Chronicles how things spiral out of control in the SM age

 I have been wanting to read ‘Chronicles of an Hour and a Half’ almost since I first heard about it but was a little sceptical about all the hype. When I actually started reading the book, far from being disappointed, I was almost overwhelmed. The premise of the story is simple. In a small town in Kerala, an older woman who’s husband is in the Gulf has an affair with a much younger man. The town is on edge because it has been raining continuously for six days and nobody likes being cooped up indoors for that long. Someone sees the man going in the direction of his paramour’s house. He tells another, who puts it on WhatsApp, and before you know it the entire town seems to know about it. Amplified by social media, things rapidly spiral out of control, resulting in a terrible double tragedy.

The story is told through multiple narrators- some of whom are active participants and others mere observers. Many are overwhelmed by how something they set in action takes on a life way larger than anything they could have comprehended. Others are distressed by the part they played in the setting things in motion. The book shows how the power of social media can be unleased to disastrous consequences. If not for WhatsApp and Facebook, the people involved would certainly have faced the social consequence of their action, but it would never have been as tragic as what actually happens. The book is a cautionary tale which shows how the actions of one person can trigger much larger consequences that they ever envisaged.

The story is told through multiple narrators and it is sometimes hard to keep track of all of them. But by the time the pace of the narrative picks up, the task becomes much easier, and the story flows quite seamlessly. I particularly liked that two of the narrators were young children- they brought a unique perspective to the events happening around them.

One aspect of the book that really stayed with me was the female solidarity. None of the men in the story were directly affected by the woman having an affair, yet, almost all of them see it as a personal betrayal by the woman. Some are perhaps envious of the man who is having the affair with the older woman, others judge the woman for not remaining loyal to her hardworking husband, but all of them believe they have the right to see vengeance. The family of the husband of the woman too want revenge, but more than that they want to keep the affair under wraps- this kind of hypocrisy is prevalent in society, where the honour of the men seems to rest in the vagina of their women.

Unlike the men, the women come as strong people in the book. Though none of them is particularly friendly with the woman who is having an affair, almost all of them dislike the way the men are reacting to something that does not really concern them. None of them appears to feel jealous of the woman for being able to fulfil her sexual desire; instead what they feel is empathy for the mother of the young man having an affair.

The relationship between the woman who had the affair and her husband is portrayed very well. Though everyone thinks of him as an ideal husband who doesn’t’ deny his wife anything (he even donated his kidney to save her life), only she is aware of how his attitude towards her is a subtle form of emotional abuse. How the characters will live their changed lives after the events of the hour and a half can actually fill another book!

This is a book that perfectly captures our current times.

Mother India: A Novel About Contemporary India

 [Review also published in YouthKiAwaaz]

Prayaag Akbar’s ‘Mother India’ is set in contemporary Delhi where young people without the benefit of fancy degrees or social networks are struggling to make a decent living. Mayank and Nisha are both diligent workers with above average intelligence and a willingness to take on the responsibility to get things done. Both are constrained by their circumstances, but neither blames their circumstances. They just put setbacks behind them and get on with life.

Mayank, who’s family has lived in the margins of Delhi for generations, is employed by a right wing content creator, and though not himself bigoted is swayed by the propaganda generated by him. Nisha moved to the city from the hills and works at a high end Japanese chocolate store in an upscale mall. Neither considers their current job as a profession, but both are willing to put in the effort to learn and grow.

Their lives collide when Mayank is asked to create a video of Mother India. Since AI was unable to come up with anything satisfactory, he was forced to feed in a photograph of a real person on which the image could be based. A photograph of Nisha taken without consent from her Instagram account served the purpose, and she found herself in the centre of a storm when the clip of her as Mother India being stoned by Muslim youth went viral. She, however, had other things on her mind because not only had her boyfriend turned cold towards her, she found out that he was actively sabotaging her career too.

