Corruption, Betrayal and Murder in China - A Great Book in Making

Neil Heywood

Over the last three weeks or so, a new development is unfolding in China. I don’t know how many of you have been following this news but I have been and with considerable interest. It has all the ingredients of a gripping novel and an edge-of-the-seat spy movie.

A few weeks back, a high-ranking Chinese politician, Bo Xilai, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party on charges of corruption. And later, Bo’s wife was accused of having ordered the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood.

The corruption scandal decidedly ended Bo’s political career…. And also opened a window into the lives of the leaders of Chinese Communist Party, most of whom are multimillionaire businessmen with business interests spanning across contents and wealth stashed abroad.

However, although the Bo bit of the controversy has been hogging the limelight, the Neil Heywood part of it is just as exciting. Who is this guy Heywood? Despite being from another country, how did he make his way into the heart of Chinese political elite (the Xilai family) and become such a threat to them that they had to get him killed? And why has the British government, which is otherwise pompously vocal in seeking explanations from foreign governments if their nationals meet with unnatural death on foreign soil, has been curiously quite over Heywood’s murder?

The Hindu, on 27th April, ran an oped-page article, sourced from Britain, which answered some of these questions, although speculatively. The article said the British government’s silence on Heywood could be because they knew Heywood was an intelligence freelancer. (Govts react in this way when their spies are arrested or murdered on foreign soil while on mission.) Albiet, when journalists tried to find out whether Heywood was really in employment of the British government, they found he wasn't. They concluded it could be that he was working as a freelancer for a private espionage agency – there are many of them in China run by former British intelligence officers – and the British government knew it.

However, what the article told with greater certainty is that Heywood came from British privilege. He had been to elite schools and colleges, and it’s possible that his British aristocratic background and a cultivated Britishness helped him to charm his way into the heart of Chinese elite, where there are many takers for them.

This background helped Heywood become a bridge between British privilege and Chinese elite. By using his British connections, Heywood provided an easy passage to the children of high-ranking Chinese politicians and businessmen to the heart of British privilege – Harrow, Oxford etc – and the Chinese in turn helped Heywood further his business interests in China. (The Hindu article is not clear about what businesses Heywood exactly did. I think he was just a gold digger who picked up anything his contacts could help him with.)

While working his way through this Chinese stratosphere, Heywood met Bo Xilai’s wife and did business with her. Some even link Heywood and Bo Xilai’s wife romantically. Alas, their relation soured when Bo’s wife refused to pay Heywood money the Xilais owed to him. The British businessman threatened to expose their seedy business interests and was found dead in a Chinese hotel room a few days later.

Initially, Heywood’s death was blamed on his heavy drinking, although there were speculations that he could have been murdered by Bo Xilai’s wife. But soon after, BoXilai’s political fortunes nosedived and the Xilais' foreign business interests and money trails came into light. The Chinese Communist Party , in a desperate rush to perform a clean-up act, launched an investigation into the Heywood murder and it revealed that the British spy-businessman-charmer’s drink had been laced with poison causing him death in the Chinese hotel he was in.

It’s not because of the Xilai family’s fall from grace and this Heywood angle that I think this controversy lends itself to a good book, but because it’s far more important in many ways than it superficially appears.

This has had a social and political impact in China. It went viral on Chinese social networking sites. A western journalist observed that it’s not every day that Chinese people come to know about their leaders’ lifestyle as they live under a shroud of secrecy.

It has also got a global angle. Although the British government’s reaction to Heywood’s murder has to do with Heywood’s dubious activities in China, China’s rising clout in international politics can’t be ruled out as one of the things that deterred the British government from acting tough with China.

And a little on the life of intelligence freelancers working for private spy agencies in China, like Heywood, is something none of us will complain about.

A Bend in the River - VS Naipaul

 I finished reading VS Naipaul’s A Bend in the River. I had known the book for a long time and had expected it to be very different from how I found it. The opening line of the book eulogizes the importance of success in life – “The world is what it is; people who don’t make it have no place in it,” which is also the title of VSN’s biography  – and I thought it would be the story of someone’s rise against odds, but the book is about other things. It’s about identity, history, worldview, imperialism, the bequest of the white man and the struggle of the black man to find his own identity and pride based on his own culture and history and his opposition to the white man even as he looks upto him, copies his ways to raise himself in the estimate of his own people and find his approval. Naipaul has chosen Africa as his setting to explore these themes.

