Chowringhee - romantic nostalgia of 60s Calcutta

When I saw the English translation of Shankar’s Chowringhee for the first time, it reminded me of another book I had read long years back on the same topic – Arthur Hailey’s Hotel. However, many years later, in fact a few weeks back, when I started reading Shankar’s Chowringhee, I found it very different from Hailey’s Hotel – in fact, the two share almost nothing except a broad topicality in common: hotel. Hailey’s Hotel had a particular plot whose setting was a hotel. Shankar’s is about life in a hotel.

Chowringhee is the second book of Shankar and a linear sequel to his first novel, The Great Unknown (the English translation of Koto Ojana Re). The book starts where the previous one had got over and the plot progresses into its central setting – Shahajahan Hotel – as the narrator – the young boy who worked as a court clerk under a British barrister in TGU – finds an employment in the hotel (on Chowringhee Road where the book gets its title from) by a quirk of fate.

And a range of characters flits in and out of the novel, taking the reader through various sides of life in a hotel. I found some similarities as well as dissimilarities with his The Great Unknown. Like The Great Unknown, Chowringhee also is told through the eyes of a wonderstruck kid who has found himself in a world which is awe-inspiring and beyond the scope and span of anything he has seen so far, especially coming as he does from a small town of Bengal.

The other similarity is that it’s just recording of life and experience in a workplace. Still another one is sentimentality – and there is a lot of it. You will also find flat characters in both of them. But the difference I noticed is that in Chowringhee Shankar has successfully brought in strokes of humor – and some of them are really funny, unlike TGU which was arresting but dour.

But despite these apparent shortcomings – expect humor – why did I read Mani Shankar Mukherjee again? For various things. The first book had left me moved despite these deficiencies – its characters and settings and recreation of the Calcutta of yore had left me yearning for a similar experience again. And Chowringhee recreated that experience for me.

The characters and their travails everything coalesces to form a moving experience – that’s what kept me interested in the book. The book shot to success after its publication (in 1962, predating Hailey’s Hotel by three years) and was turned into a movie by the same name.

The Quiet American - clash of ideas and personalities

Looking at anything from an ideological point of view presents a limited picture. It slots everything into ideological categories and ignores the nuances that separate one thing from another despite belonging to the same ideological slot. On the other hand, realism (or cynicism) does the opposite. It helps you see across ideological differences and see things for what they are – good or bad – unaffected by their ideological affiliations.

France has attacked Vietnam and a war is raging in the latter. Pyle comes to Vietnam as worker of an American humanitarian organization which is promoting democracy with an imperial motive behind it. Fowler is a British reporter who is stationed in Vietnam. They meet in the country and become friends. Pyle is a starry-eyed idealist who believes that the West is spreading the cause of democracy and the cause is worth the cost it’s claiming (war, human lives and so on). On the other hand, Fowler sees it for what it is – he believes no cause, however great, is worth killing humans for.

Fowler’s marriage back in England is on rocks, thanks partly to the fact that he is in a live-in with a Vietnamese lady, who Pyle falls in love with and wants to marry. In The Quiet American Graham Greene has used the theatre of war to analyze the subtleties of human nature pitting two opposite personalities - Fowler and Pyle – against each other - who are not just opposite in their beliefs but also demographics – Flower is in mid forties who has had several relationships with women; Pyle is a 20 something virgin.

Graham Greene was one of those rare authors who enjoy popularity as well as critical acclaim. And, when I read The Quest American, my first Greene book, I understood that. The book is a thriller; yet it explores human nuances with delicacy, a path thrillers usually avoid treading. In other words, it has the thrill of a tightly-knit action-packed plot together with strokes of artistry. And a message that’s timeless.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - innovative storytelling

Asia is not homogeneous. However, there are some commonalities across the continent. Lopsided economic prosperity is one of them, poor wanting to scramble over to the brighter side of economic divide is another; and wherever you have the two, some amount of corruption and nepotism have to come next in the order. Mohsin Hamid has brought them all in his new innovative novel – How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.


The novel is written in a self-help format and that’s why, I guess, Hamid has not given the book any clear geographical setting basing it loosely in Lahore (Pakistan) which he conveys to the reader by local descriptions and current events the city has been in news for.

The fact that it’s written following the conventions of a self-help book makes ‘How to’ quite different from other novels. None of the characters has names. The protagonist has been addressed in the second person, instead of third or first as is the norm. The narrative skips lot of details that a usually conventional story nets. But surprisingly, none of these omissions takes away anything from the book. On the contrary, the self-help format gives it liberties to introduce firsts that conventional forms don’t.

The protagonist (you) comes from an impoverished family which stays in rural Pakistan. The family moves to a city and faces the usual difficulties any immigrant poor family faces. Despite the economic hardships, the protagonist somehow manages to acquire an education owing to his vantage position in the order of his siblings none of whom manages to lay a foundation for a future in the city.

Romance wafts into this self help book as a girl enters the protagonist’s life. The first burst of romance doesn’t last for too long but their love survives the changing phases in their lives during which their ways cross several times and finally merge at the fag end of their lives. Expect the Pretty Girl, however, many things change in the protagonist’s life. He goes through several odd jobs and finally sets up a water-purifying business, a lucrative business to set up in rising Asia given that government-supplied water is not fit for consumption,. And his business rises, sometimes through a deal with an army official (this being Pakistan) and sometimes a bribe to a bureaucrat.

The story the book tells is not particularly new - the story of Asia, the divide between poverty and prosperity, how the poor always scramble as the rich have it easy so on - but how he tells it is significantly different. The book is critical of how fortunes are made and lost in Asia where you have to bribe your way up and a wrong move or a misplaced trust can cause your fall. Hamid has effectively used the self-help format of the book to buttress the book’s cynical character. At the beginning of every chapter he addresses the protagonist (or probably you, this being a self-help book) giving him ‘tongue in cheek’ advises about how he should negotiate various phases of his life on his way to becoming filthy rich in rising Asia.

However, the format gives an artificial and impersonal feel to the story. Hamid has loosely based it in Pakistan but has touted it as a story of Asia and Pakistan (terrorism, filth etc) is so different from so many parts of Asia that Hamid’s effort to pass it off as a story of Asia doesn’t come off. And, as if conscious of it, Hamid uses various ploys to remind the reader that it’s a story not of a part of the sub continent but the whole continent.

Visiting a Creative Writing Workshop

Of all things the most difficult to teach are liberal arts. Until I did a course in mass communication, many years ago, I was not convinced that there was anything substantial to learn from a mass communication course – how can they teach you how to write and so on. And my views immediately after doing the course didn’t substantially change. (Of course, you learn the technical aspects of a mass communication job but those things you can learn even while on a job.) But over the years I have often felt richer for doing that course.

Not necessarily because of the technicalities (like how to edit a copy, how to file a report etc) I learnt – in fact I have forgotten most of them as I didn’t pursue a mass communication career after the course - but because I heard lot of things about writing and related matters which I still remember.

Couple of weeks back, on a Sunday, I attended a creative writing workshop at British Library, Bangalore. And as I felt before attending my mass communication course many years back, I was a little skeptical about its practical value. And now after the passage of a week or so since the workshop if you ask me what I learned, you will find me telling you several things, stopping and starting again.

None of the things I heard at the workshop was really novel to me but they weren’t necessarily devoid of value. The workshop was on fiction writing, mainly novel instead of short stories. Different aspects of the novel were discussed and analyzed using Gone with the Wind by Margaret Michel as a point of reference. We were given writing exercises to do – plot building, situation development, character sketching etc.

These are not things you have to go to a workshop to learn. Nor do they promise to teach you these things. But the finer points they tell you (about things like how to properly develop a character, what goes into building a situation, how a plot progresses and so on) are important and these details help you to dispel doubts when you are not sure whether you are going in the right direction.

Reading also helps in a similar manner but the observations you make while reading are confirmed by these workshops and you feel reassured. There were also interesting discussions on writers and books. They also act as connecting points among people interested in writing and help you understand where you stand vis-à-vis others.

Reluctant Fundamentalist - a Movie Worth Watching

I had long wanted to read Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist but couldn’t get round to doing that before Mira Nair’s movie adaptation arrived. I watched the movie at the theatre last week. It’s both a thriller and a thoughtful film. It has all the trappings of a ‘sexy’ movie with drama, sex, romance and a fast-paced narrative and also an underlying tension, a constant anger and protestation.


The story starts with the kidnap of an American professor in Lahore. Following the kidnap Changez (the protagonist) is being interviewed by a CIA agent, masquerading as a journalist, involved in the search operation to find the professor and Changez is narrating his story starting a decade back in 2001, a year before 9/11 happened. The narrative moves back and forth taking the viewer through Changez years in the US and the modern day Lahore. Chanez’s past, in the US, explains the choices he made in life in the later years following 9/11.

Changez comes from a liberal Muslim family which is on a financial decline. Changez a bright chap goes to the US for studies and laps up a job in an investment banking company, a dream start to a career in the US. Similarly, Changez has a fulfilling emotional life: he is in a passionate affair and live-in with an artist (Kate Hudson). As Changez starts climbing the career ladder, 9/11 happens and his world starts changing and so does the world of Muslims in America. As Americans’ patriotism and schizophrenia rise making the land suddenly inhospitable to ‘outsiders,’ Changez goes through a series of experiences (humiliating frisking at US airport, being arrested for nothing by police etc) which leave him humiliated challenging all his preconceived notions about the US and his position in it as a Muslim.

And this inner churning gradually brings into sharp relief the questions of identities which had until now lain dormant in Changez. The more his Muslim identity (made aggressive by post-9/11 experience) asserts itself, the more mortifying Muslim-belittlements (made through conversations in office in surcharged post 9/11 atmosphere and general attitude towards them in the US) feel and the wider the cracks in Changez’s American dream get.

Finally an office visit to Istanbul pushes him off the cliff: he returns to New York, resigns his job and goes back to Pakistan.

The performances are very understated. There were enough opportunities for Changez (Riz Khan) to break out into an angry anti-West rant but he didn’t; yet the simmering anger comes through effectively.

But the most important aspect of the movie (or perhaps the book) is its emphasis on the fact that those outside the circle of fundoos who identify with the ‘Islam under attack’ phenomenon think it’s their identity (or people who share it globally or the lands they inhibit) which is under attack and not so much the religion. And it’s precisely how the occasionally drinking Changez who doesn’t give up his dalliance with alcohol even after embracing the cause of his faith/land/people - feels after 9/11. However, how Changez’s espousal of the cause is different from his other comrades across the world is that unlike them Changez doesn’t believe in violence.

The Skinning Tree by Srikumar Sen

Those of us who have not been to boarding schools don’t understand how difficult life for a kid can be there. Apart from a few difficult situations, however, Sabby Sarkar doesn’t face too many challenges coming from his peers. But that doesn’t make Sabby’s experience at his boarding school at Gaddi pleasant. The Skinning Tree is the first book by Srikumar Sen (now 81). The novel starts in the Calcutta of the 40s and 50s where Sabby is growing up in an aristocratic Anglophone Bengali family.


Sen brings alive the Calcutta of the period effectively and successfully creates the political and social atmosphere of the time. Through the Sarkar household, Sen has brought about the duality of the world aristocratic-Anglophone Indians inhabited those days, one that included their British social equals cohabiting with their loyalty to India and sympathy for the Independence movement.

However, Sabby’s Calcutta world abruptly comes to an end when he is sent to a boarding school and finds himself in a completely different world. Of the most remarkable things at the school is the fearsome atmosphere created by discipline-enforcing sisters and brothers at the boarding. Every boy who strays from the straight line of discipline faces punishment, spanking of various degrees of severity depending on how far away you strayed.

Another hallmark of Sabby’s experience at the boarding is the numerous acts of cruelty the students carry out towards animals. This is where the book draws its title from – there is a tree outside the boarding premises on which the students throw out skinned bodies of birds and animals after sadistically killing them. Initially a little reluctant, Sabby eventually joins his boarding friends in their acts of cruelty. I felt cruelty towards animals was a manifestation of the pent up feelings caused by oppression at the boarding – cruelty inflicted on one person finds its way to another, maybe in a different form.

However, this cruelty-towards-animal part of the book can read a little unsavory. The details of torture of insects, birds are too graphic and sensitive souls will find it difficult wading through them. The book also becomes a little monotonous while the author takes you through the butchery of one animal after another by Sabby and friends. The book takes a sudden turn towards the end when a tragedy occurs.

One day Sabby finds a sister, a very authoritarian figure in the boarding, calling out to him for help standing on a ledge a fall from where would surely lead to death. At the same time, it is time for Sabby and the other boys to attend a prayer. The prayer bell has rung and heeding the sister’s call for rescue would mean reaching the prayer late and attracting punishment from one of the brothers. Sabby stops upon hearing the sister’s call for help, but as he sees his friends rush for the prayer, he follows them. Next day they find the sister’s dead body lying on the ground below the ledge.

