Adam Writes:
Happy Gudi Padwa! And Ramadan Mubarak! It’s National Poetry Month and Erika in particular is busy. By rights we should both be talking about our favorite poems. Giving the readers a clue as to how to read them. Etc. But I thought that while I’m still in India I should talk about a subject near to my heart: my baby-steps into the literature of the subcontinent. So my contribution this week is going to be all about the prose. Scroll down a bit for some poetry.
I’ve barely begun to study Indian literature. But I think this is as good a place to talk about it as any. Have you ever had this feeling: a billion people (or more) live there. I should know a little bit about the literature. It’s complicated. On the one hand, the people who do the writing tend to be the well-off and the well-educated. They are not necessarily representative of (or able to accurately represent) what that society is like. Even the writers from poorer backgrounds might have their outlooks skewed by the fact that they got out; they made it. On the other hand, you have to start somewhere. So let’s do this. If you’re a non-Indian person looking to read a story or novel by an Indian writer, I’ll give you a few of my favorites and help you figure out where to begin.
I’m going to start by telling you about two writers we should all read. Though I haven’t yet. Not enough, anyway. The first is R. K. Narayan.
Not your Neuro-Typical Reader
I have trouble getting into books sometimes. A friend once said (he was quoting someone else; I don’t remember who…) “Reading a book for the first time is so difficult. How does anyone do it?” I have since taken this as my reading-motto. I’m a re-reader, more than I am a reader. It’s definitely related to my specific mixture of neuro-atypicality. Some writers… I know I will like them if I just get over the hump. (Like if a log knew it would keep burning if it just reached the right temperature.) Narayan was one of those. I couldn’t get started with any of his books. But I was able to tell myself that if I kept trying I’d eventually get there. But only if I kept trying in a way that would actually work.
The thing to do in such situations is:
- Don’t judge yourself. Leastwise not harshly.
- Don’t stop trying to pick up the book(s).
- Take coincidences when you can.
I mention all of this because it’s good advice in general for readers.
Getting into Indian Literature… from the Outside
If you’re not Indian. And you have no cultural connection to India (for example an extended family of in-laws, like I have). You’re not going to have an easy time getting into just any Indian author. You’re going to read a page and not know what the hell you just read.
“Who’s Annapurna?”
“What’s a Kshatriya?”
“Why does the author hate Gandhi so much?”
Sometimes you’ll have the patience to skip back to the top of the page and try again. Sometimes you’ll have the patience to skip back to the beginning of the section. Or to triangulate the meaning of an obscure passage using Wikipedia articles. Sometimes. And other times you’ll say “screw this” and you’ll go watch TV or something. And all of those responses are fine. Because if the goal is to actually read a book by an Indian author, then being strict and judgmental with yourself will not work. And we’re here to focus on what works.
R. K. Narayan
So my patience with Narayan finally paid off. I’ve read maybe ten of his short stories as of this writing, and am considering diving into one of his novels. But again. One of the things that clinched it for me is that he has something in common with Anuja’s family: both can trace their roots to Tamil Nadu, the western half of India’s southernmost tip. If you don’t have that, you’ll have to settle for the fact that his stories are really funny and really poignant.
There’s this one about a guy whose parents promised to donate his hair to a Hindu temple if he survived a childhood illness. Well. He survived. And they kept putting off the pilgrimage. So now he’s 20 and in the prime of his good looks (and vanity) and being forced to make a pilgrimage and shave his head. All I can do is think about the number of times I’ve been in a shouting match with my dad in my teens and twenties because he asked me to cut a few inches off. It’s never just about the hair.
We can talk about the politics of a Hindu Brahmin from a privileged and educated family writing about poverty-stricken main characters. But let’s hold off until I’ve read around a bit more, yeah?
Satyajit Ray
The other major writer I haven’t read enough to comment on is Satyajit Ray. Everyone in India knows who this man is; and yet I heard about him for the first time fairly recently. He wrote a Sherlock-Holmes-style detective-series called Feluda. He was huge in the movie industry. He also wrote poetry and music. And his stories were recently featured in a Neflix miniseries called “Ray.” Expect more on this writer when you see it.
Jhumpa Lahiri
The next writer is Jhumpa Lahiri. Yes she‘s what’s called a Diaspora writer. But that’s not why I’m keeping my description of her brief. It’s more that she doesn’t need my help. She has bestsellers. She has a Bollywood movie based on her first hit-novel. Starring the late, beloved Irfaan Khan and the thankfully-not-late, beloved Tabu. It’s enough if I say: she’s worth her hype. Her stories are really good. And even if The Namesake feels like a first novel… it feels like a damn good first novel.
