The Birth Lottery and Other Surprises

 

Shehan Karunatilaka begins The Birth Lottery and Other Surprises with a note ‘How to read the collection?’ and advises ‘never in sequence’. Still, he guides us through the broad categories his stories fall into showing he cares for the reader’s moods. Doing this, he has us impressed even before the collection of 30 stories (some very short and others long) has begun for we all know that a reader's mood is as unpredictable as vagaries of monsoon in the subcontinent.

It is exceptional how despite maintaining an amazingly funny tone in his stories, he is mighty serious about his craft and its import. He embeds facts, his country’s turbulent history and politics within fiction. For instance, No.One.Cares on the outset feels like a young, depressed man’s attempt to garner attention on social media but gradually reveals how the country’s autocratic regime has silenced many voices of dissent. Time Machine, Assassin’s Paradise, The Eyes Have It are other stories that brim with such intricately woven facts. Our heads teem with names when we are done with the above stories - JR Jayawardene, Sarojini Yogeswaran, Ranjan Wijeratne, Anagarika Dharmapala to name a few. 

Easy Tiger, Baby Monitor and Second Person impress us with twists, a delectably unique way of handling infidelity in marriage. Hugs, The 1969 Game, If You’re Sad and You Know It feel bizarre to start with before ending in beautiful & important messages. 

I would love to know Elon Musk’s reaction when he reads the opening piece - ‘A self-driving car’s thoughts as it crashes’. The titular story, in 42 vignettes, shows how one's birth over which one has no control is a tragedy/travesty of one's existence, an offbeat exploration of the question - 'How many births before attaining nibbana?' 

The Colonials and My Name is not Malini are interesting stories that depict how for the economically weaker sections of the society, freedom is an elusive concept even after the island nation is free from its foreign rulers. 

Shehan’s stories sparkle with wit, sardonic humor and imagination that can be described by adjectives only in superlative. His stories move beyond the moral and conventional norms. He’s brazen when he writes about the Sri Lankan civil war, human rights violation, adultery in marriages, messy college music-fest or nasty office politics. He is fiercely fearless as he washes his nation’s dirty linen in public and exposes the failures of his countrymen, people of his race and religion. This audacity truly deserves accolades, especially in today’s times when it's easier to label someone a traitor and the definition of patriotism is highly skewed. 

“Criticizing your country is not an act of treason. It is an act of love”, he writes in the story Assassin's Paradise and we can only pray that every country has a share of writers and readers who firmly believe in this. I must admit that though this audacity leaves us awestruck in some stories , it also leaves us cringing at few other places. 

Of the thirty entries that make this collection, the short ones are all winners, they're little surprises. Among the longer ones, The Ceylon Islands, Time Machine (though this one gets tedious), No.One.Cares, The Capital of Djibouti and Easy Tiger are favorites. 

If you (like me) love short stories, prefer them to a novel to sample an author’s writing style or if you wish to stay away from the much hyped award-winning novels by the author for the time being, The Birth Lottery and other Surprises published by Hachette India is a wonderful option. The stories here brace us for the author’s worldview and his way with words. Demanding the reader's  complete attention and patience, even re-read at places, The Birth Lottery and Other Surprises is a wonderful miscellany. Quirky, thought-provoking from start to end, it is packed with truth bombs and many surprises pop up all along. 

The People of the Indus

 

The People of the Indus by Nikhil Gulati with Jonathan Mark Kenoyer begins with a quote by Ursula Le Guin - “History is not a science, it's an art”. And, history, the account of an enigmatic & prosperous bronze age civilization, the Indus civilization (3200-1900 BCE), is rendered in a comic format in stunning illustrations in abt 160 pages. 

Nikhil Gulati says that the book is the result of intrigue after his chance visit to Lothal, Gujarat when he was a college student. Backed by Dr. Kenoyer’s (the field director of Harappa Archaeological survey since 1986) valuable inputs, this book by visually representing history not just makes it palatable but extremely delightful.

Organized into five chapters, the book begins by taking us back in time to Mohenjo Daro at 2600 BCE. A ubiquitous, bespectacled narrator in kurta and jeans takes us on a journey, first highlighting the well-planned urban settlements with an ingenious underground drainage system - the hallmark of this civilization & then offering a glimpse of daily lives of people - their occupations, crafts and trade practices.

