Book Excerpts: Jim Corbett on the Tiger

We dwell here on Edward James "Jim" Corbett (1875-1955). A British Indian Army colonel at a time when India was under imperial rule, Corbett's transformation from a game hunter to a wildlife conservationist fits well into the adage - Truth is stranger than fiction.

Corbett's writing endures, engaging as the narration of his adventures is, most of which concern hunting down man-eating leopards and tigers around the villages of  Kumaon and Garhwal. An Oxford hardbound omnibus edition that includes Man-Eaters of Kumaon, peppered as it is with well-placed illustrations comes recommended.

What we feature now is a 1944 quote that was reproduced in a newspaper some ago that tells much of Corbett's foresightedness and his degree of concern in conserving wildlife: 

The tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and when he is exterminated - as exterminated he will be, unless public opinion rallies to his support - India will be poorer by having lost the finest of its fauna. 


(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Jaipur Literature Festival: 2012 Rewind

No, we are not at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year, but I, Wolf was there in January 2012 and had posted articles about a couple of sessions on my blog back then, the links of which I would like to share here:
Jaipur Literature Festival 2012: The Inaugural & Keynote Address 
Jaipur Literature Festival 2012: Listening to Gulzar 

(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Poetry Reads: A Standing Meditation by AK Ramanujan

AK Ramanujan (1929-1993) was quite simply, a man of many talents. An Indian literature scholar, Ramanujan was a bilingual poet, writer, translator, playwright, folklorist...we cease to catch our breath and zero in on the poetry. So here's a minute bit of his oeuvre. You will note how much design is critical to the poem's effectiveness even as words form the appropriate attire.     

A Standing Meditation

by AK Ramanujan

a spinning top

motionless and still

spinning on one leg

at top speed like

a crane at rest

awake now

and then

likely to

topple

if

t
o

u

c

h

e
d

.

#

(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Poetry Reads: The Wolf on Poetry

Howwwwwwl. More precisely, Wolf here. 

In the human world, especially on moonless nights and sun-filled days, I moon about as a promising writer, poet, and lyricist who has been promising for several centuries now. Why, I even had a set of thousand visiting cards made for distribution that would lure the female of the species, well...into visiting. Anyway, I have to type these words fast, the clouds are just beginning to scatter and a light gleam of silver spreads in the firmament. My fingers have already turned to claws, thus facilitating immensely in typing any number of words in as much time as lightning strikes. Kaboom.     

This is how I see it. Poetry is a free bird's melody, uttered so, for it sprouts from the heart, and is similarly written down. Having a writing device on the ready is a handy habit, for words may rush in anytime. A common feature of a poem is its flow and spontaneity. The first draft is usually the crux of it. Polish, in the form of attention to meter, rhyme, paragraphing, punctuation, grammar, spelling and an appropriate title usually follow in subsequent drafts. While I mentioned grammar in the last sentence, a poem can have its own language. Unlike prose, a poem may not be bound to any structure.

There is no end to the themes that poets have chosen to write on over the centuries. Now, if we were to encapsulate all the poems ever written into two sections, what would they be? Here we trail Urdu poetry and its branching out into two - there is the ghazal where poets tend to self-reflect and look inwardly. Then there is the nazm where observation of the surrounding world is the central theme. This division can be applied to poems in general, if only for the purpose of differentiation and documentation.

Enough talk, to conclude here is the poem that was first published in Reading Hour Magazine's September-October 2011 issue, with the title ‘Pang’. It is presented here with my edits:

Fragrance
by Snehith Kumbla

the music of a drizzle,
wet smell of earth

a sun scattered face,
some winter morning

the moonlight walks
with me, at dusk

sleep glows in
a deep cave

I dwell on you...

#

(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Poetry Reads: Witchcraft for Attracting a Man by Xpetra Ernandes

Incantations is a collection of illustrations, 'spells' and poems, all created by 150 Mayan women. Ambar Past collected these drawings and poems, even as she resided with them in 1970's Mexico. She has vivid memories of an epidemic bringing death to the village. "They live with no comfort," As Ms. Past has said in an interview to The New York Times. "Yet poetry is an essential part of their daily life." Here is one poem from this acclaimed collection: 

Witchcraft for attracting a man
by Xpetra Ernándes

I want him to come with flowers in his heart.
With all his heart,
I want him to talk to my body.
I want his blood to ache for me
when he sees me on the way to the market.

#


(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Poetry Reads: On Haiku: Poetry with Scissors

The first time my haiku was published and I happened to share my work with my friends, many among them were baffled and asked me, "Where is the rest of it? Is that all?"  That is where the sheer simplicity of haiku lies. It's gaudy attire is conciseness, words make up the decor.

You have got only three lines to say it.You have lesser characters than you are allowed on twitter to complete it. To be precise, you shouldn’t be exceeding more than 17 syllables. The number of syllables for each of the three lines are traditionally in this order - five, seven and five. Writing haiku dates back to 17th century Japan.The form was called hokku then. 

A haiku usually freezes on a single image, much like a photograph does. It is supported by a kigo word, which usually implies a season, for instance - 'autumn night' or 'spring'. Let us now look into a haiku by the famous 17th century poet called Matsuo Basho. This particular haiku has been translated several times. Of the many versions, one goes: 

old pond . . . 

a frog leaps into 

the water’s sound. 

Here the kigo word is frog, an indication of the Japanese spring season.

The English language haiku poets don’t follow the strict 17-syllable format; many contemporary haiku poets have redefined the Japanese perimeters, a haiku could thus wind up in 10 syllables, or extend beyond 20. 