The book looks at how young people navigate a changing world where the old rules no longer hold, but new rules have not yet evolved enough to replace them. It is a world where there are hierarchies of power, almost all of which are based on the accident of birth. It is a world where a person could simultaneously feel compassion for puppies that are traumatised by the noise of Diwali fireworks, yet have nothing but contempt for an actress who he believes disrespected his religion by asking people to burst fewer crackers.

The book talks about the changing face of Mother India- from a idea created to unify Indians during the freedom struggle to the modern avatar of Bharat Mata which is used to generate hate against a community. But Mother India is not the only mother in the book. Mayank’s mother had been forced to do things that she knew were not right in order to secure her son’s future, yet she is the one who serves as his confidant and conscience when the clip featuring Nisha goes viral. Nisha’s mother had faced social pressure when her older daughter had married outside her caste, yet was strong willed enough to not hold Nisha back when she wanted to move to Delhi. There is the elderly mother of the jailed student leader who refused to leave the police station till her son was released. There was also Nisha who wasn’t sure whether or not she was pregnant, and wasn’t’ sure what to do if she found she was. And there is even a canine mother who was forced to abandon her litter- would she have had more agency had she been human?

This is a slim book, yet it packs so much between the covers. Gender dynamics, classism, bigotry, environmental degradation, corruption, ambition, the changing face of urban India are all issues that feature prominently in the book, and each of them is dealt with in sufficient detail. There isn’t a single superfluous sentence in the book, and you remember parts of the book long after you finish reading the last page. The book, despite the topic, is a book of Hope- hope that tomorrow will be better for Mayank, Nisha and all the other young people like them.

[I bought a copy of the book and the views are my own.]

Shame Must Change Sides

 [Written for the USAWA Newsletter]

“Shame must change sides”, said 71-year-old Gisele Pelicot while defending her decision to insist on an open trial of her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot. Why should she want the public to be kept away, she argued. It should be upto her abusers- not her- to be ashamed.

Shame!

Shame is the stick that society uses to keep women in their place, and any woman who refuses to display the appropriate amount of shame is condemned for not being womanly enough. In the Mahabharata, after Yudhishthir staked and lost Draupadi in the game of dice, she was expected to beg and plead for mercy in front of the court. Irawati Karve described this expectation perfectly in Yuganta when she wrote, “she should have cried out for decency and pity in the name of the Kshatriya code. Had she done so perhaps things would not have gone so far.” However, Draupadi refused to play by the well written rules of shame- instead of shame, she displayed indignation and anger; she quoted legal scriptures to ask whether a slave had the legal right to stake anything. Even though it was Draupadi who not only salvaged her reputation, but also ensured her husbands obtained freedom, nobody appreciated her for it. Quoting Karve again- “Nevertheless, no one had liked her pretensions to wisdom, and Dharma never forgot it for the rest of his life.” By refusing to be shamed into silence, Draupadi effectively shifted the shame from herself to the husbands who failed to protect her and to the elders in the court who chose not to. This could be the reason why most commentators of the Mahabharata judge Draupadi more harshly than she deserves- rejecting shame was an act of defiance, and society is not kind to women who are not submissive.

Shame is a very powerful weapon, but it can be used against a woman only if she agrees to be shamed. Mahasweta Devi explores this in her short story, ‘Draupadi’, where local officials rape and torture the protagonist in order to beat her into submission. Dopdi is an adivasi who was a part of the Naxalite movement, and even before she was captured she steeled her mind and body to not respond or react to the violence that she knew would be inflicted on her. When her rapists told her to get dressed so they could present her before the ‘Senanayak’, she chose to remain naked. By refusing to cover her “shame” she forced her tormentors to look away from the evidence of brutality on her body. “What’s the use of clothes?”, she challenged them. ”You can strip me, but how can you clothe me again? Are you a man?”. By forcing her tormentors to confront their own depravity, Dopdi rendered them powerless.

