Pages of Goodness

Corduroy Mansions volume two by Professor Alexander McCall Smith concluded earlier than expected at chapter 78, with a characteristic verse.

The story of each of the protagonists of Corduroy Mansions is coming, one after the other, to a natural, cheering conclusion with a promise of good things to come. Makes one want to echo Tiny Tim - "God Bless Us, Every One!" Including the noble Freddie de la Hay, the dog who came in from the cold and the hero of this volume.

"No man is so poor that he can have no home,
No man so lonely that there is none at all
To love him, to listen to his heart,
To hold him, cherish him, and make him whole."
William's verse at the end sums up the spirit of this beautiful book and reminds of 'The Boast of Quietness' by Jorge Louis Borges who said that "My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty". The sense of belonging to a place, the essence of being human.

Caroline's new attachment had been foreshadowed in Book one when she closed her eyes and saw a complete stranger. Will it last or fizzle out like her attraction to Tim Something? I was delighted to see Berthea at Corduroy Mansions, in William's party. Is she the one William had been seeking since chapter one of volume one? Wonder when her biography of Oedipus would be released. Will Jenny return? Is there a real Yeti? Will Basil find happiness with Marcia? I was very pleased for Barbara, who seems to be all set for an idyllic life with Hugh.

I am looking forward to Book three.

I enjoyed reading the comments by other readers against each chapter of Corduroy Mansions, it was good being part of a community of readers from around the world sharing thoughts and feelings on the characters who came alive daily in the electronic pages of the Telegraph.

The Scotland Street tales continue to stretch on pleasurably. May they go on forever, the World needs many more of such books. Like one of the readers had mentioned in the forum, I hope the good Professor writes forever.

Goodbye my friend

Last week, J left the company but not our circle of friends. Teammates of my previous project remain close. We are more like a group of siblings who are like friends rather than the other way around.

J was synonymous with many things - honesty, goodness and sincerity that shone forth from his earnest face, a bright smile and a soft-spoken demeanour that conceals a boundless capacity for gruelling hard work when the project calls for it. Neither loud or funny like the others, he was always ready to join in the silly conversations and would sportingly take jokes at his expense, especially sly and not-so-subtle jokes on his fondness for drink. Not that we ever saw him drunk, he was the perfect gentleman.

A was entertaining as usual with jokes that either fell flat or boomeranged on him. A remains the same after all these years, hiding his face childishly in embarrasment when his jokes (anecdotes, actually, of his bride-seeing adventures) rebounded on him.

It has been so long since we partied as a team, so much that all of us forgot to ask J to sing his signature party song "O my dear green parrot". (A tradition that grew out of a hushed team conversation on a certain green bird that flew by as we sipped our tea in the balcony), that he would always promptly render in gentle tones, completely out of key.

Good luck, J. We'll miss you at the old parties. Hope your life is replete with great work, good friends, high spirits and lovely green parrots. Bless you.

Books and Covers and Random Thoughts

For quite a few years now, I have sought to buy the International edition of 'The Age of Kali' by William Dalrymple. It is an evocative travelogue that I enjoyed very much and wanted for my library, but as the cover of the Indian edition was not very tasteful, I refrained from buying it several times. Finally got a copy along with Nine Lives.This is perhaps the only time I have been prejudiced about a book's cover. I simply cannot understand the logic of a cover affecting a book. Must be part of the illogicality of being human.

Have been trying to cheer myself up frequenting the tiny bookstore in Technomall, that is so empty at lunchtime that browsing through the few shelves, you feel at one with the books. Print has sustained me since I can remember, and it will, yet again. All hail to muse and prose and healing verse, that keeps one going.

Some new acquisitions that remain unread, as I have resumed working late nights and weekends:

The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman
Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His fantastical mathematical logical life by Robin Wilson
Looked too good to resist. I remember getting weird glances from a friend when she saw 'Alice in Wonderland' in my bag, on a long bus journey. It didnt seem worth explaining that I was reading the delightful math verses at the back, and not the book itself. In any case, Alice is a sharp satire, a work of genius that merits re-reading at any age.
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami

I read an article by Alexander McCall Smith yesteday where he says that unethical people like Oedipus Snark of Corduroy Mansions often get away with it in real life, but for once I disagree with the good professor's view. Karma gets everyone in the end.

I know more about this software application than anyone else in the extended 50 or so member team, and find myself sidelined while a foolish upstart tries unsuccessfully to play my role as the clients test the screens I designed and the algorithm I wrote using the business scenarios I created.

I can hardly take a step like Isabel Dalhousie who could afford to buy off the tiny philosophical paper when she was replaced. The only thing I can do is moving on and away. I desparately need new skies now. A new project, to start all over again. Had it not been my work that was snatched away, I would have been amused to see the bootlicker's actions and reactions on being given an opportunity that he is not competent enough to perform.

Sad to see one's hard work spoilt this way. Sadder to see the clients losing confidence as the fool babbles, shooting off his mouth, revealing his ignorance while bombastically trying to explain things that he does not know.

