Seven For The Summer

It's been a long lazy summer as usual, and the reasons I've been away from the keyboard are simple: First, there were too many great books left unread, and long overdue.... well, summer's sweet that way. Second, I seem to have shifted my loyalties to the old-school methods: namely, those consisting of a largeish diary, and a really fast ballpoint pen. (The latter have yielded half-a-dozen stories over the past two months or so, let's see how soon I overcome my inertia and type them down...) Managed to finish about two dozen books which had been staring at me guiltily over the bookshelf.... and believe it or not, I still have about a dozen unread! (I do have about two weeks left before college starts again... ah well...) Following are some of the highlights of the summer, in all matters literary:

1. Oblivion- David Foster Wallace - Where does one begin to describe a man like David Foster Wallace? Perhaps the most succinct description came from an NYTimes article somewhere in the eary 90's, when Wallace, not yet 30, was already the toast of the literary world, following the release of "Infinite Jest" , his massive 1079 page postmodernist tome, which apart from many other oddities, was about a film so entertaining that anyone who saw it lost interest for everything else, literally being entertained to death. The article said that "Wallace is a genius who happened to be a writer, not the other way around..."

Drawing from the tradition of the spiralling, metafictional , sprawling narratives of Thomas Pynchon(he'll make an appearance very soon in this article), John Barth(whose "Lost In The Funhouse" is as entertaining a collection of shorts as you'll ever come across) and William Gaddis, DFW captured the imagination of critics and readers across America, with his cruelly accurate insights into pop cultural cliches, and the little tyrannies of our everyday lives. Having made his mark with his Big Novel, he began to redefine the way the shorter format is perceived with his stunning collection "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men". I read the book this January, and watched the excellent John Krasinski adaptation, and was sufficiently moved to concentrate my energies over the next month to bring forth a stage adaptation, which was a tremendous high for me, acting in and directing something my hero wrote.

Oblivion, Wallace's last completed book (before he hung himself in 2008) is destined to be a future classic, and Wallace's inimitable style is on ample display here: the ferocious intellect, the deadpan humour, the juxtaposition of pop cultural elements, both high and low, and of course, his signature serial digresser tendencies, choc-a-bloc with footnotes, which are sometimes more extensive than the main text itself. One story "Good Old Neon" (which I believe is available online) in particular is an eerie, yet darkly funny account of a suicidal man and his own stock-taking of his life.

2. A Suitable Boy- Vikram Seth - This book and I have had a tedious, sometimes edgy relationship even before I read it. When I was sixteen, I had first thought I was ready for Seth's best known work, having enjoyed "The Golden Gate" his virtuoso verse-novel, and his various travel writings. That was five years ago. But everytime the sixteen-year old me stepped into a bookshop, I found myself troubled by two observations: One, operating on a limited budget, I could buy two, sometime three novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a writer I had just discovered then (I was tremendously enamoured then, as I am today, only thing is, I've read most of his stuff now ), at the same price. And second, yes at times I was overawed by the sheer size of it, 1349 pages daring me to take the challenge. In my defence, I was preparing myself for a gruelling two years then, trying to get into IIT.

So, for these somewhat farcical reasons, I'd steered clear of Seth's whopper of a book so far. This time though, it was the first book with which I kicked off the summer( and what a summer it has been!). I suppose the best compliment one can give to A Suitable Boy is quite simply, that it is massively entertaining. It does not comprise of a single uninteresting sentence. And that, in itself, is no mean feat, across 1300 odd pages, and topics ranging from the Partition of India, the controversial land reforms in the 1950s, the decline of the erstwhile princely states of the country, Hindu-Muslim conflicts, the relative merits of the English and the traditional methods of shoemaking(this has actually been given quite an extended run in the book!) and the proper way to maintain a good garden in an Indian summer.

