Truth is always hidden in fiction - uncover it in the noir of Carlos Ruiz Zafon!

I read Carlos Ruiz Zafon and I knew I wanted to see Barcelona. Author of The Shadow of The Wind - the most successful novel in Spanish publishing after Don Quixote - Zafon was born in Barcelona and the city is another character in his noir novels. A gothic organism, it shifts shape and form to yield narrow alleys and desolate mansions, stifling haze and blanketing fog even casting the residence of Gaudi - the Catalan architect whose Baroque buildings define the cityscape - as a set piece. 


Zafon is hailed as a worthy successor to Bram Stoker and if you haven't read him yet, go exploring your local library/bookstore for his books - The Angel's Game, and most recently, The Prince of Mist. I reviewed the former for South China Morning Post, and as you'll read, loved it! 


As a writer, Zafon is soubly entertaining with his wise and witty take on a writer's life. Witness: "The only way you can truly get to know an author is through the trail of ink he leaves behind him. The person you think you see is only an empty character: truth is always hidden in fiction." 


A tragic romance, a gothic mystery, a rollercoaster ride through the sights, sounds and streets of Barca - what's not to love!

The Angel’s Game

by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Weidenfeld & Nicholson

HK$ 204

****

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

FICTION

The Angel’s Game is Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s prequel to the immensely successful Shadow of the Wind, a novel that become a worldwide bestseller and was translated into more than 35 languages. It is set in 1920’s Barcelona, a turbulent time marked by dictatorship and the end of constitutional monarchy in Spain. The backdrop is thus appropriately arrayed for a noir thriller replete with mean characters, a tragic hero, a doomed love and quicksand circumstances. Keeping with the spirit of its predecessor, this book too features Barcelona as a character in the story, a gothic organism that shifts shape and form to yield narrow alleys and desolate mansions, stifling haze and blanketing fog. With his tongue firmly in cheek, Zafon even summons Antoni Gaudi, the Spanish Catalan architect famous for his baroque buildings, and casts his residence, “the garden of columns and towers looked more like a cursed paradise”, as a set piece.

The book opens with David Martin, a 17-year-old impoverished writer working at a languishing newspaper. Despite being brought up by an illiterate war veteran, since childhood David’s “only friends were made of paper and ink”, a passion in which he was ably assisted by the bookseller Sempere. Readers familiar with Shadow will smile at the reappearance of the delightful Sempere & Sons, a bookstore that along with the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, played a stellar role in the first novel. David’s favourite book is a Christmas gift from Sempere, Great Expectations, and Dickens’ novel runs as a leitmotif through The Angel’s Game. Much like Pip, David has a rich benefactor in Pedro Vidal, star writer and scion of a wealthy Barcelona family; David’s Estella is the glacial Christina, alternately aloof and approachable; and the character of Victorian London is parlayed by Baroque Barcelona. 

When David gets commissioned to write penny dreadfuls, he proceeds to do so under a pseudonym. His tales of Barcelona’s underbelly garner him a steady readership, an abandoned mansion for residence, and the attentions of a mysterious publisher Andreas Corelli. The reclusive Corelli wants David to write a book unlike any other, a book with the power to change hearts and minds, and offers a fortune in return. As David begins the work macabre incidents start to rip through his life: the death of his ex-publishers by fire, a police patrol hotfooting on his heels, the discovery of sinister murders of yore in his labyrinthine mansion, and Christina’s descent into madness. Grappling with the bizarre happenings David realizes he might just have struck a Faustian bargain. 

The Angel’s Game pulses with Zafon’s trademark wit as, armed with the knowledge of an insider, he takes swipes at a writer’s life and the publisher’s trade. More reverentially, it unpicks the role of books in our lives, the consuming passion a writer pours into his work and the magical hold a good book can exercise on our soul. It is reputed to be the fastest-selling Spanish novel and, unless you are seriously opposed to the idea of roller coaster rides, what is there not to like?

India, Ignoring Women at its Peril

An edited version of this article appeared as an op-ed in the South China Morning Post of 14 February 2011.

On 7 February a young girl in India had her nose, arm and ear chopped off. Her crime: resisting rape. Seventeen-year-old Sarika had gone out with her friend when three men pounced upon her. When she raised an alarm the men tied her up, mutilated her and left after threatening her not to inform anybody about the incident. The girl has since undergone several rounds of surgery to correct the effects of the brutal attack.

