The Mumbai Dabbawallah and the Bollywood Badshah

This is from a column I used to write for a now-defunct magazine published by the Mid-day group.

Meanwhile, salaam dabbawalahs. And salaam Mumbai.

BRAND BAAJA
Ashok Banker

What It Feels Like For A Brand

One day last month, a large number of Bombay’s dabbawallahs failed to turn up for work. It didn’t make any headlines, and no celebrity columnist chose to write about it. But there was an article on that day in a local afternoon paper about Bharat Shah and his plight.

Now what the dickens does diamond merchant turned film financier Bharat Shah have to do with dabbawallahs, you wonder? And what do either of these two strange bedfellows have to do with the world of advertising and the media?

The answer is: What it feels like for a brand. A human brand.

Bharat Shah may not have been an ‘endorsement brand’ the way Shah Rukh or Hrithik are, but he was just as high-profile a human brand in his own right. To the consumer masses, people like Bharat Shah *are* Bollywood. Every time their picture or name appears in print, they’re advertising their films, the industry as a whole. They’re peddling product just as energetically as Govinda in an ‘andar ki baat hai’ TV spot.

Bharatbhai’s brand equity dropped in a flash. The moment he was implicated in that nasty Bollywood-underworld embroglio, he went from “shooting star” to a “milked-out cow” brand status. Nobody’s going to dance at his acquital, even if he gets one, not even Shah Rukh Khan for Rs 25 lakhs!

Now, remember those dabbawallahs? Why did they bunk work that day? After all, as an article in Forbes pointed out last year, Mumbai’s tiffinwallahs are an international model of efficiency, economy and profitability. The scene at my children’s school was chaotic: Mothers trusted those dabbawallahs so completely, they had made no arrangement for a back-up.

But they had a damn good reason: A fellow dabbawallah had died. A young boy in fact. And they had all gone to attend his funeral.

These simple men, earning a few dozen rupees a day for ferrying their heavy loads halfway across the city and back, pressed for time, battling against weather, traffic, delayed trains, all the everyday problems of urban living. Effective enough to impress the not-easily-impressed editors at Forbes magazine and an American management survey team who called them “amazing”. Yet loyal enough to stick by their own in times of need.

That may not seem like good brand behaviour. But it was good human behaviour.

And then there’s Bharat Shah.

The big brand, in advertising terms. And yet, when the brand image was sullied, everyone shied away from it. Like Sunjay Dutt. Like Hollywood director Elia Kazan after the McCarthy trials in the 1950′s. Like Amitabh Bachchan until his KBC turnaround. Like Sachin Tendulkar when he was captain and performing badly. Like Sourav Ganguly who’s in a worse boat, with his personal/Naghma problems added to the cricket ones. Like the whole cricket industry after the matchfixing scam.

Like any number of human brands who have fallen on difficult days.

What happened to Bharat Shah could easily happen any one of the celebs or stars who are shunning him today. The odds are for rather than against. A packaged consumer brand can be homogenized over a long period. A human brand is destined to go through pits and troughs. Bharat Shah may not be a poster boy in actual ‘endorsement’ terms. But he’s a lesson to all who rely on human brands: What if the same thing had happened to say, Hrithik Roshan? Imagine the chaos then.

On the other hand, think of those dabbawallahs, in their hundreds, simple men in ragged kurtas and pajamas, carrying that small body to the crematorium, taking the time to be human, forget the brand bit. They’re one of many examples of genuine human brands who fulfil the criteria of aspirational advertising. Okay, so not in the glamour sense. I can’t imagine a dabbawalla going “Black, I definitely feel black today, ‘chaila.”

But they’ll be out there, doing their job as efficiently long after the Bharat Shahs and Sachins and ABs and other cardboard cutouts have come and gone. Because they’re human, not brands. And the better for it.

And that’s what it’s all about for any successful, high-profile person who transcends his own profession to rise to a “shooting star” status in brand marketing terms. He may seem like a brand in every marketable sense. But all said and done, he’s just a human being, subject to all the vagaries of human destiny. You can cancel his endorsement contract, the way sponsors cancelled Monica Seles’s contracts after she was stabbed by that stalker. Or you can use the brand’s brief notoriety like in the case of J. Lo’s present ‘sex tape’ scandal to rub off on your own product’s ‘sexy’ image.

But in the long run, like the man says in ‘Fight Club’, they’re human beings, not soap. Subject to all the ups and downs and ins and outs (a lot of outs) of our troubled inconsistent species. And how the hell do you market that?

Jun 30, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

The Long Road: Musings on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and the enigma of Yudhishtira’s father

What have I been listening to lately?

The late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan mostly.

Not really his pop hits, although those are very good too.

Even his more ‘commercial’ hits like Kinna Sonna and Afreen Afreen have the same intoxicating quality as his more serious classical work.

But the tracks that have really got me hooked these days are the recordings he did for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.

In particular, there are two tracks: The Long Road. And The Face of Love.

I remember watching Dead Man Walking on LD years ago and more than the film itself, which was very good, the soundtrack blew me away.

I still remember that beautiful shot of the Susan Sarandon character just driving her car down a long highway with vast empty fields on either side, and the track The Long Road playing.

It’s basically one long alaap with almost no melody or lyrics to speak of. And like all western-recorded tracks, it’s pretty short, less than 4 minutes.

But the impact is immense.

The late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice wafts over you like a cool breeze from the Arabian sea on a hot summer afternoon in Mumbai.

The contrast of the Hindustani classical style vocal and instrumentation with the American landscape and subject is so beautiful, it needs to be seen to be appreciated fully.

Eddie Vedder joins the late Khan-saab on my other favourite track, The Face of Love.

This one’s much easier to embrace: the lyrics are simple, evocative and offered in both Urdu and English.

For some reason, it kept reminding me of those images that were circulating after 911.

The ones showing the WTC towers right after the planes had crashed, where the impact craters look like a giant face, captioned, obviously, The Face of God.

I remember thinking that God would never have anything to do with such an act.

But this song, The Face of Love, now this is the Face of God.

Because what else is God if not pure unadulterated Love.

Death is a subject that I find endlessly liberating to explore.

Not because I’m morbid. I’m probably the most ‘hasmukh’ person you’ll ever meet, or so everybody tells me.

But because we can learn so much from it.

Most of what we do, we do because we die.

Because we are not immortal.

We won’t live for centuries or millennia, perhaps not even the few decades more that life expectancy lulls us into taking for granted.

A thousand different things could conspire, or act erratically independently, to cut short our lifespans.

Which is why, what we do now, here, today, is so important.

Call it karma, call it duty, call it passion.

It matters. We matter.

Death gives us that purpose.

It makes our achievements epic, our little triumphs great victories.

Because if we all lived forever, nothing we did would really matter. We would have endless opportunities to try again, and likely succeed – a million times over.

But because we don’t live forever, even the smallest new word learned by a little toddler sounds so inspiring.

This song, The Face of Love, captures some of that beautiful sadness of life, always covered by the inevitable umbrella of death. Offering us protection from meaninglessness, and overshadowing us as well.

Excuse my rambling on the subject: In the Mahabharata, Yudhishtira, the protagonist (in a story that has many protagonists) comes to know that his father was in fact the God Yama, lord of Death.

This preoccupies him a great deal, wondering how, if his father is in fact the God of Death, he can possibly exist as a mortal and live a normal life.

The answer is so childishly simple, he laughs when he realizes it through a simple incident that occurs: Life and death are not separate, they are not even causal, nor are they linear. They co-exist, brother and sister, father and son, mother and child.

Eternally entwined, like the snake eating its own tail that Nordic mythology depicts as a symbol of infinity: the worm Ouroboros.

Of all the art forms, music comes the closest to capturing that eternally sad, eternally beautiful message: That life doesn’t last.

But love does.

Celebrate it.

I do.

And the fact that I’m doing so right now through the music of a composer-musician-performer who happens to be lately departed, only richens the irony and beauty of the experience.

Good listening to you too.

Jun 28, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Thank you for the music: A few words of deeply felt appreciation from Ashok to his many supporters

These past couple of weeks have been intense. At times, almost too intense.

I can’t really complain, though, because despite the somewhat lurid picture some sections of the media portrayed of me and my film, those who have their heads screwed on straight know that all this BS, otherwise known as media hype, will pass quicker than a bad smell from a gandhi naala, while the real work will go on.

I’ve been through several of these high-hype periods in my life and career: The first was when I was 15, had self-published my first book, had my byline in several publications in India and abroad, and was interviewed on Doordarshan, All India Radio, and made a few tiny ripples of my own as a budding ‘most promising’ poet.

There have been several since, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about media hype, it’s that (a) It doesn’t last; and (b) It doesn’t matter.

Well, that’s actually two things, but hey, I was always bad at math!

:~)

But what really does matter to me, a LOT, is the sheer outpouring of personal messages received from people across the board.

Many were strangers who didn’t know me from adam, but responded to something in my words, my voice, or my interviews – even the ghastly ones that the media edited and represented to suit their own sensational publication styles.

Some were celebrities.

Others were Ramayana or Vertigo fans.

Still others were old friends, some of whom I haven’t heard from for years.

Yet others were people who played some small or large real-life role in the events I spoke about in these past few weeks.

And finally, there were those who either sought to work with me on the film, or to hire me to work for them.

(There’s been a few creeps too, like the very patronizing lady who said to me, ‘oh, you know I remember you used to write these little columns and they were so darling. I really must read your books now. Where can I borrow one?’ My short answer, through gentle gritted teeth: ‘Buy one.’)

It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride.

And it’s been great fun at times, because I think I’ve finally learned to relax and accept the media madness for what it is: a momentary lapse of reason (as Pink Floyd used to sing) that passes quicker than a cloud across the moon.

I bet you that in two months, maybe three, most people won’t even remember my name.

Ask them and they’ll say “Ashok who?”

I’m used to that.

I’ve been through that cycle a half-dozen times now, and will probably go through it a dozen more times.

It really doesn’t matter, because in the end, the only thing that counts is the body of work you build, and the people who respond to that work.

People like you.

People who read books, not just talk about them.

People who know that newspapers often have more fiction in them than the average bestselling novel.

And who don’t give a damn about the fame game and all that hi-fi jahaaz!

There are too many of you to count on the fingers of six hands, and I only have two.

But you know who you are.

You called me, messaged me, emailed me, or met me, and voiced your support, regardless of any personal gain or ulterior motive.

And I’ll always be indebted to you, even if I don’t actually take some of you up on your offers of help.

Because you showed your true colours when it mattered most: you stood up for me and said so openly, even publicly in some cases, when other people were bickering, bitching, gossipping, and otherwise doing everything possible to spread the negative energy bottled up in their busy green hearts.

And I’ll always remember that.

In particular, thanks to all of you who wrote in to me through this blog, whether for the first time or the four hundredth.

I won’t name you all, you’re already in the comments links to the postings below. Although I hope to list you all in the book version as well as the film version of Beautiful Ugly.

As for those of you who contacted me directly or otherwise: Most of whomI know would prefer not to be named, but whose offers of support, finance, expertise, or just plain hands-on help, or even just good wishes, were invaluable, not because I’m actually going to take you up on those offers (sorry, but I’m doing this the hard way, my way) but because you offered or appreciated what I was doingand that psychological and moral support was worth more than anything else in the world.

Love you all. May you find as much love and support in your most passionately desired ventures as well.

Jun 27, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Dying For A Booker: Thoughts on Robertson Davies, Canadian authors, and the Booker Prize

This is one of my old Book Chaat columns which first appeared on Rediff.com.

Ignore the whispered muttering…that’s my lips moving inadvertently…

BOOK CHAAT
by Ashok Banker

Dialogues with The Dead
Robertson Davies never won a Booker yet his novels are hugely entertaining campus sagas, writes Ashok Banker

Margaret Atwood’s finest novel never won a Booker, and was never even nominated. Yet The Robber Bride remains the most stunning work she’s penned since the start of her illustrious career. Then again, her new novel is also excellent.

She’s one of those writers who never writes a bad book, and the moment you finish one of her exquisitely crafted stories of love, lust and human politics, you feel that if there were a Booker for authors, not individual novels, she would deserve that too.

It’s also fitting that Canadian authors are getting their due. While talent in that frozen chunk of the North American continent has always been more abundant than reindeer in the North Pole, the rest of the world hasn’t always taken note of that talent.

Perhaps because geographically, Canadian authors tend to be overshadowed by their colleagues South of the border in that big, star-spangled nation of super-hype. And perhaps because on the literary map, they’re just a part of that immense Commonwealth of former British colonies.

That might explain why an author as brilliant as Robertson Davies was so often overlooked by the Booker juries. Well, not exactly overlooked. After all, several of his novels did make it to the “long” shortlist, and What’s Bred In The Bone was in the prestigious 6 novel shortlist itself back in 1986.

But he never actually held that fat check in his hands and now he never will. Not because he doesn’t deserve it anymore – he still does, immensely. But he has the unfortunate circumstance of being slightly dead.

In fact, this is the thing about awards. I love them personally. Not because they help me narrow down the choices amongst all the great novels published every year – although they are a bit of a help in that respect too.

But mainly because they keep lauding gifted authors who genuinely deserve the adulation, sometimes belatedly, sometimes for the wrong novel by the right author. Because, as much as juries and PR agencies would have you believe that awards are given for more than just literary reasons.

This is why third world countries are sweeping the Nobels in recent years. And why the Nobel, despite having a specific clause that mandates giving the Literature Prize to a book published in that year, is invariably seen as recognition of an author’s lifetime contribution. (How else do you explain Hemingway winning for The Old Man and The Sea and not his short stories, clearly his greatest work?).

Coming back to Robertson Davies. A Canadian and a colonial through and through, his work tends to fill that interesting space on the shelf of literary fiction unofficially reserved for campus novels. Have you read David Lodge? Frank Kermode? Malcolm Bradbury?

Even Angus Wilson, who in an oblique, intellectual-academic kind of way writes this kind of fiction? Surely you’ve read Saul Bellow’s frequent forays onto the flawless Korean grass of American university lives and manners? Or any of a dozen other fine authors whose work tends to revolve around events and persons in an academic setting?

Well, that’s the area that Robertson Davies covers. In fact, in a way, he’s the grandmaster of academic fiction. He somehow manages to make campus life and characters as dramatic and interesting as the people in a very good Noel Coward play. (Don’t tell me you haven’t read Coward yet, you literary coward! Go on and hie you to the bookstore at once!).

In fact, that comparison is more than apt, it’s spot on. Because Davies actually writes comedies of manners. His novels are almost theatrical performances played out on the page. Glance through one of his books at a bookstore. Go on, don’t be shy, the book clerk won’t mind.

Notice all that dialogue on that page, and that one, and that? And so on? In fact, notice that almost every paragraph is set off with double quotes? That’s because Davies tells his stories almost exclusively in dialogue. In fact, he’s the only major novelist I know of who starts virtually every novel with dialogue, and even ends some that way.

Now, this is not always a recipe for great literature. Not only because dialogue has to necessarily reflect the person speaking. If that person happens to be an illiterate grocery store attendant, there’s not likely to be very much fine prose in that conversation. Which is why so many moden novels are filled with reams of trivial talk, and so many bestseller novelists write dialogue that reads like it’s all written by the same person!