Tagore–Most People Read his Poetry
The next two are powerhouses each in their own write. See what I did there? Rabindranath Tagore is… just really good fun. I know that he was a religious pugilist. And I think his family’s war against the caste system is really interesting. (His uncle Debendranath Tagore founded an offshoot-religion called Brahmo which included a lot of elements of Hinduism but rejected the caste system. The nephew’s longest novel, Gora, is about interactions between followers of traditional casteist Hinduism and followers of Brahmo.) But there are better ways to learn about religious schisms in 19th Kolkatta (if you have an urge to do so) than to read a five-hundred-something-page novel. The question a person has when picking up a novel is not: What will I learn? It’s: Will I enjoy reading this? Well, there’s no better way to spend a succession of afternoons and evenings than reading Gora.
I don’t know how to describe Tagore’s fiction. Except to say that his novels feel like what would happen if Jane Austen were born in a different time and place.
Tagore’s Characters
His works have all the characters who feel like they should be stereotypes. The disapproving aunties and uncles. The wise aunties and uncles. The glib-tongued religious zealots. The loyal siblings. The cute little brother who’s constantly underfoot. Yet they do not remain stereotypes for long. They keep revealing sides of themselves. They keep… jumping off the page. As if they had ideas of their own.
Same thing with Choker Bali (“Eyesore”). It should just be a romance novel about a guy who wants to leave his wife for another woman. But the characters keep… not doing what they’re supposed to. Not saying what they’re supposed to.
Tagore is such a pleasure to read in English. I can’t imagine what it must be like in the original Bengali with all of the rhythm and wordplay intact.
Manto
And then there’s Manto. The Muslim author who died of alcoholism. The only thing sadder than the stories he wrote is the one he lived. He was from Bombay, but partition rocked his life and he ended up moving to the newly formed Pakistan. And yet we need those stories. The ones he wrote about the horrors of Partition. The ones he traded for the money he used to drink himself to death. We need them now more than ever.
I’ll say no more than this: when I want to make my students (and myself) cry, I show them “Cabuliwalla” (trans., “The Pedlar from Kabul”) by Rabindranath Tagore. But when I want to show them the best short story I have probably ever read? The best characters. The simplest but most compelling plot. The most poignant feeling of injustice in the last few lines. I show them “The Assignment” by Saadat Hassan Manto.
Erika Writes:
It’s raining while I write this. It’s a beautiful storm with occasional flashes of lightning. The perfect time for curling up with tea and books and misery. I’m staring at Christina Rosetti’s “Who Has Seen the Wind” on one side of my screen as I listen to the storms roll through.
Adam has been exploring new literature this week while I’ve spent time wading through old things. I’ve spent a lot of my time this week focused on preparing for National Poetry Month, which has meant reading a tremendous amount of poetry. Old favorites, old not-so-favorites, a few brand new ones, too. My love of poetry is no secret around here. I read some almost every week and look forward to choosing poems to share as part of Watch/Listen/Read and sometimes also as part of the Sunday Summary.
National Poetry Month: 30 Days, 30 Poems
Planning our 30 Days, 30 Poems celebration has been a thought-provoking process. I’ve had to reach beyond my favorites, of course, and even explore the things I dislike. I’m not, for example, a fan of Blake, and yet I’ve been reading Blake this week. I haven’t discovered any new love for William Blake–I blame my Brit Lit II professor for being incredibly boring, and my Brit Lit I professor for being incomparably creative. When the professor brings GI Joe and Barbie to class and has you act out things like King Lear or Gawain and the Green Knight, the class is hard to forget. Especially when Beowulf involves dinosaurs.
Part of the journey this week has been to look at an incredibly broad scope of poetry. We’ve talked a lot about the kinds of voices that we want to represent among our writers here, but what does that mean for the writers we’re drawn to who we share? I know that when I’m reading for pleasure, whether it’s novels or poetry, I typically reach for modern or contemporary things. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s about pleasure after all, right?
The History of Poetry, Revisited… and Revised
But so much of my own education was in white voices, and mostly white male voices. Sure, there was the occasional Christina Rosetti or Mary Shelley, but the choices were skewed towards white men. Even just taking the time to really read poets like Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath was something I began exploring on my own. The list of poets and poems I’m not sure we’re going to include has been a pleasure to create, as much as the list of poems we’re including.
