V.S. Naipaul, a monster I love?

I’ve been reading this extremely entertaining book about V.S. Naipaul—The world is what it is—and realizing more and more how his anger towards banality, mediocrity and simple pettiness of people makes sense (of course he is obviously not a nice man). I have written about him before and my interest in him was sharpened after I read in the BBC about this biography of his being published without him changing a word of it. Now, that’s courage…

naipaul nybooks michele roohani divided

A  good article about the book and the five years it took Patrick French  to write it was published in The Nation ; a fascinating glimpse of the mind of the “supreme egotist”.

naipaul young and old michele roohani

I find Naipaul’s banter with Derek Walcott amusing; read about it in The Telegraph.

naipaul walcott

Two Nobel Laureates from the West Indies fighting like children—cute!

Ian Buruma describes him well: “Naipaul’s voice, which some younger writers are tempted to mimic, cannot be defined by citing his opinions on race, the colonial experience, India, literature, or anything else. His views are frequently designed to shock and outrage.”

Cynicism (at its best) jumps at you from every page of French’s book and Sir Vidia’s lucid prose has kept me awake all last week. I empathize when he says: “my life is too short, I can’t listen to banality”.

naipaul telegraph

Like Naipaul, I have refused to engage in wishful thinking all my life and if this makes me a cynic, be it! “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

added on 12/23/08—I keep looking for him—just read James Wood’s article, Wonder and Wounded: He is socially successful but deliberately friendless, an empire of one: “At school I had only admirers; I had no friends.”

added on 12/27/08—”Artists cannot claim immunity from decency.” Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

I agree to a certain point with her but I don’t believe that artists should be judged by their personality (ies)—Picasso must have been an impossible man with his lovers but I can’t deny his art…

Is Naipaul “mad, bad and dangerous to know” like Lord Byron was? Read this very good article in Times by Magnus Linklater.

Mumbai Carnage

It’s 3:30 am Mumbai time on November 27th and I am wondering if it’s a bad time to call my friend Ajay in India; I am watching Mumbai burning on CNN and my heart’s sinking—can’t have even one satisfying answer to why people decide to go on a rampage like this.

Taj hotel mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani

It’s interesting how knowing even one person makes a difference in our relative desensitization towards systematic acts of violence. What causes this rage and brutal frustration?

press mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani gateway of india

I asked my friend, Nimesh Didia, to just go out and take some random pictures of the area and people; I was grateful to receive all of these images from him yesterday.

press mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani

Regular Mumbaikars are replaced by soldiers and the world press; it’s an exercise in futility to try to make some sense of the incomprehensible…

soldiers mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani

The Taj Mahal hotel survived the fire but at least 170 people didn’t. To see excellent pictures click here.

Taj hotel mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani soldiers

Maybe great solidarity and large-heartedness in times of peril will save the city. India and Pakistan have a bloody history since the partition in 1947 and these incidents are not helping.

mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani blue sea

Even James Bond couldn’t keep the Regal movie theater open on the first days of attack:

mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani regal theatre closed

but the clean up work has started:

Taj hotel mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani clean up

The best article I read is Suketu Mehta’s in NY Times— he eloquently describes the feelings of many of the 18 million people pf Mumbai. Read it here.

As you can see, life continues (it always does) in spite of the recent calamity:

mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani fast food

May it be sweeter from now on for India.

mumbai attacks nimesh dadia michele roohani sweet vendor taj hotel

“Partition’s people stitched
Shrouds from a flag, gentlemen scissored Sind.
An opened people, fraying across the cut
country reknotted themselves on this island.”

Adil Jussawalla