I've had a couple of weeks off work - time taken to avoid doing my usual transcontinental power vacations (my friends tell me that I always come back from holidays in need of a holiday to recover from them). In so many ways, London is a great city to live in, but I always forget when I'm in the middle of my usual routine of work, party, commute, travel how much there is to see and do in this fantastic city.
So these two weeks off have been great. I've had a chance to kick back and just relax, not doing anything too stressful aside from reading books and watching movies. And while I've always loved watching movies, over the past few months I've managed to perfect it to a total sickness - my new addiction.
I think I always loved watching movies. It doesn't matter how good or how bad, how mainstream or how arthouse auteur - English, Hindi, Turkish, Persian, French, Korean, Chinese, Australian, Peruvian, Canadian, Norwegian, German, Bulgarian, Belgian, Mongolian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, South African - there are enough cinema genres, and movies, in the world to keep me entertained. And the only problem is that you don't have enough time in each day to watch as many movies as you'd like.
I realised that my current obsession with films, long standing though it may be, had reached serious levels when my local film rental store manager was telling me that I probably kept him in business. He said it jokingly, but I then looked down at my hands - within 24 hours, I had seen four movies, which I was in the process of returning, and was issuing four more. The specific movies themselves aren't of consequence - it was all about the experience of watching movies, rather than the individual movies themselves. For me personally, it didn't matter what the movie was about - it was the experience of sitting down and watching it that counted. I also realised that part of my sickness was watching movies at the cost of sleep - something that I picked up in university when a late night of work would culminate in the "movie of the day", something to help me unwind and put me to sleep. However, when deadlines would become pressured, the movie of the day would not be sacrificed. It would be my sleep that would be cut back. So the addiction started small, growing slowly, inevitably, till it came to full strength during this time off.
So the aim for the next week is to wean myself away from the movies - something that will be difficult, as it is for all addicts, but probably worth doing if I am to keep my sanity and ability to turn my neck....
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Lotus FM & the Spirit of Dissent
Dissent is possibly one of the most ubiquitous human qualities. There are always some people, in any society, in any part of the world, who don't accept the status quo, who can't bear to stand what they see in front of them, who are not happy with the people in power. They are rebels, rebellious, with or often without a cause.
Of the many people who had causes to be rebellious about for a very long time were the non-white communities in South Africa. The sizeable Indian community was also discriminated against by the establishment, though some would argue not as much as the black community. But the experience of immigration is never easy, especially in a time when your origins, your source was what marked you out as different and to be discriminated against. (You could argue that this aspect of immigration has not vanished, it has merely morphed into something more insidious in almost every country with a sizeable immigrant community.)
Anyway - we digress. I was talking to a friend one evening, a month ago, sitting in a steakhouse in Pretoria. It felt odd - this was a restaurant in the erstwhile white heart of a city that was the very nucleus of the apartheid state. And here were two brown people talking about dissent and resistance in this neighbourhood. If I was a sentimentalist, I would insist that it would have made a beautiful closing scene in a happy Alan Paton movie. My friend, a staunch South African and equally staunch lover of all things Indian, including Bollywood, was telling me about Lotus FM, the local music station that played Indian music 24x7.
Apparently, during the fifties, a nostalgic Indian community would tune into All India Radio, on their small (or as the case was, very large transistor based) shortwave radios. They would listen to the latest Bollywood movie songs, the news, cultural programmes, and when Nehru willed that AIR would be educational & cultured, only classical music programmes. It was, for many of them, the only link to a homeland that had been lost a generation or so before. With no ideas of where families came from, where villages lay, or in many cases as well, what castes, names, identities were real, what were imagined. The girmitiya experience was never an easy one.
However, any link to a newly democratic, and increasingly intransigent, India was becoming difficult for the South African apartheid authorities. Things came to a head when Vijayalakshmi Pandit decided to raise the issue of segregational politics in the UN, and the world actually began to take note of the rather inconvenient circumstances in South Africa.
Hence, the decision to ban AIR. Jam the radiowaves, the racists decreed. And so it was done. AIR was no longer accessible from within South Africa, not even the homelands. A distraught Indian community didn't at first know where to turn - and then they turned to Radio Ceylon. By now, Nehru's edict about the low cultural value of Bollywood had been issued, and Radio Ceylon capitalised on AIR's inability to broadcast Hindi songs by playing them over & over again. Binaca Geet Mala, with Ameen Sayani was already on air, and a community greedy for music in South Africa tuned in.
But this too was not to last. As soon as the communities found a source of music, the apartheid powers would block them. So Radio Ceylon was jammed, as was Radio Tanzania in turn. Finally, a determined drive in Durban collected thousands of LP records from every house, loaded them into a small bakkie (for the non initiated, that's South African for four by four) and drove, I'd like to imagine under the cover of darkness, into one of the erstwhile homelands. (Swaziland, I think). Once there, somewhat removed from the racists, people established a small ham radio station, and called it, somewhat fittingly, Lotus FM.
This station proved more difficult to ban, and finally the authorities agreed to allow a few hours of "Indian" programming on South African national radio. A few hours became a few more, extended to a day, and finally a separate radio station was established, by the government, playing Indian music, and targeted at the Indian community specifically.
Today, Lotus FM is still around, and I will admit my car radio is always preset to it when I'm driving around Johannesburg! Tune in sometime - they also stream online! If nothing else, that is my little tribute to all the people who suffered, of all races, in South Africa. And they also play really good dance music that I can blast in my little car...
Of the many people who had causes to be rebellious about for a very long time were the non-white communities in South Africa. The sizeable Indian community was also discriminated against by the establishment, though some would argue not as much as the black community. But the experience of immigration is never easy, especially in a time when your origins, your source was what marked you out as different and to be discriminated against. (You could argue that this aspect of immigration has not vanished, it has merely morphed into something more insidious in almost every country with a sizeable immigrant community.)
Anyway - we digress. I was talking to a friend one evening, a month ago, sitting in a steakhouse in Pretoria. It felt odd - this was a restaurant in the erstwhile white heart of a city that was the very nucleus of the apartheid state. And here were two brown people talking about dissent and resistance in this neighbourhood. If I was a sentimentalist, I would insist that it would have made a beautiful closing scene in a happy Alan Paton movie. My friend, a staunch South African and equally staunch lover of all things Indian, including Bollywood, was telling me about Lotus FM, the local music station that played Indian music 24x7.
Apparently, during the fifties, a nostalgic Indian community would tune into All India Radio, on their small (or as the case was, very large transistor based) shortwave radios. They would listen to the latest Bollywood movie songs, the news, cultural programmes, and when Nehru willed that AIR would be educational & cultured, only classical music programmes. It was, for many of them, the only link to a homeland that had been lost a generation or so before. With no ideas of where families came from, where villages lay, or in many cases as well, what castes, names, identities were real, what were imagined. The girmitiya experience was never an easy one.
