Maureen Freely's "Enlightenment" - a labyrinth of unresolved mysteries?

"A dark Conradian drama, set in a beautifully illuminated Istanbul, where the past is always with us."- Orhan Pamuk

It is easy to guess what it was about Maureen Freely's novel, "Enlightenment", that drew me to it; it was Mr Pamuk's quote on the cover of the novel! However, if I'd only given the quote some more thought, I'd have figured that the quote was an observation and not a recommendation. To give the novel its due, the opening chapters are very gripping as they have the reader wanting for more while he embarks on a journey through the labyrinth that is Istanbul; into the semi revealed lives and psyches of those that inhabit this enigmatic city. The mental merengue that the reader experiences on this journey exhausts his very last grey cell, and by the end of it (that is if he ever reaches there) he simply gives up! When on that last page, I was thrilled that I saw light; that I was finally out of those convoluting plots and conspiracies that made for the Turkish identity of the 70s. However, a fraction of a moment later, it dawned on me that I was still carrying that ball of mysteries that had been handed out to me ever since I turned that first page of the novel; what was even more bothersome was that the ball had grown significantly in proportion; with every new character and each new twist in the plot the reader's bundle of mysteries had increased to the point that it had become burdensome! The reader's mind needed some off-loading before he could take on yet another twist in the tale. Alas, that was not to be, there was no respite from the burdening!

Was that Ms. Freely's intention to burden the reader such? It is one thing to have an open ending for a novel, one that leaves the reader seeking possible solutions, given that there are a few pointers provided for solving some of the mysteries presented. But when the entire novel is simply a complex intertwisting of innumerable mysteries, then the reader, at some point, just wants an out of his mental exhaustion, and that is exactly how I felt! There was no 'enlightenment' at the end of the novel in terms of its plot: what did happen to those young and bright minds during the 70's in Istanbul? Did the gruesome killing of the dynamic teacher really happen, and at the hands of the very students who revered every word of his? Alas, I will never know, and at this point I don't really care.

Maureen Freely, an American of Turkish origin, is a the translator of many of Orhan Pamuk's novels; the Nobel Prize winner with whom she attended Robert College in Istanbul. Ms. Freely has often been credited for being instrumental in promoting Pamuk's agenda for freedom of expression in Turkey and elsewhere. An ardent admirer of Pamuk and his writings she herself is an advocate of free expression of which there is a dearth in her home nation as "80 writers, scholars, artists, and activists have been prosecuted for insulting state, the judiciary, or Turkishness itself; there are 45 more cases set to go to trial before the end of the year."

I wouldn't write off 'Enlightenment' from my reading list if I were better informed on Turkey and its history because then the understanding of the novel may not pose as much of a problem. Besides there are some of us who might enjoy the reading challenge before arriving at that last page of "Enlightenment"!

"Mongol" and "Project Kashmir"

This last week I watched two very disappointing movies that I had awaited so expectantly: "Mongol" and
"Project Kashmir".

Bodrov's Academy Award Nominee "Mongol" came on the heels of my reading Weatherford's "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World", and even though the movie was much acclaimed by the academy it failed to grip the audience like Weatherford's novel on the same subject did. The film dealt at length with the courtship and relationship thereafter between the legendary Genghis Khan and Borte, his wife who he lost multiple times during the course of the movie. This movie is but the first part of a trilogy portraying the life of Genghis Khan, but it is unlikely that I watch the latter two parts.
Then I watched "Project Kashmir" at the Lincoln Center some 100 miles away and in the middle of a high tension work week! Alas, it proved a complete waste of time as it had nothing new to offer both in terms of its factual content and in its perspective on the Kashmir issue. In fact there were points in the film and in the question-answer session with the movie-makers that followed, when the entire project seemed rather amateurish; two friends, one of Pakistani origin and the other of Indian origin embarking on a journey into the heart of Kashmir to figure out how a 'healing' could be brought about for the Hindu 'pundits' and the Kashmiri Muslims. I would any day recommend another documentary on Kashmir, "Crossing the Lines", that I saw a few years ago on the Princeton Campus; made by Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy and Dr. Zian Mian, it offered a more plausible perspective on the Kashmir issue and even had a semi-viable solution to offer at the end; diffusing the religiously volatile situation in Kashmir by luring its people with economic gains that would be independent of both India and Pakistan.

