Wednesday, March 13, 2024

The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion by Wendy Williams

The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble CompanionThe Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion by Wendy Williams
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Disappointing – written with a Western, especially American, bias. There is no mention of why there were no horses or their progenitors in the India. I expected some information about the historic vital role of horses in the invasion of the Indian sub-continent by the Aryans and, later, Mongols, Huns and Mughals.
Were there horses during the Harappan times? How did the Ashwamegh yagya come into being? What type of hoses came to India? Something about the role of cavalry in modern warfare? Are horses only used for ceremonial occasions? When did mules come into the picture? A lot of unanswered questions. I guess this will be more helpful: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World.

View all my reviews

Sunday, March 10, 2024

श्रीलाल रचित राग दरबारी

 

राग दरबारीराग दरबारी by श्रीलाल शुक्ल
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Easily one of the best books in Hindi, ever. A brilliant biting satire on the political landscape in India especially in the rural context – the village being a microcosm of India. The evocative description of the landscape, the day-to-day life of a village, the atmosphere is a delight to read; as are the vividly described eccentricities and foibles of the inhabitants. These are those memorable and entertaining characters
मंगल/सनीचर, लंगड़, रुप्पन, रंगनाथ, वैद्यजी, खन्ना, मोतीराम, मालवीय (kleptomaniac), the unnamed प्रिंसिपल व् क्लर्क, दरोगाजी, रामाधीन भीखमखेड़वी, स्व ठाकुर दुरबीन सिंह, रामस्वरूप चोर, काना पं. राधेलाल, बद्री पहलवान, छोटे पहलवान एंड बाप (cantankerous family), कालिका प्रसाद, बेला (एकमात्र महत्वपूर्ण महिला पात्र)
ये कथा है शिवपालगंज के बाशिंदों की जो अपने आप को गर्व से गँझहे कहते हुए आसपास के गांवों में दादागिरी करते हैं, परन्तु उनकी गतिविधियाँ देखकर उन्हें गँजेड़ी बुलाना अधिक उचित है। लेखक की लिखने की शैली अति हसीपद एवं रोचक है। प्रत्येक वाक्य हँसते हँसते लोट पॉट करा देता है, किन्तु शीघ्र ही कटु सत्य सामने आ जाता है और पाठक सोचने पर विवश हो जाता है अपने देश व समाज की दयनीय दशा पर।
Here is an evocative description of a roadside tea-stall
प्रायः सभी में जनता का एक मनपसंद पेय मिलता था जिसे वहाँ गार्ड, चीकट, चाय की कई बार इस्तेमाल की हुई पट्टी और खेलते पानी आदि के सहारे बनाया जाता था। उनमें मिठाइयां भी थीं जो दिन-रात आंधी-पानी और मक्खी-मच्छरों के हमलों का बहादुरी से मुकाबला करती थीं। वे हमारे देसी कारीगरों के हस्तकौशल और उनकी वैज्ञानिक दक्षता का सबूत देती थीं। वे बताती थीं कि हमें एक अच्छा रेजर-ब्लेड बनाने का नुस्खा भले ही न मालूम हो, पर कूड़े को स्वादिष्ट खाद्य पदार्थ में बदल देने की तरकीब साड़ी दुनिया में अकेले हमीं को आती है।