It happened in Fatehpur, located on the sacred Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The fertile Gangetic plain is considered the cradle of Hinduism and Fatehpur itself finds mention in ancient Hindu texts called the Puranas. The juxtaposition of heinous violence with religious places is not unusual – precisely why this case is noteworthy for both its terrible brutality and its ubiquity.

India is a patriarchal society. The good Indian girl needs a man at each stage in her life – in the form of father, husband, and son. She does not question her father’s authority, participates in an arranged marriage, and when she reaches her in-law’s house with sufficient dowry to ensure that she is not burnt, proceeds to beget male progeny. In the event that she conceives a girl child, there is always recourse to female foeticide or infanticide. Which accounts for the skewed gender ratio in India: 933 girls:1000 boys according to the 2001 Census.

In the event that she is harassed the good Indian girl is taught to ignore, look the other way, do anything but avoid calling further attention to herself. The National Crimes Record Bureau (2007) shows that total crime against women has increased by 12.5%. Yet she is instructed to weigh the cost of a few gropes, molestation, rape versus the shame of a public case. Those who don’t listen deserve a lesson – as did Sarika. That she did not allow herself to be gangraped incensed the men enough to mutilate her.

Cutting off a woman’s nose is a common treatment meted out to difficult women. It has its roots in the Ramayana where Rama’s brother slashed the nose of a seductress. When I worked in Etah, another impoverished district of Uttar Pradesh, on a rural development project, one village woman who assisted us was perennially sheathed in a voluminous shawl that revealed only her eyes. It was only later that I learnt the reason why. Apparently, her irate in-laws had hacked off her nose since they suspected her of speaking to a strange man. Clearly, being a poor woman in rural India is hazardous.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s second-largest state economy. It has been growing at 6.29% since 2004, an economic feat that is credited to Mayawati, its Chief Minister. Mayawati, like Sarika, is a Dalit woman. However, that is where the similarities end. Dubbed the Dalit Queen, Mayawati belongs to that other subset of women in the subcontinent – dynastic successors, benefiting from either their fathers or mentors.

This provides a skewed picture of female leadership in the subcontinent – after all Benazir Bhutto was the first woman Prime Minister of an Islamic state, Indira Gandhi was the longest-serving Prime Minister of India, and Bangladesh has been ruled by two women, one the daughter of its founding father, the other the widow of an assassinated President. The truth is that their gender is incidental.

Mayawati, who has similarly profited as a political protege, has used public money on commissioning statues of herself, her mentor and elephants, her party symbol. She has done little to check the high crime rate in Uttar Pradesh which tops the list of lawless states in India.

Currently a Hindi film, No one Killed Jessica, is showing in India. It depicts the true story of a barmaid in Delhi who refused to serve a drink to a drunk bully. Slighted, he shot her dead. Despite the presence of multiple witnesses the accused were acquitted. Subsequently, the story was picked up by media and after intense pressure the case was reopened. Eventually, it took a public movement and seven years to get justice for one woman.

India ranks 114^th out of 134 countries covered by the Global Gender Gap Index. It is last among the BRIC countries on the index, and second to last in South Asia, ahead only of Pakistan. The Indian economy has been growing at an average of 8% for several years, yet its rank has remained unchanged since 2006. In India’s much-touted growth story, its women are sadly missing.

Stringent deterrents and effectual legislation are needed to ensure that girls like Sarika get prompt justice. No nation can prosper if half its human capital, its women, are ignored, or worse, discriminated against.

An Indian Summer, Sales Spiel, and a Life Lesson

Destination: Dohad, Gujarat (read boondocks)

Purpose: Sales trip (ostensibly in pursuit of earning my laundry stripes!)

Serendipity: A Life lesson (entirely unanticipated, in the mode of Serendip-Sri Lanka)

Summer time in Gujarat gives an altogether new meaning to heat. It was May; I had donned my usual protective gear: huge sunglasses and a cotton dupatta wrapped burqa-fashion. The car window was rolled down to allow for fresh air, that stung mercilessly.

We were driving from Baroda to Dohad, an arid dusty stretch. Do-had: 2-borders. A matter-of-fact name for a nondescript town bordered by the desert of Rajasthan, and the tribal region of Madhya Pradesh. What exactly was I doing, rattling down a searing tarred highway in a groaning Ambassador car with a 45°C sun burnishing bright over me? My company sold detergents for a handsome living – enabled by an antiquated rule of non-ac cars for Sales tours. This was likely driven by a Calvinesque belief in the power of suffering to build, simultaneously, character and sales. 

