Book Excerpts: Round and About by Busybee

Few know him as Behram Contractor (1930 - 2001). For the reading world, he was and always will be - Busybee. A casual observer of public life and its spontaneous commentator, Busybee wrote for the Bombay editions of The Times of India, The Free Press Journal and finally The Afternoon, his own newspaper.

Round and about was the famous column series that Busybee wrote. Many call it a newspaper editorial; Busybee did express his opinion in the column, but always for the laughs. There was a simplicity in the humour and a motley group of additional characters (dog, children, wife) added to the appeal. As adorable were the accompanying sketches by cartoonist Mario Miranda (1926 - 2011).

You may read more about Busybee in this striking obituary (click link & scroll down to read) by the mercurial Khushwant Singh (1915 - 2014).

The following extract is from a 1972 edition of Round and about (a collection of previously published articles). The Indian cricket team had recently registered historic test series wins in England and West Indies. Here is Busybee on the cricketers:

One of the problems that the big employers of our Test cricketers are facing is what to do with them when they are not playing cricket.

And it is not the fault of the cricketers. They have been playing so long and so well that they have forgotten how to work. Some of them have even forgotten who they are working for. 

For instance, I am told that the day after the team arrived, Wadekar went to the Bank of India instead of the State Bank. Asked what he was doing there, he said,"I know I am employed by a bank, but I have forgotten which bank."

Solkar's case is even more to the point. It seems that all last week he has been either standing like a rock or falling all over the Mafatlal offices, depending on whether he is under the impression that he is giving stand to Bedi at Lords or fielding at the Kennington Oval. 

And a director of the ACC was telling me: "You may be surprised to hear this, but Sardesai has forgotten how to make cement."            

I am getting similar reports from all over the country. Some of the cricketers are still walking on red carpets, others opening gifts that have received from all sorts of manufacturers. And it seems most of them stay away from work every time it rains.       

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Book Excerpts: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway's foray into adventure began even before he was twenty. Post a cub reporter stint at the Kansas City Star, Hemingway volunteered for a ambulance driver job at the Italian front during World War I.

A Farewell to Arms (1929) is a fictional take on these early intense experiences with violence, love and death. The book established Hemingway's reputation as a writer of captivating fiction in the public eye, adding on to the praise that Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises (1926) got him.

Hemingway remained obsessed with various forms of violence until his death, from boxing, bullfighting, war, deep sea fishing to big game hunting. 

Many writers have imitated the matter-of-fact detailed style of writing, but they all lack the first-hand flame of experience that Hemingway conveyed. Here are the first lines from the novel that still hits you with its straight forward description of war and human nature: 

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.


(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

The Lord of the Rings Eagle Theory: FLY, YOU FOOLS!

With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 'Fly, you fools!' he cried, and was gone.    

- The Lord of the Rings / The Fellowship of the Ring / The Bridge of Khazad-Dum

This is the theory, the ultimate, alternative The Lord of the Rings theory. It makes much of an alleged plot loophole. Consider it closely, dear bookworms. I won't vouch for it, nor discard it, but present the case to you.  

The Lord of the Rings eagle theory has been around in various forms on the Internet for some time now. There seems to be no one person who can be solely credited to it. There are various long winding scrapes of it, posed by different readers. 

Fly, you fools!  

The whole crux of it lies in the opening extract of this blog post. Three words uttered by Gandalf, his last words as he believes them to be - Fly, you fools!

As the theory, credited to one VulcanDeathGrip goes, it all began in the opening pages of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Gandalf rides to Isengard to meet Saruman, having entrusted Frodo the ring. Unfortunately for the grey wizard, Saruman has turned to Sauron's side and imprisons the unrelenting grey wizard. It is then that Gandalf takes aid of his friends, the eagles to escape. This is where the theory wedges in: 

It is when the eagles bear him away from Saruman's clutches, that Gandalf seriously considers the always evident possibility - that he will have to take the onus of destroying the ring.

Running out of time, perceiving the impossibility of Frodo's mission, Gandalf seriously considers the use of eagles. What better than Frodo to ride with the eagles and drop the ring, airborne, into the volcano of Mount Doom? Yes, it is risky business, but there is an advantage to it. Sauron has not yet contended with the use of eagles. 

The eagles are elusive, aloof creatures, friends of no one but Gandalf. So before turning up at Rivendell, Gandalf meets the eagles at their lair (as marked in The Hobbit - Up north in the Misty Mountains) and discusses the ring dropping plan with them and the eagles consent to it. A secret pact is made between them, that NO ONE ELSE will know of the plan until the time of its execution.

Top secret  

Gandalf now arrives at Rivendell and agrees to the forming of the fellowship. He finds it most appropriate to keep the fellowship clueless of his plans and somehow lead them, slipping past Sauron's ubiquitous spies to the eagle's lair.

