Yion Book

In the last 20 months that he's been around, Little A has amassed a modest collection of books. These books fall into three categories.

1. Books that can be thrown, torn, chewed and used as tantrum fodder. These are books that are either hand-me-downs or second hand books, with dull titles like Alphabet 123 and First 100 words and Shapes. These books occupy the lowermost shelf of our bookcase, and are easily accessible at all times.

2. A second category of books are those placed out of reach in a box on the window ledge. These are books that have been curated and bought after considerable research. Books like Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr, Peepo by Janet and Allen Ahlberg, Bus Stop by Taro Gomi, Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle... and a selection of Dr. Seuss classics - Hop on Pop, Oh the Thinks you can Think, There's a Wocket in my Pocket... These are our much-loved reads and we dip into this selection through the day, and especially before dinner and at bedtime. Some of them show signs of use (and occasional misuse), but on the whole, they're well maintained.

3. There's a third selection of books that's neither found on the shelf nor in the box on the ledge. In fact, it's not easily found at all. This category consists of a single book that is tucked away under nightclothes in our wardrobe. It's titled The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin, and is better known in our household as the 'Yion Book'.

The reason for the odd storage place is that it is technically a Second Category book, but which is fast turning into a Category One book because of uncommonly heavy usage. There are mornings when we are jolted awake from sleep with shouts of 'Yion, YION!' And there are nights when we've had to pry 'Yion Book' from under a slumbering little form who had steadfastly refused to go to sleep without it. 'Yion Book' is the definitive remedy for all kinds of boo-boos and has been known to bring tantrums to an immediate standstill. Paradoxically, 'Yion Book' can be both a stimulant and a tranquilliser, and can stretch brief attention spans into long minutes.

I had no idea of the book's mystical powers when I picked it up at 'Woods in the Books', a charming bookstore in Singapore. I thought the book's bright orange dust jacket would look nice framed, and didn't even take a look at the contents. I didn't know then it was a vintage gem that was first printed in 1954 and only reprinted in 2004 to commemorate its 50th anniversary. The Happy Lion was the first collaboration by the husband-wife team of Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin who went on to write ten books in the Happy Lion series.

At the heart of the book is a sweet story of a friendship between an unusually content and well-mannered lion in a city zoo and the zoo keeper's son. The genial lion cannot comprehend why people who are otherwise so friendly and polite when they see him at the zoo, suddenly turn into frenzied creatures when he decides to walk out of his enclosure one morning.

Little A gets most excited when I dramatize the 'sound effects' in the book. Ratata boom BOOM!  The town band is in full form before the shrieks of the crowd drown them out. TootoooTOOOT goes the fire engine. When the suspense gets too much, Little A grabs the book from my hand and decides to 'read' on his own.

The last couple of days I've begun scanning the Internet for the entire Happy Lion series. "Are you sure he won't outgrow this book in the next few weeks?" asks pragmatic Mr. T.

Chances are, he might. But I'm not so sure about myself.

EAIFL Day 4 : Food, Travel, Music, Palestine, India!

At every session I’ve attended the authors are inevitably asked why they write. But if someone were to ask me why I’ve been writing page after page in my notebook at each session I’ve attended, I’d say, ‘to hang on to every word’. They’ve been that interesting, entertaining and informative. The sessions I attended today were wonderfully diverse, from food writing to music, and travel adventures to India lauding/bashing. A snapshot of them:

* The food writers’ panel was a kedgeree of sorts with a Palestinian-Canadian (Suzanne Husseini), an Indian-Brit (Anjum Anand) and a British-Arab (Mike Harrison). While Suzanne and Anjum had written books about their native cuisines, Mike had written a Yemeni cookbook and another which spanned the Maghreb countries. One interesting point made – culture is handed down and preserved through food. Hmm, never thought I was going against my Mangalorean seafood-loving culture by turning my nose up at fish curry!

* Travel writing might seem like a dream profession for most wannabe writers and travellers (including yours truly). But a session with Tim Butcher can disabuse you of any romantic notions about the same. To be fair, his trips have been fairly gruelling - a journey across Congo, tracing the route taken by the famous Henry Morton Stanley over 100 years ago. And a 400 km trek on foot through Sierra Leone, a journey done by Graham Greene in 1935.

It was an enlightening talk not just about the hardships he underwent to write his book Blood River, but also about the Congo itself. “1500 people die every single day in the Congo. And yet it doesn’t make world news,” he said. There were other more gruesome facts accompanied by pictures. Like unburied bodies from conflicts where no one could recollect the aggressors since there were so many groups of them. Or the bizarre choice that people taken by the rebels in Sierra Leone were offered – half sleeve or full sleeve – meaning the extent to which their arm would be chopped off.
“Congo is a country that’s undeveloping,” shared Butcher, “Like most of Africa there is a will to survive, but not thrive.”

For him, travel writing wasn’t just about the place, but about the journey of the place. So when asked about his next adventure, he shared - a camel ride from Jerusalem to Baghdad! And his advice to adventurous travel writers – travel light, take local advice, have a satellite phone and keep getting lucky.

* You can usually tell how well respected a writer is when other literary heavyweights attend his or her session. Raja Shehadeh’s talk was graced by most of the well known Arabic writers. A much respected writer and human rights activist, Raja seems like a benign sort, until he warms up to his favourite subject – Palestine. He displays a fiery activism which is tempered by a pragmatic understanding of the situation. His love and yearning for the land of his ancestors shone through the excerpt he read from his book Palestinian Walks.

* Alexander McCall Smith admitted that he had another spectacular talent – he played the bassoon badly. And not just that, he got together with other execrable performers and formed The Really Terrible Orchestra. They even had the effrontery to go on tour to London and New York and had house full audiences. “They weren’t all related to the people in the orchestra,” he clarified.

It was a session titled ‘Words and Music’, and McCall Smith was joined by Amit Chaudhri, a bestselling, award-winning novelist and also a classical musician. (Unfair how some have it all.)

The session started out with promise, but seemed to get too dense and technical with commentaries on the ‘narrative quality of Western classical music’ and ‘music being rooted in humanism.’ It meandered into an academic discourse, and I couldn’t help wishing for McCall Smith to break into an aria.

* At the session on India featuring five luminaries –Shobha De, Vikas Swarup, William Dalrymple, Amit Chaudhri and Venu Rajamoney (Indian Consul General) – I saw the highest number of Indian/Subcontinent attendees than I’d seen in the last four days. It was an interesting choice of panellists. Two bureaucrats, one honorary Indian, one armchair critic and one bumbling poet. (I leave you to guess who’s who!)

