OBOC -Kenya

It has been a quarter of unintended consequences, and one of those consequences is the almost snail pace at which i am progressing with OBOC. Got caught up with too many things that started off innocuously but led to a series of events that were completely unintended, that I couldn't find the time or the frame of mind to sit down and dig into a serious book.

I gave up Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif which I picked as the book for Jordan. It is a great book and I loved the story of the Arabian world coming into collision with America and the impact of oil on Bedouins, but after 400 pages I wanted some closure, and this just wouldn't end! And then it was "A grain of wheat" by Nguigi Wa Thiongo, but gave that one up after 30 pages. I guess too much anti-colonial literature does get to you after all.

Then it was "One Day I will Write About This Place" by Binyavanga Wainaina, a memoir of the author's life in Africa that would've worked much better as a series of essays than as a book. Still I enjoyed the book and like a Christmas miracle managed to finish it, which given my recent track record is pretty remarkable! Although the story begins in Kenya, the memoir takes us through the author's time spent across Africa, especially South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Togo.

Binayavanga through the memoir takes us through his early childhood, the school years, his struggles as a student in South Africa and later as a budding writer. Interwoven into his personal story is the story of the changing political landscape of Africa, and the struggles of the people. Many of the changes in Africa have been played out in front of a world audience especially the end of Apartheid, the Rwandan Genocide, the numerous dictators and their brutal reigns, the struggles of Sudan, but this book shows what it means to actually live through and experience those changes.

Although am not a big fan of the youtubish art of self-expression through comments, I do sometimes read the comments on the "Have your say" section of the BBC News website as I like to hear what the people from the region affected by what is otherwise just a headline for the rest of us have to say. This memoir was certainly a window into Africa in that sense and so it was worth reading just to get that perspective. One more book that proved how little I know of too many things. OBOC while an interesting project, has led me to writers i had never heard of, but i have to concede it has not really furthered my understanding of any country beyond the surface.

OBOC - Japan

After a long hiatus I finally sat down to write the review for Norwegian Wood. Although I finished the book about 3 weeks back, this summer has been really busy that I have longed for a room of my own and some time of my own to actually sit down and put pen to paper so to speak.

Norwegian Wood is the book that propelled Japanese writer Haruki Murakami to overnight super stardom, and sure enough I can see why the book has its enduring appeal especially to the young. After all even the Ulysses appealed to a certain segment of the population purely for Molly Bloom’s soliloquy if you get my drift. The book spans a whole lot of issues from mental illness, suicide to the obsession of the young with sex and alcohol, all set in the '60s Japan with the student strikes as the backdrop.  Just like the Beatles song which has the ability to tug at your heartstrings, the novel which is inspired by the song does the same.

The hero Watanabe is torn between the love for two women who are in contrast with each other. One the terrific beauty but mentally disturbed and therefore almost unattainable Naoko, and the other the lively, outgoing and confident Midori. One finds Watanabe an unlikely hero in this novel. He is extraordinarily ordinary and is always caught between two extremes, whether people, places or situations. Lives in the dirtiest of men's dorms with the cleanest of roomates, is at ease in the all-night clubs of Shinjuku or in the desolate, idyllic mountains, is caught between the promiscuous yet charming Nagasawa and his kind and complex girlfriend Hatsumi.

When Naoko's boyfriend (and Watanabe's closest friend) Kizuki commits suicide on his 17th birthday for no apparent reason, their lives are permanently altered, so much so when Naoko and Watanabe bump into each other in Tokyo, Kizuki is ever-present but is hardly spoken about.  Their feelings for each other is never revealed until the night of Naoko's 20th birthday when both are extremely vulnerable. Naoko unable to handle her new relationship with Watanabe checks herself into a sanatorium in the mountains to deal with all her inner demons. Watanabe copes with his loss and patiently waits for Naoko who never returns as she ends up committing suicide.