However, any link to a newly democratic, and increasingly intransigent, India was becoming difficult for the South African apartheid authorities. Things came to a head when Vijayalakshmi Pandit decided to raise the issue of segregational politics in the UN, and the world actually began to take note of the rather inconvenient circumstances in South Africa.
Hence, the decision to ban AIR. Jam the radiowaves, the racists decreed. And so it was done. AIR was no longer accessible from within South Africa, not even the homelands. A distraught Indian community didn't at first know where to turn - and then they turned to Radio Ceylon. By now, Nehru's edict about the low cultural value of Bollywood had been issued, and Radio Ceylon capitalised on AIR's inability to broadcast Hindi songs by playing them over & over again. Binaca Geet Mala, with Ameen Sayani was already on air, and a community greedy for music in South Africa tuned in.
But this too was not to last. As soon as the communities found a source of music, the apartheid powers would block them. So Radio Ceylon was jammed, as was Radio Tanzania in turn. Finally, a determined drive in Durban collected thousands of LP records from every house, loaded them into a small bakkie (for the non initiated, that's South African for four by four) and drove, I'd like to imagine under the cover of darkness, into one of the erstwhile homelands. (Swaziland, I think). Once there, somewhat removed from the racists, people established a small ham radio station, and called it, somewhat fittingly, Lotus FM.
This station proved more difficult to ban, and finally the authorities agreed to allow a few hours of "Indian" programming on South African national radio. A few hours became a few more, extended to a day, and finally a separate radio station was established, by the government, playing Indian music, and targeted at the Indian community specifically.
Today, Lotus FM is still around, and I will admit my car radio is always preset to it when I'm driving around Johannesburg! Tune in sometime - they also stream online! If nothing else, that is my little tribute to all the people who suffered, of all races, in South Africa. And they also play really good dance music that I can blast in my little car...
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Wings...
At night we crossed the border
following a Black robe
to the edge of the reservation
to Cataldo Mission
where the saints and all the martyrs look down on dying converts
what makes the water holy she says is that that it’s the closest thing to rain
I stole a mule from Anthony
I helped Anne up upon it
and we rode to Coeur d’Alene
through Harrison and Wallace
they were blasting out the tunnels
making way for the light of learning
when Jesus comes a’calling she said he’s coming round the mountain on a train
It’s my home—last night I dreamt that I grew wings
I found a place where they could hear me when I sing
We floated on to Hanford
on a lumber boat up river
past the fisheries and the milltowns like a stretch of future graveyards
she was driven to distraction
said I wonder what will happen
when they find out they’re mistaken
the land is too changed to ever change
We waded through the marketplace
someone’s ship had come in
there was silver and begonias
dynamite and cattle
there were hearts as big as apples and apples in the shape of Mary’s heart
I said inside this gilded cage a songbird always looks so plain
It’s my home—last night I dreamt that I grew wings
I found a place where they could hear me when I sing.
And so they came with cameras
breaking through the morning mist
press and businessmen—tycoons—Episcopal philanthropists
lost in their appraisal of the body of a woman
but all we saw were lowlands
clouds clung to mountains without strings
and at last we saw some people...
and at last we saw some people...
and at last we saw some people
huddled up against the rain that was descending
like railroad spikes and hammers
they were headed for the border
walking and then running
and then they were gone into the fog but Anne said underneath their jackets she saw wings
Lyrics by Josh Ritter
Friday, June 16, 2006
Warm sunny days
June is always a good month to be in London. Summer usually has decided to make an appearance, and there is (hopefully!) not too much rain around. The sky tends to remain blue, temperatures hover around the 25 degree mark, and people walk around, determined to be happy in the few short days of summer that a life in London affords you.
This June has been no different. Last weekend was the warmest, with temperatures soaring (well, not quite) to 32 degrees. The houses, built for cold and damp winters, with double glazing, insulated walls and windows that barely open, turned into ovens, roasting the inhabitants and lowering the general good humour pervading London.
And finally, beer gardens & pubs are filled to the brim (much like pint glasses) as people enjoy the longer daylight hours, weather amenable to sitting outdoors without freezing to death, and also holiday season. I am no exception to this rule, having spent over four hours in a tiny wine bar yesterday afternoon (admittedly, while the football was on!) lingering over two bottles of Chateau Reynier Bordeaux and some really good pitta & dip.
So what are you doing indoors reading this? Go outside! And if you're going for a pint, give me a shout....
This June has been no different. Last weekend was the warmest, with temperatures soaring (well, not quite) to 32 degrees. The houses, built for cold and damp winters, with double glazing, insulated walls and windows that barely open, turned into ovens, roasting the inhabitants and lowering the general good humour pervading London.
And finally, beer gardens & pubs are filled to the brim (much like pint glasses) as people enjoy the longer daylight hours, weather amenable to sitting outdoors without freezing to death, and also holiday season. I am no exception to this rule, having spent over four hours in a tiny wine bar yesterday afternoon (admittedly, while the football was on!) lingering over two bottles of Chateau Reynier Bordeaux and some really good pitta & dip.
So what are you doing indoors reading this? Go outside! And if you're going for a pint, give me a shout....
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Bollywood in London...
Every so often (i.e. when I'm keen to watch a Hindi movie on the big screen) or when there's a big new Bollywood production out (usually this translates into the latest SRK superhit, or the new Yash Raj annual glossy staple) I will head out to one of the many cinemas in London that show Hindi movies.
Usually, the bulk of these tend to be in the suburbs, where there is a sizeable Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan community (somewhat generically referred to as "South Asian" or more specifically, "Brit-Asian". Interestingly, people refer to French immigrants in the US as French, Germans as Germans, Belgians as Belgians, etc, without actually calling them "Western Europeans", though the term "Eastern European" is heard more and more frequently in the press & public discourse...interesting....)
Anyway, we digress...so as I was saying, usually the Hindi films will play in the suburbs, (many, like Himalaya Palace Cinema, only show Hindi movies) but ever so often, a Bollywood movie will be picked up by one of the big chains - usually the biggest hit of the year. If its a Shah Rukh movie, it WILL be picked up (that man has a fan following all over the world); the big Yash Raj ones usually get distributed as well.
As a result, I managed to catch Mangal Pandey, The Rising (or whatever that movie was called) last summer. (In a strange incidence of poetic justice, I also saw that film in the erstwhile heartland of the East India Company, the Isle of Dogs.) And today, I saw Fanaa in the London Trocadero, just off Piccadilly Circus.