Finally there, Frodo and the company (as distractions, while Frodo drops the ring) would be carried out to Mordor in a swift surprise ambush. Gandalf now considers the best route to the eagle's lair. This is his most intimidating hurdle. Just how inconspicuously can he get the fellowship through to his winged friends and then arrange a swift secret flight to Mordor? 

Gandalf thinks of the High Pass, the fastest route to the eagles, but he knows that Saruman would be keeping watch on this route. Infested as it was with orcs and goblins, it was the also the most dangerous route to take. Gandalf may have dared the route with Frodo and Sam for company as it had been originally planned. But loaded with additional company, it was too much of a risk to be seen.

The Redhorn Pass or the Northern Pass was Gandalf's best bet and this is where he leads the company. But Saruman impedes their steady progress early with storms. Reluctant to take the Gap of Rohan, a route that will take them too far from the eagle's lair and too close to Isengard, there is but no choice left but to go through the mines of Moria, despite its dangers.  

Out of time and options 

Thus cornered out of options and running out of time, Gandalf hopes to get the fellowship through Moria and then through the High Pass to the eagles.

He almost gets through, only to be taken by the Balrog. It is as he is desperately clinging to the cliff, Gandalf utters his well-chosen final words. He encodes his message cleverly, such that the nearby goblins and orcs do not figure its import. "Fly, you fools!" he says, and falls, hoping that any one of his companions figure out what he has implied.

But nobody comprehends the meaning of these final words and the fellowship is soon broken. 

Rebirth, amnesia  

Gandalf returns in The Two Towers as Gandalf the White. He has seen death and revival; he no longer remembers things, not even his name! So it is no wonder that he has forgotten the plan with the eagles.

Only when the ring is destroyed, and Frodo and Sam are in need of aid that Gandalf recalls the eagle plan. By that time, there is no need. 

Other factors  

• The eagles could have been easily lured by the ring, so they are not solely entrusted to drop it. 
• Gandalf has seen Bilbo's extraordinary will in forsaking the ring, hence he trusts that Frodo will follow suit. 
• Gandalf himself couldn't destroy the ring, for he feared, rightly so, that the ring will wield a power far too great to imagine in his hands. 

Tolkien thought of umpteen things for The Lord of the Rings, so it is obvious he must have thought of the eagles.

As a counter to the theory, the eagles never cared for anyone but Gandalf who had discarded the airborne ring dropping idea long ago, considering that it was too obvious to guess for Sauron. In such desperate times, it was too much of a risk.   


(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

A gif image from the  Peter Jackson movie: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Book Excerpts: Meet Mr. Mulliner by PG Wodehouse

If you are yet to read a Wodehouse, there is no particular book to get started on, it could be any of the several he wrote. For a PG Wodehouse book is meant for the laughs, laced with an apt treasure house of vocabulary, impeccable English, historical references, ice thin plot and a stage full of eccentric British and (sometimes) American characters. As Wodehouse himself said, "I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn."

It's been a decade since I read these sugar-baked eternal sunshine stories of honeyed romances, dim-witted young men, their intelligent butlers, pigs, awe-struck pig owners, misplaced tonic bottles and crossword puzzle solvers. I seem to have lost patience for the novels - stretched and repeated as their obscure plots go (despite the sparkling never-failing humour), but a well-written Wodehouse short story is another thing altogether.

Here is an extract of a tale from my favourite Wodehouse short story trilogy, one that features a certain Mr. Mulliner, Anglers' Rest bar-parlour regular, and a teller of seemingly tall 'truthful' tales about other denizens of the Mulliner family. Mulliner's bar narratives have been collected in three books - Meet Mr Mulliner (1927), Mr Mulliner Speaking (1929) and Mulliner Nights (1933).

The following lines are from The Romance of a Bulb-Squeezer (Meet Mr. Mulliner):      

Statistics show that the two classes of the community which least often marry are milkmen and fashionable photographers - milkmen because they see women too early in the morning, and fashionable photographers because their days are spent in an atmosphere of feminine loveliness so monotonous that they become surfeited and morose.   

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Murder Mysteries: Curtain: Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie

The clues undoubtedly lead us to the fact that Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is a humdinger of a mystery novel. It is certainly among Christie's best.

More than 20 odd years post their first appearance at Styles (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) -  Poirot and Hastings reunite in literary convenience at Styles - which is now a faded hotel.The now middle-aged Hastings (also the Watson-like story narrator) is disheartened to see his old friend in a wheelchair. But his mood changes when the detective soon makes his purpose clear - He is here to hunt down a killer. One who has killed so frequently and expertly, that no doubt has been raised against the person, ever. 

Frustrating as it is for Hastings, Poirot won't reveal the murderer's identity. Instead, Poirot wants his friend to be his 'eyes and ears'. So Hastings meets up with other denizens of Styles, including the aged owners, a nervous bird watcher,lady with a shady past, a rich lonely man and finally Hastings' younger daughter, her employer, his invalid wife and a nurse. Among this mix of visitors, Hastings wonders who will kill and why. Time is fast running out, as Poirot points out, a killer who has killed many will kill again.           

