Random House Publications

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About a pile of laundry

There's a pile of unfolded clothes lying on an interesting piece of furniture, a fold-able mattress that can be packed into its own bag which can be closed securely with a zip that goes all around . The newly laundered clothes are just lying on top of this mattress , waiting to be folded. Given the track record in our house, this set of clothes will spend at least 5 more days in its current location . Much as I would love to just quickly fold them as soon as they are out of the washing machine , I have never been able to get to it sooner than 5 days after they've been lying there. It has become especially convenient to have a ready-made place for the exclusive use of heaping freshly laundered clothes. Previously they used to have to be thrown on the sofa and moved around every time we wanted to use the sofa(which as one imagines , is quite often). When the laundry had to be taken two floors down to the shared washing machines in the building of our previous rented apartment ,...

V S Naipaul's A Bend in the River

I first read about A Bend in the River from an interview of the former American President Obama . In that interview he talks about all the books he has read during his term as President and the ones he would recommend. He spoke of this as an important book . Also, the author VS Naipaul, a Nobel Laureate, has the reputation of being " the greatest living writer "(paraphrased from NYTimes). The other occasion that I had heard about this author was when his comments about female writers being inferior to male writers made front page news in The Hindu . His comments were made with pointed reference to Jane Austen, of whom I am a huge fan. Nevertheless I wanted to see for myself what the greatest living author wrote like. The short version of my verdict on Bend in the River is : it is quite brilliant. There is no long winded prose, no descriptions of the sights and scenes that make you want to stop reading to take a yawn break. The narrative is so simple and neat that it c...

George Eliot's Middlemarch

For these past few months , in the evenings after work and on major parts of the weekends, i have been traveling to 19th century England , to the provincial town of Middlemarch , by the enchanting words of George Eliot. I severely miss these trips now that i have finished reading this book . I wish i could say that I thoroughly enjoyed it from the very beginning. Far from it. The narrative was at first so ridiculously hard to follow, with sentences beginning at the top of a kindle page and seeming to end only at the corner of the next. The characters seemed ordinary and boring or "provincial", to borrow the more sophisticated word from the subtitle of the book - a study of provincial life. Romance as always has the quality to propel the most ordinary of stories forward. And in this epic we read about as many as three of them. The many small stories in this book are set in the times of the rich landed gentry who seemed to do absolutely no work other ...

A summer in Chennai, a long time ago

Summer this year is almost upon us as I write this. And of course it only seems hotter and hotter each year. When one lives in Chennai, one has to concede that the choice in weather is not varied. We get three, perhaps four months of pleasant weather when the Gods are kind. At other times its burning hot or blazing hot or fiery hot or sometimes a combination of the three. But the seasoned veterans, having survived many a Chennai summer would agree that it’s not nearly half as bad as these Bangaloreans claim it is. I often wistfully wonder what it would be like if the big bosses at my workplace decided to give the month of May off for everyone. Just like back in school. They would surely see a rise in productivity from this employee. But I don't think that's likely to happen even if one day the planet Mars crashes directly on to Chennai. Quite a lot of things have changed now besides the lack of summer vacations. When I was a school ki...

One Last Day

"How was your day?" ,I asked apprehensively . "It was exactly like any other" , replied my father. I was mildly surprised. There had to have been at least something different. This was to be his last day at work. He was retiring from active service that day after a long stint at Ashok Leyland. We were headed for the party his colleagues were throwing for him. We were driving there in his nice air conditioned car. This was a long cherished dream of his, owning a car . Back when I was in school, my father used to drop us , my brother and me on a two wheeler. I remember how excited our whole family became , when we progressed from a TVS champ with a baby seat attached at the front to a proper motor cycle , with four gears that had a fuel tank in the front that two small kids could sit on . He didn't know how to ride such a bike but he was confident that he could learn it. A small time mechanic from a nearby shop offered to teach him and pr...

The end of an era of love

It's a normal school day and I wake up at 7 am to the sound of my mother coaxing my brother and me to get up. She has better luck with me as my brother refuses to stir. I come down to the sound of Bombay jayashree singing 'kanden seethaiyai'. It's a warm day as usual and my parents are bustling about so as to allow my brother and me the luxury of a few more minutes of sleep. A tumbler filled with steaming hot Boost awaits me as I reluctantly make my way to the wash basin and the mass of tooth brushes. There are always more tooth brushes than there are people in my house. I methodically scan the bathroom entrance to see if there are any cockroaches visible to the naked eye. I'm relieved to find none. I make my way to the kitchen and pick up my tumbler. I carry it to the living room, sit myself down on the sofa and try to down the dreadful thing in one gulp. Somehow I spill it entirely on top of the sofa. The milk starts settling into the cushion. I fr...