As I finally put down my copy of "Miss Laila - Armed and Dangerous" in the wee hours of a cold December night, I felt a very strong urge to put a quote from the book on my wall. By the time dawn broke, I was thinking that the author justified a whole article, and not a mere quote.
I first took notice of him when I came upon an article, being circulated on the Batch Whatsapp. It was bad-mouthing the IAS. There was nothing new about that. In the perception of the officers, those who whine about, and against, the Service, are those unfortunate lot who drew the shorter sticks in the gamble that CSE ultimately is. Yeah, we are smug philosophers that way. Yet, there was something about the article that hurt - a tinge of wit which could not be put down with a brush of superiority. The brightest kid of the batch told us that the author was a "brilliant guy". We took his judgement at face value, and hated him (the author) all the more.
Since then, various newspaper editorials began to show some of his articles. HT started placing a regular column of his works. Mercifully, he wasn't going about the Service now, and, removed from the personal assault on one's daily bread, one could start to appreciate the eponymous "brilliance". The articles were short, and insightful. They were based on honest accounts of social realities. They dangled, before the readership, truths, which we were either trying to ignore; or worse, had successfully ignored and suppressed to unconscious. All of the articles ended with an introduction of the writer, who, among other things, was known as the author of 'The Illicit Happiness of Other People'.
There is something attractively mischievous about that title itself, isn't it? In this age when finding a PDF of any work is too easy, this book proved quite elusive. So, for the first time, one discovered the ease of buying a book directly from one's Kindle. There was no looking back since then. Once "Illicit Happiness" was done with, we went ahead and got "Miss Laila". Poor internet connection, and an effort to read something non fiction, like Roger Penrose (a failed effort, of course - a brilliant scientist he may be, but either he has no idea about popular science writing, or he has too inflated an idea about popular intelligence!), delayed my start on the first novel - "Serious Men"; a lacunae that has since been made up for, at the first possibility, and now I am half way into it.
Whenever we write book reviews, we must write something about the author's style. The author writes in third person, but from a very intimate third person perspective, as if the narrator were a guardian angel, privy to the deepest thoughts and desires of the characters. Of course, the social commentary of his articles does play a big part even in the novels. The revelatory devices that adorn the articles are also present; even if a character appears to have been first presented as a stereotype, his denouement seldom remains so. However, the most endearing part of each of his novels is the gripping plotline. All the three novels are different 'genres' that way. 'Illicit Happiness' is about the idiosyncrasies of a dysfunctional family, where three characters have secrets, whose exposure drives the plot, to the biggest anti climax in the written word! 'Miss Laila', of course, is a (very very very) thinly veiled account of the (in?)famous Ishrat Jahaan 'encounter'. There is nothing much to hide there, but still it is quite fast paced, with a few diversions that bring in the social commentary, including merciless digs at the 'liberal industry'. 'Serious Men', am only partially through though. What makes the plots interesting that the author is able to convey very domain specific ideas, without over burdening us with facts. 'Illicit Happiness' brings us to the world of psychiatrists, and their subjects. In 'Miss Laila', we see the world of intelligence officers and sting operations up close. In 'Serious Men', I am in the thick of office politics I guess our professors at Engineering Colleges must have had!
