Minding the Mistakes

It was a typical Sunday dawn, showing all the hints of languor and leisure. I was just snuggling into the couch with a cup of steaming hot tea, listening to the voice of Ronkini Gupta flowing through my music player. Outside my window, the Mumbai skyline looked sombre, the early dawn drizzle drenching everything and the gathered clouds presenting a foggy appearance. Pampered by thoughts of a long day of leisure ahead, I took a sip from my cup.

Turning inside, my half-awake eyes fell on the wall in front. Hanging there was an impasto work, done by applying thick layers of paint in vibrant strokes. The painting portrayed a brown sail boat gliding through the choppy sea. On the background, there were a few more boats with billowing white sails. The pastel shades of mauve, green and grey produced a sky that was much similar to the one outside my window – glum and overcast.

Ever a sucker for anything artistic, I felt a strange pull about the painting, despite having seen it umpteen times already. For all my interest and curiosity, it wasn’t even a realistic work that faithfully brings the scenery before your eyes. There wasn’t single fine line anywhere in the painting, nor was a stretch of same colour. Turbulent waves, blowing winds, swathes of greenery on the seashore and even a hint of a lighthouse – these were all produced with spontaneous strokes. Looking at the painting, I could feel the artist, creative energy pulsating through his veins, flourishing his palette knife across the thick cartridge paper, applying a medley of hues all tangled together, in a show of energy and enthusiasm for his craft.

Looking closely, I found erratic lines, uneven edges and specks of colours that had dripped unexpectedly, all across the landscape. All these could have marred paintings of a formal kind. But here these same things lent a curious charm to the work. The artist seemed to have completed this painting in a single sitting. There was no trace of correction anywhere in the work. There was no application of paint one atop the other, for correction, except the necessary layering of the sky and the sea. That spontaneity is what made the painting unique and special.

My mind turned towards my own amateurish paintings. Ever the one bent on perfection, I work meticulously, trying to correct every line and every layer of paint. Eager to produce the straightest of lines, most perfect of curves and neatest of colours, I end up messing my works by overdoing things. I draw and then redraw the lines. If there is a slightest spot in the canvas where the colour hasn’t reached properly, I apply paint all over again. If a stroke appears to have some uneven edges caused by the odd bristle, I try to hide it by adding another coat of paint there. All such things, while satisfying my quest for perfection, leave a not so aesthetic effect on the final work. Is that my lack of confidence or my excess concern for the perfection of my works, I had never understood. At least not until that morning.

While I was toying around with such thoughts, I found a simile with our own lives and our mistakes too. We all commit mistakes in our lives, most of them unintended and out of ignorance. But how often do we create a bigger mess, trying to ‘correct’ those mistakes! While a simple acceptance of our fault and a sincere apology could set matters straight, we insist on laying upon our mistake layers of excuses and explanation. We try to justify why we did things the way we did. We try to add a veneer of good intentions atop our bad behaviour. End result? Our mistakes assume a greater magnitude for the worse and leave all the parties involved in a poor state of mind.

So, next time I pick up a brush or perform a deed, which results in an unintended mistake, I will try to accept it, apologize and move on, instead of trying to gloss over it with excuses, silly amends and senseless justifications. End of the day, acceptance of such imperfections is what makes human lives unique and beautiful. Not all of us are Michelangelo’s ‘David’, polished and unblemished. But we can all be the clay works from the hands of a skilled artisan – each unlike the others, imperfect with uneven edges and yet, each beautiful in their own unique imperfections!

A.

Book Review – Mr. Sampath: The Printer of Malgudi, R.K. Narayan

 

 

There is this special quality about the books of R.K. Narayan – each and every one of them feel like a journey. The initial enthusiasm before commencing one, the excitement once it is started, witnessing fresh and familiar scenery, meeting new characters, the lull of the monotony one slips into after a while, the subtle boredom that creeps in and makes one look forward to closure, the stir one feels as one nears the end, and the happy arrival at the destination – these are all emotions that one feels during the journey as well as while reading the works of R.K. Narayan.

