Private India-Book Review

 

Title: Private India Series : Other Private Offices

Author:  Ashwin Sanghi and James Patterson

Pages: 384 Paperback (Indian Subcontinent Edition)Release date : Aug 28th 2014Genre: Mystery

Publisher: Century

This is the third time I am reading a mythological thriller by Ashwin Sanghi. I had great expectations from this book since I was looking forward to a racy mysterious thriller. Much like Rozabal Line and Krishna Key this book was a disappointment, with neither the plot or characters staying back with me. The beauty of an interesting book is that you would want to read it over and over again, but this one is not even a one time read.

I was confused by the main plot and the sub plots thrown around it carelessly. The one that emerges towards the end like a rude shock was the biggest turn off in the book. Since I have not read any of the previous books in the series, this book started off as a riddle. And sadly I could do nothing to unravel the pathetically disinteresting plot in the book. Sanghi did his best to stick to what he does the best, writing a mythological thriller, but he failed from the starters. This book was aimed for an international audience and the author wanted to make a foray into the american thriller market. That's why the mythological elements were explained which read like definitions in the course book. Sanghi did his best to make this a mythological thriller by carefully putting the mythological research to use, but alas this time he has failed to create a magic moment. While in Rozabal Line and Krishna Key, the mythological twists and turns narrate the story. But the murders do not take the story forward this time. Infact it bores you. A few cliches that made me sleepy were a bomb attack plan on the financial capital of India, mad killings that leave the cops bewildered and the portrayal of politicians as puppets or friends of the rich and the famous. The helplessness shown by the police also adds to the boring storyline.

My First Experience of Sexual Harassment in a Public place

The bus that day, was swarming with people like honey bees huddled in a hive. My brother was accompanying me and we had to reach home on time. Else maybe we could have waited for the next bus to ferry us to our destination. He took the ticket while I was managing to breathe through the reeking sweat stinking humans all around me. Ok this was how we traveled in Delhi around five years ago. Things have gone for a transformation with the air-conditioned metro coaches and buses.

I somehow had to place myself in the front of the bus and was choking with the clutching and clamping. In the Delhi buses, men do not behave most of the times and the mannered ones are those who enter from the rear door and occupy the back seats.

There was needless pushing and pulling, and I felt that had the people behaved in a more disciplined way the ceaseless congestion could have been avoided. Now why I remember this journey is because of a pot-bellied man who was standing behind me, and all throughout the cruise, I could have only remembered him groping my body. He was foundling the lower half of me while trying to squeeze the upper half with his hands.  It was an unnecessary act of gluttony I had been subjected to and had I not gathered all my force to push him back and shout at the top of my voice, he would have raped me surely. This being one of the first incidents that taught me the importance of retaliation. It also made me a fan of cabs and rickshaws, and until the metro wasn’t introduced in Delhi, public transport was a no-no, come what may.

Is urinating in public an Indian man's birthright?

While the poor creatures of the weaker sex in the country, need to hunt down a washroom or a public paid "sauchalaya" or try and figure out the location of the nearest Mc Donald's or CCD, the men of our country, well many of them can be seen relieving themselves in full public view. I had grown up to believe that it was due to lesser number of cleaner and usable toilets in the country, which is more or less a fact. As if it was the most coveted of birth rights they were bestowed with. Sadly, the licence to commit such a crime, was born out of the fact that in a country where more than half of the population doesn't have proper toilet facilities at home, this carte blanche freedom is just fuel to that fire. And mind you, one will never see women urinating in the public, it is just the men who were given these exclusive rights. Look it is easy, just unzip, bare your privies and unload the bladder. 
The first and the foremost reason for this menace is the cultural conditioning which allows the man to do anything in public. Men can get away with anything while a woman is a private being. She would never dare to even think of it in her wildest dreams. That is why we women either run to find a Mc Donalds or CCD and its cleaner restroom or in the worst possible scenario, hold our breath and use one of the paid "sulabh sauchalaya" most of which isn't properly maintained and cleaned. Many Indian women dread to have water, if they are out on long road trips. The reason: patriarchal apathy, which doesn't allow us to walk out of the boundaries of our modesty, while for men these rules don't make a difference.

Indecent Proposal

A young executive was nervously biting her nails, the creases on her forehead looked like those on a crumpled cotton cloth, trailing around her temple. She was wearing black formals with stilettos that stood an inch above the earth. In her right hand she held a green office file with a note attached on the top, slid under a plastic name badge. She was squatted on the sofa with her legs in a ninety degree angle to the tiled flooring, while her back was away from the rest of the sofa. She was positioned as if she was raring to jump off the couch and dart into the Manager's cabin like a zebra.

"Anna Mathew" shouted the PR executive daintily dressed in a chiffon saree.