A Suitable Boy deserves all the hype, and enthusiasm it received, both in India, and in the West, when it was first published, nearly two decades ago. It was said about Joyce's Ulysses( a book Seth criticized in an interview for being overblown and unreadable, by the way) that one could recreate Dublin from scratch, just by reading it. Well, the same thing can be said of A Suitable Boy, and the unforgettable portrait of 1950's India it paints.(not just Purva Pradesh, Seth's literary alter for Uttar Pradesh, but also Calcutta) Seth channelizes the spirit of Tolstoy, Austen and Dickens, to name but a few masters of yore, with not just his purity of style, but the shining sincerity of his ruminations. Think Rushdie's scope and vision, but stripped away of the excesses he's often guilty of, and filled instead with the gentle humour of R.K. Narayan; the polished erudition of a Milan Kundera or an Umberto Eco married with the easy likeability of a Wodehouse. This is the kind of book which has the depth and the comprehensiveness of a whole, magnificent body of work. I began to read it, thinking I'd give it as much time as it demands, but ended up limiting myself to 100 pages a day max, for fear of finishing it too quickly! P.S. Seth has a sequel, "A Suitable Girl" lined up for 2013!

3. A Mercy - Toni Morrison - From the biggest book on the list(indeed, on any list for that matter), we move on to the smallest. This slim volume from Nobel Laureate Morrison (weighing in at a svelte 160 pages) has seventeenth century America as its setting. Slavery, and the crushing of the human spirit, the difficult and sometimes unimaginable choices one has to make in the toughest of situations; these are some of the epic themes Morrison covers, many of which she has dealt with in the past, in a masterly manner, with "Beloved" which is one of the most celebrated American works of the last century.

A Mercy can be called a sequel, or perhaps prequel(a term much in vogue these days, mostly due to Hollywood head honchos short on inspiration but big on enthusiasm) in spirit to Beloved, but it is rather different in tone. I believe Morrison has absolutely no peers when it comes to delivering loaded, crushing one-liners immediately following a pregnant pause or a especially tense or poignant showdown.

In the past, she has been called Shakespearean for the stark emotionality of her plots and her penchant for supremely lyrical dialogue. Here, the lyrical flights of fancy have been toned down somewhat, but the sheer tautness of the book, and its ominous overtones make for a compelling read. Make no mistake, this is the mature work of a master supremely secure of her skill, and on top of her game.

4. Moth Smoke- Mohsin Hamid - I had previously read and enjoyed "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" , Hamid's wickedly clever post 9/11 cautionary tale, which had remarkable restraint over its plot, giving away just the right amounts at every stage, and ended on a thrilling note, all the while exploring the culture of mutual distrust which has taken root in the deeply polarised world we live in today. In the process of reading more about Hamid, I came across Moth Smoke, which was Hamid's debut novel. (At Princeton, he had enrolled in a course taught by Toni Morrison, and apparently she had given her blessings to the first finishded draft of Moth Smoke, writing in the margins her own thoughts and suggestions!) Moth Smoke's protagonist Darashikoh, or Daru, as he is known to his friends, traces a rollercoaster ride, a journey which can only be described as a bildungsroman in reverse, as his decline is brought about by his penchant for heroin and his ill-advised liasion with his best friend's wife.

But this is no blood-and-guts noir gorefest. This is murder with a silk scarf(a phrase I once read in an article about Rahul Dravid scoring a half-century in 20-odd balls in a one-day match), as Hamid dissects the nature of obesession, jealousy and despair. I felt that one problem with Hamid in The Reluctant Fudamentalist was that at times, he took the background and the political aspects of his work a trifle heavy-handedly. In this respect, Moth Smoke scores over its successor, as Hamid's light touch and devastating satire do not desert him anywhere, whether he is talking about the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, or about the disconnect in mindsets between the nascent generation of yuppies in Lahore, as opposes to the fundamentalist youth (called "fundos" in the book). A passage where Daru, at first disdainful about the "fundos" , gradually softens up and says carelessly at the end "they're right of course, in their own way.." is a dark precursor of both Daru's own decline and Hamid's ever-growing concerns in this direction which are explored at length in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. At any rate, Hamid along with Aravind Adiga, signals exciting times ahead for subcontinental literature, despite what naysayers like Hanif Kureishi would have you believe.

