MSSriram - Review of Kurien's Book

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Kurien: A Personal Essay
Monday, April 17, 2006

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I was in my intermediate when I cut college to go and see Manthan in Olympia
theatre in Mysore. For me, it was one more movie in the passing, well made
with a good story. I was already appreciating Shyam Benegal and had seen his
earlier movies and was a bit surprised that this appeared to be commercially
appealing and was also a modest success. I really had no idea at that point in
time that this movie, the man and the idea behind it would turn out to be so
influential that it would dictate my career choices, in a way.
About four or five years later I was thrown up with a difficult choice [possibly
on January 31st of 1982]. I was to take the entrance exam of Institute of Rural
Management, Anand [IRMA]on that morning when we had a college trip. I was in
my final year degree, and this was the last time we were all going to be
together. I somehow chose to take the exam of IRMA, then an unknown institute
just because it had the word “rural” in it and I fancied [as a budding writer in
Kannada] that getting to see villages will make my writing richer, and I needed
all the experiences that this could provide. I was not sure at that point that I
wanted to make a career in rural management, but a career in management
looked attractive. It did not carry the hype we have now, but it certainly

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assured a decent job. Infact the advertisement for IRMA indicated that there
would be a job with at least Rs.1,200 per month salary at the end of it, while
we would get a stipend of Rs.600 per month as students. Well, it was reason
enough for me to consider it seriously.
As I was going through the process of admission, I saw on the news that Prime
Minister Mrs.Gandhi had addressed the first convocation of IRMA, and there
were thousands of farmers that had attended the convocation. This meant that
it was not one of the fly-by-night Institutes. Some people working in the field
also assured me that the institute had pedigree and there was no harm in going
there. Thus my journey to Anand started.
On reaching Anand, Manthan – the movie
started opening up a new meaning for
me. Given that we were expected to
check into what was called “Farmers’
Hostel” in the NDDB Campus we were
expecting a fairly modest
accommodation, but were quite pleased
to find all the modern amenities that a
student could ask for. It was inspiring
and as young students we were exposed
to the excellent oratory of Dr. Kurien.
And he said about the facilities there and said that “Kings do not live in Pig
Sties and you are my princes.. I have built this institute to unleash a thousand

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Kuriens into the field and if one could achieve this, imagine the change you
could bring about..”
This was inspiring indeed – it was not only his oratory, but what followed with
the sense of commitment that were shown by staff of NDDB, faculty at IRMA
that had a lasting impact on us as students. During the two years one ran in with
people who eventually made a significant mark in their own fields – Sanjoy
Ghose who dedicated himself to development work and was eventually killed by
ULFA, Sivakumar the brain behing the e-Choupal idea who were all to a very
great extent influenced by the vision given to us by Kurien but found their own
language to translate the vision. It was an age where market economy had
really not caught up, the Soviet Union was still a single block and being left of
centre was fashionable – as was smoking, wearing a kurta and carrying a Jhola.
Of course the “management” version of the Jhola was a leather bag from
Jawaja – an indication of a rare combination of professional education with
development orientation.
For us Kurien was an icon of the possible – a person who under extremely
adverse circumstances stuck it out in Anand. Made a virtue of necessity and was
extremely successful at that. He was a maverick, sounded autocratic and people
used to shudder at his sarcasm. He could move you to tears when he when he
thundered [about people standing in queues to supply milk]: “What does it do
to a ‘high caste’ Brahmin to stand behind a Harijan because he came after him?
Is it only an orderly milk collection? Is it not a blow to the caste system?”
I have been told of this instance – an evidence of his ready wit. In a seminar,

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Professor of Economics, CT Kurien from Kerala apparently introduced himself to
Dr. Kurien. “Hello, I am C T Kurien” for which Dr. Kurien immediately retorted
“I am V Kurien – Village Kurien!”, punning on CiTy.
Having gone through education at IRMA and later having consciously chosen to
work in the field related to rural management my association did not end after
the two years. Kurien had indicated to us that even if 5% of the graduates
stayed with the rural sector his mission was accomplished and I believed [and
continue to believe] that I was amongst the 5%. Not only me, but most of us
who passed out then continue to work in this area and possibly Kurien would be
happy to note that almost 50% of that generation work in a loosely defined
rural/development sector. My run in with IRMA continued as I became an
employee, teaching the next generations of IRMANS for about six years before I
decided to move on.
Reading Kurien’s book thus for me was a journey
back in time. It contained all the nuggets and the
contradictions that have made him what he was. The
book is as plainspeaking as he himself could be and
talks mostly about his professional life. There is
hardly a personal element and possibly he meant it
to be so. The book is dedicated to his grandson, with
a touching note. But even in including the note Kurien does not – even for a
moment – take the focus away from himself. That is Kurien for you, always
larger than life, always trying to dictate terms rather than come to terms.
Therein lies the success of Kurien, and therein lies the story of his sad exit. The

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book starts with a journalist trying to ask his future plans and he says “At my
age, one does not really have a future. One only has a past.” But having said
that, does he really mean it? Or is the future to be lived in the past? Or is it one
of those sound bites that he was always willing to give, without much hidden
meaning?
We as a country needed Kurien in his role at the time he performed his role to
perfection. His book gives a peek into how he kept the interests of the dairy
farmers as central and played a game of chess to foster their interests. The
game of chess could be in competing in the market, and it could also be in
preventing the competition through means that were exclusively available to
him. During his entire life it is clear that he played a tom and jerry with the
government, largely criticizing the government for its policies, making fun of
bureaucrats in public, and a posturing of autonomy. At the same time, he used
the government, the bureaucrats and all machinery in ways that would keep
putting hurdles in the competition. When the entire economy was liberalized
and the licence-quota raj was abolished only two lobbies managed to continue
protection. The sugar lobby of Maharashtra and the milk sector which had the
Milk and Milk Products Order [MMPO] passed to ensure that easy entry of private
sector into this arena had a hurdle to cross. Not surprisingly both these sectors
were represented by a co-operative lobby.
Kurien was a product of the liberal attitude of the leaders of Gujarat of that
time. Morarji Desai, Vallabhbhai Patel and Tribhuvandas Patel. The former two
playing a larger role in the national level politics and thus having an inclusive

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outlook and the later having absolute focus on what was best for the farmers
and who could deliver this most effectively. The greatness of Tribhuvandas
Patel was in his understanding of his limitations and
spotting of merit in Kurien. Kurien exhibited that trait
– but to a very limited extent. His immense faith in
colleague HM Dalaya is something that reverberates
throughout the book. However, but for Dalaya we do
not find any mention of many others who worked with
him. It appears that the entire dairy cooperative
movement was a long marathon run single-handedly by Kurien and only towards
the end he found Amrita Patel to hand over the baton. And of course once
Amrita started running the race, we found Kurien providing the expert
comments on her performance, reminiscent of the expert comments Lala
Amarnath used to provide on cricket matches, where he always took recourse to
past.
There is an interesting episode narrated in the book about how Tribhuvandas
Patel was made the chairman of the Kaira Union. At a meeting of dairy farmers,
Morarjibhai asks for volunteers to serve as chairman of the organization. A few
people volunteer but Tribhuvandas Patel is sitting quietly and Morarjibhai asks
him if he wants to be the chairman for which Patel says no.. Morarjibhai makes
him the Chairman and Kurien says “Morarjibhai probably believed that if
somebody wanted to be the chairman badly enough, then he would definitely
have some vested interest..” This is the contradiction with which Kurien has
lived his life. That on the one hand he argues that the resources and destiny of

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the farmers should be put in their hand and they should be allowed to manage
their own resources, at the same time they have to be protected from vested
interests. In this sense Kurien as the chairman of Gujarat Milk Federation was a
balancing factor because he had no vested interest, but at the same time, he
was occupying the post of governance which going by the co-operative
principles espoused by him should have been rightly occupied by a farmer. This
contradiction of what he thinks is good for the farmer versus whether the
farmer is ready to take on the responsibility is what has dictated the course of
Kurien’s professional life. Indeed this is the contradiction which every
bureaucrat faces when the question of empowerment of the disempowered
come up, and Kurien’s attitude has not been significantly different from a
person in the government, while he always claimed to be an outsider.
Kurien possibly never compromised on the good things in life – and he deserved
them too. One of the curious things when we were on campus was to have a
look at the Chairman’s car – always one of the best in town. During our days he
used to be driven around in a Peugeot, and for us the wonder during those days
was that the headlamps also had wipers!! Three instances in the book show us

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how important this was for Kurien. He first talks about his early days in Anand in
the now-well-known garage where he started life [p.21]. In that garage, he has
Anthony a cook-cum-butler who wears an impeccable white uniform to serve
him dinner. Hardly a sight you would find in a garage type of residence, but that
is Kurien for you. In the same page he says “those days I would frequently
escape to Bombay, stay at the Taj Hotel and live it up for a few days…” When
he steps down as Chairman of NDDB, he insists that Amrita takes his car,
because it goes with the respect that it seemed to radiate and narrates an small
incident as to how he was not recognised by the security guards of NDDB
because he was not in the car. I also remember once when he came to address
the faculty at IRMA, the room had been sprayed with a room freshner [having a
horribly distinct smell of Jasmine]. He came in, sniffed around and told the
faculty with a straight face – “this place smells like a brothel” He then looked
around for effect, and after a long pause said ‘but how would you guys know
how a brothel smelt, ask me..” the entire thing done exclusively for effect.
That would be his style with any set of audience – be it local or international,
students or intellectuals, professionals or practitioners. Some quotes from the
book read as follows:
● I said to him right there in the Minister’s office “You bloody bastard. You
come here, and speak lies to the Minister. I will castrate you”.[p.75]
● [In the IIMA board meeting while discussion why the graduates do not get
motivated to work in development sector] “One of them [board member]
took his cigar out of his mouth .. and said superciliously; So Dr. Kurien, you
want our graduates to go and milk cows. I stood up, returned his look and

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said, “No, you continue to teach them how to suck on cigars.”[p.212]
I remember during our convocation address at IRMA, thousands of farmers had
come in on the invitation of Kurien. While the Vice President Hidayatullah
addressed the convocation – in part English and part Hindi, Kurien had the
honour of not only delivering his speech in English, but also had it translated
into Gujarati and read out!!
This is vintage
Kurien, who in
his own opinion
could never fail,
could never be
wrong and could
never be anything less than god. Indeed in the book, there are no failures – the
oilseeds experiment was a success, the fruit and vegetable foray was a success,
the wasteland development foray was also a success. The only place where he
accepts failure is in the salt experiment. In the process of winning battles and
oratory, Kurien does not recognize his own internal contradictions. Sample this
from the book:
“There is nothing wrong in building flyovers in Delhi. What is not fair

is when we do not also build an approach road to villages across the
nation. There is nothing wron in having fountains with coloured lights
in the capital. After all, Delhi should be beautiful. But it is
unjustified when we have not provided drinking water to all our
villages…..” [p.83]
“It was certainly true that the poorer the farmer, the greater the
temptation for him to sell all the milk and earn more money for
other essentials.. These arguments, however, hold no meaning for a

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starving man and it is unrealistic to say that this expensive food must
be eaten by the poorest of our poor….”[p.147]
This was the problem with Kurien’s eloquence. While I was moved to tears when
I heard the first thundering on a Brahmin standing behind a Harijan in the queue
to supply milk, it did not significantly change the social fabric of the village.
Indeed later I realized that this rule not only applies to milk supply but also to
cinema tickets.. So it was not always true that eloquence won over reason.
Certainly not in the long run.
From a stage where more than 800 employees of NDDB tendering their
resignation in solidarity with their chairman when the controversy over
operation flood broke out, to walking out alone from an office which he reigned
like an emperor without dissent is indeed a sad picture. Somewhere down the
line, it appears that he got blinded by his conviction. It appears that he could
not make a transition to an action hero to a character actor. It was the Dev
Anand in him that kept him going an he never looked at a path similar to
Amitabh Bachchan. In a way he learnt nothing from Tribhuvandas Patel and Ravi
Mathhai on how to reign over a place, while not being in office. This possibly is
the hall mark of a fighter, that he continued to fight and never give up. His
early training in Boxing was coming a full circle.
My own personal moment of reckoning was a few years ago when I got a letter
signed by the god himself inviting me to an academic seminar in IRMA to discuss
the issue of Joint Ventures that NDDB was trying to implement. There were two
days of deliberations, with arguments for and against, with the NDDB
representative pleading that they would be happy to seek guidance from Kurien

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and were continuing to listen to him. At the end of the workshop I found that
Kurien went and addressed the press about his own views on the subject. It was
presented as if it was the consensus arrived at the workshop, while his address
to the press had nothing in common with the deliberations. I felt badly let down
by my hero. I felt used [not that my name or opinion was anything to reckon
with, but it was indeed an insult to several people who had gathered there in all
earnestness to discuss the issue on merit]. I was in tears because the hero had
suddenly appeared very vulnerable. He was losing it and was not willing to look
at it.
A sadder day was to follow. This was the day when he quit the position from the
Gujarat Federation and they magnanimously agreed to retain his perks – a car
for him and his wife, and a cook at his home. They just issued the orders that
his assistant [who was on the rolls of the federation] be transferred to Kolkata.
Not an honourable gesture to somebody who has laid his life at the service of
people of an alien land. But how does Dr.Kurien react? Not be sending back the
other perks, not by saying “enough is enough, I do not need any further favours
from you” but by pleading that his assistant be retained. By arguing like a little
child “you promised me all perks and Joseph is a part of the package..”
Certainly not a sight that his princes wanted to see of the Emperor. I only wish
that the history will not be written by the last few years of Dr.Kurien which
undermines the glorious golden years of his early life. I remember somebody
telling me that Dr. Chotani who was an able lieutinent to Kurien wanted his
building to be included in what was called the Kurien enclave in Anand though it
did not fall into the natural boundary, just because he could have the name

