I have been reading RKN all along my readerlylife and will still keep doing so. The latest book that I came across is “Writerly Life” - selected non-fiction of R.K.Narayan. It included “My Dateless dairy” in toto, Collected essays from “reluctant guru”, “writer’s nightmare”,”story teller’s world” etc. As usual, it is a reader’s delight and a fan’s delight square. Looking at the diversity in the topics make me wonder at the sheer brilliance in observational skills of RKN. He seem to notice every detail of everything. And, ofcourse, with the experience of several decades (he passed away at 95), a good amount of wisdom is something that is very commonly observed if one reads his writings. Writerly life is no exception. Before I begin drown myself in the Narayan Narayan chant, let me come back on track.. and talk about the book…

Some of these essays are quite different to Narayan’s style that I knew. I always knew him as one author, who talks even about a serious issue in a tone that is laidback and very normal. But, some of the essays I read here, especially those in “The world of a writer” collection, surprised me to some extent. Somehow, I felt they were so “un-narayanish”. These essays were majorly on English rule in India, Indian writers in English, when India was a colony, the British Raj etc. Its not that Narayan never wrote about topics like this. But, its only that I felt he was more satarical and more restless in these essays….unlike the usual “common man” kind of image that he potrays in other essays, with occasional bursts of original and “right on track” humour.

His topics ranged from mundane, day to day issues like - Coffee, Walking, Gardening, crowds etc to some national issues like - emergency, elections, red-tapism, Hindi movement etc to light philosophicals to travels, food, writings etc… I can’t pick up any particular essay to be my favourite, nor can I pickup any one essay which is un-readable. This collection of essays cover a very diverse range of topics, never boring and full of simple humour and wit.  This book certainly one to be purchased and kept on one’s table so that, you can pick it up anytime, anyday, read anypage and then close it and carry on with your work. It is a great stress buster, in my opinion. It is this kind of book, which serves the purpose of a perfect timepass. One kind of book, which you will love to have in your hands on a weekend, on an easy-chair.

I am adding this book to my future “home-library” when I have a home of my own

I am in the process of listing “one book favourites” of mine, since 2001. I listed till 2003 in the previous post, here. Now, the second and last post under this heading:

2004:

On yet another Republic Day, I again made my mom buy this book - Moved By Love, memoirs of Vinobha Bhave, at that place in Koti on Gokul Chat road… which is related to Sabarmati. Its name … Gandhi something… I forgot… The memoirs were told my Vinobha and written by Marjorie Sykes. This book served the purpose of a history book too. Vinobha wrote about so many people of medieval India as well as pre-independent modern India. More than the books written for academic purposes, it is books like this and some fo the ones mentioned in the previous post (eg:Time to be happy, Azadi etc) that provide a better and more readable view of history… (in my opinion). “Everyday life in a Harem” by Babs Rule is an account of how royal women spend the rest of their lives, confined to palace walls, in the Saudi countries. It told stories about different aspects of the Arab way of living. As the name itself says…its their everyday life. It was kind of surprising to read it, at some places especially.

Next comes the children’s book, which I read and enjoyed after crossing that age. It is “Railway Children” by E.Nesbit. It is the story of the children in a small town, in search of their father. It was a delight to read this book, I should say. I did not find this when I was a child…but, I have no doubt I would have enjoyed it more then. Worldly knowledge come in the way of enjoyment sometimes, when older people read childrens’ books. “At the feet of the Badri” by S.S.L.Malhotra is one book which kept me glued to it. It is a sort of travelogue on a team’s trip to Badrinath. The whole narration is in such a way that we ourselves experience the whole travel. Towards the end…. it made me long for Badri. The descriptions of places were all too lovely.

“City of Joy” is perhaps the first book I read in 2004, but, mentioning it now.. temporary memory loss It is by Dominique Lapierre. I previously read a few essays in “Freedom at Midnight” written by the same author along with Larry Collins, which prompted me to read this book. This is one of the best books I have ever read. Three and Half years after reading it, I still feel the feelings I got when I read that book. Its that touching and thought provoking. Should thank my brother for introducing this book to me.

