Building a library

Growing up away from home and in residential schools and colleges, one of the things I missed the most was having my own room and bookshelf. Even in law school, while I had a healthy collection of books, there was never enough space to keep them together.

Therefore, I was very keen on having a proper bookshelf once I got my own place.  But the process of getting the ideal bookshelf is not quite a simple as one may think. The kind of bookshelf I want wouldn't fit in the elevator or through the front door. I haven’t come across a design for a bookshelf that can be dismantled that I like yet. My house, a rented two bedroom, came fitted with a large living room cabinet. Seeing as we did not intend to get a television and clearly, the pride of place in any house we lived in should rightfully belong to our books, we converted this cabinet into a bookshelf. This poses a bit of a problem as there is a large space for a television which goes completely wasted. Currently, we have a Christmas tree made of post-its adorning it. Then, there is long rack made of glass, the kind people reserve for their trophies. All the trophies, the very few that we do have, sit in our respective parents’ homes. But the glass shelf means we can only keep judiciously selected books that do not threaten to bring it down. 

Nevertheless, there it is, my first proper bookshelf, a make do one, shared and much fussed over. Sharing a bookshelf can be tricky. What books should sit together is a game of extensive deliberations and even after we come to a decision, constant second guessing. Add to that, the fact that it is a constantly growing collection under the shared belief that at least one tenth of the money one makes must be spent on books. Therefore, every couple of months, we do something we call the Great Reorganisation. We decide what books should continue to be displayed on the cabinet and what should be relegated to the cupboards in our rooms. 

The Vikram Seths and Amitav Ghoshs, our favorite Indian writers whose books we own numerous copies of, have claimed a right to the prime real estate locations, occupying prominent shelves, at least for now. Pooja’s complete collection of the Linguistic Survey of India, the only one ever done, stay together as an imposing presence, red hard bound books in seventeen volumes. Then there also some element of mixing and matching. Some subjects flow thematically into the other while others are bound more by contrast than familiarity. As language enthusiasts, we have literary history, etymology books and Pooja’s collection of books of typography displayed together. It took us some time to figure out the sequence in which we wants the books to sit, and we eventually settled on order of evolutionary progression with typography books (letters) at the top, followed by etymology (words) and finally, literary history (literature). This sense of logic is not consistently adhered to as Gender Studies books share a shelf with Men’s Fashion, the Asimovs sit next to British Humor, and Science and Cookbooks reside together. 

What amazes me more and more is how differently you think of your books, depending on the way they are arranged in your bookshelves. In the earlier arrangements, Ram Guha’s books used to sit together as part of the India collection, but now lies distributed across Sports, History and Politics. An MC Escher sits comfortably in Design, Science or simply, large hard bound books. Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics  and The Introduction of Numbers have moved from Philosophy to Math and Science in the last reorganisation. This moving around of books based on a semblance of logic often dictated by whims and fancies ( “Do we have enough books to have a Science shelf? A Science shelf would be cool.”) often changes how you think of your books, in what order you read them and what books you buy next in the desire to fill up or build a shelf. 

For some time now, Pooja has been trying to pitch the idea of arranging the bookshelf by the color of books as an interesting experiment. While the idea sounded abominable to me in the beginning, it has gradually begun to grow on me. A more common and less bizarre way to arrange the books would be chronologically. Anne Fadiman argues if you do have books from across centuries, it will “allow [you] to watch the broad sweep of literature unfold before [your] very eyes.” Another arrangement I read about somewhere spoke of the idea of arranging the bookshelf based on what writers you felt would get along with each other, the kind of delightfully wasteful intellectual exercise that it sounds both tempting and daunting. 

Top 5 Supporting Acts

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; 
Am an attendant lord, one that will do 
To swell a progress, start a scene or two 
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, 
Deferential, glad to be of use, 
Politic, cautious, and meticulous; 
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; 
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— 
Almost, at times, the Fool. 

- T S Eliot

No. 5 Jude Law for The Talented Mr. Ripley, Wilde, A.I., Sherlock Holmes, Road to Perdition, Gattaca - I have always liked Jude Law. He is handsome, has a wide range and is a fine actor. Yet, for some reason, he is yet to carry a big film on his own and is most comfortable playing second fiddle to other actors, which admittedly he does often to perfection.

