Norse Mythology – Neil Gaiman

A delightful retelling of the Norse Mythology

This is my fourth book by Neil Gaiman the earlier three being American Gods, Stardust and Neverwhere. Gaiman is one of those few authors who can keep me engaged with the material for more than an hour. His tasteful use of the language to craft surprisingly simple prose in order to narrate interesting stories while consistently maintains the required tension is what I admire the most about his writing. Given this and the fact that I am a sucker for Mythologies of all kinds, “Norse Mythology” by Neil Gaiman was very difficult thing to resist.

In this book, Gaiman narrates the stories of the Norse Gods in his characteristic style. He narrates the events at the beginning of the time, of the creation of the Universe, of the principle characters. He tells us the story of how the primary gods got their weapons, how the Asgardians managed to build a wall for themselves while getting the Giants to pay for it (Trump’s inspiration perhaps!). He tells us about the apples of immortality whose theft resulted in Freyr’s father Njord getting a wife, of the time when Thor’s hammer went missing, and the incident where Thor and Loki were humbled. He also tells the story of how Odin managed to get the mead of poetry for the Gods and the one about a hole in Freyr’s heart which he was able to fill but at the cost of his powerful sword. These stories which narrated earlier in the book have an element of comedy in them and all of them have happy endings. Later on,Gaiman moves to narrate some of the darker stories, which is very much his forte. These include the stories of Balder’s death, of Loki’s imprisonment and finally of the impending Ragnarok which will see the death of several principle Gods and lay the foundations of a new beginning.

Is this book Norse Mythology reimagined ? Fortunately, the answer is No! Gaiman stays true to the source material the Prose and the Poetic Eddas. So it is a retelling of the Norse Mythology where the only liberties that Gaiman could afford to take were in the manner in which these stories were narrated.

I have often felt that when it comes to the literary works which are products of old culture, instead of trying to narrate them in a modern perspective, just retelling them using the modern narrative medium, be it in writing or the audio-visual medium, helps the reader in getting to know about those cultures far better than any re-imagination can.  Gaiman’s Norse Mythology  excels exactly in this aspect, which is why I would rate it 4.5/5

Natural Enmity: Reflections on the Niti and Rasa of the Pancatantra

A commentary on the Panchatantra that is free from alien ideological lenses.

Before coming to the book itself, something about author and his previous work which led me to purchasing the book.

I was introduced to Ashay Naik’s writings earlier this year in the wake of Rajiv Malhotra’s “Battle for Sanskrit”. He beautifully summarized the differences between the respected Shatavadhanin R Ganesh and Rajiv Malhotra approach to the Pollock problem.  Subsequently I have been reading his other articles on Swarajya and Indiafacts, and more recently through his excellent blog .

Ashay is an excellent writer. He has a formal training in Philosophy, especially Indian Philosophy. Furthermore, his knowledge of Sanskrit ensures that he can delve into the primary material as opposed to the dispensing opinions based on secondary sources.
Ashay has been working on a book on Panchatantra, which is an offshoot of his thesis, if I am not mistaken.

Now coming to the book itself: In the introduction, the author draws our attention to how the approach sought by the characters in Panchatantra is different from the Revolutionary approach that is encouraged by the Western narrative, both on the left and the right, that seeks to conceive an ideal (or normative) goal and employs various strategies to achieve this. As the author points out, as per these approaches, the dominant narrative is that the world is a problem which needs to be fixed. The solution envisioned is typically a Utopian one which promises to get rid of the problem once and for all. As opposed to this, the alternate view is that the no matter which order is sought to be imposed, it is always susceptible to corruption, thereby resulting in oppressors and oppressed. And hence, wisdom lies in working with the world to ensure that one does not get oppressed. Thus, the politics in Panchatantra, is not based on ideology but on kinship. And hence, the hierarchy of family, community, jAti, etc become relevant in this kind of a setting.

The second important distinction that the author highlights in the introduction pertains to the dominant values. The Modern world holds equality, political liberty and economic independence. Thus reading the text using this lens leads to two kinds of faults : 1) Critics cherry-picking instances from the story to highlight how the text deviates from the aforementioned triad of values. 2) Apologists trying to force-fit the narratives in Panchatantra to justify the triad. Both approaches fail to reveal to us what the text has to say about the various issues it aims to tackle. The author identifies an alternate conservative triad of values that characterize the world of Panchatantra, namely , social hierarchy, political despotism and kinship communities.

The readers of Panchatantra should be familiar with the main story involving the the bull Sanjivaka, the jackal Damanaka and the Lion King Pingalaka. As the story goes forth, each character illustrates a nIti related point using an allegorical story. In this commentary, the author devotes the first half entirely to the main story arc and tackles the stories within the main story in the second half. I found this approach to be very useful since the context remains intact and helps us follow the author’s commentary better. The writing is smooth, and the author touches upon situations from day-to-day lives to explain a certain concept better.

