Notes on 'The Assasin's Song'

The 'Assassin’s Song' is the story of Karsan Dargawalla, heir to the famous shrine of the medieval sufi mystic Nur Fazal at Haripir in Gujarat. Karsan’s family are custodians of the shrine in a single unbroken line and Karsan is the designated gaadi-varas after his father. Even though he has been primed to take on the mantle of responsibility from a young age, Karsan is no different from any adolescent boy. He loves cricket and is heartbroken when his father refuses to send him for cricket coaching, lusts after and his miserable at the dirty thoughts that assault him every time he sees the young widow Shilpa, and is curious to know everything about the world outside the gates of the shrine. His enthusiasm and curiosity about the larger world outside Haripir and impatience with the blind faith evinced by the villagers in his father – the saheb – are the cornerstone of his friendship with Raja Singh, the sikh truck driver who returns from his journeys with armloads of magazines and newspapers which the young boy devours. Even as early as a young boy who has never been exposed to the outside world, Karsan is aware of forces, impulses and circumstances before whom the neutral spirituality of Pir Baba’s shrine must bow. That eventually this is proved right is not important; it’s merely an ominous sign of the complications that involve life.

Despite his father’s authority in Haripir, young Karsan witnesses his father compromise and not really stand up and tackle the pro-hindutva bullshit doled out by local leaders like Pradhan Shastri - the Babu Bajrangi- like folks who we are all too familiar with thanks to the newspapers. He realizes that the world is not a neutral place and riots and killings in the name of the Almighty, and an eternal struggle to establish the supremacy of one’s god over the other’s, one’s people over the other’s, seems to be the only fate we are doomed to. When charges of homosexuality are levied against his favourite teacher Mr Arnold this divide between good and bad, black and white, traditional and new, the unusual and the depraved, is further blurred. He likes Mr Arnold: the latter is the only person who has ever treated the boys like confidantes, who has cracked jokes about masturbation and wet dreams and trained them in sports, but the idea of homosexuality is too alien for Karsan to comprehend and accept and he is only left with a deep sense of confusion. It is only as we grow that we gradually reconcile ourselves to the knowledge that it is ok to disagree with those we love, and that the world is made up of much more than stark polarities.

The novel can be clearly divided into 3 sections – one dealing with Karsan’s childhood in & eventual return to Haripir, the other with his stay in the U.S., and the third with the life of the original saint Nur Fazal. The Nur Fazal part is told in part magic realism, part mythological narrative and isn’t wholly relevant to Karsan’s story except to provide us with a reference point later in Karsan’s story. In the 13th century, a wandering sufi named Nur Fazal came to the court of the hindu king Vishal Dev and so charmed the king and his people that he was given a place in court amongst the other learned scholars. He married the king’s daughter Rupali and settled in Haripir where his mausoleum stands as the shrine that Karsan’s family looks after.

Vassanji takes pains to explain that Nur Fazal or Pir Baba as he was fondly known as, though originally a muslim from Persia, practiced a branch of religion where “There is but one Truth, one Universal Soul, of which we are all manifestations and whose mystery can be approached in diverse ways.” His modern day followers are both hindus and muslims for Pir Baba advocated a path that was neither of Allah nor of Ram, but included both. The religious and cultural harmony, or netherworld that the inhabitants of the shrine follow, is quite similar to the world Vassanji himself, the Kenya-born Indian who finally migrated to Canada, must have found familiar. It is neither here nor there and straddles multiples roles, desires and expectations. Is it any wonder then that there is eventual crash and devastating collision in the face of such dichotomy?

One of the intriguing things about the novel seems to be that we are never sure of the infallibility of one path versus the other, of one state over another. Is an indecisive and tormented Karsan a happier person than the one who later severs all ties with his family, turns his back on his duty and embraces the suburban life of American freedom and intellectual fulfillment? We don’t know as there aren’t any easy answers. Karsan does everything he can to break away from his father’s legacy and yet happiness as he finally learns, remains an elusive concept that is as much to be found in surrendering one’s independence as in its fierce pursuit.
Despite his father’s wishes he goes to study at Harvard, refuses to return when his father send him a summons regarding his mother’s illness, marries the half Indian Marge, changes his name to Krishna Fazal, becomes a teacher in British Columbia and fathers his son Julian. Even in America, his only wish is to be considered and accepted for what he really is and not as the ‘god-designate from some Indian village’. He beseeches Marge, “I am not a complicated person. I am ordinary. Give me a chance to be ordinary. Please be my friend.”