Curating a list that represents a global perspective throughout time, and one that spans religion, race, culture, and all of the other labels we have for ourselves has been an adventure I was unprepared for. That meme that’s been going around recently about which type of neurodiverse are you: the endless-research- or figure-it-out-as-I-go-type. I’ve always been the endless research type and this is one of those projects where, in spite of a deadline, I could keep going and going. And probably will.
It’s been fun also to revisit some of the poems that Adam and I have shared in my studies with him. Early on we spent a long time discussing Allen Ginsberg, but not just the poems and the poetry. We shared the stories of discovering his work and how it affected us when we did. To take cherished memories of literature I already loved and to then add more warm and joyful memories to that is… some feeling that I can’t even fully describe. Not with all the synonyms in my thesaurus. There’s a hedonistic thrill, and warm fuzzies, and joy, and so many good things.
Poetry with Friends
As I’ve been reading, I’ve been taking time to just soak in the experience of sharing my time with someone who loves and appreciates words as much as I do, and who simultaneously challenges me to think about them in new or different ways. When I was rereading The Canterbury Tales last year, it was one of those discussions that had me comparing the storytelling experience Chaucer created with the collective storytelling experiences I’ve had around campfires and at slumber parties. Learning to think that way, learning to let go of worries about understanding every word in exquisite details, but instead learning to feel the words, has made me a better reader and a better writer. Which is why I’ve been able to read Shakespeare in a different way, or read Milton, who I really hadn’t picked up since college, without agonizing over every single detail.
I don’t want to spoil the month by telling you what we have selected…or what we have left out, but I do encourage you to check in everyday with us whether on social media or on the 30 Days, 30 Poems page. If you’re a Google Calendar user, you can also subscribe to the calendar to get the daily poem, but you’ll miss out on the related content.
Writer of Poetry… Poet?
Still, I have not entirely forgiven Adam for the suggestion that I might actually be a poet and not just a writer who happens to write poems. That just seems a little too…. aspirational, I suppose. At least for now. And don’t even think about asking me to explain the difference between the two. That would be like explaining how I became a writer in the first place.
I rail against actually being called a poet, but I think somewhere, in the recesses of my head or my heart, I know there’s a kernel of truth in the statement that honors how I experience the world. It’s evident in my search for words to describe what’s going on right now: rain rolling across the windows. Bach’s Viola da Gamba sonatas playing on the speakers. And in noticing details like the way Big Cat and Middle Cat, although nowhere near each other, are breathing at exactly the same rate. And wanting to find a way to describe that, and to preserve the peace and also the sensuality of that moment… of things being totally in rhythm with one another.
If you’re not familiar with the Viola da Gamba, it looks similar to a cello, but it has six or seven strings. And it has frets, which means that playing chords has an entirely different sound, and plucking it also results in something completely unlike cello or bass.
I’ve also been on a cover songs kick this week. I couldn’t get Weezer out of my head. Or Weird Al’s cover of Toto’s “Africa.”
The Foo Fighters
After the death of Taylor Hawkins, there’s been a little Foo Fighters on at times as well. Grunge and I grew up together. I remember how Nirvana’s music spread first among my friends and then beyond the band of freaks I hung around with to a much wider audience. I can remember where I was when I heard about Kurt Cobain’s death. But to see Dave Grohl create another incredibly successful band, and then suffer yet another tragic loss has been sobering. I might have laughed at the endless drummers in the movie This Is Spinal Tap. But in real life, it just isn’t funny to see musicians I like and respect suffer like that. One of my favorite sad songs of all time is definitely the acoustic version of “Times Like These,” and I certainly have listened to it a few times this week.
The End of the World
I’ve been watching disaster documentaries–a lot of things about Chernobyl. I don’t know if it’s on my mind because of current events in Ukraine or something else. And a lot of stuff about Stanislav Petrov. I don’t know why I’m thinking about the end of the world.
Heavy Training
To counter that, I’ve been watching a lot of aviation and train videos. I always wanted to learn to fly but never had the chance, and now, it’s unlikely that I ever will. But I can dream, and I still do. Trains, on the other hand… I worked for one of the railroad unions when I was in my twenties. And I loved it. I used to be able to identify locomotives by manufacturer by site. I kept a hard hat and work boots in my office so I could go into train yards, which I sometimes did. Even dressed up in office drag.
I even got to check out locomotives from the cab as part of one of my research projects. I can’t identify locomotives anymore–it’s a skill that has faded from disuse. But I still love train travel. And I still giggle when I see the signs that say “do not hump” on the sides of railroad cars. One day I will travel again. For now, it’s the words and imagination that take me places.
Poetry about Trains
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
-WH Auden, Night Mail
