The year is dying in the night!

The year is on its last lap. A quick stock taking would be in order, I hope.  Figuratively speaking, no annus mirabilis this. But not a bad year either, all things considered.

A few personal losses.  Relatives and friends. Death came as a relief in some cases; at the most inappropriate time, in others. The bereaved families would have mustered enough courage and moved on.

Fell short of a few targets set for the year.  Will be carrying it forward. One is the unfinished work of compiling the articles and cartoons left by Vinod, my brother in law, who died at a young age. He was in the prime of his youth and had a promising carrier as a journalist. We wonder what heights he would have reached if he were alive today. He remains as young and fresh in our hearts.

Another resolution for the New Year is to acquire a new skill. A few ideas are already formed. Will choose the most feasible.

Will continue to write letters to the editor though none got published this year. To a large extent the blog has come in handy as a means of expression.  Shudder to think of a situation without the internet and the TV. These and the Hindu news paper are my windows to the civilized world. I live in a place where most of my daily human contacts necessitate a low brow approach. Where I have to curtail my language, words and ideas!  

Will try to look out for more like minded friends in the social net work sites as well as outside.
There is nothing that I would want to discontinue in the new year. Hopefully, I will walk, do physical work, read, write, browse and carry on with whatever I have been doing through the year that’s ending.

Let me end this with the  poem of Lord Tennyson:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

My Reads 2010

As the year comes to a close Outlook magazine usually comes out with a list of readings by the well heeled and powerful Indian. The list cuts across various genres of books and contains some surprises also. As for me, the year past has been a productive one.  I read some of the best books ever. The one perceptible change in my reading, this year, has been the Asian authors in my list. All fiction.  No management or self development books. And none in Malayalam, my mother tongue. (Last year I read a few novels of MT, Pottekad, Malayatoor and VKN).

It started with my introduction to the Pakistan novelist Daniyal Mueenuddin’s book In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. This cannot be called a novel but the stories have a common thread.  “In eight beautifully crafted, interconnected stories, Mueenuddin explores the cutthroat feudal society in which a rich Lahore landowner is entrenched. A complicated network of patronage undergirds the micro-society of servants, families and opportunists surrounding wealthy patron K.K. Harouni.” As you progress through the stories and the characters in the feudalistic back drop of Lahore you never feel you are traversing an alien culture. You feel quite at home as you would be if you were reading Punathil Kunhabdulla.  I had gone around the bookshops in Kerala, at the behest of my daughter, for a copy. But I found even the usually well informed Current Book Stall sales staff ignorant of the author. I read the book when I went on a visit to my daughter in the Middle East.  The book is so popular now in India that even the road side hawker stocks it. 

The other books that I read from my daughter’s place were Aravind Adiga’s ‘The White Tiger’ and G D Robert’s Shantharam.  I didn’t find either of the books a page turner. In fact I found the first one boring and the second one tedious. As both the books had become well publicized I felt compelled to read.  About White Tiger this was what Manjula Padmanabhan had to say in her book review: “I found the book a tedious, unfunny slog, but the back-cover blurb says it is "compelling, angry and darkly humorous". The book won the Man Booker prize with rave reviews in the west. Shantharam became topical with many of the characters and events bordering on the real and Leopold café in Colaba being an important setting in the novel. The popularity of the book could also be attributed to Leopold Café subsequently becoming the first target in the Mumbai Terror attacks (2008).

The minor disappointments of these two books were largely offset by my next read. That was Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A thousand splendid suns’. The best read of the year and perhaps one of the best books ever read by me. Reminded me of Alberto Moravio’s ‘Two Women’ (film starring Sophia Lorren) which I read some 50 years back.  The plot is the providential convergence of the lives of two women separated by many years in age but destined to be the wives of a cruel shoemaker from Kabul and united in facing the miseries of being born as women in Afghanistan. The story passes through the strife torn Afghanistan over the last three decades. From the dictatorship of Daoud Khan, through the Soviet occupation, to the Mujahudeen and finally the Taliban .From one misery to another.  There is, however, a glimmer of hope at the end.  "There are parts of this book that will have grown men surreptitiously blotting the tears that are on the verge of overflowing their ducts, and by the time you get to the middle, you won’t be able to put it down. Hosseini's simple but richly descriptive prose makes for an engrossing read, and in my opinion, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is among the best I have ever read. This is definitely not one to be missed." Read Amanda Richards's review  . I read his first novel “The Kite Runner’ a few months later.

The other books I read during this year were: Paulo Coelho’s ‘By the river Piedra I sat down and wept’, Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Interpreter of Maladies (collection of stories)’. One of my favourite quotes is from this book:"There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." That in nutshell is the theme of the book.  I’m now on ‘Namesake’ which I will be finishing before the year ends.  My next years reading will start with Coelho’s The Alchemist.

I tried reading Orhan Pamuk’s “My Name Is Red” but the sheer size of the book and the style of the narration made me a little apprehensive. Perhaps I will have to approach the book again with lots of patience and complete attention.  Hopefully, next year.

The greatest disappointment of the year was Kiran Desai’s (partner of Orhan Pamuk) ‘The inheritance of loss”, winner of Man Booker prize. Story set in the backdrop of Goorkhaland disturbances in West Bengal. Thrown in between is the struggle of an illegal Indian immigrant in USA and his return to the cauldron of insurgency sweeping his hometown.  The story has minor shades of the storyline of the novel ‘Disgrace’ by JM Coetzee. (a deeply upsetting and chilling account of the post apartheid South Africa).  I couldn’t somehow vibe with the characters and  narrative style of  Ms Desai.

