Spooky tale

THERE are voices asking him where he is going. There are those that ask him to leave Goa. There are voices that laugh in his face and others that sob uncontrollably. Once, in the dark of a powerless dusk, he sits in candlelight, trying to get on with his story. He hears a soft voice full of mischief: "Come, let’s dance. Let’s rush out of the window and dance!"

To escape from troubles at home in Kerala, Raja decides to follow his heart. Straightening his body against the heavy rain, he decides to challenge the waves and experience the truth. The desolate landscape, a wasteland of wetness, the rain, a diagonal arc on the back of the wind, an empty horizon, barely able to stand, but he refuses to give up and challenges the entire world and comes to Goa, where he encounters "Maria".

Raja Prasad, a novelist, is in search of a story for his next book, while fighting with the failure of his previous one, he shifts to ‘Maria’s Guesthouse’ here, and this is where he has an affair with a young girl, even as he learns the story of another love, from another time. But the events of the past find their way into the present. As he settles down to write his second novel, Raja stumbles on to the mystery surrounding Maria’s death. And in the process he uncovers secrets of his own.

The developments in ‘Maria’s Guesthouse’ not only affect Raja’s life, but also those around him. There is something about ‘Maria’s Room’ which isn’t obvious. This is not a room that has been used; there is a musty smell and dampness in the sheets, older than perspiration. A sensation of "whiteness", although nothing in the room is actually white—an apprehension of purity or luster when all around is just dust and squalor. Even with the eyes firmly shut, "whiteness" percolates.

Raja is psyched by the knowledge of being in Maria’ room, something has passed into him, changing him in some strange manner. It’s a transparency that renders the room’s inner life open to him with clarity. The introduction of the Deneuve has triggered off some weird ethereal reaction in him. He tries to curb his dread with the weight of this insight.

Maria’s Room is a tale of love and memory of the drunken Fritz and the inscrutable Milton, the delectable Lorna and the frail Ruma. It is the story of how Raja meets and falls in love with Maria. His relationship with Maria brings out her past and also merges his past with the present, thereby reminding him of everything he has left behind.

Maria’s Room is a novel-within-the novel, which takes a clear shape and solidity along with Raja’s understanding of the world within and outside. It is about Raja’s journey to uncoil the coiled and then coiling it up again.

"Give me a dream. And then make it come true" explains the novel best, as it revolves around dreams in different stages.

Reality check

TEACHERS call it the idiot box; youth call it the tube; parents call it an addiction; granny, a lifeline, but there are only a few who call it a livelihood. It’s a story of behind-the-television scenes, where fiction meets the reality.

Reality TV shows in India are still on a blossoming stage and mostly include the ‘desi’ versions of reality shows broadcast abroad. What’s amazing is the fact that despite the "copycat" attempt, reality TV is gaining a lot of popularity in India, bringing a sigh of relief to the audiences who are tired of Ekta Kapoor’s saas-bahu dramas. And with this new trend comes an end of the "emotional saga", as "reality" finally finds its place in the Indian mindset.

Omkar Sane’s Coming Soon. The End is an insight into the real TV industry. It brings forth the voyeurism and exhibitionism prevailing in our society. The book revolves around four friends, each of whom works for a different TV channel. Bass is the girl who joins a music channel after advertising, but her passion (music) goes awry as soon as she realises that music is played only between commercial breaks in music channels. Crass is the guy in general entertainment, who despite knowing the TV industry well doesn’t know why he is part of it. Grass works as a freelancer producer after he quit a kids’ channel. Farce works in a news channel and always has all the gossip about everyone. News, the sort that didn’t matter, comes naturally to him.

They all meet in a bar to catch up and a stranger Mass joins them to learn about how the industry functions. After all the vital discussions, the myth called television now has a different image in Mass’s mind, as he comes to know about how much TV channels understand their "mass", their understanding of rural audience which is negligible as their coverage. They go to a village only for sensational stories like deaths of farmers or Maoist attacks. They measure society by the views of the urban elite. For their talk shows, they bring celebrities, ad gurus, socialites, editors, writers, politicians, etc., who only talk in "stylish" English, but now the "mass" understands that it’s all about Mont Blanc using Gandhi’s image.

All in all, the trick of the trade is simple, every emotion—fear, guilt, suspicion and happiness—becomes a commodity and commodities become stories o n screen. Commodities are created and sidelined in no time in the television industry and the book exposes the truth behind the empty castle of today’s TV world.

