And finally the Litfest….#JLF2020

Reading has become the predominant part in my life. While I have always been reading, the availability of time and books were both limitations that I had to live with.  I have written before about this, and about the gradual shift in my reading preferences in these last 10 years post-retirement. But when I say predominant, what do I mean?

While I was still traveling for work in the 90s and 00s, I used to buy magazines at the airports and railway stations; yes, we still did a lot of rail travel then. Among these I used to enjoy the book review section in the magazine “Open”, since it gave me a peep into the current authors and books, although I did not have the time to read them. But with more time and less travel, I started reading reviews more seriously and ‘Hindu” became a regular newspaper, since one Sunday a month it had a special 6 page book review supplement. Sad to say they have fallen victim to changing trends, and the revised new supplement format has a only a limited book section every Sunday.

And then a few years ago I visited the British Council library as part of my nostalgia tour. I had been away from Delhi for close to 4 decades and had re-located in the NCR area after retirement.  The library had fulfilled much of my reading cravings in the mid-60s. My father’s office was in Udyog Bhavan, and in those days the library was located close by on Rafi Marg. Since Government worked 51/2 day weeks, I used to visit the library almost every Saturday. It had re-located to its  current location on Kasturba Gandhi Marg in the iconic building designed by Charles Correa, some years ago. And this visit made me realize how I had missed general (not medical) libraries. I took a membership that allowed me to issue 14 books and keep them with online renewals for 9 weeks. And on my many visits to the library, I discovered ‘Times Literary Supplement’ (TLS), “London Review of Books’ (LRB) , Spectator and other publications that I had never had access to before. This opened up a wider world of books, and although I could not (and often did not ) want to actually read many of these books, the reviews were in themselves wonderful. The LRB also carries excellent essays on a wide variety of subjects. And then I started to look for book reviews online, sometimes before reading a book, sometimes even after finishing it to cross verify some one else’s point of view!! The reviews from ‘The Guardian’ ‘New York Times’ and “New Yorker’ were always the best. 

The next jump was to podcasts. I was not an early convert to this format, I thought I loved the printed word too much. My brother had got started listening to current events podcasts and urged me to try them, and I did. But on my last visit to the US, I found that many people were listening to audio books and podcasts on their long commutes and were enthusiastic about it. I tried, but did not enjoy the audio ‘book’ experience. However, I did gradually enter into this new world and found it was vast, catering to almost every area of interest.  I discovered the plethora of book related podcasts and now I am a regular listener to many of them.

My final foray was the Litfest….. as a reader, I had heard about the famous Hay festival and have followed the Jaipur Literature Fest (LTF) since its early days. Of course, over the years it has not been possible to ignore it, as it was in the news repeatedly for various controversies…. books, authors etc…. hurting our very fragile sentiments!! However, I am not a ‘celebrity’ hunter even of the ‘famous/favorite’ author kind and was not convinced that hearing them would enhance the reading experience. And so, while the Litfest bug exploded across the country, I did not bother to attend, although every January I would consider a trip to JLF. A couple of years ago, I was in Goa at the time of the Goa Litfest and I attended mostly because of convenience!  I heard panel discussions on many interesting topics and crossed paths with many writers who were familiar by name and their work and even some whose work I had read and admired. I heard Perumal Murugan, Manu Joseph and Annie Zaidi (whom I had read) and new ones like Easterine Kire. I bumped into my niece Arundhati Subramaniam, the noted poet. It was an interesting experience. Then I timed a Chennai trip to visit my brother to coincide with the Hindu LitFest, which usually takes place around Pongal. This too enjoyable and stress free, since the venue was walking distance from my brother’s house and the attendance was manageable and sedate!

And so it was that I decided that this was the year I would venture out to the JLF!! It was partly motivated  by the message from friends that they would be going, and also by the fact that this was the last year it would be at the  Diggi Palace. This was a planned Jaipur trip, specially for the JLF, I paid for the registration and booked a hotel for 2 days! Finally, I reached the venue on a Saturday morning, the 3rd day of the Fest, to walk into a colorful winter mela of milling crowds, food stalls and other stalls where the book related activities were a part of the overall festivities. This is not to say that some serious book related activities were not going on, it was just not the first impression one got!

