Release and Other Stories

“Release and Other Stories” by Rakhshanda Jalil is a collection of ten stories featuring Indian Muslims. Each story  is sensible in its own way and lingers in one’s mind long after it’s read. Above all, I loved the look and feel of sleek hardbound and its crisp pages with beautiful font and generously spaced text. Loved the book cover too. I found it irresistibly giftable.

“A Mighty Heart” is about a woman who accepts the sons of her husband with his, so far secret, other wife. It is incredulous that that person maintain two wives simultaneously keeping the first wife in dark, calls both his wives with the same name, produces similar set of offspring in the same order with the two women and even names the two sets of children the same to avoid confusion and possible trouble. Lol!

“The Failure” is about a man, in the opinion of the narrator, who has failure written on his face. He turns his majestic house in the middle of nowhere  into a luxury hotel and keeps it in tip-top condition for two years until his first guests arrive.  In “The Perfect Couple”, the husband gets all distressed and shaky upon the sudden and possibly terminal illness of his beloved wife. When an equally distressed colleague of her visits her in the hospital room, the husband receives the jolt of his life when he witnesses the love between his wife and her colleague, as is evident by the way they look at each other holding hands.

“The Strange Man” is about a wealthy man who wanders the streets of a popular hill station in a strange manner, clasping a tape recorder to his breast and cooing to it, oblivious of his surroundings. The story ends with the narrator’s reflection upon learning who the man actually is : “Compulsions that drive people, compulsions that make them do the oddest of things.”

In “The Stalker”, a middle-aged, plain-looking woman is stalked by an unknown person, whom she confronts in the end only to find the face of a teenage boy under the mysterious baseball cap. She couldn’t let out her anger and frustration seeing the innocent expression of pure love etched on his face. She could only wonder -” Who can ever fathom the depths of another heart?”

When Zulfi meets Dia after about 25 years, he discovers that the demure young girl of 19 got transformed into “A Real Woman” of mid-forties and he feels intimidated by her. “The Incident of the Frozen Snake” is a gossip story about a rising star who turns mad after seeing a frozen snake trying to get up from the birthday cake,  which was sent to her as a revenge from the Fading Star, whose long-time beau had been smitten by the rising star. Is it funny or tragic?? Not sure!

“Release”, the title story is about lost love, similar to Devdas. Hasan, who couldn’t stand up against his mother, loses Arza, his childhood love and puts his past behind him until he visits Arza on her death bed fifty years later.

Loved this quote from Release:

“A flower, no matter how sturdy the branch it grows on or how deep the roots of the tree that bears it, can have only one of the two fates: it can either bear fruit, or fall off the branch. No flower can expect to linger forever. So it is with young love; it must find union or wither away.”

A couple of verses from famous Urdu poets appeared in this story, which simply captivated me:

Your thought kept coming and going

Like my breath, all night long

——- Makhdum Mohiuddin

Come, let us weave our dreams of tomorrow

Or else, this night from these hard times

Shall sting us, and for the rest of our lives

We shall never gain be able to weave another beautiful dream

——-Sahir Ludhainvi

“The Break Up” is about a woman who finally finds the courage to break up her marriage. In “A Holiday Gone Awry” three girls get raped by a few men in the hills in front of the brother of one of the girls. As ghastly a tale as it turns out to be, the narrator wonders about what could have been the impact on the 12 year old boy who had to witness such a gruesome event.

Interestingly, all the stories are told in third person, who is often a person inside the story narrating a story.

