India at Booker 2008

It has been ages since I last wrote a blog entry. I have travelled a little since the end of April which was when I typed in my last post; a few of those trips, the ones to Cornwall and Granada, were largely successful, whereas the one to Wales was a disaster, with the law of averages catching up with me and the skies opening up for the entire duration of my visit to that Western country of Great Britain.

Now, as it turns colder by the day, and sometimes getting warner by the day, but, in general terms, getting definitely colder, I am happy to be lazy in the warmth afforded by the commendable heating in my room, and read novels, most of which were purchased for a steal from The Book People. And it is on my readings that this scrap will focus on, and the topic I have chosen for myself is the Man Booker Prize 2008, which was awarded ultimately to the magazine columnist and debutant novelist Aravind Adiga, originally from my home town: the city of Chennai (erstwhile Madras) in the South East coast of India. More specifically, I am going to write about three novels, all describing India, of the present, of 150 years ago and of the 17th century. One of the three won the Booker award, another made the shortlist and the third failed to make the shortlist to the surprise of many but not all. In writing this entry, every effort is made not to reveal anything that would spoil the pleasure of anyone reading or planning to read any of the novels discussed below. In fact, the only step I will take towards that end is to say not much more than what one can gather by reading the inner side of the front flap of the hardback editions of these novels.


Book 1: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, Atlantic Books: a powerful indictment of the two Indias of today - one of the cities and the other of the "Darkness", of the remote villages, one village whose blessing or the scourge is the muck of the holy Ganges; one of the rich, bribery-capable "entrepreneurs" and of the "drivers", who are not employed only as drivers - "the rich don't have drivers, cooks, barbers and tailors. They simply have servants". The author does seem to pass on a message to his readers - the infectivity of corruption and bribery, a way of life whose web does not let escape the progressive master just returned to India following progressive education in the progressive USA or the naive driver, or rather servant, from the Darkness. The interactions between the progressive master, his corrupt-to-the-root brother and the naive servant and his community of other, for want of a better word, satanic servants are dealt with with exceptional sensitivity and make for pulsating reading. The novel is set in the form of a letter being written by The White Tiger, the freak servant of the progressive master, to the Chinese Premier prior to the latter's visit to India. I read a customer review somewhere - probably Amazon - that said that this aspect of the novel rings rather untrue. I beg to differ from this opinion because I strongly feel that this is the defining aspect of the novel - an Indian individual, who has seen both sides of the India in the course of a couple of affecting decades, writing to the Premier of the country's neighbour, which is seen as his own country's competitor, about what lies underneath the glossy cover pages of India. Having said that, I am not sure that the novel is creative enough, or "literary enough" (the latter is pardonable since it is the writing of a poorly educated former servant and now entrepreneur) to have won what is probably the most prestigious award for a work of fiction. It is more a spiced up documentary and notwithstanding the excellent presentation, the story itself holds no surprises. Further - this may be seen as a strength or a liability depending on your own view of things - there is not a single character in the novel with whom I am able to sympathise. According to the Booker committee 2008, this was the best novel coming out of the Commonwealth in 2008. It is definitely a very good one - underline the very - but I would have been very disappointed if none of the other shortlisted books were any better, in terms of creativity and its ability to pull me into the story, forcing me to gobble up page after page, hurtling towards a much-anticipated climax, irrespective of the number of pages to be consumed in getting there, while not compromising on the beauty of the language that is the medium of communication. Hoping against hope, I opened the other India book to have made the shortlist..