A typical roadside scene as you approach any Indian village
थोड़ी देर में ही धुँधलके में सड़क की पटरी पर दोनों ओर कुछ गठरियाँ-सी रखी हुई नज़र आयीं। ये औरतें थीं, जो कतार बाँधकर बैठी हुई थीं। वे इत्मीनान से बातचीत करती हुई वायु-सेवन कर रही थीं और लगे-हाथ मल-मूत्र का विसर्जन भी। सड़क के नीच घूरे पटे पड़े थे और उनकी बदबू के बोझ से शाम की हवा किसी गर्भवती की तरह अलसायी हुई-सी चल रही थी। कुछ दूरी पर कुत्तों के भूँकने की आवाज़ें हुईं। आँखों के आगे धुएँ के जले उड़ते नज़र आये। इससे इंकार नहीं हो सकता था कि वे किसी गाँव के पास आ गए थे।
Here’s more dementia precox type of writing
तुमने मास्टर मोतीराम को देखा है कि नहीं। पुराने आदमी हैं। दरोगाजी उनकी बड़ी इज्जत करते हैं। वे दरोगा जी की इज्जत करते हैं। दोनों की इज्जत प्रिंसिपल साहब करते हैं। कोई साला काम तो करता नहीं है, सब एक दूसरे की इज्जत करते हैं।
Bureaucratic behaviour
एक पुराने श्लोक में भूगोल की एक बात समझाई गयी है कि सूर्या दिशा के आधीन होकर नहीं उगता। वह जिधर उदित होता है, वही पूर्व दिशा हो जाती है। उसी तरह उत्तम कोटि का सरकारी आदमी कार्य के आधीन दौरा नहीं करता, वह जिधर निकल जाता है, उधर ही दौरा हो जाता है। ... पिछले साल के व्याख्यान के कारण इस साल रबी की फसल अच्छी होने वाली है। काश्तकार उनके बताये तरीके से खेती कर रहे हैं। उन्हें यह मालूम हो गया कि खेत जोतना चाहिए। और उसमें खाद ही नहीं, बीज भी डालना चाहिए। वे सब बातें समझने-बूझने लगे हैं और नयी समझदारी के बारे में उनकी घबराहट छूट चुकी है।
An example of filth and our pullulating population
गांव के किए एक छोटा सा तालाब था। गन्दा कीचड़ से भरा-पूरा, बदबूदार। बहुत क्षुद्र घोड़े, गधे, कुत्ते, सूअर उसे देखकर आनंदित होते थे। कीड़े-मकोड़े और भुनगे, मक्खियाँ और मच्छर - परिवार-नियोजन के उलझनों से उन्मुख - वहां करोड़ों के संख्या में पनप रहे थे और हमें सबक दे रहे थे कि अगर हम उन्हीं के तरह रहना सीख लें तो देश की बढ़ती हुई आबादी हमरे लिए समस्या नहीं रह जाएगी।
गन्दगी की कमी पूरा करने के लिए दो दर्जन लड़के नियमित रूप से शाम-सवेरे और अनियमित रूप से दिन को किसी भी समय पेट के स्वेच्छाचार से पीड़ित होकर तालाब के किनारे आते थे और - ठोस, द्रव तथा गैस - तीनो प्रकार के पदार्थ उसे समर्पित करके, हलके होकर वापस लौट जाते थे।
अपने पिछड़ेपन के बावजूद किसी देश का जैसे-न-कोई आर्थिक और राजनितिक महत्व अवश्य होता है, वैसा ही इस तालाब का भी, गन्दगी के बावजूद, अपना महत्त्व था।
An acoustically accurate description of the noise pollution emanating from a blaring radios and other glimpses of rural India
तहसील के सामने तम्बोली की दुकान पर बैटरीवाला रेडियो अब भी बज रहा था और फ़िल्मी गानों के परनाले से 'अरमान, साजना, हसीन, जादूगर, मंजिल, तू कहाँ, सीना, गले लगा लो, गले लग जा, मचल-मचल कर, आंधियां, गम, तमन्ना, परदेशी, शराब, मुस्कान, आग, जिंदगी, मौत, बेरहम, तस्वीर, चांदनी, आसमाँ, सुहाना सपन, जोबन, मस्ती, उभर, इंतज़ार, बेजार, इसरार, इंकार, इकरार' ... जैसे शब्द लगातार गिर रहे थे जो भुखमरे देशों में नवजागरण का सन्देश देने के लिए सब प्रकार से उपयुक्त थे।

