Source: jharia.jharkhand.org.in

I just saw Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s documentary, Hot as Hell. It’s based on Jharia, the town beneath which rage 70 coal fires, the town which has a population of over a million, the town which can go up in flames or collapse any day, the town where I was born. The documentary left me shaken. So much so that I could not watch it in one go. The images that flashed by were familiar. It was like revisiting my childhood; only the despair, the accidents, the helpless faces were missing. Or perhaps I was too young to notice, blissfully unaware in my safe little world. I have no memories of Jharia except the theatre where we went to see a hindi blockbuster or some old neighbours we visited. All my recollections are of Dhandbad, the city adjacent to Jharia. That’s where my maternal family moved soon after I was born. It’s not that I did not know of the coal mafia then or of the abject poverty in the region. Year after year, during summer vacations on the train journey to Dhanbad or subsequently when we ventured outside the city for picnics, I saw thousands of people barely able to survive. Along the road, I saw things covered in white. People sleeping on the roadside with sheets to keep out the flies, I thought. Stupid. Naive. Age was my only excuse. Years later, I learnt they were corpses of people who had been killed by the naxals and other armed groups. I had been shocked then. Shaken, to realize that places I frequented as a child were now out of bounds as they were naxal haunts. It didn’t make sense because till the age of 15 when I visited Dhanbad every summer, all I thought about was the fun times spent with cousins, Rajinder ki chaat, Caroline’s pastry, the elderly tailor who stitched our dresses. Even the people along the road to Parasnath, selling arrows, lances and knives didn’t bother me. Yes, all my memories were happy ones, except one. One which had left me so shaken that after a lot of angst and anger, after feeling completely defeated for I could not change anything, I had buried it. I don’t even remember where I kept the couple of pictures that my dad had taken. Pictures of me wearing a helmet, a torch and a belt, getting on to the carriage that would take me deep into the bowels of the earth, into the coal mines. To the horror of my family I had insisted on the trip. No, I was not driven by any altruistic or revolutionary zeal. I just wanted to see a mine, to see where the people who I saw on the streets of Dhanbad worked. So after non stop pleading, cajoling and threatening for 2 summers, finally they gave in. I was in school and so my dad came to Dhanbad to take me to the mines. No one else was willing to do so.

As soon as the makeshift lift – 8 rickety wooden planks tied together and fixed on a steel frame, there were no walls – landed, I whipped my head around in confusion. It was completely dark. The only light came from the top of the hole. Then, one of the accompanying engineers switched on the torch on my helmet. Whatever you do, never take off that helmet even for a second, I was warned. Excited, I began to move but the engineer practically shouted in alarm. “You have to follow me. Please stay close to the walls and move very carefully.” So we moved into what resembled a cave. I had always been in love with Enid Blytons and this, to me, was a real adventure. The air was reasonably cool and there was water trickling in at some places along the wall. But I did not worry about the mine being flooded suddenly. That happened only in novels. I looked around and saw some tracks. “For the cars that carry the coal out. Be careful, most workers loose limbs when they are hit by the chains of the car,” our guide warned. I remember being bewildered then because I saw no workers. I heard sounds – whispers, hammering, the occasional laughter, but saw no one. When I asked the engineer where the workers were, he looked uncomfortable. But I had to see them at work. That was the point of the visit. So the guy very reluctantly led us into a narrow passage. I almost choked. The air was unbearably hot and heavy. I felt as if I was in a furnace. I still remember that feeling of being stifled. I think I turned claustrophobic that day. And then I saw the workers, chiseling away, lifting the coal. None were wearing helmets. It was too hot. Besides when they needed to rest, they perched on their helmets. On seeing visitors, a few hurriedly tried to strap on the protective headgear. I later learnt that the passage through which we had entered was reserved for officials and the few odd visitors. That was where the cool air came in from. The passages where the miners worked were boiling. I remember hurriedly trying to get out of the mine. After that I spent a lot of time arguing with my uncle, with others around me about the inhuman conditions in the mine. When it didn’t make any difference I forgot about it. It was easier. Subsequently I visited workers colonies or the poorer neighbourhoods of Dhanbad but I never asked to visit a mine. My family moved out of Dhanbad and the mines, out of my consciousness. About the underground fires, I was blissfully unaware. I had never heard about them, never noticed the wisps of smoke.