I wrote these lines a few years back, in another lifetime.
With its blended hi-fi overtones and branded grey, sober suits,
This remains a primitive world. Darwinian to the roots.
Where survival, depends more than work on hollering.
Scraping and scrapping, street urchins with starchy tones.
To get noticed, even on a negative note
Is to edge towards the bliss of leftovers, of meatier bones.
Complex hybrids mostly populate this world. Their primary traits
Buzz and backbites indicate species of flies, and mosquito kind.
Foxy, bossy, slimy, wormy types. Expressions change in a trice
From bored bovine to mean feline on the same morbid face
Of corporate chameleons who reveal their rodent souls in between the race
An animal planet minus ethics. Of course, exceptions prevail.
Why bother in any case? Let them scuffle, squirm or vie,
Vermin too are God's own creatures, there but for Whose Grace go I.

That was a lifetime, several projects ago. Now, after working so long in a place that runs on good values and perfect business ethics, one of the rare unethical practises that had to happen had to happen in my team, to my project. Darn Murphy's law. But there would be no more rants on this. I have now moved on.
The slow chants of Nam yo ho renge kyo fill the air as I type this. Chants reassuring that the greatest truth of the Universe, the law of cause and effect will prevail. As it has always done. Truth will triumph, eventually. One cannot ask for anything more than that.

Shinto

Came across this poem again today. There is an inexplicable feeling of peace in Shinto shrines, the Kamis of which seem to have several parallels with the millions of Gods and Goddesses dotting the landscapes of South India, especially Tamil Nadu. I loved the comparison between the eight million dieties and the million little miraculous moments that touch us and move on, sustaining us.

The first jasmine of November, the smell of a library, the colours of a map - who could have said it better than Borges who like the eight milion deities, touches readers' lives through poems like these. I hope he continues to read and write in bliss, in the paradise of the eternal library.

Shinto
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us--
touch us and move on.
Jorge Luis Borges

Another tip and some new books

Tip: How to lose 5 kilograms in 2 weeks:
Take a complex project with a really tough client. Struggle to understand the client's requirements that are more difficult to interpret than the obscure language in which these requirements are articulated. Forget everything except how the whole thing is going to work when it all goes live.
Work like a demon. Forget everything and everyone else except work for a year or so. Work so much that you fall sick from physical exhaustion even as your sharpened brain hungers for more work, and then work from home while you are on sick leave. When your family member falls sick, work from the hospital. Keep on working, even when your greatest love - the muse calls loud and clear, divert your creativity to the project and carry on.
Look at the perfect documents, the neat blueprints and swell with pride at your contribution to the team. Scroll through the algorithm, admiring its perfection, visualizing it running live as a system.

And then after a year and a day of the above, have all your work snatched away and given to someone else on a platter, an ignoramus who grins smugly at the thought of 'onsite assignments' as he ruins the work that you have nurtured and watched grow, like a garden. That is all there to it, for weight loss.

It works, it really works. I have lost over 5 kilograms in the past two weeks. Project Zen was so special to me, it hurts so to let it go. Last winter, I made a wish at the Benzaiten temple on a snowy Sunday evening that I would be back soon to seek the blessings of the Goddess before we started the testing. And now it would never be. You live and learn to let go.

Many things have vanished from my life over the past few weeks. My PC crashed abruptly, taking with it about six years worth of writing, photographs, music, memories and whatnots. Somehow what I regret most is the loss of my account spreadsheets, especially the ones maintained when I travel. The remarks against each expense, such as 'Birthday treat for D, had a lovely time - the perfect risotto and tiramisu and the most delicious gossip', or 'Boating Expenses at Nikko - S conveniently forgot to return my change of 200 Yen, darn' and so on, remarks that traced daily moments of life that had just a single focus - work. All of that has returned to the void. No wonder, that ancient Tamil poet sang 'Isanodayinum asai arumin' - Let go of attachments, even to the Lord Himself.

There is hope, and there are books, and there is chocolate in its many forms.

Books bought over the past few weeks:

The Comfort of Saturdays by Alexander McCall Smith Saving this to savour on a long journey.
La's orchestra saves the world by Alexander McCall Smith
Yet another wonderful book by the great author. A work of historical fiction set in the time of the Second World War, it was somewhat more melancholy in tone compared to the contemporary worlds of Isabel Dalhousie and Mma Ramotswe, yet it bears the spirit of McCall Smith's writing that brings out the moral courage and dignity of the human spirit.

Not only the Booker prize, the good Professor truly deserves the Nobel prizes for Literature and Peace, for these gentle books expounding morality, kindness and humanity, books that remind one that there is still hope for the world.

Executive Charisma: Six Steps to Mastering the Art of Leadership by Debra Benton Bought this at a sale. Another of those Business books that stand apart from the rest. Must get hold of How to think like a CEO by the same author.

Sun after dark. Flights into the Foreign by Pico Iyer
Yet another exquisite travelogue by Iyer exploring Oman, Bolivia, Tibet, Japan, and Cambodia. I am saving it again for a long journey, so that it can be savoured slowly.

Tiya A Parrot's Journey Home by Samarpan
A philosophical fable that I picked up impulsively at a book fair last week. Yet to get around to reading it.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time By Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
Several people had recommended this book to me and I remember reading glowing reviews in other book blogs.

The Big Moo & Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Looked interesting. Turn into a purple cow so that you stand out, even as you fit in. How? I really want to know.

