Prose that raises important questions
Fiction
SLEEPING ON JUPITER
Anuradha Roy
Publisher: Hachette India
Published: 2015
Pages: 250, hardback
Anuradha Roy’s third novel opens on a harrowing note, with seven-year-old Nomita witnessing the murder of her father by axe-wielding masked men after they invade their home. In the same incident she loses her beloved brother, who runs away, and is abandoned by her mother. “When the pigs were slaughtered for their meat they shrieked with a sound that made my teeth fall off and this was the sound I heard,” the daughter recalls of the violence that changes her life overnight. Such a brutal and jarring beginning is befitting a novel that is deeply disturbing, even though the rest of it is definitely less savage than the first chapter.People make religious trips to the coastal town of Jarmuli in India. But, now as a 25-year-old and a filmmaker’s assistant, Nomita is making the journey for a completely different reason: to confront her past traumas. She spent six years living in an ashram in Jarmuli under a revered guru who emotionally, physically, and sexually abused her and the other children in his care when the world wasn’t watching. This story, that takes place over five days, is told in flashbacks, and as the barbarity of the guru’s crimes are gradually revealed, you can’t help but shudder, but you are still unable to put the book down. Such is the power of Roy’s prose.
In a way, the book is a brave attempt to reveal the hypocrisies of the Indian society. Roy talks about dhoti-clad priests who fuss about what women wear to temples to a history that’s largely told through erotic cravings on temple walls, and yet how sex is still a taboo of sorts in India. While narrating an engaging story, she pinpoints what is so fundamentally wrong with the Indian society to make violence and misogyny norms of its culture.
There are also references to the epic Mahabharata, where good trumps evil. However, in ‘Sleeping with Jupiter’, the evil against women and children and homosexuality are made out to be things that can’t be challenged so long as hypocrisy and patriarchy rule our societies. Roy, through Nomita and other interwoven characters, brings to the forefront issues many would largely turn a blind eye to or cover up. And, while doing so, she also manages to raise some important questions on what it means to be a woman in contemporary India in a way that simply cannot be forgotten.
Street food aus Deutschland
ShaVi’s Berlin’s Street Food or ShaVi's Berliner Fritten more authentically, is a small joint with a big name in the heart of Thamel. The German restaurant has become a popular eatery for both tourists and locals in a short time since its establishment.
ShaVi’s serves authentic German cuisine that is unique in Kathmandu. The small menu lists the best of fast-food, something that Germans would eat on the streets of Berlin. No points for guessing why it’s named so. Currywurst, boulette and homemade fries are the go-to for ShaVi’s food patrons, and the sweet-tooth connoisseurs get to between churros and cookie dough balls with various options.
THE MENU
Chef’s Special:
- Berlin Currywurst with Fries and Mayo
- Pulled Wild Boar on Fries
- Jaeger-Boulette with Fries and Mayo
Opening hours:11 am – 11 pm
Location: Thamel, Kathmandu
Cards: Not accepted
Meal for 2: Rs 2,000
For reservation: Call 980-2096555
A critique of India’s ‘new national narrative’
Non-fiction
INDIA NOW AND IN TRANSITION ED. BY ATUL K THAKUR
Daulat Jha
Publisher: Niyogi Books
Language: English
Pages: 448,
Rs 595 (Hardback)
‘India Now and In Transition’ is a sharp and scholarly collection of essays edited by the journalist and prominent commentator on the South Asian affairs, Atul K Thakur.
The book packs in 37 insightful essays from prominent writers and opinion-makers like Ramachandra Guha, Shashi Tharoor, Tabish Khair, Manu Joseph, Chandrahas Choudhury, Atul K Thakur, Robin Jeffrey, Vinod Rai, TSR Subramanian and Wajahat Habibullah. The names will be familiar to those who follow Indian opinion writing.
Covered are politics and governance, economics and development, security and foreign policy, society and culture, and language and literature. Moreover, it has an incisive introduction by the editor, Thakur, and a special foreword by eminent Historian Sunil Khilnani.
