Against Book Bans: An Open Letter to Rajan Welukar, VC, Mumbai U

Some of you may already be familiar with the sudden decision to drop Rohinton Mistry's wonderfully evocative novel Such a Long Journey by Mumbai University.  The decision was taken mid-way through the term and for no academic reason. It also appears to have been taken without any clear academic procedure.

Apparently, Aditya Thackeray - another budding thug leader of the Shiv Sena clan - is at the point of being anointed the youth leader of the party's student wing.  The novel, which dwells on the Sena's thuggish history of violence and intimidation in Mumbai, is obviously an easy target, allowing the goon-in-making to score family loyalty points thinly disguised as a pro-Mumbai rant.  It must be noted, in all fairness, that in keeping with the behind-the-screens tradition of the family, Aditya Thackeray has been noticeably silent and missing from this whole saga, although apparently the protests and book burnings have been carried out at his behest.

I believe it is time for responsible citizens then to stand up and protest. So this morning, I  emailed this letter to Mumbai University Rajan Welukar, protesting the ban and in the hope that an 18 year Thackerey may learn that perhaps violence may not work as a political tactic in the future. If you feel as strongly about establishing and maintaining a stable, democratic, free India, as I do, definitely drop a line to Mr. Welukar protesting his cowardly surrender to political thugs.  He may be emailed at:  vc@fort.mu.ac.in


Dear Mr. Welukar,

This is to strongly protest the unceremonious dropping of Rohinton Mistry's novel Such a Long Journey from the university curriculum.

Not only does such a decision cede to the power hungry fanatics who threaten our democracy and polity, it also smacks of cynical pandering on part of university officials who are apparently bending over backwards to help launch the political career of yet another unthinking, undeserving young thug whose only concern is perpetuating his familial power base rather than any national, state or even local community interest.

Regardless of Shiv Sena's thuggery, surely the university has a responsibility not only to instill academic discipline and intellectual rigour in its students as well as contributing to their formation as responsible citizens. This last is the key role of Humanities in higher education and banning books at behest of thugs - no matter how violent - is abdicating this responsibility entirely.

Best,

Sunny Singh

Making Myself at Home in the Chateau de Lavigny

Odd Memories of the Family

I suppose I should be thankful to my family that I find myself feeling very quickly at home at Lavigny. The chateau’s completely arbitrary combination of high art, antiques and kitsch reminds me of my parents’ home where random plastic souvenirs rub shoulders with whimsically personal art from Latin America, extraordinary wood and copper works from Africa and just stuff we seemed to have inherited from some eccentric ancestor.

Through out my stay, I feel a constant sense of homesickness, mingled with nostalgia and familiarity. The emotions come in waves: I want to run right back home in the evenings; my morning cup of tea, taken always on the steps of the French windows to the garden, is oddly comforting; working in the living room is a favourite, partly because it makes me feel like a child again.

Perhaps I am most off-kilter in my assigned bedroom, originally that of Jane Rowohlt herself. This is vast, all in pale pistachio and peach and gold; a wide swathe of frills and lace and silks, so hyper-feminine that it unnerves me. Then I figure out, typical desi-style, or perhaps like that urchin my mother had often accused me of becoming, that I can sit on the floor to work, with the low platform for the bed serving as my own little seat. In making myself at home, I throw off the silken covers, pile up the lacy pillows on the sofa, and drag the heavy down duvet down to the floor. Each tiny gesture of making myself at home feels vaguely like a desecration, like a secret intrusion into someone else’s bedroom, but I plough ahead regardless.

The bedroom leads to the dressing-room, a room lined entirely with built in, lit closets. Apparently, they were once filled with numbered haute couture dresses by Yves Saint Laurent; my handful of t-shirts seems just a bit bedraggled and desolate in their depths.

There is a desk against the window, nominally designating it as my work space. But the boudoir chair in the corner reminds me that even this manageable space is really meant for a woman far more glamorous than me, that it is really the domain of a woman who is an artist of the body instead of the mind. It is a slightly mysterious place, reminding me inexorably of my mother and the teak panelled, mirrored dressing room I always associate with her.

The space is simultaneously unfamiliar and comforting, and on long days, I find myself sitting at the desk not to work but to stare out the window and daydream. Perhaps for the same reason, I have strange dreams, often about my mother. Joyous dreams, including one where we are caught in a rain-storm. My mother has always been supremely elegant, and thus slightly intimidating. Enjoying being caught in the rain seems a bit beneath her. And yet she does so, with abandon and laughter in my dream.

The bathroom is what feels most familiar in the suite. It is huge like the ones in old Himalayan bungalows where I grew up, and equally draughty. I keep expecting the separate toilet to have a hidden door to allow waste removal in the mornings. It is not nearly as simple as the ones I remember from my childhood: one wall is lined with grand built-in mirrors, with golden ornate fittings, a faucet shaped like a golden swan’s neck in the bathtub. I find myself wishing my sister could have a go at this wonderful space! I remember that when we moved into a house full of bathtubs many years ago, she was only six and yet she was the one who enjoyed it most, like some amphibious being finally finding her own element.