It was during my years at the Planning Commission that I first heard about the danger Jharia was in. I was shocked. How could I, an educated journalist, not have noticed something so important? How could I be so cocooned in my own world as to ignore everything else? I remember Syeda mentioning that someone had told her to visit the mines to see how much has been done to ensure safety of the workers. I told her about my visit. We decided we would visit Dhanbad and Jharia; go down into the mines and see if things had changed. The trip never happened. Then I saw this film. I am still appalled. To be honest I haven’t finished watching it. I could not. Not because it is full of burning people and mutilated bodies. No, there is none of that. In fact most of the scenes could be from any bustling town of the country. And then you notice the smoke curling out of the ground, right next to the guy who is changing the tyre or the child who is picking the coals. The ground beneath the city is burning and it is not a natural disaster. It is not even an inadvertent error on the part of a worker. It is the result of decades of human greed. The result of unplanned, unscientific mining carried out with the singular purpose of raking in the maximum moolah. Not even when they realized the consequences of their activities, when the workers began to be gassed and lives were lost, did the coal mafia stop to consider. Lives were inconsequential. They did not even remember that they were living in the same city which could collapse into the burning pit any day. Can human beings really be so insensitive? So greedy? Soo selfish? Do human lives matter so little? The workers go into the mines knowing they might never come back. They have no choice. They have to risk it to make sure their kids don’t go hungry. They might come out of the mine alive, but if they don’t go in, they know they won’t have anything to survive on. With the fires, the mines are not working to their full capacity. Many have lost jobs. They pilfer. They dig holes and take from the earth whatever they can find. Theft? Maybe. A disaster in the making? Definitely. But what choice do they have? Just like the residents of Jharia. They know their lives are in danger. They are suffering from numerous health problems and yet they refuse to move out to the new areas identified by the government. Why? What compels them to continue to live atop an inferno? I do not know. What I do know is that if we, in our greed, have destroyed so many lives, what right do we have to sit and take decisions for the Jarawa or the Upper Bonda? They may not live in air conditioned rooms or attend B Schools and earn hefty pay packets but they live in harmony with nature and with each other. They are happy, and more importantly, till we intruded into their worlds, their happiness was not at the cost of others. Is this what we want them to become? Opportunistic, indifferent humans who will stop at nothing to pocket that extra wad of notes. And how did we become this way? Is life really a zero sum game? Does our happiness, our comfort always have to be at the expense of another – be it the thirteen year old who some employ shamelessly in their homes or the workers who are gassed in the coal mines? I know all is not lost, I know there are people doing excellent work. I know change is happening. I have seen it, documented some of it. But at times, I grow despondent. Because too much needs to be done. Do we have enough time? Do we have enough will? Do we have enough hands?

Below is a list of notables that managed to make the shift without getting mud in their eyes, as it were.

1. ‘One for the Money‘ (2012): Stephanie Plum, the beloved bounty-hunter heroine of Janet Evanovich’s best-selling novels, is finally getting her big-screen due — with Katherine Heigl stepping into the role. Based on Evanovich’s 1994 book of the same name, One for the Money (in theatres Jan. 27) traces Plum’s road from lingerie buyer to badass bounty hunter. Her first case: brining in a vice cop who’s wanted for first-degree murder. The snag? He’s her former lover. Should moviegoers dig Plum’s sassy, sleuthing action heroine, they’re in luck: Evanovich has written 17 Plum novels, four novellas and one short story. Can you say “franchise potential”?

2. ‘Twilight‘ (2008): The vampire-romance series, written by Stephenie Meyer, was already a phenomenon unto itself. However, Twilight, the visual accompaniment to her 2005 novel, transformed the phenomenon into obsession. The adaptation, about a romance between a handsome vampire and a girl next door, was smartly loyal to its source material, bringing to life the impossibly chivalric, almost ethereal love story. While decidedly melodramatic, the prolific use of slow motion and extreme close-ups certainly played into that great escape. The fact that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart let their onscreen romance trickle into real life only added to the illusion. And starry-eyed teens and moms responded in kind.

3. ‘The Reader‘ (2008): What’s remarkable about ‘The Reader‘ isn’t just the fact that Kate Winslet quite convincingly ages 30 years throughout the film while playing a morally challenged woman who’s both a seductress of a teen boy (played by German actor David Kross and as an adult by Ralph Fiennes) as well as a Nazi war criminal. It’s also that the actress manages to shrug off her warm offscreen persona to offer an intriguing turn as a chilly character. Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 work was gripping enough to become an Oprah’s Book Club selection. But Winslet made the movie her own by committing to a gutsy and yes, explicit, performance that was at times difficult to watch. It became the transformative role that finally won her the Oscar she’s long deserved.

4. ‘Forrest Gump‘ (1994): A box of chocolates, cross-country running, Bubba Gump shrimp. Forrest Gump was so vivid an interpretation of the 1986 novel by Winston Groom, that it became iconic. Director Robert Zemeckis took many liberties with his version of the story — excising numerous episodes from the novel and adding in a few new ones (like that epic jog) — making believable a sprawling tale about the fantastical life of a humble Southern man, who’s slow in wit but rich in integrity. Key in this were performances from Robin Wright Penn, as Forrest’s childhood love whose mere countenance is riddled with heartbreak, and Tom Hanks rounding out the book’s titular hero with sheer charm.

5. ‘The Notebook‘ (2004): Released in 1996, The Notebook was the first of a slew of books by Nicholas Sparks (Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe) that seemed to effortlessly translate to the big screen. Still, it was The Notebook, teeming with palpable chemistry between stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, that was the most successful. She plays a rich girl, he a working-class boy. They meet picturesquely over the summer, fall in love, and then threaten to fall apart. The actors would go on to date for two years after filming the movie — even recreating that sweep-her-off-her-feet kiss for the MTV Movie Awards. Fans so adored the romanticized couple that when Gosling and McAdams split, “Women were mad at me,” he later commented. “Like, ‘How could you? How could you let a girl like that go?’

6. ‘The Color Purple‘ (1985): You’d have been hard-pressed to find a dry eye in the house when The Color Purple first debuted in theaters. Based on Alice Walker’s 1982 work, it recounted the incest and domestic abuse-addled life of a poor, humble African-American woman in the early 1900s. Walker’s tale is told via letters and diary entries, but the cinematic version proved even more poignant by using a classic narrative to chronicle protagonist Celie’s challenging life. Powerful turns by Oprah Winfrey (in her Oscar-nominated acting debut) as Celie’s daughter-in-law and Danny Glover as her abusive husband contrasted Whoopi Goldberg’s demure presence in the lead (pictured with costar Margaret Avery). In the end, Steven Spielberg was able to achieve the daunting task of transforming a Pulitzer Prize-winning book into an equally formidable motion picture.

7. ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1995): At a time when Hollywood was particularly eager to mine the Jane Austen canon for big-screen material, Emma Thompson, who scripted and starred in this costumed version, treated it like a goofy rom-com. Quick-witted repartee between Thompson and Kate Winslet (Thompson’s Elinor: “Did he tell you he loved you?” Winselt’s Marianne: “Yes…no. Never absolutely. It was every day implied.”) made Thompson a shoe-in for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Director Ang Lee, meanwhile, kept the visuals chaste and breezy, like a pleasant stroll through an English garden. If ever there were a film that most effectively updates Austen’s work without losing its spirit, this is it.

8. ‘To kill a Mockingbird‘ (1962): It was no easy feat casting for Atticus Finch, the Abe Lincoln-esque patriarch of To Kill a Mockingbird. After all, the hugely successful, Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Harper Lee (published two years before the film) was, upon its release, a sounding board about racial injustices. But Gregory Peck truly brought the story about an African-American man accused of raping a white woman to life. Though the part came to him midway through his career, the actor would be forever associated with Mockingbird, which also won him an Oscar for best actor. Upon hearing of the actor’s death, the reclusive Lee declared, “Gregory Peck was a beautiful man. Atticus Finch gave him an opportunity to play himself.”

9. ‘Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone’ (2001): In dark theatrics and stunning effects, the Harry Potter movies are so potent that the term “spoiler alert” need not apply. Of course we know how each of J.K. Rowling’s books end: Yet as the first filmic installment reminded us, sometimes the path — how the drama unfolds — is just as important as the end destination. The smartly cast Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint became insta-stars after appearing in the Sorcerer’s Stone ten years ago (the book came out three years before that), requiting our long-awaited desire to attach human faces to the Rowling’s fantastical wizards. And watching them grow up with each subsequent film has further invested us in both their real and fictitious lives.

10. ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘ (1994): It would be easy to transform Stephen King’s 1982 novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, into a cheesy morality tale about crime and punishment. The fact that it takes place in a prison would tempt any director to play up the melodrama of lock-up. But Frank Darabont draws nuanced performances by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, as prisoners with full hearts, who take their time to communicate their trajectory of isolation, guilt, repentance, and ultimately liberation. If that sounds underwhelming, it was to moviegoers, too: Despite its weighty awards-season presence, Shawshank just barely broke even. But to those who saw it, this unfurling of plot and character was a revelation.

11. ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary‘ (2001): Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel about an everyday Englishwoman’s disastrous, if aspirational, love life was so adored that seemingly every actress considered the role: Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Rachel Weisz among them. Ultimately, director Sharon Maguire — a friend of Fielding’s — cast the immediately likable Renée Zellweger as a luckless aspiring journalist, an eyebrow-raising move that earned criticism over the actress being both American and impossibly svelte. Zellweger responded by packing on 20 lbs. and perfecting her British accent. By the time she hit the screen, she had the goodwill of fans and critics alike, who commended her portrayal opposite Hugh Grant and Colin Firth as being more crafty that she’d led on: Her Jones was cute without being cloying, downtrodden without being desperate — and perhaps more clever than the heroine of the book itself.

12. ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ Trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003): It’s not a well-known fact that director Peter Jackson’s dazzling Lord of the Rings trilogy, about the search to destroy an ultimate weapon, is actually a third attempt at adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1954-55 books. What made Jackson’s successful? Jackson treated LOTR less like a fantasy-nerd obsession it had been and more like the epic story it was. The films boast majestic cinematography, patient pacing, and a smart cast (notably Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom and an indelible Viggo Mortensen, pictured) that treated the heroics as byproducts of a larger drama. (Even the most cartoonish character, the animated Gollum — as voiced and acted out by English actor Andy Serkis — was imbued with weightiness, played out as a heroin addict.) This is Tolkien in Technicolor, as the master himself would’ve imagined it.

13. ‘Schindler’s List‘ (1993): Steven Spielberg is largely credited for the gestation of what is arguably his greatest work to date. But the World War II-set Schindler’s List was in fact based on the 1982 historical novel Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally, about a German businessman who saved 1,200 Jews from certain death by employing them in his Polish factories. The film’s black-and-white presentation is indeed polarized. It’s stylized when showing Liam Neeson — giving off the air of a strapping movie star from a bygone era — living his glamorous, privileged life. And it’s stark when chronicling graphic scenes of camp brutality, under the leadership of Ralph Fiennes’ icy commandant, a livewire who could be set off at any moment. Where Keneally drew a mental image of the devastation, Spielberg actually allows us to be a conscious observer, witnessing the horror, but powerless to do anything about it.

14. ‘The English Patient‘ (1996): The late Anthony Minghella wrote and directed this sweeping drama based on the Booker Prize-winning 1992 novel from Michael Ondaatje. What won the latter the prestigious award was that his book is beguilingly elaborate — tricky in narrative, specific in imagery, ambitious in breadth. Though he couldn’t possibly capture every detail, Minghella more than compensated with atmosphere. Here, Ralph Fiennes plays a Hungarian explorer who begins an affair with a British woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) in the ’40s, against the backdrop of a washed-out expanse of Saharan desert. The latter is so sensuous, you could almost feel the sweat. That the man’s story is told on his deathbed and in flashback supplants the tragedy with a sweet wistfulness.

15. ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe‘ (2005): For many, C.S. Lewis’ first Narnia book — 1950’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, about four kids who discover a portal leading to a magical land — was a staple of childhood reading. In addition to lending the franchise some cred, respected actors Liam Neeson, Tilda Swinton, and James McAvoy helped elevate the picture from mere fantasy to spiritual allegory (as was Lewis’ intent). But the marquee star here is the collective special-effects unit which legitimately helped transport the viewer into an ethereal world. Much of Narnia’s success hinged on the escapist and sentimental appeal of one’s childhood imagination spectacularly imprinted onto the big screen.

16. ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939): When adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind — an adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s celebrated 1936 tome — is considered to be the most profitable film of all time. It broke other records during its day: Producers took two years to cast the lead male, enlisted five screenwriters, hired three directors, and oversaw nearly one year of production. (Its final director, The Wizard of Oz’s Victor Fleming was said to have briefly exited during filming, due to exhaustion.) At three hours and 44 minutes, Gone With the Wind was not only the longest film of its time, it was also the feistiest: The film’s tart language (a cocky Clark Gable using the word “damn”) and proto-feminism (Vivien Leigh’s alternately demure and ballsy portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara) drew vast criticism — and was downright trailblazing.

17. ‘The Devil Wears Prada‘ (2006): Upon its release in 2003, Lauren Weisberger’s best-selling roman à clef about her time working at Vogue was met with some indignation. (The steely boss of the book was a less than thinly veiled criticism of that magazine’s editrix, Anna Wintour.) But how salacious it was! While no less intriguing, the big screen’s Prada was also smarter than its source material: Confident performances by Meryl Streep transformed Weisberger’s tormentor, Miranda Priestly, into a complicated career woman whose unreasonable demands upon Anne Hathaway’s Andrea Sachs could alternately viewed be as tough love. The picture, directed by Sex and the City alum David Frankel and outfitted by that show’s costumer Patricia Field, was immediately accused of being SATC-lite. To the contrary, this was a Sex and the City with more soul.

The most irritating questions that we were asked: You are a library. Do you lend books? No, we lend clothes, shoes and ice candies!

So, you are a library. DO you have all the books?

Well, we would love to say yes, but do you have any idea how many books exist in print? We are still looking for exact numbers,but trust us, there is no library in the world, not even the Library of Congress that can claim this. So, no we do not have all the books, but we do have a fairly good collection, one that we are rapidly expanding and we would love your inputs on that one.

The big realization!!! The term, Online Library can be extremely misleading. Many assumed we are dealing in e-books. So for the record, only our catalogue and ordering process is online. We deal in physical books, the ones you can curl up with

A book fair is an amazing place. Sitting in offices, rushing orders, taking calls or recommending books, you never get to truely understand the Indian reader, the way you do at a fair. In fact, much as I shy away from generalizations, it is awfully tempting to do so. But that will make a post in itself, or perhaps two. So more on it in the coming days. Right now, let’s back to the task at hand.

What is India (or at least Delhi) Reading?

When it comes to fiction, the Indian authors are a definite hit and we don’t mean the Indian versions of the penny dreadfuls or MBs selling at Rs 50 or Rs 100. We are referring to White Tiger, The Immortals of Meluha, Chanakya’s Chant and Revolution 2020. The four top-selling Indian fiction titles at our stall, followed closely by Ravinder Singh’s Can Love Happen Twice, Preeti Shenoy’s Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake and the evergreen Gitanjali.

Top-selling Indian Authors? Khushwant Singh, Chetan Bhagat, Amitav Ghosh in that order. In the international segment, apart from the latest Jeffrey Archer, The Sins of the Father, which released on march 3 and Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance, it was mostly the all time best sellers that did well. The Alchemist, Fountainhead, Gone with the Wind, Wuthering Heights.

In the Non Fiction segment, the top grossers were Rashmi Bansal (all 3 titles, but particularly Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish), The Argumentative Indian, Who Moved My Cheese?, Freakonomics, Wings of Fire, and surprisingly, another relatively unknown new release, Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India.

In the kids section Tinkle and the Wimpy Kid series gave tough competition to Enid Blyton.

Finally, the most looked at (mind you, not the most bought) items: Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson (the price is just too formidable though everyone wanted to look at the book), the Paulo Coelho Box set and the Robin Sharma Box set.

So, what did you buy at the World Book Fair, 2012? Do tell us. And meanwhile, do look out for our next post on The Great Personality Test: The World Book Fair

Do visit the INDIAreads stalls – we can’t wait to have you paw our brand new merchandise even as you struggle to manage a cheap sandwich with one hand, and a screaming brat with the other.

It’s always a pleasure to hear you gossip about the authors in hushed tones (“Amartya Sen – isn’t he the guy that invented Amul..?”), and it really makes our day when you ask us 50 painfully mundane questions and end up buying nothing. We live for those moments!

The theme at this year’s fair shall be ‘Indian Cinema’.

Cinema and Literature – Really…?

As long as the cinematic medium has existed, the movie industry has looked to literature for both inspiration and content.

But when turning a literary masterpiece into a movie, do the two mediums share enough commonalities so as to enable a smooth transition…?

The filmwallahs would answer ‘yes’. From ‘About A Boy’ to ‘Wuthering Heights’, the conversion of popular books to big screen pictures has been a recurring theme in film, particularly in recent years with the success of huge franchises like Harry Potter and the Twilight saga.

