THE MIGHT OF MISCHIEF I Small Acts of Resistance By Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson

When King Gyanendra dismissed Nepal’s Parliament in 2005 and declared a state of emergency, the country quickly turned into one of the most strictly censored nations in the world. As elected politicians were put behind bars and telephone lines severed, journalists fought to spread the news. Broadcasters at Radio Sagarmatha hit on a novel idea and decided to call news haalchal instead of samachaar. As the authorities caught on to the ploy, the broadcasters re-disguised news as entertainment and called in a well-known comedian to sing news in his comic style. Even as popular radio stations were shut down, innovative and defiant ways of taking information to the masses continued.
Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson’s Small Acts of Resistance is a compilation of such inspiring incidents. While the stories are brilliant for the sheer courage and innovation, their outcome may have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Crawshaw, who was in Delhi recently, admits however, that the brief incidents in his book “may not be the end of the story”. “But acts such as these or say Burmese protests of 2007 or more recently China’s Jasmine protests are significant steps that set in motion wheels of change,” he said in an interview, adding, “Our aim was to come up with a compendium of inspiring acts where people have come out of their fears to speak against injustice, and not venture into a political statement.”
Crawshaw is international advocacy director of Amnesty International. He was also a journalist for several years. Jackson is currently vice-president of social responsibility for MTV Networks International.
The incidents narrated in the book are grouped into 15 broad chapters. Each episode is in not more than a brisk 250 words. Asked about emphasis of the title on “small acts of resistance”, Crawshaw explained: “We were looking at putting together protests that were fundamentally non-violent, and yet could make a difference. Revolution, in its nature, is not always non-violent. In change that comes through a violent revolution it becomes difficult to eliminate violence and violence leads to more violence and more violence leads to yet more violence. Hence we put together these seemingly small examples of exemplary courage of ordinary people.” The episodes range from popular ones like Zhao Ziyang whose posthumously published book Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang made waves in 2010 or the social ostracism of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott in 1880 from which the word boycott came into being, to lesser known ones like Afghan woman Malalai Joya who stood before a loya jirga packed with men and asked them to throw out the warlords present at the meeting.
Crawshaw said he found Burma’s monks led-”saffron-protests” as the most inspiring. Two instances from those protests find mention in the book. Among those he witnessed he recalls 1989 protests in Leipzig, then East Germany. People organised peaceful protest marches every Monday, demanding change. As the protests began to swell, the authorities sent out a warning that the protesters would be dealt with firmly. Around the time for protests “sixteen trucks with armed workers’ militia stood waiting in one side of the street alone.” Heavy security blanket was thrown around yet 70,000 protesters came out defying the threat of gunfire. “Watching those people walk into the face of death… I don’t know if I would have the courage to do that. I don’t think I would have it in me,” said Crawshaw.
Quite relevant to the uprising in the Arab world, a whole chapter in the book is dedicated to “Digital Dissent”. Crawshaw said it is not easy to tell if the modern technology has made it easier to express dissent or if it has made us a slave of convenience. “It is what we call slacktivism or activism at the click of the mouse,” he said. A portmanteau word,slacktivism is formed out of “slacker” and “activism”. It is used to describe “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. Yet, given the fact that in the context of Arab uprisings digital world has played a major role, he said “Protests in Tunisia or Egypt or Iran have a lot in common with armed protests but the way of being able to get the message out to the outside world and to each other has changed. It does amount to a significant change but it does not make a world of a difference. Solidarity protests in Poland would have happened anyway and the Latin American banging of pats and pans would have happened nevertheless.”
What makes Egypt protests special were their largely non-violent appeal, said Crawshaw. “The fact that protests in Egypt have managed to remain fundamentally non-violent brings hope for revolution there. Yet there is more change that is needed there and is to come. Even as we hope for the best we know that the story of Egypt is not yet over. Same could be said of East Europe in 1989 which had seen great churning but the more momentous events were yet to unfold. A number of Egyptians I have spoken to of late say that they feel more confident in last few weeks simply because of the sense of power and pride.”
Asked about how to make out a genuine protest from an attempt at propaganda, Crawshaw suggested a scale of moral compass and courage. “I met quite a few officers who in the Bush-era stood up against the excesses of the administration. Such people keep the moral compass of the society right.”
India also finds frequent mention in the book. NDTV’s SMS campaign in Jessica Lal case, pink-chaddi campaign against SRS chief Pramod Muthalik among the more recent ones. On his first visit to India, Crawshaw said Amnesty report on Kashmir (released on Monday) was among his latest projects.
One of the most interesting ideas in the book is about Sudanese women in 2002 practising “sexual abandoning” on the lines of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. “Women decided that by withholding sex from their men they could force them to commit peace-and it worked.” The result may sound exaggerated but as the writers put it “some people are deluded enough to believe that they can change things, and right wrongs. They think that change is worth taking risks for-even when there is no certainty of the outcome.”

