The unearthing of family secrets, a triumph of compelling narration, the unexpected complications of life, and more. Verve follows the literary trail

A Suitable Boy ‘Two’ Many?

The ‘reclusive-no-more’, writer walked straight into a battery of strobe lights and clicking cameras, even as he gave pithy sound bytes to a TV channel in overdrive. While Vikram Seth, sporting a natty jacket, made quick strides towards the elevated stage, at the glitzy Taj Lands End in Mumbai, the audience hastily brushed off the crumbs of bamboo shoot bruschettas and honey chilli cashews, gulped their wine and shuffled into chairs, many clutching the new hardback tome that is currently being tom-tommed about by Penguin.

Since even a so-called literate audience out to celebrate a literary evening, can prove to be completely illiterate and donkey-style stubborn, the author, displaying remarkable equanimity, had to continuously remind people politely to switch off their cellphones; once even springing out of his sofa, mid-chapter, with yet another cautionary request. Clipped British-Indian accent intact, Seth read, with near-flawless finesse, randomly selected paragraphs from Two Lives, the biography that encapsulates with humour and perception, the lives of his great-uncle, Shanti and his German-Jewish wife, Henny and the period that the 17-year-old Seth spent with the couple in England.

Twelve years after the best-selling A Suitable Boy and six years post the elegantly crafted An Equal Music, the diminutive writer conceded that though a biography leaves little to the imagination and that facts remain unchangeable, “every genre has its own constraints and its own stimulations”.

“…Aunty Henny brought tea with three cups and soon afterwards, Shanti Uncle took a break from his work. He was still dressed in his white dental jacket. As soon as he came in, he hugged me, then stood back and said, ‘Now, let me look at my little Vicky.’”

While we listened attentively to ‘little Vicky’, now all of 53, a seemingly unobtrusive interruption intervened. The photographers were on their feet again, heralding the arrival of a tousled Aamir Khan who, unsuccessfully tried to corner a corner seat, unobserved. Distraction accomplished, Seth invited him up, to stage a live demonstration on how his one-armed uncle would extract a tooth! Ensuring that those who had missed the Bollywood presence, could let out an audible, surprised gasp.

At the book signing, while the writer hastily scrawled names, between smiles (at compliments) and scowls (learning of delayed flight schedules), the actor, accessible as never before, handed out impromptu interviews, signed dozens of autographs and wore a ready grin for the cameras. Did his presence take away from Seth’s moment? Perhaps. But Penguin had pulled off a media gig. Completely unnecessary. Completely effective. For as a rookie journalist later recalled, “Oh, Vikram Seth? The one who signed his book for Aamir Khan, right?”

- Mala Vaishnav

Feisty Farce

Some-time journalist and two-time Commonwealth Prize-winning writer, Shinie Antony, jabs a hard finger at society’s soft underbelly. We laugh out loud even as she lays bare bitter family feuds. Sly hints by coy brides drive people to madness and suicide. Dark, ugly, fat or ageing girls (no matter how spunky) are ignored. Nothing survives Antony’s breezy barbs – north vs south India baiting, southbound boobs, henpecked husbands, fat cat singers with fat mistresses, baby triplet aunts everyone trips over. Yet, she has empathy for everyone. Even Kanaka Mami, whose greed for other men’s bodies and properties shatters lives.

Kardamom Kisses is a feisty farce of dysfunctional domestic disputes seen through Choti’s lively eyes that miss nothing. Her Amma (a Malayali) and Pappaji (a Sardarji) meet at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University). Their tender love can’t stand up to in-laws and insults. Parochial politics yanks Choti and Badi from sarson da saag to sambar country and back. They survive Kerala and Delhi to grow into ugly doctor and pretty call girl respectively. Badi’s husband doesn’t know one of her kids isn’t his, or why he is gunned down in the mountains. Since her marriage is beyond saving, Badi flounces off to swamis to save her soul. Fighting her body clock, Choti impatiently beds a patient, finds herself with child, and returns to the village where she once suffered a shortened childhood with extended clans.

- NANDINI LAL

Roadside Realities

From its first gripping scene when the street urchin discovers a tiny newspaper-wrapped bundle on a bench at a station, Sadak Chhaap recreates the brutal existence of roadside urchins with gripping realism and eye-catching detail. The central protagonist, Rahul, finds that his life changes forever on spotting the abandoned infant and he rushes off to get his ‘didi’, Aparna of the helpline, Sharan.

Author of two novels Mixed Marriage and Other Parsi Stories and Pervez: A Novel and a play (Piano For Sale), Meher Pestonji, transcends concerns of community to look at the dregs of humanity with a degree of compassion. Her graphic descriptions are heart-tugging, even as they open the reader’s eyes to issues one might find convenient to ignore.

For a short while, Rahul becomes a hero as he ‘fathers’ Kajol, the little girl, and visits her at the orphanage for a while. But soon, caught up in the whirligig of survival, he is lost…to others and even himself – as poverty, drugs, fleeting love, sex and quick money dominate his life – though momentarily there is hope that he will make something of it. Pestonji’s quick narrative – the tale is told from the point of view of the ten-year-old protagonist – raises many questions, left unanswered, by circumstances. Eventually, Rahul, not yet fully grown-up, is sucked back into the vortex of a life lived dangerously, on the edge. Sadak Chhaap is an eye-opener for all who have witnessed the many who live on the fringes of a city that can be as cruel as it is kind.

- S.J.S

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