THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET-SALMAN RUSHDIE

Sometimes prejudice can harbinger delight and surprise. I began reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet to find reasons to dislike Rushdie but by the end I am glad I found out why Rushdie deserves the hype that surrounds him.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet is indeed a work of great art though, with visible fault lines. The novel works on epic proportions. The Orpheus-Eurydice myth is culled into modern set up of pop-stars but that’s to say the least.

Rushdie is a great prose –stylist. He works carefully to create a pattern of life. Sometimes though, especially in the first half, the seams of his workmanship are visible. The art does not look effortless. Also restraint is not one of his gifts, at least not in this book. So the narrative gets cumbersome and repetitive and characters begin to look like caricatures. But he makes up for these flaws eventually.

His characters which at one time are exposed to the risk of appearing stock-types, emerge as strong and causative elements in the novel. He throws into the arena a Greek-God-style hero (Ormus), a modern-style anti-hero (Vina) and a single-man chorus (Umeed). The result is marvelous. Ormus has the gift of foresight and vision of the other-world while Vina has the sheer force of her personality and talent. Amind these two greats, Umeed hangs on to his human desires.

Love and art are the two main chords that run through the novel. The writer himself seems to be in the process of discovery in these two matters. He keeps conclusions open. The Ormus-Vina love has all that goes into being great, yet the author allows himself to question, almost mock this greatness.

Aloud I say, You know Vina, I don’t really get it. I never have. The way you two are together. How does that work exactly.?

She laughs. Higher love, she answers. Love on a higher level. Just think of it like that. Like exaltation.

Sexuality is a key element in the relationships throughout the novel. While Ormus, maintains a ‘purity’ by not taking any partners other than Vina, she on the other hand refuses to be bound to one and is open about it. Rushdie comes very close to creating the real life pop celebrities of genius, controversies and trademark eccentricities. Vina reverses the man-woman equation:

We, Ormus and I, we were her women: he , the loyal wife standing by her philandering husband, settling for him in spite of his roving eye, his wanderlust; and I, the simultaneous wanton and long-suffering mistress, taking what I could get.

Sexuality is inextricably mingled with love. The story muses about the perfect recipe for love but leaves the puzzled unsolved. On a similar note the 'art and virtuosity' equation is explored. After the final exit of Vina it seems impossible that she can be replaced as Ormus’ muse, but Rushdie dares to replace her with Mira, perhaps indicating a continuity in art irrespective of individuals involved.

One can point to number climaxes in the novel, which contributes to the sense of constant build-up and pace. One of the most surprising climaxes is where a raving Ormus, unable to accept the death of, Vina suddenly declares the advent of new in the form of Mira after the first concert.

“Vina Apsara? Oh, I’m sorry she died.”

For this moment it seems art is bigger than love, however, Rushdie drives carefully between the narrative and allows Ormus to fade for love though his art is shown to be finally free of Vina.

Rushdie brews his magic-realism on a recipe far different from that of Marquez. While Marquez’s magic slips in quietly, inconspicuous even to the reader, Rushdie makes magic as visible and baffling as in real life. However a reader would relate more to Marquez’s characters than that of Rushdie’s. Rushdie’s world is populated by unusual, curious characters. Yet gifted and surrounded by unusual, their fate is compelling and involving.

CHOICE

Caught between

this look and that

this me and that

this word and that

this right and that

between

this star and that

this wish and that

this side and that

this life and that.

WHAT I WANT

A lot it seems.

Much more

than the due,

Perhaps.

‘Just another

nauveau free

इन को ये चाहिए

वो चाहिए

They’ll even want

the sky.’

Yes, I want

Shamelessly.

My morning tea

with soggy biscuits

dipped in the

Rising sun.

And my day

of flies and

gnats free

Walking with me.

Kadi chawal

for lunch

no burgers.

And no need

to look at the

maniacal watch.

Faint music

as the day

cools off,

more tea

some namkeen.

And with the books

All chattering away

and the pen

prancing, we could

cook a story

or two

for dinner.

YOUTH

"बहुत हुआ

अब बस

अपना सच

पाना है

बिन signpost

यूँ कबतक

चलना?

कबतक ये

बिन परिणाम

परीक्षा?

समय की

गर्भ में

कबतक अजन्में

पकना?

डराओ मत

की वह

सौम्य नहीं

romantic नहीं

painful है

कठिन भी

पाने दो

मेरा हक

है, मेरा

सच है."

INQUEST

किस ओर?

पता नहीं

चाहते क्या हो?

कुछ नहीं... सबकुछ

येही क्यों

कुछ और है?

सही, गलत?

