Dusty and Boring........

For a Booker prize winning novel written by a multiple Oscar winning writer, this book is mediocre at best. Long before the Booker garnered glamor and fat advances, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won it in 1975 for Heat and Dust. It was also turned into a movie by James Ivory.

The narrator, a young English woman, comes to India sometime after the Independence to understand the life of her step-mother, Olivia Rivers. She knows Olivia only from the letters she wrote to a friend. Her interest is the affair Olivia had with a local Nawab. It is not clear why the narrator is so interested in Olivia or what she intends to establish from her stay.

Jhabvala was born Ruther Prawer in a German Jewish family. She immigrated to England before World War-II, married an Indian architect, Cyrus Jhabvala and lived in India for a significant part of her life. Inspite of her background, she falls into the all too familiar pattern of exoticizing of India. The India of the British Raj with Nawabs, servants, strange customs, poverty, heat and dust. In some strange way she also allows her characters to justify customs like "sutte" (burning of a widow on her husband's pyre). There is an attempt to portray the characters as instinctive and passionate, but they come off as petulant and silly.

I wouldn't recommend this novel unless you wanted to understand the stereotypical India from a westerner's eye.

Naipaul's Darkness

The novel begins ominously "The World is what it is ; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to be nothing, have no place in it." "A Bend in the River" describes the story of an East African country in the early post-colonial days from the eyes of an Indian, Salim.

Salim belongs to an Indian Muslim family living on the east coast of Africa. Frustrated with his family's antiquated life, he travels to the town at the bend of the river(presumably Zaire) . It is in this town, stripped off his family's support, he sees the world for what it is.

It describes the vicious circle of modern day African countries. Destruction of an existing regime, a new name that offers optimism and economic security, only to be quickly replaced by corruption and disaffection and ultimately followed by another destruction. "To talk of trouble is to pretend there were laws and regulations that everyone could acknowledge. Here there was nothing."

Salim lives in constant fear of this impending destruction. He veers between craving for security and resentment towards his family for not equipping him for this life. "It isn't that there's no right and wrong here. There's no right." In the end Salim is driven from the town for being an "outsider" as the country begins another descent into chaos.

This is so much a book of displacement; of homes and homelands that exist only in the historical memories of people. The alienation that comes with independence, loneliness and quest for a new home. "You see the past is something in your mind alone, that it doesn't exist in real life. You trample on the past, you crush it. In the beginning it is like trampling on a garden. In the end you are just walking on ground."

It is not just Africans, but an outsider's attitude to them that comes to the fore. "Slaves are physically wretched, half men in everything except in their capacity to breed the next generation."

For writing this book, Naipaul was called the lackey of neo-colonialism. But not for Naipaul the naive or crafty arguments used by his fellow writers to describe post-colonial societies. He puts experience over imagination. This takes its toll. The first-hand experiences in post-colonial societies combined with his own unsympathetic view result in bleak observations and caustic portrayal. At some level he drowns in his own truth, failing to transcend it.

Walking the market near Makerere in Uganda, Naipaul in 'an inspector's gait, hands clasped behind his back, moving fast yet looking at everything' proclaimed to skies, "This is turning me into a racialist, for God's sake."

The Ballad of Indian Cricket

I will always remember the time India won the T20 Cup in 2007. The same is with my father and the 1983 World Cup. Those are the moments that stay with us. For a few hours we felt elevated and only sport can deliver such lasting moments. Conversely, our jobs and lives seem a little duller on the day India lose a match. As Guha himself puts it,"India ranks 150th in the World Development Report, below Namibia and above Haiti. It is cricketers alone who are asked to redeem these failures." It maybe a very Indian idea to expect a mythical intervention for a little joy.

"Every country has a preoccupation. In China its Mao, in South America its revolution, in India its cricket." Many, Indians and foreigners, have asked why cricket is so important to India. A much liked but cliched answer is that Indians being a lazy people preferred cricket, where the speed is slow and demands made on the players are low. Like all cliches there is some truth to this, but the explanation itself is an intellectually lazy one. To find the right answer you can't do better than read Ramachandra Guha's "A Corner of a Foreign Field". Guha takes up the formidable task of narrating the story of cricket in India. This is simply an inspired approach to political and social history of the game.

"A Corner of a Foreign Field" begins with the origins of cricket as a pastime for the English in India. The game is soon adopted by Indians, Parsis being the first to play the game and establish a club for it. The native sees the game not just as an entertainment but as a form of resistance to the Imperialist. In a glorious irony, the game supposed to strengthen the Empire is turned into a means for social justice and upward mobility.

Guha has that rare ability to "humanize" characters of history we know as cricketers or politicians. Douglas Jardine, Lord Harris, Palwankar Baloo, C.K.Nayudu and many others are characters in Guha's narrative, not just names holding a jumble of titles. His narration skilfully laces humorous trivia with the existing historical and political context. A large part of the book is spent exploring the Quadrangular tournament which was based on clubs with religious affiliations. It was in the Quadrangular that Palwankar Baloo, Vithal, C.K.Nayudu, Wazir Ali and others made their name. The tournament's ultimate abandonment is also seen as inevitable with the rise of an "Indian" nation and identity.

The pedestal of the first great Indian cricketer is not given to Ranjitsingh or C.K.Nayudu, but to a little known dalit spinner, Palwankar Baloo. His story is one of tremendous resistance, perseverance and the belief in cricketing ability. Baloo and his brother Vithal captained the Hindus in the Quadrangular and his two younger brothers, Shivram and Ganpat also represented the same team. It was claimed at one point that "One brother after another raising the Hindu cricket edifice higher and higher, spreading its brilliance in India and abroad."

