This is Not Cricket

I don't know how to react to what happened this morning.

I could be shocked. Cricketers have never been attacked before. India's previous tours passed without any incident. Yes, there was an incident involving the New Zealand team some years ago, and another one near the English team hotel in 2005. England were also in Mumbai when the Taj attack happened. But in none of those cases were cricketers attacked so directly, rashly and boldly. None of them injured any cricketers.

All our years of cricket-fanaticism has, to use a cliche, lulled us into a false sense of security. Because cricketers in the subcontinent are honoured, respected and worshipped, because they have always been, to use another cliche, demi-gods, there's this sense that no one, not even terrorists would do anything to them. When India cancelled their Pakistan tour (which was replaced by this tour), I joked that the Indian team shouldn't be worried about their security because even terrorists want to watch India-Pakistan cricket. That was the first thing I thought of when I heard this news.

Yet, I'm not shocked. It has never happened before, but it was always on the cards. Someone would think its a good idea and order some other people to do it. Terrorist strikes happen so often that I've become numb to them. I glance at the first two paragraphs of the report, and move on to the inside pages of the newspaper.
*

I could be afraid. As Barkha Dutt has been telling us for the last hour on NDTV, Lahore is very close to the border. The terrorists could just cross over and open fire in Amritsar. The bigger fear is for the sport in India. Every cricket match, more than ever, is a likely terrorist target (this includes the IPL). For the big cricketers, like Sachin and (perhaps) Dhoni, every public appearance is a security threat.

But these risks have always been there. This incident has only given images to attach to this fear.
*

I could be angry. But there are too many people to be angry against. There's the ideologues and the terrorists for conceiving and carrying out this act. There are the Pakistan security agencies who haven't been able to arrange for something as simple as a safe journey from the team hotel to the stadium. There is the chaotic Pakistan Cricket Board run until recently by incompetent army officers which somehow believed that a successful and safe cricket tour could happen in these times.

However, the diffusedness of the anger dims it and renders it tame. Anger is replaced by sheer helplessness and frustration.
*

I think I'm only sad. Sad for the policemen who died because some people thought it was important now to play a game of cricket. Sad for the cricketers who were injured - they travelled from their own troubled land to another one hoping to alleviate the panic that seems to have spread amongst the cricket playing countries about touring the subcontinent. Sad for Pakistan Cricket - some of the most colourful and individualistic cricketers over the years have come from there. Sad for Cricket itself, because what seemed like a sacred line has now been irremediably crossed.

On Detective Fiction, Favourite Characters and First Novels

A Conversation with Aditya Sudarshan

Aditya Sudarshan, a close friend, fellow philosopher, Emerson fan, Sachin-worshipper, comedian and slime is an ace-storyteller. Although he's known to write in the horror and sci-fi genres, his first novel, A Nice Quiet Holiday is a thoughtful murder mystery set amidst the quaint hills of Bhairavgarh. It is a wonderful little novel bursting with unconventional ideas and and his trademark biting jibes. When I asked him about his book, he said, "Macha, I just read the advance copy. Its unputdownable." The book is unputdownable. I agree.

I had a broken email conversation with him on his book, on writing, and on his life in general.

Firstly, congrats! I absolutely enjoyed the book.

Thanks. I'm really glad you did.


I was told that holding that advance copy of your first book in your hand is a big step, elation-wise and growing-up-wise. Does it actually mean that much? Or does that moment happen when you finish it? Or when it finds a publisher?

They are all three nice moments, but the sharpest thrill is getting an offer from a publisher.

Finishing the novel is very satisfying, but you know you're going to finish it for a while before you do, so the happiness is more diffused. It gives you a lot of confidence though, so for that reason I'd say it's probably the most important moment. If you've written a novel, even if it's just lying on your computer, you're already a writer.

But getting an offer happens all at once, so it is a bigger thrill. Realizing that some stranger is willing to back your writing with their time and money is a good feeling.

Then you get to reading the contract and negotiating, and by the time the whole process of editing and production is over you're already very aware that publishing is a business, and there are many writers and many novels that sink without a trace. So by the time you get the advance copy of your novel, a large part of your mind is already worrying about how it will do. It's still nice to see it of course, but not an unalloyed pleasure.


