tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78903656809225602912024-02-14T12:55:22.796-08:00tim murariTim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-76922860056592708182020-09-23T00:28:00.001-07:002020-09-23T00:28:44.436-07:00THE MARRIAGETHE MARRIAGE. 1973
PUBLISHED: MACMILLAN, UK & India.
It has often been stated that the most difficult task an author can undertake is the writing of a purely contemporary novel; for detachment as well as narrative skill is required. It is rewarding to find the necessary expertise in Timeri Murari’s The Marriage…an ingenious Romeo and Juliet type of story set in the Midlands. It is to Murari’s credit that he appreciates the shortcomings of his own nationals as surely those of the indigenous workers and it is this impartiality that makes The Marriage an important social document'. CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, London.
-Mr Murari is able to present the blossoming of love between Leela and Roger with great tenderness and grace. Furthermore, the homesickness and love for India is woven through the story so skilfully that India’s presence is overpowering, and England seems unreal and ghostly. Immigration, a self-exile of sorts, and the particular types of corruption, human limitations, and blindness which follows, are crucial problems for many of us. I would recommend The Marriage because it deals with themes and ideas which are worth reading about and discussing, and because it’s a good story, well told. WORLD LITERATURE WRITTEN IN ENGLISH.
-Back to Enoch country, and The Marriage, where the extremes of Enver Carim are heavily muffled and prejudice is conducted far more decently. Unlike Carim, Timeri Murari approaches his subject with painstaking fidelity to the grey realities of life. The novel is set in an Indian community in the industrial Midlands and is more concerned with the problems and compromises of integration than with the apocalypse of breakdown. Two stories are inter- woven to create a sense of the personal and social tensions between immigrants and indigenes: Tekchand, the leader of the Indian community, is trying to arouse his fellow workers to take official action against an extortion racket, run by Indians and whites, by which new workers are forced to 'buy' their jobs, while Roger, a young Englishman, hopes to establish a relation- ship with Leela, Tekchand's daughter.
In both stories, the Indian characters find themselves in conflict with their racial roles and instincts. Murari patiently evokes the realities of trade unions, work and the tangled threads of prejudice and fear, and even though Roger is not much more than a pleasant nonentity as a character, he also manages to establish the boy's affair with Leela surprisingly well. The two stories merge in a clever and plausible climax, as a result of which Tekchand is blackmailed into dropping his case against the racketeers, and Leela is forced to leave Roger in order to play her role as the submissive daughter. In the respective failures of Tekchand and his daughter, the novel acknowledges the obstinate strength of racial identities. It is convincing because of the author's sincerity and sympathy in dealing with all the main characters. NEW STATESMAN.
-The tragedy is in the contrast between the Indian islanders and the native ones, between a closed primitive mentality and an environment that rejects them. THE SUNDAY STATESMAN, Calcutta.
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Published: Macmillan UK.
-'a classic piece of reporting on the young of Liverpool 8'. THE GUARDIAN.
The New Savages would hardly amount to much as fiction, if it were not for its threatening status as fact. Timeri Murari's documentary novel of teenage violence, in Liverpool could be described as a workmanlike job: its generalisations are of the kind one might find in an intelligent newspaper, and its psychological and physical particularities offer little imaginative stimulus. But this would be to ignore the strengths of the book. It presents convincingly the language, the values and the rhythm of a world of ghetto life which the contemporary novel has rarely managed to penetrate. The act of attention that preceded its writing called for a sustained sympathy for which we should be grateful. Perhaps I've just read too much fiction which is a celebration of the author's intelligence and sensitivity, or a release of his resentments, but I was thankful for a novelist who tried to present characters who were not projections of himself. THE TABLET
-The author spent two months in the area in an attempt to understand the subtle but dangerous change from traditional adolescent gang fighting over territory to the new battles over race. He has one immense advantage over most social scientists in that he writes easily and well. The book is recommended for its sensitive handling of the feelings of young blacks growing up in the slums of our cities. TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT.
-The New Savages bears the marks of one who has spent months on location researching and he manages to characterize the anxiety and enjoyment of routine violence without patronising or glamorising adolescent energy. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.
The publication of this book was opposed by people who are deeply concerned and involved in the whole Liverpool scene, and possess a much more comprehensive knowledge of the ghetto situation there than Timeri Murari could have accumulated in his admirable two months of round-the-clock investigation. Nevertheless this prophetic state- ment on conditions there ought to reach a wide public. Liverpool is but a microcosm of our national situation.
Through the pages of this book one lives the homely experiences of white and black teenagers in two whole days of their Jives. And one comes from it appalled by the black despair that has settled like a cloud in this problem area.
The choice of material for the book has obviously been selective, creating fictitious types like Marko, the half- caste, experiencing the conflict of uncertain parentage, tender towards the ageing aunt who cares for him, tough with his black peers and in their company moving slowly towards self-destrucpon, and Bicklo, the cocky leader of the, white gang of Boot Boys, who move from their territory in constant street-fighting with the black people. Trenchy is caught continuously in this ferment of strife and crime. He typifies the struggle of many of his generation, who wrestle alone with a current which exerts a steady downward pull into the vortex of violence and crime around them. The white negro sensitivity is daily brutalised in the dirt and squalor of a senseless existence where he searches faces for meaning. As night comes down in the end of a forty-eight hour vigil in their ghettoes, the reader jolts to an ending. He is left with a host of unanswered questions and a desire for further knowledge and discussion. FRONTIER
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-3398653882951269602020-04-26T22:43:00.002-07:002020-04-26T23:03:19.387-07:00INTERVIEW ON THE FINAL CONTAGION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-29861726966415974822020-04-12T22:53:00.003-07:002020-04-26T22:40:12.982-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB9UfrKwTow15VVl_NAK1NXz9jSAGlI1-KxaCLX0t_d98-zTQu0oPVGaEp1oCkSFw7ovVNJ3uFLQAmfH7XB4JhOlND3qUMq5QnaSpMgL9dTuVV7aAQICetn2n4gHwB80xgB-YZfGU2_a4/h120/cover+final+contagion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="gp-O-x" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB9UfrKwTow15VVl_NAK1NXz9jSAGlI1-KxaCLX0t_d98-zTQu0oPVGaEp1oCkSFw7ovVNJ3uFLQAmfH7XB4JhOlND3qUMq5QnaSpMgL9dTuVV7aAQICetn2n4gHwB80xgB-YZfGU2_a4/h120/cover+final+contagion.jpg" style="height: 120px; left: 0px; top: 0px; transform: rotate(0deg); width: 81px;" width="80" /></a>THE FINAL CONTAGION.<br />
LUME BOOKS, UK, has just re-published my plague novel, THE OBLIVION TAPES. It was first published in the US/UK and German in 1978. The new title as you can see is THE FINAL CONTAGION.<br />
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Why I wrote it: .</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">Back in the 1976, I remember reading a study, <i>Population Resources Environment</i> by Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. It was a massive study, very complex and thoroughly researched which warned about the possibility of a conflict between the rich and poor nations for diminishing natural recourses. The authors did not suggest genocide. But I thought then, with the exploding population, there was a possibility of forces trying to control the growth. When I wrote the novel, the theme became darker that there would be some drastic action one day. My novel was a warning. My friends who read the early drafts asked me not to publish it. However, an American, British and a German publisher bought the rights.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">To be honest, I had forgotten about that novel after 40 years until the Coronovirus struck the world. I do not see the virus as fulfilling my prescient thoughts back then. However, with climate change today a major concern for human survival, I think now it is nature striking back as us. I wanted that novel republished, as I believe even more that we are all reaching a tipping point in our survival, and the world may end with my novel’s prediction.</span></div>
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-78749929673700208542019-10-23T23:27:00.001-07:002019-10-23T23:28:11.104-07:00GUNBOAT JACK, A NOVEL.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Situated in the literary landscape that encompasses E.M.
Forster's Passage to India, this brilliant magical novel is about the clash of
two cultures - ancient India and modern West - carried out in an epic struggle
that is at once part mythic, heroic past and the everyday present.<br />
At the book's centre if Nicky, the young Prince of Tandhapur, on the edge of
manhood, torn between his roots as an Indian aristocrat and his western
education, passionately devoted to his family's pride, power and dignity in an
India that is fast abolishing the role of rajahs.<br />
Nicky's father has allowed the control of his family, its fortune. The great
palace itself with its splendours and Victorian opulence, to pass into the
hands of his English advisor and mistress, Miss Hobbs. A woman of singular
determination and boundless ambition, she has cut the Rajah off from his own
children, even from the old Rani; from everyone in fact, except Nicky, who sets
out to regain his heritage and defeat the invader.<br />
But the time is 1952, not 1542, Nicky's ally is not a Mongol prince but a
stranded American boxer. His test of courage is not a duel with jewelled swords
but a boxing match with Miss Hobbs's son, a match which gradually comes to
signify all the tensions and conflicts of India and of the family, embracing
the Rajah himself, his bullying mistress, the young princess who has to choose
between a western education and an arranged marriage, the fate if the American
boxer, who is in love with an Anglo-Indian girl, and above all the future of
Nicky himself.<br />
Filled with rich, sensuous, potent scenes and images, fast paced, deeply
moving, romantic and gripping, Field of Honour is a major work of fiction.</div>
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<span style="color: #464440;"><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Graham
Greene</span></strong><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> 'I was very much
impressed.’</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">-Hugely dramatic, thrilling
indeed. </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">FINANCIAL
TIMES</span></strong><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">-Murari can set an exotic
scene, enrich it with romantic intrigue, and power it with a dramatic climax. A
good novel about man's basic struggle against society, his fellow man and
himself. For readers who want suspense with sustenance- </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">LIBRARY JOURNAL</span></strong><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">-A first rate story-teller
makes the most of the incongruity of circumstances. -</span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">DAILY TELEGRAPH</span></strong></span><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.<br />
-A backwater setting with fascinating characters is brought to life here by
skilful, good old-fashioned story telling. </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">PUBLISHERS WEEKLY</span></strong><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">-Timeri Murari's </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">FIELD OF HONOUR</span></strong><span style="font-family: "verdana";">,
starts at a disarming level. However, some 70 pages into the story, it quickly
acquires grip and subtlety. Murari's use of language is accurate and skilled,
and his story is satisfyingly well told. </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">TIMES
EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT</span></strong><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">-There are insightful
observations, like the author's delicate delineation of the position of the
English in the twilight zone of postpartition India or the small details of
life in the rajah's household he provides. </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></strong></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">- He focuses on two groups of
misfits in the new India. The Anglo-Indians talk of England as 'home' yet are
reluctant to leave for a land they don't know. And the native aristocracy that
has absorbed (and been corrupted by?) the western values of its colonial masters
lives uneasily in this fledgling socialist democracy. Murari links these two
worlds with Gunboat Jack, a spent American boxer who is stranded in Bangalore,
where he lives restlessly with the Anglo-Indian community. This is a
fascinating tale, powerfully told. </span><strong><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif";">THE
COURIER-JOURNAL</span></strong><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="bodytext1"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440; font-family: "verdana";">-Like filmmaker Jean Cocteau Murari believes every man
has his reasons. This is a story of aristocratic cruelty and nobility, of
ancient traditions meeting modern exigencies, told so swiftly and well. </span></span></span><strong><span style="color: #464440; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">THE
CHARLOTTE NEWS</span></strong><span class="bodytext1"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #464440; font-family: "verdana";">. </span></span></span><br />
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-28884185921207702232019-07-16T22:50:00.001-07:002019-07-16T22:50:59.210-07:00EMPRESS OF THE TAJ, INSEARCH OF MUMTAZ MAHAL.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I will tell you the story of this
woman Arjumand and how she loved and how she eventually died, but first you
must travel with me over 2000 miles through the cities and villages and jungles
of India by train and bus. It will be a journey that will take you many weeks
and three hundred and fifty years….<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">An extraordinary book that combines travel- and history-writing with
brilliant storytelling to give us a portrait of Mumtaz Mahal, in whose memory
Shah Jahan built the Taj, and also a portrait of India before it was changed by
liberalization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the early 1980s, researching for his bestselling novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TAJ</i>, author Timeri Murari began the
first of his journeys in the footsteps of Arjumand Banu, the precocious daughter
of a Mughal nobleman. Arjumand went on to become Mumtaz Mahal, chief consort of
the Emperor Shah Jahan, and empress of the Mughal kingdom until her death in
1861, giving birth to their fourteenth child. Over the next two decades, the
grieving Emperor had the Taj Mahal built in her memory – their final resting
place, and the world’s most enduring symbol of love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Timeri went on his journeys at a time before air travel was common in
India, when they were protracted affairs and undertaken mostly by train. Accompanying
him was his wife Maureen and sister Nalini, his talismans in the face of the
many difficulties that travel in India throws up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In these travels of discovery—in Delhi; in
Agra, the centre of Mughal power and site of the Taj Mahal; in the desert cities
of Rajasthan, where Shah Jahan waged campaigns, Mumtaz Mahal at his side; and
in Burhanpur in the Deccan, where the empress breathed her last – the author
found fascinating glimpses of an empire at its zenith, and of consuming love.