While much discussion centers around adaptations that aren’t seen as having lived up to the literature on which they are based, there are many adaptations that actually enhance an existing story; or completely supersede it.

Example: Fight Club – a brilliant movie, stemming from an okay novel.

Or Clueless, which takes a novel from 1815 and makes it relevant to the modern day by setting the story of Jane Austen’s Emma in the context of a Beverly Hills high school.

But all faffing aside – the tendency to make film adaptations of books stems largely from the desire for a guaranteed audience, and is not quite the ‘natural progression’ for a book as advocated by some filmmakers.

Flipside? Stories are abridged, scenes are added, movie-only fans (newbies, resented by the hard core lit enthusiasts) are born, and those who followed the series from its inception are often left feeling a little disappointed at the end product.

The greatest difference between movies and novels is that cinemagoers share a much more social, passive experience than bookworms – who enjoy an active, solitary read. This means that while those reading the book have their own visions of characters and events, film audiences are forced to share a single vision of what these aspects of the story look like.

This alienates the book fan further – what was once a personal experience for him/her, is now universal; with the perceptions and prejudices of producers, directors, actors and audiences – all influencing the final product.

All is not lost, though.

In Part II, we shall take a look at some of the more successful experiments to have managed the leap from literature to cinema.

The Velenntyne Day is here, and louve is in the air.

(sniff) Can you smell it?

Annyway.

Let’s celebrate romance by taking a look at some of the more romantic literary characters to have tumbled out of ‘romance novels‘ (and similar works of propaganda that were almost certainly metaphors for the authors’ own failed love lives);

1. Edward Rochester of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre – (Alternately cold, imperious, and withholding; he proposes to Jane without disclosing the much-married madwoman imprisoned in his attic)

2. Richard Sharpe of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series – (“He’ll fall in love with anything in a petticoat”, according to Patrick Harper – Richard’s loyal friend)

3. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – (In 2010, a protein sex pheromone in male mouse urine, that is sexually attractive to female mice, was named Darcin in honour of the character)

4. Heathcliff of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – (A man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, murder and digging up dead lovers – a fact perhaps unknown to Gordon Brown when he compared himself to “an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff” in 2008.)

5. Rupert Campbell Black of Jilly Cooper’s The Rutshire Chronicles – (Cooper has acknowledged that Rupert’s character is based upon Andrew Parker Bowles, the ex-husband of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Incidentally, she left him for Prince Charles – a man with a face for radio)

That’s just the beginning of my list. I could go on and on, but let me not kill all that love in one go. So more later….Till then

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

No wait; that’s a separate blogpost. Let’s get to know Charlie a little better first.

Charles Dickens: The name conjures up visions of plum pudding and Christmas punch, quaint coaching inns and cosy firesides, but also of orphaned and starving children, misers, murderers, and abusive schoolmasters. Dickens was 19th century London personified – he survived its mean streets as a child and, despite being largely self-educated, possessed the genius (that trademark leftie trait) to eventually become the greatest writer of his age.

Charlie was born on February 7, 1812, the son of a clerk at the Navy Pay Office. His father, John Dickens, continually living beyond his means, was imprisoned at the Marshalsea(a prison on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark) in 1824 for failing to pay his debts.

A 12-year-old Charles was subsequently removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory – earning six shillings a week to help support the family. This experience cast a shadow over the clever, sensitive boy, and became a defining episode in Charlie’s life. (He would later lament, “How I could have been so easily cast away at such an age.”)

This childhood poverty and feelings of abandonment, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens‘ later views on social reform; and not least on the world he would create through his fiction.

Not surprisingly, Dickens’ characters are some of the most memorable in fiction.

Often these characters were based on people that he knew: Wilkins Micawber and William Dorrit (his father), Mrs. Nickleby (his mother). In a few instances Dickens based the character too closely on the original and got into trouble, as in the case of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House, based on Leigh Hunt, and Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield, based on his wife’s dwarf chiropodist.

Their names, too, are funkier than most. Characters such as Sweedlepipe, Honeythunder, Bumble, Pumblechook, and M’Choakumchild are recognizable as Dickensian even by those unfamiliar with the stories.

Charlie’s friend and biographer, John Forster, said that Dickens made “characters real existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe themselves.”  Characters such as Scrooge (miserly) and Pecksniff (hypocritically affecting benevolence) became defining terms in everyday vernacular.

Charlie would go on to write 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles before his death on June 9, 1870.

He wished to be buried, without fanfare, in a small cemetery in Rochester, but the Nation would not allow it. He was laid to rest in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, the flowers from thousands of mourners overflowing the open grave.

Incidentally, among the more beautiful bouquets were many simple clusters of wildflowers, wrapped in rags.

More about him later, though; must get back to my very empowering ‘Five Point Someone’.

In the meantime, please feel free to buy/rent, and academically fondle thereafter, the following Dickensian Classics at INDIAreads;

1. A Christmas Carol: You know the tale, you’ve seen the movies, but if you haven’t read the book you’re missing half the story. Dickens‘ little tale of human redemption has a million versions out there; make sure you get the original at INDIAreads.

2. David Copperfield: Charlie’s eighth novel was a thinly disguised autobiography, with many of the story lines mirroring Dickens‘ own life. ”Dickens never stood so high in reputation as at the completion of Copperfield.” – John Forster, Dickens‘ friend and first biographer.

