Travelling the world, one page at a time

I am no literary critic and this post is really a very subjective reading of modern literature. I still feel compelled to write this as I always hope that more people should be encouraged to read and open their minds and hearts towards other races, castes, communities, cultures and so on. The world needs all the tolerance and sensitivity it can get at a time when mistrust and misgivings rule our conscience, blurring the lines of what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. In the recent past, a bunch of books  opened up my world view to places we barely get to visit and even if we do, we only look at them through our rose-tinted shades or through the ‘outsider’s perspective’. So if you haven’t already got your hands on these gems, I suggest you do and challenge your stereo-typical visions of countries as varied as China, Nigeria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and let authors as diverse as chalk and cheese, welcome us to their homelands with open arms and mighty hearts.

Say you’re one of them- Uwem Akpan

I had no idea what to expect when I got my hands on this book and thought it would be nice to read from Africa’s rich treasure trove of stories, penned with a conviction that is authentic, sensitive and striking in its expression. Worded by a Nigerian Jesuit priest who is as modern in his sensibilities as any of us but is passionate about highlighting the atrocities that have bogged down generations of African children, Uwem Akpan’s stories are both heart-wrenching and unique. Does human cruelty cripple our ability to think beyond our own survival or does it make us that much more resolute in our struggle for survival amidst all odds? Akpan uses the most poignant way of story-telling, we see each story unfurl its pain and problems through the honest and innocent eyes of a child. Africa has long remained a continent that has been misinterpreted and dismissed as being inferior thanks to its overwhelming images of poverty, strife and apathy. Uwem Akpan opens the doors of his beloved land to us outsiders, till we can shy away no more from shedding our inhibitions and confronting the demons that lie within each of us.

"I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet."- Uwem Akpan

The Museum of Innocence- Orhan Pamuk 

Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence does for Turkey what Khaled Hosseini did with The Kiterunner for Afghanistan. As someone unfamiliar with the craggy terrain that is Afghanistan, only looking at it through the journalists’ lens showing war-stricken and impoverished citizens under the Taliban regime, Khaled Hosseini humanised the whole population for us in a way no news story could match up to. Orhan Pamuk’s novel, although essentially a tear-jerking love story, unleashes a whole gamut of previously unknown cultural nuances of Istanbul, mostly sold to us through touristy postcard representations of old domes, minarets and romanticised artefacts. We are suddenly thrown in to the claustrophobic and pretentious cauldron of champagne glass-clinking Turkish families who are vying for suitable marriage bonds between themselves. Every new evenly-matched couple is given a nod, constantly being subjected to societal pressures of marriage while the couple itself tries to get to know each other intimately. Within this haloed circle, there is no room for dalliances, second thoughts or unconventional beginnings. So just when you think Kemal and Sibel are a match made in heaven, enters Fusun, the girl who is a poor cousin to aristocratic Kemal and the girl who will shatter all his realities with the promise of a passionate love affair. It is almost pitiable how Kemal then unwittingly steers himself into undertaking a downhill ride that will only pull him deeper in to the dark caverns of loneliness, tragic longing, social withdrawal and eventually deprivation. The Museum of Innocence is not meant for those who pay little heed to the pain of unrequited love or for those who are looking for gratifyingly mushy love stories. In stead, it rips apart the farcical promise of socially-accepted relationships to look beyond our morally constructed matrix of propriety and status.

"People only tell lies when there is something they are terribly frightened of losing."

The Bonesetter’s Daughter- Amy Tan

If you have a mother who was born in an era that saw India win its independence, you will relate to Amy Tan’s amazingly sharp potrayal of mother-daughter relationships. As millennials used to India’s globalisation days, we hardly let bygone tragedies that might have touched our elders like the partition bother our smug and sheltered existence. We are hassled by our parents’ inability to come to grips with technology and social media, little aware that they might be similarly bothered by our reluctance to embrace their past. The Bonesetter’s Daughter makes us stare in the face of a protagonist coping with her aging mother who is herself grappling with Alzheimer’s and for whom a declaration of suicide is just a whine away. But while this book threatens to analyse your own discomfiture with all things old, yes including your own parents, it also transports you back to rural China. The narrative suddenly comes to life, full of ancient fallacies, incidents that could be part of dramatic folklore and the rendition of a personal tragedy with a historical flourish rooted in the Japanese conquest and the civil war. If you come out of this a tad more tolerant to those who belong to another generation than you and a lot more respectful of their experiences and beliefs, know that it is Amy Tan’s magic weaving over you through her exotic spell.

That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.

Girls of Riyadh- Rajaa Alsanea

Take a trip to the little-explored city of Riyadh, through the omniscient eyes of writer Rajaa Alsanea. This book is our peek into the world of the upper crust of Saudi society, where men and women try to push their social and cultural boundaries, but are often stunted by the traditional dogma that dictates it. Four friends Gamrah, Sadeem, Michelle and Lamas lead you in to an often misunderstood and rarely demystified foreign land and yet make you relate to them through their lives, the choices they make and the fates they encounter. Often labelled the Arab version of Sex and the City, and highly debated as being disrespectful to its subject and Saudi Arabian ethics and values, I read this book barely knowing about the seismic ripples it created in the upper echelons of Riyadhi society or how photocopies of the book were being circulated for as much as $500 after its release. This is not a book that is written to provoke the bourgeosie. It does not pretend to be a revolutionary indictment either by preaching against the predominant value system. It is just a very frank, humourous and witty take on the lives of four women who are trying their best to marry the principles they were brought up on to the liberated world-view that the western civilisation has brought them closer to. This is a book that is highly recommended for male readers who shouldn't be misled by its name and imagine feminism being shoved down their throats while reading it. It is a book that will sensitise you towards the privilege of getting a clear advantage in the conflict between modern-orthodox ideologies, a fact that resonates till date in urban India as well.