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Kurien in his address… What an unnecessary fall. I hope this fall does not hurt
him……
© M S Sriram | | 7 Comments links to this post
The States of Indian Cricket
Saturday, March 18, 2006

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One of the books I picked up from Premier [from its dwindling
collection] was the latest edition of Ram Guha's books on
cricket. I have read quite a bit of Ram's writings and have
immensely liked his essays. His biography of Verrier Elwin is a
brilliantly researched piece. Ram stands out not only as a
writer of great calibre, but also belongs to the rare tribe that
makes a living out of writing. What is amazing about Ram is that his writing
defies classification - it cannot be termed journalistic, certainly not fiction, not
the usual columns written by famous personalities moonlighting for a hobby. He
is a serious researcher, writing on history, cricket and personalities, all blended
out of both hard evidence and a great deal of anecdotes. Ram therefore stands
out as somone very unique.
You would see him occasionally on the television channel talking about a host of
things or writing a piece here or there. He is one of the unique writers who has
any scholarly writer's dream publishers like Oxford, and Permanent Black, not
the Penguins [but yes, Picador]. When it comes to his writing on Ecology,
Environment and History - Ram towers in the list of scholars, and he is equally
at ease being as scholarly about cricket.
This blend of his fascination for history and also his love for the
game makes his writings on cricket very fascinating. When I was
managing the seminars series at IIM, I had invited him to deliver the
Tirath Gupta Memorial Lecture, and Ram had delivered a fascinating talk on
"How much should a person consume". Using the opportunity of his presence I
asked him if he would be willing to interact with some students as cricket, in

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any case is a religion not only in the country, but also on the campus. IIMA
alumni are constantly talking about their cricket mascot Harsha Bhogle - a
cricket commentator par excellence. But here was an opportunity to interact
with a graduate from the other IIM - the one at Kolkata - that had produced its
cricket "Scholar". Ram readily agreed. We thought it would be a good idea to
send a special invitation to a handful of exchange students - mostly from the
soccer crazy Europe to be present so that they could get a taste of Indian
culture. However, I guess Ram knew better - he had interacted with numerous
students and academics and am sure had figured out that the international
students would not enjoy his talk. So he started his interaction with an offer
that they could leave at any moment as cricket was very much a cultural thing
with so much of local specificity that they may not actually enjoy the
interaction. And of course he did start with something so specific - very much
on the lines of the beginning of his book on the historic moment when
Karnataka won the Ranji Trophy semi final against Bombay, recounting the
incident where GR Vishwanath was not given out leg-before though he was
plumb and the run out of Ajit Wadekar as he slipped trying to take a second
run. Half the room left, and then Ram kept the audience on their seats for the
next hour and a half with contemporary cricket to how he stumbled on Baloo
Palwankar [a cricketer] who played for the Hindu Gymkhana in the Bombay
pentangular, in a political setting while researching on Ambedkar and the
freedom movement.

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The book really starts with the same note and goes on to discuss
the regional development of Cricket in various parts of India
always ending Ram's all time favourite team. It was after the talk
at IIM and reading the book that I really realised how specific
cricket was to the regional culture. Like Ram, I have at various times had my
loyalties to the Ranji team tested - between Karnataka where I grew up,
Hyderabad which I made my home for a while and ended up liking the city and
Gujarat which has been giving me most of my bread, [Amul] butter, cheese and
jam! And how can I forget Railways [which possibly has no support outside of its
own employees], which was where I spent most of my spare time trying to reach
from Ahmedabad/Anand to Bangalore!! While like Ram, my first choice was
Karnataka, how can I forget the moments when I visited All Saints School in
Hyderabad to conduct admission tests and could not take my eyes off the
photographs of the school team - consisting of Azharauddin, Venkatapathy Raju
and Arshad Ayub.... was this Sharda Mandir of Hyderabad?
For persons from my [and Ram's] generation it has not only been a journey
through various phases and modifications in the rules of the game, but also the
access to technology to experience a match. I remember my first journey to
watch a match at the [then] KSCA stadium which was newly constructed. A
ticket for the gallery was Rs.25 for the season and I had cycled from home and
requested some friend's friend near the stadium for a parking slot at their home
to reach the queue at around 6.30 am - just to ensure that you were parked
under the shade of the giant scoreboard and it was said to be the best view of
the match. I actually got caught in a stampede, lost my slippers and reached

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the inner part of the stadium only after lunch. By this time, the tickets that
were being sold in the black market had suddenly started commanding a
discount and I guess I was able to get rid of my gallery ticket for a big discount
after purchasing the ticket for stands which was marked at Rs.80 for another big
discount. I really do not remember much of the match which was captained by
Pataudi.
Unlike Ram, I have not been a Connoisseur but just a good follower. Therefore I
do not remember dates events and matches so vividly. But reading the book
really took me through a part of the journey I have had with Cricket and a big
part which preceeded this. I can certainly identify myself with the journey of
Karnataka into the finals, beating Bombay in the semi-finals. This prompted a
semi-literary magazine Sudha to have a cover feature on Cricket after the win in
the finals. The format used for Ranji during those days and the dearth of
international cricket action meant that we followed domestic cricket more
keenly. I remember that Kunderan's claim to fame was that he could hit a six at
the request of the crowd and there was a phase where I believed that all wicket
keepers for the country would come from Karnataka. Ram does not talk about
the wicket keeper that followed Kirmani - Sadanand Vishwanath who showed so
much promise and was very much a part of the victory of the Benson and
Hedges cup in Australia. He was like a flash in the pan and disappeared as fast
as he had arrived.
The book is as fascinating as any other writings by Ram - the first part dealing
with the states and the second part dealing with the personalities. No book on
cricket could give anybody full satisfaction because each one of us has his own

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theory and each one believes that we could captain India much better than the
one out there in the middle, though most of us would not claim that we could
play as well in the middle! The book took me through a journey of some of the
great moments I had experienced and some great history of people about whom
we had only heard. One of the most enduring hobbies in our childhood was to
make a scrap book out of the photographs from the newspapers and reading
Sportstar and Sportsweek was a luxury one indulged in, when somebody visited
an employed unmarried uncle in whose room you would find these magazines.
I also had the good fortune of having an uncle who played for Karnataka -
Sadasivan - cannot remember if he was a batsman or a bowler, but when he got
married we as kids remember having thronged around his team mates -
Prasanna, Chandrashekhar and Vishwanath for autographs. Ram talks about his
own favourite all time eleven [plus a twelfth man or a manager thrown in] for
all the teams that he discusses. People could have their own peeves, but there
could be little argument in the merit of Ram's argument. Several people might
like to debate Ram's continuing fascination for spin as the main weapon in the
Indian attack, though I would tend to agree.
While I encourage cricket lovers to read this book, I would like to end this piece
with my own enduring images of the game.
Some deep rooted beliefs [possibly not supported by facts] I had in my mind:
● Wadekar always got out in 40s, particularly at the score of 44, and if he
crossed this, he would score well! [though in reality he just got out at 44
twice in his career, and 8 times in 40s. He scored more than 50 on 14

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occasions and had a lone century to his credit].
● The modal value of Chandrashekhar's score is 1 not out [again not true, he
was 1 not out 8 times, got out on 1 7 times and on 38 occasions stood at
zero, with 16 of them unbeaten!]
Indian Cricketers who made it to the movies - apart from Durrani which Ram has
referred to - Sunil Gavaskar, Sandip Patil, SMH Kirmani [as Kirmani in a villanous
role], Ajay Jadeja and surprise - GR Vishwanath in a Kannada Movie - Panjarada
Ginigalu.
Salil Ankola made a career in acting by moving to Television. Sidhu made a
career in entertainment - not only with his commentary, but with his sheer
presence on the telly screen.
Ten enduring moments of cricket [some positive, some not so, some domestic,
some international, some one day, some test]
● Gavaskar batting left handed in a match against Karnataka in a semi final
match in 1982 when Bombay was losing. The crowd was hostile and Gavaskar
had his own form of protest. However, he got to his natural right hand when
an innings defeat seemed a reality, just to save the ignominy. His match-
saving score came from an over bowled by Vishwanath! This was the most un-
sportsmanlike behaviour I ever saw [live]
● Ravi Shastri getting the Audi car for his performance in World Championship
Series at Australia and the Indian team driving around the ground. Ravi

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Shastri's exit from competitive cricket - almost being booed out and his re-
invention as a commentator.
● In the world cup quarter-final in Bangalore, Aamir Sohail hitting Venkatesh
Prasad for a Four and gesturing to him that every ball would go for a
boundary. Next ball he gets clean bowled.
● India's victory over Australia in the Titan cup match at Bangalore in 1996
where victroy was snatched from the jaws of defeat by a great 8th wicket
stand by local players Kumble and Srinath. The telecast kept showing their
mothers biting their nails and counting runs. Srinath's enhanced role as a
pinch hitter came into greater focus from then. Six of the playing eleven
were from Karnataka - Somasundar, Sunil Joshi, Dravid, Kumble, Srinath and
Venkatesh Prasad.
● Shiv Sena digging up the Kotla pitch protesting Pakistan's tour of India,
followed by the tour itself. In the Chennai test Pakistan wins a closely
contested test. The entire crowd stands on its feet to applaud the visiting
team and the team lead by Wasim Akram takes a victory lap. The best reply
ever given to the Shiv Sena vandals
● As the crowds in Kolkata disrupt the game in the World Cup semi final, match
referee Clive Lloyd grants the match to Sri Lanka. Vinod Kambli walks back
to the pavillion in tears.
● The breathtaking test in Chennai in 1986 against Australia. The match ended
in a tie.

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● Javed Miandad's last ball six to give Pakistan the victory against India in
1986. The bowler was Chetan Sharma who bowled a full toss. In my mind the
other cameos of Chetan, including his hat trick fade when I think of this day.
● The tied match against Zimbabwe in Paarl, Robin Singh's heriocs
notwithstanding his run out hit the last nail in the tied coffin!
● India against England in the Natwest Trophy at Lords in 2002, with Kaif and
Yuvraj pulling off an impossible victory. Ganguly showing aggression by
taking his T Shirt off
The above list does not include the obvious - Kapil's lifting of the Prudential
Cup!!
Most of all I remember a fascinating paper written by Srini titled "Cricket,
Colonialism and the Capital Market: Winning Does Not Matter but Losing Hurts".
While I still have not been able to figure out if he was joking or serious this was
an interesting academic piece. Here is the abstract of the paper:
There is increasing evidence of the inadequacy of 'rational'

explanations of asset-pricing. It has been established
empirically that mood, induced by such natural phenomena
as lunar phases or sunshine, affects asset prices. This paper
provides evidence, from one-day cricket international (ODI)
matches played by India, that there is a significant negative
impact on the daily stock market returns when the national
team loses. Empirically, losing in India matters somewhat
more than losing outside. The mood induced by losing a
match appears to conditioned by history, in that losing to
nations that represent the 'colonizers' matters but not losing
to nations that share India's experience of being 'colonized'.