When did you realise that you could actually write for a living? When did you start and finish this novel?

Answering the second part first, I started this novel in about February 2007 and finished it by about June that year. I got the contract for it almost a year later, in April 2008. (In the meantime I dilly-dallied about sending it to publishers, and plus they all take months to respond).

I didn't think clearly about whether I could write for a living until some time after I finished the novel. While I was working I was writing occasional short stories, and reading biographies of authors. It was a sort of gradual realization, that I understand how fiction writing is done, and that this is where my talent lies. Then I got the idea for a second novel, and wanted to write that. So at that stage I made a decision to focus full-time on writing.

But I still don't know whether I can make a living from writing. That depends on how my career goes.
You quit your job as a litigator in Delhi for this. How hard was that to do? Any opposition from people around you?

It wasn't hard ultimately, because by the time I quit I was quite clear that I wanted to give writing a full-blow shot. Trial litigation is a profession where you pretty much start at the bottom and work your way upwards, so it wasn't as though I was losing a great salary either.

Family was surprised, but not opposed. I think their attitude was, and is, let's wait and see how it goes (which I think is a fair attitude).

Another interesting thing about you is that unlike most new Indian writers, you have almost no web presence - you don't have a blog, you don't contribute to one, (as far as I know) you don't have a Facebook/ Orkut account. Is this a disadvantage? For instance, many of The Compulsive Confessor's readers would have bought her book, and many of Amit Varma's will buy it just because they read India Uncut.

I don't think I have no web presence. Some of my old short stories are on the net, like at The Scientific Indian's website. So people can get a sense of how I write by searching online. (And they can get a sense of how I write fiction, which blog posts don't always give you) As you say, I don't have a blog which means that I don't have pre-existing readers. That is obviously a disadvantage. But there isn't much I can do about it, because I don't think I could sustain an interesting blog (like you have done). (interviewer blushes at the compliment)

I'm not on Facebook or Orkut, because personally I find email and chatting is fine for keeping in touch with people. By the way, for readers who want to write in, my email is aditya.sudarshan@gmail.com. (he means women who have imagined him as this hot item)

The blurb portrays it as a typical murder mystery. But your novel is more than that. This is a question I'm sure you will get asked often - why did you choose to write in a fairly traditional murder mystery structure? (murder at a gathering, closed group of suspects, a 'detective', his assistant, and a long explanatory speech.) Is it an experiment - to deal with larger issues through a murder mystery? Or am I reading too much into your novel?

I really like and respect detective stories. Detective stories are full of mystery and therefore full of revelation- which means they better have something worth revealing. I think, almost more than any other story-telling device, the device of a detective story forces the author to have something to say. What I mean is: a bad book, that has nothing really to say, and no real ideas and insights, can pull the wool over the reader's eyes in almost any other garb. But if it is cast in the structure of a mystery novel, everyone will see at once that it's a failure. Maybe that's one reason why detective stories get derided more than others- not because there's anything wrong with the genre, but because a bad detective story has nowhere to hide.

I started this novel with the sense that I had something to say. And then, since my view is that detective stories lend themselves very well to thoughts and ideas, I chose that genre. The traditional structure you mentioned is a very natural and powerful structure- and that's why I agree that it has become a cliché. But I think the way to overcome a cliché is, not to be afraid of it, but to go at it as though it's the first time it's ever being employed. (Which, for me as a writer, it was.) Then what happens is that even though on an intellectual level the reader sees that this structure is not new, it feels new to him, because it's been written afresh and with enthusiasm.

This is not to say that the traditional structure can't be altered and re-worked. It can be.

Isn't that true of any novel? Most novels (or even films, for that matter) that aren't backed by ideas have nowhere to hide.

It's like this. When you frame a mystery you are making it very clear that some secret exists. That's what makes mysteries gripping. So when, finally, you reveal the secret, if it is unsatisfactory then everyone notices- because everyone was looking. On the other hand if you are not so upfront about having something to reveal, then, because you haven't focussed the reader's attention, he or she might not notice that you never said much after all.