Shame is used to control the behaviour of women. Victims of physical, emotional and sexual violence, in particular, are often silent because of the perceived shame. By refusing to be shamed or silenced, Gisele Pelicot has almost single handedly reversed the script and put the shame back where it belongs- on the perpetrator of the crime. The courage she displays is a radical act of defiance over societal norms, and one hopes it will change it discourse around rape. As Mandakini Pachauri writes in her article in the October edition of UNDERLINED by Usawa “The graphic pictures of Pelicot’s abuse compel a reckoning with the systemic silencing of women’s trauma, particularly within French society, which has long celebrated ideals of romance, seduction, and allure, often masking deeper issues of power and exploitation.”

Celebrating Female Solidarity in Literature

 [This was written for the USAWA Newsletter]

Scene from Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar starring Madhabi Mukherjee

Watching the clip from Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar where the character played by Madhabi Mukherjee strikes an unlikely friendship with her Anglo Indian colleague shows how empowering female friendships can be. She was clearly in awe of her glamourous colleague, who gently nudges her to put on lipstick and grow beyond the role that tradition dictates she plays. This portrait of an empowering friendship between two dissimilar woman has rarely been matched in the six decades since Mahanagar was released in 1963. Even today, in literature (as in real life), there are more portrayals of women who had the potential to mentor younger women but chose to move away from the responsibility.

In Prayaag Akbar’s ‘Mother India: A Novel”, there is a scene where a grey-haired executive speaks to a young sales executive for the first time- “You seem like a good worker, so will you allow me to give you some advice?’ You expect her to offer practical advice to her younger colleague, but she merely repeats gossip, and says, “What is it, some boy? Anyway, that’s your business. We don’t pry. But …don’t let it distract you. You have a chance here to really go places.” Far from offering solidarity or mentorship, she blindly believes what has been told to her, and judges the young woman unfavourably.

This is not the only example in recent literature where a woman chooses not to take the opportunity to mentor a younger colleague. In Radhika Oberoi’s ‘Of Mothers and Other Perishables’. A senior creative director finds out that an extremely talented copywriter is having a sexual relationship with a senior colleague. She has been in the system long enough to know that nothing good ever came out of women getting romantically or sexually involved with their colleagues, yet, she chooses not to caution the young lady. While she justifies it to herself by saying that it is a consensual relationship between two adults, she could have intervened because she knows that this will expose the young woman to locker room banter and potentially lead to similar demands from other senior colleagues.

While men at the workplace tend to look out for each other, women are often more judgemental of other women. However, when there is female solidarity and friendships, it can be extremely enriching and empowering for both.

Sheela Tomy’s novel “Do Not Ask the River Her Name” has many examples of women forming bonds of solidarity with other women. The Malayalee nurse who came to the Middle East because her family survives on her income is encouraged by a woman she barely knows to live life more meaningfully and to keep aside some of her income to have fun. She also pushes her to start a v-log which ends up becoming very popular. She would not have lived life as fully if not for her female friends.

Elif Shafak’s most recent novel, ‘There Are Rivers in the Sky’, too has an unlikely friendship between a tattoo artist and a scientist. They start off with a landlord-tenant relationship, but the friendship extends far beyond that, and the tattoo artist teaches the scientist how to live on her own terms and on her own terms.

Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari’s ‘Chronicle of an Hour and a Half’ deals with what happens when rumours spiral out of control and mob fuelled hysteria takes over. It is the women who come out of as rational human beings. Unlike the men, none of the women is judgemental of a woman who chooses to take on a much younger lover, and they are able to express genuine sympathy for the other women. Though the women are all victims of patriarchy, they are able to rise above it, and display their solidarity with each other.

Female friendships can be extremely empowering, and women will be much better off, especially in the workplace, if other women looked out for them. But, as in life, in literature too female solidarity does not show up as often as it should.

This Book Is A Must Read To Understand The Legal Battle For Marriage Equality!

 [First published in YouthKiAwaaz]

‘The Urban Elite v. Union of India’ is a first of its kind book on queer rights…(which)…presents the legal history of the fight for the decriminalization of Section 377, and the arguments of the petitioners pushing for their right to marry and to have families of their own.”

