When women step out of Indian epics to express real desires and choices in real books

http://scroll.in/article/727933/when-women-step-out-of-indian-epics-to-express-real-desires-and-choices-in-real-books
The Indian novel writing tradition is by and large a postcolonial phenomenon. Right from one of the first novels in English written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay to the deluge of novels written, published and consumed today, the Indian novel tradition has traversed a long distance in terms of scope and expanse.

While we have had novel writing in various languages and dialects of the country, we have also had a defined canon of “Indian Writing in English” taught at universities and colleges in India. Translation of novels from regional languages into English has been continuously shifting the boundaries of Indian writing and destabilising the appropriation of representative Indian novels within the elitist definition of a “canon”.

Traditionally, debates around canonisation and canon formation in India have been dominated by class, caste and gender concerns. Women Writing in India, published in two volumes edited by Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, is a comprehensive collection of women writing in India from 600 BC to the present day. Tharu’s anthology and a survey of the contemporary literary oeuvre of our times reveal the intricate intimacy between literary production of women writers and the temporal contours of their respective histories.

Mythology, mythological characters and myths have informed women’s writings over centuries. Till the early twentieth century, the layers of engagement with history within women’s writings were more nuanced and under the sheets, as if cautious to not unruffle the “said” and the “done”, the “established” and the “systematised”.

Breaking the mould

From the second half of the twentieth century, one witnessed a registering of protests and contrary opinions almost unabashedly. Savitribai Phule’s published writings, or the works of Ambai and Ismat Chughtai were feminist writings that struggled hard to put women’s voices as a legitimate concern of history.

Contemporary writings by women have heralded a different wave of communication for and with women. They not only create strong characters, but also explore contours of literary definitions beyond the limits of the defined canon of feminist writing.  Especially while exploring mythology, they have been informed by this constant political struggle to appropriate their recreated, gendered version as the historical version of a feminine reality.

Sita and Draupadi

Kavita Kane’s Sita’s Sister and Karna’s Wife explore the epics – the Ramayanaand the Mahabharata – in a fashion which is almost a retelling of the two representative beej kavyas of India. The eyes of the two women relegated and tucked away rather dismissively as the wives of two characters, Laxman and Karna respectively, struggling below the massive weights of the epic heroes, refashion the entire narrative in a way which is more real, more fleshed out and more relatable.

The world of Urmi, Sita’s sister – not Laxman’s wife or Ram’s sister-in-law – is one that in its very introduction, the cover of the book itself, discards the male heroic grandeur of the quasi-historical narrative. The book presents a layered representation of Urmi’s identity as an intelligent, ambitious, uncomplicated and matter-of-fact woman who is capable not just of loving madly but also of defining her love with new meanings of intellectual achievements in the absence of her beloved.

She is not the complaining, crying, pining, vulnerable woman who writes love poems while Laxman is away in exile. Urmi utilises the redundancy of a marital life by informing herself of various academic disciplines and earns the position of a sage invited for an annual conference – almost entirely a male bastion.

In Karna’s Wife, the author tries to meticulously lend a voice to the doubly marginalised Uruvi, the second wife of an unsung hero Karna. Uruvi is a fiercely independent woman who makes choices according to what she wants, rather than “what should have been”. And she does so in a logical fashion and not as a statement of protest.

Her alacrity in responding to situations and her deftness in political matters etches out a character which is strong and free – a character which would never ever have been a part of the popular narrative across history.

In the same book, the writer also lends space to the other two marginalised women in the epic – Draupadi and Vrushali, Karna’s lover and Karna’s first wife, respectively. This authorial space to Draupadi’s articulation of her desires for Karna and insights into Vrushali’s thinking after Uruvi shares Karna’s love, make for a far more nuanced, layered and humane narrative than the grandeur of an epic literary style can achieve.

Rati, wife of Kama

Anuja Chandramouli’s Kamadeva recreates the story of Kamdeva and his wife Rati. For the first time in contemporary literary discourse, Kamadeva enters the imagination of the authorial voice. Recreating the lives of the eponymous hero and his wife through a revisiting of his representation in the Puranas and theUpanishads, the is to most diligently expropriate a voice almost lost in epic canonisation. The translation and transcription of characters from mythological narratives into the popular and contemporary idioms of our times make the story more relatable and believable.

These contemporary women authors have not crafted their women characters to challenge the status quo. These characters register their strong presence without jostling for space. It is as if they already belong there. It is natural cohabitation with whatever exists without destabilizing the social order.