2005:

It began with Taslima Nasreen’s Lajja. I have my own complaints about this book, like it being too statistical some times. But, nevertheless, it is a book which told me a lot of things. It is one book that every History enthusiast must read. There is one special book which is different from others here. It is “18th Parellel” by Ashoka Mitran, written originally in Tamil, translated in to English by Gomathi Narayanan. It is special in this list in two senses. First one being, this is the first book in this list so far, about which I blogged here. Second one being, I read the same book’s Telugu translation too, without feeling any boredom…a couple of days ago. I have been looking for Ashoka Mitran’s books for the past 2 years, but none came to my notice till now except this Telugu translation of the same book, which I un-knowingly purchased blinded by the name Ashoka Mitran Its only after coming home with the book did I notice that it is the same book that I read in English! “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra is on the books that opened new doors to me. I grew up looking at this book in the book-shelf, never attempting to read it, imagining that its not for me. One fine day, my brother, who was reading it told me that it is very interesting… and I began reading it. It is an extremely interesting book. Very well-written too. I have not found enough time to read the same Author’s “The Turning point”. Otherwise, this book should not have been in this list Now, there are two other books, which I never completed..but, still qualify to come in to this list. One was “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler, a very interesting book. The other was a book, which I read during my training days at TCS, called “Fifth Discipline” by Peter Senge. Its case studies were very well analysed.

“A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistry is again, one of the best books I have read so far. It also, like City of Joy is thoroughly about “LIFE”. Incidentally, both these books came to me through my brother. The last for 2005 is “Comic Century” by Gautham Bhatia. It is a series of articles written in a light hearted and satirical vein, covering every major event of the past century. I liked it a lot at that time, but, somehow, when I tried reading it for the second time a few days back, I did not like it

2006:

Such kind of One-book favourites gradually reduced since last year, for I have access to a good library in IIIT and if I like one book by an author, I always have the choice to read the second one. “The Road Ahead” by Bill Gates is one book, which I saw everywhere in the book-shops, but never ventured to buy, owing to its cost. A friend offered to exchange it with “Future shock” by Alvin Toffler temporarily, which was there in our house, luckily. So I finally read it. The visionary in Gates is seen in many parts of the book. He used good examples to explain certain things too. Gates can be a good teacher :). The next book was “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom. I blogged about here, one of the first posts of my blog. This book influenced me a lot in the initial days. I should thank that friend who suggested me this book…the same one who gave the Gates’ book too. Tuesdays with morrie is an inspiring tale of life and living. At times, it did appear a bit wierd, like the idea of “living funeral”. But, I still got influenced by it. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell is a short book, but it is of that kind, which will live in our memory for long. It is a satire on how communism changed from the initial ideals as time passed. “Where on earth am I?” by Jug Suraiya is a travelogue. I mentioned about it once or twice in this blog too.

2007:
… and the latest… which means, I reached the end….. U must be feeling lucky
“India wins freedom” by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad…. most of you must have read about him and the book in history books at school. I picked this book from the library only with that excitement. It is a must read book, again, for a history enthusiast. There were some hitherto unknown stories about lot of things in the book. “Argumentative Indian” by Amartya Sen is the last of the series of “One book favourites in English..” I doubt if I come up with such a list in telugu…but, to be technically correct, I am saying so. Argumentative Indian is a collection of Essays by Amartya Sen. I did not complete reading it. But, whatever essays I have read were really good. They told me a lot of things…. Logically, when I wrote this post 2 days back, the post stopped here. But, I read something in the mean time, which inspired me a lot. It is Lance Armstrong’s autobiography - “It’s not about the bike”. I felt compelled to add it to this list.

- This kind of posts serve the purpose of refreshing our memories. So, I might come with a couple of such posts in near future. Bear with me. There is an advantage too. If you have not heard of any books mentioned here, it will be useful in that sense. If you have, it will serve as a nostalgia post.

Long back in 1997, I was given a blue covered dairy by my father, to keep an account of what books I am reading. I was in school those days, knew nothing about internet and computers. I knew nothing beyond my school’s library and dad’s personal library. So, there began my book-keeping work about books. In these days of blogs, I am not updating it much, though I keep maintaining a log about what book I read, just mentioning the name and the author. I was browsing through this book on Monday morning. It was then that it stuck me - how many authors remained my one-book favourites! “One book favourites” is the tag I attach to the authors whom I liked and still admire, despite the fact that I read only one book of theirs. Today, and perhaps in the next post too, I will write about those authors and the books. It serves as a journey down the memory lane post too Pre-2001 books are all childhood kind of books and hence, I am beginning from 2001.

