Book Review- Holy Hell (English)

Who is your idol? I sit there trying hard to fetch some answer for the innocent question. I might be the only one in the group who had to spend time for the question

PREVIEW

Until recently Mata Amritanandamayi (henceforthe referred to as Mata) was a strong alternative force to reckon with , for the traditioal Christians. She preached about love, Hinduism. Big names flocked to the Ashram to get a free hug. She brought up empty churches and stood at the altar proclaiming Jesus and Krishna was one and the same
She built speciality hospitals for free, engineering colleges, performed miracles. Her bhajans were filled with white people spotting the white and ochre robes.

Back then we had some serious discussions in our church on the divinity of Mata and importance to vew things in a secular perspective. Many  a times the atmosphere got heated up as we realized we were not able to reproduce the 'love'. People who came back fromAIMS (her multi speciality hospital) sang praises of world class facility and care. Media never lost an opportunity to project the humanitarian work post-Tsunami period.
Amid, these bright lght, there were always a murmur of dissent and disagreement. Questions were asked on foreign fund, which was kept under tight wrap. Thanks to the empire's clout in political circle and media the dissent didn't get any traction.

Unknown to the empire a phase began of unruly growth of the Media powered by youthful restlessness of social network. The first shock came in the form of nurses trike in AIMS. Things got worse when goondas were sent to contain the situation. For the first time a  section of Media stood against the empire and first signs of crack started appearing. Soon after the incident a resident of the Ashram died under mysterious circumstances. The incident was contained by the police but the embers refused to die down.

THE BOOK

'Holy Hell' shot  up into limelight when a prominent newspaper media used Facebook to publish parts of th content.
Soon it became a hot topic of discussion and debate . Coupled to that a few political entities dropped into give a religious tone to the whole çonspiracy'. The book had been infact on he stands two years ago. The fact that the book gained attention only recently, shows the anarchic power of social media.

I got hold of the book from a friend of mine. I finished the book in between a three hour train journey. The book is not a literary, philosophical or theological piece. It's a 220 page simple work designed for the layman. If the book hadn't raised a storm, the whole work would've disappeared into obscurity as soon as it were released.

Gail Tredwell was born into an Australian famiy. Well papmpered  by the western materialism, she did exibhit streaks of weakness and soft heartedness. Her family soon disintegrates, thanks to the typical 'western dysfonctional family model' She sets out o roam around Asia with her boyfriend.
Gail developes an attraction with Indian mysticism. The boyfriend leaves her back  in India as he could no longer stay there.  She stays in Arunachalam for a long time and then comes to know of Ámma. She moves in with her  and the story begins

The whole autobographical piece is based on the twenty years of her life with Mata. The book entertains with the fact that we didn't have much of an outsider's story on the orgin and growth of Amma. Most of the books were paid tributes or ínspired tributes'.

Before we start on what the book is about, it would be better to begin with what the book is not about.
The book is not a piece of literarure. It's very poorly edited and concieved
The book doesn't deal on the subject comprehensively, hence there are yawning gaps and at the end of 220 odd pages, we tend to think 'What the holy hell'

The book is more of a inter personal relationship between two ladies. One dominates over the other for some 20 years. The other lets herself to be dominated untl she call it quits . After another 15 years she comes out wit the book on her experience in hell.Sadly Gail chooses not to put herself at the guilty-box many a times. Hence she let go of the chance for a comprehensive study on influence of Indian spirituality among the masses. We can also sense a wee bit of sarcasm through out & there is absolutely nothing on what happened next (after the defection)

I had an argument with a friend on Mata's divinity. I signed off the argument by saying- It's easy to be divine. But too tough to be a human

It wouldn't be fair to opinionate on my part. But still two sentance for the wise

 It's divine to be justa human. If some woman says ' I don't menustruate', I would say 'See a doctor'

Book review - Aadujeevitham (Malayalam)

There was this huge book sales going around in the city. The crowd had a varied mixture of hip new gen, screaming kids, housewives and the socialites. The organisers would've made some real profits out of this .
I was there looking for a hot shot Mallu writer. He was young, NRI and his first book was such a huge hit. I even heard it was adopted into the curriculum by the university. I was on the lookout for that book.