5. Collected Stories- Saul Bellow - The enfant terrible of British literature, Martin Amis, commented once that Saul Bellow was "the greatest writer America has ever produced". Now, Amis is quite niggardly with praise at the best of times. So we can safely claim that Amis had been genuinely moved. James Wood , one of the most respected critics in the business, and another lifelong admirer of Bellow, wrote in his foreword to the edition I have, " I compared all modern prose to his, perhaps a tad unfairly. For before him, even the fleet-footed, the Updikes, the Roths, and the DeLillos seemed like monopodes." I had previously read Bellow's novella "Seize The Day" and while impressed with the dazzling prose and the philosophical digressions and arguments put forth, the book seemed a trifle didactic to me at times, and even though it was a slim book, tedious in portions.

No such troubles here. This is the collection of a lifetime, as we are treated to 13 of the best, selected by the master himself. Some of the stories often seem like stillborn novels(this volume does in fact include two of his works which were originally released as novels) , but that is part of their charm as Bellow casts a piercing eye to even the most banal of things and turns it into a mirror, reflecting our most insidious weaknesses, and sometimes our most redeeming qualities. Bellow is a writer capable of laugh-out loud humour and cruelly honest introspection in the twinkle of an eye. His characters are often high intellectuals with hollow inner lives, or down-on-luck losers who have an epiphanic experience, which is not always uplifting or redeeming, but always fascinating in a subtly cerebral way. Jewishness and the American experience, while they do feature prominently in his work, do not quite overwhelm it, like say, Philip Roth. In this, as in many other respects, Bellow is the perfect marriage of the intrinsically local and the obviously universal. Add to this his physical descriptions of his larger-than-life characters and the visual aspect of his writing (sample this: "His baldness was total, like a purge" OR " A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance, when the need for illusion is deep." ) , and he makes for a compelling reading experience.

6. Naked Lunch- William S. Burroughs - Some commentators believe that the origin of postmodernism in literature can be traced back to the exact moment that William S.Burroughs released "Naked Lunch". Such was the impact of this path-breaking novel. Although at first, the term "novel" itself seemed inaccurate, and maybe even inadequate to describe this work. A series of vignettes about the travels of William Lee, junkie, a.k.a The Agent, from U.S. to Morocco, to some places not on the map at all, strictly speaking, like the psychedelic "Interzone" , Burroughs had written these segments separately in a drug-induced haze, and used the now famous "cut-up" technique to assemble the book with the help of his friend, the legendary poet Allen Ginsberg.

A nightmarish journey about the horrors of addiction, the fascism of authority figures and the smothering of personal freedom are some of the major topics Burroughs touches upon. He incorporated elements of pastiche and science fiction, especially, in the otherwise uber-gritty narrative, which alternates between "hard" realism and phantasmagoric imagery, leaving the reader spellbound. One of his unforgettable characters, Dr. Benway, is the most wickedly funny caricature you'll ever see: dripping saccharine, utterly unscrupulous, and charmingly operatic, Benway is the kind of doctor who'll smash your kneecaps with a sledge-hammer and then ask, pearly white teeth shining, "Did that hurt?"

Burroughs enjoyed iconic stature as a counter-culture messiah for several decades (interesting factoid: the band Steely Dan takes its name from a character in Naked Lunch), until his death in 1997. I look forward to reading his other works, especially Cities Of The Red Night.

7. Mason & Dixon- Thomas Pynchon -- Thomas Pynchon, one of the leading lights of American literature, renowned not only for his big, ambitious, jaw-droppingly diverse narratives, like Gravity's Rainbow, or the more recent Against The Day; but also for his famously reclusive nature. I'd earlier read "The Crying Of Lot 49" which is perhaps his most accessible book, and also quite short compared to his other work, including Mason & Dixon.