‘India Now and in Transition’ is based on how India is being shaped by contemporary political events and other key determinants. At the outset, it is made clear that this book intends to be not a prognosis (which is often confused with prediction), but rather an inquiry into futures based on current happenings. This necessarily entails deconstruction of the past.
Essentially, the book signals, India’s present is not exactly linked with the democratic idealism of past, and its immediate future is unlikely to create a greater basis of harmony, either at home or abroad.
The remarkable piece by the editor deals with the alienation of “the ‘Real Other’ of the world’s largest democracy” and consistent failure of the state to come to terms with it. It discusses ‘radical dissent’ and the challenges surrounding it. Written with a broad canvas, this piece will be of keen interest to readers in Nepal as well.
On strategy side, Dhruva Jaishankar’s piece is certainly important for strategic thinkers and practitioners of Nepal, who have to everyday live with the fallout of India’s strategic choices. The long piece on foreign affairs by Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy covers Nepal amply. In fact, Nepal gets ample space in other parts of the book as well, which was perhaps expected from an editor who has frequently written on India-Nepal relations.
India Now And in Transition offers fresh insights into several crucial areas, elements that have shaped modern-day India, be it the complex set of state-center relations under the country’s federal system, the challenges of territorial/cultural diversity, or the contradictory outcomes of economic reforms.
This book looks diligently at the successes and failures of India’s tryst with democracy. There is consideration for truth-seeking rather on striving to secure a politically correct side. It should be of interest to anyone who has an interest in policy matters and the fast-changing politics, society, governance and economic processes in India and to a large extent, in South Asia.
By Daulat Jha
The author is a Kathmandu-based journalist
Lessons on love, sloppily conveyed
Fiction
THE FORTYRULES OF LOVE
Elif Shafak
Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (April 26, 2011)
Language: English
Pages: 368, paperback
“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.”“The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.”
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Elif Shafak’s characters stay in your subconscious mind long after you have turned the final page of her book. They are hard to forget. That’s how well she develops her characters and brings them to life. You only wish the same could be said of her storytelling. You would expect it from an author who claims, time and again, that her homeland is none other than storyland.
Inspired by Rumi’s messages on love, ‘The Forty Rules of Love’, like most of Shafak’s works, manages to confuse you no end. This often-poetic novel within a novel story unfolds in two parallel narratives. The first one takes place in the 21st century and is about an unhappily married Jewish housewife named Ella living in Northampton, Massachusetts. Ella works for a literary agency and is given the task of writing a report on a book titled ‘Sweet Blasphemy’ by Aziz Zahara. The sweet blasphemy is the second narrative of this novel that is set in the 13th century. It’s about Rumi and the infamous wandering dervish known as Shams of Tabriz.
The story of Ella finding love with a bohemian Sufi mystic while in the process of evaluating his book that is set in a time period we are familiar with is a lot less believable than the one where Rumi and Shams of Tabriz find comfort in each other’s company. And it’s the story that takes place in an era that you can’t really relate to that the readers find themselves increasing drawn to as the narrative progresses.
There is also an overdose of clichés that distract from the storytelling. Phrases like ‘shivers go down the spine’, ‘bowled over’, ‘far off the beaten track’, and, ‘make a mountain out of a molehill’, make the narrative somewhat annoying and lame. Shafak, who has previously written both in English and Turkish, seems to have made a mistake by writing the novel first in English, having it translated into Turkish, and then rewriting it in English. The experiment, albeit interesting, doesn’t quite work.
Despite having been quite harshly critical of her work, we would still like to recommend Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love to our readers. If not for Shafak, then you might want to read it for Rumi or as an introduction to Sufi thoughts and ideologies. Also, the lessons Shafak shares through Rumi’s story encourage you to make some changes in your life and fill it with love and even if that were the only reason to read this book, it’s reason enough.