रुप्पन बाबू, जिनका जन्म 'अंग्रेज़ों, भारत छोड़ो' का नारा बुलंद हो जाने के बाद हुआ था, बड़े विश्वास से बोले "खुदा अपने गधों के जलेबियाँ खिला रहा है। हर शाख पै उल्लू बैठा है।"

उन्होंने सबसे पहले पान की दुकान खोजने का विचार किया। हिंदुस्तानी के लिए यह कोई कठिन बात नहीं है। रॉबिंसन क्रूसो के बजाय कोई हिंदुस्तानी किसी एकांत द्वीप पर अटक गया होता तो फ्राइडे की जगह वह किसी पान बनाने वाले को ही ढूँढ़ निकालता। वास्तव में सच्चे हिंदुस्तानी की यही परिभाषा है कि वह इंसान जो कहीं भी पान खाने का इंतज़ाम कर ले और कहीं भी पेशाब करने की जगह ढूँढ़ ले।
पीछे-पीछे मोटरें आती-जाती रहीं और लड़कियों की अंग्रेजी से सनी हुई आवाजें हवा में तड़प पैदा करती रहीं। खिलौनेवाले, किसी सिनेमा में किसी खिलौनेवाली ने जैसी ट्यून बजाई थी, उसी के नकल पर कर्णविस्फोटक संगीत के रचना करते रहे।
The imagery of a bucolic rural scene
थाने के बहार कान पर जनेऊ चढ़ाए हुए, बनियान और अंडरवियर पहन हुए तंदरुस्त सिपाही। पेड़ों के नीचे कुत्तों की तरह पड़े हुए चौकीदार। टूटे कुल्हड़ों, गंदे, भिनभिनाते हुए पत्तों और धुआँ निकलने वाली ढिबरियों से संपन्न मिठाई और चाय की दुकानें। चीकट लगी हुई तिपाइयाँ। सड़क पर घरघराते हुए नशेबाज़ ड्राइवरों के हाथों चलनेवाले हत्याभिलाषि ट्रकों के कारवां। साइकिल के कर्रिएर पर घास-जैसे कागज़ात लादे हुए वसूली के अमीन। तहसीलदार का बदकलाम अरदली। शराब पीकर नाइ की दुकान पर बिना मतलब झगड़नेवाले पं. रामधार का बेलगाम बेटा, जिसे सप्ताह में सात बार स्थानीय पोस्टमैन उससे भी ज्यादा शराब पीकर जूतों से पीटता है। कॉलेज की तरफ से आते हुए, एक-दूसरे की कमर में हाट डालकर चलते हुए, कोई कोरस-जैसा गाते विद्यार्थी।
A pithy rustic saying
शहर का आदमी है। सूअर का-सा लेंड़ - न लीपने के काम आये, न जलाने के।
A bonus is the garnishing before each chapter – a simple, yet cute graphic by Vikram Nayak.
description
description
description
A book that deserves multiple re-readings! The translation by Gillian Wright (Raag Darbari), in contrast, is so nondescript and pedestrian.

View all my reviews

Friday, March 8, 2024

The Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell

A Clergyman's Daughter: George OrwellA Clergyman's Daughter: George Orwell by George Orwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Orwell described this book (his second published novel) disparagingly as a ‘silly potboiler,’ but then he also labelled Animal Farm as ‘a little squib!’ The tale has his favourite tropes – the impoverished and the disenfranchised – surviving on the periphery of society. He paints an accurate subjective description of poverty since it since it was his subjective experience as in Down and Out in Paris and London
She had come, like everyone about her, to accept this monstrous existence almost as though it were normal. The dazed, witless feeling that she had known on the way to the hopfields had some back upon her more strongly than before. It is the common effect of sleeplessness and still more of exposure. To live continuously in the open air, never going under a roof for more than an hour or two, blurs your perceptions like a strong light glaring in your eyes or a noise drumming in your ears. You act and plan and suffer, and yet all the while it is as though everything were a little out of focus, a little unreal. The world, inner and outer, grows dimmer till it reaches almost the vagueness of a dream.

It was a life that wore you out, used up every ounce of your energy, and kept you profoundly, unquestionably happy. In the literal sense of the word, it stupefied you. The long days in the fields, the coarse food and insufficient sleep, the smell of hops and wood smoke, lulled you into an almost beast-like heaviness, Your wits seemed to thicken, just as your skin did, in the rain and sunshine and perpetual fresh air.
His vivid portrayal of nature and humans is underappreciated
Miss Mayfill was very old, so old that on one remembered her as anything but an old woman. A faint scent radiated from her – an ethereal scent, analysable as eau-de-Cologne, mothballs and a sub-flavour of gin.

A momentary spear of sunlight had pierced the clouds. It struck downwards through the leaves of the limes, and a spray of leaves in the doorway gleamed with a transient, matchless green, greener than jade or emerald or Atlantic waters.

The day, which, like some overripe but hopeful widow was playing at seventeen, had been putting on unseasonable April airs, had now remembered that it was August and settled down to be broiling hot.

