What made Twain famous

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, popularly known as, Mark Twain (MT), was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)..


MT was very popular, and his keen wit and sharp satire earned praise from critics as well as peers. Upon his death, precisely hundred years ago, he was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called MT "the father of American literature".

An article (may follow the link as under)written by Nathaniel Rich; fiction editor at The Paris Review narrates intimately as to what made MT to be famous.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-20/what-made-twain-famous/p

Who is afraid of Shashi Tharoor ?

Paradoxical as it may sound; communal riot is not an uncommon happening in a secular and multireligious country like India. Unrest arising out of periodic clashes between the major and the minor sects poses a threat to the interwoven fabric of secular society. Riot has always proved to be a challenging subject for the writers of independent India

Since the autumn of 1989 when the Bharatiya Janata Party, a major political party in India with pro-Hindu lineage and its consortium of front organizations announced the launching of direct action, known in the party’s terminology as ‘kar seva’, to build a Ram temple at the disputed site of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, the polarization between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the country has been more acute than it was before, making a communal riot a daily possibility. The scene of writing in the country has naturally absorbed this impact and has begun to reflect a fragmented society.

There have been many real-life accounts of riots, most notably by people who, by virtue of being in charge of maintaining law and order, have had first hand experience of one of mankind’s worst brutalities. Harsh Mander’s Unheard Voices is one such account that clearly stands out. Harsh Mander, who was serving, as District Magistrate at Khargone during that period was hell-bent on keeping in check the rapidly deteriorating law and order situation in the district.

. How he succeeded in curbing this evil has been described vividly in his book.



Mander has clearly narrated how the bureaucracy and judicial authority joined their filthy hands in lending their support for the major community in the Khargone town. Of course, Mander has been successful in restoring faith and belief in the minds of Muslim community in due course of time. His courageous and unprejudiced stance could save the life and property of innocent humans in the district from unwarranted ruin.

There is another way in which Mander can be said to have passed on his intellectual and activist legacy. He has been a source of inspiration for his friend and the prodigiously talented fiction writer of India, Shashi Tharoor. On being alerted to the terrible reality of a riot, Tharoor urged Mander to allow him to write a novel on this theme. Mander couldn’t agree with this proposal more, for he knew that the fictional exploration of the theme in the able hands of Tharoor would reveal aspects of it untapped even by him. And this is what gave birth to the novel Riot.

Tharoor is a master storyteller and has handled the subject astutely. He took the Babri Masjid demolition episode as his canvas to create this story of love and violence. Of course, the demolition of Babri Masjid has given birth to many memoirs and literary works by way of firing the imagination of many creative minds that were shocked with this unprecedented event. Taslima’s ‘Lajja’, of course, was the first novel to hit the bookstores after the incident occurred in India. Communal was a preferred subject for many Indian writers even prior to the demolition of Babri Masjid. Shiv K Kumar ‘s novel Nude before God is an account, depicted in a dream sequence of the protagonist, of the riot between Hindus and Muslims in Hyderabad city. Bhisam Sahni’s popular novel Tamas is an account of communal passion against the backdrop of Indo-Pak separation. The same is true of Khuswant Singh’s novel Train to Pakistan.

Riot is based on a true event. In 1989 Babri Masjid mosque was targeted by the Hindu fanatics who had planned to erect a temple in that particular site. Interestingly, Congress Party was ruling India then, but it was the Bharatiya Janata Dal, which carried out the said demolition. The event was a turning point in the political history of India.

Though the theme of Riot was taken from the Khargone experience of Harsh Mander and put in a place called Zalilgarh in the novel, there was no news of killing of any foreigner in Khargone. Priscilla Hart, an idealistic American girl, who came to India to work and was murdered on that fateful night, is a fictitious name in Riot. Tharoor admits to having modeled this character on another American victim named Amy Biehl in South Africa. She was killed in 1994 by the very black people for whom she wanted to do some good. Unfortunately, those black people could not look beyond the color of her skin. Though this killing had no bearing on the Indian context, Tharoor drew upon it in Riot in order to create the powerful and composite character, ‘Priscilla Hart’. Likewise the character of Prof. Mohammed Sarwar in Riot was inspired by the real work of Prof. Shahid Amin of Delhi University. Similarly Kishan Mehta provided the model for Rudyard Hart of Coca-Cola in India fame. The latter happens to be the father of Priscilla.

