drawing attention from almost all persons in there. Oparna leads the story of Acharya further , as she fell in love with him,drawn by his strong endearing persona and ultimately leading to his downfall. Acharya's initial resistance finally surrenders to his hormones and before he realizes his mistake it has been too late. When he tries to get back to normal life again, a wounded Oparna ruins him and his career.

A little insight in Oparna's character tells us that she represents a particular section of woman who has some basic traits such as strong likeness for a man of strong control and then deriving great pleasure by controlling him .


"Oparna thought Basu was an endearing formidable man.Then she realized that she felt that way because he was reading out the words of a man who really was"

These lines clearly shows her likeness for Acharya's strong  personality even when she is actually trying to ruin him .After ruining his target she vanishes from the scene. This fact represents her another quality of moving on with life. Her character can be best perceived by following lines :

"She would wander through life beseeching men to love her,frighten them with the intensity of her affection,marry one whose smell she could tolerate,and then resume the search for love.And she would suffer the loneliness of affairs. And  on some mornings, in front of men who thanked their luck for such an easy fling,she would endure the shame of putting on her clothes.somehow more demeaning than undressing for them.She would wander this way everyday of her life until she found shelter in the peace of age."

Other characters such as Mani's wife Oja ,his son Adi and Acharya's wife Lavanya are not so central but give some crucial insights about the characters of Mani and Acharya. like Acharya's indifferent attitude towards his wife portrays him as someone always lost in his own train of thoughts ,while Ayyan's  behaviour towards Oja reveals a guilt of  his,a guilt of not providing her with a good life ,as he wanted to.

In the climax  how the fate of Acharya and Ayyan Mani has been related seems somewhat like a bollywood movie but is quite captivating . After reading the novel you realize that what has actually lend the freshness to the simple plot is the way the author has used the typical characters in a different yet realistic touch.

Ayyan, inspite of being a lower caste poor man,has been shown to be quite confident of his abilities and shrewdness and not someone to be pity on ,as revealed from a line given below which he tells to Dr Nambodri .

" My IQ is 148,Sir. What is yours?"


. His anger against high castes people is also something portrayed in a very realistic way.The morning  invented quotes which he used to write everyday at institute reveals his anger and  also his wit.

"Reservations for the low castes in colleges is a very unfair system.To compensate,let us offer the Brahmins the right to be treated as animals for 3,000 years and at the end of it let's give them a 15 percent reservation - Vallumpuri John"
"
Over all  the novel has quite succeeded in taking a controversial topic such as caste as background an yet  giving a funny touch to it ,even while revealing the anger of protagonist . The debut novel of Mani Joseph definitely leave  the readers wanting for more

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry, in his second book has done a fine job with this wonderfully written compelling story – one you cannot forget easily.

Tragic, heartrending, broken are the words that come to my mind when I think of A Fine Balance. It’s a story of four people from different backgrounds, beliefs, situations and priorities, but with a similar underlying hope of being happy and loved and how the roads of life cross each other in their struggle to achieve A Fine Balance.

It’s not just a story, but most of it can be related to situations in our lives dealing with one or the other struggle. One is left aghast at the cruelty that human nature can reach just for its sustenance. I must confess that the story of their lives is just not pleasant and how much ever you want to forget it you cannot help but carry the imprints of the characters.

The plot of the book, set in Mumbai between 1975 and 1984 during ‘The Emergency’, revolves around Dina Dalal, a widow who is struggling to meet her both ends meet , and in an attempt to do so, she employees Om and Ishvar (uncle and his nephew) as tailors for stitching. They have come to the ruthless city of Mumbai to earn some money. Maneck Kolah is Dina’s long friend’s son, who is staying as a paying guest in her apartment. Maneck has come to Mumbai for his higher studies but succumbs to the unbearable behavior by his seniors in the hostel and decides to stay as a paying guest in Dina’s house. The characters are neatly etched out, with very little in common but one thing, their desire to be independent, to be loved and to have their fair share of life.

Dina is a strong willed woman, fiercely independent, against the will of her conservative brother, tries her level best to earn her life her way. Various shades of her personality unfold during the course of her life. One of the most touching revelations that she discovers about herself was her need for emotional dependence as she starts sharing her life with Maneck and the two tailors. Her name truly depicts her situation: ‘Dina’ meaning poor and she is often seen struggling with her finances and asks her brother for financial help. ‘Dalal’ suggests her stitching business where she employs the two tailors. She is a warm person with a kind heart but strong values.

