The Wednesday Soul by Sorabh Pant

I'm dead - but nothing seems to have changed!
Sorabh Pant and I were neighbours, lying placid and box-like next to each other, on the pages of Sunday Mid-day for some years – an adhering subliminal kinship. Sorabh is a stand-up comedian too and the first time I saw him was when he performed in Pune and my unladylike guffaws earned me an Oscar from him. I was looking forward to this book, though a bit worried that I might have to ignore it in favour of saying rude things. Luckily, it turned out to be well written and with a solid plot, racy, spiced with romance and violence, and I really, really wanted to know what was going to happen at the end. But it wasn’t just that. As a book about the ‘afterlife’ this one has its share of deep philosophy (with Sorabh’s inimitable twist). As a book written by a voracious reader, it had quite a few references I didn’t get. And as a book by a really funny guy, it had a range of ha-ha moments – from ‘nooooo!’ groans with eyebrows raised, to any number of mild tummy tickles, and a few times I laughed like anything. I loved the reassuringly familiar overtones of Sorabh’s hereafter – in particular its bumbling bureaucracy, its hyperventilating junior executives, the crazy superimposition of Indian scriptures with Indian Penal Code, its free employment of fictional and historical characters, and even a movie (“Chaplin directed by Hitchcock”). I enjoyed the way he suddenly tossed in phrases that looked like they had been dragged in from another book and dressed up a bit:

Moments later she wished she hadn’t opened her eyes.

Unhurt, but shaken.

I also found the caricatures in this book hilarious – especially the language in which lack of idiom gets a special Sorabh spin. Says the policeman:

Money accomplishes wonders. Madam, do you even know the bribery costs for undergoing the wonders of my “investigation”? They is huge.

Now, instead of spoiling all the surprises by describing the book and its people in 200 words as us books guys are supposed to do, I thought I should give Sorabh a chance to let him reveal only as much as he wants:

How would you react if someone said that your book was what would happen if Douglas Adams and Arthur Koestler decided to have a baby?

I would first want to know how they actually met and who initiated the courting, and also the tougher question of the biological creation. Then, I would smile - because, I love Douglas, even though, my limited literary pursuits have not yet led me toward Koestler, though they shall now. I want to know who wrote the words of my father (or mother).

I enjoyed the innovative names your characters had … Chitr, Kutsa, Harithi, Air-Awat, Bàri … but was a bit mystified … could you help?

I actually did some insane research for all these characters. For me, the character's name has got to resonate with their actions and their personality. Chitr is short for Chitragupta, the accountant of the Hindu afterlife. It seemed funny to give a burly, ass kicking dude a woman's name.
Kutsa was Indra's right hand man, who apparently betrayed him and went out there and did the monkey (sex) with Indra's wife, Sachi. It would have been a cliché to name the villain, Ravana, Arjun or Rampal or whatever. So, I dug deeper for someone who would be an utter immoral bastard.
Harithi is my continuing fascination with North East women - they're gorgeous and fascinating. They never felt the same about me. I did lots of research but I think it either means, 'protector of children', or 'eye seeing'. I've forgotten, but, once you read the book - you'll know why both those names fit.
Air-Awat is of course based on Ayrawata, the legendary flying elephant in Hindu mythology. The story goes that he has eight Eledactyls (elephants that evolved from pterodactyls and can hence, fly - oh, it's complex :)) who work with him in the afterlife. So, his airline is Air-Awat (like Air India but, with less cancelled flights) and Ayrawata is his name (Sanskrit pronunciation).
Bàri is a detective in the afterlife who used to be a Swiss rescue dog, a St. Bernard. He is based on Barry, who was an actual St. Bernard who rescued roughly 50+ people in the 1950s. I changed his name to Bàri, because it sounded vaguely Swiss, even though, it's not!
There's also Khangard - a depraved bird of the afterlife who is based on Garuda. Khangard is the Indonesian version of Garuda.

When you were writing the book, what exactly were you ‘on’ and where can we get some?

Mainly my own story!! I was obsessed with this world for five years - it's the ultimate drug. And, also a mixture of pineapple juice, wine and just a small kilo of cocaine.

1888 dial India by Anuvab Pal

Tandoori Tycoon
This book is not just a novel. As the memoir of Arun Gupta, Indian entrepreneur, it’s a complete postgraduate course in Business Management. Arun has launched his latest and most brilliant entrepreneurial idea – a suicide helpline call centre for victims of America’s economic crisis. And in the course of the book, along with his mad and thrilling story, we pick up invaluable snippets of business wisdom:

People ask me, “Do you have no morals?” In business, never directly answer yes.

And:

The main thing in business is the main thing everywhere – keeping costs down. There are some ladies in Florida that run this thing – Suicide Watch. It is America’s main suicide hotline but these ladies are fools – no MBAs, just three chicks called Anne, Jane, and Margaret. All above 60. Not even in suits. They have some psychology degree or some shit and are running this for charity like an NGO. Unbelievable. This must be the same as when the Europeans discovered that the new world had no system of land ownership. How can someone not own land? How can you not monetize suicide? Same thing.
These Florida ladies near this golf ball place are costing this suicide hotline thirty thousand dollars a year to operate. Plus phone bills. Plus absentees. Plus old. Plus benefits, coffee machine, chit chat about grandchildren crap. I am doing this at five thousand. The word is arbitrage. That’s real business. It’s like making the iPhone for three dollars and selling it for four hundred. Another word – China. And in the context of Chinese manufacturing, a third word – respect. They are so dedicated at keeping manufacturing costs down that they refuse to learn English. English would mean wasting time talking to each other. They understand that in international business, silence = productivity. That’s why respect.

