As part of our ongoing story reading sessions, we read yesterday Ray Bradbury‘s ‘The Burning Man.’ This story is from his collection ‘Long After Midnight‘ first published in 1976. There are quite good number of stories from this collection we have read in our previous sessions.
It is an unusually hot summer day in July. Doug and his aunt Neva are driving their rickety Ford to a nearby lake through grasslands for a swim. The heat is simply unbearable. On the way they encounter a man who asks them for a lift. Once in the car the hitchhiker begins a conversation which is not only weird but frightening with references to 17 year locusts, holocausts, Lucifer and an interesting reference to the concept and nature of ‘Genetic Evil’. Doug and Neva get scared and kick him out of the car. Then they proceed to the lake, have a great time and start back home at dusk. On the way they meet a cute looking boy all dressed in white who asks for a lift claiming he had come for picnic with a big group and has been left behind. They take him in and the car rolls on for a while and stops in the middle of an isolated spot and the little boy asks them if they ever wondered about a thing called ‘Genetic Evil’ in the world… The story ends there but as readers we understand who the little boy is…..
Ray fleshes the plot with references, language and metaphors that makes the story – which has a dull start at the beginning – quite spooky towards the end. Children enjoyed themselves and gave a big thumbsup. This is the 80th story of Ray Bradbury we are reading in this group. We have three new members joining our group and this is their first exposure to Bradbury and they too enjoyed themselves.
Experience tells me that in the hands of a good and experienced reader, a story can be a powerful tool for expanding the knowledge horizons of children through unstructured learning. The following scared exhortation of aunt Neva to the hitchhiker is a powerful example:
‘Out, or you’re finished, through!’ cried Neva, wildly. ‘I got a load of Bibles in the back trunk, a pistol with a silver bullet here under the steering wheel. A box of crucifixes under the seat! A wooden stake taped to the axle, with a hammer. I got holy water in the carburetor, blessed before it boiled early this morning at three churches on the way: St. Matthew’s Catholic, the Green Town Baptist, and the Zion City High Episcopal. The steam from that will get you alone. Following us, one mile behind, and due to arrive in one minute, is the Reverend Bishop Kelly from Chicago. Up at the lake is Father Rooney from Milwaukee, and Doug, why, Doug here has in his back pocket at this minute one sprig of wolfsbane and two chunks of mandrake root. Out! out! out!’
References to silver bullet, wooden stake, holy water, sprig of wolfsbane and chunks of mandrake root can take us into the world of mythology, folklore, beliefs and superstitions. Each of these references has an interesting and engaging story behind it….
‘Long After Midnight‘ has some of Ray’s popular stories like “The Burning Man,” “A Piece of Wood,” “The Messiah,” “The Utterly Perfect Murder,” “A Story of Love,” “The October Game,” “The Pumpernickel” and “Long After Midnight.”
Of the books I read, some acquire a special place of their own in my esteem. Harper Lee‘s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird‘ is one such book.
Set in the county of Maycomb, Alabama, the novel tells a morally uplifting story of a white Lawyer Atticus Finch who goes all out to protect Tom Robinson – a black man who is wrongly accused of raping a young white girl Mayella. There is an unshakeable courage and quiet dignity that Atticus brings to his conviction and beliefs in standing up for justice. Atticus’s task is a formidable one for his real battle is with the deep rooted and hardened race prejudices of the society he lives in. Harper Lee’s portrayal of the towering rectitude of Atticus Finch makes him one of the most enduring characters of American literature. The novel is also a fine example of the power first person narrative in fiction. The entire tale is told by Atticus’s motherless daughter Scout. At the same time, the novel is also a charming coming of age tale involving Scout, her elder brother Jem and their friend Dill. Not until we reach chapter 10, do we understand the signifcance of the title of the book and Harper Lee reveals it through a conversation which Scout has with Atticus and Miss Maudie – a kind neighbour of theirs:
‘Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. ‘Your father’s right,’ she said. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’
There are multiple characters in the book and Harper Lee makes each one of them special and memorable. Judge Taylor, Sheriff Tate, negro lady Calpurnia who takes care of Jem, Scout and is the cook cum house help of the Finches, Aunt Alexandra – Atticus’s sister, Tom Robinson – the accused, Mrs. Dubose – an invalid and dying neighbour for whom Jem reads the novel Ivanhoe as a reparation for spoiling her garden, Boo Radley – who shuns the Maycomb society for the entire length of the novel, an object of curiosity for the children but who saves them when they are attacked by Mayella’s father. There is an indescribable ease with which Harper Lee brings the Southern way of living and the race attitudes prevalent then to life with a prose that is flowing, simple, conversational and deeply affecting. As I read the novel, I felt that both Tom Robinson and Atticus Finch are the mockingbirds whom the larger society of Maycomb is trying to hurt deeply. I found the entire reading experience greatly enjoyable but also deeply humbling.