Tharoor is known for his unusual takes. All of them differ from each other, be it in style, theme or presentation.

‘The Great Indian Novel’ is a reinvention of our old epic Mahabharat, which is believed to be written between 800BC to 800AD. This epic has been imprinted in the psyche of every Indian. Tharoor has deliberately used the history of that period as well as retold the legends of the epic in his novel ‘The Great Indian Novel’. He cast a cynical modern sensibility upon the great legend of the past, thus allowing for an interplay of the ancient past and the contemporary times. The novel had illumined certain aspects of the Indian circumstances too.

In his second novel Show Business Tharoor has taken the Indian film industry as his prime subject. No Indian would deny that Indian cinema industry has played a vital role for the transmission of fictional experience. Show Business is a novel that intercepts extensively the stories told in the prescribed films of Bollywood. In each stage of the book Show Business the hero and the other protagonists of the novel are involved in different stories. The story is about stories. At the same time it is about India.

Both The Great Indian Novel and Show Business were socio-political satires, told in a funny way.

Riot, his latest novel, is, however, different from them. It is a social commentary on India, delivered in a highly experimental style. Tharoor has used several styles, ranging from poetry, repot writing, letters, newspaper articles, radio scripts, interview transcripts and journal extracts. The newspaper clippings from the late edition of The New York Journal from the opening page of the novel with its usual font and the exact fonts that are used in the typescripts ‘from transcript of Randy Diggs interview with Professor Mohammed Sarwar’ are evidence to bear this fact. The unconventionality of his approach leaps out at us from the first page.

Though Tharoor has worked all along outside India from the inception of his diplomatic career as a writer, his country of origin, India, has always fascinated him. He has constantly tried to reclaim and reinvent his Indianness in his writings, be it fiction or non–fiction. Staying away from India and thinking constantly and consistently about India is his Joycean preoocupation. He has often compared his place of employment at New York and India. According to him, diversity in the language, food habits, culture, wearing clothes and personality traits, behavior pattern of the people working around him in UN are no different from the people residing in India, which has been mélange of diversified people, languages, cultures, food habits and living together for ages. He proclaims that various parts of India are coursing through his veins. Justifying his standpoint for India, Tharoor says: “I make no bones about the fact that India matters to me, that I would like to matter to India. But in the process, I’m also articulating a vision of India as this home of a rich diversity, of a rich pluralism that’s manifest in both its social institutions and its political democracy. And that this diversity and pluralism is something that we should cherish and be proud of. I speak to it and from it, quite often, to audiences both in this country (America) and in India. And I’m very happy to do that because to me that articulates a vision that perhaps sometimes, sitting within India, people don’t always see quite clearly for themselves because they might sometimes see the wood but not the trees. I beg you pardon, they might sometimes see the trees but not the wood.”

Tharoor can be labeled as neither an ‘expatriate’ nor an ‘Indian born’ writer. He visits his hometown Palakkad in Kerala frequently. Sense of being attached to his own roots is crucial to his personality.

I cannot resist the temptation of quoting a poem called ‘I Am an Indian’, featured in the novel Riot, which shows Tharoor’s ability to speak of his love for India in a tone of light-hearted banter.

I am an Indian, dressed in a suit and tie;

The words roll off my lucid tongue in accents long gone by;

I rule, I charm, protest, explain, know every how and why.

What kind of an Indian am I?

I am an Indian, with a roof above my head;

When I’ve had enough of the working day, I fall upon my bed;

My walls are hard, my carpets soft, my sofa cushions red.

What kind of an Indian? you said.

I am an Indian, with my belly round and full;

When my kid gets up in the morning she is driven to her

School;

And if she’s hot, the a/cs on, or she’ll splash into the pool.

What kind of Indian, fool?

I am an Indian, with friends where friends should be;

Wide are the branches of my extensive family tree;

Big businessmen and bureaucrats all went to school with me.