Arun, a typical Indian businessman, was once arrested at JFK:

In my interrogation, they asked me if I knew a lot of people. They asked me if I knew Osama. I told them, I have no contact with Al Qaeda but that I only deal in C-level executives (CEO, CFO), so, yes, if Al Qaeeda got in touch with 1-888 about potential business collaborations, then I would meet Osama to sign the deal. I should clarify, we would be open to only phone and technology related Al Qaeda work, not terror attacks; we are not into bricks and mortar or blowing up bricks and mortar. Material costs are too high – the chemicals, explosives – besides being illegal. Even though they keep the same hours and work at night like us.

And, a typical Indian businessman, he makes enormous efforts to develop and train his employees. Through this praiseworthy mission we get a glimpse of the lifestyle of the great Indian middle class:

“What do you do Saturday nights? Sit at home and eat chips?”
“We sit as a family and watch the Baba Ramdev programme on Janmat channel and do the yoga exercises.”
“Lame. So un-American.”
“We may not go out Saturday nights sir but we are not traditional. I want to clear up that misunderstanding. We have gone to Dirty Splash Water Park in Bhandup, Inorbit Mall, we shop in Hyper-Fresh Goregaon and order from Pizza Hut every night. Plus PVR movies on Sunday .Good fun. I’m a member of Raghav’s Gym and I’ve taken my father and sister bowling in Pleasure Lanes at Andheri. I like gelato, it is Italian. Also TGI Friday mocktails we’ve had. As a family, we watch BBC, not K-serials. We are new to discos only.”

Several times while reading this book, I wondered whether it would have readers who did not understand its sarcastic overtones, and might take it all literally. How likely will digs at Chetan Bhagat be successful in a world where Chetan Bhagat’s readers and fans sadly outnumber Anuvab Pal’s by a large margin? What would people who don’t know the truth about Arindam Chaundhary make of a sentence like this:

In my thirty years as a business leader and India Inc. ambassador, I have never seen such a tense fundraising effort. Except once, while watching the great guru Arindam Chaudhary asking people in Indore to fund a business school he wants to start exclusively for Indians in Las Vegas...

And how many would find the following para perplexing rather than responding by rolling on the floor laughing:

My work with Mhatre, however was neither with Mhatre nor Karnik. It was with Ms Devine, a Christian lady from South Goa. In this case, Mhatre changed his name and his sex. Some businesses you can do as a man, some as a woman. Ms Devine bought smuggled goods from customs officers and sold them to other smugglers. Commission-based business. He already had two police records as Girish Mhatre and Anthony Karnik, so he thought it best to diversify into this third business as a woman. That’s an important business lesson – don’t let your sex get in the way of your business idea. Women say that when it comes to rising to the level of CEO of a company, they face a glass ceiling. I look at this as a similar scenario but with a critical difference. For reference, see Coke and Pepsi. I call this a genital ceiling.

What I admired most about this book is, even more than it’s crazy humour (or even its radical business truths) is the very strong voice of Anuvab Pal’s character Arun Gupta. It is full of confidence and authoritative opinions.

I knew chettinad is from Chennai (in fact, it’s Chennai’s Tamil name)

Even the language is consistent, with just minor misuse of preposition or article for that extra-natural touch of Indian English.

A few days after I finished reading this book, I bought a roll of adhesive tape. India is a great global software and manufacturing superpower but our adhesive tape is horrible. Not only that, but the back of the box read:

• Appears invisible after sticking.
• Lasts long without yellowing.
• Ideal for permanent applications like mending, splicing, sealing etc.
• Prevents tampering of amount on cheque/DD
• Easily tearable; can be written on.

It was not easily tearable; I did not try writing on it. And I couldn’t help but think fondly back to Arun Gupta.

Our lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif

The wrath of god's henchmen
Mohammed Hanif writes beautifully. His sentences are spare and clean, and evoke strong imagery and caricatures. He is cynical, and deeply witty, and he paints a vivid picture of Pakistan and all its beauty, savagery, and incongruity.
Alice Bhatti is a trained nurse in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Karachi, a place where grand old ladies in luxurious private rooms defy death and wear two-toned shatoosh shawls which cost as much as a two-bedroom house, something sweet, spunky Alice could probably never aspire to. Her best friend is the boy Noor – he's not just a little boy, but a respected ward boy. His name is not on the employees’ list but he has more responsibilities than any paramedic with a full-time, pensionable job – and he puts food on the table even though there is no table. (He hasn’t read Gray’s Anatomy, but there is nothing in that fat book that he hasn’t seen strewn on the floor of A&E.)
At the Sacred, religion is as pervasive as elsewhere in the country. Some of the 'Musla' girls petition against anatomical charts in classrooms, describing them as pornographic and against the decent behaviour prescribed not only by Islam but by every other faith as well. When their petition is denied, reproductive organs from the charts began to disappear: ovaries are ripped out, black ink thrown on mammary glands and penile depictions mutilated.
Somehow Alice finds herself in the eye of a miracle. The Catholic Church has adopted a number of borderline pagan habits and fallen into the local custom of burning incense at the mention of anything holy and covering every slab of marble that carried a saint’s name with garlands of marigold. However, it had never allowed a female member of its congregation any role that didn’t involve carrying a bowl of holy water, washing the dead, or preparing the native cuisine for visiting clergy (Goan prawn curries for foreign bishops and aloo gosht for common priests from Punjab). You will have to read this book to find out who Alice marries and why, and what happens to her in the end.
Like Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, Mohammed Hanif’s last book, A case of exploding mangoes, was also one of those dark satires which, even more than this one, could be confusing to someone who didn’t realise that it was supposed to be funny. After reading and enjoying it, I interviewed Mohammed Hanif for my Sunday Mid-day column. In answer to my question

You’ve managed to write a book that’s Pakistani only because the story and characters are Pakistani, but is truly international in style, language and plot in a relaxed and friendly way. How about some advice for the thousands of writers from the subcontinent who are trying to achieve something similar?