The second half is devoted to the various stories that are told by the characters within the main story. Each of these stories can be independently read and there’s something to understand for the lay reader. One can read these portions in any order. Personally I liked the commentary on two stories “Gorabha and Dantila” and “The Ascetic, the Jackal and the Bawd”. Both these stories bring out a refreshing perspective with respect to the view of the Ancient texts on strI charitra. This is another instance where the author highlights the importance of approaching classics such as the Panchatantra bereft of various ideological lenses such as libertarianism, feminism etc that are in vogue today. Thus rather than be an apologist for the narratives, the author tackles these issue head-on in a bold and unabashed manner.

The book is not only about nIti, but also about illustrating the rasa that can be found in the Panchatantra. The narrative itself uses several allegorical stories, but it is abound with similes and metaphors, some of which have entered into our day-to-day speech in the form of aphorisms/gAde-mAtu/muhAvraas. The author does a good job of commenting upon these without spoiling it for the reader by over-dissecting them.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wishes to understand Panchatantra for what it says rather that what we would like it to say.

Communal Festivals and Rituals

Even today, I know several people born and brought up in my hometown Karkala, but currently working elsewhere, who will give anything to attend Karkala Karthikpunnav or Teru. These people plan their leaves for these occasions well in advance. One such person even threatened to resign from his post in the bank if he was not granted leave for these days. The rest of us, who cannot muster the gall to issue such threats end up becoming very distraught when we cannot attend these two festivals. Some of those who couldn’t attend these festivals in person claim that they could feel the sound of the temple bells ringing in their ears. This was particularly true of an uncle of mine who was serving in the army far away up north!

Why was there such a strong pull when it comes to these events ? What was so special about them ? Was it about meeting old friends ? Not really. One can meet them even otherwise. Was it about getting a glimpse of the devatAs? Perhaps not, since one can go to the temple anytime of the year and still find devatA there.

The key attraction in these festivals was the whole community in the town coming out and celebrating in unison. Taking part in elaborate rituals, chanting the Bahuparaaks, wearing the traditional clothes to serve the devAs and the bhaktAs, the fun and frolic that one has on the avabhRita day, singing and dancing while bringing our deva back to the temple from the avabhrita snAna – these are experiences one enjoys when performed communally. The feeling is hard to describe, for it involves transcending the mundane and experiencing the sublime. I am sure, this is the same feeling anyone who attends their Uru jAtre experiences.

Sadly, in the modern times, religion has been shoved into the private quarters. This is mostly a side effect of Reformation, which aggressively made religion a private affair. The modern secular capitalistic world that we live today is an ideological offspring of the Reformation. Hence there is not much surprise that in the modern world, there is a severe reduction (and in some places total elimination) of the traditional communal rituals which have been a part of every civilization so far.

It is not that rituals have died out. In fact rituals won’t die out since they have evolutionary aspect which has helped in the survival of humans in groups. The modern research show that even other primates such as the Chimps have rituals. So, the capacity and the need for rituals is not going away anytime soon. Instead we shall have modern rituals: After all, the flag-hoisting ceremony, the Parades are modern variants of ancient rituals. Except that they don’t seem to have the same kind of effect that the traditional ones, which evolved over centuries, have on the insiders belonging to the tradition.

Thus, to paraphrase a quote from Ashay Naik’s excellent blogpost on the theory of polytheism, the modern Hindu who quotes Tagore and derides rituals in favor of private worship is missing this crucial point that the heart of the primary religions such as Hinduism, Shintoism, Greek, Roman, Norse, Inca, Mayan, Native American Pagan   religions, lies not in theology or abstract philosophy, but in the performance of rituals. No amount of “belief” can replace the experience one gets through these rituals. By this, I do not mean to say that theology or abstract philosophy is not important to primary religions, but there is a hierarchy of importance, and in in that hierarchy, rituals have always occupied a higher position. The counter-religions based on Mosaic Distinction understand this extremely very well. This is why when Rome was taken over by the adherents of the counter-religion, i.e Christianity, the first thing these christian ruler  banned were the public rituals, including the famed Olympics.

It is in this light that one must view the recent bans passed by the secular government/courts on public events/rituals Jallikattu, Pashu Bali, and the restrictions imposed on public festivals such Dahi-Handi. This is the key reason why the secular government takes over the control of the temples. Let me be clear – I don’t think that the secular govt or the court is doing this out of any conscious hatred towards Hindus. However, since secularism is an offspring of reformation , the metaphysics and the ethics of the secularism will not exhibit any tolerance for public rituals. For a similar reason, this time due another variant of the reformation called cultural Marxism, we saw an agitation that wants to encroach into traditional religious spaces such as Sabarimala in the name of equality for all. Hence modernity’s indoctrination and the derision of rituals as primitive superstitions, or wasteful extravaganzas doesn’t come as a surprise.