In American literary canon, Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ is considered to be the ‘Great American Novel.’ If ever there were to be a reassessment, I feel Harper Lee‘s ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’ would be a worthy contender for that title not only for its overall literary quality but also for its moral vision.
It is the season of chess in India. Gukesh wins The Candidate’s Match and earns the place to challenge reigning world chess champion Ding Liren. The tournament had 5 Indians ( 3 men and 2 ladies) out of the total 16. What this event also revealed is that beneath the tip of this iceberg very visible face there is a huge mass of promising talent waiting for its time. An idle curiosity led me to look at Chess in fiction. It isn’t that I have scanned the entire world literature to say anything authoritatively but two stories that I came across captivated me completely and they are:
Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) by Munshi Premchand
The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig
Like how Premchand continues to have a central place in Indian literature, Zweig – an Austrian- has a special place in European literature. The interesting thing about these writers is that both of them lived through some of the most turbulent times their respective countries have witnessed.
I had the good fortune to read Premchand’s story both in Hindi and English. It is the story of the bloodless annexation of Awadh principality by the British told through the doings of two indolent and fanatical chess loving jagirdars of Lucknow. What is haunting about this story is the portrayal of the mood of the rulers and people that existed in Lucknow region then and how that mood enabled the British to simply knock over the domino of Awadh. I can see eerie parallels to the mood portrayed in the story with the mood in India of the present day. If it was the opium of luxuries then, it is the opium of religion now. Rest all is similar.
(Satyajit Ray made a great movie out of this and I think it is the only Hindi movie he made)
The stage of Zweig’s ‘The Royal Game‘ is a passenger ship which is traveling from New York to Buenos Aires and the encounter of the then reigning world chess champion with an ordinary passenger who turns out to be a chess genius. The passenger has a history: He develops his world class proficiency in solitary confinement of Nazi camps in Austria at the price of his sanity and mental well-being. At one level it is also the story of unsuspected talent trumping insufferable hubris. Zweig’s insight into the deep mazes of chess and weaving that into the political situation of those times to tell an absorbing tale has few parallels not just in the annals of chess story telling but in story telling of any time. Here is a long but brilliantly articulated passage from the story:
I had never before had a chance to know a great chess-player personally, and the more I now sought to familiarize myself with the type, the more incomprehensible seemed a lifelong brain activity that rotated exclusively about a space composed of sixty-four black and white squares. I was well aware from my own experience of the mysterious attraction of the royal game, which among all games contrived by man rises superior to the tyranny of chance and bestows its palm only on mental attainment, or rather on a definite form of mental endowment. But is it not an offensively narrow construction to call chess a game? Is it not a science, a technique, an art, that sways among these categories as Mahomet’s coffin does between heaven and earth, at once a union of all contradictory concepts: primeval yet ever new; mechanical in operation yet effective only through the imagination; bounded in geometric space though boundless in its combinations; ever-developing yet sterile; thought that leads to nothing; mathematics that produce no result; art without works; architecture without substance, and nevertheless, as proved by evidence, more lasting in its being and presence than all books and achievements; the only game that belongs to all peoples and all ages; of which none knows the divinity that bestowed it on the world, to slay boredom, to sharpen the senses, to exhilarate the spirit? One searches for its beginning and for its end. Children can learn its simple rules, duffers succumb to its temptation, yet within this immutable tight square it creates a particular species of master not to be compared with any other – persons destined for chess alone, specific geniuses in whom vision, patience, and technique are operative through a distribution no less precisely ordained than in mathematicians, poets, composers, but