But after nearly 800 pages, I can tell you that it's well worth the effort, for Pynchon weaves elements of classic adventure stories, the Victorian social novel with his postmodernist sensibilities and his treasure trove of allusions from astronomy, philosophy, literature both popular and obscure, trade practices, little-known dialects, etymology (this seems to be one of his pet peeves, actually), nautical science..... it goes on and on. Critics of Pynchon complain that his novels are way too dense, overwritten, arcane and unreadable. But to them, I say, "You're missing the point". For beneath all this, Pynchon is a terrific humorist, a formidable intellect with an unerring ear for dialogue, and above all, more than capable of spinning a bloody good yarn.

In Mason & Dixon, Pynchon weaves a fable of the two astronomers who met on a scholarly mission to map the transit of Venus, at the Cape Of Good Hope in South Africa, but ended up being the architects of the ubiquitous Mason-Dixon Line in America, which is now a cultural line demarcating the erstwhile slavery states. This is a book which demands a lot from the reader by way of attention to detail, but delivers rich dividends. I have the massive "Against The Day" as well, on my shelf, and I look forward to a new adventure there(although not just now, actually: I finished Mason and Dixon yesterday... and am in no shape to start another 1200 pages of Pynchonalia :P )

Honourable Mention: Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr.Norrell" , (an unusual, thrilling mix of fantasy and social satire) , Alexander McCall Smith's "2 1/2 Pillars Of Wisdom" trilogy (at his best, Smith manages to evoke memories of both Wodehouse and Narayan), Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" (no explanations needed!) Jess Winfield's "My Name Is Will" (a superb coming-of-age tale about "sex, drugs and Shakespeare" as written on the cover), "Yuganta" a book of bold and insightful essays, by Irawati Karve about the Mahabharata , and finally "Seven 6s are 43", the 1974 debut novel of Kiran Nagarkar, who gave us the wonderful "Cuckold", yet remains one of India’s most underrated authors.

The Time Of The Voyeur

Chronicling one's own existence and the endless meanderings thereof are a time-tested method of taming one's inner voyeur.

This space has been lying idle for quite a while now, and on a stormy evening, this is all I can come up with by way of explanation for its recall.

The past few months have been eventful enough, not the least because I re-discovered the delights of writing old-school, scribbling away in quiet nooks and crannies, watching everything, speaking nothing. But why the voyeur? Is a writer simply a very dignified onlooker, seeking his jollies in the vagaries and the foibles of those around him? This question actually signalled a very significant shift in the literary mores of the past century, when the writer learnt that detachment from the world he created around him was simply not gonna cut it, and the world was as much a product of the act of his watching it, as his own perception. And it most certainly has signalled a shift in my own thought process.

The past few months has produced four fragments, which are still not the way I envisioned them to be inside my head.. but I have been told they do not suck too badly. Let's hope I find the drive to publish them here, soon...

Although there have been several books in the past few months which have captured my imagination, like Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" , Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End Of The World", "Bluebeard's Egg" by Margaret Atwood, "Herzog" by Saul Bellow, "Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov, "A Mercy" by Toni Morrison... the ones leaving the deepest imprint were "Oblivion" and "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men", both short-story collections by the scaringly brilliant David Foster Wallace, whose tragic suicide at 46, left the literary community heartbroken in late 2008. The latter was recently adapted for the screen by John Krasinski, and was a big hit at the Sundance film festival. I cannot recommend the book, as well as the movie(of the same name) highly enough.

Cabin 30B

"I do not like hospitals" .... this is a bit like saying "I do not like a friggin' boil on my ass" .... but very honestly... there is something in those long corridors and the swathes of whiteness which creeps me out. I am hardly the first to express discomfort at an encounter with mortality, and I'm sure I won't be the last.... the thing is, when you're 20, you have a very well-constructed veneer of invincibility around you..... and when the illusion shatters from time to time.... well, confrontation can be... tricky, if you get my drift. The past month, in a set of weird coincidences, four of my close friends had to visit the horror house for myriad accidents and illnesses, and I found myself waiting in those long corridors far too many times for my liking.