"Yes madam, it's me" she replied

She stood up with a jerk much like a camel cobbling up a sea of dust. She paused to breathe for a minute and then slowly and steadily with the grace of a tortoise walked into the Manager's room. She was tensed, down to her last taut muscle and it took her sometime to seat herself. The room was a rectangular one or a square it seems, with Venetian blinds veiling the windows on either sides. The furniture was futuristic, with a sleek desk and chairs of black and white colour standing on either sides.  The end of the room was accommodating another table stacked with files and folders of various colours. She took a while to look through the room until a throaty voice yelled at her.

"Anna, are you here? Annaaaaaa"

"Yes sir, yes of course" she replied.

"Masters in Business Administration with two years of experience in media affairs, interesting!"

"Yes sir."

"Then why did you leave you previous job?", came an enquiry.

"I had to leave the city because my dad was getting transferred."

"Alright and who all is there in your family?"

"Dad and me, mom passed away when I was seven."

she declared sorrowfully. "Oh! I am sorry, so you are a self made girl?"

"Not really sir, my dad played a great role in bringing me up."

"Admire your dad to have brought you up single handedly."

"Yes that is why I left my earlier job to accompany him to this city.."

 "Oh! I see,that is great."

"This job will be of a great help to stay back and be doing that." she muttered gulping her saliva.

 "Have you arranged public meetings before and handled media houses?" he asked.

"Yes sir,the firm I worked in was small but exactly did all this."

 "What are your expectations from us?"

 "Anything that you think I deserve."

"Alright. We will get back to you soon Ms.Anna.Thank you."

 With the usual exchange of polite pleasantries she waded out of the room. The simper on the manager's face told the story, even then it was too early to declare herself as the winner.

 The very next day was a tough one. It was the day of the week when she did laundry. As she was separating her coloured clothes from her dad's stripes and checks, and pinning them on the line neatly,her phone rang. She quickly collected the orange bucket and all the cloth pins and darted into the verandah of the house with the swiftness of a kangaroo. Hurling the can of cloth pins into the bucket she charged into her room. Quickly she tried to dry her hands by wiping them on the t-shirt and picked the phone. It took a moment for her to gather the air in her lungs which by now were heaving heavily after the marathon run from the backyard.

 "Hello, Ms.Mathews,this is Ravi Saxena from Zoom News channel."

"Hhhello sir" after a long deep pause she replied.

"Are you alright? You don't sound good."

 "Of course sir I was in the backyard and had to come rushing to attend to you."

"Ah! Alright. This was to tell you that you've got the job. You can join from monday."

 "Ttthank you so much sir. Cannot tell you how relieved I am to have got this job." she swirled in excitement.

"Meet you on Monday then. You have to report to me at 9 am."

"Yes sir I'll surely be there at sharp 9'o clock."

 Her joy knew no bounds and she broke into a jig after the conversation. She called her dad and gave him the news immediately, even though that meant he had to walk out of an important meeting on the pretext of taking his daily dose of medicine. In the evening both of them dined at their favourite restaurant. She counted the days from that Wednesday for a Monday to arrive.

 Dressed in her favourite green salwar kameez and with a prayer on her lips, she entered the main glossy gate of the office. As she tiptoed into Mr.Saxena's cabin she could feel her heart thumping inside her,  like a drum being tapped violently at a rock concert. She got in and seated herself on one of the black and white chairs positioned opposite Mr.Saxena's tall table. He came a few minutes later and greeted her with a formal handshake and a grin that was less polite than fishy.

 "Sorry Anna it took me sometime. I was in the washroom."

 " Oh that's alright sir."

 "So you'll work under me and report to me directly. Also if you don't mind you would assist me as my secretary until the interview for a new one happens.''

 "Yes sir. As per your wish. Thank you for considering me for this job. I needed it badly."

 "Of course you were my first and only choice for this post. You are educated,young,qualified and most of all beautiful" he announced with a wimp.

Somehow the last adjective he uttered made her smell a dead rat. To clarify she asked with the innocence of a four year old child.

 "Sorry sir. I didn't get you.''

 As she blurted those sentences Saxena got up from his chair and went to the door,firmly giving instructions to the office boy wandering at the end of the corridor to not let anyone in, for the next half an hour. He pretended to the office staff loitering around, that he had to give a briefing to her about her responsibilities and didn't want anyone to interfere or bother. He shut the door behind her and locked it with a clink.

As he came back to his chair his sardonic sneer had widened as if someone had pulled his lips apart to fasten it tightly around his ears.

Losses

I miss love like the deserts miss the rain. And August is my favourite month in the year that had willed love in my name, once upon a time. Those were the days when social networking was setting foot in India. The days when people of my age burned their money by logging onto Orkut, and getting smitten by the experience of checking out people of the opposite sex.

