Margaret Atwood on mortification

From Curious Pursuits:

(Atwood's US publisher arranges for her to get on an American talk show.) It was an afternoon show, which in those days--could it have been the late seventies?--meant variety. It was the sort of show at which they played pop music, and then you were supposed to sashay through a bead curtain, carrying your trained koala bear, or Japanese flower arrangement, or book.

I waited behind the bead curtain. There was an act on before me. It was a group from the Colostomy Association, who were talking about their colostomies, and about how to use the colostomy bag.

I knew I was doomed. No book could ever be that riveting.

WC Fields vowed never to share the stage with a child or a dog; I can add to that, "Never follow the Colostomy Association." (Or any other thing having to do with frightening bodily items, such as the port-wine-stain removal technique that once preceded me in Australia.) The problem is, you lose all interest in yourself and your so-called 'work'--'What did you say your name was? And tell us the plot of your book, just in a couple of sentences, please'--so immersed are you in picturing the gruesome intricacies of...but never mind.

The BS Column: A Nobel for Mr Dylan

(Published in the Business Standard, September 29, 2009. I wrote this yesterday, unfortunately before someone sent me the link to this piece today-but it's nice to know we had the same idea.)

How many roads must a poet walk down before he is awarded a Nobel? The odds on the Swedish Academy announcing in a week’s time that Robert Zimmerman is the 2009 Nobel Literature laureate are low-25/1, according to Ladbroke’s.

That gives the tambourine man little leverage over this year’s best bets. Amos Oz, Philip Roth, the poet Adonis, Haruki Murakami and Thomas Pynchon make it to the top of the betting lists each year, with many saying Oz might get the nod. Given the Academy’s penchant for awarding the Nobel in literature to the obscurely erudite, Ladbroke’s and other Nobel-watchers always add in a handful of sternly literary contenders, just so that the rest of us can say “Le Clezio (or Jelineke) who?” when Nobel hour rolls around.

But Dylan’s stock, Nobel-wise, has been rising over the last decade—the current odds place him ahead of Salman Rushdie (80/1, and if they give him the wreath, can we please unban the Satanic Verses in celebration?), on par with Alice Munro (who’s already picked up the Man International Booker), and a hair ahead of Chinua Achebe, Carlos Fuentes and Mahasweta Debi (all at 50/1).

Dylan’s Nobel chances are often treated as a joke; it’s assumed that the austere guardians of the universal literary fame would never unbend far enough to award the Prize to a song-writer. Especially a successful one. And there’s the question of how Dylan, with his twin aversion to formal dress and formal speeches, would react to receiving the Nobel.

The reason why Dylan deserves the Nobel has nothing to do with his popularity, or the fact that his works are actually still quoted, discussed and in wide circulation today. Doris Lessing and Dario Fo, for instance, are classic examples of writers who earned their Nobels in terms of literary merit, but received the accolade perhaps a decade late, at a time when their best works no longer have the same impact as they once did.

The argument for Dylan would rest squarely on the quality and influence of his work over the years, and the fact that they have now become classics of modern poetry, decades after they were first composed. It’s not just that Dylan wrote great songs—he wrote songs that were deeply rooted in the history of his times, and in a musical and verbal folk tradition that goes back for decades.

The only reason he’s been kept out of contemporary compilations of world poetry is because of a kind of cultural blindness, a refusal to see that a song, however popular, however well-known, however frequently hummed, can be poetry as well. This is in many ways a bizarre barrier: poets like Mahmoud Darwish and Dylan’s fellow versifier, Adonis, have, like him, recited their verses in front of massive gatherings of fans, and have heard their lyrics chanted by thousands of voices.

Not convinced? Consider these two examples:

“Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind…”


And:
“Now in the final act,
disaster tows our history
toward us on its face.
What is our past
but memories pierced like deserts
barricaded by what we see,
marching under clouds that move
like mules and cannon.”

The first is written by Dylan (from ‘Chimes of Freedom’), the second by Adonis. Both are poems that ask, in different ways, for justice and revolution—and you could argue, on the basis of metre and imagery, that both are equally powerful.

Try two more examples:
“I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread…”


And:

“I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive with fiery breath,
And I dreamed I was amongst the ones
That put him out to death.
Oh, I awoke in anger,
So alone and terrified,
I put my fingers against the glass
And bowed my head and cried.”


The first is W B Yeats, the second Bob Dylan—but the Irish poet and the American troubadour reach for a similar rhythm, a similar rhyme scheme and achieve the same effect of intimacy. Both are excellent poems; currently, only one of them is written by a Nobel laureate.