The importance of public rituals was not lost on early Hindu nationalists such as the venerable BAlaga~NgAdhara tiLaka. The public Ganeshotsava celebrations which he instated played a crucial part in building communal unity.  In the mahArAStra country, this festival is celebrated with great pomp and show like it should be. Public rituals always involved an element of fun, extravagance and mirth in them. They were not sad mechanical affairs like that dreadful modern ritual called the “convocation ceremony” where even the statements uttered on the dias sound more artificial than anything that is made in China. Contrast this with the ancient samAvartana ceremony where the brahmachArins take a ritual bath, anoint their bodies with fragrant sandalwood paste, wear new robes, and pay a visit to a learned assembly in a chariot or an elephant where the brahmachArin is introduced to the vidvad-sabha as a full fledged scholar.

Even the modern people yearn for public rituals. This is the reason why Halloween, the Easter Day parade, the New Year’s Ball attract so many people. After all, the Kiss on the New-year’s eve as the Ball drops, is just another modern ritual.This is the reason why the uprooted modern youth in bhArata’s cities seek to transplant Valentine’s day, which itself is a Christian appropriation of an ancient Pagan Festival, into the Indian ethos.  Had we Hindus continued celebrating madanOtsava, there wouldn’t have existed any need for importing an alien festival. And while the modern Hindus mock the celebration of Holi with various reason (waste of water, color harms skin, color harms animals), the fact that they wanted to indulge in the la-tomatina festival shows how deep is the yearning for such public rituals. Their deracination has only resulted in hatred for the traditional rituals, but it hasn’t uprooted the yearning for rituals as such.

And there-in lies a very important lessons for all modern Hindus. By allowing others to encroach into our ritual space, either via legislation or via indoctrination, if we believe that we are helping to usher a superstition-free ritual-free society , we are mistaken. We would have only helped clear the space for some other rituals to take root, thereby voluntarily ceding space for another culture, another civilization. Nature abhors vacuum, and however much we want to imagine that humans are special and apart from the nature, we cannot escape the eternal truth about how embedded within nature humans are. Our elders knew this. Hence, the elders fought tooth and nail to preserve their way of life which is aligned with nature. We modern Hindus owe our existence and our prosperity to our ancestors way of life and their wisdom. And we might hate to admit it, but we do bear the burden of passing on their way of life to the future generation, for we are merely the custodians and not the consumer of the fruits of our elders’ wisdom. Hence, if anything we should be celebrating our festivals, our rituals with greater pomp and seek to please the devAs with more steadfastness instead of whining about extravagance.

Should we fail to understand this lesson and give up our rituals in the name of modernity, our fate and more importantly the fate of our future generations, as the 20th century sage DV Gundappa points out in his immortal words, will be like that of the blind and the lame whose old house is now demolished by modernity. We may not have a perfect vision about life, nor have gone places with these rituals, but at least the rituals provided us with comfort, and gave us the experience in which we could get a glimpse of something more sublime. These rituals made our lives more bearable. By snatching away the only thing which we have, with no suitable alternative to offer, what good does modernity promise to bestow upon us ?

ಹಳೆಯ ಭಕ್ತಿಶ್ರದ್ಧೆಯಳಿಸಿಹೋಗಿವೆ ಮಾಸಿ ।
ಸುಳಿದಿಲ್ಲವಾವ ಹೊಸ ದರ್ಶನದ ಹೊಳಪುಂ ।।
ಪಳಗಿದ್ದ ಮನೆಬಿದ್ದ ಕುಂಟ ಕುರುಡನ ತೆರದಿ ।
ತಳಮಳಿಸುತಿದೆ ಲೋಕ —— ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ ।।

Credits: Thanks to @kshetragnya and @orsoriggiante for enlightening me on the fact that Cultural Marxism and Secularism were extensions of the age old theme of Mosaic Distinction.

And thanks to this wonderful video from the School of life which triggered the thought chain leading to this blog-post.

 

Update 1 : Joseph Campbell on what happens when a civilization loses Mythology and Rituals ?

Update 2: Do read my friend Hariprasad N’s blog where he explains how festivals are the latches that open the door to Moksha

Review: Ten Kings by Ashok Banker

A very fertile land ruled by an able righteous ruler attracts the envy of the other clans of his own tribe. These other clans plot the ruler’s downfall by forming some sort of a Mahagathbandan. The other clans in the tribe are 9 in number. The combined forces of 9 attack 1 and the 1 not only survives the attack but decimates the 9.