It was the year 2008, and I was into my first year of masters. I had taken an inkling for poetry considering the fears and tears I had fought for many light years. He had left on a September afternoon selling me sorrow I was trying to barter with poetry. We were old friends who met at the bible school. I remembered his name and the one incident that told me of his dauntlessness. His father had passed away a few days ago and instead of mourning he decided to attend the bible school as we all were supposed to do every year, as young teenagers with parents rigged by religion. I was awed by the grit of this fourteen year old boy who had just lost his father and wasn’t willing to let that truth cow him down.

In my masters days, I was this boring book worm that wiggled through pages and had no hobbies to save my soul. I preferred to sleep when I had nothing else to do otherwise, Orkut would do the trick of keeping me busy, in the absence of boyfriends and even girlfriends.
Hi. Are you the same Amit whose father was in the Indian Air force in the  late nineties and who lived along the streets of the St.Mary’s cathedral, Bandra? 
Apologies if you are the wrong person.
Regards
Rachel.
 One such Wednesday evening, was the day marked for our meeting. I happened to come across his profile through a common friend and everything else is history. It boasted of an Amit Tharakan with the location pointing towards Kochi. I had my dreadful doubts about this being the same Amit I used to hate as a teenager. With fingers that were fearfully tap dancing I typed him an e-mail.
 I waited for his reply repining heavily for my impatience. A week later there came an e-mail and a yes to begin with. Indeed, he was the same confused porcupine head I had admired all these years although I was an unknown stranger to him. Alas, he couldn't recall a single day from those times, and it seemed that I had already spoilt the broth.
Contrary to my perceptions, he started e-mailing me twice a week and used to call me as and when time permitted him. As earth was revolving around the sun, our lives were also heading for a change. Our constant conversations transformed into endless discourses and if not for work and college we could have ended up setting a world record for the longest conversation held between two individuals on the phone.
On the first of January the next year, he proposed without a face to face communion. In a thoughtless moment of time, I retorted with a yes. What followed was a romance straight out of the books of a Shakespearean saga. He came to Delhi in February the following year, and without second thoughts about the world, we took to loving each other. His visits would take us to movies, retail therapy and even book hunting to libraries. Life was a poem that was watching its way to the aisle. His May day calling on my birthday brought us closer. We had taken to walking hand in hand while kissing at places where a thousand heads would turn to catch a glimpse of us. It seemed we had known each other for ages and our coming together was a plan God had inked in our lives.

Sita's Curse by Sreemoyee Piu Kundu

Title: Sita’s Curse
Author: Sreemoyee Piu Kundu
Genre: Feminist Erotic Literature
ISBN: 9789350097809
Publisher: Hachette India
Price: INR 350

Picture Credit: http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/a-womans desire/article5706149.ece



Indian women don't talk of sex. Except in their bedrooms. And with their husbands, and sometimes with their girlfriends. To write a piece of erotica in this part of the planet, needs nerves of steel. Sreemoyee tried to liberate the Indian woman from these shackles imposed on her body, by patriarchy. She has used sex as an instrument to expose the religious and social hypocrisy and questioned the Indian arranged marriages by vividly wording the insatiable desires that were never fulfilled in the protagonist's marriage to Mohan. 
Meera, is in tune with her sensuality and the pristine pleasures the body seeks, right from the time she hits adolescence. She sets out on a journey to find a conduit for these carnal cravings. Her first encounters with her twin brother are venerated in poetic language, most of which didn't go down too well with me. All throughout the story, Kartik her brother is shown as that first person who gave wings to her desires and as her most trusted confidante, but what is disappointing is his portrayal as an empty suit, who is made to die too soon. What also left me flabbergasted was her encounter with Binal that made me wonder. Was Meera a nymphomaniac? And which way was her swing? This rendezvous leaves the reader with a distaste in the mouth.

22nd September 2013/ AIIMS metro station #Vote4Children

It was lazy evening in September. I had boarded the metro from DU North campus to AIIMS. I was tired and my legs were breaking into pieces. I was hurrying up to be at home. The music had filled my ears and I wasn't bothered about the humdrum of events around me. I slowly paced up the elevator and was taking the dirty streets lining the Vardhaman Mahavir college. As I was treading down, I saw a crowd of people. I was expecting an accident there and hurried up to check. 
What I saw after that left me scared witless. A man in his middle age, was slapping a young boy who may have been not more than 11 or 12. The boy I believe was the employee at this man's tea stall. He was dressed in a torn shirt and pants and  very shabby slippers.
What amused me the most was that everyone was watching the show with no one offering a hand of help to the boy. The blows got nastier with the passage of time. And the police people deployed at the other end of the road, were also only by-standers. Sadly for quite sometime, even I was murmuring under my breath, a quiet prayer for the young boy. I was alone and had no one to support, and even if I would have jumped into the scene, I was sure that no one would have braced themselves up to me. All the boy did was cry with folded hands.