Two Book Exhibitions

Last Friday, I went to two book exhibitions – one at Crossword, Kemps Corner and the other organized by a local bookseller at Sunderbai Hall, Churchgate. Both promised fantastic discounts and both were well attended. However, both offered significantly different book-buying experiences.

The books at Crossword, were as expected, well organized by subject. The clientele was well-off and was mostly from the surrounding upscale residential areas. The Sunderbai Hall exhibition was an example of “disorganized” retailing. Books were not well displayed, and stacked around as if in a vegetable market. The attendants did not know where specific books would be, and book billing was done manually. The hall was hot and your finger tips would be doused in dust before your left it.

However, I stayed longer at the Sunderbai exhibition and bought four books there versus none at Crossword. I enjoyed the surprise of discovering a book that was possibly out of print or a commercial failure after minutes of foraging through the book aisles. There was no specific reason why a particular book was displayed except for the fact that the organizer had purchased it at a rock-bottom price and wanted to make a cool profit. Crossword, on the other hand was brim-full with the latest bestsellers.

I bought a book titled Raja Deen Dayal: Prince of Photography, which contains photographs of Hyderabad taken during the Raj. It was quite relevant as I was on my way to Hyderabad the next day. The second book was Myself Mona Ahmed – a heartrending pictorial documentary of 13 years in the life of a eunuch photographed by Dayanita Singh. I had been to an exhibition of the photographer’s recent work just a few months ago at the NGMA. The third one was a book on office design (I'm looking for some tips on how to spruce up my new office), and the fourth one was Bandits by Eric Hobswam. I had read a chapter or two from this book while doing an undergraduate English Literature/Film course called Outlaw Heroes.

I’m glad that both type of exhibitions co-exist in the same city, just a few kilometers from each other. That’s the wonder of the delicately fragmented customer segments that exist in our growing economy. Choice is what I love best.

The White Tiger Celebrates an Independence Day of Another Kind

In a week's time, we will be celebrating our Independence Day. What will you be doing then? Waking up late, watching a movie or reading a book, or beginning a long-weekend holiday? The significance of our freedom from foreign rule has been reduced to a break from our whirlwind urban lives. Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger, which has recently been long-listed for the Booker Prize, is about a more active and contemporary process of independence that is gathering momentum across the country. It's about an independence from the evils of our heritage: caste and illiteracy. It's about an independence from the bondage of Karma, a mental block that has stunted the growth of billions of Indians for millennia.

Balaram Halwai, the anti-hero, is a self-made man, who strives to live a life that is different from the ones that his ancestors have lived for centuries as poverty-stricken labourers, eternally in the clutches of the village zamindar. His family members continue to live that shackled life. He first becomes a driver in his birth place, Laxmangarh and then Delhi. He also yearns to break free from the "rooster-coop" mentality and behaviour of his driver colleagues, which he does. After murdering his master, he becomes a taxi-service entrepreneur in Bangalore with ambitions to become a real estate tycoon. He exhibits courage, endurance, intelligence and decisiveness - characteristics of today's super-successful businessmen.

But this freedom from India's past comes at very high cost. The book is about the moral and spiritual corruption of this once-innocent villager. In a delightful, yet sarcastic passage entitled, "How Does The Entreprising Driver Earn a Little Extra Cash?" that author suggests ways in which Balram cheats his boss. Balram, while exhibiting the rampant selfishness of the new India, essentially sacrifices his family for his freedom. The village landlord of Laxmangarh massacres Balram's family once Balram flees Delhi for Bangalore after murdering the landlord's son, his former master. In Bangalore, Balaram uses his money to bribe the local police in advance to prevent his impending arrest. He uses the lesson he learned from his former master effectively - money is used by the rich to protect themselves from the law, which the poor are powerless against.

An important idea in the book which the author revealed to me during a conversation was that it's amazing that the number of national servant larcenies/murders is very low despite ample opportunities for servants to steal/murder their masters. Most of us living in India have encountered loyal servants who serve their masters late into old age. Adiga is sure that this is going to change. Household crime will be on the rise, as servants realize that they are masters of their own fate.

Adiga captures the positives of change, but warns us that that the downside of "progress" is goddamn dark.