The entire chateau feels terrifically feminine, which is why I am not immediately reminded of the men in my life. The items that I know my brother would appreciate with his finely honed sense of the social ridiculous are the animal-shaped knife-rests at dinner. Slightly deformed, oddly expressioned, barely recognizable pig, rabbit, dachshund, ram, squirrel and fox rotate through the table over the days. These are items almost forgotten in our ruder, more casual era but provide a touch of magical silliness to the table, and one can never be sure if one ought to take them seriously or as a ridiculous bourgeois conceit.

It is the garden that reminds me of my father. When I walk on the vast lawn, apparently emerald and well-groomed, I still see the weeds that need removing. Often I am tempted to find myself a little seat and set myself to cleaning up the lawns, as we do at home. Sometimes I find myself looking over my shoulder, slightly bemused, convinced that he is lavishing care on the roses, the lavender, the hibiscus even as I type away on the laptop. Exactly like at home!

But even indoors, there are little things that I know my father would appreciate: the Chinese peg tables with detachable tray tops; a hidden music room with an extraordinary LP collection and a strangely anachronistic sound system; a wine cellar that must truly hold enough for the best of parties. My father always gets a mischievous, wild glint in his eyes, a wide happy grin, when he finds a place or person or thing that amuses him. I can imagine him enjoying an entire house dedicated to secrets and amusement and parties.

Finally, it is these links to my family that help me feel at home at Lavigny: the fantasy that I am once again in another of the strangely decorated houses that my family would occupy with each move. That I am a child again, moving into yet another ‘diplomatic residence,’ once again with the familiar, weird and wonderful mix of luxury and kitsch, whimsy and formality. And that is really what gets me through my weeks at Lavigny (what my sister very aptly qualified as “voluntary house-arrest”): an imaginary half-sense that one day soon, we will just rip off all we don’t like from the walls and table-tops to store it in the garage or the attic, and make this space our own. After all, haven’t we done it over and over again?

Le Chateau de Lavigny: First Brief Impressions

So, I just survived my very first writer’s residency!

Three weeks in a Swiss chateau, all comforts catered for, time and space rigged up for writing. With living literary history not only haunting the quaint villages but dwelling within each photograph and painting and sketch on the walls, woven even into the spectacular silks of Jane Ledig-Rowohlt’s bed where I sleep.

There were five of us. All writers. From across the world: USA, New Zealand, Nigeria, and of course yours truly.  

All in a beautiful summer villa, full of books and art and literary memories.  Water colours by Henry Miller; photographs of Lewis Carroll’s child muse, Alice Liddell framed in burnished gold and cream.  Scattered amongst the books are numerous pretty pieces of glass, and china and metal. And little artefacts of whimsy: a couple of dozen porcelain King Charles spaniels of varying sizes, some whose heads wrench off to reveal a pitcher; they unnerve the writer who must sleep in that chamber. A pair of heeled wooden sculptures carved like Victorian buttoned shoes stand on an imposing chinoiserie, too small to fit any feet even had they been real.  In the library, the books seemed to be held in place by hefty vintage earthenware jars from Fortnum and Mason’s marked cheddar and stilton.  Why do they live in the library? No one seems to know the answer.

Our interaction at the beginning is a little awkward, a bit hesitant, like a blind date with no convenient way out.  But slowly we manage to get along, carefully avoiding any rough edges, any potential pitfalls.  It is a diplomatic manoeuvre that I renounced, consciously and deliberately, many years ago and is a great effort to revert to childhood manners; I can imagine I would not be able to retain the façade for much beyond the required three weeks. 

Indeed, midway through I make a long distance, expensive, late night call to a friend. Much like an addict needing a fix. Our conversation is wholly political, heated, silly; wholly inappropriate.  I hang up knowing I will survive the self-imposed isolation.  My sister rather aptly pronounces that I am “volunteering for self-imposed house arrest” although, in all fairness, I do take walks to the neighbouring villages, wander through the vineyards and orchards and sunflower fields.  So perhaps, house arrest with a little electronic bracelet to ensure I don’t wander too far afield?

At the end of the second week, we have a reading of our works, not necessarily what we have been writing but whatever we choose to read.  Strangely the reading does more to break the ice than any other activity we have undertaken.  Suddenly, we can identify each other, mentally find a place for ourselves: our words are indeed our disembodied selves, perhaps far more powerful than any other.   

The rest of the residency passes with greater camaraderie, a great deal of hysterical laughter over the routinely extra bottle of chasselas at dinner.

The end, when it arrives, is a relief; and a surprise; and strangely tinged with sadness.