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Premier on a Diet
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
[All Photographs in this post are courtesy web edition of The Hindu]
One thing I miss most in Ahmedabad is a good bookshop. Coming from Bangalore
where MG Road area has some great book stores for both used and new books in
English, Sapna in Majestic and Ankita in Gandhibazaar having a good collection
of Kannada books and even residential areas like Jayanagar having Nagasri and
Prism, Ahmedabad is generally a let down. I remember, for the first time I came
into to Gujarat as a student I was taking a walk on the Station Road in Anand
and found a big signboard which just said "BOOKS" and I was greatly kicked. But
as I went nearer I found that this store was only selling red coloured "chopdis" -
the account books which the traders maintain so well that even the smartest of
the income tax officials will be unable to make out the actual transactions
recorded in them!!
Ahmedabad earlier had New Order Book Company, an antiquarian shop near
Ellisbridge, but it was not in the same league as my friend KKS Murthy's Select. I
found it to be too prim and proper (and a tad expensive) for one to browse
around. Somehow part of the books were in enclosed cupboards and it was not
browser-friendly. This tendency is not only limited to the book stores, but one
gets followed all over the place even if one gets into a departmental store like

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Adanis. Now even this shop is closed. For new books we have Granthagar, Natraj
(a teeny weeny shop, but if you have a title in mind, he will deliver it to you)
and Kitab Mahal.. and the mother of all - Crossword. Crossword in Ahmedabad is
qualitatively different from the Bangalore outlet and I believe has a better
collection of toys, music, video, stationery than books! Even here you get
followed around and for a while were not allowed to carry CDs with you, but
now its is a bit better. But given that this is the only bookshop of a decent size
and Crossword as a policy allows browsing, one finds that the place is generally
buzzing with people, and the cash counters usually have a small queue on
weekends. But still I would on any day spend more time in Premier in Bangalore
than in Crossword Ahmedabad. In fact I always got the feeling that the Airport
bookshop in Ahmedabad was better than Crossword, eventhough the collection
was much smaller. With the new terminal, Sankars has opened an outlet and
that appears much better than the rest.
Given this situation, it is but natural for me to head for a book shop whenever I
am out of Ahmedabad, and in particular when I am in Bangalore. My affiliation
with Select and Premier have been for ages - right from my college days. There
was a phase when I would head to Brigades every saturday to have a good
quantity of draught beer from Oaken Cask at their happy hour and then head to
Select Book Shop to partly browse, partly chat till I thought that I was "safe" to
get back home!! This has been one of the most rewarding experiences as I got
to know the small nooks and corners of Select (not that there were many).
While I used to hang around in all the bookshops - Higginbothams and LV, The
Book Cellar (mysteriously tucked under the Plaza Theatre), Gangarams - of late

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my trips were more functional as there was little time during a visit to
Bangalore. Therefore a good three or four hours were only sufficient for a walk
around in Premier and a chat and a coffee with Murthy of Select. I remember
that Gangarams used to be a great place, but that was before the
superstructure that they were building near Kapali Theatre collapsed. After that
it sort of lost its shine!! Higginbothams and LV were always so-so.
KKS Murthy amidst books

in Select
In restricting myself to Premier and Select I had not looked at the new outfits
that has cropped up in the recent past - English Edition and Blossoms on Church
Street, Crossword in Residency Road and BookWorm in Shringar complex and
Brigade Road cross. But this time when I went to Premier, I found something
amiss. A typical trip to Premier would be a reality check on how much weight I
had put on and whether I could still move around the corridors, without tripping
a few books. (Very much like the saying that you cannot make an omelette
without breaking a few eggs, you could not find a great book in Premier without
dropping a few piles). Suddenly it appeared that Premier had decided to

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accomodate my pot-belly by going on a diet itself!
I had once asked
Shanbhag of Premier if
he was related to
Shanbhag of Strand and
he'd told me that Strand
Shanbhag was his uncle
and he had trained under
him. Well it then appeared to me that the training was not complete because
Premier Shanbhag had possibly not learnt to stack books from his illustrious
uncle. Now it appeared as if Premier Shanbhag had gone for a crash course on
stacking!! Ten years ago Premier used to close for two days a year for "stock
taking" - but I had once joked with Shanbhag that it was a fruitless exercise
given the way his store is organised. I guess the joke became a reality as it
became too difficult for him to do stock taking and he decided to give the
annual holiday a go by.
I know that Ram Guha has been asking Shanbhag to organise a sale so that we
could see the books that were hidden in the second and third layers behind
what was obvious. Shanbhag would just smile. But suddenly it appeared that it
was coming true.
This time when I visited, I was looking for Narendra Luther's book on Hyderabad
and surprise-surprise Premier did not have it! I asked Shanbhag if he would get
it for me from OUP for which he readily agreed, and a couple of days later he

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called me to say that the book had arrived and enquired if I would still be
interested or should he send the book back. The later part of the conversation
was strange because even if I did not buy the book, Shanbhag would normally
have stocked it. I then came to know from friends that he is closing down the
place. That really put the entire store in perspective and I knew why I felt that
there was something amiss there. Shanbhag confirmed that he had to leave as
the lease had come to an end and just smiled and said that he would retire....
Suddenly I realised that there would be
a big void in my Bangalore trips.
Shanbhag had to move on, and so did I. I
wish he would be there forever because
there is no greater pleasure than
following the one way rule as Ram Guha
put it in one of his write ups on Premier
- moving from the left hand side to
cover the entire circle and discover
some really great books. For the first
time in his shop I also found my own
book on Microcredit, thanks to the diet, it possibly must have come out of the
inside layers. With my general disappointment with the fact that Premier was
winding down I decided to make a larger round of the other bookshops and
managed to visit three outlets [but two shops].
Blossoms was really a discovery. It has a combination of used as well as new
books and has a very good range. Somehow after being a Murthy regular for a

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long time, I would never look at a new used book shop under the assumption
that they would not go beyond the Ludlums, Archers, Forsyths, Grishams and
Sheldons. But Blossoms was really a discovery and I was happy to have visited it.
It did not quite replace Premier - because it seems to be a bit more organised
and therefore less exciting as far as discovery of books are concerned, but was
filling up the gap left by Premiers winding down. The other store was Book
Worm - I went to both their Shringar complex shop as well as the one near
Select. This shop also has a decent collection of books and I really had a good
chuckle at his audacity to take on competetion head on by opening a shop at
Select's doorstep.
With Murthy's son Sanjai
joining, Select has
expanded on the first
floor and a greater
collection is available.
However, I get this
feeling that over the
years Murthy and Sanjai
are moving their shop to make it a bit more exclusive and specialised. The
beauty of Select was that while it got some very exclusive books, you could also
shop around for the Wodehouses, the Joyces and the Garcia Marquezes and an
occasional Ludlum. I somehow get the feeling that Select has thinned down on
generally available books and appears to have willingly yielded that space to
the Blossoms and the Book Worms. I hope I am wrong. Because while shopping

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around Blossoms and Bookworm is quite okay, the experience of Select is that
you could not only look and browse books, but also strike up a decent
conversation with Murthy. Chances that you would bump into Ram Guha, Girish
Karnad, Diwakar, or some other "star customers" of Murthy are very high. You
could also have a flexideal with him. I recollect that Murthy has on occasions
given me a book or two free, cut down 60-80% of his quoted price or remained
stubborn with the price with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. He has on occasions
handed over a book and said "I know that you need this very much, I also know
that you cannot afford it because it is the first edition and is a collector's item.
However, you can take it for a couple of days, photocopy it and return.." I
cannot see myself trying to build in such a relationship with the new shops. I
guess this is the difference between banking with Syndicate Bank and ICICI
Bank...
I hope Shanbhag will find an outlet near the pub capital of the world. We need
an insane place to keep our sanity.
A fascinating write up on the closing of a book shop in Khan Market Delhi by
Nilanjana is available here.
Afghanistan: Fact and Fiction

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Thursday, February 23, 2006
This time I write on two books from Afghanistan. Both the authors belong to the
land, have been living in the west and have had the quest to rediscover their
roots. Both talk about the two phases of crisis that Afghanistan went through -
the Russian occupation and later the Taliban rule. Both the books are very
engaging, insightful and written in a very friendly manner. The difference is
that the first is a documentation of experiences - thus a fact, and the other
book is a great work of fiction. The Storyteller's Daughter is appropriately titled
- for Saira Shah the author is the daughter of Idries Shah who has written so
many fascinating books on the philosophy of the east - particularly rooted in the
sufi tradition. I bought this at Crosswords Ahmedabad - a rare feat because
Crosswords in Ahmedabad is usually a let down for any genuine book lover,
particularly after seeing Premier, Select and Sankars in Bangalore and Strand in
Mumbai.
Saira Shah claims that she belongs to two worlds, and naturally there is a
constant urge to rediscover the roots, which makes her what she is. That, she is
brought up in a tradition and that the country which gave the tradition has
drifted in the interpretation of the tradition is captured in the book both
through good passages and through some motifs. For instance she talks about
the values that brought her up - Bhagawi of Herat's sayings

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1. One hour's teaching is better than a whole
night of prayer
2. Trust in God, but tie your camel first
3. The ink of the learned is holier that the
blood of the martyr
4. You ask me to curse unbelievers, but I was
not sent to curse
5. I rather you to help any oppressed person, whether they are muslim or
not
6. Women are the twin halves of men
and the above values are put to test when in the country of origin where she
says "Now I have entered a world where I am forbidden to show my face, paint
my nails or fly a kite... The twenty-first century throws up constant challenges
to faith. Television and Video are banned, but casette tape might contain
Qur'anic recitations. It should be destroyed if there is music on it..... Cigarattes
are permitted, but some cigaratte packets have pictures of women on them.
These are banned...."
The motifs that are fascinating is about how her father cooks up the best Shahi
Pilau (the pilau fit for kings) - improvising on the recipe - by discovering a
artificial food colouring Tartrazine. A tiny teaspoon of that substance could
transform a gigantic cauldron of pilau to a virulent shade of yellow.. thereby

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superimposing the modern food colouring in a western country - effectively
replacing saffron, but not giving up the basic and original taste of the Afghani
Shahi Pilau.
This book is a narrative of Saira's travels around Afghanisthan in the process of
shooting two documentaries. It is not just a professional journey of a journalist,
but a deeply moving personal journey of a daughter of the land who
passionately wants to see normal life in the war torn country. The mark of Idries
Shah is apparent throughout the book, which is interspersed with quotes from
the sufi sources, including Jalaluddin Rumi. A country that is torn by war, where
at three in the night suddenly she hears a mechanical
roar because they have to work when electricity is
sporadically available where she cynically says "No one
in Afghanistan wants to rebuild, only to destroy" - but
is it not interesting (and sadly so) that "During the
second World War, Afghanistan experienced a rare
interval of peace. Like the little old lady who was so
stubborn she even floated up-river, the country
remained strictly neutral as the rest of the world went
up in flames.."
The book just shows how Saira lived a dangerous life as a journalist trying to
unveil Afghanistan. While her own heroics are underplayed as a matter of fact
narration, Saira does bring out some of the moments with a wry humour. She
puts in great amounts of cultural specificities to make her point. "I was versed

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in in the qualities and duties that Pushtinwali demands. Among other things the
law of hospitality means that, once you have eaten the salt of a Pustun, you are
entitled to protection and respect' badal requires blood in exchange for blood or
insult; mamus imposes a duty to protect and respect women; and ghayrat
establishes the right to defend one's property and honour by force if necessary".
This is what she sees in her brief encounter with Zahir Shah who accompanies
her on a brief journey and does absolutely irrational things including throwing
money meant for baksheesh into the river because it affect the honour! This is
indeed something so peculiar given the circumstances that Saira describes. She
gets the Zahir Shah episode to a conclusion in a very poignant manner: Three
years later, far far away from Afghanistan at a Swiss radio station in Berne a
editor shows her the newswire which says that Zahir Shah had been shot dead in
the tribal areas of Pakistan, in a killing with all the hallmarks of an assasination
by a rival, radical islamist, group of mujahidin. She has to tell the editor if "this
bloke" is important. The answer from the point of view of broadcasting is
obviously a "no" because it is a mistaken identity with the former king of
Afghanistan - of the same name. But personally, it is indeed an important piece
of information for Saira herself.

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While travelling with the women of RAWA, with Zahir
Shah, travelling within the veil for documenting the
life in the times of Taliban Saira has several brushes
with danger and death, there are some moments which
show dark humour - the unnecessary brushes with
death. She has to urgently process some film and
comes to know that a Swiss journalist has a dark room.
To her surprise, the facility has everything she needs - the journalist Beat has
set up a dark room without the foggiest ideas as to how to use it. She starts
working, unloading the film from canister, winding it round a spiral and
suddenly discovers that she has forgotten to pick up the lid. She gropes around
the drawer to feel some strangely shaped objects, which she feels and shakes.
When she asks Beat what they are, he matter-of-factly tells her "Oh, that is only
my unexploded bomb collection!!" The book is a tale of a journalist narrated
with passion and belongingness. I reproduce some quotes from the book which I
thought were very touching or interesting.

