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.