Desicritics Category: Culture: Books

19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye

Vivek Sharma — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:03:31 EST

Naomi Shihab Nye's collection contains sixty poems about Palestinians and Middle East, about love and longing for lost and imaginary homelands. The poems are fragrant with spices of the Middle-East, flavors of figs and olives, and served with a tenderness of a grandmother talking to a grandchild, a five year old to his mother, an aged man to his beloved he unites with after a lifetime.

In the world torn by religious and political conflicts, these poems represent an oasis of hope. It is the humanity of these verses, that leaps from the page like the memory of nineteen varieties of gazelle described in the title poem.

The poems assume special significance in the context of post-September 11 world, for they contain a platter of understanding and taste served to assuage our need to be comforted. The solace is brought in by the mint green language of a poet born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. Perhaps the unique identity of Nye offers her perspectives about the Arab East and American West which her creativity has shaped into a narrative that offers respite from the reactionary rhetoric that dominates our daily thinking and actions.

As an Indian residing in America, I sense a brotherhood with Nye's characters, who chase the voices, flavors, visions, music and familiarity that maps their nostalgic world. As a poet with Indian heart and Americanized mind, I find Nye, like Agha Shahid Ali, present our cultural and emotional duality in a lyric that is both powerful and poignant. The tapestry of inheritance of the East is laced with tales quite unknown in the West, and this wealth can nourish many a chasms that exist between the material and spiritual. It is voices like Amichai's and Nye's that remind us that the transcendental humanity within us can help us to outlive the wounds inflicted by the fanatic forces everywhere.

Chick Lit

IdeaSmith — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:21:51 EST

My new literary obsession is Chick Lit. Helen Fielding, Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes keep me in chocolate-box mood while Meera Syal and Advaita Kala add the desi tadka. Why, even fellow-blogger/'I-know-this-girl-friend-acquaintance' Compulsive Confessor flashes her characteristic grin at me from my bedside bookstack.

I found this rather interesting piece on the internet, describing Chick Lit:

"Chick lit" is a term used to denote genre fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working women in their twenties and thirties.

Now, I know I'm doing an about-face, especially after such rabid commmentary. I'm coming to this acceptance with much prior reluctance. I still have trouble accepting the term 'chick' to describe me or any woman I know. It's degrading. However, I'm willing to lay down my shackles and admit that I've been reading (and enjoying) the genre called Chick Lit.

Chick Lit is the new Romance Novel. And it isn't. As a genre it certainly is finding as much favour and spawning as many writers (and books) as the ubiquitous M&Bs. On the other hand, one may argue that romantic fiction was a genre built on common women's fantasies while Chick Lit inter-twines what we consider our ideal life along with the proverbial gang-cribbing that each of us indulges in with our galpals over men, weight loss problems, career concerns and PMS.

Chick Lit, as most of the definitions state, is usually about twenty-something women, career-minded or not, married or not, successful or not. One thing they all are, is discontent with their lot. The careerwoman struggles with loneliness and jerky boyfriends, the beauty queen is slapped around and paraded as a sex toy/trophy partner and the housewife is wistful about missed opportunities. The Chick Lit heroine is Superwoman who survives on a steady dose of gal/pal advice, gay friends, alcohol-and-career swings and roller-coaster relationships. Friends are family, chocolate is the manna for all evils and the root of all evils can be summed up into one word - MEN.

Bosses, colleagues, friends, lovers, ex-boyfriends, flings, husbands of friends, partner's buddies, friends' partners, gardeners, milkmen, grumpy old men, uncles, teachers, fathers, cheery grocers, lecherous neighbors....men in every possible shape, size and relationship are examined back and forth. It is the Chick Lit'ter's favorite hobby - Men.

If the Indian versions are different, it is only in that they're usually set in Mumbai/Delhi instead of London/New York. The protagonists gorge on chicken tikkas and grab their capuccinos from Barista instead of M&S or Starbucks. Their mothers want to see them 'well-settled' instead of 'settled down'. The men are just as committment-phobic, the careers just as unsatisfying, their bosses are just as demanding, their married neighbors consider them just as flighty and sluttish and their credit card bills are equally long.

Why do I like the genre so much? Simple. Because it is about me. That's my life, my friends, my mistakes and my victories that are getting written about. Every page brings a, "Don't I know it!", an "Aha! You got 'im there, girl!" and a "Bullshit, I heard the same thing from my second boyfriend when he was cheating on me." It's almost like having a new set of friends with every book.

You might even say it's the modern, literary woman's Soap Opera in a book format. If the women of yore wanted fantasy to keep them entertained, at least this I can say for my generation - we're thriving on reality...or some warped version of it. Who needs a perfect fairytale when our own messed-up, vodka-spiked, overstressed lives are so much more interesting?

Chick Lit is empowering in a very strange way. It tells me that other women are having a hell of it too. That having a zero social life at twenty, in favour of slogging away at work was not a mistake. That getting married at twenty-three would not have spelt 'happily ever after' either. That my smug married, whiz-in-the-kitchen housewife friend acts superior to me but also thinks I'm living the glamourous, carefree life she only reads about in magazines.

