Happy birthday Mirza Nosha!

We holidayed recently in Western Australia’s wine region of Margaret River, an undulating land sprinkled with grape trees and contented cows grazing under an azure sky in which milky shape-shifting clouds bounced along as if giddy on Chardonnay vapours. 

Old friends – a couple with two daughters – joined us from Mumbai and all together much fun was to be had as we biked along the beach, licked ice creams clean, chased sea gulls, petted alpacas, swam in the Indian Ocean, and between Cabernet and Shiraz, shared new confidences and renewed old ties.

During one of those conversations, the 15-year-old daughter of our friends remarked – with some amusement – that I tended to mention Ghalib with surprising regularity. Well, blame it on the wine, I quipped, but she set me thinking. 

Ghalib is an old friend, courtesy of growing up in an Urdu-literate household located on the thin line that divides India from Pakistan, and like any good friend, he has offered the solace of his friendship on countless occasions. I am dismayed therefore when I realize that the younger generation has little acquaintance with the poet who is regarded as the Milton of Urdu language.

Returning to the conversation, I said I’m sure you’ve encountered Mirza on more occasions but remain unaware of it.

How so, she asked.

Because Ghalib’s oeuvre is so wide that he has opined on every conceivable topic under the sun. He is so much a part of our lexicon that the average Indian quotes him without being aware that she/he is spouting poetry.

I like to believe that at some point I can undertake a project that will make an entire younger generation of Indians appreciate the magic of Mirza Ghalib. (Mirza Nosha was a title bestowed on the poet by Bahadur Shah Zafar II.) Making them cognizant of the indelible imprint of his verse in our daily speech might be one way to go.

On the occasion of Ghalib’s 214^th birthday I am quoting below some shayrs that find frequent recurrence in Hindi  …

On love:

Ishq par zor nahin yeh who aatish hai Ghalib

Jo lagaaye na lage aur bhujaaye na bhuje

Ishq ne Ghalib niqamma kar diya

Warna hum bhi aadmi they kaam ke

On relationships:

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ke tu kya hai?

Tumhin kaho ke yeh anaaze-e-guftagu kya hai?

Meharbaan hoke bula mujhe chaho jis waqt,

Main gaya waqt nahin ke phir aa bhi na sakun

On longing:

hazaaron khwahishain aisee ke har khwahish pe dam nikle,

Bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle

Phir is dil ko bekaraari hai

Seena zoya-e-zakhm-e-kari hai

On God:

Na tha kuchch to khuda tha, kuch na hota to Khuda hota,

Duboya mujh ko hone ne, na hota main to kya hota?

On life:

Qaid-e-hayaat-o-band-e-gham asal mein dodno ek hain,

Maut se phele aadmi gham se nijaat paaye kyon

On being human:

Bas ki dushwaar hai har kaam ka aasaan hona

Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahin insaan hona

Ghalib continues to be relevant: like today, he lived in a time of change and turbulence when the Mughal empire had ceded to British rule; he was a secularist in an era of religious foment; his philosophical take on God, faith, love, life, friendship continue to be a bellwether for those seeking a way to deal with life’s vicissitudes.

I shall relate an anecdote from the TV serial Mirza Ghalib directed by Gulzar. Mirza is enjoying some sweets when another Muslim remarks sarcastically:

“Diwali ki mithai kha rahe ho Mirza?”

Ghalib: “Barfi kha raha hoon. Barfi Hindu hai? Aur jalebi? Imarti? Ye kya hain?”

His inquisitive debating spirit is a trait we could all look to develop as we deal with a world that challenges us daily. As Ghalib himself said:

Hui muddat ke Ghalib mar gaya par yaad aata hai,

Woh har ek baat pe kehna ke yun hota to kya hota?

On that note, a very happy 2012 to all of you! May you discover the wit and vigour of Ghalib's shayari in the days to come.