The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead by Marcus Chown
Like most people, I have 'A Brief History of Time' safely locked in the living room bookcase, where it remains after several failed attempts to read it. This one looked more readable, raising all those important questions like Where did the universe come from? Where did we come from? What the hell are we doing here? Questions that are always fun to ask and argue about, even if there is no absolute answer.

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Loved this even more than Shalimar the Clown. Rushdie is an enchanter with words. My favourite Rushdie books still remain Midnight's Children and Haroun and the sea of stories. Wonder if the sequel to Haroun lives up to the first book.

The Red Carpet by Lavanya Sankaran
I remember Stephanie, my then client and good friend asking me about this book during the time it was released. I said that I hadnt read it, so I did not know. How I regretted having missed this gem of a book when I read it recently. Most of the stories were perfectly crafted, reflecting a city and its people in present times.

Given a choice, I always prefer to read a full length novel over a short story. I haven't read too many short story collections, except the Masters. I adored Saki as a child and still dip into his sharp, satirical writing, stories that get better with evey re-reading. Some of my fondest memories of a college trip are woven into the O Henry stories that I read on it. And of course, R K Narayan's Malgudi vignettes, and Ruskin Bond's tales from the hills, bracing like the invigorating mountain air. The biting, witty worlds of Muriel Spark (Portobello Road, Bang-Bang you're dead among others), the stark, dark tales of Graham Greene, the chilling stories of Roald Dahl. The psychological studies of Maupassant. The reflections of Chekov's society. The surreal, gauzy little worlds of Murakami, I do not always understand his stories but enjoy them neverthless. Mysteries and humour, served in bite-sized slices by the queen of mystery and the King of Humour, Christie and Wodehouse, though I have often felt that their novels were comparitively much better than their short stories.Translations from Premchand, Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, Tagore.That is about all. I was quite glad to add this wonderful collection celebrating present day Bangalore to my library.

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama
I was disappointed by many things in this book, especially the lack of plot and the flat, uninspired writing. It was at best, like a budget Hindi film with a stereotypical plot and one-dimensional characters.

Bye-bye Blackbird by Anita Desai
Another story of immigrants and the clash of cultures. This is vintage Desai, beautifully and poignantly written. I thought that it seems somewhat dated in present times, living as we do in a shrinking global village.

Bought quite a few books I had read many years ago, for the fun of it:

Some Roald Dahl classics: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Witches

Agatha Christie - Gruesome, wholesome comfort food. The Pale Horse, Murder is easy, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit My favourite of all of Nesbit's books and two books on English and Irish Fairy Tales. I had quite some explaining to do to my Mother, who assumed that these were for my pesky little cousins. (OK, they are decent, likeable kids and I love buying them books but these were really for my own library)

Strange, all my life I have preferred books over people, over everything else, living behind thick walls of paper and ink, of words. But the Words that bring comfort during dark times as these are not the hard, unmoving words in the pages of books, but the warm, flowing words of foul-weather friends. How comforting to hear cliches (Take heart, chin-up, smile, move on) from these dear souls who mean it when they say that hackeyed phrase, 'Take care'. I am lucky to have these people in my life.

So the next assignment beckons, Gods knows where. It might even be, God Forbid, in this rainy little town that I cannot wait to leave. Then there is the vacation I have been postponing for three years. And then there is Nanowrimo. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on...

The Healing Verse

I haven't written much since I changed the blog's name to a Writer from India. In fact, I hardly wrote anything at all in the past six months. Except about a thousand pages of business documents, two thousand or so related emails and a long, complex algorithm that was a pride and joy. Six months or more of walking, talking and living the project, dreaming of a hunded-odd screens and a thousand-odd scenarios at night. I loved this project so much that I almost felt that it must love me back. And now, I just want to let it go. It is heart-wrenching. What were they thinking, those who coined the term 'corporate jungle'? Animals abide by the rules of the jungle, they do not steal one another's work!

For long I have believed and lived by the motto that competition vanishes in front of excellence, or at least it should in an ideal world. Only such adages do not apply to the real world, my immediate world where ethics are getting eroded with each passing day. The darkness of disillusionment creeps in, even as comforting old songs play in high volumes in the background:

Let it be. Don't worry, be happy. Sing a new song, chiquitita. I'll cross the stream. And heck, so I will. I'll do it my way.

Celebrating dark and difficult times as usual, with verse. Verse that sustains, soothes and heals.

I loved this poem as a child. In college, I cringed on seeing it quoted ad nauseum in every other autograph book. Now each line of it begins to make sense and inspire all over again.

And these wonderful lines from the poet who sang that "Sun, rain, curving sky, Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone, Star shine, moon glow" were all that she could call her own:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Quoted from Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

A Writer from India

The Amazon breakthrough novel contest is in its final stages. Though my novel did not make the semifinals this year, I got this encouraging review from an expert reviewer:

"This novel tells the story of an as-yet-unnamed narrator, a fifteen year old boy living with an aunt in Madras, India, while his parents go through a divorce. The narrator is suicidal, but, in an opening prologue, describes the moment when he realized he no longer needed to feel suicidal, that he could experience renewed hope. The piece is beautifully written in a strong, crafted, lyrical style. The story-telling is subtle, balancing vignettes with background information and plot movement. I wanted to read more.