JLF Logo

One of the colorful halls

The festive decor

Diggi Palace entrance

Perumal Murugan

The speaker/participant list was impressive and with 6 simultaneous sessions, it was difficult to choose. The main attraction was on the “Front Lawn’ and more ‘current events/politics’ which wavered around a book as an excuse! The stars were politicians , columnists and others who also write… Shashi Tharoor (always a crowd favorite), Rajdeep Sardesai, Pavan Verma, Sachin Pilot, Saba Naqvi etc. Although, not at this venue, but at the slightly smaller “Charbagh’ Ravish Kumar drew by far the most enthusiastic and vocal crowd. The superstar for the 2 days I attended was Abhijit Banerjee, the Nobel laureate.

However, away from this mad frenzy, there were serious discussions around books, writing, writers and issues around publishing. Among the sessions I attended those on ‘Addressing rural distress’ (Anukri Upadhyaya, Namita Waikar, Tinni Sawhney and Perumal Murugan), ‘Negotiating the male space space in contemporary fiction’ (Rosahn Ali, Arunava Sinha, Perumal Murugan And Hansda Shekhar) were excellent. In fact, I walked out to buy the books of Anukri and Namita which I have read and would recommend highly. Among the foreign contingent, I enjoyed the wry Brit humor of Howard Jacobson, and also heard Suketu Mehta, Katie Hickman, Elizabeth Gilbert among the writers I had read as well as some new ones who I may explore in future.

So, will I go again? I am not sure… I have got a hang of the event, know better how to negotiate the space and events and maximize my own experience.  However, it is just too big in scale to retain an aura of a ‘book lovers and readers’ gathering, one which I definitely felt at the Goa Fest. So while I will definitely plan to attend the latter, JLF 2021…. will take a call alter!

Some further reflections on the decade that has gone by….and some resolutions?

Even without any  great ‘life passion’ that needed to be pursued, or bucket lists that needed to be ticked, I did look forward to the freedom of time that retirement promised. And I have used this to pursue both travel and reading , my two great interests.  While my reading never stopped even during busy periods at work, my annual average was 10-12 books. These tended to be best-sellers/popular fiction, with some literary ones here and there. But with more time and less distractions, I started to re-visit the great classics, and explore non-fiction writing. These were mostly around 19th and 20th century history of our subcontinent with special leaning towards the freedom struggle and its heroes. I had always planned to read more on the life and works of Gandhiji, and Ramachandra Guha’s book ‘India after Gandhi’ was one of the first books I read. This  stoked curiosity about the times and the issues, and led me many books about the times and the many players of the ‘Independence drama’. Books by and about Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Maulana Azad, Rajendra Babu and many more. As the political landscape became more strident, I also felt the need to read Ambedkar, Periyar, Savarkar and Hegdewar. I am not very political, but with the strident voices of 24 hour media making decreasing sense to me, I felt the need to arm myself with information. The cacophony of television became deafening, and so in 2014, I stopped watching the news channels, restricting myself to some sports channels.  I followed up by discontinuing TV subscription altogether a couple of years ago, since live streaming and cheap band width made cable redundant!

In 2010, I took my first cruise holiday with a group of girl friends – 12 days of eating  or rather over eating, and some sight seeing around the Scandinavian countries. The ship was a mobile township of nearly 2500 people, and had all the facilities that a small town has – swimming pool, gym, restaurants, cinema halls, gaming rooms etc…The cabins were cramped, the sight seeing was a bit hurried and since I am not a great social bird, there was no special attraction in the experience – except of course, the bonding with friends. But since then, I have had a number of holidays  in many parts of India and other parts of the world. As I already said, the trek to Kailas Mansarovar was the most memorable. But also had lovely visits to Canada and US, Egypt, many parts of Europe…….

Of course much has changed over these last 10 years, both in the world around me and the wider world out there. Divisive politics has risen around the world while the growing disparities and unrest brought home to each one of us by almost ‘real time’ coverage, has driven hordes of people across the world to face unbelievable challenges in order to seek a better life. This migrant ‘crisis’ has provided some of the most poignant and heart breaking images of the decade. However, these images seem only to have hardened postures and made people more isolationist. I do feel that almost all that has happened and continues to happen, be it politics, economics, wars or anything else, can be traced back to the utter lack of respect that humans have shown the planet over the last 2 centuries. This is a global change that is affecting me in a personal way.