"Cabin 30-B"

What do you do when the talk dries up?

When all you're left with is silence,

The stillness in white, and before you

The devouring endless night?

How do you define loss?

Would it be better if she were snatched from you,

Suddenly, and with an iron fist

The matter settled before you resist?

"We can manage her pain" , they say

As if it were a simple chore,

A minor inconvenience, a sleight-of-hand

And all the while, the hours slip by like sand.

You nod your head, as if it were a trifle

The choking lump which you tried to stifle,

In your throat, growing, rising

To the surface, threatening to give way.

Sudden surge of faith, you pray

For strength, and the will to stay

By her side, and be the one

You ought to be.

Little did you know, 'tis all a haze,

You fooled no one with your show-and-tell

And least of all her, a simple gaze

Did crack the facade, how the mighty fell!

She looks at you with a reassuring smile

And takes your hand, "It's okay, you know,

To be afraid, to show your fear

It's a phony man, who knows not a tear.

The gods themselves do envy us

And play their games, so mischievous

For we, with our wondrous fragility

Outshine their immortal misery.

Our love does shine in a brighter light

And these fleeting moments which are given us,

Than any divine eternal sight,

For 'tis Fate's hand, so ravenous

That brings us this sweet parting... "

Riddle me this, ye wise old men?

If you remember, tell me when

Was the last time you heard or read

Of the Dying consoling the Dead?

I

I

I wasn't brought up with a silver spoon

I knew I would strike gold on my own

I never asked anyone to break my fall

I knew one day I would soar above them all

I did not fall in with the crowd

I knew they would turn to me in the end

I was asked to wear faces like masks

I knew I had to look in the mirror someday

I was asked to fall in line more than once

I knew exactly where that line ended

I was told about caution and prudence

I chose integrity and passion

I was expected to wither, to crash and burn

I was sorry to disappoint them

I am everything I could be

I choose to be everything I can be

Today is the first day

Of the rest of my life.

“Unbreakable” and The Three Shyamalans

It has been well-established by now, that there are at least two individuals who go by the name of Manoj Night Shyamalan. The first is the maverick auteur, the Hitchcock of modern times, the writer-director of stunning films like “The Sixth Sense” , “Unbreakable” and “Signs” . Following the release of the latter, it is widely believed that aliens abducted said auteur and carried out horrific genetic experiments on him, turning him into the second Shyamalan, the peddler of cheap thrills, the maker of pseudo-profound commentaries on society( The Village) and fourth rate fantasy penny-dreadfuls like The Lady In The Water. This second Shyamalan liked to feud with Hollywood studio bosses who wouldn’t let him cast himself in key roles.

There are those, of course, who believe that the two Shyamalans are merely figments of the gullible public’s imagination, and that the real Shyamalan is the third one, the figure who has carefully cultivated an air of mystique about himself, with wild rumours ranging from the Hitchcockian (apparently a big black bird can be seen following him around), to the conspiratorial (they say that Shyamalan drowned in a childhood accident, and this one is really a ghost. So there.)

But I digress. No matter which Shyamalan you take to be genuine, I for one would choose to dwell upon some of his earlier masterpieces rather than curse him for his current sorry state.For me, Shyamalan reached his pinnacle as a writer and a director with “Unbreakable”. I know this might seem strange, given the long shadow cast by “The Sixth Sense”. The story basically involves a crippled comic-book collector(Samuel L. Jackson) trying to convince a security guard with a bad marriage(Bruce Willis) that he is, in fact a superhero. But as I shall elaborate, “Unbreakable” had quite a few remarkable things about it, which made it into a cross-genre, quirky-yet-believable SF film.