There is no denying the fact that RKN is one of the geniuses to have graced the world of Indian literature. Imagine the fecundity that pervaded his mind and brought forth an entire town in fiction, which went on to serve as a beautiful backdrop for almost all his works. Apart from the town, his way of writing - capturing those Independence era habits and societal customs for posterity to relish - is another mark of his genius. The old-world charm of the pre-technology days flows out of these pages, sending the reader’s mind into a serene journey into that halcyon past.

‘Mr. Sampath’ is no exception, though this may not be the best of Mr. Narayan’s works. Srinivas arrives in Malgudi, trying to find his life’s purpose by venting out his thoughts through a journal, ‘The Banner’. As he stands almost on the verge of giving up the idea, with no printer forthcoming to print ‘The Banner’, Sampath the printer arrives in his life as a god-sent ray of hope. Leaving just the writing part to Srinivas, Sampath takes it upon himself to run the nitty-gritties of the journal. All seems to go well for Srinivas, when one day, without any warning, the printer shuts shop due to labour trouble. The resourceful Sampath quickly gets into a film production company, roping in Srinivas as the script writer. But all that glitz and glam of life under spotlights slowly gets into the head of Sampath. What transpired in the end forms the rest of the tale.

All the qualities mentioned in the first stanza are present in this book too, except the stir towards the end and the happy arrival – a meaningful closure. Normally Narayan’s novels end leaving one mystified and even pensive about some of the higher truths. Not this one. The end of the tale neither satisfies the reader nor makes much sense. It feels as if you started the journey hoping to arrive at a faraway, beautiful destination, but were yanked out midway through the journey, to be left behind on a barren, no-man’s land.

An OK read from RKN!

A.

Silly Infants or Petty Adults?!

Whenever I used to present toys or games to my tiny tot niece, she used to show more interest in the colorful cardboard boxes that carried those toys, instead of the pricey contents. I used to laugh it off as the silly nature of infants.

As I am learning these days, we are all akin to my little niece in our silly fantasies and fetishes. The marvellous blessing of Life has been bestowed on us. Instead of making the most of it, we are clinging to the shiny but cheap wrappers and boxes - religious identities, political affiliations, border affinities, stupid gossips, ego clashes, shiny gadgets, career identities, silly pursuits, along with all the resultant debates, disputes, bickering and senseless hatred!

 

What a world ours will be, if only we could all learn up, discard the cartons and embrace their contents - Life and the Love for it?! ❤️🙏

Book Review – Modern South India: A History from the 17th Century to Our Times, Rajmohan Gandhi

Writing a book on history is no easy task. Any aspiring writer of history needs to read wide and research deep. If the author presents unverified information, s/he runs the risk of losing credibility. If s/he simply lines up facts in chronological order, with no flair, s/he will end up losing the readers’ attention. It takes some skill to write an interesting book on history and Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi has proved his mettle here.

History books are of two kinds. Either you speak about the history of a nation, an era, a political movement or other noteworthy events. Or you extol the virtues of a king, an artist, a reformer or an inventor. Between presenting the details of forest (overall history) and picking up trees for special treatment (biographies, for example), few people have the knack of speaking about the forest, while allowing a clear view of the individual trees as well. Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi does a splendid job here too.

This book on South Indian history begins after the fall of famed Vijayanaraga empire, defeated by the combined armies of Deccan Sultanates. Arguably the greatest empire in South that spread across all five modern Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra, Telangana and Tamilnadu, would its fall have been the harbinger of things to come for the country as a whole? We may not know. But seven decades before the fall of this empire, a man arrived at the west coast of the country, travelling all the way from Europe. The arrival of this man set off a series of quests to set up trade routes with a country whose riches were said to be beyond measures. Seven decades after the fall of Vijayanagara, the Dutch and Danish too arrived, but on the eastern shores. The scourge of India, the British, too arrived at about the same time. Of all the European powers, the French were the last to arrive.

The book feels like a treasure trove for history lovers, with its vast coverage of events that unfolded during those centuries. The typical infighting amongst the Indian royals, gullibility and greed of native Indians that let these alien powers ease into place, the treachery and traitors that gave up honour and their leaders for the proverbial ‘thirty pieces of silver’, this book recounts every tale in such detail that you will feel your pulse racing.