So  going forward, how am I looking at the decade ahead. For one, I am not thinking such long term, as I am already a couple of years into my 70s. But, it is clear that just as the global change affects us individually, we cannot afford to wait for global or national responses. Each one of us need to make as many changes (within feasibility) as possible to decrease our own footprint, so that individuals can collectively make global changes. My own efforts are small….but a beginning.

• I got rid of my 4 wheeler;  do use one to move around Gurugram though, as the public transport is abysmal!
• Moved towards eating organic, since all the food stuffs in the market are probably contaminated. This is just a logical assumption, although the direct and convincing link to any health related issues or even any specific disease is absent. Of course, organic fruits and vegetables also taste a lot better. This move has also been facilitated by the increasing availability of organic foods. They are expensive and possible  and hence a difficult option for many!
• Eating seasonal – I grew up at a time when there was no other option. But, with   globalization, we have been pampered to believe that we should eat a thing when we feel like it!! A mango in December? Apples in the summer?  When imported fruits started appearing  in the market more than a decade ago, I found them expensive and then I felt that it was not needed. Now I  avoid them altogether, and look forward to the seasonal fare. One of the best moments for my mother was the arrival of the first mangoes in the market in the early summer!
• Became plastic aware – just noticing how much of it we discard every day. We cannot avoid, its everywhere. So, I started carrying my own water  (refused the water in sealed bottles at meetings etc, and persuaded a few offices to stop the practice) and cloth bags everywhere. Just as an exercise I preserved all the plastic packings of the stuff I bought (cannot be avoided – namkeens, groceries of various sorts…) and found that it added up to 400g in a month – 4.8Kg in a year for an elderly, single fairly conscientious person who leads a relatively low key life!! Quantification and numbers help to put things in perspective.  Can I decrease this? How? Well, my Amazon orders crashed, as the packaging is a lot!! Will have to see how else I can adjust!
• Growing awareness of ‘clothes’ as pollutants. While I have never been a shopaholic, and have always favored natural fibres (cotton, silk, wool), the numbers is a problem. When is enough, enough? The impulse to buy, because it ‘looks good’ or ‘it is a good price’ is difficult to check. This is an area I am working on – and while I’d like to resolve that I’ll buy no clothes for…… time,  its a step I have not taken.
• Since I read a lot, and read a lot of book reviews, there is an ever growing ‘to be read’ (TBR) list. Sometimes the urge is so strong (its a kind of addiction), that it is immediately ordered on Amazon. Since my Kindle reading has dwindled, its a hard copy that arrived from Amazon/Flipkart in hordes of wrapping. So, I have stopped ordering books online since the 1st (although I did cheat and order on one 31st, December to beat my own time line) and suspended the purchase of any book for now, Between my daughter and me, there must be unread books enough for many years. And then there is the possibility in of re-reading some of the classics sitting on the shelves! I have set myself no time lines, but tentatively the initial target is 6 months!

• Finally, travel, which is the tough one! I’ll leave that for another day…..

Booker challenge and more in 2017

Its only in these last few years that I have been setting myself reading challenges. I got  on to this bandwagon, thanks to Goodreads. For the year gone by, I had set a target of a book a week, although in the previous couple of years I had completed 80+ books.  By the year end, my score was 71, since I am pretty meticulous about keeping a record. However, Goodreads insists the the number is 54!!  Goodreads has been putting up notice about a problem with their up-dation process, which has erased 13 books!!

And as always, the books were a mixed bag – established authors (Margaret Atwood, Nadine Gordimer, Murakami etc) and debut works (, and fiction and non-fiction (approx one third). While I read only English, a fair number of the books were translations. While internationally, translations have always been widely prevalent, unfortunately it has not been so in India. It is heartening to see a change, with more regional language works getting English translations. Among the best books I read this year, was Perumal Murugan’s ‘One part woman’ translated from Tamil. It is a touching and honest love story and it is difficult to understand wha tall the fuss was about. I read a number of thriller/mystery books by Japanese (Keigo Higashino, Hideo Yokoyma, Murakami) and Chinese (Mai Jia), and of these Higashino stood out. I read the first Harry Hole (Jo Nesbo) book – and although he has a large following, I did not get hooked.

