Books

Precursor or experiment?

The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers by Sarnath Banerjee; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.395; 263 pp

It is curiosity value more than literary brilliance that makes Sarnath Banerjee’s ‘take’ on life in 18th century Calcutta an interestingly subversive fictional representation. In his second graphic novel (Corridor, authored by him in 2004 heralded the debut of the graphic novel in India), Banerjee composes a text — a quasi journal-cum-travelogue inspired by the legend of the Wandering Jew. Banerjee also acknowledges his debt to 19th century Bengali language satirical novelist Kaliprasanna Singha from whom his intriguing title seems to have been lifted.

The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers is a leather-bound journal maintained by a sephardic Jew from Syria, who in his own words "grew up in Aleppo in the shadow of the great synagogue, Joab Ben Zeruiah" built in the first century B.C. When the community migrated from the Ottoman empire, it trailed the new trade route to India. Abravanel Ben Obadiah Ben Aharon Kabariti, by ancestry a trader in fancy items and goods, aphrodisiacs and corsets, sets up friendships with British officers in Calcutta as well as the local elite, and secretly records their most private moments and night escapades. A copy of the journal, by some exotic mischance, surfaces in a hole-in-the wall antique shop in Montmarte, Paris in the 1950s and is bought by Pablo Chatterjee, the narrator’s grandfather, an employee of Indian Railways for thirty-five years, who couldn’t possibly have imagined or even calculated the journal’s true worth.

As in a post-modern novel, the scene shifts to London, 2002. The phone rings in the East End apartment of Pablo Chatterjee’s grandson, late one night to interrupt a love-making session. It’s his mother calling from Calcutta to tell him of a death — his grandfather’s and an inheritance — a silver lighter, a vintage motorcycle, an ancient radio and that curious journal "that Professor Klaus Butterstein of Heidelberg University names among the twenty rarest books that exist". A sudden awareness descends upon the narrator that his future depends on that journal.

By the time the narrator arrives in Calcutta to claim his inheritance, his grandmother, unable to bear the burden of memory, has given away all his grandfather’s possessions to random people who cannot be traced. That is where the story actually begins with several flashbacks into the narrator’s childhood in Calcutta, especially his forays into the city’s fish markets. While meandering the lanes and bylanes of north Calcutta, the narrator reinvents the city’s past, its babu culture and its decadent zamindari temper with rare humour and pungent satire. Can one perhaps discern a typical ‘bong connection’ in his trenchant insights into Job Charnock’s city?

To solve the mystery of the lost journal, the narrator-grandson turns to Digital Dutta, the trusted neighbourhood ‘Dada’, who without having really stirred out more than a few kilometres of his North Calcutta home, seems to command huge wisdom and knowledge bordering on the proverbial. At one point in the story the "resident globetrotter" Dutta arrives in a hand-pulled rickshaw, wearing Bata flip-flops at a crumbling century-old tea shop run by the Baruah brothers, Buddhists from Chittagong. This ‘cabin’ which specialised in toast-making boasts an illustrious clientele — Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Qazi Nazrul Islam, Ram Monohar Lohia and comrade Jyoti Basu. Dutta bumps into this 30-year-old young man attempting to trace his lost inheritance and with characteristic nonchalance comments: "Your situation reminds me of the Indian Olympic team: ‘Participation is more important than medals’. Your search is becoming more important than the treasure." Even while the mystery deepens and the narrator continues his search into the "armpits of history", the narrative tangles threads of past and present in a disruptive rather than linear fashion until the end springs a real surprise.

Although Sarnath Banerjee is not wholly comfortable being described as a graphic novelist, a narrative form that is a quarter century old, it remains a legitimate way of describing a book for adults employing a multi-layered technique of theme presentation. It is a technique that encourages a complex mode of reading where text and image generate creative tension, constantly soliciting active participation of the reader to wrest meaning out of verbal-visual units.

While tracing the origins of babu culture in Bengal, Banerjee churns up colonial history, and specifically Macaulay’s infamous Minute on Education (1835). "Originally used as a suffix of respectability, Lord Macaulay, the governor general of Bengal and the most prominent gardener of the empire, gave a new definition to the word babu: ‘A babu is a native who is Indian in flesh and blood and English in taste and opinion’," he quotes the educationist-administrator as saying. But quoting George Mackay’s epic Twenty-one Days in India, Banerjee spins out another definition of the babu: "A virtuous cow-hippopotamus by metempsychosis might under favourable circumstances become an undergraduate of Calcutta University and that, when patent leather shoes and English supervened the thing was a babu." Set off against these typically colonial perspectives, he refers to the great Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s definition as well: "Babu has various meanings: to the poor babu means a richer person, to the servant babu means the master and to the English rulers the word babu means a clerk."

