Today’s prompt asks me to write about something spooky and mysterious. I have chosen to write a haiku about an experience I had today.
Floating Faeces
Cannot understand
how people use the washroom,
and fail in flushing.
Month: April 2019
The Red-Haired Woman | Orhan Pamuk
The Red-Haired Woman,
by Orhan Pamuk,
Published by Knopf (2017)
Rating: ****
I had a hard time getting into this book. But when I did, I found that I enjoyed it more than I’ve enjoyed reading other novels Pamuk has written. The book’s appeal probably also lies in the fact that it is one of his shorter works.
The story falls into three parts, each of which is quite distinct.
The first part is both the simplest and the easiest to like. The narrator Cem tells of a job he took after his father, who was involved in a left wing group, had disappeared and before his university entrance exams. This involved working as an apprentice to a traditional well-digger. The story describes the process of well-digging and Cem’s relationship with his master, a father figure who tells him stories. Cem becomes obsessed with the red-haired woman of the title, and eventually discovers that she works in a travelling theatre with her husband. This part comes to a dramatic conclusion.
In the second part ,the older narrator continues the story and describes his progression, first in marrying, then by running a company that invests in developing new suburbs of Istanbul, one of which is the town in which the first part is set. The company becomes very successful, Cem discovers that his master survived and succeeded in finding water and completing the well, and that the red-haired woman was a former lover of his father, and the son of the red-haired woman claims that Cem is his father. This story also builds to a dramatic confrontation in which Cem is led by a man claiming to be his son’s friend to see the well, eventually revealing himself as the son, leading to a fight in which Cem’s gun is fired. So if the first part paralleled Oedipus, this is closer to Rostam and Sohrab.
The third part is related by the red-haired woman, which made for an interesting change of perspective. The son is in prison accused of Cem’s murder, and she visits him and tells him her story and Cem’s. She encourages him to write his father’s story, which explains how the first two parts came to be written.
This is a book meant for an introduction into the world of Orhan Pamuk. It is reflective of everything associated with his writing: a depth of plot, complex characters, intriguing perspectives, and so much more. It’s also reflective of my biggest criticism of Pamuk – that he tries to do too much. There are parts here which feel forced, and unnecessary, as with several other works of his. As a result, it’s a perfect introduction, and good material to assess whether or not you’ll enjoy reading Orhan Pamuk.
Silent House | Orhan Pamuk
Silent House,
by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Robert Finn
Published by Knopf (2012)
Rating: ****
Perhaps one of Pamuk’s most politically-charged works, Silent House is a really, really good read. The novel takes place against the backdrop of the military coup of 1980, and provides an opportunity to understand the relationship between Turkey’s political and military establishment through the experience of the common-man.
The plot is this. The Darvinoglu family gathers for its annual reunion at the crumbling ancestral mansion in the resort town of Cennethisar, near Istanbul. Into the mix of clashing personalities, gossip, plans and barely buried grudges that are usually part of such reunions, this book adds debates over religion, Turkey’s divided feelings about belonging to Europe or the Middle East, and hints of the looming coup. The national schism is dramatically personified in Hasan, the illegitimate teenage grandson of the family patriarch, Selahattin. Frustrated by his poverty and flunking out of school, Hasan tries to curry favour with an ultra-nationalist vigilante group, while at the same time stalking Nilgün, the beautiful, cheerful, communist-leaning granddaughter.
The book explores Turkey like none of Pamuk’s other works do – by providing insight into how families operate in such a confusing atmosphere. It provides explanations to thought patterns of the right-wing and the extremists, as well as to the understanding of Turkish culture that the centrists and the left-wing holds.
What is particularly enjoyable is the writing style, with each of the characters in the Darvinoglu family getting their own first-person perspective, which allows you to shift between the experiences of each of them individually, and the family as a collective.
This is a good book. There’s no more commentary I would like to offer. It is insightful, engaging, and fast – and worth reading.
The Museum of Innocence | Orhan Pamuk
The Museum of Innocence,
by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely
Published by Knopf (2009)
Rating: ***
This is a love story about an engaged man who has an affair with a girl he meets. Over the course of the novel, he deals with detachment from the affair – since his lover flees, reconnecting with his lover, and then detachment once more, as they get separated forever. It’s a really simple plot, woven together with an intensity of prose that only Pamuk is capable of. As I set the book down, it felt like I had finished reading the diary of one of my closest friends. This is the overwhelming nature of Pamuk’s writing. He makes you feel like you’ve just understood everything about another person – his protagonist.