The author uses repetition and subtlety to convey emotion, as in this passage: "Anu, Sabi and I shared a common bond of the winter within, a winter of the mind that had nothing to do with being fifteen. Though we never discussed it, I knew it from the way they talked, the way they thawed as I did in the warmth of a few laughs in the library. I knew it from the way they were as eager as I was to enter the library, and as reluctant to leave it.""
Review by ABNA Expert Reviewer

To quote Salman Rushdie, "There are books that open doors for their readers, doors in the head, doors whose existence they had not previously suspected. And then there are readers who dream of becoming writers; they are searching for the strangest door of all, scheming up ways to travel through the page, to end up inside and also behind the writing, to lurk between the lines; while other readers, in their turn, pick up books and begin to dream. For these Alices, these would be migrants from the World to the Book, there are (if they are lucky) books which give them permission to travel, so to speak, permission to become the sort of writers they have it in themselves to be. A book is a kind of a passport."
Salman Rushdie, p. 276, Imaginary Homelands

Several books including two of Rushdie's, have opened the windows and doors for me, showing me glimpses of the world within the pages over the years, and the reviews of my first book like the one above stamp my permit validating it.

Thank you, my dear authors, readers and reviewers.

April Updates

Have been on an extended blog break for many reasons, mainly as this is a book blog and I have got to read very little in the past few months.

I returned from Tokyo in March and though I missed seeing the Sakura, I was back just in time to see the first flowers of the Gulmohur, the laburnums raining their golden petals and the pink powder puff flowers making beautiful canopies of shade on either side of the roads. I was glad to be back before April, which is the month of the Tamil New Year and my favourite month of the year.

Some books bought before leaving Tokyo
Zen and Japanese culture by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki Found this set of lucid lectures on Zen while strolling through Ginza. I had gone in to buy a DVD of 'The Good Earth' that was marked for a discount , and couldnt resist this book. My long term fascination with Zen keeps growing in spite of the fact that Zen seems more incomprehensible with each new book that I read about it.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury Had been wanting to read this ever since I read Ray Bradbury's Zen in the art of writing. I love reading Young Adult literature, and books in the coming-of-age genre are especially dear to me. But I was sadly disappointed by this book, a series of vignettes of life in a small American town. The language was too flowery, there were too many embellishments to the prose and I found it to be a cloying narrative, celebrating life.

Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life by Lafcadio Hearn An intriguing and beautiful collection of essays on Japanese thought and aesthetics.

D and I had many plans for the last weekend in Tokyo - Visiting Asakusa and taking a thirty minute Zazen class at the Seishoji temple among others. And I so wanted to go one more time to the Ueno park to say goodbye to my beloved Benzaiten. None of this was to be. D messaged me that someday we would get to explore 'our' Tokyo, as we worked away from our respective apartments through the entire weekend.

D now calls Tokyo one of her hometowns, in addition to Madras and Tirunelveli. And though I can never think of any city other than Madras as my own, I fell in love with Tokyo in many ways. A weird reason was how many places in Tokyo reminded me of Madras. The view from the office windows and walks through the Hamamtsucho roads often reminded me of Indira Nagar. Looking out of my Omori apartment at the beautiful homes and the park outside my window, I would think of Mylapore. And everytime I visited Asakusa on the weekend, it felt like being back in Srirangam, where a feeling of peace, silence and divinity prevails in spite of the thronging tourist crowds.

Soon after I returned, I turned to the piles of TBR books on my shelves. Started with An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World by Pankaj Mishra, that I had bought a long time ago after reading a particularly good review of it in The Hindu. The book commenced on a very interesting note, with Mishra moving to the idyllic Himalayan village of Mashobra to study the life of The Buddha. However I soon felt that this was a book that was best read on a long journey, when one has a lot of time to think and reflect on the prose, and started instead on the Inkheart triology by Cornelia Funke. It has been over a year since I bought Inheart and Inkspell, and I read them both with a great deal of pleasure over the weekends. Meggie Folchart's adventures within the pages of a book gets more and more interesting with every page, with the boundaries between fiction and reality getting more and more blurred as the story takes a life of its own, and cannot be controlled by even its author Fenoglio who is reduced to a spectator and an unwilling character in his own tale. I am looking foward to read Inkdeath - the third book in the series.

Some new books bought recently:
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith This completes my collection of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency titles, for Teatime for the traditionally built is yet to reach the bookstores here. An engrossing and charming read as ever, the twist at the end was slightly filmy but satisfying.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Basho A delightful travelogue that blends Zen philosphy and haiku. I loved this book as soon as I saw it.

Agatha Christie: An Autobiography The few Agatha Christie books at home are all part of my Father's library. I have never bought an Agatha Christie book preferring to borrow them from the library or from friends, for right since childhood whenver I read one of her wonderful books, it would get etched in my memory. But I had to buy this book, to know more about the great writer whose books are much more than simple murder mysteries, with a psychological insight offering a deeper look into the layers of the human mind.