This is the famous story of the Dasharajna, or the battle of 10 kings that is recorded in the Rig Veda. The 9 bhArata clans comprising of Alina, Anu, Druhyu, Puru, Bhrigu,  Matsya, Bhalanas, Parsu and Pani guided by the Bharata preceptor Vishwamitra attack the Trtsu king Sudas who is guided by Vashistha. Mandala 7 of the Rigveda describes how the battle was won when Vashistha summons Indra and Varuna to Sudas’s aid, and how the 9 kings get defeated owing to the combined wrath of Indra and Varuna. This is the topic that Ashok Banker tries to recreate in his “Ten Kings”.

Ashok Banker is famous for his re-interpretation of the Ramayana. I had read half of the first book  of that series titled “The prince of Ayodhya” (TPOA) and found the writing to be aweful.  The plot was really lame. That was one of the few books that I gave up midway.  As an aside, I haven’t attempted to read Amish’s “Scion of Ikshvaku” primary because of being scarred by the TPOA experience. Anyway, given this rather bad prior experience, I approached “Ten Kings” with some hesitation. But since this was the only available fictional account of the Vedic age battle, I decided to give it a try and bought the book.

I found the writing to be much better than TPOA. The characters in this book were far more realistic than the earlier one. There were a few jarring notes in the form of anachronistic dialogue that were to be found here and there. For example, one wouldn’t expect a nurse to be called as “dai-ma” during the Vedic times especially when father and mother were being referred to as “pitr” and “matr” respectively. There were also a few characters who seemed slightly out of place (or time!). But apart from these minor inconveniences the book was rather good and was able to hold my attention such that I could read through the entire thing in half a day. I wasn’t really expecting to get a feel for the Vedic way of life in this book like I would have from an author like Devudu. So I wasn’t disappointed on that front.

Coming to the main theme of the book, Banker’s description of how Vashitha’s intellect coupled with Sudasa’s battle strategy won them the war is very believable. His rationalization of how Indra and Varuna came to the aid of Sudasa has a nice touch to it. The motivation for the 9 clans to unite against Sudasa has also been explained well. These are things that are missing from the Rig Veda narrative, so it was good to see Banker fill these gaps in a coherant manner.

The book looks to be the first in a series of books that talks about the Harappa and the Mohenjadaro civilization. So this book literally lays the foundation for the series.

I will rate the book at 3.5 out of 5 and recommend it to anyone who would be interested in this fascinating story of the battle of 10 kings.

Description of Read-Copy-Update by Steven Rostedt

From http://lwn.net/Articles/545752/

< system in single state : everyone sees cat == alive >

	insert_into_box(cat);

	< system in dual state : new calls see cat == dead, but
	  current calls see cat == alive >

	open_box();

	< system is back to single state: everyone sees cat = dead >

	funeral(cat);

Wondering if I can reuse this to describe “Eventual Consistency”. The challenge would be to succinctly describe the

 <system in multiple states>

part I guess.

Happy New Year 2013

One more year goes by, a new one arrives. It might be just another day, when the sun rose  the same way, as it has on days that came before. But we humans love to play, the game of life so we say, “Happy New Year” to those we care for.

This year, some of us will be exploring newer paths, some others will be continuing their journey on the paths they’ve already chosen. The travellers of the past have said that the destination is not important, one has to enjoy the journey. Of course, there will be uncertainties and there will be surprises all along this journey. We will encounter unknown travellers and some of our old companions will choose to go separate ways. But when any of this will happen, with certainty none can say.

So, to keep you company in your journey here’s a nice bouquet of verses from one of the illustrious voices of romantic hindi poetry, Harivansh Rai Bachchan. It’s called “पथ की पहचान”.  Wish you all a very happy new year!!

पूर्व चलने के बटोही बाट की पहचान कर ले।

पुस्तकों में है नही
छापी गई इसकी कहानी
हाल इसका ज्ञात होता
है न औरों की ज़बानी

अनगिनत राही गए
इस राह से उनका पता क्या
पर गए कुछ लोग इस पर
छोड पैरौं की निशानी

यह निशानी मूक होकर
भी बहुत कुछ बोलती है
खोल इसका अर्थ पंथी
पंथ का अनुमान कर ले।

पूर्व चलने के बटोही बाट की पहचान कर ले।

यह बुरा है या कि अच्छा
व्यर्थ दिन इस पर बिताना
अब असंभव छोड़ यह पथ
दूसरे पर पग बढ़ाना

तू इसे अच्छा समझ
यात्रा सरल इससे बनेगी
सोंच मत केवल तुझे ही
यह पड़ा मन में बिठाना

हर सफल पंथी यही
विश्वास ले इस पर बढ़ा है
तू इसी पर आज अपने
चित का अवधान कर ले।

पूर्व चलने के बटोही बाट की पहचान करले।

है अनिश्चित किस जगह पर
सरित गिरि गहवर मिलेंगें
है अनिश्चित किस जगह पर
बाग बन सुंदर मिलेंगे।

किस जगह यात्रा खतम हो
जाएगी यह भी अनिश्चित
है अनिश्चित कब सुमन कब
कंटकों के शर मिलेंगे