I asked the salesman.
He pushed two  into my hand ' He just released his second one . And its already a best seller.' I thought for a minute and finally picked them both.
Just out of my childish curiosity, I read the second one first. I was very much impressed and wrote a review on it.
Then I moved on to the first one ( the gross seller) - ' Adujeevitham', which can be roughly translated into ' Goat's Life'.

The book gives the first impression of a tragic novel out there to exploit the reader's tear glands. But a second look gives an impression of something more than sensitivity syndrome. You get a powerful feel of strong currents of human emotion , when he's cut off from human civilizations and made to fight against the bare nature.

Humankind always strived and prospered as a society. Even though man being a fragile as an individual , the society could tame the nature and bring it to its dominance. Even when we clamor against institutionalization and social degradation, we fail to understand that our survival depends entirely on standing together.

There is a dual backdrop the writer has chosen . The story first unfolds in Kerala where the Gulf boom only has started to set in. Najeeb who's just a casual laborer finds it difficult to raise his family. He's forced to search for a livelihood in Gulf, much against his own wish.

The writer being migrant himself would've been able to take a viewpoint much more realistic . The popular image of the gulf malayalee returning with a truck load of goodies is given a rest.

Having had to leave his hometown and a pregnant wife is a tough decision, or to put it in perspective, It's a humiliating decision. Man is destined / programed to find livelihood for his family. The moment he fails to do so , there starts his degradation. Which is more the less equivalent to degradation of his manhood.

Now unravels the second backdrop- The Arab countries which suddenly finds itself finding oil and wealth. The eager and meager ones migrating to an unknown land of unknown culture hoping to earn the daily bread. Najeeb finds himself waiting at the airport for someone he doesn't know and staring into an unknown future.

Meanwhile the author draws a parallel character along with protagonist, Hakkim. He's younger and doesn't have ant familial obligation. The young guy came over to the Gulf following his father's footsteps. He too lands along with Najeeb and waits for an unknown Arab but with youthful nonchalance.

Late into night an Arab comes picks them up and drives away into night. They are soon taken into an uninhabited land. A sense of danger lurks in mind when both of them are separated. He soon finds the nature of his job- a goat herd.

The ingenuity of the writer is reflected here. He portrays the dealings of the protagonist with three objects: the goats, desert and his predecessor.
Najeeb on his arrival, meets his predecessor. Najeeb can't understand the language of the man. He feels a revulsion to this man who doesn't bath or clean himself. He despises the man as a pre historic animal. But soon Najeeb finds himself turning into the man he despised. The man tries to escape and Najeeb finds his dead body later.

Then there's the magnificent desert. Although we find it barren and hot, Najeeb soon discovers it as  habitat for a wide variety of beings. The desert reduces its inhabitants into rough people. I loved the part where he finds himself caught in rain and absolutely no shelter. The author deserve accolades for the way he vividly describes how an average guy from a lush, green place slowly comes into term with brown, hot the desert.

Thirdly, there are the goats. The protagonist , when he comes there first , sees a huge herd. He has a goat at home. But soon realizes taking care of a herd isn't the same. He grapples and struggles with them. Soon he becomes one of them. In absence of any human friend, they become his friends and relatives. Najeeb finds out that man is nothing but an animal .

Overall the book is a great read, but it deserves some serious reading into the middle. There are so many images the writer has used very well to give out the message.

I thanked God for my life after I finished it.

Book Review- It was five past midnight in Bhopal (English))

The beautiful part of living in India is- here the tragedies doesn’t live long, they are quickly forgotten. India is the land for victors. You either win the war or rather you don't fight. There is no better example than Bhopal. In two decades, we have only a vague memory of the tragedy. India cannot afford to live on its failures. We go to office the very next day after a disaster. More than a choice, it’s a lack of choice.