I’m the best kind of Indian, you see.

Diction used by Tharoor in his fiction and non-fiction is a simple and measured one. His candid style appeals to all class of readers.

Being a master of satire he has tried to entertain his reader immensely. The great philosophies have been told in a very simple and candid way. According to Shiela Singam in ‘The Edge’, published from Malaysia, Tharoor is foremost among the master satirists of Indian subcontinent. Tharoor delivers his didactic prose in a hugely entertaining package. He believes that in order to instruct he has to distract and he has succeeded in producing masterpieces of satire that leaves his readers in stitches.

In ‘The Great Indian Novel’, Tharoor parodies a whole era starting

from India’s struggle for independence to the partition of the country. While

reading this novel one has to suspend one’s disbelief and remember that it is a parody. Show Business is a novel where Tharoor uses the Bombay Movie Industry as a metaphor to explore aspects of Indian conditions. The hero of the novel is a megastar who chases actress, bashes villains and enters politics. Through him he depicts the shallow fantasy world of Bollywood, showing it to be an inadequate reflection of the social crisis of India.

Juvenal, the ancient satirist from Rome, once said that it is hard not to write satire. Tharoor is drawn compulsively towards satire. He is a subtle satirist, using a sharp-edged razor that creates a wound with a touch that is hardly felt or seen.

The very word ‘Truth’ has always brought discomfort for Tharoor. According to him, although the truth-alone-triumphs is a buzzword on the lips of every Indian, but it differs from one individual to another. Tharoor has, therefore, tried to prove the nature of truth in history, in fiction, in reality, in contemporary world and allowed his readers to draw their own conclusion about what is true and what is not true. He has given ample opportunity to his readers to stretch their imagination in realizing the truth.

Tharoor enjoys two identities: writer and diplomat. He reacts to the world in a dual capacity independently. Dealing with the problems of Refugees at Singapore as a UN High Commissioner during the peak of Vietnamese ‘boat people’ crisis brought out the best in him as a writer. He has always kept his two roles distinct from each other. It’s evident from the copyright statement in all his books: “Though the author works for the Unite Nations, none of the opinions expressed by the characters in this novel are to be construed as reflecting the views of the author in his official capacity.” Many writers have professions other than writing, but they hardly make such declarations about their dual identity. Once Tharoor, during the course of his conversation with the famous writer Mario Vargas Llosa, asked him how he’d coped with writing when he needed a job. Llosa replied calmly: “I just did a couple of jobs that didn’t require the sort of emotional and time commitment that would have made it impossible to write.” Responding to the query of Tharoor about the kind of job, Llasa said: “Teaching and Journalism.” Though Tharoor was aware that both the professions consume enormous time, energy and emotion, he realised that it hardly mattered what job a writer did, as it solely depended on how he handled his job. Tharoor has, in fact, unfailingly practiced these principles all along in his writing career.

He has never enjoyed his job in nine to five working schedule. He has never gone home before eight o’clock in the evening, but has never given up on his writing instinct. Tharoor never laments; rather he accepts the situation and conditions himself to act in the way necessary to give vent to his creative expressions.

His pressing official engagements have very often created hurdles in his writing career. During Balkan crisis he would return home almost every midnight, denying himself the chance to engage in any creative pursuit. Frequent travels, huge workload has cost his writing dearly. To keep pace with the situation he has decided to write non-fictions and columns for newspaper, since writing novels needs more time and preparation. Tharoor confesses: “it’s simply that to write fiction you need both time and a space inside your head, a space inside your head to create and inhabit an alternative moral universe, one whose reality has to be consistent in your own mind. And you can’t easily write a fragment of a novel each time you do that.’’ Of course he writes often on weekends and has taught himself to write pretty fast.

Before delving into the pages of Riot the reader stumbles upon two focal quotes made by the writer. Both of them offer an interpretation of history. First one: History is a sacred kind of writing, because truth is essential to it, and where truth is there God himself is, so far as truth is concerned (Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote); second one: history is nothing but the activity of man in pursuit of his ends’

Tharoor recurrently contends that Indians have interpreted history in offensive line of attack. Examples of historical proceedings are taken into account to validate the contemporary relevance and conflicts and clashes that occur due to the contending narratives of history itself. Indians fail to see the delicate demarcating line between history and mythology.

