Über Desi » Books

What makes Devdas tick?

Runa — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:40:48 +0000

This post is a kind of 3 in one : a review of a book, a movie and random musings from me.

I just finished reading Orhan Pahmuk’s “The Museum of Innocence”.Pahmuk, the 2006 Nobel Prize winner has written a magnificent, wordy, illuminating and infuriating novel. The book tells the tale of Kemal a rich young businessman from Istanbul and of his obsessive and destructive love for the beautiful (but poor and hence off-limits) young Fusun. His obsession leads him to a passionate affair with her while he is still engaged to the Sorbonne-educated and more suitable Sibel. Ultimately, Kemal’s obsession leads him to create a museum dedicated to Fusun- hence the title. A couple of things struck me while reading the novel. The first : there is so much similarity between the society of Istanbul in the 70s and that of upper middle class India that I experienced in the 80s. Pahmuk is known for delving into the dichotomy of Turkey as an Islamic and as a European society and the inherent conflicts that arise between the demands of conservatism and the pull of openness. In this story too, Kemal, his fiance Sibel and Fusun as well as Kemal’s set of rich,Westernized friends constantly undergo turmoil as they struggle to fit into the mores of traditional Turkish society while trying to taste freedom sexual and otherwise. There is a lot of lipservice and hypocrisy which definitely reminded me of India! The second thing that resonated: while I loved the book and admire Pahmuk’s prose, it was very difficult to feel empathy for the “hero” Kemal. His behavior through the book reminded me of another hero – one I have always actively disliked – the pathetic, wimpy, tragic Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya creation – Devdas.

Coincidentally, just last week I finally watched the latest spin on Devdas, the Abhay Deol starrer “DevD”. This movie caused quite a buzz with its re-imagining of the Devdas tale in modern times. DevD is a semi – watchable , noirish film about – who else?- DevD a spoilt , self- indulgent rich kid unable to come to terms with his love for Paro. Like every other Devdas before him, he drowns his sorrows in drinks and drugs. What can I say? Whether it is Abhay Deol, Dilip Kumar or Sharukh Khan ( in Snajay Leela Bhansali’s ornate “Devdas” starring Aishwarya Rai), I am unable to muster any empathy for the title character. His motivations are unclear to me. His behavior is immature, wimpy and ultimately his destruction is self -wrought. My impatience with the Devdas character is his inability to act rationally. I just do not get what is so fascinating about self indulgence and self pity. Why does the tragic male lover , a Devdas like character keep reappearing in various interpretations? Pahmuk’s book is just the latest in a long string of movies and books about such tragic heroes.

Coming back to the reviews: By all means read “The Museum of Innocence”. Ialso recommend watching “DevD”- its flawed but has its moments. ( The high point for me was a song whose lyrics go ” Touba tera jalwa/Touba tera pyaar/Yeh Emotional/Atyachar!”- I kid you not!)

I am pretty sure I am missing out on some deeper symbolism here . I welcome any input from our readers – anyone out there like or understand Devdas? Please educate me!

Only celebrities can reincarnate as celebrities

Santosh — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:26:39 +0000

In recent days, there has been increased chatter in desi media about Walter Semkiw’s books. [HT]

Did you know that Mahatma Gandhi has been reincarnated as Van Jones, the celebrated American civil rights and environmental activist who was named Time magazine’s “environmental hero” in the US in 2008?

“Objective evidence that forms the basis of past life studies prove that Jones is the reincarnation of Gandhi,” world’s leading past life researcher and best-selling author from the US Walter Semkiw told IANS in an interview.

World’s leading past life researcher? He certainly seems to have the market cornered in that segment. So what is the big evidence that ties Van Jones to Gandhi?

Jones’ facial bone structure and features are the same as that of Gandhi’s, Semkiw said.
“His manners and body language are also similar to that of the Indian freedom fighter and he does the same things Gandhi did in Africa during the 1930s – campaign for civil rights. Like Gandhi, who was named Time magazine man of the year in 1930, Jones figured in Time’s list of most influential men in 2008 and in several other magazines,” the researcher said.