The women – Uruvi, Urmila, Rati, Draupadi, Sita – register an acknowledgement of their roles and identities within the larger patriarchal and male-dominated order of the day. They ask relevant questions, demand pointed answers, and ensure their voices are listened to and not just heard. These contemporary characters from mythology are not like Jane Eyre or Bertha Mason or Maggi or Tess or Lolitha who struggle and sometimes lose their sanity or even their lives in the process of seeking their space.

Contemporary writings by women recreating the mythical and mythological characters of the Indian literary tradition seem co-terminus with the rise of a new middle-class woman. The search for an identity and exploration of the self in a postmodern world of shifting definitions around feminism and patriarchy have reincarnated the mythological characters as real women walking around in the contriving corridors of literary history with the liberating ease and comfort that seems almost a utopia.

In the event that a khap orders the murder of a woman over asserting her choice who to live with, Draupadi narrating how she always felt desirous for Karna despite being identified as panchali is a fate almost enviable and ideal.
http://scroll.in/article/727933/when-women-step-out-of-indian-epics-to-express-real-desires-and-choices-in-real-books

Many Indias

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/read/many-indias/article7039316.ece

Indian literature and the short story are literary terms that are highly contested, theorised and yet have shifty definitions. A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces, edited by David Davidar, is an attempt to bring both these literary terms into the lexicon of modern reading. A collection of 39 stories, this book endeavours to chronicle and curate an introduction to the modern Indian short story practice.

The anthology begins with a story by Rabindranath Tagore and ends with one by Kanishk Tharoor — thereby charting the entire course of the modern Indian short story tradition in its temporal reality. In the fairly extensive introduction, Davidar explains the process of shortlisting these 39 stories from the larger oeuvre of the Indian writing tradition.

He talks about the challenges of curating the contents of this ‘clutch’, including problems of claiming stories from the oral to the written form, issues of translation and the loss therein, re-translation of some stories, choosing what to include and what to discard. The introduction is a primary component of the book, before one begins to make sense of the stories and what they are trying to say.

Davidar has carefully picked those Indian stories that have stayed with him through years of reading.

The collection includes popular heavyweights like RK Narayan, Sadat Hasan Manto, Khushwant Singh, the controversial Ismat Chughtai, Amrita Pritam, the budding Kanishk Tharoor, and other writers such as Shashi Tharoor, Upmanyu Chatterjee and Githa Hariharan. This book covers a wide range of literary writing and themes.

While Tagore’s and Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s stories touch upon supernatural experiences, Premchand, Gopinath Mohanty and Anna Bhau Sathe give a glimpse into poverty. UR Ananthamurthy, Vijaydan Detha and Mahasweta Devi speak of the rural, tribal and indigenous experience through their stories. At the same time, Amrita Pritam and Nisha Da Cunha talk of infidelity.

Simultaneously, stories of Ismat Chughtai and Amrita Narayanan give an insight into homosexuality and explore women’s sexuality. Stories like that of Vikram Chandra and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai detail the craft of writing and reveal the delight in expanding an experience into words.

The anthology includes stories that have been translated from numerous Indian languages, including Malayalam, Urdu, Oriya and Marathi apart from, of course, stories written in English.

However, inclusions of literature from the north-east region, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Gujarat would have made the anthology more comprehensive. Nevertheless, with its wide array of themes and the ability to capture the universal struggles within India, the collection serves as a guide to Indian consciousness.

While dealing with supernatural experiences in Tagore’s The Hunger of Stones and Basheer’s The Blue Light, the reader learns how susceptible we can be to hearsay and rumours. In Anita Desai’s Games at Twilight, nostalgia gently runs through a reader’s mind. Similarly, there is an ache and longing for the old world in Sundara Ramaswamy’s Reflowering and the romanticisation of a simple tribal life in Ruskin Bond’s The Blue Umbrella.

Premchand’s The Shroud and Anna Bhau Sathe’s Gold from the Grave, while dealing with issues of poverty and religion, also tell of the starkness between the haves and have-nots. Mahasweta Devi’sDraupadi complicates this struggle by introducing the gender factor into a battle between tribes and the administration. Hari Shankar Parsai’s Inspector Matadeen on the Moon satirises the political and administrative system and launches a scathing attack on corrupt governance in a fictional world through the introduction of police reforms on the moon.

The book is sensitive to the pulse of realism and, at the same time, it offers moments of introspection, romance and nostalgia. Just like India, the book too is eclectic, varied and wide-ranging. Each of the stories is a representation of an Indian reality. Therefore, there are many Indias created in the book — each one unique and different from the others. Each story gives a sense and flavour of its rootedness, which no book of history or anthropology could.

The stories encourage the reader to explore the authors and writings from their respective regions. For example, after reading the Oriya story in the book, a reader will be tempted to read other Oriya writers, such as Tapan Kumar Pradhan’s award-winning Kalahandi.

