True Story

Two writers walked into a bar called Story. One ordered a Whisky Sour, the other called for club soda with lime slices. They sat at a table on the terrace, which overlooked low office buildings. A cool breeze blew, even as flashes of lightning lit up the sky every few minutes.

"Not to worry," said the steward, "it won't rain for another hour at least."

He was wrong. Fat drops of rain pelted the table within fifteen minutes. They barely managed to run into the bar with their drinks, the sweet potato fries and the quinoa salad. The bar was not as much fun on the inside. There were too many office goers who'd stopped off after work to have a drink. They were noisy, smoked inside the bar had that 'can't-wait-to-get-drunk-and-forget-work' look about them.

Also, the techno music, which was pleasantly muted while the writers were seated outside, seemed too loud and intrusive inside. It was difficult to resume the conversation they were having outside about Peruvian food, the rise of an independent cafes and the food habits of a 20-month-old boy.

They decided to call it a night and headed home. End of Story. 

Ah-dil

A trip to Adil Stores never fails to amaze me. Essentially, it's an Indian supermarket which has a wide selection of dry groceries and kitchen items, but what it really stocks is Indian nostalgia.

For instance, here's where you can find Milan Supari or Amul Shrikhand or Rasna or even 'Indian Maggi'. The larger supermarkets like Lulu or Choithram's may have Mother's Recipe or Priya Pickles. But at Adil, you can find Bedekar's brand of pickles. Again, at the larger supermarkets, you can find a wide range of Basmati rice, but at Adil, you can get the lesser known Ambe Mohar or Kolam varieties. You'll also find things you might have lost a taste for back in India, but may suddenly develop a yearning for like khari biscuits or boiled sweets shaped like orange segments or amla supari. 

Going beyond foodstuff, Adil recreates another old Indian tradition - of grinding grain in a stone mill and packing it right before your eyes. This used to be the norm in the India when I was growing up. I remember how my sister and I would heave a metal tin filled with wheat to the stone mill, and then lug home the hot tin with soft, golden flour. I remember how we giggled at the man in the stone mill whose hair, moustache and clothes were always covered in white flour. 'Ghost ghost', we'd whisper to each other.

I saw the stone mill in a sectioned off area in Adil, where flour was being ground, but there was no ghost. The man working the mill wore an apron and his head was covered with the mandatory hairnet. Everything was sanitised and neat, as per municipality rules. The freshly ground flour was packed in a brown paper bag. (I once worked with a multinational client who dealt in packaged flour, and he mentioned that his competition wasn't other packaged flour brands, but Adil Stores.)

I also saw a poster in the store which said, 'Gluten Free Atta'. Given my intolerance to gluten, I was intrigued. The flour featured a blend of rice, sorghum, garbanzo and other flours, and cost about Dhs. 20 for 1 kg. I was impressed that gluten intolerance was even acknowledged in an Indian supermarket, given that rotis and naans are such an important part of an Indian diet. I also spotted organic basmati rice and organic sugar and even organic jaggery.

Clearly, despite its stronghold on the nostalgia market, Adil believed in keeping with the times.

Absolute Lee on TV

The interview I had done earlier this month for the show 'Twenty Something' on Dubai One was on air two nights ago. Here's a link to the same:

Dubai One TV 'Twenty Something': The Digital Age

The faux pas doesn't feature. Praise be to God. I have to admit it feels odd looking at yourself on the screen.

Art Dubai 2010: A sneak peak

Fresh from the tidal wave that was the Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature, I’ve been swept away by another surge, this time to a world not as familiar as books and writing. But it’s a world that has held a steady fascination for me, and more so in the last two months, when I was writing a commissioned article for a leading publication in India.

I’ve met the most knowledgeable, passionate and visionary artists, curators, gallery owners and art lovers, who’ve not only added to my understanding but have also kindled a passion to further explore the fascinating world of art.

