#Book Review: Illicit by Dibyendu Palit

Translated by Arunava Sinha

I have always enjoyed reading translations by Arunava Sinha and this was one of the reason for me to pick up this book. But, it was an utter disappointment.

Dibyendu Palit's Illicit, translated to English by Arunava Sinha, was originally published in 1989 as Aboidho. 

The plot spans just three days and is a slice of the protagonists' illicit life. Jeena, an attractive young housewife is bored of her 'wooden relationship' with much older husband, Ashim. Partha, her neighbour, is married, a father of two, and equally bored in his marital life. We are introduced to them in the high point of their illicit relationship when the two are planning a secret sojourn to Puri. Quelling her self-doubts and pangs of guilt, Jeena takes the bold step to be with Partha.

In the next three days that Jeena spends with Partha, she discovers that all is not as it seems. Partha's lust takes an aggressive turn and Jeena feels violated. Beguiled by shame, self pity and doubt, she decides to head back home and put to an end everything illicit. Undergoing the intense emotional crisis and coming to the end of the story, the readers will expect an unconventional end, but somewhere the thread gets lost. You land up reading another clichéd love story, tormented and torn apart between the pangs of infidelity and clashes of conscience.

Throughout there are detailed account of Jeena’s emotional crisis yet other characters remain vague. The plot is very wobbly and predictive. I slowly lost interest. The book jacket refers to Partha as Mukherjee while he is Majumdar throughout the story. In Pg106, second last para Jenna is referred to as Gina.  

This would definitely not be in my list of good reads.

Genre : Fiction

Publisher – Penguin

#Book Review: Red Oleanders by Rabindranath Tagore

I was intrigued to pick up this book due to the fact that it is a work of translation by the Nobel Laureate himself Rabindranath Tagore and I have no shame in accepting the fact that I had no clue that Tagore also wrote in English.

This is the story of Nandini, a beautiful woman who appears at a time of the oppression of humanity by greed and power. The antagonist in the story is the King, who represents enormous authority but barricades himself behind an iron curtain. He transforms a town in to a fort and the humans into digging machines who grope in the dark searching for gold.

In this soulless mining town, people forget the beauty of nature, the green meadows, the dazzling sunshine, the tenderness and love between humans. Nandini arrives to salvage humanity trapped behind mechanized tyranny. She eventually frees the oppressed souls who are toiling and underground, but at a great sacrifice. The story ends in an unexpected climax after Tagore knits an intricate network of sequences that ultimately becomes a parable.

Red Oleanders (Raktakarabi) is one of the more than sixty plays, dance dramas and dramatic sketches by Asia’s first Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The play, written in 1923-24, was begun during a visit to Shillong, Assam, and inspired by the image of a red oleander plant crushed by pieces of discarded iron that Tagore had come across while walking.  A short time later, an oleander branch with a single red flower protruded through the debris, as if, he noted, “created from the blood of its cruelly pierced breast.”

In 1987, Ananda Lal published a translation of three plays by Tagore, including Red Oleanders, which was a welcome addition to making Tagore’s works accessible in English.  Lal’s work represented a faithful recreation of the original work, and it also included pertinent scholarship on the history and context of the plays.  His translation of Red Oleanders was finally staged in 2006 at Camden Peoples Theatre in England.  Again, the reception was less than enthusiastic with charges that the play was too heavily symbolic, the production too long, and the language not modern enough.

The book is a good break from the monotony of our mechanized life and evokes hope. This book is surely a good pick for writhing souls who want to break out and see the shining sun of tomorrow.

Genre : Drama

Publisher – Niyogi Books

#Book Review: ‘My Name is Gauhar Jaan!’- The Life and Times of a Musician by Vikram Sampath

To begin with, if you're not a non-fiction reader and avoided exploring the genre of biography, after picking up this book, you would feel how lame were your inhibitions. I finished reading this 300 page book in one week- a feat that I had never achieved earlier and thanks to my dear friend D, who suggested me this wonderful book. It was the curiosity to know about the first gramophone record celebrity, Gauhar Jaan, and the status of Hindustani Classical music women maestros at the beginning of the 20^th century that continuously prompted me to turn one more page. The urge to know more about a songstress at her prime, the cult of ‘tawaifs’ and the bygone era had become quite insatiable at the end and I was crestfallen after reading ‘ Black Hole : The Death of a Star’.