A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces prises open the entire world for a reader interested in Indian writing. It gives a snapshot into the various worlds India inhabits within it and encourages readers to read more. Davidar’s painstaking curation has the potential of defining India’s literary canon.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/read/many-indias/article7039316.ece

The queer case of memory ‘in the middle of things’

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/bookbeat/the-queer-case-of-memory-in-the-middle-of-things

Janice Pariat's Seahorse is the second book by the author, following her Sahitya Akademi-winning debut collection Boats on Land. Unfolding the story of a young boy, Nehemiah, in a non-linear narrative, Seahorse interrogates the complex forces of sexuality, art and love; their symbiotic relationship with the lives of its characters. The beauty of this novel lies in its delicate storytelling and the successful experiment it carries out in trying to intersperse various literary forms in this bildungsroman.

Seahorse begins in media res, a decision that reflects how "in the middle of things" is exactly the way a slice of life presents itself. This philosophy is part of a larger avenue of expositions on art, storytelling, life and experiences that Pariat employs frequently in the novel. Right at the outset, the author gives the book a density and depth quite inimical to the popular works — and increasingly, even literary fiction — of the day.

The novel takes the readers on a romantic and deliciously surreal journey built on the act of memorialisation. Through the protagonist Nehemiah, intrigued and torn as he is in the beginning, the novel launches a long journey. With Nehemiah's self-exploratory chase for his lost friend, the novel traverses geographies and nationalities, scuttling from page to page, agreeing to give the readers a detailed insight into Nehemiah's consciousness.

The book heralds a completely new, revolutionary age of writing around LGBT themes. It is concerned with the eternal search for belongingness and love amidst tender moments of self discovery. (The titular story in Boats on Land was also remarkable in striking this balance.) The novel refuses to titillate the readers with graphic details, yet creates a sensual experience made richer by the maturity with which the author goes about her job.

Somewhere in the middle of the novel, Seahorse introduces the eponymous creature in a very symbolic format. In his love — perhaps unrequited — for various people, Nehemiah moves with a slow pace, trying hard to keep up with life. Just like the poor swimmer a seahorse is, Nehemiah struggles to swim with his emotional baggage of loss, longing and desires to own and be owned. In a way, Pariat's book is an ode to the tragic hero, the description of a life where all of us are afflicted and diseased by loss; each one us look for hope — slowly, wearily trudging along each day of our lives. This excerpt from the novel captures this sombre mood aptly:

"The day passed as all others do, with relentless silence. In my room, I worked through my unpacking slowly — a pair of socks in the drawer, a book on the shelf, slippers under the bed — charged not with anger or despair, but faint, lingering anticipation. Something else had to happen, this couldn't be all. This wasn't the end. I'd receive a letter. Nicholas would return. Someone would come knocking on my door, saying there's a phone call. A message. Some sort of sign. An explanation. That night I went to bed in hope."

In long-winded paragraphs of incidents collated from memory, Seahorse attempts to create a pastiche of the modern-day novel's memory mischief. It has the art of absorbing new layers into the main story (like Myra's) as if they were always a part of the larger plan (which, of course, they were). This organic assimilation and unity of seemingly separate lives, is no mean feat for a novelist. All the while, Pariat's felicity with form shines through. Each literary style that she utilises, she excels in; stream-of-consciousness, detective fiction, poetry, free verse. My personal favourites, however, are the passages where Pariat slips into pure stream-of-consciousness mode.

"At first, I was gripped by nothing less than wild exhilaration. The clutch of excitement at inexplicably arbitrary times. While paying for oranges at Tesco's, or waiting to cross the street. Questions hastening like small sharp arrows — Why? How? What did he mean? What would happen now? And then it faded. The note transformed into a paperweight. While I wasn't looking, it changed shape. We are perpetually chained. Compelled to want and not want. To conclude and leave incomplete. Eventually, the note conjured annoyance. Somehow, even a trace of fear. By meeting Nicholas at the concert, I'd finally acquire what was called a verifiable outcome. It could be changed from the poetic to the quotidian. The lushly imagined to disappointingly real. There would be a continuation. Possibly even an ending. Quod erat demonstrandum."

The follow-up is always a writer's most perilous moment. If your debut effort sank without a trace, the pressure is on: another failure and your confidence will hit rock bottom. If your debut was super-successful (like Pariat), the expectations are that much more unrealistic.

Seahorse is as worthy a follow-up as Pariat could have hoped for, and a cracking read.

Mirza Waheed’s ‘The Book of Gold Leaves'

Mirza Waheed’s The Book of Gold Leaves is the second novel by the author. Both of his works – The Collaborator and The Book of Gold Leaves – retell the story of Kashmir. However, the architecture of the re-memorizing of Kashmir is different in both.