At the Art Dubai press preview today, there were over two hundred members of the Press from over the world, and after the usual round of introductions by John Martin and Savita Apte, directors of the art fair, we were led into the area where the three winners of the prestigious (not to mention, lucrative) Abraaj Capital Prize had displayed their work. Each of them had a distinctive medium of expression.

(Apologies in advance for the less-than-brilliant photography. They don’t do enough justice to the art. Moreover it is a bit challenging to balance a camera and an armful of magazines, programmes and other literature.)

Hala Elkoussy’s was a mural titled, ‘Myths and Legends’ a collage of contemporary myths and legends in modern-day Cairo.

Marwan Sahramani's Feast of the Damned covered every wall of the room, including the ceiling. It was, as one visitor described it, ‘a darker rendition of the Sistine Chapel’. The artist explained that it was his dialogue with painters that he admired like Rubens and Michaelangelo.

Kadir Attia, had a fashioned a rough replica of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem using an ordinary bolt, and projected it on a wide screen so that it was magnified to almost a thousand times its size. He said it was a commentary on several levels - social, religious, metaphysical and so on. He had a few profound comments to make like, "The smaller you are, the bigger you are." And "It's not what you see, but what happens in between." The installation was accompanied by eerie sound of wind that he'd recorded in a ravine. (p.s to get an idea of scale, the light on the right is the bolt/dome which was being projected.)

Post-lunch, the doors to the galleries were opened, and I have to say, it was nothing short of a visual feast. There are 72 galleries, and it didn't make sense to take it all in at one go. I definitely plan to go again with more time on hand, and with more sensible shoes.

A quick round up of some of the work that caught my eye:

 I loved the title of this installation - Not Everything Is Made In China.

Mirrorwork which read Resist Resisting God

I found a little bit of myself in this piece ;)

The Athr Gallery from Saudi Arabia had some striking work. The Metamorphosis of a Chair series by Saddek Wasil was particularly evocative.

My favourite in the series. Of all the chairs, it seemed the least 'angsty' until the curator shared that it connoted escapism. Oh well.

Pious women by Noha Al-Sharif. Also from the Athr Gallery.

The entrance to a cemetary, perhaps?

Cherry blossoms from afar, buttons up close.

MF Hussein's Women in Yemen

 

Stunning work by Jorge Mayet, a Cuban artist based in Spain. A very visual sense of being uprooted. 

And another by the same artist

 You can't escape the bling in Dubai

If there was one artist's work that stood out in my frenzied dash, it would have to be James Clar, a Dubai-based American artist over at the Traffic Gallery. Wild, imaginative and a touch of dark humour

Titled Pop Culture, it's a gun that's been fired once and then cast in candy! A commentary on how violence is glorified in the media.

You know if you're a true 'acid house junkie' if you can see the yellow smiley face amid these switches and dials. I couldn't. It's only jazz and blues for me :-/

From a series called Moment Defined by a Point and Line, it's a trace of the bullets that killed  

Amadou Diallo, a commentary on murder and media portrayal of it. 

You cannot be living in Dubai for 5 years and not instantly notice that it represents a 'building under construction'. The second of a 3-series installation, it's supposedly a stalled project because of funding issues. Hah.

I'd just finished the tour and was thinking longingly of a hot water bath for my feet, when I almost got trampled on by a horde of photographers. "Looks like a dignitary has arrived," my German friend remarked. And then His Highness, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, came around the corner. Not a bad ending to the afternoon, I say.

Art Dubai is on from 17 - 20 March. For the timetable and venues, pls. refer here

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!

Internet gaga

I was invited yesterday to be on a TV show called ‘Twenty Something’ on Dubai One. There were three of us on a panel to discuss the topic, ‘Is the internet affecting interpersonal relationships?’ The two other panellists were Husni Khufash, Country Manager – Google, and Dr. Saliha Afridi, a psychologist. I was the humble blogger and twitterer (twit?), the one with the alleged ‘affected’ offline life.

When the producer first called me for the show, I had to point out that I wasn’t a 20-something, for starters. And then, I wasn’t quite the avid blogger I once used to be. She reassured me that the name of the programme was more indicative of their target audience, and not necessarily the panellists. “And considering you’ve been writing a blog for 6 ½ years, you must have a lot to share,” she assured me.