When he was puzzled or in difficulties, his moustaches seemed to bristle forward, giving him the appearance of a well-meaning but exceptionally brainless prawn.
Certainly not his best book, yet, immensely readable.

View all my reviews

Friday, March 1, 2024

Chowringhee by Sankar

ChowringheeChowringhee by Sankar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Poor translation and a disjointed narration style has marred this Hotel wannabe.

View all my reviews

मन्नू भंडारी कृत महाभोज

महाभोजमहाभोज by Mannu Bhandari
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An evocative and sordid picture of Indian politics and an accurate portrayal of the venal, scheming, selfish Indian politicians. Also a bold statement of casteism and the bullying of Dalits by the so called ‘upper castes.’ I wish it was longer - the shenanigans of our self-professed leaders w0uld fill countless volumes.

View all my reviews

Monday, February 26, 2024

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

The Road to Wigan PierThe Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At the beginning of the second part of the book Orwell writes
The road to Mandalay to Wigan is a long one and the reasons for taking it are not immediately clear.
He does elucidate his journey along this path.
Based on Orwell’s personal observations while in situ, the first part is an engrossing treatise on the socio-economic status of the coal-mining community in the Lancashire area; it addresses the living conditions, housing, sanitation, food and nutrition, working conditions in the mines, health facilities, roles of religion and trade-unions, recreational opportunities or a lack thereof. I faced the onerous task of deciphering the values of “pounds, shillings and pence” and could not but marvel the British doggedness of not adopting the decimal system. They had inflicted the Indians with the equally puzzling currency system of “rupee, anna and paisa.” The stark landscape, prevalent poverty, the all-pervading smoke and sickness like pneumoconiosis reminded me of AJ Cronin’s The Citadel.
And that is the central fact about housing in the industrial areas: not that the houses are poky and ugly, and insanitary and comfortless, or that they are distributed in incredibly filthy slums round belching foundries and stinking canals and slag-heaps that deluge them with sulphurous smoke – though all this is perfectly true – but simply that there are not enough houses to go round.
A slag-heap is at best a hideous thing, because it is so planless and functionless. It is something just dumped on the earth, like the emptying of a giant’s dust-bin. On the outskirts of mining towns there are frightful landscapes where your horizon is ringed completely round by jagged grey mountains, and underfoot is mud and ashes and overhead the steel cables where tubs of dirt travel slowly across miles of country. Often the slag-heaps are on fire, and at night you can see the red rivulets of fire winding this way and that, and also the slow-moving blue flames of sulphur, which always seem on the point of expiring and always spring out again.
Besides the economic disparity, he also dwells on the prevalent class system in Britain. It may not have been as evil as the divisive caste system in India, but was very much in evidence
You cannot have and effective trade union of middle-class workers, because in times of strikes almost every middle-class wife would be egging her husband ton to backleg and get the other fellow’s job.
That is what we were taught
– the lower classes smell. And here, obviously, you are at an impassable barrier. For no feeling of like or dislike is quite so fundamental as a <>physical<> feeling. Race-hatred, religious hatred, differences of education, of temperament, of intellect, even differences of moral code, can be got over; but physical repulsion cannot. You can have an affection for a murderer or a sodomite., but you cannot have an affection for a man whose breath stinks – habitually stinks, I mean. However well you may wish him, however much you may admire his mind and character, if his breath stinks he is horrible and in your heart of hearts you will hate him.
The second part is more autobiographical. He talks about his experiences as a police officer in colonial India – in Burma, to be precise, and then his experiment with poverty as in Down and Out in Paris and London. Witnessing the poverty and indifference of the governing dispensation, both political, as well as bureaucratic, his inchoate ideas start to crystallize at this stage, as he develops his philosophy on Socialism, Fascism, Communism, totalitarian regimes etc – this tends to go on and on a bit, but is still fascinating, seeing Orwell’s thought processes that culminates in Animal Farm and 1984
In the end I worked out an anarchistic theory that all government is evil, that punishment always does more harm than the crime and that people can be trusted to behave decently if only you will let them alone. This of course was sentimental nonsense.
I felt that I had got to escape not merely from imperialism but from every form of man’s dominion over man.
Not as entertaining as his other novels, nonetheless, it's an important seminal work.