His ‘I was determined to be happy’ is as much the grin determination of a man doomed as an ominous foreshadow of the tragedy that eventually mars his life. Probably my only problem with the novel stems from this part where it seems Vassanji strives too obviously to link Karsan’s defection with an omnipresent feeling of guilt which somehow conveniently ties in with his son’s death and his separation from Marge and his eventual return to Haripir. It is all just a tad too convenient. It would have been interesting to see Karsan’s return as being motivated more out of a gradual acceptance of his heritage and legacy than as a direct result of his family’s destruction.

On his return he realizes that the random events that devastated his life in America haven’t left Haripir untouched - the shrine has been devastated by the Godhra rioters, his father the saheb killed and his brother Mansoor now a fugitive on the run from the police on suspicions of harbouring terrorist links.
Vassanji’s novel is beautiful in the ways it tackles the question of guilt and redemption – never as absolutes that can help make life more fulfilling in the aftermath of betrayal. In fact, we do not know that the Karsan we see at the novel’s close, who finally remembers the secret ‘bol’ which is handed down to every gaadi varas by his father, is any happier than he was as a boy or as a family man in British Columbia. Perhaps, there is really no hope for redemption in a world that embraces strict polarities and where the joy of embracing the new, must always be tarnished by the guilt of betraying the old.

Ishqiya - some thoughts

In ‘Ishqiya’ arshad warsi’s babban tells naseerudin shah’s khalujan, “sheikh apna dekh”. Apparently this is the wisdom the uncle has imparted to his nephew in their years together traversing the road; this above all sums up with amazing brevity the underlying philosophy that governs the hearts and actions of the amazing melee of characters you’ll come across in abhishek chaubey’s film. Of course, as the film progresses what becomes truly captivating is the way the primary characters will denounce this and act in ways that’s a complete refutation of this simple and fundamental way of life. When the time and opportunity for revenge or plain old haramigiri , if u like, presents itself, neither of the 3 protagonists seem capable of biting the gauntlet. Now, u may well ask, ‘so what’? They are the protagonists & the film couldn’t very well have us come away with feelings of hatred or ambiguity towards them. The brilliant thing abt chaubey’s script is that whatever they do or do not do is always in keeping with our expectations. There is neither a downward spiral into the maudlin nor a stark moment of reformation that you can point towards.

In a sense, all 3 of them are misfits – Khalujan and Babban are clearly the innocents aboard in this madcap adventure canvassing the badlands of eastern UP, vidya balan as Krishna, is the lonely and mysterious widow of vidhyadhar verma who ran an infamous abduction enterprise. Actually, I want to dwell on the balan character. Keats’ ‘a thing of beauty is a joy forever’ was never more true than of the opening shot of the film. We are greeted by the nasal & rustic melody of rekha bharadwaj crooning “ab toh mujhe intezar nahi” amidst complete darkness. Gradually, a light dawns and the camera reveals balan lying in red saree and sindoor, resplendent in all her feminine glory. There is nothing slight about her physicality – from the violent flare of her hips to the soft cushion of her back – she is all woman, completely at ease with her voluptuous sexuality because it is after all just one of the facets of a complex love she offers to her husband vidhyadhar verma. Even the wildest vidya balan fan will not sing odes to her beauty or sensuality & yet is to her credit that she epitomizes every man’s ultimate fantasy – the woman as Mary Magdalene – both chaste and carnal, Eve the tease and Eve the innocent, as Khalujan says, he doesn’t know if she’s “pari ya randi”. I have always loved balan’s voice and delivery and this is the film that seems to do maximum justice to both.

What is amazing about her performance is that while you’re sure to sense the menace as she opens the door to provide sanctuary to these 2 bumbling idiots, she doesn’t go overboard in her black widow spider routine. Her silence and air of mystery are as much made up of cunning as dignity. If she wishes to titillate the uncle and nephew duo, it is uncharacteristically well played off. We can’t help but watch fascinated as she employs the dignified, slightly poignant, lonely widow role with the romantic Khalujan and applies tincture iodine on his injury, and then bares her teeth of steel as she cuts Babban’s finger and then promptly starts sucking on the blood. It’s been a long time since I have seen such potent sexuality unleashed onscreen. Bharadwaj Rangan in his review says that he wished the Krishna character had more menace, could evoke more chill in us. Here’s the reason I don’t think it’d have worked. She is unlike any other temptress you have previously witnessed and certainly not like the femme fatales in James Hadley Chase novels. There is a lofty purpose to her cunning, something that elevates her above the money grubbing vamps of most dime novels. It is only after the denouement that one understands her motives for behaving as she does. Also, it is interesting that chaubey leaves some ambiguity regarding her motives for allowing Babban to sleep with her. Is it just manipulative or is there a hint of loneliness and hunger too? Is she sheer will and nothing more or are there vestiges of a woman still burning at her core?