No. 4 Amitabh Bachchan in Anand - Rajesh Khanna was at the peak of his powers and nothing could have conceivably stolen the thunder from him in essaying the eponymous role which gave him the sufficient scope for his histrionics. Yet, at some point mid-way we realise that the movie is actually revolving around the unfashionably depicted quiet, intense, idealistic Dr. Bhaskar Bannerjee. Rajesh Khanna is everything you can expect as the effervescent, over the top, dying cancer patient but it is the Amitabh's portrayal of the physician's frustration and the friend's pain that touch us the most.

No. 3 Derek Fowlds in Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister - In what was both Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne's career defining roles, Derek Fowlds stars as Bernard Woolley. He is the most conscientious character in the show and usually must juggle his loyalties to the minister and the principal secretary often leading to very interesting situations. This show involved many amusing series long-winded lines from both Eddington and particularly Hawthorne which would usually end with a one-liner from Fowlds which would be the funniest.

No. 2 Rahul Dravid for the last decade and a half - From his first steps in test cricket when he scored a 95 to co-debutant Ganguly's 131, Dravid has made it a business to do a great job only to be overshadowed by someone else. His supporting acts include among others, the 180 in Kolkata in 2001, his two highest one day scores and the distinction of being involved in the maximum number of century partnerships with Tendulkar. As someone who prefers to remain in shadows himself, I have always felt a sense of kinship and fondness for Dravid and perhaps that is why he remains my favorite cricketer. 

No. 1 James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story - This movie stars Kate Hepburn in a role written for her and intended to relaunch her after she was branded as 'box office poison' and Cary Grant at his handsome best. Yet, it is Jimmy Stewart, not a big name when he cast after Spencer Tracy, Hepburn's first choice turned down the role, who steals the show as Macauley Connors, the rapidly-talking, middle-class writer turned tabloid reporter bristling with every contact with the idle rich. His hiccoughing drunken bit with Cary Grant and 'holocausts and hearth-fires' bit with Kate Hepburn are absolute gems.


Honorory Mentions: Lord Emsworth in the Blandings Castle stories by P G Wodehouse, Iftekar in his various roles as the gentlemanly police officer in the 1970s, Naseer and Om Puri as the cops(witches) in Maqbool, Claude Rains in Casablanca, V P Menon for his role in integration of independent India, Deepak Tijori for his inhaler-sniffing-real-brains-behind-the-plot role in Khiladi, Naseeruddin Shah in Ardh Satya.

25 Random Things About Me

1. I find things distasteful very easily - perverted jokes, slapstick comedy, metal, too much ginger but I almost never find something physically disgusting;  blood and gore, ugly pornographic scenes, bad hygiene, people taking a dump, poultry getting butchered - none of these would bother me, say, while I am eating.

2. I truly believe that as I get older I will grow handsomer, i.e. unless I go bald.

3. I have a thing for people's ears. I notice them, I compare them, I remember people by them and I like ear jewelery on women.

4. As a child, I was tricked into believing that Nana Patekar is a dwarf and that he stood on a stool to give his takes, which was later touched up by special effects. I believed it for longer than I am proud of.

5. For someone generally mild mannered and non-confrontational, I got into more than my share of fist-fights through high school. I don't know why.

6. For as long as I can remember, my most innate desire has been to be a cricket analyst. Someday, I want to have a blog on Cricinfo.

7. I am remarkably untouched by anything spiritual in nature. Nothing religious or spiritual ever moves me and I am completely untouched by the question of the existence of god. I sometimes find that strange.

8. From 1998 to 2006 i.e., roughly from the age of 11 to 19,  I went through a no tears streak. I did not cry even once in that period.

9. Significant influences in my adolescent years included The Godfather(novel),  Ayn Rand, Atticus Finch, Rahul Dravid, the Angry Young Man movies of Amitabh Bachchan, Letters from a father to a daughter by Nehru, Galahad Threepwood and Norman Lewis.

10. Despite having a deep baritone, I shriek girlishly in a high pitched voice when taken by surprise or in pain. Why this happens remains a mystery to me.

11. I like to collect trivia on any subject of interest to me. I spend hours on Google and Wikipedia.

12. I think VVS Laxman is the most gifted batsman I have ever seen bat.

13. I am not a big fan of the movies Bollywood churns out but if someone says that a certain movie 'insulted their intelligence', I find it extremely annoying.