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It struck me that a sense of humour may be the
opposite of fanaticism, or at least its antidote. Iyt
is difficult to dream of martyrdom if you can see
the funny side of life (and Saira keeps seeing the
funny side of life, throughout the book)
● One of the protestors was yelling anti-American
slogans. He thrust his face into the camera and a
long, pent-up wounded-animal howl came out. It
contorted his entire face and sent his fist driving
through the air. Droplets of spittle flew from his mouth and landed on the
lens. He was saying terrible things: 'We will slaughter our children in defence
of Islam! We will ..... ' The force of his hatred was mesmerizing; he was
utterly consumed by it. But then he turned it off like a tap, and asked the
camers: 'Was that enough?'
● As we entered.... the noise of artillery got louder.... James said ' I hate the
noise.'..... 'That is jawab i hukmat - the Alliance answer' said Usman. I asked:
'What was the question?' - but he didn't get it.
● Then, as I watched the distance between me and my homeland growing ever
wider, the voice of the border official came wafting confidently from the
bank I had just left: 'She may look like a feranghee, a foreigner, but her
father is from Paghman and her mother is from.... Indonesia. Az khude ma
hast. She is one of us. She is an Afghan.
The book is dedicated to James Miller, who was with her in most of her

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journeys, when she "remembers feeling that she and Miller were now in a position
'to control our own destiny'. But that freedom, for him at least, was snatched away
as quickly as it had materialised. Miller was standing two feet away from Shah
when he was shot in the neck by an Israeli soldier. 'He was killed pretty well
instantaneously,' she recalls, 10 weeks later, in her flat in east London."
With all these detailed facts, one can say that emotionally it is not an easy book to
read, and I am sure it has been a difficult one for Saira to write as well.
For an interview of Saira Shah visit here and here.
The second book is a very touching novel The Kite
Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. I bought this
book in Premier Book Shop in Bangalore on one of my
sojurns. It has been on the best seller list for a
while, and I guess not without reason. It is an
eminently readable book and poignantly written.
One can easily identify with some of the characters
of the book - largely I guess because the memories
of childhood are similar to most of us in this part of
the world. This possibly has something to do with that time in the generation -
where school was there, but incidental, every upper class house had a servant
and every servant's household had a kid appropriate to the age of one of the
kids. The added dimension that seems to give a greater bonding is that both
Amir the protogonist and Hassan his friend who is the servants son have been
breast fed by the same woman. However Amir is seen by his baba as a weak

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person "A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up
for anything".. constantly being propped and protected by Hassan. We find that
there Amir's father is extremely
compassionate towards the servants, and
shows the natural goodness of a
benevolent "lord". Hassan the servant's
son has a hair lip which is to be set right
through surgery - a birthday gift that Baba gives him. The description here is
touching and brings out the essential contradictions in our lives. After the
surgery Hosseini describes: "The swelling subsided, and the wound healed with
time. Soon it was just a pink jagged line running up from his lip. By the
following winter, it was only a faint scar. Which was ironic. Because that was
the windter that Hassan stopped smiling."
I remember that while we lived as a joint family in Bangalore, the servant had
produced one kid to match the age of each one of my cousins and myself. The
bonding with the kids used to be great because that was the age of innocence
for us - that we were really not aware of the class differences, but at the same
time were getting indoctrinated into it. This was done largely by assigning
certain tasks to the friend. Very much the way Hassan is willy nilly assigned the
task of the kite runner. I for instance, had inherited a pedal car from some of

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my elder cousins where the pedal push never worked.
The job of the servant's son was to push me around.
While we were equals in all other games that we
played, he never had the privilege of sitting in the car
- not because I as a kid did not want him to sit, but
because my grandmother would possibly not like this
happen... On reflection I guess this is the process
through which the middle class is made aware of their so called "superiority".
The story is set in two turbulent phases of Afghanistan - first the invasion of the
Russians when the protogonist and his family flees from the country and then
the phase of Taliban when he tries to return looking for his roots. The detail
with which the processes are captured are amazine. Hosseini has the art of
narration and it is a pleasure to read the book. However there are some parts
which do not sound very convincing. He
constantly interweaves the lessons in creative
writing by putting in some advise on avoiding
cliches and so on, but somewhere down the
line parts of the book look a bit contrived.
For instance, he brings in the element that
Hassan was possibly born to his own father
and tries to put the image of his father as a
"patron-lord" more in perspective. I wonder if
this has been done to justify the "goodness" shown by Baba - being too good to
believe. I personally thought that it was quite okay for the patron-lord to be

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kind to his servants without having to justify the kindness with an illicit
relationship!!
The ending part when Amir runs the kite for Hassan's
son looks like an ending that is contrived - why should
all debts be repaid in the same form. It was known
from childhood that Amir was not a great kite runner,
so was it necessary to repay his "debt" to Hassan by
running his son's kite. Also the parts where he
describes Hassans son and his interface with Taliban are a bit gruesome, which
does not go with the overall goodness of the novel.
The novel was important for me not only as a good narrative, but also to look at
the issues around Afghanistan - the fact - interspersed with some fiction set in
those times.
Motorcycle Diaries - Book and the Film
Tuesday, February 07, 2006

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Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was one of the most enigmatic personalities of the 20th
century. There have been so many myths and legends about him, he's been a
revolutionary's icon and at the same time has also been a fashion icon. His looks
the trademark headgear with a star have made him a popular picture to be put
not only on T Shirts (for both the sexes) but he has been a design on
women'swear as well! I got my first taste of Che when Tirumalesh wrote a long
poem titled "Boliviadalli Che" (Che in Bolivia).
I bought the book Motorcycle Diaries in 1999. Usually I put my name and date
only after I read a book, but somehow this book was always there
and I never got to read it. It was only when I found two other
books by Che - "Back to the Road" and the "The African Dream" (in
Sankar's at Bangalore Airport), that I decided to give these a
serious read. I read Motorcycle Diaries a few months ago, when I
got to know about the movie that was made based on this book. I was very
curious to know how the movie was made. It is one matter to translate fiction
or a story into a movie, but to make a travelogue - written partly in the form of
a journal and partly in the form of letters into a movie (and also to re-create

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the period in which the journey was undertaken) must have been a different
experience. I therefore was wanting to see the movie also before I did a post on
Che. Luckily I got hold of a DVD of Motorcycle Diaries and saw it recently.
In the edition I have, the cover page proclaims "Easy
Rider meets Das Kapital" (The Times), on the back
cover it proclaims "It's true; Marxists just wanna have
fun" (Guardian). It is a sick way of describing a book
and I do not think it is a mature way of responding to a
person who had his own convictions - however much
one may not want to agree with those ideological arguments. It is not in good
taste, also because it takes away the literary merit of this work - which has got
nothing to do with the eventual participation of Che in the Cuban revolution
and later in Bolivia and Congo. However I guess this is more to do with one
particular publisher than the general perception about Che.
Che's book is all about that moment of truth and a journey that helps him to
discover his geography, the history of this geography and has a lasting
impression on his own future course of action. It certainly is not about ideology
and the journey is not about having fun. Yes, Che does have fun on the way with
his friend Alberto Granado - but that is incidental. The book chronicles the
"here and now" moments of truth for Che and in retrospect we could possibly
see that this journey had a lasting impact on how his later political life shaped
up. The journey is not about the travails of the motorcycle crashing now and
then, the quality of roads and about the romance of camping. The journey is all

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about meeting people, understanding the conditions under which they live and
how they respond.
I reproduce two quotes from the early pages of the book to understand Che's
thoughts:
This isn't a tale of derring-do, nor it is merely some kind of 'cynical

account'; in isn't meant to be, at least. It's a chunk of two lives
running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar
dreams. In nine months a man can think a lot of thoughts, from the
height of philosophical conjecture to the most abject longing for a
bowl of soup - in perfect harmony with the state of his stomach.
Any book on photographic technique can show you the image of a

nocturnal landscape with the full moon shining and the
accompanying text revealing the secret of sunlit darkness. But the
reader doesn't know what kind of sensitive fluid covers my
retina......
So one part of the text is all about what he saw and experienced and the sub-
text of the entire book is what it did to Che's personality. When he decides to
undertake "a year long journey" his father does ask him - "What about your
girlfriend?" and Che says that she would wait if she loved him. The journey is
thus undertaken with a single minded focus and possible Che never got back to
his girlfriend again. The entire journey is also about generating your own
resources on the run - most of the time being broke and having to tell
interesting stories to people to ensure that they get basic food, shelter and if
things go on fine, some greater luxuries.

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Normally one is skeptical about films made from such texts.
However, the film not only captures the spirit of Che's
journey faithfully, it is an improvisation of the details given
in the text. It continues in the spirit of the journey itself. In
the book Che says "That's how the trip came about, and it
never deviated from the general principle laid down then:
improvisation". The film (in Spanish, with english subtitles) captures the beauty
of the continent and also remains faithful to the spirit of the journey by these
two friends.
The interesting part of the improvisation is the five step anniversary routine
they do for getting basic food and drink, which goes as follows:
1. One of us says something in a loud voice immediately identifying us as
Argentine, something with a che in it and other typical expressions
and pronounciation. The victim asks where we are from, and we strike
up a conversation.
2. We begin our tale of woe, but don't make too much of it, all the while
staring into the distance.
3. Then I butt in and ask what the date is. Someone says it and Alberto
sighs and says: 'What a coincidence, it was exactly a year ago.' The
victim asks what was a year ago, and we reply that was when we
started out on our trip.
4. Alberto, who is much more brazen than me, then heaves a

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tremendous sigh and says, 'Shame we're in such dire straits, we won't
be able to celebrate' (he says this as a kind of aside to me). The
victim immediately offers to pay, we pretend to refuse for a while
saying we can't possibly pay him back, etc., then finally we accept.
5. After the first drink, I adamantly refuse another and Alberto makes
fun of me. Our host gets annoyed and insists, I keep refusing but won't
say why. The victim keeps asking until I confess, rather shamefacedly,
that in Argentina it's the custom to eat when we drink.....
The people that Che meets, the mine workers, the farmers who say that they do
not get enough for carrying out their work with dignity - all seem to be having a
lasting impact on the thought process that goes on in Che's mind. While on the
one end they are using their 5 step routine to get food and drink at the other
end they are also looking at people who cannot afford to do such
improvisations. Every morning the mine workers turn up at the mine site and a
contractor looks at them and randomly loads them into the truck till it is full -
they get work if they get picked up - and this could be as random as anything.
The way the mine workers are picked up are no different than that of cattle -
purely on the basis of a "here and now" assessment on their ability to do
physical work for the day.
When I talk about improvisation in the film an entire myth is built around $15
said to be given by Che's girlfriend to buy a nightgown for her from Miami, a
piece that does not appear in the book. (I am not sure if it was picked up from

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Alberto, or just cooked up, but nevertheless it is indeed an interesting
'improvisation'). Throughout the film Alberto tries to get Che to spend it on
some aspect or the other - but without success.
The book also talks about a strangely shaped fish which the locals call bufeo.
Che says "It is apparently a river dolphin which has, among other strange
characteristics, genitals like a woman's, so the indians use it as a substitute, but
they have to kill the animal when they've finished coitus because a contraction
in the genital area stops the penis coming out." In the film this story is narrated
by a whore while she is luring Alberto. And Alberto does get lured - to the
extent that he insists that Che give the $15 to him immediately.
But that is when we get to know that Che has given away the money to the
mine worker couple. This part is poignant and symbolic. This is a time marker
which possibly indicates that Che moves away from his girlfriend towards people

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- the exploited with whom he intends to spend his future.
The second most poignant part of the movie is towards the end when after a
toast on his birthday in the staff area of the San Pablo leper colony, Che swims
across a river to reach the patient area to wish them goodbye. This swim across
- to reach to the other side is also a hard hitting scene symbolising the making
of Che's overall personality. The film captures this (with retrospective
knowledge of what Che eventually became) brilliantly.
It is one of the few occasions where I have equally admired the book and the
film made based on the book. The last time I enjoyed the cinematic portrayal of
a text was when Shyam Benegal made "Bharat: Ek Khoj" based on Nehru's
"Discovery of India".
The edition I had bought in 1999 had a biographical chronology of Che that ends
in 1967: "Following several months of skirmishes with the Bolivian army,
Guevara is caqptured on 8 October near the town of Vallegrande and executed
by order of President Barrentos". However the latest edition contains more
details about Che.
The postscript of Che's life reads as follows:

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1995 - In July, a Bolivian general reveals the location of Guevara's grave.
1997 - Guevara's body is exhumed from its communal grave in Vallegrande and
returned to Cuba in July. The 30th anniversary of his death is celebrated across
Cuba. On 17 October, Guevara's remains are reburied in a specially built
mausoleum in Santa Clara, the site of his decisive victory against Batista's forces
at the end of 1958. More than 100,000 Cubans attend the service.
"Why did they think that be killing him, he would cease to
exist as a fighter?" Castro says at the ceremony to mark the
reburial. "Today he is in every place, wherever there is a
just cause to defend."
2000 - 'Time' magazine names Guevara as one of the 100
most influential people of the 20th Century. "Though communism may have lost
its fire, he remains the potent symbol of rebellion and the alluring zeal of
revolution," the magazine states.
For me, it has been an amazing journey with Che.
Ogden Nash - The Pun-dit
Saturday, January 28, 2006

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If there is a writer
Who gives you pleasure
With lots of wit, loads of fun
Tons of nonsense, only pun
Just jest, it’s Ogden, none better
It is one thing growing up with Dr. Suess, but quite another to be an Ogden buff.
It is all about the use and abuse of language – all to the same effect. I
remember a crass Hindi joke:
Two people were traveling in a train and one asks the other – “What do you do?”
The answer is “I’m a poet, what about you?” “Well, I am deaf.”
No, we need not say that for dear Ogden. This is what Anthony Burgess says in
his introduction to Candy is Dandy (written in the form of a long poem of the

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Ogden tradition)
“In the works of literary reference, where the serious have traditionally
dominated,
You will not find Ogden Nash so much as nominated,
And he is virtually unknown to the aficionados of Harold or Denise Rob(b)ins:
He has not, in fact, been wound on to either of the two opposed bobbins.”
It is always easy to write about a poet like Ogden because whatever you do,
there is no way that you will not quote a poem or two and that would be
sufficient to keep the reader happy and entertained and the write up assumes
life. Is Ogden Nash addictive? You bet he is and therefore Burgess says:
“In a dictionary the term Ogden Nashish
Could only apply to Ogden Nash, who is addictive as hashish”
He is such a coat-able poet that he is “tailor made” for each situation. For
every Indian politician there is a Gandhi to quote from, for every Kannada poet
there is an “Adiga for all occasions”, and of course for every problem – adult or
child, dental or mental, domesticated or wildlife, there is a Nash-ty solution.
Of course, most of the humour of Nash comes from the fact that he writes in
English. Hello, is that a great discovery?? No, not exactly, but when we look at
it from the Indian context it is. Let me tell you how [like
the new HuTch ad]. Most Indian languages are not
phonetic and therefore the scope for pun is somewhat
limited. English is one language that gives you immense scope for using the