Another thing that catches your breath about Ishqiya is the set décor and milieu that the director evokes. Everything from the brass water jug to the money plant in the bottle are in perfect harmony. It is astonishing to realize that the part of India depicted in the film is as much a part of the same country as the one where companies spend millions on brand endorsements and 15-yr old school kids sit and chit chat in CCDs. There is another kid in this film too (his age is 'paanch kam bees' we are told), one wise beyond his years and with a smile as disarming as any you’re likely to come across. Adept in the ways of the crooked world he inhabits and a young recruit in the caste wars between the thakur’s and the yadav’s, even this kid with the tamancha has a code of honour he abides by which is instrumental in shaping the film’s ending.

The peripheral characters are all engrossing and deliciously eccentric in their own way – starting from the 2 love 'cuckoos' to the silent old woman with the burning torch in hand. Finally, what never ceases to amaze me is stalwarts like naseerudin shah. i'd gone to watch the film fully expecting to like arshad warsi's acting more than naseerudin shah's. after all how much more can u expect from the guy who gave us janey bhi do yaron, nishant, bazaar, umrao jaan and mandi. But the magic works yet again. Watch him as 'dil ye baccha hai ji'plays in the background and you will not be able to prevent a tear from falling, nor stop the silly grin from spreading all across your face for his vulnerability and joy are all our own. Arshad Warsi as Babban is the kind of lout who will flash a quick wink or try a quick squeeze in crowded places. But he's harmless and doesnt have the ruthlessness that'd make him an adequate match for the baddies that we meet later. Sexy, charming, devious and hilarious, he's appealing in a strange earthy way.

I think Ishqiya works largely as a result of these brilliant characterizations. Anyone doing anything extra and the whole enterprise would sink.

Sweet Child O' Mine

for S.

there are words that can't be translated adequately into other languages. the bengali 'obhimaan' is one such. no matter how hard i try, nothing in the english vocabulary comes close to capturing the mix of hurt, righteous outrage and disdain that is contained in that word. and much more.

i watched 'the wrestler' recently. an average flick, quite bollywoodish in places, but as everyone agrees, it rides strong on the back of mickey rourke's effortless performance as randy the 'ram', a jaded, past-his-prime ex-boxer who possesses the smarts of a country bumpkin.

theres a scene towards the end of the film, pretty much the last scene, where randy walks into the boxing arena amidst the usual screaming, applause and histrionics that mark WWF boxing. he has just turned his back on a chance to live again, to connect and matter to another, to do something apart from box. the exact things he'd been longing for throughout the film. there is neither anger, nor bitterness in him. just an overwhelming 'obhimaan' that there is no place for him outside the boxing arena. as 'sweet child o' mine' breaks out in the background, you feel randy's loneliness more acutely for u detect the seeds of ur own.

On middle age versus youth

Explaining he phenomenon of middle age that replaces the excitement of youth, judith warner writes, “There are trade-offs: intensity versus contentment, exaltation versus peace. And perhaps the best exchange of all: you trade in an idea of yourself for a reality that, if nothing else, can make you laugh.” Don’t know whether I should find solace in this or give in to the feeling of utter poignancy it evokes. Desolate seems a good word. Perhaps the fundamental difference is the gradual dawning and acceptance that you are neither the centre of the world, nor are things going to get much better. Life is, it will.

Notes On Goodbye Solo

'goodbye solo' is a much darker and disturbing film than its predecessors. i don't know that i can say i enjoyed it. rather, like 'million dollar baby' it has stayed with me well over the night and the days preceding my watching it. here, bahrani abandons NY & takes us to winston-salem, NC - his hometown. without preamble the film throws us in the midst of a dialogue between senegalese taxi driver solo and his white passenger william. in solo u can detect the clean lines, expressive eyes and statuesque physique of his african ancestors who probably ploughed the field in summer and sang communal songs of joy during harvest season. there is a lyricism to the african speech that is unmatched by any other. it is as if god intended these folks to sing and rap their way through life rather than lecture or speak. solo's favourite greeting 'yo dawg' with which he embraces everybody reveals a boisterousness, a joie de vivre, simplicity and a hard-to-defeat optimism that sometimes borders on grating. his irreprissible brand of bonhomie would be fine if you were in town for a nite out but completely out of place if, say, u were mourning the passing away of a dear one or had recently lost your job.