Salim comes from a decently off family that has stayed in Africa for a few generations now. His doesn’t have great professional opportunities in the place and takes up a shop dealing in this and that and located in a town in Africa, that’s situated at the bend of a river. White rulers have just withdrawn from the town and tribals have come to power. Initially there is some quite and Salim’s shop flourishes but the tranquil is broken by a coup which brings an African chieftain – President – to power.  

Through the President, Naipaul shows insecurities of a tyrant who wants to use his African background to his political advantage and at the same time shows off his white connections to heighten himself in the estimate of his people.  Naipaul uses this small town, its people and their antagonism toward the white man to show how while they are opposed to the white man ruling them and want to erase all his vestiges, they don’t know how to rule themselves and left to themselves they can only bring chaos and killing. I was thinking that this has become an obsolete pro-empire view today, but then Afghanistan came to mind.

Salim goes to England briefly and returns to the town to find that the President has nationalized all private properties, and his shop is one of them. The shop has been put under a trust and an African, who Salim knew, has been entrusted to oversee it. Salim works as a manager in the shop for a while before is he arrested by police one day because the President is to visit the town and once released, Salim leaves the place for good together with may other ‘outsiders’.

The book is disturbing in many ways in that it forces you to visit things about you and your country which you don’t want to and Naipaul has an acerbic and mocking way of putting things. But what’s surprising about it is although written almost 30 years ago, it reflects the global realities of today and reminds you that themes like empire and identity never become dated.

Salim the protagonist thinks to himself that colonizers need to make statues to themselves because their needs are complex: they need to glorify their rule to the posterity by making statues and also enjoy the material benefits of their rule when it lasts. But simple people from simple civilizations don’t have such multi-tiered necessities.  

The book can be slow sometimes but finally rewards you for holding on till the end.

Goodbye, Gangarams

For a few weeks I have been hearing that Gangarams will close down. Today I went to the bookstore and found a notice outside, actually a note of parting by the owner which emotionally thanked Gangarams’ customers and bade them goodbye and asked them to visit the store one last time before it closes.

By the time I came to know Gangarams is the oldest bookstore in Bangalore I had visited it a few times. It is located on MG Road which is close to my office on Residency Road and whenever I had time I walked from my office to visit the bookstore. I liked it for several reasons. It's different from flashy bookstores we find in malls which I also like but for other reasons.

Gangarams has a sizable staff for a store that's not too specious and they never bother you even if you are a casual browser who will mostly likely not buy anything. Over the years I have been visiting Gangarams, I have bought some books and many magazines from the bookstore but most of my visits were for casual browsing. I just love doing that.

When you are new to Gangarams, the staff may appear a little intruding, not because they mean to be intrusive – in fact they want to leave you your space – but because there are too many of them and as the bookstore is not very big you will find one of them standing in any direction you see giving you the impression that they are keeping an eye on you, how much of a book you are reading, whether you are trying to shoplift, etc. But that's not true.

Even in the glitzy bookstores in malls, the staff mostly leaves you alone, but that you can attribute to their modern shop-management methodology, while Gangarams is too old and old-fashioned to adopt (or even bother to) such sleek strategies to convert casual browsers into buyers. For them leaving book explorers alone, even if that doesn’t lead to any sale, is part of their value for customer service.

Gangarams has five to six shelves of books running end to end of the shop forming narrow aisles where you walk and browse books.

Another reason I like Gangarams is that it's completely unorganized. Books are not arranged based on themes or authors - expect in some parts of the shop - but just piled together. This disheveled look gives it a certain scholarly and old-world charm. I frequent many bookstores but I owe my soft spot to Gangarams, I think, to its informal appearance which makes you feel at home. It has many elderly loyal visitors who, I am sure, prefer Gangarams to other bookstores. I had once seen an old lady accompanied by her son who was visiting India from the US.

However, the love for the old somewhere led to reluctance to adapt to the new for Gangarams. They retained not just the old values but also refused to pick up new practices. I had placed a book order with Gangarams and two, three days later when I had called them to check if the book had arrived they seemed to not even remember that I had placed an order. I Googled to check if Gangarams has any website and didn’t find any (if you know, please let me know).

Gagnarams is not the first and certainly not the last bookstore that’s closing down. It’s part of a new global trend triggered by e-books and chain stores taking over the book retail business and eating up standalone shops that are finding it difficult to compete with their financial firepower and reach. But with each Gangarams shutting shop something of the old Bangalore (or any city) will be lost forever.

Old bookstores, just like old buildings and shop and markets, contribute to the character of a city. They form the landscape that reminds you of the bygone, without which you lose your point of reference to the past. I came to Bangalore some seven years back and Gangarams was part of my life, sharing space with other bookstores I visit, for a little more than three years. But Gangarams being so old, there would be those who would have been visiting it for half of their lives. I am sure that elderly lady – and many like her- will miss Gangarams more than I will.