Acchhaa hai dil ke saath rahe paasbaan-e aql

Lekin kabhi kabhi isey tanhah bhii chhor de

–Iqbal

Dreams of Joy

Just finished reading Dreams of Joy by Lisa See. It’s actually a sequel to her Shanghai Girls, which I read a couple of years ago and liked very much. Shanghai Girls had been a story about two sisters Pearl and May, set in the 1930s to 1950s. They both are well-educated, lived a stylish life in Shanghai  and used to sit for ZG’s paintings. Pearl loves Z.G. and believes that he too cares about her but is devastated when informed by May in an awkward confrontation after twenty years that it is she whom he loved and that they had been lovers back then (before marrying rickshaw pullers and fleeing to America). The blow felt by Pearl at this revelation is heart-wrenching. Throughout Shanghai Girls, we get to see Pearl as the wiser, patient, compassionate, responsible and enduring person whereas May is depicted to be childish and self-indulgent. But May’s argument in the end of the book that all Pearl did was to attract misfortune and glorify herself as a martyr; that she could have escaped being gang-raped on that fateful day when they left home in an attempt to leave China, the event which scarred her heart for life, if only she stayed where she was instead of trying to play the “big sister” thing in order to protect May. This accusation or rather insight is as devastating to me as it is to Pearl I guess.

It’s interesting to see how Pearl and May perceive each other. Each has completely different and seemingly opposite personalities and they have a certain disdain for each other alongside the sisterly love. The calm and composed Pearl resents the care-free and selfish nature of May, while May scorns the “air” taken up by Pearl.

Coming to Dreams of Joy, it starts where Shanghai Girls ends – Joy, the daughter of May raised by Pearl as hers, decides to leave America and go to China to help build the People’s Republic of China and mainly to escape the guilt of being the cause of her father’s suicide and also shocked and hurt by the fact that the truth about her parentage has been hidden from her and thus been deceived by her mother and aunt. After Joy leaves, Pearl follows her to China to bring her back.. And the story continues.

In Shanghai Pearl meets Z.G and all her old feelings surface. Even after 20 years, she feels the same for ZG, despite knowing that he loves May and not her. As hurting as it is, she still feels for ZG. As the story proceeds, they get to meet often.. And Pearl deliberately avoids writing about ZG in her letters to May, though May keeps on asking about him. Pearl enjoys taking a small revenge against her sister, even though she realizes that it’s a fruitless exercise. At last, there comes the moment – she sleeps with ZG and then, just like that – she gets over him. She finally accepts the fact that ZG loves only May. He doesn’t feel about her, Pearl, as he feels about May. And then all of a sudden she feels free of burden, joy and happiness. She falls is love with a person from her past in a true sense (not like she felt for her husband out of responsibility and gratitude)and marries him in the end.

What got me curious was the fact that it took her so long and so much to get over ZG. Finally, what really made it possible for her? What’s the tipping point? It’s not very clear. It’s just a momentous realization akin to enlightenment, but it’s not easy to come by – it usually takes decades, not just years. At one time she recollects May telling her that she is only infatuated with ZG and weighs that remark later, while in China, – she doesn’t care whether it’s only infatuation..and only seeks contentment in basking in the pleasure of his company.

My doubt is – is hers infatuation or love? Who is the best person to judge?  Is hers considered infatuation because her feelings are unrequited? Would like some answers here.

Also, I wonder what really makes a person, especially a woman, to grieve over her unrequited love and forever make a place for her lover in her heart? Is it because that gives her satisfaction and approval? Approval of whom? Unrequited love has forever been romanticized in literature and people who agonize for their lovers, or rather their unfulfilled love, till their death are glorified beyond extent. Does she feel guilty to forsake the reminiscences of her first love? Why does she feel it as her duty, more than anything, to be loyal to her love (even though unrequited, or especially because it is unrequited), even though he doesn’t care a bit about what she does or does not feel for him?

In love, mostly it’s the feeling of being in love, that people love most. People love being in love. It’s even more true in the case of one-side love or unrequited love because they have no other base to carry on with their love.

There is one philosophy which claims that – anything between two persons should be two-way. There must be both “give” and “take”. The balance must be maintained in every and any relationship for sustainment . Otherwise, the relationship won’t last for long. The giver just gives up sooner or later. But the one-side lovers have only this “romanticized” view of being in love as the reason to continue being in love with the same person. They refuse to give up hope to get something in return from their beloveds until a very long time.

But to what effect? They will never be able to love any other man in the same way and they just have to wait for that magical moment when they can get over their first love, which usually comes too late in old age or just never comes. What a pity! I believe that- if only the state of being in love is not romanticized so much, people would have easily moved on to find new love in their lives, which is actually a more fruitful exercise. Is the real test of love to be with the person you love for long and still continue to love? In the absence of which, the only love you feel is for the “imagined” or “expected” traits of the beloved and/or nuances of life.