the blurb on the film's jacket says how, when william hires solo to drive him to a spot called blowing rock from where he does not plan to return, a strange relationship develops between the 2 men & that's what the film examines. solo quickly understands that william is contemplating suicide and in the days that follow, he tries his best to understand william's reasons for thus ending his life and to persuade him to change his mind. what is wonderful and something our indian directors must learn is that there are 2 areas that bahrani leaves untouched - willaim's personal history which surely holds the key to his current decision and solo's strange fixation with the white bloke who abuses him, insults him, and once, during a heated encounter even gives him a black eye. what is it that drives us and men like solo to care for another human being so deeply that social standards of privacy, esteem, space and respect cease to have any meaning? does solo's concern for william stem simply from his early observation that in his native senegal the old were cared for by the young, if required fed & carried, that families lived together and didn't abandon each other like in the white man's world? i don't think so. sure, solo feels obligated to william for some of that, but a larger part of his actions are motivated by some unnamed, inexplicable impulse that is both our cross as well as our blessing to carry. it is this impulse which makes us truly human. as simple as that.

however, it is to bahrani's credit that none of the unexplained bits jarr or play false. we accept solo's near obsessive concern for william as easily as we accept that something must have happened that has led william to conclude that he'd be better off dead. what i found a lot more difficult to accept, and bahrani keeps the suspense alive till the end, that here is a man who does everything in his power to change william's mind and does not succeed; that a human will is a strange unbendable thing - when set on a course, little anyone else does, is enough to dissuade it from following that course. such futility, such waste as is exhibited here, is hard to acknowledge and accept.

i don't know if this was my imagination but i think that part of the reason for solo's attachment towards william can be explained with a simple parental reference. in a scene towards the end, when solo sits reading the latter's diary and finds that he & alex have been mentioned, that he did have some worth or impact on william's life, there is a strange expression that lights his face. the closest i can come is an indian word 'abhimaan' or is it a small twinge of gratification that he mattered, that he counted. i can't really put my finger on it, but it is a haunting scene and the solo we meet in the last few scenes is completely different from the buoyant young man we had witnessed earlier. is it that he has become aware of his own limitations and in turn his mortality? perhaps the hard to dent optimism has given way to a more grounded awareness that sometimes, despite our best efforts, there are exams in life that one is not meant to 'ace'. and nothing about this realisation is defeatist in nature and therein lies bahrani's triumph. just like ali in 'chop shop' knows there are dreams that he must chase even if he never realises them, solo gradually comes to a wiser perception that some of our triumphs lie in our efforts, not the results they yield. gita-esque definitely but that's about all this film leaves u with.

A Change Too Late: the Challenge Hillary Clinton & We All Face

During Hillary Clintons much publicized trip to Congo, she was asked by a student in Kinshasa what her husband thought about congo’s trade deal with china. The nurse ratched-like always-cool-under-pressure ice queen reacted most unusually. She snapped at the hapless guy, “'You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am.” With this the nation’s media went beserk and blogs, podcasts, columnists, etc have laughed and jeered so much that I suspect even George carlin’s shows never have generated as much entertainment as ol’ hilly did. The American media has always hated her; it was as if only by denigrating her credentials, could one show solidarity towards obama. Fox TV anchors are having a field day with most of them going overboard using & this as an opportunity to dissect feminism, demanding apologies, perceiving the seeds of her crumbling marriage and reading signs of early dementia. At least one of them must be true. After all Hillary rodham, the fullbright scholar from Wellesley, the first woman to propose a radical healthcare plan and a highly successful NY senator, couldn’t be all perfect, could she?

I have observed that whenever a woman asserts her intelligence or independence to the world, it has to be couched in terms of an apology. The sense of wrong, pretended or real, is as much for those virtues that came to her instead of the spouse or brother, as the burden of lifelong success that such virtues usually promise.

Currently, as secretary of state, Hillary is focusing on rehabilitating the condition of women in Africa who have been raped, infected with HIV and left to die in the unending civil wars that plague the continent. She has to fight ignorance, fear, poverty, taboo, militancy before she can make any difference. But before that she has to fight her personal battles of womanhood – that insidious, murky, crippling institution of male chauvinism that survives by virtue of trivializing its women. Pls note, this is not an affront to men; just a sad legacy that many of us still content with frequently.