Maneck Kolah is a sweet boy, who lived in the mountains. In his entire life, he yearns for acceptance and a healthy relationship with his loving but rigid father. Like any other teenager, he loves his home but is sent away for further studies. Disheartened, he finds himself in utter mess, when he loses his friendship with his only friend in the hostel, and cannot bear the ruthless behaviour of the rest of the students. Extreme disappointment touches him when he wants to help his father in business, but is met with disagreements and non conformations. Maneck cherishes the moments spent in Dina’s house, with Ishwar and his nephew, Om. Maneck is an extremely soft hearted, with no prejudices. He doesn’t mind going that extra mile to help Dina Aunty in her household work, or to keep awake two nights to help her complete the stitching assignment in the absence of the two tailors.

Ishwar and Om have come from a village, tired of the atrocities from the landlords, and perpetual victims of caste bias. They are cobblers by profession but determined to achieve something better in life. They learn tailoring from their uncle, move to the city to earn their living, and get employed by Dina. These two are probably the most tragic characters of the entire saga, becoming the victims of the most ruthless mayhems from the corrupt governments, spineless officials, brutal assaults by the landlords. Their plight also gives us a sneak peek in the dilapidated conditions of the country during the state of ‘The Emergency’.

Om is the young, strong headed chap who yearns to bash the heads to the wrong doers and is often pacified by his uncle. His unchallenged optimism is seen from the fact that even after being castrated (yes !!!), he does not lose his smile. He does not succumb to the assaults, nor does he loses his will to live.

Ishwar, as appropriately named, is the sage of the story…..His favorite mantra is……”Life is long”. Probably impying that, eventually, life would be fair to them too….but it isn’t! He is a man with a strong sense of values and responsibilities, extremely loving, giving and thoughtful to the needs to the people around him. He understands the situations. Although not trusted by Dina initially, but finally earns respect and wins trust also. Often seen pacifying his hot headed nephew, he is concerned about his life and his marriage. Taking care of his unwell nephew, he even loses his legs. His affable nature is bound to touch and win anybody’s heart.

If it comes to choosing my favorite character, it has to be the ever sweet, effervescent, strong willed Dina. She chooses to live life on her terms and manages to do so as long as she could.

If there is one thing the book shouts out loud…it’s the fact that “life is not always fair”. It is not always a happy-ever-after ending. It does not even have larger than life characters. It rather is about simple people with basic needs, and their struggle for their balance between life and death, perseverance and surrender, the happiness and pain, the love and despair.

I would suggest you to read the book only when only when you are ready for meeting the realities of life in harsh daylight, stripped off due to cruel, inhuman circumstances. Hats off to Rohinton !!

….the music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more..

Are only the ones who don't eat hungry?

My first foray into real literature was through “The God of Small Things”. Till then I was strolling into the fantasy worlds created by J. K. Rowling and Christopher Paolini; was being left awestruck by the imaginative capital that Dan Brown invested into his works and was also being poorly entertained by the writings of Chetan Bhagat. After I turned the last page of Arundhati Roy’s masterpiece, I was pretty sure I hadn’t understood anything except the basic storyline, but then again I was only an adolescent. I had failed to understand the emotions as truly as she had meant them, had missed the metaphors totally, but I did think that it was totally different from everything else I had read till date and I was pretty sure I was gonna want to read something like that again. I tried to understand the workings of that world again with Arvind Adiga, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, V S Naipaul, J M Coetzee, Amitav Ghosh and finally with Anita Desai.

Few books into my new found interest, I was asked by a dear friend who is also an avid reader, that what special and different do I find in these booker winning or nominated books. The simplest answer I could think of to make her understand was- it’s the same as between a normal movie and a full HD movie.

Anita Desai is to literature what Christopher Nolan is to films. There is a similarity in the way both present their work, a maze of time made from current and past scenes. At certain points one needs to pause, rewind back and play again in order to keep-up with the story.

Fasting, Feasting is a story of two siblings. Uma, the unattractive, pitiable and clumsy first born who is a forty plus spinster living with (and serving) MamaPapa, her parents conjoined as they are a single identity than two separate people. She has been unfortunate enough to have not received the education she so much cherished, to have her father spend two dowries without getting married once successfully and to have never experienced the freedom from her unrelenting and orthodox parents and thus is the protagonist of the “fasting” part of the novel.