This might not necessarily seem to be a big deal, but actually it is. For the bulk of my childhood, when we were growing up outside India, most people either never watched Bollywood (or if they did, never admitted to it) or openly derided them as fantastical, song & dance tripe. This wasn't just restricted to some snotty critics at the latest Trendy-with-a-capital-T New York magazine, but also a lot of the Indians we met overseas - kids of immigrants, diplomats, etc. Watching Bollywood movies if you weren't in India wasn't cool, and it wasn't something you ever admitted to. (Though given that Mithun Chakraborty was the biggest thing in Bollywood in the 1980s, this may not be completely out of place...)
But it was something that was never in debate in India - everyone saw Hindi movies, everyone knew how to play Antakshari, everyone knew every major Kishore Kumar song. This wasn't something you made an effort to keep up with; it was a fact of life.
However, that was in India. When you were outside India, and perhaps not in South Asia, Bollywood was very deliberately off the radar. The only ones who really watched Bollywood movies were the immigrants who were nostalgic for home - and they never admitted to doing it. If they were found out, it was blamed on blatantly uncool parents. Nobody else really did, did they? They all watched Hollywood!
But it wasn't just that these Indian movies weren't in English - the subtitles could easily rectify that. It was that, unlike the cooperative French, Iranian, Turkish, Korean, whatever, film industries, Indian films just didn't "fit" the mold of what good cinema was. We insisted on making really long movies, which were melodramatic, packed full of formulaic emotional plots, usually pilfered stories from big Hollywood blockbusters, and to top it all off, had to throw in at least 5 songs into each film, for which the leads would suddenly be transported into a glamorous foreign locale (usually, but not always, Switzerland). I mean, they were just SO weird! And we weren't even apologetic about it! We insisted, despite all the friendly advice from the West, to continue making the movies we made, without rhyme or reason!
And then, somewhere, somehow, things began to change. In the late 90s, suddenly, the world started to take notice. Obviously, these were still terribly kitschy movies, lacking in plotlines, darling, and absolutely totally lacking class, but I mean, they still sell! And given that the Indian economy had started attracting some attention, people were keen to see what exactly was happening.
This was the same time that the Swiss, in many ways the most pragmatic and sensible of all Europeans, realised the economic value of Indian film crews shooting in their country. They realised quickly that the biggest hindrance to the smooth flow of industry professions was the visa, and introduced the Unit Visa, allowing entire film crews to travel without difficulty on single documents. This was soon followed by renaming a modest peak in the Swiss Alps Mount India...in honour of the many Sunny Deol song sequences shot around its base!
And suddenly, many more countries began to sit up and take notice. And as Indian cinema became more technically advanced, finding new & exciting locations across the world for the latest glossy song sequence was an essential part of the script. And suddenly, if Switzerland was for the slightly unimaginative Salman Khan starrer, we had Urmila Matondkar in Namibia, Kajol & Shah Rukh in Egypt, Madhuri Dixit in Patagonia, and not to forget, Hrithik Roshan in the British Museum, which was a bit of a coup since it was the first film sequence shot inside the museum. Most recently, the Irish government has actively started wooing Indian filmmakers to its shores.
But was it all the money talking? Was that all that made people realise what Bollywood was all about? There was an obvious financial aspect to the whole attention seeking (the former NDA government also declared Bollywood a formal industry, which thus opened up the business to legal commercial funding, and also streamlined insurance policies, etc) But surely there was something else to this?
I think people have finally realised, and accepted, that Bollywood is a bigger global phenomenon than we might think. More people across the world have seen a Bollywood movie than a Hollywood one. I have heard stories from people from Russia, mainland China, Tanzania, Venezuela & Morocco about how they grew up watching Amitabh Bachchan & (unfortunately!) Mithun Chakraborty. I heard from a Chinese colleague how a movie about a dog that avenges its master's untimely death was her father's favourite, while someone in South Africa told me about the survivor of the Rwandan massacres was less interested in narrating his experiences to the Indian origin human rights lawyer as he was in taking a peek at the CD case for the latest Shah Rukh film. There have been Greek university friends who have watched Kal Ho Na Ho and started sniffling half way through the movie, while other friends have bawled their eyes out in Asoka. My former flatmate, a classic English bloke, insisted on calling his former girlfriend, now happily married to someone else, to tell her he wished her health & happiness, again after watching Kal Ho Na Ho. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham has many stories attached, from the German who insisted on subjecting her rather surprised parents to the unedited DVD over an Easter holiday, while the gruff Afrikaner blasted its songs from his laptop for three days non stop and also made up with his estranged father (I mean, it IS all about loving your parents, isn't it?)
So what is it that makes Bollywood so popular? I don't know, and perhaps we shall never really know. Someone infinitely more intelligent shall no doubt some day start researching this phenomenon in more detail. But what I do know is that I can now walk through London, taking the tube to work, and see posters of Fanaa right next to those of X-Men 3 in the London tube. And that is already enough to celebrate. If I was in a movie, we'd be dancing down that platform right now....
Usually, the bulk of these tend to be in the suburbs, where there is a sizeable Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan community (somewhat generically referred to as "South Asian" or more specifically, "Brit-Asian". Interestingly, people refer to French immigrants in the US as French, Germans as Germans, Belgians as Belgians, etc, without actually calling them "Western Europeans", though the term "Eastern European" is heard more and more frequently in the press & public discourse...interesting....)
Anyway, we digress...so as I was saying, usually the Hindi films will play in the suburbs, (many, like Himalaya Palace Cinema, only show Hindi movies) but ever so often, a Bollywood movie will be picked up by one of the big chains - usually the biggest hit of the year. If its a Shah Rukh movie, it WILL be picked up (that man has a fan following all over the world); the big Yash Raj ones usually get distributed as well.
As a result, I managed to catch Mangal Pandey, The Rising (or whatever that movie was called) last summer. (In a strange incidence of poetic justice, I also saw that film in the erstwhile heartland of the East India Company, the Isle of Dogs.) And today, I saw Fanaa in the London Trocadero, just off Piccadilly Circus.
This might not necessarily seem to be a big deal, but actually it is. For the bulk of my childhood, when we were growing up outside India, most people either never watched Bollywood (or if they did, never admitted to it) or openly derided them as fantastical, song & dance tripe. This wasn't just restricted to some snotty critics at the latest Trendy-with-a-capital-T New York magazine, but also a lot of the Indians we met overseas - kids of immigrants, diplomats, etc. Watching Bollywood movies if you weren't in India wasn't cool, and it wasn't something you ever admitted to. (Though given that Mithun Chakraborty was the biggest thing in Bollywood in the 1980s, this may not be completely out of place...)
