Following Fish – Samanth Subramanian
While I was in US, sometime last year, I read about Samanth Subramanian’s Following Fish at rediff.com. A few months ago, I bought the book, read it and decided to write about it. It is not a review per se, though it can pass for one. Does not matter — here, below, is what I wrote.
While I was reading Samanth Subramaniam’s Following Fish, I made a promise to myself –that I would write about this book no matter what. I would write, no matter what little voice my blog had, no matter what difference it made to the already formed opinion, no matter those already published reviews by famous publications. It is because Samanth’s idea – of going around India’s coast and writing about it, deserves applause and attention.
Perhaps, it would be better not to look at Samanth’s book entirely through the lens of a travelogue. This is not a comprehensive account of what he encountered while travelling the corners of India’s coastline. It is not about places to visit and coastlines to see. Anyway, 184 pages can’t be enough for that. Neither it is about the hidden gems, those unassuming places, to eat the best fish in various small towns. It is about how one of the oldest practices known to mankind, fishing, transforms lives.
The author starts with the east coast: in Calcutta, a commentary on the much prized Hilsa. His trysts in the fish market, early morning in Calcutta. On the way down, he, well, swallows a fish in Hyderabad while scrutinizing the asthma medicine that thousands swallow in a fish. This moves all the way to west, to Gujarat where Samanth investigates the art of crafting fishing boats.
While in Kerala, the author goes toddy hunting — how could he not? I mean, it’s a place where the fish, varieties of gravies and fries notwithstanding takes a backseat and becomes a sidekick to toddy – that peculiar liquor from Palm trees that is best served, yes, before noon. So our author goes exploring toddy and describes the best way to locate an authentic toddy shop that serves, well, authentic toddy (also included in the chapter is a guide to pronounce the toddy “shop” right). Whatever happened to fish? We don’t care!
Honestly, having traveled extensively through the west coast myself, I waited patiently until the pages turned and I found Samanth Subramanian in Mangalore. And with a very similar dilemma that I had when I first went there. Where to find the best Mangalore fish curry? And this is this other thing about the book — if you are a fish eater you’d end up eating more fish over the weekends. This could be a longshot but perhaps it is that writer-reader relationship that builds over the course of the book and the fish loving reader finds it delightful than ever to eat fish – the love for seafood now validated and justified by the author of the book himself.
And there are points where Samanth keeps me longing for a little more: Mangalore, Bombay – points in case. Because while writing about his experience in Bombay, perhaps the most telling of all, he cautiously flirts with the political and social state of the city, asks important questions we all have asked before (and continue to ask) and then stops, almost abruptly. The chapter is a delight while it lasts.
But then disappointment — Writing about Goa, a place I relate to closely, was for me, Samanth’s falling. In Goa, the author tells a tale, almost silently weeping, of the sellout of the fishermen folk to the tourism industry. A tight slap to the administration of the state and his talks with a few passionate Goan anglers, Samanth truthfully tells a depressing story that many even in Goa would be surprised to hear. Why I call it his falling is because he surrenders to the grief, and in the process, forgoes enlightening the reader of the wonderful culinary experience that Goa could be. I mean, its a crime no less — the very center of the Konkan Cuisine, with strong influences left behind by the Portuguese, what an addition it could have been to the book. And Samanth, simply abandons the journey that Goa’s food could have been to the reader, silently absolving himself of it all. Surely, the author must have had his customary fish curry there? Why didn’t he tell us about it?
Ideally, I would have had the book by my side, while writing this. That didn’t happen. So all the underlined quotes, evidence of Samanth’s excellent prose and narration couldn’t be a part of this writeup. In fact, this all comes out from mental notes taken while reading the book almost a couple of months ago. It is not necessarily a bad thing — it has made sure that I present a well thought of, objective view.
And finally — This is a book that will delight you, involve you. For someone who refrained from eating fish in his childhood, Samanth Subramanian’s debut, Following Fish is his coming of age, a full circle. But perhaps more importantly, this book is also a coming of age for Indian narrative journalism. It is important that we acknowledge, appreciate and give credit where it’s due because this one here, it sets a high standard. Following Fish is a book that is admired while reading and it should inspire many similar quests.