The protagonist for the “Feasting” part of the novel is Uma’s late born and much cherished brother Arun who has never learnt what wanting is as he was served everything on a silver platter for being the only son of the family. Arun, who has been raised to study and carry family’s name, is a loner. While staying with an American family during summers of his term at University of Massachusetts, Arun remembers the meals he was offered so lovingly at home and that he refused so easily. He longs for some loneliness, to get away from everyone else.

Anita Desai has tried to contrast two different situations of the brother and the sister while also showing that the more different their situations are, the more similar they get. While Uma who has never had anything she liked and wanted, is yearning for freedom and love, Arun who has had everything from the moment he was born is also yearning for freedom from his parent’s expectations and for some solitude.

Fasting, Feasting is a novel about the gender inequality in the Indian society, the preference for a boy and the undermining of need of a girl’s education. It is a brilliant description with beautifully written prose. Desai doesn’t get pretentious with her writing but cuts the sentences short and writes minimal. With only 200 odd pages, the book is a must read for lovers of culture and character-driven stories.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

A highly unrecommended novel for the merry and gay of heart. Would appeal greatly to those of a darker disposition. John Banville’s The Sea is not a story, it is a jumbled collection of excerpts from a man’s life written in the form of a diary or a journal entry. Predominantly set in a town which the narrator, Max Morden “calls” Ballymore(less). Ballymore. Ireland. James Joyce. Funny that James Joyce should pop up in my mind here, because A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is what The Sea reminds me of the most.

The Narrator goes, freely at will, from free indirect discourse to Stream-of-Consciousness to direct discourse without the slightest bit of consideration for the reader. John Banville’s writing style seems almost surgical when contrasted with traditional texts. Without undue embellishments, he is able to startle the reader with the stark and naked description of everyday life analysed in its most basic and raw detail.

Max Morden, the Narrator, is an art historian, an alcoholic, a dilettante, and I suspect suffers from a mild Oedipus Complex. He has come to stay at The Cidars, after his wife’s death to come to terms with his past. Max Morden is a man with some serious baggage. Max’s wife, Anna, suffers from cancer and is going to die. Meanwhile, a scrawny teenage Max finds companions in the Grace twins Chloe and Myles at the same time having a crush on their mother, Constance(Connie) Grace.

Max Morden appears overly concerned with smells. A great deal of his description of people and places is based on the smells he associates with them. He can smell brown coloured hair, he remembers how his first girlfriend used to smell(like stale biscuits) and puts a lot of effort into describing how he feels about everyday smells.

“..tolerant, necessarily, of the products of my sadly inescapable humanity, the various effluvia, the eructations fore and aft, the gleet, the scurf, the sweat and other common leakages, and even what the Bard of Hartford quaintly calls the particles of nether-do...”

Max is also a hypochondriac as the following excerpt, one of his wife’s peculiar ways of addressing him shows,

“..Doctor Max, she would call me. How is Doctor Max today, is he feeling poorly? ..”

But also, he had become quite a medical encyclopaedia. The book is littered with long and scary sounding medical terms thrown about by the Narrator, which, at least in my opinion was the only possible reaction one could have when a loved one is suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness. All someone can do, besides worrying oneself to death, is to read up all that is available on the subject. Maybe it helps, maybe it does not, but surely, the fear of the unknown is assuaged a teensy bit.

Another important point is the author’s fascination with words which he passes on to the characters and the Narrator in particular. Every few pages, he comes up with something which makes you see a word in a new light. It’s almost as if someone suddenly gave you the 3D glasses at a 3D movie which until now you had been watching blurred and 2 dimensional.

“..pair of puncture marks made there by the canine's canines.”

“..lamps in the room and the long, tapering trapezoid of light spilling across the linoleum..”

“..I had considered him an unsuitable suitor..”

“.."Patient" Anna said to me one day towards the end, "that is an odd word. I must say, I don't feel patient at all."..”

There are plenty more, but let’s stop here for now.

In addition to the visual imagery, there is a sprinkling of aural imagery throughout the book. What I mean is when you are reading the book, occasionally, you will start hearing the accompanying orchestral or natural music.

“..I felt transfigured, I felt like one of Wagner's demi-gods, aloft on a thunder-cloud and directing the..”

While reading this I could practically hear Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries’ crescendo rising up in my head.