Book Review: Noon by Aatish Taseer

This review first appeared in the Asian Review of Books on 17 December 2011

Noon by Aatish Taseer

17 December 2011 — “Write what you know” is an oft-touted writing maxim that could apply to Aatish Taseer’s work, three books – two novels and one memoir – in three years, all of which pivot on a search for identity. However, in Taseer’s case, it could equally be a matter of writing what he doesn’t know for his books grapple with the gaps in his life. As the narrator Rehan Tabassum in his third book Noon says: “…if everyone has a book in them, mine cannot be that kind of book (with a beginning, middle and end). The gaps in my life were too many, the threads too few.”

Aatish Taseer was born to an Indian Sikh mother and a Pakistani Muslim father. Growing up in a pluralist India, estranged from his politician father, his first book Stranger to History is as the subtitle says, a son’s journey through Islamic lands. In The Temple-Goers, his first novel, he turns his gaze upon contemporary India and its rapacious society in the wake of the country’s economic boom. Noon, the third in the triptych, melds his partitioned halves with four disjointed stories, two each set in India and Pakistan.

We meet the narrator Rehan Tabassum in a train as he’s journeying to meet his estranged father for the first time. It is 2006, an earthquake has ruptured Kashmir and the Jhelum river has risen to flood villages in the valley.

The first of the four stories in Noon rewinds sixteen years when a young Rehan has returned with his mother from London and the single parent is trying to establish herself in Delhi. An ambitious lawyer, she searches for an apartment even as young Rehan resists—he enjoys being cosseted by his grandmother and a burglary in a classmate’s house ratchets his fear. The house-hunting travails lead to shared confidences. When Rehan queries about his absent father, his mother suggests he give him a kick when he meets him.

“He didn’t give us anything? No car? No house?”

“Not a tissue to wipe my face on.”

A second story starts off in the years before India’s economic liberalization and ends in 2002, by which time the erstwhile privileged elite had lost to the economic czars emerging in the wake of fiscal reforms. What is intended as an observation of a transforming society becomes a long-winded yarn with no fresh insights.  

Taseer has received high praise from V. S. Naipaul, a writer whose work has also been shaped by a search for identity, and it is in the last two stories that Taseer’s scrutiny turns incisive. “Notes from a Burglary” is a tragicomic account of a theft in a Delhi farmhouse, whereupon the household staff is arraigned by a swarm of policemen who deploy their caste-related knowledge and an interrogation technique that involved a “studied mixture of boredom and cruelty” to psych out the burglar. Rehan, the son of the mistress of the farmhouse, and on a study break from the U.S.A., discovers contradictions within himself as police thrash the servants in search of answers and Rehan, though principally against it, is complicit in the act.  “A protective screen of encoded privilege made injustice, and especially cruelty, of the most casual variety, appear always as the work of others.”

The final story, set in the country of his father, is an insightful romp into the treachery and politicking within a family that finds a parallel in the country at large. Taseer picks at the disingenuous lies that masquerade for political cause in Pakistan. A black and white picture of a self-immolation in a daily is headlined thus: “Youth sets himself ablaze on discovering his name has Sanskritic origins”.

Noon is book-ended by images of violence, a theme that runs through the stories that have been cobbled into a novel. However, to merit being called a full-fledged novel, this collection of interlinked short stories and novellas would need more threads, as Rehan would agree.

Muse and I, Staring down a Vacation

Adios amigos, I’m off on a break,

This year, the Muse has been on my case,

I’ve convinced her its not a jailbreak -

End of year, we just need some space.

Wine - red, white and sparkling,

Coupled with seafood and salads divine,

Before the whale watching,

And after the swim with bottlenose dolphin.

My plan, even Mirza Nosha would endorse,

I point out to the Muse with alacrity!

My friend, she fixes me with a steely gaze,

Ghalib liked his wine French, and you, are going southerly.

Time to deploy good Gibran as I confess:

Let the winds of heaven blow between our togetherness.

So, for the nonce, she’s gone,

To whatever place Muses go, perhaps Saigon?

Not too far, you see, I can’t take the chance,

I need her around when I return from my holiday,

When copious amounts of wine have me in a trance,

Floundering at my desk on a writing day.

But that day is still a fortnight away,

A fortnight in which to hike and see some stalactite,

Little penguins, shark whale and manta ray,

Ahoy there, Muse, recharged, we'll resume the rewrite!