Here is an analogy: If I'm on stage performing, everyone is looking. So every slip-up will be spotted more easily. But suppose I'm performing in the background (like musicians at a restaurant), then because the audience's attention is more diffused, there's a higher chance they'll overlook my error. They might feel: something was wrong with that experience, but I'm not sure exactly what. Maybe it was the food or the service.

Whereas really it was the music- so the musician got away with his mistake.

Your point on cliches: while Jab We Met (excuse the crassness of this example) was a fairly cliched story, the freshness worked in its favour. But cliches tend to not be taken seriously, and are constantly judged against their predecessors.

Yes, but there's nothing to fear in these judgments or comparisons. It's natural to compare stories of a similar genre. In fact it's natural to compare stories regardless of genre because ultimately all stories deal with the same fundamental material. So I think if a story is fresh and powerful, it deserves recognition as something new. After all, the essence of a cliché is its dryness. Take that away and it's not a cliché at all.

The attitudes of small town masses towards 'city' influences forms a key element of your book..

Yes. I think conflicts of sensibilities are all around us, all the time, in a country like India. For example, this latest 'pub culture' furore. I guess like many people, I'm interested in getting to grips with these problems. So that's why, in this novel, I set up one such situation- a small town's moral condemnation of the work of AIDS activists.

And my feeling is that when thinking through these issues, we usually tend to be too crude. They are always cast as 'liberal' versus 'conservative', or 'progressive' versus 'traditional' (or even 'young' versus 'old'). So then, depending on whether you are young and living in a metro, or old and living elsewhere, you pick your side. That doesn't help solve the debate. It's also a bit silly- as though youth is superior to age, or vice versa!

So in my novel, I wanted to present a clear-headed way of thinking that isn't prejudiced one way or the other. A sort of 'forward' thinking,that doesn't get bogged down in 'left' or 'right'.

The character who engaged me the most was the Judge. How much of the Judge's opinions are actually yours? Is it hard for a writer to disassociate himself from his favourite character?

I would say, whenever the Judge (or any other character) offers a serious opinion (as opposed to a light-hearted or moody opinion) and that is not disproved by anything else in the story, then I as the author have supported it.

That's a very good question, about a writer's treatment of his or her favourite character. I think it is a little tricky. You have to make sure the character is not being given an easy ride just because you want him to 'win.' On the other hand you also have to be open about the fact that you are on his side. So on the one hand the danger is of creating a God-like character who is never wrong or embarrassed or defeated as all real people are. On the other hand, if you over-compensate and perversely make the character suffer, you're just shooting yourself in the foot.

So it is tricky, but being aware of this problem is half the battle won. Then you can try and correct yourself when you find you are going wrong.

A writer's first novel is often his/her most personal. That doesn't seem to be the case with you. (Is your life that uninteresting? Could you update us on your love life?)

Thanks Mami. But I certainly do use my own experiences for writing material. Not for the essential plot elements, but for details of setting, bits of conversation, and for characters. I think the extent to which imagination borrows from experience varies from writer to writer. Many writers are more personal than me, but many are also less. I guess that's just the way it is.
In re: the other questions, well there is nothing to report, so...
***

Photograph Courtesy: Arun Sri Kumar (A.X.)

Dummies' Guide to Making Aloo Curry

Aloo Curry making is an art form. It works on imponderables and intangibles. One must understand the subtle nuances of the art to appreciate its complexities. The handing down of its recipe through the ages would even make for a extraordinary study in pedagogy. At some level, it is divine. It is oddly elevating. It helps the cook and the eater experience the Supreme Being.

Bullshit.

Aloo Curry making is easy. It is done quickly and you can hardly ever go wrong. Trust me, I talk from months of experience.