In order to truly emerge as secretary of state in her own right & not the wife of the ex-prez, she must lash out as she did at the African student for sometimes u have to speak louder for the hard of hearing. Perhaps, what makes this whole issue so ignoble is the idea of pitching a perfectly matched gifted couple against each other. A Rhodes scholar and one of the finest minds on international affairs, bill Clinton is more than a match for ol’ hilly. But no, it has to be either her or him. Media pundits now intuit that she snapped because of the publicity that bill garnered by negotiating the release of the two American journos from north korea.

If such is the dogma the modern woman has to fight, what role do we really seek for ourselves? One of insulation and segregation or the more challenging role of integrating our positions within the society that polarizes us? The hubby thinks sexual harassment is the worse a woman can face in the workplace. I disagree. Fighting the bastion of male domination & trivialization of female roles is a far greater menace. It is subtler, more powerful, infinitely more demoralizing and definitely far more widespread.

Women’s empowerment won’t be delivered at the end of a gun or through economic sanctions or even overt criticism, unless it can supplant accepted cultural practices with an independent order that recognizes merit over gender and virtue over beauty and incentivizes powerful women instead of laughing away their efforts. Are we really getting there or merely comforting our daughters with a dream?

Meaning of Life

Was reading pico iyer’s wonderful piece in the NYT and hence this blog. This is the part that moved me the most, “The first words the Dalai Lama said when he came into exile, I learned not long ago, were “Now we are free.” He had just lost his homeland, his seeming destiny, contact with the people he had been chosen to rule; he had been forced to undergo a harrowing flight for 14 days across the highest mountains in the world. But his first instinct — the result of training and teaching, no doubt, as much as of temperament — was to look at what he could do better. Now.”

I read Dale Carnegie rather late in life. Yeah, some 4.5 yrs ago to be precise. I was 29 & pregnant in my third trimester & my baby had stopped moving. Doc Maity, the old curmudgeon who ultimately delivered D, told me curtly, ‘Ask god to give u the strength to bear things which u cannot change; ask him to give u the power to change things which u can.’ Saying this he thrust a dog-eared copy of carnegie’s definitive ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living’ into my tear-stained face. I couldn’t quite hate him for he’s a surrogate pa for me, but curse his blithe spirit, I sure did.

Over the next few years I have read, pored over & saved countless articles/blogs which essentially talk about the same thing. Whether it’s the fable of the glass being half empty, the serenity prayer, or inspiring tales of people who have turned their lives around despite upheavals, nothing touches me more than these anecdotes of unknown people who exhibit such outstanding instances of courage. We talk of wonders & the paucity of them in the modern world. Isn’t the existence of such people a wonder? Isn’t the ability to feel awe & genuine respect in the face of relentless cynicism, a wonder?

Finally, why are we really here on this earth? A great fate & immortal fame is guaranteed to only the select few. But when u get down to brass tacks it is indeed thoughts of future generations of mankind that must keep folks like u & me going. How else can I explain your impulse to propel the rain-water harvesting initiative in your building? How else can I explain your selflessness in agreeing to tutor those smelly slum kids twice a week? Why is someone like bill gates even championing the cause of Functional Foods to combat global malnutrition? It is about posterity. Sabyasachi Chakravorty who plays the role of a terrorist leader in mani ratnam’s ‘dil se’ tells fresh recruit manisha koirala, “It’s not imp that we are born in a perfect world; what is important is that we leave behind a better dawn for the children who follow when we die.’ How simple, yet how profound.
Is this all getting too mushy? Ok, let’s touch upon some rudimentary economics. All of what I’ve said above is not merely some grand moral singsong. It is also grounded in fundamental economic principles. Would you begin to build an empire that u know couldn’t anticipate the business needs of tomorrow’s consumers? If social media integration stopped with orkut, would we all be poring over twitter feeds from gul panag and Nicholas kristof? Definitely not.

While the capitalist desire for profit making is fundamentally self-absorbing, I do believe once the immediate need for bottom lines & shareholder profits is fulfilled, companies drive innovation not merely to improve P/L accounts but also to leave something behind for posterity. America’s greatest museums, university scholarships & libraries, science & literary awards are funded by private philanthropists, not government sponsored. Our home grown Tata’s are another case in point. i once had the good fortune to visit a Piramal plant in rural Himachal Pradesh that was fully run by women! Yes, a machine component plant that was 100% manned by women workers and this was a deliberate decision taken by the senior management aimed at uplifting & empowering the women in that region. Those words from ‘dil se’ words make sense now?