On Resolutions and More...

Of the few New Year resolutions I made this year, were getting back into shape and shaking myself out of the apathetic lethargy into which I had slipped during the last year and a half, especially in the last few months, and start doing the things that I used to enjoy so much. Ironically enough, the first one proved to be easier, despite involving physical effort, and I started my evening walks on the very first day of the New Year which I am enjoying so much that there is actually a high likelihood of them continuing! Apart from the fact that it’s great to be walking again and that particular stretch I traverse each evening is absolutely pretty and it makes my heart lighter crossing that pristine park and seeing those children play football against the backdrop of verdant hills, with a cool breeze blowing and fanning the tendrils of hair that are slowly starting to stick to my forehead with the perspiration, the regular exercise is actually making a big difference on the way I feel about myself as well. And then there are already the familiar faces and voices…there is this aaji who has her saree pallu pulled tightly around her shoulders to shield her from the cold, and the middle-aged couple of which the husband is a definite b******, the ladies who walk down to the market complete in their synthetic salwar-kurtas and sports shoes ready to take on the world with their battle-tank march down the road and of course the golden Labrador that insists on being patted and only then will she move on…but I think the best, is the three elderly gentlemen who sit on this low wall just inside my colony that I cross each evening on my way back home. The snippets of conversation I catch, about the kind of education they had back then, how their son brought home some ridiculously expensive gadget they can’t fathom, or how they fought valiantly against ignorance and corruption in their work place and all this in that slightly shaky deep baritone one associates with nice old uncles, are such a hark back to the generation of my eldest uncle and so completely reminiscent of small-town India that it brings a smile to my face immediately. Strange, how these scenes, at which I would have rolled my eyes or even looked down my nose a few years ago, today make me smile and wish we don’t lose this quintessentially Indian charm completely. If not for the other motivating factor/s I think I would continue to step out each evening just to catch those uncles gossiping about the yesteryears…

On the latter, however, I have been procrastinating and if not for the Amnesiac who has pushed and nagged me on other issues as well, I would have pushed this on the backburner once again. But nagged I have been, and books have been pushed into my hands and orders have been given to read, and so I am reading once again. Last year’s Booker winner, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss. My niece gifted the book to me last year, and I thought I should read atleast one booker and approve of it, but it doesn’t look like that is likely. Fifteen chapters down, and the story has not yet taken off and those descriptions of India are beginning to grate on my nerves. When will we stop catering to the foreign audience while describing India and its habitants? Can’t anyone come up with a mature, realistic Indian novel that presents a story with panache rather than merely presenting a stylized albeit stereotyped India? Of the Indian authors I read in my Literature days, her mother Anita Desai hadn’t particularly impressed me but I could see merits in her writing. She however missed the Booker. It fails me then completely, the reason why her daughter not only won the Booker but accolades for her work that continue to come forth in wave after wave…and I don’t think I shall change my opinion even after having finished reading the book...