There was the usual range of issues – India shining vs fading, China, Pakistan, poverty, neglect of women, Maoist uprising and so on. Standard daily news stuff. But the debate somehow seemed out of place at a literary festival,despite the fact that they all wrote about India. Shobha De of course lapped the limelight with her strident populist views. But the best retort of the session I thought came from the mild-seeming Vikas Swarup who when buttonholed by Ms De about the lack of government progress in most crucial areas, said, “Perhaps, but then you wouldn’t be having a debate of this sort in China.”

Also:
EAIFL - Day 1 - Why we write: Yann Martel, Imtiaz Dharker & Bahaa Taher
EAIFL - Day 2: In Conversation with Alexander McCall Smith 
EAIFL - Day 3: William Dalrymple, Marjane Satrapi, PEN writers, Social Media

EAIFL Day 3: William Dalrymple, Marjane Satrapi, PEN writers, Social Media

My head’s buzzing from the literary overload. And there’s still another day to go. But I’m hardly complaining. The four sessions I attended on Day 3 were brilliant and supremely entertaining . My perception of authors as taciturn, unsocial sorts has changed quite considerably. They’re full of anecdotes and sizzling one liners, and the hour long session passes by way too quickly for everyone’s liking.

William Dalrymple

* The session was about him as a travel writer. He shared about his ‘unusually cloistered’ and stable childhood in Edinburgh, and the subsequent explosive effect that India had on him when he visited the country at age 18. “My life can be neatly divided into 2, before India and after,” he said.

* Speaking of his latest book, Nine Lives, he said, “Indians feel that Western authors only want to write about 3 things – poverty, maharajas and sadhus. Considering Nine Lives is about the latter, I was afraid it wouldn’t do too well.” But it’s turned out to be the highest selling non-fiction book of all time, selling 50,000 copies in India alone. (I had to buy my copy after I heard the excerpts that he read out.)

* About travel writing: “I make the effort not to write about the same book twice. I thought I’d covered all grounds with my previous travel books. And I wasn’t sure I was going to write another travel book. But when I found a new form for Nine Lives, I decided to write it. It’s a book on modern India and about how traditional sacred practises find no place in this modern milieu.”

* When asked about the changes he saw in India today as compared to when he first arrived almost 20 years ago, he said, “India today is unrecognisable from my early days here. There are parts which have remained unchanged. For instance, you’ll still find old army generals walking around Lodhi Gardens in tweed coats. But the country has moved on.”

* Crossing borders – Leila Aboulela, Ahda Soueif & Raja Shehadeh

I wasn’t quite sure what the session was going to be about, but I was keen to listen to the thoughts and opinions of writers from the Arab world. All three were best selling writers – from Sudan, Egypt and Palestine respectively - and interestingly they didn’t write solely in Arabic. Ahda’s novel Map of Love had in fact been shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999,  It was an intriguing glimpse into words like identity and conflict and what it meant to be Muslim in today’s world.

* When asked by Kate Mosse, the moderator, if they saw their role as being storytellers or representatives of their country, who had to set the record straight, they had interesting responses:
Leila: “My novels are my truth. But having said that, I found that I didn’t recognise the Islam that was being portrayed in the media. I wanted to write back but couldn’t. I was a trained statistician. I started writing fiction as a way of finding release for my feelings. And that’s how I found my voice.”
Ahdaf: “I started out with innocence. I just wanted to be a story teller. I didn’t think of the politics of reception or duties of representation. Fiction shouldn’t have to bear this burden. So for a while, I stopped writing fiction and concentrated on political commentary.”
Raja: “My experience in the West Bank was not as extreme as some of the others who lived there. So I would question myself, ‘Am I distorting reality by writing about my experience that’s not so extreme?’”

* About whether their audience is the West or people from the Arab world, Leila shared, “Since I get published in the West, my readers are Western people. But I find the type of reader of my book has changed since I’ve begun writing. So many of my readers are from Nigeria or Pakistan or other parts of Africa, so I don’t feel the need to explain everything in my books.

* Raja distinguished between getting printed and published. “While a lot of books by Palestinian authors were getting printed, it’s not the same as getting published. The book isn’t well designed or well translated. And so it suffers.”

* Ahda said that translation was an art which few could master. “Just knowing English and Arabic
doesn’t mean you can become a translator. You have to understand the background, the rhythm of speech. Otherwise the translation is a travesty.

* Leila mentioned that she couldn’t have been a writer if she was in Sudan. “My family and friends don’t yet understand what I do. They keep asking me to get a real job.” But she said that even though she only wrote in English, it was like she wasn’t just translating her native language, but also the culture. “There are words in Arabic that just don’t work in English, like pious, for which the thesaurus throws up ‘bigot’. I’ve to find a language in English to express my Arabic self.”

* All three agreed that there was an extraordinary sense of physical place in their writing whether it was historical in the case of Ahda, or a fragmented land in the case of Raja. “I cannot start without rooting people in a place,” shared Ahda, “I’m attached to places. When I’m unhappy or dislocated, I start imagining a place where I was happy.”

* Marjane Satrapi

Marjane in person is just like the Marjane in her best-selling book, Persepolis – feisty, outspoken and funny. Even though her life is well drawn out throughout the book, and by the end of it, one feels that one knows her intimately, it’s still a wonderful experience seeing and hearing her on the stage.

* She wrote Persepolis six years after she left Iran for the second and final time. “It was good that I wrote it after an interval because by then my anger against the regime had cooled down a bit, and I could write more objectively. Otherwise I would have used the same logic as the people I was angry with.”

* About the use of humour in her books, she felt that it was the highest form of entertainment. She once had a woman come up to her in America and say to her, “I read your book and now, I’m not afraid of the Axis of Evil, because I know you'll do laugh.”

* Marjane shared that she found it odd that she often had to justify why she drew her first book. “No one asks a filmmaker why they make a film instead of singing a song, but I always have to say why I draw. Drawing is the most universal language. I like to draw and I like to write. Why do I have to choose between the two and not do both instead?”

* About her book being called a ‘graphic novel’, she said, “I prefer it being called a comic book in fact. It’s just a medium, not a genre.”

* She shared her experience of doing the film which she loathed for the most part because it involved working with so many people. “I’m used to working in solitude, and suddenly I now have 100 people waiting on my every move. I hated it.” But she mentioned enjoying the last few months. And of course, winning the Cannes Jury Prize for it.
 
* About her experience of writing children’s books, she lamented that publishers viewed children as pure, innocent sorts and wanted stories that portrayed happy rabbits. “Children are mean and horrible human beings,” she said quite unabashedly.

* The highlight of the session was at the end when she shared her experience of giving a talk at West Point Academy, which she described as a place where poor American families sent their children so that they could get a free education. “The American soldier is just a boy with no money,” she said.