2001:
On the eve of Independence day or Republic Day, I don’t remember specifically…. I made my mom buy this book at the Department of Communications something exhibition at the Gruhakalpa Complex, near Nampally, Hyderabad. It is named - Snobbery Street. It is a English version of the Sahitya Academy Award winning Tamil novel - “Samudhaya Veethi” by Naa Parthasaradhy. Here was a totally new author whom I never knew/heard of. I don’t know why I felt like buying this book. Nevertheless, it was a fine reading experience. Muthukumaran, I remember was the name of Hero character of the novel. It was about his struggles to make a mark as a writer-actor of plays, I think. I don’t remember the story completely now. But, I remember the characters, their relations and the events, randomly. It was the first book from which I noted down some quotes, which I liked a lot, at that time. It was like, I read a few sentences and thought - “How true and I never noticed the same before!”.

There was this book - “Gold for the Gay master”, which was one of those first books I and my brother bought in Abids market in May 2001, on the day I wrote my EAMCET exam. The author of this book is not known to us, for that page is already torn. For the only reason that it came for some 10Rs, we took it. It was a very gripping novel. Its like, a slave woman’s fate is changed for good and she is on the way to take revenge on whoever ill-treated as a child. We both liked it a lot at that time, though I don’t remember now, why it is named so. Looking back, I still feel it was very interesting, though compared to then, I am reading more of the well-known authors.

2002:
“Of Human Bondage” by Somerset Maugham left me becoming a favourite of Maugham’s style, despite the fact that I never read anything of this in later life. Given the iconic status of Maugham, anybody might expect that I read more of Maugham. But, surprisingly, I did not. Somehow, I did not find his writings anywhere.

July 2002 - July 2003:
I had British Library,Hyderabad membership in this year. So, I had regular dosages of some interesting books. It was in this very time that a section on Indian Fiction opened there. I utilised and exploited it as much as possible until my membership expired. One of the first books I got hold of was - Nayantara Sehgal’s “A Time to be Happy”. She is one of the Daughters of Nehru’s sister - Vijayalaxmi Pandit. “A Time to be happy” was set in late 40s. It goes in first person narrative about the changing times and lifestyle at that time. It was indeed interesting to know so many things about Freedom struggle days. Perhaps, this is one book which made me read the next book - Chaman Nahal’s “Azadi” in 2003. It was set in partition time. It was about a Hindu family, which lives in Pakistan till partition and their experiences with Partition. I think the Hero’s name was Arun. It was so touching and gripping that, I read it at one go. I still remembering my brother wondering saying - “I don’t think I saw you read any book so continuously!”. It was unbiased in the sense that when it talked about Muslims atrocities in Pakistan towards Hindus, it showed the other side of the coin in India. It potrayed the harsh reality that is named Partition. Next was Meher Pestonji’s “Pervez”. It was set during the times of 1992. It was here that I read about life in DHARAVI slum in Mumbai. This was not a thoroughly gripping novel. But, in parts, it was superb at some places. I came to know lot of incidents of political and social significance that took place at that time. “Untouchable” by MulkRaj Anand is the last of the four books from British Library India section, which made me long for the authors works. However, though, I never read other books by them after these. Since there is a lot of life ahead, I think my longing will end There were other authors, whom I first read in the India section. But, I found other books by them too.

Late 2003:
“To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee is one book which left a great impression on my mind. Not because of the racism issues and all. Because of the brother-sister story in it. Me and my brother read it at around the same time too. So, it was somewhat very engrossing for me, was I was constantly seeing both of us in them. No clues as to why Harper Lee did not write a single novel after this. “To sir with Love” by E.R.Braithwaite is another book which influenced me greatly. We had an excerpt from the book, in one of our English textbooks. That was the only reason for me to read this book. But, this is one of the best books that I have ever read. Thanks for that friend who brought this book to college once, and showed it to me and lent it to me too. “Why me?” by Donald E.Westlake is one novel, which I enjoyed reading a lot, at around the same time. It was about the funny situations a thief is put in, after stealing something. It was written grippingly enough, though I never found the author anywhere, anytime…after this.