3. Great Expectations: Strongly autobiographical again; though not as openly as in David Copperfield. Charlie actually reread Copperfield before beginning Great Expectations – to avoid unintentional repetition. Called Dickens‘ darkest work by some, it was very well received by Victorian readers and remains one of his most popular works today. Many consider it his greatest use of plot, characterization, and style – and a masterpiece of literary work.

Ilija Trojanow, Philip Gourevitch and Taiye Selasi. Session: The Good man in Africa

Fatima Bhutto, Karan Thapar and Ayesha Jala discussing Pakistan

Shashi Tharoor with Geling and Thant Myint U on the Superpowers of the 21st Century

Shashi Tharoor releasing Anupam Kher's book

Deepak Chopra telling the audience that they are all made of star dust

David Remnick and Jason Burke in the session on Journalism as Literature

Tabish Khair and Michael Ondaatje share a laugh

The Yellow Emperor’s Cure is the story of Dr Antonio Henriques Maria – Portuguese doctor, brilliant surgeon, lady killer, adventurer – who sets off on an ocean voyage to China to find a cure for syphilis; a disease that afflicts his father and is effectively a death sentence in 1898. (As Antonio’s teacher says, “No one even believes in a cure for syphilis anymore.[…] In Naples they’ve built walls inside hospitals to separate the patients from the poxies, just as in Glasgow where the police have replaced doctors on the wards. In the lands of Calvin they’ve been left to die as punishment for their sins. The civilised world has simply given up.”)

Over the next year, Antonio inhabits a strange world of invisible royalty, eunuchs, new food and new customs. He must overcome his impatience and his previous training to learn the secrets of the Nei-Ching, the ancient medical canon that teaches a doctor to diagnose a patient simply by listening to the pulse. He must replace sphygmograph and ophthalmoscope with a reading of the four seasons and the five elements, the twelve channels of the body and its eleven organs. In the process he learns Mandarin, falls in love, and finds himself as a doctor and as a human being.

Basu creates a whole and absorbing world rich with detail, and peopled with characters who, despite a fair level of suspense, refuse to deliver the perfect ending, and are therefore that much more believable.

INDIAreads had the opportunity to speak with Dr Basu at the launch of ‘The Yellow Emperor’s Cure’ in New Delhi recently. Here are some extracts from the interview;

INDIAreads: Tell us a little bit about your first book ‘The Opium Clerk’. How difficult was it getting it published?

KB: When I moved from Montreal to take up teaching at Oxford, I carried ‘The Opium Clerk’ as a voluminous manuscript tucked under my arm, and did not quite know what to do with it.

I’m an academic – I understood a lot about academic publishing, not so much about literary publishing. So I sent the first 100 pages of the manuscript to seven different literary agents – randomly picked from a handbook called the ‘Handbook of Writers’ – and prepared for rejection.

Luckily, 5 of them wanted to represent me. The one I picked to be my agent, and who still remains my agent, managed to place the manuscript in 3 weeks.

So in that sense, my story has been a rather ordinary, boring one.

INDIAreads: What first attracted you to writing?

KB: I always wanted to be an author.

My father was a very famous publisher, and my mother was a fiction writer. So while I was always fascinated by culture, and writing in particular, growing up in the 70’s like I did, one’s options were always limited.

So I made more than a few wrong decisions, studied the wrong subjects, and ended up with the career that I am in now (Dr. Basu is a University Reader in Management at Saïd Business School, Oxford). However, being a ‘Sunday writer’, or writing as purely a hobby, was never an option for me.

So when I did start writing ‘The Opium Clerk’ back in 1998, I wanted to devote full attention to my writing, and that is what I did.

IndiaREADS: You are a full-time writer now, having written 5 books in 10 years. How do you balance being a writer with your career as an academic?

KB: I’ve been writing for 10 years, and am a full-time writer now. But having been an academic for 25 years, I know how to work the academic part around my writing – rather than the other way round. So I’ve never really had to take time off my work for my writing.

For instance, let’s say Wednesday morning I have a class at 11am. So I’ll write from 9 – 10:30am, go out and teach my class at 11, come back, get back to my desk and start writing again.

INDIAreads: How easy or difficult is it for you to flip the literary switch on/off at will?

KB: Well fortunately up until now that has not been a problem largely because I don’t resent my working life. I’ll make it that much harder for myself if I resent it. Look, we all need day jobs – I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that 95 per cent of writers in the English language today have a day job. I could have been a postman, a journalist; I just happen to be an academic. Which is no bad thing either. So I go out, teach my class and do my job, get back home and back to my writing again.

INDIAreads: What in your opinion makes for ‘a good story’?

KB: (smiles)  Ah. It’s what the author makes of it. Having been raised on classics, for me a good story or the scope of a good novel is – intricately woven tales of human relationships in the backdrop of great social turmoil. Think of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, or Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. What sets these works apart?

During times of normalcy, we’re all (more or less) normal. But the extreme in us comes out during extreme times; extremely good, or extremely bad. So if I’m able to think of a story with such elements in it, then that is the kind of story I like to tell.

INDIAreads: How do you begin your writing? Where does the genesis of your story usually lie?

KB: The most difficult question to answer would be ‘how’ or ‘why’ I thought of a particular story; it’s a confluence of various things. I can talk very cogently about ‘how I wrote it’, but the actual ‘birth’ of a story is inherently nebulous.

So I could be stuck in traffic; observing things around me, thinking – and suddenly a thought might pop into my head out of nowhere; it could be about an individual I see, or a setting I witness – it could be anything. Now if I ferment that thought some more, maybe I can create a good story.