Book 2: Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (Part I, Ibis Trilogy), John Murray: A terrific historic novel based largely in Bengal and the "Black Water" of the Bay of Bengal: what lies beyond where the Ganges ends in the Sunderban estuary, bringing together a colourful cast of native, English and French characters and men born for sailing. This novel is an epic: it runs for nearly 500 pages of a tall hardback, but once you start reading it, you cannot but go through it and wrap it up in two days and hope that the author brings out the second book of the planned trilogy soon. It is founded on the first of the Opium Wars by which the West forced China to accept import of Opium, produced in the factories of Eastern India, which was, as I gather from another source, the second largest source of cash for the East India Company in India after land revenue. The novel tells the story of Ibis, the once slave-transporting double-masted schooner bought by the leading Opium trader in India, a Mr. Burnham; it tells the story of Deeti, a woman married to an impotent worker at an Opium factory and whose "shrine" documents the many characters and inanimate objects of the novel in the form of caricatures and Kalua, a giant of a man belonging to a very low caste; it tells the story of Paulette, the daring daughter of a deceased French botanist, her "brother" Jodhu, a genial boatman and Zachary who is the survivor, metamorphosing from a "Black" to the Second Mate of Ibis; it tells the story of Neel, a bankrupt, convicted and disgraced Zemindar and his fellow-convict, the Parsee-Chinese called Ah Fatt; and it tells the story of the probably schizophrenic Gomusta, Baboo Nob Kissin and his search for Krishna. And all their tales are intertwined and linked together by Opium, caste-based and religious tensions in the community and profiteering from the trafficking of migrant workers. I do not want to say any more for the fear of leaking out more than I should - I have already named more characters than what you would get to gather from the story's official gist - and would leave you to buy or borrow the book, read it and long, as I do, for Mr. Ghosh to finish his next novel. And I take vain pride in the success of the novel and the thrill and enjoyment it gave me as Mr. Ghosh went to Oxford on the same scholarship (given by the Inlaks Foundation, India) that I got for my first one year of pre-PhD stay in Cambridge - never mind the fact that he won the scholarship three decades before I did! Two novels of India in the shortlist, but how can we forget one of the pre-shortlist favourites for the Booker, Sir Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, which ended up not getting anywhere close to making top Six?


Book 3: Salman Rushrie, The Enchantress of Florence, Jonathan Cape: a cross-cultural poem, seeing parallels, contrasts and interactions straddling generations between the Mughal Court of Akbar and the tumultous Florence of Niccollo Machiavelli. One sentence from this novel reads as follows - "language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough": the same should hold true of the language that flows out of the author's pen. Many reviews have been critical of the novel, for its exposition of the author's command over the language while sacrificing the pace of the story. I could agree with these critics that this novel could have been much shorer than its 350 pages, but would it have still retained the magic or its enchantment over the reader of my mentality? No. While making it absolutely clear that I do not believe that any lesser language would have done justice to the medley of thoughts in the mind of Akbar relating to his own vanity, freedom of expression, faith and his lust for his own creation: the imaginary queen Jodha, I must also go on record that at least the early chapters of Part II, dealing with Florence and the "Three Friends" could have been more concise. Beautiful is the very opening of the book describing the lake of Fatehpur Sikri - a lake which is not to be ignored by the reader - under the golden light of the setting sun, which also sees the introduction of the golden-haired traveller from Florence who seeks to find a home for himself while opening the Pandora's box of the tale of the Enchantress of Florence. The Enchantress is the fictional lost sister of Babar, Qara Koz, who leaves everyone in the wake of her youth in Persia, Turkey and Florence enchanted by her beauty, leading to the invention of tales of her sorcery and healing powers. Not just these foreign worlds that she physically enchanted, but also the city of Sikri that knows only her tale, the particularly talented painter of the court and the Emperor who is already prone to fancies and is not "content with being". Enchanting are the passages in which the above mentioned painter draws and falls in love with Qara Koz even as the tale is narrated by the foreigner. The novel is amazingly creative, effortlessly merging history with the fable to such an extent that at many points I had to search Wikipedia to make sure that what I believed was fact was fact and what was fiction was fiction. Such is the power of Sir Salman's writing and me saying any thing more about it would amount to sacrilege!

Now, the Booker Committee decided to totally ignore the Enchantress, not being impressed with those qualities that left the Great Mughal in a trance, and consider The White Tiger a better novel than Sea of Poppies and the other shortlisted books (which I am yet to read). Their decision is fully respected and I am fully aware that objectivity in judgement of art is nearly impossible. However, I am not sure that my own subjective judgement agree with that of the committee. If I were to pass a judgement on these three novels - I state once again that I have not read the other four novels in the shortlist - I would rank them as follows:

1. Sea of Poppies
2. The Enchantress of Florence
3. The White Tiger

Sea of Poppies pipping the Enchantress because the latter lost its grip over me in the middle few chapters while Sea of Poppies never did and this weighs heavier in my mind than the victory that Enchantress achieves in the spell cast by a poetic writing style.