This is all the mind speaking. But the heart goes on its own way. But the thing is the heart is influenced and shaped by the culture, society and literature and media around it. So, ideally the mind should win. But the heart always knows how to sneak in. it lures the mind with promise of instant gratification in certain thoughts.

I’ve had similar thoughts even while reading about Scarlet’s blind love for and fierce devotion to Ashley in Gone With the Wind. What did it all fetch her in the end? It ruined her life. In a way, it was so upsetting to read about it.

Coming back to Dreams of Joy, it’s my first encounter with anything related to communism. It is shocking and sad to know how flawed leadership has led to the great famine that lasted 3 years, killing millions of people. The novel also depicted how despite the lofty ideals of equality, there are certain classes of privileged people  in the Mao’s New China. Hypocrisy is prevalent and common man suffered. I admire Joy for the way she handled things in China, coming to terms of her life, shocking though it was as it unfolded before her, but never losing her courage and spirit.

I must say that the tale of Pearl, May and Joy has cast a deep impression on me and greatly influenced some of my perceptions. I wouldn’t forget the three ladies and their intricate story.

Ladies Coupé

It’s been a while since I read this long-pending Indian chick-lit by Anita Nair. Finally took time to write something about it. I expected it to be a racy, shallow, gossipy and “masala-filled” novel depicting lives of a group of women travelling together in a Ladies Coupé of a train. I was part-right and part-wrong. It sure was fast-paced and interesting but it was anything but shallow.

Each and every woman character in the novel had been dealt with a depth of empathy and understanding as they shared their stories. Each woman seeks to find herself, making sense of her life and her role in it. Akhilandeswari, who is forced to stay single until 45 by circumstances, embarks on a journey to Kanyakumari to break free from all the oppressing ties of traditional norms and society and seeks answers to her questions before asserting her freedom and independence through her actions. In a society, which stresses that a woman can’t live alone and makes every attempt to make her life terrible, trying to come to terms with self isn’t very easy. I liked the way the author didn’t offer any readymade solutions to the predicament, but rather allowed the character to discover her own path to deal with it.

I was seriously shocked by the way Margaret Shanti dealt with her imposing, insensitive, and tyrant husband. She took revenge by attacking his sense of pride in self. She fed him enormous meals with the effect that it impacted his fitness, thereby reducing his self-confidence. I felt that this is a clever idea. It’s only her way to cope with the situation.

Each woman has varying degrees of problems, and considering each of them from a vantage point, one would tend to rate them on a scale. However, a problem is a problem. There is no one without any troubles. In the absence of a great tragedy, even a seemingly minor issue takes the mind off peace. Marikolanthu’s life might have been the worst of all of them, but that doesn’t make the others’ troubles any slighter. Despite having normal life with material comforts and close-knit family, Prabha Devi and Janaki struggle with their sense of loss of self before finding their way out.

The ability to solve all our problems lies within ourselves. It just needs some calling. One has to grapple with it and persevere to succeed.

Ladies Coupé is an enlightening and thought-provoking work, which stimulates the reader to reflect on his/her own life. It is a must read for everyone, especially women.

Gone With the Wind

Totally loved reading this classic by Margaret Mitchell, set in 19th century  Georgia of USA.  It’s a whopping 900 pages and it’s as good a page turner as any thriller. I enjoyed the whole experience a lot and I believe this book remains one of my favorites, its powerful characters etched forever in my memory.

I have a kind of phobia for huge books and it is with great reluctance that I first embarked on this novel. Also, it being a classic, I had doubts as to the pace of the story and I must say that I had been pleasantly surprised to encounter its fast tempo.

When one reads a book this size and a story with this breadth, it is inevitable that the characters cast a deep impression on one’s mind. One gets to feel a certain kind of kinship with them which is not dissimilar to that invoked by daily soaps.