Today, I will stop here. More on my 2004-2007 one-book favourites’ experiences in the next post in a day or two.

ఆ మధ్య చాణ్ణాళ్ళ క్రితం జావెద్ అఖ్తర్ కీ నస్రీన్ కబీర్ కీ మధ్య జరిగిన సంభాషణ వంటి ఇంటర్వూ ని అఖ్తర్ వి ఓ అరవై పాటలతో కలిపి వేసిన Talking Songs అన్న పుస్తకం చదివాను. ఇంటర్వ్యూ బాగుంది. పాటలు రాయడం లో ఉండే కష్ట నష్టాలు, ఒక పాటల రచయిత కీ, మరొకరి కీ మధ్య శైలుల్లో ఉండే తేడా, పదజాలం ఎంపిక, హిందీ పాటల ఎవల్యూషన్ - ఇలా ఎన్నో విషయాలు చర్చించారు. వివిధ పాటల రచయితల్ని గురించి జావెద్ అఖ్తర్ బాగా స్టడీ చేసినట్లు అనిపించింది. అసలు చివర్న ఆ పాటలు, వాటి ఇంగ్లీషు అనువాదాలు ఇవ్వడం లో ఉన్న మతలబు అర్థం కాకపోయినా కూడా, దాని వల్ల ఒక విషయం తెలిసింది.

మన ఖడ్గం సినిమా లోని - “మేమే ఇండియన్స్” పాటకూ, ఫిర్ భీ దిల్ హై హిందుస్తానీ సినిమా లోని ట”ఫిర్ భీ దిల్ హై హిందుస్తానీ” పాటకూ ఉన్న సారూప్యం. మన తెలుగు పాట ని శివశక్తిదత్త రాసినట్లు గుర్తు. సరే, విషయానికొస్తే హిందీ పాట ని “చదువుతూ” ఉంటే నాకు ఆశ్చర్యమేసింది….రెంటి మధ్య సారూప్యానికి ఏమన్నా కథ ఉందేమో నాకు తెలీదు కానీ, అనువాద చిత్రం కానప్పుడు అవే భావాలు ఎందుకు వాడినట్లో అర్థం కాలేదు.

ఉదాహరణ కి … తెలుగు లో… “ప్రేమా కావాలంటాం, పైసా కావాలంటాం..” అని వస్తుంది. హిందీ పాటలో - “హమే ప్యార్ చాహియే, ఔర్ కుచ్ పైసే భీ” అని వచ్చింది. “ఇలాగ ఉంటాం..అలాగ ఉంటాం.” అని తెలుగులో వస్తే “హమ్ ఐసే భీ హై, హమ్ హై వైసే భీ..” అని వచ్చింది. “కలలూ కన్నీళ్ళెన్నో మన కళ్ళల్లో..” అని తెలుగు లో ఒక లైను. హిందీ పాటలో - “ఆంఖో మే కుచ్ ఆసూ హై కుచ్ సప్నే హై..” అని వచ్చింది…. పాట థీమ్ ఒకటి అవడం యాదృచ్ఛికమే కావొచ్చు కానీ… ఇలా ఇన్ని లైన్లు కలవడం కూడా అంతేనా లేక ఏమన్నా కథుందా? అన్నది నాకు అర్థం కాలేదు.

ఏమైనా, ఇందులో అఖ్తర్ అన్న ఓ వాక్యం ఓ సారి అందరికీ చెప్పి పంచుకోదగ్గది… “All forms of creativity are an exercise in schizophrenia because you need to be more than one person within you to be creative.”

                 Today, I was browsing through this old book, which I keep by side and scribble down some lines which I like when I read some books. As I glanced through it, I realised that I never completed several of the books lines from which I wrote in that book. That is not because the book was not interesting in all cases. Sometimes, it was because I have to part with the book. Sometimes it is because I did not feel like reading it. Sometimes, it just skipped my notice. Sometimes, purely lethargy. This post is dedicated to such books. And, ofcourse, I will try to give an introduction about these books.