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sheer variety of spelling a word that sounds the same in several different ways.
Hmm.. am aye not wright? If you do not trust me, trust Nash.
One of his famous books is titled Versus which contains verses. So, if you ask
me do I write poetry, my most probably answer would be “Verse is yet to
come.” That Indian languages are not phonetic could be a reason why our
humor is not subtle but mostly crass.. we need to make our humor happen – act
it out rather than indicate it?? Or the best humorists in Indian languages go back
to English to create humor. Kailasam who was the best known Kannada
humorists has a great play – Bandvalavillada Badayi in which while talking about
one of the characters he suddenly comes out with what he calls the “Eclipse of
the Earthu” (remember, we are Bengaluru, not Bangalore). This is described as
the “Shadow of my son(nu) on this earth(u)”. YNK the editor of Kannada Prabha
and a great Ogden Nash fan used to write a column and he had titled it Wonder
Kannu (meaning squint eyes in Kannada, but the word Wonder was still carried
in English – otherwise the sting would have been lost).
But Ogden is not all about pun. He also creates new words for effect:
The Panther
The Panther is like a Leopard
Except that it hasn't been peppered
Should you behold a panther crouch
Prepare to say ouch
Better yet, if called by a panther
Don't anther

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(The Face is Familiar, 1940)
Where does Anther creep in a Panther? [Anther: noun In flowering plants, the
organ at the tip of the stamen that contains and releases pollen (The New
Penguin English Dictionary)] Well, a serious critic might go into the
circumstances under which Ogden, having seen a Panther wrote this out of
panic. Or could we go into the details of whether the Panther was dead or alive.
Was it co-incidental that Ogden used a word that had another meaning or was it
pre-meditated? We get sufficient answer from the next poem quoted below:
Pediatric Reflections
Many an infant that screams like a calliope
Could be soothed by a little attention to its diope
Of course, one cannot find a great meaning for diope in the dictionary. No, not
even in the Penguin dictionary. Ogden poems come in all shapes, sizes, styles
and forms – small ones, limmicks, limericks, sonnet sized poems and longer
ones. There are poems where the title is longer than the text itself. Well what
is a limmick? Limmick is a new type of gimmick which devours the “r” in the
limerick and gives us only four lines. Examples of both are here:

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Carlotta
There was an old man in the trunk
Who inquired of his wife, "Am I drunk?"
She replied with regret
"I'm afraid so, my pet"
And he answered, "It's just as I thunk."
(Limerick from The Primrose Path, 1935)
First Limmick
An old person of Troy
Is so prudish and coy
That it doesn't know yet
If it's a girl or a boy
(Versus, 1949)
On the other hand, in the Indian context, a four liner is an accepted form, while
a five liner – limerick does not seem to be all prevalent. A four liner is called a
“Chaupadi” in Kannada. YNK had therefore asked – “If we have a five liner,
would we call it Draupadi?”
As I said earlier, some of the poems are smaller than the title. Take this for
instance:
Reflection on a wicked world

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Purity
Is Obscurity
(Hard Lines, 1931)
I have in the past tried to translate Ogden into Kannada, but his poetry is a
classic example of what they usually say "Poetry is what is lost in translation". I
therefore have had to resort to re-creating some of the poems into the local
context. For instance how would you deal with a poem like this:
Genealogical Reflection
No McTavish
Was ever lavish
(Hard Lines, 1931)
To get the genetics of Scots I had to resort to the Indian equivalent of a Baniya
or Komati Shetty – the trader class known to only tighten their purse strings.
Some of my Ogden favourites (given the context in which I “work”):
More about people

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When people aren’t asking questions
They’re making suggestions
And when they’re not doing one of those
They’re either looking over your shoulder or
stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren’t enough to annoy
you
They employ you.
Anybody at Leisure
Incurs everybody’s displeasure.
It seems to be very irking
To people at work to see other people not working.
So they tell you that work is wonderful medicine.
Just look at Firestone and Ford and Edison.
And they lecture you till they’re out of breath or something
And then if you don’t succumb they starve you to death or something.
All of which results in a nasty quirk:
That if you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that
you won’t have to work.
(Hard Lines, 1931)
And this one is for somebody who is environmentally conscious -
Song of the Open Road

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I think I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Indeed, unless billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all
(Happy Days, 1933)
Lankesh in his editor’s foreword for an acclaimed Kannada anthology had said
that “a good poem is one that appears contemporary and represents eternity,
thereby rendering the time of writing irrelevant”. What Ogden wrote in 1933
looks even more contemporary with all the bill boards now!!
Amongst my various students was also Aruvind Lama and this Ogden Nash poem
is possibly for him:
The Lama
The one-l lama
He’s a priest
The two-l llama
He’s a beast
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn’t any
Three-l lllama
(the author’s attention has been called to a type of conflagration known as the
three-alarmer. Pooh.)

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Two-tail Pieces
The First
This happened to me twice and I cannot resist putting this down as I am a Nash-
a-nalist. I just dropped in at a Dentist’s when I was in Anand. (Why in the world
would they give a town such a name that meant happiness, while most of the
time I was in pain). I thought I would just get my teeth checked up and get
some shine on to it. But the Dentist had learnt the basics of finance before
dentistry. So he polished my pockets before the teeth, smiled and said “Just get
the medical re-imbursement forms when you come next, I will sign them”. I
suddenly realized why it was costing a bomb to brush up my teeth. However my
administrative officer told me that “we do not cover your teeth – just grin and
bear”. Bear I had to, but to grin I needed dear old Ogden:
Some pains are physical
Some are mental
That which is both is dental
I thought it is always good to have a good doc in good humour. He looked up at
me and stuck his hand out. This is the usual Gujarati style when you tell a joke –
you need to clap it and I did. But I was mistaken, the doctor was not a Gujarati
– he was a McTavish from Karnataka. He would withdraw the hand only after I
laid my fee on it.
Well, Ogden did have something to say about this as well (and the poem is titled
Terrible People):

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Certainly there are lots of things in life money won't buy, but it's very funny
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?
The Second
I always believed that there would be a Nash for every occasion. So when my
son (who was then six years old) came and told me that he had a recitation
competition, I thought we really need to be creative and shock and awe the
school into giving him a prize. I looked at Nash carefully and suddenly realized
that not only has he not written anything that can be recited by innocent
children, he actually does not like children – for instance one of his poems goes
thus:
Everybody who has a baby thinks everybody who hasn’t a baby
ought to have a baby
Which accounts for the success of such plays as the Irish Rose of
Abie,
The idea apparently being that just by being fruitful
You are doing something beautiful
Which if it is true
Means that a common housefly is several million times more beautiful than me
or you…
So after much search we zeroed down on this poem which our lad could possibly
recite in school:

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The Giraffe
I beg you children do not laugh
When you survey a tall giraffe.
It's hardly sporting to attack
A beast that cannot answer back.
Now you and I have shorter necks,
But we can talk of gin and sex;
He has a trumpet for a throat
And cannot blow a single note.
It isn't that his voice he hoards;
He hasn't any vocal cords.
I wish for him, and for his wife,
A voluble girafter life.
(The Primrose Path 1935)
However there was a small problem – how would you expect a six year old
reciting poems to other six year olds to understand “survey”.. so we changed it
to “see”. Well good job. The next was “gin and sex”. Oh my god, the prize is
gone! Again we had to wear the six thinking hats and come out with something
inane. So gin and sex was replaced with books and texts.. well who ever thought
that sex would rhyme with texts…
And he got the prize (possibly the only prize he’s got for recitation)
Most of the poems here are picked up from an Omnibus Candy is Dandy which I

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discovered in Premier Book Shop in Bangalore. It was lying behind some new,
contemporary and inane books. If you are in Premier’s in Bangalore, dig deep
and you might get some treasure.
As I wrap up, I will leave with some short ones:
Reflection on Ingenuity
Here’s a good rule of thumb
Too clever is dumb
Theatrical Reflection
In the Vanities
No one wears Panities
Biological Reflection
A girl whose cheeks are covered with paint
Has an advantage with me over one whose ain’t
Common Sense
Why did the Lord give us this agility
If not to evade responsibility
The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk
One end is moo, the other, milk
The Pig

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The pig, if I am not mistaken
Supplies us sausage, ham and bacon.
Let others say his heart is big –
I call it stupid of the pig
The Parent
Children aren’t happy with nothing to ignore
And that’s what parents were created for.
The Eel
I don’t mind eels
Except as meals
And the way they feels
The Fly
God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why
Goodbye!
Not so lonely with Lonely Planet in

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Morocco
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
I have often seen tourists with a Lonely Planet guide, a bottle of mineral water
and a sheepish smile on their face moving about in the country. All my tours
abroad have never been touristy - mostly functional with little time to roam
around. In any case I am really not the type who would want to go to all the
known tourist destinations and stand in long queues and listen to guides. I would
rather visit people, interact and left to myself read about the country.
Therefore in all my trips abroad I have never carried a guide and have really not
visited places locally. Infact I really do not enjoy international travel especially
because of all the attendant problems of visas, foreign exchange and the pain
one has to go through for a short trip. I did look around Rome on a guided tour
years ago, and when I went to US and Canada was taken around by relatives and
friends. Infact my sister tells me that I was the most difficult guest she had
because she did not know how to entertain me, because I got excited with
nothing.
This time I decided to try and feel like a tourist on a trip to Morocco. The
excitement was only because Morocco was not a usual destination, there was
something different. Though the trip was "official" - for an annual network
meeting of academics in business schools working on microfinance. I thought it
would be a good idea to build in some more fun. The last time we had the
meeting out of the country was in Pretoria and I had not ventured out of the

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scheduled and formal events and therefore saw very little of Pretoria. This was
compounded by the fact that we were advised that it was not safe to walk
around and the hotel we stayed strategically had a "happy hour" that served
liquor for two hours between 5 and 7 in the evening!!
So in preparation for the trip, for the first time I bought a Lonely Planet guide
for both Morocco and Paris. The meeting was in Rabat, but the organisers had
indicated that we could land directly in Rabat or in
Casablanca. The flight to Casablanca was via Dubai
and to Rabat was via Paris. Since I was flying with
some friends from Bangalore, we decided to take the
new Air France direct flight from Bangalore to Paris
that connected to Rabat. On the way back we had an
"Evening in Paris" and I was hoping to look around
there as well.
Lonely Planet books are comprehensive and well written. Not only do they help
you to navigate around the place, but also help you to rediscover yourself. For
instance we were booked in Hotel La Tour Hassan and the book says that "The
palatial complex is arguably the best all-round five star hotel in town. The
rooms are well stocked with every imaginable amenity, but are otherwise
unremarkable..." Wow! the hygiene factors were easily taken care of! The guide
has good maps and tons of info that a lost tourist would need. So there I was in
Morocco, with a Lonely Planet guide, a mineral water bottle (taken away from
Air France) and a sheepish smile. I suddenly realised that while you are being a
host you have an impish smile, as a guest in a strange place, particularly where

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you do not know the language you could only sport a sheepish smile and of
course an improved vocabulary that started with shukran - "Thank you" picked
up from the book.
It was a good journey from Bangalore to Paris. I had Srini and Saleela for
company and it is always fun to have somebody like Srini who has a great sense
of humour. From Paris we had an immediate connecting flight to Rabat. The
CDG airport in Paris is an imposing structure, with buses going in underpases
while the flights were taking off. It was quite a change from the crammed
Bangalore International terminal - which only had one hall and long queues. We
had to change terminals and there were local buses that ferried us. Our
departure was from Terminal 2B (arrival Terminal 2A and all other terminals
were starting with 2... wonder whatever happened to Terminal 1). We were
checked through and therefore all that was left was the security check. We
were then herded into the aerobridge, but it did not logically end up in a plane,
instead ended in a tunnel like bus! I don't know what it is called, but Saleela
promptly named it as the "People Eater". Once all the passengers were inside,
the entire thing was lowered to ground level and driven to the air plane.. Srini
called it (and the entire CDG airport which actually looks like a large refinery)
an unnecessary piece of engineering.
Once in the flight, my usual problems started. They had not loaded vegetarian
food for me. Lonely Planet had indicated that there would not be too many
problems for vegetarians but they do not cover Air France in their book!! No
wonder I love Air India, somebody understands what it means to be a Vegetarian

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in Air India and they also understand English. Saleela and Srini did have some
food because they had booked their meal preference as Vegan, as against the
highly suspect meal category called "asian vegetarian meal" booked by my travel
agent... I was later told by Saleela that if you are travelling international, it is
always better to book yourself a vegan meal. (Well, the story repeated on my
return flight as well.. no food from Rabat to Paris, had to survive on a welcome
champagne, wine and cheese - Upwaas - on liquid diet, if you want to call it)
Rabat Airport is a cute little airport with only
two flights landing every day. It was smaller than
the small airports in India like Pune, Vadodara,
Jaipur.... I surprisingly cleared customs and
immigration without any problem. One of the
reasons why I hate international travel is because
I have this uncanny ability to get picked up for a
thorough search every time! It has happened to
me most of the time. We were told to be
conservative about converting our currency to Dirhams - as per the local laws
you can only re-convert 50% of what you have converted! But as the hotel
accepted credit cards (and our cards were accepted internationally) there was
not much of a problem. On my first visit to Washington I had problems in
explaining that I only had $100 denomination travellers cheques (the room bill
was $110 and the lady at the reception did not have $90 change!) and my credit
card was only valid in India and Nepal! Thankfully those days are gone and we
can truly behave like international citizens. Sonia (our local host, and an Italian