But when your characters are scholars of Medieval Literature and Biblical Studies, English History and Rhodes Scholars, that problem conveniently vanishes. You are suddenly blessed with a bunch of people who can all speak extraordinarily well, almost as if they’re all spouting prose fit to be printed and submitted to Booker juries by the next courier despatch.

This is how Davies gets away with it. Just as, in a very different way, P G Wodehouse and his literary model Henry Green restricted themselves to elite English aristocracy and so ensured themselves an endless series of mouthpieces through which to display their superb linguistic viruosity.

It’s also the reason why Davies is such a pleasure to read. Take his finest work for instance. The Cornish Trilogy, which consists of three novels as trilogies predictably tend to consist of usually: The Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone and The Lyre of Orpheus.

This triptych is set aboard the University of St John and the Holy Ghost, a campus fraught with all the usual campus intrigues, politicking, backbiting, sexual indiscretions, literary debates, intellectual conflicts and the brouhaha of university existence.

Davies writes from first-hand experience, having been Professor of Engish at the University of Toronto, then Master of the University’s Massey College, and receiving honororary doctorates from no less than twenty-six universities in the UK, the USA and Canada.

His characters are all academic to a fault, intellectually as muscled as mental Arnold Schwarzeneggers, obsessed with Art and History, Music and English. They drink too much, talk far too much even when not drinking, fornicate between arguments as it were, and generally deal with the usual round of professorial duties, lecturing being the least of them

They even get up to a fair amount of mischief. From trying to unseat one another in the selection of Professors and Masters, to seducing one another’s star pupils, to vying for the attention of a lavishly generous patron, there’s a lot of dramaturgy going on.

In fact, from the very first sentence to the last, the story proceeds briskly at nonstop pace. There are no flabby passages of description extolling the arcihtecture of the 11 century medieval cathedral or laying the setting for a grand assembly of the University Board. Davies just gets right to work from Page 1 and never lets up.

Again, in this respect, he’s so strongly remniscent of Wodehouse, not only because of his richly ironic English humour (Excuse me, Canada!) but because he never gives you a dull or needless scene to wade through.

This is what’s amazing about his novels. You can read one from start to finish in a few sittings and never feel you’ve read a great literary novel. This is an experience rare in contemporary literary fiction where authors seem to believe it’s essential for the readers to suffer almost as much as their characters. There comes a time when even the most heavenly lyrical prose tends to tire. Davies comes as a refreshing balm.

But that isn’t to say that he’s trashy. Don’t get me wrong here. Despite my comparisons to Wodehouse, this is no Wooster saga you’re reading here. There’s meat on these bones, rich, prime meat. Full of the flavour and juices of intellectual life. Expect arguments that will test your literary knowledge, discussions of authors you may not have even heard of, let alone read. Mind-twisting matters of interest only to people to whom the outside world exists mainly as a theoretical mathematical construct essentially irrelevant to the pursuit of intellectual nirvana.

Yet, given this steeped-in-steeples-and-symbolism material, there’s much to entertain. You just have to have the desire to swim for a while in the luminescent, candle-lit corridors of Anglican academia, often without the option of coming for air, mentally speaking.

If that’s the challenge you seek, you won’t find many authors of this calibre. J K Galbraith and Malcolm Bradbury, among numerous other critics, fellow writers and academics, praised him highly, even calling him “one of the great modern novelists” and the creator of “the best works of this century”. That kind of praise isn’t won cheaply, Booker prize or no Booker.

But in the end, after you’ve gotten through those endless literary references, the Biblical allusions and theological symbolism, even the great Good-Evil battle that all his plots are based on ultimately (believe it or not!), the greatest thing about Roberston Davies is his ability to make it all live vividly through the words of his characters.

Apparently, while studying at Oxford in the late 1930′s, Davies grew interested in theatre and became an actor and a playwright, penning several plays. That shows in his work. And turns what could have been turgid, massive tomes of academic intellectual narrative into boisterous, massively entertaining debates between jealous, conflicting, horny, drunk, greedy human beings.

This is what elevates his three major trilogies, The Salterton Trilogy, the Deptford Trilogy, and the last and finest, The Cornish Trilogy and makes them not just great literature, but great entertainment too. Intellectual, true, but entertainment nevertheless.

Robertson Davies died in 1995. His novels speak on for him.

Jun 26, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Out of media, out of mind: Back to work

Well, it’s over, for now. I’m not giving appointments for interviews anymore. You won’t be seeing my picture or my quotes in the media as often as you have these past couple of weeks.

Several interviews done over the past several days will continue to appear over the next few days, even weeks, due to the longish lead-time of some publications.

In the case of at least two – Hindustan Times, Mumbai edition, and DNA Mumbai – the publications will use the interviews/profiles only when these two new publications hit the stands, in early July and early August respectively.

But from here on, I’m no longer available for interviews, photo-opps, or even just a quote or a byte. I’m now going to get back to what I do best: write in splendid isolation.

(And work on my film, also in partial isolation, inasmuch as one can call working with a few dozen people ‘isolation’.)

When will I re-emerge from my writing cocoon?

Well, the last time I ‘came out’ was in 2003. Before that, 2001.

That seems to indicate a two-year cycle, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Let’s just take things one day at a time and see how it works out.

For now though, the ‘party’s’ over.

Move on now, mediapeople. There’s nothing more to see over here.

Chalo, yaar. Get a life.

There are other bakras out there.

As for you, my friends, fellow bloggers, Ramayana readers, desi dosts, and just plain well-wishers…Blogging zindabad!

I will be very much here, every day if possible, keeping you posted on what’s happening, in my career, and in the world of books, movies, music – in my own individualistic way.

Neither hyping nor hating.

Just sharing and caring. (Or as my daughter used to say when she was little, ‘sharing is scaring, no?’)

Boo!

Jun 25, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

A Voice For Peace: Anand Patwardhan’s ‘War And Peace’ in Mumbai theatres from today

“My documentaries are more difficult to screen than to make,” Anand Patwardhan admitted in a recent interview.

He was referring to the Government ban on his documentary War And Peace, which was finally lifted by the Court, allowing the film to be screened publicly.

War and Peace opens today at 9.15 p.m. at Fun Republic multiplex, Andheri Link Road, Mumbai. And will run daily at the same time.

It’s scheduled to run at Inox Multiplex, Nariman Point, from next Friday, 1st July, onwards.

In a supremely ironic twist, it’s releasing in the same week as the big Hollywood blockbuster of the season, the Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise megalith, War Of The Worlds.

How ironic is it that a tiny no-budget documentary film carrying the message of peace happens to come up against a mega-budget monolith glorifying the glamour of big-screen war fantasy?

Or then again, perhaps there are no coincidences.

Perhaps fate arranges things quietly to make sure that there’s always a balance, a check, to make sure we don’t all fall into the same pit.

In this case, the bottomless Hollywood-Bollywood money-machine pit of mindless entertainment…

I happened to meet Anand Patwardhan briefly at a Mocha Film Club screening about a month ago. He impressed me as a quiet, determined, gentle and committed person.

His conviction in the power of film and the media to achieve social change was very evident.

I told him that I was making a documentary film too and that he was one of my inspirations.

What impresses me most about activists like Patwardhan is not that they sometimes risk life and limb to ‘expose’ controversial subjects, but that they continue to hew to their stands even thirty years on.

I read in another interview today that he took part in anti-Vietnam war protests.

Now, that’s impressive.

To believe in something so passionately, and to stand by that belief throughout the course of one’s life – he’s 55 now, and that’s pretty much a life commitment in my view – is a rare quality, especially in today’s commercialized media world.

Even most journalists, for all their high-and-mighty moral stands, are quick to leap to greener (more lucrative) pastures, the minute they get an offer they can’t refuse.

That’s why I applaud when someone like Anand Patwardhan gets his due.

I know that War and Peace isn’t likely to break any box office records. A solitary screening a day in a single multiplex screen isn’t exactly going to shake up Bollywood.

But it’s a beginning.

A starting gun for Indian documentary film making.

For independent cinema that isn’t afraid to reflect the society it emerges from in the harshest light, hoping to help improve that same society in some manner.

That isn’t afraid to have a rich sense of irony, of wit, of intelligence tempered with biting comment, of satire, and compassion.

That doesn’t seek to condemn, or glorify, the way most news media love to do.

That seeks the greys of reality, rather than the blacks and whites of ‘noise’paper journalism.

War and Peace is an important film. It must be seen for that reason.

But it’s also a landmark in the business of film distribution and exhibition.

If it succeeds, even to a modest degree, it will open a door, or at least a wedge, for other independent documentary makers to screen their work for a larger audience.

And even if no Michael Moores emerge, even if we don’t get docudramas that match the smallest Bollywood extravaganza, at least we will have an alternative.

And that’s worth supporting.

I’m going to be there, watching War and Peace. This very evening, if possible, over the next few days definitely.

You should go too.

Help change the Indian film business, one ticket at a time.

Jun 24, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

My mother and I: An intensely personal note by Ashok Banker on his film project Beautiful Ugly (Expanded and Revised by Ashok on 22 June)

(This is a much longer and detailed version of the blogpost that appeared here earlier, expanded and revised at the request of so many of you. Thanks for your support – please keep the comments and emails coming. – Ashok.)

My mother married when she was 17.

A year later, she was left with a newborn son, namely me, without a husband, namely my father, and with the dreaded letter D forever affixed to her name. As in, ‘oh, that’s Sheila, she’s Divorced’ – the last two words always mouthed silently, as if speaking the dread word aloud might invoke the lord of doomed marriages.

A few years later, she was remarried, this time to a man closer to her sensibility, and with whom she shared a genuinely loving relationship, the character actor Bhagwandas Mulchand Luthria who was (and still is) better known by his Bollywood screen name Sudhir.

They enjoyed a few good years together, and she finally began to emerge from the shroud of darkness that had threatened to engulf her earlier.

I was a young boy at that time and some of the happiest memories of my childhood are from that period – correction, my only happy memories.

She was a fairly successful model with a very wide circle of high-society friends, several of whom went on to become big names in the film world. Some like Dev Anand and Sunil Dutt were already stars.

Others, like close friend Vinod Khanna, Feroz Khan and his brothers, Vinod Mehra, the Ramsey brothers, and several more, went from strength to strength before her eyes.

It was a wonderful time, filled with parties, socializing, friends galore, and our house at Worli as well as my grandmother’s house at Sankli Street, Byculla where we often went, were always bustling with people and fun.

Those of you who have read my 1994 novel Byculla Boy will have read about this very period in my and my mother’s life.

Sometimes, I think about what it might have been like, had things gone on that way. I think they would have been pretty good in the long run. Sure, my mother and my foster-father Sudhir would have fought a lot, but they would also have cared a lot, and somehow they would have worked things out. I think we would all still be together, one small, mostly happy family.

But two things happened that changed things forever.

Dangerous Liaision

The first was a relationship my mother had with another man, a struggling film director. I don’t know how and where and when it happened, I just know it did because my grandmother (maternal) told me about it later, and my mother acknowledged it. My mother conceived a child by that illegitimate relationship and it being illegitimate, she had to get rid of it.

Now, some sections of the media have chosen to highlight that affair and the man involved. In retrospect, I can see why they chose to do so: the struggling film maker that my mother encountered almost thirty years ago is today one of the biggest names in Bollywood, Mahesh Bhatt.

But the truth is, the fact that she was involved with Bhatt or with some other completely unknown person is totally irrelevant.

To me, looking back, it wasn’t the liaision itself that damaged her, but the unwanted pregnancy that unwittingly resulted – a pregnancy that my mother told me, even the man responsible had no clue about. (It was my grandmother who confirmed the identity of the man, by the way, and only then did my mother admit it was he.)

You see, my mother had been born a Roman Catholic. (Her birth name was Sheila Margaret D’Souza, she used the name ‘Sheila Ray’ as her professional modelling name.) And in the RC faith, abortion is considered a mortal sin, akin to murder.

Despite her vices, my mother couldn’t bear to commit that final transgression and take a human life. In the end, ironically, it was my grandmother who prevailed upon her. How could she give birth to one man’s child while married to another man? Bad enough she was a divorcee already.

The argument that finally convinced her: ‘Think about Ashok-baba, what will people say about him? And about the child itself? It will be a bastard, no?’ or words to that effect, in my grandmother’s colourful Anglo-Indian idiom.

And so she aborted the child. Or tried to. My grandmother, practising nurse of several decades experience, told me later that the child was removed alive, and in a ‘viable state’. It was given away to a fisherman and his wife. Incredible as that sounds, it was what she told me, and I believe it to be the truth to this day, because she had simply no reason to lie. If you knew my grandmother, as many people still remember her, she never lied or feared to speak the truth.

“They Shoved Me Out of A Black Car�

Perhaps my foster-father suspected that she had had an illicit affair, because I recall their fights grew really bad around that time. But then something happened that made an affair seem utterly insignificant.

I’ve written about and talked about this any number of times now, but that doesn’t diminish the pain of saying it: At a high-society party in a posh Mumbai highrise apartment, in the Carmichael Road skyscraper Usha Kiran, my mother was drugged, raped by four men and photographed in the act, and afterwards the rapists attempted to blackmail my foster-father.

A strong woman with the physical ability to resist as effectively as any man, even my foster-father later agreed, seething with rage, that “only powerful drugs could have forced her to succumb to such abuse�.

She was driven home in the early hours of the next morning, and shoved out of a black car onto the street in front of our then-home, G Block of Venus Apartments on Worli Seaface.

Her life ended that night. She suffered a total mental breakdown, and never really recovered. When she recovered a little, she took to alchohol in a manner that was clearly suicidal. In time, my foster-father went his separate way, and my mother’s family grew apart from us, and in the end, my mother and I were left to fend for ourselves. She was written off as a drunk, mad woman.

And I, as her barely teenage son, was laughed at to my face. Family members would look at me and click their tongues sympathetically and say to one another, ‘Poor bugger.’ In their eyes, I was doomed.

Road to Reparation

After years of struggling with doctors and alcohol clinics and home therapies, my mother finally passed away in 1990. I was driven by a powerful urge to write down a part of her story, and my own, in the form of two semi-fictional novels called Vertigo and Byculla Boy.

In those days, writing novels hardly paid anything, but writing the books gave me a great sense of relief. Because I had recorded it, and by recording it, I had proved it had happened. That my mother had existed. That we had endured those things.

Now, 15 years after my mother’s death, I’m making a film. In a sense, it’s a sequel of sorts to both Vertigo and Byculla Boy. It’s titled Beautiful Ugly and it tells the story of a film maker named Ashok Banker who sets out to make a film about his mother and the traumatic rape that destroyed her life, as well as his own story of survival.

I’m that film maker, of course, and the film is about me making the film. In the film, Ashok is asked the question: “But how can you make such a film? How can you tell the world about such things? What would your mother think?�

My mother? She was labelled an alcoholic, a madwoman, a slut. Nobody acknowledged what had happened to her, nobody attempted to track down the culprits, bring them to justice, nobody even tried to help her, or her teenaged son. Not even my birth-father, who wouldn’t even pay my school fees in my last two years of school (he had never supported my mother and me financially) or help defray her funeral expenses.