Near the end of the book, Miss Vavasour is playing one of Robert Schumann’s compositions. Robert Schumann was a German composer and I only mention him because I have just finished a particular episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s popular show where he is telling George, who has a certain melody stuck in his head, that Schumann went mad because he kept hearing the note A and couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Another prominent presence in the book is that of Pierre Bonnard (Bonn’art, Bon’nargue, Brides-in-the-bath).Max is writing a book on him and draws parallels between Bonnard and himself throughout the book. Bonnard’s muse and later wife, Marthe de Meligny, as she liked to call herself, was the subject of a lot of his paintings depicting her in the bath or in the various stages of dressing or undressing. The notable thing is that years later, when she grew old and her skin became blemished with some skin disease, he still drew her as the pink skinned, nubile belle that he remembered from when they first met.

The Sea is a distinctively post-modernist novel in the sense that the narrative style and the Narrator’s frequent lapses into reveries analysing his relationship with Anna, Chloe, Connie Grace and others lead him into philosophical and existential mazes.

“..last night in a dream, it has just come back to me, I was trying to write my will on a machine that was lacking the word I. The letter I, that is, small and large...”

“..Who, if not myself, was I? The philosophers tell us that we are defined and have our being through others. Is a rose red in the dark? In a forest on a far planet where there are no ears to hear, does a falling tree make a crash?..”

I found that the style in which this novel is written is such that the text sounds more like poetry than prose. I’m not really sure if this would still have been my opinion if I hadn’t read the back cover of my copy of the novel where there is this little excerpt from the Literary Review:

‘Poetry seems to come easily to Banville. There is so much to applaud in this book that it deserves more than one reading’

