A tribute to Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,   

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.   

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.   

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,   

And the flash of my teeth,   

The swing in my waist,   

And the joy in my feet.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered   

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,   

They say they still can’t see.   

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,   

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Now you understand

Just why my head’s not bowed.   

I don’t shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.   

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It’s in the click of my heels,   

The bend of my hair,   

the palm of my hand,   

The need for my care.   

’Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman” from And Still I Rise. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.

Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)

Some thoughts on "The Namesake"

This article cannot strictly be called a review of Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake". Its more a collection of musings on reading the book. Once in a while you come across a story and a narration which resonates deeply with you and evokes a lot of thoughts. This is one such novel and I attempt to collect such thoughts here.

Ever since I heard that "The Namesake" is about alienation I was putting-off reading it. I finally got to it
quite co-incodentally when I saw a battered copy in my office library, incidentally the only fiction I could lay
my eyes on. When I finally did read it, I realized alienation is only a part of it. The novel is
about identity. It's about carving one's own little space in this big world; about figuring out who you are
among the multiple identities thrown at you. It's about being sensitive to one's past and yet open to a new
future.

The novel tells the story of the Gangulis who start their family life in the United States, back when it was
still a relatively new phenomenon to do so and the younger generation still felt deeply connected to its roots.
They thrive in the new country, have lucrative career opportunities, a nice house, a boy Gogol and a girl Sonia,  although their social circle still mostly comprises of Bengalis like themselves, in an attempt to stay connected to their cultural roots. The children, born and brought up in the US fail to understand their paretns' sentiments and are subtly resentful of it in their growing-up years. However, eventually when the children do grow up and try to have lives of their own, each of them is able to integrate into the American society to a different degree.For them finding a place in the society is never as natural as it is to an American person of American origin. Where Gogol's sister Sonia finds it easier to fit in, Gogol finds himself attracted to and marries Maushami, the daughter of the Bengali friends of the family. What draws them together is the commonalities in their upbringing - their shared nostalgia as well as derision towards it. Eventually the marriage breaks, since the common background is not enough to hold them together and Maushami's urge to free herself of the cultural bondage runs much deeper. The novel ends with Gogol finally understanding his father's urge to include him in his love for their roots and a deeper acceptance of his parentage.

Strangely, the character I could relate with the most is that of Maushami, who, on account of being a girl, is
pressed a lot harder by her parents to adhere to their cultural traditions. She is not allowed to date, not
allowed to be a part of the society she lives in. Eventaully she finds peace in France, a country which has
no claim on her whatsoever, as compared to the two countires which do define her identity. This is the crux of the matter. The life and the culture her parents hold dear and push her towards, is not her life, even though
it may be the only life they know and love. They chose to put her in a differnt society with a differnt set of
cultural values. They constantly expect her to understand and accept their past as compared to the present she knows and the future she is capable of accepting.

All of us routinely fail to understand what we want subconsciously and the life we have built consequentially.
The truth at the heart of the issue is that we all want our past back - the days of innocence and lack of
responsibility. We want our children to fulfill that deepest desire of ours - to embrace our past. But in
 reality that doesnt happen.For one, the children cannot understand where their parents are coming from. They are not the ones who have had those experiences. Even if they do understand, it's not in the children's power to fulfill their parents' desires. If only we can control the urge to project our desires onto our children, so much pain, angst and loneliness can be avoided.

At the end of the novel, the meaninglessness Gogol feels portrays the sum total of his and his parents' alienation.On the one hand, he does not have the protection of tradition to gaurd him from the overwhelming meaninglessness of it all. On the other, the individual freedom he has isn't of any particular use to him at that stage of his life. The novel remains relevant since, its not only the diaspora which goes through such alienation anymore. The current society moving everyday towards an individual oriented model as opposed to a traditional community oriented one, presents similar challenges to the youth today increasingly.

I am going to present a summary review of the book anyway, to end the article with.

Summary Review:
Book: The Namesake
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Type: Novel
Rating: 4 (out of 5, 5 being the highest)
I recommend: For its excellent storytelling and relevant theme

Comparison between "The Namesake" and "The Shadow Lines"

I read "The Shadow Lines" by Amitav Ghosh and "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri in close succession in September 2014, with only the latest part of the "Clifton Chronicles" by Jeffrey archer in between, which failed to leave any kind of impression. Hence the urge to draw comparisons between "The Shadow Lines" and "The Namesake" was inevitable. At the outset, there are a number of similarities, given the fact that both the novels are predominantly about characters from Bengali families.It gave me a sense of deja vu'. However, the main difference between the two novels comes from the fact that they are set in the opposite sides  of the geographical divide between India and the United States. "The Shadow Lines" begins with the characters living in India, while "The Namesake" is always narrated from the perspective of the diaspora.

