LIFE IS INTELLIGENT

When it comes packaged by The Economist. I'm learning so much everyday. Like:
"News gives The Economist most of its pictures, but every so often we need to set up a photo shoot.....For a cover on insider trading, our present Europe editor drew on his experience as a Treasury man and dressed as a convict.

Even so, this issue of Intelligent Life is making a little piece of history, with the launch of Flair, our section on shopping and fashion, and - as far as I can tell - the first fashion shoot in The Economist's 164 years. Don't worry. This time we didn't pick our models from among Economist journalists."

With his opening line, the Ed, Edward Carr had me hooked. Every little blurb, headline, even the art of making tea - em, green tea, is brilliant.

In Lazy Language, Lazy Thought, John Grimond says:
"......Once it took a face to launch a thousand ships; now a slam dunk is enough to send America to war. "Our business is to see what we can do with the English language," wrote Virgina Woolf. "How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth."

Speaking of words, Page 63 can help you start with the perfect bit of paper to pen your thoughts.

If paper isn't your kind of thing, head straight to page 67 and read all about Philip Pullman who thought his epic tale of two 12-year-olds would appeal to a few clever kids. It went on to sell 15 million copies and 'The Golden Compass' is a film starring Nicole Kidman. Opinion on the film is divided in our house, Pullman's story though has its requisite share of fans.

"It all began in the last 15 minutes of a wet Friday afternoon in a classroom in Oxford. Or that's how you would want to tell it.... He is the most successful writer since Roald Dahl to have worked in a shed. "My real life began," he says, "when I came home from the job and sat at my table and wrote three pages for the day."

Pullman spent seven years in a shed at the bottom of his Oxford garden, doing his three pages a day (no more, no less). About one in ten pages made the cut. The mathematics alone is impressive.

Can't get your copy, then head to moreintelligentlife.com

TIME TRAVELLER

It's funny how exams or the thought of the ones that are looming large can set you off in different tangents. Last night, we were journeying through India, narrowing down parts of the country when we reached West Bengal. "Didn't Amitav Ghosh write about a jungle here, Mamma?" Aneesha asked. I don't want to run the risk of creating an impression. Aneesha hasn't read any of Amitav Ghosh, I'd be happy if she got by her text books for the moment but Amitav has a special connect for her. She remembers him from the first time we were at Ubud, she remembers him because he stayed "downstairs" at the Honeymoon Guesthouse, she remembers him because an Amitav Ghosh question is her trump card in her home-grown quiz contests. If that's the way words are meant to connect, I'm not complaining. I'm pretty certain the reading too shall follow.

And it is Aneesha's words that have set me off on a journey to recount some of the things that Amitav has shared right from the writing process, to the way he's picked some of the issues he's written about. From 'The Hungry Tide', to 'The Glass Palace' to 'In An Antique Land' to 'The Shadow Lines' Amitav has shown his eye for detail. It's something that's evident in his spoken word as well:

Q : Your book ‘The Hungry Tide’ has been called “a whirlwind work of the imagination”. You’ve set it in the largest mangrove forests in the world – The Sunderbans. What took you there and what did you hope to achieve through the setting?
A : I’ve been going there since I was a child because I’ve had a family connection with that area and they’ve always kind of haunted my imagination and I always wanted to write about them. If I wanted to achieve anything at all, it was to let people know about this astonishing place and this astonishing landscape.

Q : What did it take to bind ordinary people in an exotic place than can possibly consume them all?
A : It’s a place where you have man-eating tigers. I went back there, spent a lot of time with the local fishermen, did a lot of research, spent time looking at tiger prints. It was a very long journey, it was an intense journey, I suppose what I really wanted to do was to know it myself, to understand the depth of its history, the depth of its ecology, the way people relate to it, the way people come together, their life in the midst of this intriguing setting.

Q : You mentioned going back there as a child, revisiting the place after so many years, what was going back there like?
A : I think The Sunderbans is one of those places that changes very very little. It’s really a place that’s very persistent in a kind of timeless way.

Q : You bring a lot of your personal experiences in your books. Did that happen in ‘The Hungry Tide’?
A : Yes, very much so. For example, the book culminates in this enormous cyclone and for all of us who live in that area in the Bay of Bengal area, for us cyclones and these other cataclysms are a fact of life. It’s such a strange thing, that I wrote this book which came out in June. I was back in December and there was this enormous tsunami. It’s an extraordinary thing because after the tsunami so many people called me, including the Governor of West Bengal who asked me if I had an intuition about this, that such a thing would happen. It was nothing like that, there was no intuition but anyone from that region or anyone who is familiar with that region will tell you about living in the shadow of these enormous kind of geological upheavals and cataclysms.

Q : It’s interesting that in each of your books you talk about areas, places, countries, perhaps even people you’ve known, traveled to. Some of these places aren’t really talked about everyday. In fact, in ‘The Glass Palace’ your characters seem to flit effortlessly between the boundaries of both geography and class. What was it like to string it all together?
A : It’s interesting you ask me that. When we look at Asia we tend to think of all these great numbers of people leading very settled lives in China, in India, in various other parts. In fact, the reality is that people’s lives intersect in these interesting, interesting ways.

