Book Impressions

Deliverance by Gauri Deshpande, translated by Shashi Deshpande

CONFESSIONS OF AN INELIGIBLE MOTHER

Excerpts from 'Deliverance' a novella by Gauri Deshpande, translated by Shashi Deshpande:

• "Why is it like this? Is it the same with everyone? I get on well with my daughters when they're away but I don't want to be with them everyday."

• "How will we ever know, before we really become mothers, whether we are fit for motherhood?"

• "Before I became a mother I had thought that this new experience, this new person, would fill some gap in my life, that I would become more complete, that one of my life's potentials would now be realised, and so on. But what happened was just the opposite. Because of the children all my activities were curtailed. I began to wonder whether we shouldn't deduct fifteen or twenty years from our lives on account of them. No going out, no seeing anything, not even just simple reading and writing. Keep yourself ready for fulfilling the children's demands -- that is all! Since it was my lot, since it was inevitable, I did everything, grumbling all the while, and once the novelty wore off, with anger."

The Greatest Show on Earth—Writings on Bollywood edited by Jerry Pinto

THE DREAM MERCHANTS

Of all the stories in this delectable collection edited by Jerry Pinto, Pritish Nandy's interview of the late Kishore Kumar in a 1985 issue of the Illustrated Weekly of India has to be the craziest. Ranging from anecdotes of his eccentric ideas for refashioning his bungalow (he wanted little boats floating around his living room and monkeys farting from the ceiling instead of fans!), to how much he hated the film world — "I muffed my lines, pretended to be crazy, shaved my head off, played difficult, began yodelling in the midst of tragic scenes, told Meena Kumari what I was supposed to tell Bina Rai in some other film but they still wouldn't let me go" — it's one surreal piece.

Death In Mumbai by Meenal Baghel

WHAT LIES BENEATH

Meenal Baghel's crisp book about the sensational Neeraj Grover murder of May 2008 is everything that Ramgopal Varma's salacious film Not A Love Story based on the same incident was not — intelligent, emotive and penetrating. Varma himself, along with television honcho Ekta Kapoor, gets the special treatment from Ms Baghel (deservedly so) for their minor but crucial roles on the fringes of this drama.

Death In Mumbai is an astute sociological study of the changing face of Mumbai more than a clinical (or cynical) analysis of a gruesome murder and cover-up as the author delves into the yearnings of young men and women who flock to the city from all parts of the country in search of fame, fortune and love (or something like it).

The Mad Tibetan—Stories from Then and Now by Deepti Naval

HUES AND REFLECTIONS

If Deepti Naval wasn't an acclaimed actress, perhaps her first collection of short stories The Mad Tibetan: Stories from Then And Now, would have received more attention for its content than the book release function. A compilation of 11 pieces – a mix of fiction, autobiography and travel writing — it's a deft tapestry of musings on the human condition.

You may not marvel at the writer’s flourish with the English language –although simplicity of expression is in fact, a highly underrated virtue — but are likely to be disarmed by her keen observation of life and empathetic world-view which embraces loners, madmen, prostitutes, tortured childhoods and birds, all in equal measure of concern. An ageing, Parkinson’s-afflicted piano tuner in Mumbai, struggling to make ends meet and keep his notes together — even as they “scuttled across the room, corner to corner, through the ceiling, against the damp walls and back”—sets the introspective tone of the compilation while Ruth Mayberry the screenplay writer in New York who “spoke slowly… and with grace, the one thing she never let go of”, completes the circle of life.