A voice from the crowd yelled, “How would you know? I went to West Point. The senators' sons study there. Joe Biden’s son is there.” It seemed that Marjane lost her verve for a fraction, but she recovered enough to retort that the American policies were nothing to be proud of. “If you want our oil, our wealth, come and take it. But you cannot say you are making a war to fight terrorism. That’s like putting a person with fever in alcohol. The fever goes down, but the infection remains.” The crowd cheered her but the air hung thick in the room.

Also:
EAIFL - Day 1 - Why we write: Yann Martel, Imtiaz Dharker & Bahaa Taher

EAIFL - Day 2: In Conversation with Alexander McCall Smith

EAIFL - Day 4: Food, Travel, Music, Palestine, India!

EAIFL Day 2: In Conversation with Alexander McCall Smith

Despatches from the second day of the Emirates International Festival of Literature. 

There was not a single empty chair in the room for the session with Alexander McCall Smith. And as he was being introduced, I could see why. The moderator had to only announce the name of one of his (60 and counting!) books, and there would be a nodding of heads and enthusiastic applause. When Blezzard asked if there was anyone who hadn’t read The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, a lone hand went up. McCall Smith was among the most ardent of fans indeed.

Highlights of the entertaining session:

* McCall Smith shared that this was his second visit to Dubai. He’d first come here 10 years ago on the invitation of two of his students who happened to be in the police force. “I was touched by their hospitality,” he said, “They not only came right onto the plane to get me, but also had police cars with sirens accompanying our limousine. I thought it was a nice way to visit a place.”
 
* He started his writing career with the memorably titled No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, set in Botswana. When asked how he came up with the idea, he shared that he’d visited a friend in Botswana one weekend, when he lived in Swaziland, and saw this ‘traditionally built woman chasing a chicken around the yard’. He thought it would be interesting to write about such a woman.

* The detective agency was also a serendipitous choice. “I could have written about her starting a dry-cleaning agency, I guess, since there aren’t too many novels based around dry-cleaning. But there just seemed to be a lot more takers for the ‘detective agency’.”

* Despite the ‘detective’ in the title, nothing untoward happens in his books. (Incidentally, the preceding session happened to be one on crime fiction!) “I write about the positive and make no attempts to hide it. You won't find a single post mortem in my books,” he said

* He wrote the subsequent books in the series because his publisher told him that he couldn’t end the first book with the lead characters only engaged. You have to get them married, he was told. He took his time though, and with much prodding from the publisher, got them to tie the knot in the 4th book. He’s currently writing the 12th book in the series.

* Speaking of his readers’ involvement with his characters, he shared several funny anecdotes. One of the popular characters in the detective series, Ms. Makutsi, never fails to mention that she’s graduated from the Botswana Secretarial College with 97%. He once toyed with the idea of introducing a character who’d secured 98%. “I was steered away from that attempt by my readers,” he shared, even as the lady seated next to me, presumably an avid fan, nodded vigorously.

Another time, when he spoke to an audience of formidable Texan women, and said that he considered bringing back the character of Mma Ramotswe’s abusive husband, they rose in uproar. “You can bring him back,” one of them said, “but only to punish him.”

 “I give all my readers' suggestions serious consideration, before rejecting them completely,” he said, laughing.

* More fascinating instances of his readers identifying with characters – two elderly women in Santa Barbara bought a white van, changed the number plates and drove around pretending they were Mma Ramotswe and Ms Makutsi. Another couple in New Zealand pretended they were Mma Ramotswe and her husband, JB Matekoni, drank red bush tea and called each other Mma and Rra.

* McCall Smith is much loved in Botswana and regarded as their favourite son. The moderator shared that he’d recently been invited to inaugurate their opera house. “That’s a rather grand name for what’s essentially a converted garage that can seat 60 people,” Smith pointed out.  However, it was at that ‘opera house’ that the people of Botswana performed an opera titled, Okavengo Delta, written by none other than McCall Smith. He describes it as a story of a female baboon having ‘Lady Macbeth issues’.

* Unsurprisingly, the film industry didn’t waste time in bringing Mma Ramotswe to life on celluloid. He describes being ‘absolutely happy’ with the way it was produced by Anthony Minghella. And that he even had the privilege of calling out ‘Action’ on the sets one day. Except that the ‘actor’ happened to be a donkey. “I still hoped that on seeing the film, the critics would say, ‘that donkey scene was brilliant, just the right length’, except that it wasn’t even included in the final cut”.

* The search for the ‘traditionally built’ woman to play Mma Ramotswe on film, spanned several continents, but the production team just couldn’t seem to find the right character. Finally the part went to a woman from Philadelphia who had never even been to Africa. She had to learn the body language and the accent, and from all accounts did a great job.

* The talk veered towards the other book series he’d written – Sunday Philosopher’s Club and 44 Scotland St. He stood up to read an excerpt from the latest book in the Scotland St. series, which involved a character called Bertie, ‘who’s remained 6 years old for the last 5 years’. He has an excessively pushy mother who makes him learn Italian, go for yoga classes, and also, go for psychotherapy. As an aside he mentioned, “97% of mother's in Edinburgh are excessively pushy." 

* He’s cast well known authors JK Rowling and Ian Rankin in his novels. In one of his books, he has Ian Rankin shot with an arrow and passing by a bookshop where a kid points to a book and says, ‘Hey Ian, there’s one of your books and it’s only 50 pence’.  

“Ian’s promised to have his revenge. I might turn up as a body in one of Ian books,” says McCall Smith, relishing the prospect.

* Finally about writing, he said that it wasn't a conscious process. "I don’t think about what I’m writing. I go to the place in my subconscious where fiction is created. I don’t deliberately make it up. I just write it as it comes up."

The endless queue for McCall Smith's autograph

Also:
EAIFL - Day 1 - Why we write: Yann Martel, Imtiaz Dharker & Bahaa Taher

EAIFL - Day 3: William Dalrymple, Marjane Satrapi, PEN writers, Social Media

EAIFL - Day 4: Food, Travel, Music, Palestine, India!

EAIFL Day 1 - Why we write: Yann Martel, Imtiaz Dharker & Bahaa Taher

The first session I attended at the Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature was quite engaging and, for me, set the tone for the festival. It featured Yann Martel, the 2002 Booker Prize winning author who wrote Life of Pi, Bahaa Taher who won the first 'Arabic Booker' in 2008 for Sunset Oasis, as well as poet, Imtiaz Dharker, who shared their ideas on inspiration and what motivated them to write.

Taher started off by affirming that the source of ideas was ambiguous, and that no one could really say where ideas came from. He quoted Socrates as saying that the poet was sometimes the last to understand what he’d written.