It’s setting is very different from his other books. Several of Pamuk’s previous attempts concentrate on understanding and depicting Turkey by providing the perspective of an outsider, or rather, an individual navigating through its various faces. Here, Pamuk sticks to representing the Turkish experience through upper-class Istanbul in the 1970s and 1980s – an image that he has previously not written much about. There is no religious element, no identity conflict that Turkey experiences in this book, making this the least Pamuk-esque book (if you want to pigeon-hole authors) that he has written.
As a result, it is a phenomenal opportunity to appreciate his craft and his ability to weave a story together. Much like The White Castle, there is a power to the narrator, which continues through to the end of the novel. Additionally, the unexpected twists – and the uncertainty of all relationships built in the book, makes this an enjoyable read.
However, I thought that the book was far too long for the plot it was explaining. While the length of texts usually never bothers me, it was really startling how stretched out the book ended up becoming. Conversation got very dry in the middle, as a result of Pamuk’s deliberate choice to spend time on each individual moment his narrator experiences. As a consequence, I lost interest in the characters at various moments of time.
Additionally, the romantic plot got creepy in various parts, with an obsessiveness that wasn’t enjoyable. It’s very possible that the translation leads to this heightened creepiness, but if the book is this creepy in the original Turkish, it is a cause for concern.
In conclusion, I’d recommend reading it if you are a literature enthusiast. This isn’t a light read, even though the plot summary makes it sound like it.
2019: One Hundred and Two
Today was my dad’s 50th Birthday.
I woke up to the news that my internship at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has come to a close – something I was rather saddened by, but also, an experience I’m going to cherish forever. I think over the last two months, this internship gave me everything I wanted out of it. I got to go off campus regularly, I got to visit an institution of higher learning that I had been meaning to visit for a very long time. I met a professor who guided me and trusted me with his research. Moreover, I learnt how to work in a library again – a skill I had lost after I realized our library was just an excuse to converse, and I was more productive while sitting in my own room.
This is great news for the summer because it means that I can go visit the library during the summer and actually get stuff done there – something I look forward to because it’ll mean that I get to sit in air conditioning.
Over the course of the day, I debated for the first time in a while – and chose to sleep a little bit more between 10PM and 12AM, a rare time for anpping, but one I thoroughly enjoyed. Which is why I’m awake at 3:30 writing these posts.
I’m excited for the weekend. It should be a fun, slow, one. And I’ll eat ice-cream again.
Also, another piece of news. A book I was working on for a very long time finally hit publication. I’m extremely, extremely happy and proud, but I’m hopeful that this is the first of many that students in our college put out. There are so many ideas that people here have – and so many worth exploring. This should just be the start.
GloPoWriMo 2019: 12/30
Today’s prompt asks me to talk about a dull thing that I own and why I love it.
Silver Pens
I write with a silver fountain pen,
I’m not quite sure how I got it,
I think it was from my grandmother,
Who claims that she had “found” it,
It no longer has the sheen a new
Hero pen does,
But it writes just as smoothly,
The shaft is long,
And easy to grip,
And blue ink flows fluidly.
If I ever have to pick one piece of stationery,
I’d pick this pen, no doubt,
When I hold it, I feel like a royal man,
Born with a silver pen, and a silver spoon in his mouth.
2019: One Hundred and One
Day Zero is over! So a massive congratulations to everybody who participated, for the day is now done. Please treat yourselves to some Maggi and milkshake because you deserve it for the amount of effort you put into the exercise.
GloPoWriMo 2019: 11/30
Today I’m supposed to write a poem of origin.
Unpacking
When somebody asks the dreaded question,
“Where are you from?”,
My brain spirals,
And I am befuddled when people are able to give definite answers,
Like “Bengaluru”, or “Rangia”, or “Singapore”,
It amazes me that people can point to a location on the map and say
This is where I came from,
Ignoring all of the events that operated to get you to that particular area,
Stretching as far as the Big Bang,
And the evolution of human civilization.
But I spiral because I don’t have a definite answer.
I’ve lived ten years one place,
seven years another,
and now four years in another place.
So where am I really from?
What location best reflects who I am?
For me that answer is where I unpacked my suitcase last,
And decided I would call someplace home.
2019: One Hundred
Ooh, iconic number, friend-log. It appears that I’ve been writing for one hundred days now. This also means that one hundred days of the year are over. Which is good news – we’re closer to 2020 & graduation.
Today, I’m going to write about something serious. Recruitments. I fully understand that I’m in a position of privilege writing this, so please feel free to discard everything I say. However, this is merely an exposition of my opinion and my perspective – which is something I’m going to retain irrespective of what you say. I also fully understand this might not apply to you, but if it does, and you can relate to it, I hope you feel marginally better after reading it.
