Alive and Kicking...

....the graphic novel in India.

Just picked up this book on a whim and loved it. It tells a story of a girl in Mumbai (but then it could have been New York) and her world (both inside and outside her mind). As the story moves from her thoughts to the people she lives or works with, you catch glimpses of what living in a city can do to our minds.

Although a number graphic novels have come out from India in the last three years but most of them do not even get their story in order, forget about the images. What comes out on paper is garbled nonsense.

But Kari is different. The images are a mix of black and white and colour sketches. The text is mostly placed around and in-between the drawings. While the narrator moves between her real friends and imaginary(?), the city itself becomes a character much like the graphic novel based on the Paul Auster's novel City of Glass.

Look out for this one.

Why I am not going going to the Turin Book fair

Tariq Ali has decided not to participate in the Turin Book Fair. He argues:

When I agreed to participate in the Turin Book Fair, which I have done before, I had no idea that the 'guest of honour' was Israel and its 60th birthday. But this is also the 60th anniversary of what the Palestinian call the 'nakba'the disaster that befell them that year, when they were expelled from their villages, some killed, women raped by the settlers. These facts are no longer disputed. So why did the Turin Book Fair not invite Palestinians in equal numbers? 30 Israeli writers and 30 Palestinian writers (and I promise you they exist and are very fine poets and novelists) might have been seen as a positive and peaceful gesture and a positive debate might have taken place.

Well I can think of many reasons why I will not be going to the Turin Book Fair. Some of them :

1. The Delhi Book Fair just concluded and the sight of rows of millions of books stacked up was enough for me for a year

2. I did not know there was a Turin Book Fair

3. In my present financial state I cannot afford the connecting flight from Rome

4. I am not invited

While it does make sense when celebreties refuse awards or recognitions conferred on them by political groups that they do not agree with, the kind of stand Mr. Ali has taken really does not help. Would it have made more sense to go to the event and lodge his protest in a public meeting?

Sometimes it seems to me that the protest is more about being in news rather than about the issues itself.

An Old Favourite returns

Just got this book as a gift. With graphic novels appearing left right and centre, Frans Masereel's book or novel in pictures as he liked to call them - is almost like a silent film in the age of sound, colour and special effects. Simple, striking woodcuts that tell the story.

Woodcut is the oldest form of print medium and often considered a craft since the images are not as refined. However since there were no add ons to the final woodcut image, the panels remained like storyboards of a film.

I had a smaller version of the book that fit into my hand and would often carry it in college. I would re read it at coffee tables till it became battered and torn.

What was fascinating for me was that each time I would end up foccussing on a different aspect of the images and a new narrative would emerge. This is the case with a great piece of work. The other examples that I can think of is Fiesta that forgotten novel by Hemingway. Or My Name is Red. Or Mash. Or Before Sunrise.

In Passionate Journey the story is told in monochromatic tones with each image concertrating on the main character surrounded by just the essential objects. Your eyes just re-live the story through the characters. And you never once feel the heavy personality of the creator. Much like what Billy Wilder said - The best director is the one you don't see.

advice for the non reader

i wish i had read this a thousand years back...

Pierre Bayard has written on the benefits of non reading
and how to talk about books you have not read

with so many book coming out each year
he says:
Even as I read, I start to forget what I have read
Wow...

What i like about Pierre Bayard's theory is the four categories of unread books
they are a laugh :

Books unknown to me
Books I have skimmed
Books I have heard about

Books I have forgotten

of course the first category can be endless
but here he is talking about famous books like Don Quixote
which i have not read
then there are books like Ulysses
which i have skimmed
and then there is War and Peace which i have read many times
but now forgotten

I have often tried to cure myself of this
addiction
this urge to read every printed matter

early on in school
i would borrow library cards
of other classmates
often to borrow two or three books
since my book would finish in a day or two
i never needed to take a speed reading course

by the time i hit late teens
my brother had stopped keeping up with me
he realized
it was better to enjoy what little one read
and not fall into the trap
of trying to become
an expert
in every subject

none of my friends
shared the passion
of reading books in buses
auto rickshaws
while waiting in a car
for the traffic lights to change

old books
new books
fat books
thin books
books flicked
books borrowed
books bought off second hand
books fresh off the shelves

like an addict
i am trying now
to reduce the number of books
and also to slow down my reading speed

but every once a in a while
when someone hands me a 600 page book with this comment:
Oh you should be able to finish this in 3 days...
i resist the urge to finish the book in two or three sittings

but there is hope for non readers

Pierre Bayard gives advice on how to discuss books
one of the prime requirements is to become shameless
and to have the courage to impose one's own ideas on books
of course as a non reader one is best suited to recreate each book to one's own ideal
at this point one becomes a writer himself

at present
i am miles away from this non reader status
but i am slowing down...