It tells me that it's okay to not feel diva-like at all times, to nurse worries over weight gain and cellulite. That it's even okay to worry more about these than a missed deadline. That bad temper, unreasonableness and pukey-head-feeling are permissible once a month.

Chick Lit tells me life isn't perfect (yes, I know someone said that long ago but catch me listening?). I mean look at the titles - The Undomestic Goddess, Life isn't all Hahaheehee, Shopaholic, Almost Single. It also tells me that each of us is figuring out a new way of perfect. And who knows? Maybe Perfect will be the way I do it - My perfect!

My Clandestine Reading and Other Literary Habits

Deepti Lamba — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:14:36 EST

"Dee, shit! you've got me into massive trouble!"

"Bhav, sorry yaar, ma decided to clean my cupboard. She never touches my stuff usually."

I still remember the hoopla caused in my house over a Mills & Boon. The book was called Counterfeit Bride.

I still have the book.

Ma had discovered the book wedged between my jumbled up clothes. I was eleven at the time and the book had been given to me by my best friend. Bhav had got it free with some shampoo.

She didn't like to read; I did and so the book was given to me.

Ma confiscated the book. I continued to have counterfeit reading habits; Classics in front of ma and romantic novels in the loo. My reading habits remained clandestine till I turned 15 and one day I gathered courage and told Ma point blank "Everyone reads them at school"

She gave me a disapproving frown and gave a reluctant nod.

I promptly asked for my confiscated book.

"You remembered it after all these years?" She was surprised.

"I remember all my books, ma. And its called Counterfeit Bride. Want to know the storyline? I remember that too." I replied cheekily, flipped through the book and walked off to my room.

Whatever be Ma's reasons for not letting me read romance novels I outgrew them by the end of college years. Some of my 'intellectual khadi' wearing friends found romance novels to be beneath their feminist dignity.

One of them had raised an eyebrow and remarked "You till read Mills & Boon? How quaint!"

What was quaint about it I could never understand but I did respond with that it was a 'time pass' habit. More like a mental chewing gum to deaden the mind.

Why did I defend my reading tastes back then?

Of course now I have more 'adult' tastes. I stopped reading romantic novels back when I was in my twenties. Reading sex never interested me. It was all the same kind of shit- bells ringing, blood surging, penetration, gasping, trembling and all very unbelievable.

Even the virgin in me recognized the shit that was printed pages after pages. I knew I could write better sex scenes even without much practice and post marriage I did.

I wrote erotica and unfortunately I found myself suffering a similar predicament for writing sex instead of reading it.

The reactions were the same except instead of 'do you have to read it'? the words were- do you have to write it? Can you not write something more productive, more intellectual type? Can you not write something that will not embarrass us?

I tried my best to explain- They are just words. Reading or writing them doesn't make me an immoral person.

"Rape scenes? How could you?"

"It was fan fiction and the criminals did suffer for their actions."

"I didn't finish it. It was too gruesome."

I sighed

"The criminals did suffer-"

"I don't want to know. You have to stop writing such drivel."

"I have written more stuff-"

"No! this must stop immediately!"

I gently banged my head against the wall as the long distance call came to end. I was a kid again facing ultimatums.

Weaving stories had become an addiction for me. I could write other stuff; well, I was writing other stuff - book reviews, memories from past, movie reviews blah blah blah but I was also playing naughty on my site and got rapped on my knuckles for it.

There was no more clandestine writing for a while. In fact after all the exasperation and my prema donna reactions I came to realize my fight for freedom of speech in the jack off section was not all that worthwhile.

I could still write erotica but more along the lines of Mills & Boon; boy meets girl, boy has soft porn sex with girl, they fight, they make up and live happily ever after- Yuck! I flipped through the tattered pages of Counterfeit Bride and bid that part of my life a quiet adieu, at least not under my real name;)

The Lord of The Rings is a Bollywood Movie

Fleiger — Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:51:06 EST

Just a few days back, I was talking to a friend who was ranting about the hindi movies, and the completely over the top masala ingredients added in them to spice them up. After defending the Bollywood for a long time (hey, we Indians may make fun of those movies but we stand together when some outsider does it), I went back to my most recent re-reading of Lord of The Rings.

And I got an epiphany. Here are:

10 Reasons why LoTR is just another Bollywood Masala film:

10. If you are a good guy and a father, you get to die at the hands of The Villain or his Henchmen. Which of course will inspire your kid(s) and others to vanquish the villain for revenge.

9. Things are going very badly for the good guys, when BAM! Help arrives in the form of the Hero.

8. The hero has a bumbling but faithful sidekick (or a group of them), who provides the comic sidetrack, but will lay down his life for the hero.