Of the fiction category, 13 were the books on the Booker long list. Following the announcement in early August, I challenged myself to read them all before the winner was announced in mid-October.  This is something that I am never going to do again – I was reading like one obsessed! Of course, the advantage is that the judges wade through some 150+ books to get the list of 13, and so none of them was bad at all! ‘Bardos‘ was the last book I read, finishing it a couple of days before the announcement – and I did expect it to win, based on its novelty factor, style etc. However, the books I liked best were Exit West (Mohsin Hamid), Home fire (Kamila Shamsie) and The history of wolves ( Emily Fridlaund). Other books in this category that I rate highly are ‘The story of a brief marriage’ (Anuk Arudpragasam), The sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen, translated from Vietnamese), Get a life (Nadine Gordimer).

I did read a wide range of non-fiction, of which the outstanding one was Sapien (Yuval Noah Harani), a panoramic overview of the human story, written in simple and clear language. Although I have a science background, the story is so simply put forth, that anyone could grasp the arguments Harani puts forth. This is a book that everyone should read. Its sequel, Home Deus was nowhere as good.

One of the changes in the past year has been the loss of enthusiasm for e-books. This maybe linked to the fact that I stopped working at the end of 2016. When I was commuting to Delhi for work, I used the Kindle in the car. While e-books are cheaper, the paper books provide tactile inputs which certainly add to the reading experience. And in my case, I  increasingly feel the need to go back in the book to recall/re-read bits. And this so not so easy on the e-reader. Of the 70+ books, only 20 or so were Kindle editions.

2018 is another year, and while we keep hearing of the struggles of publishers, the rapid decline in reading habits, the closure of book stores etc.,  I don’t think that reading as a habit, or books as a source of recreation will end so soon. For me personally, nothing is as precious as books, and reading is my greatest pleasure in life. While I have decided not to set any goals or targets, I am sure  that the coming year will another great year of reading.

And heres the full list

Booker challenge – 5 #bookerlonglist2017

So the challenge was to read all 13 Booker nominated novels before the prize is announced – and that is tomorrow evening GST. Well I have not done too badly – just having completed the 12th one today. I have reviewed the earlier ones in a series of blogs (https://wordpress.com/posts/sitanaiksblog.wordpress.com) – and will this time give a little about Elmet (book 11) and History of wolves (book12) – both of which I read on my Kindle

Both these are by women authors and with Ali Smith, women make half of the short list. I also believe both are debut novels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fridlund’s ‘History of wolves’ is a coming of age book, the protagonist being a young teenager who lives in the periphery of society in a remote Minnesota community. Linda in her mid-30s, recalls the events of one year in her life when she was fifteen old. She is awkward, gawky with little social skills and left to fend for herself by a very distant and detached mother – who she even wonders may not be her mother at all, and a quiet father who has very little to say, but teaches her to be one with the nature around them. She is comfortable on the lake in the canoe and  trekking thro the forest – the descriptions of the area is evocative. The story itself is about her friendship with the mother-son duo who come to live in a summer cabin. The mother is devoted to four year old Paul, for whom Linda becomes a regular baby sitter. She just about senses that everything may not be alright, especially when the father joins the family. But her secluded life has not given her enough sense of how things ought to be, what is right and what is wrong….. and it leads to a tragic end, with the sudden death of Paul. There is a parallel narrative involving a school teacher, who is caught out for molesting a young student in Linda’s class. Through the years, she follows his progress through the internet, and much later exchanges letters with him.  Except for Linda, the other characters are sketchy, and many aspects leaves you unsatisfied. There is little to look forward to, the story does not really progress……..and it left me with a feeling of having been let down.

Elmet on the other hand is a compact, more linear tale with strongly etched characters and a haunting end. It is set in an undefined time and place, somewhere in rural England. The landscape is bleak but described beautifully. The central characters, a father and his two children, are trying to lead a self-reliant life, in which they have little interaction with others, the children are being rather casually home schooled by a neighbor and between them they cater to their rather simple needs. The tale is related by the son, who is the younger of the two children. They live close to nature and have  minimal needs – but, the outside world does intrude. The father’s efforts to protect the children comes to naught and events cascade to an inevitable if unexpected end. The book is well written, taut and enjoyable.