I picked up the book ‘It was five past midnight in Bhopal’ from a book exhibition. One of the reason was I wanted to know more about the Bhopal tragedy. I had also read some of La Pierre works and were quite impressed by them. The first impression came from his anti-missionary ramblings in Outlook magazine. He seemed a very pro-Hindu. But his books jolted the image a bit.

His first book I have read ‘The City of Joy’. The plot is almost same even in ‘It was five past midnight in Bhopal’. There was a co-author Javier Moro. I don’t know the extent of his creative contribution. For me the creative part entirely belonged to La Pierre. La Pierre loves to dwell on the poverty stricken country side and weave beautiful tales around it. Both the books I have read, aren’t entirely different from each other. The man who comes as anti-missionary in his magazine columns sound pro missionary in his books. The story line doesn’t vary much. Poverty, migration, rays of hope, tragedy and ultimate redemption. He has this uncanny ability to elevate the story to a cinematic melodrama and thus thrall the common man for they are not meant for intelligentsia.

The story of Bhopal kicks off from the pre-liberalisation era, post emergency when the economy was heavily dependent on the produce from the lands. The world’s second largest democracy was hit by chrony politics, bureaucratic ineptitude, pseudo socialism, unpredictable monsoons and predictable pests. The last one was a visible villain, whose evil was gazed upon with a simple helplessness. The country was plunged into famine. The rural population had to move into the cities in search for work.

La Pierre weaves a set of parallel plots which interconnects with each other. Around the same time a group of scientists come up with a pesticide which turns out to be stupendous success. The high effectiveness coupled with good marketing makes it a best seller all over the American continent. Union Carbide becomes one of the successful business models in USA. They goes around hunting for potential markets. Spotlight falls on India. A population entirely living on agriculture and suffering helplessly from the pest attacks. They spotted a sea of opportunity. A marriage between poverty and business opportunity was about to be sanctified.

The Indian Government had already begun to shed its conservative outlook for the sake of survival. When an American plant approaches you for setting up their operations, the government machinery was more than willing to help. Besides the politics at that time was purely dynastic and sycophant. The authority and power was not easy to percolate down. The land and license were two easy things to happen.

Farmers weren’t the only section who was about to be benefitted. There was a sizeable population, disadvantaged population who had their degrees but no avenues to test their knowledge. Until then the only respite for a well educated Indian was a government job which was pitifully laden with red tapism and favoritism. For them working in an American giant was a dream come true. There was ample opportunity to grow- with all the state of art technology. The plant also paid the workers very well with all kinds of benefits. Soon to work in Carbide became a matter of status.

La Pierre masterfully points out the compromises made even before the plant was set up. They seemed subtle but damaging in the long run. First of all, it was the dangerous compound Methyl Iso cyanate. MIC was initially planned to be imported from USA. Then considering the costs it was decided to manufacture MIC in India. But no pre emptive studies were done. The safety features weren’t weighed or analysed The primary question on the capability of the plant wasn’t even considered. A few wrote reports on the gravity of the idea. The reports were cremated by American bosses. More emphasis came on the revenue rather than safety.

Besides the Carbide suffered loss of reputation in USA too. MIC wasn’t an easy compound to hide from the environment. It did contaminate the surroundings plunging the entire living habitat into danger. Atleast vast tracts of land were required. But no such preliminary studies were made by the GoI. Ironically Carbide was allotted a land just in the outskirts of city and in a populated region.

The greatest danger lay in the slum in the outskirts of factory. The location was closer to danger than permissible. Concerns were raised but ironically the government granted the title deeds for the slum dwellers rather than eviction. The incumbent minister wanted to secure the vote bank. For landless title deed was a dream come true. Ideal example of opportunitism, and no prizes for guessing who lost.

Soon the officials realized the plant wasn’t earning income as expected. So much of its revenues were being eaten by the plant itself. The compromises became all the more evident. Besides the Indian workers hailed from varying backgrounds and the general laxity towards safety aggravated the situation.