“The Middle Passage” by V.S.Naipaul - I felt it was a very well written travelogue kind of book. It talked about Naipaul’s travels and experiences across the Caribbean. It had its own tinge of historical stories about various places too.  I don’t know why I never completed it, but I remember returning it to the library half heartedly.

“Writing Short stories” by Alisia Cox is one book which I took just because it amused me. I didn’t understand how one can “learn” writing short stories, by reading essays on it. However, once I browsed through the book,  I understood. It lets us try out various styles of writing and also presents case-studies of various writing styles and various authors. Its in a way very much useful for wanna-be story writers, was what I felt, as I browsed through it. However, this is out of purely lethargy to try all those exercises that I did not continue further with this book.

“కొకు సాహిత్య వ్యాసాలు” -a collection of essays by Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao is one of the excellent books that I came across. However, for the sheer quantity of essays, I was unable to continue it. Such a kind of books can’t be lent and read. They should be your personal copies. Its a sort of encyclopedia, in my opinion. “ఇల్లాలి ముచ్చట్లు” by పురాణం సీత is another such book, which cannot be read at one go. It is to be kept with us, read occassionally, for passing off our time in a enjoyable vien.

“Where on earth  am I? - Confusions of a travelling man” by Jug Suraiya is another travelogue, again. Personally, I liked this book very much. Jug has this wonderful style of writing travel experiences, was what I realised. I never followed his columns in Times of India except for for occassional glances. But, whatever he wrote - I liked all those essays a lot. He made me feel as if I visited Czech or Tibet or Greece or Kenya or Ireland or Brazil or Argentina or whichever place he wrote about in the book. I liked the humor too.  Why I stopped reading this? no reason. There was a break. I lost track!

“Seven nobel laureates on science & spirituality” , edited by T.D.Singh is one book which had some really interesting essays by eminent scientists. However, they required a high deal of concentration to understand, which I was not prepared to put in. So, I had no option but to stop after two essays.

“Three Chinese poets” by Vikram Seth is a small book. But, I cannot somehow read neither English poetry nor translations of non-english poems to English. So …

“My name is red” by Orhan Pamuk - I did not like the way it began. However, after Pamuk’s Nobel Prize, I want to give it a second try.

- :)  This is the list in the past 1 year. What can I do, but leave a small “hmmm” and take a deep breath after looking at the list now?? Perhaps,  I will do the same when I re-visit these blog posts one of those years when I become busy in future, after becoming a - “ex-student”

              Enough has been said in this blog about Feluda and its creator Satyajit ray in the past 10 months, I guess. Nevertheless, let me introduce him again - Feluda is a young detective character created by Satyajit Ray, inspired by Sherlock Holmes, as Ray himself has mentioned in the preface. Adventures of Feluda appeared in the Bengali children’s magazine “sandesh” run by Ray himself (Founded by his grandfather Upendra Kishore Ray). There are 35 Feluda novels on the whole and this book is a collection of 16 novels, translated in to English by Gopa Majumdar. This is a highly enjoyable reading experience and I mean it hundred percent.

One good thing is that all the novels in the collection are in the chronological order of their appearance in “sandesh”. So, we can actually see the growth of Feluda, ourselves. “Danger in Darjeeling” is the first novel. I liked the ending in it a lot.  “The Emperor’s ring” is an interesting novel. It has Ray style wierdness in the plot, at some places, for example - Bonobihari babu’s zoo. “Kailash Chowdary’s jewel” already appeared in a collection I read recently-”The royal bengal tiger mystery and other stories”. This is something that did not appeal me very much. “The Anubis mystery”-is a good novel, again. “Trouble in Gangtok” - though it was a bit predictable, some elements in it were very interesting and aroused curiosity, like for example - the possibility of the German young man being the son of  SS. “The Golden Fortress” - this also turned a bit predictable, but, again, I felt the plot was interesting. Ray used different kind of scenarios in his novels. He definitely had a great deal of imagination. “Incident on the Kalka Mail” - I mentioned about this some time back, here. It was an interesting read. “A killer in kailash” - appeared in the “Royalbengal tiger mystery…” collection. It arosed quite a deal of curiosity. I did not feel like reading this for a second time, though.