The blurb of the book is enough to make you want to dive right into it. The author, Rohin Bhat is a queer, non-binary lawyer who practices in the Supreme Court, and who’s work has spanned activism not just in the courtroom but also outside it. As a part of the legal team of one of the petitioners in the marriage equity case, Supriyo Chakraborty v. Union of India, they were present in the courtroom while both sides presented their arguments, and also when the bench delivered the verdict.

For the most part they maintain their professional detachment while describing the arguments presented by the court and the fault lines that were exposed during some of the pronouncements. However, they are not afraid to expose their emotions when the arguments get bigoted. When they say that the Supriyo Chakraborty judgement was a “judicial punch in the gut of the queer movement”, you almost recoil from the power of the punch yourself.

The book is divided into three broad sections- the history of queer rights in India, the Supriyo Chakraborty v. Union of India case, and the way forward for the queer movement in the country. The author intersperses the book with their own experiences as a queer person in India, and their personal reactions to certain incidents. This not only adds a personal touch, it helps the reader to add an emotional angle to what would otherwise have been merely an intellectual comprehension of the issue.

Some of the arguments made by the Solicitor General were extremely triggering even to someone like me who is not a member of the queer community, and I had to put the book aside because I could not go on. I cannot even fathom what the author and other members of the queer community must have felt while sitting in court and having to hear the bigoted remarks.

Many who opposed marriage equity tried to paint the petitioners as the “urban elite” who wanted the right to marry so they could create their Instagrammable wedding moments, and this was used to discredit the entire case. Nothing can be further from the truth.

People with alternate gender and sexual orientation exists in both rural and urban India, and across all socio-economic classes. More importantly, there are many practical reasons why a queer couple would want to get married. Marriage affects opening joint bank accounts, inheriting property, adopting children and also giving the person the right to take decisions on behalf of the partner.

The author gives the example of the gay couple in Kerala where one partner passed away. Even though he had been estranged from his natal family because of his sexual orientation, the High Court ruled that his body be handed over to the family. Even after the family refused to claim his body, his partner was not able to establish a relationship with him, and the body could not be handed over to him. This is exactly the sort of situation that marriage equity would help prevent. The author argues, rightly, that there are practical advantages of getting married which should not be denied to couples merely because of their sexual orientation.

Examples like this also make you question why anybody should oppose marriage equity. When giving queer people the right to get married to a person of their choice does not in any way impinge on anybody else’s rights, why should the majority deny the sexual and gender minority the right to get married? Is it hatred, is it the desire to exercise power, or is it fear that drives them?

In the section on the way forward, the author talks of the need to cement a solidarity between queer movements across the country. They talk of how the movement needs to be more inclusive and strategic in the way it moves forward. They speak of the need for better systems for the protection of sexual and gender minorities who are vulnerable to violence, of the need for horizontal reservations, and most importantly the need to work towards changing societal mindsets.

The one thing that emerges from the book is the resilience of the queer community. Homosexuality had been criminalised till 2018. Even today, despite the pronouncements made in the Supreme Court, the community continues to be stigmatised and ostracised. Not only do queer persons face discrimination, they are also vulnerable to violence from their families and from society. Yet, the community hasn’t given up hope. The day after the judgement denying queer persons the right to marry, a gay person proposed to his partner outside the Supreme Court and said “We will return to fight another day.”

The author does quote extensively from the arguments made in court and from previous judgements, and some of the legal terminology could make it hard for a person without a legal background to follow. However, the author also explains the essence of the arguments in language that a lay person can understand. They are also unafraid to display their own emotions, which makes the book far more powerful than a clinical account by an outsider could have been.

Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India rightly describes the book as “A passionate and loving celebration of the journey for the right to equality of the LGBT community.” It is an essential read if you care about social justice and believe that everybody should enjoy equal rights.

[I received a review copy from Penguin India. The views are my own.]