कौन सहसा छूट जाएँगे
मिलेंगे कौन सहसा
आ पड़े कुछ भी रुकेगा
तू न ऐसी आन कर ले।

पूर्व चलने के बटोही बाट की पहचान कर ले।

 

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,500 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Dabangg 2: A Review

Rarely does one come across characters in Hindi cinema which make a mark in the minds of the audience by their mannerisms or dialogues. And when that happens it opens up a window of opportunity for a movie franchise in which you get to see those interesting characters in action again. However, not all opportunities translate into successes. For instance,  the combination of Munnabhai and Circuit was blessed by the audience as well as the critics, but harsher fate awaited Shyam, Raju and Babubhai from the “Hera Pheri” franchise.

Chulbul Pandey is one such character which has managed to draw the audience from their drawing rooms into the movie halls in recent times. The kind-hearted but corrupt cop sporting a pencil thin mustache, whose sunglasses hang from the back of his collar when he give a killer look was loved by the masses. The movie brought back the “good cop” genre and inspired a couple of similar movies where a police officer takes on some evil politician/zamindar. Ajay Devgn’s “Singham” and Akshay Kumar’s “Rowdy Rathore” are two examples of this. The success of Munni resulted in the audience being bombarded with other item numbers involving names such as Sheila, Chameli and Shalu. Dabangg, the first movie was a trend re-setter in this sense. It gave the single screen audiences something to cheer about. In times when everyone was making multi-starrers, the success of Dabangg breathed new life into the single-hero genre.

Dabangg 2 opens with a marquee of still-images from the first movie as the introductory credit rolls. The sequence where Chulbul Pandey is introduced is also very similar to the one in the first movie. In fact one of the characters says it aloud “Is baar sahab yahaan se nahin, peeche se aayenge”. And we see a police jeep break through a brick wall with Chulbul Pandey jumping out of it, grabbing hold of an iron chain to descend amidst the bad guys (the sanskrit term for this is avataraNa) and single handedly beat them to pulp. You might enjoy this scene appreciating the hat-tip to the first movie (and also The Matrix reloaded but we shall not go there). However, your enjoyment won’t last long when it dawns upon you that the entire movie is filled with such hat-tips which are not even subtle. The supporting cast which includes Vinod Khanna as Pandey’s father, Arbaaz Khan as the younger brother Mandbuddhi Makhhanlal Pandey, Mahi Gill in a blink-and-thou-shalt-miss role as his wife and the two constables who play Dubeyji and Tiwariji does a good job of what was expected of them – to ram these nostalgic moments into the minds of the audience. Sonakshi Sinha shines as Mrs Pandeyji in scenes when she’s not serving food or hanging clothes to dry. Those scenes include the two songs (“Dagabaaz re”, “Saanson Ne”) both of which are nicely pictured. Salman Khan does his usual thing. The common complaint I have with all these actors is that their portrayal appeared a bit lazy.

Now, any good movie which attempts to entertain the audience through the deification of the main character requires the presence of a strong negative character. In the first movie Chulbul’s father, Makhi ended up becoming unintentional villians who kept the tension alive for most part of the movie and the main antagonist Chedhi Singh played by Sonu Sood was brilliant. He was wacky, audacious and a perfect foil for Chulbul. In the second movie, with an actor like Prakash Raj (just check his roles in Wanted and Singham), you would expect something even better right ? This is where you experience the second let down. The character of Baccha Singh essayed by Prakash Raj is so forgettable that I thought I was suffering from Ghajni’s symptoms while watching his scenes. Unlike Chedhi Singh, Baccha Singh is neither funny, nor is he scary. He’s just a shadow of Jayakanth Shikre, except that it’s a shadow cast inside a dark room. The character is so poorly defined that the audience has no clue regarding what make him tick. There are a couple of sequences where he appeals to his brothers to use their brains instead of brawn to tackle Chulbul Pandey, but that’s just talk. We don’t see this translate into any strategising apart from the one scene where he calls a media conference to congratulate Chulbul Pandey for getting rid of a gangster who happened to be his brother. But nothing came out of this, since a couple of scenes later he just gives in to his other brother’s taunts and decides to clash with Chulbul Pandey head-on thereby announcing the climax of the movie. And the climax falls flat. There’s no build up. It was like watching the Australian innings in the finals of the 1999 world cup after Pakistan’s abysmal performance. Chulbul Pandey , as usual , enters the scene in his jeep on which probably more than hundreds of bullets are fired. As expected, nothing happens. He kicks open the jeep door and in a matter of minutes every body is lying on the ground. And as if justifying this sort of a “thanda” and a hurried ending, Chulbul Pandey says something to the effect of “If all the time is spent on goons like him, when will we get time to handle the others”. Dude! That’s an unforgivable excuse. We didn’t come to see a documentary on the number of villians who chauffeured into the hell by Chulbul Pandey but a larger than life clash between Chulbul Pandey and some ferociously evil character!