If I had to pick a favorite among the two, for me it would be "The Namesake", hands-down. I found Lihiri engaging from Page 1 itself, whereas it took some time for me to actually connect to Ghosh's narrative. However that is not to say "The Shadow Lines" was any less engaging on the whole. I also preferred the clean and neatly executed chronology of Lahiri's story, when Ghosh seemed a little haphazard at times. Lahiri's writing could be
tied in a neat little bow, but Ghosh's mangled chronology was unsettling for me. It felt disconnected. Overall,
"The Namesake" is a pleasant story to read, irrespective of the underlying disconnectedness and uprooted feeling.
However "The Shadow Lines" is intentionally unpleasant, designed to make the reader anticipate the deep underlying
sadness that resulted from the central tragedy.

At the end, it was clear that irrespective of the similarities in the cultural and linguistic setting of the stories, they are about two entirely different themes. Ghosh's loopy writing comes together only in the end. "The Namesake" is about alienation, whereas "The Shadow Lines" is about the meaninglessness of partition in a subcontinent in which people are so culturally similar.

Perhaps, Ghosh's cleverness is manifested in tying the narrative together only in the last couple of pages, where the novel and the title truly make sense. However, in comparison I find that "The Namesake" was beautifully and elegantly executed.

Review: If It's MONDAY It Must Be MADURAI

I had waited a long time to start reading Srinath Perur's "If It's MONDAY It Must Be MADURAI". I must admit, I had very high expectations .I had read quite a few appreciative reviews, the title was very catchy
and the concept seemed fresh and different. A funny take on group travel - you don't come across many of those.

As you might have guessed from my tone, I was disappointed to begin with. The very first chapter, "The Grace of God" depicts probably the most common form of group tourism in Southern India - the temple Darshan rounds. It describes a typical Indian middle-class middle-aged group who have come on the tour with the specific purpose of "covering" all the major South Indian temples. In contrast, the author and his photographer companion are on an assignment from a magazine, expecting a very different outcome from the trip.

From Page 1, it turns out that the author is dabbling with every stereotype that is out there. There is generous
reference to middle-age or retiree teachers, bank executives, civil servants and so on making a large part of
the group. While one agrees with him that coming from a different generation, thought process and probably a more liberal background, the company might have seemed exhausting to him, a little more effort on his part to try to understand the group's perspective, instead of prejudging them, a little more empathy to their world view, could have opened up an opportunity to understand a whole different cross section of society. We no longer live in a homogeneous society, value system and thought-process-wise. That is the bone of contention for most of the social struggles today. The younger generation favors a more westernized, individual-oriented world view, whereas their parents' generation sticks more to a community or religion-centered world-view. The whole intention of travel is to open oneself up to the unfamiliar, to expand one's horizon. If the writer blames the tour group that they failed to fulfill that objective, I did not get the feeling that he fared much better by choosing to consider himself intellectually superior to the rest of the group and not truly opening himself up to them. If only he had the notion that, even though his dressing and ponytail might matter to them and they choose to judge him based on that, he will not allow himself to be judged and compartmentalized based on his looks alone, will attempt to ignore their judgement and be truly open with them, the whole exercise could have proved a lot more fruitful.

Throughout the book, while he is perfectly happy to guess his tour-mates' ages, he never reveals
his own, leaving us to guess that he is among the younger lot. Also, in any writing, some things are better
left unsaid. In the Uzbekistan tour, the part where the group comments about the debauchery of the Indian political system, while being on sex tourism themselves was ironic by itself. It would have served the author well to keep the barb about the group itself being adulterous tax-evaders left implied.

However some anecdotal references show a glimpse of the heartfelt and that is where a reader connects with the author. For instance, the bits where he compares the girls in the Uzbek hotel to video game characters or the squalor turning to spectacle in case of dead babies used for begging  come off as very genuine. On the whole, it is as if the author is more forgiving of the sex tourists to Uzbekistan than the temple tourists in South India. Its completely understandable given the fact that one is always more critical and unforgiving towards one's own.

The book gets considerably better after this initial judgmental phase and becomes more observatory from the Uzbekistan tour onward. There are many good bits as in where he questions the urge to catalog each and every animal one sees on a safari rather than observe and be a part of nature in "According to their own genius", about college bands creating their original compositions and the result in "the Same Water Everywhere" or when he talks about the Kabir project. I really liked the line where he interprets " Kabir is a winking, shimmering presence, an idea, a way of thinking that can manifest itself variously." It is evident that in the subsequent tours he is among the kind of people who "get" him. Hence his comfort level increases considerably.

From the number of reviews I saw on Goodreads one can safely conclude that you can either love the book or hate it, but you cannot ignore it. My final qualm is that Rs.500 is a bit pricey for a book from a new author. It warranted many more and much better photographs covering the trips. Probably the author could do a follow-up coffee table book or publish a photo collection as a supplement.

Summary Review:
Book:  If It's MONDAY It Must Be MADURAI
Author: Srinath Perur
Type: Travelogue
Rating: 4 ( out of 5, 5 being the highest)
I Recommend: For an innovative take on group travel