Softly Dies a Lake

Softly Dies a Lake by Akkineni Kutumbarao, translated from the Telugu by Vasanth Kannabiran is described as an ecological memoir in its introduction. The author writes - The novel is about my childhood. All the people in it are real. The village is real. Kolleru is real. 

The book begins with Srinivas Rao, a man in his 60s, standing on the banks of the Kolleru wondering how the once bountiful lake that swallowed villages mercilessly during floods stood diminished to a 'nothingness' now. He takes a trip down the memory lane, to the times when as a 7 yr old kid (fondly called Seenu by all) Kolleru and his village Pulaparru on its banks made his beautiful little world.

It was here he learnt to swim holding onto a buffalo’s tail, to endure pain while pulling out leeches clinging onto skin, that not all people are fair and just, that ‘united we stand and divided we fall’. Kolleru and his village were his teachers after his doting parents. 

Pulapparu, the home to farmers (Kammadoras caste) and fishermen (Vaddis), with zero caste violence, where the young and old discussed and decided upon matters of importance also boasts of practicing collective farming for the first time in all of India, an ingenious mechanism it devised to save paddy harvests from the wrath of Kolleru during floods. 

With a huge array of characters, who's who in families, the book is little slow paced to start with. But Seenu, the little boy, mostly dressed in loin cloth, free-spirited and joyful makes the read interesting with his naive questions and naughty shenanigans.

The book reminded me of Perumal Murugan's Amma for describing a way of life, bygone and simple, of Na D Souza's Dweepa for showing how nature overturns man's efforts to control it in a blink of the eye, of Anita Agnihotri's The Sickle for highlighting the plight of farmers. 

In a translation that offers great reading experience, Softly Dies a Lake is not just an elegy to Kolleru, but to many lakes that once cradled life but are dying a slow death now. 

The Race to Phar Lap's Saddle

Kids accompanying their parents on a busy work trip brace themselves for boredom and 12 yr old Tara and her 10 yr old brother Neil are no different. When they realize their workaholic parents will stay confined to a small room in the Melbourne museum for 2 full days, entertainment arranged in the IMAX seems to be the only available entertainment option, one they accept with silent resignation. They have their pet Sumo, a golden Labrador, for company.

But a thrilling adventure beckons them when a precious artefact from the museum goes missing. The artefact is the saddle of Phar Lap, a thoroughbred racehorse renowned for its victory studded career in the 1920s. The saddle is the object of their father's research & study, the very purpose of their trip to Melbourne.

Tara and Neil (along with Sumo who reminded me of Timothy from good, old Famous Five mysteries) take it upon themselves to find the missing saddle. Cracking cryptic clues/riddles sends them racing from one iconic tourist destination to another in the city. The search enriches them with titbits of local history, myths, language and culture. 

From a boat trip on the Yarra River, a bird's eye view of the dazzling city from atop the Melbourne Star, a free ride on the Central tram service to learning about eminent personalities like Ned Kelly and James Cook, their quest offers them more than they dreamt of when they arrived at Melbourne. 

Will Neil and Tara save the day or are they on a wild goose chase? 

To know what happens read Rishi Piparaiya's The Race to Phar Lap's Saddle, an adventure for kids aged 8-12 and a mini encyclopedia/travel guide of Melbourne, melded into one.

The book is not all text and has nice illustrations. A section in the end provides interesting information & fun facts about Australia. 

Maps - at the start of the book

Interesting facts - from a section at book's end

A quick, light read for grown ups too if you, like me, knew Melbourne only for the MCG, jumping kangaroos and cuddly koalas and if you aren't looking for a brain racking mystery with a nail biting finish. 

The Race to Phar Lap's Saddle by Rishi Piparaiya is a thrilling, fast-paced adventure and a wholesome read with travel facts and interesting information!

Please visit Cities of Adventure website to learn about other books in this series. Fictional adventure set in the cities of Los Angeles and Washington DC are already available. Upcoming releases/titles set in dazzling cities from across the world already has readers eager and waiting. 

Trees for the Absentees

“We are all visitors on this earth. We all arrive carrying our flame with us. There are those who use that flame to light up the darkness, and there are those who use it to set fire to trees and people."

