This was not a good year in books, quantitatively speaking.
With all the misfortunes that the year brought, a (very) minor one for me was that I could not prioritise reading. I did prioritise relaxation, much needed in the midst of terribly long days, but it's interesting to me that reading did not make the cut.
For the most part.
I did read a couple of books that had me completely engrossed, and when something is that compelling, that in itself is relaxing. Isn't it?
So here goes the list of my meagre accomplishments, literature-wise.
1) The Milkman by Anna Burns
The year started with me continuing with this (deceptively) hard hitting book set against the backdrop of 'the trouble' years in Ireland. It was educational of course as all such books tend to be; while I knew the outline of this particular conflict in history, the book filled in the details, the colour, the minutiae of living in a war-torn country and brought the people undergoing it right into my living room. But most of all, what struck me about this book, was the writing.
The writing is unlike anything I have encountered. It reads like someone's thoughts, dark, unforgiving, incomplete. There is a fluidity to it, thoughts don't have beginnings or endings. They morph from one to the other, in between they jump timelines and astronomical spaces. And the writer has captured all of this in beautifully crafted sentences that are simple and dangerous, all at once.
I highly recommend this book, and while it is not an easy read, for all lovers of the language and amateur scholars of contemporary world history, it is an enriching one.
2) The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
At some point a couple of years ago, I came across a list of books from authors spanning countries. And I decided to read some of the ones that seemed interesting to me from that list, countries that I didn't know much about. I did end up reading quite a few.
One that has stayed with me is 'The Dinner' by Herman Koch. It is a brilliant portrayal of the palpable racial tensions in a country as seemingly progressive as the Netherlands. At least that was my take-away; there are different ones.
This Yoko Ogawa book was not part of this list, and I didn't pick it up to learn more about the country. I mean, one can always do with knowing more about any country, especially one as mysterious and multi-faceted as Japan, but one has read other Japanese authors. The story simply appealed to me, a human interest story of two people from very different backgrounds coming together to forge a bond. Maybe similar in intent to A man called Ove by Fredrick Backman, but as per me a far more original storyline.
It's a book about a genius math professor and his relationship with his housekeeper and specifically, her son. It's an understated study in how despite several odds that include a memory impediment (the professor's memory resets every 15 minutes) and completely different backgrounds and areas of expertise, love and affection still germinate. I learnt some maths also while reading it, but am afraid have forgotten most of it. Memory is a strange thing, it remembers what it wants to, and I do not believe it holds the study of Mathematics in very high regard.
This book is not really Japanese to me. This story could have played out anywhere, the themes of tragedy, love, friendship, loss are universal.
**
Both these books pre-dated the pandemic, I certainly could not have drummed up the resolve to read The Milkman during the (worst of the) pandemic. Those were the days when we were playing maid cum nanny cum cook along with participating in weekly episodes of People vs Maggots (we played the people). Point being, we had our own troubles.
3) Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
By far my favourite book of the year, which I had been looking forward to for more than a year. For those of you who don't know this series, it's a crime thriller-romance series by JK Rowling, writing under the pseudonym of Galbraith (which didn't remain a secret for very long), and as that, you would have to know that the characterisations are brilliant.
The stories are told through the central characters of a surly detective, and his stereotype-beating partner, also his love interest. The duo solve dark and difficult crimes and underpinning all of their detection endeavours is very potent romantic tension. They are both flawed, have serious baggage, some of which is current; as we go through the multiple books, we see them work through their issues, and move towards each other.
The crimes they solve deserve their own description. These are not mere murders and robberies; these are gruesome. Killers with motives that range from deep-seated and violent misogyny to psychopathy people these pages, as do mutilations, ritual killing and serial murders. I realise I may not be painting a very attractive picture of the books, but the point I am trying to make, albeit badly, is that these crimes are very much a reflection of the times we live in, maybe too much so.
So I finished this book, all 944 pages of it, fairly quickly, even in the thick of the pandemic, and while I was suffering from a sprained back. The back being out of commission certainly helped.
