A shot at love

Lives would be stirred. Coffee could do that. Black, bittersweet, tantalising. There was something about coffee he couldn't resist. Ah, making it; he couldn't stand the taste. He drank in only the pleasure on the faces of those he had served - a cup of perfection.

He had been told a million times by pleased customers how delightful and perfectly heady the coffee he made was. He had smiled, pleased, a million times too. He held their keys. He knew their pleasures. He had known they'd come back, every day of his 20 years, in his famous little cafe.

*****

There were five cups already on that side table. "Small, bloody hotel furniture," he would often cuss under his breath. The cups nudged each other, threatening to fall, break. He cringed. Coffee was meant to be served in style; not stolen through the night in places forbidden.

*****

Served in style, alright. She had sent back a neatly folded note, written in a neat hand, placed in a neat little envelope. 'No; this wasn't one of those tacky lipstick smeared pieces of tissue paper', he had noticed. He held the note in his hand and asked the waiter who had sent it. What the waiter pointed at was a flash of canary yellow, leaving the cafe. And bright blue stilettos too. 'How interesting', he had thought. He curiously opened the note, revering each fold, to see what Ms. Bright Blue shoes had to say to him. "MORE." it said.

*****

He had learnt since then that 'more' was about insatiable appetites. They were about endless loops of Coffee... Pleasure... Coffee... Pleasure... Coffee... She had made him brew coffee for her five times on their first night together. One cup at a time. Each time he doubted his excesses, she didn't pull him back; she pushed him away. He obeyed, went to the kitchenette in their suite, and made another cup. The cream and the demerara had found new purposes.

She was unhurried. She'd stretch, each young muscle languorous, and sit up. He couldn't help but envy how unselfconscious she was in her nakedness, as she stretched out her hand and accepted the cup. Each time she would murmur a thanks and sip on the coffee, while he watched. She knew he couldn't just watch for long. She closed her eyes, tasted the hot liquid, smelt it, felt it go down her throat, aware of his growing sense of ecstasy and agony.

Sometimes, she would let a drop sit on her lips and ask him to lick it off. "Bear a little bitter for me," she'd say. And he would oblige.

*****

Ms. Bright Blue shoes returned three days later. Her outfit didn't really match the shoes, but they were her favourite. He noticed them right away; he had been waiting, as he never had before. He also noticed the 20-something nubile body sitting pretty in the shoes. Beautiful toes; mocha in blue. He was 40, but he went right ahead. "More?" he had asked her, half expecting her to giggle in response. But she had raised her head from her book nonchalantly, looked straight into his eyes and said, "I see you can read. Yes, please."

He was hurt and pleased. He had served her three vengefully dark cups on that day, knowing well this addiction would be hard to break.

*****

He tasted the bitter drop, then her lips. The green apple chapstick flavour was long gone. Her mouth was now lined with his bitter espressos. He winced at the first taste. He had to have his own back first, and then he could have her. He cupped her pert little breast in one hand and took away her cup with the other - placing it carefully on the side table. He then forced her down on the bed, picked up a spoonful of thick, white cream and smeared some on her coffee-coloured, sculpted back. He licked it. Rubbed in coarse grains of brown sugar too, hurting her. He never minded coffee's counterparts. She turned around, pulled him closer and locked her lips with his. He stroked her, caressed her and teased her, till she could take no more. She begged him to take her. He nodded. He entered her, eyes fixed on her face, watching every crest and trough of pleasure and pain. It was like watching a connoisseur's face, as they drank in that pleasurable liquid. He smiled. He knew there would be more.