In a land riddled with missiles and bullets, where checkpoints mushroom restricting people's free movement,  where living in constant strife and under complete occupation drains your life, how does one thrive? Will sheer acceptance of ones' fate work or does one create a parallel universe, one alongside the reality, an imagined space in one's head, a place of dreams that no one can lay siege to? Maybe yes ! 

Trees for the Absentees is a coming of age tale set in Palestine, of a teenage girl Philistia who lives with her mother Najma, two little sisters (Sawsan and Nahil) and a brother (Saeed). Her father has been in Ashkelon prison for the last five years and the family is hoping he will be set free someday soon. Philistia's grandmother, Zahia is a respected woman in their village for she is the one who bathes the new born babies in their village after she pulls them out from the darkness of the womb into this world. But Philistia who accompanies her grandmother only quizzes - When day by day they found themselves in a hostile, unknown world, a disappointing one. When they discovered that the transition from darkness to light was not what it was made out to be. Did they thank Grandma? Had she saved them when she brought them into life, or had she deceived them?  Grandma Zahia also washes the dead before they are cremated. It is Grandma who reveals the secrets of the dead and the living, of the naked bodies lying in front of them to Philistia, all of which she absorbs well with rapt attention. 

After her grandmother's demise, Philistia dons her role in their village, studies at the University in Nablus in West Bank and also works there part time in a hammam where she scrubs naked bodies of women with black pitt and Nabulsi soap. 

Philistia has few friends - some real and some imagined ones, she converses with them in real and in her dreams, flitting between the two spheres. Her friend Bayrakdar with whom she shares a lot in common is the one with whom she has the most insightful and important conversations, a tender affection as they share thoughts is a treat to the reader.  

My dad loved Palestine so much that he called me Philistia, after the first people who lived in this land.

“So, can a name claim back an occupied country?”

Also moving are the letters that Philistia writes to her father. It is painful when she says - "There are Palestinian prisons and Israeli prisons, but what’s the difference? The prisoners are all Palestinians.”

Written by Ahlam Bsharat and translated from the Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Sue Copeland, published by Neem Tree Press, Trees for the Absentees may not be an account with historical facts but it is a humane one that deals with the impact war and forceful occupation has on young minds. 

Fantasy intertwines with reality in this novella that gives us a sense of the plight people in Palestine face ; to have this sense is the first step in understanding injustice meted out, for injustice anywhere, they say, is a threat to justice everywhere.

Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories

For anyone interested in the Indian (translated or otherwise) literature scape, Kamala Das (Madhavi Kutty, her pen name/ Kamala Surayya after she converted to Islam) is no new name. Her unabashed take on women's lives, their desires and sexuality and her own life story published as My Story have always kindled ample interest in readers. 

Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories by Kamala Das is a collection of 19 stories, most of them very short - about a page or two long, some about 4-5 pages long with the only exception of A Doll for the Child Prostitute, the longest one, being little over 30 pages long. 

Moongphali, the first story that portrays the survival instincts a man exhibits during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots is different from the rest in that it is the only story set against the backdrop of an important event in recent Indian political history. 

There are stories that depict little life episodes, written like random musings - That Woman, The Young Man with the Pitted Face, December, The Sign of the Lion. 

The Sea Lounge and Equity Shares are instances where women protagonists call the shots, have a firm sense of identity and clearly overpower the male counterparts in the stories. 

Padmavati the Harlot and A Little Kitten are where the women decide to whom they offer their bodies providing a bold take on feminine desire and sexuality. 

There clearly exists another subset of stories in this collection, those that revolve around human relationships - beautiful and moving. A bereaved father in The Coroner, a busy son who has forgotten his mother thoroughly though she, whose memory is steadily deteriorating by the day, remembers much more than her son in The Tattered Blanket are poignant tales. Darjeeling, Grandfather, Walls, Leukemia touch chords of humanity in the most delicate fashion in very short space. 

Same-sex relationship is explored well in Iqbal. Sanatan Choudhuri's Wife lingers on suspicion a man harbors for his wife. The former story is just as much crisp and impressive as the latter is confounding.