From detailing the popular Great Bath, dancing girl statue, Zebu bull, steatite seals and carnelian beads to many lesser known facts, similarities and differences with Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, weaving in a story of a family of coppersmiths who arrive at Mohenjodaro for a fortune & a family of scribes who leave the drying Ghaggar valley eastwards to Yamuna, the book is mighty comprehensive. The last two chapters on writing practices in these civilizations & reasons for decline of the Indus civilization after flourishing for 700 years on the banks of the rivers Indus and Ghaggar are more intricate.

A page showing the important sites of Indus civilization

 A glimpse of illustrations in the book

Few wordless pages full of illustrations that depict the discovery of beads and its use in jewelry deserve special mention, the author’s painstaking effort here is symbolic of how tedious the archaeological research process is.

The People of the Indus, like Lego Classic blocks, appeals to a big age group - 9 to 99 yrs. Let this brilliant graphic novel grace your bookshelves with its presence.

Hymns in Blood

 

"A wayward and stubborn lad whose failings far outweighed his virtues had become such an integral part of her consciousness! They were just a couple of kids playing hide-and-seek and messing around in the mud. When did this lovebug decide to establish its permanent residence in her heart?" - Naseem ponders over her feelings for Yusuf in this story.

Like Naseem, we readers wonder what made Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims who thrived in harmony butcher each other mercilessly even as independence from the British was turning into a reality. Men plundered, murdered and raped with an unprecedented vengeance and frenzy.

The author laments this loss of humanity, territorial unity and fraternal ties, a heavy price paid for freedom in his foreword to the book, one that clearly reveals his emotional angst, the deep hurt of a survivor of vicious times.

Set in a village Chakri, on the banks of river Soan, 30 miles from Rawalpindi, Hymns in Blood published in 1948, the author claims is neither entirely fiction nor a historic text, it's a story that flows between the two banks of imagination and reality.

"But there’s this funny thing about humans, old or young, educated or unlettered, all of them possess two strong emotions - love and hatred". And we see these two emotions in a maniacal tug of war in a small village in undivided Punjab as it slips from fun-filled Lohri celebrations to a blood soaked Holi in the year 1947.

Those who defend their vulnerable neighbors willing to risk their own lives are pitted against those who run amok like a rogue elephant when the bloodbath begins. The former are clearly outnumbered but their deeds are a testimony to the spirit of humanity which this novel pays a tribute to.

Despite the heavy subject, the book is a page-turner offering great insight into sights, sounds and flavors of rural Punjab. An informative afterword and dazzling translation by the author's grandson, Navdeep Suri allows an intimate connect.

An elegy for a divided land & broken relationships, Hymns in Blood is classic from the father of the Punjabi novel.

Had I read this book before Amit Majumdar's The Map and The Scissors, I would have believed existence of communal harmony as an absolute truth, tampered by divisive British politics or thwarted by a single leader's obstinacy. The foreword in Hymns in Blood suggests something similar. But there have been many disruptions to communal amity in decades before Indian independence. Even The Map and the Scissors doesn't entirely detail these episodes but provides ample pointers for further reading and research. Therefore, Nanak Singh's Hymns in Blood is to be read from an emotional perspective rather than a politically or historically accurate point of view. It serves as a reminder of how sectarian violence/communal discord shatters lives irreparably and leaves an indelible scar for generations. Khoon De Sohile (translated as Hymns in Blood) has a sequel Agg di Khed, which will soon be released as A Game of Fire, translated by Navdeep Suri and published by Harper Collins. Definitely looking forward to read it too!

If There is a God : Short Stories

 

If There is a God is a collection of ten stories by Imayam where the sharp portrayal of reality makes one wonders if this is a work of fiction. Commonplace scenarios, emotions and challenges flood the pages making every story dazzle with relatability.

Women form the backbone of these stories. They clearly understand the driving forces of society and are resilient. Some are highly pragmatic and some extremely sentimental but they all fight their circumstances valiantly irrespective of whether they win or succumb. It's noteworthy that Imayam chooses names for his women characters with care. When most women stay away from graveyards in fear of being possessed by evil spirits, 'No Fear in the Burial Ground' portrays a woman who digs graves without fear for the rich and poor, for the revered and orphaned ones. Imayam names her 'Sita', one who welcomes the dead onto the lap of 'Bhoomadevi', her mother. Likewise, 'Kannagi' rages against injustice in the titular story.  