The Iron Lady - A Great Biopic

Usually, I am not my own man when it comes to choosing the movie I want to watch. The choice is mostly driven by public opinion, newspaper reviews and Tweeter posts. But the problem is most times these opinions are divided on a movie. The Iron Lady, however, is an exception in this regard. It has been attracting praise both in organized and social media. Last week I watched the movie.

I liked the movie but I was reluctant to write about it because writing about the movie would also include writing about Meryl Streep’s performance as Thatcher and I, not having seen much of Thatcher during her days, am not familiar with Thatcher enough to assess how close was Streep’s Thatcher to the real thing.

But having read about her and seen her photos, I had a mental image of Margaret Thatcher and Meryl’s enactment seemed very close to that picture – the gait, composure, style of speaking and subtle changes in personality after Margaret Thatcher’s taking up of a bigger role in national politics. However, my post-viewing Youtube investigation revealed that Streep’s Thatcher’s style of speaking slightly differed with that of the original Iron Lady.

Meryl’s role moves back and forth between two phases of Thatcher’s life: one, an old and frail Thatcher now ailing from dementia; two, a vigorous young political leader on the rise. The narrative is anchored around Thatcher’s old age, a retired public figure spending her last days reminiscing about her past glories, and visits various phases of her life, from childhood and adolescence to her rise in public life, in flashback.

The movie is something to remember not just for its cinematic merits but also the dramatic life of its protagonist – Margaret Thatcher, who, from humble origins (a grocer’s daughter), rose to become one of the most charismatic prime ministers of her country. Thatcher’s political career lends itself naturally to movie because it coincided with many a crisis Britain went through – the Argentinean transgression on the Falklands island, IRA terrorism, economic problems, etc. Her dealing of all these crises explains her sobriquet – The Iron Lady, which, incidentally, was given by Russians.

Margaret had a tough upbringing. She used to manage her father’s grocery shop and didn’t have too many friends. She, in fact, was a quite an odd girl with a studious personality. Her political education started early in conservative political discipline and her conservative convictions grew deeper and deeper as she grew up. Although her initial brush with the world of power and the powerful was not without its awkward moments due to her unassuming upbringing, gradually she became comfortable, came into her own as a leader and handled important portfolios in the Conservative government.

The movie has its moments. It starts with Thatcher shopping in a departmental store with Panjabi songs playing in the background to convey the hybrid culture with a dominant presence of Punjabis in the current day Britain. It delivers its surprises and plot twists smartly. I conservative party leader close to Margaret is suddenly killed in a car bomb, planted by IRA, a few seconds after he had told Margaret bye on his way out of the parking zone. Margaret was considering standing for party leadership election; the bomb blast steels her resolve. Similarly, there are other moments you will enjoy as you watch it.

Reading Alexander Pushkin's poems

I am not an inveterate poetry reader but I do enjoy poetry once in a while. Some years ago I had bought a translation of Urdu poetry by Khushwant Singh and had enjoyed them. Last month a collection of poems by Vikram Seth – Rivered Earth - drew my attention. I bought it and liked all the poems, some translations of ancient Chinese poems with the historical incidents on which the poems were based explained and others poems on Indian mythological characters and various other themes. All of them were good.

Last Saturday I bought a collection by Alexander Pushkin, a 19th century Russian poet. Pushkin was among the first poets to write stories in verse. Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate, a verse novel, was inspired by Pushkin’s work. It’s said about Pushkin’s poetry that they don’t translate well into English (or any other language), but I am finding the poems well translated, in easy, fluid language that’s nice to read. I have not finished the book but am taking a dip some times and am liking the experience. Pushkin’s style is simple and his poems are mostly based on his experiences and reflections on various aspects of life, Russia and social themes. Here is one of his poems.

Elegy

The dead delights of frenzied younger days

Weigh on me like alcoholic haze.

The aching sadness of my past endures

And, like good wine, gains body as it matures.

My future life is grim without relief,

A surging swell of struggle, toil and grief.

And yet, my friends, I have no wish to die;

I want to suffer, live and wonder why.

I know I can expect amid the torment,

Trouble and care a rare delicious moment.

Sweet harmonies just fill me with delight

And I shall weep with joy for what I write.

And it may be that at my sad demise

A smile of love shall light in someone else’s eyes.

Pushkin is considered among the greatest Russian poets. However, he didn't die the death befitting his stature as a poet. He died of a freak accident: while having a fight with his wife.

