Fridays with Miss Fisher

Finding time – and the inclination – to maintain this blog is hard to come by.  A short post then.

Detective fiction is not a genre I am particularly enamoured with.  While Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle were staples for an Indian childhood, it wasn’t something I re-read into adulthood.  Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is pretty much in the cosies genre and its TV adaptation like with most cosies isn't always strong on plot. Yet it’s addictive Friday night viewing and mixes all the cosy elements right.  It doesn't hurt that it is immensely beautiful to look at and nicely performed. 

I bought a couple of the books to read along with the TV episodes and while the two differ greatly, in tone the TV series remains faithful to the novels for the large part.  Phryne Fisher is sort of a female James Bond, a pistol packing, exquisitely dressed, fabulously rich lady of somewhat easy virtue.  Like with all perpetually upstaging clever private investigators, you tire of her a bit (hands up if you find Holmes insufferable!).  But the books are on pretty good form in recreating 1920s Melbourne and obscure details of Australian history with a slant towards female emancipation.  And Greenwood creates vivid characters which helps the transfer to TV. In spite of this the books themselves feel a bit undercooked here and there,  there is an element of a first-rate concept all dressed up with nowhere to go. The writing is equally hit and miss with the opening chapters of Cocaine Blues being rather clumsy.   Though completely different in tone, the books reminded me of Amitav Ghosh’s novels.  A wealth of detail, a few interesting characters and yet swathes that are curiously shallow and one dimensional.

Anyway all the viewing and reading of history-mysteries reminded me that it was time to revisit my favourite detective of all time, DCS Foyle.  Foyle’s War, here I come!

From Bankim to Narayan

Slowly making my way through books I picked up in India.  Which resulted in a few thoughts on Indian writing in English.

Rajmohan's Wife is possibly the first Indian-English work of fiction, as a novella this is the single most interesting feature about it.  As the excellent introduction by Meenakshi Mukherjee points out, it has elements of Bankim's subsequent work like BishaBriksha, Durgesh Nandini and the like. And an uneven tone with parts of it perhaps being aimed at a "Western audience", an all too common accusation even today.  Parts read as if they are translated from the Bengali and it is only in a few passages that Bankim finds his rhythm.  All in all it is a bit of an undergraduate exercise and midway through the novella it is clear that Bankim has lost interest in the fate of his characters.  Whatever the fate of the book at the time (it was possibly serialised but there is no record of this or the reaction of Bankim's readers), Bankim then switched to writing in Bangla and the rest as they say is history.  In any event Bankim was not the only one to switch to his native language, the general consensus at the time appears to have been that it was better to be a first rate Bengali writer than a second rate English one. And it is true that Bankim found fame when he switched to Bengali. And though we live in a century where it is our English writers who are covered in glory, the question of writing in an inherited language which at times is unable to convey the full flavour of Indian life remains.  As an example, Mukherjee points out that a Bengali novel can incorporate dialects that reflect region and class, a near impossibility in English.  Closing Rajmohan's Wife it seems impossible to believe that anything authentic can be written in Indian-English, that the problems Bankim grappled with may have mitigated but haven't ceased to be.

The Bachelor of Arts is the second book in RK Narayan's trilogy and reading it now you realise the books have a semi-autobiographical strain.  Narayan of course wrote in English and once "discovered" by Greene, his fame as a writer was assured.  Narayan's deceptively simple novella captures Chandran's coming of age and is still reasonably accurate in capturing the growing pains of a Tamil Brahmin lad. Narayan was writing a full half century and more later than Bankim and what you first notice is how unobtrusive the language is.  Narayan captures a particular kind of Tamil life so well that the language the book is written in becomes immaterial.  And that, especially in the context of Rajmohan's Wife, is quite remarkable. You have to keep in mind, however, that many of Narayan's novels are set in his own milieu and do not require Bankim's dramatic shifts in the narrative.