7. There's a costumed villain, sitting in his snazzy layer, surrounded by costumed henchmen and weird looking followers.

6. The "supporting actress" loves the hero, who cannot return her affections because he is in love with the heroine. But don't worry, she will find her life partner in the "supporting actor" before the climax.

5. The hero and heroine belong to different social groups, and hence her father is not exactly happy about their union, but there is a loving aunt who will help the lovers.

4. The heroine, the one belonging to higher social group in this case, will "sacrifice" her advantages in order to marry the hero.

3. The hero has greedy, conniving, thieving relatives who have their eye on his estate.

2. You can stab him, fire arrows at him, slash at him with swords, poison him. The Hero just goes on and on and on...

1. At moment's notice, there's at least one person who has got to sing up. Sometimes that quickly grows into a group song.

Anybody got any idea which characters I am talking about here?

P.S. The comparison is based solely on the basis of the books, and those who know LoTR as only the movie trilogy may be a bit confused.

Book Review Dal - Chawal

Amitabh Mitra — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:15:33 EST

A close friend of mine gifted me this book before leaving for greener pastures in Canada. Dal – Chawal is a unique book on Indian cookery written by Satarupa Banerjee, published by Vasan Publications in Bangalore on 2002. It prompted me to write about it the same way this staple food of millions of Indians must have prompted Satarupa Banerjee to write a book.

I belong to Madhya Pradesh where I grew up in a Dal Chawal and Roti Chawal environment. Not long ago when I had visited my home town of Gwalior, I found that a Roti–Chawal plate is still being served at Atthanni or fifty paisa. Acchar, Mirch and Pyaaj are a free accompaniment of this rustic delicacy. The Dhaba at the Agra Bombay Road is a midnight rendezvous for most of my childhood friends where memories are revived over bowls of a variety of dals, desi ghee parathas and ample beer.

Satarupa writes in her preface that Dal and Chawal (Pulses and Rice) are associated with the very fundamental eating habits of the Indians. And we have myriad ways of cooking these two staples.

What we don’t always realise that there are so many other ways of enjoying them and that Dal and Chawal have various other versions like puffed rice, pressed rice, gram flour, vadis, papads etc.

Each region of our country embellishes dal and chawal by adding other ingredients like egg, chicken, fish, meat, paneer, vegetables and spices.

The book is divided under two main themes of Dal and Chawal and innumerable possibilities of delicious recipes that one can prepare with either of them. Muri Ghanto (Fish Head Curry) which is more like a Pulao prepared with basmati rice, the best that I ever had at a Dhaba in Guwahati in Assam is provided as an easy to prepare recipe. Even the fish that needs to be a Katla is mentioned. Jamaibhog also known as Son in Law’s Special is a culinary marvel from Bengal. She prepares this speciality with a mixture of rice, pineapple juice, prawns, ginger, garlic and coriander baked in green coconut.

I wish to share the Dal-Baffla recipe, one of my favourite which has been given in detail by Satarupa. I love this dish primarily because of my weakness for any Desi Ghee preparation. I remember having Dal- Baffla picnics at rural farms and villages outside Gwalior. Needless to say I do stand at the border of raised cholesterol.

Dal – Baffla is a delicious and nutritious winter delicacy comes from the heart of Madhya Pradesh. It is prepared by the rich and the poor alike on special occasions like marriages, birth and festivals.

Dal
200 gm mung dal
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon turmeric
500 ml water
1 ½ tablespoon ghee or refined oil
½ teaspoon ginger paste
½ teaspoon garlic paste
2 green chillies chopped
½ teaspoon garam masala powder
A handful of chopped coriander leaves

Baffla
250 gm atta
500 gm gram flour
100 gm ghee

Dal
Wash the dal and pressure cook with salt, turmeric and water for five minutes.
Heat the ghee in a frying pan. Season with cumin seeds and asafoetida. Once they stop spluttering add the ginger garlic paste green chilli and fry till light brown. Add the garam masala and pour in the boiled dal. Cook for five minutes. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Baffla
Rub the atta with the ghee and prepare a dough with water. It should be neither hard nor a soft dough.

Boil sufficient water and immerse the balls and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes. When the boils crack slightly on top and float to the surface, take out with a perforated spoon. Drain water completely.

Bake the balls in preheated oven to one hundred and fifty degrees centigrade till light brown. Pour a little extra ghee on each baffla and serve with dal

Quoting Satarupa, ‘The subject is vast. I have attempted only a few. All the courses of a full menu can be created using only Dal and Chawal. Happy Cooking.’

Dal-Chawal
Author – Satarupa Banerjee
Publisher – Vasan Publications, Bangalore – 53
www.mastermindbooks.com
First Edition 2002

Book Review: A Soul of Steel by Carole Nelson Douglas

Fleiger — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:49:12 EST

If asked which one person we would have liked to see again, true Holmesians would vote for Irene Norton née Adler with a huge majority, if not by an unanimous vote. "A Soul of Steel" by Carole Nelson Douglas is a novel from her Irene Adler series which tries to fulfill that fantasy.