Yesterday, while I was writing this piece, I got a call from one Guiseppe Rodricks. He was the priest who had given extreme unction (last rites) on my mother. Though no longer a priest now, he offered to help me in any way in the film I was making.

“She was a very troubled soul,� he said. “By telling her story you will bring closure to yourself and grant her soul peace. I will do anything to help you make this film.� He is one of several dozen people, known and unknown, famous and ordinary, who have made similar offers of support and assitance. Their help is going to be invaluable, for I making this film with my own resources, and am not following any of the traditional methods for financing or producing films that are normally used in this country. Let’s be blunt: this is not only NOT a Bollywood movie, it’s not a commercial film either.

I don’t know whether the film I make will even be worth watching. What I do know is that I must make it. Not to achieve justice because that would be pointless now.

Not to achieve revenge, because I don’t believe in vengeance.

But simply to tell the world that this wonderful, intelligent, witty, beautiful, charming woman once lived, she loved, she filled the world with her crooked-teeth smile (always meaning to have them fixed), with her loud horsey laugh, her never-ending bad-puns and pj’s, and a few terrible men did something to her that broke her spirit and destroyed her mind.

And men like that are still around, still attacking women even in the highest echelons of urban society, and getting away scot-free because of the unwritten code of silence that shrouds such things.
That code of silence that was responsible for condemning my mother after the rape to an alcohol wasteland that no number of AA meetings could rectify, no amount of catechisms could cure. By ignoring her pleas for help, by refusing to talk about what had been done to her or even acknowledge it – for as most rape victims know all too well, nobody really wants to hear about it – and by subtly or overtly blaming her for somehow bringing it upon herself, even the people around her were a party to her destruction too.

With this film, I intend to shatter that code of silence. To show that these things happen, and this is how they happen, and this is how we gloss it over, or ignore it, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

It exists. I’m living proof of it. Despite the odds, despite those tongue-clicking relatives who wrote me off, I survived, and I lived to tell the tale, as they say. And now it’s time to tell it.

Because, if I don’t, then who will?

Media Madness: A Footnote

One of the things that have happened in the past few days since I began talking about Beautiful Ugly and the events it covers, is the huge amount of nationwide and (now) international publicity that has sprung up about the story.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of goodwill messages have been coming to me by email, phone, sms, and personally. The overall consensus is overwhelming: ‘Make the film, show the truth, you’re doing a very brave thing, you will put your mother’s soul at peace.’

There are detractors too, inevitably. A few cynics who wonder, ‘Why is he doing this now? Why is so hyped up? Why is it timed to coincide with the book launch of Armies of Hanuman? Why is he slinging names like Mahesh Bhatt around?’

To which I answer thus: I’m doing this now, because, with my father passing away in February this year, nothing I reveal can cause hurt or pain to anyone who was part of the original story. (My wife and children have known all along about these events and have come to terms with my past a long time ago.)

It’s hyped up because how often does anyone come out in the open and talk about such things? It does make a great news story, I’ll admit. So what? I think the more people talk about it, the more it will encourage other high-society rape victims (and/or their loved ones) to come out in the open and talk about it as well.

It’s timed to coincide with the launch of my new book simply because I don’t give interviews or do PR all year round. I haven’t promoted my last three books, and may not be coming out to talk to the press for at least another year, maybe two.

Besides, it happens to be my book, and I happen to be the author and this is also part of my oeuvre and life, so what else should I be talking about? Your life and work?

In the end, I admit openly: Yes, the hype is good. Because I want you to know that I’m not afraid to talk about it, to confront the ugliest demons from my past. And I refuse to cloak them with sugar-coated beautiful pretenses. I’ve thought this through carefully and am well-prepared to take this step, both facing the media and making the film.

The only question is: Are you ready to face the ugly truth as well?

If you’re a professional working in Mumbai’s film, modelling, fashion, advertising or high-society circles, you probably aren’t.

Whether you are or not, as actor-filmmaker Feroz Khan put it very eloquently when asked this very question by a news channel: “Sach hameshaa saamne aathi hain.�

The truth will always come out in the end.

Jun 22, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

“Film portrays mother’s rape in Indian high society”: Reuters news agency breaks Banker’s story internationally

This is the Reuters story that broke earlier this morning (Tuesday 21 June).

–Ashok

Film portrays mother’s rape in Indian high society

By Nita Bhalla

BOMBAY (Reuters) – An Indian author is making a film about the gang rape of his mother, a well-known 1970s model, to show victims are not just the poor and powerless as the country comes to terms with a series of brutal rapes in recent months.

The film, “Beautiful Ugly”, documents events 28 years ago leading up to and after the gang rape of Sheila Ray, who never reported the crime. She died in 1990 aged 44.

“I want this film to show that rape also happens in the so-called glamour world of films and modelling and is not just something that happens on the streets and villages of India,” Ashok Banker told Reuters in an interview.

“She was gang-raped by four men during a party and then dumped outside her home in the early hours of the morning.”
“She didn’t report it to the police fearing that she would be stigmatised and her career would suffer, but in the end she suffered as it drove her to having a nervous breakdown and her career never recovered.”

Activists say a woman is raped every 30 minutes in India, with the majority of cases going unreported. National Crime Records Bureau data show more than 18,100 people were tried for rape in 2003, with just 4,645 convicted.

Banker, who was 12 years old at the time of the rape, said he spent years researching what happened to his mother and discovered many women working in India’s Bollywood film and glamour industry have been sexually assaulted, yet remain silent.

CONSERVATISM AND FEAR

He said a combination of conservatism and fear still prevails in the country, despite the lavish, liberal lifestyle of a growing number of socialites who spend their time at cocktail parties in five-star hotels and exclusive nightclubs.

“Although rape is now a much more talked about issue in India, still women face the possibility of being ostricised from their social circles and in the workplace, even in more liberal, urban societies,” said Banker, a well-known author of fantasy novels.

But more importantly, many of these rapists are well-known, high-profile men, and victims not only fear they would jeopardise their careers by reporting to the police but also that police will not take action against these high-level people,” he added.

Thousands of young women flock to Bombay from all over India every year, hoping to make it big as a Bollywood heroine or a catwalk model. But with competition so high, many end up in dance bars, performing for men for money, or even as prostitutes.

Banker said he hoped the film would be released by September in time for its screening at the Sundance Film Festival.

He said even though “Beautiful Ugly” was not a typical Bollywood blockbuster, he believed it would attract much attention in and outside of India because of its unusual content.

“I don’t expect this movie to be a money spinner, but I hope that views can be changed and these high-profile men who work in the industry realise that they no longer can take advantage of young women and get away with it,” Banker said.

Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Picture This: Ashok in Conversation

This one was also taken by Adeel Halim at the same Reuters interview.

Jun 20, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Picture This: Ashok in Conversation

This one was taken by Adeel Halim of Reuters (by whose kind permission this picture appears here) while his colleague Nita Bhalia interviewed me at the Atrium Lounge, Taj Land’s End, Bandra, Mumbai, on Saturday 18 June 2005.

Jun 20, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Readerswrite: More reader reviews on Ashok’s Ramayana series

“Your version of the Ramayan”

My name is Punit Gandhi. I am 20 yrs old and a voracious reader. i must say that i had never heard of you uptil jus over a month ago. I happened to be at Crossword Kemps Corner, searchin for a few Asimov novels and came across the first 3 novels in the Ramayana, namely Prince of Ayodhya, Seige of Mithila & Demons of Chitrakut.

I was a bit sceptical at first, having never heard of you and fearing that the books might be a misguided attempt to promote hindu extremism or something of the sort. But those doubts were laid to rest as soon as i read the Authors Note in the Prince of Ayodhya

I bought only the first installment in the series wanting to test out the waters before jumping completely in. And as you would know it, i was back within a day to get the next 2 (i simply could not put down the first one and finished it within a day )

I even placed an advance order for the Armies of Hanuman when it cam out and i believe was the first one in Bombay, or maube India perhaps to get a copy from Crossword. I got the book on the 14th and have finished it yesterday

Hence i am writing to you. To tell you how amazing i found your books. I cannot wait for the next one to come out

I love the way you show the change in the charachters of all the protoganists. The slow change of Ram from a kid to a young adult to the Champion of Dharma. The way Lakshman and Ram behave with each other is so real (unlike any portrayal of their relationship i have ever seen) I relate with that relationship completely, having a younger brother myself who i love to bits, though he is not that good with the bow and arrow, but nor am i with the sword for tht matter

I love everything about your book. From the way you portray the war scenes to the way you describe the mental conflicts that the characters go through. I Love the way Supanakha and Ravana banter when she is supposed to give him her life blood to revive him. There is something so real and amusing about that dialogue, to see Ravana the great held hostage by a wily woman.

Truly you have written some of the best books i have ever read. I shall start looking for your other works now that i have finally discovered an Indian writer whom i like so much.

I was hopin to attend the book launch today at Crossword but wont be able to unfortunately. but i do hope to meet you in person one day and tell you in person all the things i said in this mail.

Till then keep writing, for that is what i writer must always do isnt it

Yours Truly

Punit Gandhi, Mumbai

“Excellent work”

Hi Ashok,

Thank you so much for writing the Ramayana series. Thank you for infusing a new life into these characters that are so much a part of my childhood.

When I started reading Book 1, I didnt like it (although it was abosrbing) – because it\’s so different from the Ramayana I have heard and the characters as I have imagined them. My sources of truth for the Ramayan have been my grandparents and my father.

When I read your retelling, frankly, I was shocked! I didnt know what to make of it. I didnt find your book controversial/blasphemous but so different from what I had in mind. I have always loved (my King Lear-ish vision of) Dasharatha and it moves me when he HAS to give into Kaikeyi. However, I didn’t feel much sympathy for your (slightly lecherous) Dasharatha. And your Manthara was WAY too evil.

And there is so much gore. Yet, this is what makes your book special. You have written boldly and with so much passion. Imagination, originality and wonderful writing from you. And the courage to write your own version. The series is amazing and it’s impossible not to like it. I liked your picturization of Sita.

I can’t wait for your Mahabharata series. Do you plan to include the Uttar Ramayan(the Luva-Kusha story) in your Ramayan series? That would be interesting.

My husband, my dad – they all loved your books. Please keep writing. Please don\’t stop with the Mahabharat. There are so many other stories from our myths that you can retell/reinvent for us.

Regards,

Chinmayee, Bangalore, India

“India’s original answer to LoTR – a humble review attempt

Firstly let me be honest i was a skeptic when i first heard about it. I mean come on its Ramayan we are talking about…..who does not know about it. So why should i read it again. I had already seen the Ramanand Sagars over the top histronics on the small screen and the almost or actually very childish rendering in the Amar Chitra Katha. Not to say it was not fun reading it as a kid but honestly a novel about it at almost 10 dollars…you must be kidding.

But i would be eating humble pie very soon as a friend of mine from bangalore put it up as a must read….so i read it, and read it in one sitting.

I cannot put down in words as to how captivating the storytelling is. It has to be cause every young Indian growing up in the 90 knows the story watching the television every Sunday. Its almost like Star Wars 3 revenge of the Sith where every one knows that Anakin goin to the darkside but still its among the top grossing movies of 2005 simply because of its visulisation and presentation. And this is where Ashok Manker hits the homer. From the very chapter of POA he takes us on a surreal journey. He presents a visual picture of Ayodhya which is only limited by the readers imagination.
Now this is one field I surely dont lack in. I began to immagine Ayodhya with its 7 wall defense and in all its glory. Infact so strong were they in my mind that all I wanted to do was to be in Peter Jacksons shoes for i would want to make this into a movie which would put LOTR to shame.

Now that mentioned the Lord of the Rings it is only fair that i do mention that the writing and the story does resemble it in more than one way. The influence of Tolkein is understandable but the shocking or surprising thing is the story line. The dark lord Sauron and Ravan are pretty similar. Their defeat and exile is similar and so is the quest…two mortal trying to achieve the imposible…defeating the immortal. The evil Mordor is also similar to Lanka and so are their beast. The only catch here is that LOTR was written in the 1800 whi;le Ramayan is almost 3500 years old.

Kudos to the author for bringing this ancient myth our very own heritage within reach of individuals not familiar with the hindu concept. I am sure if dealt with correctly it will take our culture and its values to the far reaches of this world and would make every Indian to be proud of being associated with it.

Coming back to the book itself….i am not going to even going to make an attemp at how much more one is able to understand the turmoil or Ram and how he achieved what he did. I am sure other more capable writers then me have already bought this to attention.

I would like to finish by saying that if ever by gods grace i am in a position to make this epic into a movie i would love to do it in the way Ashoks written this book. I hope you continue writing and I shall continue reading and loosing myself in the world come alive by his writing. merci Viveak

Viveak Mathija, Borrego, California

it is a true pleasure to see how a blog can turn into a real communication channel as yours is! I just accidently picked up a copy of your book, longing for “something Asian” to read. I’ve never heard the original story, and never heard of you as well up front, so it was just a wild guess when I picked your book at Periplus in Jakarta. I did not regret the guess! Without the indian background, and not seeing your glossary untill I finished the book, I did what I usually do with books I get hooked on: just keep on reading and reading and don’t stop to wonder what the exact meaning of the next word I don’t understand is. It makes the reading more enjoyable and it makes it easier to read again, and more thoroughly, a while later.

I just hope I can find your second, and third, and fourth book somewhere in Singapore.

Regards,

Martijn and Indri Doekes, Singapore

“Your version of the Ramayana”

I have read the first three books of the Ramayana and have just purchased the 4th book. I am a 35 year old businesswoman and mother of 2 and for a long time been starved of \”good reading\” – quality novels with a good story is very hard to find.

I found the Prince of Ayodhya at the science fiction section of our book store – an area where I really never look for a good read!

I was pregnant at the time with my second daughter. Needless to say, highly dissappointed when our book store did not have the second novel in stock.

Your version has made the Ramayana all come alive and I feel as though I am reading it for the first time. The Ramayana as I have read it (and as was read to me by my grandmother)while growing up has been a little far fetched and I really read it only for the spiritual lessons one must search for…I mean, flying monkeys was a little hard to believe.

The Ramayana is a tale of good over evil – but more so, it is an indication of being in control of our destinies by the choices we make – evil influences are the endless desires we have in a world where having it all is not enough. Sita’s desire for the golden deer is indicative of this “want”…..

Having had a rudimentary understanding of the lessons one should learn from the Ramayana, I now read your book with glee and a new found understanding. You have made the characters in this novel, real; for as I understand them, they were in human form and while they were supreme beings; they must have been faced with the same challenges that other human beings face. This is what is so exciting for me. I still look for the lessons but enjoy getting caught up in the world as you describe it in Sath Yug.

I thank you for writing these novels and for re-inspiring me. Never before have I waited in such anticipation for the next novel. I hope that you have started the next novel already and that once this is completed the Mahabarata is next on your list of books to write – this epic; I have no doubt will keep you thoroughly busy for a long time. I will certainly be one of your fans and eternally grateful for this.

God Bless!!