Dharker read out an evocative poem which sounded like inspiration was something you had to pursue relentlessly.

Start with mud. Move it,
Excavate with any tools you have,
Trowel, spade, hands, fingernails...

...This is how you draw your human breath
In one pure line across the empty page.

While insisting that inspiration was sometimes highly romanticized, and only a tiny part of the creative process, Martel spoke of it as being a moment of beauty. To illustrate this, he shared his experience of being bought up in a secular household with no interest or inclination towards any sort of religion. But when he travelled to India and found religion so predominant in everyday life, he unexpectedly asked himself, ‘What would it be like to have faith?” That was his moment of beauty, moment of inspiration which produced the highest selling Booker Prize winning novel of all time.

What of the mythical muse then, the moderator Paul Blezzard asked. Martel dismissed it as being an airy fairy concept. “My muse is words, the cadence, the rhythm... There is a reality out there, and we create these representations of it, through words.”

Blezzard then quoted Margaret Atwood as saying, “Writing a novel is the triumph of optimism that you’re going to finish it and that it’s going to get published, that it's going to get read....”

Dharker disagreed. “You don’t write because someone’s going to publish it," she said. "In fact, you write knowing it’s going to be a lost cause. You write because you just just have to.” She shared about the time she wrote her first poem when she was pining for an older man. “He was 12 years old,” she said, causing much merriment, “and had no idea that I even existed. But I just had to write the poem that was in me.”

Taher was quite dismissive about the optimism that sustains some not so worthy endeavours. “I find it strange that some people continue to write even when its futile, producing work that lacks inspiration and beauty. When a writer gets stuck, he or she should stop instantly.”

And then added, to the delight of the audience, “However God is merciful, and takes care of his writers!”

Blezzard then asked, “Martel, you once said that writing a novel is like feeding a tiger. What sustains you?”

The story, replied Martel.

And then came the ominous statistics – 97.3 of published writers in the UK have another job that ensures their livelihood.

That’s all right, no one writes for money, said Martel, with the confidence that only someone who fell in the other 3.7% could muster!

He went to share about how an early experience of writing plays (even though they were really bad; ‘a pastiche of dreadfulness’, he called them) instilled in him the sense of being God, of being able to control things. You can be young and poor, he said, and not mind it, because you have the pure joy of being creative. When you’re a writer, your entire world is you and your creation.

Taher, on the other hand, was clear that creativity without inspiration wasn’t worth pursuing. Blezzard pointed out that he spent a lot of time encouraging young people to write even if it was bad writing. I suggest you don’t, said Taher crustily, as the audience applauded his no-nonsense approach.

Martel was asked if his work was semi-autobiographical. He replied that it was only in an intellectual way, and shared that to him art was a product of anxiety, curiosity and joy, going so far as to say that someone who’s always happy is unlikely to be a good artist. Art is created out of a sense of discomfort.

The final word came from Taher who, when asked if writers had to compromise in order to get published, replied that he resisted when editors asked for changes saying, “Sometimes it’s good if a book isn’t perfect.”

The session however was a perfect start to the festival, and even the next session that followed on the ‘Book Club phenomenon’ was quite involving. The debate was lively and there wasn’t a dull moment, which meant I had to focus on the discussion, and not so much on tweeting updates.

Let’s hope the next 3 days are as good, if not better!

Also see:  


EAIFL - Day 2: In Conversation with Alexander McCall Smith

EAIFL - Day 3: William Dalrymple, Marjane Satrapi, PEN writers, Social Media
 
EAIFL - Day 4: Food, Travel, Music, Palestine, India!

My 2009 in Books

2009 was the year I got introduced to the graphic novel and leaped into a torrid love affair with the same almost immediately. I was extremely fortunate to have friends with a common passion which meant that I got some of the best novels without spending a dime.

Apart from graphic novels, there were other books I enjoyed. And thanks to Twitter I managed to keep track of my reading this year. Here’s a list of all the books I read (not as many as I’d have liked!) this year. Just for the record (in descending order)

1. RONIN – Frank Miller

Sci-fi meets samurai in this tale of revenge, corruption and high-tech gadgetry. I found the story a bit hard to follow, but it has one of the best love scenes I’ve come across in a graphic novel.


2. THE NOT-SO-VERY-NICE GOINGS ON AT VICTORIA LODGE - Philip Ardagh

Ok, it doesn’t really count as a book, considering it’s just a few pictures and funny captions thrown it. I finished it in 4 minutes flat. But couldn’t bear to leave it out of the list.








3. HELLBOY: STRANGE PLACES – Mike Mignola

I liked the movie, but this book in the series was just too bizarre for my liking.

4. THREE CUPS OF TEA – Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin

 

Fantastic, inspirational book about how broken dreams (climbing K2) can sow the seeds for something far more monumental (schools for Pakistan’s deprived children).


5 & 6. MAUS 1 & 2 - Art Spiegelman

A hauntingly brilliant graphic memoir of the Holocaust. Art Spiegelman captures his ageing father’s account of surviving the Holocaust, and in the process shows what it’s like to ‘survive the survivors’. I couldn’t stop thinking about it long after I finished reading it.


7. RUNNING WITH SCISSORS – Augusten Burroughs

Outrageously outstanding. Reading about the author’s bizarre childhood with a kooky mother and her nutjob psychiatrist, was enough to make me go on my knees and thank God for my ‘normal’ childhood. Written with a rare wit and candour.


8. LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN – Alan Moore

Neat story, interesting characters. It’s quite cool to find the protagonists have their dark sides. One’s an opium addict, another uses his ‘invisibility’ to mess about in a girls school, a third is a rumoured lesbian.


9. EAT, PRAY, LOVE – Elizabeth Gilbert

Not being one for ‘chicklit’, I resisted reading this book for a long time. But when I finally did, I found it quite likeable. It also came to me at a time when I was restless and looking for a change in life, quite like the protagonist. Change did come, not quite as I expected. But that’s the topic for another book…


10. MW – Osamu Tezuka

Exposure to a deadly chemical renders one of the characters morally corrupt. And the other protagonist, a Catholic priest, spends his life trying to cover up for him. The story is rife with homosexuality, rape and other deadly sins. Simply brilliant. Amen.


11. ENDLESS NIGHTS – Neil Gaiman

Seven fantastic stories, each about one of seven immortal siblings – Dream, Death, Destiny, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium – collectively known as The Endless. If you read nothing else by Neil Gaiman, read this one!


12. MY STORY – Kamala Das

Her poetry shines through her writing, and even the mundane details appear grand. Loved her story and her sass in standing up to a chauvinist society.