The author, Vikram Sampath has exhaustively crafted a fabulous life story of the superstar Gauhar Jaan intertwined with the development of Hindustani Classical music and the birth of the Gramaphone Record Company in India. 

The book begins in dramatically, fictional style which immediately gets you hooked to the musical journey of 55 year old Gauhar Jaan. It is quite splendid to read the account of such a character who ruled the musical mehfils and was showered with honours and riches. The beginning is arresting, and one is immediately touched by the plight of the character, who was the first ruling diva in the first quarter of the 20^th century and the first one to perform at the Congress fund-raising concert and had identified the talent of the great musical maestro Begum Akhtar and had prophesized her rise. No doubt, Gauhar Jaan was the most enigmatic personality of Hindustani Classical Music and this magic urged Vikram Samapth to embark in a journey to unravel the life and glorious times of Gauhar Jaan which culminated in this wonderful book- My Name is Gauhar Jaan- The Life and Times of a Musician.

The book is divided into three sections- The Making of a Diva followed by The Glorious Years and the Fall from Grace. The book also records some colourful photographs of the diva, palaces, kings, Gauhar Jaan’s musical abode and a CD of Gauhar Jaan’s music.

Vikram Sampth took a long, arduous musical journey to identify facts from myth. In the absence of any documentation of that period, the author not only highlights Gauhar Jaan’s musical contribution in the light of socio-cultural moorings, but traces and describes the development of Thumri ( a form of Hindustani Classical music), and the evolution of the recording industry in India.

Sampath writes simply, without any poetic frills. He sticks to the era and interestingly unravels the mystery and distinct personality of those rich and glorious times. Concluding his foreward- Journey- Sampath wrote, “ I hope I have been able to throw some light on the life and times of one of India’s most colourful and feisty musicians…I sincerely wish that the readers will, at the end of the book, say, ‘What a woman ! What an age!’

Indeed, What a woman! What an age.

It’s a sure pick for those who want to relive those magical moments.

Publisher : Rupa

Genre : Non-Fiction 

#Book Review: Panty by Sangeeta Bandhopadhyay Translated by Arunava Sinha

I saw a lot of eyes staring at the book cover at the book shop and our society is such that people find such graphics titillating and pass stereotypical judgement. But I cared less and had reposed all my faith on my favourite translator Arunava Sinha. For me picking up this book was opening up the windows of my soul and gearing up my mind for something unexpected.

“Panty” by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay is a collection of two novellas – Hypnosis and Panty and each of them is about unrequited love, longing and sexual desire. The two novellas kept me thinking for a long time after I finished the book. It was a feeling of disappointment after I finished reading them as I wanted to journey to go on. It was a feeling of bitter-sweet melancholy with a silver lining of hope. 

That   cannot explain it but I will try – the feeling of melancholy, of utter hopelessness and yet so much hope and positivity lined with it. That is how good books mesmerizes you.

Hypnosis is about a woman trying to delve into her past through the process of hypnosis, to confront her doomed love affair with a well-known musician. In Panty, we meet a woman who has moved into a guest house and finds a panty there – it is soft and silky in leopard-skin print. She thinks the woman who wore it must have possessed a wild sexual nature. A feeling of companionship enveloper her; the sexual lives of the two women begin to mingle and blur.

Sangeeta’s voice is courageous. It is distinctive and organic. It was extremely honest, daring and unflagging. It comes from a place which is transparent. The book is a page turner, but it also makes you stop and think about life in general and also bigger things like- falling in love, lusting for one’s body, love unconsumed. The book is beyond all differences and is only about raw, unadulterated experience.

 Arunava Sinha’s translation only makes it possible for readers in English to experience this rich and almost lush piece of Bengali literature.“Panty” is a book which should be read without fear of being judged or being ridiculed. It is most beautiful and a candid work of Indian literature.

Genre - Fiction

Publisher – Penguin

#Book Review: Days of Longing by Nirmal Verma Translated by Krishna Baldev Vaid

The beauty of my country is its colourful culture and diverse language which makes it so rich yet so different. I have always regretted not knowing to read all our languages and hence indulge in reading a lot of translations. This pick was one of them and I am glad I made a wise choice.

This book is timeless and quintessential. You can finish it in one sitting and would not even realise, that you have completed a novel. The translation is brilliant and very lyrical. The wonderful facet of this book is its multiple layers of emotions, which adds to its lushness.