P.S.: Be sure to keep a dictionary handy while reading this book. Bonnard, Gilles de Rais, Wagner, Schumann, in the unlikely[sic] event that you are unfamiliar with the aforementioned people, forget the dictionary and go straight for the encyclopaedia.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard”. – J.K. Rowling third book in the Harry Potter series.
A lot has been said and written about the magical phenomenon in the world of literature popularly known as the Harry Potter series. Born as a result of the desperate effort of poverty-stricken single mother J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter has become the most well loved literary and cinematic phenomenon. Worshipped by kids, enjoyed by adults, this modern myth has become an accepted classic worldwide. Pull out any book of the series and you are up for a roller coaster ride into the realms of the amazing world of magic. However, my favourite book of the series is the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the only book in the series missing the main villain of the story, You Know Who. But to make up for it there are parallel mysteries, there is drama, there is humour, and on top of it all, there is a traitor in their midst.
The book picks up where it left in the last book, Chamber of Secrets, with Harry bringing to light the mystery surrounding the long standing legend of a secret chamber within the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the demon living inside it, finally, rescuing Ron’s (his best mate’s) younger sister from the memory of the school going Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Harry is spending another dreadful summer at home with the Dursley’s, his only known living relatives, when an unfortunate run in with Aunt Marge ends in her sudden balloon like inflation. Harry runs away and fears expulsion from Hogwarts for his use of magic outside of term time. At the same time Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban Prison and this adds to Harry's woes as it appears that Black seeks to kill him for his part in foiling Voldemort's plans.
Harry arrives back at Hogwarts where the Quidditch season is a welcome relief to the presence of the Dementors, mysterious guards from Azkaban searching for Sirius Black. But an extremely annoying Divination teacher Professor Trelawney who predicts Harry’s death at every opportunity available makes life at Hogwarts a tad more difficult. Harry and his friends attempt to unearth the truth surrounding Sirius Black and discover why the Dementor's presence has more influence on him compared to others.
A great addition to the character list is Professor R. Lupin, the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, who happens to be a cool, reasonable professor and is an instant hit with the Gryffindor house but at the same time receive the same look of pure loathing from Potions’ Professor Snape that he normally reserves for Harry.
The success of the book lies in the fact that the audience can easily relate to the characters. Since the majority of the readers are teenagers, they find it easy to empathise with the characters in the book. Entering his teenage, Harry is someone whom kids would definitely want to be friends with.
The book is filled with plethora of emotions and learning to control them. With Harry’s departure from his uncle’s home in the darkest hours of the night you feel a boiling rage within you for Aunt Marge’s prejudice against Harry’s parents, only to be followed by amazement at the incredible Knight Bus that takes Harry to the safe havens of the Diagon Ally. Following pages take you through a bumpy ride where you see the pleasant times (the last three weeks of the vacation exploring the unending streets of Diagon Ally, Defence against the Dark Arts lessons, Hogsmede trips), sad times (when Harry loses for the first time in a Quidditch match and to add to the misery his Nimbus 2000 is ripped into twigs by the Whomping Willow, when Ron refuses to speak to Hermione as a result of her cat eating away his pet rat Scabbers and Harry is angry as he loses his new broomstick, the Firebolt due to Hermione’s interference, Hagrid’s plight when Buckbeak, the Hippogriff is to be beheaded and he is about to lose his job as a teacher). There are several mystifying instances like when Harry first finds out about Sirius Black’s motives from Mr. Weasley, Hermione’s new timetable and why Lupin was frightened of crystal balls. One emotion gives way to another unconnected emotion at the speed of light, like the festive mood after the Halloween feast is suddenly replaced by the mystery of how Sirius Black got into the castle.
Another significant feature of the book is the number of new magical creatures it adds to our dictionary, the most sinister among them being the Dementors. To put in the words of Professor Lupin, “Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places; they glory in decay and despair, drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them.” Another central creature in the story is the Hippogriff, the proud half horse, half bird, with gleaming coats, changing smoothly from feather to hair. Various other creatures include Boggart, the shape shifter, the Grim, the giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards, an omen of death, Grindylows, the water-demons, Kappas, creepy water-dwellers that looked like scaly monkeys, with webbed hands itching to strangle unwitting waders in their ponds, Red Caps, nasty little goblin-like creatures that lurked wherever there had been bloodshed and last but not the least the Werewolves.
However, the winning stroke is the mystifying Marauder’s Map, a superb artefact of magic, a map showing every detail of Hogwarts and grounds. Furthermore, it showed the various people living within the boundaries of the castle. But most importantly, it shows the hidden passages that lead out of Hogwarts. What’s more interesting is its working. To state in Muggle technical terms, the password to the map is “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good” and to wipe off the map, “Mischief Managed!”
Harry Potter is not just another story full of a bunch of words that sound gibberish to a normal person nor is it merely a children’s fantasy novel. It transcends to a level that can appeal to each and every one of us. It teaches you to face your fear and overcome it with determination like Harry does by constantly fighting and ultimately overcoming his fear of Dementors; it highlights the bigotry in the society and encourages you to fight it like the one against the werewolves; it emphasizes that no one is perfect and everyone has something to be proud of like Harry having faults and Neville being good at herbology or in this case fighting the Boggart successfully. But most importantly it makes you realise the importance of friends in your life. In trying times, in the times of despair, it is your friends who will come to your rescue like in the climax Harry and Hermione go after the giant dog to save Ron and Ron and Hermione being ready to lay their lives for Harry. It further accentuates the power of love. The same is reflected in these words of Dumbledore - “You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him”
All in all "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is a gripping book that leaves you not only transfixed but yearning for more. It is well plotted with strong characters. There is one excellent and well spelled out moral in the story that doesn't detract from the plot that fear and anger are emotions that can only lead to more despair and hurt, while laughter and happiness bring about hope. Harry's struggle in this book to find the hope in the darkest of times, to go on enjoying life even when there seems little to be joyful about exemplifies this.

The White Tiger By Aravind Adiga

‘The White Tiger’ written by Oxford educated ex-Time magazines correspondent has focused deeply on India as a place of brutal injustice for the less powerful and this fact in itself would boil many Indians’ and invite them to challenge this presumable thought by the writer. But the fact is that majority of India (65% India is rural) does suffer from this harsh reality. People from the land of poor are deprived of nutrition, education and humanity and enriched with multiple diseases.

Well this has always been a topic of concern but the other main point which Adiga has touched is to try to show the current existing state of India and has predicted the future India by keeping in mind the major complexities that is the complexities of the majority-the poor. According to him India will no more be the same place as before, the place where more than individual goals family goals mattered, people never did something out of the league and servant’s trustworthiness to his master was unquestionable. This he has highlighted through his main character of the story Balram the son of a rickshaw puller, the White Tiger who has been shown as wave who is slowly transforming India into a place which is very much unlike India. This has been shown through his many activities like showing disrespect to the mother, murdering the master and being involved in corruption and theft.

Balram’s rise as an entrepreneur also shows India as a place of opportunities and a place where time has come that people stop running in hunt of jobs and become self sufficient. There are many entrepreneurship venture which exist and not only in Bangalore but other places too so why did the author choose Bangalore as the place and providing taxi to the call centre employees at night as the entrepreneurship venture. According to me India generally considered as a dead place at night is slowly getting active even at night which is very much un-Indian act. And Bangalore is a place in India which is different from India in most of the aspects and the mentioning of Bangalore points out on the fact that the city Bangalore which is a very small part of India right now is very slowly spreading all over India.