Another problem with the movie is the presence of too many songs, many of which are simply forced into the narrative. I’m sorry, but while “Munni Badnaam” was entertaining, the “Fevicol” song was outright crass. Some of my friends thought that the song was the only saving grace in the movie, but I beg to differ. No grace was saved anywhere in the movie.

The movie has a few entertaining moments, but nothing memorable. It seems that in one of the interviews Salman Khan said that if Dabangg 2 doesn’t work, then it’s an end of Arbaaz Khan as a director. It looks like that’s going to be the case. The movie might make it’s money, might even make it to “100-crore” club (it’s not an exclusive club any more), but I’ve seen even hard-core Salman Khan fans express their dissatisfaction with the movie.

Dabangg ended with a bang, but Dabangg 2 just quietly disappears from the view.

Life of Pi: The movie

A ship sinks in the ocean. A boy survives the shipwreck and manages to safely reach the Mexican shore. When he’s found by the locals on the shore, he’s all alone, next to a small boat. Everyone is curious to know how did he manage to survive for that long (the book says 227 days). Chuck Noland (the character played by Tom Hanks in Cast Away) was also a survivor, but he waited on the land till he could find enough material to construct a raft before he entered the sea, sailing on that raft of hope. Hemingway’s old man might have survived the fight with the marlin in the the sea, but he was a fisherman who knew the waters as well as Shah Rukh Khan knows to spread his arms apart while professing love. But in our story, the boy Pi had neither the comfort of the shore, nor was he an expert sailor. And yet he survives.

A curious writer comes to Canada to meet a grown up Pi (played with elan by Irrfan Khan, who has emerged as default choice for Hollywood for playing characters of Indian origin) on the advice of Pi’s swimming teacher who promises the writer that Pi’s story will make him believe in God. Pi (short for Piscene Molitor Patel, named after a french swimming pool) makes no such promises, but narrates the story nevertheless.

The audience gets to see his younger days in Pondicherry amidst a strict, rationalist (and an atheist, but that goes without saying) father who’s a Zoo keeper and a botanist mother who is very religious. He describes his encounters with the three religions Hinduism, Christianity and Islam and how he manages to reconcile them and bring them under the umbrella of his belief. He narrates his encounter with the ferocious Richard Parker, the royal bengal tiger in his father’s zoo. Change in the town’s priorities forces his father to make a move to Canada with all their animals. While they are in the ocean on a Japanese cargo ship carrying the animals, a storm breaks out and the ship drowns along with most of its inmates. Pi survives in a small boat. The next day he realizes that he’s not alone on the boat. He tells the writer that along with him, there was a zebra which had broken it’s leg, an Orangutan which floated on a bunch of bananas before climbing the boat, and there was a hyena. What happens next, is anybody’s guess. The hyena first attacks the injured Zebra and kills it. Next, it comes for the Orangutan. The Orangutan fights back first, but the hyena’s next attack proves fatal. Pi, could do little to save either of them since he was busy saving himself by hanging on to the stern of the boat. And then, in one of the  best 3D-scenes I have seen so far, we see a tiger jump out from the part of the boat that was covered by a tarp onto the hyena to make short work of it. And after this, the two unlikely companions fight it out to survive in the middle of the ocean. Pi has to learn to show Richard Parker, the tiger that he is the boss around while also rationing his supply of biscuits and fresh water and writing his story to keep his mind occupied. The remainder of the film for most part focusses on this power struggle between the Pi and the tiger and how Pi finally manages to subdue the tiger. They weather a storm, a mysterious carnivorous island before they reach the Mexican shore. Once there,  Pi falls flat on the sand exhausted, but Richard parker leaps forward and enters the Mexican jungle. What disappoints Pi, and even breaks his heart was the fact that Richard Parker didn’t even look back (No Nana Patekar to say “palat”!). There were no formal goodbyes exchanged, no tears shed, not moment paused to mark the end of their momentous journey.  That, he say, left a void in his heart.

The Japanese shipping company which owned that unlucky ship wanted to know the cause for the shipwreck. When Pi narrates his story to the officials from the shipping company, they do not believe in it since there were elements in the story which were implausible. They ask him for a story that was more plausible. So Pi tells them another story: The one where he survived the shipwreck along with 3 other people. A sailor who had injured his leg, his own mother and the cook from the ship. He said that the cook was a savage who killed the injured sailor in the pretext of easing his pain. He used the meat from the dead sailor’s body to catch the fish. Then one day, he tried attacking Pi’s mother. She fought off the attack, but he came back and killed her. There was nothing Pi could do to save her. He brooded over her death. He was afraid for his own life. And then, he couldn’t control himself any longer. He killed the cook. He hated the cook, not because he was such a cruel man, but he brought out the cruelty in Pi which forced him to commit murder.