CARAMBA! THE COUNT IS DEAD I Murder In San Felice by Chandralekha Mehta I

The people of San Felice, still dizzy from Count Jeorge de la Bolla’s party, wake up to the news that their host had been murdered. The grapevine of servants carries the tale of the death to the diplomat bosses. While the Indian ambassador is informed by his butler, the maid cries out the story at the Counsellor’s house. As we catch people receiving the dreadful news, their relationship to the flamboyant count is revealed as is the life and pace of the Latin American city.
The author, Chandralekha Mehta of Nehru-lineage, is a diplomat’s wife. Murder In San Felice turns the spotlight on life of diplomats. Mehta not only has an eye for detail but also has the talent to weave it into the story.
We begin to know more about the dead man as the town women mutter between their sobs that they were "so close" to him. On one hand Counsellor Bhagwan, is relieved to know that the man with whom he suspected his wife was having an affair was dead, on the other the diplomat’s daughter is worried that she had left her riding shoes in the count’s room.
Pepe, a visitor at an exclusive boutique, claims he had killed the count by turning down the count’s "proposal". As the list of suspects grows Anil, a prospective groom for the diplomat’s daughter Mona, arrives in the San Felice.
The newly-arrived guest is drawn into the mystery as he is told that the police had found Mona’s boots under the dead count’s bed. An apparently naive 19-yearold Mona is hence being seen as the final "kill" of dead the Count. To add to it Mona confides in Anil that she could not find her passport and feared she may have dropped it next to her boots on the eve of the murder.
Chandralekha Mehta adds a string of colourful characters to the story. The police commissioner, for example, is a man obsessed with the exotic, much like the dead count. The Indian community in San Felice must take his fascination with a pinch of salt: "You have a marvelous country, so spiritual! I would give anything to visit it, but I fear terrible poverty would upset me too much  People dying of hunger, lying in the streets with no shelter. And all those sacred cows. No, unfortunately I can never go to India." Besides, the commissioner has a fetish for sarees. He asks Anil to send him a saree with peacock embroidery from India, which he intended to use as a table spread.
The ambassador’s cook is another such character. A great chef with slovenly ways and dim wits, Gulati Singh, breaks down when the ambassadress meets sudden death at the National Day reception.
This death coming soon on the heels of the first one, still unsolved, leaves everyone unsettled. The mystery deepens when Anil goes to the Bhagwan’s house to borrow a book and finds a note threatening to reveal the secrets about Shiela, the Counsellor’s wife.
Meanwhile, Mona is deeply affected by the death of her mother. Hardly absolved from role in the count’s death, she finds herself a suspect in her mother’s death as well. The ambassador, on the other hand, "flowers" after the death of his wife. Curtailed from pursuing his interests by his wife, he now finds himself a free man. His fancy for artefacts, which had till now been restrained only to an ugly collection of daggers, now expands to expensive china.
A parallel plot of diamond smugglers begins to unfold and a Byomkesh Bakshistyle Anil finds his way to the bottom of the mystery of two murders, missing passports and blackmailers.
The best thing about Chandralekha is the consistency of her disciplined style. At less than 200 pages, this is a slim, easy-to-read and engaging novel. Characters are drafted with care and life-like feel.
The biggest surprises of the book is the daft undercurrent of playfulness.
A sense of humour runs through the story without diluting the plot. Suspense can be a tricky job for a debutant novelist but Chandralekha seems to have done it with considerable ease.
Murder, infidelity, smuggling, and quirk all are brought within the embassy house. If you are still wondering who killed Count Jeorge de la Bolla, the only man who could have told you does not survive the treacherous ride of Chandralekha Mehta’s plot.