Even the importance of education is shown in this story. Where Balram is shown as a good student who is forcibly taken out from his school and hence fulfils his crave for education by learning from the daily experiences he comes across. And a contrast to this is shown in form of his boss Ashoka who has been educated abroad and holds different beliefs and principles from his father and brother. Culture of studying abroad also hints to invasion of India by un-Indian thoughts.

So in all, Adiga has exposed the mindset of people of India and with the help of the White Tiger Balram, character like Ashoka and city Bangalore has shown the un-Indian activities which have started happening on the Indian map and leading India towards urbanisation.

By Aman Garg.

Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies - final interpretation

The nine short stories have been written in a very humane fashion that is, though Lahiri touches upon some very sensitive issues like those of treatment of women( in post - independence India), the condition of the lower classes, the caste system, the India - Pakistan rift, the Indian - American experience, but rather than going into the details of these, she decides to explore the human feelings in situations full of turmoil - divorce, a still-born child, an extra-marital affair, mental illnesses, incompatibility in marriage etc. Its almost as if she has altered the fairy tale romantic set-up to a background of more believable realities.

The time-line in all the stories is linear, no multiple narrators are seen in any, and except for Mrs Sen's and Sexy, the narrator is an Indian. Lahiri has no biases towards male or female narrators, and as the requirements of the story, so the tone of the narrator. 

The plots are not spectacular, but fairly real daily life situations. The characters are believable and have been painted beautifully by their emotions. One thing Lahiri specializes in and is probably what made her win the prize, is portraying human emotions in a very subtle manner. Nowhere in her stories are the useless dialogues about one's feelings or the crying of one or more dejected characters. No, she does not explore any one's thoughts about loneliness or sadness or rejection or loss.Instead she supports them through near-by surroundings. Like in the story ' A temporary matter ' , the husband notices how old his wife had started to look and how careless she had gone about her appearance and this tells us that she is sad and that the death of her child has affected her and that she no longer feels motivated in life.

The human emotions make this collection a bearable read, but the feeling of melancholy stays with the reader long after the book has been put down. Not a book you would read twice.

The treatment of Bibi Halder (in) this Blessed House (by) Mrs. Sen('s) (on) the Third and Final continent.

The remaining of the four short stories, can each be analyzed briefly. The Treatment of Bibi Halder tells the story of a poor woman suffering from timely fits and how badly she wants to get married, but is ultimately raped and gives birth, and then disappears.This short story, apart from taking us in to the workings of a closely knit Muslim family, highlights the plight of women with no source of income in a society which promises to take care of them but ultimately is responsible for their demise.

This Blessed House is the story of a newly married couple, Sanjeev and Twinkle, who move into a new house and keep on finding gaudy Biblical figures all over the house.Twinkle's apparent enthusiasm in discovering these items and displaying them, irritates Sanjeev who(without much result) keeps on reminding her that they are Hindus and not Christians. Also he really  does not understand his wife's fascination with these objects, but later in the novel he will realize that his wife likes being the center of attraction of a crowd, and would offer patronage to about anything that had the potential of being a potential conversation starter.

Mrs Sen's is the story of a woman,a university professor's wife, torn away from her motherland, who starts taking care of eleven year Elliot. She misses India terribly and is a systematic cook, she loves to cook fish but does not how to drive and though she is caring and affectionate towards Elliot, she still holds herself back, probably because she does not want to get attached to anything in a foreign land.  This story is full of tastes and colors. Mrs Sen's kitchen is full of assorted Indian spices and curries and vegetables and knives, whereas her bedroom is full of colorful saris.Her attachment to her saris and other physical Indian objects in her house highlight the fact that she doesn't want to let go of India. This is a story of a woman clearly caught in the cross-over experience, she can not let go of her past and start living in the present. Although everyone around her tries to make her comfortable ( even though she has an accident, the Policeman does not give her a ticket, the local market people are very friendly to her and so is Elliot), she just doesn't want to settle in. This is the second story with a non-Indian narrator, Elliot being him.

The collection of short-stories ends on a positive note, with an uplifting Indian-American experience. No, the plot is not spectacular. It is still melancholy. This is a story about a boy, with a wife back home, who is struggling to settle down in Cambridge and does so with little difficulty and it is also a love story, as when the wife joins him in America, they slowly fall in love by the small conversations in bed.