He mailed me this lovely reply:

Are there really so many of them? I think the only advice I can give is that they should read, they should read a lot. And if they are lucky enough to get the inspiration and actually write something then they should print it out, and read it and see if it’s as good as it sounded in their head.

I had an amusing experience while reading Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. I happened to be reading Serious Men by Manu Joseph aloud to my friend Gladys at the same time. I had read, enjoyed and admired it very much a few months before and was getting a chance to do so again, and was very happy to see Gladys listening with rapt attention, admiring the turn of phrase and bone-accurate descriptions of Bombay life, and completely absorbed in the plot from one week to the next.
Manu Joseph is also a journalist, very expressive, and extremely funny; these basic features are common to both writers. However, reading Mohammed Hanif’s book and observing Gladys’s reaction as I read her Manu Joseph’s, I felt a bit as if I was watching an Indo-Pak cricket match and thinking, “Yay! We’re winning! We’re winning!”
One of the little things I enjoyed in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti is the use of the expression Charya Ward. The Charya Ward is a forgotten loony bin (no easing-in time, no guided tours, no orientation course). I recognized ‘Charya’: it’s a Sindhi word, and I knew what it meant, along with all its implications and baggage, and felt happy to see it written down in a book that would be read by many people all around the world.

Remembering PG Wodehouse on his 130th birthday

The Code of the Watsas
I was sprawled on my bed, engrossed in the final episode of Sex and the City when Jeevan sidled in to tell me that my flight tomorrow was likely to be late.
“Fogs in Delhi, Batty-baba,” he said. “Thereby all flights in country being delayed.”
This just put the cap on it. Preeti would be livid. I had promised to pick up fresh stocks of Fortnums’ goose liver paté from Patel Stores, our friendly neighbourhood bania, and if I failed to arrive on t. – well, you know, hell hath no fury like a rakhi-sister scorned, what?
“Jeevan,” I said, “there is no time to be lost. “Get Captain Modi on the phone pronto.”
Homi was one of the best. We’d been at Lovedale together – shared our tuck, travelled home by Bombay-batch every hols, and what not. If ever there was a bloke who could get something done in this desperate situation, it was old Hormuze Modi.
“Hey Batty!” Homi’s mellifluous tones attacked me from the speaker phone. “Have you heard the latest on Ma Gupu?” and he proceeded to drone on and on about our old Geography teacher who apparently had been through some rather awful times but was now retired and last sighted vicinity of Coonoor. Now I loved old Nergis Barucha, and the sound of her bossy “Bharat Watsa! you will accompany me to the headmaster’s office!” was still enough to wake me in a cold sweat from deepest slumber, but this was not at all the time for this kind of thing.
“Listen, Homi old chap, will you be quiet for a second and allow me to confide the most awful problem a man ever had to face?”
“Oh no Batty, not the clap again,” Homi said worriedly. He was one of those few chaps who really cared about a chap.
“Worse,” I assured him. “Preeti’s having her annual bash in Goa tomorrow, and the boat pulls out at 7 pm sharp. Jeevan tells me my flight is likely to be late. And you know what Preeti’s like. If I don’t get the paté there on time I’m for it. Do you think you could get the old Lear out?”
“Any time, Batty, you know that, but tomorrow is Binaifer’s annual candle-light vigil, that Save the Dolphins thing she’s been doing ever since she was three – so sorry old boy.”
You know, if anything ever did get me to tie the k. it would only be the hope that a cute thing like little Binaifer Modi might spring from the Watsa loins. I sighed and put the phone down heavily – then picked it up again.
Arvind and I had lunched at the Bombay Gym last week, and he’d let slip his new acquisition – a hovercraft, don’t you know. Surely he would – ?
But Melissa, Arvind’s delicate half, was out of sorts. “Bai trouble,” Arvind confided. “Poor Melissa apparently told her very clearly to cut the kakdi gol-gol but she went and served it cut lamba-lamba. I’d really better go in and check whether she’s regained consciousness, she’s been lying in a faint since lunchtime. Pip-pip, old man.”
Sighing, I now tried calling Rajeev, Preeti’s second husband,
No. 2 (ha ha, nice coincidence there) at one of these enormous oil corporations that have their own helicopters and what not. He was a jolly good chap, though an old Mayo boy, batch of 1968 – to tell you the truth I like him a darn sight better than any other husband Preeti’s had. But the silky voice that answered his direct line said he was busy with Japanese visitors. Out on the golf course I’ll be bound. Never can understand how these oil fellows ever get any work done, honestly.
I had my hand on the phone again when I heard a small cough. I let go of the phone. Jeevan, as you may have long suspected, was the brains of the family. I knew from the expression on his face that my worries would soon be relegated to an earlier period.
“Don’t mind it Baba, but how about we can try the Gidwani-madam?” he asked solemnly.
I looked at him aghast.
“What, that old battleaxe!” I stared at him haughtily, waiting for an explanation. Old Jeevan was clearly losing it. It was all that fish he ate – mercury poisoning, don’t you know. The Gidwani bird, to put it plainly, was the rudest, ugliest old harridan that dined out every night of her life on a bridge story. The one and only time my dear departed mater and pater had her over had been one fateful evening seventeen years ago. I had just learnt to play myself, and they’d called me in to make up the fourth.
“Do you play Stayman?” Mrs Gidwani asked me. I did, of course – I mean to say, what sort of bounder doesn’t play Stayman. But instead of responding with a simple “One no trump” which would have sufficed the likes of you and me, she gave a loud cackle and started telling us about the time she’d sat down to a rubber at the Willingdon and politely asked her partner, “Do you play Stayman?” To which the gentleman had apparently replied: “Madam, I AM Stayman.”
Now I mention this only so that you will have some idea of the vintage of this Gidwani. But while one expects that temperance and wisdom shall follow great age, as the night the day, our Gidwani has only got successively more ghastly. I shudder as I reveal this awful fact but since that evening she has gazed at Jeevan with covetous eyes and I assure you I have lived in utmost dread these seventeen years.
Now Jeevan unfolded his plan, “Baba, you are knowing every time Gidwani-madam is telling to me her desire for man-servant like my good self and her intention of ample reimbursement?”
My eyes narrowed. What on earth was the man trying to get at? Surely, surely Jeevan wasn’t suggesting that he sacrifice himself to the Gidwani just so that Preeti could get the paté on time? Where on earth was his sense of proportion!
“I am talk to Raju, Gidwani-madam’s driver,” Jeevan continued, heedless of the young master’s visible agitation. “They are having first-class new SUV, and Raju is anxious for opportunity to travel on new, improved NH4. I can be telling to her that I will go now itself and tomorrow morning bringing for madam young chap for household work from my native village of Karad. I have speak to my sister and one fellow is there able and willing. From Karad Goa is nearby only. Raju will quickly dropping your good self at Preeti madam’s place late night. Next morning we shall be coming back with servant boy for Gidwani madam.”
By golly, the chap was a genius! “Quick, Jeevan,” I cried, “chuck some things in a bag and let’s push off!”
“I have took liberty of already packing bag, baba,” smiled Jeevan.
So that’s how it happened, and there was great happiness and r. all around. Preeti’s paté got to the party well in time. Mrs Gidwani was delighted with the bloke from Karad. Melissa soon recovered – it had only been one of her regular migraines – has them every now and again don’t you know. Even sweet little Binaifer managed to save the dolphins. I mean to say, I was going to Goa anyway, and a chap’s got to do what a chap’s got to do, what?

