Chain of Custody (2016)

It was only in February that I read Anita Nair’s Alphabet Soup for Lovers, which was quite a memorable one. In her recently released Chain of Custody , the second of her Inspector Gowda novels after Cut Like Wound, she portrays the city of Bengaluru ridden with corruption, violence and child trafficking.

Inspector Gowda is shown to be a maverick in his investigation methods,  passion for his Royal Enfield and for the women in his life. Along with his assistants Santhosh and Ratna, he sets out to solve the case of a missing girl Nandita, his maid’s daughter.

A young girl Rekha is coerced into being an escort to a rich man by her boyfriend Sid. She lies to her family and discovers herself to be in danger when this rich doctor is found murdered the next day. She breaks down completely without having a soul to breath her troubles to.

Nandita goes to school and on her way back visits a church. She is kidnapped by child traffickers and brought to a brothel. There are others, both boys and girls, molested and killed by their abusers. She cries for help and there comes an angel in the form of a stranger.

An MLA is found to be a paragon of virtue as he had married his handicapped girlfriend. The two are an ideal couple but she finds out his secret phone conversations and interest in young girls. She decides to take action and searches all his files to find out who he really is.

Connecting these three parallel stories is the city of Bengaluru, where anything is possible according to Inspector Gowda. His case is solved in a gestalt moment when his son brings in a friend Suraj who happens to be Rekha’s brother.

The novel portrays a disgusting world of child trafficking , where children around the age of twelve are nabbed in clear daylight and later finished off after being sexually exploited. Written in a very racy style, the book keeps the reader on edge and is a good read a la the stories of Feluda, our good old Indian Sherlock Holmes. 

Amen:The Autobiography of a Nun

Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun, written by Sister Jesme of the Carmelite Convent has created repercussions in the religious and political scenario of Kerala as the murder of Sister Abhaya and the suicide of Sister Anupa Mary. Like these two incidents, the book offers flak against the strong belief of the laity in the institution of Catholic Church and in the theory of blind obedience as propagated by the church authorities. 

Sister Jesme was born in 1956 in Thrissur and joined the Carmelite Congregation because of her intense desire to follow Christ. She chose the name Jesme because for her it meant Jesus and Me. She has a PhD in English Literature and has published three books of poetry. She has worked as the Principal of St. Mary's College. 

In the book, she discloses how she was asked by the authorities to take long leave and undergo psychiatric treatment. Instead she leaves the congregation and her high post of a gazetted officer to live a life of a recluse. The author openly discusses several taboo topics in society like the low place given to women in a patriarchy, the greed of managements run by the Church, prevalent lesbianism and sexual perversions among the nuns, rivalries and advances made by priests towards nuns. 

The word Amen is used to conclude prayers in Christianity and means so be it. As its cover page says, the life of a nun should be like that of a pure and untainted white lotus that stands at a higher plane than the muddy waters it lives in. Written with an openness, quite shocking and sensational in nature, the book portrays the daring nature of Sister Jesme, who left the Church to live a life of independence and peace. Like a white lotus. So be it. 

Khaled Hosseini

One really good writer who I have come across recently is Khaled Hosseini with two bestsellers The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns to his credit.

Both books can be called bildungsromans or novels of formation and development. The Kite Runner is a growing up novel that narrates how Amir atones for the betrayal of his childhood friend Hassan by adopting Hassan's son Sohrab. The first chapter is unforgettable while A Thousand Splendid Suns is about the relationship between two women in a war-torn Afghanistan. The struggle to survive makes them the wives of the same man, but the bond that develops between the two resembles a mother-daughter relationship. The final section of the novel is remarkable especially about the guessing games that Laila, Tariq, Aziza and Zalmai play for Laila's expected baby. THe naming game involves only male names. If it's a girl Laila has named her already.

Both the books are well-written and unforgettable with characters and the emotional intensity of their stay alive in the mind. His advice to the aspiring writers is :"I would give them the oldest advice in the craft: Read and write. Read a lot. Read new authors and established ones, read people whose work is in the same vein as yours and those whose genre is totally different. You've heard of chain-smokers. Writers, especially beginners, need to be chain-readers. And lastly, write every day. Write about things that get under your skin and keep you up at night". 

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Reflections of Madison County: A Visual Journey

In every bookworm's library, there are permanent residents or books that you return to time and again, to derive from them the same comfort and understanding that you felt the first time you had read it. These books can bring you back to the sacred space of your soul.

One such book is Reflections of Madison County: A Visual Journey by Mark F. Heffron. This book combines photography and poetry. Against each beautiful photograph of the Madison Country are a few lines from a classic writer like Rainer Maria Rilke or W.B. Yeats.

The visual journey offers a glimpse of the paths through the green fields, the serene rivers and the bridges that are synonymous with Madison County. The ordinary views of nature are transformed into the extraordinary in these pictures. The sunrises and sunsets reveal a landscape glowing with magical light. The fall season transforms the green landscape into a russet-clad one.