During this entire time Watanabe leans heavily on Midori but at the same time ignores her needs, until he spends a night with Reiko (Naoko's friend) from the sanatorium. Reiko advices him that it is time for him to seize happiness and live a full life on behalf of Naoko and all the others in his life. She also helps him realize that Midori is the most important person in his life. Will Midori accept him back? That is left unanswered.

I just simply couldn't put the book down. The characters were very well defined and etched skilfully. While many pages were extremely morbid and gloomy, like the extremes that the hero lives in, there were many other pages that were funny and even raunchy! After all it is the '60s and we are talking of 17 to 20 year olds here. Some of the language in the book was just plain poetry, and even as a simple love story this would have worked just on the strength of the language. But this is much more than a love triangle. It is a lot more complex and the emotional upheaval of adolescence dealing with love and loss and coming of age in such turbulent times is beautifully told.

As someone who went through a very peaceful and very easy adolescence I couldn't fathom how much the characters in the novel had to go through. There are no safe havens. There is no mention of a home or a family one can lean on, except for Midori. There are only institutions, Schools, Sanatoriums, Hospitals, Dorms, Universities. Even the dorms look like prison walls, and there is death everywhere.

This is certainly a love story, but most certainly not a fairy tale romance. I recommend the book to anyone who doesn't mind a fair amount of realism and a dose of pessimism as at one point Murakami says life is inherently unfair and "no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning"

My Dad Can Cook

Life in my household can be split into two distinct eras –BC (“Before child”) and well you know, the obvious, AD (After Daughter). While my daughter has been the motivation behind many of my posts, this Father’s Day weekend, I decided to focus on the often-neglected 3^rd member of my home – the husband, but again the trigger for the post comes from a card he received for Father’s Day from our little one. 

The qualities I saw in him during the BC years should have given me some clue as to what the AD years should look like, but I was still not prepared for what the AD years would bring. 7 years into AD it is so obvious now and the small note from my daughter triggered enough in me to take the time to write about what I felt.

The influence and impact of a Father on a Daughter can never be understated. I am a prime example of one positively influenced heavily by everything my dad did and did not do or say, that it has lasted well beyond my dad’s passing.  So every time I see my husband and daughter bonding, I get this warm glow inside me as I feel she is going to have what I used to have.  If my husband ever had any doubt of his abilities as a dad, she put it to rest this weekend with a simple phrase. “I love my dad because” was the prompt on her cliched card from school, she had completed the sentence with “he loves to play silly games with me and cooks me any food that I ask him to”. The message was accompanied by a picture of dad and daughter both dressed in pink with clouds above them raining hearts!

Over the years we’ve tried to raise her with the mantra that although boys and girls are different in some ways, there is no such thing as boys’ stuff and girls’ stuff – whether it is in books, games, toys or work. Every book, game we choose is well thought out and carefully considered, but I’ve still felt that it is just too darn difficult unless we decide to raise her in an androgynous bubble. Girls love princesses, they wear pink, they love to bake and do art – these are refrains from the environment that creep up on you all the time. The number of mother’s day cards with the statement my mom is the best cook in the whole world, I am sure far outnumbers the cards that state my mom is the best engineer in the world, and yes we have millenia of gender roles to thank for that.

Now do you see where I am going with her card for her dad? We were just plain thrilled that dad’s card had something about his willingness to cook for her anything she likes.   Despite ourselves we do have certain set roles w.r.t her and if you ask her what each does for her, I bet she will say something like this – Mom packs lunch and has dinner with her, Dad makes breakfast and drops in school; Mom plays Circuits and builds legos, Dad does Carrom and chess; Mom reads and Dad (in her own words) “doesn’t read at all”; Dad is an engineer, Mom works with a bunch of them; Mom picks out outfits despite hating shopping, but Dad makes me look good in them including doing my hair; Dad chooses the car, Mom argues with the car dealer; Mom plans, Dad executes… and the list goes on – but we’ve realized that we’ve fallen into these roles based on 2 important things 1) Nature and schedule of our work 2) Individual talents/skill set which strangely have nothing to do with our gender.