The Tao of Writing by Ralph L. Wahlstrom Couldnt resist another text that elaborates the art and craft of writing.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Reading this now. Yet another among the many books written by seekers from the West about their spiritual quest in India. My favourite among these remains Paul Brunton's 'A Search in Secret India'.

Thanks to everyone who wrote to me during the break. As I now go on to read other blogs that I have missed for long, I leave you with a quote.

"If I knew where poems came from, I'd go there." Michael Longley
Wouldn't we all?

Happy Pi Day

I was pleasantly surprised to know about Pi day being celebrated on March 14th.

Pi reminds of my high school Mathematics teacher A T Srinivasan who first taught me the easy way to remember the first four digits of Pi with the sentence,"Yes. I know a number".

It was in Srinivasan Sir's classes that I first learned to appreciate the beauty of Mathematics and love the subject. Popularly known as 'Centum Srinivasan', the prefix referring to the average percentage obtained by his students, Sir chose his students carefully and imparted to each of us, a lifelong devotion to Mathematics.

Besides strong foundations in algebra, geometry and calculus, he also taught many interesting shortcuts like the one above that brought out the sheer joy of playing with numbers. Like a formula to derive the day of the week given the date and the year and Vedic Mathematics tips for top-speed computations.

Srinivasan Sir passed away soon after my Senior school exams. It is over twelve years now, but I still remember the energy and enthusiasm that flowed in his classes. He is immortal, like all great teachers.

Pi day was just the kind of day Sir would have enjoyed celebrating with his students.

A delicious treat

The first set of a hundred chapters of Corduroy Mansions concluded on Feb13th. It is a delightful coincidence that I got to read this new book from one of my favourite authors a little at a time, for most of these six months I have spent in Tokyo.

I had been wondering if the last chapter would include a poem in the tradition of the Scotland Street novels, and it did. The lines read out by William French, the mild and kindhearted wine merchant would have found echoes in many readers' minds, who would have felt, as I did, replete.

"Happiness is a state
Which few can define –
I shall not try – but even those
Who never attempt a definition
Know from experience,
That happiness flows most readily
From friendship, from the company
Of those we would rather not Be without: "

"Friendship is a guise of love,
And love is friendship
Dressed up for a night out.
That we are together, here at this moment,
Alive, one with another, Is the most delicious treat;
I, for one, ask for no more,
I, for one, am replete."
From Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith

It was a unique experience, reading a novel a chapter a day. (Sometimes I found myself reading all five chapters on Friday night, and listening to them on Sunday morning) The online comments by the readers were enjoyable and made one feel as being part of a global audience, eagerly awaiting the next chapter.

As delicious a treat as it was, I found that the characters of Corduroy Mansions sketched differently from the ones in Scotland Street. Scotland Street had a number of characters with all their human complexities portrayed in rich and vivid detail - Like the smug Irene, the vain Bruce and the mild Mathew among others. Corduroy Mansions focuses more on the plot than the characters and is yet to give the reader a deeper look into the many interesting characters who feature in it. I await the next set of chapters in the series, to know what happens to the Yeti-book, to Berthea's biography of her son, to Terence Moongrove and his beings of light, Barbara's relationship with Hugh, and who would Caroline finally choose. And whether William finds a sensitive lady worthy of him. Some of the reader's comments focused on how the characters were going to be paired up. And with Marcia getting closer to Basil in the last chapter, there are bound to be surprises ahead.

I have a quibble about this, why is there so much of interest on the romantic aspect of a story? Why do so many readers think that a story is ultimately all about who walks with who into the sunset?

Setsubun Thoughts and a Half-wish

N peeped into my cubicle on Tuesday afternoon to ask if I wanted to see something special. I followed him to the open meeting area where most of the office were having lunch, from where he pointed in the direction of the Zojoji temple.
"Can you see the red coloured decorations? It is for the Setsubun celebrations, a bean-throwing event"

Some of my Indian colleagues who had been to see it in the morning explained the significance of the festival, how it was about shooing out demons and calling in good luck. I was charmed. Many people began to talk on Setsubun at the same time, when N said, "It marks the changing seasons. Spring will soon be here"

A few moments of collective silence greeted his words, perhaps it was the mention of spring. I thanked N and the others and went for lunch.

The mention of spring makes the heart feel both light and heavy. There is no spring in my hometown Madras, where winter is the best season of all. Yet, springtime months meant summer vacations and I have never ceased to love them. I love them even now, long after summer vacations have become a distant memory.

The heart leaps in hope at the mention of spring, the harbinger of flowers, colours, blue skies, birdsong and beautiful emotions. The heart is weighed down and heavy, as true love still seems a distant dream, almost as elusive as finding a good literary agent. Yet hope thrives with life, and hopes go up as always during the springtime.

Somewhere I read that the anticipation and the wait for something is more pleasurable than attaining the object itself. I used to think that it was indeed so (As a child, the countdown of days to Diwali was so much more fun than Diwali itself, that somehow vanished in a flurry blur of visits and visitors and sweets and crackers and predictable Television programmes). At the advent of yet another spring, I do not think so anymore.

As I read the daily episode of Corduroy Mansions last night, in the web pages of which springtime seems to be working its magic too, I half-wished I were a character in the book like Barbara or Caroline so that the good author could have written a similar twist into my life.