During the 3 weeks it took me to finish this book, I found myself several times contemplating the southern life as depicted in it – Tara and its beauty, tempers and mannerisms of the Old Guard, Atlanta and its buzz, the war and more. It had been impossible to detach myself from these enigmatic characters and events even when I was not reading and I recollect many a nights when I ruminated about them before bed.

Scarlett with her high spirit, selfish and insensitive though she was, won my heart for her courage and determination. Rhett, the hero of the novel was always a gentleman at heart but was irrevocably the most notorious character in and around Atlanta. He did move me to tears when he bared his heart to Scarlett towards the end, in such an impassioned  and broken-hearted way. It’s true that however much he loved her, he couldn’t have expressed it explicitly for Scarlett would then have scorned him. What a pity she didn’t realize it earlier and it was too late when she at last did. But of course one can’t expect anything else from her, knowing her.

I often wondered about Scarlett’s feelings for Ashley and vice-versa. I was struck by her blind faith and loyalty to him – or rather to her image of him. Ashley always seemed hazy and swept off by Scarlett’s charms and little else. The way the author made it all cleared up in the end is laudable. And how can I forget Melly, the ideal woman of the novel – soft spoken, kind, gentle and at the same time courageous in her own way who had been the inconspicuous source of strength for both Ashley and Scarlett.

Margaret crafted the characters so well that they struck to their dispositions all through and were so meaningful as to deliver a rich experience for one who is interested in studying personalities.

Gone With the Wind is a stirring saga that just swept me off the ground. This is something too good to miss.

The Painted Veil

This is my first major read by Somerset Maugham. I’ve only read a few of his short stories before. This novel is brilliant and I enjoyed every moment of reading it. It’s the story of a woman who commits adultery. She couldn’t love her husband who is in so much love with her, despite his knowledge of her mediocrity. The husband seeks revenge for her infidelity and being spurned by her lover she is forced to oblige  and follow her husband to an epidemic infested area.Though she could never make herself love him and never regrets her past actions, she understands her husband, becomes cleansed and hence a better person in the end.   The story takes different turns and twists and keeps you interested till the end.

I loved the following quotes from the book:

• Beauty is also a gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure.
• There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved.
• Failure is the foundation of success and success is the lurking place of failure; but who can tell when the turning point will come?
• One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.

Life is What You Make It

This bestseller by Preethi Shenoy makes a good read and is different from many other recent popular Indian fiction in that it deals with an acute mental affliction – Bipolar disorder. The novel is about Ankita Sharma and what her life has brought to her since her graduation period.

While I definitely appreciate the sentiment that “Life is What You Make It”, I also like to stress on the significance of family’s and friends’ support to a person who is psychologically and/or psychiatrically affected because without help from outside, it’s almost impossible to handle oneself on one’s own. Some degree of understanding, empathy, support and kind words are highly critical. After all, the problem itself is with one’s mind/brain; it would be unwise to assume that one can snap out of it, if only one tries enough. However, no treatment or words will be effective if the person doesn’t desire enough to get cured. Life indeed is what you make it but you need help from others.

I can relate to the protagonist’s sinking feeling,  of being in a vacuum, of wanting desperately to get out of it but feeling helpless to do anything about it. I’m sure it’s a nightmare. While bipolar disorder may be an extreme case, I feel that mild and intermittent forms of clinical depression are way too common in today’s world. In our society there is still a lot of stigma against it but the need for more awareness and empathy cannot be overemphasized.

Preethi’s prose is eloquent and makes the book an easy read. One thing that amused me is her, kind of, obsession with Philip Kotler, the Marketing Management guru. She must have mentioned him at least 10 times. But doesn’t Management include many other courses other than Marketing Management? She could have at least mentioned Peter Drucker, even in passing. A mention of one or two other courses would also have seemed appropriate.

I liked the following thoughts from the book:

• Life is too precious not to do what you want to do. 
• If you do not laugh for a day, if you have not made someone’s day happier, if you have not appreciated something good that has happened to you and if you have not felt thankful to be alive, then you have wasted that day of your life on earth.