Haiku poets will tell you time and again - The main element in a good haiku is the ‘show, not tell’ factor. Let us paraphrase what Basho has said - Revealing 70 to 80 percent of the subject is good, but if you can show only 50 to 60 percent, then one is never tired of reading that haiku. 

Several poets also talk about the ‘ah’ effect. If the haiku provides an elevation, that little tinge of pleasure on reading it, one can happily conclude then that the poet's expression has got through. Many haiku exponents also see the art form as a philosophy of lingering in the moment, imbibing the present in totality and then presenting the same in a cusp of words.  

Haiku is now been written in several Indian languages too. Only time will tell what influence this branching out will have.


(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Comic Book Reads: The Adventures of Tintin by Herge

It was the mermaid who informed us that it is Tintin's birthday today. Tintin was one of my childhood favourites, hence this article.

It has been 84 years since the fearless boy reporter Tintin made his comic debut. On this day, to be more precise, 10th January 1929, the iconic series first made its appearance in the French language. A Belgian newspaper's children's supplement was Tintin's first showcase.

The adage - 'Fortune favours the brave' plays out with exaggerated comic drama in this classic series that took comic book illustrations to the zone where they are as much appreciated as great paintings.

 

Tintin

The boy detective. Sensible, fearless, calm and very lucky to survive through all his adventures.

An illustration commemorating the comic book series brought out in January 2004.    

 

Snowy 

Tintin's inseparable companion. He frequently "speaks" to the reader through his sarcastic thoughts on the situation at hand, thoughts which are supposedly not heard by other characters in the story. 

 

Captain Haddock

Full of liquor and the widest variety of abuse, he is Tintin's inseparable, boisterous companion in his adventures.

Thompson and Thompson 

They are not brothers. The difference can be seen in their moustaches. Detectives always getting into long-winded dialogues like "I presume." and "Precisely."

 

Professor Cuthbert Calculus 

An explosive goes off and the professor remarks," Did somebody knock? Absent minded, and the brainiest geek around. 

Bianca Castafiore

An opera singer whom Haddock despises to the point of delirium, Castafiore seems to be always around along with her maid, Irma, and pianist, Igor Wagner - no matter in which remote geographical corner Tintin's adventures happen to occur. 

Herge died in 1983 after creating 21 beautifully illustrated and wittily written Tintin comic books. Much later, other artists brought out a Tintin comic book, depicting a grown up Tintin, in love and falsely implicated of murder. Then there was the impressive 2011 Steven Spielberg movie released in 3D: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. 


(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Non-Fiction Reads: Boy by Roald Dahl

As the 1916-born Dahl declares in the introduction of the 1984 published Boy - The book is not an autobiography. Instead, it is a merry-go-round rewind of events that the writer vividly recalled and simultaneously wrote down. The flow is thus effortlessly conversational, that despite the episodic pieces, nothing seems untold, unfinished.

Dahl tells of his Norwegian parents, siblings, the motor-less era that he grew up in, the lack of anesthesia, mischief, horrors of corporal punishment, boarding school, psychotic teachers, friends, childhood pleasures, illness and pain. 

The last thing you will ever notice about Dahl's writing is style. Instead, the sheer impact of storytelling draws one's attention right into the tale.

Inspiration

You can clearly see where Dahl sourced his inspiration for the macabre - a quality that features prominently in his adult stories. 

Dahl's schooling days were times of authoritarian discipline and subjugation, the writer thus developed an aversion towards the overbearing hostel matron (barrel-chested), stone-heartened principals and stodgy academicians, antagonist elements that his fiction writing exudes with subtlety.     

Boy is one of the best childhood memoir works ever written and can be read without any complain or constraint by children and adults alike. No kidding. 

It is as if Dahl were sitting beside us by a camp fire, narrating things as it were, knowing that the night will eventually fold up, and the fire die out.

Endnote 

Boy ends with Dahl, aged 22, leaving for East Africa on a three-year stint for his first employer - Shell.

The following years of World War II, flying for the Royal Air Force and other adventures are captured in Going Solo. This reviewer has procured a copy and hopefully these pages will one day reveal what we thought of its contents. 

Happy reading!


(Article by Snehith Kumbla) 

Comic Book Reads: Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies by Scott Adams

It was in 1989 that Scott Adams brought into the comic strip world the American workplace everyman of the anti-gravity tie - Dilbert. Cubicle work stations, tyrannical managers, a sly human resource department, unfair sharing of company profits, the art of prolonging team meetings - are all part of the replicated landscape of the modern computer-infested office world, complete with black humour and wisecracks.

This book of the elongated title is not a comic strip collection, it is part of a separate series called Dogbert's Big Book of Business. For starters Dogbert evolved from been Dilbert's dog to the 'Evil Director of Human Resources', once the strip permanently moved from Dilbert's home setting to the workplace.

The jokes in this collection are seldom uproariously funny or reflective, but they do hold a mirror to  pretence, procrastination and theatricals that employees and employers engage in. Each strip of this 111-page book starts with Dogbert monologues, yet Adams always manages to pack something varied into each panel.

Sample some of Dogbert introductions here:

  

One sure way to the top is to invent scapegoats in the company and lead the charge against them. Ideally, the scapegoats should be powerless and funny looking.  

To be a successful manager, you must learn to be insensitive to the needs of your employees.

Big companies use most of their resources trying to keep people from getting mad at them. 

Mondays are not part of the productive work week. 

A good book for smiles and guffaws among the office crowd. If you are one of them, you are certain to convince yourself that stealing office supplies doesn't amount to thievery.  


(Article by Snehith Kumbla)