The Songbird on my Shoulder by Saaz Aggarwal

The Songbird on my Shoulder by Saaz Aggarwal
black-and-white fountain has been silent for a few weeks, having been working on producing a book of its own.
The Songbird on my Shoulder is a collection of short pieces, most of which have been in print before in mainstream Indian publications. Put together, they form a worldview – and in particular views of Mumbai and Pune – from the perspective of an upper-middle class woman in India. Aiming to be funny, poignant, and thought provoking, this unorthodox mid-life autobiography has a revealing section towards the end in the simulated voices of characters such as Bridget Jones, Bill Bryson and Dave Barry.
For a preview, click here.
This book has blurbs from some remarkably important people – in a transparent attempt to prove to readers and critics that it aims to fall into the ‘takin-the-piss’ genre rather than the more popular ‘wannabe’ one.
The Songbird on my Shoulder will be launched in Pune on 8 October and available in bookstores and online shortly thereafter.

Serious Men by Manu Joseph

A video game country
I saved this book to read “later” for such a long time that it’s now nearly a year old. Partly it was because I’ve been a fan of Manu Joseph for many years, knew I would enjoy it, and delayed gratification while dealing stoically with a lot of other sad stuff. There was also a mild worry that it wouldn’t be as good as I expected. Happily, it turned out to be better.
Just because someone writes well doesn’t mean that they are going to produce a good novel. But Serious Men has more than just a writing style that keeps you entertained and marvelling. It has interesting characters and an engaging plot too, and as you move along and the feeling creeps up on you that something big is going to happen for sure, well, you just cannot stop reading till you find out exactly what. The biggest charm, for me, was its originality in every respect – a rare feature in any book.
One of the major themes of Serious Men is the caste divide in India – surprisingly alive and flourishing even in unlikely environments such as the cosmopolitan city of Mumbai and even the intellectually elevated environs of the exalted scientific Institute of Theory and Research. But it’s not just caste that sunders this country. Manhood has been sadly depleted and it’s only among the poor that men continue to be men – in the homes of the privileged they put on aprons and serve dinner to their guests! And free love, our protagonist Ayyan knows in his heart, is an enchanting place haunted by demented women. Here, every day men merely got away. And then, without warning, they were finished. (Ayyan is safe from such a catastrophe however. Luckily, he loves his wife.)
There’s further irony in the manner in which the biggest problems of life are juxtaposed: a neighbour has burned his wife to death; alien life has been found, dropping coolly in to Earth’s atmosphere. A gardener, who somehow did not look naked in just his underwear, stands watering the main lawn. As Arvind Acharya, Ayyan’s boss and big cheese at the Institute drives his wife Lavanya to a doctor’s appointment, taxis broke lanes and crossed his path, singing cyclists almost died under his tyres and gave him self-righteous glares before resuming their songs, buses were at his bumper and pedestrians stood in the middle of the road waiting to cross the other half, but Acharya’s blood pressure did not rise. “This country has become a video game,” he mutters. Lavanya’s most critical ailment, one which Acharya shared, was her towering height. When she was young, urchins would follow her down the streets of Madras shouting, “LIC, LIC!” invoking the fourteen-storeyed Life Insurance Corporation building, the tallest in the city.
My favourite moment in this book is when Ayyan, who has a clerical job, casually announces his IQ. Everything he has done so far, mystifying and sometimes quite revolting, begins to fall into place.
Serious Men was shortlisted for this year’s Wodehouse Prize – and when the prize was awarded three days ago, I was sorry that another book won. On the other hand, Serious Men may have moments of utmost hilarity, but it would be unfair to classify it as comic fiction. It’s a serious, wonderful book.