Gory tale of survival

FEAR continues to haunt the lives of those who resisted the storms of "hate and divide" with compassion and courage in Gujarat. Even a firecracker sends people scurrying in terror. A cricket match between India and Pakistan creates only dread, as it raises for them the spectre of a possible riot.

Every festival, Hindu or Muslim, is no longer an occasion for festivities, it’s only dark memories of brutal violence that has become an integral part of the life of an estimated 200,000, people whose homes were destroyed, reducing them to a status of a refugee in their own homeland.

Mander, a former IAS officer, was among the very first people to take stock of the gravity of the situation in Gujarat, when a storm of engineered sectarian hatred broke out and raged for months in the state in 2002. He realised that the people of Gujarat had survived not a savage riot but a "state-sponsored" programme, which was "systematically planned and executed" to target the minority community.

Disappointed with the role of state authorities, who "refused" to reach out with resources to support people to rebuild their lives, the unsympathetic attitude of his colleagues, and shocked to see the plight of survivors in the relief camps, he resigned from the civil service and began to work directly with survivors of the Gujarat tragedy.

Fear and Forgiveness gives an account of how everything was planned, how minority localities were electrocuted, how places of worship were damaged and how the state government turned hostile against a segment of citizens merely because they worshipped a "different" God.

The author writes about the climate of fear and hostility, as well as the economic and social boycott. This book is a saga of survivors who suffered without hope, security, homes and livelihoods. Mander tells the untold stories of most extraordinary human courage—Rabiya of Ratanpur village, whose shops were burnt by her neighbours, lives with the hope that one day her village people will call her back and another of an activist who walked several kilometers to explain through her song what she aspires: "A new religion which teaches people to be human."

The writer describes those people who risked their own lives and those of their families to save others and help the betrayed people rebuild their lives. He narrates the horrific burnings in Godhra and explains how important it is for the survivors to understand that neither did the cycle of hatred begin in the railway compartments of Godhra and nor will it end in the killing fields of Gujarat. He provides that the difficult and troubled path to reconciliation must involve a fair challenge from the local to the highest levels to bridge the gap between separated groups in order to heal the old wounds. This book draws our attention to the flaws in our judicial and social systems and upholds that "forgiveness is the attribute of the strong" and the only way to move ahead.

Magical Love Story

A debut fiction by Suman Hossain, A Guy Thing is the story of an IITian, Sahil, who is a dreamer and has the courage to follow his dreams. He wants to break the norms at IIT, Delhi, and change the clich`E9, which he has heard from girls that "IITians are nerds".

Sahil, unlike any other IITian, is busy ‘exploring’ the best moments of his life in Delhi—he is enjoying his hostel days, blind dates, night-outs, porn videos and much more, but it’s his magical love story that takes him to a different world and makes all the difference in his life. Surrounded by shadows, in search of a lost enemy, Sahil’s dream love is following him. Oblivious of destiny’s plans, Sahil is now taken over by the chanted beauty who is like a shadow of swords in the devil land that comes prepared for destruction.

Within a month and after a few dates, Rida, his ladylove, becomes his world that now centers around Orkuting, SMSing and dating. Sahil, who made fun of his friends for chatting online, on the mobile for hours, is now following the league. Deeply in love, Sahil is aiming high to set trends and is now sure of his love for Rida, which can turn around his life for better. Rida’s letter is now a painkiller for Sahil and makes him realise a lot of things about love.

Discovering Rida is not even over and the hell breaks loose upon Sahil once again in the crowded Sarojini Nagar market, where he had experienced the minimum distance between life and death durbomb blast. But this time, it is no escape for him as Rida leaves him alone and disappears in the busy market. He receives nothing else except an SMS, saying that she will never meet him again and if he ever tries to meet her, she will kill herself.

His world comes to a standstill and he starts hating the books that promised to help build his career. His miseries are far from over as one of his hostel mates, Anjan, hangs himself to death. Sudden and strange death affects him deeply and here comes the turning point in the novel when he spots a book, which he had gifted to Rida, on Anjan’s windowsill. Sahil now decides to put an end to all the mysteries surrounding him, including Anjan’s death and the most baffling enigma called love.

However, you just have to read the novel to figure out for yourself how he had created an agonising situation for himself for absolutely nothing and how he comes out of it after meeting Rida’s father. On the whole, the novel is a good, entertaining read and offers a peep into hostel life.