PS: Take a look at flipkart’s page of ‘Following Fish’, here
Bangalore Books India Journalism Political System Society
by aditya kumar
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Books that give answers
Yesterday evening, at Reliance Timeout, for launch of Dilip D’souza’s book, “Roadrunner”, there was a very insightful conversation that happened. We had the author along with India’s best historian, Ramachandra Guha and Rahul Dravid talking about India, America, about few of the the many dots that connect the two democracies and how this particular book tries to find answers while attempting to understand America from an Indian’s eyes.
But while at it, I picked up P.Sainath’s, “Everybody Loves A Good Drought”. Sainath is probably the only journalist who has worked extensively in India’s most rural districts and has, time and again, attempted to bring out the causes of the poorest of India’s citizens. I first heard about Sainath when Vidarbha was at boil over farmer suicides (I have written about Vidarbha here). The land is still at a boil and with Telangana’s formation imminent now, they might be justified in asking for a separate state as people at helm of affairs in Maharashtra and people in media have conveniently ignored Vidarbha’s problems. But all this, despite being fodder for thought is another topic altogether.
So Sainath, in the introduction of the book, emphasizes that while India’s hunger “would not make for the dramatic television footage that a Somalia and Ethiopia would do”, that is precisely the challenge before a journalist because, I quote here, “while malnourished kids may look normal, yet lack of food can impair their mental and physical growth in such a way that they suffer its debilitating impact all their lives”.
And then there is the case of the “Number of poor”. Back in 1993, the Government of India set up an expert group to estimate the people living below the poverty line. The group, after arriving at a figure of 39% (people living below the poverty line) also recommended changes in the way the Government used to estimate poverty. In a later survey, discrediting the recommendations and the figure arrived at by the expert group, the Indian Administration came at a figure of 19%. But the story does not end here. In the time that was between these two figures, a few months, the Government of India cried out aloud in the World Summit for Social Development at Copenhagen — they presented a figure of 39.9% of people below poverty line. Why? More poor, more Donors, more money. No rocket science, this.
The year this happened was 1994 but aren’t we dealing with the same problems, 15 years on?
Coming back to the conversation between these three great intellectuals that I witnessed yesterday, there was one question from the audience, regarding India still being a developing nation and not a superpower. As a part of the response to the question, the author questioned back — Why do we need to be a superpower? Ramachandra Guha seemed to agree with it and while reading Sainath’s commentary in the introduction to his book last night, I found the answer in the question — Why can’t we be a better democracy first?
We may be the world’s largest democracy and be proud of it but we are far off from being a good democracy. I think its an obligation to each and every well-wisher who is a citizen of this nation, be it you, me, an ordinary citizen or a politician, to make the world’s largest democracy a better democracy. When that happens, maybe I’ll be much more content drawing parallels between the world’s oldest democracy and the largest one.
Roadrunner
Fellow blogger Dilip D’Souza’s third book is coming out in a few weeks from now. It is called, “Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America”. Dilip blogs about it, here.
The book is a result of his road trips in America. Some of his writing from those trips made way to his blog and I have read most of them, over the years. I always felt that he sees America the same way as U2′s Bono does — You know, not the kind of America that bombs Iraq but the kind of America that says, “Hey, that moon is a beautiful thing — lets go there, take a walk on it”.
Because America is amusing and at times, even misunderstood. Because America is much more than Bush, Obama, CNN and Hollywood. It is in those posts that Dilip’s insight unveils a face of America that needs to be discovered more. Suddenly, America is fascinating.
And it is exactly the reason I am looking forward to this book.
Crichton
Back in 1994, in New Delhi, my imagination was stirred by a Hollywood movie that I would later go on to watch 5 more times. Jurassic Park was the first Hollywood movie I watched that I completely understood. Maybe it was so because my first viewing of the movie was in Hindi. Besides, I had never managed to watch a complete Hollywood movie before.
Besides introducing a 13 year old boy to the science of cloning, it also introduced me to the rich experience of a Steven Spielberg movie and Computer Generated Imagery but the most profound and long lasting was the effect that Michael Crichton had on me. He was the author of Jurassic Park and there was a world out there to be read.
I had just started reading “The Three Investigators” and my insights into the English language and it’s literature were few. What I was not afraid of was, to pick up stuff that at first glance made little sense for someone my age. Nor was I afraid of picking books that were big in size.
I made my parents buy Jurassic Park, the book. It was a costly purchase, I remember. But more importantly, it was the start of a tradition that would serve me well — to buy books that are later made into movies.