I, engineer-IIM-grad, could have been working with a global bank, an a-c office with potted palms and polished floors. But no, I had wanted to learn ground realities about my consumer before I sat in the ivory tower of Brand Management. Therefore, at campus placement, I had accepted with alacrity the offer of Area Sales Manager. However, during those long journeys down Gujarat highways I often wondered when the real world would get too real for me.

After a four-hour journey we reached my Distributor's house, an old haveli whose rambling innards housed a joint family and a couple of godowns. Govindbhai, my Distributor, came from a family of grain merchants. Being a distributor was not as remunerative as the traditional family business but it did something for his status in town.

Perfunctorily I enquired about Sales – the reports were with me but an unexpected response was usually guaranteed!

"Surya Devta’s kindness, madam," he offered with a smile.

The reference to Sun God was Govindbhai's reverential take on my Company's, and therefore my, Summer Sales Spiel: more heat equals more sweat equals more dirt equals more washes equals more detergent equals more sales. Simplistic, but it worked, especially in rural India where, despite the heat and grime, people have a penchant for wearing white.

Of course, I had to be selective about the application of this logic as I had discovered during my first few months on the job. Declining sales in summer season were explained by an ingenuous twist to the equation: more heat equals water shortage equals less washing! Sales, as I had figured, is nothing to do with logic. It is about relationships: a fluid web of constantly changing dynamics, with the ASM, Distributors, Sales team, and Retailers as the nodal points.

We spent the next two hours reviewing Sales details over endless cups of tea. Then Govindbhai broached the topic of nashta.

After rounds of demurring from my side, and energetic protestations from him, I found myself seated at a ten-seater dining table on the first floor of the haveli. The spread on the table was mind-boggling: a cheerful smorgasbord of papad, dhokla, undhiyo, lentil, kadhi, three types of vegetables, lightly flavored basmati rice, hot-off-the-stove-rotis, yoghurt drink, and sliced mango. Truly, a feast for the Lady ASM from Bombay.

I still found it a little discomfiting. I say still because this happens every time that I make a visit. Sitting at the table with the men I worked or interacted with - the Sales Officer, the Distributor and his male relatives - while the women cooked and served from the kitchen. The women of the house would eat later, that was the custom - I would be politely informed when I suggested they join us. I had partaken many such meals but the disconcerting feeling never left me. Seated at that table I was on a level plane with the men: I was acknowledged as their equal. This recognition, however, distanced me from the women, and did not balance my equation with them.

After lunch I went to the kitchen to thank the women. It was big and airy. There were five women ranging from seventeen to seventy inside. They examined me with frank curiosity and proceeded to quiz me about my family, my home in Bombay, who managed it when I travelled, what about the cooking?

Meanwhile, I learnt that they spent most of their time in the kitchen. Feeding a family of fifteen was like feeding an army, the grandmother informed with pride. The agenda consisted of moving from one meal to the next: arms wrestling with atta dough, expertly sifting grain for possible pebbles, gently rolling out thin rotis, frying papad over just the right heat, chopping vegetables into florets or cubes, preparing the seasoning. The wealth of tradition was passed down from the matriarch to the bahus. The granddaughter of marriageable-age was apprenticed into learning.

'The women in the kitchen' – yeah, I boxed them – were so different from me, and yet  alike. We managed our respective worlds with expertise and skill, but the worlds themselves were entirely different...

Something was bothering me and it was during the market visit, amidst detergent bars and sales chatter and more tea with retailers, that my mind supplied the answer. I had been fortunate to have the choice of which world to adopt, they had not. I felt a sense of empowerment because I had the ability to switch from one world (the-all-male-dining-table-world) to another (kitchen-cocoon-women-world) when I wanted. That was not something I could see either my male counterparts, or the women within the kitchen, doing.

After the visit, at four in the evening, the sun still bright, we were ready to start the return journey to Baroda. Govindbhai, however, seemed strangely hesitant to let us go.

"A small favour, if you would please, madam?" he said.

I nodded.

He looked at me nervously, shifting his gaze from me to the ground. "My daughter, who is in Class 8, is back from school She would like to meet you… You see, she wants to be an engineer when she grows up."

Back again at the dining table – this time though I was facing specific questions of a very determined and curious girl. She soaked up all the answers but it was I who got a life lesson: in a dusty little town, from inside a traditional haveli with its airy kitchen and no study, it is possible for a young woman to think different. 

