Poetry with John Burnside

I am fresh from a poetry session with the acclaimed poet John Burnside at the British Council, Chennai. I cannot believe my luck that he stopped over on the way to Jaipur Literary Festival. The workshop had a long and serious name: Introduction to Writing Poetry – Uses of Form in Contemporary Poetry. But it  turned out to be a free-wheeling discussion. What a fun evening! We (the workshop participants) even got a wing-side view of his forthcoming collection of poems.

He opened my mind to two ideas that I hadn’t even considered. I have written haikus according to the syllabic count and number of lines. But according to Burnside, it is not possible to write a haiku. I almost drew my breath as he said this. It was like a door closing on a form that I might have explored some more. He meant that it was not possible to write a haiku in the way that it was originally intended by the Japanese. The haiku was originally a few lines that accompanied a picture. The layered meanings that Japanese words had could not be replicated in English. For example: the word for “duck” would indicate the season in which the duck would appear. So just by saying “duck” in Japanese, the season and maybe even the time of the day could be indicated. But in English, it’s just “duck”. For all you know, it could be the duck on your plate! Similarly, the case of leaves that fall from a tree. Burnside then regaled us with an anecdote from his student days when he roomed with a Japanese student who used to recite Japanese haikus while taking a walk. He made a pact with him, to teach him English in return for the explanation for the haiku that he recited that day. The explanation for the haiku took longer than the English lesson! This was to illustrate how difficult it was to understand the way a haiku was meant to be written. This travelling poetic form came to English via the Americans and therefore, it was interpreted in a particular way and that is how the haiku continues to be written in English.

Which brings me to the second idea that Burnside turned my attention to. As a poet I had to consider the way a poetic form came to the language that I write in. The route it took. That would explain the way it shaped itself. His first example was the sonnet. From its Moorish beginnings via the Spanish, the Italian, and Shakespeare. (Here I was quite confident that it was the Italians!) I had never considered this particular point. I considered the sonnet  a highly stylised form which I might not even venture into. He however made the sonnet quite elastic. He stressed that the poem should choose the form and this form need not stick to the syllabic/metric formula. He practiced it in his poems. To disguise the form a bit or if working with the form, to change it a bit were two salient points that I took away from this workshop.

As late afternoon turned to evening, we also explored the pantoum using a yet-to-be published Burnside poem as an example. The “hedged in” (his words) feeling that the pantoum has with its repetitions, the “claustrophobic atmosphere” (his words again) it generates and how to use this to the advantage of the poem dependent, of course, on the subject. It was a light evening of several laughs, some coffee, and a few poems. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

PS: A poet is always know by the poems he writes. If you are curious, here are two poems by Burnside: Amor Vincit Omnia and The Good Neighbour. These are already published poems not the ones we discussed at the workshop. The copyright rests with the poet.

PPS: Thank you Anupama for bringing my attention to this workshop.

A new beginning

A friend of mine (you know who you are) had pointed out to me once that she found the font size rather small on my blog to read. Hence, I don’t think she even reads my blog. Increasing the font size alone was not the solution.  The balance of the pages would be skewed if I were to do so. Therefore, the whole look had to be changed. I have always admired the Thought Catalog theme with its big fonts, content focus, clean and minimalist look. Since I was thinking of changing the theme of this blog, I was quite excited to see that one of the recently released WordPress blog themes, Book Lite, mimicked the Thought Catalog theme in many ways. I had to have it. Plus, it’s New Year, why not a new theme to start it off?

Obviously changing requires some adjusting so you may not find the same items in their regular places. All the items that were on the right sidebar earlier now can be found at the bottom of the homepage. A couple of items like the contact ID, Disclaimer, Plagiarism Alert and CC License have been moved (appropriately, I think) to the About Me page.

I have removed two pages (on my My Pages list) which I thought was not adding value anymore: On Dreams and On Food. I may choose to bring them back if I have anything substantial to say on those two topics in the future.

Other than that, nothing has changed in this blog. I will still be talking about what interests me in 2013. So, do continue to visit. Oh, what do you think of the whole new look?

Notes on Books: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Very few completely epistolary novels in the contemporary scenario have made an impact. I’d like to think it’s because this traditional form is not pervasively present in our lives today. After all, no one writes letters anymore; would anyone read books that are a bunch of letters? The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I am happy to say, is an exception.

