Book Review: “Flood of Fire” by Amitav Ghosh

I had pre-ordered Flood of Fire almost three months ago and last week Flipkart delivered the third and final book in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy to me. I had liked the first one, Sea of Poppies and the second one, River of Smoke, a lot more. Flood of Fire turned out to be good very good in fact, a better than even the River of Smoke.

Like the first two books in the trilogy and not unlike most of his works in the last fifteen years, Ghosh uses his fiction as a vehicle for history narration. His subaltern version that is. Mind you, I am not complaining. The Ibis trilogy is, just like the Glass Palace, a devastating critique of colonialism and Ghosh makes his point very well. In the Flood of Fire, the British are determined to open up China for opium trading, just as Commissioner Lin Zexu does his best to keep opium out. At first, Lin believes that the opium traders do not have the backing of the British government, but his illusions are soon dispelled. The best thing about the Flood of Fire is that most of the characters are likeable, even if they are British soldiers like Captain Mee or businessmen like or shipman turned opium trader like Zachary. Shireen, the wife of the late Bahram Mody is especially likeable, though she travels to China in the hope that the British government would be able to, through the use of force, compel the Chinese government to pay reparations of opium confiscated from his husband’s storehouses. They are all part of a grand design as the story moves along and the great capitalist enterprise is unleashed.

Ghosh’s sympathy for 19th century China shines throughout the novel. He also makes a case to show how common Chinese people who once lived in India, like Asha didi, developed deep and lasting bonds with India. He relishes characters like Neel who easily transcend cultures and makes friends with the Chinese Compton. Chinese authorities seem to treat their Indian prisoners relatively well. The use of Chinese words such as “barbarian” to denote foreigners is shown to be, not a problem with the Chinese or their language, but the result of mis-translation by European scholars who have an axe to grind. On the other hand, the East India Company’s armed forces openly promote and support the caste system. Indian soldiers are given inferior weapons and lesser pay. When fighting in China alongside the Cameronians, racist taunts and harassment are routine. As Havildar Kesri Singh ruminates on such inequities and looks on the Chinese soldiers fighting them with respect (for their dedication to their cause and the opportunity they have, unlike him, to fight for something they hold dear), one gets the feeling that Ghosh has transplanted a modern day man into the body of a humble soldier who lived around 170 years ago.

At one point, Ghosh tells us (wistfully) through Taranathji, the Tibetan monk that the Gurkha King Rajendra Bikram Shah had proposed to Beijing that the Chinese and Gurkhas should launch a joint attack on British forces in Bengal. However, it was against Beijing’s policy to makes alliances with other Kingdoms. And in any case, the Qing did not entirely trust the Gurkhas. I am not sure how historically accurate Ghosh is in this context since google couldn’t throw any light on this, but I think the rest of the novel is kosher.

In a manner which Bollywood would have been proud of, Ghosh brings together in China a number of characters we had met in the previous two books the trilogy. Thus we once again meet colourful characters such as Serang Ali, Baboo Nob Kissin, Paulette, Zadig Beg, Deeti etc. However, the Flood of Fire is a lot more realistic than the previous two books, even in such aspects.

Most of the characters fit their stereotypes, but with Zachary Reid, Ghosh plays God and does an amazing job as the innocent and hardworking carpenter is transformed into something else. I do not want to disclose more and give away the story – please read this novel and find out for yourself.

I knew that armies of yore were accompanied by drummer boys and fifers as they marched into battle, but did not really believe that any civilised army would intentionally and unnecessarily put young uns in harm’s way. The drummer and Fifers in Flood of Fire are nice lovable characters, in particular Raju and Dicky and yes, they do accompany troops to the battle field, put themselves in harm’s way and some get killed! I’ll not dwell any more on this point, other than say that Ghosh has done a splendid job in portraying the world of drummers and fifers.