The language of the author is his USP - it is irreverent, and deliberately shocking. Only he could have described a building to be 'pus coloured', and introduced characters with their body odors! There are so many quotable lines, that I feel compelled to put down a few. Sample these - "The problem with reverence in this country is that some people convert it into folk dance." "Do the lonely deserve sympathy? Some surely, but most people are lonely because they, too, have rejected people; they have rejected lovers and friends who wished to be with them but were not good enough." "They can see the feudal system, where the strong use the weak to attack the stronger." "There are faces that only an Indian can make. Like that baffled face when he is shocked by the most logical outcome of his actions. He crosses the road like a cow, and he is startled by a truck. A vehicle on the road? How? He walks across the railway track, and he finds a train hurtling towards him. A train on a railway track? He is stunned."(All from Miss Laila) "My love, I feel terrible without you. It is like being with you." "Because to fool a person, it appears, you have to first fool yourself." (All from Illicit Happiness) "That men, in reality, did not have friends in other men. That the fellowship of men, despite its joyous banter, old memories of exaggerated mischief and the altruism of sharing pornography, was actually a farcical fellowship. Because what a man really wanted was to be bigger than his friends." “The fate of every love story, he knew very well, is in the rot of togetherness, or in the misery of separation. Lovers often choose the first with the same illusory wisdom that makes people choose to die later than now.” “Yes, Yes. Indians were the oldest civilization on Earth, the greatest, the best. And only Indians had culture. Others were all dumb nomads and whores.” (All from Serious Men) "Celebrities are often too close to power to take the side of ordinary folks. It is as though good life holds them hostages in a paradise." "Economics would have been such a beautiful idea if only it weren’t so complicated by the long term." (from various articles)
A regular complaint against any writing which intends to convey a social message in this country, is that it tends to be downright boring. The author clearly, is not of that mould. He makes efforts to engage his readers, so that the 'message' goes in like hot knife through butter, and not like a sledgehammer. It is a conscious effort, as the author says, in 'The Moral Obligation of India's Media' -"But what do the authors want editors to do? Push stories that their audiences have persistently refused to read or watch? Isn’t it wiser to be a temple, insidiously leading the faithful through the ruse of entertainment into its sacred heart? Some of our finest novelists do this, too. In the transaction between storyteller and reader, the hook of the plot is what the writer offers to win the right to say things, serious things. To that end, being entertaining is a form of humility. Academics might find it useful."
It is hard not to ascribe political colours to any piece of writing these days. There is a famous joke in circulation-
A - So, what do you do for a living?
B - I am a journalist.
A - Oh. So, for which political party?
In these times of clear loyalties of the media, mainstream as well as social, the author comes across a a breeze of fresh air. Politically, his views lie in the area where, I am sure, much of the silent majority of India, which is getting tired of the shrillness in the political debate, lays it allegiance. As far as the political discourse is concerned, this vast middle ground is left unserved right now. Everything is 'my way or the highway' in the public discourse. If the political climate is being vitiated; then the cure being offered is no better than the disease itself. This very fact is why the author's writing shines like a fog lamp through this whole murky cloud of partisan opinions. It shows that there is a place for logical opinions, and there is no need for us all to be servile ideological minions of either of the camps. The author does in real life what his protagonists do in the plots. Sample this brilliant piece from 'Miss Laila', which was the quote I mentioned I wanted to adorn my Facebook wall with - "The victims of her pranks are not merely liberals, but heroes of the left, heroes who are light as feather. In the battle between presumed good and presumed evil, good is hiring poorly. Does Ms Iyer see the plain fact? Evil is an equal-opportunity society where the darkest rise. Liberal heroes, on the other hand, are made in a very different sort of place, a place where the gentry suffocate honest competition. Here the midgets rise. What chance do they have against naturally selected arch-villains?"
Taking the middle path does not imply in any way that the author is given to fence sitting. As a reviewer of Miss Laila has written, she felt worried for the author once she started reading the book. Writing something like this, even by a person of the most establishment borne class, would surely be invitation for a lot of trouble. On the other hand, here is this guy, with an obviously Christian name, who writes as if he is daring the mob to go after him. The reader is hereby informed that this article has not quoted any of scandalous parts; the obvious references the author has made to very real (and very powerful) persons. What explains his sang-froid? Is he confident that his writing would go above the heads of the masses of "offence takers". Or, does he believe (and one does pray that his such belief is true), that, like his character The Patriarch in 'Miss Laila', there are some wise heads, who see the need for sanity to prevail. We just don't know. One can only hope that this prophet of the post truth age goes from strength to strength, and we may, someday, see him do what Ms Akhila Iyer does to "P. Sathya, whose malady of interest is rural affairs"!
If I have been not able to stoke your curiosity yet, may be you need to go through these one off articles to make your mind up. What about that original article that bad mouthed the IAS? It seems I cannot find it on Google. Maybe it was not him, but someone else nursing his wounds. Maybe as a fresh entrant to the Service I had been too touchy and taken a harmless article in the wrong sense. Or maybe the IAS is more powerful than what it appears to be, even to us, and made the article 'disappear'. My bad. Happy reading!