Things didn’t start off too well in the morning, when I found that I had sprouted a great big zit on my chin. Of all the days, I thought. But the studio make up lady, did an expert camouflage job and I felt more confident about getting before the cameras.

We had a mini rehearsal on the sets with the two presenters – Anna and Marwan. Husni was asked about internet consumption statistics, which he expertly rattled off. I was asked to share about how I got into blogging, and the good and not-so-good repercussions on my life. Dr. Saliha spoke of how teens and young adults struggled to make the distinction between ‘connectedness’ and ‘relatedness’.

It was a lively chat, and all went pretty smoothly, until I made a ‘cultural faux pas’. I spoke of the negative feedback I got on one of my posts, with an anon commenter labelling me ‘a racist pig’. Both presenters leaped from their seats almost. “We can’t say the word ‘pig’ on air,” I was told.

The porcine ban notwithstanding, the segment got recorded pretty quickly. The length of the segment – 4 ½ minutes – didn’t really allow for too much of an in-depth discussion or debate. It was too broad a topic anyway, and there’s much to be said both for and against the Internet.

For those in Dubai and the Middle East who’d like to watch the show, it airs on Monday 29th March at 8 pm. Do tune in, and oh, please refrain from commenting on the zit.

Desert dessert!

 

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first tried it. Camel milk is ostensibly a bit salty. But the Al Nassma brand camel milk chocolate tastes just like the regular milk chocolate. It's available in 5 flavours, but I haven't seen it in the supermarkets yet. 

Next on the culinary list: (when I dare to attempt it) Camel Burger, and Camel Curry...

International Volunteers Day

Saturday, December 5th, was International Volunteers Day. And having offered my services a few times to an organization called Volunteer in Dubai, and also curious to meet people working in social development, I headed to The Shelter in Al Quoz, where a small event was being organized.

The studio was already packed with about 50-60 people when I entered. There were presentations by a few people about the work they were doing on their own or in partnership with other NGOs. And it was both humbling and inspiring.

There were several interesting things that I noticed at the event. One was that most of those involved in social work weren’t the hoary sorts who’d taken up social work in their twilight years or bored housewives with time on their hands. The four presenters were all in their mid-20s. Some worked with the underprivileged along side their regular nine-to-fives, while some of them had made it their life work.

26-year-old Masarat Daud shared how she quit a lucrative government job in 2008 to start a programme to educate and empower women and children in her village in Rajasthan. Through her initiative called the ‘8-Day Academy’, she has taught basic computer skills and public speaking to children and teachers, while also demolishing age-old chauvinistic structures in the process. She’s also planning the first rural TEDx Shekavati with an inspiring theme – IDEA REVOLUTION.

Mobisher Rabbani shared his guiding philosophy, ‘We can begin small but why should we think small’. And the long list of The Rabbani Foundation’s initiatives from community development to women’s empowerment to disaster relief, proved that he took his philosophy quite seriously.

At a time when Afghanistan seems to be one of the most dangerous places on earth, journalist and RJ, Natalie Carney headed to Afghanistan not once, but twice, staying there for a month and documenting the stories of the war orphans. One of the most touching moments in her documentary was a parent saying, “We sent our daughter to an orphanage so that she could get an education.”

Another interesting detail was that almost none of the presenters handed around leaflets or any other ‘literature’. I didn’t see too many visiting cards being exchanged either. All of them directed the audience to ‘look them up online’. Either on Twitter or You Tube or Facebook or through their blogs and websites. As Mobiasher mentioned to me, “I mostly operate through Facebook.”

And finally, what was most heartening to note was the presence of confident, articulate Emirati women making a difference. Two young Emirati woman along with their non-Emirati friends, shared their vision that had helped start the group ‘Promise of a Generation’ to ‘promote respectful intercultural interaction to improve our own understanding of the world and our responsibilities in it’. Even the event organizer, Nabila Usman, seemed far more advanced than her 20-something years , given her philanthropic vision and desire to make a difference in society.