Kunal Basu's ' Racists' - Questioning the Validity of Scientific Experimentation?

Kunal Basu's 'Racists' unfolds in the early 19th century on a remote island in Africa. This island becomes the setting for an unusual experiment carried out by two European scientists of the pre-Darwin era, each trying to prove the validity of his hypothesis about racial superiority. The experiment is unusual in that it is carried out on two human 'samples', a white girl and a black boy, over an extended period of time, twelve years, without societal intervention except for the presence of Norah, the mute nurse. The two 'samples' are moved to this island as new born infants in the care of Norah whose job is simply to feed them and keep them alive; she is not to discipline them, teach them, or to reward them in any way.

Basu, a Professor of Management Studies at Said School of Business, Oxford, published this novel in 2006. A man given to crunching numbers and studying markets has created for himself a literary pallet out of which he has painted many a canvases with varying backdrops: China of the early 19th century in 'The Opium Clerk', India in the 16th century in 'The Miniaturist' during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar, and then a pre-Darwin Europe in 'Racists'. His choice of settings is remarkable since each one of them catapulted the world into a significantly different era of socio-scientific awareness.

This novel had been on my reading list on the recommendations of Eshuneutics, and perchance I happened to have read this novel just as I finished rereading the Island of Dr Moreau by H.G. Wells. Racial differences and their possible origins were on the minds of most thinking people in the early 1900s, and the likes of H.G. Wells made these subjects their literary fodder to create stories and novels that would forever document the pre-Darwin obsession with racial asymmetry. Basu followed suit but in the 21 st century, and in 'Racists' he has tried to capture the development/trend of scientific thought as it pertained to racial segregation then. Through the novel he forces his readers to revisit the various steps in evolutionary Biology that lead to Darwin's Origin of Species. Absurd and antiquated as some of the dialectic in the novel may sound to the modern reader, it indeed articulates the infancy of a scientific renaissance; 'craniology' as presented in the novel was perhaps a stepping stone/ a precursor to the establishment of modern evolutionary theories introduced by Darwin.

I enjoyed the novel as it was quite the page turner, but somehow I had to suspend my disbelief at numerous points simply because I wanted to see what Mr. Basu was leading up to. It was the overall idea of the novel that proved to be more appealing than its writing style, its characters, or even the unfolding of the plot itself. Having said that, it is still a novel worth reading if you are looking for something to stimulate the mind. It's almost as if Basu presents this complex situation amid a setting that is vibrant and explosive, but then he leaves it to the reader to make of it what he may because the conclusion Basu provides is rather unsatisfying and this leads the reader to find alternate explanations/ solutions/ conclusions to the story.

J. K. Rowling's 'Apology for Failure' and an 'Ode to Imagination' while Fleeing Down Classic Corridors of Harvard?

Not a Harry Potter fan myself, I could not help but enjoy this commencement address delivered by
J. K. Rowling at the Harvard Graduation a few days ago.
(please note the title of this post)

Here are some excerpts from her speech:

"... On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination...

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically...

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it...

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun...

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential...

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default...

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies...

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared...

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places...

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise...

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are...

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: 'What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.'...

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing...

We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better..."

