Books: Paradise Lost

In the City by the Sea by Kamila Shamsie

Kamila Shamsie's first novel is remarkable in that it's so self-assured for one so young (Shamsie was born in 1973 in Karachi). With its subtle political flavour, this is a sensitive study of the mind of the adolescent around whom the plot revolves. It delves into the depths of relationships as much as it takes you to higher planes of imagination. Shamsie's "Calvin and Hobbes" style play between fantasy and reality is apparent. So it would serve you to get accustomed to it to be able to fathom 11-year-old Hasan's world.

Hasan lives a secure life. Ami, Aba, Zehira, Uncle Latif and Salman Mamoo are all part of it. Things change when he sees a young boy like himself fall to his death and when his precious Mamoo is charged with treason and imprisoned. He continues, however, to rely on his rather unconventional friends of the other world to keep him company.

Shamsie enriches her prose with witticism and her very own brand of compound words and abbreviations (look out for dicooc and ooq). Expect to meet characters from Greek mythology and Arthurian legends, not to mention Shakespeare. In fact, it is difficult at times to keep up with Hasan's forays into the world of goblins, knights and dragons.

The author fondly describes "The City", with its "mingled scent of sea-air, garbage, eucalyptus and dust that no one in The City ever noticed until it disappeared". She also talks of "The City's two seasons of Almost-Winter and Absolute-Summer" co-existing "to create the third season of How-Should-We-Dress?" References to "the President" with "the shine of his bald head, the hollows beneath his eyes, the boot-polish quality of his dyed moustache" leave one guessing. If you're looking for a good book to curl up with on a lazy day, then TBIFY -- This-Book-Is-For-You!

AUTHORSPEAK
P. ANANTHAKRISHNAN
Tamil Tiger
Rebels, tragic heroes and matriarchs.

P Ananthakrishnan Pakshirajan Ananthakrishnan is one among those who proudly wear tradition on their sleeve, despite years of living in Delhi -- 25 years to be precise. It is also one of the reasons why this 52-year-old civil servant wrote his first novel, The Tiger Claw Tree (Penguin). "This book is a humble tribute to my tradition," he says softly. Built on an ambitious scale, the novel traces the fortunes of a Tenkalai Iyengar family through four generations and is set amid political and social upheavals. It rests on two historical props: the 1908 riots of Tirunelveli and the "burlesque" enacted in Tamil Nadu during the 1950s and '60s which culminated in the anti-Hindi agitation. A Tenkalai Iyengar himself, the culture was familiar turf for Ananthakrishnan, though the events -- most of them predating Independence -- weren't. However, a passion for history and voracity for reading helped. So did a resolve to have his say, "Having read countless books for the past 30-35 years, I thought: why not let others read my book for a change?"

More important, through the novel he wanted to find an answer to one particularly haunting question -- "Will an idea, be it a religious or political one, remain invalid because those who profess it are betrayed? Or have history against them? Or are just plain unlucky?" The Tiger Claw Tree is essentially about rebels without the special gift of rebellion. It's a novel as much about those unsung heroes who fought for freedom as it is about stalwarts like Subramania Bharati and Chidambaram Pillai. Says Ananthakrishnan, "Not many, even in Tamil Nadu, are aware of the role of these people in the freedom struggle." In this respect, he hopes his novel will be educative.

On another plane, it is also about womanhood -- with Ponna as the epitome. As the unsure, sensuous bride, as a resourceful woman of the house, as the bedridden matriarch who spans a century and lives on snatches of memory, Ponna is like the tiger claw tree, on whose branches birds flock, play havoc and then leave. The title is borrowed from A.K. Ramanujam's translation of an old Tamil poem. Says Ananthakrishnan: "Each person has a tree within himself, to some the birds may not come at all." All the same, there are plenty flocking around the author who isn't short of ideas for future projects. Predictably, one will be on the jungle that is Delhi.

--Bindu Menon