Set during World War II, the plot of the book centers around Juliet Ashton, the writer and columnist who discovers a literary society with an amusing name on the Guernsey Islands, which lie on the English Channel. Ashton was in search for material for her column and she finds it when corresponding with the members of this society. Entwined in the ups and downs of her professional life is her personal life. Ashton starts a correspondence but is soon so attached to the members of the literary club that she visits the island for a longer book-length project. All the developments are shown through letters and telegrams, when communication is urgent. As the letters go back and forth, Mary Ann Shaffer’s wit and intelligence sparkles through the twenty odd characters whose voices pepper the book. This is a charming book that reminds me a lot of Eva Ibbotson’s A Song for Summer, another warm and sparkling book set during the Second World War. Definitely and without any sense of irony, this is a feel-good book that explores how to survive a war in the face of material and (for the want of a better word) moral deprivation. However, that does not mean it shies away from the complexity of war. Yet, a certain sense of innocence clings to this book even when discussing the tortures of concentration camps. It’s also a love story on many levels – between people as well as people and their books. Some of the best passages deal with what books mean to the members of the literary society, also referred to as the Islanders. The poetry of their feelings comes through even though they might not deal with literature on a professional or even daily basis. It’s a love letter to literature.

We get to know in the Afterword that Shaffer’s niece Annie Barrows had taken over when Shaffer’s ill health prevents her from completing the book. However, that doesn’t impact the text adversely: the voices of characters have a unity that sets them together and a diversity that differentiates them. It is an accomplishment that the two authors should be proud of. There is one grievance that I have: I would have liked a small introduction and a cast of characters right at the beginning of the book maybe in a Foreword or Introduction to keep track of the long list of characters at least till the reader gets used to them. Once you get the hang of who’s writing to whom, it’s utterly enjoyable.

A New Year Letter

Dear Readers,

Wish you a very happy, fantastic, happening New Year! Hope you had a good Christmas and really fun New Year party to start off the year. I curled up with a book and welcomed 2013 reading Peter Barry’s seminal book on the birth and evolution of literary theory. It was such fun. I also wrote an exam trying to qualify myself further. I will tell all about it later. I haven’t been regular with blogging because of various reasons. All of which I will spare you. I cannot say things will be any different in 2013 but I try. I cannot believe it is 2013. It sounds way more futuristic than 2012 or its previous years. Talking about previous years, this blog’s birthday was in December. I started the blog in 2004, so that makes it 8 years of blogging with gaps. It’s been an adventurous journey so far.

So what have you been doing/clicking/reading/writing? I’d love to know.

With love,

M

PS: The reason I have taken to the epistolary style is because I have been reading an epistolary novel. More about that in the next post.

 

Muse India

Thank you Muse India for publishing three of my poems in your November-December 2012 issue. Muse India is a bi-monthly online literary journal promoting dialogue and discussion on Indian literature both past and present.

Reading Carson McCullers

It’s early days yet. I had to put this down before I lose the thread. I just started reading the Carson McCullers novel The Member of the Wedding.  It’s like J.D Salinger (specifically The Catcher in the Rye) meets Haruki Murakami (specifically Norwegian Wood) and you’d want to be there when that happens.

What reminds me of Murakami is the inaction bit. There is no Murakamiesque surrealism though. The protagonist Frankie does almost nothing. She moves between confined spaces and the largest space (and also where the most action takes place) is in her head. Salinger’s legacy I could glimpse from the preoccupation with the adolescent world and the movement of the individual from the closed world of childhood to the open world of adulthood. Even though the focus reminds me of Salinger, the treatment is pure McCullers. Where it differs from Salinger is in the expanse of the focus. McCullers has a narrower focus but the description, the intricate and delicate description keep our attention riveted to this narrow focus. Salinger’s spreads his focus wider but we don’t miss that at all here. And therein lies the talent of Carson McCullers.

(This is how I got this book and also a bit of the history I have with it. Now, you will know why there is a percentage sticker defacing the front cover of the book.)

It’s Tumblr time

I have been spending an inordinately large amount of time on my tumblr blog. No, tumblr is not only the preserve of the chronically teenage or attention deficient person. There are some incredible blogs of independent bookstores and publishing houses like Strand Books, The Paris Review, WW Norton (can you imagine–Norton on tumblr!), Picador, LA Review of Books, Random House,and Penguin; book and reading centric blogs like Underground New York Public Library and Awesome People Reading. I follow them all eagerly, feeling like a kid in a toy store (in my case that would be a bookstore). I can’t tear myself from this fun company. I felt the awakening of a familiar feeling that I haven’t felt in a long time in the blogosphere–excitement. So I spruced up my tumblr blog, dusted the corners, got new clothes and tried to be presentable. The name however remains the same. Do visit if you have the time. I assure you that you will not be disappointed.

