Pico Iyer on the Long Sentence

Here's Pico Iyer on the joys of the long sentence, writing in the LA Times:

"I'm using longer and longer sentences as a small protest against — and attempt to rescue any readers I might have from — the bombardment of the moment."

Further he adds:

"The short sentence is the domain of uninflected talk-radio rants and shouting heads on TV who feel that qualification or subtlety is an assault on their integrity (and not, as it truly is, integrity's greatest adornment)."

I mostly use short sentence as a mark of simplicity in my writing. I also get confused by long sentences the sort that is, "a gradual inner movement that progresses through four parallel clauses, each of which, though legato, suggests a slightly different take on things," according to Iyer.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis

Here's Palash Krishna Mehrotra's review of Jeet Thayil's much-awaited novel "Narcopolis" published in Sunday Guardian. Excerpt:

"Thayil, a well-known poet, deploys his powers of description with some success. He is excellent when nailing druggy nihilism: 'You've got to face facts and the fact is that life is a joke, a fucking bad joke, or, no, a bad fucking joke.'; or the point at which pain recedes into the dark night and one is high, simply high: 'I am unplugged from the tick of metabolism; I am mineral.' Both smack and opium produce dream-like states in the user, and Thayil describes these abstractions with great felicity: 'Dreams leak from head to head; they travel between those who travel in the same direction, that is to say lovers, and those who share the bonds of intoxication and death.'"

Knowing, as I do, Jeet's lyrical prose as well as poetry I look forward to reading the novel. Another reason for my excitement is that it is about Bombay, a city about which I too am writing in my forthcoming novel. Jeet's Bombay seems dark and noir as mine is dissolute and corrupt.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Sepia Leaves, Novel by Amandeep Sandhu

Here's a review of Sepia Leaves in the Hindu by Uday Balakrishnan. The author is Amandeep Sandhu, and it's published by Rupa and Co.

From the review it seems as if it would be a good book to read. An excerpt:

Sepia Leaves is indeed remarkable. Rarely does one come across something as good as this; at the end of a read, one feels touched by goodness in the face of overwhelming odds and Appu's resilience truly astonishes. The book has its shortcomings. Description of places and events — Rourkela, Punjab and the Emergency — are rather prosaic; the somewhat anaemic title is a bit of a letdown. Amandeep's book is however such a good read, one can let all that pass.

Schizophrenia has been a subject of study in many novels abroad. However, I don't know of any novel in India which deals with the subject. The book seems interesting in that respect. However, I wish to differ from the reviewer in the name of the book. I think it is a fine title and would stand out in the ever-increasing clutter of books on the Indian book shelf.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Can't There Be a Middle Path between Foreign Retail and the Kirana Stores?

A day spent hunting for medicines in the boondocks of New Bombay. In Belapur there aren't any good chemists who have all the medicines I need. So I came to Vashi and there, too, I faced defeat. Hm. None of the shops have a policy of stocking on essential medicines unless someone comes and asks for it. They say, "if it doesn't sell, we don't stock, you go to hell." They write in a small notebook when a medicine's stock is finished and then order them if they see that demand is good enough. This is unacceptable and unkind. I think this is also very selfish. It has killed many an enterprise. What if a bookshop stocks only books that sell? What if a kirana store stock only grocery that sells?

Talking of kirana stores, my next visit was to a kirana store. I needed refill for my mobile phone, some shaving blades, and some spices that wifey ordered. It's a miracle I could get all of these in the kirana shop and the man (with whom we have a checking account, and he doesn't charge interest) was friendly and offered suggestions about prices and usage. Try getting this in a mall. The boys and girls there hardly know the product, they don't stock on spices or other groceries, which are sporadically required, like, say, asafoetida. Where will we go if the kirana stores go out of business? 

Why can't there be a middle ground between FDI in retail and these kirana stores? As a country we are known to be very bad in drafting rules. If foreign retailers want to come they should come on our terms, not theirs. We made a mistake when we invited all those BPO units to set shop. The youth of the country is being exploited by the BPO units and they can't do a thing about it. There are no leaves, they work six days a week, there are no breaks in work, autocratic HR departments foist their antideluvian rules on them. I know because I worked in them.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Afflictions and All That Stuff

Was a bit under the weather, health-wise. Now it has passed I can say it here. I had Ascitis. With medicines it's under control. I had the same complaint three years ago and medication had cured it. Now it is on the way to recovery and I am feeling less bloated. Ah, the maladies one has to suffer! My stomach bloated so much that it started attracting people's attention. I felt so uncomfortable and became apprehensive that people are staring at me. I know people in India are ruthless starers. Something in their DNA. They don't think staring is bad and that the other person will mind, or, even hurt. You don't know what the other person is going through, and it's not compassionate. My condition was such that I thought it was a beer belly, a result of all the beer I used to quaff in my wasted years. (Not that I used to drink much, a beer in a week, or so.)  Those of you who drink, drink responsibly and not blindly. Don't test the amount of liquor you can hold. Test if your health will hold that much liquor.

