REVIEW: Indian Essentials

REVIEW
Indian Essentials
Penguin
Rs 450
Pp 526
ISBN: 9780143065265
Paperback

Blurb
In this quirky collection, twenty writers and social commentators ponder the mysteries of the Indian psyche and try to make sense of one trait, phenomenon or cultural value that is quintessentially Indian. From the Indian male’s predilection for public urination to the Indian female’s obsession with gold, from the jhatkas of Bollywood to the melas of Allahabad, from our embarrassingly frank matrimonials to our obsession with sex (or rather not talking about it!), nothing is spared scrutiny. And because we Indians like a little something extra over and above what we are promised, in The Short Dictionary of [Other] Things Indian, a concise guide to Indianisms, there are the peculiar Indian qualities. Dip into this collection to find out what it means to be Made in India.

The way we are Tribune India
The reviewer has decided that she’s going to follow Jerry Pinto on Twitter or whichever social network he is on, since the time he had her chuckling over his little compilation of terms most Indian, which comes in the form of an extra booklet along with Indian Essentials.

That’s a cunning trick, by the way, because the size of Indian Essentials can daunt the reader who is now used reading only about 30,000 words, give or take a few. But the slim little book grabs you and when you put it away singing Vicco Vajranti Ayurvedic cream, twacha ki raksha kare antiseptic cream, (Because Jerry Pinto, henceforth, the reviewer’s Twitter hero, asks the reader to, you see), you reach for Indian Essentials, hoping that its going to do the glossary justice. The view is a bit lop-sided, I admit, but the glossary is so vastly amusing that the expectations rise.

And the reader is not disappointed. Dare she go non-intellectual and say that the book is "lovely?" There! She’s said it! It’s a lovely book, amusing, touching the core and revealing the reality of the pure Indian spirit, but sweetly, gently, with humour and compassion. The Indian love for tradition, the hypocrisy, the family feeling, the smoke curtains around sex, the NRI phenomena, Bollywood, cricket, marriage `85 everything is dissected, put under the microscope, thoroughly examined and then sewn up neatly by the authors of this anthology.

The list of authors packs quite a punch. All heavyweights in their respective fields, they have varied views, experiences, and spheres of influence. That’s why each piece, though the surmise(s) is not new, is treated with a fresh perspective. For example, in Hum Log, the Sex Log, the writer, Samrat, writes about the obfuscation of sex issues in India, but with what different angles! He covers everything from the immensely popular porn website Savita Bhabhi to ‘Ask the Sexpert’ sections of magazines answering questions in their half-baked manner; divine procreation in mythologies, and the ‘V.D, Sex specialists’ who promise that the suffering man will regain his "virility and masculine vigour". The article is no-holds-barred irreverent and rip roaring hilarious!

Home truths

Need we be re-introduced to our motherland in this bland way, asks Shinie Antony, unimpressed by the anthology that explores tried and tested Indian themes.

Being a typical Indian, I warmed to this book — Indian Essentials — at first sight because of its sheer bulk, giving me more than its price, more than I can indeed read. Also, I can now do the traditional thing and name-drop this book into conversations and come across as hundred percent literate, well read and that too in English. Oooh, I can do all things Indian with this book on Indianness! Alas, the publishers had the same idea. They did an Indian on me — by collecting big names and giving them tried and tested ‘Indian’ themes to harp on, by giving me — the reader — home truths that I already knew and lived by and coped with on a daily basis.

To be served pissed-off veteran voices, albeit piping hot with spiffy headlines, on matters this mundane is to be taken on a thoroughly Indian ride. Really, need we be re-introduced to our motherland in this bland, bland way? Anthologies are the buffets of books; one can read the new rabble-rousers along with the old, established rogues.

Full report here Deccan Herald

REVIEW: Grey Areas

REVIEW

Grey Areas: An Anthology of Indian Fiction on Ageing;
Ed. Ira Raja
OUP
Rs.695
Pp 400
ISBN: 0195689585
Hardcover

Blurb
This anthology broadly focuses on the question of ageing by bringing together an impressive range of stories and poems from across the Indian languages. It constructs a comprehensive collection of representational writings on ageing from contemporary India while drawing attention to the central importance of age as a category of identity that is complex, fragmented, dispersed, multiple, contested, and conflicting.

The six sections in which the stories and poems are categorized are relevant to both a sense of the content and to the experience of ageing in India. The wide range of stories included here look at ageing from the multiple, overlapping perspectives of intergenerational relations, homes, belongings, poverty, dislocation, memory, madness, nation, illness, and death. With a detailed introduction by the editor, Ira Raja, this well-thought-out, well-structured, and superbly-chosen collection represents some of the best contemporary writers from across the Indian languages. It will make an extremely valuable addition to the anthologies of contemporary Indian writing on a topic that is of particular interest to the academia at this time.

Review
No dying of the light Hindu
It's that time of year when you must slow down a little. As the summer peaks, nature demands that you take it easy. So sit back, arms pillowing your head, and think of age, of mortality, of the obliteration of the self. That is what Tyeb Mehta's Woman on Rickshaw, used so aptly on the cover of Grey Areas: An Anthology of Indian Fiction on Ageing, appears to do.
And as you look on,
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.
And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
(From ‘An Old Woman', by Arun Kolatkar)

That poem, early in the anthology, extends the age marked in the crow's feet near a woman's eyes to the whole world.

If the women inspire poetry, the old men make for some remarkable tales in this anthology. Abdul Bismillah's ‘The Second Shock' is a story simply told, yet it leaves you reeling. A classic tale of age and youth, of community life and endless ribbing suddenly silenced — not by death, as you might assume, but by something worse. Read it, for any attempt to describe it would only detract from the epiphany that comes at the end.