14. I am obsessed with The Beatles, Hugh Laurie, Rahul Dravid, Kate Hepburn, A Suitable Boy and the song Autumn Leaves.

15. I went to what was primarily a girls' school for quite a few years, as a kid.

16. I do not think that there is another book as full of wisdom as The Godfather. I believe it truly contains the answer to all the questions in life. In the words of Nora Ephron, it is the I-Ching, the sum of all intelligence.

17. James Stewart is my favorite hero of all time.

18. I have a sharp memory and am generally good  at remembering all sorts of dates, entire conversations, people's faces, movie dialogues, short stories and songs. I want people around me to create history so that I can chronicle it.

19. I have not read or seen any of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

20. My favorite things would include the following - Billy Wilder's films, Salim-Javed's screenwriting, Nat King Cole's singing, Shane Warne's bowling, John Donne's The Expostulation, John Lennon's voice, the TV series BlackAdder, Bade Bhai Sahab by Premchand, the Beatles songs composed by George Harrison, Love Letters by A R Gurney, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, the movie Dil Se, Ruskin Bond's essays, Rahul Dravid's late cuts, Amma's curd chicken dish and the Christopher Walken sequence from Pulp Fiction.

21. How Irfan Pathan could lose his prodigious swing bothers me a lot. Is it really possible? How can you know how to move a ball like that and forget it!?!

22. I enjoyed Biology a lot in high school. The cardio-vascular system was my favorite organ system.

23. English Breakfast is my favorite cuisine.

24. Wuthering Heights is my favorite classic.

25. My eyes are not particularly small. But they are deep-set and beady.

Top 5 Romantic Scenes

No. 5: Where Mr. Darcy confesses his love to Elizabeth and she turns him down.
Despite my dislike for the much hyped novel, this is one scene which I love. He confesses his love and proposes marriage, a proposal seeking to present the depth of his feelings through the conflict of mind her circumstances put him in and his complete helplessness when it comes to her marked by the unwillingness with which he bestows his affection. She, to his complete surprise does not take kindly to it and turns him down flat.


No. 4: Where the number makes its iconic appearance
"You know something?"
"What?"
"I love you."
"How much?"
"Huh?"
"How much do you love me?"
"A lot. A lot lot lot."
"How much is that?"
"Umm...(lightbulb glows)..27.5"
"What?"
"Yeah. I love you 27.5. Thats how much I love you"
"Only 27.5?!"


No. 3: Where Mike(James Stewart)Connors kisses Tracy Lord (twice)
This is the night before Tracy Lord is supposed to get married to George Kittredge, a complete ass. But in the scene preceding the party, Tracy and Stewart seem to be getting drawn to each other.
"What's the matter with Tracy?" He asks.
"You tell me, will you?"
"Darned if I know. I'd like to."

After the party, they're both completely drunk on champagne. She's mocking him, calling him 'Professor', when his fascination with her comes to the fore.
"There's a magnificence in you, Tracy. A magnificence that comes out of your eyes and your voice...in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you...hearth fires and holocausts!"
"I don't seem to you made of bronze?"
"No. You're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy...full of life and warmth and delight."

The he kisses her. "Golly!", she says. He kisses her again. "Golly Moses!"


No. 2: Where they almost kiss in Dil Se and the song Dil Se
They discuss the things they like and dislike the most in Ladakh. Shahrukh is still trying to court her, she gradually getting drawn to him; this scene and the one preceding it where they walk and discuss what sort of kids they would have is charged with chemistry. She actually never lets on how much she is beginning to like him, but you can see it in her glances. He, on the other hand is completely awed by the mystery surrounding her. ("Mujhe sabse pasand hai tumhari ye aankhein, kyonki main kitna inme dekhta hun mujhe kuch dihkai hi nahi deta")
The title track is shot most beautifully. He, imagining a whole whirlwind romance through the song, imagining himself as her knight in shining armour in a terror-ridden Assam.


No. 1: Where they steal glances in the listening room in Before Sunrise
This scene is absolutely brilliant and anyone who has ever been, nervously in love will relate to it, immediately. The keep glancing at each other and try not to let the other catch them doing it. Julie Delpy is cutness incarnate, and Ethan Hawke's expressions are priceless in various places, most notably where he takes a long look at her, smiling to himself all through that you can almost feel how much he is enjoying looking at her.