Intertwined with these insights were the shabby realities of modern India – the
obstinacies of the bureaucracy that controls monuments, the industries which
deface them, and a citizenry that remains unaware of its own history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A brilliant meld of travel and history writing, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empress of the Taj</i>, is not only the story of a fabled queen, and
the magnificient obsessions of royalty; it is also an invaluable record of a
lost era of India.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Publisher: Speaking Tiger. </span><a href="http://www.speakingtigerbooks.com/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">www.speakingtigerbooks.com</span></span></a> or Amazon.</div>
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</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
</div>
<o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 0cm;">
<a href="https://scroll.in/author/17350"><i><span style="color: #ff5722; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Anodya Mishra</span></i></a><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">
Scroll In<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Travellers
and tourists from around the world visit India every year to savour a view of
the iconic Taj Mahal. The white marble mausoleum was commissioned in 1632 by
the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. For almost four centuries now, it has been
sitting on the banks of Yamuna in Agra, telling the tale of Shah Jahan’s love
for his wife Mumtaz. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">While
the world considers it a symbol of a man’s undying love for his wife, it is
also perhaps an embodiment of the power an emperor possessed to build one of
the greatest monuments ever. However, the story of the woman who lies in this
tomb has been lost in the pages of history. Her identity is associated with her
death, and any signs of her life before the Taj was known is associated with
her husband. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Thus,
it is her voice that is the subject of Timeri N Murari’s quest in </span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Empress of the Taj: In
Search of Mumtaz Mahal</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">.
Essentially, the book is an account of Murari’s travels around India searching
for bits and pieces of information on Mumtaz Mahal, which helped him write his
earlier book, </span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Taj: A
Story of Mughal India</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">, back in 1985.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">So,
Murari, who has spent much of his working life in the UK and America, travels
through the hills and plains of India, in both comfortable and harsh
conditions, searching for his muse, Arjumand, who is remembered by the world
today as empress Mumtaz Mahal. He shuttles between the past and the present,
constantly drawing himself back to his protagonist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The
search for Arjumand takes him on a tour around the Mughal capitals of Delhi and
Agra, the Rajputana territories of Udaipur, Ajmer, and Jaipur and finally,
towards the last leg of his journey, Murari visits Burhanpur, Arjumand’s
initial resting place. The book doesn’t attempt to stick to one theme and
explores a mosaic instead. Travelling as he was in the 1980s, Murari uses both
memory and immediacy to write of his journey and, in the process, provide a
glimpse of modern India more than three decades ago. His troubles with the
Indian Railways, encounter with riots, conversations with unemployed youth,
accounts of nepotism and politics, and his love for the grandiosity of royals,
are all intermingle here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 3; text-indent: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Ghosts of the past<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">“History,
as I am to gradually discover as I excavate a shard of our past, is either
gossip fashioned into fact, or worse, outright distortion...”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Unlike
many historians (and like some novelists), Murari has a romantic take on
history. He writes in a Herodotean style – one which looks at history as an art
– rather than the scientific Thucydidean one. With Arjumand being the focus of
Murari’s research, it is no surprise that history is viewed romantically. But
does he take this approach just for the purposes of writing this book? Or is it
simply easier to view the past through the lenses of nostalgia, romance, and
beauty?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Travelling
around Delhi towards the beginning of his journey, Murari gives his readers a
history lesson. Describing the changing landscape of Delhi from a mud
settlement to a thriving capital, Murari writes, “No one knows when mud turned
to brick and when the name changed but here Delhis lie on Delhis”. This refers
to the seven historical cities of Delhi, which are today divided into
administrative districts of the same city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">What is
fascinating is that while Murari travelled around these cities almost 40 years ago,
his experiences leave you with an uncanny feeling that alternates between
“nothing has changed” and “it has been a lifetime”. One is bound to travel
through space and time and get muddled somewhere in this transition while
reading this account because, on the one hand, Murari travels in the 1980s
while reminiscing the 1600s, and on the other hand, we are reading this account
almost forty years later, in the 21st century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Murari’s
own observation about the past is worth noting. He writes, “The past, not only
here but everywhere in the world, comes down to us in fragments, bits of a
puzzle we piece together”. Here, Arjumand is the puzzle that has taken over his
mind, and he is trying to search for fragments of her and put them together. He
feels her ghostly presence everywhere he travels and “with the romantic
imagination of a novelist”, he attempts to set up a narrative around the
purpose of her presence in each of the places he visits. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">On
approaching their guest house in Mandu, which lies amidst the ruins of another
forgotten empire, Murari “imagines himself ensconced in those rooms sitting on
the balcony and listening to the ghostly music and laughter”. However, his
perception of reality is far removed from the actual surroundings – his wife
and his sister aren’t too keen on dining with ghosts and sleeping in rooms
infested by mice and prefer to spend the night in a place away from the ruins. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3 style="line-height: 115%; margin: 1em 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Living and dying a nomad <o:p></o:p></span></span></h3>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">“Briefly,
in death as in life, she led a nomadic existence but then as the marble sarcophagus
settled down with her, eternity claimed her forever...”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Murari
travels through India, his homeland, in search of Arjumand, an empress who was
travelling around the same places hundreds of years ago. Arjumand came from the
family of a Persian nobleman who had yet travelled all the way from Persia to
the Mughal Empire in search of a better life. She had married into the royal
Mughal family, who traced their lineage to the nomadic tribe of Mongols.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Thus,
Arjumand’s life, by birth and by marriage, was supposed to be a nomadic one;
but was her death to be nomadic too? She died in Burhanpur, far from her native
land of Persia. There her body rested for a few years, before being transferred
to another temporary tomb in Agra, and finally being buried in Taj Mahal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Arjumand’s
nomadic existence reminds Murari of his own life. He writes, “What better proof
of our nomadic existence than my mother’s death in Lahore, 2000 kilometers from
our ancestral home in Madras.” Paralleling Arjumand’s life with his own, Murari
seems to be searching for his own self and for stories from his past through
this journey. There is constant banter between him and his sister throughout
the journey as they try to locate their collective memories in their individual
ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Being
the child of a government employee, Murari had had a fair share of moving
around, leaving him with fragments of memories from everywhere and a feeling of
uncertainty about home. However, during one of his journeys, his wife Maureen
is engulfed with a sense of foreignness while traveling in India. At that
instance, a realisation dawns upon him when he writes, “India can never
frighten me. I suppose that is the definition, for me, of home”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Murari’s
search for Arjumand ends with Burhanpur. As they near Burhanpur, Murari has
second thoughts about visiting the her first grave. He considers letting
Burhanpur remain a “figment of his imagination and a figment of India’s memory,
long forgotten on the banks of Tapti”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Droid Serif"; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">However,
after his initial apprehensions, when he is finally standing at the tomb with
the sun setting, there is a deep sense of closure in the reader’s mind.
Murari’s “private pilgrimage” comes to an end. He makes one final journey the
next day, early in the morning, to look at the grave a second time, this time
all by himself. “The grave begins another day of solitude on earth, protecting
nothing, marking nothing but memory”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
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</o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-73116199469684586972019-04-03T23:52:00.000-07:002019-04-03T23:52:10.844-07:00A COUNTRY OF NO RETURN Chapter one.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A COUNTRY OF NO RETURN<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">TIMERI N MURARI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">-The
Struggle of Man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Milan Kundera<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">THE DEPARTURE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The man, David Richelieu, knowing he was going to his
own execution for unspecified crimes, looked down at the sleeping woman. Her
hair, revealing white at the roots, shielded half her face, tousled from a
restless night; her breath shallow, gently reassuring. He bent, breathed in the
perfume, and kissed the air goodbye. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was early morning, the light muted
by the shades, as he moved to the door. A stocky man, broad shouldered, unruly
grey hair, was surprisingly light on his feet, not a rustle of sound as he
stepped into the corridor. He patted the pockets of his summer jacket, wrinkled
and a size too large to check he had his passport and wallet. The gift was in
the inner pocket. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had a new phone,
the old one hidden in a suitcase, switched off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times, he could be absent-minded, but on
this day he was alert to the possibilities of a fatal error. He walked out of
the hotel to a near deserted city, stepping out of a long darkness into the
light, tensing for the journey ahead. His hired car was parked down a side
street with the overnight case in the boot. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He had not told Marge of his planned misadventure.
She would have wanted to accompany him, a sprightly woman who loved him and
accompanied him everywhere. They were on vacation, sleeping late, seeing the
sights, indulging their appetites for wine and good food. When she woke, she
would believe he had gone for the morning newspaper and would join her for
breakfast. If he wasn’t there, she would start searching for him, pacing the
room, calling reception, calling the embassy, calling the tour organisers,
calling the police finally when she could not find him. She would not panic,
not just yet, allow him a day or two to find his way back or get in touch. She
knew at times he needed his solitude and would vanish, then return with no
explanation, relaxed, as if nothing had happened. He did not have a lover; she
was positive of that but never understood what he did on these excursions. Just
the need to think something through, he would reply and she accepted the
explanation. He was a thinker, after all, a man with a past. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The drive had taken longer than he
had calculated, nine hours, not six, as road works were in progress just as he
had started out, and was trapped him in the traffic back up. The road leading
to the border was only two lanes and he had to drive carefully, as the trucks
and cars raced with the familiarity of knowing the idiosyncrasies of the route
too well. Two hours out the traffic thinned, an occasional truck, then just the
quiet hum of the car, the warm breeze through the window, lulling his senses. He
was enjoying the drive through the forest, keeping within the speed limit,
suspicious of police speed cameras. He stopped at a village hotel for lunch,
putting on sunglasses and pulling the fedora low over his head and, as he was
ahead of schedule, rented a room to nap. He had slept badly, anticipating this
journey, mentally preparing himself for it. He woke late evening, checked the
time and continued his journey. Darkness came swiftly, only the intensity of
the headlamps drew him along the winding road. He peered to look up, a clear
sky, the half moon and the stars without light pollution so visible. The radio
had long fallen silent as he moved further from the city, and he hummed to keep
concentrated. It was nearing four in the morning, when he stopped at a curve,
got out and walked down the road, past the bend, and saw the border check post.