PS One advice from the book that worked for me

How to review a book
Put it in front of you, close your eyes and try to perceive what may interest you about it. Then write about yourself

I just went to website, looked at the reviews and started writing about myself

Other Colours

am reading Other Colours
by Orfan Pamuk

the stories and vignettes
that he weaves around Istanbul
where he grew up and still lives
makes me want to go back to that city

one of the main reasons i visited
Istanbul enroute to Paris this year
was his book Istanbul
dilliwalahs would immediately identify with his writings
(don't worry so would people from lucknow, hyderabad, ahmedabad and calcutta)
since we already live in a city
where several centuries exist side by side

after Istanbul
Paris was a huge letdown
one was city emerging out of its age old isolation
vibrant and alive
the other was city confused by the 21st century
after remaining the centre of art in the last century

in Other Colours
the writer is
able to juxtapose
his own struggle to find a voice
with that of a city trying to find its place in the modern world

the essays and stories
mostly focus on little details of his life
but somehow they are able to
evoke memories from my own life
the times when one was exploring
to make a mark in the world
(am still at it !!!!)

here is the speech
that Pamuk gave
when he received the Nobel Prize
it evokes all the pain
and passion
that an artist goes through
in a lifetime
his relationship with his self
his family
his city
and the world in which he lives

have not read any thing like that in years

Bookshops

My fav bookshop is the Midland Bookshop at Aurobindo Market. I remember when I started frequenting this place every alternate day about seven years ago devouring the books from their film section with my friend Rajat Ghose. In fact, even today their film section remains depleted and has not been able to regain its former glory. Both of us would pounce on any new book that would be remotely connected to film.

Years later, whenever I talk to people about their fav bookshops they have a quizzical expression when it comes to Midland. They claim that the place is very disorganized and cramped. Most of them prefer a larger store like Om Book Store (Vasant Vihar & Saket) or Landmark (Gurgaon).

I guess once we get used to how books are arranged in a shop, one knows exactly where to go for their kind of books and it does not bother them how the rest of the shop looks like. In any case i think most of the people who come to Midland are probably heavy duty (fiction/non fiction) readers who pick up their own books. In Om Book Store it mostly people who have an interest in coffee table books, children's books or books on art and design. Bahri's in Khan Market (very overrated) just are not interested in customers who browse - even the guard gives you a dirty look if you hang around for too long. They prefer their customers to ask for a book and they will hand it to you - like old kirana stores in your neighborhood.

The worst of them all is Fact and Fiction near Priya cinema. The owner is always in a bad mood, immersed in his own world (mostly listening to music) and not interested whether you are going to buy anything at all. I guess his main customers are from Vasant Vihar and the goras who live there. But he has a good collection. If I like a book at that store, I make a note and then buy it from Midland !

cartoon : Bill Woodman

Sunday at Daryaganj

So I was back at the book market on Sunday. Many months of break had done me good. The hunger was there. The book walahs were there too. Inspite of the heat. Some time back there was talk to putting an end to this market. Who comes up with these silly ideas?

This is place where I have spent many hours (over the years) and even found books sold by my friends who now recognize it on my shelf and claim it is theirs!! Some books have remained with me, the others I realized were probably bought at the fag end of the trip. At that point you have had too much water (or too little) and you pick up random books because you feel that you have not bought enough and this trip would be a failure. Like a hangover you regret buying those the next morning. Don't you have such books in your closet?

If you’ve been to the Daryaganj market you must have noticed three kinds of customers. There are students who look for all their chemistry study material (1998 edition will not do, 2005 OK). Then there are the wannabe fashion designers who come looking for their stuff – magazines (Catwalk, Designer etc). Then there are the addicts who will pick up anything old or hardbound and try to convince themselves why they should have it in their collection. These are types who also get excited with COBOL for Beginners (1990 ed), old sheets of perforated computer sheets and coloured bottles of any size. And conversations are priceless.

Of course the sellers recognize these categories. The minute they spot the addict they say – these I can I dump my old stuff. As soon as my friend and I picked up a couple of books - Peanuts and a cartoon book on the politics of Food (don’t ask me why I need that), the seller looked into our eyes and said – “I’ve got many of these, you have to look.” He waved his hand over his books. Like eager pups we looked for some time before we realized he was hoping that we might pick up some useless stuff and pay him 400 bucks for it.

Later I realized that I have become a veteran. I finished the entire trip and still had only one book in hand. Was leafing through it triumphantly while returning home. Maybe I will wake up on Monday and regret it.