Pan Am and the literature that shaped the 60s

While the retro cameras in Pan Am, the TV series were rather obvious an observation, there was another aspect that went a bit deeper. I am talking about the literature that shaped the 60s. References to some of the literary classics were a genius of an idea to not just create an atmosphere of the 60s but show what books and ideas shaped the age.

The first instance is in the episode where the wealthy playboy Ted Vanderway (Is the surname supposed to phonetically recall New York’s powerful Vanderbilt dynasty?) shows off to Dean in the cockpit claiming that reading The Feminine Mystique would help him attract girls. Referring to a seminal book from the second wave of feminism is a good idea but introducing it as a flirting tip was a bit chauvinistic in my opinion. It would have made more of an impact if say Maggie (who obviously would have read this book) were to refer to it. However, I can imagine the layperson on the street would have reacted in exactly this way to a book that focuses on women and their problems.

In Unscheduled Departure, the clipper Majestic is forced to land in a hostile territory because a passenger suffers a heart attack. When the boys are away trying to get help, Maggie, Laura and Kate hold the fort. Maggie is saddled with a passenger who proves to be a handful. A group of rebel soldiers (who also happen to be black) with guns on their shoulders walk into the flight. The passengers all stiffen immediately. Remember, the 1960s was also the height of the civil rights movement. While a deathly silence descends on the stranded flight, it is Laura who remains unfazed. She has the presence of mind to ask with composure and politeness what they would like. It turns out they would like some food. So while Laura attends to them, Maggie turns to her difficult passenger and says,

“How did Hemingway describe fear, Mr. Ortiz? Was it grace under pressure? Oh no. I’m sorry. That’s how he described courage. So, while she takes care of the men with the guns, why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”

A few episodes later, Maggie’s past comes to haunt her. Shown in staggered flashback episodes, it turns out that Maggie is not quite the Genuine Article she has portrayed herself to be. Her list of literary transgressions is long and varied.

Image via

Image via

First, she reads The Great Gatsby while waitressing in Washington in 1959. The job is obviously not suited to her intelligence or temperament. One day, a trucker tips her less to challenge her to get out of there. Which she does.

Second, she impersonates a Pan Am stewardess in her next job as a secretary at the registrar’s office at Berkeley. Maggie takes all the classes that a student (who is also a Pan Am hostess) drops because of her busy schedule. She shines in the literature class. When the professor asks the students to pick a character that they identify with, she unwittingly picks Gatsby. This is interpreted as a sign of deception by the professor, which turns out to be not too far from the truth.

Next, she lies to get the attention of the interviewers of Pan Am, who are not willing to give her a chance because she is late. She literally screams in the hallway,

“I’ve had my heart broken twice. Once by a boy named chip, the other by a man named F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald continues to open doors for her. This last minute tactic works, and she gets the job. Maggie is an obviously intelligent woman who uses ethically questionable ways to get ahead in life because the world back then did not  offer that many intelligent pursuits to an ambitious woman.

Also in the same episode, Nick Lonza watches Martin Luther King Jr’s famous I Have a Dream speech playing on the TV in a bar. Literature does not exist in a vacuum; it is influenced by events in the society. Showing the Martin Luther King Jr speech touches on the larger social implications outside the narrow group of characters that the series focuses on. The speech is also a plot device that is developed throughout the series to keep Nick and Kate away from each other.

When the year changes at midnight in the episode 1964, the entire cast watches the fireworks go off at the stroke of midnight with a line that summarizes the year for each of them. Maggie not surprisingly pegs her line on literature: she references Charles Dickens.

Dean: Goodbye 1963.

Maggie: It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

Laura: And I loved every minute of it.

Colette: I love us.

Laura: And this. I love this.

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Pan Am proves that a lighthearted retro drama can have depth. The chosen theme is not obviously linked to the academic or literary worlds but still creates a holistic picture of the zeitgeist by referencing various literary works.

Note: Have I missed out any other instances? If I have, please let me know and I will update this entry. Thanks!

Notes on film: Kahaani

Spoiler alert: Some incidents documented and discussed here may interfere with your experience of the film if you are watching it for the first time.

To be honest, I did not expect much from Kahaani. I only went to see how Calcutta was portrayed. I am glad I did. Kahaani is one of the noteworthy films to come out of the Hindi film stable. Within the framework of the form, the director has experimented a lot and almost all of them have worked.