I made myself a promise that from then on I would read every Michael Crichton book. I went on to read The Terminal Man, The Lost World, Airframe, Timeline, State of Fear and Prey. I started reading Sphere but during the course of it I once woke up to a terrifying dream. I could not complete the book. The back cover of “The Terminal Man”, the second Crichton book that I read, informed me that the author’s last name, “Crichton” rhymed with “Frighten”.
As you can see, the effect of Jurassic Park, the movie and then the book, was quite strong.
It has to stop now.
Michael Crichton, October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008. You will be remembered as a writer who captivated minds. You fired my imagination.
And You will be missed.
Overcoming a Reader’s Block
I realized I had hit a reader’s block after I read about it somewhere. I was not aware of it’s existence, let alone being in one.
I read for sometime before I go to bed. At least I used to. Its another thing that my daily routine has gone for a toss since the past 6 months. Then I had time but I was not able to focus on a book for long. I had just completed Shantaram and quite honestly, the last part dragged. I was looking forward to read something else. But it persisted — I could not concentrate while reading.
I’ll cut a long story short. The problem, as I found out after much thinking, was Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I had started reading it and did so with all my sincerity and thought I was doing a commendable job too. (I still think that.) But one has to admit, the first thirty pages of a book thousand pages long and written in the 19th century, won’t be, by any means, an exciting read in modern times.
It was kind of okay and things were fine while I was content at flipping 2 pages (of fine print, I must mention) per session. Problems happened when I started to seek other books to read for my daily kick of “modern literature”. So everytime I read “something else”, it was as if Tolstoy was right there, staring at me, reminding me of the 1000 pages of fine print and what lay before me. It was quite overwhelming. Had Aditya, the ever insightful and accurate reader, finally found a match?
Okay, that last line was tongue in cheek.
A phone call to a writer friend eventually helped matters. She told me that I should not think of reading Tolstoy for now. Tell you what — I had this thing in my head for long but was not being submissive about it to myself. So I said it aloud — “Its okay to have a book and not read it for years!.” The already unread books notwithstanding, I went to the bookstore and got myself a Bryson’s book. (“A Short History of Nearly Everything”, highly recommended.) Now, Bryson is easy reading and I should do well not to think of my new found urge to read as a war won but yes, for now, I do want to read.
Oh and how do you judge if you “want” enough? Simple. If while doing things that you normally do when you are not reading (and those must be lots) you find yourself thinking about the book; your thoughts flirting with the subject or the plot — then you should know that you are the reader every writer seeks.
So, while I zip through the pages written by a new found author I intend to read every book of, I must keep in mind that there are books like Garcia’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and Ghosh’s “The Imam and the Indian” in my bookshelf and there is much pleasure still to discover as I yearn to go to stories told by writers who have made literature such an essential part of me.
No Goodbyes to all that.
Archer
Last week had the opportunity to listen to Jeffrey Archer while he visited Bangalore and promoted his latest book: A Prisoner of Birth. The speech he gave was worth listening and is posted below. Quite a long post you’d say but then it was a 20 minute speech. Reading it should take less than that of course, so don’t be overwhelmed by the look of it.
Here it is:
Now this all began, well, 34 years ago, when I stopped being an English member of parliament, couldn’t get a job, so I wrote my first book — “Not a Penny more, Not a Penny Less”. Now, I have to tell you, papers all across the world said it was an instant success. I want to tell you about that “instant success”. Sixteen publishers turned the book down. The Seventeenth paid me 3000 pounds. And they published 3000 copies. Only 200 came to India — Not much of an instant success. But when it went into paperback, they published 25,000 copies and they sold them in a month. I went back and said, “Please would you publish another 25,000 copies.” They said, “No no, Jeff, we’d like you to do another book”. “No,” I said, “I’d like you to publish another 25,000 copies.” “No, No!”, they said. “Yes, Yes”, I said. (I) Finally got them to publish 25,000 copies and they sold them in a month. So I went back and said, “I’d like another 25,000 copies.” They said No, I said Yes and I got another 25,000 copies.
Last month they published another 25,000 copies.
(Laughter in the audience and an applause)
23,775,000 copies and I still have to ring them every month. (more laughter).