The Book of Gold Leaves is a novel with the skeleton of a love story . While a passionate romance blossoms between Roohi, the sunni heroine and Faiz, the Shia paper machie artist – and perhaps the protagonist, on this skeleton, Mirza creates his art. He retells the story of Kashmir in the 1990s and recounts, through the personal narratives of Roohi, Faiz, Farhat, Khan Sahab, Mr. Koul, a tale of sorrow and pain that Kashmir was forced to become. Sometimes, in the middle of the novel, one would actually be forced to ask – is Kashmir the protagonist in this book?

Mirza questions the Manichean dualities of propaganda and ‘truth’ by incorporating voices and stories that are shouted, muted, heard and discarded. The sheer intensity with which each episode and event in the lives of the  two main characters unfold, makes the novel a clenched fist for any reader. One just does not want to let go till the tension eases and some nerves are frayed. It is this overwhelming feeling that makes this book so deeply political and passionately poetic at the same time.

While Mir Zafar’s household, Khan Sahab’s household recount the horrors of those who stayed in the valley, Professor Koul’s story resurrects, albeit in minority, of those who left. Perhaps, the author should have fleshed out a lot more on the Kashmiri pundits fleeing the valley. Perhaps, because the beautiful craft increases the expectation of a reader, the novel could have taken a step further and talked about the struggles of a pundit in a little more detail. However,  in conversations between Professor Koul and the army officer, Mirza narrates the futility of the word ‘choice’. Later, as the novel progresses and Faiz gets irrevocably sucked in by the ‘other’ side of Kashmir, ‘choice’ seems more as a mockery than anything else. It is then that perhaps one would want to forgive Mirza and redeem him of a slightly unfinished, left-out retelling.

What is absolutely striking about the novel is that while Mirza navigates through the tough historical realities of the 1990s Kashmir, he never loses perspective of a Kashmiri tale. The culture, art, way of life, geography, society, human interactions and beauty of the valley is explained and recreated as beautifully as a painting.

By showing a rebellious love affair solemnized, albeit silently – in the bonds of matrimony – between two radical Muslim groups, by portraying women smoking with men, by etching that fraught landscape when Roohi walks right in the middle of the sanctum, prohibited for women, in the full glare of male eyes, Mirza does something that is difficult to articulate in words and too poignant to just let it seep in sans expression.

It is this ethereal and dream like – yet real – quality of Mirza’s book, that makes it so political and so literary at the same time.

The dreamy ideal of ‘falaknuma’ that Faiz always wanted to paint is the ideal that brings in hope each time it begins to escape the reader. While with themujahids and familiarizing himself with guns and bombs, Faiz thinks offalaknuma, while his half painting punctuates Farhat’s, Faiz’s sister’s life, in his absence – the painting, this art, this half, unfinished project – makes the journey for the reader a little hopeful, as if in a dark tunnel guided by that one sliver of faint light. Falaknuma becomes symptomatic of the hope that allows one to wade through the violent history and the traps of ‘zaal’ that the novel talks about.

The Book of Gold Leaves has all the makings of a literary artefact. The nuances of the tale, the making of the teller, the layers and layers of said and unsaid and the equally silent layers of half muted histories and stories are what make this book a must read for anyone who wants to understand Kashmir in totality. It is one of those unputdownable emotional tales which come with an unfinished project like that of Kashmir.

Will the pundits return? Will those who died and picked up arms fulfil their individual falaknumas? Will ‘the book of gold leaves’ preserve all that needs to be chronicled and painted and created – with the same delicacy as perhaps the book, how Mirza has done?

You might not get all the answers, but this book overwhelms with the very idea that there is are infinite possibilities in questions.

Amit Chaudhuri’s ‘Odysseus Abroad’- Review

Ananda is an aspiring poet and a young college going student in London. Ananda’s uncle, Rangamama, is an early, retired bachelor who lives-off a comfortable pension at Belsize Park. Both are bound in a relationship barely happy and far from perfect but simultaneously, necessary for both of them. In his recent book, Odysseus Abroad, Amit Chaudhuri, narrates the story of these two characters spread across a day in London.

The immigrant experience of Indians in London; the sense of un-belongingness in a by and large alien place – its alien-ness amplified by cultural and sensibility barriers, the strong desire and need to claim a certain sense of belongingness in that space and the struggle punctuating this existential exercise; form the thematic thread of Amit Chaudhuri’s recent book. The plot centers around a day in the lives of these two characters – Ananda and Rangamama – where they meet, they brood, they discuss, they talk, they eat and they part ways. Between this apparently  mundane and ordinary tale lies Chaudhuri’s craft of story telling, interspersed with the literary brilliance of mastering the Proustian moment.