So? Lesson learnt? Next time I see someone who is afflicted, I will not stare. What kept me going was first and foremost faith in my Lord and Saviour, blogging and social networking. Yes, I am a very spiritual person and religion comes first. I am thankful to that. So, I am recording it here for posterity.  

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Urban Shorts "Bright Lights" Book Launch. Do Come!

Above is the cover of Urban Shots "Bright Lights" being published by Grey Oaks.

Grey Oaks, the publisher, I must admit is serious about its book launches. It is launching it's Urban Shots series of anthologies with readings in five cities: Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi. The launch will be on the following day:

19 Jan 2012 - 7 pm, Landmark, Infiniti Mall, Andheri, Mumbai. A google map showing location of Infinity Mall is also above.

Do please come. My short story "Mr. PK Koshy's Daily Routine" is part of the "Bright Lights" collection. Your encouragement and patronage will be highly appreciated. Thank you very much, kind blog readers.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Encounter with another Blogger

Somebody asked me a few days ago, "You are that blogger, right?"

I said, "How do you know?" Do bloggers have some special look. Maybe, they have the the harassed, half-slept, pot-bellied, itchy-scalp-from-which-hair-has-been-scratched-out look. I hope I didn't look like an animal or something.

"I think I have read your blog."

"Which blog post?"

"I can't remember. All I remember is it was about this asskey thing."

"Asskey, what's that?"

"The ASCI."

"Oh, that, I see, I see." I knew because that post was a disaster. The thing I wanted to display horizontally came all vertical and unreadable. Also, I knew about the Bombay tendency to abbreviate. Everything is abbreviated. Dadabhoy Navroji Road is DN Road, Veer Nariman Road is VN Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road is MG Road, and of course Shivaji Terminus is ST.

See the description above, and I am thinking to myself, this guy is a blogger. He looks every part the profile of the blogger I limned above. Yeah, the harried look is there, the bulges from crouching on the keyboard is there, the rings under the eyes are there, the slumped shoulders are there. Exactly. Guy is a blogger.

"Yes."

"What do you blog about?"

"Teen angst. How teenagers can make de better world."

"What's it called?"

"F***ed Teens."

"Are you joking? Take it off you will run into obscenity problems, men." It was obvious he was a Goan or an East Indian so I added the "men."

"No, no, men, it's harmless. The word is spelt "Fcuked" so I don tink anyone will da mind. After all it is also about fashions, designer labels, men."

"But nevertheless, men, be safe."

"No, no. I am not to worry, men, like, like, all taken care, I know what I am doing." Yeah, all teens know what they are doing these days. They know more than you.

"So, men, like, how many visitors this blog of yours, getting, only?"

"Hardly ten."

"Oh!" I hope I made my disappointment clear.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

The Nitty-gritties of Self Regulation

Some reasons why I think we can't self regulate. Rather we self regulate badly. I remember my stint as Executive Secretary at Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) whose purported function is regulate the advertising industry. The government had vested it with vast powers, reporting errant advertisers, habitual offenders, punish advertisers who make tall claims, making standards work, etc.

However, please look at the highlighted areas of the news report below - or, above - in Campaign. The complaint was given in July and August 2011 and the decision on it was taken in December 2011 (as is obvious from the publication date on the magazine's masthead). That is 4 months later. By the time the ad campaign has run it course, the bad boys did their bad stuff in the newspapers and channels and the matters have been closed.

What does ASCI then do when the complaint is upheld, "Beta, please don't do it again, okay? Baba, now you can go scot free."

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

The Hippie Generation and the Beat Generation

Reading a bit about the Hippie generation that held us boys in thrall in school in the sixties and seventies. The Beat generation preceded the Hippies and Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg were the people who germinated the Hippie generation with their lives of carefree abandonment and spontaneous literature. Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady died young and Allen Ginsberg became the bridge to the new way of thinking and living marked by colour, free thought, free sex and free living. There were also bands involved such as Grateful Dead. In fact, one of Grateful dead's songs, "That's It for the Other One" became an anthem for the Hippies.

However, in the eighties some Hippies crossed over the consumerist culture and became thorough capitalists. Thereby ended the aspirations and dreams of a generation to change the world, which exists - still - in tiny pockets around the world.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Pico Iyer on the Importance of Being Quiet

One of the writers I admire most is Pico Iyer. Iyer writes brilliantly and I used to read his articles in Time magazine. I just learnt from his Wikipaedia article that were were born in the same year - 1957. He is a famous writer, and I? Well, never mind.

Here's he writing in New York Times about the joy of quiet. Which I have been trying discover of late. I have kept my phone in meeting mode and only call back those numbers I know as being a close friend. The reasons I give are many (as you may have found out). I have been trying to distance from social media, but I am not giving up totally. Here's what Iyer writes about his attempt to move away from Internet and online connectivity:

"I've yet to use a cellphone and I've never Tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day's writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan in part so I could more easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot, and every trip to the movies would be an event.

"None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism; it's just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It's actually something deeper than mere happiness: it's joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as "that kind of happiness that doesn't depend on what happens."

Read the article, it's got that particular quality of zen, yoga, meditation, all combined in a minuscule two pages of purely elegant reportage.

Hat tips to Manjul Bajaj for the link.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.