INDIAreads: What has been the toughest criticism you’ve faced as an author?

KB: Every author is criticised; such is the nature of the game. But I feel I’ve been largely lucky in this regard.

(Upon being gently probed further) Maybe one, after ‘The Japanese Wife’ came out. But that wasn’t really a review of the book; it was more of a ‘character assassination of Kunal Basu’, so to speak. ‘He’s a management prof, what business does he have writing fiction – he should go back to management’ – the like.

But one immediately sees something like that as being driven by ‘extra-literary’ considerations, and is consequently not affected by it.

Having said that a large literary novel, after I’ve written it does not belong to me anymore; it belongs to the readers. Different people choose to see different aspects of it. And it’s not mathematics – I can’t argue with how people choose to interpret my work.

INDIAreads: What would you advise aspiring writers?

KB: To read and write a lot, and to always believe in themselves. I dare say, a little bit of arrogance is not a bad thing.  Look. If you were to just look at my CV, would you say this guy writes or would end up writing fiction?

Write if you’re really passionate about writing; don’t write if it’s a ‘side thing’. So if you find yourself saying,” I have an exciting job, a beautiful partner etc., and by the way I also want to write a bit”, don’t pursue it. Usually, those experiences are not happy writing experiences. Write when you’re ready; when writing seems to be the reason you’re alive.

I wake up in the morning, and I literally have withdrawal symptoms if I haven’t written for a couple of days. So, write when you can’t live without it.

INDIAreads: Truman Capote was a self-declared “completely horizontal author” and said he had to write lying down, while Hemingway used to write standing up – a pencil in one hand and a drink in the other. Edgar Allen Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulder, while T.S. Eliot preferred writing when he had a head cold.

Tell us a little bit about your writing ‘quirks’, if any.

KB: I’m a compulsive editor; 3 full drafts at least, edit after edit after edit.

My wife has to drag me away from my desk so I may go out for a walk or some exercise, for I am forever at my desk.

INDIAreads: When may your readers expect a work of non-fiction by Kunal Basu?

KB: I write non-fiction all the time. Strictly speaking, all of my academic publishing has been non-fiction. Additionally, I’ve written the text for an exceptionally different collection of 8,000 beautiful photographs by Kushal Ray called ‘Intimacies’ (releasing on 15^th February 2012), and almost wrote it fictionally. But in principle it’s neither a short story nor a novel; one could classify it as non-fiction.

(Pauses and thinks) However, if I were ever to move to non-fiction per se, I would probably write my memoirs. But hopefully that won’t happen in the next 10 years; I’ve got stories lined up in a queue in my head, each jumping and yelling ‘Me Next!’

INDIAreads: Any particular reason why you choose to mainly write historical fiction?

KB: History was my favourite subject in school. So deep inside me there has always been a strange love for other worlds, other places, and other times.

Also, I’m a Bengali and most of my early writings through school and college, from poetry to short stories, have been in Bangla. And Bengal has always had this great tradition of historical fiction – Bankim Chandra, Romesh Chunder Dutt, and others. So I believe that has seeped into me as I was growing up. Incidentally, I do also want to write a Bangla novel at some point.

But I do not see myself purely as a practitioner of historical fiction – my next novel is set in the here and now, right here in India.

INDIAreads: How much of a part does research play in your writing?

KB: For a historical novel, a significant amount of research always needs to be done. But the trick for me is not to over-research, for an over-researched piece of work will cease to sound and read like fiction.

I am driven only by my story. So I will only research an aspect of my story if I feel it will add to it as a whole. But even so, researching and writing a historical novel easily takes me a couple of years.

INDIAreads: Do you keep shuttling back and forth between Oxford and India?

KB: Quite a bit, and largely for reasons of my writing. I do all my writing at home in Oxford, and I keep visiting India periodically to sort of, do what I have to do to fertilize my imagination.

INDIAreads: What else interests you, apart from writing?

KB: Nothing about me is casual; for me it has to be ‘full on’, or I won’t do it.

I was a painter as a child, I’ve even acted in two films – but a sustained interest in my life would have to be traditional crafts. I really think that this is a part of human heritage that is increasingly getting lost. For instance, most people don’t realize that the terracotta Bankura Horse (a regular feature in most Bengali living rooms, and the official emblem of All India Handicrafts) is not even being made anymore.

So I’ve travelled around the world – Africa, South-east Asia, Latin America, visited villages and spoken to artisans, weavers, craftsmen of all types, photographed them and written about them. In the process, I’ve acquired quite a few pieces that currently occupy pride of place in my study.

INDIAreads: So may we expect to see you try your hand at sculpture sometime..?

KB: Writing is the path I’ve reached after most meanderings in my career, and it continues to be an abiding passion in my life. But (and smiles) never say never, is what I’ve come to understand about life.

There are Lit Fests and there are Lit Fests. This one, though, is not your average overdose of book readings and (equally lackluster) panel discussions. The authors will not brood and the audience will not snooze.

For one, it’s a free festival.

So you see..? It is a chance for bottom feeders (like you) to approach Salman Rushdie, sip coffee with Michael Ondaatje, rub shoulders with Amish Tripathi, or admire Fatima Bhutto in toto for her, er, literary excellence.

Choosing what events to attend may be the only stress of the day for your cheap derriere. You’ll pay nothing to get in; then mull difficult session choices over a free lunch.