Tender hooks by Moni Mohsin

P.G. Wodehouse reporting from Lahore
This book is a sequel to Diary of a Social Butterfly, the 2008 novel derived from Moni Mohsin’s popular column of the same name which ran in Pakistan’s Friday Times from January 2001 to December 2007.
I hadn’t been too sure whether I really wanted to read more about Butterfly’s vapid life and the preoccupations of people with wealth but no culture that Moni Mohsin pokes fun at so well. But I spent some time with Namita Devidayal at the Jaipur Literature Festival and she mentioned more than once how “fab” Moni was and for a bit we even exchanged a few witticisms a la Butterfly,

Janoo – it was so good, na

and so on. Janoo being Butterfly’s long-suffering husband who happens to be an Oxen, having being educated in Oxford and all.

So while others on the flight home from the festival had their noses buried in Chimamanda Adichie, Junot Diaz, Irvine Welsh and others, I was rather diffidently reading Tender Hooks, glancing around furtively every now and again to make sure that no had spotted me for a bogus. But when we landed, and I spied a P.G. Wodehouse tucked under the arm of someone at the luggage belt I had a moment of appeasement – which soon turned to wonder that I had never before seen the similarity.
Both Moni Mohsin and P.G. Wodehouse base their stories in small, rather comical communities preoccupied with lineage, inheritance, suitable marriages and so on, and speak in quaint dialects all their own. Even the names resound – key characters in this book are Butterfly’s Aunt Pussy and her son Jonkers.
So I rushed home and dashed off the following email to Moni Mohsin:

Dear Moni,
I’ve just finished reading Tender Hooks and had a few questions – I hope you’ll have time to reply?

• I tau found so much resemblance to that fellow, what’s his name, PJ Woodhouse, na? So I was wondering, were you inspired by him in any way?
• I also got quite digressed, arre baba felt sad na, about Butterfly and Janoo’s relationship and was thinking ke in this book till nearly the end, so many bad bad things were happening between them. There was total no communication and so much quarrels, na? Also I was feeling sad about things in Pakistan – you were showing downslide na? Then in the end Butterfly and Janoo get all lovedovey so it donned on me that maybe you feel optimistic about Pakistan?
• And: Your Butterfly has a bit of a split personality Moni – she’s scheming and greedy and shallow. Yet there’s a smart, sensible side to her. And a brave, honourable side too. How does that happen? Is it there in all those bitchy socialites you are parodying?
  

Waiting to hear.
Regards,
Saaz

To which she replied deadpan:

Dear Saaz,
Thank you for reading my book. The Butterfly is a character like us, with good and bad in her. That's what makes her fun. If she was just mean and shallow and greedy you wouldn't want to read about her. She would be unidimensional, predictable and hence boring. I know that I can be frivolous and serious, generous and mean and fun and dull depending on the time, place and situation, without necessarily being schizophrenic.
And yes the book shows you what living in Pakistan on a daily basis is like and that was part of my purpose in writing it. But people try and wrest what is positive and redemptive even in these grim days and that too is what I wanted to show in my book.
And no, I haven't been influenced by P G Wodehouse though I do love his books.
All best,
Moni

About her first book I had written in a Sunday Mid-day column:

It has a compelling similarity with Mohsin Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist! It’s not just the authors’ shared name, city of residence (London) or affiliation with Gulberg, Lahore’s ultra-posh reserve of the city’s most affluent and influential. Each one’s main character narrates the entire novel in a conversational first person monologue with almost no intrusion. Butterfly picks up at 9/11, where Changez winds down. And while Hamid’s Changez is suave, genteel, highly cerebral and Princeton-educated, Moni Mohsin’s Butterfly is an astonishingly accomplished woman herself!

In this book I found another reason to admire the author’s craft in the sharp voice of reason that the Oxen Janoo brings to it, which you can spot in Moni's response to my email, and which allows Butterfly's giddy-headed narrative to step aside briefly for perceptive sentences like this one to be inserted: “From my experience, even bleeding heart liberals revert pretty quick to colonial sahibs and memsahibs when they find themselves in places where help is cheap and has no rights.”