Some of Ghosh’s observations in this novel are really profound and meaningful. After observing British Indian troops rout imperial Chinese soldiers, Neel is mighty impressed. “Thinking about it later, he understood that a battle was a distillation of time: many years of preparation and decades of innovation and change were squeezed into a clash of very short duration. And when it was over, the impact radiated backwards and forwards through time, determining the future and even in a sense, changing the past, or at least the general understanding of it.”

Ghosh liberally sprinkles his 600 odd page tome with Bhojpuri and Chinese phrases. I thought the occasional Chinese phrase made sense, but the Bhojpuri didn’t since the characters who emitted those Hindi-like words speak only Bhojpuri and I didn’t see the point in the random phrase. It was as if Ghosh had done his research and collected those phrases and didn’t want to waste them.

On the whole, Flood of Fire is a good read and one I would recommend to anyone interested in historical novels.

Book Review - The Tailor's Needle by Lakshmi Raj Sharma

Prof. Lakshmi Raj Sharma’s The Tailor's Needle has been on my reading list for a while now. Recommended by many, The Tailor’s Needle had a smell and feel of a grand novel and I couldn’t bring myself to read it in bits and bytes as I normally do with most books. As a result, the enjoyment was delayed by a fair extent. Nevertheless, when I got around to it, I was not disappointed.

What would be the result if an Indian author with excellent command over English writes a book which is the Indian equivalent of a masterpiece such as Doctor Zhivago or War and Peace, but has a heroine who could be, in a different era and geography, Austen’s Elizabeth Bennett? Throw in a bit of Agatha Christie and you would have The Tailor's Needle which is set in the early part of the 20th century when the British were still entrenched in India and the freedom struggle was slowly gaining momentum. A time of great changes and hopes as well as a period when traditional values were starting to be questioned.

When the novel begins, one meets Cambridge-educated Sir Saraswati Chandra Ranbakshi who is the Prime Minister of the princely state of Kashinagar. Sir Saraswati has three children – Yogendra who aspires to be like his father, temperamental Maneka, our own desi Elizabeth Bennett and Sita, as humble and meek as Indian women as stereotyped to be. Lord Mortimer Edmund Griffin-Tiffin, the Viceroy of India, would like to annex Kashinagar under one pretext or the other and Sir Saraswati takes it on himself to keep the wolf from the door. After the death of the Maharaja of Kashinagar, Sir Saraswati moves to Mizapur with his family. Interestingly Wikipedia tells me that Prof. Sharma too hails from Mirzapur.

A tailor’s needle does not discriminate between garments. Sir Saraswati aspires to be akin to a tailor’s needle, one who treats all people alike, be they Maharaja or mendicant, Englishman or low caste Indian. If this gives the impression that Sir Saraswati is a benign see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, tell-no-evil sort of being, you couldn’t be more off the mark. When a friend is in danger of being attacked by dacoits, Sir Saraswati organises a defence in a manner which any general would have been proud of. Yogendra too follows his father’s footsteps, in terms of values and principles.

Maneka on the other hand is a far cry from these two fine gentlemen. I found Maneka to be the most interesting and even likeable character of the lot, despite her temper tantrums. Maneka’s story is worthy of a separate novel, with so many twists and turns and crests and troughs. Maneka’s affair with an Englishman leads to her pregnancy before marriage, which in turns forces her to go for a dangerous and surreptitious abortion. A normal woman would have crumbled as a result of all that, but not Maneka. Literally handpicking her own husband who turns out to be an exceptional prince with a history, Maneka has a never-say-die attitude which makes her a woman far ahead of her time. Sita on the other hand is an excellent example of how two children of the same gender from the same womb can be so different. I will not give away any more of the story and spoil it for other readers, but only disclose that the man who Sita happily agrees to marry could have been one of the princes described in Freedom at Midnight by Lapierre and Collins.

One doesn’t expect a murder mystery to be tucked inside a novel like The Tailor’s Needle. I was therefore doubly surprised when I found not one, but two (related) murders in the course of this novel. Maneka is deeply involved in the murders and her father and brother take on the role of detectives to solve them both. Prof. Sharma’s style of writing so good that one doesn’t notice the transition from War and Peace to Pride and Prejudice to an Agatha Christie crime novel.