The book is an exploration of various themes – literary and otherwise – narrated in a third person’s voice but beautifully capturing the mind of its protagonist, Ananda, as if the tale unfolds from his pen. The novel goes back and forth in time capturing moments from the past and jolting the rhythm with the present flow of events.

A typical Bengali middle class family’s product, Rangamama – with signature stereotypes of love for a certain kind of food, certain kind of literature, certain way of life – is pitted against the character of Ananda who wants to own and belong to all these but do much more – immortalise himself as a poet in a slightly Anglicized sense though conscious and proud of his past and ‘real’ belongingness, at the same time.

Besides this layer in the narrative, which opens to us during the various events of day this novel unfolds, is also another layer of story – that of Rangamama’s predicament – the life of an eccentric bachelor who loves and dotes on Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy and Bengali music and is reluctant to move out of his created shell of specific traits, peculiar habits and typical tastes. He reveals himself as someone who does not like change in any form, especially if it means dragging himself out of his comfort zone and limits of convenience. In a struggle to maintain a stable and loving  relationship with his sister, Ananda’s mother, his brother-in-law, Ananda’s father, his brother and others, Rangamama’s life unfolds as a lonely man’s life devoid of real and sustaining relationships and well, marred by his idiosyncratic beliefs(like not to have sex to prevent yourself from catching syphilis).

Apart from the depth Odysseus Abroad achieves in detailing the plot and interacting with existential and real themes, the literary brilliance lies in the craft of story telling. Cutting across the over-hyped incandescence and trap of using first person narration in unfolding the mysteries of mind, Chaudhuri has married Woolf’s and Proust’s brilliance by staying with a third person narrative form but crafting a detailed and focused prose using stream of consciousness style to capture a very small moment of time in its detailed dissection over leaps in memories, opinions and remembrances.

The literary richness of the novel is defined by various influences of, references to, comparisons between and expositions on classical literary texts and milestones.

Chaudhuri’s latest book is indeed his best, by far, as commented by many.

Waddell’s ‘A Yank’s Memory of Calcutta’

‘A Yank’s Memory of Calcutta’, an exhibition of 60 gelatin photographs of Calcutta by Clyde Wadell is being hosted by the Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata from 8 December’2014 -24 January’2015.

Waddell’s photographs capture the eccentricities Kolkata in the early twentieth century. Away from the general tendency of artists, authors and litterateurs to slot Kolkata as a city straddling either of the two extremes of civilization – poverty or riches, cultural richness or defunct abject human condition, Waddell’s photographs give a sneek peek into the city living between these binaries. This uniqueness of his art, makes Wendell perhaps the only artist who has captured the essence of Kolkata so well.

Waddell was a Chief Photographer for the Huston Press before entering the army. He worked in the India-Burma Theater during the World War II as a part of the south east Asian front of the allied forces. In November 1943, Waddell was attached to the Public Relations Staff of the Southeast Asia Command. He served the Supreme Commander Admiral Lord Luis Mountbatten as his personal press photographer. Beginning in Ceylon, between 1943 till February 1945, Waddell accompanied Mountbatten throughout Southeast Asia visting many battle-fronts, hospital stations, and other war-afflicted areas.

In February 1945, Phoenix Magazine was formed. This was a 24 page weekly picture magazine, sponsored by the combined U.S. – British command. Waddell took leave of Mountbatten and resumed his life as a news photographer. Waddell was granted a leave after his return from the Singapore operation. In want to any assignment during that time, Clyde began clicking pictures of the erstwhile Calcutta. He ventured into some of the remotest, out-of-bound areas of Kolkata (and even on top of Calcutta’s Howrah Bridge) to click pictures. By the end of this passionate break from work, Waddell was flooded with requests from America and Britain for copies of his photographs.

The photographs at Aakriti reveal the responses of Clyde Waddell to a city experiencing a historic clash of civilizations – the east and the west. The poignant gaze of a western male on a city ravaged and plundered by the colonial exploits of Europe does not escape the ideological moorings of the images and scenes Waddell captures.

The album carries an introduction by N. Chas Preston and was dedicated to the GI agents.

Aakriti hosts the exhibition from 11 am-7pm.

"I have a problem with people using their popularity for political gains"

http://www.newsroompost.com/153313/zee-jlf-good-forum-writers-beyond-language-barriers-ravish-kumar/

Ravish Kumar is the senior executive editor at NDTV India. As a TV anchor, journalist and writer, he has created his own niche on social media, Hindi electronic media and in the hearts of people. This year the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival(ZEE JLF) 2015 will witness the inauguration of his latest book, Ishq Me Shahar Hona. As an invitee to the world’s largest free literature festival, Ravish will participate in two discussions on the 24th of January.