Sakshi Mallik Bears “Witness” To What’s Happening In Wrestling In India

 

For me, Sakshi Malik is defined by four images. Two from 2016- the young wrestler pinning down her opponent on the mat at the Rio Olympics and Sakshi on the podium at the Rio Olympics, smiling her cherubic smile while clutching her bronze medal. And two from 2023- Sakshi Malik being dragged away from the protest site by police officers, and a tearful Sakshi banging her shoes down on the desk at the press conference where she announced her retirement.

To most of us, these images form the bookends of the career of one of India’s most popular and successful female wresters. Each of these is described in great detail in her memoir, Witness, but there is so much more to her story than just these moments, and the book gives equal importance to all that happened before she achieved the fame that she did.

Sakshi Malik may not have achieved the kind of fame that the Phogat sisters (/cousins) did, but she holds a unique position in the hearts of all sports fans as the first (and till date, only) female wrester to win a medal at the Olympic Games. While Sakshi had a reasonably successful international career even before qualifying for the Rio Olympics, she became a household name only after she won the bronze medal.

Though she continued wrestling for a number of years even after the Olympics, she never really lived up to the extremely high expectations of the Indian fans. But at the fag end of her career, when she was actively considering retirement, Sakshi Malik chose to take a principled stand.

Her training, and her wrestling career

The story of Sakshi Malik, however, began long before she reached the Rio Olympics. Her story is the story of a young woman who started wrestling a little later than others, but who was determined to make every single training day count. Sakshi Malik was so disciplined about her training that she was much stronger than almost all her opponents.

Unlike the families of other wresters in Haryana, Sakshi’s parents insisted that her education was of primary importance, so her days comprised of getting up in the morning, training for a few hours, going to school, going back for a few hours of training, and finishing homework before going to bed. She is atypical in that she successfully got her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees while continuing to compete at the international level.

The Protests against Systemic Sexual Harassment

What emerges from the memoir is the portrait of an extremely brave and principled woman. A woman who is reticent by nature and doesn’t actively seek the limelight? A woman who does her best to avoid confrontations whether it be with her family or with the Wrestling Federation, but one who took a principled stand when she had to. Sakshi did not have political ambitions, nor did she crave an administrative position in the Federation- she could have chosen to remain silent, because she had nothing to gain by speaking up at the fag end of her career. Yet, she chose to join the protests because she felt she owed it to the next generation of women wrestlers. She did not have to do what she did, but she did it because she was convinced it was the right thing to do.

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Whenever a woman speaks about sexual harassment, people turn around and throw the same questions at her. Why did you not complain then? Why are you complaining now? How do we know that this is not a personal vendetta against the man? Despite all her achievements, Sakshi Malik was treated no differently from any other woman who complains of sexual harassment. The media shared photographs of the perpetrator posing with her at her wedding, and she was asked why she invited him to her wedding, and posed for a photograph with him.

Anyone who understands power dynamics knows that sexual harassment is not about sex, it is about power. Sakshi Mallik was a very junior wrestler when the perpetrator harassed her, and she knew that he had the power to destroy her career if she spoke up. If she wanted to win individual fame and bring glory to the nation, she would have to remain silent and pretend nothing happened, which is what she did.

She knew that she had to invite him to her wedding and smile for the camera, because if she didn’t he could ensure that she never wore the India colours again. By speaking up when she did and by not seeking favour or advancement after the protests, Sakshi underlined her principal stand- she did what she did for others, not for herself.

Her Personal Life

Sakshi is also brutally honest about personal relationships. She describes how her family cheated her out of most of the prize money that she received after the Rio Olympics. She is quite philosophical about it- her parents supported her when she was young, and she doesn’t dwell too hard on the fact that they used up most of her money. She does, however, reiterate the need for Indian women to not only be financially independent but to also have control over their finances. She makes the point that if a well educated woman like her could be cheated, so can other women.

Sakshi’s courtship of her husband is adorable. It is a courtship, unlike any that you think could happen. It is a courtship where messages were exchanged for months before the two met up for an ice cream. It is also a courtship which shows how pragmatic many Indians are about love- when they first decide to take the relationship forward, they exchange surnames of mothers and grandmothers to be sure that practical caste considerations will not later come in the way of marriage. While this kind of ‘love marriage’ keeping in mind caste dynamics is common in India, it may not be something that a non-Indian reader will understand.

The finest sports writing in India

Jonathan Selvaraj is one of the finest sports writers in the country today and his coverage of wrestling at the Paris Olympics was both deeply knowledgeable and non partisan. In this book, he has allowed Sakshi‘s voice to shine forth, without compromising on the narration. There is a lot in the book for people who are interested in knowing more about training, wresting techniques and preparing for tournaments.

The passages on how wrestlers ‘cut weight’ before competitions will be of great interest to anybody who has followed the story of Vinesh Phogat at the Paris Olympics. It was fascinating to read of how even the most rudimentary stadiums in Haryana are built in a manner where the stadium infrastructure itself can be used for practice. The descriptions of bouts is engaging even for people who do not understand the nuances of wresting.

The book is titled “Witness”, which is the literal meaning of Sakshi’s name. But it also denotes the fact that Sakshi Mallik served as a witness to what happened and continues to happen in the wrestling community.

If you are a fan of sports, if you follow sports apart from cricket, if you like women sports or if you just want to read about women’s issues in India, this is a great book to pick up. I would, of course, have liked the book to have a few photographs, but one can always go to the internet for photographs- it is the story that you read the book for.

[I purchased a copy of this book and the views are my own.]

A Book Club discusses Pachinko

Pachinko was supposed to be a book club read, but it was eventually dropped because most people had already read it once and didn’t want to read it again. I started reading the book since it has been on my TBR for long, and midway through the book, I realised I could have my own book club discussion too. There were three of Me reading the book simultaneously: Reader One who loved the book, Reader Two who was cynical and critical, and Reader Three who was the discerning one. They started by sharing their first impressions about the book.

Reader One:
Oh, I absolutely loved the book. It is such a brilliant intergenerational generational saga of a Korean family that immigrates to Japan at the turn of the century. It starts with a girl in a fishing village in South Korea who gets pregnant from a man who is already married. Though she has no prospects and she dreads the social stigma of being an unwed mother, she refuses to be his mistress. A pastor offers to marry her and they move to Japan where they start a new life. The book talks about the discrimination that Koreans face in Japan, the way they are treated as inferior citizens, the ghettoisation, the lack of prospects, the way they have to struggle to make their living.
What I absolutely loved about the book were the strongly etched characters. Each of them had integrity, and did the honourable thing at all times. In different ways, they all went out of their way to prove that they were “good Koreans” in a country where it was assumed that anyone who was Korean was “bad”. I loved the ups and downs that the members of the family face, and of how none of them compromises on their core values, of how they remain true to themselves and of how they do not even think about rebelling against the system.

Reader Two:
That is such a romantic view of the book. I totally disagree. I think that one fine day, the author woke up and decided to write “The Great Korean Novel” and she did. Look at it, she has literally thrown every possible trope into the book- racism, bigotry, colonialisation, poverty, social boycott, even homophobia. She goes on and on about how Koreans are treated as second class citizens in Japan, and yet choose not to go back to Korea. Honestly, what would she know about all this? She may be of Korean descent, but she is Korean American- her family has never even lived in Japan
Yes, the novel was widely popular, but I wonder why. So many of the stories have an unsatisfactory ending. Sure the book covers a wide swath of history, but that doesn’t mean individual stories need to be left dangling.

Reader Three:
I think both of you are reading too much and too little into the book. The author’s intentions are clear from the title of the book- Pachinko. The lives of the people are like a game of pachinko. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it appears as though everything is going for you, but then suddenly your luck changes. The rules change everyday, but you keep playing because you cannot give up hope. The title is a metaphor.
I particularly loved how the author uses food as a metaphor for life. After the marriage of her daughter all that the mother wants to do is to serve the couple white rice once. Making and selling kimchi is what enables the family to earn enough money to survive, but it is the smell of kimchi that marks their children as “different”. Over time, the same person who through she was extremely privileged to be served white rice twice after her wedding, casually opens a package of imported cookies and serves it with tea. It is these deeper metaphors that make the book so meaningful for me.

Reader One:
Absolutely. The book is a classic. I nearly cried while reading the scene where on his 14th birthday Solomon had to queue up at the office to get his immigration papers. His father is rich enough to be able to hire a top pop singer to perform at the birthday party, yet his greatest worry is that they might be deported from the country of their birth. We see this even today where despite all their wealth and education, people of certain ethnicities and religions are relegated to being second class citizens.

Reader Two:
It is just tropes, nothing but troops. You spoke about food. In the book, the author categorically states that food doesn’t have much value to Korean American women. For all practical purposes, that is a value judgement on the Korean women in Japan. There is so much talk about good Koreans and bad Koreans in the book, but the author is also making a distinction between Koreans in Japan and Koreans in America. You talk about bigotry- maybe some of the author’s own bigotry is coming out here.

Reader Three:
No, no, no no. I think the author only brings that up to show the genuine difference between Koreans in America and Koreans in Japan. Korea had been colonised by Japan, so the Koreans in Japan faced discrimination and were forced into ghettos- they had to hold onto their traditions in a way in which the Koreans who chose to migrate to America didn’t need to. I am sure that the author only wants to draw attention to the fact that one community was forced to remain insular while the other was able to integrate into the mainstream.
Let’s not try to guess her intention. Let’s read it as a book which describes a part of history that you were perhaps unaware of. Yes, the book could have been better edited, but you have to acknowledge that the author gave many years of her life to this book- she would want it to be as comprehensive as possible.

Reader One:
What is the one thing I dislike about the book? Well, I didn’t quite understand why Hansu was so fascinated by Sunja. Though she is a hard worker, she is repeated described is not being very attractive. How then does she have such a hold on him? Could it be because he knows she cares for him in a way his wife never did, or is it because of the Korean preoccupation with a male child? I would have loved to understand that better.

Reader Two:
Okay, what do I like about the book? Interesting question. I think what I like about the book is the patterns that keep emerging. Similar things happen to different people at different points of time, and they react so differently to it. What I also liked was the fact that nobody was painted all black or all white. Even at the community level, there were good Japanese and they were bad Koreans, and the book described them all with honesty.

Reader Three:
What about the book could have been better? It could certainly have been much shorter. It would have worked better for me if instead of making it a chronological saga, the author had picked one person, and gone backwards and forwards in time. I also think certain parts of the book could have been left out completely- for instance, why was a lesbian relationship introduced without any intent to take it forward?

Much wine was consumed. None of the readers were able to bring the others to their perspective. But by the end of the meeting, they all agreed that Pachinko was an interesting read, and whether or not they would recommend it to others or not would depend on what the others expect from a book.

2024 Booker Prize Winner, Orbital, Is An Ode To Space And The Earth

 Orbital is set over a 24 hour period in a spacecraft orbiting the earth. There are six people on board- four astronaut and two cosmonauts, four men and two women, five nationalities. During the 24 hour period the spacecraft orbits the earth 16 times- 16 sunrises and 16 nightfalls- but the residents of the spacecraft are expected to keep a standard time. “They feel space trying to rid them of the notion of days”, .but they follow a rigid timetable which has no connection to what is happening on earth below them.

It is just one day on board the spacecraft. A day like any other. In space stories you expect drama, aliens, equipment at a critical time. At the very least, you expect sexual tension. But there is none of that in this book. It is a day like any other, and when ground control jokes that they are all ‘yesterday’s news’, “(the astronaut) jokes back that better yesterday’s news than tomorrow’s, if they know what he means. If you’re an astronaut you’d rather not ever be news.”