Thus, those Japanese officials, the writer and the audience have now been told two stories, neither of which can be verified, since there’s no other witness. We have to rely on our narrator who, we know may not be reliable. But both of stories provide an explanation for the time between the event when Pi survived the shipwreck and the event when he landed on the Mexican shore. Hence,  it was up to these people to make up their minds and decide for themselves which story they chose to believe in. When Pi asks the writer which story would he believe in, the writer picks the story with the tiger since that’s a better story. We see that even officials from the shipping company mention the the story with the tiger in their report. Pi just smiles and introduces the writer to his family and the credits begin to roll.

The film is a visual treat. The effects that you get to see as a part of Pi’s survival in the ocean are so much larger than life. In fact some of them border on realm of surrealism. Suraj Sharma does a fine job as the young Pi. The tiger which was digitally created is ferocious, but at the same time there are moments when you empathize with the beast. However, if the director intended to stay true to the premise of the book which was to make you believe in God, I have to say that he failed.  The final question which Pi asks the writer after narrating two stories  is also a question that’s posed to us, the audience. Which story would we believe in ? The one with elements of fantasy, hope, courage, or the other which showcases human brutality in the face of hardship?  The first one didn’t give us any chance to create a mental picture of what happened since the director did the job for us. The second one, we had a chance to do so. But in the case of the writer and those officials, they had to imagine both the events themselves based on Pi’s narration before they could make a choice.  The writer in the movie might have chosen to believe in the first one because Pi’s survival for 227 days was an extraordinary feat and the writer  might have wanted to associate the best aspects of humanity with this survival incident, instead of it’s worst face. However, when we are posed with the same question, the answer has been rigged for us by the director. There is no way we can answer this in a fair manner. For me, the scene were Pi asks the writer which story he believes in was the weakest scene in the whole movie since I felt detached when this scene played onscreen. This scene fell flat when it was supposed to be the scene which would make the audience think.

When I finished reading the book back in 2007, the thing that moved me was the thought that the tiger could be interpreted as the animal spirit which is present in each of us which emerges in the face of  hardships. In the context of Pi’s survival, the animal spirt was very much required,  but if it was not tamed, if it was not controlled, it could also wreak havoc on his personality. What if Pi did survive, but lost his innocence in the process, would he be the same person who survived the shipwreck ? Hence the greatness of the story is not that a boy survived, but that he survived while keeping the best part of him intact – his human aspects. His struggle with the tiger was his struggle with his own irrational animal spirit. That he succeeded to bring about a reconciliation between these two aspects of his personality is no accident, since even as a kid, he managed to successfully reconcile and incorporate aspects from three different religions into his belief system. Once they reached the shore, the animal spirit went back into the jungle (from whence it came) since it was no longer required. Pi felt disappointed since the spirit never looked back, and he could not say a formal goodbye. Perhaps not saying goodbye made Pi uncomfortable since it meant that the animal spirit could return anytime. What if his victory over it was just temporary? Thus there was lot of room for doubt, which as he says, keeps faith alive. When the officials chooses the story with the tiger over the other story, Pi says “and so it goes with God”. Because the stories involving God or the supernatural may not be plausible and there might be more realistic explanations. But are they as interesting? When no story can satisfactorily explain the reasons for our troubles,  just like how neither of two stories could explain what caused the shipwreck, why not believe in the more interesting one? This is what those officials from the Japanese shipping company did.

The reason why the book works so well is that it gives us ample opportunity to ponder on  the things that were hinted at but were left unsaid. These things were lot more fascinating than the details that were narrated. However, in the movie, we are so enamoured by the visual aspects that we miss out on these hinted at, but unsaid things. When the credits roll, the image that remains with us is that of the great blue whale diving out from the ocean floor that’s  beautifully lit up by the bioluminescent aquatic life. And it is as if the director hopes that this beautiful spectacle reminds us and makes us believe in the glory of God.

American Gods

Last semester, I restarted reading fiction after a gap of two years. I managed to finish George R R Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” (the five books in the series that have been published so far) in a span of two months and thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted to write a post on the series as soon as I finished it, but couldn’t get to doing that. Now, I think I’ll have to re-read some portions if I have to write about the series it, since apart from Tyrion’s brilliances and Arya’s adventures, I am unable to recollect the other finer aspects that I remember discussing with some of the readers of the series from my college. I don’t want “American Gods” to suffer the same fate. Hence this post!