In a conversation with newsroompost.com, Ravish speaks about his latest collection of short stories, or nano stories, his ideas on politics, literature festivals and the readers/audience.

Newsroompost – Your latest book Ishq Me Shahar Hona would be inaugurated at the ZEE JLF 2015. What is this book about?

Ravish – It is a collection of short stories about two lovers in a city who interact with each other and in the process recreate their own cities. When we migrate from one city to the other, we adapt to and adopt the cities. So, inevitably we form a relationship with the city. I migrated from Motihari to Patna to Delhi. Each time I used to go back, I was told ‘not to become the city’ and not to ‘become of the city’. Values, habits, ideas changed over time in Delhi. The injunctions of coming back home before 5pm, not working for night shifts etc broke in the process of adapting to the city. This book deals with these processes of adaptation, adoption and migration. It is about two lovers who explore the city and in the process, their own selves.

Newsroompost – So, how do you look at the city in your book?

Ravish – The image of a city is very private in this book. This book creates a personal space for two lovers within urban space. The lovers talk to each other using city and its various components as metaphor. So, that is city in this book. Very personal. Like, a Bihari boy goes to Lajpat Nagar and is fascinated to discover momos. He eats them. Later, he gives the vendor athekua. Like, a boy from Karawal Nagar falls in love with a girl from South Ex. They talk about their own Delhis. So, it is an interaction of all these recreated personal cities for very different characters in this book.

Newsroompost – Do you think something like this has been done before? How do you see the journey from your first book Dekhte Rahiye to Ishq Me Shahar Hona?

Ravish – I am not a learned man when it comes to literature. This was not a work that I accomplished as a project. I write on blogs, twitter, facebook. In fact, this book is a collection of my writings on facebook. When facebook had a limited space to write about, there were a few lines I used to scribble. This book is a collection of 7-8 lines written on many of those posts. Dekhte Rahiye was a collection of my blog posts.

Newsroompost – Many writers participating in ZEE JLF or otherwise are not very happy with the way literature festivals are organized. As a Hindi writer, how do you find yourself in the space these festivals provide?

Ravish – I have been going to the Jaipur Literature Festival over the years. It is extremely encouraging to see that Hindi and regional literature have been given equal respect at this forum. There was a session of Maithili in the festival sometime back. The first Maithili newspaper was published from Jaipur under the patronage of the royal house. Many maithili brahmins from Bihar migrated there. And all this could be known because of the discussions that ensued there. We have acclaimed poets like Ashok Vajpayi  attending the festival. Even Vinod Kumar Shukla has been duly honoured at the festival. So, I think it’s a good place for writers beyond language barriers. But yes, I agree, that literature festivals are literary melas these days. Meet people, authors, readers, publishers alike like you meet someone at melas. But then what do you do? That’s how it has become everywhere. A writer should get an opportunity to move out of his serious cocoon. What is wrong in a little bit of pompousness?

Newsroompost – Can I navigate a little bit into politics?

Ravish – Yes yes. Ask.

Newsroompost – How do you see the upcoming Delhi elections, especially after Kiran Bedi’s entry into the BJP?

Ravish – It is a test of the public. Like many others, I am disappointed with the way political discourse has been reduced to hollow political sloganeering. There is, in fact, no debate. It seems personalities are being launched as marketing products – in all the parties; AAP or the BJP or anyone. Kiran Bedi comes with an experience. Kejriwal came with his own set of experience. But what are you trying to sell and present? All of them, each one of them, are selling administration as governance. What do they think? That people have no sense of judgment? Look at the hoardings all over Delhi today. It is shameful. Crores are being spent on buying that kind of space and for what? It is unfortunate because if we see zero political debate in Delhi, where at least we have a decent educated population, what do we hope for the country? Can we even do that – hope? So, I think, this election, more than anything else is a test of the public.

Newsroompost – I know you have said many times before that you don’t like hearing this, but the fact is that you are almost a celebrity. You connect with the masses and raise pertinent issues of concern. Do we see Ravish in politics?

Ravish – In one word, no. I will tell you why. I have a problem with people using their popularity for political gains. Though yes, some have done wonderful work as well but I cannot. I like understanding people, knowing them, meeting them. It is a challenge. I fail sometimes. I do some very bad shows at times. But whatever it is, it is this work that has given me this identity and I respect that. For me, the love and bond with people is more important than anything else. People have loved me a lot. They trust me a great deal. And I respect these emotions people have for me. Politics is a serious business. Karyakartas in a party serve and struggle for ages to get to a place where they are and aim to be. For me, it is wrong to use my currency and snatch their position just because I am popular. And am not popular because of my politics but because people think I did good work in whatever I did.