Urvashi Maganlal, Johannesberg, South Africa

Jun 19, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Readerswrite: Featured Reader Review of Armies of Hanuman by Atharva Dandekar, Mumbai

‘Armies of Hanuman’ would be an important book. It would deal with some of the major events in the Ramayana, such as the abduction of Sita, the transition of Ratnakar into Valmiki, and of course, the introduction of a principal character- Hanuman. I was curious as to how you would represent these. And I am happy to report I was not disappointed. Here follow my thoughts, Kaand by Kaand.

Kaand 1 deals mainly with the Battle of Janasthana, and the aftermath of the forest asura war as seen by Hanuman. The first nine chapters deal solely with the battle of Janasthana, which is described in meticulous detail, and is a great read. However, it would have been better, if it was taken at a little faster pace. Had the battle finished a chapter or two earlier, those chapters could have ben utilised for a more detailed account of Ratnakar’s transition, which isn’t much more than conversation between Rama and Ratnakar and Lakshman’s description of his meditative trance. It would have be nicer if we could actually watch Ratnakar get into his trance, read about his thoughts then, and other relevant matters. The Kaand, however, is great read even as it is.

I will say here that Kaand 2 is not the best in the Ramayana. The return of Ravana to power important, but we could do with less description. This Kaand has pages upon pages without any dialogue, and while the writing is as great as ever, the content is almost boring. However, the abuction of Sita IS one of the best pieces in your Ramayana, and has the reader hooked agin. This part is worth reading again and again. But like I said, there have been Kaands better than number two. But I am sure you had your reasons for writing it he ay you have.

Kaand 3 is lovely, but I don’t know wether this is because of the writing, or because of all the vanars! Vanar society is beautifully depicted, and Hanuman is one of the best portrayed characters in this Ramayana, nay, in all folkloric literature.I wish this Kaand was longer- I just didn’t want it to end. Even if it meant cutting down on Kaand 2. More detail in dialouge and description would have been nice, though. But if I had to choose one Kaand in all of the Ramyana, it would be this one.

Over all, it is a great book -as brilliant has the others. I would give it a four out of five. One more gem to add to the Ramayana collection.

Atharva Dandekar, Mumbai, India.

Jun 19, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

They came from South Africa, and England, and Toronto, and Goregaon, and Pedder Road: Post-Mumbai Launch notes

So it’s over.

The Crossword Kemp’s Corner launch of Armies of Hanuman was yesterday and I’m typing these words on the morning of Friday, 17 June 2005.

It’s always difficult to sum up such events.

Often, it’s like writing itself.

You sometimes write (or at least, I do) in the most undesirable circumstances, feeling rushed and pushed and otherwise pressured, and you’re convinced that what you’re producing is utter tripe. And yet, when you read it later with a cool head, you’re shocked to see it’s actually pretty darn good.

And on other occasions, when you’re most relaxed, in your favourite nook, aircooled and comfortable as a bear can be in winter, with a gold-plated Parker and writing paper as smooth as a baby’s backside, and you think you’re producing masterly prose or lyric…and later, when you read back through what you wrote, you see with a sinking feeling that it’s…utter tripe.

As they say in Hollywood: Who cares if you’re happy making the film. All we care about is whether the audience is happy watching it!

But sometimes, life gives you both in one neat package.

That’s what the Crossword Kemp’s Corner AoH launch was like: both good feelings and good results.

The turnout was good. Not great. Not as massive as I hoped for, and perhaps expected. Some people who’d said they’d be there didn’t turn up. Some people who did turn up didn’t seem to belong there.

But the former were few, and the latter were even fewer.

In short, it was a sizeable crowd, if not a massive mob, and it was an enthusiastic, attentive one.

They seemed to enjoy the reading (which I didn’t enjoy at all – I never do, I can never understand why books which are written to be read silently should be read aloud, although Anahita Uberoi, my co-reader, was simply marvelous, especially in comparison with my fumbling attempts)…they seemed to enjoy the Q&A, which I did too, since it’s about talking one-on-one (as those of you who were there must have noticed I always note names of speakers and always remember them) and about things that interest me hugely (my books, the puranas, writing and publishing), and even seemed to tolerate the long line waiting for their books to be signed.

There were a few snafus I must mention. For even the finest chocolate cake has its occasional bitter bits (sometimes those are the best part!).

For starters, I need to apologize to those who came early expecting me to do the same.

The truth is, I got caught up in last-minute media interviews which kept stretching longer and longer.

That could certainly have been avoided, had Crossword agreed to let me do interviews in the days preceding the launch.

But they were very particular about that point: they wished me to do interviews only in the store, only on the evening of the launch.

This was also the reason why the Q&A session was cut short, the microphones removed from my table like the disappearing mike in the Oscar Ceremonies, and the signings rushed through to accomodate the mediapersons waiting for interviews.

I’m sorry about that. I feel very strongly that media interviews are apart from the business of a book launch.

The only focus of a book launch should be on the readers attending, their queries, their (often rare) opportunity to ‘meet the author’ and the signing of their books and the little interchanges that occur over those signings.

I’m sorry to say that these most vital parts were rushed through and that even I was left feeling unsatisfied.

Several people who were very keen to meet me were unable to do so.

Several people left messages later that they took one look at the throng of mediapersons waiting to interview me and didn’t have the heart to wait.

Several people were forced to walk away disappointed, either with their books unsigned or without being able to meet me personally.

Now, those things are just not on.

I accomodated the media as best as I could – I had no choice. If I hadn’t, they would have eaten me alive the next day.

And as we all know, books and authors get far too little mediaspace in today’s film-dominated world anyway.

(Happily, though, my other film project, which ‘hijacked’ a couple of other newspaper articles, didn’t disrupt the launch evening, perhaps because I’d made it clear that this evening was about the book launch, not my other projects.)

At the end, in a supremely ironic twist, even Crossword was unable to get me to sign their stash of books, the ones they keep in their ‘signed copies’ section.

But those complaints aside – and I admit I’m a crotchety man at times – all in all, it was a good evening. I enjoyed the company of those genuine Ramayana fans who turned up. As well as those well wishers who came and bought books for the first time, or expressed interest in doing so.

In particular, thank you, Atharva Dandekar.

Thank you, Akshay Bhasker.

Thank you, Jaideep Varma (author of Local) and friend Murzbaan (hope I have the spelling right).

Thank you, Elvis D’Silva and Sonal.

Thank you, Sanjay Khare.

Thank you, Vaibhav Jain, Pragati, Maa, Saumyaa.

Thank you, Ayush (my son, who was covering the event with our Handycam), Yashka (my daughter), Bithika (my wife), for being with me in all I do, and without whom I couldn’t do a thing.

Thank you, Bharti Jaffri. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to meet your historian friend…but we’re going to all see Parineeta together. It’s a promise!

Thank you, Lalith Khanvilkar and Satish, for coming from so far for an event that must have seemed so alien to you both.

Thank you, to all those whom I didn’t see clearly (apologies) or whose names I’m neglecting to mention here.

Thank you to all those Ramayana fans who were passing through Mumbai from their homelands in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Toronto, UK, USA and I don’t know where else.

Thank you for the wonderful things you said about me and the books.

Thanks for being there, and for buying the books and taking the time to listen and share your views.

Thank you, Vijji, for being a wonderful hostess and one of the first fans of the Ramayana.

Thank you, Bhaktawar, for doing a great job of coordinating the event as best as you could. And for lugging piles of AoH copies around for the video shoots.

I’ll even thank Priyanka and the rest of the Crossword staff for doing their best to make the event a success.

Perhaps next time, you’ll separate the media and the reader events, and let interviews be done before the event, so a few more people can be informed (through the media) that a launch is taking place. (I’m continuing to receive hugely disappointed emails and smses from fans who only found out after the event, most through the TV news reports done last night.)

And perhaps next time, you’ll let the book launch be about an author and his or her readers, not about sound bytes and schedules.

But all that said and done, it was a great evening. And everyone did their best.

Including myself.

So love you all. And see you next, when I see you. Which, I’m sorry to say, will not be for a long while in Mumbai at least, not for another year, perhaps longer.

But whenever that does happen, we’ll try to make it even better.

Jun 17, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Calling Mumbai: Chalo, Kemp’s Corner, Armies of Hanuman launch on June 16! (Updated June 16 morning)

Okay, so here we are, L-Day. I’l look forward to seeing you at Crossword Kemp’s Corner this evening. If you’re a reader of my Ramayana novels and have been in touch with me before, remember, I’ll be there early, around 6 p.m., so please do come early and meet me personally. Once the maddening crowd arrives – and the mad mad media – I don’t know how much time we’ll get to chat.

UPDATE: Those of you who watched Mumbai Live on NDTV 24/7 (the English channel, not the Hindi one) last night may want to check out the channel today – they’re scheduled to show a small feature on Ashok talking about his film project Beautiful Ugly, the news feature is supposed to run at various times of the day so just check from time to time.

And today’s Mid-day is supposed to be carrying a major news story on Ashok and Beautiful Ugly, with some shocking revelations.

Okay, here’s something I don’t usually do.

A book launch.

My Indian publishers, Penguin Books, are launching Armies of Hanuman: Book 4 of The Ramayana on June 16, 2005, at Crossword, Kemp’s Corner, Mumbai.

The launch is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and if you want to meet me personally, I suggest you come early. I’m going to be there at around 6 to talk to readers, and will stay back after the event till 9 to talk to readers as well as the media.

Everyone’s invited of course, and the event is completely free to attend.

But if you’re a reader of my Ramayana books and live in Mumbai, I really need your help.

The last time I attended one of these so-called book launches – my own book, Prince of Ayodhya, was being launched – there were people in the audience who had absolutely no interest in me, the Ramayana, or even in books in general.

There was a gentleman, if I can even call him that, who came up to me at the end, and offered me a visiting card.

Turned out he was a jeweller from a neighbourhood store who attends such events to hand out his card and promote his store.

Of course, there were a fair number of genuinely interested readers and book lovers too.

But that was *before* my Ramayana was published (it was the launch of the first book, remember) so nobody present had actually read any of the books (naturally).

The launches of Prince of Ayodhya in Chennai and Delhi, while somewhat better (more genuine book lovers, fewer timepassers, no jewellery store managers) was still not truly satisfying to me as an author.

After all, what I really wanted, was to meet people who had actually read my book/s, and had something to say about them.
Since then, I haven’t had any more launches, and haven’t done any press interviews, because I felt it was more important to give people time to actually read the books and form their own opinions of them.

I’m happy to say that that has certainly happened – the sheer volume and quality of my emails from Ramayana readers proves that.

So this time, I’m hoping it will be different.

I’m attending this event solely for the purpose of meeting those people who have read and liked my Ramayana books and intend to keep reading them to the end of the series.

Because you have made it possible for this series to be published in the first place.

And only your support can ensure that it will stay as successful as it is now.

So my earnest request to you is, please, come to Crossword, Kemp’s Corner, on the evening of June 16, 2005, and spend an hour or two with me talking about the Ramayana books, or anything else under the sun.And help save me from self-promoting jewellers, retired couples looking for a cheap (free) way to spend the evening, and the exotic riffraff that attends such events in the hope of meeting celebs and page 3 people.

Please be there.

I’m only going in the hope that you’ll be coming.

It won’t be any good without you.

Jun 16, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Undesirable Desires: Book review of Sudhir Kakar’s novel Ecstasy

This review first appeared on Rediff.com some years ago, before my Ramayana series began publication. You might notice the references to K.M. Munshi and Iravati Karve, as well as the Ramayana and Mahabharata – as you can see, I was researching the puranas then, and preparing to write my retelling.

Some people believe a good novel should do more than just tell a story. Some people feel a novel should educate even as it entertains. If you’re such a person, you’ll not regret picking up a copy of Sudhir Kakar’s new novel Ecstasy (Viking Penguin India, Fiction, 251 pages, hardback, Rs 295)

Because Ecstasy, just like Kakar’s debut work, The Ascetic Of Desire, is not a novel.

Let me explain.

The Ascetic of Desire was based on the life of Vatsyayana. In the course of narrating incidents from Vatsyayana’s life, Kakar used the opportunity to explore the psyche of sexuality. He dealt not just with the life of the great sage, but also with the politics of man-woman relationships, analysed folklore and legends, explored the intellectual and physiognomic basis of sexual attraction and behaviour.

In short, he used the story as a means to an end. That end, clearly, was to write a book-length essay on sex and sexuality.

He did a wonderful job of it. The Ascetic of Desire was an intellectual delight. It stimulated the mind far more than the gonads. And that’s a commendable achievement in an age where stimulating the gonads is the only goal of most writers, film-makers, television channels and advertisers.

It was a didactic novel, comparable to the didactic novels of earlier centuries, when the novel was seen as a medium to tell parables, allegories or moral tales. Except that Kakar’s intention was not to offer religious insight, but simply to entertain the intellect instead of the imagination.

To those who had read Kakar’s work before, The Ascetic of Desire came as no surprise. After all, Kakar is a psychoanalyst by profession. He has authored several successful non-fiction books, taught at several leading universities in India, Europe and the United States. His books have been translated into several languages around the world.

It was only natural that his novel would carry his psychoanalysis a step further: It was almost as if he had placed Vatsyayana on his patient’s couch and was rigorously psychoanalysing the man! It was, by and large, successful because sexuality is a complex topic well worth exploring and discussing. And psychoanalysis and sexuality have an inseparable bond, which can be traced back to that father of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud.

Freud may have been a little too glib for his own good, and extremely passionate, but misguided. Or so the revisionists now feel. But Kakar’s exercise was a fascinating one because it enabled us to examine our own Indian history of sexual behaviour and attitudes in the light of modern psychoanalytical practice.

It was a great concept, brilliantly executed. An Ascetic of Desire is worth reading.

But the formula wears thin with Ecstasy. For one thing, the ecstasy in question here isn’t sexual, but religious. Because, for his second novel, Kakar leaps several centuries ahead, selecting incidents from the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa (1836-1886) as well as the life of Ramakrishna’s chosen successor, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), which he uses as the basis for Ecstasy.

So far so good. Both are great men. Deserving of not one but any number of books discussing and illuminating their religious and spiritual views and thoughts. And a biography of either would be a wonderful idea. A biography of both would be too good to be true.

But Ecstasy is not a book-length essay on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Nor is it a biography. Nor is it a biographical novel.

Starting out with a simple narrative, it tells the story of Gopal. Kakar clearly tells us in his note at the outset that Gopal’s story is based on incidents taken from Ramakrishna’s life. We see Gopal alias Ramakrishna experiencing his legendary visions, falling into religious trances, experiencing the fever-peak of spiritual enlightenment. Experiencing religious ecstasy, as the title promises.

Kakar’s prose is lucid and lyrical. He uses just the right language to describe such experiences without lapsing into melodramatic sentimentality or intellectual cynicism. He makes Gopal’s experiences seem vivid and intensely believable. He makes us believe that Gopal believes he is experiencing these things. The novel is a short one and, within the first few pages, you are caught up in its simple net of narration, willing to travel through the life and times of this blessed young boy on the path of Godhead.

But soon we come across the first speed-breaker. The second section of the novel is titled Vivek and, in it, we jump forward to Gopal’s grown-up years. He is now known as Ram Das Baba and considered a paramhansa, the most highly evolved of sadhus. Hence Ramakrishna’s given title.