To the Lakes of England (5)

Man, it has been a while and I have taken a couple of trips to Norfolk and I am yet to be done with my Lake District blog. And I have a long way to go, yet!! And I better finish before I go on my next trip to the Lakes, the coming Friday! This one is going to be quick - just a summary of a guided bus tour of 10 lakes organised by Mountain Goat Bus Tours, Windermere.

The guide was Alan, a teacher of radio communications, and a passionate Lakelander. The bus arrived to pick me up from beckmead, bang on time, and then headed off towards this swanky hotel where some of my to-be copassengers, also Indians, were staying. Once they were safely on board, the bus passed through Troutbeck and we got to see Beatrix Potter's Troutbeck farm nestled as cosy as it can be in the valley.


Our next stop of interest was Kirkstone Pass, highest road pass in this region, and called so because of a certain church-shaped stone; and churches are called Kirks in Scotland, apparently!


Following that, we went over to Ullswater, considered by a section of the population as the most beautiful of the lakes; fact is that it is the second largest of the English lakes. At that time of the day, and given that we did not have too much time to explore this lake in detail, I did not find it sufficiently appealing.

From there, we went straight to the North Lakes, absorbing gorgeous views of the lonely Blencathra and the smooth Skiddaw mountains. And then to Castlerigg stone circle; one of those God knows what things set up by ancient beings; or by aliens, as some people believe (no comment!). Seriously, I wonder why this stone circle was built here, in the most gorgeous of locations with some of the best views around! Whatever the reason, whoever had the opportunity to sit there for a while and do whatever they liked, with no pressure except avoid being eaten by wild animals, was damn lucky!


This was followed by lunch in Keswick, then a cruise on Derwentwater lake, a view over Derwentwater from what is called Surprise View (also due to a sudden drop down into the valley if you are stupid!).


Then driving down Borrowdale - the most beautiful valley in England - we reached Honister Slate Mine. Here is what is called Honister Pass, which is quite narrow and looked rather brooding, under the stormy clouds.


The rest of it was rather fast; we saw Buttermere (quick snapshot below) and Crummock water, two rather lovely lakes that could be photographically exploited under the right light, Bassenthwaite lake, the only "real lake" in the Lake District (whatever that means), through Winlatter forest and then back to the South Lakes, Grasmere and Rydal - two villages where William Wordsworth resided!

And then back to Windermere, for some after-dusk shots of the lake!

To the Lakes of England (4)

Finally, I have forced myself to write part IV of this series. So, where was I? Ah yes, I set off on the walk from the Tourist Information Centre supposedly towards Orrest Head. But, as has become rather too usual with me, I got the route wrong and ended up walking back and forth a main road, trying to find some sort of a footpath that would lead me uphill. I finally found it, behind brightly coloured iron railings - this was much to my chagrin, as the guide I had with me directed the reader to walk behind those very iron railings. Now, what matters is that I found the footpath and started on my leisurely climb. The footpath took me along sheltered tree-lined paths that largely insulated me from the somewhat hostile weather out in the open.


It was not until I entered what looked like a picnic spot with wooden benches that I realised that the weather, which appeared to be clearing earlier, had gone back to the familiar state of dense clouds, drizzle and strong winds. It meant, from a photographic point of view, that I was faced with a situation that was new to me - shooting in weather that is very far from ideal. In a way, worse was to come, as this picnic spot was still not entirely out in the open - just that it offered a vantage point from which one could see Windermere and the hills around it through some clearing in the woods. I took a couple of snaps here that hopefully illustrates the poor contrast of the distant views.



And soon I realised that the very consumer Sigma lens I was carrying was making things far worse than they really were (nothing I could not work around later on the computer, but I was not sure when I took the shots) and I changed over to the old manual focus Nikkor 35-105mm lens - I wanted to use a telephoto range lens since I was shooting well into the distance. This lens immediately seemed to do better and I felt relieved that my first results with the Sigma were not entirely due to my limitations as a photographer!