Q : I guess what you’ve been able to do is to put all of this into words. A lot of us end up going through life losing a bit of it along the way, then when you read it in a book, you are instantly transported by that experience, or incident….
A : Absolutely, you know this is exactly the case. I was in Mauritius where I met some Chinese families who had been settled there for two or three generations. Just to hear the stories of their lives was a fascinating experience. How they would go back to China to be educated, how they would come back, how their families co-existed in two different places, just these astonishing connections between peoples, their lives, the places they live in, their countries. All of this fascinates me.

Q : Do you think we are losing our oral traditions as we go from one generation to the next as we travel from one place to the next?
A : In a sense we are losing our direct connection with it, but one thing that is noticeable to me is that people are actually more and more interested in their particular past, in their family histories, so yes and no is the answer to that.

Q : War and the collision between history and individual lives. You have addressed this in your work. Personally, how have you been affected by it?
A : Somehow my life has been intersected by all these strange upheavals. I was in New Delhi during the riots in 1984. I was in New York on 9/11. In one way or another, I’ve witnessed it, I don’t know how to account for it. But I feel that in some ways my writing has also been a process to bearing witness to all these unfortunate upheavals.

Q : Do you think all writing should do that?
A : I feel its impossible to lay down prescriptions for all writers and I do hesitate to do that. I can only talk about what works me. I feel a need to bear witness to what I’ve seen and to express it through words.

Q : Another interesting term that I’ve come across in your work is the “aesthetics of violence.” What do you mean by that?
A : When I used that term it was essentially to oppose aestheicizing violence. I come from India which has been a witness to a great deal of violence in the last 30-40 years. The lesson that I’ve learnt from reading Mahatma Gandhi is how do you create non-violence in a very violent world. I think that’s a moral as well as an ethical necessity for writers too. Often as a writer, particularly one who has been witness to a lot of violence, you are tempted to re-create that violence in your work. I feel that it is very, very important for writers to try and distance themselves from it, to try and reflect upon it and to try and create circumstances where you can write about in a non-violent way about non-violence.

Q : You live in New York but go back to India almost every year. Does India always surprise you?
A : Oh, yes. India never ceases to amaze me. The changes you see in India even within a couple of months are simply unbelievable. India is a very different place from the India in the 1980s though. The sense of governance is much greater. In my own city, Calcutta, the improvements in the last 10 years have been staggering.

Q : Going back to your work. In ‘The Shadow Lines’ you wrote – “every word I write is the product of a struggle with silence.” It’s something that’s stayed in my head ever since I read the book. Word, writing and silence, what is the struggle about?
A : It is in two senses that I said that. I’ve often been writing about places, situations and people which are normally not written about. Burma, for instance. In the past very few people have written about Burma or noticed its existence for that matter. For me, in some sense writing about Burma, writing about Burmese history was a process of discovering a silenced aspect of our past and that was really interesting. But I think writing in general is often about battling our own resistances. I think, in some way we all experience a sense of resistance to writing about just writing.

Q : Would you then say that putting all these thoughts down on paper is a process of self-discovery for you?
A : It is in a sense. For me often it’s a process of the discovery of not just the historical aspects of the place I choose to write about, but also a process of discovery of the people who make up that place.

Q : Speaking of discovery through words, through books, your critically acclaimed work ‘In An Antique Land’ is widely recognized as being authentic even by Egyptians. What took you on this journey? It wasn’t just the pyramids?
A : (Laughs) That was over 25 years ago. I lived in a small village in Northern Egypt with the villagers. I learnt to speak Arabic. I wrote very truthfully about what I saw and you know life in a village is like life in a village anywhere. I was there for a year to start with and after that I’ve been back several times. I was at Oxford and was supposed to be doing a PhD in Anthropology and someone said to me: “where do you really want to go?” and I thought, “Why not Egypt?” That’s pretty much how I landed there and how the book happened.

Q : You have also captured some of your experiences in Egypt in ‘The Imam and The Indian’ – which includes 18 essays written over a 16-year time period – from 1986 to 2002. What changed and what impacted you the most during those years?
A : A number of things. I write non-fiction, essays and journalism from time to time. That collection was actually published in India. It’s now going to be published worldwide under a different title called ‘Incendiary Circumstances.’ One of the first of the essays in that book was about Cambodia. The war was still going on when I went there. When I went to Angkor Vat, the Khmer Rouge opened fire. There was bombing around the temple. It was something I just had to write about. It was some of those experiences that have been put together in this book and I hope people can take something back from it.

Q : How does your background and training as an anthropologist, a historian and a journalist impact your work?
A : I don’t think of any of these fields as being any different from the other. I think they are all ways of writing. I think they have all different times fed my curiosity to know more about the world, the circumstances we live in. And my curiosity is what made me a journalist, an anthropologist, a writer, it’s just a kind of habit. Usually I’m on the other side talking to people. I always have my little note book with me. You can see me busy taking notes. It just interests me to know about other people’s lives.

Q : Do you have your ‘Blink’ moments. You are talking to this person, you are drawn to the story and you know this what you definitely want to write about?
A : Absolutely. When I was in Cambodia, I went looking for Pol Pot’s family. I travelled a lot and reached a central Cambodian province where I met his brother. It was an astonishing experience. I went to his house, he was an ordinary peasant and as he told me the story of his life, I knew in that instant that here is someone I must write about.

Q : I know you’re not into giving advice to other authors, but if you were asked to say something to encourage budding authors, what would you say?
A : I would repeat what Honoré de Balzac said, which is, "ceaseless work is a law of art."

Q : In addition to writing a lot, you also read a lot. Who or what do you normally read?
A : Oh, my reading is very eclectic. I read whatever I can find. There’s absolutely no normalcy in my reading but I stumble upon things all the time.

I JUST....

Write. I have to write. I like to say that I didn't choose writing, writing chose me. This may sound slightly mythical, but I sometimes feel as if my writing is something bigger than I am.

More from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the Washington Post, 13 November 2006:
I realized that I was African when I came to the United States. Whenever Africa came up in my college classes, everyone turned to me. It didn't matter whether the subject was Namibia or Egypt; I was expected to know, to explain.

At the Emerging Writers Forum, 6 April 2004
Have you wondered why reviewers and blurb-writers are quick to reassure readers that a book about Africa (usually one written by a Black African about Black Africans) is NOT JUST AN AFRICAN BOOK BUT IS UNIVERSAL, as well? As if 'African' and 'Universal' are mutually exclusive. Nobody ever informs the reader that a great English or American novel is universal because the assumption, of course, is that it is.

WRITE/RE-WRITE

Writing they say, is its own reward.

What about re-writing?

Jeffery Deaver takes eight months to write an outline for each of his novels and puts his work through 50 re-writes, before he lets go.

With 25 million copies of his 23 books sold so far, he can't be wrong.

More on his writing process, his character building and his latest book 'The Sleeping Doll' here.

IN LONG HAND

It's a world I can't imagine. For me, it's all about punching some keys, deleting, editing, cap locking - the works. I'm not a geek, yet I like my technology, the ease despite the tons I end up lugging each time I travel. Long hand takes me an eternity, don't think I'd get too far if handed an empty sheet.

Yet, here she is, 13 books out and counting. Scribbling away furiously, pen in hand. Sure makes me want to die for another De:

".....The truth is, I only trust that which bears my distinct signature. I love the physical process of holding a pen in my hand and attacking blank foolscap sheets. I like to watch as words form on the page.

There is a special thrill in that act alone. I like the mistakes to remain visible, not disappear at the light touch of the Delete key, as if they never happened.

I like revisiting old manuscripts from time to time, touching the chunky pads filled with sentences written at a manic pace. The scratches and doodles in the margins tell their own stories.

There are hastily scribbled telephone numbers (whose? why?), and little memos to myself (“dhobi’s day: ask the bugger why he tore the new bedsheets”). Would this happen were I to switch? How impersonal the tech world appears in comparison."

What does it take for the prolific Shobhaa De to keep the world at her fingertips? Find out here.

A TRIBUTE TO LOVE

"There is war....
There is conflict....
There is...."

So listened, she nodded, she smiled that wonderful smile of hers, then she responded:
"You forgot love."

The speaker was the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A book that will be in the news, the Orange Broadband Prize notwithstanding.

The interview was on the BBC. She spoke of the story behind the book, the personal connection with the war, the research that went into it, what it took to write and how unexpected the prize was.

"Unexpected, all authors say that," the interviewer interjected.

She broke into that smile again and in that instant you know she meant it when she said unexpected.

I haven't read her book, but her superlative style spoke long after time ran out, as it always does, when someone with depth graces the air waves.

So I did what I do best and spent the better half of today reading all there is to this outstanding literary voice. And it all starts with this.....
"I grew up in the shadow of Biafra. I grew up hearing 'before the war' and 'after the war' stories; it was as if the war had somehow divided the memories of my family. I have always wanted to write about Biafra—not only to honor my grandfathers, but also to honor the collective memory of an entire nation. Writing Half of a Yellow Sun has been my re-imagining of something I did not experience but whose legacy I carry. It is also, I hope, my tribute to love: the unreasonable, resilient thing that holds people together and makes us human."

MEMORIES & LOSS

Years before, 'citizen journalist' became the buzzword, my then Editor, Tushar Bhatt had a dream.

He wanted to hear ordinary people speak on the pages of the newspaper. True, they could be heard if they wrote in to the 'Letters to the Editor' column, but those weren't the type of voices he wanted to hear. With that in mind, he launched a column aptly titled 'VOICES.'

Four newbie Sub-Editors had made their entry into the hallowed precincts of The Times of India on Ashram Road at Ahmedabad. We'd survived a harrowing written test, an interview and expectedly felt on top of the world when we finally held the official letter of appointment.

The world was truly within our reach. So when Mr Bhatt spelt out his plans for the column, it was a resounding yes on our part. After all, how difficult could it be to pick a topic, head out to the streets to get four comments with pictures to go.

Ah, the heady confidence of youth!

What I, for one, hadn't fathomed was the fact that I had arrived in a new city. I barely knew a soul. I was desperately seeking a roof over my head and a way of buttering my daily bread. I imagined cracking this assignment would take less than half a day. After all, don't people love to talk? You bet they do. The minute you tell them about a proper quote and a picture to go they go into freeze frame instead. The neighbours didn't want to do it, the shop owners of Vastrapur didn't want to do it, nor did the folks on the street.

With no luck on my side, I decided to cycle through the educational parts of Ahmedabad. Somehow, the IIM seemed too forbidding, the Architecture college too linear and that's when I came across St Xavier's College. This looked like just the place I was searching for. My kind of students, a casual ambiance, nice canteen. I felt perfectly at home, so I started my spiel. In true college style I was pointed from one name to the next to the next, till I reached a rather intense looking guy with glasses.

"Hi, I work for TOI and I'm looking for a voice, would you mind talking?"
"Sure."

With that I got my first voice and met Robin David. The year was 1993.

I had no clue who Robin was. It was only when he came to drop his picture in the newsroom that the whispers started.

"You know who that is?" Someone on the desk asked
"No. Why? Should I know."
"Yes, his mother is a fierce critic. His grandfather started the zoo. You've never heard of them," came the answer laced with a bit of shock and awe.
"Now, I have."

So I got my propah introduction to Robin and his mum - Esther David. But more of that later.

Robin and I kept in touch. He told me he was interested in photography, dropped by with his impressive black and white portfolio one day, which was just as well. I'd started writing for another Bennett & Coleman publication 'Femina' and was desperately seeking a photographer who could thrive on the love for work. There would be a credit, some money and he was game.

Robin brought life to so many of the features I wrote. The most memorable of which was a picture of Kiran Sethi, wife of India's Billiards Champion Geet Sethi. Kiran was into designing restaurants at that time. She'd just lent her creative touches to the wildly popular restaurants Mirch Masala and Tomato's. Interviewing Kiran was delightful, photographing her a tad tricky. She was expecting a baby and didn't want the bump to be that obvious. Robin played around with the angles, shots and got it just right. Kiran looked radiant, the picture spoke louder than my words and certainly lit up some feature pages.

Several months later, Bala and I tied the knot or should it be signed the paper. Bala had already made his way to Singapore, I was counting my days in Ahmedabad. That's when my landlady dropped a bombshell. She wanted her house back. Not the kind of news one wanted to hear when you are straddling through worlds. Again Robin came to my rescue, boldly offering me possession of his Guptanagar home. He, in any case, was off to France to work on his photography, among other things. Having seen that treasure trove of a house, the offer was irresistible. I was happy to pack my bags and move in there. Any offer of a token rent were shunned and I was embraced by Ora, by Lilaben and everyone else who made their way in and out of that amazing home.

Pages of history were everywhere. Every book you pulled out of the packed bookshelves had a story to tell. There was the shrink's lounge chair, the dining table with the mooras, the pleasing sight of green grassy fields that you woke up to in the morning. The smell of the earth when the rain drops fell. It was in a word - perfect.


I hadn't met Esther yet but when she returned from Paris, the first thought that came to my mind was "fierce."

For a couple of days, I avoided going home, staying over at various friend's places, till she decided to call the newsroom and put me in my place:
"Why haven't you been home?"

Expectedly, a lot of humming and hawwing ensued. No answer sounded convincing enough. By the end of it, I felt stupid and decided it was time to come face to face with the formidable Esther David.

They say, you shouldn't always believe what you hear about a person. It couldn't have been more true for Esther. As she fed me my first dinner, I felt her warmth, in that moment when we talked about the Aloos, the way they had to be browned, I knew we'd be friends for life, even if I never learnt to cook the aloos her way.

Over the next couple of months, we poured over the covers of her first book The Walled City, which was to mark the beginning of her literary journey as an author.

Making another journey of his own was Robin who was steadily veering from photography to print. He did put up a photography exhibition backed by Alliance Francaise till the demands of his journalism job took over. After a stint with The Indian Express, he moved over to The Times of India.

I left India way before so many upheavals happened in Esther and Robin's life.

It all hit me when Esther emailed me last week:

"Dear Deepika,
The house is gone......"

Before it could even sink in, I was already on to the next bit of news:

Robin has come out with a novel. It is called 'City of Fear', by Penguin, it is all about leaving Gupta Nagar.

I quickly googled it and found a piece done by Naresh Fernandes in Time Out:
In City of Fear, David, an assistant editor at the Times of India, comes to terms with having to discard several generations' worth of memories and attempts to make sense of the altered geography of the metropolis in which he's spent his life.

On his blog, Robin writes:
I did not expect an earthquake and a bloody riot to define me. But it did. City of Fear is my first book.
Am I mad or am I surrounded by madness?

Now, if that hasn't got you rushing you to the book store, I don't know what else will.

FRUITY PICK

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka
Pages 310
April 2007
Publisher Fig Tree - A Penguin Books Imprint

It's a bad idea to read reviews of books before actually reading them. I'd read two. Both not entirely flattering. The Economist pared it down to the part about the chickens. And I do take the magazine's or should it be newspaper's word seriously.

So I left Marina Lewycka's second book Two Caravans on my book shelf for the longest time.

The only reason it ended in my bag was thanks to a rather unplanned vacation and because everything else on the shelf at that moment looked way too serious. There were promises of a strawberry field - what better way to sit back and relax? Add to that the idyll of the English countryside, beautiful summer days, fields far far away and caravans of course.

Oh, I could definitely survive this, even if I didn't end up loving it. But love it was the minute I was introduced to Irina, hot off the coach from Kiev straight into the hands of the sinister Mister Vulk:

"Life in vest is too much expensive, little flovver. Who do you think vill be pay for all such luxury?

Although his English was appalling , those words came rolling out like a prepared speech. 'You think this vill be providing all for free?'

So Mother had been right. 'Anybody can see this agency is run by crooks. Anybody but you, Irina.' (See how Mother has this annoying habit of putting me down?)"

With that Irina tries to convince herself that her plans of improving her English and finding true love with a romantic Englishman will bear fruit. Never mind that Vulk has ensured 'little flovver' is stripped of her passport.

Here comes Andriy Palenko, the miner's son from the other Ukraine, who acknowledges her nice features but also her attitude:

"She thinks she's a high-culture type with a superior mentality, and you're a low culture type. (And so what if you are? Is that something to be ashamed of?)"

I love the way Lewycka gets into the skin of her characters to bring alive the Bob Dylan fan - Tomasz, Yola the uncrowned strawberry plucking chief, the two Chinese girls, Emanuel from Malawi who has made the journey in search of his sister. The stories of these characters and several more take you to different lands without the intricate weave of the story losing its appeal.

Song Ying's journey begins in Guangdong where her dreams began and ended. Soo Lai Bee is the victim of a broken heart and has to flee Malaysia.

They all come together to share stories of their lives, their dreams - some shattered, some still there, they watch the sun rise and set as they pick strawberries together.

Life isn't all that rosy, there is more to the world revolving around the strawberry fields. Gang masters, exploitative employers, government regulations, life and love -all of these threads somehow weave themselves together through Lewycka's deft pen.

Long after I was through with the last page, Irina's words came back to me:
".....In the silence, I started to feel the closeness of all the other people who had stood and lain in this place over thousands of years, staring at these same rocks and this sky. I imagined I could hear their footsteps and their voices in my head, not hurrying or shouting, but just the gentle chatter-patter of human life, as it has been lived on this earth since time was first counted.

It reminded me of my childhood, when my bed had been in the living room of our little two-roomed flat, and each night I fell asleep to the sound of my parents' voices and their quiet movement tiptoeing around so as not to wake me - chatter-patter."

It may not have worked for the rest, but it certainly worked for me. I think comparisons are futile. Two Caravans stands on its own and holds its ground.

It won't be a word of mouth hit like the author's debut A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - too much ink has already been spilt on Two Caravans. But it will definitely be read by people across the world. At last count, Tractors has been translated into 29 languages and had won the 2005 Saga Award for Wit, the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction. It's a tough act to follow, though Lewycka is definitely up to it.

No surprise that the 61 year old Ukranian has been tipped to be a "literary lion of the future," according to this report in The Times.

Well, she may be a bestselling author now, but her literary journey started with a rejection slip. Yes, we live in times of hope.

SPINNING A NEW WEAVE

There's always that sense of trepidation when you are about to come face to face with an author you read in college.

And this isn't any author. She's gone from the catwalk to journalism to bestselling author to a screenplay writer and a whole lot more. If I were to roll out the long list - it'll go anything from - Novelist, Screenplay Writer, Columnist, Editor, Socialite, Fashion Designer, Consultant Editor, Wife, Mother - stuff most of us can only dream of achieving in a lifetime.

If someone didn't tell you, there's no way of even telling her age.

When she walks the walk at the upscale designer store Mumbai Se in Singapore, I hear a guarded whisper:

"Is she really 50?"
"59", I whisper back.

There's no time to catch the expression.

Shobhaa De is on stage. Her collection of cocktail sarees modelled by some real women has already taken the breath of the 200 strong crowd away. This is on a Monday at 4pm. Speak of star power!

She has presented her re-invention of the whole six yards, now the crusader is ready to spell out her mission....

".... I say it often and its worth repeating that I'm a great saree crusader or a great saree champion. When I see the younger generation of Indians, I love them for wearing their little black cocktail dresses but I want them to see that there is an alternative and a cocktail saree fits the bill perfectly. It's versatile enough. You can wear it to a polo event in London to an art opening in New York to a sit-down dinner in Singapore.

I want the saree to be accessible to young Indians, to people all over the world. It was a bit of a panic attack that got me into this. I hope the saree never ever goes the way of the kimono. I hope it's never ever seen as a costume. I hope people accept it as very much part of our identity. As something that's over 5,000 years old and hopefully will continue for another 5,000 years.

It's a classic and a classic is really forever.

I have sarees going back over 30 years and I wear them even today.

A saree necessarily demands a pro-active attitude. Because you can wear the way you choose to wear it. You can accessorise it differently. You can give it a very personal, individual twist. It's so versatile that each time you wear it, it can look like a new ensemble.

I know the big statement out of India is the kurti. It's taken the fashion world by storm, everybody from Liz Hurley to Posh Beckham is wearing it today.

I am almost sure, I am saying it here and now, the big other statement out of India has got to be the saree. As someone who believes in it so strongly, I'd like to see more people around the world wearing it.

It's the kind of garment anyone can wear. If I may use a teenage expression, it's hip, hot and happening. It's not just for Auntyji's, I hope this cocktail collection proved that."