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He remained watching a long time,
deciding whether to drive on or drive back. He had come this far, and saw no
harm in crossing and finding a good hotel in the city. His passport was in his
inside pocket, it had a valid visa. A good man, the vice president marketing
for CCP International, selling its financial products – investments, start ups,
inside information – to clients around the world. A successful corporate type,
bland, ambitious only for his success, one day elevated to President of CCP
International, if all went well. The corporate world as dangerous as the real
one in manouvering for power. This journey was a break from business, a private
holiday to explore the beautiful capital with its wide roads, monuments, cafes,
museums and expensive whores. No, he had no meetings planned, no investment
opportunities to sell, his diary blank for the next two days. But should he
meet, by chance,a possible client, he had a list of these investment and start
ups memorized, every one of them bonafide, not cons, easily checked by reading
the financial papers or online. Even a call to the CCP Inc. head office would
vouch for his authenticity. The switchboard would connect the caller to his
office, a secretary would regret that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>David Richelieu was on vacation and back next week.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I am David Richelieu, vice president
of CCP International,’ he said out aloud to the night, speaking to the trees,
the bushes, up to the starry sky. Fading now, as the dawn light had begun to
steal away the magic of night. He spoke to reassure himself, to be what he was,
and returned to the car, the motor still idling as he hadn’t wanted to break
the silence by starting up. It would be heard miles away, and knew why he had
taken such precautions. He treasured silence, the hum of insects, the first
stirrings of the birds, waking from their sleep, even the trees reaching out to
the early light. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He drove slowly, almost coasting to
the border post, his lights off. The wall emerged gradually from the
surrounding grey light. He had seen photographs of it, looking so much like
other walls, built to last centuries- the great wall visible from the
moon,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>walls of ancient forts, long
breeched by invaders, inhabitants salughtered, the walls of prisons too to
incarcerate men, and women. As the first rays of sunlight touched the wall, he
saw that it was made of steel and granite, at least fifteen foot high, an
admirable wall, topped with barbed wire, that guarded the borders of this
nation as far as he could see. It followed the jagged imaginary line drawn on a
map to define the nation’s existence. It didn’t inspire, it filled him with
despair at such a world that imprisoned itself to keep out the alien. That was
the nature of all walls, to keep the outsider out, the insider in. The wall was
now 17-years-old, a new born, and had weathered well, formidable and
impregnable. In far distance he saw the camps of those excluded, desperate to
enter a promised land, praying that wall would vanish when it heard their
incantations and chants. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He imagined the
children, mothers and fathers staring all day at this barrier in their lives.
In a forgotten age, a trumpet blast disintegrated a great wall. Once, before
the wall, there was a view of fields, villages and in the hazy distance the
hint of a city just below the horizon. There was a break in the uniformity of
the wall, a metal barrier, wide enough for a motorcar to slip through and on
the other side, the border control office. To right side of the post, half way
up the wall was the signboard, blurred by the rain and heat, concealed by
weeds, no longer proud of boasting to the outside world<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Welcome to AKRANDAH.’ Now, that was another
country, obscured too by the passage of time, the wall and just a memory and a
longing.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He stopped the car at the border
post, got out, stretching, as a border guard came out of the office, stifling a
yawn, rubbing sleep from his eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
second one stood at the barrier, already waiting to lift it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He took out his passport, ready to hand it
over. The guard took it, opening the pages slowly, finding the visa, comparing
his face to the photo. He went to the office, took out the stamp and placed the
seal on the page. The barrier lifted. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just beyond it, Richelieu caught sight of a
man walking towards the post, purposefully. He looked straight at Richlieu as
he neared and Richlieu knew that someone had betrayed him.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-40459452316439047602018-12-23T21:19:00.003-08:002018-12-23T21:19:58.730-08:00ART OF THE BRIBE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
Like many Indians, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
try to have as little personal contact with our bureaucracy. Keeping them at
digital arm’s length works best for me. They’re disembodied, like my tax man or
woman, whom I never have to set eyes on or sit across the table. I don’t have
the necessary crores to perk up their interest.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
Unfortunately, for something legal, I had to break my
aversion for personal contacts. I need a piece of paper signed by someone. I visit
the authority closest to my address. It’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a neglected building set in an unkempt compound;
a few stray dogs wander around, two women sit by the gate, well endowed ones
too in lovely sarees. They have a stack of forms for sale and offered me
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entrance is crowded with many
women, clutching papers, the currency to enter. Here is humanity pressing to
beseech the inhumanity of our state for a favour. There is no gate keeper.
Inside, stacked against the walls are large bales, piled high to ceiling,
leaving a narrow passage for suplicants to pass. I ask for directions and as pointed
up the stairs. Here too are these bales; they flow into the office of the man I
need to see. A narrow gap leads to the chair opposite him. He is immaculate in
a safari suit, princely at a vacant desk. I tell him my simple needs; he
understands and asks for 5,000 to do the needful. I didn’t have it. I invoke
the name of our PM Narender Modi as a mantra but it fails to have the desired
affect with the official. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll have the paper ready. I
return to same press of humanity milling around, he presenteds me with the paper;
I reluctantly pass him the bribe for it. It turns out, he is the wrong man in
the wrong office and refuses to return the money. He promises to help me with
my quest, however. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
I discovered the city is divided into minor kingdoms, and
you have to know where the palace of your needs lies. My palace is on a busy
main road, not far from home, with three tea kadais lined up outside, taking up
the pavement space, as guardians. At one of them, a young man sells single
cigarettes, teas and biscuits. More humanity mills here and at least the office
looks recently built and maintained. Here too are bales and curiosity breaks through
- they are filled with dhotis and sarees as pongal gifts for ration card
holders only, I’m informed. There is a minor fortune of freebees along the
walls. I wander down a corridor to the left of the entrance. One side, a large
space, glassed in, furnished with rows of desks. On each desk, files a foot
high, all held together by a grey ribbon. At the last desk, a man is diligently
tearing strips off a grey nylon sack and using that to bind the files.So much
for red tape; I am in a world of grey ones. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the right are the closed doors with the
titles of the many princes who rule this kingdom. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
The official I need sits at a desk behind the glass divider.
He’s slim, in a bush shirt, trousers, a look of infinite patience. He is the
direct connect with those pressing for needs and not protected by the closed
doors of his princes. Yes, I am in the right office for what I need. It will
take some days; fill in the form, proof of identity and wait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has to visit me at home to confirm I am who
I said I am and live at that address. But, as always, there is a price for his
services. The paper I needed was free, gratis of a generous government, but his
services need some gratification. There is no point invoking our PM eradicating
corruption. There is no fear for the demand, matter-of-fact, well rehearsed.
Either or at the end of his sentence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
a legal right to the paper I want, it makes no difference; he’s a busy man, the
files piled high on his desk too, and over flowing from cupboards behind him. Demonetisation
be damned, my weekly pocket money from my account for the week is below his
demand. He’ll wait for me to accumulate enough. I am now a fellow corrupter;
it’s not a role I want. For him, like the majority of our bureaucrats,
corruption is genetic. It is his legal right to demand it for performing a
legal act. It’s not only him, it’s in all our psyches – politicians, business
person, even the poorest farmer, labourer. We conspire together to feed the
insatiable appetites of those demanding payments, over and above their safe
salaries, lifelong employment while we, outside this privileged circle, have to
meet their hunger for black money. But he’ll start the work. Stay at home, I’ll
come he says, not saying which day. Tomorrow, maybe. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
He comes mid-afternoon, riding pillion on a scooter, driven
by the man who sells cigarettes and biscuits. They are an inseparable duo, I
discover. Questions asked are answered and noted; identity confirmed, aadhar,
but no ration card. That disappoints him; it looks serious from the dour look.
He loves ration cards, and not new fangled ones like passports. It will have to
do, as he gathers more evidence, meticulous as detective accumulating evidence
against me. I may be found guilty of not enough paper to fill the government
requires, reams more needed it turns out over the days. The tea kadai is the
go-between when my official isn’t to be found. He knows his whereabouts, has
his cell number, and reports to me his exact movements, like a good GPS. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
Finally, the day comes – the paper I want is ready. I have
the money, the official holds the paper. He wants the money first, I want the
paper first. We have a Mexican stand of. He is aggrieved – you don’t trust me.
I have to smile at his plaintive tone, here he is demanding money, committing a
crime, and I am to trust an amoral man. And I am one too, so we’re at stand
still. Tea Kadai intervenes, it is his role. He will take the money, and I am
given a copy of my paper. Tea man tells my official he has it, the official
hands over my paper. It’s what I needed, it has all the stamps, looking as
authentic are new 2000 rupee note, I think. He’s richer; I’m poorer as I leave
the office. I hope I never have to visit another office again. I just can’t
afford it.</div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-8454025801737417212018-12-20T21:53:00.002-08:002018-12-20T21:53:58.256-08:00TAJ A story of Mughal India.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh4RYXs5zhInGCGYqCorUJEjHVoCZfYD-Vh0Hl9r9JRH8fWdKKKqmRx9GegNAL4-opEr-ai9Q8AEGesw2pqicufNzFbXoJvnxXz0IhOA8VsPyDfAJH_9PGnCf4j8LHU5FG-4Y6uDQg5r0/s1600/cover+Aleph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="419" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh4RYXs5zhInGCGYqCorUJEjHVoCZfYD-Vh0Hl9r9JRH8fWdKKKqmRx9GegNAL4-opEr-ai9Q8AEGesw2pqicufNzFbXoJvnxXz0IhOA8VsPyDfAJH_9PGnCf4j8LHU5FG-4Y6uDQg5r0/s320/cover+Aleph.png" width="209" /></a></div>
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<strong><i><span style="color: #393d41; font-size: 12.5pt;">blurb as on Goodreads……….</span></i></strong><i><span style="color: #393d41; font-size: 12.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">When his queen, Arjumand Banu –
Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the Chosen One of the Palace – died, Shah Jahan wanted to build
a monument that was the image of his perfect love for her. For twenty-two
years, twenty thousand men labored day and night to fulfill the emperor’s
obsession. The result was the Taj Mahal, a marble mausoleum lined with gold,
silver and precious jewels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">This powerful novel narrates the story
of the Taj on two parallel levels. The first one tells the passionate love
story of Shah Jahan and Arjumand till her death through the voices of three
main characters – Arjumand, Shah Jahan and Isa, Arjumand’s favorite eunuch. The
second recounts the later years of Shah Jahan’s reign, the building of the Taj
Mahal and the bloody pursuit of the fabled Peacock Throne by his sons.
