Book Review on ‘A Strange and Sublime Address’ by Amit Chaudhuri

With every book that I read and review, I add a degree of significance to how I came across it. They are mostly bought or ordered, gifted by the family, sometimes borrowed from the library and rarely lent by a friend. I found this book in the most unlikely of places; my hostel room. Granted there are always piles of books on my side of the room, but to find one at my room-mates desk is once in a blue moon rare. After weeks of noticing it through the periphery of my vision, I borrowed it to read.

It is a hardcover edition celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the book. It fits snugly in my hands and the size, the paper quality, the font all come together to provide the perfect reading experience. For all the pros of a Kindle, it simply cannot give you this glorious sensation of holding, sniffing, snuggling a good book.

Getting to the matter of the book, it is a story of a young Indian boy who lives in Mumbai with his parents, but travels to Calcutta to spend his holidays with his maternal family. The events described in the book are in no particular chronological order. They simply narrate the experiences of the young protagonist, while capturing all the old world charm of Calcutta. The writing is absolutely brilliant, not a word wasted and not an emotion left untouched.

For someone who has been getting to know Kolkata first hand over the past year, this book was a joy to read. The habits and way of life of the quintessential Bengali household are depicted here gracefully. To anyone who lives in Kolkata and fails to feel a “connection” with the city, this book could be your “operator”.

Several times I felt the urge to underline parts of the prose because they were so beautifully framed, simple scenes so artfully captured. But as I did not own the copy, I did not put pencil to paper. Some day I shall buy a copy of it for my personal library and file it under the section called “personal connection”. The author is one of unmatched literary talent. I shall keep him closely after Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh on my list of of Favorite Authors of Indian Origin. Thank you Amit Chaudhuri for a beautiful read.

Book Review on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Very often I disregard the recommendations of my peers when it comes to selecting books. But when a fellow student of biotechnology told me about this book, I knew that there was a need for me to read this. Thank you, Pooja Bharali for recommending this and countless other books, during our sojourn at the decadent Gauhati University.

Rebecca Skloot, the author, is a science writer. Meaning, it is her job to write about science to make non-scientists understand the meaning or message behind a scientific invention or discovery. She first came to know of Henrietta during a high school biology class where her teacher told her about the cell line known as HeLa, and the woman from whom the cells were obtained, Henrietta Lacks. Rebecca’s determination has brought to light the story of Henrietta and the Lacks family. The book focuses not on the benefits that humanity has reaped off of HeLa, but the recognition that the Lacks never received.

Henrietta was born into a family of tobacco farmers in Virginia in the year 1920. She grew up to marry one of her cousins, David Lacks. They had four children. In life, Henrietta was known as a hospitable, caring, lively person who loved to go dancing. People she grew up with called her a great beauty as well. Her home was always open to family members in need of food and shelter. This is what Rebecca Skloot’s research into Henrietta’s early life revealed.

In her early thirties, Henrietta started feeling ‘a knot in her womb’. By then she had had three children. She went up to John’s Hopkins Hospital to be checked up. Instead of receiving any explanation of her illness (cervival cancer), her tumor cells were taken for biopsy and later cultured by scientists in the lab. At the time, it was routine procedure for doctors to obtain tissue samples without the patient’s knowledge and then study them for any number of tests. Whether those tests were pertinent to the patient’s diagnosis and treatment was not a matter of concern.

Unlike all the other cells that cell culturists had been trying to grow at the time, Henrietta’s cells flourished. They multiplied and divided (which mean the same thing in biological terms), and filled up layer after layer of cell culture vials. The cell line was named HeLa, and was often mistaken to have come from a Helen Lane or Helen Larson. That they had been the tumor cells of a black tobacco farmer from Virginia, was forgotten.

Up until Henrietta’s cells were stably cultured, most cancer cells died out in the lab. HeLa cells made it possible to study and understand the difference in physiology between a normal and a cancerous cell. They help in the development and testing of anti cancer as well as anti viral drugs. They provide a system in which cell biologists can study the interaction of different molecules and enzymes. It was the closest thing to experimenting on a live human cell or tissue for decades. HeLa cells are still grown and used in most cell culture labs of the world.

It was only right that Rebecca Skloot throw light on the Lacks and bring their story to the fore front of the scientific community, forcing scientists to think about the humans and not just their parts. The Lacks family suffered a great deal of emotional trauma upon learning of the ever-growing, undying nature of Henrietta’s cells. The mother that they had buried several decades ago seemed to be alive in part in the labs of unknown people all across the world and even in space. The family, especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah Lacks, struggled a lot to understand the identity of their mother and what it meant when they said that her cells were still living.