K K Krazy About Khan

I always felt that it’s an amazing privilege offered by big bookstores, especially in malls, where people are allowed to read books in the store as long as they like. For some inexplicable reason, it always excited me. But not until this afternoon did I get the opportunity to avail it when my husband decided to dump me in a mall while he rushes off to his office to attend to some urgent business. I failed miserably in my attempt at feigning distaste towards the idea as I couldn’t help being overjoyed by the thought of spending in Crosswords of Shopper’s Stop for a few undisturbed hours.

So, that’s how I started reading “K K Krazy About Khan” by Sonali Ghosh Sen today. It’s not an impulsive pick but in fact had it in my “To Be Read” list for quite a while. It’s pure chick-lit in which the protagonist is an ardent fan (well of course, that would be an understatement of the century) of the King Khan. I just came across this title somewhere on the Net and being an earnest fan of the star myself, the question of whether to pick this book up or not didn’t even come up for me. Friends from college know how crazy I was about Shah Rukh Khan then. Those memories always amuse me. I guess it’s one of the blissful features of teenage that one can be so passionate about such things.

Now, coming to the book, as I said earlier it’s a chick-lit. Though I always profess myself to be someone who dislikes chick-lit in general, I must admit that there are certain exceptions. I occasionally enjoy a well-written, no-nonsense chick-lit but I can’t endure “Chasing Harry Winston”, “P.S. I Love You” types. And here comes a confession: I go ga-ga over the inherent romance in the story and savor the moments whenever Price Charming sweeps the girl off her feet and finally, much to her surprise, happiness and contentment, declares his undying love for her. Also it doesn’t hurt to note that that girl is usually not the most beautiful nor the most popular female creature, in the sense that she is neither a perfect doll nor a typical ideal woman, featured in the book.

I totally loved “K K Krazy About Khan” once I got over my initial inhibitions and stereotype against the genre and got synched with the attitude of the characters. I chuckled to myself numerous times and it’s quite possible that I might have even laughed out loud  at times. I wonder what the shoppers around thought of me! The humor was so enjoyable that it was hard to put down the book. Didn’t even notice how the hours rolled by. But I guess, one needs to be a fan of SRK, at least to some degree, in order to be able to relate to or at least empathize with Kriti Kapoor (the protagonist) and enjoy the book as much as I did, or even more.

One other thought that crossed my mind while drinking in the book was that there may be people, especially guys,  who don’t quite like this book and think that the characters are just being plain stupid or silly and quite understandably so. Well, one can’t relate to everyone and everything. The sudden dawn of this realization reminded me of my reaction to a typical guy fiction (in broad sense, light fiction written by a man) – My Friend Sancho by Amit Varma that I read recently. Only now am I able to perceive it with more tolerance. I shouldn’t have been too hard on Amit and his hero Abir.

Short Cuts

This collection of short stories (9 stories and a poem) by Raymond Carver is a delightful read. It offers glimpses into the ordinary lives of American families. What makes these stories endearing is the utter simplicity of them and their characters. It is easy to relate with them.

I’ve always felt uncomfortable around the stories which leave unanswered questions, either as to the motives of the characters or as to the rationality behind the happenings or the like. So many of the critically acclaimed stories come into this category that I was first afraid that I was going to read another such bunch in Short Cuts but I was wrong. These stories cannot be farther from such stories which evoke strange feelings and often leave me utterly confused.

I always prefer those stories which have a proper beginning and more importantly, a proper, clear, and satisfying end. While I can’t say that the stories in Short Cuts meet this expectation of mine completely, they do not seem unreal or distant or make me feel  bewildered. The stories in this collection are different in that they portray the true picture of emotions people feel. In life, we don’t always act or feel rationally and we cannot always explain our urges or motives or actions. It is this struggle with our own selves and with those around us that these stories tried to depict.

Only one story in this book, titled “Collectors” made so little sense to me that I’m not even able to describe what it’s about. I may want to read it again sometime later with a fresh mind, in the hope to be able to better appreciate it.