Intertwined with the narrative about the building of the Taj is the story of
Murthi, the Hindu craftsman sent as a gift to the emperor to carve the famous
marble jali around Arjumands sarcophagus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">In this complex and fascinating book,
Murari has written much more than a historical romance. He has skillfully
recreated the period against which the story is set: the opulence of the palace
and the grinding poverty of seventeenth-century India, the vicissitudes of Shah
Jahan’s reign and the often bitter conflict between men of different faiths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<strong><i><span style="color: #393d41; font-size: 12.5pt;">review………….</span></i></strong><i><span style="color: #393d41; font-size: 12.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The mask is off-
the charm is wrought-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">And Seh Jehan to his heart has caught,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">His Mumtaz Mahal, his Haram’s Light!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">And well do vanish’d frowns enhance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The charm of every brighten’d glance,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">And dearer seems each dawning smile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">For having lost its light awhile,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">And, happier now, for all her sighs,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">As on his arm, her head reposes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">She whispers to him, with laughing eyes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">“Remember, love, the Feast of Roses.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">With a flair and enthusiasm for history
and culture, Murari creates a story full of rich details that bring the reader
deep into the world of the lives of Indian emperors and their struggles for
power and consequence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">While Galileo suffered under house
arrest at the hands of Pope Urban VIII, the Thirty Years War ruined Europe, and
the Pilgrims struggled to survive in the New World, work began on what would
become one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the Taj Mahal. Built by the
Moghul emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, its
flawless symmetry and gleaming presence have for centuries dazzled everyone who
has seen it, and the story of its creation is a fascinating blend of cultural
and architectural heritage. Yet, as Timeri Murari vividly convey in the first
narrative history of the Taj, it also reflects the magnificent history of the
Moghul Empire itself, for it turned out to mark the high point of the Empire’s
glory at the same time as it became a tipping point in Moghul fortunes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The roots of the Moghul Empire lie with
the legendary warriors Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine; at its height, it
contained 100 million people, from Afghanistan in the north and present-day
Pakistan in the west, to Bengal in the east and southwards deep into central India…
With the storytelling skills that characterize his previous books, Murari
brings alive both the grand sweep of Moghul history and the details that make
it memorable: the battles and dynastic rivalries that forged the Empire
alongside an intimate chronicle of daily life within the imperial palace. A
tale of overwhelming passion, the story of the Taj has the cadences of Greek
tragedy and the ripe emotion of grand opera and puts a memorable human face on
the marble masterpiece.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">In 1631, the heartbroken Moghul Emperor,
Shah Jahan, ordered the construction of a monument of unsurpassed splendor and
majesty in memory of his beloved wife. Theirs was an extraordinary story of
passionate love: although almost constantly pregnant – she bore him fourteen
children – Mumtaz Mahal followed her husband on every military campaign, in
order that they might never be apart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">But then Mumtaz died in childbirth.
Blinded by grief, Shah Jahan created an exquisite and extravagant memorial for
her on the banks of the river Jumna. A gleaming mausoleum of flawless symmetry,
the Taj Mahal was built from milk-white marble and rose sandstone, and studded
with a fortune in precious jewels. It took twenty years to complete and
involved over 20,000 laborers, depleting the Moghul treasuries. But Shah Jahan
was to pay a greater price for his obsession. He ended his days imprisoned by
his own son in Agra Fort, gazing across the river at the monument to his love.
The building of the Taj Mahal had set brother against brother and son against
father in a savage conflict that pushed the seventeenth century’s most powerful
empire into irreversible decline.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The story behind the Taj Mahal has the
cadences of Greek tragedy, the carnage of a Jacobean revenge play and the ripe
emotion of grand opera. With the storytelling skills that characterize their
previous books, in this compelling narrative history, Timeri Murari succeeds in
putting a revealing human face on the famous marble masterpiece.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">Skillfully blending the textures of
historical reality with the rich and sensual imaginings of a timeless fairy
tale, <i>Taj</i> sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of
Khurram and Arjumand’s embattled love. First-time novelist Timeri Murari charts
his heroine’s enthralling journey through the years, from an ill-fated first
marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and
political machinations. Through it, all, Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan long with
fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they’ve never known — and their
mutual quest ultimately take them, and the vast empire that hangs in the
balance, to places they never dreamed possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">Shot through with wonder and
suspense, <i>Taj</i> is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman’s
convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the
astonishing potency of love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The Moghul emperors are still
bloodthirsty and entirely ruthless; they control a quarter of the world’s
population and have wealth beyond imagining. But this is the final flowering of
a doomed empire and, while Shah Jahan mourns his dead wife and obsesses over
the Taj Mahal, her monument, his son Aurangzeb is planning to take his father’s
throne, by any means necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">Critically acclaimed author Murari picks
up where he left off, returning to seventeenth-century India as two princesses
struggle for supremacy of their father’s kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">Trapped in the shadow of the magnificent
tomb their grief-stricken father is building for his beloved deceased wife, the
emperor’s daughters compete for everything: control over the imperial harem,
their father’s affection, and the future of their country. They are forbidden
to marry and instead choose to back different brothers in the fight for
ultimate power over the throne. But only one of the sisters will succeed. With
an enthusiasm for history and a flair for rich detail, Timeri Murari brings
readers deep into the complicated lives of Indian women of the time period and
highlights the profound history of one of the most celebrated works of
architecture in the world, the Taj Mahal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The daughters of Emperor Jahangir,
Jahanara and Roshanara, plot and scheme against one another in an attempt to
gain power over their father’s harem. As royal princesses, they are confined in
the imperial harem and not allowed to marry. However, this does not stop them
from having illicit affairs or plotting the next heir to the throne. These
royal sisters are in competition for everything: power over the harem, their
father’s affection (still focused on his dead wife), and the future of their
country. Unfortunately, only one of them can succeed. And, despite their best
efforts to affect the future, their schemes are eclipsed, both during their
lives and in posterity, as they live in the shadow of the greatest monument in
Indian history, the Taj Mahal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">In Taj, we meet the great Mumtaz
Mahal, known for both her beauty and the beauty that stood for her and in her
respect- taj mahal. the author beautifully explains the story of Mumtaz Mahal
as a wife of Shah Jahan and the mother of his sons and daughters, and the
royal, imperial and remarkable character of the power of jahanara begum – the
only Mughal woman to write a spiritual treatise on Sufism, the sister of
Aurangzeb and the padshah begum after Mumtaz’s era and Shah Jahan’s favourite
child, owner of the most lucrative port in medieval India and patron of one of
its finest cities, Shahjahanabad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">Ever since I have started reading
Murari’s books – the first of which is this book itself- but only a sample
chapter on my kindle, I have become a fan of her. history is a critical subject
and more critical is it’s retelling as if you do not know the tale properly and
cannot narrate it in a gripping way then the reader would not find it
interesting. I feel it is just a cup of tea for Timeri Murari for retelling
history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">the best part of the book is its beauty
in the simplicity of language and the complex and gripping narrative. I felt
that the beauty of the enchanting narration makes the book truly a
“masterpiece”. one cannot put down the book in the middle if you have started
once. Through the characters of Arjuman and Jahanara, Murari beautifully
captures the epitome of a heroine and a “veiled” warrior and rebel, and even a
perfect daughter and a sacrificing queen. The qualities of this particular
character, the way she handles both her brain and beauty, the way her words and
tactics slash through people will truly make you enter into hero worshipping
for Jahanara and Mumtaz.<br />
for the narration, it is just mind-boggling. the way he captures each character
and emotions in their pen would leave you enthralled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">the author even beautifully sketches out
the backdrops and the intricate and intense scenes of both Mumtaz and
Jahanara’s turbulent and powerful life, of her journey from the royal power and
politics of the empire to her house arrest along with her father, will leave
you mesmerized even after you complete the book. the book truly captures your
mind and leaves a mark on your heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">the book is a fiction and it totally
stands for its genre. you would read new tales like the tales of some
characters and some fights, scenes and dialogues. still, you would never ever
feel that the book deviates from the real story, it does not, it just adds up
more spice to the real story framed in the Luminous Tomb and Padshahnama.<br />
the book is even very intensely researched for there is a lot of details about
how the Mughals lived, walked, talked and even what they wore and ate. the book
would give you every detail about the Mughal empire under the period of Shah
Jahan. the book even gives a great note on the power play and political
instability and intrigue during that turbulent times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">another perk of the book is its
philosophy. you would see a lot of beautiful ideas of philosophy hidden within
tales. the way the fight scenes are explained truly captures the full attention
of the reader. The action scenes of how the armies fought and how each step is
taken will keep you riveted till the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">the book is very meticulously researched
and this intense work is very well channeled through their extraordinary
narration and captivating plot. the intense research which even includes
English translated quoted lines from the Mughal texts like The History of
Hindostan, Storia do Mogor, Padshahnama, and others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">The very first attempt to chronicle the
woman who played a vital role in building the Mughal empire, Taj is an
illuminating and gripping history of a little-known aspect of the most
magnificent dynasty the world has ever known.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">An enchanting historical epic of grand
passion and adventure, this novel tells the captivating story of one of India’s
most unknown and hidden empresses — a woman whose brilliance and determination
trumped myriad obstacles, and whose love shaped the course of the Mughal
Empire. Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich
and sensual imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, Taj sweeps readers up in
Mumtaz’s precious love and Jahanara’s embattled and hidden love and her
powerplay and politics, and in the bedazzling destiny of a woman — a legend in
her own time — who was all but lost to history until now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZrKs36FQZsXDdBbE0WZgF-Q1MAiYsfxFnc_yod_TN9_BWhigRErYl2MJwa05pdnBOWIqRrU5bpsZZcVuKvSSgXF1UrCNC-d5z6IFXNYxpl8rLHLqu4e1HNM7FORr2QWigxtqFYaBrYg/s1600/cover+Aleph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #6a6c6e; font-size: 13pt;">the book totally is worth reading. and
if you have not read it, it is totally your huge loss. overall the book is in
simple words a “masterpiece”.a perfect tapestry of history and imagination. the
book is such a perfect piece of the whole bloody and imperial Mughal history
that I would declare it truly as a “legend in the field of history.”<br />
imaginative. intrigue. intense.<br />
I would recommend the book to all the history lovers and to everyone who loves
fiction and I am sure they would love the gripping story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-24514163424989619452017-09-04T03:01:00.001-07:002017-09-04T03:01:26.079-07:00A visit to Kumbakonam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwtjLwgqe40sRlW2CsNxUkzE1g6NEafMKC_9U5tcxLF-gTlHs8sNX0H_aX9iZrG0Vv4_J-bx8YfY19Sc_fNBcviGqHCM6kjN86bnvPfGgGQF2JirYMMn1EgfzYVfZv215wzpIv6JZUr40/s1600/WP_20170824_007%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="1600" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwtjLwgqe40sRlW2CsNxUkzE1g6NEafMKC_9U5tcxLF-gTlHs8sNX0H_aX9iZrG0Vv4_J-bx8YfY19Sc_fNBcviGqHCM6kjN86bnvPfGgGQF2JirYMMn1EgfzYVfZv215wzpIv6JZUr40/s320/WP_20170824_007%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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To promote my YA<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Axxiss</span> trilogy novels and Children’s' books, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Children of the Enchanted Jungle,</i> my publisher,
Scholastic, has me visit schools. This to both promote reading among the
children and, of course, plug my novels. The most exhausting schedule was the
one to Hyderabad – ten schools in three days. The routine is the introduction
by the older kids, 14 years old, who have scoured the internet for every scrap
of digital information on me. Sometimes, they do print up the covers of a few,
and read out a short biography of me to the audience. Then my ten to fifteen
minute talk - on the importance of reading – followed by a Q&A. The teachers
want me on the stage for this, I prefer to roam the hall with the mic to interact
with the children. They enjoy asking questions, though some are repetitious.