So basically being bald, bespectacled, and a Time magazine list alum qualifies Jones as Gandhi’s reincarnation. But wait, it only gets better.

Amitabh Bachchan, revealed the doctor, is the reincarnation of famous American actor Edward Booth and “displays all his characteristics”, while former president APJ Abdul Kalam is the present-day avatar of Tipu Sultan, the first Indian ruler to have used rockets in battles.
“Shah Rukh Khan is the reincarnation of yester year Hindu actress-singer and dancer Sadhana Bose. Social worker Annie Besant has been born as Maneka Gandhi….”

The premises of his books seems to be something along the lines of such and such celebrity gets reincarnated as a different celebrity and predictably mention of Indian celebrities with supernatural mumbo-jumbo seems to have the desi media literally on its knees begging for more. Of course, no media outlet has raised simple questions like: what is the scientific validity of this “research” on reincarnation and, even if valid, why are only celebrities being reincarnated as celebrities?

On a side note, some of you may wonder about someone with the twitter name of “reincarnation” railing against the scientific validity of that very concept. The twitter name is just that, a pseudonym, and has nothing to do with the supernatural acts.

Arvind Adiga wins Man Booker

Anantha — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:01:39 +0000

Chennai born Arvind Adiga has won the 2008 Man Booker prize and £50,000 prize for for his debut novel The White Tiger. Adiga, only the fourth first time novelist to win the prize, beat out established names such as Amitava Kumar and Sebastian Barry to win the prize for his novel that the Guardian describes as “a bracingly modern novel about the dark side of the new India”.

Adiga was born in Chennai in 1974 and was raised partly in Australia. Having studied at Columbia and Oxford universities, he became a journalist, and has written for Time magazine and many British newspapers. He lives in Mumbai.

At Home, at war: Tahmima Anam’s ‘Golden Age’

Santosh — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:20:24 +0000

Author of “A Golden Age”, Tahmima Anam was featured on this morning’s NPR Morning Edition Show.

Desi on NYT top 10 books of 2007.

Karthik — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:19:13 +0000

‘Imperial life in the emerald city: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone’ penned by Rajiv Chandrasekaran made it to the top 10 books of 07 by New York Times. The NYT review is here and you can buy the book here.

Maximum City: A Review.

Karthik — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 01:26:18 +0000

Maximum City by Suketu Mehta.

As someone who spent a year growing up in Bombay (It was Bombay then), visiting often and having relatives there, much of this book read like Cliffs Notes for me. The few Bollywood Gangster movies that I have managed to catch over the years filled in whatever actually living there didn’t.

I also noticed that apart from a few details which are Bombay-specific, most of the themes are applicable to India in general. Reading about the way cops treat suspects, slums, poverty, red tape, politics etc. might have had a Bombayish spin to it, but all of that information was not new or particularly interesting to me.

As I read the book, I wondered why Sukethu had decided to follow the lives of these people, people whom you would not interact with or know in your day to day life in Bombay. The answer is buried in a paragraph in the last chapter of the book. I wish he had included that paragraph as a part of the introduction.

He goes on to present the rough edges of bombay, Gangsters, Bar dancers, Film Makers populate an assortment of characters, who as he puts it, have low moral values. The book is filled with sensationalism, repeatedly making you say “What the…” and it can get very monotonous. I wish he had spent a few pages writing about the Mumbaikar spirit of not letting anyone stop their daily lives. This was well-evident in the aftermath of the Train bombings.

As I crossed page 200, I was forced to come to the conclusion that the book was written for a western audience. Sukethu, I believe is picking out dramatic events in the city and serving it on a platter for the west to consume. It is like the TV producers from the west, who always manage to spend an extra few seconds to capture the slums of India, but do not bother thinking about the slums in America. He is pandering.