Yogendra falls in love with a pretty girl from a good family who is from a different (lower) caste. The universe seems to conspire against the loving couple and Yogendra and Gauri lose all hope. Does Prof. Sharma play cupid or does he go with the values of those times? Remember those were times when even Gandhi-ji was slow to support inter-caste marriages!

One of the best bits about The Tailor’s Needle is how it shows the values and mores of those times in a realistic way. British officials ranging from the Viceroy to District Collectors are not too honest or morally upright, though they take pains to appear so. Such efforts have given them a clean chit for posterity, but Prof. Sharma does not hesitate to call a spade a spade. Sir Saraswati is in awe of the British and their values, even as he fights to prevent them from annexing Kashinagar. Towards the end, as India’s freedom struggle grows stronger, Sir Saraswati is better able to reconcile his natural Indian values and his admiration for the British.

Lakshmi Raj Sharma is a Professsor of English at the University of Allahabad.

On the whole, The Tailor's Needle turned out to be a splendid novel and an excellent read.

Book Review: Forgetting by Devashish Makhija

What makes one forget the past? Embarrassment? Inconvenience? Guilt? Because one doesn’t give a damn? How easy is it to read about a new dam being built and not think of the consequential displacement of the people living in the hamlets that will soon be submerged? In one of Makhija’s stories, an adivasi boatman is asked where his village is, as he rows a boat across the waters of a dam. ‘Right below us,’ he murmurs.

There are 49 stories in Devashish Makhija’s recently released Forgetting, each of them a concentrated gem of pain or suffering or anguish or sometime just a memory. In the first story By/Two, Rahman and Rahim are identical twins who share an autorickshaw in Mumbai. The autorickshaw is langdi, the lame one, a beast with three legs, one that sends tremors up the driver’s legs, like a cheap massage. One of the brothers is dumb and so the other is forced to play dumb as well – you see, only the dumb brother has a licence to ply the rick. To the entire world, the rickshaw has only one driver, a man who doesn’t have the need for sleep, a legendary Duronto among other drivers. The brothers had run away from Akbarpur to Mumbai when they were young, to escape from the tyranny of their butcher father. From Akbarpur, ‘a small filth-heap of a town that sprang up along the railway tracks soon after the East India Company ran the first train across the nations breasts.’ To Mumbai, a Mecca that feeds those who live in its bowels, despite the lies they tell. Every time there is a blast in Mumbai, Rahim is picked up for interrogation, Indian police-style. Beatings, kicks, questions. Finally Rahim’s heart gives way and the police tell Rahman that there’s a body in his rick. Do the memories linger forever? I assume they do.

Makhija’s writing is not pleasant. I don’t think it’s meant to be pleasant. It is messy and convoluted, just like memories and forgetfulness.

It’s not only the oppressed and the victims who try to forget, or remember, if you will. There are many middle-class Indians who see, feel, smell and try to hold on to their memories. A few would rather not.

I’m trying to forget, but it isn’t working. These stories are gonna stay in my head for a while, I think.

Book Review: Miles To Run Before I Sleep, by Sumedha Mahajan

Our ancestors used to run to survive, to hunt food and to escape from predators. Human beings can run for sustained periods of time, unlike all other animals. Running is no longer so important for the modern human being, who lives in an integrated world with such an efficient food supply chain that one can consume all the food one wants without ever setting foot on a farm. We still use our legs and feet to move and it will be a long, long time before they atrophy and become relics of the past, if at all. Even though brute physical strength is no longer so essential for survival, we still enjoy competitions that require speed, strength and stamina. Of the various sports and games that we either participate in or at least watch, running races are among the most popular. We have them in schools and colleges. Almost all multi-sports events ranging from the Olympics to the Asian Games give pride of place to both short and long distance running events. Running events of various lengths, ranging from 10 kilometres to ultra marathons, are held almost all year round, all over the world.