2 States by Chetan Bhagat: Impressions

     I've been a self-confessed Chetan Bhagat loather all this while. Nothing against him or what he writes or how he writes it - I choose to not like him just because so many people like him. What to do? I am like that only. Ever since his 5 Point Someone days, his popularity pisses me off. I have a thing against everybody like everything and live happily ever after. So buying his books and reading them has been out of the question. But when my bhai-bhabhi thought my shelf needed a Chetan Bhagat (for a lack of my judgement or theirs) and gifted me his latest novel, I decided to give 2 States: A story of my marriage a chance. And anyways, since my marriage is stalemating, courtesy Jishnu and Mumbai, I thought I might as well read about other peoples' marriages and amuse myself.
      I'm not sure what his previous books are like, but 2 States is a fairly readable book. More than the story, what is to be savoured is his style of writing. It is refreshingly casual and may well have been snatches from our everyday conversations. His similes are rib-tickling, his insights fair and his characters real. His observations of prejudices are very good, perhaps because he has been subject to them. 
    Five days with Bhagat and I have to admit that I liked it while it lasted. You have to hand it to the guy for writing about life nice and easy with a good measure of humour thrown in. He really is someone who'd make for a good conversation starter with a random stranger or people you can't otherwise have meaningful conversations with. Bhagat's work is appealing in a way weather conversations are. They're safe and they're for everybody despite him being quite honest about the way the young operate. Anyway, uncles in their 40s and 50s are likely to not have read him.
     He may not make it to the annals of great literature, but Bhagat makes for a good companion of chai, coffee or cola.

The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh: Impressions

     Ghosh ne mere hosh uda diye! Gosh!
     Good. My tribute couldn't possibly get cornier than this. Why? Because the book is so deliciously mind effing that trying to say anything intelligent might end up being corny.
     When I picked up the book from a roadside vendor, all I saw was the Elish maach and the word Calcutta on the cover. I thought it would lead me through the narrow golis of Kolkata in yellow taxis on a ride that would connect me to my roots. Thank God, my expectations weren't met. Thank God, The Calcutta Chromosome is another thing entirely!
     Why, Mr Ghosh, you are so cool, so crazy and so out of this world in TCC!! What a read! I'm so excited I cannot help but key in exclamation marks after every sentence! Bravo!
     Finally a book with no answers; a book with a plot so fantastic, so surreal it refuses to let its loose ends be tied; a book that sucks the reader into the dangerous alleys that could be its end. Few authors dare leave the labours of their love into the hands of readers that may not be half as appreciative as yours truly. Thank you, Mr G for letting it be.
     Thank you too for the indomitable L Murugan, the inquisitive Antar, the Rosses and the Farleys and the Urmilas and the Sonalis on missions - all trying to fit into a world where sciences and seances blend. Thank you for blurring the line between the real and the unreal, the mathematical and the magical, the truths and the lies. Thank you for reminding readers that no matter how far we get with our test tubes and gadgets, the only thing we are really looking for is immortality and that the only way about it is leaving behind a book like this. 

A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer: Impressions

Dear Lord Archer,

Sorry, but you're not quite making the mark anymore. Perhaps inspirations are drying up but because your fan following isn't, you are being held a prisoner to publisher demands. You seem to be losing your charisma from your Not a Penny More...days. That chart buster was as riveting as it was real; its plot - gripping; its characters unforgettable. But you may have milked the revenge-plan-that-works a little too much. And what a reader is left with is a been there-done that, mish-mash of a repackaged story in the form of A Prisoner of Birth.

Sure A Prisoner of Birth is a page turner although there are no prizes for guessing what happens in the end. Sure there are some brilliant microplots in the story, but it doesn't make up for the same old poor defeat rich saga and it's unforgivably Hindi cinema like in its courtroom masala. Even the characterisations seem so forced at times, one almost feels sad about the lack of imagination thereof. Which modern author, in his right mind writes, 'Think like Danny, act like Nick' over and over to remind readers with supposed intelligence of what is going through the protagonist's head? And for the formidable bulk of the book, not one character comes out strongly and threatens to stay with you for at least some time. 

And what about the title dear Lord? Sorry, but it's as pointless as the rest of these pages that you call a novel.