View all my reviews

Sunday, February 18, 2024

यशपाल कृत झूठा सच द्वितीय खंड (देश का भविष्य)

झूठा सच : देश का भविष्य [Jhootha Sach: Desh ka Bhavishya]झूठा सच : देश का भविष्य [Jhootha Sach: Desh ka Bhavishya] by यशपाल
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

कनक और भाई-बहन तारा व जयदेव की कहानी आगे बढ़ती है। विभाजन की पीड़ा और बाद में नव-स्वतंत्र भारत में उनके संघर्ष पश्चिम से पूर्व तक विस्थापित व्यक्तियों के प्रतिनिधि हो सकते हैं। दासत्व के अंधेरे के बाद स्वतंत्रता की सुबह - एक नए राष्ट्र के खूनी जन्म से लोगों को कई आकांक्षाएं थीं। लेकिन धीरे-धीरे उनकी आशाएं धराशायी हो जाती हैं क्योंकि भ्रष्टाचार सरकारी नौकरशाही और दलाल राजनेताओं के माध्यम से अपने जाल को फैला देता है।
कांग्रेसियों ने गाँधी जी से एक ही बात सीख ली है कि चाहे जिस कड़की या स्त्री के कंधे पर हाथ रख लें। सभी अपने को राष्ट्रपिता समझने लगे हैं
It is a time for enterprising opportunists to set up business and industries. Nepotism, bribery prevails
सभी राज्यों की जनता शाशन में निधड़क कुनबापरवरी, नोच-खसोट और धाँधली से निराश और खिन्न हो रही थी। अंग्रेजी सरकार के पुराने रायबहादुर और खैरख्वाह अमन-सभाई और सरकारी अमलदारी से लाभ उठाने लोग कांग्रेस के मेंबर बन कर सफ़ेद नोकीली टोपी पहनने लगे थे। अब कांग्रेस का चंदा चार-चार आने और रुपए-रुपए की रसीदों से इकठ्ठा नहीं किया जाता था। चुनाव फण्ड में चंदा मिलों और कंपनियों से बीस-चालीस हजार और लाख-दो लाख रुपए के चेकों से आता था। कांग्रेस से सम्बन्ध रखने वाले जो लोग चार साल से सौ-सवा सौ की नौकरियों से निर्वाह कर रहे थे, अब अपने सम्बन्धी के मंत्री बन जाने या किसी महत्वपूर्ण कमेटी का मेंबर बन जाने पर जहाँ-तहाँ हजार-बारह सौ पाने लगे थे। मंत्रियों के मेट्रिक भी पास न सकने वाले सुपूत, सरकारी विभागों के अध्यक्ष बन कर हजार रुपए मासिक से भी संतुष्ट न थे। मंत्रियों के दामादों के लिए मैनेजिंग डायरेक्टर से काम कोई पद सोचा ही नहीं जा सकता था।

लोग धारासभा के सदस्यों (मेंबर ऑफ़ लेजिस्लेटिव असेम्ब्ली) को एम्. एल. ए. न कह कर घृणा से 'मैले' लोग कहने लगे थे।
Indictment on Gandhi and his childish puerile attempts at achieving independence
"और तुम्हारी कांग्रेस क्या करती रही? गाँधी जी क्या करते रहे? पहले नामिलवर्तन (असहयोग) में हजारों लड़कों के स्कूल-कालेज छुड़वाये, हजारों लोगों की नौकरियाँ छुड़वाईं और लाखों डंडे खाकर जेल गए और तुम्हारे बापू को लगा - ओह, हिमालयन ब्लंडर हो गयी। आंदोलन वापस ले लिया। पहले विदेशी कपडे की होली जलवानी शुरू की, उसे बंद किया। नमक सत्याग्रह किया और बंद किया। जंगल सत्याग्रह किया, लगान न देने का आंदोलन चलाया और बंद किया। कॉउन्सिलों का बायकाट किया, फिर कौंसिलों में गए। राउंड-टेबल कांफ्रेंस का बायकाट किया, फिर उसमें भी गए। पहले जंग का बायकाट नामुनासिब बताया, फिर उसी जंग का बॉयकॉट किया। पहले पार्टीशन की मुखालफत की फिर उसे कबूल किया। गाँधी और कांग्रेस के कब, कितनी बार नीति नहीं बदली? ... तुम्हारी कांग्रेस का तो गोल (लक्ष्य) ही चेंज होता रहा है। कभी 'डोमिनियन स्टेटस 'कभी 'फुल फ्रीडम अंडर द एम्पायर' कभी 'इंडिपेंडेंस' कभी 'रिपब्लिक' कभी 'रामराज' कभी 'कैपिटलिज्म' कभी 'सोशलिज्म' !
The latter part of the book starts to dawdle with the love affairs of the protagonists, but the ending is on an optimistic note
अब तो विश्वास करोगे, जनता निजीव नहीं है। जनता सदा मूक भी नहीं रहती। देश का भविष्य नेताओं और मंत्रियों की मुठ्ठी में नहीं है, देश की जनता के हाथ में है।
Just one small extract form the middle of the book when a train overladen with refugees struggles to leave a station
इंजन ने चीख-चिंघाड़, गर्जन-तर्जन द्वारा बोझ बहुत अधिक होने की शिकायतें कीं, क्रोध और बेबसी में बहुत-सी फुंकारों से धूएँ के बादल चोदे। फिर लाचार हो गाड़ी को धीमे-धीमे खींचना शुरू किया। कुछ दूर चलकर गाड़ी की गति ढचर टाँगे-रिक्शा के बराबर हो गयी।
एक विशाल परिदृश्य पर एक मनोरंजक कथा, महाकाव्य।