13. BLANKETS – Craig Thompson

A coming-of-age tale about love, Jesus and redemption, beautifully drawn.


14. EMBROIDERIES – Marjane Satrapi

Iranian women talking about their love and sex lives. Gutsy and funny.


15. 100 BULLETS: FIRST SHOT, LAST CALL - Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso

If you could get away with murder and revenge, would you do it? Delicious dilemma and each of the 100 stories hinge on that decision. Of the 3 stories (bullets?) in the book, I liked only the first one. The rest got a bit repetitive.


16. KARI – Amruta Patil

Dark and dense. It was hard to tell where fantasy ended and reality began. But that was what added to the intrigue of Kari. Saw shades of myself in the lead character (not the lesbian bits, ok?)


17. PERSEPOLIS 1 & 2– Marjane Satrapi

I read it with my jaw on the floor the whole time. Satrapi’s graphic novel of growing up during the Revolution and how it shapes her thinking. The details are stunning, especially her memories of people. Persepolis is a thing of beauty…


18. PUSH MAN & OTHER STORIES – Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Dreadfully bleak stories of depressive Japanese middle class people stuck in dead-end lives. I couldn’t get enough of it. I read the book twice!


19. ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO - Yoshihiro Tatsumi

You pass them by on the street and don’t spare a second thought. Tatsumi does, and that’s what makes his stories so compelling. Ordinary people, devious lives.


20. CORALINE – Neil Gaiman

Am glad I didn’t read this story when I was growing up. Downright scary!


21. SANDMAN: NOCTURNES & PRELUDES – Neil Gaiman

My first encounter with Gaiman. Although it took me a while to get ‘into’ the story, I enjoyed the trip. Unlike anything I’d read before. Looking forward to reading the rest of the Sandman series.


22. HALF OF A YELLOW SUN – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Heard her speak at the Emirates Airlines International Literature Festival 2008 and came away impressed. Read her book and was further impressed. Hadn’t heard of the Biafran War until I read the book.


23. OUTLIERS – Malcolm Gladwell

Geniuses aren’t born, they’re made. By society, by fluke, by bloody hard work. That’s the essence of this very unputdownable book.


24. THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST – Mohsin Hamid

Or How A Terrorist is Born. A little gem of a book. The love story is very sensitively etched.


25. WATCHMEN – Alan Moore

My baptism into the bewitching world of Graphic Novels. What I learned: not all superheroes are good and noble.

Julia & Meryl Streep

I hesitated before watching the movie Julie & Julia on the flight. I'd recently been gifted the book by the same name, and I didn't want to spoil my enjoyment of the book. But anyway, given the choice of movies offered on the flight, Julie & Julia seemed the lesser evil.

The book is about an unhappy woman who in a moment of despair decides that the way out of her melancholy is to cook her way through a French cookbook written by Julia Child. And to blog about her adventures/misadventures. I loved the theme given my interest in cooking and, well, blogging.

Interestingly, the movie is based on not one, but two books (three, if you count the cookbook!) One, being Julie Powell's cook-blog. The second, is Julia Child's memoir of her year in France when she really learned to cook. And that really is the saving grace of the movie.

Meryl Streep is magnificent as Julia Child. From the first scene where she falls in love with Paris, to the last, in which her portrait hangs a museum, you get a sense of her passion for cooking. She starts out as the somewhat bored wife of a diplomat who in order to find something to occupy her time, takes cooking classes, and ends up not just mastering elaborate French cooking, but also writing a book about the same.

The movie intercuts between Julie's attempts, most of which turn out surprisingly well, and Julia's journey. But the former sorely lacks the passion and joie de vivre of the latter. Apparently, when the real Julia Child was asked what she thought of Julie's blog, she mentioned that she hated it.

I haven't read the book yet, so I'll reserve comment. But let's say the 'Julie' part of the film Julie and Julia was a little bland on the palate.

The MAGRUDY's Warehouse Sale. Don't miss it!

I'd written about their incredible sale last year. It's happening again this weekend.

Books from Dhs. 5. Oh joy!

SALE!

Philip Roth, Peter Carey, Tim Winton, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Alan Holinghurst, Paul Auster, Naomi Wolf, Neil Gaiman...

... for just Dhs. 3 each! (Rs. 33 or thereabouts)

The Magrudy's Warehouse Sale over the past weekend, was the best sale I've ever attended. We're not talking second hand or soiled copies - they were brand new books most of them still cocooned in plastic. It was maddeningly thrilling to turn the book around and still find the yellow price tags listing (what now seemed) exorbitant prices.

Initially, when I entered, the hardbound books were going at Dhs. 10 and paperbacks at Dhs. 5. But, the prices were slashed in the last hour before the sale. It rankled a bit to find 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' going for Dhs. 5.

"Take it, take it," pleaded the salesman. "

"I've already got a copy," I said.

"Gift it to somebody," he squeaked, thrusting two copies at me.

It wasn't just the salespeople who'd gone mental. Someone near me had picked up an empty carton, having dispensed with the Magrudy's blue net bag, and was stocking up for a very long winter. Another was wheeling around a supermarket trolley stacked with books. This was what 'Booktopia' would be like, I told myself.

An hour and a half later, fatigue and thirst got the better of me, but not before I carried 18 books to the cashier.

"50 dirhams," said the cashier. I happily paid.

As I was about to pick up the bulging bags and leave, the cashier asked me to wait. He picked 3 more books off the counter and put them in my bags. Diwali bonus, he said and winked.

I could do with a bigger apartment for Christmas.

You Roack My Woald!

It took me moment to gobblefunk a title for this post, and maybe the Lord of The Gobblefunks would have approved. It's his day after all. A mail from Magrudy's two days ago reminded me that today is Roald Dahl Day, and encouraged me to take the Roald Dahl Day Challenge, which essentially consists of challenging tasks such as these, to win a prize.

1. Wear something yellow (Roald's favourite color)
I'm wearing yellow sandals.

2. Wear one or more items of clothing backwards
The item of clothing is tending to bunch uncomfortably, but I've managed to get through the day.
I'm also wearing lipstick on the inside of my mouth.

3. Drop 'gobblefunk' convincingly into a conversation
Check opening line.

4. Swap a Roald Dahl book with a friend
Sudhendra, you BFG! Today IS a good day to return the 'Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl' that I gave you 7 years and 22 days ago!

5. Visit Magrudy's Junior in Jumeirah (04) 3444193 for fun activity at 7:00 pm
No gym, I'm headed to Gymeirah today.

6. Talk Backwards
Did I when looks strange got I.

7. Tell a silly joke (Roald Dahl loved swapping these with his kids)
A dyslexic man walks into a bra...

8. Give someone a treat (Roald was a great believer in treats, whether it was a bar of chocolate or a lovely surprise)
I passed peppermints around at work.