The atmosphere will be informal, interdisciplinary, and infectious. Actors, directors, fashion designers, economists, travellers, politicians, scientists, students, bloggers and all manner of urban hipsters will congregate in the gardens of an old and intimate Rajasthani palace to spend 5 days “in conversation”.

At night, the wine will flow. Expect the stage to come alive with the Dionysian revelry that typically follows a literary salon.

But there’s a catch.

Thanks to a rise in the number of programmes (and an ever increasing attendance) over the years, the venue is straining to breaking point and the nature of the event is changing. Last year, J.M. Coetzee had to clamber over hundreds of people squeezed next to speakers, crouched next to seats, or sitting on folded newspapers on the churned-up grass.

To reach the stage.

Those who have experienced the intimacy of earlier editions of the JLF lament that it is now impossible to have conversations with their favourite writers. The authors, too, may bemoan the festival’s increasingly unwieldy size.

Junot Diaz, a witty and thoughtful commentator on the lot of migrants in America, used one session to blame capitalism for encouraging writers to pursue their work not because they have something important to say, but for the sake of getting approval from the largest possible audience. “We know that we need less applause and more conversation,” he told a packed room.

Promptly—inevitably—the audience clapped.

One can certainly nitpick, and criticism has always been a blood sport in India. My money, though, is still on Dalrymple (co-Director of the event) to put up a great show. The self-confessed “Indophile” has always had an acute understanding of the way things work (or don’t work) in India (a fact amply demonstrated in his books). Vikram Seth may well buy George Herbert’s house and own an umbrella but he won’t ever really be ‘British’; while one may safely proclaim Dalrymple is more ‘Indian’ now than when he first came here (as a backpacker in 1989), and less of an anglophile than a lot of us.

Ergo: Mister William aage badho, hum tumhaare saath hain.

1. Catherine Clement, French intellectual and author of ‘Edwina and Nehru: A Novel’ and Nayantara Sahgal, Jawaharlal Nehru’s niece discussed the roaring affair between Jinnah and Sarojini Naidu. “It is well known in France. Why is it not spoken of in India?” asked Clement. Came the reply, “Because our national leaders are not allowed to have sex organs.” Sahgal and Clement also agreed that Sahgal’s ‘maamu’ was a beautiful man while Edwina was ‘nice’.

2. The toothsome Bangladeshi author Shazia Omar had to be shepherded through crowds of autograph-seeking men. Subsequent to getting her autograph on brand new notebooks came the question, “What is your name, madam?”

3. Hanif Kureishi, irritable about being on a panel called ‘Migrant Words’, snapped, “I have moved a few kilometres within London. That’s the extent of my migration.”

4. At one Litfest venue (the Mughal Tent), speaker Amitava Kumar stopped to salute William Dalrymple, who’d just entered. He went on: “I hear Dalrymple is soon taking over the world. This is how the East India Company began; one Mughal tent at a time.”

5. Hearing a ‘whoosh-whoosh’ sound, Wole Soyinka paused mid-reading to peer down his chin at the mike: “Is my beard doing something?”

Earlier, Soyinka had the pleasure of being introduced by Urvashi Butalia as ‘the greatest thing since sliced bread’.

6. Sidin Vadukut (then first-time author of comic novel Dork), on the Jaipur Litfest experience: “It’s like a college fest, except you don’t go home — you just grow older.”

7. During a session titled ‘Bin Laden after Bush’, Javed Akhtar jumped out of the audience to accuse Steve Coll of being part of an American conspiracy to pretend Bin Laden was still alive. This, in January 2010.

At the 2009 Lit Fest;

1. Authors Ira Pande and Namita Gokhale, cousins, began a session by chattering jovially amongst themselves, completely oblivious to the audience, and apologising for the same later: “Sorry about this, when Namita and I get together we turn into a Johar Mahmood show and forget all about the audience.”

2. Bruce Palling, a journalist for over 40 years and well-known travel writer, recalls seeing Colin Thubron being addressed scornfully by a visa officer at the Indian High Commission in London.

Thubron, whose novels and travel books have stopped just short of the Man Booker Prize but earned him the sobriquet of “gentleman traveller”, was apparently trying to assert himself as a delegate for the Jaipur festival but the documents he was presenting, rather than earning him a visa, seemed only fit to draw derision. Bruce, with all his experience of India pulled him gently aside and counselled in a whisper, “Colin. Just go back home and come again tomorrow with an application for a tourist visa.”

3. Amitabh Bachhan, attending the festival to release ‘Bachchanalia’ (a book in his honour) was seen brandishing his trademark native wit. When a crowd gathered on an overhanging terrace came too close to the edge and an announcer requested them to move back, Amitabh translated, “Peeche hat jao nahin toh aap meri godh mein giroge!” (Please get back, lest you fall in my lap)

4. When a young school girl asked Nandan Nilekani, what prompted him to write a book, the Infosys co-founder replied, “I wanted an invitation to the Jaipur Literature Festival.”

5. Vikram Seth revealed that he had to buy a copy of his own book to read in one of the sessions, as he’d arrived at the festival without any copies.

6. Final Night. Writers’ Ball at the Jaipur City Palace. Chetan Bhagat was seen asking Vikram Seth for an autograph.

As India’s young rock-star novelist tried to convince the cranky genius (who sat there fretting with a wrinkled brow) to write something meaningful on a scrap of paper for his sister (or someone), a journalist (standing with Seth) noted that he might consider adapting the kind of line Asimov is reputed to have taken in such situations: “I’ll never forget our marvellous night on the beach.”

Seth guffawed, and Bhagat got his autograph.