“The Key” - Good narrative. The narration was highly animative in the crucial scenes, I should say. Next comes - “The royak bengal tiger mystery”, which appeared in the collection with the same name. It was good and the climax was a highlight. “The Locked Chest” - too I read before. But, I did not mind a second reading. It was interesting. “The mystery of the elephant god” - was full of doubts and twists. Again, the narration was a bit different and had a Ray mark on it. I liked this particular narrative very much. “Bandits of Bombay” was in the “The locked chest” style with regards the “villain’s” character, but, it was interesting on its own too. “Mystery of the walking dead” - I read this before too.  Nice plot. “The secret of the cemetery” also happens to be the one I read before, though it did not come in the way of experiencing the joy of reading it. “The curse of the goddess” - was also a second read for me, though, again, its a pleasure to read Ray always.

However, one thing that I noticed was the number of novels with plots related to Antiques and stuff. Very few differed in the actual theme. But, it was the narration which was different. Perhaps, that is what which made all the repeated mentions about rings, jewels, statues etc throughout the collection a “not-boring” affair. Yeah, the influence of Holmes is easily seen, but Ray himself said that Feluda is inspired by Holmes. I liked the “cleanliness” of the novels throughout. It is difficult to write detective novels without the mention of high violence or vamps. But, Ray did that and he was commited to doing that till the end.

Perhaps, this is the only Indian detective in literature. I am not sure. Atleast, it should be so in Children’s literature. All those Bengali kids who grew up in his heydays as an author are very very lucky, which includes the translator - Gopa Majumdar too. This pook is a Penguin Edition, costs 450/-. For the first time in my life, I  felt - it is not costly. It is apt. Imagine, 16 novels for Rs 450/- ! I have seen individual copies of these novels priced as Rs 99/- each!

I wonder if there are any such writings in Telugu… or did anyone attempt to translate these works to telugu. These are surely a joy to read. I hope all the children who just entered adolscence will read it, and enjoy them. I recommend this book strongly to anybody who is interested in reading detective fiction. If you like Holmes, you will like this young Holmes-style detective too. Ray rocks! I salute the master-story teller. Should see if Volume-2 is anywhere within my reach now!

“Buttertea at sunrise - A year in Bhutan Himalaya” is a book by Britta Das, describing her experiences as a physiotherapist and as a human being during one year of her stay in Bhutan. For a book of more than 300 pages, I should accept it has good narration for I did not feel bored at any point of time. Perhaps, the “curiosity” factor about Bhutanese life was responsible for that.

So, the book begins with Britta arriving in Bhutan, on a one year contract as a physiotherapist in a remote Bhutanese village called Mongar. It is about the people, nature and life at Bhutan. I don’t plan to make this article a long, boring one. So, let me say in few sentences. I prefer to classify the content of this book in to four parts, which intersperse with each other in the narrative. The four parts being - About Bhutan, About Bhutanese life, About Britta, About her patients and hospital things.

Yeah, this book provides considerable insight in to Bhutan and its village life. It talks about people from different walks of life. It talks about medical facilities there too. Some parts of this were extremely touching and some were highly exciting to know. Well, in that respect, this book is an interesting book to read. However, at some places, I got this feeling of intruding in to Britta’s privacy. I got this feeling of reading her dairy and felt uncomfortable. Ofcourse, if she herself does not mind writing about her personal life, I should not give much weight to this feeling of mine, though.

Anyways, this book is worth reading once. It is the first attempt for Britta itseems. Nevertheless, it is interesting. It is simple. It is readable. It has interesting things to know. What else do you need if you want to read a book, on a weekend?

Rajmohan’s wife, it seems, is the first published English novel by an Indian. It has also the distinction of being Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s debut novel as a writer. It is valuable in the sense that he never wrote in English again and turned to Bengali, to become one of the most influential Bengali writers with great works like – Durgesh Nandini, Anandamath etc, which stirred nationalist feelings in the then public. They made him timeless and are still being read by lots of people all over India in various languages. The novel is first serialized in 1864, but did not appear as a book until 1935. The very story from revival of all the chapters of this book till its first appearance as a book is interesting in itself. I think I wrote about it in this post. It has the capability to become a small novella in itself!