The character Selvakumar from the story ‘Santha’ mutters in frustration ‘Females are the same everywhere’ and Imayam leaves no stone unturned to point out that their predicament and plight is also the same everywhere. If the opening story (Over in a Moment) playfully introspects how a couple’s sexual intimacy changes over years after marriage, the longest story (The Dubai Man’s Wife) on a married woman’s infidelity raises the question ‘life or honour, which is more important’ vociferously.

Men, too share their woes here - a peon yearns for little self respect at his workplace in ‘Saar’ and an old man laments the loss of his birthplace, his ancestral home in ‘The Maniyakarar House’. 

Caste is an important marker in these stories with focus not only on top-down oppression but on how power & money changes equations even within the same rung. Contemporary and important issues like how COVID-19 killed not only humans but humanity, the ubiquitous ‘cash for votes’ during elections and child sexual abuse appear in stories here.

The translation by Prabha Sridevan that offers a glitch-free reading experience was intimate enough to let me map in my head the probable lines in original, in rural Tamil argot.

“If there was no stomach and no hunger, man would not need to suffer any indignity”.

“Are courts and the police meant only for those who have money?”

Imayam’s stories, layered with crucial questions/observations, emphasize the need for moral integrity and empathy; two qualities that humans conveniently lack, the dearth of which often makes him utter ‘If there is a God’.

A ‘true to life’ collection of stories, a fine place to start reading the author. 

Additional Titbits:

Imayam (pen name of V Annamalai), a school teacher and writer, received the Sahitya Akademi award in the year 2020 for his work Sellada Panam. He rejects labels like feminist writer, Dalit writer and vehemently asserts that his works be known and judged for their literary merit.

During the book launch, the translator Prabha Sridevan explains how translation into English is never an easy task and leaves gaps in conveying emotions taking a simple instance - vandhaar and vandhaan, the two Tamil words translate into ‘he came’ in English but the former clearly indicates respect and the latter lacks it. She has also translated R Chudamani’s Echoes of Veena and other stories and Meeran’s Stories, both published by Ratna Books.

The beautiful cover design is done by Anshul Milan.

The Inconceivable Idea of the Sun

 

“I don’t take genre labels seriously. We must not let a division of labor become a division of laborers. This goes for writers as well as readers. Personally, I read the way a goat eats; that is, anything and everything. I hope you do too”, these lines from the author’s bio encouraged me to pick his collection - The Inconceivable Idea of the Sun, my first ‘proper’ attempt at reading spec-fic.

The book has a buoyant start with an offbeat table of contents and introduction. The strength of the collection lies in how the author picks very ‘real’, commonplace scenarios like a mother’s separation anxiety on her child’s first day at school (in ‘Archipelago’), a father’s inability to adjust with his grown-up daughter in her home in a new land (in ‘Into the Night’), a nervous young lady trying to settle down in her boyfriend’s orthodox household (in ‘God’s Own Country’), a man working hard to not feel bitter with his ex-wife’s husband (in ‘Robots of Eden’) and leaps into ‘surrealism’. 

The titular story where too many books in shelves get overwhelming for a bibliophilic couple and ‘The Mind-Body Problem where a young man leads a life of dual identities are other favorites.

Three (of the total 15) entries here felt more like essays than stories. ‘How not to tell Ramayana’ is a clinical analysis of the question - what makes Ramayana so attractive for retelling? ‘Aqua Biographica’ that describes the arduous journey of every writer/storyteller provides a befitting end.

What happens when Lord Shiva is bored of being the 'destroyer' ? A pair of talking parrots atop a silk cotton tree change the tales that an old, chaste Brahmin narrates, he switches from highly austere tales of eight Puranas and Ramayana to the erotica from Sringarasataka and Ujjavala Nilamani, but how? 

Under the cover of lively prose, the author ambushes us readers with some thought-provoking questions - Can over dependence on technology make us ‘digital paraplegics’? Are traditional rites and rituals of any use? Will people acquire ‘textually transmitted diseases’ in future? 

As a novice to the genre, reading these MIND-BENDING stories was no cake-walk, I had to develop the 'lusory attitude' that the author claims is essential for a spec-fic enthusiast. The ‘Contexts’ section in the end helped me understand stories that felt fuzzy initially. With a drizzle of philosophy, a dip into the paranormal and a bite of Hindu epics offered, this is quite an eclectic mix!