Baloo and Nayudu are re-imagined to attain mythical status. Baloo's anonymity though is attributed to the fact that he never played for India. Nayudu was a far more popular figure who could rain sixes on the opposition. To a visiting Jardine, Nayudu sent a note, "Wait till you see me." Undoubtedly Nayudu was the first Indian player to make an impression in popular culture. He captained India on tours to England and was hailed as a legend.

The modern game though is discussed only in parts. Guha portrays the modern Indian fan as the "overworked, overpaid, half-drunk, hyper-national yuppie". But the same Indian fan stands in a ticket queue from the night before, he is not allowed to carry a banner or a poster, not even a bottle of water to the stadium (At Eden Gardens spectators were asked to drink water from a tap deemed unfit for consumption by the local municipality). After going through all this trouble, his heart is broken by players who throw matches for money. I see it as the venting of anger not just at the players, but at a system that has failed to deliver simple dignity.

All things considered though this is a wonderful read. Here's some trivia to entice you to read this book. Ranjitsingh once told a young boy "Balla seedha rakho, Jore se maro, Aur ghabrao mat" (Keep your bat straight, Hit Hard and don't funk). That young boy grew up to be C.K.Nayudu.

The Enigma of Naipaul

Rarely have I come across a person who has read VS Naipaul and not had an opinion of him. Chinua Achebe once complained Naipaul wrote about Africans but not for Africans, Edward Said called his work an "intellectual catastrophe", Derek Walcott called him "V.S.Nightfall", a reviewer of his book complained that Naipaul's aim was the desecration of his audience. Equally his admirers credit him with a Conradian style, a world vision, absolute honesty and clarity to simplify. So it is fitting that Naipaul received a wonderful biography in “The World Is What It Is” by Patrick French.

A weaker man would have tried to exonerate himself of the accusations of his illustrious colleagues (Paul Theroux and others). But by being honest to the point of being brutal, Naipaul the enigma has left his admirers and detractors awe struck. There simply cannot be a more honest biography of a living person.

The opening paragraphs of the book begin with a young Brahmin at the turn of the century duped to make a journey across the world from India to Trinidad. The journey by sea almost kills him, the work on a sugar plantation enervates and breaks him. But with a shrewd vision the young man becomes one of the richest people in Trinidad. The young man was Caplideo Maharaj, Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul's maternal grandfather. Naipaul's younger days during the 30s and 40s of Trinidad are described in vivid detail. This part of the book reads almost like a second version of his masterpiece "A House for Mr Biswas".

In 1950 Naipaul leaves for Oxford on a scholarship. He meets Patricia Hale, a fellow student from lower-middle class background. He sees Trinidad as a place of no hope and prefers the mother country. The intense loneliness of his early English years are combined with no job prospects and he sinks into depression. He marries Pat but doesn't buy her a ring. His father passes away but he cant attend the funeral. In all this turmoil he publishes his first book "The Mystic Massuer". A few years later he publishes his masterpiece, "A House for Mr Biswas" , a fictional recounting of his father, Seepersad Naipaul's life. The book is still hailed as a post-colonial masterpiece. In 1971 "In a free state" won the Booker and suddenly Naipaul is short of ideas and needs stimulation.

His marriage to Pat is troublesome but survives. She is his companion, the first reader of his work, an honest reviewer, his mother, his house-maid and assistant. As Naipaul's fame grows she looses her independence. Into this fraught marriage enters Margaret, an Anglo-Argentine woman. Naipaul meets Margaret on the trip to Buenos Aires and they begin a relation that would last a quarter century. When asked about the relation, Naipaul curtly replied, "It was definitely not a meeting of the minds." The sex with Margaret helped him immensely. It resulted in rejuvenated works like "A Bend in the river", "Among the Believers" and "India: A Million Mutinies Now". Naipaul says. "I was very violent with her for two days with my hand; my hand began to hurt........My hand was swollen.I have enormous sympathy for people who do strange things out of passion." French summarizes the situation," Mama at home, a whore in South America."

All through this infidelity, Naipaul and his lovers exhibit a tremendrous sympathy for the writer in him. Margaret became his companion on his travels, while Pat was the reviewer of his work. Pat, low on self-esteem, now withdrew and suffers from cancer. "His nihilism begat her nihilism. They fed off eachother's negativity." In the end Pat dies of cancer and Vidia invites Nadira Alvi, a Pakistani journalist into the same house to marry him. The book ends with the scattering of Pat's ashes.

I have one complaint of the book, that I wish it was longer. For a 500 page book that is as good a compliment as any. The book ends in 1996, but why not 2002 when he won the Nobel? Why not much later, since Sir Vidia is still alive? Maybe there are two Naipauls, the writer who is compassionate but unsympathetic, truthful but selective, uncompromising and unyielding. And the person who is selfish, indecisive and lives in a perennial service of literature.

French claims Naipaul's decision reveal everything about his life is one filled humility and narcissism. It was hard for me to understand how a person could be both. But I did not have to look far. In a letter to Pat during his Oxford days, a young Naipaul wrote. "I love you, and I need you. Please don’t let me down. Please forgive my occasional lapses. At heart I am the worthiest man I know." It is French's understanding and courage as much as Naipaul's honesty that gives this biography a novel like beauty. Fiction is to make sense, but non-fiction can shock, terrify and deepen our understanding of complicated things. In the end I believe, Sir Vidia may have found the home he was always looking for, in this book.

A Suitable Girl?

To atone for the length of "A Suitable Boy" (it is the longest single novel in english at 1350 pages), I have not written its review. I did not want to subject readers to more about the same book.

But Vikram Seth has gone off and decided to write a sequel (or a jump sequel as he calls it). Hopefully this wll be a shorter and less tedious read. Also I hope it doesn't strain my purse and sprain my wrist like its predecessor