Coming to the story, I am not very sure why it was particularly named after Matangini, Rajmohan’s wife. But, it is an interesting read, talking about the plot. Rajmohan is one of the aids of Mathur Ghose who plans to attack his cousin Madhav Ghose. Matangini overhears Rajmohan discussing his plans to attack Madhav’s house with his friends Bhiku and Sardar. She is worried as she has a great deal of affection for Madhav and his wife Hema, who happens to be Matangini’s own sister. Concerned, she ventures out to Madhav’s home and informs him the situation, thus saving them from an attack planned at that very moment. She is welcomed by a furious Rajmohan as she returns home. Rajmohan rushes forward to kill her. At that very moment, Bhiku and Sardar arrive. In the brief interlude, Matangini escapes from the house. By the quirk of fate, she ends up taking shelter in Mathur Ghose’s house, which is nearer to Rajmohan’s house. Dramatically, she disappears when she is sent back to her husband, on his request.

Madhav is held captive by the person who eyes his property. I am tempted to write the full story here, but… in case you want to read it sometime, I don’t want you people to curse me for telling the story from beginning till the end. Better read a book than read about it.

Hmm… I can’t say the book is a very great book. But, yeah, it was a good read. It was gripping enough. However, the language appeared a bit archaic for me. Somehow, after around 150 years since its birth, I think bookish English changed a lot. The style of frequently trying to put on a conversation with the reader like – “my dear reader…” reminded me of my horrible experience with Kanthapura. However, this had such conversations only occasionally. Perhaps, that was why it was readable. The descriptions were greatly elaborate. Sometimes, this elaborate-ness bored me. Who will tolerate those descriptions which appear to be infinite, when one is thinking about what’s going to happen in the next scene?

My final verdict: It can be read for three reasons:

1. For its historical significance

2. For its considerably readable plot

3. A very well written preface and after word by Meenakshi Mukherjee

Thanks to the library, I read India’s first English novel! Thanks to IISc, at which I read this novel taken from my college’s library , for it gave me ample time to read and write about it. Thanks to Microsoft Research too, but for whom, I would have never found this solitude to read it peacefully!

             Coming to the point straight away, without any of my usual blabbers … Bharathipura is a novel by U.R.Anantamurthy, written in Kannada. I read the English translation. Hmm.. long back, I blogged about one of the Anantamurthy’s books, the first one for me - Bhava. This book perfectly fitted my idea about - “what it would be like?” that I had when I took this book from the library. This is a typical Bhava style book, if I can say it so.

Bharathipura is the tale of a London returned Jagannatha Rao, also called Jaganna -  his ambitions and his thought process. He returns to his home town Bharathipura after a long time. There is a conflict within Jagannatha about his ideals and his practices. Well, I cannot actually articulate about how the book is. It is as intriguing as Bhava was to me. I cannot say it was very good. Yet, I don’t mind reading it again. I cannot say I understood it. Yet, I would campaign for it wholeheartedly. To put such a complicated thought process on a paper is not a mean task. Hence, though I am not very clear about my understanding of the novel, I cannot resist admiring Anantamurthy for the sheer beauty of this very skill.

The whole story centers around Jagannatha’s aim to take untouchables in to the Manjunatha temple. While we wait with bated breath about what happens towards the end - will they enter? won’t they? - it ends in a rather queer way. Though the mission itself succeeds, the result that it intends to achieve is not achieved. That is about the story. However, as I said before, it is Jaganna’s thought process at various points of time in the novel that makes this novel quite interesting. Brilliantly sketched thought process. Extremely complicated for my little, innocent brain

But, even after all this, there is something in it, which makes me campaign for it. There is something very much undecipherable, yet, decipherable … There is something …which is vague… yet, everything is clear. Well, that is Anantamurthy’s Bharathipura… That is the way he writes, perhaps…..  It can be read for the sheer thrill of attempting to understand the thought process…..

Incidentally, this happens to be the 100th post of this blog. And yeah, I have several interesting things to say in this post….