In the league of extraordinary writers

This is the company that published Jane Austen, Chares Darwin, Lord Byron and Flaubert, says Anurima Roy, publicity manager at Hachette India.
Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in UK, burst upon the Indian scene in 2008. Anurima says the challenge then was to make up for being a late entrant in the market. With publishers like Penguin, HarperCollins and Random House that had been established players, it was important to build Hachette as a brand at the earliest possible. However, given the kind of names Hachette has under its banner, it wasn’t too difficult, she says. “We have a huge stable of names so our pedigree is high… but here we were new and went with a choice of new writing to begin with,” she says.
With its nine different companies straddling trade and education across literary and commercial genres, Hachette operates in every segment.
“This is what we bring to India too,” Anurima explains, “We began with a slight emphasis on commercial fiction but we are also going after literary and narrative non-fiction in a big way.”
On the subject of established writers vs new, Anurima, who has seen both editorial and marketing sides of the industry, says she personally, enjoys the challenge of working with new writers. “Working with established writers is also a pleasure since there is no pressure of having to establish names. Having said so, there is always the struggle to go steps higher with each book by an established writer and that’s exciting too,” she adds.
Stickler for quality, Anurima says Hachette books are good enough to be up on any international shelf. “The production flow is essentially planning the look and feel of a book that the editors, production department and our MD do at Hachette. We take the images we have and roll with them for our marketing campaigns.”
So did the “giant venture” tag save Hachette India from the trouble of convincing distributors? Anurima admits that with the top management having long years in publishing, and with an available depth and range of lists, it was easier. “But equally our local publishing began from a scratch and we had the challenge of building new names,” she says.
Anurima, who joined Hachette in 2008 as a part of its founding team, describes her journey so far as exciting. Publishing is a passion and one should get into it only if one loves books and the challenges that come with it, she says.
As a person who enjoys working with authors, Anurima reminiscences her first tour with debutant author Alice Albinia, as one of her most memorable moments.
With no ambitions of being a writer herself, Anurima believes it’s best if authors are guided by their instinct, “the only advice one can give is to write as you feel like; and for those in search of non-fiction or commercial genres look at the trends, and see what you can write that will interest readers.”
Publishing is a creative business but it is essentially also numbers’ business, she explains.
Each publishing house has a fixed brief in terms of how much it can publish, and what slots it needs, she adds. “So rejections may have nothing to do with the quality of a manuscript but merely a function of a submission not fitting a particular programme,” says Anurima.
About the publishing scenario, Anurima says that though the number of readers has increased over the years but a big percentage is reading cheap commercial rather than quality fiction: “People like to read stuff that is racy and easy rather than heavy literature that was the dominant trend earlier.” India is still in nascent stages of publishing, she says. The industry is beginning to grow, and grow fast, though currently threatened by a proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, says Anurima. She feels the industry is also bogged down by primitive marketing methods and the tedious cycle from supply chain to payment realisation. Though Pakistani writing is the new flavour and is catching up fast, she believes, India remains a non-fiction readers’ market and each publisher needs to have a healthy non-fiction list that could be a steady-backlist.
Anurima says she dreamt of being in publishing since school days and never wanted any other career. For those who wish to make a career in the industry, she says, passion for books is the key, money being secondary. It is one industry where you see most creative minds working at most innovative products.

Writing @T20

Aditya Sudarshan is 26 years and two novels old. He entered the league of young Indian writers in 2007 when his first book A Nice Quiet Holiday was published. His second work of fiction Show Me A Hero is the latest to be released. The novel is set in contemporary Delhi where a group of twentyfour-year-olds are making a film about a cricket star Ali Khan. While on one hand, the “just-out-of-college” youngsters struggle to come to terms with adulthood, on the other, they must deal with the player who’s career has been tainted with match-fixing allegations.
Having studied law at Bengaluru, crime has been Aditya’s forte in his two books. His first work, a detective thriller set in a quiet peaceful town, Bhairavgarh, at the foothills of the Himalayas, was written when he was still in law school. Aditya left his practice mid-way much to the shock of his family to take up writing full-time. “For a writer, writing is more like a compulsion,” he says, “you just need to let it happen. Your mind keeps going in that direction.”
He does not believe his work falls in the group of business school breed of young writers who swear by Chetan Bhagat. He feels his books will connect more with a serious audience. Yet the short and easy format of his work makes a perfect light read. It bears a strong resemblance to the work of popular writers like Abhijit Bhaduri with a metro setting, educated youth protagonists, quick involving story and a slice-of-life narrative.
Aditya admits his novels are not research heavy. “You will not emerge anny more knowledgeable out of my novels. They deal with the analytical and psychological aspects of life.” Aditya, much like the writers of pulp fiction, is not apologetic of the life he portrays. He identifies with the works of Arun Joshi who won Sahitya Akademi Award in 1982 for his novel The Last Labyrinth. “Joshi deals with the community head-on and without a sense of guilt or compunction of being dismissed as pulp or chick-lit.”
Besides the engaging mystery plot, Show me a Hero draws on the theme of hero-worship in India. A Tendulkar fan himself, Aditya says, “It is very easy to be cynical about someone but its a different experience to simply admire someone.” The title of the novel is drawn from the Gatsby-famed Ftizgerald’s note: “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy”.
Aditya, does not see himself doing a story removed from the Indian context or set-up, “Even if I make it sound well-researched it would seem fake,” he says.
Inspite of his natural affinity for Indian setting he not game for the India shining argument. He describes the Indian condition of the as a “confused” one. “It is difficult to get a sense of who you are, in a country so diverse and vast,” he says. It is a similar difficulty that faces the protagonists in novels. “India still has a long way to go, this is not time to celebrate,” he says
As an author too, he does not carry the sense of having arrived. On lookout for more, Aditya is in Mumbai now, searching for opportunities and stories for a third novel that he aims to base on Bollywood.