It is possible that part of the reason the language in The Bachelor of Arts is immaterial to a reader like me is because I am intimately acquainted with Narayan's milieu.  And yet beyond that I did fall to wondering if the term Indian English is a wee bit overarching.  A person whose mother tongue is Tamil will employ the language differently - in Narayan's books there are none of the flourishes or poetics that are common in Bengali novels though there is the dry, sarcastic wit familiar to Tamilians.  In effect Tamil-English functions quite differently from Bengali-English and this is possibly true even for those of us who are taught English in our infancy. And it is possible that the conflicts that arise from writing in English are not the same across all Indian languages.

Now we are used to Indian writing in English and it is no longer aimed at readers elsewhere, writers like Chetan Bhagat sell to the country's middle class, the kind of people who might have read regional writing in an earlier time.  Yet the remarkable thing about Narayan's books is how timeless they feel and how effortless his writing is. There are no follies of the kind Indian writers seem attracted to - no Indian exotica, no misused words, no ornate expressions, no poetics, no elaborate descriptions of meals and weddings. 70 odd years on the book remains an example of how to write in Indian English.

PostScript: Whatever the problems of writing in English, regional stories appeared to be readily translatable. I remember reading that in the early years of the Tamil film industry Bengali story writers were much in demand and would literally shop around their stories to the best bidder in Bombay and Madras :-)

On Devdas

Before I forget the details, I thought I would blog a less facile piece on Devdas given the amount of reading and viewing my review of Dev D entailed.


The bare facts of the novel (more a novella) are well known and simple.  Devdas and Paro are childhood playmates.   Though devoted to each other, it is clear from the early chapters of the novel that Devdas is a spoilt boy and Paro, for all her fondness for Devdas, is not above seeking sweet revenge for his cruelty.  The two are parted when Devdas leaves for his studies in Calcutta and then reunited as adults.  Childhood intimacy blossoms into a kind of romance culminating in Paro’s daring proposal.  Devdas reacts in all the wrong ways.  Intimidated by parental disapproval he returns to Calcutta and sends Paro a letter rejecting her proposal.  At the very next instant he realises his folly but it is already too late.  Paro and her piqued family have agreed to another proposal from a much older man and Paro is not willing to change her mind for the fickle Devdas.  This decision has disastrous consequences for both.  Devdas returns to the city and sinks into depression in a way perhaps not clearly understandable even to himself.  Paro resigns herself to her marriage. And where earlier Devdas had eschewed the more unsavoury elements of city life, now he begins to accompany Chunni Babu, his city friend, to the brothels.  Significantly, Devdas takes to drink and not whoring even though he has a ready and devoted admirer in the prostitute/courtesan Chandramukhi.  From here on the novel traces Devdas’ decline, a decline that cannot be stalled by the love of not just one but two good women.   Where Paro’s sadness is sublimated by the requirements of domesticity, Devdas’ is full blown, it is as if a single act precipitates a decline he cannot fathom or control.  The novel ends with Devdas’ return to fulfil a promise to Paro to meet her before his death but even this is denied and he dies a lonely death.

That Devdas is an anti-hero is clear from the ending chapters of Devdas where the author begs his reader to have pity for Devdas’ fate even though it is self-inflicted. The book was written when Saratchandra was a young man and in fact the novel it comes closest to is Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther.  Both authors were a little exasperated by the runaway success of their novels but it is clear that the story of a young man undone by his first romance culminating in his death resonated with many young male readers.  Devdas' female protagonists are also very much the product of a young man’s imagination, a cruel, all-consuming first love and a devoted “fallen woman”.  Above all it is a tale of a melancholy that cannot be shaken, a state of mind that is no doubt alluring to the romantically inclined.