But it was something that was never in debate in India - everyone saw Hindi movies, everyone knew how to play Antakshari, everyone knew every major Kishore Kumar song. This wasn't something you made an effort to keep up with; it was a fact of life.
However, that was in India. When you were outside India, and perhaps not in South Asia, Bollywood was very deliberately off the radar. The only ones who really watched Bollywood movies were the immigrants who were nostalgic for home - and they never admitted to doing it. If they were found out, it was blamed on blatantly uncool parents. Nobody else really did, did they? They all watched Hollywood!
But it wasn't just that these Indian movies weren't in English - the subtitles could easily rectify that. It was that, unlike the cooperative French, Iranian, Turkish, Korean, whatever, film industries, Indian films just didn't "fit" the mold of what good cinema was. We insisted on making really long movies, which were melodramatic, packed full of formulaic emotional plots, usually pilfered stories from big Hollywood blockbusters, and to top it all off, had to throw in at least 5 songs into each film, for which the leads would suddenly be transported into a glamorous foreign locale (usually, but not always, Switzerland). I mean, they were just SO weird! And we weren't even apologetic about it! We insisted, despite all the friendly advice from the West, to continue making the movies we made, without rhyme or reason!
And then, somewhere, somehow, things began to change. In the late 90s, suddenly, the world started to take notice. Obviously, these were still terribly kitschy movies, lacking in plotlines, darling, and absolutely totally lacking class, but I mean, they still sell! And given that the Indian economy had started attracting some attention, people were keen to see what exactly was happening.
This was the same time that the Swiss, in many ways the most pragmatic and sensible of all Europeans, realised the economic value of Indian film crews shooting in their country. They realised quickly that the biggest hindrance to the smooth flow of industry professions was the visa, and introduced the Unit Visa, allowing entire film crews to travel without difficulty on single documents. This was soon followed by renaming a modest peak in the Swiss Alps Mount India...in honour of the many Sunny Deol song sequences shot around its base!
And suddenly, many more countries began to sit up and take notice. And as Indian cinema became more technically advanced, finding new & exciting locations across the world for the latest glossy song sequence was an essential part of the script. And suddenly, if Switzerland was for the slightly unimaginative Salman Khan starrer, we had Urmila Matondkar in Namibia, Kajol & Shah Rukh in Egypt, Madhuri Dixit in Patagonia, and not to forget, Hrithik Roshan in the British Museum, which was a bit of a coup since it was the first film sequence shot inside the museum. Most recently, the Irish government has actively started wooing Indian filmmakers to its shores.
But was it all the money talking? Was that all that made people realise what Bollywood was all about? There was an obvious financial aspect to the whole attention seeking (the former NDA government also declared Bollywood a formal industry, which thus opened up the business to legal commercial funding, and also streamlined insurance policies, etc) But surely there was something else to this?
I think people have finally realised, and accepted, that Bollywood is a bigger global phenomenon than we might think. More people across the world have seen a Bollywood movie than a Hollywood one. I have heard stories from people from Russia, mainland China, Tanzania, Venezuela & Morocco about how they grew up watching Amitabh Bachchan & (unfortunately!) Mithun Chakraborty. I heard from a Chinese colleague how a movie about a dog that avenges its master's untimely death was her father's favourite, while someone in South Africa told me about the survivor of the Rwandan massacres was less interested in narrating his experiences to the Indian origin human rights lawyer as he was in taking a peek at the CD case for the latest Shah Rukh film. There have been Greek university friends who have watched Kal Ho Na Ho and started sniffling half way through the movie, while other friends have bawled their eyes out in Asoka. My former flatmate, a classic English bloke, insisted on calling his former girlfriend, now happily married to someone else, to tell her he wished her health & happiness, again after watching Kal Ho Na Ho. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham has many stories attached, from the German who insisted on subjecting her rather surprised parents to the unedited DVD over an Easter holiday, while the gruff Afrikaner blasted its songs from his laptop for three days non stop and also made up with his estranged father (I mean, it IS all about loving your parents, isn't it?)
So what is it that makes Bollywood so popular? I don't know, and perhaps we shall never really know. Someone infinitely more intelligent shall no doubt some day start researching this phenomenon in more detail. But what I do know is that I can now walk through London, taking the tube to work, and see posters of Fanaa right next to those of X-Men 3 in the London tube. And that is already enough to celebrate. If I was in a movie, we'd be dancing down that platform right now....
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Ngabelungu....
Ok, point taken. My post titles tend to be slightly weird, and usually indecipherable. But the entire point is that they make perfect sense to me, and through some random acts of association, they also somehow seem appropriate. Agreed that while to me they may seem completely apposite, others will think them obscure. But hey - and I've said this before, but humour me while I say this again - my blog, so my rules! :)
Ngabelungu literally means, "It's all the white man's fault" in a South African language (I believe !Xhosa) and was both a standard expression of dismissal, and also a rallying cry for some parts of the ANC. And even though it might sound terribly racist to say this now, South Africa is the one country where most things that were abhorrently wrong were the white man's fault.
Ok- next question. I can hear people saying, "So he's explained what that ridiculous title means, but of what relevance is it?" The fact is, dear reader (I do love writing those two words in - sounds so totally Jane Austen-ish) that South Africa is looming in my consciousness.
The reason that this intriguing South African country is quite so active in my imagination for the past two weeks is because I am actually moving down there for three months for work. I am due to fly out of London this coming Sunday, and not counting the odd week in London for meetings, will only be back towards the end of July. So that's three months of my life that I shall choose to spend in a different city, different country, different continent.
Many people ask me if I'm concerned, especially given the security concerns in the area. The point is, I've spent most of my life, thanks to my dad's job, being in high security mode, with high threat perceptions. So the idea of being careful isn't unusual; its probably more natural to me than the idea of being casual!
The second most important reason is that going to South Africa is like going back in my past. My closest friends will remember that I spent four years of my life (from 1991 to 1995) in Namibia, and used to travel regularly through South Africa to fly back to India. As such, Johannesburg isn't so much a stranger as a friend from a past long ago. I am actually keen to go back and see how things have changed.
For so long, South Africa had been the country of Alan Paton and Nadine Gordimer - a country with institutionalised inequality, where racism was institutionalised through national law, where it was legal to separate families depending on the slope of one's shoulders or the curl of one's hair. A slighly Orwellian society where bigotry was rationalised and ensconced in deeply legalistic terminology and used to destroy individuals, families, entire communities.
And then 1994 happened - a year when, after decades of struggle, Apartheid finally came to an end. A year when, despite everyone's predictions, a peaceful transition of power took place. A year which saw the white flight - a year which saw limited violence. A year which saw the handover of power from a decayed, ageing hegemony to a new, vibrant and hopeful administration - an administration that had suffered with its supporters and had great visions for the country.