This is a book by Padma Bhushan recipient Nirmal Verma, translated by Krishna Baldev Vaid about an Indian student who lives in Prague for over two years and is spending the Christmas holidays in the city, instead of returning home, with a few friends who are still around. A Burmese student Than Thun (TT), a restless German cinematography student Franz and his girlfriend Maria are his points of salvation in this frigid city. Much of their time is spent visiting pubs, lolling about in their gloomy hostel and spending the whole day drinking vodka or beer according to their capability to spend; not just for the sake of getting drunk but to keep themselves warm.

Life takes a turn for this unnamed India student, when he is assigned an interpreter’s job for an Austrian lady named Raina who comes for a holiday in Prague. The professional meeting explodes into an intense, passionate relationship. Prague in winter with its beautiful and moody setting makes this love-affair more viral.

This could be an essentially sad story disguised as something brighter; or the converse, a breezy, slice –of-life tale narrating a tragic love story. The complicated and inevitably short-lived romance is poignant and deeply moving.

This is one of the most moving novels I have read in a while and among the most unusual.

Genre : Fiction

Publisher – Penguin Modern Classics

#Book Review: Tales of Fosterganj by Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond can never let you down. He tops my chart as my most favourite writer. Tales of Fosterganj is his latest bestseller. Set in a fictional hamlet near Mussoorie, this book reads like you are in a holiday in a bizarre place yet very happy. Bond has once again shown his creative brilliance in creating a host of characters who are quirky in their own supernatural way yet few characteristics lend association with the real world.

The story chronicles the adventure of a of writer from Delhi, who while exploring the beauty and serenity of Mussoorie passes through the quaint hamlet of Fosterganj and after liking the calmness of the place, he decides to spend some time here while working on his next book project. He finds himself a small place to stay which is not a very luxurious one, yet takes it up for the magnificent bathroom view. Slowly during his solitary walks he gets to know people living in Fosterganj and that each one has a story to tell.

He comes across Mr. Foster, a drunkard who always has sorry stories to rope in money from people to fulfill his alcoholic needs. Hassan, a hardworking baker, who rents out his place to the writer. Vishaal, a bank manager, who resides in a place considered to be haunted by the denizens of Fosterganj. A mother and son living in an old haunted palace; a pick-pocket who is trying to make it big but too bogged down by the habit of his picking pockets. Being part of their lives, the writer discover new stories and explores lot more being part of the unusual adventures which the people of Fosterganj get into; such as close encounters with a leopard, a night spent in a disheveled haunted palace only to add to his bizarre adventure list. Then, going after monster lizards and getting trapped in the horrors of an unpredicted earthquake.

 Another attraction point of this book is its jacket with the beautiful illustration of Fosterganj. I was more attracted by this colourful cover even before peeking into the book.This book is timeless, witty and charming.The beauty of this book is in its simplicity and once, you are done reading it, you would surely want to take the next bus in search of such a place. Who knows you might get lucky in finding your own Fosterganj.

Publisher : Aleph Book Company

Genre : Fiction

#Book Review: It’s Geek 2 Me by Francis Cleetus

This graphic novel definitely wasn’t my pick after browsing through the popular online shopping portals. Thanks, to my friend R who always gives me good suggestions and asked me to pick up this book. This book is surely the funniest, wittiest and craziest one, which I have come across in long time.

It’s Geek 2 Me is a collection of comic strips by Francis Cleetus revolving around the techie lives of some of the wackiest employees of a software company named Paradox Software. What makes it humorous and yet gives the sense of the bogged down lives of the techies is that Francis has coined them after famous programs, applications, et all and provided brief sketches of their profiles and glimpses of their characters. Linux Cooper, Mona Das, Emily Facebrook, Loginder Singh and Robert Cobolobo are some of the lovable characters who try to walk through their busy life and try to keep up with the ever-changing and advanced tech-savy industry.

The comics are short, mostly three panels long and drawn in traditional fashion, which are easy to the eyes. I still would have enjoyed it more, if they would have been made colouful. The interesting aspect of his comics are that they have been infused with the happenings of contemporary world of social media,  the programming sector , or just the tech world in general.

Overall, it’s an extremely entertaining book. The cartoons are well- crafted, brilliant, intelligent and funny. The situations are not exaggerated but are lame, which we face in our everyday life but often fail to laugh at them. This is one book, which one would be proud and satisfied to have in his/her collection.

It has been numbered as Volume 1, so I hope there are many more interesting ones in the pipeline.

Genre : Graphic Novel

Publisher: Hachette