Reading Divya Prakash Dubey and His Stories That Live Next-Door

Bhumika SoniLeave a comment

Having studied in an English medium school and brought up in a household with Hindi as the native language, I have always been confused when to use one particular language, like I am right now, as I am writing this. Though I would be talking about a very well-known Hindi author who rekindled the Hindi fiction reading among the youth (yours truly falls in the same bracket), I am more comfortable in expressing my thoughts in English when it comes to a formal delivery like writing an article or a speech or even a facebook post. Why so?

Cut to eight years back, I was attending a Hindi lecture in my initial days of college. It was my first class in language for that semester. The teacher entered and said, “All this while you must be talking to each other in English- the introductions, the orientations, and even a friendly chit chat. What if your school friend who you have been knowing for so many years was a part of your batch in college? What language would you use?” The class unanimously answered their own native language which in my case was Hindi.

Talking in your mother tongue generates a sense of bonding while every other language remains a formal language – a language for work and career. Still when I ask a lot of my friends that while you would watch movies in Hindi and go crazy on the songs and slangs used, why don’t you read Hindi fiction then? Most of them answer, “Hindi upar se jaati hai!” (It’s a bit difficult to read Hindi!) The major reason behind their hesitation to pick up a Hindi novel is the stark difference between the Hindi they use to communicate in everyday life and the one used in literature.

Breaking this tradition, Divya Prakash Dubey ventured into the world of storytelling in the language of youth, a colloquial language that anybody could relate to; which he fondly calls ‘Nayi wali Hindi’.

His first two books namely Terms and conditions Apply and Masala Chai, a collection of short stories became instant hit and were bestsellers and still continue to be read widely. As he himself asserts in the introduction of the book Masala Chai, these stories are like talks on the tea table, easy to say and lovely to hear. The stories are from our own world, our next door. These tales range from college life to job scenarios, from small town to the hustle of metro cities, vividly bringing out the emotions of the characters.

Next was the most loved Musafir Cafe, his first novel catching up on modern day love and its conundrum. The main characters Sudha and Chandar find each other in the fast paced life of Mumbai and fall in love but there is more to add for a perfect life – their own wish list which will come at the cost of their love. Some of the lines will stay with you to keep reminding you to seek answers to the dilemma of your own life. DP has brought a fresh wave of Hindi fiction with contemporary stories having profound and palatable prose.

His second novel, October Junction is again about a young ambitious couple, a millionaire boy and a successful writer who in a race of fame and money find it difficult to converge their path of love but meet on 10th of October every year for 10 years in a hope to live a life they had planned when they were young.

DP is not just an author but also an on-stage storyteller with a knack for catching the audience’s attention with his presentation of plot. Recently, Audible has posted his story series Piya Milan Chowk where one can listen to the narration of the stories by the author himself.

“Hindi is cool, yaar!” is his style statement and he has delivered TEDx Talks in Hindi, paving way for many who wanted to talk in Hindi. He has been an eminent face at literature festivals reaching out to readers in person and inspiring many to read and write in Hindi. He has been generously sharing his journey about writing and publishing on his blog http://divyaprakash.in/ giving out useful insights into the writing world. Sunday Wali Chitthi is one of my favorite sections where he talks about life and living in general.

Ibnebatuti, fifth in the row is his latest book. It’s a story about a single mother hopping in her past to reinvent her future. A difficult to digest truth is presented with a fast moving flavored plot. It is a necessary story to be told where his readership is not just the city dwelling people but the youngsters residing in the hinterland trying to bring about a change around the perceived notion about a middle-aged single lady. This book starts a conversation around a much hushed topic through a lighter take. With a badge of ‘Lakhprati Lekhak‘ (sold over a lakh copies), DP has certainly been successful in bringing up a change in the readership for Hindi fiction.

Pankaj Dubey’s Debut Novel ‘What a Loser!’ is the Story of Every Stereotyped Human Soul Around Us

JeevaNayagiLeave a comment

The world around us is so full of stereotypes. Some claim to be good whereas most of them turn out to be disastrous. There is also an army of well-intentioned people who work to break these stereotypes. Yet it seems almost impossible to wipe out these stereotypes. The world likes to thrive in these patterns irrespective of whether you like it or not. So, what happens when one chooses to tell the stories of these stereotyped human souls around us? It turns out to be a laugh riot and that is what Pankaj Dubey’s debut novel What a Loser! is. The book is published by Penguin Random House India.

 

Being faithful to his roots, Pankaj picked a protagonist close to home. The interesting aspect of his protagonist is that he is strangely familiar and popular among the rest of the countrymen. But only Pankaj could bring out the finer aspects of this innocent yet dreamy PAKS. PAKS arrives in Mukherjee Nagar carrying some seemingly lofty goals and loads of Sattu and achaar from Begusarai. From the significance of the colour red, be it in the gamchha, the name embroidered in the pillow covers to the terracotta-coloured shirt pieces and the information on the ‘penties’, our author’s attention to details is just spot on. Even if you are not from Begusarai or the cow-belt, you still might relate to PAKS especially if you were raised in a village or small town and migrated to the cities to pursue some sort of a career. Feel free to blame the author if you become all nostalgic and secretly wish for PAKS to succeed in his journey. But he is not even my favourite character.

 

While the author was cheering for his protagonist, I was rooting for the self-proclaimed Badshah of 440, Mukherjee Nagar, New Delhi. Haven’t we all had such wonderful characters in our lives, who are so full of their insecurities, vulnerabilities, false pride and fear of failures? Putting up a brave, proud face even during unfortunate times while making life miserable for others the rest of the time, Subodh Singh only makes this comedy ride of the story more entertaining. His character touches the epitome when PAKS’s Babuji arrives in 440.