The problems begin with this section. Kakar has been telling us a fine story up to this point. The first part of a strong, well-realised, competently imagined childhood. But the minute he introduces Ram Das Baba, the Paramhansa, he instantly lapses into exactly the same religious sentimentalism we were dreading all this while.

The young boy Vivek and his friend Kamal’s first encounters with Baba read more like extracts from missionary tracts than scenes from a novel. The didactic tone Baba takes, and Vivek’s initial scepticism quickly giving way to fanatical admiration, are so weak that we’re left feeling manipulated and boxed in.

Of course, we realise, these are real events. This is how the young Vivekananda first met and was impressed by the venerable Ramakrishna. These are probably the exact words and thoughts that Ramakrishna spoke.

If this was a religious non-fiction book relating the story of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda’s lives, this might have been acceptable. After all, writers as accomplished as Iravati Karve have frankly represented portions of great epics anew. K M Munshi’s Krishnavatara series is a wonderfully re-imagined and recreated version of the life of Krishna; in fact, he freely admits to having used his imagination where facts were not available. I N Birla’s retelling of tales from Rajasthani folklore vary from the original tales at times, but read even better for these changes.

What Kakar himself did in The Ascetic of Desire was ingenious and acceptable. He added layers to the simple life of Vatsyayana. But, in Ecstasy, he seems unable to rise above the source material. Every time he narrates a scene or sequence where Ramakrishna’s religious views or Vivekananda’s thoughts are expressed, he seems undecided whether to let the lecture take centrestage or maintain the illusion of a fictional narration.

Even the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, two great examples of storytelling with deeply religious and didactic passages (the Gita being, one could argue, the greatest didactic passage of all), keep the story going relentlessly. The lessons, moral, religious, humane and otherwise, come through in the course of the telling rather than in chunks of expository speech.

Sadly, Kakar is unable to emulate any of his predecessors, let alone achieve anything remotely close to the great epics. After that superbly evocative opening, Ecstasy flounders from one lecture to another. Until, finally, by the time you reach the Epilogue and Vishnu Das congratulates Vivek on his decision to become a full-time worker in the RSS, you’re inured to speeches like this one:

“This is what our country needs. Disciplined and dedicated young men forging a strong nation that does not ape the West. A male nation! No more of that irrational emotionalism which has sapped our energy over centuries. Your father would have been proud of you!”

The following paragraphs outlining Vivek’s progress in the RSS and the Sangh Parivar’s hierarchy read almost like a pastiche of several real-life RSS figures. The final dream of despair he experiences is as thin and cardboard-like as the rest of the novel, unconvincing in its humanity and unfulfilled in its storytelling. You’re not quite sure by this point if Kakar is criticising Vivek’s decision or simply bemoaning the loss of his mentor and guru, Ramakrishna. Both, probably.

Sudhir Kakar the psychoanalyst is a fascinating writer. Sudhir Kakar the novelist is a gifted and readable writer. Even Sudhir Kakar the religious discurser might be worth reading if he were to choose to write such a book. But, in Ecstasy, he can’t seem to decide if he is trying to recreate the stories of two great and influential historical figures or using the guise of their stories to dole out huge dollops of religious dogma.

In the end, it comes across as a mishmash of both. Which doesn’t make for a good novel. Ecstasy doesn’t arouse any ecstasy, divine or literary.

Jun 15, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Love and Longing in Pakistan: Book review of Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses

(This review first appeared in Hindustan Times.)

If a certain Mumbai tabloid is to be believed, L.K. Advani’s recent spate of political digression was inspired by a biography of Jinnah which he bought at his favourite Khan Market bookstore prior to his Pakistan trip. Advaniji might have been in less trouble today had he picked up a copy of Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie’s new novel Broken Verses instead.

Shamsie’s new novel, perhaps her most accomplished in several ways, could more effectively be used to build bridges without raising the ire of any political group. Without digressing into outright polemic, hewing firmly to the straits of the novel’s intellectualization of politics – as against politic’s intellectualization of literature – Shamsie’s work crosses the divide between Indian and Pakistani (and international) literature to forment a cross-cultural debate of fascinating depth.

In this, her fourth book following the iridiscent In the City by the Sea, Salt and Saffron, and Kartography, the second of which was on Orange’s list of the 21 best novels of the 21st century, she quietly weaves history, politics and familial ties in a novel of barely suppressed rage. In a perhaps innocent upturning of a familiar Mahasweta Devi device – a daughter obsessed with the disappearance of her political activist mother 14 years ago – Shamsie tells a tale in quiet, deceptively simple prose.

A fine poet as well, Shamsie’s prose reads on the surface like an elegant stylist’s attempt at capturing the almost Jamesian elegance and repressiveness of modern-day Pakistan. In Aasmaani’s conversations with her father, or with Ed, or with Shenaz, the surface talk is never just that, it’s like a lichinous pond where the scummy top seethes with waiting life. You have to dive deep below to find true clarity.

Unlike Mahasweta Devi’s polemic novels, bursting with dangerous ideas and the inevitable grinding of individual wills against the collective force of the body politic, Shamsie’s novels are more concerned with observations made from a single clearly envisioned point of view, immersing you surface-depth in a molasses-thick web that grips you harder the longer you stay.

Her prose is readable without being showy for the sake of display. Her characters can often blend into one another, apart from the obviously different ones, like Ed, with his Americanisms. And her sensibility is often stringently British (or should one now say Commonwealthish?) rather than the earthy lore of inner Pakistan voices. There is a mannered beauty to her work, particularly in this very elegantly designed fourth book, that sometimes defies the very attempt at immersion she seems to seek.

She could do with more honest brutality. Obliqueness can only work up to a point before it becomes obfuscation. Let’s say it like it is; the author, if not the characters. At times, her lingering becomes a malingering indecisiveness that you suspect is more an affliction of the writer rather than the characters themselves.

These are minor bubbles in a pool of otherwise iridiscent beauty. Shamsie is a writer with extraordinary sensibility and an inherent quality that is uniquely sub-continental. She defies easy comparison and that itself becomes her greatest accomplishment. She is that most unique thing: a butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis of a shared past (Indian, Pakistani, British) that nevertheless manages to create her own genetic pattern. She deserves all the accolades heaped upon her already, and then some. Read this fine novel to see what literature can do that polemic cannot.

And the next time Advaniji passes through Bahrisons, he could do better than read the new Shamsie. At least, then, if he chooses to quote from the book at length, he’s unlikely to get into trouble with the powermongers that be: true literature is rarely simple enough to rouse a rabble to mutinous dissent. If rabbles read at all.

Jun 12, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Readerswrite: The Things Some Ramayana Readers Say (And Don’t Say)

It’s now official: I’m unable to keep up with my reader mail.

Just don’t expect a romantic liaision!

“WHY YOU SHOULD READ THE AKB RAMAYANA”

“I picked up the first two volumes of the Ramayana out of curiousity. Every Indian has, of course, heard of the Ramayana. But this was something new. The so-called ‘real’(read or heard) Ramayanas are interesting, but somehow fail to drag you into India’s epic age. The characters and the battles are all there, but it sounds all very formal, because you’re hearing about gods incarnate.

The great thing about this new Ramayana is that the guys are people of flesh and blood, likes and dislikes, and subject to every human emotion and desire. You are reading about HUMANS, not celestial beings. The result is that you end up feeling closer to them than you ever felt when you first heard the story on your granny’s lap, and a hundred times afterwards.

AKB achieves a representation of detail as never before. There is no blandness whatsoever, and on every page you discvover something you know in a way that you don’t know. It is as if you are in there, there is a feeling of…well… ‘inclusion’ that is not present in any other versions.

In the other Ramayanas, Ayodhya, and the Arya nations and Lanka, were mere backdrops for what happened to the characters, like those big cradborad cut outs that form the back grounds in plays, and no one really pays much attention to. But here, its all there and this time it is much more realstic, in a way that I can’t explain.

Of course, some people have reactions like ‘It was NOTHING like this’. But WHAT is nothing like this? There was never any true canon for the Ramayana, it was always someone’s interpretation, and this series is one of those. Given enough time, I bet that this retelling will rise to the heights of those by Tulsidas and Valmiki.” Atharva Dandekar, Mumbai, India

Dear Atharva, thank you for articulating it so well. You’re right, every Ramayana written before is an interpretation, not the last word. Even Valmiki and Tulsidas said so themselves. Thank you for appreciating my interpretation. If it helps you to understand, then you should know that I was driven to write it by powerful feelings – it was like being there, seeing and hearing everything that happened, right before me.
(No, this is not some Past Life experience I’m talking about, just an author’s intense involvement born out of exhaustive research and the inevitable inspired insight that follows carefully prepared groundwork.)

There is a fanatical way of reading a text, and an intellectual way.

And then there is a human way.

I chose the human way. Because I’m no different from you or anyone else, and
no more talented (or less). But I focussed my antenna in the right direction, read the right sourcebooks, and then allowed myself the freedom to tune in and fine-tune until I got the reception just right, and then I recorded everything I received over that celestial ether. Call it inspiration, call it good authorial discipline, or just plain call it empathy for what they must have felt in those circumstances back then.

I’m happy that you, and many others like yourself, feel I succeeded to some extent.

You make it possible for me to keep telling this story, and others – such as
the Mahabharata I am now working on.

Best

Ashok

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“A fan across the seas! I was recommended the first book of the Ramayana series by a friend of mine, and I must admit I was somewhat skeptical to begin with, and a little wary.
But I was also intrigued, since my friend has issues with religion in general, and HE was recommending it…I now see why!:) I loved the first book of this series so much because it was so natural and all the emotions of the characters were so tangible and understandable. I’m quite upset because I haven’t been able to buy any of the books in our local bookstores here in Toronto, and I’ve been desperately seeking them out!!! Anyway, thank you very much for your lovely work, it’s great to be reading something that although fictional, is a part of our culture that we don’t normally get to understand completely! Your books are truly a treasure!” Nithya, Toronto, Canada

“Hi Nithya, and thanks! It’s unfortunate you can’t find copies in Toronto, since all the first four books are supposed to be available there (and usually are).

Suggest you try the specialty SF bookstores, my books are often shelved there, although I disagree with the classification (as you can understand).

It’s always great to hear from an Indian fan who really ‘gets’ what I was trying to do, because ultimately it takes an Indian mind to really understand the difference between my attempt and the typical traditional retellings. So do keep reading and supporting the series: it wouldn’t exist without readers like you.

PS: If you can’t get it at any bookstore, then try Amazon.ca. I’m sure
they’ll have all of them. Amazon UK definitely does. Best, Ashok

“Dear SIR, I want to thank you heartly for removing your such a precious time for reading my letter and ansering it. After reading your letter my thoughts for you and your books have changed completely, the very moment i came to know that your books have been read by more than millions of people in india as well as other countries of the world I was very happy & proud that our culture & super epic ‘RAMAYAN’ is been reached to all the people out there. I sencierly appreciate your efforts for the same. Please continue to do so & I am sorry for being rude to you in my previous letter. I pray to almighty RAM that your forthcoming books may reach to the heights of unlimited sky. JAY SHRI RAM” Nimit Vora, Mumbai

“Dear Mr. Banker, I have read the first 2 books of the Ramayana, and was pleased to the core… my knowledge on the ramayana is from my childhood days from books, comics (Amar Chitra Katha) and the like… and there was this particular book which showed Ravana (born a Brahmin) to be the good hearted but wronged (by the gods for being born of a demoness) guy. He had wrong ideas infused into him by his rakshasi mother, and went on to win Shivas Atmalinga. There is also a story about him performing the Shiva pooja for Rama and blessing him with Victory…brilliant stories. Are they included in your series on the Ramayana? Also, I cannot get hold of the third book in the series- ‘The Demons of Chitrakoot’ here in London. None of the WHSmiths seem to have it.

I read that you are planning writing on the Mahabharata? Well, looks like you are the ‘choosen one’;)

Awaiting the remaining books in the series.

Kind regards,” Tushar Tendolkar, London, UK

Hi Tushar, and thanks for the appreciation. There are many verbal legends centred around the characters of the Ramayana, such as the couple you mention, and I have tried to include some in my retelling. But mostly I have based my structure on Valmiki’s and Kamban’s retellings, while creating my own liberal interpretation. So, the answer would be, no, I haven’t included all the verbal variations – it would be impossible to do so, as several are contradictory. For example, one famous recension has Rama and Sita as siblings, with Ravana as their father. And the Far Eastern retellings, while wonderful and valid in their own right, are completely different from anything we know.

I’m surprised you can’t get copies of Demons of Chitrakut, especially since even the fourth book, Armies of Hanuman, is out now. I suggest you try some specialty bookstores stores which stock SF and Fantasy, since my UK publisher, Orbit is best known for those genres (my Ramayana is their first foray into more non-traditional ethnic literature). Or you could just get them from Amazon UK by clicking on the images of the books on my website, and placing your order.

About being the ‘chosen one’, excuse me while I chuckle :~). You make me sound like Neo in the Matrix films! I’m just an ordinary guy, no different from you or anybody else, not especially talented or brilliant – I’m a college dropout and a pretty dismal failure throughout my school career, especially in English. I guess I just have a lot of passion and motivation, and I really genuinely love our epic tales and legends and believe they deserve to find a wider readership.

Thanks to readers like yourself, I’ve achieved a little success. If the royalty statements are right, and if I’m reading them right, then my Ramayana series is now approaching the 1 million copy sales mark worldwide. I guess that’s pretty okay for a college dropout who was denied permission to study Eng. Literature by correspondence while holding a much-needed job because “it is not possible to study English on your own, young man.” I guess I proved them wrong, hey?

Stay kewl, don’t drewl, keep reading…” The Banker

“I Loved this book! I first discovered the Ramayana when I went to my nephew’s school play, yes I said school play! Then I saw the book and bought it. About the time I thought the next one would be out, I went to get it, and was told the publisher didn’t pick it up. I couldn’t find it anywhere. The other day I realized I could could try online. So here I am! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I am so happy! If you are into seeing different versions of this story, you might want to check out Mount Madonna School’s production sometime. They do it every year. This year it runs June 10th-12th.at World Theater CSU Monterey Bay. They film it as well. I hope you don’t mind me promoting it, but I thought it was relavent. Never stop writing.” Christina, Watsonville, USA

Dear Christina, thanks for those wonderful words. Don’t worry, I don’t mind your promoting the school production of Ramayana at all – after all, it’s not as if it’s some MNC brand you’re plugging, it’s another version of the Ramayana and it’s always interesting to hear about different versions.

You’re right about the US publisher of my Ramayana series not picking up the rest of the books after Book 1, but frankly, it turned out to be for the best. The original editor, Betsy Mitchell, moved to Random House, and with her went the only person who really empathised with the spirit of the series and understood that this is not just another ‘epic fantasy’ or Tolkien ripoff. Anyway, the same publisher’s UK division, under it’s Orbit Books imprint, is now publishing the books for the US market, as you discovered online for yourself. From August onwards, you’ll find it easier to buy my books in the US.