The film begins with a shot of a white mouse in a lab giving you the hint that it’s going to be a film about trapped people or people who will be trapped. It was a little jarring in tone when compared to the rest of the movie. My immediate reaction was that it was going to be about the Tokyo subway gas attack. We know that a significant man (Abir Chatterjee) is killed along with countless other citizens. Questions like “Who is he? And why is he so important?” buzz in mind but before they crystallize we are whisked off to see the hero in the meantime.

The hero is of course a woman. Vidya Venkatesan Bagchi is tailor-made for Vidya Balan. Fearless, undaunting and rather late in her pregnancy, Mrs. Bagchi arrives from cool London to the heat, dust and confusion that is Calcutta. And she has a story to tell. Her husband Arnab Bagchi (Indraneil Sengupta) has gone missing for the past month. Her investigations start from the Kalighat Police station. The name is not lost on the audience. As hints go, this one is a hammer. Kali is the darker more dramatic form of Durga and fittingly, the time is the Autumnal Durga Puja. Durga as we all know destroys evil. So the stage is set for the action to unfold.

Vidya Bagchi struggles against many odds – the complete lack of any proof that her husband exists, the inefficiencies of the guest house named after a famous Da Vinci painting, the Bengali tongue that obliterates any difference between then sound |b| and the sound |v| and, finally, the corrupt intelligence system. And she wins.

Early on in the movie, Vidya (tempting but not succumbing to the alliterative version of the name) finds her Watson in Satyoki/Rana, the young idealistic police officer who goes out of his way to help her. She remarks that Satyoki is Arjuna’s sarathy/ charioteer. Rana even comes as a package with his modern-day chariot, the police jeep. Which begs the question – who is Arjun? Obviously Vidya. Arjun, who hesitated before the Great War. So, did this hesitation on Vidya’s part fill up the gap of two years between the first referred incident of the Metro gas attack and Vidya’s appearance in Calcutta? We are left to draw our own conclusion.

Director Sujoy Ghosh has played with some tropes through the film subverting them beautifully. In no particular order, here they are.

Hindi film trope: The intentions of the mother are always pure.

Kahaani comment: Mothers and would-be mothers are human beings with selfish intentions that may be self serving more than serving others.

Hindi film trope: Hired assassins are gym-trained bulky muscular men oozing virility and charm, if not both.

Kahaani comment: The subversion of this trope is a particular favourite of mine. When you see a home-grown hired assassin who travels by hand-drawn rickshaws, probably a first in modern Hindi cinema, you are partly appalled, partly fascinated. Bob Biswas (Shaswatha Chatterjee) makes you believe that he is a harmless man while he shoots you with impunity. Biswas is stunning as a bumbling unsuccessful middle-class insurance agent who moonlights as a hired killer. As alternative careers go, this one is pretty radical.

Hindi film trope: The guardian guards the hero.

Kahaani comment: The guardian guards the cause, not the hero. Rana (Parambrata Chatterjee) is the guardian and aforementioned charioteer who takes the hero wherever she wants to go. Sometimes even when it causes a moral conflict with himself. However, in the interest of the cause that the hero also services, the guardian may step back from overtly helping the hero.

Hindi film trope: One needs to see in order to perceive.

Kahaani comment: One needs to be deceived in order to truly perceive. This pretty much sums up the movie. Almost every significant character engages in some level of deception. The police inspector (Kharaj Mukherjee) who files a missing person’s report and gives Vidya Bagchi hope. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) henchman (the searing Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who doesn’t think much about lives lost en route in his investigation. The retired IB chief (Darshan Jariwala) who wants to help on one condition. The current IB chief (Dhritiman Chaterji) who asks his henchman to ignore the pregnant woman and find the missing rogue agent. The protagonist herself. Even the audience, who will be deceived in order to truly perceive. On this account, the film is very Shakespearean.

Maybe the greatest strength of the film lies in the fact that it does not succumb to sentimentality. There is drama, emotion, some copious tears, a few touching scenes, but no sentimentality. That works very well for me.