The sun was setting as we drove back from Dohad. The rays glinted off the Gulmohar flowers and seemed to cast a halo around the entire tree. Did I mention that I like this tree a lot? In the sweltering heat of the Indian summer it stands tall and green, bursting forth with fiery red flowers – a cheerful respite against a monotone background. I remember that journey because I noticed quite a few Gulmohar trees on the way back.

This post has been submitted to the Indiblogger Cleartrip "My Purpose" contest. Hope you enjoyed it :)

When History Clangs, a Checklist to Stay Safe...

Mark Twain famously said that history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. For me it clanged shrilly with the killing in Islamabad of Salman Taseer.

The Governor of Punjab province in Pakistan was shot dead on 4 January by his bodyguard and the news took me back 26 years to Indian Punjab when one similarly frosty winter morning the Prime Minister of India was assassinated by her security men. In both instances the killers raised their hands and proclaimed their deed, convinced that they had avenged a wrong. For Mrs. Gandhi’s killers it was revenge against the despoliation of their holiest shrine, Golden Temple; in the case of Mr. Taseer it was his stance against blasphemy laws that claimed his life.

That morning I had cycled to college as usual cutting through the fog that floated over from the fields shrouding the streets of our small town. Before lessons could begin we were informed that lectures were suspended and we were to proceed home. Violence was expected. 

That was not unusual, the state of Punjab had been rife with militant activity for two decades. Mrs. Gandhi had galvanised an obscure Sikh preacher against the Akali party in Punjab in an attempt to divide the Sikh votes and gain electoral victory. However, as his fame spread Bhindranwale became the Frankenstein who threatened the very existence of India with his demand for a separate state of Khalistan for the Sikhs. During the Partition of India the state of Punjab had been bifurcated and the western part went to newly formed Pakistan, state of the pure. Now Bhindranwale was agitating for eastern Punjab to be made a separate nation of Khalistan, another state of the pure, where only Sikhs would reside.

Among the requirements bandied in the proposed state was a mandatory requirement for women to cover their heads. It sounded to me like the measures our neighbour Zia had put in place where female newscasters on Pakistan TV now routinely covered their heads.

During the period of militancy in Punjab the space for discourse shrank as people were killed because they were not hirsute enough. The Sikh faith ordains unshorn hair and it became common practice for militants to kill Hindus in buses and bazaars and businesses. I would travel on the state roadways bus from my hostel and run through my checklist in case the bus was held up by militants and inventoried for non-Sikhs. I wore a Kara, the steel bangle that is one of the five items of my faith; I wore my hair in long braids; and I made sure to remove my bindi – the felt forehead dot made into a fashion statement by a Bollywood actress. However I did thread my brows and upper lip – was that blasphemous? And then I would console myself with the thought that the rough uncouth men who made up the militants would never know the difference. My bus never got held up by militants, even while several others did, and I never got to find the answer.  

In Pakistan the story is similar. When religion could not bind the disparate wings of the nation and Bangladesh was created, its leaders attempted to unite the nation and its polity through radicalised Islam. General Zia ul Haq is largely credited with the Islamization of Pakistan that resulted in the present blasphemy law condemning to death a person accused of insulting prophet Muhammad. Salman Taseer had opposed this law and was looking to overturn it, thus drawing the ire of fundamentalist clerics.

After three decades the militancy in Indian Punjab died down due to a variety of factors. A peace accord, an attempt to redress genuine grievances, decline in support for militants, a vigorous media… I like to believe that the Punjabis realized they were taking a good prosperous state down the tube, regained their senses and woke up from decades of being brainwashed.

Fundamentalists are looking to redefine what it means to be Muslim on a daily basis. Mr. Taseer was clearly not Muslim enough and for his support of a Christian woman was labelled a blasphemer in turn. His killer is being eulogized by a section of Pakistani society for his act of cold-blooded murder. He was garlanded when escorted to the courts and has overnight acquired Facebook pages and fans. Leading imams refused to lead funeral prayers for the assassinated Governor. A body of religious scholars issued strictures against attending his funeral. Clearly being Muslim means obliterating any space for debate.

Which makes me think if girls in Pakistan have begun creating their own checklists to stay safe in the increasingly vitiated environment? A laundry list of dos and don’ts on clothes, cosmetics, comportment and character to be certified by the zealous religious leaders.

Time for the moderate voice in Pakistan to pipe up. Before it gets too late.