Kissed by Kesey

    Mindblowing - in all senses of the word. For what One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is, thesis upon thesis will have been written by awestruck readers and critics over the past five decades. And between the pages of this book, I’ve been so tempted to Google it and see if millions of Kesey fans have felt what I was feeling. But I refrained each time, afraid I would mistake others’ observations and admirations for mine. I wanted to savour each one of my ideas about this classic.
     I’m finally through with it and am simultaneously dumbstruck and overwhelmed with words that want to capture the novel’s worth. Yes, I’ve encountered other brilliant books before, but this gushing comes from the resolution of a very personal crisis.
     Since I majored in Clinical Psychology four years ago, I’ve made conscious efforts to stay away from the subject even if it meant wasting two years of sincere academic effort and a career as well. Towards the end of my course, what with visiting mental asylums for case studies, I’d found myself committing the cardinal sin of a shrink – getting involved and getting upset. I kept getting drawn to their part of the world where there was no happiness. Everything I saw was through sombre lenses and for the cynic that I basically am, the world became a darker place. This realisation hit me when on a nature trip, I found my ability to be inspired crippled. I shrunk back in fear of the person I was becoming. I was terrified at the thought that nothing beautiful would come off my pen again. I was scared I would end up knowing nothing but to dissect cases, find reasons and try in vain to be objective towards people’s pain – pain in the deepest, bleakest parts of their minds. I decided that day that the scientist in me was killing the artist in me with clinical precision. The sciences of the mind and the arts of the heart couldn’t co-exist for me – not till I read One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
     Kesey’s novel showed me that music could indeed emerge from madness if you wanted to make it happen. He shows that beautiful literature could be made by writing about the ugly. Through the larger-than-life McMurphy, he lay open the happinesses of even the most wretched and convinced me that not all was grey. What struck me most was the author’s ease of narrative in flitting between the real and the unreal; especially with his narrator Chief Bromden. How perfectly natural the transitions seemed when Kesey transported the Chief from the real world of the hospital ward to the equally real world of hallucinations. How unclinical and poetic he makes the bizarre seem, when my encounters with the clinically insane were disturbing at their best. How reassuring Kesey is in retaining the humane in these outcasts who are treated no better than animals by those on the outside.
     All these exceptions were made possible, of course, because of R P McMurphy’s exceptional presence. His incessant war with institutionalism personified in the Big Nurse Ratched tickled every last rebellious fibre in my body. Like with any wannabe rule-breaker, McMurphy’s card dealings, and TV demands and glass shatterings and merry making let me live out a great many fantasies. But the book, of course, also ends with a grim reminder of why us wannabes prefer staying wannabes and not try to fly too high above the cuckoo’s nest. 
    PS: The movie's great too, but to say the least, the book's better.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: Impressions

There are lots of tags we like to give ourselves, “I am this”, “I like that”, “I detest that other” and so on. But then comes along this tiny human being, who, while deceitfully appearing helpless, rips apart all such illusions and induces changes in you that you never conceived possible.

Before Jishnu, I thought Alice in Wonderland would remain at the top of my ‘unfavourite’ books’ list forever. But the other day, I not only bought a copy under the pretext of buying children’s books for my 5-month-old (yeah, right), but lapped it up pat. And like most adults visiting Alice in her wonderland after getting past the book’s face value, I loved it!

Satires and metaphors apart, Lewis Carroll is adorable in the way he blows into bits the ever so pedantic rule makers of the English language. It’s not hard to see why the lines “A cat without a grin…a grin without a cat” and “I see what I eat…I eat what I see” are memorable.

And oh, who can forget the celebrated absurdity of the plot? (A few months back though, I wouldn’t have found the Duchess’ behaviour towards her pig-baby absurd). Trapped in the grinding reality of raising a child, the sincerely improbable tale felt like a breath of fresh air. In the pages of the book, I found my own little rabbit hole where I could find some moments of carefree abandon.

A few moments of solitude

Jishnu is now a reasonably grown baby at 3 months and his last of the vicious vaccines is done with.

Phew.

The time I have may not be one hundred years, but I finally have some moments to think and write about something non-baby. So, I’ve decided to do the honours with Mr Gabriel García Márquez’ One Hundred years of Solitude. It is probably the last book I will have read earnestly enough to remember, for a very long time.

I remember picking up this book especially after seeing the famous Mr Rushdie’s testimony on its cover though I’m not a great fan of the author of Midnight’s Children. Being swayed by his little recommendation could mean landing up another tale with its heads and tails in all the wrong places, another book belonging to the genre of magic realism. But the ‘jhaadoo’ and the ‘khali kursi’ on the book’s cover added to the beckoning and I took my chance.