Phew! That's enough to get me seriously studying my mum-in-law's saree collection the next time.

The thought has to be shelved for the moment at least. Just when I'm getting ready to pack my camera, Shobhaa is back at the counter. Her book 'Spouse' is selling as fast as her sarees. Her fans are lining up with their copies. And this is the moment I always like to study carefully. Beyond the book, it's often the connection an author makes with the reader that counts. I love to watch these moments carefully.

Shobhaa is patient. No scribbled signatures for her. She takes her time to chat up with everyone, take pictures and even exchange cards. One lady in question wants something signed for her Mum and she obliges.

It's a packed house. I've got the shots I want. And when things settle down, I finally get to talk to her.

I tell her about the show, about the sarees we'd like to put on set, I feel terrible about getting her out of bed early. If there was ever a thought of her behaving like the Page Three type, I've perished it in its entirety.

The next morning, Shobhaa is on the show. She puts the 'Jackie Collins' label to rest - splendid. She talks about her sarees, her books, the state of women today. You know a superb interview when you see one and this is it!

She's stolen the day, she's shown what makes the ordinary extra-ordinary and she's done it with that amazingly charming smile.

I almost feel like I've bumped into someone I've sort of known forever. You know that feeling....

So here's looking at you, Shobhaa......

TRAVEL N WRITING

"...I did join Time Magazine. I was in the curious state of writing world affairs for them. Curious because, as perhaps you know, Time and Newsweek have this peculiar system whereby half the people actually go around the world covering the news and the other half just sit in New York in little cubicles writing on it. So I was in that second category. Every week I would write palpitating, breathless accounts of foraging my way through Philippine jungles or ascending the Andes to find the Sendero Luminoso gorillas or seeing an uprising in South Africa without ever having been to those places and without knowing what they look like."

"....Well, that is what decided me to become a travel writer. I made the fatal and unforgivable mistake of beginning to take holidays and I took them in some of the places I was writing about. I quickly came to the conclusion you just enunciated, which is, "Why on earth am I sitting in a cubicle writing about these places at one remove when I could actually be there." That is when I started writing my books and moving away from Time Magazine. But writing world affairs for them was a very good discipline in writing clearly and concretely. It was also a good crash course in world affairs because, literally, every week I would come in on Tuesday and be told, "You are going to be writing this week on Paraguay," or "Haiti," or "Ciskei." I wouldn't have even heard of them before, so I would desperately learn everything I could about them so as to be able to turn out a seemingly authoritative article two days later."

"....I think the main reason I travel, if I were to sum it up in one word, is for ambiguity. The reason I love travel is not just because it transports you in every sense, but because it confronts you with emotional and moral challenges that you would never have to confront at home. So I like going out in search of moral and emotional adventure which throws me back upon myself and forces me to reconsider my assumptions and the things I took for granted. It sends me back a different person."

Sounds familiar? Sounds like someone you know? Sounds like you?

Or all of the above?

Well, well, if you haven't already got it, it's one of the best travel writers of our time.

Read Pico Iyer's insightful conversation on PostModern Tourism with Scott London here.

WRITING IS ITS OWN REWARD

It isn't as if I can't walk to Little India to pick up some of the bigger magazine titles. In fact Outlook India, at least its current issue is available online. There are no annoying passwords that you need to first key in, then remember to access articles from their latest issue.

Despite the convenience of that, I love it when Bala visits India and heads back with a bag load of books, magazines and newspaper. I put this on my 'to read' shelf, then lovingly go through a copy of The Sunday Express, a month after it was released. This week, I read Time Out, Mumbai, with its fabulous cover on wine, followed by Mint and yesterday it was time for the March 26th issue of Outlook.

As always, Outlook didn't disappoint. Lots of readable stuff, starting with the cover 'Why We Hate Politicians' to Amitabh Bachchan's defence of his role in the (in)famous UP is safe ads to a review of Amitava Kumar's Home Products.

I spent all evening going through it lovingly page by page, word by word, till I reached this enormously entertaining side-bar in Bibliofile. Since it's hard to capture it's essence, I'm quoting it verbatim:

Of Writerly Perk
When writers complain of measly advances and royalties, they don't tell you about the fringe benefits. Publish a book, and even if it's a decade old, it entitles you to a lifetime of freebies:
1) invitation to the dime-a-dozen litfairs across the country, including free air tickets (for two), stay in best hotel, free food and booze;
2) foreign jaunts (surf the net and find out which country is hosting a book fair with India as guest of honour)
3) writing residencies in exotic residencies in exotic locales (same perks as 1 only for longer)
4) a job abroad teaching suckers how to pen a book

As proof of it, its followed by a write-up on the Paris Book Fair that's selected 30 Indian authors for an all expenses paid trip. As Outlook would tell you Go figure!

THE ART OF THE NOVEL

I was first drawn to Amitava Kumar's Home Products thanks to its cover. It reminded me so much of my own antique dresser and the lure of Lakme products despite leaving home 10 years ago.

The book hasn't made it to our shores yet, but its right on top of my reading list thanks to Jai Arjun's lunch with the writer himself.

Adding to the charm is this piece penned by Amitava in The Hindu. Don't you wish authors would be just as forthcoming as when it comes to telling readers what goes into creating their tomes?