Before getting to the recipe itself, a few words of advice on cooking in general:

1. Don't panic. Cooking involves fireworks. Cooking involves burning, fermenting, soaking and all kinds of other dirty things. But, little can go badly wrong.
2. There is no definitive recipe for anything. Experimentation is the mother-in-law of invention (necessity being the mother).
3. Read the instructions fully and clearly before embarking. (I made this mistake the first time I ever made Rasam. I followed step-by-step instructions and I was very happy that the liquid smelt, looked and tasted like Rasam. Then, I reached the last instruction, "Put Dal." Bleddy, I hadn't even kept any Dal in the cooker.)
4. Lastly, learning to cook is like learning to use Windows. You'll learn more as you experiment more. Don't worry. There's always ctrl-alt-del. (In this case, the nearest Shanti Sagar or Darshini with Thali meals).
   

So, here's how you do it. Listen carefully, because you wont get these detailed instructions ever again:

1. You take some potatoes (4 medium-sized potatoes if you're alone - for two meals - it took me almost five aloo days to figure that quantity out.) in a little bowl. Wash them (Yes yes. One must be a little clean also.).
   
2. Then put some water in the bowl, and dunk the thing into the pressure cooker. (You may put your rice along with this - in a different bowl, duh. Or even dal. In a different bowl, duh.) (Amma says you can even add salt and manjapodi at this stage, but I'm not too fond of that system). Remember: There must be some water in the bottom of the pressure cooker. Two steel tumblers of water will do.
   
3. Close the pressure cooker. Put the whistle thingy.
4. Turn on the gas. (Crucial step. Don't miss.)
5. Rice usually takes 3-4 hoots of the whistle. So does aloo. So wait. After the first whistle, reduce the flame. I don't know scientific reasons for this, but do it anyway. This takes some time. Meanwhile, some possible hazards: (a) Safety valve burst: So, there's steam all over the place and your kitchen looks like one of Bangalore's pubs. This happens, I'm told, when the outlets for steam get blocked, or there isn't enough water in the cooker. Chill. Your local cooker guy can fix it in five minutes. You can continue boiling your aloo in any other vessel. (b) Whistle doesn't come: Wait, da. It takes a while. (c) Whistle is intermittent, not continuous: Just tap the handle. (d) Whistle doesn't stop: Just take a ladle and hit it down.
6. Now, wait. Patience is the key. Wait until all the hissing sound from the cooker dies down. This takes more time than you think it will. Once it is soundless, open the cooker.
   
7. Take the aloo vessel out using (what we call at home as an) idukki. (Apparently, it is called a Pakkad in Hindi. And 'Tongs' in English.) (See picture.)
8. Now, the aloo is too hot to be touched. Therefore, drain out the hot water, and pour cold water on it. (No, there's no need to fetch cold water from the fridge. Tap water will do.)
9. Now, peel the aloo. This is a litmus test. If you can peel it with your hands, then the aloo is boiled. Else, go back and boil it in a vessel.
10. Now, my favourite step. Cut the aloo. You can cut it 'as you please'. (Those are the exact words in the recipe I've written down from my Periamma's dictation.) I usually take out all my frustrations on the aloo at this stage. As the famous line goes, "Tum Sita ho. Ise Raavan samajhke maar. Tum Draupadi ho, Dushasan samajhke maar. Tum Kali ho, mahishasur mardini ho. Maar, maar." Yes. So cut it. As you please. Smaller the pieces, the better it cooks. But don't kill yourself trying to cut it too small. Medium size pieces will do.
    
11. Okay. Now comes the real cooking part. Take some oil (don't take too much, because it isn't good for you), some kadugu (small mustard seeds) and ulutham paruppu (urad dal = white lentils?) in a kadai. Put it on the gas. Turn on the gas. Wait for it to start bursting. Once it sounds like a muted 100-wala, put your cut aloo into it. (You may, at this stage add cut tomatoes, onions. But it involves cutting.)
    
12. Then add a pinch of manjappodi (haldi) and salt (uppu/ namak) and chilli powder. (I prefer MTR rasam powder to chilli powder. You can even try green chillies. Or if you're really experimental, the podi you use with your dosa/idli. Don't try pepper.)
    