It may be interesting to note that these stories are made into a film titled “Short Cuts” by Robert Altman; like a string of stories with exposes different facets of something. In fact, it is Robert who brought these stories, which were part of different collections earlier, together in this book.  The movie “Short Cuts” vaguely reminds me of “Das Kahaniyah” of Bollywood (a string of 10 separate stories).

My Friend Sancho

I picked up this book by Amit Varma impressed by his immensely popular blog India Uncut. It’s an amazing blog which features his take on various things and happenings around us. His wisecracks and satires hit the bull’s eye and are often thought-provoking.

I was curious to discover how his fiction work would turn out. I didn’t have high expectations of this novel to begin with and so it didn’t disappoint me. But it could have been better. My Friend Sancho is a simple, straightforward story of a young journalist and the moral dilemma he faces as his professional and personal lives intersect.

The protagonist “Abir Ganguly” is possibly a lot like the author. But I have no way to be sure. I can only guess. The only problem with him (Abir) is that he stretches his sense of humor a bit too much, perhaps to  mask his nervousness  or whatever. But he is honest enough even to admit that to the reader. So much goes on inside his head and a significant portion of it includes sexual fantasies/remarks , cursing and the like. While it was amusing in the beginning and offered insight into the psyche of that guy, the intended humor felt like a distraction and bore not long after. A lot of what goes on inside his mind is irrelevant to the reader/story that after a while one gets tired of his inner voice.

I couldn’t help a smile when I noticed that the author referred to his own blog in the novel 3 to 4 times. This got me wondering about “vanity”. Is it a virtue or a vice? Or rather how much of it is considered a virtue and how much of it vice? Is it something that everyone has, at least to some degree, but which is disapproved when exhibited by others? I really wonder!

Everything considered, the novel isn’t bad. The subtle love story intermingled with the main theme makes it endearing. It makes for a humorous, light read.

By the way, have you wondered about the title? Who is this Sancho? It’s the nickname of the lady lead. Before this revelation urges you to consider this as an out-and-out love story, let me clarify. It’s not. It definitely has more to offer, but not on a too serious level.

My reading in 2010

The count this year is a modest 60. Not much change in the statistics. The same <20% still holds good for non-fiction. But, to my satisfaction, I’ve tried various subjects – from self-help (Nine Rooms of Happiness) to travelogues (The Lost Continent); memoirs (Angela’s Ashes) to pure technical stuff (Business Intelligence) and more.

I read more number of Telugu books this year compared to the previous one. I tried a few authors for the first time this year – Mohammad Khadeerbabu (Poleramma Banda Kathalu), Chilikamarti Lakshminarasimham (Ganapathi) and Bhanumathi Ramakrishna (Athagari Kathalu). I loved them all.

If I have to name a book from this year’s list, which I’ve liked the most, it would undoubtedly be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It touched me, surprised me, and above all shook me. I read only a few mysteries (by James Hadley Chase) but more than a few  thrillers, which include The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson and techno-thrillers (Timeline, The Terminal Man, Pirate Latitudes) by my favorite Michael Crichton. I felt that the Millennium trilogy was ok – new and interesting.

I also covered a few family dramas and those, which I guess cannot be called pure chick-lit – Amy and Isabelle by Olive Kitteridge fame Elizabeth Strout, Letter from Peking by Pearl S Buck, Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan and a few by Maile Meloy. Each and every one of them left me thinking more about the lively characters.

I tried horror (Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein) for the first time and I have to admit that the experience was far from being pleasant. I deliberately avoided reading it during the nights and had to gather my courage many a times in order to continue with the book.

Another heart-felt book I was fortunate to read this year is The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk. It was simply amazing. The author had left me awestruck. Looking forward to read more of him. In fact, I just started his My Name is Red.

Coming to the Short Stories, I had better luck in Telugu compared to English. While Alice Munro’s (Too Much Happiness) and Maile Meloy’s (Both Ways is the Only Way I want) were just fine, it was Tagore’s collection of stories, which cast a deep impression on me. They were just brilliant.

Other books, which I cherished this year include – The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, The Secret of Laughter by Susha Guppy (Magical Tales from Classical Persia), Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt (Non-fiction), and Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer.

I feel blessed and I hope to read better, if not more, books next year.