The Case of The Man Who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall

Vish Puri does it again
This is the second book featuring the Punjabi detective Vish Puri and, like the first, is great fun and a decent detective story. Vish Puri runs Most Private Investigators Ltd., and his operatives have nicknames like Tubelight and Facecream. The agency handles cases from matrimonial investigations and financial fraud to murder, and Puri’s high success rate ensures that his services are always in demand.
Vish Puri (like any good Punjabi) loves to eat, is free with the use of colourful language, and is a loving husband and father. He’s also a dedicated professional and a good citizen who even tries to get his driver to follow the traffic rules.
Like the first Vish Puri book, The Case of The Missing Servant, this one also has its roots in contemporary Indian life and culture, affectionately indulging its most ridiculous aspects. Primary background here are those classic urban Indian institutions of the laughter club and the corporate godman. And the setting incorporates the National Capital Region reality of beauty parlours, kitty parties, unstable power supply, preoccupation with the stock market, professional “Lizers” who one can hire to get things done, high court judges who own palatial mansions, and more. A prominent anti-superstition activist is murdered. Did that slimy, all-powerful Godman do it? Read on.

Once upon a time in Scandinavistan by Zac O'Yeah

Superpower India II
This a crime novel based in Gothenburg, Sweden.
But Gothenburg is now known as Gautampuri, because Europe has been colonized by India. India is now a great world superpower – much as it is in We Can Pull It Off by Suresh Taneja – but with a rather different slant.

Our hero is Herman Barsk – overweight, untidy and generally unlovable in all kinds of ways. He lives down an alley named Saar Vidia Naipaul Mohalla. His Eskimo dog, Bobby, is tragically no more, leaving poor Barsk all alone in this cruel world: his mum was dead; his father a random customer whose dick had proved too big for the second-hand condom that Barsk’s stingy mum kept recycling. And the crime now confronting him is a death – or several deaths – which involve a tandoor and suspected marination (in yoghurt sauce?) beforehand.

This book is a spoof in other ways too.
Sweden is now a tropical haven – the greenhouse effect has relocated the Sahara desert northwards; the Mediterranean dried up completely and Europe covered in sand dunes as high as the Eiffel Tower all the way up to central Denmark. Palm trees took root in central Gothenburg and by the time this story takes places, have begun to give lovely nuts and people have cancelled their holiday trips down south.
As for the Danes – they have accepted their fate without complaining, lit up a few joints, and become Bedouins. With the exception of a small group of nudists who refused to dress in caftans.
And Finns litter the streets of Masthugget. They constitute, technically speaking, a lower caste, their status far below that of native Swedes. Statistically, a significant number of them suffer from a Molotov cocktail of venereal disease, tuberculosis and grave brain damage.
Caste, in fact, is so crucially important that people change their names for social acceptability. One character, Rex von Spearman, was (according to his wife) actually born Sven Swenson. Oh and yes – he now happens to be impotent ... from excessive mobile phone usage.

And Sweden is a country in crisis, financial as well as spiritual.
The roots of the new administration are to be found in the Indian Administrative Service – the Nehruvian steel frame installed in decolonized India, by which thousands of lifetime administrators handled the welfare of billions. After they took over, there had been neither financial crashes nor any other large-scale problems in Europe.

Once you’ve stopped using your vomit bag – one of Barsk’s favourite hobbies actually – and controlled the guffawing, you might notice that this book is not just a crime novel, not just a spoof. It’s also a rather sharp anthropological analysis of cultural elements.
There are, for instance, certain things about India that are sure to live on and on: K.C. Das and Ambedkar, for example; the Dalai Lama, Jadhavpur University, green rabbit USE ME bins, Femina, Tehelka, matrimonial advertisements, and cheap restaurants serving Asian food. And yoga. And deep, abiding faith in karma.
And language has been colonized too: we have a BC (bad character) Committing Nuisance in a Public Place and more.
And there are certain things about Swedish lifestyle and culture that could not possibly last, barring a few faded beauties from old Bergman films. Even the old and solid doors are gone, to be replaced by doors of Bhutanese board. Swedish people now live in a broken-down native quarter, unhealthy from too few baths, eating too much meat, and boozing it up all day long.

Though I was charmed by the thinking that went into this book, I found it tedious for my taste – it just went on and on and I never found myself so engrossed in the plot that I longed to know what happened next. And a few tiny points niggled: “innerwear” is hilarious for sure – but why not “chaddis”, which, after all, has Oxford English Dictionary status? And what on earth had happened to Ikea?
Finally, with so many characters driving around in Volvos, it seemed that Zac O'Yeah had picked Volvo to represent the last remaining outpost of Swedish civilization. However, this book was actually first published in 2006, in Swedish.
And, aha, in May 2010 the Volvo car company was quite prophetically taken over by the Chinese – so there you go.

Lost and Found by CP Surendran

Sometimes life can be just so absurd
This is a book that combines literary quality with engrossing plot, an inimitable, wacky and rather courageous wit, and fluid narrative which hints, as you go along, that the author was probably enjoying himself writing just about as much as you are, reading.
The story takes us right into the “twenty-six-eleven” terror attacks on Bombay and profiles a young terrorist, Salim, his family back home in Pakistan, and a group of people (and a cow) with whom he becomes inextricably involved. If the larger plot is a hilarious spoof of one of Bollywood’s most clichéd themes, every smaller subplot also showcases the farcical inner realities of the complex and alluring city that CP Surendran once lived in.
This, of course, is the real Bombay, not the fictional Bombay Times, of which esteemed publication CP, as editor for many years, once did his bit perpetrating the vanities of. So here all you read has been stripped down to its most ridiculous, even the really holy unmentionables, like rape. And Islam.
The cow is a holy animal for Hindus but for reasons Shinde (the heroic autorickshaw driver who once drove blindfolded through the streets of Bandra) can never figure out, not the goat or the hen, though both come across as equally ancient, useful creatures.
Nirmal is an orphan and has led a rough life. He knows that begging is a kind of blackmail. You just had to make it sound like an appeal so that egos were not hurt.
Aseem is an artist who transforms his clients – very few of whom understand his own professional philosophy “The paint will take you only this far. What will get you ahead is discipline.” Says Aseem to Nirmal: “My love for Chanda is pure. One hundred percent pure – like bottled water.”
And Our Lady of Dolours steps in for a tiny cameo – displayed in her true form: Our Lady of Dollars.
Rajgopal is a minor porn-viewing character – but important in his own way for through him we learn that crucial truth well known to all Indian men – their wives’ friends are mental.
“If I knew where I lost it, I would have found it,” says the sultry newspaper Number Two Mrs. Kulkarni – sharply, but conscious that she was breaking her vow to be gentle and kind to menials.