Plainly although its title and graphic format suggest a ‘comic’ book, The Barn Owl’s Wonderous Capers is not about adolescent fantasies but a novel centred around Calcutta’s provincial and post-colonial predicament. Though the graphics in this absorbing book are predominantly black and white sketches, there are photographic superimpositions as well as the use of colour — perhaps Banerjee’s way of experimenting with images in the art of communication. At the end of this visual-cum-verbal treat one is left to wonder about a larger question: Is this the direction in which the novel is likely to evolve in the 21st century, or is it just another short-lived experiment?

Marvellous compendium

Ride Guide to America edited by Greg Harrison; Whitehorse Press; Price: Rs.1,125; 288 pp

Although annual sales of automotive two-wheelers across the country are zooming, rising from 430,000 in 1991-92 to 7 million in 2005-06 (79.19 percent of all motorised vehicle sales), the vast majority of Indian bikers use motorcycles for commuting to and from work. However there is a small but growing tribe of serious bikers who are beginning to take advantage of subcontinental climates to ride undaunted up mountainous slopes, down deep valleys, testing deserts and other unfamiliar terrain. With India belatedly entering the era of cross-country multi-laned highways, daredevil young bikers are beginning to criss-cross the country on zippy new generation motorbikes flooding the Indian marketplace.

But the new-age Indian biker is largely unaware of the hazards and pitfalls of biking. Unruly truck drivers, bandits, vehicle thieves, naxalites and terrorists are among the dangers that lurk on the nation’s unpoliced highways. Moreover there’s a serious dearth of journals, blogs, books by Indian authors on the subject of cross country riding, with most automobile magazines devoting their columns to technical mumbo jumbo. Only recently have some young entrepreneurs promoted motorcycling websites such as www.xbhp.com, www.oktatabyebye.com, www.indianbiker.com, among others to disseminate information about roads, rides and associated trivia.

Against this backdrop Ride Guide to America offers a good model for Indian publishers to follow. It features over 200 pages of information about best motorcycling trails in the the world’s largest motorcycling nation. From California to New England, Rocky Mountain High to Texas, Ride Guide to America informs readers about the most rider-friendly roads and highways in a country blessed with the world’s best road and highway networks.

A unique feature of this compilation is its detailed maps and point-to-point outlines for each of the 36 excursions recommended. These proposed rides across the US offer bikers challenging trails along scenic shorelines, mountainous terrain and into deep valleys and deserts. All excursions are illustrated with high-quality, full-colour photographs. RGA also offers 40 detailed, topographic road maps to help riders follow recommended routes and anticipate the terrain they’ll encounter in the Pacific Northwest, California, Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, Texas, the Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic, and New England.

Admittedly RGA is of limited utility to Indian bikers, as it unfolds the exotic roads and rides of America. But it is likely to stimulate footloose and fancy free bikers to visit and experience America’s amazing highways. The chapters titled ‘Loaded for the Road: How to carry stuff on your motorcycle’ and ‘Ride smart: Tips for street survival’ are particularly interesting for riders worldwide. These chapters discuss and differentiate various types of backpacks, tank bags, rear-seat bags, saddle bags and other motorcycle paraphernalia useful for long distance, cross country bikers everywhere.

Neatly sub-divided into six sections based on the regions of the US, RGA also contains a compilation of travel articles published in the American Motorcyclist, written by experienced bikers for bikers.

To aspiring travel writers and publishers intent on cashing in on India’s automotive boom, RGA provides an excellent template, with valuable information, maps and biking advice. Particularly interesting is the section on a biking excursion on the Big Sur Highway through the rugged Rocky Mountains and down into Texas hill country. The route like all others in the book, is brought to life with attractive colour photographs and evocative descriptions. Topographical maps illustrate the highs and lows of each ride, and easy-to-follow point-to-point directions project distances and help to keep riders on track.

This marvellous compendium also features utilitarian articles for biking enthusiasts. Essays on safe riding and touring, packing luggage, listing of best equipment suppliers and manufacturers make RGA a valuable resource to make motorcycle trips complete and exciting. For Indian bikers gradua-ting from the commuting to biker era, the market is ripe for a similar compendium detailing the country’s most biker-friendly highways, given the fact that more than half the nation’s population is below 24 years of age. This group needs to be encouraged to travel and gain supplementary learning on the road.