Covering vast ground, trying to do justice to each of the major linguistic provinces by describing their past history, the book feels like a breeze. The Zamorins and Rajas of Malabar, detailed tale of the Tiger of Mysore, the fiery social reformers of Telugu land, colourful warriors of Tamizh kingdom, communist revolutions to freedom movements, the book has almost all that you can think of, depicting the forest as well as detailing the trees.

But all that flow hits a serious brake midway through. Now, let me remind you that Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, offspring of Devadas Gandhi and Lakshmi, daughter of Rajagopalachari (or Rajaji, as he is better remembered). The fondness for his grandfathers takes over the writer and the reader is made to suffer for the same. For almost one third of a book, you are presented with the history of the entire south only from the perspective of Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi’s maternal grandfather, Rajaji.

While the writing about Mr. Rajaji is mostly unbiased, it is done at the cost of some glaring omissions. For example, anyone from the Tamizh country will remember Tirupur Kumaran and Velu Natchiyar for their heroics in the fight for freedom. But there is not even a passing mention of their names in this book, while Mr. Rajaji’s whole life is recounted here, making me wonder whether I am reading a work of history or the biography of Shri Rajaji. Since the author writes mostly from the corner of Rajaji, there is a hint of bias while writing against his political opponents. Though the author makes amends by covering the rest of the history, till our modern days, as clearly and as exhaustively as possible, the damage to the reading flow is already done.

Having said that, this is an interesting book overall that I finished it within two days, a feat that I achieved after quite a while. Interesting and as exhaustive as humanly possible, considering the nature of the project, this is a must-read for every history aficionado, provided you can withstand the author’s love for his maternal grandfather!

A.

Book Review - Mahavamsa, (as translated by Wilhelm Geiger)

 

Well, imagine waiting to read a book for more than 25 years, only to find it being a dud. I got to know about the book ‘Mahavamsa’ during my high-school summer holidays, while reading ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, the semi-fictional magnum opus of legendary Kalki Krishnamurthy. With the Sinhalese history being an indispensable part of that novel, and the mention of Mahavamsa therein, I was intrigued to learn more about the history of that beautiful island nation.

After almost a decade and more of searching for this book, mostly during the pre-e-commerce period, I gave up the search but not the desire. Then, fortunately, when a good friend of mine was on a visit to Sri Lanka, she thankfully fetched this book for me from there and gifted what I imagined to be a read of a lifetime. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

As I think of what I should write in my review, I see more cons than pros. First and foremost, the language. Mahavamsa was originally translated from Pali language to German by Wilhelm Geiger in the second decade of the 20th century, and then translated into English a little while later. While the translators have been true to the original, they haven’t been true to the readers, the result being archaic language that causes confusion often times. ‘He did this to him who said to him who was a good king’ was the kind of reading that puts of the serious readers and makes them resort to skimming.

This was a compilation of the chronicles maintained by the Buddhist monks at the Anuradhapura Maha Vihara and the resultant politico-religious tone of the book is hard to miss. The book begins with the beginning of Buddhism in India, the arrival of missionaries tasked by Ashoka with the spreading of Buddhist message to the farther shores, the arrival of the first person of royal lineage in the island and the tales of his descendants. The book ends with the reign of Mahasena, recounting the religious merits gained by the kings leading up to him, by way of building Buddhist monasteries and reliquaries. No matter what you think of Buddhism, the contempt of the Buddhist monks for people from other religions and the deprecating mentions in the book are hard to miss. So are the religious schisms that had the monks use their political clout to settle scores with their opponents (from other factions). But the book covers next to nothing about the prevailing social customs or lifestyle of the people at that time, things that one normally wants to learn through such books.

The history of every dynasty is rife with infighting, patricidal / regicidal / fratricidal outcomes, incestuous relationships, queens that changed their paramours like they changed their upper clothes, conspiracies and cruel rulers. This ancient Sri Lankan history is no exception. In this long tale, only two characters stand out for me. Duttugamanu, a rebellious Sinhalese prince that was bent on freeing the northern part of his island from the Tamil kings and Elara – or Ellalan – his sans pareil arch rival, who is better known to the people of Tamilnadu by the name Manu Neethi Chozha. The rest all feel like names that came and went at the end credits of a movie.

May be, I am missing the true pleasure of the book due to the poor or outdated translation. Someday I would love to lay my hands upon a better translation. Till then, it is only 2.5 stars!