सोचा नहीं

अब?

दिखता नहीं

अंत?

कभी नहीं...

THE BLIND ASSASSIN: MARGARET ATWOOD

If you are the sort of reader who sits with a pen to mark lines that sound interesting, don’t do it with this book, you will end up marking too much! Witticism, aphorism and humour abound here. Atwood’s sentences breathe out ideas, nothing is dead or redundant, an impossible feat for a book of 640 pages.

Vitals are straight: postmodernist historical fiction, triple-story-setting of novel within the novel and significant scoops of science fiction.

Atwood has worked out a dense pattern, without cluttering or smudging the design. She uses a variety of tools: Newspaper articles, society gossip notes, letters and notices. It creates an impression of verisimilitude no doubt, but also serves the greater purpose of breaking the monotony of prose that is bound to creep into a long narrative. Atwood has focused on saving her story from ennui. She saves the finale right upto the end where it is revealed in a crescendo. As a result, it is hard to put the book down. The author does not hide her intension for it to be so. The name of the protagonists in the novel that runs within the novel are not divulged. So a thick layer of delectable mystery is whipped up. It is like a drizzle which films the landscape of the story and contributes to its beauty. It is a question worth considering if the novel can be read as a thriller because that is the dominant emotion that it generates. However, what dims its appeal as a thriller is the detailed socio-political history and character evolution that is woven into the pattern.

The first frame of this multi-layered novel is that of a memoir being written by 82-year-old Iris. Within this appears another eponymous novel whose protagonists are referred to as merely ‘he’ and ‘she’ The third frame is of an unfinished science fiction narrated by ‘him‘ to ‘her’ and later written for a magazine.

The other pivot around which the novel quietly hinges is its endearing description of childhood and old age. In a major part of the narrative an old Iris talks to the reader through her memoir. She is physically wilted but her mind is agile. She shares asides and conspiratorial laughs with her reader striking a bond. For a woman of her age and experiences, Iris is surprisingly and convincingly, free of malice and bitterness. Her voice is of final surrender and at the same time childlike naughtiness.

“If I ever get caught in high wind my hair will all blow off like dandelion fluff, leaving only a tiny pockmarked nubbin of bald head.”

Childhood too, though ridden with death and downfall, is not deprived of its moments of sheer innocence. This part being allocated to the enigmatic character of Laura.

"Think twice, said Reenie. Laura said, Why only twice?"

Iris describes her little sister’s character as being like ‘tone –deaf’, someone who heard and saw things in a different light. Her innocence is both amusing and annoying as it is to Iris. Iris on the other hand is assigned the task of taking care of herself and her sister by her dying mother and later by her father. Not too willingly though, she must now stick by Laura for whom truth becomes increasingly difficult to decipher.

“Laura found a splotch of blood on my bedsheets and began to weep. She concluded that I was dying. I would die like Mother, She sobbed, without telling her first. I would have a little grey baby like a kitten then I would die.

I told her not to be an idiot. I said this blood had nothing to do with babies. (Callista hadn't gone into that part having no doubt decided that too much of this kind of information at once might wrap my psyche)”

While the book on one hand traces the relationship and life of the two sisters, it also on the other hand follows the downfall of two prominent houses: the Chase of Port Ticonderoga and the Griffin of Toronto. Atwood herself clarifies that the book is essentially about two things: Human sacrifice and writing. It circles around the popular notion that artist is the one who suffers and sacrifices, thus the candles on Laura’s grave, who is believed to be the author of The Blind Assassin.

Among other themes is the historic setting which covers over hundred years of Canadian history including the two World Wars, depression and communist witch hunting. Feminism is the other silent thread in the book that weaves together the women of different times and the attitude of men towards them. However, the author does not allow the issue to weigh down the narrative.

“Boats are female for Walter, as are busted car engines and broken lamps and radios-items of any kind that can be fiddled with by men adroit with gadgetry, and restored to a condition as good as new.”

The story that is narrated by the clandestine lover to his beloved also draws from real world evils like child labour, class differences and corruption. It also subtly and metaphorically builds on their own lives.

“This is how the girl who couldn’t speak and the man who couldn’t see fell in love.”

The girl who couldn’t speak would directly correspond with Iris who had to surrender to silence in her marriage and the man who couldn’t see would automatically be Alex who could not see what he was headed for ideologically. These symbols are however lost to the reader till the end since the narrative is structured like a puzzle, and can be understood only on a second reading. This brings us to the most important question: Who is the Blind Assasin? The answer is Iris herself because she is the one who ultimately “saves” Laura through the book which she writes in her name, not only making her an icon but also avenging her death.