All this leaves only the 13th book, Lincoln in the Bardos,  the bookmakers favorite,  half read! Lets see if I am motivated to finish it in the next 24 hours

 

Booker challenge – 4 #bookerlonglist2017

Its more than 3 weeks since the last post, and so you can see that 4321 by Paul Aster (book no 8) has not been an easy read. Since I read it on my Kindle, I am not sure how long the actual book is – but it seemed to go on forever. Since I am not one who likes to give up on a book – and am an eternal optimist that the next page, the next chapter will change things, I persisted. In this case I did anticipate a disappointment half way through…….however, persistence is the name of the game!! This is the story of young Jewish boy Archie Ferguson, born in 1947, through his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. In that sense it is a coming of age tale, a true blood American novel with all things American – baseball, boys only summer camps, high school romances, college life – all dealt with in great detail. It envisages 4 parallel courses in the life for Archie, and for each of the 7 parts, his life is divided into, there are four sections for the 4 trajectories!

Aster, who I am reading for the first time, writes with fluidity and at many a place the prose is delightful. He also gets into the head of Archie with what seems to be a deep understanding of young people. But, the progress is slow and the exhausting detailing of each and every, every day event, locale, occasion becomes tedious and finally, all you can do is skip large sections of the prose. The political events of the 50s and 60s, are detailed 4 times over and innumerable  lists are rattled of – of Greek writers when Archie is taking a course, of the great composers when he is initiated into music, American writers, lists of great poets etc. etc……Aster seems to be impressing the reader with his vast reading ouvre and giving out his opinion on this or that writer. It becomes tedious and frankly boring. Unfortunately, only after ploughing through the book, towards the end the meaning of the title is revealed!! I shall wait with bated breath for the choice of the winner…..

As I was struggling through Aster’s book, I also read Ali Smith’s ‘Autumn‘ in parallel (no 9) and in hard copy. What a contrast –  the physical feel of a book (after 3 ebooks),  its lovely cover and  a great type face. I have read and enjoyed her earlier books (The Accidental and How to be both ) and this one did not disappoint – an absorbing and enjoyable book.  I understand that it is the stand alone first book of a planned quartet – one for each season. It recounts the friendship between  Elisabeth (with an ‘s’) a, 30 something college lecturer and  her 101 year old friend Daniel who lives in a care facility. The friendship is a few decades old, and started when the 9 year girl Elisabeth and the then 70+ Daniel were neighbors, and her single mother often left her in Daniel’s company. The friendship transcends the difference in age and through a series of flash backs, we learn in bits and pieces of Daniel’s early life, Elisabeth’s mother and her world view all in the context of contemporary brexiting England. As always, the prose is fluid, as time itself………

And book no 10, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, I read in one long session, interrupted briefly for food and other essentials.  Hamid  is well known for The Reluctant fundamentalist, which was made into a fairly successful movie. But it is a classic case of the movie doing little justice to the mood created in the book! His earlier book Moth Smoke was also very good. Exit West is the love story of our times, global, contemporary with the mix of the reality of the present and the magic possibilities of the alternative!! Saeed and Nadia, meet and fall in love in a crumbling city, which could be any city in South Asia? Middle East? And as life becomes more intolerable, they opt to exit to the west – to Mykonos, then London and finally to San Francisco. The horrors of every day life, the killings, destructions and torture in their home town are dealt with a calmness that accentuates it all  – Saeed’s grieving father while returning from the mosque watches some young boys playing football and smiles to himself – but as he approaches closer, he sees that the ball is a head and a few meters closer he realizes it is a human head!! But the actual movement happens through this magic door –  “Rumours had begun to circulate of doors that could take you elsewhere, often to places far away, well removed from this death trap of a country. Some people claimed to know people who knew people who had been through such doors. A normal door, they said, could become a special door, and it could happen without warning, to any door at all. Most people thought these rumors to be nonsense, the superstitions of the feeble-minded. But most people began to gaze at their own doors a little differently nonetheless.”

And each move westward consolidates the community of migrants, in loose camps on the Greek island, much like the one we see on TV to comfortable squatter’s accommodation in London, to more organized settlement in San Francisco. And we experience the travails and troubles of these new global citizens,  through the every day survival of the protagonists – the luxury of a shower, the smell of food etc.. There are very few other characters in the book, but you never feel their absence – and as Hamid draws you into their world, and you grow to understand and love them, they drift apart. I have not read a love story where the falling out of love is more poignant than the falling in! (I hope this is not a spoiler)

I just started  Elmet (no 11) on my Kindle,  while History of wolves (No 12) waits! In the week remaining before the winner is announced, I should get through these – leaving only Lincoln in the Bardos which I started it a long time ago.  I have not been enthused to pursue it –  let me see how that goes, especially since it seems to be the bookmaker’s favorite to win!