Well, today I went to library at around 7 P.M. and came across this book called - “Incident on the kalka mail” by Satyajit Ray. It was gripping enough. Its small size is definitely a plus point to it. It is one of the Feluda adventures. It lasted only for around 90 pages. Perhaps, that was one reason why it was able to keep me glued. It becomes difficult for a reader to be glued to a novel as its size increases, in my view. Story .. Feluda comes across this strange case of exchanged attache cases. Though it appears as if there is nothing in the case, the events that follow prove that there is something intriguing about the case. Towards the end, Feluda, with his natural brilliance completes the case. All the while, everything in the novel is impressive. Be it the descriptions or the handling of the plot - Ray is superb. Incidentally, even this novel is translated by Gopa Majumdar, who translated all those Satyajit Ray’s works which I read before and also Aparajito by Bibuthibhushan Bandopadhyay. Among others, she translated Ashapurna devi’s Subarna latha and Rest of Satyajit ray’s works.

I came across this book - “Rajmohan’s wife” by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee a few minutes back. Remarkably enough, it seems this is the first ever English novel, written by an Indian. Incidentally, this is the only novel written by Bankim Chandra chatterjee in English. Later on, he went on to write Durgesh Nandini, Anand Math (about which I blogged here) etc etc … and became synonymous with Bengali literature. It was serialised in a magazine and took nearly 130 years to become published as a book. The story behind obtaining all the parts of the serialised version of this novel, to publish it as a book - is extremely interesting. It was mentioned in the book’s foreword. So, the great Bankim ji started his literary career with an English book! I did not read the book yet, though.

Sitting in a library on a summer evening, during sun-set time is a bliss. Not much crowd over there. Silent environs. Books..books..and books all around. I would love to spend my life 24*7 at such a place! Alas, I am not born for that! I have some other works too … So, its only a distant dream!! I always felt some kind of excitement when I was among books, since childhood. However, today, I felt it even more, perhaps because of the eternal silence and loneliness around me when I was moving in the library.

PS: Yeah… some of you might have been angry for not writing the Satapostotsavam post in telugu…But, nevertheless, this is how my blogging saga began… I should not forget my blogging roots..right?

As a book, I never thought I would one day read this book, and infact blog about it. Ever since those early high-school days, I heard about this book lot of times in History textbooks as well as in Books-Authors section of various general awareness books. However, I never thought it is available for public even now. Anyways, it is my fortune that I came across this book, while just scanning through the books in our library.

This is a book by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad , the freedom fighter and free India’s first minister of Education. I would say now that I began to admire Maulana ji for his balanced views, for his credentials, for his candidness and for his planning. Since it is only recently that my interests in History are revived, after a long gap of 7-8 years, I can’t say that whether it is my perception that “This book provides a totally new perspective of freedom struggle, with lots of untold stories” or its a fact. I did not read any book on Indian Freedom struggle, excepting the biographies. So, the above said statement is my personal opinion, which can as well be a statement told in ignorance, which time has to prove.

The book talks about different incidents and people related directly or indirectly to Indian freedom struggle. Never did I know so many inside stories . The congress, the British, the Muslim League are the main characters in this tale of India of the 40s. Historical events, which most of us know through Textbooks during school days like Cripps Mission, Quit India, Second Worldwar, Simla Conference, General Elections, Cabinet Mission Plan, Partition-the reality etc are all told in first person. Azad’s relationship with the leaders of the day like Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel etc in a way helped in making this book even more interesting as it adds a personal angle to the tales of our freedom struggle.

The way Azad ji analyses different events, and reactions from different people, and his ability to predict the outcomes of the talks or plans, based on these analytics - surprise me. His relationship with Nehru is a thing worth mentioning here. It appears that they enjoy a special relationship. But, this did not come in the way of Azad ji evaluating Nehru’s actions critically. Never did I read such a critical and candid analysis of Nehru’s personality and actions. Never did I find such an open criticism about person-worship in Congress community. Never did I read such an objective narrative on the Independence story of one of the world’s largest democracies. Perhaps, its the rationality and objectiveness in his views and an interesting narration that make this book worth reading.

I now wonder how India’s fortune might have been if the Cabinet Mission Plan was implemented instead of the Mountbatten plan. Would partition have been avoided, as Azad ji believed? Who knows? I want to read it again, for the sheer pleasure of reading. I want to read it again not just for that…. for Azadji’s narration, for his powerful presentation, for his rational views ….. for the sheer fact that he is a legend, who lived with other legends, and has a lot of personal stories to tell about them. One story which amused me the most is: Nehru has the habit of talking in sleep!

Don’t miss this book friends! it should infact be brought and kept in your book-shelf. I bet I will read this again soon.