Irene and her husband Godfrey Norton are spending their “posthumous” lives with their friend cum housekeeper Miss Penelope Huxleigh in Paris, when a man from Nell Huxleigh’s past is thrust in their lives.

Capt. Emerson Quentin Stanhope, presumed dead in Afghanistan has found that, a decade later, somebody is trying to silence him because of the secrets he holds about battle of Maiwand. And by association, the life of the doctor who saved him in battlefield is also in danger. When he is found, sick and dying, by Irene and her friends, they decide to help him find and warn the Dr. Watson. But, helping Quentin makes them a target for an extremely dangerous hunter, and they have to knock on the doors at 221B, Baker Street to bring the mystery to a safe conclusion.

Chronologically, the story does take a few liberties with Holmes canon. Taking place some time after “Scandal in Bohemia”, during and after “Naval Treaty” (possibly placing it back by some time), it introduces a major character before it appears in canon (If we go by timeline according to this novel, there are some serious questions about Watson’s memory re: people trying to kill him). Although, that’s just the Holmesian in me cribbing.

Characters-wise, Godfrey Norton is your Standard English Gentleman, a good friend and a honourable man. He and Irene are completely in love with each other (though their married life sounds a bit more 20th century American than 19th century English) and are equal partners in their adventures. And of course, he is understandably jealous of The Man his wife remains fascinated by.

Miss “Nell” Huxleigh is the typical vicar’s daughter, governess in a respectable family kind of girl. She is Watson to Irene’s Holmes (although she will not approve of that comparison). Loyal to the fault and having lived a sheltered life before sharing in Irene’s adventures, Nell is the voice of common sense in the household. And that explains her feelings towards Holmes.

Irene on the other hand is portrayed as the equal and opposite of Holmes. They both share liking for adventure, the ennui coming out of commonplace existence, the flair for drama, as well as the immovable sense of justice. But where Holmes is an analytical machine, Irene the Prima Donna is impulsive and emotional (in short, dare I say, a woman); jumping into whatever catches her fancy without a thought for dangers involved.

This is before Watson’s stories start getting published, and hence Holmes to Irene’s friends is a just paid agent trying to swindle Irene out of her only means of danger. Since this is a story from “the other side”, that was the only reason I could read the portrayal of Holmes for most part. Given that tone of the novel, I was worried about the eventual meeting between Holmes and Irene, but a careful reading dispelled my doubts.

In short, if you can’t get enough of the world of Holmes, or (like somebody said,) you can’t get enough of The Woman who got better of Holmes, this is for you. For me, continuing the series would depend on how they talk about The Man.

Book Review: It's the Night for Love

Geoffrey Jackson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:03:26 EST

Your day breaks, your mind aches
There will be times when all the things
She said will fill your head
You won’t forget her
John Lennon, Paul McCartney – For No One

We‘re high in the wire
With the world in our sight
And I’ll never tire
Of the love that you give me every night.
Katie Melua – Nine Million Bicycles

From the first page of the Anthology

Love: the orchid of the East, so delicate to ingress the hummingbird’s sensitive tongue. Or the delicate Western rose so red as lips. The Mediterranean vine twining round all and rooted in stony soil. Sappho wrote of women in Ancient Times. Catullus lampooned his fellows and worse commandeered slave boys for lusty use before his mistress’ fond sparrow he immortalized. Gilgamesh and Enkaidu locked and strained, wrestling into bed as is some men’s uncustomary wont. Diana slew Acteon for gazing on her beauty and the hunter was hunted by the huntswoman’s hounds in lunary warning of the vaginal trap.

Where the Great Rocks of Charybdis and Scylla clanged and lured hapless mariners so now New York and London do so across The Pond. It’s not so far any more really. The coterie of Ezra Pound and T S Eliot, W B Yeats and writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf have crossed to the other side and New York, New York (so good they named you twice) has become the bookshop of our English Speaking World though the celluloid circus of Vanity Fair is located in Hollywood. Giovanni’s Room (Italy: the omphalus of the world) now overlooks the Nullabar Hills and Oooooom is not only the age-old wisdom of the Hindus but what modern poets make of life.

Gwalior, Central India, is home to Editor Amitabh Mitra, which he celebrates in his love poem of that name. You-Tube prototype or CD, The Slow Train to Gwalior chugs around the Fort to the romantic palaces of Gwalior, where pigeons takeaway pieces of the sky and stars are pulled through holes in the heavens of night. The celluloid-seller and film-maker now, Amitabh also stops off at the Dreamy Spires of various universities to give you young folks guest lectures in Creative Poetry. Modest Amitabh, who merely introduces himself as ‘a poet’, earns his living from extracting bullets from South African township boys, who are prone to blow one another away. Recently, when I called he had dead time on his hands since his patient had just expired on the operating table. Otherwise, the infectious grin and fever-pitch energy of the Chief Medical Officer, I found catching in Oslo, ‘Tonight’, when we launched it. ‘When was Then’ was the poem I read from the book and indeed ‘when’ was the unforgettable moment at a Writers’ Conference attended by the uncrowned bards of Europe and scalds of Scandinavia, that Amitabh held all spellbound as he explained the Contemporary Scene of Poetry in his now beloved new country South Africa.