A Republic Day post

It feels wonderful when the gentle, polite strangers here sometimes say a friendly 'Namaste' when they notice my Indian features as I walk to the office in the mornings.

I feel pained whenever I read somewhere that the concept of India as a Nation goes back only sixty or so years. So many of the ancient puranas and everyday mantras cite the name of Bharata varsha. The great poets from our different states wrote about the country as a whole, many years well before Independence.

My Japanese friends, especially C-san always seem puzzled that there can be so many languages in the same country.

What keeps your country together in spite of so many differences?

I can hardly answer such a complex question. I try to remember what I learnt in primary school on unity in diversity. To me it is a sense of belonging as a Nation, acceptance and tolerance that lies at the core of what it means to be Indian.
Of the love that surely forms the basis of these values.

Love that is beyond language, whether it is towards another individual or towards one's Country.

One of my favourite songs that always makes me filled with love and pride for my Nation. Found this while googling for Republic Day songs last Sunday. Whoever put together the presentation that forms the background has done a fabulous job.


Jai Hind!

Meditations on a Saturday Morning

Like my boss who lives the Zen of work, I too love the long spells of weekdays and weekends focused on work without any other thought. Which makes the rare free weekends like this feel all the more precious, and makes me want to write without stop, to explore this delightful city, to drink hot chocolate and to sing for joy.

Stories mirror life, or is it the other way around? Many writers have talked about the plots of their stories finding parallels in their lives. Books such as Muriel Spark's Loitering with Intent are about events in the book foreshadowing incidents in life around the writer and the writer's life.

I often find this to be true. While writing my first novel, I tried manipulating the twists and turns in a vain attempt to influence real life around me, tying up the loose ends in a rather juvenile manner with Sid marrying Amrita and Roshan realising Nivedita's love for him. But both of these were not to be in reality and I had to rewrite the chapters, loosely inspired by what transpired in real life. As I rewrote the chapters in the third draft, reverting the story to its original version as it had come to me, I found that letting go of Amrita was the best thing that could have happened to Sid. And that Niv deserved someone much better than Roshan.

The romantic angles are only on the periphery of the book that is the story of a young man who finds the meaning of his life, the answer to the ultimate question ' Who am I?'

My second novel is fast turning into a love story. I find that I have little choice in the matter, the characters are acting on their own, and I love them for it.

The hero Aakash asks himself, 'What is home?'. The book is about his search for the idea of home and homeland. I havent written it yet, except for sentences scribbled as they come to me in my pocket notepad, in between my 15 minute lunch breaks in Mos Burger.

'What is home?' asks Akash. He has not found the answer yet. Instead, I find that he is caught between a strong attraction to his cousin Lavanya, and an inexplicable attachment to his Aunt's student Michiko. I know the kind of interactions that happen between these three people, what each of them want, how they relate to each other, and how they feel about each other. I know what would happen between these three, I have written the last page of the last chapter.

Once again, not so surprisingly, I see these three people reflected around me and I wonder if life would take the same path that the story pointed out when it came to me originally. For it would be really interesting if it did, for all concerned. It really would.

*********

Reflections on life on a beautiful Saturday morning:

What's duly his, a man receives;
This law not even God can break;
My heart is not surprised, nor grieves;
For what is mine, no strangers take.

From Panchatantra translated by Arthur W. Ryder

Happy New Year

2008 has been awesome. Here is welcoming 2009 with a poem by a beloved poet.

These Simple Things
The simplest things in life are best-
A patch of green,
A small bird’s nest,
A drink of water, fresh and cold,
The taste of bread,
A song of old;
These are the things that matter most.
The laughter of a child,
A favourite book,
Flowers growing wild,
A cricket singing in a shady nook.
A ball that bounces high!
A summer shower,
A rainbow in the sky,
The touch of a loving hand,
And time to rest-
These simple things in life are best.
Ruskin Bond

Truly, simple things in life are best. So are some other things, such as the high of working towards a goal as part of a team, words of commendation from the boss and the clients, the joy of watching your dreams turn into tangible reality, the exhilaration of conversing without words, the pleasure of pleasant conversations, the peace of quietude when you can feel the stillness within.

May your New Year be replete with the best of all delightful things.

Thoughts from Tokyo in December

Walking through the Ueno park one Sunday afternoon, I wandered into the international library of children's literature. Most of the books were in Japanese but the friendly librarian guided me to a tiny shelf of English books and pointed out another one of books in other languages.

I took in the atmosphere, running my hands through the spines of the books and absorbing the library feel, a universal vibe that would make every bibliophile feel at home in any alien land. Saw a copy of Sophie's World (Sofies verden) by Jostein Gaarder in the original Norwegian version and some English books like A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Traveler by Nancy Willard that would have greatly interested me, once upon a time.

Just to spend a few more minutes in the library, I picked up a book at random (I think the title was something like 'One Hundred poems for children') and browsed idly through the pages when I came across two poems that moved me so much that I sat down on one of the tiny benches and copied the verses into my pocket journal.
The first one was:
Some People
Isn't it strange some people make
You feel so tired inside,
Your thoughts begin to shrivel up
Like leaves all brown and dried!

