“The Sufi Way in Malerkotla”

By Mita Ghose - The Hindu - Chennai, India
Sunday, February 3, 2008

First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India 3, Penguin India, p.224
First Proof 3 offers us some rare, exhilarating experiences.

Caught between open scepticism and impossibly high expectations, debutant writers sharing space in an anthology often find themselves in a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose kind of situation. That it fails to stifle their creative urge is surely something o f a miracle. It’s a greater wonder still that despite its uncertain commercial prospects, certain publishers remain resolute in their quest to discover and nurture new writing, driven, possibly, by the conviction that in the sea of unheard voices, there are several worth listening to and taking a chance on.
The appearance of First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India 3 clearly indicates that the faith of its publishers in the idea of giving expression to such voices has remained steadfast since they first took the plunge in 2005. In the latest version, the format remains largely unchanged, with separate sections devoted, as usual, to fiction (including poetry) and non-fiction pieces. Apart from Kriti Sharma, however, all the contributors have either appeared in print before or have works in progress with major publishing houses. Several of them have even won awards.

Strictly speaking, therefore, First Proof 3 does not venture into virgin territory. But it does offer us, insofar as the non-fiction pieces are concerned, some rare, exhilarating experiences: like trailing, in the unforgettable “Chasing Nyima”, its author Sankar Sridhar and his newfound nomad friends into the “vast nothingness” of Ladakh which transforms the city-dweller’s perspective and leads to an understanding of how the most rigorous of living conditions can reinforce man’s resilience and dignity; peeking into the “dodgy Indian restaurant” in Scotland, where the irrepressible Shankar Sharma once served as a waiter and picked up some priceless lessons of life (“My Lovely Restaurant”); visiting Malerkotla in the Malwa region with Nirupama Dutt, whose self-deprecatory wit in “The Sufi Way in Malerkotla” contributes as much to our perception of the place as its Sufi traditions that have honed its unique reputation as “an oasis of calm in conflict-torn Punjab”; or examining — tongue firmly in cheek — with Aman Sethi, author of “Khullam Khulla”, the quirky intricacies of municipal law in India.

Sheer exuberance

In fact, apart from “Father-in-Law Has Pots of Money”, Avijit Ghosh’s well-researched article on the phenomenal rise of Bhojpuri cinema and Ashok Malik’s reflective piece on his interaction in Washington with an Ethiopian cabbie hooked on Mother India (“One Day in DC”), it’s the sheer exuberance of the non-fiction works and their amazing variety of humour — including ex-civil servant Palden Gyalsten’s jet black version in “Musings on a Mobike” and film critic Shubhra Gupta’s wry one in “Can’t Please Anyone” — that distinguish them from the more sombre fiction.

Not that the slices of life offered for contemplation by the fictional pieces in this compilation are all relentlessly “dark and brooding”, like the mother’s face in Jahnavi Barua’s raw and edgy “Next Door”. The utter absurdity of the interrogation conducted by the Inspector in Kishore Valicha’s “Strawberries” and Grandma’s endearing eccentricities in Joan Pinto’s “The Saint of Lost Things” do tease a smile from our lips. Yet, Pinto’s world is suffused with the twilight tones of nostalgia and Valicha’s, for all its surreal touches, is deeply cynical. Despite its many sunny moments, even “The Thief” by the late Shakti Bhatt (to whom this book is dedicated) is laced with pathos and irony.

The other stories in the collection are bleaker still, whether it’s Uma Girish’s beautifully built up offering, “The Lipstick”, whose brutal ending could, perhaps, have been handled with greater finesse by a writer of her sensibilities, Neel Kamal Puri’s “Kailla” that evokes the tragic-comic elements in Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh” or even “The Floating Island”, an extract from Parismita Singh’s forthcoming graphic novel, The Hotel at the End of the World, which leaves us contemplating an ominous-looking horizon.

Among the fiction writers, Mridula Koshy, Temsula Ao and Noureen Sarna leave an indelible impression. Despair and fortitude fight an unequal battle in “When the Child Was a Child”, Koshy’s haunting portrait of an impoverished U.S.-based Malayali family coming apart at the seams as it struggles to survive in a squalid tenement building reverberating with “the quiet misery of spoons moving in plates”. Ao, on the other hand, brings a lyrical beauty and her native Naga sensibility to her poems, “Nowhere Boatman” and “The Spear”. As for the 16-year-old Sarna, despite faint traces of self-consciousness in her poems “Mediterranean Siesta” and “Refuge”, “Bouquets” reveals a taut self-restraint and maturity, startling in one so young. Here, evidently, is one of those fresh voices readers look forward to in anticipation of the treasures it will yield when it ripens further. That promise alone makes an anthology of this kind worth waiting for. Year after year.