‘Gwalior’, his poem of ‘Tonight’ is full of images and symbols, totally unexpected turns of phrase, so “only a breath stood / waiting”. How can one say “the pigeons flew off today / with a piece of sky” or “at night we caught the stars / through holes”. Mon Ami, you say it? Ghosh, what do you mean? It is a Wagnerian world or perhaps the Märchen world of Ludwig of Bavaria “palaces were swept off / to a distant sky / and a painted afternoon burnt the fort.”

Interestingly, there is a brief reference to Islam, “the rains washed down / the mosque tomb”. Why is it “rains”? Usually, in Christian mythology, this means death: Noah’s Flood destroyed the Earth and Christ walks on water to symbolize victory over death. The “tomb” is death and presumably this is why it is washed down by “rain”, a symbol of death. Otherwise, religion is not touched upon. “I had gone to see you again” and there follows a long string of places, palaces, history etc. that has disappeared. Is this India? There are no more Moghul Emperors. The Principality of Hyderabad was forced into the Indian Union in 1948 at gunpoint. Where are the gardens and the flowers? Why are they supplanted by Silicon Chip Valley in Bangalore? Pune – the Detroit car-building capital of India. The mangrove swamps at the mouth of the Ganges and Calcutta, the capital of death. “lonesome / forever”, old India and her history have disappeared but Gwalior continues, the memory of the past, the romance that once was, the irrelevance and the beauty of love, in ‘Tonight’ the transient moment of the brief orgasm of the climax of love, which suddenly symbolizes a country, a history, the condition of humanity. Gwalior is ‘The Wasteland’, the story of all humanity in a few verses.

But it is not enough for the sun to rise in the splendors of Ancient India but also das Abendland, the land of the evening, the land of the setting sun or the West must be linked in. “I called the New World into being to being to redress the balance of the Old.” (Castlereagh, British Foreign Secretary in the early nineteenth century) and ‘Tonight’, the most sublime poets of the East are en-pistonated with the wordsmiths of the West.

Victoria Valentine is one such and editor also of ‘Tonight’ as well as publisher of Skyline Publications and editor of Skyline Review and our own Hudson View. Her poem to “John” is delicately ironic. Even the name might mean “a john”. He is sadly lacking in masculinity wearing “a perfume bottle / or teddy bear on a finger” and has flowers inside “a rancid foil of time”. Finally “my joyful love / failed to brace John’s struggling soul / unravel mystery, vanquish misery.” The relationship of the point to her “John” is very subtle and the poem needs to be read several times for, in fact, John loves beauty and shows much insight and intelligence. But yet, he lacks - what is it he lacks? Let the reader decide for him (her) self. ‘Caves’ is written as if every verse is Haiku. Again, it’s a man but he is ravishing in an island sea-scape finishing in a cave (vagina?), where he “scoops up prey”. Victoria is indeed more than accomplished and that’s why she is publisher, editor and inspiring poet.

There are, in all, 11 Pushcart nominations and 6 uncrowned bards share them. I would like to share with you the poetry of some of these Brobdignagians, whom Amitabh has brought together in this slim perfect volume. Tom (WordWulf) Sternerhouse, nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2006, in Caw, Caw, Caw writes a convincingly insensitive ditty, which pierces horribly “sitting on the wire, caw-caw-caw / I believe you’re making sport of me”. “A Window and Chalice and Key” is a huge contrast with language so sensitive it ripples down your spine in goose pimples. “If we had a chalice / we could sip from it each night / fingertips meeting to touch / sharing the blood of our love / and daring to love too much.” Michael J. Fry “The Slaughtered Lamb is my Place” (Pushcart nominated) is just a regular guy talking to…? These are the perfect patterns of everyday speech but why then are they so painfully, excruciatingly beautiful. “We took a break from the science stuff to read all those / Ibsen plays…” The Slaughtered Lamb turns out to be a bar and the magic of The Slaughtered Lamb has to do with her. But, yes, indeed, it was Long Ago and those days will never come back though he still lives there and sometimes drives past the bar he no longer frequents but which is so special to him because of the memories of that summer and of where he was with her. But the cadences of conversation so hauntingly familiar from our youth catch our hearts in our mouths for we all have our memories of The Slaughtered Lamb – Agnus Dei? – youth slain and lain on the alter of manhood. Peter Magliocco, resident in Las Vegas, Pushcarted off in 2007 and writes “When Britney left for Mexico / She laughed at me when I said / the serpent…” The serpent might be Mexico but then in Christian mythology, it has many meanings. Otherwise, the quality of the verse is highly symbolic and nothing can really be taken at face value, which I think is the mark of poetsmanship, where the good poet rises far above the ordinary mundane.