I asked CP how much his hero, Placid, was him. After all, Placid was also a Bombay journo and one who, like CP, "hailed" from Kerala (that cartoon land of Communism).
He replied, “Quite a lot. Especially the insensitive bits about the man.”

Of course journalists are mad – everyone knows that, and here’s a headline that proves it beyond doubt: HINDU ORPHAN RAPED, MURDERED IN ORISSA: MOB MISTOOK VICTIM FOR CHRISTIAN.
And terror can be crazy too. Don’t be afraid, Salim wants to tell them. All of us were dead before we were born, remember?
Fear freezes Placid’s heart. Just the previous week he had read in the newspapers of a doctor who, tired of her lover’s demands, had chopped him in bits and put them in a suitcase. Placid foresees sharing a similar fate. Rest in Pieces. Wonderful. Very wonderful.

Best of all, this book reminds you several times as you fall into its lyrical passages that CP Surendran is a poet:

Placid clambered into the Kanyakumari Express, packed like sand in a bag with people, hens, mangoes, fish pickle, and the metal smell of urine in the aisle- a damp, yellowing, amoebic pool, collecting here and there on the floor, from which toxic fumes rose and spread in the steady heat of the incredibly high-resolution Indian sun.
And he rode the train like a rodeo for fifty-one hours, a detour in universal chaos: sped by stations limned by lanterns; past the phantasmagoria of stark backlit landscapes; round a barren river bed where an old man put his hand between the legs of a young girl squatting to pee; raced with cratered ravines lowered directly from the loft of Mars; past the mirage of one-horse towns suspended in dust and sunlight; shot by carcasses of cows hanging upside down from windows; past giant, bald trees clutching at the air as the train sped by; through emerald paddy fields kissing the straw feet of crucified scarecrows; skirted mustard fields that flamed as if out of Van Gogh’s brush; trundled past a procession of naked ascetics over a bridge in the gloaming. Visibly aged, Placid got off the time-travelling machine at the massive obduracy in stone, Victoria Terminus, which the British had built with that false sense of permanency so typical of urbane conquerors.

My most dominant feeling reading this book was one of pride – I’ve known and admired CP for about twenty years. And I must admit I was also quite relieved that I liked it so much and there was nothing stopping me from saying what I really felt.

Q: How long did it take you to write this book?
A: One and half years. The rewriting was the tough part.
Q: What was the germ of idea you started with … where did it come from?
A: At a Café Coffee Day in Borivili, Bombay. I saw a single middle aged woman sucking at her coffee like a lifeline and thought about her: Lakshmi.
Q: I mean besides “26-11” of course. But I was wondering how “26-11” affected you – can you tell?
A: 26/11 affected me like a horror movie. It was both real and unreal, and still is. Terrorsim is not politics. It is a personality neurosis of a few individuals. If they are lucky, in time, they are branded as patriots. I have nothing to do with either.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Working on how to survive moronic critics who can't read a book straight.

The Goat, the Sofa and Mr. Swami by R. Chandrasekar

Parliamentary Language
I read a review that called this book “a delightful page-turner” and had to rap myself on the knuckles for being the kind of person who takes offence too easily.
The thing is, GSMS is far more than that. It is very well written, the theme is one yet untapped in the Indian context, and the plot is inventive and engaging.
Joint Secretary Swami is the Prime Minister of India’s personal secretary (IAS Bihar cadre) and this is the story of the kind of life he leads, his daily routines and preoccupations, and how he stays afloat in the savage seas of political office.
The fictional Indian Prime Minister Motwani is eighty-two years old and has a weak heart and tender libido. His conversations with the Prime Minister of Pakistan are tricky mine dances that made me laugh. You will also read here what happens when the President of the USA telephones the Indian Prime Minister (at 2 am, of course – wonder why he can’t check with the CIA what the time is likely to be in India before he calls). And naturally the leader of the opposition is a great authority on the subject of that ambrosial delicacy, cow’s urine. Ministers and bureaucrats who fall out of favour are rudely transferred to Jhumritalaya (or Mogadishu) – except, of course, when the service rules make it impossible for that to happen.
And when Swami, in a desperate you-scratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-yours manoeuvre sends his former schoolmate Jugal Kishore Hansraj off to a posting in Geneva, he has recurring nightmares that feature JKH (late of Bulandshahr) urinating against the sides of the Palais des Nations, depositing his chewed pan along the shores of Lake Geneva and travelling ticketless in the trams in Europe’s most cosmopolitan city.
Of course the whole farce has to end in a cricket match where everything hangs on one ball, and all this is woven into an ingenious plot that had me shaking my head in admiration.