A Suitable Boy: 19th Century literuture?

I read A Suitable Boy again recently. On my old blog, I had lamented the fact that I had never written anything on a book I so loved and discussed with like minded friends in such excruciating detail. Back in my first year in college, when we attempted to start the ill-fated book club, we never assigned a session to this epic of a book as we thought it had been discussed to death. However, this novel, so broad and magnificent in its scope, always throws up new things every time I read it. While I could go on and on about the characters of this book, in this post, I shall concentrate on Seth’s style of writing.

Written towards the end of the twentieth century, about a period in the middle of century of the century, this novel is very much in the tradition of nineteenth century European realist writing. This is in stark contrast of trend of magic realism pioneered amongst Indian writers by Rushdie and later espoused by the likes of Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Chandra.

Seth offers a hybrid blend of the fictional yet typical with actual historical characters and events. The main characters are imagined, but the fictional politicians Mahesh Kapoor and S.S. Sharma read a letter from the eminently real Jawaharlal Nehru – which indeed, as Seth informs the reader in his prefatory notes, reproduces, word for word, parts of a letter actually sent by Nehru. Nehru later makes an interesting cameo appearance in the novel. There is a lot of Scott in Seth’s book in his style of creating fictional characters within a historical background alongside real life figures. The fictitious city of Brahmpur in the fictitious state of Purva Pradesh is also an interesting blend of fact and fiction. It is not an imaginary city in a nowhere land but clearly in the Hindi heartland in North India with touches of Agra, Benaras and Ayodhya. This is similar to an Eliot’s Middlemarch which incidentally has been referenced by Amit Chatterjee, the character Seth modeled on himself.

Ayn Rand: A Criticism

I was fourteen when I read The Fountainhead and read Atlas Shrugged shortly after. It was one the most thrilling and emotionally powerful reading experience of my life. But this is not about why I like Ayn Rand's writing but about why I outgrew her ideas after a brief adolescence phase.

Ayn Rand was a champion of reason and extremely averse to any idea that reeked of any sort of mysticism or irrationalism. But probably, she had so little patience for anything she suspected to be irrational that she dismissed without actually understanding the fine difference between the reason as a process and what is considered at a given point of time and by a given number of people as reasonable. We do not exist in a vacuum and are never immune to notions of what is reasonable. It’s always important to remember that reason or rationality, and what people may regard as reasonable, don’t mean the same thing.

The consequence of failing to make this distinction is evident in the case of Ayn Rand in that if someone disagreed with her notion of “the reasonable,” it was very convenient to accuse him of being irrational or against reason. It is almost disturbing the frequency and ease with which she branded any viewpoint she did not share as not merely mistaken but irrational or mystical. In other words, anything that challenged her particular model of reality was not merely wrong but “irrational” and “mystical”—to say nothing, of course, of its being “evil,” another word she loved to use with extraordinary frequency.

In fact the degree of moralising she resorted to in her novels was almost appalling. Few clergymen in the Dark Ages, let alone novelists must have used the word “evil” with such frequency. She left you with the impression that life is a tightrope and that it is all too easy to fall off into moral depravity. In other words, while on the one hand she preached a morality of joy, personal happiness, and individual fulfillment; on the other hand, she was also very likely to scare the hell out of you if you respected and admired her and wanted to apply her philosophy to your own life.

The most devastating single omission in her system and the one that has probably caused the maximum damage to an impressionable reader was a complete lack of understanding of how human beings evolve and how they can change. The recipe prescribed by her was a severely disciplined one. You either choose to be rational or you don’t. You’re honest or you’re not. You choose the right values or you don’t. Her followers are left in a dreadful position: If their responses aren’t the right ones, what are they to do? How are they to change? No answer from Ayn Rand. Therein lies the tragedy.

Every philosopher must be understood in the historical context in which they functioned. Rand, born in Russia in the pre-revolution days was a relentless rationalist perhaps in reaction to “a mystical country in the very worst sense of the word, a country that never really passed through the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment in the way that Western Europe did.” Perhaps this should be the footnote to her ideas providing some insight into her fiercely uncompromising outlook.