WALK

In the thicket

I step,

deep into

bushes. Dry

dense green

spotted with

frail fancies.

But that smell

persists

of dreams

and life

in decay.

Right in your lap,

(I am teasing life)

It dares

to linger

right where

you feed,

rear your own,

it sings

its eerie lullaby.

The blossoms

giggle, and the

saplings rustle.

They always have

fun out of

our squabbles.

I search where

It comes from.

My right?

No behind,

Left? No

Above?

Its everywhere.

She reveals

quietly as

she prepares

for her siesta

“among many

of my works

Decay is one

and my

favourite, I say.”

THE PIANO TEACHER: ELFRIEDE JELINEK

"You must think I won’t find out where you’ve been, Erika. A child should own up to her mother without being asked. But mother never believes her because Erika tends to lie. Mother is waiting. She starts counting to three."

Nothing about these lines is sinister till the time we learn that the ‘child’ is in her thirties and the mother is old enough to be her grandmother. It is then that one feels the Pinteresque eeriness of the scene. Jelinek minces no words and wastes no time. The reader lands straight into the thick soup of Erika’s muddled life as a hair-tearing bawl between the mother and her child opens the chapter.

Jelinek’s work has evoked extreme reactions from critics. While she was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2005 for "her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in her novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power" on the other hand many consider her work as public pornography.

Erika Kohut, the Piano Teacher, is caught in the power structure created by her mother. She has been framed and molded by the mother who now owns her child. While she is unable to break off the maternal chords, her desires begin to rot, inching towards perversion. She visits sex houses with peep-holes where she ‘looks’ at women feigning excitement and she spies on couples having sex.

Erka’s character slowly emerges through all the burden that it carries. Jelinek delineates how Erika is unusual, not for her musical talent but the role she desires in a sexual equation. Jelinek has herself described Erika as a phallic woman who appropriates the male right to watch and who therefore pays for it with her life. Perhaps she is the Eve who has decided to eat the forbidden fruit on her own terms. From peepholes she moves to a real lover, a young student who lusts for her. But while she attempts to impose her masochist order in their sexual life the young man is not to be tamed and strikes back.

Erika charts her own degradation. While sex in the novel is depraved, raw and sadomasochist, it is not an end in itself but a tool to bring out how sexual relations are established as power structures. Similarly, a feminist perspective is not the only one that Jelinek is trying to address. She targets the broader issue. The silent manipulation and power struggle behind idealized personal relations are brought out. For this, she also draws from portrayals of common sex relations.

Jelinek wields absolute power over her words. She unleashes their full strength as she paints the mother-child relationship and successfully makes that depiction much more powerful than the perversion that runs through the novel. It shields her thus, from the charge of pornography.

“Mother worries a lot, for the first thing a proprietor learns, and painfully at that, is: Trust is fine, but control is better.”

The Piano Teacher is considered an autobiographical novel, though the writer herself has shown disinclination for the book to be interpreted in that manner. However, certain parallels are obvious. Jelinek's parents were already in their forties when she was born. She lived with her mother even as an adult and had a troubled relationship with her. Her mother had planned a musical career for her, quite like the Mother in the book. Her father also died at a mental hospital.

Her symbols evoke the fear and bondage felt by her characters. The corpses in the wardrobe, the bed shared by the Kohut women, no private room for Erika and no latch knob are some examples. Her words have a razor edge, especially when she deals with the maternal strings which she paints in distinct impressionistic strokes. It is admirable how convincingly she consigns an old woman so much power and command over her strong-willed daughter.

“Mother, without prior notice, uscrews the top of HER head, sticks her hand inside, self-assured, and then grubs and rummages about. Mother messes up everything and puts nothing back where it belongs."

HAVES & HAVE NOTS

Some have

no money

some have

lost it.

Some have

no love

others have

squandered it.

Some have

no peace

others let it die.

But the poorest

of poor

have it all

yet can

neither loose

nor squander

nor kill it

and the richest

Ah! they

are at it

till the end.

THE BELL JAR: SYLVIA PLATH

It’s a scary book especially for those who have known ‘lows’. It tempts you in a strange way to descend down the alleys of sanity. It’s like standing on the edge of a building top one is tempted to jump. The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath’s only novel and one which is understood to be highly autobiographical. It is believed that Esther is based on Plath herself who had faced mental breakdown in her early life. Like Plath, Esther wins a magazine scholarship. Her benefactress is also largely based on the character of Olive Higgins Prouty whose scholarship took Plath to college. Parallels are also traced between Plath’s medical history and Esther’s decline. Though Esther is shown to be on the path of recovery, at the end her fate is a maze, perhaps it becomes clear in the light of the fact that Plath committed suicide few months after the publication of The Bell Jar. The novel is also premonitive as Buddy’s both girlfriends land in asylum and one ends her life. Ted Hughes’ second wife also committed suicide later, in the same manner as Plath.

