Monday, Aug 6 2001
The Eccentric Effect -by Krishnan Srinivasan
THE DIPLOMAT OF DELHI
- Anjana BasuAnjana Basu taught English Literature, briefly, in Calcutta University. She writes poetry, stories, features in the local newspapers and in Cosmopolitan. She has had a book of short stories published by Orient Longman, India. The BBC had broadcast one of her short stories and her poems have featured in an anthology brought out by Penguin India. In America she has been published in The Wolfhead Quarterly, Gowanus, The Blue Moon Review, and Recursive Angel, to name a few.
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Book Name:The Eccentric Effect
Author: Krishnan Srinivasan
Publisher: Harper Collins India
Pages: 181
Price: Rs. 195
ISBN 81-7223-429-5
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Despite all the rave reviews that Indo Anglian writing has received
worldwide, there is one respect in which it falls flat on its face. No
Indian writing in English has yet managed to churn out a gripping on the
edge of the seat page turning thriller. Vikram Chandra's The Srinagar
Conspiracy did get a few good reviews but hardly as much as his other
fiction does. In fact most Indian novelists grappling with the thriller
genre seems to fall down on the pace plot and detail norms that good
thriller writing requires. The Eccentric Effect is another attempt at a
thriller but for all the hard work has nothing very thrilling about it. A
former foreign secretary, Srinivasan keeps switching locations between Delhi
and London, between South Block, seat of the Ministry of External Affairs
(MEA), and Marlborough House, home to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Both
stories are told intermittently, in the first person and the third person
and the confusion of styles makes the plot even less thrilling.
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The Delhi bit of the book is about a diplomatic incident well, it calls
itself a spy scandal -with a little MEA factionalism thrown in. Srinivasan's
hero, Chandrashekar Rishikesh, is a secretary in the foreign ministry. Not
so surprisingly, he's called Rish and, like Kris- Srinivasan's nickname -
has a highhanded pipe smoking boss. The London section describes the serial
abduction of African diplomats with a Somalian Sherlock Holmes in charge of
uncovering the truth. The links between the two incidents are so tenuous
that an absent minded reader has a hard time finding any.
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In fact, Srinivasan saves his best lines and observations for the MEA,
though this might be because the reader is far too aware of his background.
As in: "Duggal's special assistant, a first secretary called Soni, sat... to
Duggal's right, a pleasant young man with a smiling face, who took the
minutes of Duggal's meetings. Duggal was believed to have Soni in prospect
as a future son-in-law. Soni had to use his authority wisely, since the
government machine, for want of decisions properly recorded by the competent
authority, has long functioned on what was suspected, imagined or reported
to be the views of the minister or the permanent secretaries."
There is very frankly very little action in the book - unless you count the
showdown between Rish and his immediate rival. And there are a whole lot of
irritating cliches strung together in situations that are so expected that
we wonder what they are doing in the book at all. Take Rish's musings in the
bar of the Delhi Gymkhana Club: "The monied upper classes huddled together
for comfort, isolated from the masses in the poverty-stricken rural areas"
or "To the bourgeois ... the low per capita income was almost a myth".
What happens to the other plot, why the African diplomats are vanishing and
why the Minster's English wife Janet is being mysterious do not serve to
keep the reader turning the pages. Yes, Srinivasan did want to do something
different from the pompous government autobiography, so he wrote a thriller,
like P Narasimha Rao wrote a political roman a clef. But there's not enough
of real life scandal in the book to keep everyone guessing who is who and
who slept where, and nor is there any real thrill in the story. In the
meantime, the position for Third World Jeffrey Archer is still open, if
there are any takers that is.
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The Twice Born -by Uma Mahendran
- Shoba SrinivasanShoba Srinivasan, a 2nd generation malaysian of indian origin, was born in malaysia. She studied in Kerala and Madras and obtained a B Sc Chem degree. On her return to Malaysia she volunteered at a handicapped welfare association and got introduced to the basics of prosthetics. Thereafter she took up a 41/2 year course in prosthetics & orthotics in the UK. shobha says, 'She sort of finally 'grew up' as an adult there, away from the indentity confusion faced in malaysia, and the sheltered environment of india. practised p&o in malaysia for one and a half years when my knight in shining armour swept me away to singapore to a family of first generation singaporeans of orthodox Indian origin. I dont practise prosthetics anymore, but hope to return to some kind of community service before I expire (of old age or exhaustion which ever comes first).
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Book Name:The Twice Born
Author: Uma Mahendran
Publisher: platinum press
Published1998
ISBN 983-99426-0-3
Book purchase infomation at http://malaysianvoices.com/
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The twice born is a very well written book revolving around a child psychiatrist who embarks on treating an autistic boy. this portion is happening in malaysia. the child, offspring of tamil rubber tappers, telepathically communicates with the doctor and tells him that he (the doc) is viswamitra and himself (the boy)vasishta. thereon begins the journey thro history dating back to 1500bc, indus valley. and the story goes in and out of the past and present. nice flow. good reading. many interesting factuals. you can feel that the author has done research pretty exhaustively. for eg., the descriptions of the underground tunnels which the hariyupiahs had built tally with whatever little one has read over the years and how the aryans were always amazed at the advanced civilization which was already there in indus, the physical description of the hariyupiahs vs that of aryas-funnily enough the srimad bhagavatam protrays these two groups as asuras and devas respectively!.
The author has stated that her work is fiction although the subject matter is twined with the vedic ages and the harappa civilization. it is difficult to separate fiction from fact and my confusion arises from references made to the following, in the book, for eg.,:
1. Vasishta is the son of Brihaspathi
2. Vasishta is the pupil of Vishwamithra
3. Vishwamithra is otherwise known as Shukracharya
4. Devayani is Vishwamithra's daughter
and so on and so forth.
I have grown up reading the mahabharatha and the shrimad bhaagavatham and several books on the vedas, the upanishads- simple works ranging from chandamama to historical essays, with the characters mentioned above having a totally different depiction. who's who now, i'm not sure anymore! the devas and asuras have been depicted as aryas and harupiyahs in this book and remodelling roles of vasishta as vishwamithra's pupil-could there have been several 'pralayas' and several 'manu's that there could be a possibility that these characters played different roles during different ages?
What (now)bewilders me is that the writer has commendations on the back cover from asst prof and hod of indian studies, univ of malaya-shouldnt that mean something, you know like stick to facts, atleast the basic structure. is there a guide line to exercise poetic license?
Even the controversial jesus christ super star and to some extent the message-the story of islam do not play around with exchanging characters, its more based on portrayal of one's interpretation. so if anyone who can shed light on the above please do so. there is so much of curiosity and confusion over what is fact and what is fiction.
But the book is indeed a good read, the kind which you wont feel like putting down until you reach the end.
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