merely united on a different level. In the heyday of physiognomical research a Gall would perhaps have dissected the brains of such masters of chess to establish whether a particular coil in the grey matter of the brain, a sort of chess muscle or chess bump was more conspicuously developed than in other skulls. How a physiognomist would have been fascinated by the case of a Czentovic where that which is genius appears interstratified with an absolute inertia of the intellect like a single vein of gold in a ton of dead rock! It stands to reason that so unusual a game, one touched with genius, must create out of itself fitting matadors. This I always knew, but what was difficult and almost impossible to conceive of was the life of a mentally alert person whose world contracts to a narrow, black-andwhite one-way street; who seeks ultimate triumphs in the to-and-fro, forward-and-backward movement of thirty-two pieces; a being who, by a new opening in which the knight is preferred to the pawn, apprehends greatness and the immortality that goes with casual mention in a chess handbook – of a man of spirit who, escaping madness, can unremittingly devote all of his mental energy during ten, twenty, thirty, forty years to the ludicrous effort to corner a wooden king on a wooden board!
I am sure there must be many more such undiscovered gems and hope to lay my hands on them…..
As part of our ongoing story reading sessions we read today Satyajit Ray‘s ‘The Guest.’ Ray later made this story into a movie called ‘Agantuk,’ which till today remains one of the finest cinematic achievements of his.
A peripatetic and globe trotting Puleen Ray comes to visit his niece after a gap of 40 years. The niece and her husband have no way of identifying the visiting guest given the long gap and struggle to believe in the veracity of his identity. They build reservations leading to a reserved hospitality. In contrast, the couple’s child develops a warm relationship with the visiting guest. The visiting man concludes his visit much earlier than planned but through a common friend of theirs leaves a notebook containing fascinating vignettes from his globe trotting experiences for the child and a large sum of prize money he received for one of his books to his niece. The couple want to offer their apologies but it is a bit too late for the guest is already back to his globe trotting.
It is not only a finely told tale but also was well received by children. It has been a desire of mine to introduce as many good stories as possible by Indian writers to children of our group and I have chosen Satyajit Ray and Munshi Premchand as two writers to focus on in the first leg of this exploration. Hopefully, I will come across more Indian writers and stories to introduce in future.
As part of our ongoing story reading sessions, yesterday we read ‘The Pterodactyl’s Egg‘ by Satyajit Ray.
Badan Babu is a clerk in a nondescript office and father of Biltu who is an invalid young boy. Badan Babu and his wife entertain Biltu with numerous stories but the need for newer stories, with newer plots is an eternal need with him. Bandan Babu keeps visiting the calmer locales of Calcutta in order to collect his thoughts and also think through newer plots for stories. It is in one such sojourns to riverside Calcutta, Badan Babu meets a stranger who convinces him that he is the creator of a strange contraption which is the equivalent of time machine and regales Badan Babu with numerous stories of his time travel from past and future. The stranger even produces a round object from his bag and claims that it is a Pterodactyl’s egg which he picked from one of his travels to jurassic age. The stranger eggs Badan Babu to try the time machine. Badan Babu tries as suggested but experiences no time travel. Disappointed and a tad surprised Badan Babu leaves for home but on the way realizes that his pocket was picked by the stranger. Initially he feels a bit outraged but consoles himself that the money lost was a good enough price to pay for the numerous interesting story plots he gained to regale his son Biltu with.
It is an engaging story and Ray makes it a pleasant read. The story is a translated version from Bengali and I felt that there could have been some loss in translation.
Children gave a thumbs-up to this story.
In searching for stories that not only entertain but also fit into our format of story reading, some days, I feel I am Badan Babu myself . With summer vacations on and some children traveling for vacations – it is a mixed bag on attendance front. However, I am seeing new enquiries and newer members joining the sessions – a development which is motivating.
(It is a common usage in some parts of India to greet/characterise an outrageous story with the expression “Donkey’s Egg” or “Horses’s Egg” – I am not sure if there is any connection to that)
Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s ‘Madhushala’ has been a fine reading experience for me in ‘Hindustani’ poetry. I highlight the word ‘Hindustani’ for it is “a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi (written in Devanagari script and influenced by Sanskrit) and Urdu (written in Perso-Arabic script and influenced by Persian and Arabic).” (source wikipedia).
Using the words मधुशाल (Tavern), हाला (Wine, Brew), प्याला (Cup, Flagon), साकी (a person who dispenses wine; it could be a she or a he) and पीनेवाले (the tippler) as metaphors for life and life objects, Harivansh Rai Bachchan weaves threads of enduring magic which make for fine commentary on love, death, fate, destiny, art, religion, politics, ephemerality and the baffling pointlessness of life.
The thoughts in the poem are not new by any stretch of imagination. One can find them in the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam or the poetry of many great Hindustani poets of the past and present in their shers, ghazals and nazms. However, where Bacchan stamps his distinct mark is in the language and the choice of words. There is a good mix of words from Hindi which have their roots in Sanskrit and also from Urdu which have their roots in Persian. Thanks to my tri-lingual past and a general interest in languages and reading, the sanskritised words from Hindi did not pose a challenge but the words from Urdu did, resulting in multiple visits to online dictionary. Once the intent of a stanza and the meaning of the words employed was internalized, it became an easy and enjoyable effort. The realization that I am exposing myself to flashes of profound, insightful and joyous thoughts has driven away any dregs of resistance and ensured I persisted with my reading and re-reading efforts of this longish, beautiful, thoughtful, marvelously rebellious and above all a wise poem. The entire poem consists of 138 quartrains of which the last four are an addendum.
Religion and religious symbols receive a gentle but nice lashing in Madhushala. Here are two that I liked quite a lot:
सजें न मस्जिद और नमाज़ी कहता है अल्लाताला, सजधजकर, पर, साकी आता, बन ठनकर, पीनेवाला, शेख, कहाँ तुलना हो सकती मस्जिद की मदिरालय से चिर विधवा है मस्जिद तेरी, सदा सुहागिन मधुशाला।।४८।
The last two sentences of the above stanza are an act of courage. Bacchan is telling on the face of a Momin that there is no comparison between a “mosque” and the tavern for while the mosque is like an eternal widow, the tavern is like an eternally married, fulfilled lady. Also consider the one below:
बजी नफ़ीरी और नमाज़ी भूल गया अल्लाताला, (नफ़ीरी is like shehnai) गाज गिरी, पर ध्यान सुरा में मग्न रहा पीनेवाला, शेख, बुरा मत मानो इसको, साफ़ कहूँ तो मस्जिद को अभी युगों तक सिखलाएगी ध्यान लगाना मधुशाला!।४९।
Bacchan is poking fun at bhakts (of all kinds) and their tendency to get distracted from their prayers by small things around them and then goes on to say that for ages to come a tavern can teach a mosque how to focus. In both instances Bacchan is referring to mosque in abstract terms of it being a religious place and not a holy place of a specific denomination. He is irreverant as far as religion is concerned. In another stanza he uses a temple as an example. Consider the following stanza:
बजी न मंदिर में घड़ियाली, चढ़ी न प्रतिमा पर माला, बैठा अपने भवन मुअज्ज़िन देकर मस्जिद में ताला, लुटे ख़जाने नरपितयों के गिरीं गढ़ों की दीवारें, रहें मुबारक पीनेवाले, खुली रहे यह मधुशाला।।२०।
a rough translation runs like this: The bell does not ring in the temple as usual, the statues are not being garlanded, the muezzin locked his mosque and is sitting in his house, the treasures of the kings are being looted, the walls of the fortresses are being breached (signifying chaos all around) but the tippler is in a bliss and the tavern is open.
Just a few years back there was a liberty of speech and an air of freedom in which poets could poke fun at anything and everything but that environment is now gone in India. As I read I felt sad but also an urgent need to restore that environment. Here is another nice one:
धर्मग्रन्थ सब जला चुकी है, जिसके अंतर की ज्वाला, मंदिर, मसजिद, गिरिजे, सब को तोड़ चुका जो मतवाला, पंडित, मोमिन, पादिरयों के फंदों को जो काट चुका, कर सकती है आज उसी का स्वागत मेरी मधुशाला।।१७।
(All your holy texts have burned down the spark of spirituality. The tippler has defied all holy places and has escaped the clutches of all varieties of godmen. It is only such tipplers the tavern is ready to welcome.)
There are many great and memorable stanzas in Madhushala but the one I grew instantaneously fond of is the one where Bacchan uses the tavern as a metaphor for an inexhaustible book and tipplers for the unending stream of readers. It goes like this:
भावुकता अंगूर लता से खींच कल्पना की हाला, कवि साकी बनकर आया है भरकर कविता का प्याला, कभी न कण-भर खाली होगा लाख पिएँ, दो लाख पिएँ! पाठकगण हैं पीनेवाले, पुस्तक मेरी मधुशाला।।४।
which roughtly translates to: From the grapevine of emotion, the poet brewed the wine of imagination and has come like a wine dispenser with a flagon full of poetry. The flagon is inexhaustible despite lakhs of people who drink from it, The readers are the tipplers and the book is the tavern.
In Madhushala, Bacchan demonstrates streaks of fatalism. He appears to suggest that fate and destiny are far more powerful and will eventually trash a man’s effort. Here are those two thoughtful ones:
किस्मत में था खाली खप्पर, खोज रहा था मैं प्याला, ढूँढ़ रहा था मैं मृगनयनी, किस्मत में थी मृगछाला, किसने अपना भाग्य समझने में मुझसा धोखा खाया, किस्मत में था अवघट मरघट, ढूँढ़ रहा था मधुशाला।।९८।
a rough meaning of it runs like this: I have been searching for the wine filled flagon, while all I had in my destiny was an empty begging bowl. I was searching for the doe-eyed (deer) and all I had was the dead skin of a deer. Look how everyone is being fooled like me in understanding one’s fate. All that was in my fate is the relentless mortuary and I was searching for the comfort of the tavern. Stark but moving lines….. Here is another memorable one:
मदिरालय में कब से बैठा, पी न सका अब तक हाला, यत्न सहित भरता हूँ, कोई किंतु उलट देता प्याला, मानव-बल के आगे निर्बल भाग्य, सुना विद्यालय में, ‘भाग्य प्रबल, मानव निर्बल’ का पाठ पढ़ाती मधुशाला।।९७।
which means roughly something like this: How long I have been biding my time in the tavern but could not have a drop of wine. I do my best to fill the cup but someone turns it over and spills. I had been taught in school that man’s effort is supreme and can overcome fate but it turns that fate is stronger and human is a weakling – that is the lesson the tavern teaches me.
Here is another one that became an instant favourite of mine and points to the generational tendency to think that their generation is marvelous but also immediately give in to the thought that there are no generations like generations from past. I liked the spirit in this stanza:
अपने युग में सबको अनुपम ज्ञात हुई अपनी हाला, अपने युग में सबको अदभुत ज्ञात हुआ अपना प्याला, फिर भी वृद्धों से जब पूछा एक यही उत्तर पाया – अब न रहे वे पीनेवाले, अब न रही वह मधुशाला!।१२५।
I have identified 55 stanzas that really sounded deep, classy and replete with perspectives relevant to life and marked them for memorizing. As I write this, I memorized about 15 of them. I am coming to realize that to own a great piece of poetry in one’s mind with an ability to recall at will is to be with a wise teacher of life on call. Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s ‘Madhushala’ has been and will remain as one great emotional experience of my life.
As part of our ongoing story reading sessions we read today ‘If on a Winter’s Night Traveler‘ – by Xia Jia – a sci-fi and fantasy writer from China.
A library receives a donation of a trove of books of a deceased old man and the young librarian in cataloging the books finds a chapbook of exiqusite poems. He is completely taken in by the aesthetics of the poems but also realises that the poet is not very well known. In the book he also finds the library card of a patron of the library. This patron visits the library and proceeds to the newspaper archives and while there, acts suspiciously with his back to the cameras of the library. The librarian engages the patron in a conversation on his way out about the book of poems. This results in a brief conversation about the poet during which the patron collects the phone number of the young librarian. After a few days the librarian gets a call from the patron asking her to meet at a local bar. At the bar, the librarian finds that there are about 15 people in an informal meeting all sitting around a coal stove. The patron introduces the group to the librarian and tells the librarian that they all are great admirers of the poetry and meet regularly to read it in a group. The patron then explains to the librarian that there are many such anonymous groups in the country trying to expand the popularity of the poems but not the popularity of poet as it was the wish of the poet to remain anonymous. The librarian also learns that these groups are trying their best to remove any traces of information about the personal details of the poet and it is for this same reason the patron acted strangely in the library for he was tearing out an article from the news archives about the poet knowing pretty well that it is destruction of public property. The patron offers the torn article to the librarian who throws into the stove indicating his interest in not only joining the group of admirers and also their intentions of the keeping the poet anonymous.
I chose the story not only for its theme of fame vs. anonymity but also for the narrative style. In five short pages Xia Jia tells a story that is deep and makes on think. The title of the story is actually the title of a novel by the great Italo Calvino and the novel too deals with writers, writing and their world.
Children had mixed opinions. While they felt they liked the story they thought they have read better stories in the group.
As part of our ongoing story reading sessions, we read ‘That Spot‘ by Jack London.
Normally London’s stories are gritty, brooding and dark involving situations of man vs. nature, man vs. man or animal vs. nature and continue to be quite popular among readers across the world even after a century. In contrast to those stories is this story which is a lighthearted one in which two gold prospectors in Klondike region are trying to get rid of a dog called ‘Spot’ and simply fail to do so. London writes all the instances of magical reappearance of the dog after every attempt to get rid of it in a way that is credible and engaging.
The story evoked a mixed reaction from children. One thing that is becoming clearer to me is that children are looking for more serious content that carries gravity and depth with it. Should it be seen as an evolution in their reading taste ? I am not able to determine conclusively…..
As part of our ongoing story reading sessions we read yesterday ‘No Particular Night or Morning‘ by Ray Bradbury.
Clemens and Hitchcock are space travelers on a long journey and Hitchcock develops a strange disdain for his past and memories of his past. The pain of his memories is so intense that he refuses to believe in anything that is not physical and in his presence. When he is in New York feels Boston is dead and vice versa. And the only place he can avoid anything physical is space. He describes his idea of space as follows: “So much space. I liked the idea of nothing on top, nothing on the bottom, and a lot of nothing in between, and me in the middle of the nothing.” His fellow travelers on the spaceship find him and his notions strangely unhinged and try to help him. In the meanwhile, the spaceship meets and recovers from a scary encounter with a meteor. Everyone thinks that it has added to the woes of Hitchcock and drove him to walk out into the fathomless vastness of space. But the last few radio messages from him as he drifts into the space indicate that he was clear in his notion of the meaninglessness of physicality and memories associated with them and that he found an escape into what he was looking for in space.
Ray makes the ending of the story a thoughtful and haunting one with its subtlety: “Space, thought Clemens. The space that Hitchcock loved so well. Space, with nothing on top, nothing on the bottom, a lot of empty nothings between, and Hitchcock falling in the middle of the nothing, on his way to no particular night and no particular morning…”
I was not very sure if children would like this story but to my surprise many voted this as a good one. Children also compared this story with another story of Ray called ‘Kaleidoscope‘ – both these stories deal with the idea of the vastness, directionlessness and loneliness of/in space.
. With summer vacations on and some children traveling for vacations – it is a mixed bag on attendance front. However, I am seeing new enquiries and newer members joining the sessions – a development which is motivating.
Excursions Of A Bibliophile 