13. MIX. Mix till your hands hurt. Mix till your eyes water. Mix till the last rays of the evening sun disappear to make way for quaint moonlight. Okay. Serious. Mix till all the aloo gets the same colour. The same reddish-brownish-yellow. Leave it in the kadai. Count till twenty in the 'tic-tic-one' format. Turn off the gas. Pump up the jam.
    
14. There you have it! Your very own aloo curry!! (Oh, at the last stage, you can add some coriander leaves. I usually OD on this because I love coriander leaves. Else, you could squeeze a lemon.)
    

Man, I should write a cook book.

Cold Turkey

His boss, handing him an unmarked envelope, said, "Here's some money. Use it when I issue a Cold Turkey. Abort assignment. Disappear. Don't even tell me where you're going." This wasn't an instruction he'd heard before. Yet, he responded in his usual manner - with an expressionless nod.
***

He spent his days watching her. He'd wake up fifteen minutes before her, at exactly six-twenty, and position himself at his bedroom window. She would wake up and appear at her bedroom window. He'd look from behind his curtain, peeking from the side. Her house had no curtains. She'd then disappear into the bathroom. He had planted a camera for that. He'd watch her brush and bathe. He'd then walk to his kitchen. She would appear by the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee. She'd read a newspaper for a while in the drawing room, where he had another little camera. Then, she would take the car to work.

Following her was difficult at first. But soon, he mastered it. He never took his car. He depended on autos and buses. Sometimes, he ran through narrow shortcuts. Jump over a sewer, skip along a slum. Every ten minutes, he'd find her car negotiating a traffic light or a roundabout. Then, she would reach her office - an insurance company. She was fairly high up in the company. Travelled around the city often.

There was this man who came back to her place quite often.

He didn't understand why she was being followed. But it wasn't his job to know. He just followed her and reported every movement to his boss.
***

Love, he always thought, was an unpredictable emotion. He preferred lust. It was consistent, it was always there. Especially in these times when he lacked all human contact. He lived in a city, amidst people, but knew no one. His job wouldn't take lightly to his talking to anyone. The only emotion that reminded him of his humanness was lust. He wanted every woman he saw - on the road, in the supermarket, at the bus-stand. The lady who sold apples at the corner. The lady who sat at the reception of her office. His landlady who lived downstairs.

Then, there was the woman he was following. What he had for her was beyond lust. Was it love? He wasn't sure. Watching her was more than a mission. But obsession was too strong a word. He wanted her. There was no question about that. He wanted to twirl her curly locks of hair in his fingers. He wanted to hold her bare body in his arms, hold it tight and never let go. He heard her voice on the phone he tapped. Each evening, she spoke to her mother. It was everyday conversation about her work, her life. He recorded these conversations and re-listened to them when she was asleep.

Is this love? He asks himself. But larger questions bother him. About why she was being followed. What harm would come to her? What harm would she cause?

The mission takes over his life. He is as diligent as ever. But the diligence is fuelled by his need to keep looking at her. By his need to remain sane, remain alive.
***

The off-white sheet of four-inch-by-four-inch paper has "COLD TURKEY" written on it with a black marker pen. He looks out of his window and into hers. She appears, as usual, by the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee in her hand. Her curly mop of hair falls carelessly on her shapely, bare shoulders. It is time for drastic action.
***

He parks her car by the lake a thousand kilometres from where he started. The forest is dense. Humans are few. He opens the boot, puts her body on his lap, holds her and strokes her hair. He is just where he wants to be.
***

An old short story has appeared (link)in the DNA Bangalore edition today with a black and white photograph. Do check out if you live in this vicinity.

House Cleaning

The last time I was alone with a girl was when an old friend came to my one-bedroom apartment. She said, "The state of one's mind is reflected in the state of one's house."
I laughed, "Yeah. Lots of unwashed clothes in my head."
"Dirty linen," she said, wryly.

In the year that passed since that conversation, more unwashed clothes adorned floor, along with newspapers, shoes, bedsheets, mattresses, dirty pillows, CDs, cigarette butts.
***

It was New Years' Eve. I sipped on my hot filter coffee, lazily placed it on the side table and fetched some rum from amidst old newspapers. I didn't know how long it had been lying there. It surely had absorbed most of the old stories. It had become a part of them. I poured it into my coffee. The mixture was noxious, but I needed the fortification for the conversation I was going to have.