Adding to the visual treasure are excerpts from lyrical poets given along with each picture, making this book a form of soul space. I love this one by Rachel Carson:

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

A sheaf of corn, the mist clad banks of a river, the shade of sunset in the river-water, a swing- impressions that remain in the mind even after you leave the book. Nature and art combines to create sense of serenity in the reader, so much that this book is sure a collector's treasure. 

The Alchemist

"Why dont you like your favourite book anymore?"A friend asked me when I told her that I didnt regard The Alchemist as my favourite anymore. "But why?", she was curious because I had told her the story with high spirits, of course without mentioning the end and I raved about its influence on my thoughts and life.

I had no convincing answer to give her nor I could understand why it was so.May be I have stopped dreaming about my future. May be I didn't  believe in dreams and mirages and hallucinations anymore.

Why?Why? Why? This time I asked myself the question. The same friend had told me that I overanalyse everything and think in detail about every minute thing. As she would say make a kheema out of it. So my mind started rewinding itself on all the memories available on The Alchemist.

What did I learn from The Alchemist?  Follow your dream, it said. I was fascinated by the idea of the universe responding to my desires if I wanted something badly. It motivated me enough to pass a test and reach a goal. I even recommended it to my friends who were also chasing some dream or the otherbut in most of the cases they were not sure of what they wanted. I was sure and felt very happy (may be vain too) about the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted and was confident of getting it too.

In the months that followed my thoughts changed. I had forgotten my own goal and my mind was immersed in other things. So when the results came I was not able to appreciate the glory of reaching my goal. I felt  that this sucess was was a hallucination I didnt deserve. It was a mighty accident after all.

I forgot that I had chosen this path fighting my parents' dream of me becoming an engineer. I knew I would have made an unskilful engineer at that and chose to learn literature instead. It was the thought of books that fascinated me. Yet I forget it all and about The Alchemist too.

I got curious, what was in that book which motivated me so much. If it put me in my right path once, it can do it again. I read the book for the fifth time. Now this time I understood that the book didnt hold the same mystery for me. I realised that though the book remained the same, I had changed.

Finally I understood that the book was a milepost and a traveller can never hold on to a milepost. It is a treasure of the heart, something that taught you a lesson but at the sametime it urges you to move on. The next time you tread the same path, it is not a stranger anymore but the reminder ofyour first journey into the unknown.

Afterthought: I want to regain whatever I have lost because I thought I didnt deserve good things.

Upon Westminster Bridge

Do you prefer the stillness of nature in a village or the rush-hour traffic of city life? Most people love the village life. Was the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth an exception? Known as the High Priest of Nature, he loved the scenic beauty of the Lake District and celebrated scenes from rustic life. Then how could he write a poem on a scene from city life- a poem on Westminster Bridge situated in the heart of London city? You are not the only person to be surprised. Wordsworth himself was astonished at the sight of the quiet London city one early morning in September 1802. He was traveling with his sister Dorothy across Westminster Bridge on their way to France. It was between five o’clock and six o’clock in the morning. As opposed to usual, the city was silent and deserted. He realized to his own amazement that the noisy city he disliked was also a part of Nature than the face of commerce it was during the day.

In the morning sun, the poet found the city to be the most beautiful sight on earth. Only a dull person will fail to appreciate the calmness inspired by the quiet city basking in the morning sun. The landmarks of the city looked silent and bare without the rush of life across the streets. The river Thames looked as if driven by an inner force than the noisy place of commerce during the day. Yet was the city really asleep? No, the mighty heart – the capital of the most powerful nation in the world at that time and its people – will wake up soon.

This sonnet “Upon Westminster Bridge” is a passionate expression of Wordsworth’s love of Nature and his ecstatic astonishment at the peacefulness of London city early morning.

The Guide

They sat beside the Swami and read the message to him. He smiled at it. He beckoned Velan to come nearer.

The doctors appealed, 'Tell him he should save himself. Please do your best. He is very weak'.

Velan bent close to the Swami and said, 'The doctors say----'

In answer Raju asked the man to bend nearer, and whispered, 'Help me to my feet,' and clung to his arm and lifted himself. He got up to his feet. He had to be held by Velan and another on each side. In the profoundest silence the crowd followed him down.

Everyone followed at a solemn silent pace. The eastern sky was red. Many in the camp were still sleeping. Raju could not walk, but he insisted upon pulling himself along all the same. He panted with the effort. He went down the steps of the river, halting for breath on each step, and finally reached his basin of water.

He stepped into it, shut his eyes, and turned towards the mountain, his lips muttering the prayer. Velan and another held him by each arm. The morning sun was out by now; a great shaft of light illuminated the surroundings. 

It was difficult to hold Raju on his feet, as he had a tendency to flop down. They held him as if he were a baby. Raju opened his eyes, looked about, and said, ' Velan, it's raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs----'He sagged down.