I last went to South Africa in 1995. Back then, everyone was optimistic and everything had a positive slant. Suffering was temporary, poverty was a state of mind, and hope was what everyone projected. I would like to think that the country had the same mindset as a newly independent India had back in 1948 - the only difference being that the New India's optimism was tinged with the poignancy of Partition.
So going back in 2006 will be interesting, both from a personal & from an interesting perspective. What will have changed, what will have developed? I don't know, but I'm keen to find out. And more importantly, I'm keen to go back to having South African wine and biltong...
Of course, there's tons to organise before that, so until next time, adieu..... or as they say in Afrikaans, tot siens!
Ngabelungu literally means, "It's all the white man's fault" in a South African language (I believe !Xhosa) and was both a standard expression of dismissal, and also a rallying cry for some parts of the ANC. And even though it might sound terribly racist to say this now, South Africa is the one country where most things that were abhorrently wrong were the white man's fault.
Ok- next question. I can hear people saying, "So he's explained what that ridiculous title means, but of what relevance is it?" The fact is, dear reader (I do love writing those two words in - sounds so totally Jane Austen-ish) that South Africa is looming in my consciousness.
The reason that this intriguing South African country is quite so active in my imagination for the past two weeks is because I am actually moving down there for three months for work. I am due to fly out of London this coming Sunday, and not counting the odd week in London for meetings, will only be back towards the end of July. So that's three months of my life that I shall choose to spend in a different city, different country, different continent.
Many people ask me if I'm concerned, especially given the security concerns in the area. The point is, I've spent most of my life, thanks to my dad's job, being in high security mode, with high threat perceptions. So the idea of being careful isn't unusual; its probably more natural to me than the idea of being casual!
The second most important reason is that going to South Africa is like going back in my past. My closest friends will remember that I spent four years of my life (from 1991 to 1995) in Namibia, and used to travel regularly through South Africa to fly back to India. As such, Johannesburg isn't so much a stranger as a friend from a past long ago. I am actually keen to go back and see how things have changed.
For so long, South Africa had been the country of Alan Paton and Nadine Gordimer - a country with institutionalised inequality, where racism was institutionalised through national law, where it was legal to separate families depending on the slope of one's shoulders or the curl of one's hair. A slighly Orwellian society where bigotry was rationalised and ensconced in deeply legalistic terminology and used to destroy individuals, families, entire communities.
And then 1994 happened - a year when, after decades of struggle, Apartheid finally came to an end. A year when, despite everyone's predictions, a peaceful transition of power took place. A year which saw the white flight - a year which saw limited violence. A year which saw the handover of power from a decayed, ageing hegemony to a new, vibrant and hopeful administration - an administration that had suffered with its supporters and had great visions for the country.
I last went to South Africa in 1995. Back then, everyone was optimistic and everything had a positive slant. Suffering was temporary, poverty was a state of mind, and hope was what everyone projected. I would like to think that the country had the same mindset as a newly independent India had back in 1948 - the only difference being that the New India's optimism was tinged with the poignancy of Partition.
So going back in 2006 will be interesting, both from a personal & from an interesting perspective. What will have changed, what will have developed? I don't know, but I'm keen to find out. And more importantly, I'm keen to go back to having South African wine and biltong...
Of course, there's tons to organise before that, so until next time, adieu..... or as they say in Afrikaans, tot siens!
Monday, April 24, 2006
There are No Penguins in Madagascar...
I could be accused of many things, but being a profilic blogger is definitely not one of them. I could also be accused of finding many excuses for this, but I guess the most straightforward one, and its not even an excuse, really, is that if I don't think I have a lot to say, I just won't say it. And anyway, its my blog, so who are you to complain if I don't update this so regularly...
Leaving all confrontations aside (apologies, but this is now an early Monday morning, and I'm due to be in work in a couple of hours, so my crankiness is hopefully forgivable) I should really go about explaining the title of this post. While it may appear to be something from a bad acid trip, it was actually the product of a rather unusual conversation I had a few weeks ago. As with most evening conversations (mine, anyway) this one was being conducted over some very nice red wine, and as a result, I think there could have been some lack of clear thinking on the part of one of the participants. The end result ended up being whether or not there were any penguins in the animated movie Madagascar, a sweet, but somewhat stilted, movie about a bunch of New York City zoo animals wanting to go live life on the wild side. Anyone who has seen the movie and is not drunk enough to confuse it with Ice Age (either one) will remember the mafiosi penguins in the movie, but anyway! I just remembered this slightly odd comment, delivered with great equanimity, and decided it would make a good title...
Anyway, the reading continues - I'm still reading three books at a time. I'm convinced that at some point its going to hit a deeply hidden switch and reveal the secrets of the universe, but no luck as of now...
While I won't write about all three, I'll talk about just one - I've got a copy of E.L.Doctorow's The March on my side table. Set around the march of Sherman's army through the US deep South during the US Civil War, the book is all about the horrors of war, as seen through the eyes of people, both ordinary and extraordinary. There are former plantation owners' wives, Union army doctors, former slaves, cavalry officers, English journalists, and also General Sherman himself.
I haven't finished the book yet, but I have to admit, Doctorow has disappointed me this time. Not because of his style of writing, but because of the content. His sentence structure, and even the plot, is fairly tight, and I'm guessing he's got a good editor. But somehow, if the book was to be about the horrors of war, and how human life continues in spite of it, I failed to see it.
Perhaps this has to do with the number of characters he's got in his story. Its very difficult to weave more than four narratives together, and you almost feel cheated because just as the story starts developing and getting interesting with one person, its like someone hit "Cut" & then "Paste" on some editing keyboard to put another story in place. End result - not much engagement with any character.
The other book I faced a similar problem with was The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. In fact, I think he was being harassed by his editor for the last 100 pages, because suddenly, everyone starts dying. After spending something like 400 pages building up this huge panorama, he pulls out a dart board and starts knocking each one out of the picture. And its all reasonably sudden, in many cases only a page or two.
Perhaps modern authors have a Tolstoy hangup. I can see the egotistical issues of writing the next War & Peace, but the key difference is that most Russian realists were writing huge books to pass those horrible Russian winters, when there wasn't really much else to do; ditto for the readers of the time, who were probably quite happy to pick up Turgenev's latest best seller in four encyclopaedic volumes...