"I'm a medical marvel!" I said on the phone.
"What?"
"Yeah. I have the world's first case of Writers' Block in an unpublished writer."
She said nothing for a while.
"Hello? Are you there?" I tried.
There was a pause again, before she said, "January fifteenth."
"Right. Yes. Jan fifteenth. B-b-but, I was just going to ask you for an extension."
Pause. "Also, I wanted some more advance. I'm, um, s-s-struggling with my, um, my l-l-laundry."
"January fifteenth. Or no book."
There was a pause again. I didn't know how else to negotiate. "Listen, what are you doing tonight? I mean, New Year's and all that... If you're free... I mean..."
"You don't need to know what I'm doing. You are going to sit at home and finish that bloody novel."
"Slight leniency? Old times' sake. You loved me once..."
"When we were sixteen. There's none of that left now."
The conversation ended there. As I turned around, I tripped over a bag on the floor, toppled the rum bottle over the last two clean shirts that I owned. I was robbed of my fortification for the next phone call.

"Hi. Appa. I need some money. See, I lent some money to a friend... And he has cancer."
Appa didn't bother to listen to any more lies. But, as usual, there was some money in my account by the evening. I don't think it was enough to pay my laundry bill, but it would keep me going for two weeks. Until another friend gets cancer.
***

It was seven when the bell rang. I presumed it would be my landlady. I stubbed my cigarette, hid the rum under a pillow and opened the door. It wasn't the landlady, it was my publisher, my old love, and the last girl I had been alone with.

"Can we go for a walk?" she asked.

Soon, we were on the quiet beach. But, being New Years', a crowd built up slowly as midnight approached.

"My house is really dirty these days," she said, after almost an hour of silent staring at the sea. I spat out the nail I had been biting. "Life isn't very good, you know," she continued, "My marriage is ending." I sensed a certain longing in her voice - a longing for a meaningless evening. And there was nothing I wanted more. Suddenly, she asked, "Can we go somewhere quieter? Somewhere more alone?"

I fumbled for words. My apartment was there. But there would be no space for us to do anything. Unless we settled on top of all the mess. Treat the mess as a part of our lives and live above it. Treat it as in insulation from the cold, hard, floor. I hesitated before I said, "My place?"

We walked back unable to keep our hands off each other. When I opened the door, she collapsed on a heap of clothes, and I collapsed beside her. I could smell the back of her neck. Her hands went into her pocket from where she fetched a folded, oblong sheet of paper. She opened it and read out what was written. It was a poem by E E Cummings, and it ended with those immortal lines about the rain and hands. She sat up, and said, "He sent this to me last New Year's Eve. We got married a week later."

Soon, she was crying all over the clothes. She picked up a shirt and blew her nose, as if she was adding her mess to mine. She got up, and staggered out the door and down the stairs. I walked with her until the gate where she found an auto. I walked up the stairs, opened the door and scanned my room.

It was time for some serious house cleaning.
***

The Fall

I have a knack for unwanted and unusual injuries. Although today's was minor and put me in pain for hardly fifteen minutes, it must rank as being amongst my most random.

I'm walking down one of the roads in Sadashivanagar when my mind wanders, and I think of Venkatapathy Raju. Yes, the very same Venkatapathy Raju who made a profession out of lobbing the ball up in a friendly manner. So, on this road, I begin to imitate Raju's bowling action as I walk. I do it once, but get the feeling that the (imaginary) ball wouldn't have come out all that well. Then I bowl the next one. This one's much better. But a little more speed would mean that the batsman can't wait on the backfoot.

So, the third one comes. I don't know exactly what I do. But I land funnily, half-twist my waist, lose balance and fall on the road. Two boys playing football in a corner laugh heartily. I smile to myself and resume my walk with a slight limp that sorts itself out pretty soon.

But I have a feeling that the ball would have been perfect. Beaten the batsman in the flight. Go on with the arm. Hit him on the pads in front of off and middle. Appeal. The dreaded finger. LBW!