 

None of the characters seems fictional even if the author claims so. From the north-easterners Ronnie and Amilie to the Jats who form the opposite gang, each one looks handpicked from one or other’s real life. So are the events in the plot. The secrets of evening colleges, the university politics, the obsession with ‘cool’ English and British Council, the fascination for ‘milky white’ skin and the Punjaban girls are all inimitable truths of a small-town guy in Delhi. The book knits together these urban legends and takes you through a hilarious ‘Dilli Darshan’.

 

I find it hard to ignore that the author doesn’t have much kindness left for his female characters. They are either cold and vicious or come across as eye-candies. I wonder what grudge does the author have against the beautiful girls of Delhi.

 

Even as the book gives a comic touch to the many miseries of these super commoners, the author also manages to poke your eye occasionally while you are busy laughing. Some of us might not even notice the poke, for instance when Subodh Singh asserts his ‘caste superiority’, or when a shootout happens in a University classroom. You realize these are matters of greater concern, in retrospection. But to brood is against the spirit of the book. So pick this book, when you want to leave out your cares for a while and have a peal of hearty laughter.

You can buy the book here.

Anjum Hasan’s Lunatic in My Head

Aakanksha SinghLeave a comment

Lunatic in My Head is one of a kind story written by Anjum Hasan. It is set in Shillong of the 1990s. The novel is an interwoven story of three main characters: an English college lecturer, Firdaus Ansari; an IAS aspirant Aman Moondy, and an eight year old, Sophie Das.

Firdaus is caught between her teaching and her wish to pursue an MPhil to safeguard her teaching post at the convent she teaches in. She is also caught between her colleagues’ personal affair dramas and her very unhelpful, lecherous potential supervisor, Thakur.

 

The novel begins with Firdaus on an April afternoon when “pine trees dripped slow tears,’ (a line that hooked me to the book immediately for its visuals) and as she walks down a street, the opening page itself gives a sweeping view of the multicultural composition of the city, from the Khasis, to Bengalis, to Goans, and to Firdaus herself, who is from Bihar but born and brought up in Shillong. Her sense of being rooted there in Shillong yet being seen as a dkhar, which is the Khasi word for non tribal or foreigner, is another of the conflicts she is entangled in.

 

Aman Moondy is studying for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) exams for the second time, having failed on his first attempt. His first love, however, is Pink Floyd. He and his friends, Ibomcha and Ribor, even formed a band, ProtoDreamers and played Pink Floyd’s covers for several small occasions. Aman lives and breathes music. He compares everything around him to music, including his infatuation for Concordella. He is also on the other hand, someone who dislikes the smallness of Shillong and wants to leave. This is also why he decided to give the IAS exam a shot or two. For him, it meant a window to the outside world.

 

When we first read about Sophie, she is sitting in class and wondering how the baby in her mother’s belly will come out. Sophie herself is a product of an intercultural marriage, her father, Mr. Das, being a Bengali whereas her mother a northerner. Sophie loves to read and is fascinated by her neighbour, Elsa Lyngdoh, and her house, which was the only place she was allowed to go by herself. She has strange conversations with Elsa and even stranger ones (and perhaps a touch too creepy) with her son, Jason as well. Elsa, an old Khasi woman, and an eight year old, Sophie, made for an odd couple whenever they went together for an excursion outside the house.

 

Interspersed through these main characters are stories of other eclectic characters too such as Aman’s friend, Ribor, whose brother is a thug or Mr. Das’ struggles to get a job; or Nivedita, Firdaus’ colleague, who is dealing with her husband having an affair; or the strict Mother Gertrude, the principal of the convent and the eccentric beauty parlour owner, Sharon, who is ‘a quarter-British, a quarter-Assamese of the tea planter variety and half-Khasi.’

The set of characters the novel explores itself portrays the ethnic composition of the city and one of the themes the story portrays is the tribal versus non tribal issue that still rages on. The spotlight on it is subtle, something that lurks behind seemingly routine things of life such as when a migrant, Sarak Singh, an aloo muri vendor, was threatened by three boys in leather jacket or when Sophie felt utterly ashamed of herself amidst a Khasi gathering with Elsa or even Aman who always feels the duality of belonging and not belonging.

 

Anjum Hasan gives no straightforward answers because there are none. The novel ends from where it began – Firdaus teaching Hemingway. The closing is not grandiose but an affirmation of change (even if unremarkable) and making peace (however tenuous) with your own sense of identity.

 

Although first published in 2007, Lunatic in my Head is still relevant to today’s India, as it is riddled by extremism and hatred for the other, for the outsider and where your identity is increasingly being attached to fixed, political categories, leaving no space for any fluidity and understanding of those who do not fit in into neat compartments.

 

A final literary tidbit: The title of the novel comes from Pink Floyd’s song, Brain Damage, which makes one wonder whether similar lunatics, having an identity crisis, run through all our heads as well!

Bara – A Commoner’s Review

JeevaNayagiLeave a comment

It was during the Bangalore literature Festival that I first heard of Bara. This book of U.R. AnanthaMurthy was discussed by a panel moderated by Chandan Gowda. Chandan Gowda indeed has translated this super short novella into English from Kannada. I had no idea what Bara was about during the panel discussion but what got me interested in it was the mention of a string of thoughts as experienced by the protagonist, an IAS officer of a drought stricken district. Continue reading “Bara – A Commoner’s Review” →