Anyway...I promised to tell you about the doctor. I'm going to South Africa in a couple of weeks for work, and needed to go get all my jabs and medications sorted out. While the clinic was a nice private one (no hideous NHS facilities, thank you!) the doctor didn't seem too inclined to examine me. His exact comments included "Why you're here for this, I'm not sure. You're only 25, and most of these are for fat, middle aged business men", and "We'll do a blood test, but don't be disappointed if it doesn't show up anything exciting"
However, as an expert of tropical & infectious disease, he was quite excited to learn that I was off to Africa. I had the distinct impression that he'd have been a lot happier some 85 or 100 years ago, treating intrepid English travellers & colonisers, who were off doing the work of God in the heathen lands (Note - this last sentence is purely sarcastic. Besides, as someone who formally qualifies as heathen myself, I can take as many pot shots as I like at the practice)
Having finally bored of his litany of what all to do or not, I confronted him and asked him what exactly his bread & butter was in London, since its hardly a tropical climate. Smooth rejoinder, "I get a lot of HIV patients", to be followed by dire warnings of ignoring fevers that could be malaria "I know of businessmen who went to bed thinking that they had a cold, and they never woke up...)
That's beginning to sound like a long post already...and since I should really get up and get ready for work (this post is an early morning one since I couldn't sleep) I will end this here.
Until next time, dear reader...
Leaving all confrontations aside (apologies, but this is now an early Monday morning, and I'm due to be in work in a couple of hours, so my crankiness is hopefully forgivable) I should really go about explaining the title of this post. While it may appear to be something from a bad acid trip, it was actually the product of a rather unusual conversation I had a few weeks ago. As with most evening conversations (mine, anyway) this one was being conducted over some very nice red wine, and as a result, I think there could have been some lack of clear thinking on the part of one of the participants. The end result ended up being whether or not there were any penguins in the animated movie Madagascar, a sweet, but somewhat stilted, movie about a bunch of New York City zoo animals wanting to go live life on the wild side. Anyone who has seen the movie and is not drunk enough to confuse it with Ice Age (either one) will remember the mafiosi penguins in the movie, but anyway! I just remembered this slightly odd comment, delivered with great equanimity, and decided it would make a good title...
Anyway, the reading continues - I'm still reading three books at a time. I'm convinced that at some point its going to hit a deeply hidden switch and reveal the secrets of the universe, but no luck as of now...
While I won't write about all three, I'll talk about just one - I've got a copy of E.L.Doctorow's The March on my side table. Set around the march of Sherman's army through the US deep South during the US Civil War, the book is all about the horrors of war, as seen through the eyes of people, both ordinary and extraordinary. There are former plantation owners' wives, Union army doctors, former slaves, cavalry officers, English journalists, and also General Sherman himself.
I haven't finished the book yet, but I have to admit, Doctorow has disappointed me this time. Not because of his style of writing, but because of the content. His sentence structure, and even the plot, is fairly tight, and I'm guessing he's got a good editor. But somehow, if the book was to be about the horrors of war, and how human life continues in spite of it, I failed to see it.
Perhaps this has to do with the number of characters he's got in his story. Its very difficult to weave more than four narratives together, and you almost feel cheated because just as the story starts developing and getting interesting with one person, its like someone hit "Cut" & then "Paste" on some editing keyboard to put another story in place. End result - not much engagement with any character.
The other book I faced a similar problem with was The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. In fact, I think he was being harassed by his editor for the last 100 pages, because suddenly, everyone starts dying. After spending something like 400 pages building up this huge panorama, he pulls out a dart board and starts knocking each one out of the picture. And its all reasonably sudden, in many cases only a page or two.
Perhaps modern authors have a Tolstoy hangup. I can see the egotistical issues of writing the next War & Peace, but the key difference is that most Russian realists were writing huge books to pass those horrible Russian winters, when there wasn't really much else to do; ditto for the readers of the time, who were probably quite happy to pick up Turgenev's latest best seller in four encyclopaedic volumes...
Anyway...I promised to tell you about the doctor. I'm going to South Africa in a couple of weeks for work, and needed to go get all my jabs and medications sorted out. While the clinic was a nice private one (no hideous NHS facilities, thank you!) the doctor didn't seem too inclined to examine me. His exact comments included "Why you're here for this, I'm not sure. You're only 25, and most of these are for fat, middle aged business men", and "We'll do a blood test, but don't be disappointed if it doesn't show up anything exciting"
However, as an expert of tropical & infectious disease, he was quite excited to learn that I was off to Africa. I had the distinct impression that he'd have been a lot happier some 85 or 100 years ago, treating intrepid English travellers & colonisers, who were off doing the work of God in the heathen lands (Note - this last sentence is purely sarcastic. Besides, as someone who formally qualifies as heathen myself, I can take as many pot shots as I like at the practice)
Having finally bored of his litany of what all to do or not, I confronted him and asked him what exactly his bread & butter was in London, since its hardly a tropical climate. Smooth rejoinder, "I get a lot of HIV patients", to be followed by dire warnings of ignoring fevers that could be malaria "I know of businessmen who went to bed thinking that they had a cold, and they never woke up...)
That's beginning to sound like a long post already...and since I should really get up and get ready for work (this post is an early morning one since I couldn't sleep) I will end this here.
Until next time, dear reader...
Friday, December 09, 2005
December is a great time for fog in London
Its a lazy Friday evening on a cold December night. London has finally settled down to the sort of weather its famous for - not necessarily snowy and icy, as it was a few weeks back in November, but really dark and foggy. Its amazing how miserable weather can make you feel really comfortable and settled in. But its been a slightly manic week, (actually totally manic) between work and the social scene, so while it might seem a bit worrying that at 24 my idea of a great Friday night two weeks before Christmas is sitting at home with a glass of red wine and movie, I have to admit that I've had enough partying and excitement in my life this week to warrant a quiet night in.
So this evening is dedicated to watching Crash, reading and listening to a nice CD of some classic old school rock/folk (what school of music would you qualify Joanie Mitchell as being from?) Again, it sounds almost trite - red wine, Joanie Mitchell, foggy winter night in London, but hey, if I've learnt one thing in life, its that one should never knock a stereotype because each and every stereotype is grounded in some form of reality. A stereotype is a great way to gain an introduction to something or someone, and as long as you can realise that its not an absolute phenomenon, and that people might start out as being stereotypical, if you maintain the ability to look beyond that and see what it is that makes that particular cookie distinct from every other cookie that was cut using a specific cookie cutter, you'll really simplify the process of getting to know someone or something better.
Call me Platonic (and no, I don't mean the love, I mean someone who ascribes to a view of the world that was popularised by Plato!) but perhaps everyone has within them certain inherent characteristics that are innate to them, and while each one of us tries in our way to become the best possible manifestation of that cookie cutter we were cut from, in our attempt to hone the edges where the dough tore and we crumbled when being lifted from the baking sheet, we become even more unique and individualistic.