Some googlies though which need careful thought before I answer. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Wednesday, I catch
the night train to a Kumbakonam, 200 miles south of here. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The principal of Dr. G.S Kalyanasundram
Memorial School, Ms Bhavana Shankar, has invited me down. I met her earlier
when she was a school principal in Chennai. Froze to death in the sleeper car, 16
decrees C, so was groggy when I got there. The town has 1800 temples and is a major
pilgrimage destination for the believers. I managed to see only two of them as
we drove to the school a bit out of the town. I am used to some welcomes, this
was a major one. </div>
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The school band was lined up at
the gate and started playing when, like royalty, I descended from the auto
rickshaw with the Scholastic person. There was a large display of me, with the
titles of my novels before the school entrance and the principal came to greet
me. Children gave me roses. Ms Shankar told me that the majority of children
come from the surrounding villages. She added that they think differently from
those in Chennai schools. How different? They think out of the box, she tells
me. <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">After the chat with her,
the hall was packed with children, and some parents at the back, and even more
photos and a projection of me on the screen. </span>Two girls danced a short
Bharatanatyam, two had a singing duet, a dozen sang ‘We shall Overcome’, in
English, then a debate between the kids on e-learning or classroom learning. They
were articulate, talking without notes. </div>
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Then of course I had to talk to
them, rapt silence as the great writer spoke words of wisdom – the importance
of reading books. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After other speeches,
there was a Q&A with the kids, usually happens. The school tried to get me
on the stage but I prefer moving among the kids with a mic to close the gap.
These were good questions, out of the ordinary other kids asked and I was
impressed. A smart boy handed me a box of sweets and pointed to the cover. ‘Murari’
sweets. It was thoughtful of him to have found it, somewhere. Two girls came to
compliment me. They expected someone to wearing a suit and not be friendly. But
they said 'you are simple, and also the way you dress'. Wasn't sure how to take
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By that time exhausted so needed a
siesta in the guest house and lunch. The school hadn't warned me that I had to
talk to the teachers on how to teach. How would I know? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I have 40, all women, waiting for my
lessons. One teacher, dutifully put up her hand to ask me a question. ‘How do
you keep a child quiet for ten minutes?’ I hadn’t the faintest idea, and winged
it that she should read or sing to them. Apart from that, the teachers were
less curious then the kids. Then I had to catch the night train back to
Chennai, didn't freeze this time but can never sleep well. I used to in my
school days but age has caught up. </div>
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-80156407577014789232017-08-22T02:29:00.000-07:002017-08-22T02:31:17.890-07:00WE'RE NIGGERS ALL, MAN<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Years ago, I spent an evening with the American comedian/activist Dick Gregory. He died a few years back. WHat he said then is still so pertinent to America today. Tragically!<br />
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WE’RE NIGGERS ALL, MAN.</div>
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The thin cop is looking worried. He keeps adjusting his
glasses as he hovers behind Dick Gregory’sbroad back at the post Frost on
Friday studio party. A plump Zapata-moustached producer hovers behind the cop.
Dick stops talking to find out what is happening. ‘Evening sir, local police.
I’m afraid you’ll have to leave by the back as we’ve had word some blokes are
coming to have a rumble with you.’ The producer relaxes as Dick nods,
unsmiling, and says he’ll leave. David ambles over, anaemic with make-up, to
arrange for the next show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘You were lovely
Dick, really lovely. Now tomorrow...’ Ten minutes later, the cops have
multiplied to three and all are nervous. </div>
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David disappears and Dick wishes goodbye to Malcolm X and an
entourage of flowing robed black men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You go down with him to the waiting car, flanked by cops, feeling very
much like a train robber or a presidential candidate. A cop opens the door and
says ‘Sorry sir but...’ Dick pats him and says “ Yeah man. You’re just doin’
your jobs.’ His wife sits beside him.</div>
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Dick Gregory has changed since you last saw him. Two years
back he was an American comic, dressed in an expensive suit spieling prussic
acid satire for the late show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two
years! He’s done some suffering. A couple of spells in goal, a couple of fasts,
a couple of “whuppings” by cops. Now he’s dressed in very casual clothes and
has a beard. He’s grown too, and you watched it happening. From comic to
semi-statesman for Black America. He has...dignity in him and he’s more
relaxed, as though he knows what he wants and where he’s going. ‘You do a load
of thinking in goal man. A load of it...’</div>
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The driver wants to know if violence is the only
answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Violence is no asnwer man but
it’s the only way you got when you’ve examined every legal and moral ground on
the subject,’ Dick says, ‘and get no where.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s a non-violent man so you want to know what he’s going to tell the
ghetto. ‘I’ll tell him my way of life and let him choose. But if the cat
decided to get a gun...’ he looks out of the window. The driver’s been waiting
to ask him about Tariq Ali, the British leftist. ‘Yeah. I dig him. He’d leading
a revolution in this country and what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i>
don’t understand is that they think they’re dealing ith a bunch of hoolgans.
It’s the same back home.’</div>
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Either Chicago or the driver makes him slump deeper into his
seat. He tells his wife he’s tired and gets back to Chicago. ‘It didn’t
surprise me. The syndicate has killed over 1,000 people there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1896, 2,000 draft resisters were gunned
down in...’ He asks his wife, she shakes her head. ‘’...somewhere of Michigan
Avenue. And you’re asking me to be surprised by Chicago. One cat told me it was
becoming a poh-lice state. He’s wrong. It is a poh-lice state and it only
proved a beautiful point to every black cat in Amrica. That him and the young
white cat better get together fast. And the white cat knows it now.’</div>
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There’s a crowd waiting for his midnight show at the Arts
Laboroatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They sit him atop a piano
and listen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He philosophises on America
and answers questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s less
bitterness and just an.... immense sadness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His humour is gentler now and there’s no talk of hte.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a change from the passionate rhetoric of
Jimmy Baldwin and the hysteria of Sammy Davis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a calm man talking to a crowd of young people... a few black....
and a lot of white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tragedy is that
they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> the young and already
understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only elder is a
sun-tanned sporty type who wants to know why there are no great black swimmers.</div>
<br />
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“You can’t blame the cops for what happened in Chicago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were just doing their job ... protecting
the system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re like my mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’d whup me if I didn’t behave myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was tryin’ to keep me in the system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the cop is the keeper of the hosue and
he’s doing his best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure he gets
scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The administration offers him
$20,000 if he dies ....”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He shrugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His chain-smoked, two-hour monologue is given
in a total silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s done a lot of
reading in gaol too for historical facts shore his philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When Rap (Brown) says get a gun .... he’s
not being original.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do you think
Paul Revere said when he saw the British coming?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America needs a nigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve only made the scene lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before that the Southern red–neck had the Jew
for his nigger and even then you had to tell the dumb bastard what a Jew
was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now he’s got me ... and you can see
me comin’ from three blocks away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are other niggers in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You found
them in Chicago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hippies and the
yippies ... and the cops. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re niggers
all, man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hippies and yippies are
trying to break out of the system and work their way down, we’re trying to
break in and work up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we meet
... American will die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will die in
eighteen months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t give my country
more time than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s reached the
point of no return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Britan stole enough
wisdom from all them countries she colonised and may ... may save herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But America is too dumb and too stupid.”</div>
<br />
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He stops talking, and the room is quiet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The questions, American and British accented,
only want to know how to be saved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You
young are the only ones’s who can save the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either the Government deals with you ... or
you with the Government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yours is a
moral revolution, not a political one.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When questioned he mentions his write-in presidential efforts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All I will do is try to tie a
tourniquet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You spot his wife at the
other end sitting with the impassivity of a Masai warrior’s woman watching the
lion hunt and the inevitable end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
black men in the audience ask no questions and sit silent as if ... as if they
already know the answers and need no more telling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You leave at 3.30 with a non hippy-yippy
white American. He’d never liked Gregory before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now he’s enthusiastic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s going to write him in and get his
friends to do the same. “Wouldn’t it be great,” you naively say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If he became President with all the hippy,
yippy and black votes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He laughs. “Man,
if they thought he had a one per cent chance of making it they’d wipe him out
as they did the others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d get him
in thirty seconds even if it meant dropping an H-bomb on him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You bow to a 21-year old infected with the
frightening fatalism of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In
fact,” he adds, “Gregory is already a dead man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s only time now.“</div>
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-43622524832635411372017-08-22T02:22:00.003-07:002017-08-22T02:22:43.060-07:00WE'RE ALL NIGGERS, MAN<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I spent an evening with the comedian/activist years ago when I was writing for The Guardian newspaper. Gregory died three days back. What he said then is so pertinent, tragically, to America today. Nothing changes!<br />
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WE’RE NIGGER ALL, MAN.</div>
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The thin cop is looking worried. He keeps adjusting his
glasses as he hovers behind Dick Gregory’sbroad back at the post Frost on
Friday studio party. A plump Zapata-moustached producer hovers behind the cop.
Dick stops talking to find out what is happening. ‘Evening sir, local police.
I’m afraid you’ll have to leave by the back as we’ve had word some blokes are
coming to have a rumble with you.’ The producer relaxes as Dick nods,
unsmiling, and says he’ll leave. David ambles over, anaemic with make-up, to
arrange for the next show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘You were lovely
Dick, really lovely. Now tomorrow...’ Ten minutes later, the cops have
multiplied to three and all are nervous. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
David disappears and Dick wishes goodbye to Malcolm X and an
entourage of flowing robed black men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You go down with him to the waiting car, flanked by cops, feeling very
much like a train robber or a presidential candidate. A cop opens the door and
says ‘Sorry sir but...’ Dick pats him and says “ Yeah man. You’re just doin’
your jobs.’ His wife sits beside him.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
Dick Gregory has changed since you last saw him. Two years
back he was an American comic, dressed in an expensive suit spieling prussic
acid satire for the late show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two
years! He’s done some suffering. A couple of spells in goal, a couple of fasts,
a couple of “whuppings” by cops. Now he’s dressed in very casual clothes and
has a beard. He’s grown too, and you watched it happening. From comic to
semi-statesman for Black America. He has...dignity in him and he’s more
relaxed, as though he knows what he wants and where he’s going. ‘You do a load
of thinking in goal man. A load of it...’</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
The driver wants to know if violence is the only
answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Violence is no asnwer man but
it’s the only way you got when you’ve examined every legal and moral ground on
the subject,’ Dick says, ‘and get no where.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s a non-violent man so you want to know what he’s going to tell the
ghetto. ‘I’ll tell him my way of life and let him choose. But if the cat
decided to get a gun...’ he looks out of the window. The driver’s been waiting
to ask him about Tariq Ali, the British leftist. ‘Yeah. I dig him. He’d leading
a revolution in this country and what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i>
don’t understand is that they think they’re dealing ith a bunch of hoolgans.