Second book, “Shall we tell the President”, which made a small breakthrough in the United States sold about 400,000 copies in hardback and did pretty well in Britain but not that well, not that long in Bestsellers list. Then I got an idea for a book and two years later had my agent handed over “Kane and Abel”. My agent read it and he thought that this book should be auctioned — Now that means you take it to New York and you hand it over to the 17 great publishing houses of America and you let them read it and then a fortnight later they all bid to decide if they wanted.
They did that while for the fourteen days of agony I waited and on the fifteenth day they started the auction which finished just after midnight. Simon & Schuster of the United States of America brought Kane and Abel for 3,200,000, which… (audience starts to clap), oh no no no..(audience laughter). They were very excited, very pleased but they said they had a problem — I was unknown in the United States. To launch a book and with that amount of money when you are unknown, is a problem. They said, “Jeffrey, we’ve got to get you on television. We’ve got to get you on the Good Morning Show. Good morning America. Or The Today show — one of those two, in order to launch you. But there’s another problem,” they said — “They don’t like authors.” (laughter) “Well, they do like certain authors. If you have written a book on Sex, that’ll be alright. Or if you have written a book on how to cure cancer. Or a book on how to slim, thats alright — but they don’t like novelists. So its important to get you on The Good Morning Show or The Today Show because you will hit 17, 18, 19, 20 million people! And if you hit 20 million people we have a chance of launching you in the bestsellers list.”
They then explained to me that in the USA, the NY times have a bestsellers list of 15. Now if you get into those 15, they halve the price of the book. So if it was $30, it suddenly becomes $15. But if you remain below the top 15 you stay at full price. And quite naturally, its very much harder to sell a book at $30 than it is at $15. So, that was the big thing. They rang me with 2 weeks to go and said, “Success, Jeffery! you are on the Today Show. With Dave. You will be on between 07:24 between 07:30. Six minutes. And you are sharing the spot with two other people. First on is Billy Carter — the brother of the president of the US and he is promoting, well, Billy Beer. Next on is Mickey mouse. and Mickey is celebrating 75th anniversary of Walt Disney. Then is you. In order to prove your importance we are gonna bring you over an amazing Concorde at NY Kennedy airport, we will have a stretch limousine ready to pick you up. You will be taken to the Plaza hotel where you will be put in the presidential suite and everyone will that know you are important!”
So I got ready for this, and indeed I flew over and there was this stretch limo, off I went to the president suite and I couldn’t sleep at night. I was nervous. I brought a brand new suit, brand new shirt my wife had chosen. I got up, got ready, the limo was there took me the ABC studios. I went to the green room and sitting there was Billy carter and Mickey Mouse. 7:24 went Billy Carter and he was very good promoting Billy Beer. Now I had been told by my people to say the words “Kane and Able” as often as “you possibly could”. Only got 2 minutes, nobody ever heard of you so don’t forget to say it again, and again, and again. Up goes Billy and he promotes his beer very well, I thought. I was impressed. The trouble was he took 2 minutes and 11 seconds. So he had stolen 11 seconds off my time. Next was Mickey and I have to admit to you that he was a pro. I learnt a lot from Mickey. I learnt something that I have done every single time since when I am on TV. I learnt when you know its the last question, you just go on talking. (laughter) And Mickey went on talking for 2 minutes and 44 seconds. So I now got just over a minute. I am shaking, I am in real trouble and i am going up the steps. I hear Dave, the interviewer saying “Who’s on next”. “Jeffrey Archer.” “What does he do?” “He writes books.” “What is the book called”. “Kane and Able.” To which he replied, “You know I don’t like doing religious books!”.
So I arrive in front of Dave and I sit down and he is looking at his notes. He clearly hasn’t read the book so he is trying to find as much about me as he possibly can. Then he looks at me and the lights go up, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then he says — “Hi Jeff”.
Not a good start.
He says, ” I hear you came over on the Concorde”. To which I say, “That is correct David. I flew out of London this morning on this amazing plane. I had breakfast in London and I got on to the plane and it flies twice the height of any plane on earth, goes twice the speed of any plane the world has ever known. It landed in New York so quickly that not only did I have breakfast in London, I also had breakfast in New York. This is an amazing achievement of engineering of which we should be immensely proud of.”
To which Dave said, “Its been lovely having you here.”