Despite teaching full-time, writing books, spending time with his family, he also has this great blog. How does he do all of this in a day's work? I want to know that.

MEETING YASMINE GOONERATNE

Another session I greatly enjoyed was with Professor Emeritus Yasmine Gooneratne. We exchanged several emails before our session and I almost felt like I knew her before I met her. It helped that she gave me a spontaneous pat on my back by saying "I was a fine moderator" during the session itself. Usually, such words, should they be merited at all follow in subsequent emails. But Yasmine has spent a life-time grooming people - students and writers alike. And just like her writing, her real life has taken on many forms. A University Professor, literary critic, editor, bibliographer, award winning novelist, essayist and poet, she has published 20 books so far.

She has won several awards for her distinguished work. These include the Marjorie Barnard Prize for Fiction, India's Raja Rao Award for outstanding contribution to the Literature of the South Asian diaspora and the Order of Australia for her services to literature and education. Many of her books have been commended internationally and 'The Pleasures of Conquest' was shortlisted for the 1996 Commonwealth Writers Prize.


Despite her busy schedule, Yasmine hasn't just stopped at writing. She runs 'Guardian Angels' (more on it in the interview) and together with her husband, Dr Brendon Gooneratne, she established 'The Pemberley House' http://www.pemberleyhouse.com/ in Haputale, on a tea plantation 4,000 feet above sea level. The House which was inspired by their stays at some writers residencies also hosts 'The Pemberley International Study Centre' which opens for Residential Scholars from June-August. Over they years, Yasmine tells me how this labour of love has played host to writers, poets, musicians and just about anyone interested in the creative arts.

Strangely or not quite, all Yasmine ever wanted to do was to be a Cordon Bleu chef. That's till she expressed her thoughts to her teachers. They ensured the knives would be laid to rest, her bags would be firmly packed and life would point in the direction of a literary career. So cooking's loss, has been writing's gain. Most of this is from an email interview and I've added what I can remember from the session. Trouble is, we got lost while getting to Lunuganga. I barely made in time to get this session started and in the flurry that was marked by pulling the tripod, fixing the camera, yanking the tapes, I forgot thee most important thing - the battery. Not all is lost though since I still have the email interview with Yasmine. Here are the excerpts:

Q : You dreamt of being a chef and ended up being drawn to the world of writing and teaching. How did the best laid plans change?
A : Due to the influence of two English teachers, and the University Arts Scholarship, awarded on my Finals at Peradeniya, which took me to Cambridge University rather than to cookery school in Paris or London.

Q : And absolutely no regrets about the shift?
A : None at all.

Q : Can you still combine dream cooking with writing?
A : Yes. A character in my new novel (Latha) does this too.

Q : How big a role did your family, your school and your teachers have in helping you discover your creative self?
A : An essential role. My husband, especially. My family are all great readers, and wide reading is, after all, the foundation of good writing.

Q : You have always been quick to express your gratitude about growing up in Sri Lanka - "the biggest influence on my writing as regards to
subject matter has inevitably been the fact that I had the good fortune to have been born in Sri Lanka, and to grow up and be educated there at a "golden" period in the island's cultural life." So much has changed in the island, how does it reflect in your writing?
A : One cannot expect life in the island - or anywhere, for that matter - to stand still. But I have discovered that I can recapture and recreate lost Edens and Arcadies through writing fiction. That was a really happy discovery, especially when I found I was able to 'recover' people I had loved as a child, and give them a permanent life in my book 'Relative Merits'.
(In 'Relative Merits' nostalgia, research, detail are matched by the charm and intimacy of personal reminiscences. Delightful anecdotes bring to life an array of eccentric uncles and the rest of her family.)

Q : Given such a rich and varied up-bringing, it is no surprise that you have a multi-faceted professional life. How do you combine all these roles?
A : Teaching, research and creative writing have all dovetailed satisfactorily in my experience. I think I've been very lucky in this.

Q : You've said and I quote: "To write poetry, you have to be pushed into it by some deep emotion - it could be love, happiness, despair or dislike, but it has to be strong enough to resonate in your poetry. " What pushed you to it?
A : A death in the family. My father died in 1969. I was his youngest child, and we were very close.
(Her father's death led her to pen a poem called 'Review' and she ended up writing poetry almost non-stop resulting in the first volume of poetry 'Word Bird Motif' in 1971.)

Q : When you wrote to me, you mentioned that you never consciously set out to be a 'writer' or even a 'teacher'. What other experiences shaped your writing?
A : Travel, expatriation, and a love of reading 18th century English authors and 20th century Indian authors are three of them.

Q : What was the point when you stopped thinking that 'fiction was for other people' to write?
A : When I wrote my first story that was entirely set in Australia.

Q : A dear friend and a writer whose work I admire a lot - Meira Chand - discovered her writing self when she moved to India and there was no stopping her after that. You moved to Australia and discovered you could barely write any poetry. What was that period like?
A : A barren desert. Fortunately, it didn't last very long. My enjoyment in teaching carried me through it.

Q : How did being in Australia impact your writing?
A : Australia provided a new perspective on life, introduced me to people from a variety of backgrounds, and removed me from what had been a somewhat confined society in Sri Lanka.

Q : In fact, it was during this period that you wrote your first short story wholly set in Australia - 'How Barry Changed his Image'. What predicament were you trying to portray through this story?
A : The predicament of immigrants who find they must change themselves in order to settle comfortably into a new and unfamiliar society and participate fully in it. It's a challenge that demands a great deal of the newcomer, and not everyone can meet such challenges, or wants to do so. Many immigrants prefer to retreat into the safety provided by numbers, live a ghetto existence, and dream of returning 'home', not realizing very often that 'home' has changed, and is no longer what they once knew.

Q : That story became Chapter 15 of your first novel 'A Change of Skies' (1992) - did it inspire work on the novel?
A : The opening sentence of the story, 'My husband was having problems with his image', spoken by my narrator, a young and pretty young woman who comes to Australia from Sri Lanka, was the starting point of the novel.
(The novel won the Marjorie Barnard Literary Award for Fiction that year. It has since been reprinted several times and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.)

Q : It is never easy to write about family. Often readers love such books, but there will be at least one person in the family who will be invariably unhappy. At the Ubud Writers Festival, Michael Ondaatje had narrated this hilarious incident from 'Running in The Family' where an aunt had to be in an 'either, or' situation due to pressure from the family. Did you experience anything like that when when you wrote 'Relative Merits' (1986)?
A : Not at all. On the other hand, editing it was not easy - there was so much marvellous material ready to hand, and I could not use all of it. So some things had to go. But I was - and still am - very happy with the result. And no one has sued me yet for libel!

Q : Your third novel - 'The Sweet and Simple Kind' has some real life parallels - what did you hope to capture through it?
A : I wanted to capture - or recapture - the 1950s, a period on which I look back as a kind of Golden Age in Sri Lanka.

Q : Through your writing you have delved into so many issues of our times. Do you think the future is still filled with possibilities?
A : I think you are referring here to political issues. If so, you have got me wrong - I don't write about political issues, I write about human issues, and human personalities. As for the future: where writing is concerned, there are always possibilities, if one keeps an open mind.

Q : Being a Professor you are constantly interacting with students, you are in a public space as it were, what happens when you have to do your serious writing. How do you isolate it from your real life role or is there no conflict of sorts?
A: I am not conscious of any conflict or difference at all.

Q : You are an author of studies on Jane Austen, Alexander Pope, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Leonard Woolf among others - what drew you to their work?
A : In each case, excellence and sincerity. Pretentious writing - what is sometimes called 'beautiful writing' - turns me off. But I read and re-read the writers I admire: Austen, Pope, Jhabvala, Leonard Woolf. There is always something to discover and to learn.

Q : Apart from these authors, which other author/authors work has inspired you?
A : R.K. Narayan, V.S. Naipaul, Paul Scott, Dr Samuel Johnson. Among Sri Lankan authors, I believe that by writing and publishing 'The Jam Fruit Tree' Carl Muller liberated Sri Lankan writers from convention and hypocrisy. I'm personally very grateful for that, and I think the first two books of his 'Burgher Trilogy' should be required reading for beginning authors.

Q : Criticism isn't always easy to handle - so whose advice do you take most seriously?
A : My family are my first readers and my most reliable critics. But I have two or three close friends outside the family whose advice and criticism have always proved worth taking.

Q : You are also an avid traveller and movie buff, which places have had the maximum impact on your writing?
A : India, most of all. America provided good material for satire. And Australia and Sri Lanka, of course.


Q : Have movies been part of your text?
A : Yes, indeed. I have had the pleasure of teaching Ruth Jhabvala's novels to third-year and Honours students in Australia. (In fact, I put her novel 'A Backward Place' on my text list long before she won the Booker Prize with 'Heat and Dust'.) Part of my interest in her work focuses on her ability to bring her screenplay-writing technique into her writing of fiction. Her novels 'A New Dominion' and 'Heat and Dust' are especially interesting in that regard.

Q : Ever experienced the dreaded writers block?
A : Never experienced it, I'm glad to say. But if I ever did, I'd turn to work of some kind that doesn't engage the emotions - tutoring, editing, compiling bibliographies and activities of that kind - and wait for the inspiration to start flowing again.

Q : I shouldn't even be asking this, but what's next?
A : Who knows? Maybe I'll go back to my first ambition, and write a cookery book, as one of my characters - Jean - does in my first novel, 'A Change of Skies'.

Q : And before we wrap this up, let's hear about another project that's been keeping you busy - 'Guardian Angels'.
A : Yes, I find literary editing a very satisfying activity. It's also very restful to focus on someone else's writing; and after completing 'The Sweet and Simple Kind', which went into over 600 pages, I've needed a rest. I have gained a great deal myself from the help given me by Australian literary editors when I was writing my first two novels, and I'm very much aware that writers in Sri Lanka don't have the benefit of such expert assistance. I really love making someone else's writing sparkle and shine; and if I think highly of a work, I'd be ready to spend a lot of time and effort on it. I felt like that about Nihal de Silva's book 'The Road From Elephant Pass', and also about the little sketches about a village boy and his friends that he wrote for The Sunday Times. I suggested the issuing of the Paduma stories in the form of a children's book.

See related posts on Nihal here:
http://readatpeace.blogspot.com/search?q=nihal+de+silva