Anyway, we digress. So here I am, cut from whatever cookie cutter would produce a cookie that spends a quiet Friday night sitting at home with red wine and Joanie Mitchell, watching cutting edge Hollywood movies about the Los Angeles riots. Funny that this week this should be the second encounter I have through a cultural medium of the Los Angeles riots of the nineties - Crash, the movie, and Shalimar the Clown, the new novel by Salman Rushdie that I finished reading early this week. I haven't seen Crash yet, so I'll need to come back to that for a more informed exposition, but I can definitely comment on Rushdie (you could even argue if you were a smarmy cynic that most reviewers probably tear into an artist without really reading/watching/listening/eating to their creation, but I'll spare you the platitudes)
Rushdie is actually a very talented writer - no matter what he does and how badly he does it, you can't ignore that fact. His genius at writing creatively comes through all his books. I think that's part of the reason its so easy to hate him - because except for some very rare cases, I think he offends a part of us that want him to try harder and really do his genius justice and that he fails to do that time and again. For a man who shot to global recognition thanks to a conservative preacher who condemned him to death for supposed blasphemy (you could argue that the Ayatollah was the ultimate critic since he actually pronounced the death sentence based on hearsay!) I think there are a lot of books that you can read written by him and really only identify a very select few as being really amazing.
I still think Midnight's Children was a great book - a tad too long, and personally I think the whole third part of the book was unnecessary, but I get the sense that Rushdie is a man who likes symmetry and more importantly symmetry in his metaphors, hence the need for three parts to a book, in the same way that the India of old was broken into the India, Pakistan and Bangladesh of today. However, if I was to count his "great" books, they would be limited to a select three: Satanic Verses (as being one of the funniest books he ever wrote), The Moor's Last Sigh and Haroun & the Sea of Stories. Shalimar the Clown was a brave venture, but lacked a lot of power for several reasons.
For starters, I think Rushdie has taken great pains to identify himself as the man who can really be thought to have redefined the meaning of Indian writing in English, but has also taken a lot of care to be seen to be a writer that is totally separable from any distinct political entity from the South Asian continent. He strives to do this by using a voice in his writing that is distinctly Indian, and his entire cultural ethos is incredibly grounded in India, but he has tried to be seen to be politically neutral and therefore objective. In Shalimar as well, his narrative seems forced around trying to portray both sides of the coin as much as possible. I agree that if its important for him to do so, he should definitely do so, but I mourn the fact that by doing so, he took a book that could have been truly great and condemned it to being mediocre. He does in Shalimar the Clown what he did many years ago in Midnight's Children - he takes a political decision in what should really only be an artistic one, and the result is that the work of art suffers and fails to become what it could have.
This is not to say that Rushdie is the only one who does this - so many writers, painters, musicians and artists take political decisions that are very important cultural and political milestones. The famous Prague Spring of 68 that nearly brought down the Iron Curtain (though if its a curtain surely it should have gone up?!) was entirely propagated through a series of cultural media that managed to shake the Soviet Union and bring the tanks out in the streets of Prague. However, what Rushdie does is slightly different - he doesn't set out to generate a work of art as a way of making a political statement, which would something like Joan Baez of Bob Dylan writing an anti US govt protest song back in the 60s. Rather, he chooses to set about creating a work of fiction, and then halfway seems to decide to step back and make sure its politically correct, or completely apolitical altogether. What this ends up doing is that rather than being convincing, the created work becomes politically enfeebled and diluted - it loses its conviction and ends up being a facsimile of what it really could have been.
Anyway, enough of me shooting arrows at Mr Rushdie - he's a world famous (and in some countries, widely hated) writer, so he's obviously done something write. In any case, this is the opinion of a single person (but I'm sure there are people out there who'd agree with me!) but hey, if you weren't interested in my opinions, you wouldn't be reading this in the first place, right?
Till next time.....
So this evening is dedicated to watching Crash, reading and listening to a nice CD of some classic old school rock/folk (what school of music would you qualify Joanie Mitchell as being from?) Again, it sounds almost trite - red wine, Joanie Mitchell, foggy winter night in London, but hey, if I've learnt one thing in life, its that one should never knock a stereotype because each and every stereotype is grounded in some form of reality. A stereotype is a great way to gain an introduction to something or someone, and as long as you can realise that its not an absolute phenomenon, and that people might start out as being stereotypical, if you maintain the ability to look beyond that and see what it is that makes that particular cookie distinct from every other cookie that was cut using a specific cookie cutter, you'll really simplify the process of getting to know someone or something better.
Call me Platonic (and no, I don't mean the love, I mean someone who ascribes to a view of the world that was popularised by Plato!) but perhaps everyone has within them certain inherent characteristics that are innate to them, and while each one of us tries in our way to become the best possible manifestation of that cookie cutter we were cut from, in our attempt to hone the edges where the dough tore and we crumbled when being lifted from the baking sheet, we become even more unique and individualistic.
Anyway, we digress. So here I am, cut from whatever cookie cutter would produce a cookie that spends a quiet Friday night sitting at home with red wine and Joanie Mitchell, watching cutting edge Hollywood movies about the Los Angeles riots. Funny that this week this should be the second encounter I have through a cultural medium of the Los Angeles riots of the nineties - Crash, the movie, and Shalimar the Clown, the new novel by Salman Rushdie that I finished reading early this week. I haven't seen Crash yet, so I'll need to come back to that for a more informed exposition, but I can definitely comment on Rushdie (you could even argue if you were a smarmy cynic that most reviewers probably tear into an artist without really reading/watching/listening/eating to their creation, but I'll spare you the platitudes)
Rushdie is actually a very talented writer - no matter what he does and how badly he does it, you can't ignore that fact. His genius at writing creatively comes through all his books. I think that's part of the reason its so easy to hate him - because except for some very rare cases, I think he offends a part of us that want him to try harder and really do his genius justice and that he fails to do that time and again. For a man who shot to global recognition thanks to a conservative preacher who condemned him to death for supposed blasphemy (you could argue that the Ayatollah was the ultimate critic since he actually pronounced the death sentence based on hearsay!) I think there are a lot of books that you can read written by him and really only identify a very select few as being really amazing.
I still think Midnight's Children was a great book - a tad too long, and personally I think the whole third part of the book was unnecessary, but I get the sense that Rushdie is a man who likes symmetry and more importantly symmetry in his metaphors, hence the need for three parts to a book, in the same way that the India of old was broken into the India, Pakistan and Bangladesh of today. However, if I was to count his "great" books, they would be limited to a select three: Satanic Verses (as being one of the funniest books he ever wrote), The Moor's Last Sigh and Haroun & the Sea of Stories. Shalimar the Clown was a brave venture, but lacked a lot of power for several reasons.