But when you're with some other ones,
It's stranger still to find
Your thoughts as thick as fireflies
All shiny in your mind !
Rachel Field

To me this poem conveyed that you have to ensure that your thoughts fly thick and fast and never shrivel up, irrespective of the kind of people around you. Makes sense whether you sit on a schoolbench or in an office.
The other poem was equally unforgettable. Extremely simple lines that touch deep within. Simple and profound, these few lines say a lot.

People
Some people talk and talk
and never say a thing.
Some people look at you
and birds begin to sing.

Some people laugh and laugh
and yet you want to cry
Some people touch your hand
and music fills the sky
Charlotte Zolotow

Poems like these touch the heart, and fills it with the joy of feeling connected to the Universe.

Random updates:

* Visited a Saraswati temple for the first time in my life. The Goddess looked lovely in her Japanese avatar and it didnt matter that she was called Benzaiten. I felt a wonderful sense of connection in the beautiful temple set amidst a lake of lotuses. It was a lovely experience, like coming across a close friend in an alien land.
Wonder why there arent many Saraswati temples in India? (Have heard of just one in interior Tamil Nadu).

* Last week was great. Boss was in office for a day on his way to Sydney. It is so inspiring to talk to him, even for five minutes. And D was here the whole of last week.

* My hypothesis for a working day's lunch: A lunch with colleagues is good, lunch alone is better, lunch with a friend (or more) is the best of all.

* Oh to be in Madras, now that the month of Markazhi is here! But it also feels good to be in Tokyo in December.

A Little Night Music

The memory of a dream I had shared with K in schooldays came to me recently.

K and I had often fantasized about living independently in a big city far away from home, of returning after a long day at work and relaxing with coffee in the garden, watching the stars and listening to ghazals. I wonder if K found the time for it when she was working and living by herself in Bangalore before she left like most of my other friends, for the US. Her emails were full of how she was squeezing the most out of every moment, of her full evenings and packed weekends, of how she had turned into a self proclaimed party animal, of the nuances of professional and social networking. But that is another story.

I realised that I was living that dream of old the other day. It was past midnight as I stood in the tiny balcony watching the park from the apartment window. Quiet even in the daytime, the place was serene in the silence of the night. I felt the day's stress melt away as I sipped my cocoa, listening to an old favourite ghazal by Qateel Rajasthani playing softly in the background.

Raahon pe nazar rakhna,
honton pe dua rakhna,
Aa Jaaye koyi shayaad
darwaaza khula rakhna
(Keep an eye on the road
Keep a prayer on your lips,
Someone might come perhaps
Keep the door open)

Which was a lovely song to listen to on a cold, beautiful winter night.

A Pleasant Surprise

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great
G K Chesterton

A real great man, one of the writers I admire a great deal, was here at my blog yesterday.

I remember reading somewhere a long time back that while walking through the streets of Ettayapuram, a writer exclaimed with a thrill that, "The breeze that blew through this place when the great poet Subramaniya Bharati walked this way, the same breeze now blows around me"

I feel the same excitement as I look at this tiny bit of cyberspace that is my blog, today.

Professor Alexander McCall Smith was here yesterday, and I was delighted to receive an email from him regarding this post, reassuring me that the Scotland Street series will resume after sometime.

Alexander McCall Smith's books have been, and continue to be a great source of joy. Like millions of other readers, I adore his books for many reasons. There is the pleasure of reading the erudite prose, savouring stories that are gentle reflections on life, imbibing the deep wisdom that the books reflect that is flavoured with a lot of goodnatured humour, observing the empathy for human nature and tolerance of little falliblities, enjoying the many interesting facts that are blended into the plot and much more.

Above all these, his protagonists reassure one that values like goodness, morality and decency prevail, and will continue to prevail in this world. The chronicles of Mma Ramotswe, Isabel Dalhousie, Scotland Street and my favourite of all - Professor Dr Moritz Maria von Igelfeld are among the most cherished and reread books in my library. Books that invoke genuine, beautiful worlds where people live in a 'sea of love', and where automobile engines 'flow sweetly, like life'.

I was delighted to receive regards from Bertie, Domenica and other inhabitants of Scotland Street.

Thank you Professor MCall Smith, for writing these wonderful books that make the world feel more like the wonderful place that it is. I am honoured by your visit to my blog.

I am looking forward to the next books in all the series, and also to Corduroy Mansions in book form.

*********

Whenever I visit a bookstore, there is another book that I am really looking forward to see - My first novel! It is a little over a year since I baselined the first draft version 0.1 that went on to the semifinals of the Amazon breakthrough novel award. Now at version 0.9, I have revised it considerably and grown detached from it over the past few months so much that it now feels like another person's book. But still, it is very much the sort of book that I like to read. (Ok, I am biased but who wouldnt be?) :-)

Chinmay and Sid, the protagonists of my first book ask me when they would be able to be out and about in the world. All I need to do is to find the literary agent and the publisher of my dreams. The agents have been getting better and better in their responses to partials - from impersonal form letters to personalised rejections with suggestions and comments. (Got a nice one last week). Most of my writer friends share the same experience, so I am keeping my hopes up for Chinmay and Sid, who are two fine young men whom I hope, readers would like getting to know.

Off on a blog-break. Will be back around mid-December.