Keep reading, and write me anytime. Warmest wishes, Ashok

“Hey Ashok, just finished the 4th book today while commuting to work. Ratnakar’s transition to Valmiki was well written, I didn’t see it coming for a long time. Also loved the part when Sita appeals to Prithvi-ma and how She reaches out to rescue Her child. Great writing. Hope Armies of Hanuman does well to carry your words into Lanka. Look forward to the next book..any idea when it might be out here in Malaysia? Gluck with the book launch! Regards,” Sunnil, Kuala Lampur

Thanks, Sunnil. Glad you liked Armies. I worked long and carefully to make Bearface’s transition credible. This was one of the places where my Ramayana differs from previous retellings, while staying true to the known facts and spirit of the epic. The Valmiki legend is an inherent part of the Ramayana tale, and I thought it would be great to integrate it with the larger story. So glad people are liking it now. Do keep reading. Bridge of Rama comes out worldwide in December, and the last book, King of Ayodhya, will be in stores everywhere next May (2006). Best wishes, Ashok

“Armies of Hanuman. In this the fourth book of Ashok Banker’s retelling of the Ramayana we are reunited with our characters 13 years from the date we left them beginning their fourteen year exile. Rama, his wife Sita and his brother Lakshman along have fought alongside a motly band of outcast and outlaws against the Asura hoard for the whole time.

At the onset of the novel we learn that Rama has decided to end the war one way or another. Although still outnumbered 5 to 1 he has devised a plan that he hopes will even the odds in his favour. Although there are unexpected occurences during the battle (the rakshasas meld together to form super beasts made up of fifty of their kind) Rama’s forces eventually prevail. Rama, Sita, and Lakshman are free to to spend their final year of exile in peace.

Or so they think.

If you are someone like Rama who has succesfully conquered the rakshasas at every turn, you are bound to have made some pretty bad enemies. The rest of the story is bound up in the telling of the ressurection from near death of his major foe (Ravana the king of the Asura world) and his plots for revenge on Rama.

But allies can come from many places, and in this case Rama’s prowess as a military leader and unfailing comitment to dharma (sacred duty) has attracted the attention of the vanars, a highly developed species of ape.

Hanuman of the title has had Rama under observation for some time and has entertained hopes of enlisting his aid in restoring his king to his rightful throne. Through circumstances they end up joining forces and becoming friends and allies.

In this fourth book Mr. Banker continues to do a masterful job of bringing an ancient story to life and making it accessable to those of all cultures. Again he has managed to walk the fine line of neither over explaining concepts and beliefs to those who are unfamiliar with them and thus boring others, while at the same time never leaving any reader in the dark. In fact in this volume I found that, either from the knowledge I had accumulated from the earlier instalments, or even cleverer integration on the author’s part, the story, the characters, and the moral lessons and education were woven together even more seamlessly. Maybe it’s because now that Rama and ourselves have proceeded down our paths together into maturity we are living our teachings instead of learning them.

Whatever the reason, or however that Mr. Banker has done it I found Armies of Hanuman had an even better flow and narrative then any of the previous titles. Instead of admiration for simply managing the feat of presenting the story in an understandable way competing with enjoyment of the tale, I was able to just sit back and read the adventures of Rama as I would any other novel. That is an amazing accomplishment on the part of Mr. Banker.

I’m left with only one question, being unfamiliar with the original text (out of interest I took out an adaptation from our local library that was done in 1910 and found it totaly incomprehensible in terms of plot and storyline so I can’t use it as any basis for study) was the inclusion of Ratnaker’s conversion to Valmiki, the ant hill. Had the original author included himself in the tale as an example of how even the most corrupt could be changed for the better? Or was this Mr. Banker’s nod to the originator of the story?

The Armies of Hanuman is another example of Ashok Banker’s abilities as a story teller par excellence. The characters continue to develop and mature, his villans although evil and despicable, are multifaceted and interesting and the introduction of new characters is handled seamlessly and naturaly. There is a certain organic quality to the way this tale is progressing; it’s like watching the development of an exceptional plant from a green and tender shoot to the point that it bears fruit. Right now we are begining to taste its first sweet rewards.” Richard Marcus, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

This review refers to the UK-USA edition of Armies of Hanuman. To order the book from Amazon UK click on the picture above.

Hi, Richard. First of all, congratulations on winning a free advance signed copy of my next novel, Bridge of Rama. Don’t forget to send me your mailing address and one daytime telephone number so I can send you a copy the moment I receive it from the presses – which will only be sometime in November, I’m afraid. But if you prefer not to wait that long, you’re welcome to take a copy of any of my other books in lieu of it.

I’m glad you liked Armies of Hanuman and found so much to like in it, not least because I know how difficult it must be for most western readers to digest the high code of morality that Rama adheres to: it’s been a bone of contention for American readers in particular, and as you might be aware, was one of the reasons why the series was cancelled by its American publishers. (It’s since been taken over by a different division of the same parent company, Orbit Books, which is responsible for the newly redesigned editions available in your local Canadian bookstores.)

To answer your question about Valmiki. It’s true that he includes himself in his retelling of the Ramayana – after all, as he tells us in the very first chapter of his Sanskrit poem, it was Sage Narada who first narrated the tale of Rama’s travels (literally translated as ‘Rama-yana’) to him, and he later re-imagined the whole epic in a new verse form in an attempt to better understand this story of an ideal man. Legend also tells us that Valmiki was a brigand and highwayman who killed travellers and stole their belongings to support himself and his family, but he had a change of heart when his wife said that she and their children had no part in his crimes and that his moral culpability for them was his alone to endure. He then gave up his criminal ways and turned to a life of prayer and meditation, becoming a venerated sage and guru. The incident with the termites is also part of the lore of Valmiki’s transformation into a spiritual master, and is the reason for his assumed name, Valmik-i.

At the end of the Ramayana tale, at least in Valmiki’s version, he does indeed write himself into the story, with Sita staying at his ashram and raising her twin sons under his watchful care. There are other incidents of Valmiki’s encounters with Rama too.

So it was a small leap for me to take the Valmiki legend and integrate it into my retelling of Rama’s story. All I did was postulate incidents wherein he encountered Rama while he, Ratnakar, was still a brigand. And then to show how, through his exposure to Rama’s inspiring exemplar life choices, he was moved to turn away from a life of killing to a higher calling. The specific scenes between Rama and Ratnakar, as well as the name ‘bearface’, and the poaching incident, are figments of my imagination based on likely possibilities found in various puranas. This follows in a honourable tradition of reimagining ancient tales, explored to great success by predecessors like Vyasa, Kamban, Tulsidas, K.M. Munshi, Irawati Karve, and many others. All the hints are given in our ancient scriptures: only the manner of representing it in a form appropriate to modern English-language readers is my humble transcreation.

With warmest regards, Ashok K. Banker, Mumbai, India

“Hi Ashok. I’m a consultant in the development sector in my early 30s. I’m a fan of your books and an upcoming author myself. My first book titled “The Avatar Way of Leadership – Leadership Lessons from Rama, Krishna and Draupadi” is being published by Rupa & Co towards the end of this year. I wanted to know whether you would be willing to look at my interpretations of the characters of Rama, Krishna and Draupadi as real life leaders and write a few words of review. The book is already in the proof reading stage and will be ready to be sent for review in mid June itself. I know that my request comes at the last moment but I just wanted to know whether it would be possible for you to take out the time to do so. I read your review of Iravati Karve’s Yuganta on your blog and enjoyed it a lot. Her work has influenced me a lot in shaping my views on the characters of Krishna and Draupadi. I’m already working on a second book manuscript to consist of a series of essays on the characters and the socio-political situation in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana which will be dedicated to the memory of Dr. Irawati Karve. I’m including below a short description of my book – “The Avatar Way of Leadership”. If it interests you, please let me know. I’d really appreciate your support and encouragement. Thanks.” Harsh Verma, Patna

Hi, Harsh, I admire Irawati Karve’s work a great deal and am glad we share a mutual respect for her scholarship. However, I have mixed feelings about the newly risen genre of books on leadership/management lessons taken from the Indian puranas. Perhaps it would be best if I don’t read and comment on your book – after all, I’m sure that when you say you would like me to review it, you expect an encouraging review, and it’s surely not fair to ask for a review with that expectation in mind. I’m sure if your book is truly worthwile, it will find its own market and readership without help from other authors like myself. Another reason why I must refuse is because I’ve never asked a reviewer to cover my book, nor another author to ‘blurb’ it and have strong feelings about the ethics of doing so. Best wishes, Ashok Banker

“Dear Mr Banker, I’ve just finished reading the first in your series of Ramayana books. And I’m overwhelmed by your story telling.

I first read the epics in school (8th grade I think) both in sketchy text book form and in Amar Chitra Katha. While the former was centered on morals, the latter was all about heroism.

But you simply tell the story. And that’s incredible — it feels more pure than all the other versions I’ve heard or watched. When I read your book, I don’t hate supanakha or ravana or idolise rama and lakshman; in fact I marvel at them all equally. They are creatures of equal intrigue and magnitude. They are truly players that bring balance to the force.
I started reading your book just when Star Wars Episode 3 was launched. Am a big fan of Star Wars and I couldn’t help making connections between Tolkien’s Lord Of the Rings, Star Wars and Ramayana. (To some extent even Harry Potter carries a similar refrain — but much more diluted). My husband and I began to draw all kinds of parallels between the Jedi Knights and the Brahmarishis, between Star Wars and Ramayana and even LOTR. The power of the Bramhan that binds the universe and the force the Jedis believe that binds the universe too. Lanka and Mordor (from LOTR) and all the creatures from these two places are so similar.

Well, I won’t go further into it right now, but I was wondering if you ever thought about it too. In case you’re in Singapore, it would be a pleasure to meet you and talk about all this and more. About me: I used to live in mumbai till last November. I was working with Femina as Chief Features Editor and Beauty Editor. Since I’ve moved here, I freelance for Harper’s Bazaar.” Ruchira Bose Roy (and Siddhartha Roy), Singapore
Dear Ruchira and Siddharth,

A pleasure to hear from you. Thanks for your wonderful compliments.

I have some reservations about the comparisons to LoTR and Star Wars. This is difficult to explain without writing a thesis, but honestly, there’s ample evidence that both Tolkien and George Lucas were heavily influenced by mythology, Lucas in particular admitting to this openly, and of course, paying homage through the use of (slightly altered) words like Yodha (Yoda), Padma (Padme), the brahmarishi-kshatriya pairing (Jedi master and knight, as well as Sith lord and apprentice), Darth Vader (Ravana), and many other similarities (one Buddhist version of the Ramayana has Rama and Sita as brother and sister, and Ravana their father – sound familiar?). As for me, my intention was to retell the original source story itself. But its somewhat like releasing a Hollywood film twenty years after the Hindi ‘copy’ has become a hit and a legend; it’s impossible to tell the chicken from the egg by that point.

Still, thanks for your apreciation and do keep reading. In my opinion, and that of several thousand other readers, the series actually gets better with the subsequent books. I still don’t own a passport so coming to Singapore is slightly difficult (!) but please feel free to email me anytime and ask me anything. Best regards, Ashok

“Just finished read your Armies of Hanuman. It is a hard to put down book and I can not wait for Bridge of Rama. It quite difficult to find your book in Jakarta, fortunately i have them in Periplus. Can’t wait for Bridge of Rama now. Keep up your work and God bless you.” Savitri G, Jakarta, Indonesia

Savitri, thank you for those kind words. I am so sorry my books are hard to find in Jakarta. If it was up to me, I would have them in every bookstore. But as long as there are true readers like yourself who understand and appreciate what I am doing, the day will surely come when all my books will be available freely there and everywhere else. Do keep reading: it’s readers like you who keep me writing this wonderful epic. The bridge is being built and will surely reach you in time. Best wishes, Ashok K. Banker

hi ashok, i’ve recommended your books to two friends who absolutely love them. they are very devout swaminarayans and read and know a lot of the stories (unlike me) already, but they also found your books to be insightful and more importantly EXCITING! i haven’t got the last three books yet, but i’m coming to india for three months on a travel scholarship to dance in september, and will definitely be seeking out all your works then. i shall be in madras, i very much hope they are on sale there. thank you again.” Seeta Patel, London

Hi again Seeta, I’m so pleased to hear that your swaminarayan friends liked the books. About the last three books, well, there are actually only two more left. Bridge of Rama, the fifth, comes out everywhere in December (simultaneous worldwide release), and King of Ayodhya in May 2006. Wish you could have them all in September but all I can say is… sabar ka phal meetha! Best wishes, Ashok

“dear sir, i required more information about the nemisharanya (dandkaranya). i want to visit the same. so its my sincere request to guide me.” Anand, Chikhli, Buldana, Maharashtra

Dear Anandji, I am so sorry to be unable to provide the information you require. I think it would be best if you contact an appropriate guide or book on this matter. I wish you all the best in finding the information you seek. Best wishes, Ashok K. Banker

“I don’t know many people who have read The Ramayana in its entirety. Most can credit Mr. Ramanand Sagar for their mythological knowledge. A writer by the name of Ashok Banker has taken up writing the whole epic in a series of seven books. Two of them by the name Prince of Ayodhya and Seige of Mithila have already been in the market for some time now. The third one in the series; Demons of Chitrakut has just been released. The author seeks to narrate the story in a way that it appeals to people away from India and also the younger generation. I have read the first two and certainly are a lot better than my memories of Mr. Sagar’s version on DD. The third one hasn’t hit the stores in Ahmedabad as yet. If you get a chance….give it a read.” Pratish, Ahmedabad

“Ramayana is one of the two most popular ancient epics of India. The other one being Mahabharatha. It is a story of Lord Ram conquering and defeating the demon king Ravan of Lanka. It is an epic which even when it is entertaining, does not loose touch with teachings of doing ones dharma (sacred duty). The original Ramayana was written three thousand years ago by a reformed thief-turned-sage called Valmiki. There are numerous reproductions of this epic by many people. And the first time that I read the Ramayana was that written by S.Rajagopalachari (Bhavans Publications) and it was a really moving tale. And every Hindu or Indian will definitely know the story by heart. So when I came across another book on Ramayana titled Siege of Mithila by one Ashok K. Banker, I was not too keen. But I made this choice because I was attracted by the cover page of the book which was attractive.

But once I started reading this book, I could not keep the book down. I read the book from cover to cover in one sitting. Ashok K. Banker has made a great job in compiling this book. His style of story telling is really brilliant. And he has a way with words which gives expression to his thoughts. And it is written with the modern reader in mind – so all Sanskrit and Indian ethnic words are kept to a minimum. Also the author has given a glossary at the end of the book for the help of those who are new to these Sanskrit words used in the book which explains their meaning according to their contextual usage in this book. So if you didn’t understand the meaning of a word in the book, just look into the back of the book.

The story in this book goes thus… The invasion has begun and the bestial demon hordes roar towards Ayodhya. If Ayodhya falls, then all mortal-kind will fall. But Rama cannot return home to defend his family. He must journey to Mithila – a city lying directly in the path of destruction. There, a small band of heroes plan a valiant stand against the advancing armies of darkness.
It seems a futile quest. Lanka’s forces are near boundless and have swept all before them. Even if Rama can unearth a hidden dev-astra – a powerful artifact of the gods – his chances of victory remain slight. For at the head of the demon tide rides Rama’s nemesis, a terrible and ruthless slayer of souls – the demon lord Ravana.