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- but she said she had nothing to do with the Gandhis!) was in the Airport to
take a vanful of people (all of whom had joined us in Paris) to the hotel.
Rabat is clean and well
maintained. It has a Arabic/
French culture and the large
buildings that touch the
skyline are usually the
mosques. Unlike the
mosques that I have seen
elsewhere (which have huge
domes) the mosques in Rabat were all square columns. In the evening we were
taken on a walk to Le Tour Hassan (well, the hotel also has the same name, but
the original was the Hassan Tower - nothing to do with the English word "tour")
and the Masoleum of Mohammed V. Since this was not a conducted tour in the
traditional sense, I had to resort to Lonely Planet to find out some more details.
This is what Lonely Planet says "Rabat's famous landmark overlooks the bridge
across Oued Bou Regreg to Sale. The Almohad sultan Yacoub al-Mansour began
construcdtion of this enormous minaret in 1195 with the intention of reaching
60 m, to make it the largest and highest in the Muslim world. The project was
abandoned at 44m when the sultan died four years later." The tower has a
imposing wall. If you see the first photo, the lady standing is somebody to watch

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out for. If you see the photo on the
right, the guy on the photo is not
somebody to watch out for, it is me.
Like all touristy places, they have their
set of people who nag you - a set of
"college student" like looking people
who want to put henna on your hand. I
ran into the complex avoiding them,
but Saleela had her hand hennaed even
before she could realise it. She was
taking photographs and as a result was
20 Dirhams poorer!!
Well the tower is truly impressive and the place is well maintained and clean.
We did not have much time to roam around as the sun was setting and it was
closing time. So most of us did the usual touristy thing of clicking as many
photos as possible. With the advent of the digital cameras, I guess we are
careless about how we take pictures and a tad liberal in clicking. It is a bit
irritating for me, but well the advantage is that I can upload these pictures
quickly!
The same complex had some other interesting things. Let me continue some
more of Lonely Planet -- "The tower still stands but little remains of the
adjacent mosque, which was all but destroyed by an earthquake in 1755. Only
the re-erected, shattered pillars testify to the grand plans of Al-Mansour." The
pictures capture those pillars. There is also a Masoleum of Muhammed V in the

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same premises. We were able to see it from outside and take a few pictures,
but no luck with more as we were out of time.
Well, this is where the story of Lonely Planet ends, because apart from this,
most of the engagements (in spite of all my preparations to really turn a tourist)
were official. We went on a field trip to Casablanca to understand what is
happening with the microfinance situation in Morocco. It was Id season and we
could find sheep being readied for the "sacrifice" (see
photo on the left above, the draught power is that of
donkeys - right photo). We visited Zakhoura Foundation
and interacted with their clients. The trip was on a
thursday and we were expected to be free for our shopping after the visit.
However the visit itself was very long and by the time we returned to Rabat.
Though we did not see any of the glossy scenes of Casablanca it was worth the
visit - we could see the other side of the tourist destinations and interact with
people who had their own interesting lives. The trip was to meet and interact
with the poor clients of Zakhoura Foundation's poor clients and then a brief
interaction in the office. Zakhoura Foundation works all over Morocco, but they

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have significant activities in urban areas including Casablanca. I think we visited
4-5 clients that day. Wherever we went (like in India) we were chased by a
group of urchins who were interested in seeing what we were doing.
The usual ritual was to get introduced, talk to the
people and get an idea as to how their lives had
changed after access to microcredit. I spent some time
in talking to the kids around and it was quite an
experience. None of us knew each other's language and therefore it was indeed
difficult to carry on an effective conversation. However, they were quite
enterprising and asked me if I was from the land of Shah Rukh Khan!! This was
quite a revelation for me. I had heard of stories as to how Russians were mad
after Raj Kapoor and would sing "Mera Jootha hai Japani... Phir bhi dil hain
hindustani"... here I was in Morocco listening to a boy singing the second edition
of the heart of hindustan song - he went - "Hum Logonko samaj sakho toh
samjho dilbhar jaani...." ending again with "Phir bhi dil hain hindustani". It was
heartwarming to see some Moroccan
kids claiming that their hearts were
Indian. Shah Rukh Khan was a passport
for all houses and there were none
that had not seen at least one Shah
Rukh movie. No, Aamir, Salman, Saif
did not feature in the list. Yes,
Devdas, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, K3G and Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani defenitely
featured in the list. One of my fellow travellers was a Brazilian and he got

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welcomed because he was from the land of Ronaldinho... football being the
other craze of people. The boys were wearing Zidane jerseys with No.10 on it!!
The country place is very colourful with even the walls of the poor households
painted with grand and intricate designs on most of the walls. Infact one of the
poorest houses that we visited possibly could not paint their walls, but had
shining stars stuck all over. Even the hotel walls were very colourful (see a
picture with Srini) and there was a palatial
look to the entire place. The place is famous
for paintings, ceramicware and leatherware
(largely from camel leather). I took pictures
of the interior walls of a poor entrepreneur
who rents out wedding dresses. Nataliya who
was from the Russia wanted to try out a wedding dress and the hosts obliged.
She was decked up with the full bridalwear and also placed in the palanquin to
demonstrate how weddings happen there. The only thing missing in Nataliya's
wedding was a groom!!
We also saw buggies - like the Mumbai victorias around the streets of
Casablanca. Otherwise the local transport is in two types of taxis - petit taxis

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take you around within the city, but are restricted within
certain zones. For the airport you are expected to take a
"grand" taxi. Surprisingly all "grand" taxis were Mercedes -
something that was difficult for me to digest, given the
status attached to a Merc in India. All the grand taxis looked
badly battered and almost like the erstwhile Indian
Contessas. I did try to take a picture of the Grand Taxi when we were loading
our luggage to the airport, but later discovered that a guy came inbetween the
lens and the car! It was raining heavily on the day of our departure and any
further adventure with photography was not called for. I have nevertheless
uploaded the photo of the Merc here. I lost the evening left free for roaming
and shopping in rediscovering Shah Rukh Khan. While the microfinance and
poverty story was a familiar stuff, we had not known the extent of poverty and
illeteracy. Apparently the current King is forward looking and there has been a
lot of reform.
In spite of the appaling poverty, people
appeared happy and were willing to
talk and interact. Morroccans are very
hospitable. We also went to the
Zakhoura Foundation office and had a
presentation. After about 4 hours of
interaction, one of my Indian friends ultimately said, we can do with some
Chai.. expecting that the organisation would order chai from a nearby cafe.
Nothing of that sort happened. Morroccans drink "Mint Tea" which is yellow-

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brown in colour and is poured from an ornate kettle into a glass. The proper
way of serving is very much like how tea is mixed in Kerala - tea is dropped into
the glass from a height.
We had to postpone our shopping by a day as our free day was taken up by
Casablanca. Friday is a general holiday, but we were told that we could go to
Medina - a place where we could take small gifts back home. We were also told
that Medina market is known for bargaining and it would be good if we could get
stuff at about half of the originally quoted price. Medina is famous for leather
stuff (including shoes) and handicrafts. When the day ended, we had a 2 hour
window to go to Medina. The market was walking distance, but it was raining.
Saleela used her usual charm at the hotel reception to borrow an umbrella from
the reception and we truged in the drizzle. I did most of the talking in the
market trying to bargain on stuff. I would pick up stuff, bargain hard and argue
telling that Shah Rukh would be happy that an Indian was given a good deal, and
as soon as I finalised the deal Srini and Saleela would say, "that is great, we will
have two more pieces of the same!!" Two shopkeepers referred to me as Berber
- a tribe that belongs to the northern part of Morocco. I wondered if it was a
compliment or an insult, but nevertheless had not option but to smile. We
bought a whole lot of small things that only helped in proving that we went to
Morocco and returned to the Hotel.
For the four days we were there, we were quite known in the hotel for our
insistence on Veg food. The first day we got only Khus Khus - an Upma like stuff
with heaps of boiled vegetables and some gravy on top. Moroccans believe in
feeding an army even if there are only three around the table. We decided that

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we needed to take care of food security given the non-veg nature of the cusiene
and on our way back from the walking tour of Tour Hassan decided to pick up
fruits. We saw a shop - with apples and bananas - as usual, it was my job to do
the talking. I inquired how much the apple cost for which I was told it was 20
dirhams. I assumed it was the price per piece and a quick calculation indicated
that it would cost Rs.100 equivalent... but given that no other veg food was
available, we were willing to settle for it. Ultimately it turned out to be the
cost for a kilo and we actually got 4 apples for the price. Srini said that if the
shopkeeper had understood what we were willing to pay, he could have really
hiked up the prices!! What to do, paapi pet ka sawaal hai! From the second day
onwards the Chef (his name was also Hassan and was as tall as 6 foot 6 inches
and we promptly called him Tour Hassan - the tower of Hassan) ensured that he
would make something for us "without meat, without fish, without egg".
Ultimately when we returned, we were left with two apples in Bangalore, which
I gladly gifted to Saleela. I wonder if she ultimately ate the apples imported
from New Zealand via Morocco!
On the whole it was not a very exciting trip, outside of the business and I really
could not do much apart from the small things described above. However, I
discovered the joy of reading Lonely Planet - it was great and I did read up
quite a bit on the history of Morocco.
Before leaving I asked Sonia if there was a duty free shop in the airport where
we could pick up some ethnic stuff (or whether we should reconvert all our
currency back into Euros). Sonia had indicated that we shoud actually do all our

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shopping in the city itself and there was nothing much in the Airport. I also
asked Sonia what it meant if the shopkeeper called me Berber - she indicated
that I should take it positively, it only meant that they appreciated my method
of bargaining and it generally came out of admiration of having dealt with a
tough nut. However, this is what Lonely Planet has to say on Berbers: The
ancient Berbers have inhabited North Africa since Neolithic times... Little is
known of their origins and their physical features range from dark and rounded
sub-Saharan traits to light skin and blue eyes. What it is to be a Berber is a
slippery subject. Although 70% of Moroccans have Berber blood, only 50%
acknowledge their origins as it has a hefty stigma. Berbers are perceived as
primitive, even savage. Tellingly the word 'Berber' has derogatory connotations
- in Arabic it means 'barbarian'.... Sonia, did you say that the connotation was
positive? Well, I am lonely on the planet!!
We had grand plans of opening up the booklet on Paris. There was only one
glitch - Paris was an hour ahead of Morocco, so we had miscalculated our arrival
time. Srini and Saleela were in Radisson hotel (though in the CDG area), while I
was booked in Holiday Inn. We were trying to co-ordinate between us and still
make a dash to the Eifel Tower in Paris. But that was not to be... our hopes
were partly dashed in Rabat airport itself. The Paris flight was delayed by an
hour already and it was raining cats and dogs. Sonia, was right about the airport
though, the duty free shop had exactly 25 bottles of liquor and looked like a
paan shop. There was nothing else in the airport. The guy downed the shutter
soon after boarding was announced, as it the announcement was for him to
close the shop! By the time we reached paris, we were tired, I was hungry and

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we just decided to hit the sack - just go to the respective hotels so that we
could catch a flight to India as soon as possible.
After 4 days of indifferent food and time zone differences, I was happy that I
touched home. I quickly asked Gowri to make me a cup of strong filter coffee at
2.30 am and having had it, and having convinced myself that I was back home, I
hit the sack.
Some photographs.......

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Two Lives (and this is not about Vikram

Seth)
Monday, December 19, 2005

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Ram Guha has discussed the problems of writing a Biography in this part of the
world in his excellent essay “Why South Asians Don't Write Good Biographies
and Why They Should”(Last Liberal and Other Essays, Permanent Black). Guha
says that but for a few good autobiographies there have not been many good
writings in this genre. He thinks that we idolize personalities and fail to see
them objectively. Having written the biography of Verrier Elwin, Ram should
know. Indeed, the recent controversy about Ambedkar letters do indicate that
objective research about some personalities is going to be difficult to achieve.
Take the example of the incidents revolving around James Lane's book "Shivaji:
Hindu King in Islamic India” where he had acknowledged Shrikant Bahulkar.
This was enough for the Sambhaji brigade to ransack the Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute and cause irreparable damage to the manuscripts stored
there. In fact Guha talking about biographies says : “Students and professors
alike would choose to write on 'The Dissolution of the Princely Order' rather
than on 'Vallabhbhai Patel and the Dissolution of the Princely Order'. Therefore
writing biographies or publishing them is possibly fraught with danger in this
part of the world. Autobiographies are less risky, but they also tend to be nice
to all – trying not to hurt anybody and still try and maintain a semblance of
objectivity. Moreover, Guha says that it is difficult to get the truth out of many
because of doublespeak and hypocrisy. Therefore it is indeed difficult to look at
biographies and autobiographies very objectively. I remember having read a
great essay by KV Tirumalesh – a linguist from CIEFL, Hyderabad titled
"Autobiography's Truth: The Story of Gandhi's Experiments” which talked about
Gandhi's work from a linguistic point of view.