The novel The Guide by RK Narayan ends this way. A Swami named Raju refuses to stop his fast for rain and his condition worsens.  But the movie version of the book in Hindi, Guide directed by Vijay Anand in 1965 shows the villagers dancing to the music of rain while Raju’s mother and Rosie mourn over his death.

The movie version deviates in many ways from RK Narayan’s novel. For example, Rosie’s husband Marco is a womanizer in the movie, while in the novel; he is shown as an archaeologist interested only in his research. The music by SD Burman is memorable in that it beautifully captures the atmosphere of the story.

Both have as protagonist, Raju, a roguish railway guide from Malgudi. He lands in a village, where he is mistaken for a saint while he has no such otherworldly traits in his nature. His past, which he narrates to Velan, has dramatic incidents-such as seduction of a married woman of a client, living together much to the angst of his loving mother and a term in jail for forging Rosie’s signature on a document.

 The story of his past shows how he falls in love with Rosie and causes a drift her and her husband Marco. He takes her into her home and lets her follow her dream of becoming a dancer. She succeeds as a dancer and brings money to him, who acts as her manager. But he forges her signature on a document and lands in jail. On his release, he finds himself in a village, where the poor uneducated villagers mistake him for a saint/sadhu.

What is amazing is the transformation the self-centred Raju undergoes as a result of the devotion and faith of the villagers headed by Velan. Though his guiding qualities are manifested in the way he entertains his clients and how he helps Rosie find her dreams, in his newly-donned role as a guide to the villagers he survives by his glibness and experience of the world. 

For free lunches, he becomes a spiritual guide, a solace to the worried villagers. When drought and famine hits the village, his words are misinterpreted as his intention not to have food till it rains. The villagers are astonished by this and Raju cannot fail them. So he decides to keep a fast for twelve days in order to bring rain to the starving villagers.The roguish hero turns a saint when he makes an effort to sacrifice his life for the villagers.  The end of the novel is ambiguous- whether Raju dies as a result of his unselfish act or whether it rains is not clear. But the movie depicts an outburst of rain while Rosie and Raju's mother mourn over his death.

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Love

The Kitchen God’s Wife

Amy Tan’s books are based on the lives and experiences of her parents and relatives, who had migrated to the US from China. She was born in Oakland in California and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has written several books The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Her novels serve as cultural documents that describe the immigrant experience in terms of communality and identity. They contain the customs and rituals of China that might get lost in the new country in the process of cultural assimilation.

The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991) is her second novel and presents a mother-daughter relationship complicated by secrets- the mother withholds information about the daughter’s real parentage while the daughter hides her progressive multiple sclerosis from her mother. The novel begins in the present time when the daughter Pearl is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Then the story moves to the past as Winnie, the mother talks about her first marriage in China to a pilot named Wen Fu. All these secrets come out only because Auntie Helen, Winnie’s friend, who thinks that she is dying of a brain tumour, threatens to expose the secrets of both mother and daughter.

Winnie had lost her mother when she was a child and was brought up by her uncle’s family. She discloses her sorrowful past, her unhappy marriage, the deaths of her three children, her meeting Jimmy Louie, her escape from her first marriage and her marriage to Jimmy, whom Pearl calls father. Her bitter experiences at home after her mother’s escape (or death, she does not know the truth) make her angry towards her father. Later, when her marriage is fixed, her father asks her to spend a week with him. He asks her opinion about a painting in his study that she used to dislike. Then he adds: I liked this in you; so unafraid to say what you thought. Then he asks her present opinion on the painting and as she explains why she likes it now, he says:

From now on, he said at last with a stern look, you must consider what your husbands opinions are. Yours do not matter so much anymore (178).

During her times of trouble, she is helped by Auntie Du, Jimmy Louie and Helen. She was like the Kitchen God’s wife, who got no credit for her faithfulness and loyalty to her husband. Winnie, however decides to move and discards the image of the Kitchen God’s wife from her home because she feels that now that she has divorced her husband Wen Fu, this God has no value for her.

Once the secrets are out, both women try to come to terms with what they are entrusted with. Winnie wants to take Pearl to China to find a cure for her incurable disease. She brings the altar that Auntie Du had left for Pearl and finds a new goddess for it, a goddess with no name, obviously a factory error. She names the goddess Sorrowfree and tells Pearl:

But sometimes, when you are afraid, you can talk to her. She will listen. She will wash away everything sad with her tears. She will use her stick to chase away everything bad. See her name: Lady Sorrowfree, happiness winning over bitterness, no regrets in this world. Of course, it’s only superstition, just for fun. But see how fast the smoke rises- oh, even faster when we laugh, lifting our hopes higher and higher (532).

Tan portrays the miserable life of Winnie, who leaves China in search of a new life. She shows the patriarchal Chinese society that values boys over girls and does nothing when a man hits his wife in public. There is no one to stand up for the woman as it is considered to be her fate. Tan also critiques the generation gap that comes out of the prejudices that the old and the young feel toward each other. In the novel, the mother-daughter relationship becomes warm only when all secrets are let out and the prejudices overcome.