Let me peep into the pages of the book: Riot. On October 14 1989 Rudyard Hart, father of Priscilla Hart, interprets history to a professor of history and one of his important characters in Riot says to Prof.Mohammed Sarwar: I shall tell you what your problem is in India. You have too much history. Far more than you can use peacefully. So you end up wielding history like a battleaxe, against each other. Whereas we at coke don’t care about history. We shall sell you our drinks whatever your history is. We don’t worry too much about the past. It’s your future we want to be a part of.

My daughter believed in your future too. You know, I went through hell asking God why she had to be killed in a quarrel she had no part of. But now I realize it was her choice to be caught up in this country’s passions. She wanted to change India for the better. She was working for the future when she was struck down by the past.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Can’t say it makes me feel a whole lot better, though. But I now think I’ll ask Coke to send me back to India. Give it another try. I think Priscilla would have wanted me to.

Prof. Sarwar, of course, knows clearly his limitation as a historian. Let us examine from the transcripts of Randy Diggs interview with Professor Mohammed Sarwar:

Look, I’m a historian, not a political activist. Though if you asked me, as a Muslim historian, whether I was a Muslim first or a historian first, I would have to tell you that depended on the context. But your question deserves a reply.

Isn’t it amazing how these Hindu chauvinist types claim history on their side? The precision, the exactness, of their dating techniques are enough to drive a mere professor like me to distraction. People liked me spend years trying to establish the veracity of an event, a date, an inscription, but the likes of Ram Chandra Gupta have not the slightest doubt that their Lord Rama was born on Ram Janmabhoomi, and what’s more, at the precise spot they call the Ram Janmasthan—not ten yards away, not ten feet away, but right there. Their own beliefs are that Rama flourished in the treta-yuga of Hindu tradition, which means that their historical exactitude goes back, oh, about a million years. What is a mere historian like me to do in the face of such breathtaking knowledge?’

While reproducing the above passage of the novel, I recall what Henry Ford once said: “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”

Tharoor’s novels always carry definite messages .He conveys to his readers his feeling without any iota of pretension. His message goes straight to the heart of his readers.

That’s the reason why his works are highly readable in his own country and Riot did ride at the top of the bestseller’s list in India and outsold the novel Fury by Salman Rushdie, released during that period.

I would like to conclude with Tharoor’s proclamation after the release of Riot that ‘American readers looking for a love story will also find a novel about the construction of identity, the nature of truth and the ownership of history; Indian readers expecting a novel about the dangers of communalism will also discover a tale of another kind of passion’

Tharoor reads the pulse of his readers accurately. That’s his strength.

__________



Manu Dash (b.1956) is a bilingual poet, fiction writer, playwright, translator and columnist. He has two books of poem; one book of fiction and four books of non-fiction, one travelogue to his credit. Besides this, he has written stage and radio plays as well; an accredited lyricist of AIR. He’s a popular columnist for widely circulated newspapers in Orissa(India) region. He works as company executive in various reputed industries in India for a living .He has edited an anthology of English poems: ninety-nine words. He is also editor of the journal: Dhauli Review.

The writer gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Himansu S. Mohapatra for his advice during preparation of this article, also for the articles & episodes from Sheila Singam (The Edge, Malaysia, 2003), Judy Stoffman (The Toronto Star, 2001), Shashi Tharoor Column (The Hindu, 2001), Shashi Tharoor Interview: Conversations with History, (Regents of the University of California, 1999) and Harsh Mander (Together as one people, from Unheard Voices: Stories of forgotten lives, Penguin Books, 2001).

