Urmilla Deshpande's Blog, page 6

11/29/2010 ~ Madhouse reviews and press

Midday review "The baap of 3 idiots"

http://www.mid-day.com/whatson/2010/nov/201110-Madhouse-Hostel-4-IIT-Bombay-book-novel.htm

And various sightings…

11/22/2010 ~ More Madhouse!

Madhouse: True stories of the Inmates of Hostel 4 is an anthology of memories from now slightly above middle aged (is that end-aged?) guys who were in IIT Bombay's Hostel 4 in the 80s. Some of the stories are funny, of course. I should know, I edited this book. But my favorite are those that inadvertently and unintentionally hint at what it must have been like to be a young male in a repressive time and stressful place. There is more to this book than alcohol and bhang induced hallucinations. You have to read between the puns and look between the tales to really see these young men as the sincere, insecure, driven, sometimes lonely and confused people they were.

I wonder if they learned anything from their time there. They got engineering degrees, so I will assume they learned something about science and technology and how the world works. But I wonder if they learned anything about the way people work. I am curious about the way these guys brought up their own kids.

I can answer some of my own questions, being one of those kids. And I have seen my own children partially (I say partially because I'm the other parent) brought up by one of these IIT graduates. There are no engineers so far in my family – but while editing this book, I began to understand some things, if not all. For example, while I have a tendency to ask my kids, "are you having a good time?" their Hostel 4 father is more likely to ask, "what happened to the other 2%?" when he sees his child's Algebra paper.

These guys spent five or more years in the company of others from all sorts of families, and from all parts of the country. The one thing they all had in common was a certain kind of intelligence – the kind that got them through the qualifying exams. I often wonder what the political and social views of these men are, and if they did in fact internalize the obvious and not so obvious lessons from their H4 experience. I wonder how many of them are socialists, how many atheists, how many of them live their lives within the social constructs that they came to Hostel 4 from, and how many think of themselves as the elite of the elite.

This was an extremely interesting project, it brought me into contact with IITans other than my own husband and fathers. It was a lot of fun to do it, to read through stacks and stacks of stories, to sift through the funny and serious and even grim ones, to argue with the committee about censorship and honesty, to understand their reasons (which didn't always jibe with mine) for keeping something or removing it, to give in to changes for the sake of sales – something I have never done as a writer but had to because the proceeds from this this book were being donated to a charity.

I will never do a project like this again. I say that because, along with what I learned about IIT graduates, I learned a lot about myself. For one, I don't enjoy working with groups of people. Especially when there are no other women in the group to bring a dose of normalcy. I learned that I am not charitable – I just didn't care about the plight of the mess workers in IIT Bombay, especially not over literary considerations. I loved the work itself – reading, sorting, editing, re-arranging, re-writing. But in the end I have to say, if I had two or three lifetimes I might edit in a bit of one. But I love writing, and would much rather be doing that.

Which reminds me – I have promised my editor a whole book by the end of the year. I must get to it!

11/14/2010 ~ Madhouse:True Stories of the inmates of Hostel 4

This book is available for preorder at: http://www.iitbombay.org/initiatives/hats/hostel4/madhouse-book-order

When my husband Ashish Khosla, once an inmate of Hostel 4 himself, told me a tale about one of his hostelmates going to lectures on a horse, I was not impressed. Though he is not given to flights of fancy, I thought he was perhaps making a lot of a single incident. Then he showed me the photograph. It had that unmistakable stamp of the early '80s in style and substance, and there was the white horse, and its rider, on their way to a lecture on organic chemistry. I realised that it was not a one-time event. I also commented then that it would be a fabulous book cover.

One thing led to another, and in March of 2010 I was given the privilege and frustrations of editing this book.

I have known IITans intimately through my life– my father, step-father, husband, boyfriends and many good friends. I made several good friends during the creation of this book. None of what I read and heard explains these guys, though. I still cannot tell whether they chose this gruelling and most prestigious of educational institutions because of the way they were, or they became that way because those five years they spent at IIT.

In spite of censorship (some language of course, and some entire incidents were left out due to the sheer indecency of the matter) it is quite clear that these boys – and they were boys then, indulged in very questionable behaviour. There was substance abuse, and it wasn't the substances that were abused. There was people abuse – in fact abusing each other in picturesque and imaginative ways was a normal pastime. There was delinquency and there were criminal acts. Instincts of various nether levels were indulged endlessly and continuously. This book has chronicled many instances. It is my feeling that these memories are stronger than mundane ones of lectures attended or disciplines learned or even engineering degrees earned. In any case, these were more interesting to both listeners and narrators, and now, writers and readers.

There is something that I must make clear to the readers of this book. In spite of all the unsavoury behaviour, I must point out that these same rowdy and rude young men are now captains of industry, science and technology, some are prominent in the political and social arenas, and most are productive members of society. I say this as a reminder, because while reading about their early lives in their own words, a reader might, understandably too, forget this fact.