Nesroompost – Because of all that you said about politics when talking of Delhi elections, do you not think a person like you will do some good in politics?

Ravish – I don’t trust the public. If you say, I might do good work, I would also need people for whom I can do good work. I don’t see those kind of people. Do you see anyone protesting about the kind of ridiculously lousy posters everywhere? Look at the amount of money that is being used in elections by everyone who is contesting. Do I have that kind of money? Where will I get that kind of money from? Also, the person that I am, if I do not like anything in a hypothetical party I join, I will be the person to call a press conference and say that such and such is wrong. I am a creative person. I will do something else after I leave what I am doing. I don’t know yet what I will do. But I will do something. As to your question, no I will not join politics – in the ideal state that we are talking, as of now.

http://www.newsroompost.com/153313/zee-jlf-good-forum-writers-beyond-language-barriers-ravish-kumar/

Family matters and the unreliable maps of memory

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/bookbeat/family-matters-and-the-unreliable-maps-of-memory

Ira Singh's The Surveyor is a coming-of-age narrative trying to negotiate the realities of a recently decolonised nation. Weaving a panoramic view of social, political, literary and personal histories of the mid-20th century India through the characters of Ravinder and his daughter Natasha, Singh tries to grapple with the contradictions and binaries overriding generational shifts in the novel.

Ravinder joins the Survey of India as a cartographer at the historical junction of India's independence and the subcontinent's partition in 1947. Much against the wishes of his father, Ravinder marries an Anglo-Indian, Jennifer Robbins, and is blessed with two daughters, Anushka and Natasha. Natasha, the protagonist of The Surveyor, inherits the passion for cartography and reading from her father, Ravinder. In The Surveyor, she creates a cinematic portrait of her life, from households scattered in small towns, to the larger world of the city. The novel in that sense is Natasha's cartographic exploration of freedom and a search for her identity.

The almost sombre existential questions in the worlds of Ravinder's parents, Ravinder and Natasha, are negotiated in violently contradictory fashions. There is a fiercely savage grip on tradition and religion on the part of Ravinder's parents, Ravinder's own absolute rejection of ritualistic tradition and unstinting love for cartography and finally, a calmness shown by Natasha as she makes her peace with the bits and pieces of these previous lives that she encounters. And through the novel, one begins to gradually align oneself with the natural simplicity of being.

Memory and the act of surveying, remembering and chronicling form the essence of the book, in terms of plot, structure and form. A free narrative shift of physical location from Punjab to Dehradun to Delhi is akin to cartographic curating. It denotes moving on as a snap from one world to the other. Indeed, the strength of the narration lies in the organic tectonic shifts that Natasha's story takes. While lost in the rich dream-like narrative sequence of Dehradun and its hills, a reader reaches the end of a chapter. The very next moment, a chapter starts off in an upmarket Delhi space, jolting the reader as it quickly absorbs her into its enchanting fold. From one chapter to the other, one feels the narrative sliding away into wistful pasts, transporting the readers into a world of sharp images and moments punctuated by elegiac pangs.

The moments of lengthy, lisping almost relaxed recounting of details — as simple as remembering the almost forgotten Cherry Blossom shoe polish and Pears soap — have the ability to transport a reader to the real world of lost fantasies and memories fast fading into oblivion. The Coleridgean Kubla Khan experience of imagining and feeling a part of that makeshift dream which The Surveyor creates is so sensuous, delightful and rich that one genuinely wants that imagery to continue — without even a punctuation marring the effect.

Long, well knit, carefully carved and chiseled phrases and sentences mark the length and breadth of the novel. The preciseness of each word, the force of each phrase and the sensibility of each sentence is indicative of a careful craft.

Perhaps it's the conscious decision of the author to use memory as a trope to interrogate various themes. Memory builds up the story. Memory constructs characters. Memory conjures up historical and political details of Emergency years. Memory constructs and deconstructs the larger notions of nation formation, re-formation and deformation. This flirtation with memory glosses over a few important details of events in history, but one can see that this is mostly by design.

The novel could have said a little more about the time it encapsulates. Just as each character in the novel is well rounded and well formed, so could each moment in history and politics have been crafted. Perhaps, that is the limitation of memory or this kind of memorisation. Through cartography, memory, fleeting landscapes, polyphonic voices and a language rich in historical allegory, The Surveyor provides a dream-like experience. But like a lot of dreams, it also ends up being vague at certain places.