The commoner might not have heard her name or her acronym as much as the student of biology, but we have all availed of the comforts that Henrietta has left behind as her legacy. For example, the large scale production of the Salk polio vaccine that saved millions of people from the crippling disease was only possible because of the easily culturable HeLa cells. It is therefore important to immortalize Henrietta not just in the vials of the laboratory, but in the combined memory of the people that she so unwittingly, yet benevolently benefitted. 

My Thoughts on Byculla Boy by Ashok Banker

I wouldn’t call this a book review because that would be untrue. I never completed reading the book. This book was found hidden between hardbound copies of books written by such giants of literature that it appeared both shy and intimidated to be stashed among them. A tattered, old copy from 1994, its pages are dog-eared and browning. I decided to read it because, of late, I have been experimenting with authors of Indian origin in order to better understand the scene.

The story is about a 9-year-old boy, Neilkant Jhaveri. Neil, as his friends and family call him, excels in studies as well as sports. But he suffers from emotional neglect. He is abandoned at his boarding school by his parents, who have separated. Consequently he goes through a phase of depression. Alone and uncared for, he finds himself inexplicably experiencing symptoms of liver disease, which he, as a child, is unable to diagnose or understand. He is eventually taken by his mother to her parents’ home in Byculla, where his physical and emotional health recovers. In Byculla, he lives among Catholic relatives who refuse to accept him entirely as their own because of his part-Hindu parentage. He makes friends with older teens and enjoys escapades into Elvis’ songs and movies. But the reality of his mother always being away, chasing roles in movies, gnaws at his young heart. He craves to be loved and adored by both his parents like regular children. Throughout most part of the story, Neil suffers from abandonment and a sense of being alone even when surrounded by hordes of people.

The tale is a sad one, but there is an underlying humour about the life of the Byculla people and their peculiarities. Stories about Mumbai and its people have been finding their way to me ever since my trip there last May.

Regarding the writing, all that I want to say is that the author uses far too many adjectives than necessary. It is one of the chief reasons why I could not finish the book. It was short but I read three quarters of it spread over many sittings, which is quite unusual for me. The story would have been better received had he done away with the dispensable descriptions. The author has lengthened a simple yet promising story into a tale that becomes tenuous with every page. I could go on, but unlike him, I kinda do know when to stop.

In conclusion, Neil was a fairly interesting character who unfortunately populated a weak plot. If the author ever decides to revamp the tale by giving Neil better scope at a performance in the story, I wouldn’t mind giving him a second chance.   

Ornithophobia

It was an experiment gone wrong. Hours of labor, days of sacrifice had all come to waste. The department building was all but abandoned that week. The grad students were on holiday and my fellow researchers on leave. The professors had also taken their time off at the end of the semester. It was just me and Bob, each in our own space.

I was frustrated at not getting the results I had so direly hoped for. All my research and planning had told me that I would get the right chromatography peaks. But they weren’t there the first time, or the seventh. I gave up after that seventh failure because they say seven is the magic number. And if I couldn’t get it the seventh time, I wasn’t gonna get it the eighth or the eightieth time.  

In a mangled mess of emotions I slammed out of the lab and went downstairs. The lift chimed onto the ground floor and the heavy glass doors were overcast with an orangey hue. Sunset through grey clouds. The security personnel weren’t at their desks. The immediate outside looked deserted. It wasn’t like an abandoned campus. The lawns had recently been mowed, no dust-laden benches around. The place was simply devoid of people that afternoon. But there was a presence that loomed heavy on the air. In the thick of the campus garden, there was a flock of birds. They were swan-like but appeared flightless; perhaps they were just hatchlings, albeit over-sized. They seemed disturbed, lost, out of place. I wasn’t exactly sure why they were there in the first place. I hadn’t known of rare migratory birds flying to this bleak part of the world and laying eggs in the middle of academic complexes. As I stood watching them, they started waddling. There were about half a dozen of them and each was heading in a different direction. They were visibly confused. The cause of their disturbance then manifested before my eyes. A dark, winged figure was swooping down in circles. The hatchlings quacked nervously. An ominous fear gripped my insides. A big-ass crow, almost the size of a Labrador, was gliding closer.

 I felt one among the hatchlings and sprinted as fast as I could. Its wings flapped somewhere above me and a putrid smell wafted down. I saw some of the hatchlings waddling away, their feathers all ruffled. A little ahead of me was a star-fruit tree; from one of its lower branches hung a water-gun. I darted towards the tree, hid under its foliage and reached for the water-gun. It was heavy, and filled with something fluorescent green instead of water. A bio-hazard symbol stamped on it told me that this was no ordinary water-gun. It should not have been hanging around this way. Just like those hatchlings were out of place. Just like the gigantic bird had no business being anywhere near me. Yet it was there and it was attacking the hatchlings one after another. The little, flightless creatures were bleeding from their backs, where the crow had pecked them with its hungry beak.