FANCY DRESS

Now there's so much
that I could be
Super-man
Magic-man
Satan
Time-traveler
Jinni
Alien
Mutant
God
And what am I?
A mere man.

KHUL JA SIM SIM I The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud I

When was the last time you heard the story of the jinni who came out of Aladdin's wonderful lamp? Bartimaeus is that kind of demon. He runs errands for his masters, yet keeps an eye for ways to outwit him; is punished repeatedly for his audacious behaviour and finds himself time and again in the midst of trouble.
The Ring of Solomon is a prequel to the Bartimaeus trilogy published between 2003 to 2005. But this novel is different from the trilogy which is, quite in the Harry Potter fashion, centered in a fairly recent London. The Ring of Solomon, however, takes you back to the land of Arabian Nights. The Jerusalem of 950 BC is a kingdom full of magic. It is ruled by Solomon who's sovereign control lies in the power of a ring on his finger. A ring by merely touching which the king can summon thousands of spirits. The king has an array of powerful magicians at his beck and call. Sharp-tongued and free-spirited Bartimaeus is the slave of one of the magicians of the king. Desperate to be set free Bartimaeus devours his master. When the king hears of this he orders Khaba the cruel, to bring back Bartimaeus and punish him. Far away in the kingdom of Sheba, Queen Balkis, is visited by a demon messenger of king Solomon. The spirit threatens the Queen into paying a regular tribute of Sheba's riches to the king and gives her 15 days to make up her mind. The queen sends out one of her royal guards, lovely Asmira, on a secret rescue mission to Jerusalem.
Bartimaeus, who has been sent by his new master, saves Asmira as her caravan is ambushed by robbers. Asmira gains attentions of Khaba and steals Bartimaeus from him. She summons the jinni to help her kill king Solomon and gain his ring. Bartimaeus has little option but to obey, but that's not the only reason for him to help Asmira as he begins to respect her abilities.
This is a racy book, hard to put down and easy to recall, unlike other novels of this expanse where you might have to turn back pages to find out who was who. Only once in 400-pages of the book you may find the narrative loosing grip but it makes a quick comeback and proceeds thereon to a grand finale. You may not have heard of the trilogy, but you will understand the world of spirits into which Stroud takes you. The novel is sprayed with interesting and humorous asides regarding nitty-gritty of the way spirits function.
The story assumes a picaresque character as Asmira who in the course of her adventures comes to see her own beliefs shattered. Bartimaeus and Asmira both begin to seem similar at a point as they both carry out orders. A naive Asmira must get over her absolute trust of her mistress and find her own happiness while the 2,000-year-old Bartimaeus struggles for his freedom and peace.
Bartimaus' story is enthralling the way fantasy and magic holds on to the mind. Taking it off the mundane and "impossible" aspects of life, leaving you with a twinkle in the eye similar to that of the child who talks to winged, horned friends in the air.