I know, it’s knocking on heaven’s door to ask that the Swedish Academy take Bob Dylan seriously, but you could make the case that he remains one of the most brilliant and enduring chroniclers of our times. It could happen. All it would take is a simple twist of fate.

Gluttony: Pandelicious

(Quickie on Puja pandal eating for the Business Standard; it came out last week, just in time to let the gorging begin.)


Despite opinions to the contrary, Durga Puja isn’t an occasion for senseless gorging. The true gourmand’s responsibility is to pack in as much good eating as s/he can in this week—and that’s harder than it seems.

For many, the most insistent taste memories of Puja come from the legendary pandal “bhogs” served for lunch and dinner at these places, some of which can boast of third-and-fourth generation master chefs. For others, Puja food is snack food, as Bijoli Grill, Benfish, Nizam’s and a dozen redoubtable biryani joints put up stalls that sell everything from fried fish to Mughlai paratha.

And for the last decade, restaurants have joined the Puja feeding frenzy, offering special menus for each day of the festivities. This is, even for the intrepid Bengali armed with a cast-iron, bottomless pit for a stomach, not an easy labyrinth to negotiate. Here’s a day-to-day guide to navigation.

Sasthi: Most puja pandals kick off the first public day of Durga Puja with a local Ananda Mela tradition. In Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park and Calcutta’s larger pandals, the Ananda Mela is a near-corporate affair with some of the city’s biggest Bengali sweet-and-savoury makers participating. The smaller pandals offer a far more home-style experience, with the local Mashimas bringing in home-cooked delicacies for sale. Look for the great Mughlai-style specialties and the old coffee-house/ adda classics.

Aside from the jhalmuri and bhelpuri sellers and the omnipresent biryani and kabab rolls, fried fish and fried chicken chops are big on the menu. So is fish orly and kabiraji cutlets with their frills of egg. If you’re in luck, there’ll be home-made ghugni—a chickpea-and-mutton concoction in a thick sauce (with vegetarian versions)—or dimer devil (devilled eggs) and mochar chop (banana flower chops) besides an array of sweets.

Saptami: This is a good day to stick to vegetarian delights, and sample the overlooked labra. This is a classic vegetable curry, the Bengali equivalent of the Gujarati undhiyo (I say this at the risk of setting both communities at each other’s throats) and requires the skill of a master chef in terms of combining the different kinds of pumpkin, spinach and other leaves in just the right proportion. Timing is everything: a mediocre cook could end up with a messy pulp, but a great cook will stun your palate with a complexity of flavours, no one spice or vegetable overpowering the other.

Ashtami: This is a great day to take advantage of the restaurant specials. In Calcutta, Kewpie’s Kitchen runs classic and delectable menus during each day of the pujas. Tero Parban, Bhojohori Manna and 6, Ballygunge Place in Calcutta have their own set of faithful followers. In Delhi and Bombay, Oh! Calcutta chains have been running puja buffet lunches--good value for money. I associate Ashtami with khichudi, which bears the same relationship to everyday khichdi that a Tagore poem does to doggerel. This is a day of sumptuousness—gorge on the more sinful Bengali sweetmeats—but also a day to celebrate the simple goodness of begun bhaja, perfect quarters or rounds of aubergine fried just as you sit down to eat.

Nabami: Fish rules Nabami, no question. Chital maacher muthai is a dish venerated for its taste as much as for the difficulty involved in scraping the flesh off the very bony frame of the chital fish. Unabashed fish lovers prefer the classic—and hard to get in most restaurants—fish-head curry with moong dal. If you’re wimping out, do it in some style with a smoked hilsa paturi or a prawn malai curry.

Dashami: Cauliflower curry sounds like the most boring vegetable dish on earth, but only the Sikh langars and the Bengali pandals make it as it should be—masses of cauliflower, introduced to quantities of oil and spices, and allowed to get their sizzle on. But Dashami, the final day of the pujas, is also luchi-mangsho day—puri with meat curry to North Indians. Ideally, the meat curry should be kasha mangsho—only very young goats need apply to be the key ingredient for this dish—and the supply of luchis should be inexhaustible, with one cooling luchi held in reserve as a scoop for your post-meal kheer.

For those of delicate stomachs, following this five-day plan might bring other things than satiety in its wake. The hardcore Bengali would have two words for you: Isabgol, and Gelusil. Trust to this combination (and a few prayers in between meals) and all should be well.