Probably Cambridge was chosen and as is mentioned in the story "is an international city" and therefore the protagonist finds it easy to settle in. The story also highlights the sorry condition of old people in America. Maybe Lahiri was not trying to point it out, but the old woman in the story who lives alone and is clearly hung over the era of the world-wars, with no one to take care of her, sends the chills down one's spine. 

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction in 2007

Set in the post-apocalyptic era, The Road tries to explore the very fabric of human conscience. It has been written by a well tested author, known for his subtle depiction of human emotion and character and who is widely acclaimed as on of the best of his time. Cormac McCarthy, like his previous works, has tried to peep into the mind of his protagonist who is alienated from the world because of misfortunes and tragedies in his life, but chooses to carry on the burden of existence. With the depiction of apocalypse and chalking almost the saddest of his works so far, McCarthy has tried to bring about the very opinion he keeps of the world around him. 

The story of the novel starts in an unknown place, with a man and his child, whose name we do not get to know throughout the several months the story is spanned in. They are trying to head south as the winters are setting in. Also, throughout the novel, there is no reference whatsoever to the reason or the means that brought about the apocalypse, apart from the obvious images of grayness ashes used to depict it and the lack of people around. The apocalypse has happened in the lifetime of the man, as he recalls his childhood in and around the places they cross while traveling. The conversations between the child and the man are the only way we communicate with what the child is thinking about and as the time progresses, the child grows wiser and more aware of the situation they are in. Hence, the story can, in a way, be interpreted as a journey in both the literal sense and also in the sense of the boy making a journey from innocence to acceptance. As they travel, they come across a snatcher, an old crippled man, a thief and another man who wounds the father. Ultimately, the man dies of injuries and sickness, leaving the child on his own with nothing but a pistol in his hand.

The book was adapted into a movie with the same title in 2009.

One of the major themes of the novel is parenthood. With the undying love of the father for his son, depicted both in his actions and his thoughts, the author has tried to bring about the strength of the human emotion of love. He thinks of his child as 'the only thing that stands between him and his death', which may incline the reader to think of the child as a emotional necessity for him. But his conversations with the child and his efforts to keep him away from tragic views, keep the reader in good faith that he has hope and desire that one day his child will grow up to be a good person.

The conversations between them depicted conflicting views over simple things like exploring abandoned houses and being left alone or handline the pistol. But, sometimes, it involved complex concerns like helping an old man who was as good as dead or of letting go a person who tried to steal all of their things. The man was sometimes too angry at the decisions he had to make at the boy's requests, but ultimately, he found happiness in fulfilling them.

Another major theme in the text is the isolation. The author has tried to explore the true human side which follows the most basic instinct of survival. In the post apocalyptic time, when there is no food or resources left and everything has been looted and there are not many people alive, humans have taken up the barbaric means of survival, i.e, of killing each other and sometimes, eating each other as food. However, this cannibalism is only a speculation made by the protagonist. The fear of an attack kept them moving all the time, even when they had found a nice place with a lot of food; just because of the fear of being found. The father always kept a gun at his side and when he was not around, he asked his son to hold it. In the later part of the novel, the father is shot by a person in his leg due to the precise reason of fear and skepticism. Everyone is afraid of the other and hence, try to remain isolated from each other.

The symbols of grey color and ash have worked as a reminder to the reader of the apocalypse which has left the land burning. With almost no resources available and people fighting over them, an indirect effort has been made to bring forth a possible situation that may arise due to a global war that we are always at the brink of due to unstable international politics. The author has, in his previous works, always tried to bring forth a notion of alienation from his protagonist, where he is burdened with his past and crawls to his future. In The Road as well, the author has not left this tone of his and has, through the story of the man, put forth the very complexities that govern us and the very decisions we make.

As far as the style of the writing is concerned, the novel can be classified as a modernistic effort in a simplistic way. The reader does not really peep into the mind of the protagonist, which, given the situation he is in, is surprisingly at peace. On the other hand, we hear his innermost thoughts when he is in distress and when he is hallucinating or when he is dreaming. The conversations of the father and the son are largely simple with short sentences, trying to depict that they dont have much to say to each other and they are pretty much content with having each other. The stereotypes that the author defines as 'good guys' and 'bad guys' are largely used to depict the same people, but in different circumstances.