What is it that forces so many otherwise normal men and women to rig their alarm clocks to ring before dawn, slip on a pair of trainers, a few of them very expensive and many not so, and run and run and run, before returning to a standard humdrum existence? What was it that made Sumedha Mahajan, a brave woman who has suffered from asthma since childhood, to run a Greenathon from Delhi to Mumbai, a distance of over 1,500 kilometres, along with five other similarly crazy people? A few months before Sumedha started her Delhi-Mumbai run, she had unsuccessfully participated in the 2012 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. A month before SCMM 2012 which ended as DNF (Did Not Finish), Mahajan was the victim of a hit and run car accident. It was definitely a leap of faith for Mahajan, a leap into the dark, so to say, something the average human being, including yours truly, would not have the guts to commit oneself to.

I found Mahajan’s Miles to Run Before I Sleep unputdownable. Written in simple, functional English, Mahajan has chronicled how she took up running and despite her asthma and other health issues, became a long distance runner who was invited by Milind Soman and others to join a team of six crack runners who would run a Greenathon from Delhi to Mumbai in 30 days, covering a distance of 1,500 kilometres, in a bid to highlight the importance of preserving the environment.

Mahajan’s daily struggle on account of her various ailments and asthma as well as inadequate support from the crew as she ran 1,500 kilometres in 30 days makes Miles to Run Before I Sleep a compelling read. At times I was reminded of Robert Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, except that Mahajan was successful and Amundsen’s trek would probably be a better comparison. Mahajan combated bad food, diarrhoea, stress fractures, disputes with the crew, bad weather, unruly highway traffic, pollution and periods. I am not going to disclose more here, but will leave it to you to read this wonderful book for yourself and find out more.

Miles To Run Before I Sleep offers its readers a study in human behaviour. The six runners and their crew set out on their expedition on the best of terms and spirits, all noble intentions and all, but things soon began to disintegrate. The crew was composed of non-sportsmen who did not understand what running is all about. This I think is a common refrain across various sporting events and organisations in India. Almost all sporting bodies are run by non-sports persons, usually politicians. Most marathons are organised by businessmen or politicians who have an agenda. As TRPs generated for the run failed to meet expectations, the journalists accompanying the runners became disinterested. When runners across cities flocked to accompany the six runners for brief stretches, the crew failed to extent any hospitality to the guests. Was this really the crew’s fault, I wonder? Were they warned in advance of the guests’ arrival and were they expected to have additional supplies for the new arrivals? Mahajan does not make this point very clear.

Raj Vadgama was one of the six runners and Mahajan tells us that on Day 25 he had a serious fight with the crew when they served cold coffee – only to Milind Soman and denied it to the other five runners. Soman tried to calm things down, but he was unsuccessful. Vadgama left the team and ran on his own, but he did complete the run. Recently Vadgama has been in the news on account of his Bharathon.

Mahajan’s first marathon was the SCMM 2011. We are told that though Mahajan ran without a clear plan and forgot to hydrate herself for the first half of the race, she ran in under five hours and came 15th in her category. A few months later, she ran a marathon in Malaysia and came 6th. The same year, she ran the 75-kilometre Bangalore Ultra and was the winner in her category. When it seemed that the sky was the limit and the next SCMM was barely a month away, fate willed otherwise and she was hit by a speeding car. An injured Mahajan bravely took part in the SCMM 2012, but did not finish. She also abandoned her plans to run the Comrades Ultra in South Africa, but that did not stop her from accepting Milind Soman’s invitation to take part in the 1500 kilometre Greenathon!

The Greenathon started on 20th April 2012, when summer was already underway. Why didn’t they choose to run in the cooler months, I wondered? Mahajan does not offer any explanation.

Mahajan does not seem to be one of those people who follow specific diets or plans. We are told that as preparation for the Greenathon, she used to eat 500 grams of homemade paneer, a lot of yoghurt, peanuts dates, spinach and fruits daily. Though she does not say so, one gathers that she is a vegetarian, but not a vegan. There is very little discussion about the merits or de-merits of any diet or exercise regime. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Listen to your body and eat what you feel like in moderation. That’s me, not Mahajan, though I’m sure Mahajan would endorse my statement.