And surely enough, flying carpets and almost immortal “Macondans?” with similar names came rushing out of the pages in some weirdly fantastic language. In page after page came Aureliano after Aureliano, Arcadio after Arcadio, Amaranta after Amaranta and Ursula after Ursula and sent me scurrying back to the family tree Mr Márquez had very helpfully and knowingly put there for a not-so-clever reader’s reference. In the backdrop of a civil war, the essential Buendia traits of solitude on the one hand and impulsiveness on the other manifest themselves through the many protagonists of the story. While the men fight and party and invent and womanize, the women cook and clean and scheme and birth.

Then there is this Gawd-alone-knows-how-old-he-is gypsy man and a never ending spell of rain and hell yes, this chick called Remedios the Beauty, who walks around naked and then one day suddenly decides to ascend to heaven. Poof! Sudden appearances and disappearances also happen with the Banana Company who Americanize the innocent, little, sleepy town, the Arabs, termites and other characters. The story (as it was supposedly intended) goes round and round in circles with the same things happening to the characters, as it essentially does with all human beings. But the USP of the book is the surreal way in which the mundane is presented.

A good read for those not looking for logic.

The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple: Impressions

19.01.08

After months of grappling with William Dalrymple's THE LAST MUGHAL, I finally put to rest the life and times of Bahadur Shah Zafar in my head and the near 500-'strong' page book.

Nearly four months ago, the book was bought by me to combat boredom at the airport due to an obviously delayed flight; and was largely a result of forgetfulness. The White Mughals by the same author was what I had been intending to buy for a while. But in the airport chaos, what remained with me was 'something' Mughal and instead of a fair maiden on the cover, the old frail Mughal of an emperor came home with me.

Since then, evening after evening- preceded by long days at office - I took one tired step after another through the palaces and bylanes of the Delhi of 1857 as Mr. Dalrymple guided me slowly, throwing often unnecessary references along the way. The learning and earnestness of research of the author though, is commendable.

With my patience, or rather lack of it, the journey seemed quite cumbersome more often than not, as the narrative moved back and forth from the confines of Zafar's palace to the cubicles of the different British officials' offices. Shattering the heroic credits attributed singularly to the 'Pandy' Mangal Pandey for the 1857 Uprising, Dalrymple etches with clarity, the confusion and the causes of the rebellion. But the pace of the book was like the slow sizzle of moist firewood - never warm enough for comfort, never cold enough for frustration. The book neither allows you to abandon it nor read it on with full gusto.

I often contemplated putting away the book for good and very often used irritating excuses of lack of time and tiredness...the bottom line being - I WAS BORED! But as I said, the book never let off the gnawing and I kept returning to it to find out the grim details of the falling someone's fortune.

In the last one week, since I came home, I took to the book and the book took to me too - especially the poor dear, Zafar. One cannot help but feel pity for the eighty-two year old man who is as helpless against his falling teeth as he is against his falling dynasty. Stuck between being the symbol of power for the rebel armies of Hindoostan and a dependent-on-British-pension; between the royal habits of luxury and the glaring reality of poverty; between his favourite queen - the manipulative Zinal Mahal & her son Mirza Jawan Bakht and his eldest children, Zafar is ground into pathetic grain throughout.

Dalrymple successfully makes one oscillate between feeling joy when the rebels have an upper hand and victory seems close and agony when the Brits bounce back and drive 'us' out. The narrative tugs at the most sensitive humanitarian strings and one cringes with equal disgust as the Pandies ravage the properties and modesties of the British and later the British inflict with twice the vengeance the same wounds. The brutal murders, cuttings, hackings, shootings and hangings make your stomach churn even as the stink of heaped and rotting corpses waft up to evoke nauseous feelings. The tales of courage on the one hand and murder and treachery on the other makes one love and hate humans at the same time.

Dalrymple beautifully sums up the book pointing to and co-relating the fundamental problems of the Hindu-Muslim divide and the Islamic fundamentalist-Western imperialist strife, making clear in the simplest way the most complicated situations of contemporary world politics...

Definitely worth the effort!