The hatchlings ducked under shrubs and bushes. The crow landed on its claws near one of the bushes. The hatchlings were screeching, in fear and foreboding. I took the water-gun with the biohazard symbol into my hands and went in like I had seen numerous soldiers in my brother’s PC games.

The crow was cawing back at the hatchlings with a venomous look in its deathly red eyes. As I moved into its field of vision, it jumped around to face me. In a flash it was heading right at me, moving with the agility of an experienced predator. My hands shook. I tried to aim for its beak. Whatever the fluid was inside the gun, I thought it would harm the big bird most in the face. Eyes were also a good option. I tried my best to aim at it and pressed the trigger. A gooey mess emanated from the tip and shot toward the bird. It fell a few inches from the bird’s claws, fuming. I figured it was some form of concentrated, acidic toxin that was definitely capable of harming the feathery fiend and shot at it with renewed vigor.

At close quarters, the putrefying smell was at its worst. The bird opened its beak wide to caw at me, and with it came the smell of death, of decomposing flesh. I backed up several steps, still trying to aim the toxin at the bird. But I was as good as a storm trooper in hitting my target. And the bird was springy on its feet.

The bird backed me into a bush and then sprang at me. With a strong, scapular movement it knocked the gun out of my hands. Never have I known fear as in that moment. The overpowering smell made me gag. The bird flapped its wings at me, thrashing me from all sides. It reached up to my waist and snapped at my arms. I was flailing my limbs every which way, keeping my eyes shut since it had struck the gun out of my hands. I could not bring myself to face the unbelievable evil that was attacking me.

I heard a plonk and felt the feathers cease moving. The bird had fallen still at my feet all of a sudden. I looked up to find Bob carrying the long, metallic arm of a mop. He had hit the bird hard and immobilized it. Bob didn’t seem ruffled by the size of the bird or the mess that I was in. Before I could thank him for knocking the bird out, he turned around and started walking back towards the department, like it was all in a day’s work for him. Run a PCR, cast a gel, knock a bird out, decontaminate some plates. No biggie.

With Bob gone, I was alone with the crow. The hatchlings seemed to have run off too. I stood watching the bird for a while. It was lying on its side, with half a wing unfolded beneath it. Then I saw its claw twitch. And I knew it was gonna get back up. Instinctively, I made the worst decision of the day and jumped onto the bird’s back. Before it could get back into its full senses, I grabbed hold of its sticky beak and twisted it around. I held the beaks shut with my hands and hoped that the bird’s neck would snap away. It turned out to be harder than I’d expected. The head turned almost a full three-sixty degrees. I began to get worried that perhaps this humongous beast could rotate its head like an owl. My hands felt weak from pulling the beak and I was scared that any moment the bird would rise and snap at my fingers.

But the neck twisted some more before coming loose. I let go of the bird and its head limped loose. It was surely dead. Yet my fear had not dissipated. Just to be sure that the monster was put down at last, I dug out a matchbox from my pockets and lit that bitch up. The feathers caught fire easily enough. It burned without protest, and with it the fetid air combusted as well. A greenish flame surrounded the burning bird. 

I should have run away from it the moment Bob had struck it down. Instead I killed it with my bare hands, burning the features of the disgusting creature deep into my memory. Try as I may I cannot forget its gory eyes and the feel of its grimy beak. And that is how I got myself this unrelenting fear of birds. 

Book Review on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

My friends on social media have used the adjectives 'beautiful' and 'serious' to describe this book. It was the last book I picked up in 2016 and the first I put down in 2017. It is unlike any book I have ever read, being written from the POV of an autistic teen. He is Christopher Boone, resident of Swindon, a small sub-urban town in England. His thoughts and way of life are illustrated in great detail in this work of fiction. There are several quirky things to note in the book. For example, the chapters aren't numbered 1, 2, 3... as in regular novels but as 2, 3, 5, 7, 11........because Christopher likes prime numbers. 

Christopher is smart. He understands maths, physics and basic science better than most people. He likes living life according to set rules and plans. He likes knowing what is going to happen and when; predictability and pattern keep him happy. He lives with his father and goes to school by bus, counting the number of red or yellow cars he encounters on the way. If he sees red cars consecutively, he believes the day will be a good one, whereas seeing yellow cars indicates a bad day for him. This is because he doesn't like yellow or brown, or being touched. 

For someone who lives such a restrictive life, Christopher performs brave feats during the short span of the book. The writer provides a very succinct picture of the brilliant mind that Christopher has. The curious incident of the dog in the night time sets off events that turn Christopher's organized life upside down. And yet he emerges triumphant, having achieved little feats that for someone like him are huge accomplishments. 