I was surprised when I found myself being one among the few in my circle who had not read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J D Salinger. The critical acclaim of his works and the media attention that followed his death this year made me want to somehow lay my hands on the book.  The book was supposed to have spawned many an adolescent rebel and made ‘alienation’ fashionable among the youth of the 50’s.  That he remained a recluse till his death made him more enigmatic. I got hold of the book from a second hand book seller and haven’t repented for my efforts.

In between these books I read (re-read) many Wodehouse, James Heriot (‘All things great and small’ etc) and Agatha Christie books which never seem to lose their charm. When feeling low and you need something to lift your spirits there is nothing like a tryst with Jeeves. Results guaranteed.

Year of The Expos'e?

In a few days the year will come to an end. With time hanging so heavily, many like me keep themselves busy reviewing  the year gone by or making a list of New Year promises to be made and hopefully kept. The TV Channels have started short listing the person of the year. In a pensive mood I too tried to figure out what 2010 will be remembered for. I couldn’t narrow down on any incident or person who had an impact on me. No major human tragedy, natural disaster or terrorist strike, fortunately.  And no watershed moment that had a positive impact.  Everything considered, it looks like an uneventful year.  Wouldn’t be surprised if Times finds it difficult too to project an individual as the Person of the year.  I’ll wait.

In India the theatre of the absurd had Sania Mirza and Dr Sasi Tharoor hogging the media space around the same time. Both had happy endings, mercifully. There were no less controversies, as usual, stoked by the 24/7 news channels.  Arundhati Roy narrowly missed her fame to a claim for the Nobel peace prize; her fault, she having not been jailed (for sedition/prisoner of conscience) despite valiant efforts. She has time and any number of causes.

For India the weather has been kind. Good rains and bountiful crops. No major flood or drought.  Whether these will result in lower food prices is anybody’s guess. Inflation remains high and government’s efforts don’t seem to bring results. World economy seems to be looking up although there are still hiccups here and there. World’s largest economy, USA, has its President on a tour to market Corporate USA. The Wikileaks will engage our minds for some more time. Possibly next year also with revelations which are likely to embarrass and shame Corporate US still more. 

Looking back, the last few weeks have been full of one expose or the other that has jolted middle class. A buoyant middle class who consider the four pillars of Democracy as sacrosanct find their value systems being challenged day in and day out. We have been hearing about scams of many hues. The  housing scam , the spectrum scam , the spectrum tape scam, housing finance scam, the land scam, CWG scam, the IPL scam. The list seems to be endless. The dramatis personae include the cream of the society. Judiciary, Chief Ministers, Union Ministers, Defense personnel, Beurocrats, Corporate Czars, TV anchors, Company Chiefs, Lobbyist, PROs, Financial intermediaries, Bankers. A big list, indeed.  All these personae have built cozy relations too close for comfort.  On a facetious note, if anybody has been left out, it is purely unintentional!

The amounts involved are astronomical.  Putting to shame all the earlier scams.  All these make one cynical. Are there no individual / institution which is unblemished by these charges of malfeasance?  Has the four pillars of democracy lost its credibility?

The skeletons keep tumbling one after the other. All our heroes and icons appear to be having feet of clay.  The malaise is deep rooted and spread widely that a cleansing of massive proportions is the need of the hour. Thankfully we still have individuals and institutions (sections perhaps, but significant nevertheless) unblemished by these accusations of impropriety and are quite adequate for the job. As our Prime Minister said, and I repeat, the word for Crisis and Opportunity is the same in Chinese.  Let us make a resolve to convert the crisis of confidence to an opportunity to cleanse our system.  Let 2010 be remembered not for the gloom it brought but for the hope it entails.

Getting started: ‘Shubh Aarambh’

Straddler , that’s what I name my blog. It may have  a negative connotation as it could mean a fence sitter. A fence sitter I have never been. I have shown courage to transgress  into unknown territories. If not consciously, at least out of curiosity. I have treaded dangerous paths but backed out before it was too late. I have taken risks in life but not blindly. An alternate plan was always ready. And a determination to pursue the plans till I had the results. Never wanted to linger  a minute more in unfamiliar territories or pursue further when my limited goals were achieved.  Touch and Go. More like a deft Kabadi player.  I’m not by nature an adventurous person. But I have surprised myself, when I look back, how I could act or speak so boldly. How I could act/ talk so decisively when by nature I ‘m a shy person. In the posts to follow, hopefully, I would attempt to unravel myself. I would try to explore the contradictions that I am.  But that’s from my point of view.  I would also be commenting upon issues which appeal to me or on matters that affect/disturb me or things I strongly feel about. I’m not sure how candid I can be, but shall try to be as honest as I can be.  I would reminisce a lot about my childhood, school/college days and my official life. When I was seriously debating about a blog, the one thing I was apprehensive was whether the officialese would creep into my writing. I’m reassured by the posts of two of my senior colleagues whose blogs are mercifully devoid of the office language or the office anecdotes. These colleagues will be my harbingers and inspiration.  You will see very less of my family in these posts, but I dare say it has been my wife who has been motivating me to write as a means of self expression. Perhaps she feels that I will bother her less if I spend more time on my writing.

So what do I name my blog?  Notwithstanding any negative connotation it might have, it is ‘Unni_the_straddler’

I fervently wish that my engagement with the blog turns out to be a successful journey and any visitors it might have don’t feel cheated.