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I have been talking about all this in the context of two books that I read
recently. The first one authored by TJS George – a biography of M S
Subbulakshmi titled "MS: A Life in Music”. (Harper Collins, Bought at
Crossword, Ahmedabad). The other was the autobiography of Mallikarjuna
Mansur written originally in Kannada in 1984 but translated into English and
published in 2005 as "Rasa Yatra: My Journey in Music” (Roli Books, bought at
Premier Book Shop, Bangalore). Both the books show the limitations of the
genre of biographies (auto or otherwise) but both read very well and engage the
reader in its own way.
I will first start with the biography of MS. Since this is not an autobiography,
there is little dependence on somebody's memory. If one were to write about
another person, obviously that would
be based on research peruse
documents, and talk to people. This is
not simple in the Indian context. TJS
George, the author echoes Guha's
views: “About five years after
collecting material for this study
began in 1990, I abandoned the
project. There were problems that
made research virtually impossible –
the absence of any kind of records
about MS Subbulakshmi's life and the fortress erected around her by her

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husband, Tyagaraja Sadasivam. The first was a familiar problem: not
preserving papers, not maintaining records, no having a sense of history were
unfortunately a part of Indianness. The second was non-negotiable: Sadasivam
controlled all access and all information so tightly that nothing was ever known
that Sadasivam did not want known.”
It was good that George actually picked up the research later and worked on
the book which gives a good view of the life of MS Subbulakshmi. The book
provides a peek into her personality and into several details that are not
generally known. While for the uninitiated the life of MS appears very
traditional it is full of intricate details that show that her life was indeed
adventurous and interesting. M S Subbulakshmi's name expands to Madurai
Shanmugavadivu Subbulakshmi. It is important to notice that she had taken her
mother's name alongwith the name of her birthplace. Just a look at the
incidents in the early part of her life shows that MS had done all that a modern
liberated woman could have done - about sixty-seventy years ago!!
As MS was born in a class of temple singers, it was natural for her to take a
matrilenial route. She possibly did not even find the need to either worry about
a male name nor change it on getting married. While the book talks about MS's
mother Shanmugavadivu's name being linked with one
Pushpavanam Iyer as well as Subramania Iyer. George says: “MS
herself had gone on record saying that Subramania Iyer was her
father. There the matter should rest.. there was no need to go,
as some enthusiasts did, to the extent of renaming MS as
Madurai Subramania Iyer Subbulakshmi.” MS however, continued to bear her

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mother's name in the initials.
It is clear from the book that MS always had a mind of her own. For instance
when Shanmugavadivu decided that in keeping with the tradition MS had to be
married off to the Rajah of Ramanathapuram the response was: “MS did not
throw any tantrums or burst into tears. In her own inoffensive way, she made
it clear to her mother that she did not want marriage just then. She explained
that she wished to develop more as a musician before she thought of marriage.”
Though the proposal for a marriage was averted then and her music continued,
including stellar performances in the Mahamaham of Kumbakonam and in
Madras Music Academy, Shanmugavadivu still had her plans about getting MS
married. George says: “Shanmugavadivu's view of life was uncomplicated and it
did not take her long to identify a rich Chettiar as a suitable match for her
daughter. She asked Subbulakshmi to move in with him withou further ado...
What was Subbulakshmi to do under the pressure that was mounted on her? Not
only was mother the only authority she had known... the question of seeking
outside opinion never arose because there were no teachers or friends to whom
she could run..” MS just moves from Madurai to Madras and seeks shelter with
Sadasivam. Somebody who showed such courage and gumption, eventually
settled down to be a shadow of Sadasivam and as Girish Karnad says “shed all
traces of her devadasi past and transform herself into the perfect image of a
Tamil Brahmin housewife” was indeed remarkable.
From here on, George looks at the life of MS in two phases – the first being
those years where she was under the care of Sadasivam, made films (a

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profession that her mother detested) and remained unmarried. The next being
the marriage with Sadasivam, a farewell to the acting career and a total
dedication towards music. In the first phase MS appears like a revolutionary,
while in the next phase she appears like a sheepish housewife leading a life that
never crossed the lines drawn by her husband. This transition is brilliantly
captured by George.
Sadasivam, who is fourteen years older than MS marries her soon after the
demise of his first wife. This seems to bring in a great deal of stability into her
life. It is possible that Sadasivam provided her the right platform to peruse her
first love – music, by opening up the right sort of opportunities and providing an
appropriate platform. We see the transition of MS into a devout, and obedient
wife. It perhaps was not possible for anybody other than Sadasivam to carve out
such an outstanding professional life for her.
In all her concerts MS was always accompanied by Radha, the daughter of
Sadasivam from his first wife. MS herself did not have any children, but the
combination of MS and Radha looked so natural that it was difficult to believe
that Radha was not her biological daughter.
Towards the end of the book, George touches upon one little known aspect of

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MS's life – this is the possible
feelings she had towards GN
Balasubramaniam a great singer
and a dashing hero in some of the
films they worked together. The
chapter talks about some letters
written by MS to GNB expressing her feelings. Possibly GNB never responded to
these letters or encourage her. Once married, we can see stability and
tranquility in MS's life.
It is really amazing to read the biography of someone who was up against all
odds – that she was from the Devadasi community, and could actually make her
presence felt in the fortress of traditionalism – the Mylapore sabhas - where it
was difficult even for a non-brahmin, non-male to make a mark. But MS took
everything in her stride and it appeared that her exalted position in the music
circle came naturally to her. It appeared from her demeanor that, she never
rebelled, never moved away from home and she always belonged there. George
has to be complimented for continuing with his research and finally brought out
this remarkable book. Just imagine if we were more meticulous in
documentation this book could have been so much richer.
Mallikarjun Mansur's "Rasa Yatra" is an autobiography which is based purely on
memory. As it is an autobiography, the author usually does not find the need to
do any research – most of the incidents come naturally to the author. This
means that the author of an autobiography possibly does not show the discipline
that one would have shown had it been a write up about somebody else. It is

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also likely that somebody who writes a biography would have been a writer
either by profession or by orientation and therefore would know the syntax and
the craft of writing much better. It might not be appropriate to expect that
autobiographies should come only from writers. Nevertheless, it is usually the
case that I feel let down when I read an autobiography. Unfortunately unlike
the western world, where they engage professional writers as collaborators
even to write autobiographies we do not seem to have adopted it very widely
here, particularly in the context of Kannada.
Rasa Yatra has been translated into English by Mallikarjun Mansur's son
Rajashekhar. Usually I would have preferred to read it in Kannada, but somehow
I could never lay my hands on it. But it was in a way very good that I read it in
English. The advantage in the English version was that Rajashekhar has given
several footnotes that help in understanding the text better. He has also tried
to put some of the incidents in perspective. The commonality in the life stories
of MS and Mansur is that both of them had immersed themselves in the practice
of the art of music and lived a musical life. But for this, their lives look so

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different. Mansur did not have a partner in his progress unlike MS who always
had Sadasivam by her side. Yes, Mansur does occasionally remember his wife in
parts of the book when he looks back at the contribution of his family to his
musical life. But the role does not come out as very significant.
George gives and evocative story of the life of MS – it just
flows like a river. He has put her life in the broader
canvas of Carnatic Music. The events in Mansur's life
come like a montage – they are a series of images. Each
of the images provided by Mansur either start with music
or end with a song. That is the focus. The other details
are only incidental. For instance, when Mansur writes about his childhood, he
totally forgets to mention that he got married somewhere inbetween!
Rajashekhar remembers the event when he is doing the translation and gives
the detail as to how Mansur – who was ten years old at that time had gone off to
play and they had to search for the groom at the nth moment!!
As Mansur describes his family, he also indicates that the relationship with
Rajashekhar was turbulent. In fact he even mentions that Rajashekhar had
walked away from home, and spends a few pages on how Rajashekhar's wedding
to a girl outside their caste was not acceptable to him leading to a wedge
created between father and son for a long time. He does not elaborate on any
of these, and neither does Rajashekhar give a footnote on the incident. It
indeed would have been interesting if Mansur had spent some pages in opening
this up just to understand the state of mind that the artiste was in at that stage

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of life.
There are three (unrelated) aspects in this book that drew my attention:
● Any Indian achiever worth his salt usually keeps a significant portion of the
narrative on the international honours and the “foreign” tours undertaken.
But for mentioning in the passing that he had been invited to Sindh Shikarpur
(which in now in Pakistan) for a conference in 1935-36, there is no mention
of any foreign trips in the book. I was curious to know if he never went
abroad (which is quite okay and would never diminish his stature as a great
singer) or he thought it was not important enough to report in an
autobiography.
● This example just indicates how deeply he was into music. This comes from
the additional chapter written by Rajashekhar covering the period between
the publication of the original Kannada book and the death of Mansur. In this
section, Mansur suffers from a kidney ailment and is to be
dialyzed. At that time he asks his son to sing a bandish in Raag
Bhairav. Rajashekhar has a mini concert in the Dialysis ward
with the permission of Dr.Talwalkar the Nephrologist. This is a
very interesting and small detail which would never have been captured by
an autobiography. This could have been done only by a biographer.
● The smallest chapter in the book is about the awards and honours received
by Mansur. At the end of the chapter Rajashekhar provides the following
footnote: “My father never sought out awards or accolades. He tended to
make light of these to such an extent that he would sometimes give away
the mementos, citations etc., to whoever happened to be around him. My

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father had no idea of the historic significance of these and hence has not
helped us maintain a comprehensive record of his life's achievements.”
Well Ram Guha is right in this aspect where he says: “south asians are careless
about keeping letters, records and historical memorabilia in general”
Therefore many of the significant events remain in the oral tradition and never
get documented.
Cross posted in Kannada in ••••••• •••••
Three Books set in Hyderabad
Thursday, December 08, 2005
This was not planned. I have been buying two categories of books that are
interesting - possibly not very profound - just out of curiosity. One set pertains
to books set in undivided India/Pakistan set around the partition time, but---
but not about violence. They are not of the Saadat Hasan Manto type, nor have
the ripples of Train to Pakistan. I will write about them sometime later. The
other set I have been buying are books set in Hyderabad. I have always been
fascinated by the history of Hyderabad State and I really like the city and will
never miss a chance to go there and hang out. I have also been reading up a lot

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on Hyderabad and its history for the past fifteen years or so. Naturally when I
see a book (even if it is fiction) that claims to come from Hyderabad I cannot
resist myself. In the past 3-4 months I picked up and read three different books,
distinct in style and varied in themes, but all set in Hyderabad. I will talk about
them in chronological order of their setting (which incidentally was also the
order in which I read them).
The first book is Zohra by Zeenuth Futhehally - set in the first part of the
twentieth century. This book was first published in 1951 and re-issued by Oxford
University Press in 2004, the current edition has been
edited by her daughter - Rummana. I picked it up after I
read a review which said that this was an old book re-
issued. I thought if OUP was publishing fiction, and that
too re-issuing an old book it indeed must be exciting and
different. So when I was roaming around in Jaipur I
suddenly found an OUP outlet (I had least expected OUP to have a showroom in
Jaipur!) and asked for the book. Given that I had put in extra efforts to procure
the book, I also had extra expectations.
There is a certain element of aristocracy in this book and of course it comes
with its own limitations. But this is one side of the world that has not received
due attention because one could consider the things that Zohra has to grapple
with as "vanity". Is this just a story of a partly and frustrated housewife? But one
scratches the surface to find that there is a life behind a purdah, there are ways
in which people let their hair down and while people could exercise control over
their body due to social customs, it is extremely difficult to exercise control

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over the mind.
The story is important only because of the setting. This is set around the time of
Indian freedom struggle (Gandhiji is refered to and Sarojini Naidu makes an
appearnce in Hyderabad to recite poetry) - and therefore the concerns and
issues that flow through the novel represent the times. The story starts with
Zohra's marriage to Bashir. On the face of it, it is a happy marriage and possibly
this would have continued that way if certain people had not come into Zohra's
life. The first incident happens when Bashir and Zohra are on honeymoon in
Mussorrie where they meet one of Bashir's old friends and through him a young
man - Siraj. Siraj is young unmarried and Zohra finds him interesting. She has to
really let go of the boredom of the household - she has been in purdah all the
while and the only let up is when they move out of Hyderabad. At the same
time, Zohra cannot go wholehog. She has to have these diversions to satisfy her
intellectual frustration. With the Mussorrie honeymoon ending, Siraj disappears
into oblivion.
On return to Hyderabad the Bashir's brother Hamid appears on the scene with
his part leftist and part nationalist orientation. He has an ear for poetry, loves
books, and does not have a regular job. For Zohra it is a welcome change to
chat up with Hamid. Bashir is generally absorbed in work and not a great
company to keep. Zohra gradually figures out that she has fallen in love with
Hamid, her own brother-in-law. Well the tradition of story telling demands that
such conflicts should not persist for long - he has to disappear from the scene -
and so he does. In between on a vacation in Europe Zohra discovers a friend in