The final nail came when the Americans realized the futility of their dream. They secretly decided to close down the plant. A new boss was appointed to oversee the final touchdown. But Sadly the guy was more of an economist who cut down cost by job cuts and shutting down inevitable safety process. His lack of understanding of technical functioning of the plant became all the more self evident. Everything waited for the Day of Judgement

Interestingly we get a feeling of a fairytale read while going through this. Yes it sounds a bit unrealistic. But this did happen. When I read some of the bloggers, tweeters and neo economists battling for FDI even without presenting any conclusive studies, I wonder if history will repeat.

Book Review- Manja Veyil Maranangal (Malayalam)

The last week I didn’t watch a single movie. I was too engrossed in a wonderful book. I haven’t been engrossed in a book in recent past with this intensity. I finished it in 6 days and flunked an exam on the way. The way I procured the book itself was sheer marketing ingenuity of the counter clerk.

The author, Benyamin, is young prolific Malayalam settled in sands of Arabia. As he indicates in the book, the exile brings best out of a writer. Benyamin had already shot to fame with his best selling work, Adujeevitham. It went on to be adopted as academic piece in Kerala University. And now he has proved that it was not just flash in a pan.

The plot revolves around the life of a young, reckless, day dreaming, wanna be writer. He stumbles upon a murder and sacrifices everything, even his family legacy to solve it. The plot is set in two timelines and places. The story is told through the eyes of protagonist and the writer(narrator). The manner in which the author stitches together the two timelines with relative ease is sheer genius.

And also I found it so endearing the way the writer takes us for a ride through Diego Garcia. The narrative doesn’t look forced. Most of the writers fail when they try to draw the picture about the environment. When I browsed through the first few pages I thought this was going to be another one of those mediocre crime thrillers. Soon I realized how the unsuccessful young protagonist draws the author and his friends into the plot. And the readers too along with it. The way he meets up with his childhood mates all in quick succession do cast an apprehension in the mood of the plot. But then the clouds clear. The author’s and protagonists life intertwines so much so that in the same way the protagonist loses everything in the quest, the author loses his friend’s circle.

There are a maze of emotions throughout- love, hate, friendship. They conflict with each other through the two narrations. There are also a wide variety of social issues- multi ethnicity, terrorism, black s, religion. The author doesn’t stray away from the main plot. For an average Malayali reader Benyamin is a whiff of fresh air. There are even a lot of neo imageries ,like Orkut, Facebook , to tell the story. This is a jump over generation gap. May be Mallus have procured a Chetan Bhagath (in terms of popularity) with a lots of quality

Book Review- God's callgirl

Catholic are finding themselves in a very unenviable position, punching bag, and that too after decades of world domination. Right from the writers, movie makers, humanitarians, liberals, gay rights everybody a re more than happy to have a go at it. The recipe for the season is the harrowing tales of nuns who called quits because they no longer could stand it.

It wouldnt be widely off the mark to say that the women doesn’t enjoy an enviable position in the church. They are expected to pay up the penance for the sin Ms. Eve did centuries ago. They were only supposed to cook, clean and give birth. Still we don’t see much dissent through out- goes on to prove that women accepted the position with devotion.

When it came to nuns, the establishment went a step ahead. Sisterhood was an exclusive community stoically protected from the outside influences. They had their own machinery to control, defy and survive. Nuns had tto practice more renunciation, obedience and poverty compared to their male counterparts. They had less chance to climb up the hierarchy or earn. So the nuns had no life outside the monastery and may have had to seek help for any emergency expenses. Church found their services extremely useful in the educational instituitions. The repressed emotions manifested in varying degrees as cruelty and perversions. But these aberations, visible in a few , got onto become celebrated by the media and gave many a good opportunity to come up with autobiographies.

Carla Van Ray’s book ‘God’s Call girl’ is one such work. Very juicy, graphic, questioning and in the end meanders to boredom. Carla was born in a poor dutch family who migrated to Australia. Van Ray had a very strong blind faith in the church and its teachings. She grew up in a pious atmosphere very close to the church. She is very brave enough to portray her dysfunctional family and her average performance in academics.

She grew up admiring and worshiping her Dad. But while in childhood she was subjected to sexual molestation from her dad. Later the shattered image of her dad influenced her view on men and the way she chose them.