This book Siege of Mithila is the second part of the seven books that Ashok Banker is bringing out. Even though each book is a continuation of the story of Ramayana, the books can be enjoyed individually even if you have not read the preceding books. These books are published by Orbit Books and each book is priced at Pounds 6.99. I am looking forward to reading the other books in this series when I get my hands on them.” Ravi, London

Hi Ravi, my admins found your review on the net, and copied it to me as they usually do, so I don’t know if you’ll actually see this reply I’m posting here. In case you do, just want you to know that there are now going to be six books, not seven, in my Ramayana series. The last two are called Bridge of Rama and King of Ayodhya. Also, the last three books, from Armies of Hanuman onwards, are priced at Pounds 7.99 (not 6.99 as you mentioned) and all the six books are now reissued in a slightly different format with totally different covers. But of course, the publishers are still Orbit (an imprint of Time Warner Books), and I’m thankful for that! Do keep reading, and if you ever happen to read this, please feel free to email me with any comments or queries you have. Best regards, Ashok K. Banker

“I’ve been revisiting myths from my childhood like classic indian tales. I have revived my interest in the Ramayana. Interestingly Ashok Banker is an unconventional author. I just happened upon his novel and picked it up as a trophy buy from the bookstore. Yeah rite. Two hours later, i can’t put the book down to get my ass to school on time. And all of this while studying for a test. On the whole, a solid investment. Cheers mate.” Acidhawk, Toronto, Ontario

Jun 09, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Hot Docs: Anand Patwardhan’s War & Peace and other great documentaries you must see

The most popular entertainment genre in the world today is realism.

By that, I include the putrid ‘reality shows’ that claim to portray ‘real events, real people’ but are little more than cleverly scripted, even more cleverly produced sensationalist dramas in which the main talent involved is ‘looking real’ while actually hewing closely to a script.

I don’t entirely blame them.

Everything you see on television or the big screen is scripted, rehearsed, directed, edited, and packaged to resemble reality, not capture it.

After all, let’s not forget, even news features are scripted, rehearsed, directed, edited and packaged.

Even the most genuine live footage of a disaster or crime in progress has some level of creative intervention.

For instance, in the case of the now-legendary 911 footage, the difference was in how the various newscasters portrayed the event: to US newscasters, it was clearly a horrifying ‘invasion’ of America. To other newscasters elsewhere, it was a disaster. And to a few, whom we shall not name here but know quite well, it was an occasion for celebration as the mighty behemoth was finally given its long-deserved due.

(Just to be clear, I’m not saying any of the above three views was the right one – in my opinion all violent conflict is a tragedy, be it the WTC plane attacks or the war in Afghanistan. Violence is not acceptable in any form, even self-defense. And there, to add a further touch of irony, you see, even in trying to be so objective and fair, this reviewer can’t help but reveal his own inherent bias against violence in any form.)

So in my opinion, the genre that has become more important than any other today, is the documentary.

Yes, I know, you’re thinking, oh God, no. Those boring newsreel thingies with the droning voice over that puts you to sleep faster than Valium.

Well, if you’re looking for Bollywood/Hollywood-ishtyl pumped up artifically enhanced excitement, sure, documentaries are boring in comparison.

But personally, I find the typical commercial film fodder much more boring at times.

Especially the typical ‘genre’ slots: like action movies. Don’t you sometimes just get tired of all those amazingly rendered explosions with the big orange balls of flame and the cars tumbling through the air in slow-mo?

Maybe it’s because I’ve developed a more relaxed attitude to life, so I’ve developed a more serious attitude to art.

But I’ve started to enjoy documentaries.

I watch a lot of them.

I actually scour the net searching for good ones.

Of late, I’ve been watching something like a dozen a week. Full-length feature-film docs on any subject around the sun. I don’t really care, as long as it’s good.

And I discovered a surprising thing.

They’re fun.

Well, I can’t pretend they’re fun like a Jim Carrey comedy. They’re not trying to be Jim Carrey comedies, after all, let’s be fair.

But they’re not as boring as you’d think.

They’re serious, yes, at times, but they’re fun in the sense that they’re about real people, real events, and even real people doing real things can be surprisingly entertaining at times.

So here are a few good picks from my recent viewing.

Enjoy.

And don’t forget to play the national anthem mentally, before you start watching.

And if your family ask you why you’re standing to attention in front of the living room (or bedroom) TV set, tell them you’re doing it for the country, the saffron, white and green.

AMERICAN MOVIE
A movie about the making of a movie. This documentary covers three years in the life of an ordinary American small town man whose dream is to make a feature film. He cobbles together a team of other like-minded people, including his childhood best friend who stars in the film, and his uncle who finances it. When he can’t afford to film the feature, he decides to make a short black-and-white horror film, shot on 16 mm. The documentary becomes a fly-on-the-wall as we observe the various ups and downs of his life over the three years, his drinking, occasional drug-use (suggested more than seen, but pretty obviously indicated at times), and general rollercoaster ride through life. In the end, he does complete his minor masterpiece (though to be honest it really isn’t bad at all), and sees a theatrical release (in one show at one theatre in his home town) before the film goes direct-to-video. It’s the characters that make this one endearing, especially the old uncle who’s weary cynicism and perpetually don’t-care attitude is hugely amusing, and don’t forget to watch the best friend, who’s almost too laid-back and potheaded to be true. An amusing, entertaining, and even touching (at the end) look into one kind of american dream. And a film as much about the process of film making as about the people who make it.

MURDER ON A SUNDAY MORNING
This is a more typical documentary. Using equal halves of actual Court TV footage and taped interviews and coverage, this follows the course of a criminal trial in Florida where a young black man is being tried for the murder of a tourist. It’s very much about race and about sloppy police work (which again is about racism, since the alleged criminal is black). What’s amazing is that it plays so much like a TV serial case, you actually have to remind yourself that these are the actual people, not actors standing up for the camera. That’s something I think could only be possible in America, where everybody looks and talks like they’re on TV, and even the judge and jury look like well-picked extras in a courtroom series like The Practise. This one was Oscar-nominated and deserved to be, if only because it captures the real story with so little interference, and incredibly (luckily?) delivers a story that is straight out of an LA scriptwriter’s computer.

STEP INTO LIQUID
Ah, man. Forget the word ‘documentary’. This one is worth watching as a film, as two hours of great viewing, period. It’s about surfing, and it’s made by Dana Brown, the son of a famous documentary film maker whose classic The Endless Summer and its sequel are still regarded as the best films on surfing ever made – until now. Step Into Liquid uses multiple cameras of all kinds, digital, high-def, 35 mm, to cover simply fantastic footage of actual surfing. The surfers are the world’s greatest, the beaches the most beautiful, the sea shots are so marvellous, you could just watch this one for the natural eye-candy ocean shots. Yes, it has stand-up interviews and a voice over, but it’s all so great to watch, it just doesn’t feel like a documentary. The great soundtrack helps too. A must-see if you want to change your mind about what constitutes a ‘documentary’.

HOOP DREAMS
This is the famous, and controversial, basketball documentary. Famous because it followed two inner-city kids for seven years, covering their growth from schoolboys dreaming of becoming basketball stars, to young men struggling to achieve that dream, and is a great documentary as well as a great true-life sports film. The influence of Hoop Dreams on film making in general and documentaries and sports movies in particular can’t be underestimated. Watch the special features section where US critics inform you about the huge success and following this documentary enjoyed, as well as Martin Scorcese telling you why it’s a great film. Controversial because it was passed over for a documentary Academy Award, which it well-deserved, and exposed major glitches in the documentary voting system in the awards. (The documentary section was the only one not voted for by documentary film makers in general, but by a special panel, who often voted their own films for an Oscar! And we thought this kind of thing only happened in India.) You must see this film, and trust me, even its 3-hour running length will seem like half that much when you’re through – after all, it did get nominated for a Best Editing Oscar.

REGRET TO INFORM
This one is almost too painful to watch. The widow of an American soldier killed in Vietname twenty-five years ago goes to Vietnam for the first time to try and understand why her husband, and so many others, died there in a war that Americans and Vietnamese still haven’t come to terms with fully. Particularly poignant in view of the recent Afghanistan war, about half the film covers the American widow as she travels by train through Vietnam, retracing her husband’s last days with the help of a local woman who acts as her interpretor. And about half of it is interviews with American widows and Vietnamese widows talking about losing their husbands and loved ones in that tragic conflict. We’ve all seen Americans talking about the war, so there’s really nothing very new there – though I can understand her including that footage, after all, it would have been biased if she hadn’t. But it’s the Vietnamese interviews that get you where it hurts: the stories the women tell, the pain on their faces, the anger and rage they still exhibit, it makes you wish that George Bush, Jr, and his team of warmongers would see this film and know that they’re creating a whole new generation of widows like this, and bereaved sons and daughters, and a whole nation torn apart by the senseless needless violence of a foreign intrusion that makes no sense, because all killing ultimately makes no sense. No sense at all. This one won an Academy Award and deserved one if only for its anti-war message.

WAR AND PEACE
This one’s the only Indian documentary I’ve seen among the recent viewings. And I haven’t even actually seen it yet, just a promotional trailer at The Mocha Film Club at Bandra (more about that in another posting). But it’s the new documentary by Anand Patwardhan, our own Oscar-worthy documentary film maker. And it’s about a theme that we all need to be aware of these days: The profligacy of war and the crying need for peace. Patwardhan’s stark, brutally honest, stripped-to-bare-essentials school of documentary film making may lack the gloss and production values of major American documentaries but the message is the medium here, and the message is one we must all stand up and applaud. War and Peace also has the distinction of being one of the rare documentaries to get a theatrical release. It opens at Fun Republic on 24th June and Inox on 1st July, and I’m definitely going to be one of the first to see it, if only to support great documentary film making, and alternate independent film making in general. Not to mention supporting Anand Patwardhan himself, whom I had never met personally until I saw the promo of W&P last week, but always held great respect and admiration for. I’m happy to say that I can now finally put that respect and admiration into hard cash and buy a ticket to go see a documentary that is the culmination of 30 years of struggling just to exercise the Constituitional right to express his freedom of speech, and to share with all of us the truth of what’s happening all around us in India today. Skip the latest Bollywood blockbuster and go see this one instead.

There’s more, lots more, but I’m out of space and time. Will write soon, when I can, you take care, read some good books, see some good movies, listen to good music (or any music), but most of all, be good to yourself and chances are, you’ll be good to those you love as well.

Jun 07, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Firangi reporter, desi tales: Book Review of Daniel Lak’s Mantras of Change

This one appeared in Hindustan Times, Delhi, about a week ago.

Mantras of Change: Reporting India in a Time of Flux
by Daniel Lak
Penguin Viking India; Rs 375
Hardcover; 252 pages

For me, the benchmark of non-fiction short writing will always be P. Sainath’s Everybody Loves A Good Drought, a collection of quietly brilliant news and feature articles written by its lowkey journalist author for newspapers over several years.

Proving that the ‘best’ in bestseller occasionally does refer to quality rather than sales figures, that fine collection went through several printings and an updated edition. Sainath’s simple journalistic integrity and utter lack of literary pretentiousness allowed the people he interviewed, and their ordinary everyday life stories, plights and predicaments, to seep through the page, pass through your fingertips and enter directly into your heart, to linger there long after you shut the book and your eyes.

That, for me, was the last collection of journalism in India that deserved to be collected into a book, and perhaps the first since Joseph Mitchell’s Up In The Old Hotel that truly moved me.

We cannot have too many such books, and with Indian journalism now filled with endlessly pontificating columnists jostling each other for bum space and page 1 turned over to the paper nazis of celebdom, it’s one we’re unlikely to find often.

This book doesn’t quite aspire to the same standards.

Mantras of Change fits more into the sub-genre of ‘firangi journo does South East Asia and lives to tell the tale’ brand of collected essays. Lak is probably a well-known and respected name in journalistic circles, and has clearly spent his time and paid his dues, workwise.

The essays are intelligent, informative and interesting. A Canadian national reporting for the BBC, these pieces are essentially rehashes of his reports on various topics he covered during his postings in India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Like Mark Tully, another intrepid India commentator and BBC-wallah, Lak isn’t afraid to speak his mind, pointing fingers where needed. His reportage is honest and direct, his research accurate and his views unsurprising but not preening or facile either.

He covers a variety of topics and themes in fifteen well-defined wide-ranging pieces, covering the IT boom in Bangalore, changes in sexual orientation, Kashmir and the troubled history of border violence, poverty, caste, the frustratingly fascinating contradictions of Bombay life, AIDS, the Ganga, Khajuraho…

Lak is well aware of the essential incongruity of a foreign eye perceiving Indian complexities and reprocessing them for western news audiences, an act akin to a translator forced to choose between recreating a lyrical masterpiece in minutest detail and risking loosing his listeners, or paraphrasing it into easy-to-follow journalistic shorthand and losing the intrinsic beauty of the original.

Like almost every other firang journalist, he shortchanges the very topics and people and cultures he covers without even knowing he’s doing so, skimming lightly over the surface without ever getting under the skin.

In the end, he’s saying what a hundred others of his ilk have said before, more or less as well as they, and without any greater insights or intellectual stimulation.

It’s like sipping oversweetened overboiled chai drawn from a street vendor’s stainless steel dispenser: all of them taste the same.

To his credit, Lak does seem aware of the inherent shortcomings of his task, and is quick to point out that he hasn’t filled the book with the usual close encounters with prime ministers and Bollywood stars. But that doesn’t make the overboiled brew taste any better.

Perhaps the only essay that, to this reviewer’s eye, came close to doing something more than simply reboiling old themes, was the essay titled No Lesbians Please, We’re Indian.

Though here too Lak retells stories that have reported in the Indian press before, by focussing on an area that most editors largely eschew, whether through personal distaste or out of fear of public disapproval, Lak’s fairly balanced essay lifts the lid of simmering cauldron of reeking repression.

The close of the essay, retelling a harrowing old incident wherein a vengeful male police officer moves the IPS authorities and courts to regain ‘possession’ of his absconded fiancee, forcing her to marry him despite being aware of her sexual proclivity, and condemning her innocent lesbian partner to jail is perhaps the first that brings a rush of blood to the head, making one wish that Lak, and his firangi brethren, spent more time seeking out and reporting grassroot-level stories like this that expose the brutality of our chauvinistic hypocritically religion-toting moral mahatmas and give the endless terrorism and Kashmir reports a rest, permanently.

Jun 06, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

That Long Silence: How the Indian Media Ignores Non-Celebrity Writers

This is yet another of my Rediff.com Book Chaat columns.

It was originally about women writers being ignored in India by the media, but on rereading it, I realized that in fact, it’s really about non-celebrity writers as against celebrity writers.

Either way, the trend continues, stronger than ever.

And it’s worse in some ways: it’s easier for an author to get profiled or interviewed, rather than have one’s book reviewed widely.