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Jacques who teaches her dance, but soon they separate as Jacques tries to
make some advances towards her. Zohra wants to talk, flirt, but would not have
sex with anybody else. Well the story goes on ultimately to end in a blissful
death of Zohra.
I really do not think the story is great - what it just illustrates is the two
different worlds that Zohra lived in. In camera - purdah when she was in
Hyderabad, and a big release when she was out. She is constantly looking for
some intellectual companionship which Bashir cannot provide. While she finds
nothing wrong with Bashir, her quest is to move beyond the veil and that solace
she seems to find in her conversations with others - she seamlessly lives in two
worlds without feeling guilty about it. There is a certain element of
magnanimity that we see from Bashir, while there are some petty issues within
the family. The point is that wedding is not a one stop shop where one finds all
solutions. The layers it unfolds in the context of the pre-independence
Hyderabadi aristocratic society which is trying to break shackles and westernise
but at the same time cannot give up tradition is the most interesting part of the
book. The narration is simple and conservative and there was nothing in the
book that got me very excited.
Soon after I had finished this I picked up a copy of Aminuddin Khan's book A
Shift in the Wind from Walden in Hyderabad. This is again
set in the backdrop of Hyderabadi aristocracy, but makes
a shift to the post-independence decade. The novel has
several characters narrating incindents which add up to a
story. The story revolves around Zafar and the world around him. The

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relationships that evolve in this book are quite distinct. This is a much more
liberal society, people are a bit more open and curious things happen.
Zafar encounters three women at different points in time - first he meets
Sabrina - who is older than him and married to a much older Dr. Merchant - he
even wants to marry her but she is unwilling to break the earlier wedding. As he
is trying to overcome this relationship he comes in contact with Asma who has
been offered to him for a night. She sells herself in
order to study and ultimately set up a school. Zafar
does not have sex with her, offers her money, which
like in any hindi movie, she refuses. After that
encounter, she disappears from the scene. And while
Asma does not show interest in his money does show
interest in Zafar himself, but he is not in a mood. Then
Zafar marries Zeba. If the story ends here, it would
have been a whimper - so Asma reppears as somebody who has already set up
her own school. Sabrina re-appears wanting to marry Zafar. But it is too late. An
interesting twist in the tale is that Zeba's father falls in love in Asma. That
conflict has to be handled because Asma is not interested...... and eventually
Sabrina loses memory.
Obviously the novel is very ordinary and nothing much to write home about, but
we can see that the Hyderabadi society has moved from the concerns of purdah
to a bit more liberal setting. In its orientation and presentation it is very very
contemporary.

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The novel treats the decade of 50s and 60s as a capsule. There are no problems
with the integration of the Hyderabad state with the Indian Union, the politics
of the time does not exist and the characters continue to do business in their
own small aristocratic world. Having read a lot about police action, telangana
peoples' movement and the tension that went on with the integration of
Hyderabad state it was refreshing to read about something totally different. But
it is amazing that when there is a big agitation led by Potti Sriramulu for
integration of Hyderabad and the formation of Andhra on the basis of language,
these novels stand as an island, totally warped inside the small lives of the
aristocracy. Like Zohra makes a mention of Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu, this
novel does make a mention of the police action - in order to determine
somebody's age.
While I was wondering if all novels that come out of the Hyderabadi setting are
so blissful, I encountered a third one. This is much more recent and deceptively
titled Madras on Rainy Days by Samina Ali.
Actually the novel has nothing to do with Madras or
Rains. This is another Hyderabadi novel that I
picked up at Sankar's in Bangalore Airport. The
author thankfully does not claim an aristocratic
lineage (unlike the other two) and the novel is set
in more contemporary times around the 1990s.
This book has a bit more of a connect with reality and again explores several
layers of relationships. While Chitra Divakaruni says that it is "a story filled with
psychological insight and a deep understanding of conflicts that plagues all ofus

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who inhabit two worlds" I myself am not sure of the psychological insights part.
As I said in my earlier post, it would be foolhardy to buy
books based on the superlatives on the blurb. They are
meant to entice us into buying the books. But unlike the
earlier two books, this is not very inane and makes a
greater attempt at exploring relationships, and looking at
the Hyderabadi culture from the perspective of someone
who is an ABCD.
This one is all about Layla - who grows up in US and comes back to India for an
"Arranged Marriage". Her father has given up her mother for another woman.
Layla appears to be wanting to defy tradition. She has already had an affair
with Nate but does not want to continue with the relationship because she finds
his letters extremely distasteful. At the same time she is not too keen to marry
Sameer and her mother thinks she is possessed and takes
her to an Alim to rid her of "bad thoughts" - the Alim seems
to show remarkable maturity in dealing with her. (It is not
clear if he figures out the truth, but I did get the idea that
he had figured it out). But does Layla have a choice other
than marry Sameer? Possibly no. Well she decides to start
life on a clean slate by telling Sameer all about the past. Sameer looks
compromising, forgiving and willing to move on. He just wants to get out of
Hyderabad and move to US. Indeed the trip to Madras is not only a honeymoon,
but also a mission to get a visa.

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Just when it appears things have somewhat settled down, and they are out on a
honeymoon in Madras, it rains. Actually it pours. So on a rainy day while their
marriage is not yet consummated she finds out that
Sameer is a gay! What a twist in the tale! There appears
another Alim in Madras to whom Layla meekly submits
herself to exorcise the ghosts that are haunting her. From
the time they return a complex game of relationship
starts. The marriage appears to be off at some point, it
appears to get reconstructed and the pendulum goes on
infinitely. Samina Ali in trying to delve deep into the minds somewhere loses
the plot. She is not sure if the details of Hyderabad, the communal riots and the
culture of the city is important, or examining the relationships are important.
She keeps weaving the story larger and larger with more and more
complications setting in. No wonder she has to seek refuge in a communal riot
and get rid of a few people to get the tale under some control. But unlike the
other two novels, there is an earnest attempt to look at the tension between
the old and the new city, the distinct identity of the old city and the culture of
Hyderabad. Given that Futehally and Khan lived their lifetime in Hyderabad and
Ali has been shuttling between India and US, it appears that she is able to
capture the spirit of the city much better. She is rich and authentic in details
and that is what makes this novel readable for someone like me who has a
passion for Hyderabad.
While each of these are very ordinary books and independently would not have
deserved a post, I was fascinated when I looked at the chronology and how

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these represented almost half a century of relationships - written be three
totally different individuals and all coming from the upper crust of Hyderabad.
It is a fascinating journey in time - from issues of getting out of the veil to
having bold and mature relationships to a novel where the characters do not
mind having oral sex, being gay - but at the same time get traumatised when
the relationships lack aesthetics.
It is also important to see how each of these novels have been launched. I had
to really go in search of Zohra - it was almost like an academic book, not
announced in the new arrivals of the Crosswords, not available in Airport
Bookshops. A Shift in the Wind was a bit more widely available, there was an
interview with the author in Hindu and a couple of reviews appeared. However,
this was an Indian book with an Indian launch. In case of Madras on Rainy Days,
we can see that it has had a global launch, different covers in different places,
reading and signing sessions and also shortlisted for a local prize in California.
If you are a writer, where would you want to be?
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Thursday, December 01, 2005
I had heard of this book for long and generally people had spoken positively

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about the book. Therefore when I picked it up, it was with this “feel good”
feedback that I took it. However, I did not have too many expectations of the
book. I had not known if the book would be serious or just one of those racy
thrillers. Now having read the book I still have some very mixed feelings. I really
am at a loss to understand what makes a book hit the bestseller list. What
makes a book sell 3 million copies. Why do people call this “One of the best,
most charming, honest, hilarious and life-affirming books to appear in years” -
No, the book does not deserve so many superlatives. But well, imagine the
discipline of marketing without the use of superlatives...
It is a nice book – not very ambitious – very much like the
protagonist Mma Ramotswe. It is different from the books
written in this genre. What is unique about this book is that it
is set in a very different setting – Botswana. Mma Ramotswe
loves the country – and as a part of the justification on why
she loves the place, she describes as to how different (and safe) it is compared
to the other nearby countries. Unlike other books in this genre, the detective
does not have a bungling assistant, she does not even appear professional
enough – you get a feeling that she is one of the nice neighborly ladies who
drifted into this profession and has been following it as she seems to like it. It is
very much like many women taking a hobby of “interior design” a bit seriously
and converting it into a profession. Therefore one tends to forgive all the naïve
things the lady does. She is not “expected” to be a thorough professional in the
league of Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

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There is something more interesting in this book – unlike most of the other
books it does not have a single mystery to be solved, not all the mysteries get
solved and there is never a feeling that the reader could get involved in trying
to guess who the criminal is nor is there a reader involvement in the plot. So
the book reads like any other dispassionate narrative, with incidents one after
the other falling in place. Most of the cases get solved not because of great
logic, but through a combination on circumstantial coincidences and a little bit
of intelligence.
If finding out a criminal was as simple as made out in this book, the world would
have been a much better place to live in. Mma Ramotswe has an uncanny knack
of going directly to the perpetrator of the crime and asking him or her “did you
do this crime?' (or almost similar) and the criminal almost always admits to the
crime. So the mystery is solved. Just as simple as that. There is a certain
grandmotherly goodness in her that makes such incidents somewhat believable.
I am a bit intrigued about the case of Boyfriend – did the lady solve the case, or
was she taken for a ride or did she decide to withdraw from the case. This is a
curious case of an possessive Indian father who wants to protect his girls from
“boyfriends” put them through arranged marriages. Mma Ramotswe is not
convinced and thinks that they ought to be “modern” and therefore does not
like taking up the case of spying on the daughter. But still she picks up the case
because she wants money – she has made a gross loss of 30 pula in the first
month.. So she accepts the assignment handed over by Paliwalar Sundigar Patel
(being an Indian, staying in Gujarat, I have never heard of such a Patel name,
but alas that is the character) to check on his daughter Nandira (again a

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peculiar Indian name, but you never know what happens to Indians when they
reach the African subcontinent and then move to Botswana). Mma Ramotswe
follows the girl and is convinced that she does not have a boyfriend and so she
reports to Mr. Patel, just to find that there is a certain Jack who suddenly
appears to create a twist in the tale. This incident is completely forgotten and
this loose end is never tied up later!
While the narration is simple and the characters turn out with tons of
simplicity, the book seems to move seamlessly from one time point to the
other. The book does not bore you, there is a certain element of curiosity that
is kept alive throughout, but I certainly do not believe that there is great
humor, wit or intelligence in the book. While the edition I picked up had the
first chapter of the sequel – possibly another marketing gimmick as a teaser, I
am not convinced that it is worth a buy. I would go for it if I am really feeling
low and do not want to tax my mind. But mysteries were always meant to tax
your mind, at least until the end of the book.
I do not regret having read the book, but nothing would be lost if I had not read
it.
Copyright © M.S.Sriram, Ahmedabad, India

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MSSriram - Review of Kurien's Book

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Kurien: A Personal Essay

Monday, April 17, 2006

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I was in my intermediate when I cut college to go and see Manthan in Olympia

influential that it would dictate my career choices, in a way.

wanted to make a career in rural management, but a career in management

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enough for me to consider it seriously.

there. Thus my journey to Anand started.

On reaching Anand, Manthan – the movie

started opening up a new meaning for

me. Given that we were expected to

check into what was called “Farmers’

Hostel” in the NDDB Campus we were

expecting a fairly modest

accommodation, but were quite pleased

to find all the modern amenities that a

student could ask for. It was inspiring

and as young students we were exposed

to the excellent oratory of Dr. Kurien.

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could bring about..”

Jawaja – an indication of a rare combination of professional education with

extremely successful at that. He was a maverick, sounded autocratic and people

thundered [about people standing in queues to supply milk]: “What does it do

Is it only an orderly milk collection? Is it not a blow to the caste system?”

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Professor of Economics, CT Kurien from Kerala apparently introduced himself to

“I am V Kurien – Village Kurien!”, punning on CiTy.

rural/development sector. My run in with IRMA continued as I became an

decided to move on.

Reading Kurien’s book thus for me was a journey

back in time. It contained all the nuggets and the

contradictions that have made him what he was. The

book is as plainspeaking as he himself could be and

talks mostly about his professional life. There is

hardly a personal element and possibly he meant it

to be so. The book is dedicated to his grandson, with

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game of chess could be in competing in the market, and it could also be in

preventing the competition through means that were exclusively available to

bureaucrats in public, and a posturing of autonomy. At the same time, he used

were represented by a co-operative lobby.

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Patel was in his understanding of his limitations and

spotting of merit in Kurien. Kurien exhibited that trait

– but to a very limited extent. His immense faith in

colleague HM Dalaya is something that reverberates

throughout the book. However, but for Dalaya we do

not find any mention of many others who worked with

him. It appears that the entire dairy cooperative

comments on her performance, reminiscent of the expert comments Lala

Amarnath used to provide on cricket matches, where he always took recourse to

There is an interesting episode narrated in the book about how Tribhuvandas

Morarjibhai asks for volunteers to serve as chairman of the organization. A few

somebody wanted to be the chairman badly enough, then he would definitely

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was occupying the post of governance which going by the co-operative

Kurien’s professional life. Indeed this is the contradiction which every