It’s the same back home.’</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
Either Chicago or the driver makes him slump deeper into his
seat. He tells his wife he’s tired and gets back to Chicago. ‘It didn’t
surprise me. The syndicate has killed over 1,000 people there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1896, 2,000 draft resisters were gunned
down in...’ He asks his wife, she shakes her head. ‘’...somewhere of Michigan
Avenue. And you’re asking me to be surprised by Chicago. One cat told me it was
becoming a poh-lice state. He’s wrong. It is a poh-lice state and it only
proved a beautiful point to every black cat in Amrica. That him and the young
white cat better get together fast. And the white cat knows it now.’</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
There’s a crowd waiting for his midnight show at the Arts
Laboroatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They sit him atop a piano
and listen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He philosophises on America
and answers questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s less
bitterness and just an.... immense sadness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His humour is gentler now and there’s no talk of hte.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a change from the passionate rhetoric of
Jimmy Baldwin and the hysteria of Sammy Davis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a calm man talking to a crowd of young people... a few black....
and a lot of white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tragedy is that
they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> the young and already
understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only elder is a
sun-tanned sporty type who wants to know why there are no great black swimmers.</div>
<br />
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“You can’t blame the cops for what happened in Chicago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were just doing their job ... protecting
the system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re like my mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’d whup me if I didn’t behave myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was tryin’ to keep me in the system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the cop is the keeper of the hosue and
he’s doing his best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure he gets
scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The administration offers him
$20,000 if he dies ....”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He shrugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His chain-smoked, two-hour monologue is given
in a total silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s done a lot of
reading in gaol too for historical facts shore his philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When Rap (Brown) says get a gun .... he’s
not being original.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do you think
Paul Revere said when he saw the British coming?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America needs a nigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve only made the scene lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before that the Southern red–neck had the Jew
for his nigger and even then you had to tell the dumb bastard what a Jew
was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now he’s got me ... and you can see
me comin’ from three blocks away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are other niggers in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You found
them in Chicago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hippies and the
yippies ... and the cops. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re niggers
all, man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hippies and yippies are
trying to break out of the system and work their way down, we’re trying to
break in and work up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we meet
... American will die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will die in
eighteen months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t give my country
more time than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s reached the
point of no return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Britan stole enough
wisdom from all them countries she colonised and may ... may save herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But America is too dumb and too stupid.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
He stops talking, and the room is quiet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The questions, American and British accented,
only want to know how to be saved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You
young are the only ones’s who can save the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either the Government deals with you ... or
you with the Government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yours is a
moral revolution, not a political one.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When questioned he mentions his write-in presidential efforts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All I will do is try to tie a
tourniquet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You spot his wife at the
other end sitting with the impassivity of a Masai warrior’s woman watching the
lion hunt and the inevitable end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
black men in the audience ask no questions and sit silent as if ... as if they
already know the answers and need no more telling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You leave at 3.30 with a non hippy-yippy
white American. He’d never liked Gregory before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now he’s enthusiastic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s going to write him in and get his
friends to do the same. “Wouldn’t it be great,” you naively say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If he became President with all the hippy,
yippy and black votes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He laughs. “Man,
if they thought he had a one per cent chance of making it they’d wipe him out
as they did the others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d get him
in thirty seconds even if it meant dropping an H-bomb on him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You bow to a 21-year old infected with the
frightening fatalism of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In
fact,” he adds, “Gregory is already a dead man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s only time now.“</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-78662707030144078102017-05-23T00:05:00.000-07:002017-05-23T00:05:01.699-07:00CAMELOT AMERICA<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB">CAMELOT <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">AMERICA</st1:place></st1:country-region> by
Timeri N. Murari.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Once upon a time <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> was a
sunny country. By ‘sunny’ I mean its disposition towards the world. The reason
I remember that sunny <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is because a friend and I talked about those days. We’re both of that age when we
were drawn to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
– not to make money but because it seemed a magical place- and it does not seem
that long ago. We both come from older civilisations, tired ones even then, and
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
then was a cool, seductive breeze blowing through our minds and hearts. Of
course I saw <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
from a great distance too and I will try to remember what I saw that so drew me
to that innocent country. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
had the values of justice, goodness, ethics, morality, freedom, even happiness,
that all men have cherished and searched for. No one had any ill-will towards <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, with
the exception of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USSR</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was a heroic country. There is
little doubt that without <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
throwing its might in with the allies in WWII, the world would now be a
different place. It wasn’t really <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s war, being fought in
distant <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>, and it was safe behind the
formidable barriers of the <st1:place w:st="on">Atlantic</st1:place> and
Pacific oceans. Of course I wasn’t there but my father was and he spoke
affectionately of the American soldiers he had met on the battlefields. And of
course when the war was over, we saw the <st1:place w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place>
films with heroic Americans – John Wayne, Audie Murphy, Robert Mitchum, Errol
Flynn- battling the enemy. Though I was later told that <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place></st1:city> did exaggerate when Errol Flynn won
the Burmese front single-handedly and British soldiers duly protested. But that
was to be expected, and we knew it was just a movie. Death in those movies
wasn’t bloody and real, except for ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ but that
was from WWI and the more realistic German view of the carnage. The American
heroes were clean cut, always clean shaven, uniforms immaculate, they may have
smoked, but they were always courteous and polite, even to the enemy, and
treated their Prisoners of War strictly according to the Geneva Convention.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>
had been ravaged by the war, and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> once more showed her
generosity and kindness. The Marshall Plan helped re-built the destroyed
cities. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
pumped in $13 billions – on the conditions that the European nations acted as a
single economic unit and that all the necessary material be bought from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> on
American ships- and by 1953 <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> was back on
its feet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long before WWII, Mohandas
Gandhi had been campaigning for Indian Independence and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> had
always supported his campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> wanted
an end to colonialism and the suppression in the colonised nations, as it did
genuinely believe in both freedom and democracy. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These were events of the past before
I even became aware of this country. I suppose my introduction to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and its
value came first through the magazines that entered my house. There was the
Saturday Evening Post, a glossy, cheerful magazine about the American way of
life. Often as not the covers were the paintings of an artist called Norman
Rockwell. He painted a happy <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
– kids playing baseball or basketball, a cop with a kid in a soda parlour, a
boy in a doctor’s surgery, a family in prayer over a thanksgiving dinner. His
subjects were white as far I remember, and their world seemed seductive and
serene. No other racial colours intruded, and because of that I wasn’t aware
others existed in that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life magazine was equally glossy with a
vision not only of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
but the world and it had a stark black and white reality that was powerful and
moving. At times it revealed a darker side of the nation.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>American movies captivated not only
me but the whole world – ‘Made in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place></st1:city>’
was the end credit. In <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madras</st1:place></st1:city>
we sat in darkened theatres – Roxy, Minerva, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Midland</st1:place></st1:city>, Elphinstone- and watched <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> unfold
before our eyes. Cartoons, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, slapstick
comedies Laurel & Hardy, Bud Abbot and Lou Costello, the great Marx
Brothers movies and gentle comedies like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ with James
Stewart, ‘High Society’ with Cary Grant, the most urbane sophisticated star.
And if you were male those Hollywood Westerns – ‘Shane’, ‘High Noon’ and even
the run-of-the-mill Cowboys and Indians- mesmerized us. No other nation could
make Westerns like a John Ford. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And who
can forget the sensual innocence of Marilyn Monroe. But it wasn’t all sunny in
American movies. There was the dark underbelly of injustice on the screen.
Henry Fonda in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (made before I was born but I caught it
somewhere as it took a slow boat to India), ‘I was a Member of the Chain Gang’,
and film noir gangster films ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘Double Indemnity’ to name a few
that came to the city. And even such Westerns as ‘The Searchers’ were dark. The
cult film of that time was ‘East Rider’ with its tragic finale. These films
were in a different universe to the Saturday Evening Post and yet they still
revealed the American heart that such films could be made. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> wasn’t
all apple pie.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was the music too reaching us
across the radio – Sinatra, Crosby, Damone, Page- and the exciting jazz of
Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, MJQ, Davis. The best novelists were American –
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe, O’Hara- writers to be emulated. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I finally arrived in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the
60s, it was as I’d expected it to be. It was the age of the baby boomers, those
70 million teenagers conceived after WWII. They were changing <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> from
its staid conservative past with their eager revolutionary idea on art,
education, life styles and in politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What better definition of the age of innocence than the Barbie doll
which was created in the 60s and swept <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to drive across this nation and
took a car out of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Detroit</st1:place></st1:city>
heading towards <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Seattle</st1:place></st1:city>.
It was a Pontiac Bonneville, powder blue convertible the size of a small ship
with fins like a shark and it drank gas like an alcoholic booze. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Pontiac</st1:place></st1:city> is now as extinct
as the dinosaur but it raced like a silken dream. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> reeled out like her movies
and magazines, the landscapes were so familiar, the music on the radio still
evocative. The air was electric and heady with the wide open space and the
freedom from time and identity. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I passed through small towns where ‘A Wonderful Life’ could have
been shot and saw the buttes and plains of John Ford’s westerns. Wherever I
stopped – to sleep or eat- I was met with both curiosity and kindness. There
was a mood of calm and boundless optimism in the society. The Americans I met
later in the suburbs and invited into their homes were boundlessly hospitable,
contented, and if I can say so from this distance, happy with their lot. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The population was then around 177 million and the average salary
around $4700 per annum. And of course they were the affluent society that
Kenneth Galbraith wrote about. There wasn’t any greed and the measuring rod for
wealth were the Rockefellers, (immortalised by Cole Porter in a song) worth a
few hundred million dollars back then but it sounded astronomical. Only the
American budget ran into a few billions. The people were quietly religious and
respected other religions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy Graham
was the most popular preacher but he never breathed out brimstone or
invectives. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was the days when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show,
the first time seen live ever in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and the ratings went
through the roof. The Beatles even elbowed out Elvis Presley and other white
singers like Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka and Jerry Lee Lewis. It would seem the true
creators of the blues and rock would never be acknowledge but Motown Records
introduced Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, the Supremes and other black artists
who, for the first time, rocketed up the music charts. The drug culture changed
the music again and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
invented psychedelic rock and new bands like The Grateful Dead and the Jefferson
Aeroplane pumped out high decibel music. And of course there was that legendary
<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Woodstock</st1:place></st1:city> a
three-day festival that drew 400,000 young people to sing, dance, smoke pot and
zonk out on acid. No, I never got to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Woodstock</st1:place></st1:city>.
I had meant to but I was on the other side of the continent. This was counter
culture age of the hippies who had originated in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:place></st1:city> and spread across the country.
Long hair and beads and chanting mantra became popular and Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi giggled his way to a fortune. I never followed him though I wrote about
those charlatans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In sports a young
light middleweight boxer, Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) won a gold in the 1960
Olympics and came to dominate the sport through the 60s and 70s and was the
most famous man on the planet. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eisenhower had finished his term in office and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> had elected
JFK. He was young, he had a sense of wit and purpose to make <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> a more
just country with his plans for desegregation. He and his administration – ‘the
best and the brightest’- were admired in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and around the world. All
seemed right both in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and the World with his coming. Though we all lived under a nuclear nightmare
than nearly came too real in the Cuban missile crisis. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of my all time favourite novels ‘Catch-22’
and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, one satirising WWII and the other
American society were published during this time. While on television
‘M*A*S*H’, a satire on the Korean War, was a hit series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was also the time of the Civil Rights
movement and the black people invisible in those Norman Rockwell paintings were
pushing their way onto the canvas. I was on the steps of my university hall
when I heard of his assassination. And despite the mourning, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> hadn’t
yet lost its verve. But gradually, the Vietnam War, that original quagmire,
began to take its toll on the American spirit. And changed the world’s
perception of this marvellous country. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
protesting student in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Kent</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">State</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>
was shot dead. The <st1:place w:st="on">My Lai</st1:place> massacre and the napalming
of children soured my perception of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The war had it’s terrible
toll – over 58,000 American, many of them conscripted through the draft, 230,000
South Vietnamese and between 1.5 to 3 million north Vietnamese died in that
war. The countryside was devastated through Agent Orange and other chemicals.