Mahajan is highly observant and her various comments regarding the places she ran though are very interesting. A number of towns and large sections of the highway were extremely polluted, causing Mahajan to wonder about the cost we are paying for India’s development. The sad truth is that India’s poor are paying a disproportionately high price for this so called modernisation, though they stand to gain little in the short term. In various parts of Rajasthan, Mahajan was an item of curiosity as she ran wearing clothes which were considered unsuitable for women! It was not just illiterate villagers who disapproved of Mahajan's run. Even Mahajan's parents had initially felt that she ought to stay at home and think of having a baby, before Mahajan won them over to her side!

I have a friend who is chauffer driven to work daily. Most days, on his way back, he runs part of the way, around five kilometres and his car trails him. Sometimes he runs the entire distance of around eight kilometres. Though this works well for my friend, the environment gains nothing on account of my friend’s run, in terms of cutting down on fossil-fuel usage and carbon emissions. Most long distance runs are supported runs. The Greenathon runners required extensive support – they were tailed by a large crew in buses and cars carrying their supplies – it could not have been otherwise, though the idea was to draw attention to environmental issues and the need to preserve the environment. In an ideal world, a really fit runner ought to be able to run from Delhi to Mumbai, taking breaks on the way, buying food and water from clean wayside restaurants and dabhas, serving hygienic food and water. “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” I’m sure Mahajan would endorse this quotation.

Book Review: The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi by Aditya Sudarshan

Aditya Sudarshan, author of A Nice Quiet Holiday and Show Me A Hero, has come up with his third novel. When I finished reading the first page of The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi, I had started to believe that Sudarshan’s latest offering is a gently flowing story with a simple mystery or crime to be solved, something on the lines of his first (A Nice Quiet Holiday), not unlike an Agatha Christie, with maybe a touch of Wodehouse.

However, after I turned a few more pages and found out that Madhav was an important officer in the Ministry, I thought I detected a hint of George Orwell’s 1984. As I read further, it seemed I was a bit off the mark. There was no Big Brother and I didn’t know where I was headed, until I realised that I was in a Matrix. You know how it is. One can’t explain the Matrix. You’ve got to read it for yourself to find out.

Persecution comes in various forms and intensity levels. Usually it is the weak or meek who are persecuted. Minorities may feel persecuted when they are denied their rights. However, Madhav Tripathi is a successful bureaucrat, in good health, a week short of his thirtieth birthday and does not really have an excuse to feel persecuted. Also, it’s not just Madhav who is persecuted. Even Shivani, his pretty girlfriend, is targeted.

Can one be persecuted by one’s own thoughts? If yes, would that be the result of one’s guilt? And why should Madhav or Shivani feel guilty? Sudarshan does offer a few clues – the country-side has been devastated by something, possibly famine. Humans live like animals, having possibly mutated. No, we are still in India, an India with slums and dirt and a lot of riff-raff, a place almost unrecognisable to the reader. Would a murderer feel persecuted by his victim’s relatives who may possibly be searching for him, in their quest for revenge? Should Madhav Tripathi feel persecuted as he works his way up the ranks of the Ministry, under the tutelage of the ever-so-powerful Secretary?

Madhav Tripathi’s oppressors are a determined lot. They do not wilt under pressure. Though they seem to be working class, they seem to be everywhere. Madhav’s friends and well-wishers are equally determined and they too take casualties. Unlike Sudarshan’s first two novels, The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi has a lot more violence and dead bodies, though most dead bodies do come back to life.

I liked Nisha a lot. Nisha is Madhav’s previous girlfriend and she reminded me of a character from the French Revolution, strong, powerful and determined. At times, The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi seemed to be set in the cusp of a violent revolution. Does Madhav’s guilt on account of his own success and the poverty around him cause him to image the revolution and persecution?

Sudarshan writes very well and I’d say that he has definitely evolved as a writer. His prose is limpid, yet beautiful. The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi is a brilliant and cunning fantasy novel that leads to nowhere and yet takes the reader places.