It is my feeling that in safe and tranquil IIT Bombay, these young men felt free to experiment physically and intellectually. The feeling of safety came from having made it into IIT – not an easy task. All they had to do now was make it through the next five years, and life after that could only be easy.  They were far from the rules and conditioning of their homes, thrown together with  some like and some utterly unlike themselves.  They had unbound and yet protected freedom that allowed them to find themselves. And they looked hard, and pushed themselves and their mates over and under and any which way they could beyond known boundaries.

I think such investigations, that might be thought of as foolhardy at best and immoral at worst, informed their morality. These men left IIT with a degree, and also with a self-made morality. Like the degree, that morality, though not conferred, resulted from a process. It involved hypothesis, argument, experiment, and conclusion. It is more personal, and more solid  than the societal rules and regulations that pass as moral code.

As a project this one was interesting to me in another way. Here was a large number of stories coming to me as they were remembered. One or two or three of the guys are good writers, and I had no trouble with their pieces, other than chopping down some unnecessarily verbose bits, or changing the sequence of the narration to make it more appealing to a reader, moving the twist to the end, emphasizing foreshadowing, deepening suspense. But some of these guys are not writers. They simply put down in words their memory and feeling about an incident with a few relevant and irrelevant details, and sent it off to me. These are the ones who taught me something about writing. In the beginning I would think, this story has meat, if only I write it in my own words. So I re-told the story, in my own "better" words. And every time I did that, I found that the whole feeling and content changed. I learned firsthand something I had struggled to understand for a long time – something I knew to be true in theory, but didn't understand until this project: that style and content are inseparable. That by adjusting Raj Laad's piece to make it sound more like me, I was in fact losing the voice of Raj Laad, of course, but also his perspective. And it was his perspective, in his words, which was the content of the piece – not the sequence of events . And I promised myself I would not convert all these pieces to fit an acceptable grammatical or linguistic correctness, and I would not make the stories into a homogenous list of rude and crude incidents in the lives of teenage boys from a certain hostel. I hope I achieved this.

(Excerpt: My introduction in the book.)

10/29/2010 ~ Deliverance : Gauri Deshpande (Translated by Shashi Deshpande)

Deliverance, first published in Marathi as Nirgathi, is a strikingly unusual novel, a powerful story about the turbulent relationships within a family that chafes at being bound together by intensely close ties. A novel about mothers and daughters, and about motherhood, told with painful and disturbing honesty.

Mimi and Shami are half-sisters who share a mother (the narrator) and a conflicted relationship with her second husband. As the story progresses, all four go through rites of passage that leave them emotionally scarred, yet more closely bound to each other than ever before. Mimi and Shami grow up, grow away from their parents, find fulfilment in alien environments. The narrator and her husband realign their lives, physically and emotionally, in an all-too-familiar, poignant response. The novel's shocking but inevitable denouement confronts one of the fundamental truths of all human bonds, even as it brings deliverance.

Gauri Deshpande (1942-2003) bilingual poet, essayist and short story writer in Marathi and English, has been published   extensively in both languages. Her fluency in them has earned her the reputation of a translator par excellence, one of her most outstanding works being the translation into Marathi of the 16 volumes of Sir Richard Burton's The Arabian Nights. Her collections of poetry include Between Births (1968); Lost Love (1970); and Beyond the Slaughterhouse (1972). Among her prose works are The Lackadaisical Sweeper (1997), and the English translation of  Manohar Tari.

Shashi Deshpande, novelist and short story writer, has nine short story collections, ten novels, a book of essays and four children's books to her credit. Three of her novels have received awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award for That Long Silence. Small Remedies, Moving On and In the Country of Deceit are her most recent novels. Her short stories and novels have been translated into a number of Indian as well as many European languages, and she has translated two plays by Adya Rangacharya, eminent  Kannada writer, as well as his memoirs, into English.

Published by Women Unlimited India, Rs.225, available December 2010.

10/22/2010 ~ ReADING

Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6[image error] 99 cents, and now I wish I had stayed a disgrace. It is horrifying.)

My friend eventually chickened out of surprising her husband with an e-reader and asked him if he wanted one. He told her he was much happier with "real" books from the bookstore or library, thank you, he didn't want to put librarians and book store workers out of work. Plus, he enjoyed the feel and smell of books. All this was not that different from the way I felt before I got my own e-reader. Although I wondered about my friend's husband worrying about the livelihood of librarians over the preservation of pines, I bought my e-reader for a reason not connected to ecology and empathy: My two books now had online  kindle editions. I discovered that I made a lot more from a download than from the sale of a "real" copy of my book.  Ten times as much (three dollars vs thirty cents). So it makes me feel very happy when I have that rare sale. And then I wonder what resources go into the making of a "real" book that makes my share so paltry – the cost of cutting trees, the payrolls of paper industry and publishing house employees? (And as I write this, I have a thought: I'm going to ask my friend's husband if he has an email account, or if he still writes and receives "real" letters due to his concern over the payroll of postal workers.)