My publishers were not pleased. I had forgotten to mention “Kane and Able”. With a little more experience what would happen if Mr Dave was to say “hi Jeff, I hear you came over on the concorde”. Nowadays I would say, “Thats correct Dave and one of the most exciting things about that journey was walking up and down the aisle and seeing how many people were reading ‘Kane and Able.’”
My publishers were not pleased when I started off at number 24 in the bestsellers list. They became more anxious so they sent me to Chicago to go on the radio shows. The Rosenberg hits about 4 million people and they said, “please please Jeffrey, please mention “Kane and Able” to those 4 million people”. The problem was Mr. Rosenberg, (the interviewer) actually doesn’t like to meet the person he is interviewing till you sat opposite to him. He feels its more spontaneous. You just walk in, sit down and start the interview. So I walked in, sat down and watched the red light go on which meant to me that the first question would be coming. I was ready. He said “ladies and gentlemen, its a great honor for me this evening to be in the presence of a legend. I am sitting with a man I have wanted to meet all my life. Will you welcome to the studio, the man who conquered Everest — Sir Edmund Hillary!”
Another interview that didn’t go very well.
And I was at number 21 on bestsellers list. They then sent me to San Fransisco, Dallas,Boston, Washington and I had only reached #17 and they were wondering why they had spent 3,200,000 on this complete idiot. They then called from California asking if I’d go on this show and I was a bit shocked that I’d been asked to go on this particular show and I happily agreed. They were very excited and said, “Please Jeffrey. We don’t know how long you will be on but please Jeffrey, mention the title, this is our last chance.” I arrived at the studio, the 8′o clock show, the biggest show in the US which went out to 42 million people and I sat opposite to Mr Johnny Carson and the lights go up and I am “Here we go again”. And then, “Ladies and Gentleman, I am in the studio with Jeffrey Archer. Last week I picked up his book in the evening at 5′o clock and I finished it at 6′o clock in the next morning. Its called “Kane and Able” and I want every single one of you to go and buy it tomorrow”. And it went to #1.
(Applause)
Since then I have written several books right until “A Prisoner of Birth”, which is the latest one. Your introducer was kind enough to say that its been #1 here for 6 weeks… (interruption) 10 weeks? Oh I apologize, been #1 for 10 weeks. I think the staggering thing i discovered on this trip, you see, I have seen the figures for sales and they were impressive — they were equal to Britain, they were not quite as the US and then I had heard a fact that knocked me backwards – that everybody who buys a (archer) book in India, 25 people read it. I don’t know what this says about the Indian Economy. But in England its 3 people, so it is in America and Australia and what I didn’t realize that I have got 50 million readers over here, I put the figures to mean what they meant and so, when I arrived, when Landmark very kindly advised me to do this tour and I started getting audience like this everywhere I went, I was absolutely shocked. I may say, delighted.
On the first day I arrived here, I was interviewed by Sunil Sethi. One of the best interviews I have done. He opened the interview by saying, “Jeffrey, I have been in the book trade for many years and all of us are impressed that you’ve been #1 as an Englishman on NY Times, on Sydney Morning Herald, London times. But real fame in India is not being #1 for ten weeks, no, no. Real fame in India is when you stop at the traffic light and they try to sell you a Jeffrey Archer.” So I intend to return to Britain and say, ” I have made it, they are selling (my) books at traffic lights in India!”
I will end this part by thanking you for your immense warm kindness over so many years. Someone asked me, in a session like this 3 days ago, “Why do you bother Jeffrey. You have everything you need in life. You lead the most interesting life. Why do you bother to keep writing. Why do you bother to keep traveling? Why don’t you just live on a beautiful island in the sun and enjoy yourself?”
You come up here and stand with me. Look at this audience. And you will never ask a damn silly question.
Thank you.
However minor, due to poor voice recording, there could be a couple of discrepancies in the text above. As mentioned, these are trivial.
Books Political System Society: buddha democracy enlightenment India
by aditya kumar
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The Decaying Pillar
In Patna and Gaya, LLB students go on a rampage because they aren’t allowed to cheat by the authorities. Yes, it is the same Gaya where, in 500 BC, Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment. After 2500 years, surely, this is some kind of enlightenment the students are looking for. It also gives you a picture of how strong this section-in-making, of one of the pillars of our democracy will turn out to be.
I think this is exactly what Shashi Tharoor meant when he mentioned in the first page of his book, “The Great Indian Novel” that “India is a highly developed country in an advanced stage of decay”.