View all my reviews

Friday, February 16, 2024

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

Coming Up for AirComing Up for Air by George Orwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In this mild bildungsroman Orwell reminisces the blissful memories of childhood, dwells on the ennui of marriage and middle-age angst, loss of innocence – as in Gilmour’s and Waters’
When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look, but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, the dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb
and addresses his favourite tropes – poverty, war, totalitarian regimes (fascism, communism).
The reader can see Orwell’s evolution of thought towards his doctrine which culminates in 1984. He writes simply yet masterfully
Just a prison with the cells all in a row. A line of semidetached torture-chambers were the poor little five-to-ten-pound-a-weekers quake and shiver, every one of them with the boss twisting his tail and the wife riding him like a nightmare and the kids sucking his blood like leeches.

Everyone that isn’t scared stiff of losing his job is scared stiff of war, or Fascism, or Communism, or something. Jews sweating when they think of Hitler. It crossed my mind that the little bastard with the spiky moustache was probably a damn sight more scared for his job that the girl was. Probably got a family to support. And perhaps, who knows, at home he’s meek and mild, grows cucumbers in the back garden, lets his wife sit on him and the kids pull his moustache.
His take on processed foods
Everything comes out of a tin, or it’s hauled out of a refrigerator or squirted out of a tap or squeezed out of a tube. No comfort, no privacy. Tall stools to sit on, a kind of narrow ledge to eat off, mirrors all around you. A sort of propaganda floating round, mixed up with the noise of the radio, to the effect that food doesn’t matter, comfort doesn’t matter, nothing matters except slickness and shininess and streamlining. Everything’s streamlined nowadays, even the bullet Hitler’s keeping for you.

You know the smell churches have, a peculiar, dank, dusty, decaying, sweetish sort of smell. There’s a touch of candle-grease in it, and perhaps a whiff of incense and a suspicion of mice, and on Sunday mornings it’s a bit overlaid by yellow soap and serge dresses, but predominantly, it’s that sweet dusty, musty smell that’s like the smell of death and life mixed up together. It’s powdered corpses. Really.
A bureaucratic Kafkaesque nightmare that could be something out of Catch-22, a scenario that Milo Minderbinder would thrive in
The war did extraordinary things to people. And what was more extraordinary than the way it killed people was the way it sometimes didn’t kill them. It was like a great flood rushing you along to death, and suddenly it would shoot you up some backwater where you’d find yourself doing incredible and pointless things and drawing extra pay for them. There were labour battalions making roads across the desert that didn’t lead anywhere, there were chaps marooned on oceanic islands to look out for German cruisers which had been sunk years earlier, there were Ministries of this and that with armies of clerks and typists which went on existing years after their function had ended, by a kind of inertia. People were shoved into meaningless jobs and then forgotten by the authorities for years on end.
Echoes of Yossarian – albeit a matured Yossarian
If the war didn’t happen to kill you it was bound to start you thinking. After that unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn’t go on regarding society as something eternal and unquestionable, like a pyramid, You knew it was just a balls-up.