9. Make up an Oompa Loompa dance and get all your friends to join in!
I've already picked up "Shaka Laka like an Oompa Loompa" from Virgin Megastore at City Centre. Now, to find enthusiastic friends....


Doing this was so much fun. I wish every other day was Roald Dahl day.

But seriously, way back in college, when I discovered the twisted short stories of Roald Dahl, I was awed by his genius. Lamb to the Slaughter, Galloping Foxley, Nunc Dimitis, Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat and Parson's Pleasure were my favourites, and I must have read each of them a dozen times, eagerly waiting to get to the twist in the tale, and then savouring the delicious ending. When it came to endings, nothing beat Taste, and I would visualise in rich detail, the dinner party and the look on Richard Pratt's face when the butler came into the room.

I'd probably read every short story by him before I discovered his 'children's stories'. I enjoyed a second childhood in my teens on reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. It was unexpectedly thrilling to discover that these stories had come from the same pen that wrote those wicked short stories. Almost like finding out that your prankster uncle was the real Santa Claus. His book of Revolting Rhymes has me in splits to this day.

I thought I'd gotten accustomed to the weird genius of Roald Dahl, and then I read his biography - Boy and Going Solo. He describes ordinary events and places in such an interesting, visual way, that his world comes alive in your mind. Whether it's his experience as a 'tester' for Cadbury chocolates, or getting shot down in Africa - you can't help feeling that it sounds like a plot in one of his stories.

It's been a long time since I read any of his works, but the email from Magrudy's and the Challenge brought back wonderful moments when I lived in Roald Dahl's scrumdiddlyumptious world, and never wanted to leave.

SWADES: A review

It was a rare event for me – watching a Hindi film, and that too on the weekend of its release. But the unusual publicity stills of Swades and the buzz surrounding it, had peaked my curiosity. Luckily, J had extra tickets and I tagged along, despite the fact that it was a 10 p.m. show. My brain usually downs the shutters at midnight and everything after that is a blur.

But I had no problem staying awake, even though my neighbour on the left went into a mouth-agape slumber post interval. That’s one thing that can be said about Swades; it’s an engrossing film even though it proceeds at a bullock cart pace.

The theme of an NRI coming face to face with the real India has been explored before; in Hyderabad Blues, for instance. But where the protagonist of Hyderabad Blues feels disconnected and disillusioned, Mohan Bhargava of Swades gets into action right from the start. Whether it’s pulling down caste barriers, canvassing for education, bringing electricity to the village or charming the uptight school teacher, he does it all in fewer than 5 weeks. Hindi film heroes!

However, despite the crusading, Bhargava comes across as earnest and credible. He starts out as the unwitting do-gooder, but the turning point is when he goes on a journey and sees the poverty-stricken face of rural India. The scene which underlines his transition is poignant; the Bisleri-toting Bhargava buys a cup of water from a waif at a railway station, and tears roll down his eyes as he drinks it. The Non-Resident Indian finally becomes a part of the Indian reality.

But symbolic gestures are few, and the film does get rather preachy at times especially about Bharatiya parampara and sanskriti. But Bhargava echoes my sentiments when he tells the village elder who gloats about India having values and culture, ‘That’s what we always take refuge in.’ He even boldly goes on to say that India isn’t a great nation, but has the ability to become one. He lays bare all of India’s shortcomings, but most importantly, gets down to action. Like he says, everyone blames the system, but we are part of the system. So rather than passing the buck, he gets the villagers to be participate in generating their own electricity supply.

For once, it seems like reality has caught up Hindi cinema. No designer villages, no buxom gao ki goris doing ‘item numbers’, no photogenic mustard fields. The faces are real. The problems are real. The dust and grime is real, disconcertingly so. Only the frequent songs remind you that you’re watching a film.

It’s hard to imagine Shahrukh Khan minus the hammy, bumbling act. But his is an amazingly restrained performance in the film. As an NRI struggling to come to terms with an India stuck in a time warp, he is credible and endearing. I can’t say the same of the female lead though. Her manicured nails and dainty mannerisms stuck out in the ‘real’ picture. Call me picky, but Bhargava’s nanny, Kaveriamma, also struck a discordant note. A fine performance notwithstanding, I couldn’t help wondering what a south Indian was doing in a distinctly north Indian village. Or did I miss a national integration message here? Hmm… maybe I should leave logic at home next time.

Minor peeves aside, I liked the film. The director has bravely sidestepped many of the clichés one has come to associate with Hindi films. I liked the fact that Bhargava chose to leave the village despite being guilt-tripped about sanskriti and parampara. And that his decision to return isn’t impulsive but well thought through. The supporting cast is excellent, especially the postman and the dhaba owner. The humour isn’t forced, thankfully. Little gems stand out. For instance, the nanny asks Bhargava, ‘Tumhara nasha kaisa hai?’ and it turns out she’s asking about NASA!

Images from the film were still unspooling in my mind, when we trooped out of the theatre at 2 a.m. It was extraordinarily late, even for a late night show, but that’s because the 10 p.m. show had started at 10.45. The reason for the delay couldn’t have been more ironic - a power failure during the earlier show!

Yeh jo des hai mera…

Snide and Prejudiced

I will always be indebted to the gentleman or lady who coined the word execrable. My deepest gratitude also goes out to the one who came up with egregious. Thanks to these thoughtful folks, I can now describe the movie Bride and Prejudice without resorting to such weak, ineffective words like bad, appalling, disgusting, awful, terrible.

I saw it early this week and it wreaked havoc with my digestion for two days. I did my best to obliterate it from memory, but yesterday I read an interview with director, Gurinder Chadha, in an old issue of Time Out and the bile rose again…

‘I never intended to make a Hindi movie, it’s not my sensibility’, she says. Truer words were never spoken. She goes on to say that hers is ‘a British movie that pays an affectionate tribute to Hindi cinema’. Perhaps in the same way that Judas’ kiss was affectionate.

Let’s overlook for a moment the effrontery to Jane Austen in the title. Let’s also excuse the absurd lyrics, dance epidemics and tepid dialogue. Out of the goodness of your heart, excuse Aishwarya’s incomprehensible indignation, Aishwarya’s credibility as a rustic Amritsar kudi, Aishwarya’s unidentifiable accent. While at it, condone the lack of chemistry, and surfeit of melodrama, which seeks to gleefully announce, ‘We are like this only.’

Now, that we’ve pardoned the whole balderdash, let’s come to the unforgivable part. How could a director who crafted the little gem called Bend it like Beckham go so wrong? How could someone who had discovered a warm, funny, inoffensive way of portraying Indian foibles, successfully cast the spotlight on the crudest, crassest, vilest behaviour of Indians? How can she claim to be ‘pissed off by films that parody Bollywood’ and then perversely misrepresent not just Bollywood, but India?