**
At this point I must reveal that I did read more books, but they didn't make the cut for this list owning to the fact that I could not finish them. One of those was Poor Economics by the Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerji and Esther Duflo. Needless to say am sure, it's a very well written book, with both wide and deep research of their own and well-studied accounts of others, concluding in insights that cut quick to the bone. The book has been written to help people and institutions understand the nature of poverty to be able to take the right measures to eradicate it. While many of us may not be in a position to offer solutions or implement the ones they outline, I do think we would all benefit from reading it. We would benefit from realising how many privileges we live amidst and that we take for granted. These luxuries make it far easier for us make rational decisions that further improve the quality of our lives.
From everything I have seen so far, it seems very much so that many things in life come with potent feedback loops, creating cycles that either entrap or liberate. And while many of us would like to believe we are self-made, it couldn't be further from the truth.
The second book I started reading and didn't complete is called Babu Bangladesh by Numair Atif Chowdhury. It's a book that aims to reveal Bangladesh to the world, in all its glory and muck. Taking the narrative path of following one individual's life and mysterious disappearance, it touches upon a broad swathe of events and incidents that make up Bangladesh's checkered political history.
While both books are exceptional, I have to confess I decided to give myself a break. I came to a logical point with Poor Economics, and changed paths to lesser pursuits. It was an exacting exercise reading it, both intellectually and emotionally.
4) Meet me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
While not lesser in a derogatory sense, this book promised to be an easier read. It was that, and perhaps more.
Epistolary in nature, it takes two completely different individuals and draws a straight line between them. Even though the nature of their correspondence changes dramatically from the first letter to the last, what remains constant is the undertone of reflection, of revisiting or perhaps meeting for the first time, questions of purpose and meaning, of love and the flight of it.
I could imagine having this conversation, but I envied these people the time they had at their disposal to write such lengthy and thought-provoking missives to each other. Most of my messages to other people nowadays, and in fact for a long time, tend to be transactional in nature. Well, at least I don't grapple with existential questions on a day to day basis. Not anymore. I am lucky.
5) Maybe you Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
Mental health has popped into my my conversations, both internal and those with others, many times in the last couple of years, and I am glad I could take a deeper dip into the topic by way of this book. A memoir of sorts, it's written by a bonafide therapist. The author makes it very interesting, and it reads much like fiction. What makes me happiest though is that it makes the point very well that therapy is effective and in many cases, necessary.
Littered with technicalities, which unlike in other fields of treatment are relatively easy to understand, the book itself also serves as therapy, if you are so inclined. Some of the frameworks she mentions are self-administer-able, and I, for one, felt like I had a better grasp of myself after reading it.
6) The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
I must confess that by this point, I wanted to hit the 6 books mark. There was a symmetry to it and arguably, some sort of face saving.
So I approached the task in a methodical way, I checked out the most popular books on Goodreads, found one I liked the sound of, and bought it. The Midnight Library came into my life as a statistic, but it stays being so much more.
The book tells the story of a gifted individual who well into adulthood lives among the debris of her past dreams, and realising she has lost it all, decides to take a drastic step. But then something wonderful, miraculous happens, and we spend the rest of the book learning about and living through it.
It is a bit in the paranormal realm, explores concepts of choice and human potential, and keeps you guessing till the end. At first I thought it was a bit simplistic; we all know that reversing a choice you regret can potentially change everything in your life, including the bits you like. But it got more complex and interesting as the chapters went past.
I came away thinking that making peace with the choices we end up regretting is one of the best gifts we can give to ourselves. And the hope that we can be great, in spite of not feeling, looking or behaving like it in the longest time, is what keeps the humanity alive. Inspite of everything.
We all needed to hear that. Especially this year.
As the year from hell winds up, my thoughts move to what the next one brings. With anticipation.
Well, yes. The world will not magically heal at the stroke of the midnight hour. We will awaken to more or less the same quantities of life and freedom that we went to bed with.
But the new year will bring some change. Be it in the form of vaccines, or herd immunity, or in the absence of both, an inching back towards a mid-way sort of life. Wherein fearlessly we shall once again charge ahead, armoured with sanitisers and masks, in the way of swords and shields.
The new year will bring some change. Because we may want to change. To kit ourselves with new attitudes and resolves, some of which will hopefully see light of day. And so what if these flames are short-lived, they will have burnt brightly, and we would be the better for having thought of them than not at all.
Yes, the new year will bring some change.