A queer trade, anti-Fascism. This fellow, I suppose, makes his living by writing books against Hitler. But what did he do before Hitler came along? And what’ll he do if Hitler ever disappears? Same question applies to doctors, detectives, ratcatchers and so forth, of course.
Here, the British seemingly living in blissful ignorance, denial of the impending malign influence of Nazism
‘Tell me, porteous, what do you think of Hitler?’
‘Hitler? This German person? My dear fellow! I
don’tthink of him.’
‘But the trouble is he’s going to bloody well make us think about him before he’s finished.’
‘I see no reason for paying any attention to him. A mere adventurer. These people come and go. Ephemeral, purely, ephemeral.’
He paints such a vivid picture of something so mundane as a smouldering pile of ashes
You know the look of wood fire on a still day. The sticks that have gone all white ash and still keep the shape of sticks, and under the ash the kind of vivid red that you can see into. It’s curious that a red ember looks more alive, gives you more a feeling of life, than any living thing. There’s something about it, a kind of intensity, a vibration – I can’t think of the exact words. But it lets you know that you’re alive yourself. It’s the spot on the picture that makes you notice everything else.

I don’t mind towns growing, so long as they do grow and don’t merely spread like gravy over a tablecloth.
So what is the title all about?
You know the feeling I had. Coming up for air! Like the big sea-turtles when they come paddling up to the surface, stick their noses out and fill their lings with a great gulp before they sink down again among the seaweed and the octopuses. We’re all stifling at the bottom of a dustbin, but I’d found the way to the top.

Coming up for air! But there isn’t any air. The dustbin that we’re in reaches up to the stratosphere.
Such artistry!

View all my reviews

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

Keep the Aspidistra FlyingKeep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On picking up the book I thought that the Aspidistra was some sort of iconic revolutionary flag, like the Indian “Tricolour” or the “Stars and Stripes,” but it turned out to be a mundane genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae. Aspidistra elatior is common worldwide as a foliage house plant that is very tolerant of neglect. Species of Aspidistra can also be grown in shade outside, where they are generally hardy to sub-zero temperatures. They are perennial herbaceous plants growing from rhizomes. The leaves are either solitary or are grouped in small "tufts" of two to four. Each leaf has a long stalk (petiole) and a blade with many veins. The flowering stem (scape) is usually very short so that the flowers appear low down among the leaves. The fleshy flowers are bell-, urn- or cup-shaped. Aspidistras can withstand deep shade, neglect, dry soil, hot temperatures and polluted indoor air (from burning coal or natural gas) but are sensitive to bright sunlight. As a popular foliage houseplant, Aspidistra elatior became popular in late Victorian Britain and was so common that it became a "symbol of dull middle-class respectability". In this book, according to the protagonist, it is a symbol of the need of the middle class to maintain respectability
description

There is no aspect of British life described that I could identify with, yet Orwell’s evocative but simple style is so gripping that one cannot simply put the book down. He is a master word-smith, painting vivid descriptions with his pen.
A nasty raw wind. There was a threatening note in it as it swept over; the first growl of winter’s anger.

In all bookshops there goes on a savage Darwinian struggle in which the works of living men gravitate to eye-level and the works of dead men go up or down – down to Gehenna up to the throne, but always away from any position where they will be noticed. Down in the bottom shelves the ‘classics’, the extinct monsters of the Victorian age, were quietly rotting.

He almost wanted to laugh at them, they were so feeble, so dead-alive, so unappetising. As though anybody could be tempted by
those! Like succubi with pimply backsides.

Of all types of human being, only the artist takes it upon him to say that he ‘cannot’ work.

…the sort of dingy, drabby fornication that you can imagine happening between Egyptian mummies after the museum is closed for the night.

All over the darkish drawing-room, aging, discoloured people sat about in couples, discussing symptoms. Their conversation was like the dripping of stalactite to stalagmite. Drip, drip. ‘How is your lumbago?’ saysa stalactite to stalagmite. “I find my Kruschen Salts are doing me good,’ says stalagmite to stalactite, Drip, drip, drip.

Gordon walked up Malkin Hill, rustling instep-deep through the dry drifted leaves. All down the pavement they were strewn, crinkly and golden, like the rustling flakes of some American breakfast cereal, as though the queen of Brobdingnag had upset her packet of Tru-weet Breakfast Crisps won the hillside.