She probably didn’t think twice when she wrote the card, but that speaks volumes by itself, and set me off to write this about him. I don’t want to make it sound that everything is rosy in our home and we just seamlessly adjust and fill gaps for each other. Just like any other household we have our good days and our bad ones, but I can certainly say we seriously try to make sure the good days far outnumber the bad ones.

This Father’s Day, while I reflected on my own dad and all the things he has done for me, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that my daughter is luckier than I in having for a dad a man, for whom being a man is not mainly about making the big bucks, tinkering with DIY, driving a fast(er) car,  and following sports, but more about being around for us and doing whatever it takes. I know he is not alone, so here's a shout out to all the dads who choose to cross the role barriers

OBOC - Israel

I was torn between Amos Oz and David Grossman when i had to pick the author for Israel. Both are well known internationally, both support the two state solution and seem to hold similar political views. I went with Grossman and his book "To the end of the land" as i got a sneak peek into the book from BBC World Book Club.

Grossman dedicated the book to his son Uri who was killed in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Although the book was begun much earlier and intended to be some kind of a magical shield that would protect his sons, Uri's death haunts the novel with a dose of reality.

Onto the plot itself. Two best friends Ilan and Avram fall in love with the same girl Ora. Ora picks Ilan although she loves them both. Ilan is rational, Avram is impulsive; Ilan is nerdy but Avram is brilliant. Ora has a son Adam through Ilan, and several years later has another son Ofer through Avram. Both Adam and Ofer are brought up as brothers by Ora and Ilan. If all this seems an "ordinary" tale of a love triangle, throw Israel into the mix and the story just gets seriously complicated. Avram and Ilan both serve in the Army during the 1973 war, and Avram is captured and tortured by Egyptians. At the end of the war Avram is a broken man who wants to have nothing to do with anything and stays away from Ilan, Ora and even Ofer. Ora and Ilan are plagued by guilt and that runs through their life and the novel.

When Ofer voluntarily re-enlists after his military duty ended, Ora is plagued by fear of "notifiers" and refuses to stay home awaiting news about her son. Instead she decides to runaway from home and hike the Gailee just as she had planned with Ofer, but this time picks  a reluctant Avram as her hiking partner. She decides that the best way to keep Ofer safe was to narrate his entire life story to Avram in detail as she hopes that the telling of his story will act as a magical shield. The entire novel is then told in a stream of consciousness narrative from Ora to Avram. Does the hike save Ofer, does it save Avram and what about the torn and tortured relationships among all the lead characters... you have to read the book to find out!

Through this narrative we get a glimpse of private lives in Israel set against the political climate. As Ora recounts Ofer's life from the moment he was born, his first steps, the love between the brothers, his first love and the subsequent loss we are caught in this world and just like Ora are fearing for Ofer's safety.We also understand what it means to love your country and your family and how does a mother choose between the two when she is forced to! Just like in aboriginal cultures when the boy undergoes initiation rites and is for the first time separated from his mother, in Israel the conscription appears to change the relationship between mothers and sons, when the sons leave as boys and return as men. Grossman manages to portray a picture of ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances.

One small gripe - Grossman could have expanded the role of Sami, the Arab cab driver who is an integral part of Ilan's family. The relationship between Sami and Ora is sketched so well, and we get a very small glimpse into lives of Arabs living inside Israel that it leaves us longing for more. I guess I have to pick up a Palestinian written book to get the other side.

A very good companion to the book is the BBC World Book Club interview with the author. Overall it was a great experience reading the book, although there were times when i got impatient with the stream of consciousness and was tempted to go to the last page to see if Ofer survives, but I am glad I stuck with it and savored it.