The first was the mythological aspect of the script. Shyamalan put forth a very compelling argument for comic-books as a sort of unbroken historical chain of information. At the time I saw the film, I was not the comic-book maniac that I am now. But when I saw the film again recently, some of the more daring statements about the art of comic-books resonated strongly with me. If you’ve ever read the so-called “Silver Age” superhero comics of the 60’s , you’ll know exactly what I mean. Take a character like Captain America for example. The story arcs of this hugely popular character have functioned as a virtual barometer of public sentiment over state policy down the years. While the Captain punched Hitler in the 40’s , in the wake of the outrage over Watergate, the Captain lay down his shield and helmet in shame. This was a masterstroke at the screenplay level, one which elevated it beyond the realm of the conspiracy theory or the urban legend. Coupled with the spooky dialogue delivery of Samuel L. Jackson, an inspired casting choice for the role of Elijah the cripple; the overall effect is chilling indeed. Elijah has been born with osteogenesis imperfect, a rare condition which causes his bones to be extremely brittle. He believes that there must be someone at the other extreme as well, someone who is invulnerable, unbreakable.

The second aspect was that of Shyamalan’s endlessly fascinating usage of light and space. The first scene of the film involves the birth of the Elijah character on a train. The claustrophobic nature of the train, accentuated with a huge mirror, serves well the template for the moment where the doctor announces that the baby was born with broken arms and legs. Also, late in the film, there is a scene where Bruce Willis, who is afraid of water, is almost drowns while struggling with a huge tarpaulin. The technical work and visual artistry on display here is simply staggering. Shyamalan is one of the great indoor directors of our time. He has a highly acute sense of the power exercised by the four walls, of the paranoia and the primal fear which can be depicted indoors(Signs is an excellent example of this, too, as is The Sixth Sense…remember the famous sequence featuring the young Mischa Barton playing a dead girl?)

I didn’t really like “The Usual Suspects” despite the most famous plot twist in cinematic history. The reason being, a)You feel kinda cheated about the previous two hours and b)The “twist” doesn’t really chime well with the remainder of the plot, and is as such not integral to the ethos of the story. Five smartass minutes do not a movie make.

This is where “Unbreakable” works wonders. As I don’t want to spoil the story for first-timers, I won’t discuss it at length, but I will say is that the “twist” is, in this case central to the cascading mythos of the whole film, as well as being thoroughly satisfying on its own. The third aspect, then, is the ubiquitous Shyamalan twist which was better than ever before.

While Shyamalan’s film haven’t been typically known for exceptional performances(I think Mel Gibson’s performance in Signs was perhaps the best of the lot), Jackson and Willis bring in their experience into play, turning in solid outings. And who better to play an ‘unbreakable” man than Bruce Willis? The scene where Willis tries to lift increasing amounts of weight to try and test his limits is comical, with a dangerous undertone, something which Willis pulls off quite well, in the end.

Alas, this brilliance was to be short-lived, and the other two Shyamalans would soon take charge, leaving in their wake whispered dialogues, insipid plots, multiple Razzie nominations(and two wins, for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor for Shyamalan in “The Lady In The Water”) and bemused critics.
So, the jury is out on when the first Shyamalan decides to grace us with his presence once more. Watch this space for updates.

Out And Proud: 377 Overruled

After 62 years of wilful ignorance, the Indian Government has finally seen the light. Delhi High Court today finally struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes gay sex. This ruling today came after years of campaigning, parades and lobbying from intellectuals.

Section 377 was written in 1877, during the British Raj, and was representative of the prudish Victorian mores of the age. The gay population of the capital overflowed onto the streets today, as the historic decision came after years of ostracism and victimisation for them. Overcoming the social taboo is quite another thing, but this is a brilliant start. Gay rights activist Lesley Ashley said on NDTV today, "When I grew up, it seemed to me that I was the only (gay) person." She added, "Today, our nation has taken a huge step to being more of a liberal democracy."