And here are the most potent stories from the collection in my opinion, my favorites too - The Princess of Avanti and A Doll for the Child Prostitute that lay bare the scum that fills up the society. These two stories churn our inners showing how a woman, irrespective of her age, is always an object of desire, a commodity and there is never an inch of safe space for her in this society. The tonality in these reminded me of Gracy's stories from the collection Baby Doll.

Some of Kamala Das's women are bold, some too naïve. The old ones are as frail as a child, withered away due to ageing and the children are mature, wise like a woman in her prime for they are exposed to the societal ills from a tender age. 

With astute observations and sharp narratives without mincing words even once, Kamala Das holds her readers in rapt attention showing them what our society looks like and does. The foreword by the author's daughter is a sweet. little ode to this fiery writer. 

A Doll for the Child Prostitute published in the year 1977 by India Paperbacks, New Delhi has a set of 11 stories, all of which are bundled up here in this collection published by Aleph Book Company. Look no further, Padmavati the Harlot and other Stories serves as a good and wholesome starting place to explore the authors' writings.

Quartet (Chaturanga) by Rabindranath Tagore

‘If there is God, then my intellect is his gift; That intellect tells me, there is no God; So, God tells me, there is no God'

A fierce statement that Jagmohan, an hard core atheist and a polar opposite of his brother Hari Mohan, makes in this book. Caught in the tussle between the believer and the non believer is Hari Mohan's own son Sachis who takes a liking to his uncle Jagmohan, breathes his principles and turns a staunch atheist until the outbreak of plague consumes Jagmohan's life.

‘That there is no obligation is my greatest obligation.’ Since we do not believe in anything, we must believe in ourselves all the more.’ - Jagmohan's motto to ensure greater good for a larger number of people challenging insurmountable societal norms causes immense misery to him and his likes.

Sachis loses direction after Jagmohan's death and like a homeless bird flitting from one tree to another, unsure and aimless, he seeks refuge under Swami Leelananda, surrendering himself unconditionally at his feet.

Sribilas, Sachis' loyal friend, is a witness to Sachis's dramatic transformation and out of love and loyalty for his friend also his meek follower. Then enters Damini, a young widow, who catalyzes the transformation of these men. But Tagore does not render Damini as a coveted object of desire, one causing friends to turn foes. Both Sribilas and Sachis definitely want Damini's attention but in different ways which is revealed by the line below - 

Perhaps Sachis did not realise that while he envied me for the easy informality of my relationship with Damini, I envied him for the mystery between his and Damini’s relationship. (Says Sribilas, the novella itself is constructed from Sribilas's diary entries)

Damini, like a smoldering volcano capable of erupting without warning, is unsure of the path she herself should adopt in life - be a believer, serve Swamiji and sing kirtans in praise of the Lord or be a non believer and adopt philanthropism working outside the bars of caste, creed and religion.  

The author minces no words when he takes a dig at the supremacy asserted by upper caste Hindus, the way they treat Muslims and chamars as untouchables. His fight for just treatment of women is evident from the lines below  - In Hindu shastra, the sacrifice of a female animal is prohibited, but in the case of humans, this was practiced with a lot of glee.

From one defying everything written in the tenets of religion to accepting everything without any question, Sachis oscillates between these two extremes unable to find a sense of purpose and Tagore in this work shows us that adherence to both pathways is actually of no avail.

Quartet (Chaturanga) is set in the 19th century Bengal, a novella in four parts with four central characters that delves deep into philosophical questions, the conflict between conforming and not conforming with one's religion and scriptures, the conflict between natural longings of a man and renunciation of material desires. 

The renowned poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, painter, the supreme symbol of Indian renaissance that Rabindranath Tagore is, this little work in about 100 pages shows him largely as a 'reformer'. 

Chaturanga (Quartet) was first published in a book-form in 1916. Its first English translation was published in The Modern Review in four consecutive issues (Feb-May, 1922). Unlike other works of Tagore, this was never presented on stage or dramatized; only a radio play was aired on All India Radio a couple of times.

The translator, Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, expresses he had difficulties maintaining the non-sentimental and tongue in cheek style of writing the author adopted in here but the above said qualities are definitely palpable in the translation which makes his translation effort praiseworthy.