OBOC - Iran

Wodehousian comic fiction from Iran? It can't be true, can it? Well that's what led me to pick up "My uncle Napoleon" a book by Iraj Pezeshkzad touted as the most important and best loved novel by Iranians since World War II. These days when nothing even remotely funny is heard from Iran (i.e if you ignore the late night comics and their commentary on Ahmadinajad) it was heartening to know that there is still room for a lot of laughter and mindless slapstick comedy in Iran. The book was written before the Iranian revolution and was briefly banned following it, but has apparently remained popular over the years and one can see why.

The plot is fairly straightforward and is set during the Allied occupation of Iran during Second World War. It is the story of a family patriarch ("Dear Uncle") who likens himself to Napoleon (yes the one who met his nemesis at Waterloo in the hands of the British) and rules his family with an iron hand. The narrator who is nameless has the misfortune of falling in love with his cousin Layli (Dear Uncle's daughter) on the 13th of August at a quarter to three precisely, at a time when the relationship between the two families was to say the least, strained. With the narrator's father and Dear Uncle scheming against each other, the narrator turns to his Uncle Asadollah a complete charmer who is quick witted and has the knack of putting his so called noble family in uncomfortable situations. Layli's marriage has been arranged to Puri who is another cousin and the son of Uncle Colonel and the narrator along with Uncle Asadollah tries to delay this inevitable event as much as they could. Events get complicated as Dear Uncle becomes paranoid that the English (whom he hates and blames for everything that is wrong in Iran) were out to get him.

Bizarre situations, complex confusing plots, over the top catch phrases that are sexual euphemisms ("going to san francisco", "noble member") all surprisingly work (although as a woman i found it a bit bawdy and sexist, but am willing to overlook as it was written over 50 years ago) as they not just add to the fun but actually reveal the complicated society in which the characters operate. In a typical Wodehousian fashion a motley crew of characters in supporting roles are crucial to the comical farce.

I can't claim to have understood Iranian culture and society from this book just as I cannot claim to understand the British from the works of Wodehouse. For that, I prefer Majid Majidi's movies which i absolutely adore! But in a week when i was hit by a nasty cold, this was quite an antidote as i am sure i could not have handled any heavy literature with a runny nose and a throbbing head.

OBOC - Indonesia

As with so many other countries in this project I stumbled upon "The Girl from the Coast" by Indonesia's most well known novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who was previously unknown to me! If nothing else, this project has given me a chance to experience writers like him who are practically unknown outside their country to the average reading public.

As I read more about Pramoedya Ananta Toer it was no wonder that barring the Noble prize (which he is expected to win posthumously sometime) he has won every other award of repute. Taking a bold stance against Dutch colonialism first and the Suharto and Sukarno regimes next, he had spent a good number of years under house arrest, facing intimidation and threats. His novels have been banned and burned in Indonesia.  What is impressive is that his novels feature strong female characters and also speak against the overtly religious who oppose any critical thinking.

Onto this novel. The Girl from the Coast is a semi-fictional account of Pramoedya's grandmother's life. Set sometime in the 19th century when Indonesia was under Dutch colonialism, it is the story of a girl whose name is never mentioned through the novel.  Born into a simple fishing family off the coast of Java, she grows up knowing the sea as her companion. Life was hard in the village with not many luxuries but with plenty of freedom. At 14, her beauty catches the eye of the Bendoro, a nobleman from Rembang, and she is forced to quit her life in the village and become the wife of the Bendoro in the city. Elevated to the status of nobility overnight, she realizes that this life though full of luxuries is completely devoid of freedom. She exists simply to serve the Bendoro, and slowly it dawns on her that she is merely a "practice wife" until the Bendoro is ready to marry someone his equal. She is taught just the amount she needs to learn to serve her master, and she is kept in the house just until she delivers her child and has met her purpose and in the ultimate act of complete subordination is forced out of the house with no claims over her own offspring.