And who do we have to blame for this travesty of a movie? Believe it or not, Aditya Chopra! 'It was after seeing Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayengethat I decided to make my version of a Hindi film,' says Chadha and adds, 'I later told him that if Bride and Prejudice falls flat, I’d blame him.'

Aditya, I want my money back!

SONGLINES: Bruce Chatwin

‘In Alice Springs – a grid of scorching streets where men in long white socks were forever getting in and out of Land Cruisers – I met a Russian who was mapping the sacred sites of the Aboriginals….’


The opening lines from Songlines create an air of intrigue befitting a whodunit, rather than a travel book. For instance, my thoughts were, who were these men in long white socks? Why Land Cruisers? And what was a Russian doing Down Under?

The rest of the first chapter is equally taut. Dispensing with rambling descriptions that characterize travel writing, Chatwin tells us about the Russian, Arkady Volchok, and his unusual vocation.

Arkady first worked as a school teacher on an Aboriginal settlement near Alice Springs, when he came across the Songlines – the invisible pathways criss-crossing Australia. According to Aboriginal myth, totemic beings wandered over the continent singing out the name of everything that crossed their path – birds, animals, plants – and thus sang the world into existence.

A railway line was being constructed through Alice Springs and the authorities were wary of treading over the sacred ground. Here’s where Arkady came in. He’d built a special friendship with the Song-men and could work with them to ensure that no sacred site was disturbed.

Arkady was married, even had a daughter of 6, but no longer lived with his wife. Chatwin’s description of Arkady’s union is wonderfully wry…

‘On the Acropolis in Athens, there was a dusting of snow and only one other tourist: a Greek girl from Sydney. They traveled through Italy, and slept together, and in Paris they agreed to get married.’

Likewise, the portrayal of their separation…

‘After a single summer, in a tin-roofed house that heated like a furnace, they began to drift apart.’

The chapter ends with the enigmatic introduction of Arkady’s secretary…

‘…a pliant brown girl in a brown knitted dress. She smiled and said, ‘Hi Ark!’ but her smile fell away at the sight of a stranger.’

Do Arkady and the construction group steer clear of the Songlines? Are the Aboriginals lying in wait to sabotage the construction? Is there more than meets the eye between Arkady and his secretary?

Find out more after I read the book…

Allez, Lance, Allez!

‘Since when have you been interested in sports?’ asked my dad, surprised, as I beat him to the newspaper today and turned to the last page.

For someone who professes zero interest in any sport, I’ve been scanning the sports pages with an uncharacteristic zeal lately. The reason: Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who’s racing to an unprecedented 6th consecutive win in the most arduous sporting event in the world - the Tour de France.

I’d heard of Lance Armstrong fleetingly as a cancer survivor-turned-Tour winner. But it was only when I recently read his biography that I understood just what cancer survivor meant.

Oddly enough, his book is titled, ‘It’s Not About The Bike’. I say odd because his life story reads exactly like a bike ride on the Alps – tortuous uphills, heart-stopping downhills, insane hairpin bends and blinding pain.

Born on the wrong side of the tracks and raised by a single parent, Lance fortuitously discovered a talent on the bike. He raced out of a life of mediocrity and into the elite corps of cycling. In 1996, at age 24, he was the number one ranked cyclist in the world. He had everything – a dazzling career, a lucrative contract, a spanking new home. And then cancer knocked.

For Lance, life didn’t come to a standstill, it catapulted downhill. One day he was diagnosed with testicular cancer with metastasis to the lungs, and the next day he was in surgery to remove his testicle; a week later, the cancer had invaded his brain. He had less than 50% chance of surviving. Could life get worse? Apparently, yes. He discovered too late that he had no health insurance. And his key sponsor, Cofidis, was sidling towards the exit.

Even if he did survive chemotheraphy, there was every chance that he would never cycle again. And if Lance Armstrong wasn’t a world class cyclist, who was he? He writes, ‘I was brought low; this disease would force me to ask more of myself as a person than I ever had before.’

4 cycles of chemotherapy decimated the cancer, poisoned his blood and changed him irrevocably. “Getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he writes. It not only made him more appreciative of life, but also motivated him to start the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research and awareness.

Now, many people survive cancer, god be praised. But not one among them goes on to participate and win the world’s most gruelling test of human endurance - the Tour de France.

Initiated in 1903, the Tour de France covers 2,110 miles. That’s 21 days of cycling covering the circumference of France, mountains included, in the heat of summer. ‘It’s a contest in purposeless suffering’, he writes, ‘But it may be the most gallant athletic endeavor in the world.’

And here is what his statistics read like:

'93 - Did not finish
'94 - Did not finish
'95 - 36th
'96 - Did not finish
'97 - Did not enter
'98 - Did not enter
'99 - 1st
'00 - 1st
'01 - 1st
'02 - 1st
'03 - 1st

As today’s Times reports, ‘… only a disaster in the last stage could stop the American… from sealing his record sixth Tour de France victory.’ He’s won three consecutive stages this year, excluding the penultimate stage win. And he has an impressive 4 minute, 9 second lead over his nearest rival. In short, he’s coasting to victory.

But here’s the part of his story that I found most interesting. When he was declared clean of cancer, he didn’t just throw off his catheter, jump onto his bike and ride into Tour legend. For one long, painful year, he battled something more confounding than cancer and chemotherapy – survivorship. ‘In an odd way, having cancer was easier than recovery – atleast in chemo I was doing something, instead of just waiting for it to come back,’ he writes.

After surviving cancer, riding a bike seemed so trivial. He’d have nightmares about cancer returning, he’d get overtaken by old ladies riding on a bicycle. When he finally pulled himself together and announced his return, sponsors didn’t fall over themselves to sign him. And after a punishing training schedule, when he started winning races, critics accused him of taking drugs. But despite being the most tested athlete in the world, he’s never failed a dope test.

It’s true, however, that Lance has an unfair advantage over his rivals. His heart is almost a third larger than that of an average man. His muscles produce less lactic acid. His VO2 Max levels (the maximum amount of oxygen the lungs consume during exercise) are twice as much as a healthy man. But what gives him the edge is his extreme commitment to the sport. When his rivals take a break in winter, he rides alone in the sleet and gale-force winds. His trainers have to beg him to take a day off. In an interview he talks about his schedule, ‘People ask me what are you doing on Christmas Day? What are you doing on January 1st? Riding your bike? Absolutely.’ When asked whether it was necessary to adhere so rigidly to his training schedules he counters, “Depends whether you want to win. I do.’

