A South American Adventure

The title of our organised tour of Chile, Argentina and Brazil was `South American Adventure` and so it turned out! In the course of just over a fortnight, we stayed in 7 hotels, did 4 internal flights (in addition to the two long trans-Atlantic ones on the way out and return) and made two land frontier crossings. It was indeed hectic, but with intervals for rest and leisure in between.

So what about the trip itself? One of Its highlights was undoubtedly the drive over the top of the Andes from Chile into Argentina which involved a complicated sequence of coach and catamaran rides over a couple of days. Its starting point was the 76 km drive from Puerto Varas into the Vicente Perez National Park, a region of outstanding natural beauty and scenic terrain. En route we stopped to visit the Saltos de Petrohue, a magnificent waterfalls on the River Petrohue. This was followed by a most exciting catamaran ride of one-and-three-quarters hours across Lago Todos los Santos, considered to be the most beautiful lake in Chile because of its emerald green water and densely populated surrounding woods. Our destination there was the port of Peulla, a charming village nesting in a serene mountainous setting surrounded by lakes and waterfalls. There we stayed overnight in a Swiss chalet style hotel, with full amenities and splendid views of the surroundings.

We continued the next day, again through a series of coach and catamaran journeys, involving the physical crossing of the border from Chile into Argentina at an altitude of some 3,000+ metres. That was not however where the frontier formalities were done, for both the Chilean exit and the Argentinian entry procedures had been conducted miles apart, well before and after the physical boundary had been crossed. The climb up and drive through the mountains here reminded me of Sikkim, North East India, where we had journeyed in 2007, except that here there was much more of a harmony between nature and human habitation, which was also different from the clean and clinical contrast with the Rockies of North America. We were headed for Bariloche, on the south shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi, a renouned mountain resort in Patagonia and a favourite holiday destination not only for Argentinians but also for Brazilians.

The other major highlight was the Iguassu Falls complex, straddling both Argentina and Brazil, at a point which also borders on Paraguay. We were lucky that there had been a great deal of rain there just a couple of days earlier, which meant that there was high density water, water everywhere. This is an area of exceptional splendour that is not much heard or spoken of in the world at large, but it compares more than favourably with the better known Niagara and Victoria Falls. On the Argentinian side we walked on fortified walkways far and deep into the complex, while on the Brazilian side we stood in front of a huge cascade gushing at a velocity and noise level that was deafening.

But to backtrack a little, we had started out in Santiago, an easy going modern city of some five million. Here we saw the President`s Palace, where President Allende was killed in the coup that brought in General Pinochet in 1973. Later we did a tour of one of Chile`s finest wineries, Vina Concha y Toro which, I was pleased to discover, was the home of one of my favourite wines, the Casillero del Diablo Caberne! But our most memorable outing was to Valpariso, the largest port city on Chile`s Pacific coast, with its undulating landscape of colourful and higgeldly piggedly buildings lining narrow streets at all kinds of angles and its picturesque harbour front. And here the local highlight was a visit to the house of Pablo Naruda, the celebrated Chilean poet, high up on a hill overlooking Valpariso`s water, valleys and skylines. It gave one an extraordinary insight into the home and working environment of one of the iconic literary figures of the 20th century. It was rather like a matchbox structure, intricately tiered on several floors, each of which provided disparate space for living, sleeping, entertaining and writing. It reminded me of Ernest Hemingway`s beautiful house in Havana, Cuba, also situated on high ground with magnificent views of its surroundings.

Valpariso`s importance declined when the Panama Canal opened in the early part of the 20th century, but until then it was a major and thriving port along the west coast of South America and the first place of call for ships rounding the Cape of Horn from Europe or other parts of the globe to the east. It was also the entry point for waves of migrants from Europe and some from the Middle East as well. The population of Chile is much more mixed, in terms of both European and native Indian blood, while that of Argentina is predominantly white. Brazil too has its ethnic dynamics, as it not only has a history of population conflations and conflicts but also continues to be an immigrant receiving society. In addition to the cultural and human diversity, all three countries have so much to offer in terms of natural history and science and a fantastic array of geophysical features that one can only guess at the extent of things not seen and experienced, only glimpsed superficially. As well as the many references to it in the tourist literature, the fact that Darwin had touched on Chilean soil and made some valuable discoveries about the habitat of the region during his epic voyage was proudly mentioned by our guides.