My pitch to my friend was so heartfelt that she  asked me if I was getting a commission for selling this particular e-reader. Which gave me the idea. This is one product I wouldn't mind selling. Not door to door, but from my website! The more people have e-readers, the larger the market for my own books, after all. Which explains the picture and link on this post.

Now if you were to ask me if I care that much about selling copies of my book, I'm not so sure of the answer. It's hard to decide whether I want to be a bestselling writer or a starving artist true to my art… you know, poor but sexy like the city of Berlin… I might be stuck with the Berlin option because – it's just not my choice to make – as I've commented before, three downloads last month, a grand total of nine dollars and change! Which also explains the picture and link on this post?

10/19/2010 ~ Scheduled for Deletion

This morning I realized that I had only 'deactivated' my personal Facebook account, not deleted it. When I was deactivating it, I was asked, a bit threateningly I felt, "are you sure?" and below that were photos of people who would miss me if I wasn't on Facebook – my son and my sister. I guess my son and my sister will have to find other ways to not miss me – such as have dinner with me or wash my hair for me! Sounds like fun. Anyway, that's done. I received an email saying "Account Scheduled for Deletion" – it waits on death row. I can, however, grant it a pardon within the next fourteen days. I won't. It deserves to die.

I do have a professional FB page however. I am a writer, and FB is useful to me as a tool for letting those interested know what's new in my writing life, and for putting my work out there, and as a way for people to contact me. For these purposes, I am willing and happy to have and use all and any tools available, on and off the internet. So now, I have a website, a professional Facebook page, a blog that I regularly update, and both my books available for download on Kindle to whatever device you might own or want to read on – the Kindle itself, Mac, pc, blackberry, iphone, ipad… really, whatever. After all this, since the day my books went live on Amazon, I have sold less than $40.00 worth of books. Yes, forty dollars. So I just wonder if it's worth it. It's always worth it to write – I love to write, it's who I am. But is it worth it to try so hard to get it all out there? Maybe some day it will be. But not yet.

It's Breast Cancer Awareness month. So I made this pink button for Facebook, since they did not. Be aware, all you women, and all you men with moms, partners, friends, sisters and daughters out there. Be nice to breasts and breast owners, and contribute to the fight against breast cancer.

For those of you who are in Tallahassee ~ a fun way to help:   http://www.tmh.org/lucaevents

Scheduled for Deletion

This morning I realized that I had only 'deactivated' my personal Facebook account, not deleted it. When I was deactivating it, I was asked, a bit threateningly I felt, "are you sure?" and below that were photos of people who would miss me if I wasn't on Facebook – my son and my sister. I guess my son and my sister will have to find other ways to not miss me – such as have dinner with me or wash my hair for me! Sounds like fun. Anyway, that's done. I received an email saying "Account Scheduled for Deletion" – it waits on death row. I can, however, grant it a pardon within the next fourteen days. I won't. It deserves to die.

I do have a professional FB page however. I am a writer, and FB is useful to me as a tool for letting those interested know what's new in my writing life, and for putting my work out there, and as a way for people to contact me. For these purposes, I am willing and happy to have and use all and any tools available, on and off the internet. So now, I have a website, a professional Facebook page, a blog that I regularly update, and both my books available for download on Kindle to whatever device you might own or want to read on – the Kindle itself, Mac, pc, blackberry, iphone, ipad… really, whatever. After all this, since the day my books went live on Amazon, I have sold less than $40.00 worth of books. Yes, forty dollars. So I just wonder if it's worth it. It's always worth it to write – I love to write, it's who I am. But is it worth it to try so hard to get it all out there? Maybe some day it will be. But not yet.

It's Breast Cancer Awareness month. So I made this pink button for Facebook, since they did not. Be aware, all you women, and all you men with moms, partners, friends, sisters and daughters out there. Be nice to breasts and breast owners, and contribute to the fight against breast cancer.

For those of you who are in Tallahassee ~ a fun way to help:   http://www.tmh.org/lucaevents

10/16/2010 ~ In the mines

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

- Bob Dylan, Things have changed

How many people a day are diagnosed with "mild-to-severe" depression? Don't know, but some of us have always known we are on that list of what a friend of mine calls the walking dysfunctional. I'd call myself walking depressed, but I'm a lot more than walking – I'm laundry doing, dog walking, cat wrestling, curry making, child cheering, child rearing, child pick-up-and-drop-offing and drop-off and pick-upping (takes concentration and focus to remember this stuff- they call them schedules around here), grocery shopping, carpet vacuuming, porch sweeping, poo lifting, cock sucking… oh now come on, depressed people don't do that, do they? Oh what, they don't? oh well then. Well. Anyway. I'm writing Carnal Prose, remember, these things slip in.

