Saving Newsprint- Shortest Essays

Indians generally use 100 words where two would suffice. If England was a nation of shop-keepers, we are one of speech-makers. But in order to save the listeners, and trees when this verbal barrage appears in print, I have come up with a brilliant solution. The two-line essay/speech. R.I.P, TV debates, Arnab etc..

Examples

1. Should India adopt the Western model of blah, blah,..(put here any suitable word for a good thing they do)?

Yes.

2. Should we let China go on taking evening constitutionals in Ladakh?

No.

3. Should there be Food Security?

Yes.

4. A Bill for Food Security?

As long as someone is ready to pay (the bill).

5. Should we allow pizza places/dance bars/Wal-Mart/Pubs/Poonam Pandey/?

Depends

6. Should we have a spitting Tax?

YES.

Through the Window by Julian Barnes - Book Review

This is the third book by Julian Barnes that I have read (well, most of it). Each one was different. Only one was fiction.

This one is a collection of essays about authors. George Orwell, Michel Houellebecq (Atomised was the title his novel had in English, translated from French) , Hemingway, Flaubert (rather, Madame Bovary), Kipling, and a few more.

This is an intriguing book, because writers rarely write about other writers- at least not that much. Rather than a traditional review, I will give you a few passages/quotes from this book.

Michel Houellebecq

"It is in our relations with other people, that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable."

"Anything can happen in life, especially nothing."

Orwell

"All art is to some extent, propaganda."

Ernest Renan, quoted in the chapter about Orwell

"Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation."

Some wonderful anecdotes, and more, about the lives and inclinations of some well-known (and some not) authors. If you are into this sort of reading, wonderful stuff. Well-written.

Pickles From Home- Book Review

An excellent collection of essays, compiled by an Outlook journo called Sugata Srinivasaraju. I happened to pick it up recently. It is edited by a Kannadiga, and some essays are his too. The reason I am going into this is because his explanation is a bit like Think Global, Act Local or to reverse its logic, one way to be global in outlook (pun unintended) is to understand the local immensely well.

Excellent essays on many things I wanted to know but was afraid to ask (not really, but sounds good). For instance, why Dharwad produces so many musical geniuses, like Mallikarjun Mansur, Gangubai Hangal and Bhimsen Joshi. Bhimsen's guru Sawai Gandharva is from Kundagol near Dharwad.

From the Mangalore pub attack (and poems about it by two Kannada women poets), to the Baghdad war, many topics are covered-intelligently. Like land acquisition and the imminent decline of agriculture as a way of life. Rarely have I enjoyed reading essays that are contemporary but deal with such varied Indian themes. Ramayana and its controversial withdrawal from the Delhi Univ. syllabus is the subject of one essay. No holds barred, is how I would describe it, on the whole.

Bendre and Kuvempu, the well-known Kannada poets are also talked about. So are some civil servants like Sharda Prasad who worked closely with Indira Gandhi. Shamlal, a former editor of Times of India, is the subject of another one. And V.K. Murthy, the cinematographer of all the Guru Dutt classics in black and white, such as Pyaasa, Kagaz ke Phool, and Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam.

Highly recommended!

Inventing the Enemy by Umberto Eco

A good collection of essays by the guy who writes some good stuff. At least, some of the essays are good. Particularly, the title essay. He says everyone needs an enemy, and the U.S. was getting depressed (after the Cold War with the USSR ended) before Osama handed them a new one via nine-eleven. He says we tend to invent enemies if there no real ones, and usually attribute qualities to them that we abhor- like bad-smelling, thieving, good-for-nothing etc. or murdering, lazy, ugly, or worse. He actually quotes several authors who describe certain sets of people in these terms. Makes sense! All our regional/ethnic  jokes are based on this principle, anyway.

There are some idle thoughts in another one as to why Utopias are always on an island. And many other pieces on diverse themes like the excesses in Victor Hugo's novels. He says one excess may sound stupid in a novel, but a lot of excesses piled on make the novel or story interesting!

Well, for sheer range of the stuff he writes about- like living by proverbs (all your actions are according to proverbs, because they are the source of wisdom- it is worth a look. Some of them are a little boring, maybe due to the translation.