Neurosis is a subject well-explored in literature right from greats’ like Dostovesky to lesser known names. But here the cause of neuroticism is very close. It’s not a murder or a fixation or betrayal that sets in neurosis. A high grader must find what course to take before she looses out the race. The decision she needs to take involves not only her career but also the larger question of her place in the setup of life. While learning shorthand typifies what she should do but doesn’t want to, creative writing on the other hand is what she wants to do but is unable to. Sexuality and virginity are weights that hang around her neck and that she wishes to get rid of. Hyped and mythified, sex, seems to her a milestone that changes one forever. The veracity of this she finds in the course of the novel.

Falling in the genre of a buildungsroman, it actually traces the gradual deterioration of a ‘promising’ young girl. What is most striking is how close the reader is brought to neuroticism because she/he empathizes with Esther and partakes in the breakdown. Esther is a bright ‘scholarship’ girl from small-town. While she refuses to make ideological compromises the road begins to narrow in on her. What seems logical and practical course of action disillusions Esther.

Sexuality is a powerful theme in the novel and one which contributes a deal to Esther’s breakdown. She believes in the ‘purity’ of body but is drawn into an abyss of confusion when she finds her boyfriend had lost his virginity. She must now loose hers before she allows herself love again. She looses it with a haemorrhage, perhaps symbolic of the load that she sheds along with her virginity. Sex here is a dispassionate ‘act’ with no strings attached except for pleasure.

Whereas male-female relationships in the book are shown to be essentially flawed, female relationships make up for it. So Dreen is one way for Esther, a way that she refuses to take; Betsy is another, one she thinks defines her identity; and Joan is something of an alter-ego one who ends up where even Esther could have ended.

One cannot help reading The Bell Jar from a feminist perspective. It rakes up issues that are dangling in society for lack of words, expressions and emotions. The birth of a baby in the first half is one such. Esther’s mental reaction at the pill that made the mother forget the birth pains typifies the feminist angle. “Here a woman was in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it, or she wouldn’t groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, while all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless, windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.” The brand of feminism here hides unfullfilled rightist aspirations. Esther is a simple traditional girl who must find her place in a world whose values and structures have changed. She doesn't feel the need of a boy-friend till it threatens somehow to become a brand of he freakness. Neither does she believe in casual sex but she forces herself into these. It can either be read as a step to fit-in or an act out of desperation to abandon her own values for which she finds no takers.

Yet more than the essential female eyes are the artistic words that haunt Esther. It is the artist’s anguish that forms the core of the book. From this angle all ends fall in line as do all of Esther’s explorations from sex to suicide.

“How could I write about life when I had never had a love affair or a baby or seen anybody die?”

NO MYTH, OUR SISYPHUS

Our man Sisyphus, one day, found himself rolling a stone up some hill. Now, he did not know why he was there or why he was doing it. It was strange because he could just not stop doing it and he did not remember anything, neither where he came from nor what he was going to do, all he knew was that he was rolling a stone up a hill. Anyways, he thought, maybe this is what I am born to do, destined to do, so let me just do it nicely. And while he was thinking of all this he realized he had come to the top of the hill, he felt happy: One, the task had ended (so it seemed) and two, now there would be something else to be done, something new. Well, what do you think happened? The silly stone dropped off the hill. Sisyphus was so disappointed, how idiotic is this, he thought, only when I had come to the end of it. He walked back to the foot of the hill, sad and listless.

He sat on the boulder and thought what was to be done now. Then he realized that the job was not complete yet, maybe he needed to complete this task before he could move ahead. It had been so easy last time he hadn’t even realised when he reached the top, he could do it again no doubt. He decided he was going to take the boulder up and finish what was at hand. So with one heave the boulder was climbing the hill again. Sisyphus was happy somehow, that he had taken this decision. At least he was not a coward; he had not turned his back on his job. He liked to think of himself as persistent and determined, and indeed he was. But it happened again on the top and again and again and again, till Sisyphus was completely tired and broken. He rested for some time and decided he was not going to do it anymore. No, not me, he thought, not anymore. But he soon got bored of sitting like that so he thought he might as well take a walk up the hill without the rock, a leisure walk. Up he went humming, taking his time pulling fruits from this tree and that till he saw something that made him jump. Why hadn’t he seen it before? Far away in the horizon, he could see, another peak like his own and something like a man rolling up a boulder. Sisyphus ran. He ran without a break till he had reached the mountain. There he saw the boulder running down, just like his own and a man running after it. The moment the man saw Sisyphus, he halted. Both could not believe the other was for real. They were so happy. They ate together and joked about the boulder. And when the night came they slept under the same tree but after a few days this also began to seem tiresome to both; as tiresome as rolling the stone. So they decided to find others like them for adventure’s sake. After they had travelled some distance they found another one rolling a stone up a hill and he told them that some days ago he had found another one like them. This sounded exciting, they were not alone. Infact everyone they found was just like them. Stone-cursed, they joked. The third guy also called the fourth and they all sat and conferred. What was to be done? Someone came up with an idea which others found brilliant. They could all roll their stones together! Why not? It would be fun.