As I drove back home, inspired and uplifted, I couldn’t help remembering a quote by Mahatma Gandhi – ‘Find purpose, the means will follow’.

Stimulating!

Yes Yes Yes Yes YES YESS YYESSSSS!

A man's voice shrieks orgasmically on the radio.

I cringe.

My first thought is that someone's neck is going to be on the block for allowing this spot on the radio. (4 1/2 years of doing Sharia-compliant advertising, and your internal censor is always alert).

My mind races to deduce the product being advertised.

Condoms? (No WAY!)

Fine dining? (Nah... Too Harry met Sally-ish.)

Some get-rich scheme? Hmm.

The spot ends soon enough...

I would never have guessed.

It's for a men's magazine.

Ironically, titled 'iQ'

The spot signs off with the line, 'Because men need mental stimulation'.

So that explains why men have sex on the mind.

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!

Atlantis, The Palm

It's hard not to be impressed by Atlantis at Palm Jumeirah. Driving down the trunk of the Palm with swank buildings on either side, you can see Atlantis looming ahead. By the time you've passed under the lofty arches and have reached the entrance, your imagination (mixed with a bit of buzz and hype) is in overdrive. And while projecting a nonchalant air on the outside, you're in fact a giddy schoolgirl inside, dying to get to class the next day and announce, "You'll never believe where I was yesterday!"

Three weeks ago, a fire broke out at Atlantis which started in the main lobby area, just above this glass sculpture. Although the resort opened as planned on September 24, you can still see signs of restoration (behind the black screens) and get a whiff of charred remains. Somehow this only adds to the aura of Atlantis. Unlike the fabled city which sunk overnight, the Palm Atlantis virtually rose from the ashes, in time to meet the public.

The souvenir store at Atlantis. Where you can come away with cuddly sharks and jolly jellyfish.


A glimpse of the ceiling. A nautical theme runs through the Atlantis, but it feels a bit uneven in parts. Something like The Little Mermaid meets the local fishmarket.


The entrance to the Lost Chamber. This was the best part of the entire Atlantis experience for me. (I haven't checked out the Aquaventure theme park and its 'Leap of Faith' ride yet.)


The last time I'd been mesmerised by aquatic life was when I was snorkelling in the Great Barrief Reef in Cairns, Australia. Nothing can ever compare to that sublime experience, but watching these beautiful creatures glide so blissfully, I couldn't help feeling that I could watch them for hours and still come away marvelling.


These fish reminded me of (what I know as) ladyfish, until they opened their mouth, and some membranes popped out, with the end result being rather comical.


Buttoned-down tuxedos. What the well-dressed fish are wearing.


The exquisitely graceful jellyfish. Beauty with bite.


And a few more...


You cannot appreciate the phrase, 'slippery as an eel', until you see this exhibit. My efforts to get an entire eel in a picture was repeatedly thwarted by their ceaseless darting through the enclosures.


You don't want to be alone at home with this critter. Nuff said.


The almost-genial looking piranas.


The little 'Nemos' or clownfish. I also spotted the rescued whale shark gliding majestically in one of the aquariums.

There's a better way, I discovered later, to experience this marine life, than running around the aquariums, gawking at the fish and pressing close to the 2-feet thick wall of glass.

The Lost Chambers Suites, on the other side of the glass wall, have the better view. But for sheer indulgence, there's nothing to beat the $25,000-a-night Bridge Suite replete with personal butlers and chefs, and a gold-leaf dining table.

Humans and nature or humans v/s nature - the debate raged in my mind as I drove back home. Environmentalists have been concerned, people have protested, and even the old nutjobs are ranting.

What really caught my eye when I was reading about the fabled city of Atlantis was this bit...

... there existed an island nation located in the middle of the Atlantic ocean populated by a noble and powerful race. The people of this land possessed great wealth thanks to the natural resources found throughout their island. The island was a center for trade and commerce.