OF A TELL-TALE WORLD BY THE BOSPHORUS I The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak I

For most readers in India, Turkey is synonymous with Orhan Pamuk which makes writers like Elif Shafak somewhat of a delayed discovery. Shafak is one of Turkey’s most acclaimed, and outspoken novelists. The 39-year-old is the author of nine books, seven of which are novels. The Saint of Incipient Inanities, The Gaze and The Flea Palace are among her recent works.
While she writes both in English and Turkish, the translation of her novel The Flea Palace was brought out by Penguin Books last year.
Among the themes of motherhood, feminist issues and Sufism, Istanbul is central to her body of work. Shafak is known depict the Istanbul as a “She-city” and likening it to an old woman with a young heart eternally hungry for new stories and loves. The Flea Palace is also constructed around the motley inhabitants of an apartment building, Bonbon Palace. The building brings together the contrarieties of modern Istanbul: the East and West; the ancient and modern; Orthodox Christianity on one hand and secularism and Islam on the other. If truth is a horizontal line, deception becomes a vertical one and nonsense, thereby, becomes a circle, says the opening of the novel. Though dissociated from the narrative that follows, a mesmerising beginning prepares you for what is to follow.
In the belly of the run-down bug-infested Bonbon Palace many stories are churning. The story of its making, to begin with. Pavel Antipov, an aristocratic Russian migrant, who built the place for his distraught wife, Agripina. The story of how Agripina, at the edge of her sanity, eating bonbons and looking at the world through the wrapping papers came to name the place Bonbon Palace. The tale of the neighbourhood, built at the site of ancient cemeteries, Muslim and Armenian; and that of the now lost grave of a saint “Hewhopackedupandleft”.
Its almost as if a real-life Rashid Khalifa is spinning you through the world of Kahani.
There are 10 apartments in Bonbon Palace. The rest of the novel unfolds through chapters based on their lives:
Flat 1; Musa, Meryem and Muhammet: Musa is the son of Meryem and Muhammet. Meryem is pregnant with her second child and has developed a “bizarre” disposition.
Flat 2; Sidar and Gaba: Sidar, a lonely man is obsessed with two things: Death and his dog Gaba.
Flat 3; Hairdressers Cemal and Celala: Identical twins Cemal and Celal, who were separated in childhood, are temperamentally dissimilar yet their lives are sewn in together with intuitive and surreal threads.
Flat 4; The FireNaturedSons: A family fraught with misfortunes ranging from smashed-up nose to volatile natures, they keep themselves insulated from other inhabitants of the building.
Flat 5; Hadj Hadj, his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren: Hadj a devout old man narrates stories to his grandchildren, (not always out of love) as the parents are out to work.
Flat 6; Metin Chetinceviz and HisWife Nadia: Metin’s wife Nadia is a Russian migrant. While the couple doesn’t get along well and Metin stays away, Nadia develops obsession for bugs and a dubbed soap opera The Oleander of Passion.
Flat 7; Me: The narrator, a divorced university professor, in a state of reverie.
Flat 8; The Blue Mistress: The young and beautiful Bue Mistress spends most of her time waiting for an olive -merchant who has kept her.
Flat 9; Hygiene Tyijen and Su: Hygiene is a cleanliness freak while much to her disdain, her daughter Su has lice.
Flat 10; Madam Auntie: Eccentric old lady who’s story unfold itself only towards the end.
Much of what Shafak writes is “slice of life” but what distinguishes it from other such narratives is the finish with which she delivers it. Her manner is reminiscent of the old tradition of storytelling where one character leads to the other and the listener or the reader is carried along the tide.
Picture her style like a tiny plant sprouting into a full tree. The growth is speedy, mesmerising and symmetrical at the same time. The stories of the 10 apartments of The Flea Palace are not organised numerically but organically. One story leads to other as dwellers run into each other, merging into the thick canopy of life.
Hadji’s youngest grandchild is learning speech and “picks up” words at her whim attributing meaning to them. Musa, son of Meryem, dislikes going to school as it taught him how to read. That was when he figured out that the letter’s bakers daughter sent along with the bread and which his mother read to him everyday, were actually labels and so, “To learn to read was to lose forever the mystery of writing.”
Shafak, who is known to has suffered a long-drawn period of postpartum depression, also writes about motherhood frequently in her works. In The Flea Palace too the theme surfaces in Agripina, the wife of Pavel Antipov. Agripina is pregnant when she lands in Istanbul. Unlike a “normal” expecting mother she feels great “injustice” as her belly begins to swell, “Impossible as it may sound to those who believe that every woman is by nature maternal and that motherhood is as scared and pure as the rivers in heaven, Agripina did not love ‘the thing’ she had given birth to.”
From the plight of an out-of-job military general to that of a blond-hair woman, Shafak is the weaver of all stories in the heart of Istanbul. The symbolic stench plaguing the apartment works as parallel to the decay in the society and provides a perfect acme to the story that comes with the revelation of the Blue Mistress.
The Flea Palace leaves one wanting for more of Shefak and her mystic world of untiring stories.