The last co-editor is Glory Sasilaka Franklin, who works as Assistant Editor with Frost and Sullivan in Chennai, India, as well as having authored the novel ‘Goodbye Papa’. ‘Let me in…’ is a cry to be let in to the love of a man that mingles with an attempt to approach the divine (Glory is an Indian Christian). “Till I merge into the magnitude of your silence…” could be taken either way. “A thousand births and a thousand deaths / Being baptized again and again” might be seen as merging Hindu belief in reincarnation with conventional Christian beliefs of being baptized over and over, as it were, renewing one’s faith at the rising of bird song every new day. ‘You’ is also hauntingly tender, not introverted but inwardly examining finding ‘You’ and inspiration and strength to live. “That she exists only between fingers….in the hair’s breadth…and nowhere else…” As it happens, I know Glory to be the moderator of an Indian and international group of writers of which I am a member and I therefore know that Glory’s husband died in a hit-and-run on ‘Death Alley’, Madras recently. To me, it is as if she is seeking union with her past with him, her future with a new love and the God she carries so close to her heart. Or is this too impertinent and personal an observation?

Rumjhum Biswas has crafted two perfect poems. So gentle, tender, moments unhurried, on colored butterfly wings in Indian blue days of summer. ‘September Love’ is really a little time-beaten but started perhaps early. “We ate the first fruit / long before its time was due”. But that is not the situation at the present time “For this body / would love to yield forever / lay its graying head down / on your bosom and count the stars again.” ‘This is how you make me feel’ has the same sort of lilt of inexpressibly delicate imprint of an orchid that characterizes so indelibly beautifully Rumjhum Biswas’s poems. All we Westerners know what time is for, have we not a watch but “Time is what / we make of it when we gently awaken / from what has been into what will be…” It is perfect timing how the poem is rounded off with the words “you make me feel / so beautiful” It’s as if you heard it for the first time because the cliché has been so long delayed that it hits like a murmurous wave at our feet and even if it is for the millionth time, it is the first time we have ever heard the lines.

Shuleen Kumar Singh also bestrides poetry like a Colossus. ‘Impalpable Sorrows’ begins “I tried to grope / You in the dark world;” and so there are innumerable disappointments in which the lover somewhere fails by a lip’s breadth to touch his beloved. Finally, “I was left for / illimitable worriement / And impalpable sorrows”. ‘A Tribute’ simply runs through all that the beloved means to the lover and finally concludes “For You’re / My love.” Such simple words, so inescapable, whereby perfect timing makes a cliché into the first time that those words were ever uttered. Have you said them yourself? Choke back the tears for these words join the first and last time you said them so that you feel them as if they were the key to the stars at the gates of the universe. Archana is only a young Indian woman but her poem ‘Mosaic’ shows her poetic maturity, as she imagines her lover in many colors and qualities. “I miss you so / Said the orange man / Romantic and dreamy, / “I do too,” I say, / He will be back soon, I know.” Rajender Krishan’s ‘Relationship’ sums up relationship in the words “with eyes you talk what I don’t word with lips”. He wants a make-believe drawn in transient said to “carry me / To those / Outstretched arms.” Bishnupada Ray in ‘Transition’ writes “the wolves are ready to startle the moon” and again on this moon “she will harvest the flowers / red as a blue mountain” Shreekumar Varma calls his poems simply Poem 1 and Poem 2 and strikes a philosophical vein in each case. He writes “beneath our molten skies / that watch and judge and witness precious / moments of togetherness…” But the mood is different with Ramendra Kumar ‘Every moment, every where’ haunting as the lover stalks with memories, actually crowding and panting like Furies closing in on the lover. The beloved is game – whence or why we know not – but the memories will not be dispelled for they are ‘every moment, every where’. Max Babi ‘Ishu: A Kind of Love’ simply celebrates a Rabelaisian riot of humor, which though related with wit and verve is a raveled skein and perhaps this is because we are aboard a “merry bandwagon of artists”. ‘Neeta’ by Deena Padayachee is “Perpetual as the pyramids” and described in so many other ways because “she gives everything life”.

Not the largest group, by any means, but still a significant group are the poets from the Middle East. Amid the bombs of terrorists and the intolerance and ranting of intolerant pulpits, it is so easy to forget that there is another side to Islam. That there is a tradition of poetry, of beauty, of sensitivity and show that there are those, who fight for liberty of expression, freedom of thought, humanity and dignity, pride, decency and love. Not all is hate and fundamentalism, there are people and there are those, who brave regimes in order to express themselves. “The private life is dead.” (Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago) no, it is not, it lives in the hearts of the brave, who are prepared to stand up and be counted.