A different world

"If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

I wonder how long it would be before I can perceive this different world.

A lunch that lasted thirty minutes or a little more, it seemed to be a lifetime. Sitting in the middle of a group of friendly people who either couldn't or simply wouldn't speak English, I came to empathise with all the mute and deaf people in the world as I looked blankly from one face to another.

It was as though I was unseen, as though I had ceased to be in that crowded Ginza restaurant, sitting amidst a group of friendly people who spoke in a stream of words that fell upon my ears like music that I do not understand. I eventually stopped looking at the faces around me and took to staring at the blandly grand decor and the waitress dressed in a Turquoise silk suit and matching embroidered cap, who had replied in impeccable English when I said 'Nikku-nashi' with many gestures while placing the order. The conversation flowed on, the words falling off my perception as water slides off a Duckback schoolbag and I sat squirming in a sea of incohesive sounds, some of which made random sense here and there.

They were not being rude, or impolite. They had acknowledged me when we entered. The Indian restaurant had been chosen just for me. They were most concerned when I gagged on seeing a piece of meat beneath my Naan. They were polite and friendly in all respects, except that they wouldnt speak to me.

Some things you can say only with words, I realised as I typed a 'Thank you' mail afterwards for the thoughtful, wonderful lunch that had rendered me mute, deaf and invisible for those everlasting thirty minutes.

I take back my words in the previous post. Sometimes words are everything.

Communicating without words

It's only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away
Boyzone

I had often thought that these were some of the most beautiful lines I have ever heard. As a reader and a writer, I love languages. I am utterly and perpetually fascinated by words. Yet over the past few months, I had a number of encounters with people in which I found that you can communicate as well and as effectively, perhaps more, without words.

Like the young lady I met in the apartment lift, who asked me which floor I wanted to go to in a rush of Japanese words and acknowledged my reply with a friendly 'Hai'. I could feel the friendliness effusing from her wide brown eyes and the goodbye smile she gave me when the lift reached her floor was so genuine that it stayed on my lips even after I reached my apartment on the top floor.

Or like the little Japanese girl I saw on a train one weekend. She must have been around three or four years old, an adorable child with two plaits sticking out of her head. She was excitedly looking out of the train windows walking to and fro, while her parents ran to check her much more boisterous little brother, who seemed equally excited. Perhaps they were going on a weekly outing, I guessed, as I enjoyed the scene. The little girl saw me watching them and gave me a sweet, mischievous smile. Her eyes said that she saw me not as a gaijin with unfamiliar features, just as a friendly stranger to whom she wanted to communicate her joy. I waved to her as I got off the train at Kawasaki. She waved back happily. I hope she and her family had a wonderful time that evening.

Or like the exquisitely beautiful lady who came to my help in the convenience store when I was trying to buy noodles without any meat in them, with many gestures to the confused shop assistant who insisted that the noodles were Nikku-nashi while I tried to explain that I was looking for a pack without seafood or eggs either.

Or when the train stopped abruptly at Shinagawa one late night as I was returning from the office and I wasn’t sure of what was happening or what to do next, the elderly gentleman in the seat next to me slowly and carefully explained in broken English that the train was stopped due to an accident, and would resume after an hour. He walked away and returned almost immediately, slowly climbing down the steps, just to wish me good luck before walking away.

Or like the time last week when the door of the telephone booth would not close, and as I struggled to close it against the rain, a young Japanese lady, her arms loaded with shopping bags came running to my help and tried her best to close it from outside. It was raining and she did not have an umbrella, but she did not seem to mind. I finally abandoned the telephone booth and found another one, as I did not want her to get anymore inconvenienced. It would have seemed rude to ask her to go when she was so earnestly trying to help.

There have been many more such incidents that seem to say that as powerful as words are, sometimes, just sometimes you can do without them. Some things are beyond them.

*********

One lazy Saturday afternoon many years ago, I was writing the script for a school play along with my friend K, listening to an old collection of folksongs for inspiration. One song was particularly sweet and though I did not comprehend many of the words, I translated whatever I understood to K.

"To write a letter to my beloved, I searched for paper
When I found paper, I could not find ink
When I found ink, I could not find words ..."

I paused for effect when K interrupted briskly,
"When I found the words, I remembered that I was illiterate"

I looked at K with a mixture of amusement and irritation, but she said earnestly with a straight face, "The heroines of these folk ballads were usually illiterate, you know. How could the rustic girl write a love letter? All she could do to hope that her lover would know somehow. They usually did".

She had a point there, K did. Many authors have written about moments when "there are too many things to say and not enough words to say them in"

Now a purely hypothetical question - What can you say when you have many things to say and there are words to say them in, but you do not know them? What then?
:-)

Birdsong

Stumbled on this delightful song on Sunday while searching for Aruna Sairam's music. I love the way Ms Sairam has rendered this exuberant folksong with a classical touch. Classical and folk - I love both these genres of music, and this combination is simply irresistible, as in M S Subbulakshmi's Bharatiyaar songs set to the rhythmic Kaavadi Chindhu style. Earthy and vibrant, at the same time magical and mesmerising.



Also superb:

Brought back wonderful memories of Markazhi (December-January), the month of Kolams and classical music concerts in Madras.