So four stones went rolling down the hill together and the four men stood on the top of the peak laughing themselves crazy. And they created such a ruckus that from far and wide others also came from their hills to join them. By now there was quite a crown rolling their stones on the peak. So far so good. But soon they found the peak was too small for so many people to do the rolling business together. One is left with no peace and privacy, everyone thought. People kept stepping on each other and running into each other. So once again a conference was called. Many ideas came up. Some suggested ways to discipline rolling , others said some should roll while others should rest but nothing fitted well. At last they decided. Everyone would return to their peaks like in old days.

So back they went, everyone of them. And back on his peak, now, Sisyphus once again rolled his rock alone. Waving now and then to the guy on the nearest peak. The guy would also wave back and holler something that always got lost by the time it reached him. But Sisyphus always hollered back something, anything, though he knew it would never reach the other.

The boulder kept going up and down, up and down.

EPIPHANY

असल सवाल

'सच' नहीं

'झूठ' है

की कौन सा

झूठ अपना है

डर है

ब्रह्म-भ्रम का

अनंत का

छूटने का

गुमने का ?

पर हम भ्रमित हैं

और छूट गए

हैं, एक अनंत

सागर में

गुम हमसब

निरर्थ अथाह

यह, पार हुआ

तो अपना

और ले डूबा

तो भी.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

Between me and them…

Every word is

Every gesture

Existent… non-existent

Said… unsaid

Everything is.

So sound is a problem

as silence is

And no is a problem

as yes is

And of course dreams

are always a problem

theirs and mine

On days they bang

my room shut

and on nights

I want to

shut them out

Yet, when they are

asleep I want to

wake up their souls

and ask

what the problem is?

Gender is a big problem

Though they wouldn’t admit

Voice is another

As money and style

Caste and comfort

Compliance and control

Power and rule

Need more?

Yet understanding

is so close, when

a mere look could

bridge the chasm

it is but

another problem.

THAT ROOM

God what a mess!

this room,

spattered and sad

dirtied and crazed

Let me set it

back again

Got my hands

full, you see:

Plaster-of-hope

first on the walls,

then painting

choicest dreams.

Ideals, idols

up again

and then

Love’s antiques

to be dusted

and redone.

Oh I forgot

the floor, see?

Where do you

go without truth

beneath your feet?

And finish with

a fine spray

of kindness.

The room’s done

For everyone

To come and

Leave it

Crazed again.

बुझारत: एक हज़ार एक

जीने को हज़ार
लिखने को एक

अधूरी हज़ार
पूरी कोई एक

एक सी हज़ार
अनोखी एक

जीते हज़ार
कहता एक

एक शब्द की हज़ार
हज़ार शब्दों की एक

लिखने को हज़ार
जीने को एक...

कहानी

नई दुनिया

एक दुनिया है हमारी

नहीं यूटोपिया नहीं

क्योंकि साक्षात है

रियल है

कई बीघा तक

ज़मीन का फैलाव

खेत, खलिहान

पर्वत, झरना

बादल, सूरज, चाँद

हमारी दुनिया में लेकिन

कोई रास्ता नहीं

पगडण्डी नहीं

किसी वाक्य कि

मात्र कि, नुख्ते कि

लेकिन हम वहां

खो नहीं सकते

जब पथ नहीं

तो भ्रष्ट भी हो नहीं सकते

हम वहीं पर मिलते हैं

बरसातों में

भीगते हैं संग हमारे

शब्द भाव

बह जाते हैं

समां जाते हैं

कहीं दलदल, कीचड़ नहीं करते

यह दुनिया सच्ची है

कसम से!

मन करता है

सबको बुलाॐ

इसमें भागीदार बनाॐ

लेकिन मेरी ये अदभुत

दुनिया

सार्वजनिक नहीं.