Soon after, I came to a point where a few steps of a relatively steep climb brought me to the open Orrest Head and I immediately came face-to-face with the full force of the weather, which I would now call nasty. There were a few people already there, but as the wind seemed to be picking up and the drizzle getting heavier, they decided it was not worth it, leaving me alone with the elements. I set up my tripod - in the process, I had to remove my skiing gloves, thus letting my skin interact directly with the chilly wind; and the wind just blew the gloves away and I had to run after it a few steps downhill on the side opposite to that I had climbed in order to retrieve it. I am glad that I was successful in getting it back; otherwise the rest of the evening would have been miserable! With the tripod in place and the Nikon D50 safely fixed on to it (I decided not to get the Nikon F100 out in all this miserable weather), I set about capturing low contrast images showing views over lake Windermere on one side and some greener valleys on the other. The shots over Windermere presented a particularly frustrating problem of having to wipe the front element of the lens every few seconds: the drizzle was falling at an angle and towards the camera. God knows how many times I had to wipe the lens dry, but I did it and managed to take some shots including those of "God's finger" breaking out through the dense clouds!







Despite the stormy weather, and may be because of it, and definitely because of being the only one taking in the sights at that moment, a strong feeling of independence and incorruptible and insuppressible power seemed to rise in me - an unexplainable feeling of exhilaration! That did not last wrong: as if pricking a balloon full of air with a pin this chap came running hard and fast up the hill wearing only a T-shirt and short pants with his fit dog and passed downhill on the other side in no time! Pffffffffffftttt!

Soon it was time to return to the guest house, and on the way back I had a lunner or whatever they call it - the evening equivalent of the early afternoon brunch! As I walked back, the cloud cleared - a state of weather that was largely constant over the next days - and that meant I had to take a walk again, a low-level walk to the lake. And that is what I did after having dumped most of my kit in my room and taking only the D50 with the 35-105mm lens and the tripod. I walked to this little mound called Queen Adelaide's hill for some simple view of Windermere and the mountains beyond under a sky glowing in the twilight sun.

On climbing down from this hill, I walked to a nearby jetty and bagged a few slow-speed snaps that make the lake look like a could of vapour; later I realised that, due to the winds that had not quite calmed down, there was substantial shake in most of these images, and hence a visit to the same location on another day was going to be essential.



Then, on the walk back to the guest house, I took a crappy shot of a waterfall that I could only just see in the overpowering darkness.


Finally, back in the guest house I set about transferring and digitally processing my pictures of the day!

To the Lakes of England (3)

I walked on to the streets of Windermere, my hefty jacket wetted by the drizzle. I was not exactly sure how far Beckmead Guest House was from the station and so I took a taxi and it is worth mentioning here that I did not have to pay more than the minimum fare and I was already outside the central areas of this little town. My initial impressions of the town itself, even if one discounts the weather, were not particularly impressive. It was clearly touristy with guest houses and restaurants lining the its few streets, and I was rather convinced there would be very little local flavour to savour, in contrast to the quaint Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, something I guessed right

Beckmead Guesthouse is run by an old lady, who reminded me immediately of Verna, who was my first landlady in England, and for that matter, outside India. As with most English places, the house was fully carpeted: I generally hate carpets, but at least the ones here were soft and furry and did not irritate me in any way. The room was small and sufficient and neat and well supplied with ingredients for making coffee, tea and hot chocolate. There was also a TV, which I did not put to much use anyway.

I was not planning to sit around in the room doing nothing, even in this weather, and accordingly stepped out, mentally charting out my plan of action for the day. I first went over to Mountain Goat tours, with whom I had booked my bus tour for the next day, and made sure everything was alright. I also wanted to go to Wastwater and Eskdale, which were not easily accessed by public transport from Windermere. But Mountain Goat were running a daily bus tour to these remote areas and I booked myself on this trip for the Sunday. That done, I walked over to the nearby Tourist Information Centre and took a local map and some advice on where to walk that afternoon. All the while, the weather appeared to be clearing slowly - definite breaks were appearing in the clouds and the drizzle was no longer incessant. For once, I had to admire the weather forecasters: this was almost exactly as predicted by the Lake District Weatherline a day or two earlier. Even though the town failed to impress me, as the weather started to somewhat clear, I took a couple of snapshots for the record.