6th December, and a Second Exile

6 December 2011 marked the 19th anniversary of the demolition of Babri Masjid. It is a day which is etched in my mind. I was a second-year student at IIM Calcutta and it was at dinner time in the Mess that we got the news that Babri Masjid had been demolished.

Remember this was pre-internet era, no FB or Twitter to disseminate those ugly images which we were to see later: goons in saffron headbands tearing at the ancient dome as the police stood by and watched.

Almost two decades on and nothing much has changed, the shame of the Babri Masjid demolition has got added to that heap where our shames are endlessly accumulated, where they languish knowing that justice in our country is a chimera as perpetrators walk off into the sun like cowboys while we Indians watch : 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, 1991 Mumbai blasts, 2002 Godhra riots, 2007 Mumbai attacks...

As I mulled thus I stumbled across this nazm by Kaifi Azmi written in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. Titled 'Doosra Banwas' it is a haunting tribute by a great poet where he gives voice to Ram, in whose name avowedly, the masjid was razed.

Doosra Banwas

Ram banwas sey jab laut key ghar mein aaye,
Yaad jangal bahut aaya jo nagar mein aaye,
Raqsey deewangee aangan mein jo dekha hoga,
6 December ko Shri Ram ney socha hoga,
Itney deewane kahan sey mere ghar mein aaye?


Jagmagate thhe jahan Ram key kadmon key nishan,
Pyaar ki kahkashan leti thhi angdayee jahan,
mod nafart key usee rah guzar mein aaye,
Dharm kya unka hai, kya zaat hai, ye jaanta kaun?
Ghar na jalta to unhen raat mein pehchanta kaun,
Ghar jalane ko mera, log jo mere ghar mein aaye,
Shakahari hain mere dost tumhare khanajar.


Tumne Babur kee taraf pheke thhe saare pathar,
Hai mere sar ki khata zakhm jo sar mein aaye,
Paun abhi Sarju mein Ram ney dhoye bhi na thhe,
Ke nazar aaye wahan khoon key gehre dhabbe,
Paun dhoye bina Sarju key kinare sey uthhe,
Ram yeh kehte hue apne dware se uthhe,
Rajdhani ki fiza aayi nahin raas mujhe,
6 December ko mila doosra banwas mujhe.

For those of you not entirely comfortable with Hindustani, I shall attempt a translation:

The Second Exile

When Ram returned home from his days of exile,
As he entered the city he remembered the jungle of his exile,
As he witnessed the dance of madness in his courtyard,
On the 6th of December the Lord Ram did regard,
From where did such madmen upon my house descend?

Where his footprints had lit the path of right,
Where the stars of love had shimmered their light,
A turn to hatred that same path took -
What is their religion, what's their caste, knows who?
Had my house not burnt would I've recognized them in the night,
Those men who came to my house in order to set it alight?
Vegetarian, my friend, are your daggers.

It was at Babur that you'd aimed your rocks,
It is my head's fault that it bleeds and balks,
In the Saryu Ram had barely washed his feet,
With bloody blotches the water was replete,
From the riverbank arose Ram without washing his feet,
Saying this from his home he did retreat:
The air of my capital city has turned vile,
6 of December I am sentenced to a second exile.

Bashi Bazouk, I'm Glad This Child Never Grows Up!

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

On Sunday we watched The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, and came away satiated. And yearning for more! How often does it happen that your child willingly, in an entirely un-premeditated fashion, runs a math problem through her head, comes up with an answer and seeks solace in it? Yes, solace? Well, this is how it happened....

There we are in the darkened hall of AMC cinemas at Pacific Place, our 3 D glasses glued to our eyes, following Tintin and Snowy dodge bullets and chase cars, our hands frozen in popcorn cartons, when my daughter urgently whispered to me: How much time since the movie started? 

A quick glance at my wrist showed half an hour, which I promptly conveyed.

Good! Another 77 minutes to go!

There was a mix of relief and glee in her voice and I turned to gaze at her. In the darkness I saw her face alight with screen light, soaking in Tintin’s mad caper, Snowy’s energetic perambulations and Captain Haddock’s inebriated mutterings, as another minute rolled on in the comforting knowledge that many more would come before The End.