J. K. Rowling's commencement address at the Harvard Alumni Association on June 5, 2008

"Khuda Ke Liye" or In the Name of God

I picked up a DVD of Khuda Ke Liye on a friends recommendation; a recommendation quite out of the ordinary since it came from an Indian, but for a movie made in Pakistan! Indians are a proud people, especially when it comes to their film industry popularly called Bollywood which apparently is competition in the reckoning for Hollywood due to Bollywood's mega earnings both in India and abroad. With a movie-crazy Indian diaspora, and an ever growing foreign fan following in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and more, the Indian movie industry is coming of age on the world stage. However, the same is not true about Pakistan, India's neighbor and arch enemy since the partition in the late 1940s. Pakistani movies are still fledgling ventures and so Khuda Ke Liye is quite the surprise packet. Written and directed by Shoaib Mansoor, the movie has been highly acclaimed in Pakistan , and it also won the Best Picture at the 31st Cairo International film Festival in 2007.

The movie does not have the most original theme as it deals with the much furiously debated and discussed topic of modern day Islam and its role in defining social norms both within and outside of the Islamic world. The story unfolds across three countries, Pakistan, England, and the USA, and it takes the viewer on three separate journeys undertaken by the three protagonists in the movie: Sarmad, the younger of two siblings living in Lahore, Pakistan, undertakes a spiritual journey guided by a popular local Maulvi and has a complete physical and social makeover where he grows a beard, discards his western attire, and also gives up music an art form that he has ardently loved the past twenty years of his life; there's Mansoor, the older sibling, who besides being an ideal son and a caring and responsible brother, is also a music lover, and he travels to the USA in 2001 to study music at the University of Chicago; Maryam, their cousin and the third protagonist in the movie, is born and brought up in England, but she is now sent to Pakistan by her ex expatriate father under false pretenses to get her away from her British, non-Muslim boyfriend. The three journeys are embarked upon simultaneously, but it is the culmination of each of these three journeys that is a sort of a revelation for the audience; one which leads to a deeper understanding of what it means to be Muslim in the twenty first century.

The film is not a technical marvel, and neither does the photography or the music make an impression, but it is not a movie you can walk away from; the questions that the movie raises and even answers at times makes this movie a 'must watch'. Khuda Ke Liye makes for a restless and uncomfortable viewing and it is this quality of the movie that sets it apart from others made along similar themes and subjects. Khuda Ke Liye provides for three different perspectives on an Islamophobic world: where people lack the ability to interpret their faith (like Sarmad and the father of Maryam), where adults fear to take a stand on what they value and uphold in their religion ( like the boys' parents), and where the intelligentsia despairs over the ignorance of the masses and chooses to live in isolation (like Maulana Wali).

The movie deals with some fiery issues that are affecting Pakistan today and also the rest of the world such as racial profiling in the western world post 9/11, the effects of religious fundamentalism on the youth in Pakistan, and women's rights in Islam and in Pakistan. Shoaib Mansoor as writer director has captured a nation in the grip of turmoil trying to eke out an identity for itself amid a tempest of religious fundamentalism that it's trying to fight and control. The identity that is struggling to take shape is rather unique in that it's Islamic alright, but it's set in a liberal mold.

Pakistani cinema appears to have arrived and Shoaib Mansoor could be it's very first voice!

A Leader is ...

One who feels for the common man?
One who bolsters the economy?
One who strengthens the military to make us a powerful nation?
One who ensures equal opportunity to underprivileged minorities?
One who revives/reinforces faith and morality within the country?
One who quells civil unrest and maintains peace within the country?
One who funds research and academia to make ours a technologically advanced nation?

These are some of the questions an informed voter would ask himself before he casts his precious vote, and so I did, and I got some interesting but puzzling answers. As a result I changed my tactics and instead of asking those pertinent questions, I focused upon some world leaders who have made their mark and tried to figure out what was it that made/makes them tick. While doing this, I made an interesting discovery that sometimes there were two world leaders even three, sometimes from the same country, that shared various leadership traits, and so I bracketed them together:

John F. Kennedy( USA)/ Rajive Gandhi (India) (youthful appeal)
Idi Amin (Uganda)/ Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan) (might under duress)
Dmitry Medvedev(Russia)/ Anwar Sadat (Egypt) (groomed politicians)
Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt)/ Mikhail Gorbachov (USSR) (visionaries)
Ernesto Zedillo/Vincent Fox (Mexico) (supporters of a globalized economy)
Yasser Arafat/Mahmoud Abbas (Palestine) (empathetic leaders)
Che Guevara /Fidel Castro (Cuba) (revolutionary freedom fighters)
Ayatollah Khomeini/ Mahmoud Ahmadenijad (Iran) (moral/religious reformist)
Evo Morales (Bolivia)/ Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) (aggressive economic policies)
Nicolas Sarkozy (France)/Bill Clinton (USA) (charismatic)

These groupings and the cited characteristics are all purely subjective and may carry little weight. However, what is interesting is that these leaders, disparate as they may be, are still recognized as having made a distinct impact on the people they lead. We have a Nasser and a Sadat, both lead Egypt, yet how differently; a Clinton and a J. F. Kennedy, both picked by an American electorate, but stand worlds apart in what they brought to the plate as heads of state. The above mentioned are all illustrious individuals who rose to the occasion and delivered, yet each delivered a different package! What was relevant then may not apply now; the need of the hour then may not even be recognized as a need any more. Our world exists within a time continuum that produces some dynamic socio economic equations which need real time solutions in order for humanity to prosper and evolve. In the light of this realization it is not the leader who is important, but it is the specific need of the hour which is and thus needs to be profiled and then disseminated to make for an informed electorate which can then vote for a candidate who has the ability to provide the country with a solution to its specific socio economic equation. Does that imply that people will always find a leader who will deliver? Certainly not, and we have innumerable examples in history and in our recent past of leaders who unfortunately delivered a nation to disaster and despair. In the same breath we have had the Mandelas and the Gandhis who brought out the best in the millions they lead!

The finding of an apt leader will depend on how informed and free an electorate is to be able to determine its need of the hour! In fact it's not the ability of the leader that defines a period in history but the awareness levels of the people who he leads during his reign. In the light of that finding, my plans for a leader profile are aborted/abandoned!

Teachers of the world unite, we all have an electorate to inform, awaken, and empower to ensure the existence of peaceful and productive nations.

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights

"While the words might change from country to country and are sometimes taken for granted, human rights represent one of the universally agreed upon ideas — that all people are born with basic rights and freedoms that include life, liberty, and justice. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.

Bloggers Unite For Human Rights challenges bloggers everywhere to help elevate human rights by drawing attention to the challenges and successes of human rights issues on May 15. What those topics may include — the wrongful imprisonment of journalists covering assemblies, governments that ignore the plight of citizens, and censorship of the Internet. What is important is that on one day, thousands of bloggers unite and share their unified support of human rights everywhere."

“	...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world	”
—Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 194

Yet...

there is Censorship in China

Beijing Faults on Tibet

genocide is funded in Darfur

China's all-seeing eye
(courtesy Eccentric Optimism)

Writing a novel...

How is a novel born? What makes one decide to write such a lengthy composition? Why do writers write a work of fiction?

A colleague and friend of mine has recently written a novel, and I had the privilege of being the first one to read the final draft. That is when a barrage of questions started flooding my mind; questions that I had always carried within but never articulated thus far. Not being able to contain myself I asked my friend turned novelist some rather pointed questions about her new vocation. Her witty and wholesome answers but only whetted my curiosity about novel writers. Why do they write?

Does a writer start off knowing she is going to write a 500 page novel or does the novel simply grow out of what started as a short story? Do the pages of a novel grow to a plan or are they at the mercy of a character that breaks loose and takes the story hostage?

After pondering over these questions for the longest time and finding no palpable answers I turned to the big-wigs of Literature to see what they had to say about novelists and the writing of a novel... I'm not so sure that helped!

Toni Morrison put it this way: “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

Saul Bellow feels " A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones"

Faulkner says "every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story...failing that...takes up novel writing."

Camus defines the novel "a philosophy put into images."

Chesterton says a "a good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

Hemingway believes a novel "should create living people; people not characters."

Henry James says "The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life."