I watched the 33 being reborn from the birth canal pierced through the skin and flesh of earth, she held them in her womb, dark and hot. Or was it a prison she had locked them into because they stole from her, again and again, tearing through her body and soul, wounding and killing her slowly by tearing off pieces they didn't even need anymore…   I guess I'm being fanciful. They were just men, poor miners, with women and children. They worked hard for a hard living, and I was thrilled and moved to see that metal cylinder emerge from the ground with an intact human being in it. I cried.

Will these miners, having been as low in the depths as a man can get, always be happy now? will they forever after appreciate life and love and time, having come so close to being buried alive, and left slowly to die? Will they choose not to ever go again into the physical depths, but also the metaphorical ones? or is it not a matter of choice at all? do we all just succumb to life and chemicals? Serotonin, dopamine, melatonin? (Something comes to mind about free will, but I'll let it go.) And, when it isn't possible to keep up the look of function anymore, do we then go looking for some solution – a pill, an herb, a practice, love in changing times? It's true, and gets truer every day – I used to care, but things have changed.

In the mines

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

- Bob Dylan, Things have changed

How many people a day are diagnosed with "mild-to-severe" depression? Don't know, but some of us have always known we are on that list of what a friend of mine calls the walking dysfunctional. I'd call myself walking depressed, but I'm a lot more than walking – I'm laundry doing, dog walking, cat wrestling, curry making, child cheering, child rearing, child pick-up-and-drop-offing and drop-off and pick-upping (takes concentration and focus to remember this stuff- they call them schedules around here), grocery shopping, carpet vacuuming, porch sweeping, poo lifting, cock sucking… oh now come on, depressed people don't do that, do they? Oh what, they don't? oh well then. Well. Anyway. I'm writing Carnal Prose, remember, these things slip in.

I watched the 33 being reborn from the birth canal pierced through the skin and flesh of earth, she held them in her womb, dark and hot. Or was it a prison she had locked them into because they stole from her, again and again, tearing through her body and soul, wounding and killing her slowly by tearing off pieces they didn't even need anymore…   I guess I'm being fanciful. They were just men, poor miners, with women and children. They worked hard for a hard living, and I was thrilled and moved to see that metal cylinder emerge from the ground with an intact human being in it. I cried.

Will these miners, having been as low in the depths as a man can get, always be happy now? will they forever after appreciate life and love and time, having come so close to being buried alive, and left slowly to die? Will they choose not to ever go again into the physical depths, but also the metaphorical ones? or is it not a matter of choice at all? do we all just succumb to life and chemicals? Serotonin, dopamine, melatonin? (Something comes to mind about free will, but I'll let it go.) And, when it isn't possible to keep up the look of function anymore, do we then go looking for some solution – a pill, an herb, a practice, love in changing times? It's true, and gets truer every day – I used to care, but things have changed.

10/11/2010 ~ Bob Dylan, Tallahassee Fl.

Bob Dylan is, as always, apocalyptic and epic and announces the end of the world. I feel times are not changing, they are almost gone. He tells me, "it's going to end, and it's going to end badly…"  Makes me want to hurry up and write, love, sleep, play, be. I have listened, sometimes unwillingly, to Dylan since I was seven. I was uncomfortable when I was younger and did not understand what he was talking about, I probably had an inkling of what I would understand when I did. Now that I do, I am even more uncomfortable. The moment he says, "how does it feeeel…" I tear up and break down.

I went to the Museum of Sex in New York city. My companion and I discovered that Hedy Lamarr's were the first breasts seen on celluloid, and that eyes are not the only organs exaggerated to excess in Japanese cartoons. When I was much younger and spent some time in Japan, I remember thinking the Japanese cartoon characters were the only ones that bled. I'm not sure, but they may also be the only ones, or at least the first, to have sex.

There were sculptures and science exhibits (sexuality in animals) and funny stuff and kinky stuff and of course sexy stuff. I got to compare the body parts of the latex covered 'real dolls' to the real thing – from memory – the latex man was cool and a bit sweaty. He did nothing for me and my companion other than make us laugh.

My fourteen year old was not allowed in to the Museum of Sex. State law does not allow anyone under eighteen in. At seventeen you can enlist in the army with parental consent. So state law allows parents to decide if  kids can go out to kill or be killed. But their sex ed? The state decides the appropriate age for that.

And now, it's back to work. I guess it will be inappropriate for my children to read my books. Maybe they will be sold in the Museum of Sex.