...For generations the Atlanteans lived simple, virtuous lives. But slowly they began to change. Greed and power began to corrupt them....

...Soon, in one violent surge it was gone. The island of Atlantis, its people, and its memory were swallowed by the sea.

Am-Bushed!

Thank you, Mr. George Bush!

An unexpected holiday is always good news, except if you're heavily pregnant or if you work at a petrol pump, or if you happen to be wearing those 5-inch Manolos.

M' assalamah Mr. Bush. Do come again... next week.

Yet another brilliant sunset

Welcome...

... to our 10,000th visitor, who stumbled here looking for 'DUBAI UNREAL ESTATE' (caps not mine).

Unreal, it is. Sigh.

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.

Radio, some one still loves you...

There's nothing to beat the sheer popularity of radio in this country. In all the time I've been here, I've rarely heard anyone discussing a TV show or a news article with as much passion as radio shows. Phone lines of popular shows are constantly jammed with garrulous callers who breathlessly reveal personal details with unrestrained candour. I once heard a guy tell an RJ, "You're the best thing to have happened to me." This, to a disembodied voice on the airwaves. People are known to enter their cars and turn on the radio before the air-conditioning.

I'll admit it takes your mind off traffic and crazy drivers on occasion, but I'm not one to go 'Radio ga-ga'. If anything, I'm allergic to dial-in shows and inane, superfluous chatter. I'd rather listen to static than to some pseudo-chirpy RJ banter punctuated by forced, grating laughter. The only thing that's music to my ears, is music. And thankfully my iPod accomplishes that without any back chat.

Still, once in a while I venture out among the airwaves, to listen for new music, or radio commercials (part of the job) or sale announcements (part of life, heh). Last weekend, I was listening to my one-time favourite radio station called The Coast. It used to be the only radio station in the country that played great music without any commercial breaks or RJs. Naturally, an aberration like that couldn't continue for long, and now, it's just like every other radio station, commercials, RJs and all.

The Coast RJ was reading out a letter from an ardent listener, "Dear RJ, I've a problem of sorts. I'm 8 months pregnant, and my doctor says I'm due on December 6th. Now, I've just bought my tickets for the Justin Timberlake show on the same day. What should I do - give away the tickets or take the chance and go for the show?"

Now this is one question that's seldom found in the Training Syllabus for Aspiring RJs. But that didn't stop Mr. RJ from venturing an answer, first pausing to employ the classic 'Miss Universe Question Round Trick' i.e. paraphrase the question to gain time to formulate a winning answer,

"Dear X, I'm not 8 months pregnant, but if I were you and I had bought tickets to the Timberlake show on the same day that the doctor said I was due... I would definitely go for the Timberlake show."


For everyone's sake, I hope Justin's entourage has a midwife or two.

Mozart turns mallrat

It's possible to find just about anything in a mall in Dubai. A ski slope, an elephant water clock, and, as I discovered last week, a Philharmonic Orchestra.

It was incredible enough to find that Dubai had a Philharmonic Orchestra, but to have them perform with an Australian Jazz Quartet an ambitious concert titled, 'Jazz meets Mozart' - well, that was almost like finding parking at the mall on a Friday night. Almost.

The lobby of the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre (DUCTAC), just above the ski slope, started filing up by 7.30 p.m. but the concert only began at around 8.30. One easily excused the delay when the musicians began playing. Spellbinding just doesn't begin to describe it. A rousing samba rendition of Mozart's haunting Symphony No. 40 made it impossible to keep ones feet from tapping. But my favourite was the overture from 'The Marriage of Figaro', Unlike the energetic piece originally written by Mozart, the jazzed up version had a slow plaintive beginning with just the lead violinist and the saxophonist which progressed at a steady pace with a few piano solos, and then built up to the familiar crescendo with the entire Orchestra furiously working their instruments.

The conductor, Philip Maier, seemed very self-assured, and the Orchestra never struck a wrong chord. Two hours later, as I was driving back home still humming snatches of melodies played, it struck me that for once being a mall rat wasn’t such a bad thing after all.