I hope you do too, Lance.



Update: Vive la Lance! Six time winner of the Tour de France!

It's only words - I

First love

I have only hazy memories of the first time I was swept off my feet. But my aunt tells me I must have been 3 or 4 years old. I'd tagged along with her to her friend's house and after a while was nowhere to be seen. Assuming I'd gone down the stairs alone, they launched a frantic search. Imagine their chagrin, when they found me in one of the rooms itself, leaning over a table, swinging a leg and with total absorption, 'reading' a thick tome. I don't remember the title, but I recall being enthralled by row after neat row of alphabets and the wafery thinness of the pages.

Another memory is of a kiddies party perhaps not long after. The hostess held two cheerfully wrapped gifts and asked me, "What would you like - a game or books?" No conflict here. Thrusting my pudgy hands out, I earnestly lisped, "Bookths" And that's how the collection began... with Thumbelina, Little Mermaid and Beauty.

Toys came and went, but my precious bookths were carefully preserved. The first day of summer vacations saw an unvarying ritual: notebooks and textbooks were gleefully expelled and the motley collection of storybooks would be brought out and lined against the wall. The Library was open!

At school, the library was tucked away in one quiet corner. And my favourite moment was when we all had to troop out in a queue and climb the 54 steps or so from the Primary Section to the Secondary, where the library was located. Mystery, fantasy, adventure - all in one little room. Even the archetypal villain - the librarian. She not only rationed the Enid Blytons, but also shoved into our unwilling hands, books on animals, birds, science and even novels in Hindi and Marathi. Admirable intentions, some might think, but not us who shrank from these surrogate textbooks.

I bided my time until I became the library monitor. And then craftily went around distributing all the books I wanted to read to my classmates. Through the week I'd swap books with them and thus, swiftly worked my way through the Blytons, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drews, Richmal Cromptons and Wodehouses. Sometimes I'd even prop a novel between the pages of a textbook during a boring class and once suffered the ignominy of standing outside class when caught doing that.

The collection stayed very modest, until i discovered the detour from College to Marine Lines station. Two second hand bookstores lay in wait on that detour with books piled precariously almost up to the ceiling. Many an afternoon was spent craning and contorting, thumbing and sneezing in those musty bookstores. Rarely did i leave without carting away armfuls of trashy fiction, classics, thrillers and some rare reads. The 2 1/2 hour daily train rides were scarcely ever felt.

With English Literature, I had a reading list and therefore, a legitimate reason to indulge in my hobby. But my mother remained unconvinced as she saw empty spaces at home vanishing. She complained to Dad, who acted swiftly, but not in the way she expected. A bookcase was constructed which was dubbed rather fancifully, 'The Library'.

What kind of books do you read, I'm often asked. And here's where I flounder. The thought of limiting oneself to a certain genre is preposterous. At some point I savour Indian writers, then start craving the classics, until I get a whiff of travel writing. From there, I might hop on to short stories, dipping into inspirational and spiritual literature. There was once the war phase, where I devoured everything in sight on the Second World War and the Vietnam War. And occasionally, there's the regression to the Enid Blyton era, where I long wistfully for the Wishing Chair and the Magic Faraway Tree.

It's a journey I don't question anymore. In fact, sometimes I feel that it isn't me choosing a book but vice versa. With increasing regularity, I 'chance' upon books whose message I need to hear or books which set me off on a new path.

And along this path are also strewn quirks of various sorts. The egregious memory turns elephantine when it comes to books I've lent. I've been known to stalk people who fail to return my books in time. And then there's the meticulous cataloguing of every single book by name, author and category. Each new entrant is allowed into the Library only after it's sheathed in plastic. And I know the almost precise location of each of the 807 books right down to the shelf, row and surrounding books.

Obsession, thunders my mother. I wickedly point to the Erasmus quote pasted on the Library, 'When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.'

Somehow, these lines reassure me that I'm not alone.



It's been six months since I started the blog. And when i think about it, the urge to write has undoubtedly been inspired by everything I've read and enjoyed all these years. The journey continues...

If tomorrow comes... at Fun Republic

Two FREE tickets to watch the thumpingly-successful, heavily pre-booked blockbuster KHNH. On a Saturday afternoon. At a multiplex not too far from home. With a free meal and soft drink thrown in…

This was like having your cake and eating it and marrying the rich, handsome baker as well!

Ok, rather fanciful analogy. But then we’re talking movies, remember. Where life inevitably sashays towards a happy ending. But first, there are twists in the plot… And I got more than a fair share of them when I landed up at ‘Fun Republic’.

On first glimpse, it resembled a State of Chaos. A higgledy-piggledy mix of steel, glass and concrete which stuck out sorely in a conservative landscape. Food courts, play stations, coffee bars, candy dispensers – all the trappings of ‘fun’ were in evidence. But for some reason, I simply disliked the place.

We took the glass elevator to the loftily-titled ‘Xenon 3’. And waited to be ushered inside.

25 minutes later, we were still waiting. The foyer got crowded and soon every available inch was covered. I was hemmed against the wall, when the lights went out. Groans of dismay arose and soon turned into mutinous rumblings. If the snag wasn’t rectified soon, Fun Republic would have a bloody uprising on hand.

Thankfully, it was a momentary lapse and minutes later, the recalcitrant masses were herded into the auditorium. Our FREE seats turned out to be smack in front of the big screen. But before we had time to rue this, the lights dimmed and the opening credits appeared.

The first stirrings of romance were being kindled, when the lights went out again. A howl of protest erupted. Being stuck in the dark with fragmented images of a promising love story was downright frustrating. If this was a rock concert, a rude chant would have gone up…

10 minutes later, the lights came back. All was forgiven and we were ushered back into dreamland.

We were hooked as the hero liberated his lass with a single-line profundity. But then the screen went blank even while the audio continued. We were torn between hollering loudly and hanging onto the dialogue, allowing our fervid imagination to supply the images. Was this a state-of-the-art multiplex or a banana republic? I certainly wanted to secede.

A few more of these unscheduled intermissions and the fragile link was broken. We were no longer swept up in the intense emotional drama. Still a lone tear escaped my sardonic gaze as the hero lay on his deathbed. But even that turned to mirth a moment later.

A star-struck tot had climbed onto the stage. His mother made a frantic dash for him. Unbelievably, a classic chase scene was being enacted live. The onscreen drama forgotten, everyone applauded when the long arm of the law caught up with the errant youngster.

Thus, an utterly forgettable movie experience was salvaged by an impromptu addition to the screenplay.

I walked away marvelling at how the kid had intuitively grasped the movie’s philosophy of ‘living like there was no tomorrow’.