Farideh Hassanzadeh, an Iranian poet, translator and freelance journalist writes Seven Love Songs and a Song of Despair, dedicated to her husband, Rashid. Perhaps it is of him, she is thinking when she writes, “And the moment I lost you / The heart of the sun will stop beating” it is definitely of her husband, she is thinking when she writes of “Beautiful warmth of sweat drops / On the widow’s brow.” Nabeel Assurori writes three short verses. An echo is “an echo / Of what the girls had engraved in her eyes”. ‘A Heart’ is “scattered to the wind”. Tenderness records the detail of “His lute that sleeps carelessly”. Soheil Najm in ‘The Song of the Basrian Lover’ evokes the details of the occupation “Bare feet at the sea / Covering the sand with her heart”. It is a beautiful line, “When the heart is overburdened with my dream.” From Bagdad, Reem Ruis Kuba writes . “And I stretched out on the fluff of the earth as a dust”. This section would not be complete without a mention of the death of the Palestinian Poet, Mahmoud Darwish “Today we say goodbye to a star, who we loved to the point of adoration” Mahmoud Abbas. His funeral was attended by “a vast sea of humanity”.

Tonight’s the Night. And so a long night of love has reached its end. Its journey’s end, too. Around the globe from East to West, and South. Love unites cultures. Unites people. Lovers. “With an army of lovers, I could conquer the world,” Alexander the Great. All these loves unite and from their union is born a very special book of poems. Also the reader may love. He may love the poems. He may love the concept. He may even love a little more after reading. All humanity is represented here. Love is generous. Love is giving. Sharing. Share with these poets, the love that they have for you.<i>

Tonight: An Anthology of World Love Poetry
Editors: Amitabh Mitra (South Africa); Victoria Valentine (NY, US); Glory Sasikala Franklin (India)
ISBN 13 - 9780620413725
Published by: The Poets Printery, East London, South Africa (August 2008)
www.amitabhmitra.com

Book Review: Romancing with Life by Dev Anand

Anuradha Goyal — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:31:40 EST

I have always loved Dev Anand for all the melodious songs in his films. Having grown up in the Doordarshan era, I have grown on all those black and white numbers, which still keep resonating in the ears. So, when his autobiography was published last year, it was definitely on my list of ‘to be read’ books.

Like most autobiographies, this book also moves in an absolute chronological order, except in the beginning where Dev Anand remembers his life before he moves to Bombay while on a train from Gurdaspur to Bombay. He briefly talks about his family and what he felt when he left them to pursue his dreams. Throughout the book Dev Anand comes across as a constant dreamer, who lives in his dreams and then wakes up to make those dreams come true both in his life and his films. His life is all about films and the women who walked with him in his journey, specially the ones which painted the silver screen with him. At times he met them while being a part of the film and at other times, he met them and then went ahead and made films for them. From the early forties to the 21st century what has not changed is the age of the women he fancied and romanced; it was less than twenty then and continues to be the same now.

In line with his image of an evergreen, timeless hero, he does not mention the years anywhere, though you can make out the rough timing by the films he mentions and the national events that he mentions here and there. But otherwise he has tried to keep the story more or less timeless. He is a man totally in love with himself; everyone else comes and plays a role in his life and goes. He also comes across as someone who lives only in the present, totally in the moment, with the person he is with, feeling the surroundings he is in and weaving out his future dreams from this present moment. He talks very romantically about all the women he romanced on and off screen.

His autobiography also brings out the businessman in Dev Anand. You would admire his networking skills and leveraging his fan following and start status as and when required. The fact that he once tried to launch a political party was a revelation to me. But what I admired about him was his ability to very quickly let go of the failures and move on to the next dream. I was amazed at the care and caution he takes to maintain his image in the minds of his audience, going to the extent of hiding his small disease that he had to suffer, going all the way to England to get a small operation done. All this so that none of his audience see him in a diseased state, something he thinks they can not imagine, their eternal hero can not fall down with a disease.

Before he could find himself a job in film industry, he worked for the military censor office and had the job of screening letters written by army officers. He probably got lots of romantic ideas from the letters written by army officers to their wives and girlfriends. He also got the idea of quitting the job from one of the letters, which said ‘just do it’. But wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, he was always a Casanova, trying to charm people and specially women around him, always believing he is the best. This phase also highlights his ability to draw inspiration from just about anywhere.

Dev Anand’s career spans almost the whole lifetime of Indian film industry and hence as he talks about himself, his films and his friends and colleagues in the industry, you also get the feel of how this industry has evolved over the ages, how things have changed. Here and there he also mentions his views on the social and political scenarios in the country and the world, giving a feeling of someone who is very connected to the outside world and its happenings and not just lost in his eccentricities.

Having been educated in the British era, he writes in flowery English.I guess the editors have not really changed the text. At places you feel that the language of the book could have been a bit better. There is a chapter for each of the films he made under his banner and some of the films he worked in. Though hardbound, the quality of the physical book could have been better along with the cover design. But now having read the book, I realize that the star might not have wanted anything except his picture on the cover. I would have wanted little more depth in the book, as there is so much the author has to share, but I guess in the interest of the length of the book, he has not gone into too much detail and just touched upon what he felt was important to share. He has hardly spoken about the music, which in my opinion is the biggest contributor to his success. The last portion of the book could have been compressed, as he talks about his films which not many people have seen and have starred people whom no one recognizes.