On Charles Dickens

About a week ago, the Google home page featured a scene from Victorian England. I couldn’t establish its relevance until I found in the paper next day that it was Charles Dickens’ 200th birth anniversary. Since then newspapers have been writing about Dickens and I was tempted to blog about him but I was hesitant because I felt although I know tit bits about the author’s life and have read two of his novels (Oliver Twist and Tale of Two Cities) and want to badly read The Great Expectations, I don’t have much to share about Dickens because I have never had the affinity for Dickens you have for authors whose work you like, so whatever I would tell would be impersonal and dry pieces of information.

I liked Oliver Twist and parts of The Tale of Two Cities, but they did not leave me with the yearning to read more Dickens, mainly because of his language - long-winding sentences with a single sentence often running into a paragraph with multiple possibilities packed into it and separated by commas. Another thing about Dickens is over theatricity of everything, the characters, situation, homour. By the time I read The Tale I knew what to expect but I was callow when I tried out Oliver Twist. The climax of The of Two Cities is just like the ending of a Bollywood movie. Perhaps that’s why it’s commonly said his books lend themselves to films very well, because of their strong visual character.

I was not sure of my views about Dickens for some time, but over time I found most of my Dickensian misgivings confirmed by many authors and even when Dickens lived he had enough detractors who attributed the popularity of his works to low art or mass appeal. 

However, what can’t be taken away from Dickens is that he was the pioneer of the novel. Until he started writing and publishing his work in serialized form in various magazines (remember most of his works actually appeared in serialized form in magazines first) and became popular, prose was highly looked down upon; verse was the order of the day.


Melodrama is often a component of popular fiction, but what is surprising is despite the turgidity of Dickens' language, his novels were popular, unlike modern popular works that use a very easy language. Probably the language that reads so odd today was the norm in Victorian England. (If you read Thomas Hardy, who wrote some decades after Dickens, you will find the language far friendlier than Dickens.) I also think it’s a little unfair to blame Dickens for his lack of art because the novel was a new-art form then and it has gone through lot of refinement over 150 years of its existence and anything written so long back, if measured by modern literary standards, would feel deficient.


Albeit, Dickens is liked by many because, unlike many contemporaries of his who mainly wrote on upper class British society, Dickens’ singular muse was poverty and poor, parhaps the empathy came from the fact that his own childhood was one of hardship and impoverishment. And maybe the melodramatic character of his work owed to his own melodramatic life - which went from poverty to fame of the kind which even big movie stars of today seldom enjoy.

Why Twitter Works for Me?

I am among those who joined online social networks very late and even after joining some of them, like Face Book and Linkedin, I wasn’t regular on them. Twitter changed that. I joined even Twitter very late but once I did I got addicted. I found it very different from FB (remember, it was launched as a rival of FB) and other networking sites. What, according to me, separates Twitter from other sites is that it’s not a platform for purposeless chit chat among family members and friends, but informative and purposeful exchange of ideas expressed with a hint of style and snap and lot of brevity, just 140 characters . (Some manage to pull their messages into one- liners really well.)

Another thing that works for Twitter is that it is personal without being intrusive. People connected with you on Twitter may get to know you over a period of time but not through sharing of personal details but purely on the basis of commonality of interests. In fact, if you see the format of Twitter, it encourages sharing personal information only so much as is required for another person to be acquainted with you (a one-sentence bio and photo), underlining the character of networking it promotes: sharing ideas.

Many may complain about Twitter’s restriction on number of characters – 140 – but I find it engaging to contract a complex message into a sentence or two and if you have exceeded the limit, it’s interesting to figure out how you can drop letters from words and words from sentences without distorting the message. In fact, that we understand the message contained even in savagely truncated Tweets suggests that you don’t necessarily need to bend over backwards to explain something to somebody; if you supply the reader with little bit of details, the reader works out the rest. It promotes brevity and precision in communication.

It would be ignorant of me to say there is nothing in the networking world that can match Twitter because there are so many networking sites and I am not familiar with most of them. For example, for a very long time I was not a Linkedin fan; although I had an account I used to seldom visit or update it. Then a friend one day made a strong case for Linkedin and explained how prospective employers or consultants access you through Linkedin and the bigger your network the better your visibility with them, and for last five months or so I have been regular on the site. And I read some time back that there is another networking site like Tweeter open only to people coming from the scientific community.

The net is too infinite and viral a place for any idea to remain restricted to handful of sites, but if you divided the networking sites into two types – say one based on interest and the other on social interaction – I would throw my lot with the former.