Michael Jackson’s dad said today that the late singer has a love child, Omer Jamal Bhatti, the product of a one-night stand with a Norwegian fan. The 25-year-old rapper and Jackson impersonator raised by Pia and Riz Bhatti of Oslo was seated next to Jackson’s other children at the funeral. Jermaine Jackson hinted at [...]

It’s a little-known fact that M.I.A.’s ‘Paper Planes‘ is a cover of the 1927 Al Jolson original, which Jolson performed in blackface.
The spoof isn’t just a video sync — someone actually recorded vocals in the style of the time. Quality!
(thanks, Joolz)

Even in a time of recession, most educated young Indians today inhabit a job market miles removed from the India of the decades preceding liberalization. But public memory is always short, and one generation’s shared experience often erases that of the previous one. The array of urban job options available today to the graduate or even the school-pass will probably ensure that in a decade we will have all but forgotten the moment in middle-class Indian life when, to quote a line from Sankar’s novel Jana Aranya “if you had a job you were blessed.”

Sankar’s novel – famously made into a film by the same name by Satyajit Ray on its publication in Bengali in 1973, but only now translated into English by Arunava Sinha under the title The Middleman – beautifully evokes a world of competitive examinations, newspaper classifieds, job interviews, family pressures, and nepotism. At the same time, we see the desperation of those left behind in the race for financial security, the respect of society, and marriage and family through the gateway of employment. In a short, charming afterword to the novel, Sankar reveals how he himself worked as a middleman in his impoverished youth, buying all kinds of goods cheap and then selling for higher. Although his novel describes the particulars of a time and place that may have now disappeared, its sympathetic portrait of human striving and shrewd understanding of the ways of the world make it at once a great novel of both business and family.

The protagonist of The Middleman is Somnath Banerjee, the youngest son of a retired judge. Unlike his two older brothers, who have done well for themselves and made good marriages, Somnath is a struggler, an unexceptional individual seeking a place in a world which has its own peculiar ways of judging merit. Although Somnath is badly off, his family is not in need of his income. His struggle is personal, not familial, and there are many supportive presences at home, including his tender-hearted sister-in-law Kamala (some of the best scenes in the book depict conversations between these two kindred hearts). Some others have it even worse, such as Somnath’s friend Sukumar, who must find a job urgently to support his large family. Sankar expertly depicts the fellowship of these two hopefuls, Somnath and Sukumar, but does not fail to remind us of their differences.

After numerous attempts at finding a job, Somnath realises that time is running out: “If he couldn’t become self-reliant now, he would no longer remain human.” On the advice of an acquaintance, he decides to go into business. The novel now leaves behind the world of the salaried (except for brief glimpses into the life of the luckless Sukumar) and moves across into the adjacent world of entrepreneurship. What is Somnath to buy and sell? How are contacts to be made and how is business to be generated? Can one hold to one’s own values in the world of commerce, or is one to fall in line with the rest? Sankar makes us consider all these questions through the figure of Somnath, and his portraits of small-time traders, speculators, and agents are vivid and memorable. Somnath realises that to succeed in such a world – which is, after all, the only world which has offered him an opportunity to be human, albeit a morally impoverished human – he will have to jettison some of his beliefs and compunctions. Here are the paragraphs in which Somnath first tastes the thrill of an income:

When Somnath brought up the envelopes, Mr Ganguly asked him to leave a few samples and the rates. He promised to get back to Somnath after checking their stocks.

The transaction was completed by five o’clock, and after deducting expenses three crispt ten-rupee notes sat in Somnath’s pocket. His first ever income. An experience as breathtaking as first love. Suddenly, Calcutta had shed its drab hues and was glowing before his eyes. Unable to contain his excitement, he took out his wallet and counted the money again.

Back in his office, Somnath looked for Bishubabu, but was told that he was out of town on business. As soon as Adak arrived, Somnath ordered for sweets, eager to celebrate. Adak protested loudly. ‘This is why Bengalis get nowhere with business. This is your first capital. You can’t afford to waste it. Get it up to ten thousand first. Then I’ll be the one demanding the sweets.