Read the book to see a man completely in love with himself. A star, who thrived on public adulation, who worked towards it, lived amongst the adulation poured on him from all directions and continued to seek more and more of it. An eternal optimist, who looks back at his life as if everything was picture perfect including the heart aches that we went through.

Book Review: Javascript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford

AJ — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 06:28:37 EST

The phrase "JavaScript master" and Douglas Crockford are considered synonymous in the web development world. When I heard that Crockford was writing a book on JavaScript, especially a guide to the better features of one of the most maligned but popular languages in the current web development industry, I was sure I wanted to read that book. I opened the book with very high expectations and unsurprisingly, I was not disappointed one bit.

With the recent explosion in the usage of JavaScript, the interest in JavaScript is at an all time high. When Netscape, which created JavaScript, released the specification of the language in the mid-nineties, it was unable to define a robust and complete specification for the language due to pressures of rushing out a production release. As a result, fair chunk of the language is not well thought out which contributes to bad programming style and promotes some bad programming practices. It is not the programmers but the language which causes this. Programming models based on Global variables, JavaScript eval, inconsistencies in variable scope, and confusion regarding how objects are created and handled in JavaScript can all be the sources of programming errors and give rise to bad programming practices.

This book, as its name suggests, focuses on the "Good Parts" of the JavaScript while cautioning the readers against the "Bad Parts" of the language. All the above mentioned "bad parts" and many other programming constructs are cautioned against in a two-part appendix.

Two other appendices also touch on JSLint, the powerful JavaScript syntax and program correctness verifier and JSON, the preferred and increasingly popular text data exchange format. These two chapters give a taste and a starter for two very important support tools for JavaScript.

However, the meat of the of the book focuses on the better parts of the JS language. In ten chapters, Crockford explains why features like - JS inheritance model, prototypes, objects, arrays and how the language handles regular expressions - are very useful and make JavaScript a fairly powerful language in its own right. Object Oriented programming in JS, how methods and the prototype chain is handled and can be used to write clean and powerful code are all a must read for advanced JS programmers.

The language of the book is very simple and sprinkled with illustrative source code which makes understanding the concept in discussion easy to understand. That said, this is not a beginners book. This book is aimed at those who have programmed in JS and have a working knowledge of the language. Nevertheless, it is a highly recommended book for anyone looking to get into better and more powerful JavaScript programming.

Book Review: Damselflies by Jayel Gibson

AJ — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 08:19:46 EDT

Damselflies is the strongest of the first three books in the An Ancient Mirrors tale series by Jayel Gibson. As with the previous books, the main protagonist of this tale is a female. But different from the first two books is that the characters in this book are by far developed the best. The book is about the enchanted land of Grimmoir� and mainly of Arcina�, the future sovereign of Grimmoir�.

The story starts off with a vivid depiction of the desecration of Grimmoir� by men whose minds have been corrupted by evil and who are bent upon destroying all enchanted beings residing in Grimmoir�. Many of the enchanted beings manage to escape into Revere (an enchanted land in Ǽdracmorǽ); but those were unable to are raped and brutally murdered. One of them who was left for dead, a damselfly is found by a bounty hunter, Ilerion who takes her to a healer in a bid to save her life.

This damselfly turns out to be Aracina�, the future sovereign (Ruler) of Grimmoir�. From here starts the struggle of Aracina� to change her non-violent, docile nature into a warrior so that she can avenge the murder of her family and her betrothed. This forms the crux of the story of Damselflies. The story of Ilerion and Aracina� is followed by the story of their daughters who have a very important part to play in an ancient prophecy.

As I mentioned, this book is by far the strongest and the most tightly written book among the three. The tale held my interest throughout the book. The story of the brutalization of Aracina�, her recovery, her struggle to change herself into a warrior for revenge is built up very well. And of course, there is the romantic element of Aracina� falling in love with, her savior and protector, Ilerion and vice-versa.

The second part of the book is about Aracina� and Ilerion's daughters, damselfly halflings who are part of a prophecy to destroy the heteroclites and subsequently rule all men. This part of the story starts very abruptly and is quite a bit rushed. Probably because the story was getting quite long. I felt that this should probably have been spun off into another another independent book because the tale is worth its own and has a lot of potential.

I also noticed a few disconnects between Damselflies and The Wrekening. Mainly related to what Cwen was touted to be in the second book and what she was portrayed in Damselflies. Whereas in The Wrekening, Cwen was to have resurrected the House of Lochalaen, here it is Aracina� who actually retrieves the "gryphonstone" which is important to Lohgaen to resurrect his dead house. But that is probably a minor plot detail.

Overall, I have very minor quibbles with the book and like it a fair bit more. I quite recommend reading this book. Though some parts of the book refer to the previous two books, his book can probably read just by itself.