And even after many years a contrite lingers in him. Sabby wonders should he have tried to help the sister, but wouldn’t he get late for the prayer then attracting punishment? Even if he tried to save the sister, would he, just a child, be able to really save her? He could have called others' attention to the incident, but who would listen making a dash as they were for the prayer? Or was it that when he saw the sister in a helpless situation calling out to a mere boy for help, Sabby found it hard to believe that a person of such command and authority as the sister could be so helpless – the prayer bell seemed more believable and he ran for it?

The very atmosphere of oppression and fear-psychosis which the sister had helped build finally took her life. To me The Skinning Tree is a strong indictment of the boarding life where punishment (and fear of punishment) is used as a means to enforce discipline.

After this incident Sabby visited home and never went back to the boarding.

The book has won the Tebor Jones South Asian Prize.

The Srilankan crisis, one without easy answers

I have been reading about the Srilankan issue and each article seems to peel off a new layer from the issue making it more and more difficult to identify the issue with any one problem. One aspect of the issue is whether the Rajapaksha government was right in going after the LTTE.

Yes and no depending on which side you are viewing the issue from. Yes - if you believe that if a terrorist group causes bloodshed and massacre and runs a parallel administration which is beyond the writ of the state, a government has the right to do whatever it takes to cleanse the group. No – if you believe that before going after any outfit which has political demands (which the LTTE had) a government should be sure that it has exhausted all political means.

Whether the Rajapaksha government was disposed to solving the LTTE issue politically is debatable. Being a right wing party, it probably wasn’t. But past regimes had tried out political options and they had not yielded any results. My belief is Prabhakaran, like any underground revolutionary, had lost interest in the cause of the movement and wanted to continue its pretence to hold on to power. Many had understood that and LTTE had lost popular sympathy.

From what I have read so far, no one is shedding tears for Prabhakaran except some political outfits. Of course, killing Prabhakaran’s son was inhuman but even those castigating the government for it aren’t questioning the logic of the murder: that the son would have been the representative face of the LTTE and could have followed his father’s footsteps in future. So, for all the brauhaha, neither Prbhakaran's nor his son's death forms the core of the issue.

What people are baying for Rajapaksha’s blood is that in the last days of the war the government had caused Tamil civilian casualties while trying to wipe out the LTTE. This is the issue. There are a few things about this issue one has to consider. Once the government went after the LTTE there were bound to be some casualties. The civilians killed were taken hostages by the very outfit – the LTTE – which claimed to represent their interest. Should the government have withdrawn when it became clear it could not cleanse the LTTE without killing noncombatant civilians in the process? If it had withdrawn, the LTTE problem would have been left half-solved. There are no easy answers to these questions.

The social aspect of the Lankan Tamil issue is equally muddled. Some months back a friend of mine was in Srilanka and he said while he was in a bus and some passengers were talking in Tamil, the bus conductor forbade them to. This means there is an unaccommodating attitude towards Tamils in at least some parts of Srilanka. And it is much more dangerous than a government’s indifference, or even hostility, towards a community.

In India, successive governments have been variously disposed to minority communities, but what has secured their position in the society is that there is no sustained social hostility towards them. Not that there has never been but it did not continue. And it’s partly because India is a land of contrary voices, one where all opinions are contested. The media have played a great role in making it so. I don’t know how independent Srilankan media are but they surely have a role to play to make sure people don’t lose sight of the Tamil plight.

But it’s not going to be easy. My friend also noticed that Srilanka has a thriving market economy. Anything is available but at a high price, so the lower income groups have it really difficult. Why this is relevant here is that, typically, in a market economy a government finds it easy to make people indifferent to the plight of the marginalized by anesthetizing them with prosperity. The effect of this anesthesia can be in fact so strong on people that they readily believe what the government tells them to; the government’s rhetoric becomes the belief of the common man; the government becomes the nation and a threat to the government is perceived as a threat to the nation and its wellbeing. It is not to say that development is bad but it should not be devoid of social concerns.

But how will they address social concerns? Tamils, as is apparent, are linguistically and culturally different from Sinhalese. And this is going to obstruct social integration. So probably assigning the Tamil community a separate place and devolution of power are going to be considered. But if you go by India's Kashmir example, devolution doesn't necessary help. Problems continue to stalk Kashmir spilling onto the rest of India.

So the path of reconstruction and rehabilitation is going to be difficult and one without any easy solutions; but probably constant international gaze will ensure Srilanka will at least try to look like it's doing something. But will a constant international scrutiny push Srilanka closer to safer sanctuaries - China - who can help thwart international pressure leading to a new power imbalance in Asia?