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Malabar
Curry Fitful despatches from Vasco da Gama's spice route. By Ashok Koshy THE CURRY COAST In 1498, Vasco da Gama dropped anchor off the coast of Malabar, bringing with him a Portuguese presence to our shores. The relationship betwixt the visitor and the host was to remain, at best, an uneasy one for the next 450 years. The Captain Major, as his compatriots rather pompously addressed him, was mariner, social climber, carpetbagger and opportunist all rolled into one. His avowed objective in making the long and tedious journey was to seek out Christians and black gold (pepper) in the East Indies. The apostle Thomas having preceded him by 15 centuries, he was to encounter more than a handful of the Faith, though their allegiance lay elsewhere than to Rome. Of pepper, he was to discover a surfeit. Five centuries later, Binoo John, Delhi-based journalist, Malayali, fond parent and of the Faith, boards the Mangalore Express and journeys down to Calicut, pen and diary firmly grasped, to follow in the footsteps of the Gama. The Curry Coast is a detailed catalogue of encounters through the highways and lanes once trod by the Captain Major, not unlike the definitive book of that genre, H.V. Morton's In the Steps of the Master. Comparisons can be odious, perchance embarrassing, therefore best avoided. Kicking off from an ugly concrete slab that marks the spot of Gama's landing, John travels down to Kochi and on to Kottayam, stopping off to take in Beypore, Mahe, Badagara, Kottkal, Kalpetta, and Tellicherry, small towns awash with the sleaze and vulgarity of Gulf gold. The reader is introduced to the rich and famous of the land: pepper merchants, poets, writers and the 96-year-old zamorin himself. John encounters ordinary people, rich sources of local history and lore. We are treated to a heady diet of local cuisine as he table hops from eatery to eatery gorging on egg-topped Alkapuri biryani, faluda, pathiri, Chettinad prawn curry and "standard" fare, a euphemism for "monumental many-curried rice meals". John has done his homework. From Sanjay Subramanyam, famed Vasco da Gama biographer, to Logan's Malabar Manual to sundry government and individual publications, he has read them all. Alas, the transition from journalist to autobiographer or travel writer is not a short hop-step-and-a-jump as recent efforts have confirmed. Travelogues are more than manuals of historical facts and meticulous jottings from a daily diary. The wonderful people John encounters lack dimension and are like cardboard characters who fail to interest. Even the rich cuisine seems short-changed of essential spices. Much of the book reads as a Malayali speaks the English language, with a quaint and rather disdainful disregard for the strict tenets of grammar. Perhaps it is intentional? A self-confessed voyeur, the author dwells at length on the practice of shaving female genitalia; on the bobbing bosoms afloat on the Menachal river (remember the star crossed lovers trysting on its banks in the Arundhati Roy effort?) and an English woman's "torpedo tits holding up her gown like a coat hanger" -- appropriate titillation for the adolescent groin, but hardly fair in serious travel writing. John hopes to spend his autumn years in picturesque Fort Kochi. A fresh effort tracing the footsteps of Marco Polo could be essayed then. This time around, however, he must arm himself with the best editor money can buy and not depend solely on the "trajectory pee" of his infant son to clean copy on his computer screen. Short stories that are a window to Urdu literature. By Shaheda Gufrani Zaidi THE TALE OF THE OLD FISHERMAN There have been very few attempts to introduce English readers to contemporary Urdu literature. Though the works of Munshi Premchand, Sadat Hasan Manto, Qurratalain Hyder and Ismat Chughtai have been translated into English, latter-day writers have remained largely unknown to the English-speaking world. This collection, translations of 12 modern Urdu short stories, tries to address the existing deficiency. These stories represent different forms of the Urdu short story. And yet, people in these stories could be from anywhere. Like the woman in "Purvai" whose mundane existence as wife and mother gets a spark of life when she sees her long lost love after several years. Or the atheist in "The Dark Alley" who silently observes hypocrisy masquerading as religiosity at a child's funeral. Its surreal setting and stark horror make "The Wagon" a particularly gripping piece. "The Tale of the Old Fisherman" is, on the other hand, a fascinating account of how the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 affected the lives of ordinary people. In "Of Coconuts and Bottles of Chilled Beer", the writer examines the sociological and political undercurrents that led to the formation of Bangladesh through the experiences of a West Pakistani traveller in East Pakistan. However, translations can be tricky and unless the person entrusted with the task is equally conversant in both languages, the end product may turn out to be dismal. Sadly this is true of some of the translations in this collection. In a few cases, the narrative just plods, failing to conjure the image the writer may have wanted to create in the reader's mind. Also, tighter editing would have done away with the use of repetitive phrases. Handbook of Indian Athletics Strategies to Combat Terrorism The Lord of Darkness A Vegetarian Lifestyle India Human Development Report The Mahabharata |
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