While the novel can be read entirely as a statement against the plight of women, it can also be seen as an allegory to the life of Indonesians under the Dutch. There are a number of incidents interspersed in the novel which highlight the cruelty of Dutch colonialism. Just like the girl existing merely to serve her Bendoro, the masses existed simply to serve the Dutch, and when this purpose was met, they could be disposed at will. Anyone exposed to this kind of literature can also see some of the stereotypes - life in the village, hard but free, more egalitarian and open; life in the city - luxurious, yet more sexist and patriarchical. The Bendoro is not overtly cruel, but the lack of freedom and the class differences have their toll on the girl. She is neither the Bendoro's equal, nor can she mingle freely with her servants. Even her own parents and villagers treat her with deference now that she is "nobility". So it is no wonder she concludes that it is better to be free and poor than a prisoner yet rich - a conclusion that many nations under colonialism came to during their freedom struggle.

The storyline is predictable if one has read any kind of anti-colonial literature, but there is enough here to hold the reader's attention. Also the book has a story of itself. It is the first part of the trilogy that he wrote and is the only one that survives - the other two manuscripts were destroyed by the Indonesian military.  With his 30+ books he stands out as Indonesia's foremost writer who exposed the wrongdoings of the colonial and then the oppressive governments. In Girl from the coast he has managed to create a nameless hero out of every woman who has become an emblem not just for the anti-colonial struggle but also for the feminists of Indonesia. 

OBOC - Ireland

After a long hiatus i am back again to what has become a labor of love! Work, life and travel got the most attention during this period, but the stories kept drawing me back even if it was for only a few minutes a day. So it is fitting that I try to close this long gap with Frank Delaney's Ireland, which is a tribute to the Irish story tellers.

I was first introduced to Delaney when i started listening to his podcasts on James Joyce's Ulysses. So while Ireland offered so many writers and many Booker Prize winning ones among them, I still went with Delaney as I felt I owed him something for his free podcasts on my other labor of love!

 Ronan O'Mara's life is changed forever when the itinerant storyteller halts in his home for a couple of nights enthralling everyone with his stories about Ireland. Encouraged by his dad John and his aunt Kate, he spends every spare moment of his boyhood looking for clues about the storyteller who disappears from his life all too suddenly but only after stirring in him a love for history and mythology. In ways unbeknownst to him the stories come to Ronan and collecting them becomes his only connection to the storyteller. As Ronan enters college to pursue a degree in history, his life takes a turn for the worse with the sudden death of his father. Shielded from any uncomfortable situation during his  childhood and boyhood life, Ronan is completely unprepared to handle this loss and walks out after a bitter fight with his aunt Kate.

Knowing not what to do, he decides to become an itinerant himself in pursuit of the storyteller. He traces the stories he has heard over the years and follows the road which the storyteller had taken and along the way meets interesting people and collects stories about their lives himself. Will the prodigal son return home? Will he find the storyteller? Will he unearth the family secrets that almost everyone but him knew? These questions are answered as the novel meanders about, and I use the word meander because i felt Delaney could've used some help with editing.

This is a fantastic novel if one wants to get introduced to the history and myths of Ireland which are at the very foundation of the nation and its colorful people. There are so many great stories in the novel which combine myths and historical facts that it is quite hard to separate them. Starting from the pre-historic age to the 1916 Easter Rising and "The troubles" the stories help Ronan (and the reader) recognize the country and the people and their blessings and curses.

As a mother of a precocious 6 year old who can't get enough of stories, I am often at wits' end trying to make one up during bed time, and very often I recounted lives of my long gone grand parents, my dad, uncles and other people from my life who are no longer around and narrated them as stories just to satisfy her. In that process I got curious myself and would often look up historical events that happened at that time which were somehow interwoven into the life stories. As the storyteller says "Indeed our story is finally all any of us owns, because ... a story has only one master". I am a big fan of oral histories and people's histories and maybe that was also the additional appeal of the novel. Whatever the reason, despite a few minor flaws, I loved this book, and not just because it gave me material for some bedtime stories.