Tomorrow is Day Zero on my campus.
Now if you’re not Indian, I feel like this is a very foreign concept to you. Day Zero or Zero Day refers to placement day on Indian campuses. It is the first day of the recruitment season at a particular University, where, selected firms/top firms and employers visit a particular campus and conduct various rounds to select individuals from that campus for the purposes of employment.
At my University, only law firms visit us on Day Zero. There are several candidates who are sitting for recruitment – slightly over half my batch. I write this for them.
I know it’s an extremely, extremely stressful process. The mere amount of preparation you have to do, coupled with the uncertainty of the outcome, and all the random bits of preparation – including what outfit to wear, and how to answer weird questions and tackle firm-specific questions. It’s a lot of stress. And a lot of pressure.
But here’s a couple of things I think are important to remember.
The first is that if you are shortlisted, you’ve been given an opportunity to engage with somebody else about a topic nobody knows better than you: yourself. They’re going to ask you, at some point, questions on a subject-matter where the knowledge skew is so much in your favour, that you will be able to string together words that make sense. Be confident.
The second, is that a lot of stress can be avoided by imagining everybody wearing funny underwear. I know this sounds ridiculous, but whenever I come across something I’m nervous about, or meet somebody I’m not sure how to gauge, I imagine them in bright red cactus boxers. Immediately, upon the realization that there is infact a possibility that they are actually wearing red cactus boxers, I am put to ease.
Third, the worst part is the uncertainty – and waiting for decisions. At this point, please remind yourself that you have done everything you can, and not much else is in your control. It’s important not to blame yourself and keep thinking that you could have done better – that reflection is for another time. I’ll tell you why. Given that specific time, it’s impossible to have done things differently. Going down the path of “if only” is a dangerous prospect, especially when you’re waiting to hear back – because there is still the possibility that things might work out, and all the thinking will be futile.
If you get a job, fantastic. All your work has paid off, and the Universe has conspired to present you with an opportunity today.
If you do not get a job, please remember, not all is lost. All of your work has still paid off because you’ve gone through a process and now are likely to be more comfortable with it if you choose to continue to go through it. Moreover, you’ve learnt so many things through your preparation. Finally, if you have not got an opportunity today, it means that you’re meant to get an opportunity tomorrow, or day after.
That’s the thing about employment, or recruitment. I don’t think it’s possible to objectively say some offer is better than another offer. It’s so specific to a particular individual: practice areas, and cities, and everything.
However, if you were really gunning for one of the firms that came today, and you didn’t make it. I’d like to remind you that your career doesn’t finish on Day Zero. Try not to give your career a finish date before its even started. Every single place that came here today does lateral hiring. And if you envisage yourself at one of them – you can get there. There’s nothing to stop you. You will make it.
I know this got preachy, but I think it’s just stuff worth thinking about and reading at some point.
Good luck for tomorrow! Give it your best. Have fun with it. You’ve worked far too hard and far too long for this to be something you don’t look back on with some amount of joy.
GloPoWriMo 2019: 10/30
Today’s prompt challenges me to write a poem that starts from a regional phrase, particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon.
Extreme Temperatures
Agadheilla,
I cried to mum,
Not specifying what I couldn’t do,
Or why I couldn’t do it,
Just stating that it couldn’t be done,
And so, depending on circumstance,
My mother whipped up Rooh Afza,
We turned on the AC in my room and closed the door,
Or, ended up with a razai over our entire bodies,
Watching TV,
It befuddled me, because,
I had said nothing could be done,
But things had happened,
The weather hadn’t won.
2019: Ninety-Nine
There’s nothing significant to report today, really. However, I have noticed that my interest in space has returned – something I’m really pleased about because it means I can immerse myself in several sci-fi/space opera worlds without really forcing myself to enjoy it.
It also means I can marvel at what I consider to be one of mankind’s greatest accomplishments – the fact that we’ve managed to get to outer space. How cool is it that we’re able to explore the origins of the Universe.
Also! In case you missed it, we have our first picture of a black hole.
Read more about it here: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592
Also, about the researcher: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/12/astronomer_schools_sexists/
GloPoWriMo 2019: 9/30
Today’s poem is to write a list of things
Bangalore
Whitefield and traffic,
And potholes and manic,
Power cuts and water cuts,
Rain causing havoc,
Idli and dosa,
With cows everywhere,
There’s no city to which,
Home compares.
Tejas Rao 