As expected, religious spokespersons from all around the country have reacted strongly against this ruling. The Deoband School of Islam has been quick to declare that homosexuality is a sin and is "against the tenets of any religion, not just Islam." (note the sudden solidarity with other religions here..... lesser evil and all that, I guess.) Spokespersons from the Catholic Church have found the decision to be "shocking and disappointing." They said that "Indian society" would face the repurcusions of the decisions soon.

This confidence of the Catholic Church in "Indian society" and its inevitable rejection of today's ruling is interesting, given that the Church itself has come under fire recently over sordid tales of rampant sexual abuse and corruption.

A Few Good Ones: Lit-Adaptation Wishlist

(Originally published here on passionforcinema.com)

“Thou, of the blogger’s faith, shalt not revert to the “list” post, ‘cept if ye haven’t banged thine keyboard for a while, or the Indian cricket team has been knocked out of the World Cup, or both….”
– The Underground Bible Of Bloggers

Seeing as both of the above criteria are fulfilled, I think I’ve got this covered. I remember reading in a PFC article about how “The White Tiger” was voted the most “filmable” among a host of recent books in a film festival not long ago.(There ye go, Danny Boyle!) That set me thinking about some of the books I read(or re-read!) in the past few weeks, which are on my silver-screen wishlist. This is in no particular order, with little rhyme or reason, except for an effort on my part to make the list as varied as possible, as far as genre is concerned.

1. Netherland- Critics around the world hailed Joseph O’ Neill’s 2008 novel as a post 9/11 masterpiece, or alternatively as a masterly post-colonial interpretation of “The Great Gatsby”. Call it what you will, but “Netherland” is poignant, precise and hauntingly effective at revealing the many pitfalls of relationships and the ultimately fickle nature of mankind. The story revolves around a Dutch banker Hans Van der Boek whose personal life takes a tumble after 9/11, and his uneasy frriendship with Chuck Ramkissoon, an entrepreneur with stars in his eyes, who wants to set up a cricket enterprise in New York. My choice for director would be Robert Zemeckis, with Ewan McGregor and Forest Whitaker as Van Der Boek and Ramkissoon, respectively.

2. The Reluctant Fundamentalist- Young American of Pakistani origin works in a hotshot financial firm, settles down into the yuppie shell…..and when the two towers collapse on the TV, he just laughs. Intrigued? Mohsin Hamid’s slim novel packs quite a lot of narrative punch in its 180-odd pages, and maintains to keep us all on the edge. Mira Nair has expressed interest in this one, and I hope she does get to be the one who dons the director’s hat for this film. As for the role of Changez, the Princeton-educated Lahore boy…. it is a tremendously subtle role, and one which requires some serious head scratching on the part of the director…as far as physical attributes are concerned, Neil Nitin Mukesh comes to mind.

3. The Zoya Factor- After two very literary novels, the next one on my list is firmly in the realm of what is popularly called “chick-lit” . Anuja Chauhan’s debut novel chronicles the adventures of Zoya Solanki, a girl born on the exact moment of India’s World Cup victory, the deal being, whenever she has breakfast with the team on the eve of a match, we win. So there. Despite such an obviously contrived backdrop and some pretty standard chick-lit set-pieces, the author raises quite a few laughs with its caricatures of Indian cricketers, bureaucrats and numerology-toting holy men. Following the release of Billu Barber, the Internet was strife with reports of Red Chillies Productions, SRK’s banner producing the film. Let’s hope Shah Rukh’s second innings with cricket goes slightly better than the first….till then “Korbo, lorbo, jitbo re!”

4. The Plot Against America- Philip Roth imagines an America where Charles Lindbergh has defeated Roosevelt in the 1940 elections, and the resulting rise of anti-semitism in America. The lingering questions posed by the master novelist are tough to answer, as Roth turns his microscope towards the America which voted for George W. Bush not once, but twice. (If you ask me, this is almost as outrageous as the alternate history devised by Roth.) To capture the escalating paranoia and tension, I would go for Steven Spielberg(this has nothing to do with his being a Jew). On an unrelated note, another Roth adaptation to hit the screen recently is “Elegy”( starring Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz) based on Roth’s 2001 novel, “The Dying Beast” a poignant tale about love, the fear of ageing and its inevitable physical toll.