No rich man ever succeeds in disguising himself as a poor man; for money, like murder, will out.

As a rule a dwarf, when malformed, has a full-sized torso and practically no legs. With Mr Cheeseman it was the other way about. His legs were of normal length, but the top half of his body was so short that his buttocks seemed to sprout almost immediately below his shoulder blades. This gave him, in walking, a resemblance to a pair of scissors.

The books were published by special low-class firms and turned out by wretched hacks at the rate of four a year, as mechanically as sausages and with much less skill.
Orwell seems to have inspired the lyrics of Roger Waters
Yes, the war is coming soon. You can’t doubt it when you see the Bovex ads. The electric drills in our streets presage the tattle of machine guns. Only a little while before the aeroplanes come. Zoom – bang! A few tons of TNT to send our civilisation back to hell where it belongs.
The protagonist’s constant hostility towards the long-suffering aspidistra is very evident in the narrative. While attempting to escape the clutches of Mammon in his masochistic journey, he repeatedly encounters his botanical nemesis like a persistent totem
…his eye fell on the aspidistra in its grass-green pot. It was a peculiarly mangy specimen, It had only seven leaves and never seemed to put forth any new ones. Gordon had a sort of secret feud with the aspidistra. Many a time he had furtively attempted to kill it – starving it of water, grinding hot cigarette-ends against its stem, even mixing salt with its earth. But the beastly things are practically immortal> In almost any circumstances they can preserve a wilting, diseased existence. Gordon stood up and deliberately wiped his kerosiny leaves on the aspidistra leaves.
His animosity does not decrease with time
The aspidistra stood in its pot, dull green, ailing, pathetic in its sickly ugliness. As he sat down, he pulled it towards him and looked at it meditatively. “I’ll beat you yet, you b---,” he whispered to the dusty leaves.

It was an aspidistra. It gave him a bit of a twinge to see it. Even here, in this final refuge! Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? But it was a poor weedy specimen – indeed, it was obviously dying.
The seemingly immortal shrub responds to a change in the weather
The aspidistra, it turned out, had not died after all; the withered leaves had dropped off it, but it was putting forth a couple of dull green shoots near its base.
The protagonist’s antipathy seemingly gets attenuated
They had their standards, their inviolable points of honour. They ‘kept themselves respectable’ – kept the aspidistra flying. Besides, they were alive. They were bound up in the bundle of life. They begot children, which is what the saints and the soul-savers never by any chance do.
As he yields
’I expect we’ll settle down all right, though. With a house of our own and a pram and an aspidistra.
Finally, an epiphany dawns
The aspidistra is the tree of life, he thought suddenly.
One small but profound phrase
Poverty is spiritual halitosis
There’s so much more to George Orwell than Animal Farm and 1984.

View all my reviews

Monday, February 5, 2024

मनोहर श्याम जोशी कृत क्याप

क्यापक्याप by Manohar Shyam Joshi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

जातिवाद, साम्यवाद, समाजवाद - सामान्य तौर पर राजनेता, नौकरशाही पर शानदार तीखा व्यंग्य (satire)। वन्यजीवों, लकड़ी, जड़ी-बूटियों, खनिजों आदि जैसे प्राकृतिक संसाधनों के शोषण का एक तीव्र आरोप, जैसा कि कुख्यात पहाड़ी विल्सन The Raja of Harsil: The Legend of Fedrick "Pahari Wilson" द्वारा शुरू किया गया था और वर्तमान व्यवस्था द्वारा भी जारी है - दोनों - कानूनी रूप से सरकारी एजेंसियों द्वारा और अवैध रूप से 'माफिया' द्वारा।
इसमें आरएसएस के आदर्शवादी श्री हेडगेवार की ओर संकेत है - यहां वह कम्युनिस्टों के पार्टी के मुख्यविचारक (party idealogue) हैं - 'डाक्साब'।
कथा उत्तराखंड के एक काल्पनिक क़स्बा व जनपद में स्तिथ है। यह विफल एवं अनबिलाषित प्रेम (unrequited love), प्रतिशोध और पागलपन की कहानी भी है।
अत्यंत रोचक व हास्यपूर्ण रचना।

View all my reviews