I have spent this year compartmentalising myself. Work, kid, myself. Three boxes, made with non-porous material, leakage-proof. But as I see my son grow up, see him add a few more strains of comprehension, new forms of self-expression, every single day, I have hope he will start to understand and accept me in my entirety. It would be amiss of me to not mention that the nanny who arrived in my home two weeks ago, a vision it seems to me at times as fantastical as Mary Poppins herself, will be a key factor driving this merger (of my different selves). I have already had a taste of it as I sit back, feet up, book in hand, having our odd mother-son conversations, while she, bless her, feet firmly on ground, sits poised to chase after him when he tires of our conversation or runs out of vocabulary. I am still getting used to it. I do not want to get too used to it.
Speaking of odd mother-son conversations, my favourite ones happen in the mornings, just before the day unleashes itself, when both of us stand at our window and watch the world go by. We speak of the trees and the cars, the people and their dogs, the flowers that fall to earth and make it so colourful, catching my color-loving son's eye, and the crows that sit on them wires. In these conversations, I try to pass on the habit of imagination, of wondering where those crows could be flying to, and making up answers that lead to stories that Google search would never throw up.
I want to continue these, even on days when the clock seems to be running at double speed.
I recently came across, what was to me, a hard-hitting question. A throwaway mention in a book written by a therapist-author about her life and experiences. This question made me look at myself anew. Who am I? What do I want? What's in my way?
What's in my way? Many things. Mostly self-created.
I think I will dwell on this one for a bit this year.
And I will write. Every day. Not always for public consumption. But never the less. It is a part of me that I have let atrophy. Especially this year as I lost self-expression. Come to think of it, it's not that I didn't have things to say, but some sort of congealment took place, a thickening of sorts; and this mass of thoughts and feelings just sat there inside me like Dalda in the winters. It could not would not thaw.
And to be honest, I didn't try very hard. I gave it space.
But 2021 will be different. I will try harder.
This is not a plan. Resolves? Maybe. More like wishes. Or quick little post-its to myself, to remind myself to look around and smile more often this coming year.
**
It’s 6 o clock on a Saturday. The regular crowd shuffles in.
Existential Aunty ascends her throne and looks around. She notices a new one, a smart little dashing fellow in a beret, he looks eager and full of beans.
“Err, are those coffee beans?”, asks Sr VP, Substances and Spirits.
E Aunty gives him a glare and he transmogrifies into a ‘Keep Calm and Have Coffee’ poster.
“That cheeky b*st*rd”, thinks E Aunty to herself before turning her attention to the beret donning newbie.
“Hello, and who might you be?”, she asks in her best impersonation of someone who is interested in the answer.
The newbie looks like he is about to explode with joy at having been summoned, by the old matriarch herself, and pipes up in a voice that carries as far as his big toe.
Which is not very far at all.
“Umm, are you on mute?”, says a sleepy looking Octopus in a t-shirt that says ‘Humor, Me’.
“Whaaa? Aren’t you on sabbatical”, E Aunty looks at the Octopus in some surprise but is only met with some not-so-gentle snoring. She shakes her head and writes ‘Do not renew contract’ in her daily planner.
“You, Mr Beret, speak louder please. We don’t have all day.”
Newbie clears his throat, looks around nervously and this time, louder, “It is the will of the people that we must start again.”
“Start what again, you mysterious but well-dressed stranger?”, E Aunty can’t help but admire the trendy charcoal vest he has on. She sighs and thinks back to the days she used to have trendy things, and the will to care.
He seems to have anticipated this question, and reaching into the very same vest, produces a scroll. “This is a change.org petition, and as you can see it has been signed by all of us.”. His voice seems to have gotten stronger.
“Yes yes, ok. But what does it say?”, says E Aunty, and as an after-thought, “And who are you?”, and as an after-afterthought, “And for that matter, who are any of us?”
The man is undeterred by these diversions. Over the course of this interchange, he seems to have grown in size, in height and girth, almost rivaling that of E Aunty herself.
“I am inspiration. Imagination. Art. Beauty. I am that which artists and painters have..”
“Oye hello, short mein batao”, growls E Aunty, who is now starting to get a headache.
He looks sullen but complies. “Okay, in short, we must start writing again.”
E Aunty considers this. “Hmm, and what do you think we are doing right now?”.