I was now ready, armed with my cameras and lenses and the tripod fixed to my Karrimor rucksack, to take the walk up to the Orrest Head viewpoint at 784ft and less than a mile walk from the Tourist Information Centre. And not without apprehension about what the weather would do to my photographic ambitions and even if, in the rain, I would be able to enjoy exhilarating views of the Lakeland 'fells' from this 'view-point'. The only way to answer these questions was to go up to Orrest Head and I did just that.

(to be continued)

To the Lakes of England (2)

The day dawned and I was waiting for the taxi that would take me to the train station. It was 5 minutes past the time the taxi was supposed to arrive and I was still waiting. Worried, I called the taxi company and was told they had got the address wrong - Chestnut road instead of Chesterton road. When i called them to make my booking, I gave my address once and there was no confirmation. Given that and my accent, I am not surprised that they got it wrong. But all is well that ends well: a replacement taxi arrived the next minute, impressing me, and five minutes later I was at the train station, well in time for my train.

A word on the weather would be appropriate here: "crap". It was dull, grey and there was every prospect of rain. And it could only be worse in the Lakes: afterall, with saturated clouds from the Atlantic hitting against its mountains, which are the tallest in England, this region is supposed to receive a large amount of rainfall. I kept shaking my head so many times during the morning, looking up at the sky and largely seeing not so much of a break in the thick grey blanket of rain clouds. And it was cold. But I was wearing my newest acquisition - a rather heavy and thick jacket meant for the mountains, and hence, I am not entirely justified in complaining about the chill. Here, it would be appropriate to quote a fellow passenger on one of the trains who commented we were going to have a "Siberian Easter".

I will conclude this blog entry with a few comments on the train ride.

As I got on the train the first thing I noticed was a lack of space for large items of luggage. I have traveled by train in England many times, but this was the first I was traveling with so much luggage and I must say, it was tricky to get everything suitably positioned. And if one compares the situation here with the space in Indian trains, you have no comparison really! I cannot, in my wildest dreams, see anyone comfortably placing the large trunk boxes that often go on Indian trains in the English ones.

I had to take four trains during the journey; Cambridge to Nuneaton, Nuneaton to Crewe, Crewe to Oxenholme and a local train between Oxenholme and Windermere. The first two trains ran on time, but the one between Crewe and Oxenholme was delayed by 15 minutes. And given that I was supposed to wait only for 10 minutes at Oxenholme for the train to Windermere, I was justified in deciding that I was going to miss my connection and end up waiting another hour. Luckily, this was not the case. In fact, the train to Windermere was also late because it was caught behind the delated service I was on!

All said and done, I arrived at Windermere station at about half past one, facing the bleak prospect of a grey holiday!

(to be continued)

To the Lakes of England (1)

Over Easter, I went to the Lake District National Park, in the English county of Cumbria, in what is the considered the most beautiful corner of England. In this series of blog posts I will share my experiences that might inform the uninitiated as to why William Wordsworth thought the lake district were more beautiful than the Alps despite the English mountains being upwardly challenged! In this first part, I will write about the plans I made for my trip and nothing about the trip itself.

I decided to go to the Lake District for Easter, way back in January, when I was still on my Christmas-New Year holiday in Chennai. I made my first plans, looking for train or coach routes and hotels in early February. And finding a Bed & Breakfast with a vacant single room was already proving to be difficult though I was searching more than 6 weeks ahead of my proposed trip. The booking process involved one whole week of evening web browsing and one failed attempt at booking one in Keswick, in the North Lakes - and all this when I could have just called the Tourist Information Centre and asked them to make a booking for me! Following this I was forced to shift my base to Windermere town, on the shores of Windermere lake, the longest in England. I was going to stay in Beckmead Gust House here. I would be staying here from Thursday, 20th March to Monday, 24th March.

Then I purchased my train tickets including seat reservations where possible. I made a particular note of getting seats reserved following the rather frustrating experience at London's Paddington station durin Easter last year that put paid to my plans of travelling to Penzance and Land's End in Cornwall.

I then booked myself on a bus tour of ten of the lakes, run by Mountain Goat bus tours. I expected this to give me a good overview of the sights in the National Park that I could investigate in more detail later on this trip or future trips. But otherwise, I felt overwhelmed by the options at my disposal - I was faced with the problem of too many! How did I tackle this problem? Did I really enjoy my trip? And most importantly, was the Weather God favourable - the forecast looked bleak the day before I was to leave!