For starters, I think Rushdie has taken great pains to identify himself as the man who can really be thought to have redefined the meaning of Indian writing in English, but has also taken a lot of care to be seen to be a writer that is totally separable from any distinct political entity from the South Asian continent. He strives to do this by using a voice in his writing that is distinctly Indian, and his entire cultural ethos is incredibly grounded in India, but he has tried to be seen to be politically neutral and therefore objective. In Shalimar as well, his narrative seems forced around trying to portray both sides of the coin as much as possible. I agree that if its important for him to do so, he should definitely do so, but I mourn the fact that by doing so, he took a book that could have been truly great and condemned it to being mediocre. He does in Shalimar the Clown what he did many years ago in Midnight's Children - he takes a political decision in what should really only be an artistic one, and the result is that the work of art suffers and fails to become what it could have.
This is not to say that Rushdie is the only one who does this - so many writers, painters, musicians and artists take political decisions that are very important cultural and political milestones. The famous Prague Spring of 68 that nearly brought down the Iron Curtain (though if its a curtain surely it should have gone up?!) was entirely propagated through a series of cultural media that managed to shake the Soviet Union and bring the tanks out in the streets of Prague. However, what Rushdie does is slightly different - he doesn't set out to generate a work of art as a way of making a political statement, which would something like Joan Baez of Bob Dylan writing an anti US govt protest song back in the 60s. Rather, he chooses to set about creating a work of fiction, and then halfway seems to decide to step back and make sure its politically correct, or completely apolitical altogether. What this ends up doing is that rather than being convincing, the created work becomes politically enfeebled and diluted - it loses its conviction and ends up being a facsimile of what it really could have been.
Anyway, enough of me shooting arrows at Mr Rushdie - he's a world famous (and in some countries, widely hated) writer, so he's obviously done something write. In any case, this is the opinion of a single person (but I'm sure there are people out there who'd agree with me!) but hey, if you weren't interested in my opinions, you wouldn't be reading this in the first place, right?
Till next time.....
Monday, August 29, 2005
Its a sleepy Monday
Today is Bank Holiday in the UK - the last bank holiday of the year before we get to December and the Christmas breaks. Bank Holiday weekend, true to UK form, is an excuse for most people to do one of three things: go on vacation, go on shopping excursions, or go binge drinking!
I have to admit, I myself am guilty of doing two of these - I went drinking twice this weekend, and also sneaked in a quick trip to H&M and Waterstones (the first to see if there were any light jackets - I had left the house unprepared) and a bookstore, well...who needs an excuse?
So on Monday mornnig, I'm very happily sitting and looknig at my new acquisitions. I finally managed to pick up the latest Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, and have also picked up Ali & Nino, by Kurban Said. Even with a title that is more reminiscent of a Disney movie (if you don't know about Lilo & Stitch, I don't want to know who you are!) I had to buy the Kurban Said, if only for the description of the author. Apparently its now becoming apparently clear (to someone atleast) that Kurban Said was a nom de plume used by two people - an Azerbaijani itenerant and an Austrian countess, who together produced two novels. The Azerbaijani eventually is said to have perished in a Nazi prison camp, but rumour has it he died of an infection because he shot himself in the foot to avoid being deported from Italy. Even if the book ends up being terrible, I will not regret buying it because its just so cool to have a novel in your collection that's written by someone quite so colourful...
However, my new literary acquisitions should not detract from the fact that I'm currently reading three novels simultaneously. Two of them are first time reads, the third is one I've read many times (well actually only twice before). So I'm currently wading through medieval Europe as I read Amin Maalouf's Balthasar's Odyssey and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (which is, by the way, redolent with Rosicrucian lore - though I don't like the constant barbs those Benedictines keep aiming at the poor Languedoc Cathars. Oh well I guess every time and era needs an "other" to demonise) and am also reading "popular" fiction through this book called The Mind Game, by Hector Macdonald. Seriously, with a name like Hector, could you write anything but about mind games and psychological thrillers? Its the most predetermined profession in the world. I mean, if you want to raise a cannibal genius, name your child Lector Hannibal and you'll be guaranteed a psycho for life!
But the interesting thing about reading three novels together is that you feel vaguely cabbalistic - your subconscious is busy processing three very different stories together, and as a result your dreams are quite unusual and mixed up. Its almost like doing some psychotropic substance, without the associated health hazards!
Anyway....will come back to this blog in a bit...need to go do some mundane boring stuff...
I have to admit, I myself am guilty of doing two of these - I went drinking twice this weekend, and also sneaked in a quick trip to H&M and Waterstones (the first to see if there were any light jackets - I had left the house unprepared) and a bookstore, well...who needs an excuse?
So on Monday mornnig, I'm very happily sitting and looknig at my new acquisitions. I finally managed to pick up the latest Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, and have also picked up Ali & Nino, by Kurban Said. Even with a title that is more reminiscent of a Disney movie (if you don't know about Lilo & Stitch, I don't want to know who you are!) I had to buy the Kurban Said, if only for the description of the author. Apparently its now becoming apparently clear (to someone atleast) that Kurban Said was a nom de plume used by two people - an Azerbaijani itenerant and an Austrian countess, who together produced two novels. The Azerbaijani eventually is said to have perished in a Nazi prison camp, but rumour has it he died of an infection because he shot himself in the foot to avoid being deported from Italy. Even if the book ends up being terrible, I will not regret buying it because its just so cool to have a novel in your collection that's written by someone quite so colourful...
However, my new literary acquisitions should not detract from the fact that I'm currently reading three novels simultaneously. Two of them are first time reads, the third is one I've read many times (well actually only twice before). So I'm currently wading through medieval Europe as I read Amin Maalouf's Balthasar's Odyssey and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (which is, by the way, redolent with Rosicrucian lore - though I don't like the constant barbs those Benedictines keep aiming at the poor Languedoc Cathars. Oh well I guess every time and era needs an "other" to demonise) and am also reading "popular" fiction through this book called The Mind Game, by Hector Macdonald. Seriously, with a name like Hector, could you write anything but about mind games and psychological thrillers? Its the most predetermined profession in the world. I mean, if you want to raise a cannibal genius, name your child Lector Hannibal and you'll be guaranteed a psycho for life!
But the interesting thing about reading three novels together is that you feel vaguely cabbalistic - your subconscious is busy processing three very different stories together, and as a result your dreams are quite unusual and mixed up. Its almost like doing some psychotropic substance, without the associated health hazards!
Anyway....will come back to this blog in a bit...need to go do some mundane boring stuff...
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