Given its success the novella has been much analysed, especially since it has a hero who does….nothing.   This is fertile ground for any number of theories, especially those relating to the emasculating effect of colonialism.  To my mind, this is not the case.  Like well to do young men of the time, Devdas does indeed go the city which is where young Indian men would have likely been first exposed to Western mores.  But there is little hint of this world in the novel or any indication that Devdas is torn between two different worlds.  In fact the city descriptions largely relate to the world of brothels and dancing girls, which seem to have little to do with whatever European pursuits the city offered.  Devdas’ ineffectualness seems more the result of being the younger son; he is neither interested in nor very encouraged to manage his father’s estates.  These remain largely in the hands of his elder brother though Devdas never lacks for money.  Further his impetuousness (contrary to some analyses Devdas is not indecisive, Saratchandra calls him prone to action without thinking), his callowness and his unthinking acceptance of female devotion all stem from the cosseted, pampered childhood of many Indian men.  In fact the novella (at least in translation) does not have the conflicts that resulted from exposure to Western influences as might be seen in a Tagore novel.  Its world is completely Indian and ruled by Indian mores, any other influences are referred to only indirectly.  It is therefore not surprising that Devdas has been translated into a number of Indian languages since its first publication but its first English translation of any note appears to have been the result of the 2002 film.  

In translation, Devdas for all that it is the work of an immature author, is a surprisingly gripping and easy read, Saratchandra knew how to keep a reader‘s attention.   It is also in a way cinema-ready so it is not surprising that Saratchandra’s dissolute, sad hero was on film as early as the silent era.  But the first Hindi language adaptation of any note and certainly one that was a runaway success was Barua’s film.  The entire film is lost (it is typical of India that there is little record of the film but variants of Devdas live on in film and literature) but what little there is of it on youtube suggests many musical interludes, a given since it starred KL Saigal (and Pahadi Sanyal as Chunni Babu).   The film provided the template for Bimal Roy’s version which possibly remains the classic Devdas film (in Hindi).

The 1955 Devdas film is formal, a trifle stolid and entirely faithful to the novel though it lacks the glimmer of humour present in the novel and in the 1935 film.  It is handsomely cast with the stars of the era and their performances are effective but studied.   The formal nature of the film sometimes distances you from the protagonists but for all that it carries you along so that Devdas’ return to the village where he wanders lost and bereft is an affecting moment (the spirit of the 1935 and 1955 films is nicely contrasted in the filming of this moment).  In any event by the time this film came along, the Devdas template for a hero was set and any number of films of the era deal with lost love, dying heroes, heroines bound by duty and the like.

But a revival of Devdas itself had to wait till 2002.  Though ostensibly set in Bengal, the 2002 movie owed everything to the conventions of the decade and to the idea of Bollywood that had formed by then. Hence the gaudy sets, elaborate costumes, duelling mothers and long passages of dialogue.  All this has little to do with Saratchandra’s novella which while providing for a pan Indian hero is also rooted in the simplicity of rural Bengal.   Still, beneath the overpowering moveable feast that is Devdas 2002, the nature of the Paro-Devdas-Chandramukhi triangle remains intact.  It is fundamental to the novel that Paro and Devdas’ relationship is deeply conflicted and possibly unconsummated yet neither can form other adult relationships though Devdas does feel a kind of love for Chandramukhi.  Their somewhat twisted bond runs too deep to be broken.

But this is what a film that came later in the decade attempted to do (though Pyaasa presages it to an extent).  Dev D, no doubt riding on the success of the 2002 film, did away with the Bengal setting and relocated the entire action to the present and the Punjab.  It was also the first attempt at a revisionist approach to the Devdas tale; thus far all films had stayed faithful to the novel.  As it turned out, the hipster approach simply did not work.  One in focussing on Chandramukhi, it added an adolescent dimension to the tale, the desire to bestow a happy ending on the fallen woman.  But Devdas is emphatically not about Chandramukhi and Dev D loses its sense of direction the minute the focus shifts to her.  Two the relocation to the Punjab adds a dimension to Devdas that is simply not there in the original.  For all his faults, Devdas is largely a gentle soul and generous.  Dev D on the other hand is somewhat unpleasant in his Punjabi arrogance which culminates in a hit and run. Once Paro weds there is little to the movie and it cannot be enjoyed as a piss take on the Devdas tradition or a cerebral revisionist take on a classic.  

Devdas is no one’s favourite novel, perhaps not even its author.  The character is easily mockable, young men who have a nodding acquaintance with novella or film would most likely profess a dislike of the character (as might young women but for entirely separate reasons).  Yet the fact that nearly a century after his creation he lives on as an archetypal Indian hero is surely a testimony to the enduring power of an immature work that is also  strange and singular.

RIP Adrienne Rich

NYT ran a pretty good piece on the poet.  And Tumblr users seem to have uploaded more than a few tributes and poems.

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SONG

You’re wondering if I’m lonely:
OK then, yes, I’m lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.

You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonely

If I’m lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawns’ first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleep

If I’m lonely
it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning.

Back in Sydney

Review of Ra.One here.

And since I have been travelling and travel arouses ambiguous thoughts, an excerpt from an Elizabeth Bishop poem.

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

Rest of the poem here.

My Mother's Clothes

I don't think I know anyone as particular about clothes as my mother.

Not though in terms of dressing au courant or fashionably.  More that she had a very defined aesthetic and anyone straying from this would arouse a great deal of irritation in her.  

If I had to label her style, it would be simple, modern and classic. This was however compromised by her fear of her mother and the desire to please her. Consequently there are few occasions when my mother pretty much abandoned the South Indian look or indeed wore much make-up. When she did, she shone because it felt true.

These pictures taken in 1969 or so in Chandigarh are one of few times which are definitely her own aesthetic.  I particularly like the one below, which looks like Bombay Dyeing ads of the time. 

Our styles differed a lot and though once in awhile my mother would appreciate my sense of colour and bohemianism, many a time I have had to return things that didn't meet with her approval.  It wasn't that she wanted to control my tastes as much as it disturbed her sense of harmony. 

Rightly or wrongly, I have retained my own tastes.

But I like to look at her pictures now and then and think of her elegance and grace. I remember all her sarees and its nice to recall their look and feel, her own thoughts about them.

Good taste endures. 

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For my mother (1944-1993).

Walserisms

At the moment I want to read everything by Robert Walser.  I might soon be raiding Flipkart. 

And I am late to the party in discovering text on image. It tried a few but Phixr has been serving me well for the moment.

So here are a few experiments "illustrating" the current Walser fixation.

French Clothing/Indian Film

Rather unusually for me, disinterest has resulted in the lack of a clothes post in a while. Internally I have been grappling with the oh so important problem of transitioning my wardrobe to something more mature but it hardly feels pressing or interesting so I have done little apart from a burst of auditing this month. Selvedge, a textile magazine I subscribe to, however still offers many pleasures (some day I hope to do an article for them on the itinerant sari sellers of India – surely a dying breed – some day….) and I have been savouring the latest issue in bits and pieces. One of the pieces in the magazine was on the new movement towards modesty in clothing, perhaps in reaction to a decade of body con dresses, lycra and the like. Embodying this modesty is Le Vestiaire De Jeanne, a fashion line started by its designer for her younger sister. Germaine Greer once wrote that the French were one of few people who knew how to dress their young appropriately. And this line does steer clear of frills, pink and Disney pop-tart fashion. It’s a bit like a marriage between convent girl attire and Japanese minimalism and it mostly works though it could do with introducing some colour.

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I finally got around to watching a few Satyajit Ray movies I had picked up in India but after all that anticipation, they were slightly disappointing. Disappointing when compared to other Ray films i.e., they are head and shoulders above the fare I have been reviewing. Devi - in which an old man sees the Goddess in his young daughter-in-law- is about the suffocating, hallucinatory nature of superstition. Though beautifully shot and performed, it was ultimately a bit of a let down because it is a tad didactic – especially in the conversations between the young husband and his professor, representing of course the forces of reason. Without in any way endorsing superstition, there is also a hint of the smug, bourgeois sensibility endemic to such films.

Shatranj Ke Khiladi was one of Ray’s few Hindi film outings and is based on a Premchand story set in the dying days of Awadh as a princely state. It’s effete elites are part of the high culture of Lucknow and are devoted to poetry (the Nawab, played by Amjad Khan) or to chess (the players of the title). Meanwhile the British, robust and vulgar, have taken steps towards annexation – an event that would lead to the Mutiny and eventually the removal of the Company Bahadur. There are a lot of things to like in this movie and it works perfectly well when the focus is on the chess players, Mirza and Mir (Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey). Unfortunately there is a heavy handed voiceover explaining the events of the time (by Mr Bachchan), long dialogues on the underlying politics both in the Nawab’s court and in the British camp and though all this is meant as a compare and contrast with Mir and Mirza's chess game, it feels both lifeless and superfluous. Here and there it works, e.g. Wajid Ali Shah’s dance, the Prime Minister's (Victor Banerjee) recognition that nothing can save Awadh but for the most part it doesn’t. There is a comparison of text and film here, whatever Premchand’s intentions were it appears to have been modified for 1970s audiences and not for the better. The movie looks at 1856 through the telescope of later events but would have been much better had it let the audience connect the dots. It is hard to believe that Awadh’s rulers or the British were being little other than politically expedient and myopic, as people usually are when events are unfurling in real time. And perhaps Ray doesn’t entirely get Premchand, his Sadgati from memory also had mixed reviews.

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No Stiff Upper Lips or Trousers for Awadhi Toffs

Back to frivolity and let’s end with clothes. Apparently the fashions of 1856 dictated wide pantaloons, a long tunic and gossamer thin shawls for men and women. Unfortunately, given India is still giddy with being in the body con era, I don’t think we will be seeing an immediate revival :-)

You can see more of the clothes - and an excellent song n dance - here.  Shortly after the Prime Minister informs the Nawab that he has little choice but to sign the new treaty and quit town. 

And on the pain of quitting, a Wajid Ali Shah thumri here. As he says to his distraught Prime Minister on the verge of losing Oudh, "only poetry and music can bring tears to a man's eyes."

Devayani Behaving Badly

This week as Republic Day approaches, a review of Naam Iruvar here. As a result of reviewing the film, I ended up with a slight (OK major) Bharathi obsession for awhile. A poem I liked which is poignant in view of Bharathi’s life.

Did you think I too will

Spend my days in search of food,

Tell petty tales,

Worry myself with thoughts,

Hurt others by my acts,

Turn senile with grey hair

And end up as fodder to the

relentless march of time
As yet another faceless man?
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ACK's Devayani is mighty coy

I found a copy of Amar Chitra Katha’s Kacha and Devayani the other day. When I was young Devayani seemed enormously interesting and hard done by. First there was Kacha with his “But I am your brother!” I mean what was that! Commitment phobe much! Then the Yayati-Devayani-Sharmishtha triangle where poor Devayani was always worsted. Albeit it was a mess of her own making. Devayani is arrogant, selfish and manipulative but also upfront, she is an alpha female used to getting what she wants who finds that men are an obdurate species who will always elude her grasp. Really Devayani is quite modern, I mean she could star in her own afternoon soap called “Devayani Behaving Badly” where Kacha could be her half-brother providing for incestuous, illicit amore. Devayani could engage in verbal stoushes with Sharmishtha (who is quite the biatch at times what with pushing poor Devayani into a well) culminating in a ginormous catfight in which Yayati is the hapless stud bull prize. And if that’s too much for Indian housewives, Devayani can always make a comic strip appearance as the perfect antidote to Savita Bhabhi. Savita Bhabhi is the perfect male fantasy, nothing but a scantily clad woman who offers mindless fucks. Devayani on the other hand - whose desires are raw, immediate and honest - would leave most men terrified. Kacha and Yayati are no exception.

In a departure from my fervid imagination, Pradip Bhattacharya as usual offers an interesting take on Kacha, Devayani and Yayati. My frivolous mind is rather taken up with that “Dark Maidens with Copper Bright Nails” bit in his text. Excellent name for a female rock band!

There was one bit I never understood in the Kacha-Devayani tale. Why did Shukracharya, quite the besotted Dad, not teach Devayani the Sanjeevani? Not only would Bad Girl Devayani be provided with an intellectual side but a whole lot of grief could have been avoided! I feel a Kate Beaton cartoon coming on.

Sydney Blues

I will probably do a review later but in the meantime a filler post on actors who should be hearthrobs but aren't:-)

And more filler to kick off 2012 by way of pictures taken on a hot Sydney summer day which was pretty much cloudless.