(to be continued)

John Constable's subject

Last Saturday, it was time to take it a bit easy and not travel too far. So I decided to go to Stour Valley or Dedham Vale, also called Constable country, for this was the inspiration to a British painter from two centuries ago whose set his massive, and beautiful six-foot canvases depicted scenes from this region. To be frank, I had not heard of John Constable until I read about him somewhere on the net last week, and had not seen his works until I saw them in a National Trust Exhibition in Flatford, an idlyllic village in Dedham Vale. All right, to the story from the beginning.

The weather forecast was no good - surprise, surprise! And when I went to bed on Friday night, I was not sure if I would go anywhere. My initial plan was to be there by 8AM, which would be about an hour and a half after sunrise. Appropriately I woke up at 4:30 in the morning only to see a rather evil forecast for the whole day. I just cannot remember what really went through my head those few minutes except that I went back to bed. Definitely, given a terribly cloudy day, there would be no point in going anywhere that early in the morning!! And anyway, I dont think I even intended to go there even later on in the day at that moment. But, you know, you can never predict what will happen - I woke up at 9:15 in the morning and at 10:30 found myself stomping along with my complete digital kit and tripod towards the train station. It did not matter that I was starting so late for my destination was rather close to home, in the nearby county of Suffolk and just about an hour and a half away by train.

Alright, I took the train from Cambridge to Ipswich and then on to Manningtreee which was where I started on the National Trust-recommended walk to Flatford village. The first sight of interest was a field full of sheep in the foreground, various representations of the hand of Man in the middle ground and a stormy-looking sky in the background. Snap!




Further along the walk, there was a fenced off region where some of the largest specimen of cows were grazing. Among these was a particularly massive and menacing, but stupid-looking, individual who must have decided my intentions were not holy and decided to keep an eye on me even as I studiously kept to the way-marked foot path making sure I did not make any sudden or calculated detours that would take me any closer to this herd of cattle. Whereas, under different circumstances I might have considered photographing these characters, I decided it would not be wise to do so while under this humongous animal's surveillance.

The walk then leads to the Cattawade marshes on the Stour estuary offering intriguing views of reeds, water, wooden gates and fences in various stages of disrepair and high pylons. It is also supposed to be good for bid watching, but as is usual with me, I saw not a single interesting one.




The next point of interest on this walk is Flatford itself. It is a very pretty village with row boats and ducks on the river, quaint little houses and a small bridge across the river. There is also a National Trust tearoom which sells good fruit scones!




Then there were two options - I could either walk back along the same route to Manningtree or go further on to Dedham, a village on the Essex side of the Suffolk-Essex border. I took the second option for I thought I had all the time in the world. This leg of the walk was mostly uninteresting - there are supposed to be panoramic views of the Stour Valley from a relatively high point along this route, but just one week after being on top of Hope Valley and also under a dull grey sky and somewhat wet weather, the panoramic views did not turn out as enchanting as they were supposed to me. May be one would get a better impression on a clearer, dry day well into Spring or in Autumn. However, I got to walk along some very nice tree-lined footpaths, which despite not offering great photo ops, allowed me to switch off and soak in the calm and quiet atmosphere.

Just as I was about to enter Dedham, I saw a boat house and a few boats that I obviously photographed.


I am unable to write much about my impressions of this small village here because of the following reason: I just dont have any, or rather, did not have enough time to form an impression. Read on!

It was when I entered Dedham that I realised how lucky I was! I was there just in time to catch the last bus that would take me to any kind of a town from where I could take a train that would somehow take me back to Cambridge. I did catch the bus that went to Colchester train station from where I took the train towards Peterborough, got off at Bury St. Edmunds and changed to the train to Cambridge. If I had been a few minutes late, I would have to take the walk back to Manningtree and given that it was turning a bit too wet, it would not have been the ideal situation, never mind the fact that the return route would have been substantially shorter.

(See http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/DedhamVale for more pictures and http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-flatfordbridgecottage/w-flatfordbridgecottage-walk.htm for more information)