5. After Dark- In a world of acolytes and factory-made zombies posing as writers, Haruki Murakami is a bona fide original. He has his influences, but he leaps beyond them to create a dazzling palette all of his own. This eerie tale of two sisters, one of whom is mysteriously in a month-long coma-like sleep, is a classic Murakami tale, with themes of urban loneliness and a gripping sense of unease and alienation. For this film, I would choose stylistic chameleon Ang Lee as director, or alternatively, David Lynch, because as I was reading the novel, scenes from Mulholland Drive were flashing through my head, for some strange reason I am yet to fathom…..

6. The Sandman- I could go on for ages(and pages) talking about this comic-book series….and it still wouldn’t be adequate. Suffice to say that British writer Neil Gaiman revolutionized the way comic-books are perceived(with all due respect to Alan Moore!). Erudite, complex both visually and literally, and constantly pushing the bar ever higher, Gaiman helped usher in a new wave of “comic-books for intellectuals” as Norman Mailer, the grand old man of American letters described Sandman. On the surface, Sandman is about the adventures of Morpheus, the Dream Lord who controls the Dreaming, and his siblings Death, Despair, Destiny and others, known as the Endless. But really, Sandman is about the power of the human imagination, and the myriad landscapes the mind draws to often blur the line between fact and fiction. Drawing on mythologies and historical figures of several lands, as well as Western canonical literature, films and pop culture, Sandman is as “essential” as Lord Of the Rings. No surprises, then that my choice for director would be Peter Jackson. (Neil Gaiman himself stated that he would like the potential director to be “as obesessed as Peter Jackson was with Tolkien’s works.)

7. Preacher- Irish comic-book writer Garth Ennis wrote this mature comic-book series under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics, known for its quote-unquote serious titles. But for once, the hype was justified. The series is a scathing critique of religious conservatism, and the modern uber-American identity. Stylistically influenced by old-school cowboy westerns(it even has John Wayne as a character, which is an apparition guiding the hero, who in turn is a very Waynesque character.), Preacher kicks some serious ass, and is among the wittiest comic-books I’ve read. In January, Columbia Pictures finalised the film rights, with Sam Mendes, whose work I greatly admire, directing!

To round off the list, I would like to draw the reader’s attention towards “Between The Assasinations”, Aravind Adiga’s second book, a collection of short stories set in a fictional South Indian town called Kittur, and as is obvious from the titles, chronicles the time between the assasinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. These sketches from small-town India, often characterized by Adiga’s acerbic wit and black humour, manage to capture the zeitgeist of the mid 80’s India very well. I found it a kind of a twisted riposte to “Malgudi Days” which had charming little vignettes which were gentle even in their criticism. In my opinion, it is a far superior work than “The White Tiger” which had periods of brilliance marred by hackneyed, myopic portrayals of rural poverty which strove for cheap thrills rather than insightful examinations of the lives of its subjects.

I would love it if “Between The Assasinations” is adpated for a television miniseries, inviting some of our top directors to make 40-minute episodes, a la “Star Bestsellers”. Alternately, three or four of the stories could be taken to make an ensemble film, much like “New York Stories” which had Scorsese, Coppola and Woody Allen at the helm, or Boccaccio 70, which had Fellini, de Sica and other Italian directors. I scarcely need to point out the need for quality made-for-TV works in India, although I admit I haven’t seen the much touted “Specials at 9″ series with names like Madhur Bhandarkar, Anurag Kashyap and Mahesh Manjrekar to boast of. Let’s hope that we, too can see something like “John Adams” or “Angels In America” on our telly screens soon!

I would really appreciate your own ideas for books which you think will make for some compelling cinema :)