There is a storm brewing in the Pacific, and though there will be many cameras directed at it from space, the six have been asked to document it too. The islands where the storm is likely to hit is intensely personal for one astronaut, but that is not a key element of the plot. Another astronaut loses her mother, but while memories of her mother dominate her thoughts as she goes about her tasks, that is not what the story is about either. Others reach key personal decisions. But the book is not about anything that happens. The book is a celebration of the thoughts of the six on board the spacecraft. The reason why they chose to go into space, their relationship with immensity of space and their musings on human barriers and national boundaries.Each realise they are where they are because of those who came before them, and they know that they will pave the way for the ones to come.

There are breathtakingly beautiful descriptions of the earth, and you almost yearn to be up there looking down. If, like me, you spent a large part of your childhood gazing at the night sky, trying to determine your place among the immensity of time and the enormity of space, this book is for you. Reading this book is like listening to the symphony of the heavens.

In the book, there is a description of Velazquez’s ‘Las Meninas’. Which of the many characters is the subject of the painting Shaun has wondered for years. “Pietro stares for a while at the painting, and a while longer, then says, It’s the dog….. The subject of the painting is the dog”. What is the book about, we wonder. Till the answer comes to us in a flash- the book is about Us.

Mother India: A Novel About Contemporary India

 [Review also published in YouthKiAwaaz]

Prayaag Akbar’s ‘Mother India’ is set in contemporary Delhi where young people without the benefit of fancy degrees or social networks are struggling to make a decent living. Mayank and Nisha are both diligent workers with above average intelligence and a willingness to take on the responsibility to get things done. Both are constrained by their circumstances, but neither blames their circumstances. They just put setbacks behind them and get on with life.

Mayank, who’s family has lived in the margins of Delhi for generations, is employed by a right wing content creator, and though not himself bigoted is swayed by the propaganda generated by him. Nisha moved to the city from the hills and works at a high end Japanese chocolate store in an upscale mall. Neither considers their current job as a profession, but both are willing to put in the effort to learn and grow.

Their lives collide when Mayank is asked to create a video of Mother India. Since AI was unable to come up with anything satisfactory, he was forced to feed in a photograph of a real person on which the image could be based. A photograph of Nisha taken without consent from her Instagram account served the purpose, and she found herself in the centre of a storm when the clip of her as Mother India being stoned by Muslim youth went viral. She, however, had other things on her mind because not only had her boyfriend turned cold towards her, she found out that he was actively sabotaging her career too.

The book looks at how young people navigate a changing world where the old rules no longer hold, but new rules have not yet evolved enough to replace them. It is a world where there are hierarchies of power, almost all of which are based on the accident of birth. It is a world where a person could simultaneously feel compassion for puppies that are traumatised by the noise of Diwali fireworks, yet have nothing but contempt for an actress who he believes disrespected his religion by asking people to burst fewer crackers.

The book talks about the changing face of Mother India- from a idea created to unify Indians during the freedom struggle to the modern avatar of Bharat Mata which is used to generate hate against a community. But Mother India is not the only mother in the book. Mayank’s mother had been forced to do things that she knew were not right in order to secure her son’s future, yet she is the one who serves as his confidant and conscience when the clip featuring Nisha goes viral. Nisha’s mother had faced social pressure when her older daughter had married outside her caste, yet was strong willed enough to not hold Nisha back when she wanted to move to Delhi. There is the elderly mother of the jailed student leader who refused to leave the police station till her son was released. There was also Nisha who wasn’t sure whether or not she was pregnant, and wasn’t’ sure what to do if she found she was. And there is even a canine mother who was forced to abandon her litter- would she have had more agency had she been human?

This is a slim book, yet it packs so much between the covers. Gender dynamics, classism, bigotry, environmental degradation, corruption, ambition, the changing face of urban India are all issues that feature prominently in the book, and each of them is dealt with in sufficient detail. There isn’t a single superfluous sentence in the book, and you remember parts of the book long after you finish reading the last page. The book, despite the topic, is a book of Hope- hope that tomorrow will be better for Mayank, Nisha and all the other young people like them.

[I bought a copy of the book and the views are my own.]