I cannot close without commenting on the acting. Balan brings so much natural flair to her role. She is strong, vulnerable, innocent and exhibits a drive that is very modern. Indraneil Sengupta does not make any impact. Abir Chatterjee has a comparatively smaller role and makes a stronger impact. Almost the entire cast of Bangla television has been co-opted for several minor roles. So I played actor spotting in almost every scene. The two child artists are to watch out for: Ridhi Sen as Poltu and Ritabrata Mukherjee as Bishnu. Ritabrata reminded me of a very young Kunal Khemu; the same mischievous eyes and smile. Parambrata stole a few scenes from Balan herself; no mean feat this. In one scene, Rana’s attraction to Vidya Bagchi is so palpable that all eyes were on him even though Balan was given more screen space and was better lit. Dhritiman Chaterji did not have as nuanced a role as he is capable of. But since he is such a delight to watch, all was forgiven. Agnes D’Mello portrayed by Colleen Blanche follows the legacy of Jennifer Kendall in 36, Chowringhee Lane as the aged Anglo Indian woman who is intrinsic to the narrative.

Finally, there are the Calcutta vignettes that capture a city so vibrant, so grimy, so dusty, so unbearably beautiful whether it be the regular landmarks (Victoria Memorial, Howrah Bridge, Kumartuli) or the interior lanes and dilapidated mansions. The film is a visual ode to Calcutta.

I still have some questions regarding some plot twists. However, that is on hindsight. The dialogues were peppered appropriately with Bengali and Tamil appeared as one cameo sentence. The Bengali sensibility permeated the film but the pace was pure Bombay.

Some ideas were a bit off key. For instance, Vidya Bagchi claimed to not know about the two names that Bengalis have. It’s surprising considering that she claims to be married to a Bengali man. Rana having to explain this trivia which even those who have had peripheral contact with the Bengali world would know sounds a bit odd. Was this discussion for the benefit of the audience? If so, then it would have strengthened her character if these very lines were to come from her not Rana.

Another idea that was not paid enough attention was Mrs. Bagchi’s marriage markers. Even those married and settled in London sport at least one of the many markers of a cross-cultural marriage either from the Tamil side or the Bengali side. Vidya had none. I did not see her wearing shanka-pola (red and white bangales), or noa (iron bangle), or sindur (vermillion) on her forehead, or metti (toe ring), or thaali (sacred chain). Agreed, we know later why she doesn’t wear them. But within the probablilities of the plot it could have been explained. Moreover, how is it that in an inquisitive society like ours this goes unnoticed and uncommented? For the sake of authenticity of her character, she should either have sported one of these markers or an explanation given as to why she has opted out of them.

I have to add that Amitabh Bachchan’s take on the popular Rabindrasangeet song Ekla Cholo Re that ran along with the rolling credits was a huge disappointment. The stilted accent at certain points made me cringe and I am not a purist. It was a relief when the song slipped into Hindi.

To wrap up, yes Kahaani is a rather flawed film but it makes up for that by being original and fast paced.

The Real Fine Retro Cameras in The Rum Diary

Given that The Rum Diary is on my mind, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of retro cameras that pop up in the movie. Johnny Depp’s character Paul Kemp slings this camera on his shoulder and uses it to take pictures of Puerto Rican life at the beginning of the movie.

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Sala (Michael Rispoli) takes his new roommate Kemp to a cock-fighting match. For a while Kemp takes some pictures of the fighting which itself reminded me of the dog fighting scenes in Amores Perros. Slowly, Kemp slips out of the screaming yelling crowd and seeks out real shots of Puerto Rican life. It’s grimy, dirty, poverty-ridden but real. In contrast, when Kemp is in postcard perfect paradise, Sanderson’s (Aaron Eckhart) private beach or his party, Kemp seems only half interested. The moments when Kemp is alone with his camera he seems alive. It’s this solitary excursion that later helps him to make up his mind about the stand that he will take. The camera is I think either a Pentax or a Contax  1958 Nikon S3 rangefinder or a Kiev 4A. (Cameraphiles: if you can identify the camera without any doubt, please leave a note and I will update the post. UPDATE:  See the comments section. Thanks Akshay Bhoan and Horst Tappert [If this is your real name.])

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The second camera that briefly flashes before our eyes is the one that Sala uses to take a prank picture of Moberg (Giovani Ribisi) tearing out the editor Edward J. Lotterman’s wig. It’s big and unwiedly but definitely catches our eye. (Cameraphiles:  if you can identify this camera, please leave a comment. And I will update the post. UPDATE:  See the comments section. This camera has been identified as a Speedgraphic by Akshay Bhoan.)

Image:  via

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Note: All images are sourced from the Internet and credited accordingly. If I have missed out anyone, please let me know, and I will add the image credits. No plagiarism is intended.