The American government was starting to flex its military might around the
world, even invading tiny <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Grenada</st1:place></st1:country-region>
when a few American students were roughed up. In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chile</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the CIA assassinated the
legitimately elected president, Allende and replaced him with the monstrous Pinochet.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The moral compass that had guided <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> began to swing away. The
first Gulf War may have been justifiable but the sanctions that followed on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> killed
thousands of children. The Secretary of State under President Clinton, Madeline
Albright, callously called that ‘collateral damage’. I suppose that was mild in
comparison of what followed. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
squandered all the world’s compassion after 9/1 with its reckless might. The
reason for second invasion of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
was built on a quicksand of lies and deceptions of the American people as the
War on Terror. Today, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is Kafka country – illegal detentions, torture, renditions, secret prisons,
wire tapping, spying on its citizens, the Supreme Court perverted, rigged presidential
elections. Any cheap dictator would be proud to exercise such powers. And
America found one – Donald Trump.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">My friend and I remembered that once upon a time <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> dreamt
of Camelot.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(www.timerimurari.com)</span></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-8177700319692985822017-05-05T04:01:00.002-07:002017-05-05T04:02:26.004-07:00Joy Of Reading
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<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="https://c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/assoc.js"></script>Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-27359292523221033572017-05-03T22:20:00.000-07:002017-05-03T22:20:10.845-07:00Do Walls Work?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">DO WALLS WORK?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US">Do walls work? I
wonder. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">They are necessary to support the roof of a house. However, do Walls
work to divide countries, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cities and
people?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The new convert to building Walls is
President Trump. His wall will be 1900 miles long and at a guestimated cost of
around 25 billion dollars. His press Secretary, Spicer, recently showed the
press a new version of this great wall.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Before President Trump’s wall, Israel started building its wall. Israel
is building a wall through Bethlehem, and across their land, to keep certain
Palestinians out. The Israelis are evicting the Palestinians from their homes
and sacred places to accommodate the Wall. I do not know how high or how long
this Wall will be. Walls, like these, have a tendency to grow both in height
and in length. Walls, like medieval fortresses, cut both ways. This Wall will
also keep the Israelis in. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Bethlehem is the birthplace of Christ; read whatever symbolism you
want into this Wall. It is ironic that the Israelis have taken a leaf out of
the German (East) belief in the Wall Theory to control the movements of people.
The infamous Berlin Wall, was started at midnight on August 13, 1961 and by the
time it was completed, the Wall was four meters high and 166 kms long. The East
Germans too forced their people out of their homes and bricked up the doors and
windows. So, homes became a part of the Wall. The German theory was that the
Wall kept West Berliners out. It also, ostensibly, kept East Germans and East Berliners
in. That Wall never worked, despite border patrols and guard dogs and searchlights.
Many East Germans defied the Wall, and many died crossing over it. Many
survived the crossing too. It came down in 1989; razed by the citizens of
Berlin and not governments. They took ordinary hammers to the Wall, and
shattered it.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No doubt, the Israelis will refine
their Wall too, as will President Trump’s. No doubt, it will grow too. There
will be barbed wire, Wall patrols, guard dogs and searchlights. Many Palestinians
will die crossing that Wall. And Mexican’s the American wall. These will be the
terrorist and immigrants the Walls are built to contain. In that blood soaked
land, it is hard to define who the terrorists are, as many innocents die too. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The most famous Wall was the Great
Wall of China. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It can
be seen from the moon and every modern day tourist is photographed standing on
the Wall. </span><span lang="EN-US">It was not meant to become a tourist
attraction. Nor was the Berlin Wall. However, these strange things happen to
Walls of this nature. The Chinese emperor Shih-Huang-Ti of the Qin dynasty
began building the Great Wall in 221. B.C and completed his portion of it by
204. B.C. When he died, it was 1900 kms long. Later emperors extended his grand
effort to protect China and lengthened the Wall to 2400 kms. The average height
of the Great Wall is 7.6 meters and the width around 9 meters. The theory
behind this Wall was to keep out the nomadic tribes that were raiding China.
Obviously, the Wall did not work as, a few centuries later, the Mongols swept
over and around it to invade China, to establish an empire.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am sure there had been many Walls
before the Great Wall, though not so magnificently conceived and executed. And
there have been many Walls since. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Walls do not have to be built of brick and mortar. Walls can be
invisible, though clearly defined in a peoples mind. The original Walls, before
authorities thought of physical Walls, divided people into their social
classes. There were the Aristocrats, the Priests and the Peasants, to keep it
simple, separated by such inviolate Walls throughout the history of man and
well into the 20<sup>th</sup> century. In many European cities, there were
Walled-in areas where the Jews had to live. These were the ghettoes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the last century, Revolts and Revolutions
demolished these Walls, especially in Europe. The French demolished their
social Wall in a Revolution that took place a century earlier. The people
themselves razed those Walls and, though Europe is not exactly classless, the
divisions are blurred, and not so harshly defined. Churchill called the Soviet
Russian Wall the Iron Curtain. Iron was no stronger than brick and mortar. In
the 1980s, Glasnost drew aside that curtain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even as a Wall, more a no-man’s land, still divides South from North
Korea. In India, mental Walls remain firmly in place and well defined, either
through caste or through religion. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our newest nation on the planet was
also quick to build its Walls. America’s first Walls, as the European settlers
spread out across the land, constantly moving west, were the Reservations. The
American Indian (Native American) in their time were the terrorists. The
Apache, Sioux, Mohican, Comanche and other tribes, fighting a losing battle against
the superior numbers and superior firepower of the invaders, conducted guerilla
strikes against the settlers. They killed with bows and arrows and spears and,
later, guns. They did not possess bombs. Once they were subdued (read defeated
and demoralized), they were penned within the Wall. The Wall (Reservation) was
supposedly meant to protect them but the Reservations were only prisons to
contain and be rid of them, finally. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">The other famous American Wall in the south was Segregation. Black people
(African Americans ) knew exactly where the Wall stood between them and the
white folk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a fluid Wall that ran
through restaurants and buses, schools and churches. A Wall does not have to be
solid; it is instilled in the minds of the suppressed. It is also a weapon of
terror, especially when it is invisible and in the mind. When do you know you
have crossed it? A look, a word spoken out of place, could be your end. The
Americans fought a civil war partly because of that Wall. It fell finally only
in the 1960s and 70s. The South African Apartheid Wall, that saw the
condemnation of that country for decades, equally suddenly collapsed.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, how long, both in length and in time,
will the American and Israeli Walls exist? There is no doubt they will grow
longer. It is the nature of these Walls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It will encircle the Palestinians, even as the American Wall excludes
Mexicans. Every Wall comes with its own baggage that cannot be contained by it.
The Wall never grants the wishes for which it was built. <st1:personname w:st="on">A</st1:personname>
Wall does not bring peace of mind, security or serenity to the people who build
the Wall. <st1:personname w:st="on">A</st1:personname> Wall only becomes a
challenge for the people it is meant to contain or exclude. They will devise
ways and means over and around it, even as the Mongols breached the Great Wall
of China.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Every Wall reveals only that man has
exhausted his imagination, and compassion, to deal with a people whom he
desires to reject from his vision of the Promised Land. We have not progressed
far since 221 B.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Bethlehem Wall,
like all Walls, is only a monument to failure. One day, the toot of a trumpet
could bring it tumbling down. Like that Wall in Jericho.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-57887526005977615252017-05-03T03:23:00.000-07:002017-05-03T03:24:32.750-07:00joy of reading<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-84906712776143482372017-04-29T21:30:00.002-07:002017-04-29T21:30:26.057-07:00FAIR & LOVELY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">FAIR AND LOVELY </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US">My hair stylist,
once known as a lowly barber, was not watching his scissors, snipping away my
locks. Instead, he was studying my face with one of those commercial looks I
have learnt to recognize. I waited for the pitch – head massage, body massage,
face massage, hair dye. Usually, it’s the hair dye that will turn my hair, not
black, but a muddy orange. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Finally, he announced for all in the salon to hear: ‘You are dark,
sir. I have a good whitener, 100 percent you will become very fair.’ My aunt,
now long gone, always made a similar remark, without the ‘good whitener’. After
a long winter in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>,
where the sun barely shone and the cold cut one’s face, my aunt’s first remark
when I visited her was ‘you’ve gone dark’.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I saw what my hair stylist saw. A
brown face. It was the same brown I had been born with, and had never bothered
about. It was part of my package like legs, arms, a head, a pair of eyes and black
hair, thinning fast, on my head. I’ve had my hair cut all over the world, and
the hair stylists have never remarked on my colour. At least, not to my face. He
cut my hair, I paid and walked out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
he commented to a colleague later ‘that fellow had a brown face’. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Driving home, I stopped for a red light, a rare occurrence in the
city, causing chaos behind me. Cars with red lights never do. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A scooter pulled up beside me, driven by a
woman, She wore a long sleeved, winter jacket, zipped up, and grubby white
gloves. She wore a helmet too, which was remarkable enough. It was 40 degrees
in the city but the sun would never dare stain her delicate skin. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>During the IPL tournament there was
a commercial of a man running along the beach, having a shower (half naked
muscled torso which made me tuck in my tummy) and then rubbing some stuff on
his face. I thought it was an after shave. But when he brandished a dip stick
showing the varying degrees of lightness, I realized it was a commercial for a
skin whitener.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of course, we have known for a long
time that we Indian are the most racially conscious people on this planet. The
Australians are amateurs compared to our discerning eyes which can pick the
slightest variations in brown. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re
obsessed with colour – the matrimonial columns in our newspapers are filled
with ‘fair’ complexioned brides and grooms searching for the perfect colour
match. The Indians we see now in our countless commercials are no longer even a
lighter shade of brown. They are as white as any Anglo-Saxon could ever get.
They are so white on my screen that my eyes hurt. Europeans are actually pink,
not the ghostly white of our commercial models. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thankfully, they still have black hair but, if
the whitener sellers could pull it off, they would be blondes or redheads,
selling us scooters, cell phones and soaps.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt 78.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What brought us to
this? History? In the earliest days the divide would have been Aryan/
Dravidian. The colour contrast between the nomads of central <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place>
and the indigenous natives of the sub-continent. This colour colonialism had to
have continued through the many invasions – the Afghans, the Mughals and,
finally, the whiter than white, though they did turn puce in our Indian sun,
the British. Subconsciously, we equate superiority with colour. White is better
than brown, brown better than black. And as the internet and television invades
our lives, we’re constantly bombarded with images of the white superiority.
Those who leach and bleach their skin, all those super white models in our television
commercials, are embarrassed at their own colour. They yearn for the white that
will equate them with the European. While the Europeans spend billions of
dollars on sun tan lotions, sun beds and lying on hot beaches, so as to look
brown as Indians.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 36.0pt 78.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The human race is
never happy with that it’s got, naturally.</span></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-73777021502580373822017-04-28T05:18:00.003-07:002017-04-29T21:58:51.812-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU8ROH-9Xzhd6mvFPsH9oQMnK-v_WU71agFAQNwAjm2GV5VOqvlJTMtRgFJVAfyuoSDS2aU7WhW1UK36u0uC0iZ-gK3rDiClLZt3hwwePd9NM9vduyjFWFZ6SoDmyVlqkaIOwzgvcoFK0/s1600/poster+Enter+Queen+Lear1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU8ROH-9Xzhd6mvFPsH9oQMnK-v_WU71agFAQNwAjm2GV5VOqvlJTMtRgFJVAfyuoSDS2aU7WhW1UK36u0uC0iZ-gK3rDiClLZt3hwwePd9NM9vduyjFWFZ6SoDmyVlqkaIOwzgvcoFK0/s320/poster+Enter+Queen+Lear1.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="bodytext" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 1em 0cm 0pt;">
<strong><span style="color: #520100; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">ENTER QUEEN LEAR</span></span></strong><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #464440;">
, written by me,starred Jenny Runacre in the production which ran for 3 weeks at the Drayton
Arms Theatre, London, from September 13th to October 2nd 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #464440;">An
ageing, glamorous film star falls in love with a younger man, a refugee. Now,
past her cast-by-date, she accepts to play Lear as a woman just to act again.