Of Coffee and Beer

Recently Arundhathi Subramaniam and Kedarnath Singh were given awards by different institutions for their contribution to English and Hindi poetry respectively . While congratulating her, Arundhathi threw an open invitation to have coffee with her in my next trip to Mumbai at Prithivi theatre canteen as we had done in our first meet. Similarly, Kedarnath Singh also invited to have a mug of beer with him in IIC or CP, Delhi this summer. Both are good friends indeed. I had the reason to rejoice. I promised both of them to have coffee and beer when I go visit to Mumbai and Delhi next time. Celebration is a must, after all, to keep human relations warm and agile.

It'll not be out of place to say that Arundhathi is one of the finest poets of our generation and Kedarnath Singh has marked his footprints already on the sands of time.

But, I have very often observed whenever any award is given to any writer by any institution in India; the rumors suddenly creep in: all about the person concerned as to how he (or she) could achieve it. If we have to believe the sayings of Marx that all the property is theft, we have  also reason to deem that all the awards given are having a hidden agenda. Why a person or institution give any award? How far these awards or recognitions help a writer in the  creative process?

I am at least relieved that I have not heard so far any such stories, even if concocted one, about Arundhathi or Kedarnath for their getting award.


It’s a rare thing now-a-days.

Let me narrate few incidents that developed recently.

The ugly and unprecedented scene witnessed this year at the award giving ceremony by Sahitya Akademi , New Delhi, followed with the pandemonium soon after the name of the writer in Telugu language was announced to receive the award. This has surfaced the ground reality of our present system. The skeletons at last came out of the cup board.

Likewise, recent war of words in media after declaration of the Sahitya Akademi award for 2009 in Oriya literature has at last proved that all is not well in the system. Present literary scenario in  Orissa has also dismayed the young writers and aficionados of literature.

Let me explain.

Recently I chanced upon a letter written to editor of a news paper by Bibhuti Patnaik, most popular novelist in Oriya. He is a house hold name in the state, who is now associated with Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi as a convener in Oriya language. This year, after the declaration of the award, he faced wrath of young writers at various places in the state that the senior and acclaimed poet like Brajanath Rath has been deliberately ignored and lesser talented poets are given award as they could manage it.

Bibhuti Patnaik, while accepting this, made the fact public by revealing a hilarious story. He confessed to have heard from Dr DP Pattanayak, a distinguished linguist of the country, that in 2004 Dr Pattanayak had reluctantly recommend a book of one Prafulla Mohanty, as Manoranjan Das, a famous playwright and one of the three member juros, prevailed upon Dr DP Pattanayak . Das requested him to recommend Prafulla Mohanty’s book as Mohanty had assured ailing Das to foot his huge medicals bills.

Incidentally the book which was selected for 2009 was also rejected by three member juros for 2004. Dr DP Pattanayak was one of the juros in both years. Bibhuti Patnaik wondered how a book rejected for 2004 by the same jury could be selected for 2009.

Though Dr DP Pattanayak has denied the allegation metaphorically made by Bibhuti Patnaik to avoid any ensuing legal battle, but his protest appears to have no teeth at all.

Let us assume that he speaks the truth. Will he then sue Bibhuti Patnaik for spreading such news that soiled his image? Or, will he write to Sahitya Akademi to call back both the Awards given for 2004 and for 2009.Or, will Sahitya Akademi enquire into details and blacklist the juros including Dr DP Pattanayak for his apparent involvement with such malpractices?

Of course, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Presient ,Sahitya Akademi has taken few steps to curb such practices by providing the name of the juros in official website of Akademi.He has to go a long way to restore the golden image of the institution.

This is not the story of Andhra Pradesh or Orissa, it’s now happening everywhere. The institutions giving such awards are unnecessarily being drawn to controversies. Their images are being stained with ill-famed bloods. Pat came to the mind a prominent line of Shakespeare: Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood?

Let us hope, it will.

While finishing this story I received a call from a writer friend in Delhi that Kadarnath Singh was compelled to return the award given to him by Delhi government and I lost a chance to have a chilled beer with him this summer.

I have to now be happy only with a cup of steaming coffee.

Remembering Parvin Babi

J P Chowksey vividly remembers Parvin Babi , one of the finest actress of silver screen in India.You may read the probing mind of  JPC in the link given below :
http://www.bhaskar.com/2010/04/03/film-835553.html