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.

Some "In-House" Monsoon Photography

Bleak, grey skies. No sun in sight. What a perfect time for "in-house" photography. How does one use the monotonous greys both within the apartment and outside to one's advantage? Well, here's what I came up with.

The "Rentiyo-Generator" would have saved the Congress Truckloads of Cash

A close family friend and former NASA researcher, Gautam Patel, combined an old tape deck motor with a charkha or spinning wheel to create electricity. As you spin the wheel, electricity is generated and the circuit board glows with light (I couldn't capture it in my photo unfortunately). If the Congress party leaders had seen Gautam's contraption, christened, "The Rentiyo-Generator,"and believed in the applications of Gandhiji's apparently outdated self-sufficiency ideology a little earlier, they could have avoided today's "Trust Vote" and saved truck loads of cash used to buy-out wavering politicians. There are alternatives to Nuclear Energy, my dear. Imagine loads of people spinning charkhas and generating electricity - surreal or what. The charkha in the photo was used by Gautam's aunt Maniben to make cloth. And she had load of it; enough to make new clothes for her entire family.

A Punjabi-Australian Roadside dish

Toni Daa Dhaba is a roadside restaurant on the old highway between Lonavala and Pune that serves emu meat. It's hard to believe but true. These birds, native to Australia, are not endangered. But that doesn't help. One still feels pretty sad for these caged nomads that love to roam the outback freely for miles. The guy trying to fix his


car in the third photo looks oddly like the emu's African relative, the ostrich.

The Mystery of Maganlal Chikki

If you are an economist-cowboy riding through the Lonvala one-horse-town market, your brain cells will go into overdrive as you notice that on both sides of the street are shops of various sizes but with the same name, Maganlal Chikki and that too, in the same font and design. Professor Landsberg, my economics teacher in college, would have a field day here. I won't be surprised if The Economics of Maganlal Chikki, would outsell his current bestseller, The Economics of Sex (at least amongst his economist buddies, if not among Lonavalites).

For those connoisseurs of chikki and fudge who were introduced to these sweetmeats in their childhood, would agree that they don't make 'em like they used to. But such discerning sweet lovers are in short supply.

What's behind this Maganlal Chikki Phenomenon? The other twist to this mystery is that fact that most of Maganlal Chikki stores have the words, "Best And Original" above their name. If the name is not copyrighted, many shop owners can use it without any legal complications. But why Maganlal Chikki? Why not A-1 or the other names that are now minorites? What made Maganlal Chikki the brand of choice?

One theory propounded by a learned architect friend is that Maganlal Chikki is a franchise. Great idea. But we come to same question, what makes Maganlal Chikki the brand of choice? Anyone know where to start?

Bollywood is a Temple

Two friends and I halted at the Khirdeshwar temple enroute to Ambernath last Sunday. The photo on top is of a hall adjacent to the main temple. There were a couple of sadhus sitting on the floor, recouping from a sleepless night on the road or recovering from austerities.

Note the Bollywoodization of temple architecture here. The arches and the make-believe roof of thin logs could be part of a set for any Hindi movie, especially with the fresco of the dramatic image of Lord Shiva meditating on the inside wall. However, the difference is that this structure is made to last. The roof gives the hall a homely feel, while the arches add a touch of formality.

The design of the arches is heavy and stark. Don't you feel as if your arm would be cut off if it brushed past the sharp ridges of one of the arches? I'm thinking Mantis razor-hands. The abstract geometrical designs in the space between the arches remind me more of Mughal rather than Hindu architecture. The body of the (plaster of Paris?) pillars seem oddly Romanesque, with a number of design variations. The balustrade below, which is a part of anyone's apartment in Mumbai lucky to have a view, and the black and red (granite or marble ?) plates on the right, drag you back to reality - all this is just a show. We are still steeped in mediocrity, despite bold attempts to break out of it. Wait there is hope! The cornice is refreshingly designed with reliefs of a horizontal trishul, swastika, Om, and a shell - all symbols of the Great Yogi. This pastiche of styles, some intentionally mixed and others not, is at the heart of Bollywood.

The second photo is of the right side of the main temple. You can see at least 3 different phases of its construction. At the base are the carvings of the original structure. Later large rectangular stones were placed to rebuild the ruins. On top you see the ugly concrete additions of our age, just above the protruding water pipe.