He also spends a great deal of time on BS from those he profiles. Often times, I have come across friends / relatives, who will talk about their aspirations, their plans for the future, with no solid intentions of ever pursuing them. We called this “passing time” and I get a feeling that Sukethu could not decipher the difference between it and a sincere commitment to change, well, that or he decided it would add weight to his already massive book.

There are a few good parts to the book. Although he name checks certain famous people across various professions, he does not hold them up on a pedestal or fawn over them as if they were demi-Gods; he tells it like he sees it. A lot of his theories were articulated well, I never had to spend time connecting the dots, because he did it for me.

His take on the rent act transforming itself into multiple forms of evil, historical details on Bombay’s immigrant population, on its smuggling trade and the perennial overcrowding, although deducible by logic, were well presented. The “theories” about Navi Mumbai, city planners and incubators for bad elements were well thought out, although I am sure that they will pass for gossip and just that.

Would I recommend this book to anyone?

I doubt it. A lot of similarly-themed movies have managed to “educate” Bollywood fans. Besides, and while I usually endorse “reading the book” over taking the lazy route with the movie, his writing style makes you wonder why you bought the book in the first place, so I’ll make an exception here. Thank goodness I borrowed it from someone, since it’s not something I’d keep on my shelves.

Like I concluded on SM, I am left wondering if Maximum City was just a collection of stories left over from a movie script. I’m not impressed, at all.

Here are some other bloggers who have reviewed this book.(1,2,3,4)

Holy Cow

Santosh — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:00:44 +0000

In the Amrikan version, Shiva wears pink goggles

The author, Sarah MacDonald, is an Australian. The Australian version of the book just had an image of Shiva on its cover. “How boring” the marketing folks thought when it was introduced to them in the US and A. In the US and A, we setup coffee shops on every street corner, create a neat logo, hype it up and sell a $0.40 drink for $4.00. We take $5 canvas shoes, add a swoosh and sell them for $50. Its marketing and capitalism at it best.

So how do we sell above mentioned book with a boring picture of Shiva? Who will buy yet another book on the mystical east that India is? Add a pink motif to the book and adorn Shiva with pink goggles!!!!

That image is exactly what prompted me to pick up this book and browse through it over a cup of $4.00 coffee at the local B&N bookstore. Proof that marketing works. At first glance it seems like the book was written to be extremely critical about India and anything about the Indian way of life.

It’s hard not to judge the book that way when the generalizations flow freely in the first 10 pages itself. Here’s a sampling (from memory):
” ………. all the drivers had one finger on a horn and another one up their nostrils ….. “

But it was probably meant to be that way because the author hated India on her first visit but then gradually grew accustomed to the Indian lifestyle over the duration of her next visit.

An editorial review:

From Booklist:
Australian MacDonald didn’t fall in love with India her first time there, at age 21. So when her boyfriend, Jonathan, a reporter for ABC, is sent there for work, she reluctantly follows after a year of separation. At first, life in India is as bad as she remembered it–overcrowded, smoggy, disturbing. A serious bout of pneumonia puts her in an Indian hospital, but as she recovers, she begins to make friends in India and to understand the culture. She finds herself attending lavish Indian weddings and trying to comfort her friend Padma, whose mother commits suicide after Padma marries without her permission. MacDonald makes an effort to understand the many diverse religions of the area, including taking a 10-day sojourn in a Buddhist temple and discussing religion with Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and even a group of visiting Israelis. With Jonathan, she takes a trip to war-torn Kashmir, an area that is at once achingly beautiful and devastatingly dangerous. A lively, snappy travelogue. Kristine Huntley

I will admit I could not finish the book but that has more to do with the lack of time, courtesy house guests, and me being too cheap to actually purchase this book. Amardeep Singh, on the other hand, has actually read, taught, reviewed and dissected the book, “Holy Cow”. Sarah has also pissed off some Parsi folks bigtime with controversial remarks on the “Tower of Silence“.