This was our first venture into South America. We have been creatures of the Anglo-American or African-Asian world for so long that it was a strange feeling at first to be confronted with a different rhythm of life, though it was still manifestly European and so not completely alien on surface. The people there are definitely polite and considerate; respectful and mindful of others. They also assumed that we were Spanish-speaking, not just because of our colour and looks, but also because that is their lingua franca and frame of reference. At airports and some tourist sites however all signs are in Spanish and English.

But the thought that kept on recurring was, how extraordinary that civilisation exists in Chile! Chile after all must be the remotest country on earth: it is a mere long strip on the west coast of South America, bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean and on the other by the high mountain range of the Andes. So even in the South American context, it is pretty isolated. In global terms, its nearest landmass on the west is Australasia and on the east South Africa, both thousands of miles apart. And yet, even as far as we went down in the south (to the Lake District), all the infrastructure of the modern age that we take for granted is to be found there; ok, maybe not exactly of the same first world standard as in North America, but definitely in the upper stratum of the second - not third - world. Argentina has had a rough economic spell in the recent past, but even it is not that far behind. Brazil on the other hand is an up-and-coming developing giant, whose problems and possibilities and potential in the international trade and financial arena are fairly well known. Their currency values and standards of living seemed to be rising.

The day before we reached Rio (which was on Saturday 3 October), it had been announced that the next Olympics were going to be held there, and so a massive public celebration was planned for the Sunday night into Monday at CopaCabana beach. Sunday however was not a good day in weather terms; that was also the day we did most of our sight-seeing. Incidentally, that day I also deliberately chose to wear my Che tee-shirt and I must say it drew some favourable looks or comments from the locals and other tourists. Our hike up the monument of Christ the Redeemer was a disappointment because the statue was shrouded in mist while we were there and so that photo-op was a missed opportunity, except for a rather striking shadowy outline. But the rest of Rio was fine and we got some brilliant shots. Incidentally, Rio has a Mahatma Gandhi Square with a statue of the Mahatma! Once again, though, while Brazil is habitually lumped in with the African and Asian third world countries, its poverty and polarities are not that much different from what we see in the US, where too of course they exist. Even so, Brazil`s third world conditions nevertheless have an overall European orientation.

I forgot to mention Buenos Aires - a huge metropolitan city. Here we visited the city`s main squares (including the famous Plaza de Mayo, the political heart of the city where the "mothers of the disappeared" used to gather to protest about the fate of their children), cathedrals etc, and the famous cemetery where Evita was buried, and the Italian quarter of La Boca, where I had a picture taken with a Tango girl in the street. One evening we also went to a Tango performance, macho and stylistic, geared to arouse the senses but its artificiality somehow failed to do that. We also found an Indian restaurant in the centre of the business district where our hotel was situated, but much as we had wanted to eat there, that was during the one 24 hour period when I was struck down with a tummy bug, and so had to be content just to visit the place. We found out that it was owned by a guy from Delhi (hence `The Delhi Durbar`), and one or two of his staff were Bangla Deshi. But deshi food then would have been welcome, even though in Chile and Argentina in particular, the chefs in hotels and restaurants made special effort to cater to our vegetarian dietary needs; in fact there was too much food around everywhere. In Buenos Aires, they said they eat vegetarians - after all in the land of beef a veggie is a vulnerable specie!

In Buenos Aires in particular (but also to some extent in Santiago) what was so noticeable was that the streets were crowded with people briskly walking about purposefully, hurrying here and there, in huge numbers not - as we usually find in London, Paris or other big cities - during `rush` hours when they might be going to or leaving work from offices, shops, banks etc, or at lunch time, but outside of those hours, at mid-morning or mid-afternoon. There seemed to be rather a lot of them everywhere. To us this seemed quite extraordinary.

Well, there it is. Now we have been to every continent in the world, except the Arctic and the Antarctica; but that is all rather superficial really. If one could put the clock back, then I would have done it differently, like what our youngsters are doing nowadays - taking a year out to live and work there. I am conscious that I have not mentioned the socio-cultural aspects much, but from a tourist`s perspective, what one sees around is what one makes most of, and so it was in our case.

RAMNIK SHAH

Film Review: "Well Done Abba"

This year`s London Film Festival is on and as usual we are treated to an eclectic mix of offerings, "Well Done Abba" among them. I saw it on Tuesday. A Shyam Benegal`s film is always something to look forward to, and so one went in with high expectations. But though immensely enjoyable, reflecting on it afterwards I wondered if it was that different from the standard Bollywood fare of romance, drama, music and entertainment. In India, it may well be classified as an art movie, but to a western audience, what comes across is a fairy story of the good triumphing over or trumping the bad with a happy ending. That said, yes, it deserves plaudits for technical detail and presentation, narrative, location and, above all, casting and acting.