Dreamy, brimming with lingering memories, intense, rich and fleetingly sensuous, Ira Singh'sThe Surveyor is a recommendation for anyone who lives life with simplicity, honesty and adaptability. It's a book that seeks resonance in (and provides nourishment to) all those who search for their identities in their homes, families, work, solitude, desire and freedom. Ultimately, though, it's also about the price one pays for these things.

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/bookbeat/family-matters-and-the-unreliable-maps-of-memory

Author’s Corner: With Shefalika Verma

http://www.womensweb.in/articles/shefalika-verma-author-interview/

Shefalika Verma is the first woman writer of Maithili to have bagged the Sahitya Akademi Award. With fifteen publications – poetry, short stories, novels, travelogues, autobiography – to her credit, Shefalika was the image of perfect poise when she appeared for this interview. Excerpts from an hour-long rendezvous with the writer, lover and critic of literature and life:

Firstly, congratulations! How do you feel about receiving the Sahitya Akademi Award? Were you expecting it?

Shefalika Verma: Thank you! Well, I chose writing because it was close to my heart. I have been writing for a very long time now. I started off writing for self-consumption but gradually my works started to get published in magazines like Balak, Chandamama, Kadambini, Rashtra Bhasha Sandesh etc. It was then that the idea was nursed in me by my family that I could write and that I should write more regularly. My father, father-in-law and my husband really put me into the realm of writing and that’s how it all began. This award makes me feel happy that I could make these people in my life proud.

I did not expect it; it was a surprise. For a number of days till the news was formally confirmed by the Akademi, I used to wonder if they have sent me the correct information. I never wrote for grabbing an award. I wrote because it gave vent to what I thought and that cannot be awarded and measured, you know.

What serves as an inspiration for your writings? Do you wish to send messages across to people?

Shefalika Verma: I believe each woman is a writer. I say this because there is so much that she goes through, so much that she experiences that each life chronicles a story in its own right. Perhaps, my life as a woman inspired the writer in me. Kist Kist Jeevan is an autobiographical piece and each incident related therein is very personal. I had to write them. I had to bring it out.

I write to tell a story. Some might appear to have a message and but it is never a conscious effort. I think messages are interpreted and made in the minds of those who read them; one never sets out to give them.

You keep saying that your writings are mostly about your personal experiences and that your family literally cajoled you into this field. Would you wish to elaborate a little on that?

Shefalika Verma: I was married very young into a zamindar family of Bihar. There was this typical conservative atmosphere at home. Luckily, I had been introduced to books very early on in life by my father. They kept me company even at my new home.

I was studying at Patna University and had been married when one of my poems got published. It was a poem that talked about the trials of being a woman. My father-in-law read that and wrote a letter to me, in the form of a response poem. Later, he encouraged me to write more though women in our household were not very free to do everything. It was a lucky situation that education was barred from those notions. One could study, read and write as much as one wanted.

Then there was my husband who picked up this bit of interest in me and literally propelled me to write more. After he was gone, I was in depression for long but slowly I realized that by not picking up the pen, I am essentially doing injustice to him and his encouragement.

So, yes, my family has been very supportive of me and my work. In fact today, my children and my daughters-in-law all give unparalleled support to what I do and what I wish to do. That feels great.

Your writings show women in a very real light – donning hats of competence and at the same time playing roles that are very traditional. Do you think that that’s how women are today or are they only in your works?

Shefalika Verma: I believe that every woman has shades to her. She might be a professional and a mother and a wife and a writer at different points in time but her womanhood is her core. And that part of a woman feels and senses and responds to these going-ons. It is with this woman that I connect. Of course, there are disconnects and issues with woman that rip her apart socially and mentally and on many other fronts but she emerges strong. That is where I think I find them real. And that is how I try to portray them in my works.

You switched over to Maithili though you began as a Hindi writer. What explains that shift?

Shefalika Verma: I am very comfortable in both the languages. But choosing Maithili as my major literary voice was a conscious attempt. My husband, late Shri Lalan Kumar Verma, explained to me how Maithili needs to be nurtured and how there are very few writers there. This struck me. If my works can protect, promote and enrich a language, why not use that in my writings? Also, the atmosphere at home and the mode of communication there was Maithili – culturally as well as linguistically. This choice, therefore, was well informed and shaped.

You have been called “Mahadevi of Maithili”, your works compared to that of Jane Austen’s. How do such parallels affect you?

Shefalika Verma: I remember that once I was sitting at a literary function when Mahadevi Verma walked up to me and lifted my chin. She asked me to write more and appreciated my writings. It was an overwhelming moment. I’ve always admired and loved her. So, when someone compares you to a figure like that, it feels fortunate and very happy. But as far as affecting oneself is concerned, I think it encourages you to write better and write more.

http://www.womensweb.in/articles/shefalika-verma-author-interview/