From the point of view of the reader, there is no excitement in the storyline and may seem boring while reading. However, the second half is quite fast paced and it ends beautifully. All in all, a fine read.

By - Dipesh Mittal

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is an account of the life of Thomas Cromwell, one of the architects of Henry VIII’s reformation of the English Church. It was published in 2009 and has won the Man Booker prize and the National Book Critics’ Circle award. It is a historical novel about one of the well-known periods of English history (1500’s). The novel is huge with more than 650 pages and has a vast cast, almost one hundred characters but it is still gripping and very readable.
Mantel’s account of Cromwell’s life begins with a scene in which his violent father has knocked the youth to the ground. Skimming lightly over his youthful adventures on the Continent, it goes on to recount the story of his friendship with his patron, Cardinal Wolsey. Wosley is the chief advisor to king Henry VIII. The king has no male heir and if he dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn but the pope and most of Europe oppose him. Wosley is charged by king with securing the divorce for him, a task which he fails to secure.
Cromwell recovers from Wolsey’s downfall and commits himself to the service of the king, where he goes from one success to the next. His intelligence, his gift for languages, his understanding of money and trade, his administrative ability, and his political shrewdness all contribute to making him a very useful man, and ultimately a very powerful one. It is not until the second half of the novel that Cromwell gradually becomes embroiled in the affair that made his career, the Boleyn family’s attempt to negotiate a marriage between Anne and the Henry. Although instrumental in arranging her marriage, Cromwell betrays Anne in the end.
Once this intrigue is concluded, Mantel gives short shrift to some of the other important events in Cromwell’s life like his involvement in the dissolution of the monasteries or his persecution of heretics, redefined as enemies of the state after Henry’s break with Rome. The novel ends with the separation of Sir Thomas More’s head from his body, and Cromwell (or the narrator, it’s not quite clear) telling himself, “Today, More was escorted to the scaffold by Humphrey Monmouth . . . Monmouth is too good a man to rejoice in the reversal of fortune. But perhaps we can rejoice for him?”
Mantel’s use of Cromwell as the only set of eyes through whom we view the action of the novel, her sympathetic portrayal of scenes from Cromwell’s childhood and domestic life, and her skilful elisions of most of the minister’s less appealing or justifiable actions, allows her to turn Cromwell into a wish-fulfilment figure, and one who is rather too good to be true. His actions as depicted by Mantel are always justifiable; he never fails in any enterprise except through the failures of others; he is seldom shown to be wrong about anything and he appears to be gifted with nearly superhuman foresight.
Similarly Mantel’s portrait of Sir Thomas More, who might be said to be the villain of the novel, is too wicked to be convincing. Mantel sets up More as a foil to Cromwell. While More is a sadistic masochist who teases his wife ferociously, wears hair-shirts, and tortures heretics, Cromwell, who was historically responsible for torturing rather more people than More, is shown to be kind to wives, servants, children, and dogs. While More is a slippery, self-aggrandizing courtier with a penchant for dramatic gestures, Cromwell is a plain-spoken, pragmatic administrator often insulted for his low birth. Above all, while More is a fanatical Christian, Cromwell is a rational man for whom the pursuit of God is not the first goal of human life.
Mantel’s book supports neither the Protestants nor the Catholics in the English Reformation. For example, she writes admiringly of the obviously Romish Cardinal Wolsey, a man who stood for everything that Protestant reformers hated about Catholic priests and the papacy. She is critical of the Reformer William Tyndale, whose zeal and adherence to principle she finds distasteful. She turns her sights neither on Catholicism nor the Reformation, but on religious fanaticism. She paints More in an unflattering light because the deaths for which he was responsible were carried out in the service of religion. Worse, More, like Tyndale, was willing to die for a point of principle. Yet she accepts or excuses the executions for which Cromwell was responsible because they were carried out in service of the state.
Thus in this portrayal of Cromwell we see him as a wholly original man a son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events, ruthless in pursuit of his own interests and ambitious. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. In the shark-tank that was Henry's court, Cromwell was as skilled and as deadly as any. But in Wolf Hall he is the one whose motives we come to understand. And since we know what makes him tick better than we do any of the other players in the drama, we come under his spell and begin to see events from his point of view. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, Wolf Hall peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage. The novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death. It is about Cromwell, yes, but it is also about religious fanaticism, social dislocation, and how best to govern an unruly people.

Tarundeep Singh
2008CS10195