In every book I read, I look for something to relate to. In this particular book, I could understand how much Christopher was bothered by "change of plans". I find it very difficult to go on impromptu trips, or having my plans intervened by other people's lives. For Christopher, such changes are many multitudes more difficult to adapt to. And that made me feel sad for him. All he wants is for life to run on a fixed route at a set time, like trains. That we do not have such control over our own lives is something hard to understand, even for those of us who have an easier time living life. 

It is most definitely one of the better books I have read over the years. I'd recommend it to people of all ages because the central character is one that any decent human being would like to understand better. 

Book Review on Such A Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

It’s always a pleasure to read someone for the first time; the freshness of their writing, the promise of a new reader-writer relationship and endless new anecdotes to be shared are some of the perks. That pleasure is doubly enhanced when the writer turns out to be really good. Rohinton Mistry’s works were suggested to me by people on bookstagram some fifteen odd months ago. I found Such A Long Journey in a local bookstore at the onset of November and bought it right away.

Very few authors can see the beauty in everyday life, and there are fewer who can capture the same flawlessly. I find it to be a very rare phenomenon when an author can keep me engrossed in events that have no element of fantasy. Ruskin Bond’s stories have that element of making the ordinary seem extraordinary. And I am happy to report that Rohinton Mistry has succeeded in capturing the essence of the ordinary in his storytelling.

The story is about a Parsi man, Gustad Noble. He lives with his wife Dilnawaz, and their three children in a very Parsi neighbourhood. His roles of husband, father, friend and colleague are depicted in detail, giving the reader a complete picture of his personality. He is no ubermensch who performs extraordinary feats. His travails are those of the common man in the India of the 70s. He is occupied with the health and wellbeing of his children, with the balancing of household accounts and all that we often overlook when thinking of the average Indian. The characters are developed with detail by giving them family histories, secret lives and peculiar habits.

The events in the book follow the journey of Gustad, his friends and his family through struggles of myriad kinds. Gustad’s own journey covers the corruption of the then government. He gets sucked into the inevitable and the endless while trying to be a good friend and setting examples for his children. Readers will relate to the situation Gustad finds himself in, now more than ever, because of the current demonetisation situation in India, and its effect on the average middle class person. The story shows the helplessness of the commoner. It is sure to strike a chord in the hearts of many.

Contemporary Indian writers should take note of the works of Rohinton Mistry before parading their stories riddled with heartbreaks and pseudo-feminism.

Book Review on ‘The Bone Season’ by Samantha Shannon

The world of fantasy fiction got blessed with a new series in mid 2013. Bloomsbury, the erstwhile publishers of JKR’s Harry Potter series, recognized yet another author with a flair for fiction and published the first of the series of seven a few years back. The Bone Season was recommended to me by a dear friend and avid reader; book recommendations from her have never gone wrong.

From the moment I started reading this book, I was sucked right in. The theme is clairvoyance, the setting a postmodern world where the “voyants” live in hiding lest the “rulers” of their society imprison them and the year of the story setting off is 2059. Clairvoyance is clearly classified into seven orders at the very outset so the reader gets a fair enough understanding of the way clairvoyance works. The fantasy is well woven into the more realistic world. The author has put a good deal of thought into the scientific and political field of the period; both fields are addressed in bits and pieces throughout the story, keeping the reader engrossed.

The protagonist is Paige Mahoney, a young adult fashioned after the generic protags of most fantasy fictions these days. She is plain yet outstanding, she has a complicated love life and is quite possibly special (as in the chosen one) in the grand scheme of things that the readers/fans haven’t entirely figured out yet. Clairvoyance is considered a disease in the world of our protag. The voyants live under cover much like the mutants of Marvel. The non-voyants go through life more or less unaware of them. The protag’s father happens to be a biochemist who is pretty high up in the government that’s trying to find a “cure” for clairvoyance while keeping the public shielded from the truth. And all the while the father is completely in the dark about his daughter’s covert life.

The story takes a turn for the better when Paige is whisked away to a secret city hidden from the outside world and then is selected to be trained to fight some flesh eating spirit aliens. The entire socio-political structure undergoes a paradigm-shift as Paige enters the life in the hidden city.

Parallels can be drawn between several famous characters from several different series such as Snape from HP, Haymitch from The Hunger Games and quite unfortunately a certain cold blooded being that the world now detests with characters in the novel. The similarities are subtle yet evident to fans. The book, being the first in the series, is setting down the groundwork for what promises to be a very thrilling series. Readers are eager to devour the works as they make their way out of the press. The series has put Bloomsbury once again on the watch. As several popular fantasy tales are coming to a close (most importantly GoT), the readers of fantasy fiction will have something to look forward to, putting much pressure on the young author Shannon. The writing and the emotions of the characters are very in step with the world today, which will make readers feel a kinship towards the protag. A major revelation by one of the characters at the very end will rather please a certain colourful community (IYKWIM).