Throughout rehearsals, she is confronted by the men in her life – two
ex-husbands, two sons and the younger lover. Her only real constant is her
relationship with her long time female dresser.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #464440;">Jenny
Runacre said: “I do really think it is a fascinating play, with so many levels
in it. It is not very often that an actress is given a role that has so much
meat in it.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #464440;">If you want to listen to the play, I adapted it for the radio and you can hear it by clicking on the link below.<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 89pt; text-indent: 19pt;">
<a href="http://www.wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk/product/enter-queen-lear/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk/product/enter-queen-lear/</span></a></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span style="color: #464440;"><br />
<o:p><span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 89pt; text-indent: 19pt;">
<span style="color: black;"></span> </div>
</o:p> </span> </span> </div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-85380036391728220472017-04-03T00:11:00.002-07:002017-04-03T00:11:57.479-07:00Doctrate on my writing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is now a doctorate published on my writings. A bright young man from a university in Pune, now has a Ph.D after reading my novels and non-fiction works. You can check this out on this web link:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 17pt;">
<a href="http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/95798"><span style="color: blue;">http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/95798</span></a></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-9761831076340315432017-01-21T21:08:00.001-08:002017-01-21T21:08:47.925-08:00THE AXXISS TRILOGY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">THE AXXISS TRILOGY. (Scholastic)</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Murari leaves his readers with almost a Sudoku, which until solved, the reader cannot put the books down. Thus, shifting the power to the reader, Murari manages like an astute dramatist to pull his reader into his plot, involving him, engaging him or her, till he has found the answer. He must now join the famous six teenagers searching the meaning of those numbers, put singly, or in a combination, or whatever. - GOODREADS</span><br />
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Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-37128385036767328012016-04-17T00:01:00.000-07:002016-04-17T00:01:27.928-07:00Emperor Ashoka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
We forget
the wisdom from our own past.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Emperor Ashoka
304-232 BCE. </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Rock Edict
XII.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
'Restraint
in speech'.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
That is not
praising one's own religion or condemning the religion of others without good
cause...whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and
condemns others with the thought 'Let me glorify my own religion' only harms
his own religion. Therefore, contact between religions is good. One should
listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others. Beloved of the gods,
King Piyadassi (Ashoka), desires that all should be learned in the good
doctrines of other religions.</div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-1379927247628681442015-05-06T02:51:00.002-07:002015-05-06T02:51:26.186-07:00PEN Charlie Hebdo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
I've not read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie Hebdo</i>. My
French is inadequate for satire. I've not seen their cartoons either. Last week
in Paris, I asked my French publisher, Marie-Pierre, for her opinion. She was
fiercely dismissive, calling the magazine crude. She was angry too. Twelve
people were killed in January. One, a friend, was visiting the magazine that
fatal day. He died too. For what? She asked. A cartoon of Mohammed. The
magazine was irresponsible in taunting Muslims.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Last month, American
PEN, awarded <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie Hebdo</i> its
“freedom of expression courage award”. It split writers. Rushdie and others
supported PEN's choice. Rushdie wrote: "It is quite right that PEN should
honour [Charlie Hebdo’s] sacrifice and condemn their murder without these
disgusting ‘buts." Peter Carey, Teju Cole, and others, condemned it for
'cultural intolerance and Islamophobia.' <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>PEN responded, praising “their (Charlie Hebdo)
dauntless fortitude patrolling the outer precincts of free speech.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I agree with PEN. What
distinguishes a democracy from a totalitarian state is the freedom of
speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The freedom to think
imaginatively and to give expression to these thoughts. Freedom of speech
cannot be neatly hedged by 'ifs' or 'buts'. It either exists or it does not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, irresponsibility comes with
the package. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie Hebdo</i> insulted
many aspects of French life, including attacking the extreme right wing Le Pen
political party. The party did not respond with machine guns. Islamist
extremists did. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>People can be as
insulted by mocking their political beliefs, sexual preferences, social
positions, history, race. Name it, there's an insult to someone out there. As
the world opens up, the minds close. People are frightened by the swift
changes. And to new thinking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we all
picked up guns, it would not be a revolution but bloody mayhem. Guns are for
those who lack the intelligence to counter the insult or even make a comment
with their own words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few days ago,
ISIL executed 30 Yazidis. I wondered how they had insulted the Prophet.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Annually, fifty to sixty
journalists, writers or artists are killed because of their work. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many more imprisoned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I admired their courage to express their
thoughts in mostly these despotic nations. They were aware of the dangers.
Sometimes, even a Tweet was their death sentence. Words and drawings frighten
the State, as they do extremists of any kind.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>India teeters between
democracy and despotism. Recently, leaning more to the latter. The State has
banned books, the list grows longer daily. Publishers retract; they cannot
afford long court cases. The writer abandoned. Two Tamil writers were driven
from their homes by extremists. Tragically, one stopped writing. Art is
dangerous. Films are tripped up by State appointed censors. If the film passes
(with cuts), others lie in wait to attack it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or storm the theatres, forcing it off the screen. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyone can rush to court
and take out an injunction against a book, a writer, an artist if his or her
"feelings are hurt". There are 1.2 billion possible feelings to
hurt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every writer and artist faces this
minefield daily. Some self-censor their thoughts. The State did nothing to
defend or protect our most famous artist, M.F. Hussein. He died in exile. The
writer, Shobha Dey, mocked the Maharastrha government's edict on Marathi Films.
She was summoned to the legislature. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At times, India is
beyond satire. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie Hebdo</i> would
have a field day here. For a day or two at least, before our home bred
extremists burned it down.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-82352620771235498192014-07-08T21:58:00.002-07:002014-07-08T21:58:46.605-07:00Interview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The link to the interview with me on my new novel, CHANAKYA RETURNS, in The Hindu Literary Section.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/the-strategist-returns/article6180406.ece"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/the-strategist-returns/article6180406.ece</span></a></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-81600058271748481632014-06-19T21:34:00.000-07:002014-06-19T21:34:08.766-07:00CHANAKYA RETURNS, A novel..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">My new novel published by Aleph.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyPRKN3A7ViRncB7t4PQdGBT6Jyv7PcrLsx3v-8qJTgeRfUcVdTecTV7y16S7eJAK6f-tbNPP9eqr5f-C4j9Q4WWT-zftbnd-6Bg6Sda-Ld1hv0PD7s18voT4kjzYJ1fyF_KYHqmm2xCQ/s1600/Chan+cover1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyPRKN3A7ViRncB7t4PQdGBT6Jyv7PcrLsx3v-8qJTgeRfUcVdTecTV7y16S7eJAK6f-tbNPP9eqr5f-C4j9Q4WWT-zftbnd-6Bg6Sda-Ld1hv0PD7s18voT4kjzYJ1fyF_KYHqmm2xCQ/s1600/Chan+cover1.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">CHANAKYA RETURNS </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">covers a vast canvas of power, love, history,
politics, betrayals, sex and more. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is narrated by Chanakya (370-282 BC),
reincarnated in the contemporary world as the adviser to Avanti, the daughter
of the head of a nameless state in India. In the course of the novel, Chanakya
poses an eternal question: What shapes our lives—The Power of Love or the Love
of Power? His protégée, Avanti, has to choose between love and power. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The choice Avanti makes has all sorts of
implications not just for herself and her dysfunctional family, but for the
people of the state her family has ruled for years…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="story-body-text" style="margin: 1em 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In his previous existence, the historical Chanakya was exiled from his
homeland and took his revenge on the king, who was the cause of his misfortune,
by defeating him in a war. He was then responsible for anointing Chandragupta
as ruler of the Mauryan Empire, and advising<u> </u>him on every aspect of statecraft.
In the novel Chanakya is</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">
acerbic, witty and ruthless, and <span style="color: black;">provides the same
services to Avanti. He manoeuvers the awkard young daughter of a charismatic
powerful politician across the chessboard of power to become a brilliantly
successful politician in her own right.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: black;">Available at: <a href="http://www.alephbookcompany.com/">www.alephbookcompany.com</a></span></span><br />
<a href="http://www.flipkart.com/">www.flipkart.com</a><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890365680922560291.post-81806957740799843532014-06-17T22:39:00.003-07:002014-06-17T22:39:36.783-07:00Letter to Hon'ble PM of India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
As we have
such a social media savvy PM, I went to the PMO website as I wanted to write to
the Prime Minister. The website does impress, a few boxes to click and the one
on the top right has 'Interact with Hon'ble PM'. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Exactly what
I wanted, a dialogue with our PM and I imaged that, as two giant intellects
conversed in cyberspace, our mail would enter the archives of history. I felt
he was just waiting for someone to talk to him, a human being, not another
politician or a bureaucrat. I clicked on 'Interact with...' and find I have a
choice of subjects. Ahh, knowing how loquacious we Indians are there is, not a
word limit, but a character limit. One thousand characters, max. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
I click on 'Subject'
and discover there are 16, ranging from 'Agriculture' through 'Education' to 'Social
Injustice'. I believe this makes it easier for the PM, a very busy man, so that
he is immediately prepared to respond and converse on the subject. There can be
nothing more confusing when opening a mail on 'Agriculture', and turning one's
mind in preparation to discuss the price of onions, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to find the letter is on 'Women's' Issues' or 'Defence'.
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
I dither
over such a wide choice. I have to think carefully as I don't want to confuse
my PM. I hover over 'Social Injustice'. It isn't quite right - I haven't been
beaten/raped/imprisoned by our cops. Yet. I wish there was one more category 'Other
Important Issues'. It takes a good ten minutes of such dithering to decide
which subject my letter comes under. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
I choose
'Law & Order'. I click on it, fill in my name, address (correctly), and
then compose my 1,000 characters. I don't want to dazzle him with my examples,
I just want to discuss the subject with him and expect him to keep within the
1,000 character format when he replies to my letter. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
When I
finish my abbreviated note to the PM, I copy the 'Verification Code' and hit
'Submit'. The site responds immediately, a complaint about commas. It does not
like too many of them, so, despite a great reluctance, I delete a few of them
to keep the site happy. Once more, I copy the code and hit submit. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
There is a
pause. I imagine my letter instantly appearing on the PM's screen and him
leaning forward to read it carefully. His hand hovers over 'Reply' even as he
composes his response to my letter. A moment letter, a line pops up on the
screen. 'Thank you for writing to the PM. Your letter has been forwarded to the
department concerned'. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Whatdoyumean?
I wrote to the PM, not to a department. I expect him to read it and to reply. I
want to have a discourse. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's the
whole point of 'Interact with the Hon'ble PM' at the top of the website. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
I don't want
to interact with a minor babu, somewhere in labyrinth of the Minister of Home
Affairs, now staring at my letter on his screen. Is he thinking :Should I print
it and rush over to show it to the PM, and wait for him to read, cogitate and
reply? Or should I just hit the 'Delete' button and return to sleep?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
Dear Prime Minister,</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
Congratulations on your astonishing victory and I am
confident you will lead India to a great future. As a writer/filmmaker, I am
very concerned with the extreme right wing Hindu elements, who have taken it on
themselves to censor and intimidate writers, artists and filmmakers with their
narrow interpretation of our ancient religion. We hope they are not encouraged
to further extremism due to the BJP victory. This is a law & order problem
when they physically attack artists, filmmakers or publishers. As a democracy,
we must respect the opinions of others, even if we do not agree with them. As
Prime Minister, you have spoken of the inclusiveness of all Indians, and this
must include those who hold different views to the extremists. I hope you will
discourage their activities. With my best wishes for your leadership. Timeri N.
Murari.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
Tim Murarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13854338424685311654noreply@blogger.com0