Just as Somnath has two older brothers, so too Jana Aranya could be said to bear a familial resemblance to two novels that preceded it in the world of Bengali fiction. These are Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s Ghoonpoka (The Woodworm, 1967); and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Pratidwandi (The Adversary, 1969), both of which were translated into English many years before it was. As their very titles indicate, these novels too are about the corrosion of traditional values and the alienation of the protagonist from society. But although it has had to wait the longest to be translated, Sankar’s novel is a more satisfying experience than the other two because of the excellence of its narrative craft.

Although it is written in a smooth, unornamented prose, the novel’s achievement is deceptive. One would have to draw a diagram of the plot to see how deftly Somnath’s encounters with the different people in his life, his shuttling between home and the world, are laid out. There is a heartbreaking tenderness about some of the family scenes, and then a powerful hunger and ruthlessness about the world of deals and commissions; yet these realms are not a pair of simple contrasts, and at times it appears that it is the family that is unreasonable and the world of commerce a better arbiter of worth.

Although Sankar’s language is naturally something that would not lose much in translation, Sinha’s skill is especially evident when it comes to his magisterial rendering of dialogue, which Sankar prefers to third-person narration as his narrative motor. This is transparently one of the greatest of modern Indian novels, and though it has crossed the borders of its language belatedly, its second innings is sure to be even longer than the first.

Sinha’s two other translations of Bengali novels are Sankar’s Chowringhee and Buddhadeva Bose’s My Kind of Girl. His translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s story “One Night” can be found here.

An archive of my essays on Indian fiction is here.

[A version of this review first appeared in Mint.]

After a great meal at House of Nanking in SF a couple weekends ago, Sanjay (GheeHappy) and I headed to the south bay, on my mom’s request,……

to wait in this room for 2 1/2 hours……..

….to meet up with this badass……for some brown magic!

People are hardcore believers of this moustached man. His name is Dr. Naram, [...]

Many of the comments here on Henry Louis Gates-gate surprised me with their reflexive obeisance to a man with a badge. Among the he-said-she-said, weepy 911 callers and Bud Light Summit lies one simple question: can a cop legally arrest you if he doesn’t like your attitude?
There is no middle ground here. You either do [...]

Things I learned from watching the Bollyflick Luck:

No one is allowed die on camera. Except Africans. Them, it’s ok to shoot graphically through the forehead.
Experienced survivalists wear black leather in the scorching desert
A guy who jumps off an airplane has no forward momentum, it’s just like jumping off a wall
You can out-amble an LNG explosion
People [...]

One of the writers for The Kumars at No. 42 went on to pen In the Loop, a double-fisted satire about the UK foreign service and falsified intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. This flick made me want to stand up and cheer from the get-go: its layered verbiage, aural deathmatches and creative [...]

Over the weekend I caught up with Raag of PMH over coffee at Four Barrel, a Mission café with gorgeous typography, the smell of new wood, a massive skylight, exposed beams and a coffee roastery in the back. I’d wanted to meet at Ritual, a café with a kitsch commie flag stuffed with hipster Macheads [...]

A treasure trove of old pulp novels in Malayalam!

Currylingus points out that Giorgio Moroder’s beat for Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ is the Wilhelm scream of Bollywood disco: it turns up everywhere.
The original:

Update: How could I forget Nazia Hassan’s ‘Disco Deewane’:

And Biddu’s ‘Boom Boom’ (thanks, Vijay):

“Yesterday the moon passed directly in front of the sun, causing a total solar eclipse that crossed nearly half the Earth - through India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China.
It was the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting as much as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in a few areas.”
Check out these [...]

Stephen Colbert had fun with eclipse superstitions in Varanasi last night, suggesting that cowbells and burning Christmas trees (diyas in holders) would not be enough to appease the sun god. He then donned a silver cape and spoke as an alien. Colbert is, of course, a devout Catholic who teaches Sunday school, so re: irrational [...]

(Watch in glorious high-def) UC Berkeley’s Ishaara dance team got three yeses on America’s Got Talent for a middling take on the ‘Jai Ho’ Pussycat Dolls mix, in attire more typical of bhangra. The team’s female lead is blonde and part desi :) Gotta wonder what the two Brit judges were thinking: ‘Meh, seen better [...]

Pardon My Hindi’s kitschy kit is down to $10 for their summer sale. Check it out. Just scored me some manscape coverups.

Related posts: Pardon my disco, What’s the samachar, yo?, The peacock