When I tracked R. Chandrasekar down to ask him how he knew all this about the way governments work – perhaps he himself was once a member of the IAS or even (god forbid!) the IFS? he laughed before saying he lived in far away Madras and all he knew about any of these things was what he read in the daily papers. What he read in the daily papers, he went on, was in fact so hilarious and unlikely that quite a lot of it had worked its way into the book. “You know, they mention things like empowered group of ministers and standing committees of parliament, and they have all these well-structured devices in case you want to put things off and avoid making decisions. And as for the IAS/IFS divide – well one hears of all these antics in which people are constantly jockeying for positions, of ensuring that positions are reserved for people from a particular service, and the fact is that one of those has been particularly more successful than the other in looking after itself.”

So – not based on first-person research as I had suspected, but just a outsider’s take on the matter which turned out to be hilarious and, in fact, spot on: when he circulated an early draft of the manuscript to some friends, one of them passed it on to an IAS officer who came back with the comment that this was pretty much how things happened in her office. “I was appalled to hear that!” Chandrasekar told me. “I thought I was being funny! I guess I was closer to reality than I had imagined.”

When I asked him how much of Swami was in him he laughed again and said if he was anything like poor Swami his wife would have left him long ago.
Well – I have to admit I quite liked Swami. He was really smart, the way he was continuously able to bail himself out of impossible situations, sneaky and resourceful – and with one-liners of his own that made me laugh too.

The best news Chandrasekar gave me was that he has two more books on the way – both nearly done and currently getting their last rubs of polish. One is a murder mystery set in a boarding school in India and the other a lighthearted novel based in a Management institute in Tamil Nadu.

There’s only one thing that would please me more in this context: to hear that this slick and refreshing book is being converted into a TV serial for thousands more to enjoy and shake their head at the way this wonderful country of ours is run.

Bala takes the plunge by Melvin Durai

Who says Indians have no sense of humour!
The last time I laughed aloud so many times while reading a book was about 15 years ago, with Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island.

Bala’s ambition was to direct Tamil movies. When he became famous, he would be awarded an OBE by the Queen. This would make him better than all his friends who were ordinary BEs, having mastered great literature of the nature of Thermodynamics Made Easy, Engineering Graphics Made Easy, Calculus Made Easy – and so on.
And Bala wondered why Appa had become a civil engineer. There was nothing remotely civil about him. If he made a film about Appa (who had once evocatively expounded: “I’m telling you, da, happiness can’t buy money”), he would have to call it The Uncivil Engineer.
But of course Bala became an engineer himself and then went off to America with an H1 – for Happy One – visa, following a path carved out by many before him, and this book is about his life there and the adventures he had while trying to find a suitable bride.
So it’s not just Indian families and aspirations that this book puts under a humorous spotlight, but also American lifestyle, culture and world-awareness, and usually all of these at the same time:

“Got any of his movies, Bala?” John asked. “I’d love to see one.”
“I’m sure Sanjay’s Rice and Spice Shop has about five hundred, John. I have a few Tamil movies, that’s all.”
“Tamil? What country is that?”
Linda shook her head. “You’re so clueless about the world, aren’t you, John? Tamil isn’t a country. It’s a religion. Just like Hindi.”
“Whom do Tamils worship?”
“We worship Rajnikanth. He’s an actor.”
“Really?” Linda asked. “Is he as cute as Share Rook Can?”

And Bala, trying to learn new ways and meet the right young women decided to join the Harrisburg Area Bikers Club. He shopped around for a good bike and got lucky on his fifth stop, finding one for only $60 at a yard sale. Bargaining the price down to $45 he realised that, though he hadn’t bought any tall buildings or casinos, he possessed the type of negotiating skills Donald Trump would envy.
At the Sociable Fun Ride, Bala managed to race out a pregnant woman but comes out behind a middle aged man who, he later realised, is wearing not just a knee brace – but an artificial leg coming out of it.
He looked at the man’s bike to make sure it didn’t have a motor of some sort. Perhaps it was jet-propelled. But everything looked normal, even the pedals. He felt like screaming at the man: “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know that you’re supposed to be disabled? It was crazy what many disabled people were doing these days – accomplishing so much in their lives and making able-bodied people look like total bums. Some were simply amazing. Bala had heard of a blind woman who had learned to play golf, a paraplegic woman who had learned to skydive, and a New York cabdriver with no hands who had learned to show other drivers his middle toe.

Then, hearing that President George W. Bush had a cat named India, Bala decided to name his dog America. It was a good way to honour his new country and confuse people all at the same time. When his neighbour Mr. Cherian complained about the dog’s incessant barking, Bala said, “What do you expect? This is America, not India.” When his neighbour on the other side, Mrs. Bunch, complained that a ripe tomato was missing from her garden and wondered where it had gone, Bala shook his head and said, “Only in America. Only in America.”

Flipping through this book looking for more funny bits, I can see that it’s carpeted with them and it’s hard to pick. Get the book and read it, and meanwhile, here is one of Melvin Durai's "humor" columns to keep you going.
There was one thing I did not care for about the book, though, and that was the cover design, which I found confusing. I got even more confused when I saw the other designs Kedarnath Gupta had offered which I thought were much better.

Finally I must say that I leaped into the story, as always, without reading any blurbs or supplementary text on the cover or about the author so it was only later that I realized that Melvin Durai, though he’s done India, Indians and Indian Americans perfectly in this book, actually grew up in Zambia, studied and worked in the USA and now lives, alas, in Canada.
Go ahead and make them laugh in Canada, Melvin – but do try and send us some scraps now and again …