Being an average student from a very ordinary background, convent came a natural choice for her. She had no problems in getting admitted and later the demons in her came out to the fore as years went by.

Vatican went ahead with reformations post WW-II. She argues that she had self realization after the liberalisation and so quit. It sounded a bit shaky for me. As mentioned earlier, she is brave enough to paint her psychological weaknesses. The sudden freedom, a liberalized world and childhood nightmares affects her post-convent life as she switches between men and later opts for prostitution. The profession is portrayed very honourably, spiced with oriental theories until some 100 pages into the end when the vase shatters.

Don’t go for the book hoping for an anti-catholic read. The shaky theories will confuse you nevertheless. But if you want a spicy read, the book sure offers you some.

History Text Book

For a school student ‘History’ will be a subject he yearns to get over with. He has to gulp down indigestible names and forgettable dates to spit in to his exam papers. Years down the line there will be shivers down the spine when he is asked to recollect the rebellions, revolutions and wars.

Examine our History and we will see the cycle of incidents turning up again and again. The only hope for humankind to survive is study the history and make sure the mistakes do not repeat by themselves. But is our educational system capable in EDUCATING our kids on history?

I turned a fan of the ‘dirty old man’ reading his novel, ‘Delhi’. It’s a historical fiction which depicts the glory and fall of the city. The book quickly rolls on from the times of Indian Kings, Mughals and finally to the British. The Indians have been eagerly taught to put the entire blame for the ills in the country on the White Man. They divided the otherwise unified country on ‘religion’. But Kushwant argues it was the Mughals, namely emperor Aurangazeb, who discriminated people on religion. And he ratifies it with the divided response from the Indians during the First war of Independence.

Read the biographies or autobiographies of a Maoist or Marxist. He will argue that China is not a bad neighbor. They will claim the India China war was due to the brashness and idiocy of V K Krishna Menon. Our text books say he is a great personality. I have read more than one writer (not leftists) who do not have a great opinion on V K. There is also arguments and counter arguments on who violated the ‘Panchsheel’ agreement first.

Patrick French would argue the ‘Mahathma’ status of Gandhiji. He points out the curious and unnatural methods and beliefs of Gandhi. We have rarely come across them in any depiction on Gandhi. May be we are afraid to humanize the father of our nation. And he also contests the widely held belief of attributing the independence to Gandhi. We have ignored many other factors and have sidelined the contributions of Bose, Bagath Singh as failed attempts. Recently I watched the movie ‘Kheilenge Hum…’. Did we ignore or we chose to ignore the many who sacrificed the prime of their youth for Independence so that the Congress party can claim the sole legacy?

There are many facets to history. Programming the students to think through a limited framework wouldn’t do good to the nation building and world harmony. They must be given the freedom to choose their beliefs.

Book Writing

The one thing I like about Chetan Bhagath is despite being a best seller he hasn’t sold himself over to the international publishers. This spares the common man ignominy of running over to the pirate publishers.

Thanks to the international publishers, book writing became a well paid, respected if not elite profession. Our writers were spared from writing out of abject poverty. Every second day you see an IIT/IIM getting enlightened and giving up their career for writing.

But this art has become so myopic & over-marketed. We have clearly lost legends in this profession. If your books are able to make into headlines, then you are a great writer. To make matters worse we have got nothing other than temperamental relationships as subjects in our books.

There has been a shift of writers from the rural background to the cities. So the literary works is done keeping the metro-sexuals in mind. The cover binding would be good. The price sticker would be a horror. But the internal content would be rotten.

Have you heard of ‘Shobha De’? She is termed as one of the biggest writers ever. I have gone through a couple of book of hers. The quality could beat a sleaze story. Only added attraction is irrespective of sex ,age everyone will have sex with everyone else in her novels.

In medieval era only the elite could own books as it was costly. Judging from the price stickers of the new releases I believe, history is going to repeat itself. I happened to go for a book exhibition and got myself shocked on the prices. I happen to spot a ‘Penthouse’ section and ran towards it. The bastards wouldn’t even allow us to have cheap pleasure. I could get it at 1/4^th price from a pirate.