American Gods, my first Neil Gaiman novel, is based on an interesting premise; that the Gods, or the manifestations of Gods exist because we believe in them. As opposed to the Biblical theme of “God made man in his own image”, in Gaiman’s book, it’s the men who make the gods (in their own image or otherwise) and they feed the gods through their faith, beliefs, offerings and sacrifices. Thus, some gods thrive while the others are forgotten and cast into the oblivion. When various settlers travelled to the new world, they brought along with them their beliefs and kept these beliefs alive by continuing the religious practices in the new land. Thus were born the american manifestations of the gods from all over the world. We meet an American Odin who likes to wear suits and swigs Jack Daniels (he might have as well called it John Daniels since he knows it quite well!) and doesn’t miss a chance to pull a con. We also encounter an Irish leprechaun named Mad Sweeney who (surprise!) can pull out gold coins from “the sun’s treasure hoard which is there in the moments when the world makes rainbow”, a trickster and a story teller named Mr Nancy, who likes his cigarillos as well as his stories, Kali who is called “mama-ji” by everyone (the “mama” part refers to mother here, and not uncle!), an American Loki, and several others. While these Gods do share the characteristics of the manifestations that were originally imagined by the people in their homelands, they have also developed distinct features that differentiate them from their original counterparts. In some sense, these features make them American. Similarly, in the older world there were places which were  “somehow special. [In these places] there was some focussing point, some channel, some window to Immanent. So they would build temples, or cathedrals, or erect stone circles.” However, in America even though every town and sometimes every block might have a church, they were as significant in this context as dentists offices. For in America,  such a special thing was felt in places where there were roadside attractions and amusement parks. And people felt pulled towards such places. And these are the places where American Gods hang out!

The audience is introduced to the story through a character who’s called Shadow (who was quite puny as a kid, but latter grew on to become a big man!) who has been released from prison after he served his term. When comes out of the jail, he realizes that he has lost everything that he once had. His wife was killed in a car accident the day before his release. She was in the car with his best friend (who was also his employer) who was also killed. Thus, with no family or job, when he sets off to go home to say his goodbyes, he meets Mr Wednesday who makes him an interesting  offer: an employment opportunity to serve him as his personal bodyguard for the mission that he is about to undertake. Wednesday seems to know everything about Shadow and also manages to turn up in places where Shadow wouldn’t expect him to. Shadow finally gives in and accepts Wednesday’s offer. In the course of time, he meets interesting characters including Mr Czernbog, the Zorya sisters, Mr Nancy, Mr Ibis, Mr Jacquel, Mr Hinzelmann among others. He realizes that all these are older gods who have now grown weaker since the people who imagined them, who brought them over to America, who believe in them and their stories have gradually decreased in numbers. And he also meets newer Gods such as the techno-kid, the media, the black-hats which have gotten empowered in very little time. While the old-gods, led by Mr Wednesday are worried for their survival, the newer gods have their own insecurities in the rapidly changing American landscape. And they all are fighting for a place in the minds and the hearts of the American people. Thus the stage is set for a epic showdown between the old and the new, the spiritual and the material, the good and the evil, or so it seems. Both sides are busy inducting new members into their camps in the view of of the imminent fight.  From time to time, Wednesday enlists Shadow’s help when he goes on these recruitment trips.

When he’s not on duty, Shadow is busy dealing with the ghosts from his past.  He has these weird visions and dreams that he keeps getting from time to time, but unfortunately make very little sense to him (or to us!). His employer Mr Wednesday plays his cards close to his chest and hence it’s not quite clear to him how he fit in the bigger picture. All these things are clarified towards the end when it become known why Shadow was chosen for the job in the first place.

Apart from these two story arcs, there are independent chapters which talk about how the gods might have arrived in America in the first place.
These include the stories about the arrival of the Gods from the Norse pantheon, the Pixies and the Leprechauns, Elegba and Mawu.

The “recruitment drive for the impending war” is an interesting framing device that gives the author ample scope to introduce us to the american manifestations of various Gods. I really enjoyed the portions where Gaiman introduces us to these american manifestations. However, I found Shadow’s portions to be a bit too slow since they were not really contributing much to the main arc nor to the final portion when the story arcs meet.  That said, I found Shadow’s dreams to be interesting and frightening at the same time. Some of them were so vivid that in fact I had nightmares involving some of those elements the night I read those portions. I liked the final portions of the book where we understand what triggered the showdown, the significance of the coin-tricks that Shadow keeps practicing throughout the book, and the thing that gives some gods their powers. We also get a hint about who Shadow might really be (since we are never told his “real” name anywhere in the book).

Regarding the Gods of Indian xorigin,  Kali (aka mama-ji) is the only deity who appears more than once in the story. I suspect that the only Indians whom Gaiman must have encountered in America must have been the bongs!!  We also get to see an elephant-headed pot-bellied God who rides on a mouse removes the obstacles, in one of Shadow’s hallucinations. There’s a passing reference to Kubera, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in some place. Some speculate that the forgotten god that Wednesday and Shadow meet in Vegas is Budha or Mercury but Gaiman hasn’t commented on that one.

Final word: Interesting book which I would recommend if you like this kind of stuff. I would rate it at 3 on a scale of 5.