There is a continuous anticipation running through the book. This is no routine mystery where the crime is done and the suspects are questioned. Like many great crime novels, various shades, characters, atmospheres inhabit these pages. 

Yet what is a murder mystery without a satisfactory tying of the threads? Christie simply blows us way in that department.There couldn't be a more devastating full stop to what is a senile detective's last case. 

An exceptional treat for all mystery novel readers - Poirot fans or not. I may yet stumble to say - Those who have known Poirot and his peculiar ways may end up enjoying this one a bit more.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Non-Fiction Reads: Going Solo by Roald Dahl

 

A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones. An autobiography must therefore, unless it is to become tedious, be extremely selective, discarding all the inconsequential incidents in one's life and concentrating upon those that have remained vivid in the memory.  

- Introduction, Going Solo by Roald Dahl 

Going Solo is the second part of Roald Dahl's memoirs.

It is as vivid and engaging as Boy, Dahl's astonishingly well-written account of his childhood.

Cumulatively, the two part memoir gives us the first 25 years of the writer's life in gripping episodic narration.

An 'extremely selective' approach also means that the book is scandal free and safe enough to be published under the Penguin children's book imprint Puffin. Yet war, death, nudity, empire builders, aflame fighter planes, sinking ships and charred bodies make it to the book. 

Each incident is aptly and chronologically placed in a new chapter.Again, Dahl's detailing and uncanny knack to take the reader along clinches the deal.

The ink that flows in his spontaneous writing can't be pinned down to any style. A lively document of life recalled as it was lived; by the looks of it Dahl seems to have nailed it all in the first draft, except for corrections or deletions, probably. 

Going Solo starts off where Boy wrapped up.

It is 1938 and the writer under a three-year contract with the Shell Oil Company is aboard a ship taking him from England to Africa.

Apart from hilarious proceedings on the ship, Dahl starts with the joys of a long journey - Nowadays you can fly to Mombasa in a few hours and you stop nowhere and nothing is fabulous any more...  

Arrival at Dar es Salaam, tales of deadly snakes, lions and his African staff are a storyteller's pride, the blaze of World War II only adds more intensity to the proceedings. The wrath of Germany is everywhere and consequently Dahl asks leave from Shell in 1939 to join the RAF at Nairobi.

Considering the severe caution that travelers exercise nowadays, it is exciting to read about the writer's solo marathon four-wheeler rides across deserts and jungles.

Not a word seems wasted - the book ends with Dahl's return to England in 1941, flying into his waiting mother's arms.

Few writers can claim to have faced death many times or to have had as many adventures as Roald Dahl.

There is nothing like a first hand account and Going Solo has the long-lasting sheen of experience that provides credibility to the narrative.

Interspersed with reproductions of photographs, documents and letters written during those uncertain three years, Going Solo is highly recommended.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Roald Dahl in his RAF outfit

Poetry Reads: Daffodils by William Wordsworth

Most of us went through school without wondering why in the world we had poems like Daffodils revisiting the English language textbooks every two years. 

Well, at least I did...not...wonder. 

Nobody seemed to have heard of the flower or seen it in those sans Internet days. We were probably too bored to ask among other things - what did the flower look like? While teachers read the whole thing with the assurance of a kung fu master and horticulturist mingled in one sonorous voice, we can see now (as always when it is too late) that they were earning their paychecks. 

Reading the poem now, one can see why it is popular - there is universal appeal, an admiration for all beautiful things. The benefits of lingering in a moment are many, and Daffodils is a treasure house of one such moment.     

Back to the Future? 

Throwing the reins to fantasy, William Wordsworth would probably be too distracted to write solely about daffodils in a single poem in this progressive 21st century world. Things are just not that simple in the modern world nowadays, or so is life lived or made out to be. 

Wordsworth would (probably, probably) curse the looming, flashing cell phone towers, upcoming flyovers and the shopping mall for spoiling a previously unhindered horizon. Maybe, alas, he would just miss the daffodils, the first words of inspiration whisked away by a call from a bank eager to loan him money. Thus typing away furiously on his touchscreen keypad, he would have composed dark, murderous verse on malicious lightning - graphically describing its fatal impact on pesky phone callers. Daffodils would have been a juxtaposition of human accumulation, its image flashing on Wordsworth's 'inward eye', i.e, his mega pixel equipped cell phone camera. 

Reining in fantasy to its stable, we are glad Wordsworth lived in a world when nature were queen & king, and our species its admiring subjects. For those still wondering in school, no Indian poet has written as popularly about marigold, jasmine or the fiery mayflower...yet. If anyone out there knows of poems in any language of the world that tell endearingly about flowers, do share.  

Daffodils

By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

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(Article by Snehith Kumbla)