Perhaps, Mr Spielberg can consider a parallel career as a Math instructor? You know, weave in math problems for Tintin and Snowy to fathom as they sail across the sea to Bagaar? If Sakharine’s ship is sailing at x nautical mph and is y miles ahead then what speed does Tintin need to sail at in order to overtake him? Well, there are more Tintin adventures to come, and perhaps Mr Spielberg will live up to his Math teacher alter ego, and then there’s Professor Calculus!

One of the great joys of being a parent is to discover that moment when something you’ve loved as a child and since, is the very same thing your child begins to fall in love with too! The investigative reporter who’s never filed a single report and his white fox terrier have been sitting on our bookshelf for years, during which they’ve been brought down, read, laughed with, re-read - accounting on many days for the silly grins plastered on our faces. 

Tintin in Tibet was my daughter’s gateway to the series and the scene set in India - where the Captain gets waylaid by a holy cow - is her absolute favourite. Now with the film and the sequels to follow, looks like our family love affair with Tintin is here to stay.

Spielberg is known in Hollywood as the child who never grew up and with Tintin this child has had a blast. Apparently, the director’s love affair with Tintin is decades old for he bought the movie rights in 1983 when the French reviews of Indiana Jones drew his attention to Tintin. Herge died before the two could meet but his widow proceeded with the deal. You can read more of this fascinating story here.

What I loved about the movie was how faithfully Spielberg and Peter Jackson (of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) have reproduced Herge’s illustrations for the big screen. (And for that I'll forgive him casting Daniel Craig in Sakharine's mould.) Apparently, during filming, Spielberg’s one question to himself was: Would Herge like it?

I came across this insightful article in Wired which explains how the animation team on Tintin tackled the challenge of converting flat, mid-century comic book characters to look 3 D for Tintin. Read it, and you’ll see for yourself the extent to which the sanctity of Herge’s work has been preserved. 

I am sharing below one such illustration:

The sanctity of Herge's work has been retained in other ways as well: I am thrilled that in our politically correct world Captain Haddock has not been watered down lest he bother sensitive folks who may feel their children wilting under the blasts of the captain's Bashi Bazoukisms! No, Haddock is here, very much as the grumpy acerbic whiskey-swigging counterpart to Tintin's incredible heroism. And thank god for that! 

There are folks in this world, you know, who find themselves in grumpy characters, whose heart of gold is encased in blistering barnacles, characters such as the good ole captain! Personally, while I adore young Tintin and his zeal, I identify much more with the emotional expletive-filled captain.

If you recall, Herge's Tintin barely shows a flicker on his face whereas Haddock's face is frequently contorted with some emotion, or pleasure! Plus, where else would you find such exquisite alliterative curses to rain down upon your enemies? O Captain Haddock, thou of the Squawking Popinjay fame!

Ten thousand thundering typhoons, get me the next Tintin adventure in 3D, now!

The First of December

A whiff of winter in the air,

It’s the first day of December, I’m aware -

Is the weather intimate with the calendar,

The way it’s announced the onset of winter?

We’re done with autumn, I know,

For the X’mas decorations are in full flow:

Tinsel and holly and glitter and red -

They’re signaling a birth and an end.

As each year, I wonder at this time:

Where exactly did it go, this year of mine?

A year in which I’d promised myself -

I’d finish a book, become a better mother, writer and wife.

The book is done, the rest is same ole myself...

A constant work in progress,

A year older, wiser - perhaps?

For I do know this much -

The wisdom of age has less to do with the passage of time,

It is, instead, what I did with that time.

Eventually, in the great crucible of life,

In that long walk home that we call life,

Love is the arbiter of all our acts.

Was I loved? Did I love well?

Did that sentence convey what I meant to say?

Shouldn’t I be more patient with my daughter every day?

If, at the end of a day of writing,

I still have nothing I’m happy with,

Surely, hubby can be spared forthwith,

My tetchy, grumpy hedgehogy-writerly being?

So, come December, I welcome you!

You’re my chance to renew, regrow and revise.

I am mine to make over and over -

End-of-year, you're my saviour!