REGINALD MASSEY?S BOOK PAGE
Normally I do not notice books written in languages other than English. However, as a special case, I have to mention the poems in Urdu by Chaman Lal Chaman, the veteran broadcaster and media man. Hailing from a Punjabi Hindu family who had migrated to Kenya, then a British colony, Chaman has worked in Britain for many years.
He is a lovely man who, very simply, is in love with humanity. His name says it all. Chaman means a perfumed garden, in the Persian sense. He is conversant with his native Punjabi as well as Hindi and Urdu. In fact, whenever he phones me we only converse in our native Ma-boli (Mother tongue) Punjabi.
His book of ghazals and geets is titled Phool Khil? Chaman Chaman (In every Garden?the Flowers Bloom). Indeed they do on every page of Chaman?s collection. Word play and puns are distinctive to Urdu poetry. Though in English poetry it has fallen into disuse, Shakespeare?s dramas are replete with puns and word play. Since not many young Asians in Britain can read the Urdu (Persian) script I must ask Chaman to get the poems translated into English by a competent person. I have for the same reason asked the Hindi poet Divya Mathur to get her marvellous Hindi poems in the Devanagri script translated into English. Else they could publish their poems in the Roman script.
Whether we like it or not, we have to accept the fact that English is the mode of international communication. The first human who strode on the face of the moon spoke to us Earthlings in English. Not in French, or Spanish, or Russian or Arabic or Hindi or Chinese. The Confucian Chinese, a pragmatic people, got the message loud and clear. They are now spending vast amounts of money to teach their intellectuals, scientists, technologists and administrators the English language. We South Asians are fortunate. The British taught us English and did not charge us a single paisa. Vive Britannia ! ?How right was the South Indian Brahmin philosopher Radhakrishnan who became President of the Indian Republic. He said that we Indians were indebted to Britain for bequeathing to us three boons: Shakespeare, the Authorized Version of the Bible and the limited liability company. And now South Asians are collecting literary prizes all over the English speaking world. Hats off to the Brits.
I am elated that fact based books are gaining popularity. After all, fact is stranger than fiction. But when a creative writer?s expertise is applied to unpalatable and disturbing facts the result is ?faction?, a potent genre of literature. A recent example was Kishwar Desai?s Origins of Love, a novel already noticed in this magazine. In the same vein is the moving Radhika?s Story: Surviving Human Trafficking by Sharon Hendry (New Holland Publishers, London. ISBN 978-1-84773-725-0. ?8.99). Hendry is a senior feature writer for The Sun, the mass circulation daily that published the LA pictures of Naughty Harry. Sharon Hendry has exposed international adoption rackets, paedophiles in Cambodia and the plot to kill Boris Berezovsky, the Russian dissident, in London. Hence Ms Hendry knows her onions.
The book tells the tragic and heartbreaking story of Radhika Phuyal, the daughter of a Brahmin family of Nepal who is tricked by a smooth-tongued conman who lures her into prostitution. Radhika is pretty, with a soft olive skin and utterly innocent. And her family is desperately poor. In South Asia poverty is a curse for all castes; but for Brahmins it is particularly painful and vindictive. The higher a girl?s caste the more she is in demand.
Low caste men yearn to ravish a Brahmin whore.
Hendry?s graphic account of conditions in north Kolkata?s notorious Sonagachi red light district is worthy of a documentary award. It was here that Radhika had to service the lust of a minimum of thirty men every single day for a set fee of 200 rupees each. If the girls in the brothel failed to meet their client target they were beaten and humiliated. On her body Radhika bears the scars of cigarette burns inflicted on her by the Madam of the brothel. The trafficking of women is a well known fact of Indian life and yet India-loving foreigners and Indians who sell the ?greatness of India? choose to ignore this obnoxious and uncomfortable fact. Didi Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata and Sardar Manmohan Singh in green and clean New Delhi (thanks to the British architect Lutyens) turn a blind eye. Their eyes are fixed on the next general elections.
Radhika, still alive and miraculously free of VD and AIDS, told her story to Sharon Hendry who has, like any good reporter worth her / his salt, set down the essentials. But the matter does not end with prostitution. Radhika?s exploitation goes on to the lucrative trade in body parts. The organs taken from ?donors? are bought for about ?660 (US $1,000) and sold on to foreigners and rich Indians for ?20,000 (US $30,000).
Under false pretences Radhika was taken to a Chennai hospital (after she was drugged). There an operation was performed and one of her kidneys was removed. It was immediately transplanted on to her employer?s wife who was in the operation theatre next door.
But happily there is a ray of light at the end of the long dark tunnel. The social worker and women?s activist Anuradha Koirala has established a refuge for women such as Radhika. She and her son Rohan, at last happily reunited, are now under the care of Anuradha and her devoted volunteers.
The celebrated actor-activist Joanna Lumley writes in her Foreword: ?I felt that this story, just one of the many ? too many ? which are waiting untold in dumb silence, must be heard; and if her story prevents even one more child being sold into this appalling slavery, brave Radhika will not have suffered in vain.?
Namita Gokhale is a prolific writer and publisher and co-director with William Dalrymple of the Jaipur Literature Festival. Habit of Love (Penguin India, 2012.
ISBN 978-0-143-41772-9) is a collection of thirteen vibrant short stories written over a number of years. She confesses that they have been imagined in airports, scribbled during flights, corrected in traffic jams and deciphered from the backs of envelopes. I am glad that she has published them. Written as a very personal intimate narrative in the first person, they range from the Mahabharata to current day 21st century India which experiences all the problems and urban angsts of the western world. Khushwant Singh, the guru of Indian creative writing in the English language, recommends these stories because, he says, they grippingly describe ?death, love and lust?. I venture to suggest that Gokhale goes further. She describes, probes, exposes and teases out the very condition of humanity. Her prose is often poetic.
Her vivid descriptions of New Delhi and the British hill station of Nainital take me back over the decades. I could write a whole book about her stories in this slim volume but there are three that are particular winners. Life on Mars is about a middle aged Indian woman diagnosed with cancer. Gokhale herself had cancer and has courageously ?conquered the ?Big C?. She however insists that this story is not autobiographical. It is a tear-jerking and poignant account of the main protagonist?s warm relationship with a young man, a confirmed crank, who is obsessed with the possibility of life on Mars. And then there is the story of the young Vinita who is in Nainital with her parents when the radio announces that Nehru has died. Her parents are an ill-suited husband and wife, the result of a miserable arranged marriage. And Vinita, an aspiring writer, is caught in the crossfire.
The story about Vatshala Vidyarthi, a ?literary lady? who is based in New Delhi is absolutely brilliant. She works for an advertising agency, is unmarried but has had a couple of unpleasant affairs with incompatible Indian men. Her story is reminiscent of
J. Alfred Prufrock?s desolate existence in Eliot?s smog-laden London. And then she is sent to Rishikesh, by the banks of the Holy Ganges, on an assignment to write copy about the new Ganges Herbal range of incense-coated mosquito repellents. There she has a tempestuous and wholly satisfying one-night stand of pleasure with a Slavic sadhu who is in India in search of nirvana. Next morning she discovers herself in the disarranged bed, naked and alone. The sexual athlete has vanished and so have her keys, handbag, cash and credit cards. The story ends with a classic statement: ?? a punchline is not always essential to a good denouement?. Which itself is a punchline par excellence.
Reginald Massey?s forthcoming book is To the Gallows with Smiles: forgotten fighters for Indian Independence, to be published later this year by Hansib, London.
Source: http://www.confluence.org.uk/2012/10/27/booksreginald-massey%E2%80%99s-book-page/
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