The closest you can come to getting an honest appraisal of your book without having to flog it yourself, is having some non-literary celebrity like Rahul Boast (rhymes with cold burnt toast) gush about your book on NDTV while you try not to look self-conscious.

Excuse me. I have to go throw up now.

You go on and read the piece.

And the next time you read an article purporting to be about a particular literary theme which misses out on several crucial books, including your favourites, don’t worry, you’re not any less of a bibliophile than the journalist who wrote that article – they’re just playing the celeb game and ignoring any book that didn’t get the suitable A-level flogging by a celeb in the national media.

Yaaaaaaarghhhh. (Sound of toilet flushing repeatedly.)

BOOK CHAAT
by Ashok Banker

That Long Silence
Is it a coincidence that many gifted authors overlooked by the Indian media happen to be women, asks Ashok Banker

Clubbing writers into groups is something that publishers usually do for reasons best known to them. Labels like literary, mainstream, popular, feminist, Indian, Asian…these colour-tags are only useful to book marketing executives and those readers who need big signposts at every step of their path along the road to literary discovery.

But once in a while, a number of authors, working separately and often without any interaction whatsoever, just happen to share an affinity. Of theme perhaps, or of style, or even of subject. Or as it happens, in this case, of sex.

Indian women novelists. It’s not a term you see bandied about in the media. That’s because the media prefers to report on celebrities and stars, multicrore advances and literary prizes, the personalities of the authors rather than the novels themselves.

One group of publications, the Times Group, allegedly even has a policy never to review books by Indian authors – although interviewing and profiling the authors themselves is quite acceptable.

Frankly, I don’t care a hang about authors or their personalities, their advances and their eccentricities, their family lives and their work habits. What matters is the text itself.

If literature is a ‘great dialogue’ as the late great critic put it, then it’s that great dialogue that interests me, not chitchat with the writer currently enjoying the limelight.

Take Shashi Deshpande, for instance. She’s been quietly penning her novels for years before any of the current crop of writers appeared on the scene.

Since the Eighties, she’s published some of the most seminal and memorable novels in this country. Her novels, while sharing a certain similarity of theme, subject, and at times, structure, are an important record of the experience of Indian womanhood in particular and the changing state of Indian man-woman relationships in the latter half of this century.

Yet, while the press went gaga over one new johnny-come-lately after another, she was virtually bypassed.

At times, I’ve actually witnessed the Indian media covering non-authors like Tara Deshpande and Pooja Bedi Ebrahim while eschewing the ouevre of this gifted novelist.

As I put it to a journalist who had done a large profile of Tara Deshpande last year: “You’re covering the wrong Deshpande.”

But thankfully, the real Deshpande’s books have continued to be published, and her gifts seem to be growing from strength to strength.

If you haven’t read her books yet, then I urge you to pick them up today itself.

From That Long Silence to The Binding Vine, she captures moments and lives with more emotional veracity than any dozen celeb-author-of-the-month.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that she scorched a path that has since been walked on by many graceful feet.

I don’t know for sure if any of the other authors I’m about to mention have actually read Shashi Deshpande’s novels, let alone been influenced by them, but I’m certain that they have assimilated her books by that peculiar form of cultural osmosis that enables great stories to be passed on from generation to generation.

Anjana Appachana’s Listening Now is very different from Deshpande’s small, brightly polished gems.

Yet this large, ambitious, almost unwieldy gunnysack of characters, stories and living colours shares a deep affinity with novels like The Binding Vine. To me personally, Listening Now almost reads like five Deshpande novels woven together in a loose tapestry that combines the individual strands to form a new holistic pattern.

This is probably one of the only novels I’ve read that’s clearly over-written and in need of a ruthless editor, and yet the excess of verbiage actually works as a strength rather than a failing by the time you get through the book. A rare example of ‘more is more’.

Then there’s Shauna Singh Baldwin’s superb debut novel, What The Body Remembers. Baldwin’s territory is much the same as Deshpande’s – the inner and outer lives of women trapped in a masculine cage of social mores and expectations – and yet she explores this territory with language that is far riskier and poetic than Deshpande.

What The Body Remembers is replete with daring metaphors of the kind that would fall into purple prose in the hands of less talented authors. She’s able to use geographical metaphors for anatomical parts with the freshness of someone discovering the language for the first time.

A beautifully structured and fully realized novel that is a major work of fiction in any country – as indeed, one noted reviewer referred to it as an example of ‘the great American novel set in Punjab’!

I came to Chitra Banerjee Divakurni’s work through a story published last year in Francis Ford Coppola’s excellent fiction magazine All-Story. That led me to Sister of my Heart and now I’ve moved on to her earlier novels.

If What The Body Remembers is an epic symphony, then Sister of my Heart is a beautiful sustained jugalbandi. The parallel tales of the two girls blend seamlessly one into the other.

Divakurni’s talent lies in her ability to recount the most heart-rending of moments and emotions without ever lapsing into sentimentalitism.

This latter ability is a weakness of Jaishree Misra whose highly successful debut novel has been selling like hotcakes.

Misra’s prose and plot depend far too much on emotional stringing, like a single note played over and over again to monotonous effect. While the evocation of Kerala and the mindset of a Kerala girl and her outlook has its moments, on the whole the novel seems to have been far more rewarding to write than to read.

The numbers of readers buying copies of the second edition of the book in as many months (or is it the third or fourth edition now?) doesn’t necessarily prove me wrong. Indian writers are fashionable these days.

Sunetra Gupta has never been fashionable, unfortunately. I’ve often sung the praises of this brilliant sculptor of novel-length prose poems.

I’ve said before that she writes the best prose among all Indian English writers, and while her last novel was slightly disappointing, the earlier ones remain as testimony to my adulation: Memories of Rain, Moonlight into Marzipan, and my personal favourite The Glassblower’s Breath are some of the most elegantly carved word-frescoes you’ll have the pleasure of reading.

Perhaps it’s her day job as an acclaimed microbiologist that’s responsible for that sure touch of phrase and minute perfection in language.

Either way, enjoy this writer for her prose and remember her for her characters.

I know there are many more writers out there, women and not women. I’m not claiming to know them all. But even after reading a couple dozen, I’ve come to once sure conclusion.

The hype over Indian English writers may often seem to be out of proportion to their success, internationally. Let’s not forget that three of the most hyped authors of the past two years – Raj Kamal Jha, Pankaj Mishra and Akhil Sharma – turned out to be disappointing reads (except for Sharma) and failed to make it to the ‘sure-shot’ Booker shortlist they were tipped to hit.

On the other hand, authors like Jhumpa Lahiri have been appearing out of thin air (as far as the hype-seeking Indian media) are concerned, selling copies and winning prestigious awards as well as winning local and international acclaim.

Perhaps it’s only a coincidence that many of these genuinely hype-worthy authors happen to be women.

Perhaps there’s no significance in the fact that these far more gifted authors are often overlooked by the media until the Western world discovers and lauds them, while other far less talented celeb-scribes are given the red carpet treatment in print.

Perhaps this only reveals how little the media actually knows about real literature.

And how gullible they are, especially when shrewd manipulators like Kaizad Gustad, Tara Desphande, Pooja Bedi Ebrahim and their ilk beckon their papparazzi cameras and Sony micro-recorders.

After all, let’s not forget the case of Shashi Deshpande and how she was allowed to languish in the media wilderness until finally coming to their notice recently.

Then again, I have this niggling suspicion that if these superb women writers were not women, they just might have got the press they deserve before that Pulitzer or Commonwealth came along and made them hype-worthy.

Hmm, what do you think? Or is it just that they expect all women writers to be as glamorous and PR-friendly as that socialite nightqueen and her hype-savvy ilk?

Jun 05, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

The real sex lives of real Indians

This one was part of my Book Chaat column for Rediff.com too.

Drink coffee instead.

BOOK CHAAT
Ashok Banker

The real sex lives of real Indians
Books about sex, not sleaze, is what we need in India, writes Ashok Banker

Two of the sexiest books about India were published recently.

Neither is by either Khushwant Singh or Shobha De.

Because Singh, as everybody knows by now, is not quite the Dirty Old Man he’s been posturing as for decades–he’s just a Squeaky Clean Scholar.

And De has carefully metamorphosed her High Society Vamp image into a picture-perfect maha-millennial mother figure of late.

These two new books were like a slap on the face of each of our two best known ‘sexy’ authors.

Because they brought home the point that it’s books like these we really need, not the tiresome attempts at titillation that authors like Singh and De labour at.

Good books about sex, not sleaze, is what we need in India.

The two books in question are Love in a Dead Language by Lee Siegel and Sex, Lies and AIDS by Siddharth Dube.

You’d be hard-pressed to find two more disimilar books.

The fact that they’re both about sex in India makes them even rarer. But the best news of all is the fact that they’re both excellent reads.

And sexier than anything by Singh, De or all the other pitifully posturing scribes who thought they could type their way to bestsellerdom. Sex doesn’t sell, you dolts. Sexy books sell.

And there’s more than one way to define a sexy book, as these two marvels prove. Love in a Dead Language is a new novel by Lee Siegel.

If you haven’t discovered this author yet, you must be standing too close to the airport bestsellers rack. Professor of Indian religions at University of Chicago and a professional magician, Siegel is that rarest of rare Indophiles: He isn’t just besotted with our cultural heritage, he actually dares to write about it.

In this, his fourth book about India, he produces a rambunctious romp of a novel.

The novel is partly a phoney translation and commentary on The Kamasutra, replete with sexy cartoons, caricatures, erotic Mughal miniatures, and a whole grab-bag of entertaining tricks.

Intervowen with this fake scholarship are hilariously enjoyable asides and anecdotes related to sex and India, among other matters. And holding these two narratives up as firmly as an underwire sports bra is a tale of seduction, mystery and romance.

The lustful meanderings of the narrator for his nubile Indian student form the story that holds the whole bustierre together.

Love in a Dead Language is a complex, deliberately deconstructed, and absolutely amazing novel.

You can dip into it for hours, finding an arousing illustration with an amusing caption here, a footnote about Vatsayana’s own sexual practises there, and so on, or you can dive straight into the bubble bath and grope around for the slippery skin of the story.

Either way, you’ll end up with a contented post-orgasmic smile. And if you read this in bed, well, it’s almost as good as sex.

Siddharth Dube isn’t aiming to push the same buttons that Siegel is. His new book is a non-fiction study of AIDS in India. And AIDS being primarily a sexually transmitted disease, sex is an inevitable part of it.

But Dube isn’t just tacking on sex to sell more copies. His excellent research delves deeper than just the shocking statistics on the spread of the dread disease.

He goes in search of the sexual double standard that has made it possible for India to harvest the highest number of AIDS patients in the world in less than 10 years.

Dube’s reports of the sexual biographies of a variety of ordinary citizens–a businessman, a pavement dweller, a college coed, a truck driver, a prostitute–invest his book with greater value than any dozen treatises on AIDS.

He states firmly at the outset of the book that his mission was to explore and expose the secret sex lives of this nation that likes to pretend that it doesn’t have a sex life at all.

Does he succeed? Not entirely. The book could have done with more depth and heft. But then again, he also states up front that he chose to keep it simple and short in order to reach out to the largest readership in English as well as the several Indian languages into which the book is being translated.

The recitation of sexual biographies may seem a gratuitous subject for a serious book. And there’s no question that reading about real sex experiences is hugely arousing, far more than reading professional pornography for instance, and definitely much sexier than watching professional pornography.

But I think this book is proof enough that we need more not less of such revelations.

We all agree that a large part of India’s problems stem from our inability to stop having unsafe, promiscuous sex while being unable to talk about it openly.

Books like Sex, Lies and AIDS, and Pinki Virani’s recent groundbreaking Bitter Chocolate: A Study of Child Sexual Abuse in India are knocking at the doors of our minds, asking for an open discussion. It’s time we heard the knocking and opened that door wider.

Only by openly admitting we have sex, and when, and where and with who and how…only through this confessional catharsis can we begin to deal with the consequences and repurcussions of those sexual lifestyles.

Be it over-population, incest, sexual abuse, promiscuity, rape laws, female oppression, a big heap of our problems are caused by our sexual lifestyles, deviant or normal, and even bigger problems are caused by lack of frankness about these lifestyles.

Books like Dube’s and Virani’s help crack that door open another millimetre or an inch. The media, by stopping its puerile game of presenting sexy celebs and pretending it’s because of their achievements, could help if they start publishing the stories that really matter.

Stories about the real sex lives of real Indians. A free and frank exchange of knowledge is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Not a cheap erotic pulp.

Jun 02, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Epic News! Penguin India to publish Ashok K. Banker’s Mahabharata series in 9 volumes

It’s official now.

The contracts are signed, sealed and delivered, the signing advance has been banked, the manuscript delivery schedule set.

Penguin India, publishers of the Indian edition of my Ramayana series, will publish the Indian edition of my forthcoming Mahabharata series as well.

The Mahabharata will be published in 9 volumes, starting sometime in mid-2006 and appearing at the rate of one book every six-to-nine months (the publication schedules have yet to be finalized).

Each volume will be at least twice as large as the Ramayana volumes, and perhaps thrice as large, in wordage.

For those of you who care about such trivia, the Ramayana series, comprising six books, totalled about 1 million words.

The Mahabharata will be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million words.

As of now, I’ve promised myself that it will not go beyond 9 large books.

As for publication, I think you’ll find that the Mahabharata books will appear much faster than the Ramayana books did, if only for the simple reason that Indian rights have been sold separately from the very beginning, rather than midway through the series as happened with Ramayana.

I can also confirm that due to my personal choice, I’ve only offered and sold Indian rights to the Mahabharata as of now.

Which means that no other editions are planned as of now in the rest of the world.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the series won’t be published worldwide – just that the Indian edition will take precedence over them.

I want this to be the first major book by an Indian author (to me it’s still one enormous book, split into 9 parts, not 9 separate books, ditto the Ramayana) that’s edited in India and then reprinted elsewhere, rather than the other way around.

I also understand that this usually means the kiss of death for books, because, as we all know, it’s all that overseas hype that allegedly helps Indian books sell in such large numbers here in apna desh.

(Later this year, we’ll see evidence of that overseas hype machine working overtime as Vikram Seth releases his long-awaited record-advance Two Lives published simultaneously worldwide, including India.)

But I don’t give a hang.

As far as I’m concerned, my Mahabharata series, like the Ramayana before it, can only truly be appreciated and enjoyed by readers who have some foreknowledge of these great ancient myths and legends.

It also helps tremendously if you’re Indian!

Which is not to say that a whiteskin blonde-haired firang in some icebound fjorded nation can’t pick up one of these books and enjoy them – but said firang simply won’t get the resonances and nuances that Indian readers (or even Indian diaspora readers) can pick up.

So it’s a great source of pride to me that my Mahabharata will first be edited and published by Indians, for Indians.

This time, the firangs can do the waiting.

Which will, I trust, be well worth every minute.

So with a bow to Lord Ganesh, and Shri Krishna, and with the support and encouragement of you, loyal readers, I’m starting out on this long journey – or at least on the publication of this long journey, for the journey itself began well over a year ago, with the actual writing – by your grace and blessings.

Stay with me, beautiful child…

Hold my hand when I falter…

See me through to the end…

Jun 01, 2005 | Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »