Book Review – The Mistress of Spices, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

There is this very important thing about performing magic. Unless you have a deep grasp of your magic and pronounce the runes properly, the magic will not work. What is worse, it might backfire and the invoked spirit might even end up killing you. This very thing seems to have happened to Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in writing this book. Her writing magic, if I could call it so, has backfired and, Goodness, it has done so very badly.

The first book of this author that I had read was ‘The Palace of Illusions’, a book on the famed Mahabharata character of Panchali, closely resembling the renowned work of Irawati Karve, ‘Yuganta’. She had done a pretty decent job there, having already got the blueprint for Panchali’s emotions laid out before her by Vyasa. But this work is something that she can claim to be entirely her own. So, I was expecting to see her real potential excel in here. And, I have been disappointed badly.

First, the plot. The very idea oozes with magic. The spices - yes, the ones that you see in your kitchen every day and which you use for adding taste and health to your food – are all having magical powers. Medical characters we have all known of, but magical? I felt a lot of promise there. Now, the spices have the power to heal and help the people attain their wishes. Tilo is a young girl with the gift of psychic powers. After an ordeal she ends up on an island guarded by an old woman known as the Old One. She takes Tilo into her wings and teaches her, and many other young girls like Tilo who are already there, the power of the spices, the chants and ways to control them, along with the rules to do so. Each girl, once she learns the tricks of the trade, is despatched in an old woman’s body, to various corners of the globe to help the people there with the power of spices. They are bound to some rules – to not touch the people, to not leave the place where they are first put, and to not get personally involved into the lives of those whom they help. If they fail any of these rules, they will be destroyed by fire and recalled (!) to the island.

Our protagonist, Tilo, ends up running a spice shop in Oakland area of USA. There she, the ‘ever-rebellious’ and headstrong person that she is, manages to break all the rules one by one. How long was she there at that spice shop of hers? No clear mention. Why break all the rules now suddenly and at a short notice? Nobody knows. Then she falls in love. With an American. Why? It is because that is what the plot demands. Fine. She risks her powers and even her life to help the people to get what they want. Now, don’t start to think anything superbly spiritual or different. A poor Indian housewife, brought to US by an NRI husband to whom she got married without much of choice or desire, and who is battered and abused by him now. A girl born to NRI couple, brought up with usual traces and talks of freedom, ending up wanting to marry another immigrant from South America, thus hurting her parents. A helpless, pre-teen Sikh boy, who is abused and tormented by his classmates for being different. A Kashmiri young man, who reached US with the hopes of making good in life, now working as a taxi-driver. How Tilo helps these people is on one side. The love of Tilo for her American is on the other side. She starts breaking one rule after another to help these people and in the meanwhile to satisfy her own desires as well. Did the spices punish her for her transgression is what this book is all about.

Now, to what I felt wrong about this book. First, words. The author seems to believe that the only way to convey an emotion is to put it in as many words as possible. As a result, you start feeling bored very soon. So many words to convey even the simplest of things. Brevity is not her forte.

Next, the characters and their emotions don’t somehow seem to tug at your heart as any intense tale is supposed to. Everything seems so artificial, run-of-the-mill and boringly regular. You could have seen such tales in your TV soap operas.

Then, her love for ‘her American’. Why did she fall in love with him? Not a single reason worthy of making us feel happy for them. Her depictions of the hero, her portrayal of his behavior and even his every little acts makes you suspect that it is not love, but ordinary infatuation a young girl caught in an old woman’s body feels for an ‘American’ man oozing with machismo. This guy can do no wrong, he smells great, his dresses are great, he has won a lot in life and, of course, inevitably, he has a bitter past. He falls in love with our girl-in-old-woman’s-body, because somebody told him that ‘she is not what she appears to be’. He even kisses her passionately once, you see!

Finally, a spoiler. If you are eager to know whether the spices punish her, sorry, they don’t. They ravage most of the Oakland area through earthquake and fire, kill innocent people and destroy their property, but let go of our protagonist with just a little injury to her forehead, because you know what? She accepted her punishment in her heart. Dafuq is the word that came to my mind here.

A lot of sentimental stupidity, run-of-the-mill characterization, stereotyped depiction of US-based Indians, a senseless ending all mar such an innovative storyline. Good enough only for starry-eyed teenagers that devour adult novels in a hurry,  or housewives that eat TV-serials for breakfast-lunch-and-supper, or for those movie-makers who are looking for such NRI tales with raunchy love-making scenes to create a film out of.

A dumb ‘sop’ opera, for those with a lot of time to waste and immense patience to go with it.

Glimmers of Human Spirit

The rain that lashed Chennai on Monday evening, a worthy successor for the torrential downpour that preceded it the week before, brought the city down on its knees. The roads, ‘renowned’ as all Indian roads are, became pockmarked within hours, baring the potholes that waited buried inside, crumbling under the weight of even footsteps. Signals stopped functioning. Traffic was at a standstill, with vehicles half-buried in water, moving at a pace that could have made a tortoise proud about his own ‘speed’. The politicians, being the unworthy 'leaders' they have always been, were licking their lips, busily preparing to 'go fishing in the muddied flood' with the phenomenal rainfall providing them ample opportunities to nitpick and mud-sling - if you could excuse the puns - as is their wont.

Having wisely shunned the bike and opted for bus to reach my residence, it took me a little more than two hours to reach my place, a trip which normally would not take more than 40 minutes. Stuck inside the bus, wet, cold and frustrated at the delay, I was noticing all the chaos around with a sense of interest and irritation. Amidst all the mayhem and gloom though, one thing stood out shining. It is that indomitable human spirit. And, there were ample displays of it. While the whole city seemed to be on the streets, frantically trying to get back to the cozy confines of their homes, there were some people who braved the rain and the flood to help others to get to safety. 

One, the never-much-appreciated traffic cops. With the traffic signals having failed, most lanes and streets buried inside knee-deep water, subways getting flooded fast, the whole city's traffic was concentrated on a few arterial roads. In that icy downpour and eerie darkness, the cops were working tirelessly to clear the traffic. Most of my friends recounted tales of their reaching home only by 1 AM and later. I wonder, by what time would the cops have reached theirs?!

Second, the ambulance drivers. There was a surfeit of ambulances on the road that night. I would have seen at least half a dozen ambulances on the road that day, wading through the water, crying to be allowed first. The ever-considerate Chennaite was helplessly turning back and looking concernedly at the ambulance, because there was nowhere for him to move and give way for the ambulance, what with the whole road inundated with water and vehicles. Somehow, as if by magic, the ambulances found the ways to move forward, carrying the anxious patients and their relatives to the safe confines of the hospital, thus saving so many lives. Now, how and by what time would the drivers have gone back home?

Third, in most of the roads near slums, those young guys, the brash ones whom you will hate on any normal days, were volunteering to clear the traffic, creating roadblocks to prevent vehicles from entering badly flooded areas, marking the dangerous potholes and gutters with branches and sticks. They were doing all this, while their very houses would have been flooded for sure.

The society may not even know their names, or their deeds, let alone appreciate their assistance. But it is because of such crucial cogs like these that the machinery of this world still functions. They may not be aware of their heroics, they may even have been doing all these things simply as if going through some involuntary motions. But that is what makes their deeds special and worthy. It is in moments like these that the human spirit reveals its true nobility, shining amidst all the gloom that surrounds it.

And, here I am, sending out a sense of happiness and gratitude to them for their deeds. And, to the Universe, for making me a witness to it!

Does Every Religion Speak The Same Thing?

‘Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti’ – this is a chant from Rig Veda, which I often remember during my contemplations about spirituality and god (if there ever is one). Roughly translated this means ‘Truth Is One, Sages Call It With Various Names’. The more I have started contemplating the same, the more I am turning clueless about the sense behind it, at least the sensibility of repeating it in the current global scenario.

One of the most specious platitudes that we have all learnt to parrot around is this – ‘Every religion teaches/mentions/speaks/emphasizes the same thing’. A little thought about this statement and we will all realize how untrue this really is. While the intention is to increase the amicability among people and to downplay the differences, I believe it is time we stopped taking such statements on face value and faced reality.

Not every religion speaks/teaches the ‘same thing’. Each and every Holy Scripture differs from one another. Right from the creation of this Universe, to the making of mankind, to the concept of life after death and to the final act of judgment, each and every religion has its own say and way. One religion is adamantly monotheist, while another believes in a triumvirate. Some believe in a big pantheon and some others worship anything and everything. In some religions, the soul is indestructible and comes into this world again and again, caught in the cycle of birth, while in other religions, when one dies one stays dead, till the good god feels it time to wake up everyone in one final grand show of settling ‘credits and punishments’.

Instead of repeating the cliché of all religions being the same, we should learn to appreciate the differences and accept the same. Variety is the way of life. A wide variety of species, plants, places and things is what makes this world an interesting place to live. I am sure that none of us would prefer to live in a world where everything has become monotonously similar.

When we go to a restaurant we order what we prefer to eat, taking for granted our right to do so. Similarly when we go out to buy clothes for ourselves, we buy only what we like, again exercising our rights to do so, without even being conscious of it. In neither of these places do we worry about our rights nor do we try to enforce our choice on others. I cannot enforce my choice on another person, because what the other person chooses for himself/herself depends on that person’s age, gender, size and, most importantly of all, freewill. When we can accept to respect the other person’s choice in such crucial matters like what to eat and what to wear, to mention just two, why not accept that there can be wide variety of views in every other aspect of life?

What does it matter to us if somebody decides to worship by kneeling and somebody else decides to worship by prostrating? Why should it matter if somebody grows a beard or a tuft on the head? As long as the other person does not intervene in our choice to sit at the table we want and decide the clothes we would wear, why make all such a hullabaloo about a fictional concept such as gods and religions?! As long as a person behaves in the ethical way, acts in a socially acceptable moral conduct, does not cause harm to another person by words, deeds or thoughts, should we give a hoot to which god s/he worships?!

May be it will be a difficult thing for us grown-ups to shed the boundaries and fences that we have made inside our hearts. But, we should at least teach our next generation, the young children, to spurn the poisonous curse of religion and to coexist amicably. We should not lie to them about there being no difference at all, but should teach them about the differences and also tell them that it is OK for such differences to exist. We should teach them about ‘unity in diversity’, without pulling wool over their eyes about there being no differences. Because the so-called ‘tolerance’ of modern minds seems to be a hypocritical ideal of accepting the others ‘as long as they don’t differ from us in how they speak/feel/write/live’, when it should really have been the understanding of ‘our having the right to live our lives the way we want, while respecting the rights of others to do so too’.

Let’s teach our children about the differences, so that they can all see how trivial such ‘differences’ are and laugh them off. Amen!

Gaia Was Here First

Few days back, while talking to a friend, I was discussing about the sense of megalomania that pervades the human minds and how we have started behaving with a condescending sense of supremacy against Nature – how we behave like the planet was made only for us, to cater to our petty needs and greed, how we are trying to ‘save’ the planet, how we are trying to ‘protect’ the environment and so on. I have never felt to be one of the most ‘evolved’ species. If anything, we humans have learnt to clothe ourselves – or denude ourselves, as is the modern wont – and have invented some snazzy gadgets. Deep within, we all remain as fierce, as vile and as lowly as an animal can ever be.

This morning, the rain gave some respite after lashing out for nearly a week here. I was going through our little garden, taking stock of the situation and checking for damages, if any, to the plants due to the rain. A look at the garden soil reinforced my belief in the supremacy of Nature and the superiority of this planet over us humans. In the garden, not only had the seedlings braved the rain, they had even twisted and turned in search of light and protection from the rain, as could be witnessed from their shapes. Not just that. Some of the plants which we had cut down to the ground had put forth some tender sprouts. The ground was covered with so many tiny seedlings, weeds and worms of varied kind.

I felt a sense of wonder and humility at this sight. If a small piece of garden can renew itself and manage to cover itself with life in a week’s rain, what is to happen to this planet if we humans stop intervening in her path?! Won’t this planet cover herself with life and bring forth even more evolved life forms as before? End of the day, it is we humans that meddle with her patient demeanour and then put up a show of caring for her. This planet neither needs saving nor any meddling. Remember, the Gaia has been here for billions of years and we puny worms have been here for only a few millions - or even less. All that we need to do is to take care of our tiny selves and stop acting as if we are the saviors around here. We are just visitors who have been making a grand drama about things, while exploiting and violating Gaia. We will all wither and vanish sooner than later, as has been proved by the history of this planet, but she can survive anything, as she has always done.

Time we all had a sense of humility and respect during our interactions with Nature. She was here first, she reigns supreme here and she will remain for ages long after our whole species are wiped out. Top-of-the-food-chain?! Time we reanalyzed our claim to that spot!