The hero is the simple-minded Armaan Ali, a chauffeur working for a big Mumbai business executive, who has to explain to his boss why he should not be sacked for overstaying his home leave by two months, and so he launches into his tale of woe and wonder. He is a widower who has left his young daughter to be brought up by his socially irresponsible twin brother and his wife back at home. His return there is the beginning of a complex sequence of misadventures involving corruption and greed at every level of local administration when he is misled into applying for a government grant under a scheme for helping houseowners below a certain level of income to enable them to sink a well for fresh water supply in their properties. We see how the system works and how he gets sucked deeper and deeper into it. But it is a comedy - a light hearted look at the working of Indian politics and society in its most basic functional modes. In short, it is a delighful satire, with a serious undertone.

So we get drawn into the small-town life of the community, predominantly Muslim, that Armaan Ali navigates willy nilly. This is beautifully captured (and indeed in some respects it resonated with the American film that I had seen the day before, `The Exploding Girl`, set in upstate New York about a couple of college students rreturning home on vacation to find that nothing much happened there while they wrestled with their youthful angst). The various characters, ranging from the police inspector to the civil engineer to the local tax officials to the village headwoman - all their personal, professional and domestic flaws and foibles are bared with sharp humour while on the political front the hypocrisy and double-dealing of the legislators and the government are exposed mercilessly.

But it is Armaan Ali`s feisty daughter (played by Sammir-Minissha) who steals the limelight when it comes to getting him out of the trouble that he lands himself in. There is also the romantic angle, in the shape of the idealistic young mechanic who, while initially pursuing Armaan Ali`s good-for-nothing brother for a small debt, falls for her and their romance develops as she begins to reciprocate the feeling. But the faultlines of the film are the many incongruities and implausibilities that abound: how is that the daughter who is otherwise so rebellious and outspoken is meek and malleable in other respects, why Armaan Ali could not have phoned his boss to beg an extension of leave and how come he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ready cash! These and other flaws do not exactly mar our enjoyment, because we go along with the flow of the narrative and the many twists and turns of the plot to see where, or rather how, it is taking us. We get some useful glimpses into the social mores and realities of life in their particular regional and religious context, such as issues relating to arranged (or coerced) marriages to rich Middle-Eastern predators for cash. The scenes involving the sex-crazed shenanigans of the civil engineer who has to win over his reluctant wife are titillating, while other marital or domestic situations are sensitively handled, with a keen eye for the comic. And without giving away too much, suffice it to say that there is some ambiguity in the end, for it is not clear if the undeserving or discredited bad guys exactly get their just deserts.

From the post-modern Indian perspective, yes, it does presumably have a certain artistic appeal to the intellectual class. Its core message is clear enough: in India nothing is straight (`No full stops in India`, a la Mark Tulley!); the small man or woman always has an uphill struggle to get round bureaucracy and corrupt policemen, politicians and the proverbial pimps; that everything has a price in the form of a commission or bribe. That is all very well. How this is conveyed is the essence of the cinema as an art form. But to my thinking, how it translates, in cross-cultural terms, into a universal theme is where global considerations come in, and here one has to make some allowances, which intelligent world viewers would do anyway, even if they may be unable to relate to the plot or understand its many reference points.

At the (second) showing that I went to, the task of explaining the film and conducting the Q&A fell on Boman Irani, the lead actor whose rendering of Armaan Ali was simply brilliant, because Shyam Benegal had already left London. He was as good on his feet as on the screen. He said that the film script had been put together from two or three short stories and,,when I put to him, was happy to confirm that unlike the driver in Arvinda Adiga`s `White Tiger` (or indeed in Martin Scorsese`s`Taxi Driver`), his was a much benign and likeable character. Looking at him in person, one could be in doubt about his acting talent and hinterland. His performance in person was as articulate and wholesome as it was in the movie. `Well Done Abba` indeed.

RAMNIK SHAH

Reviews in Retrospect: `The Journey (Yatra)`

I posted this review of `The Journey (Yatra` on Monday 30 October 2006 on the A/O forum:

FILM REVIEW: The Journey (Yatra)

This was one of the many offerings of the London Film Festival, currently in its second week (having opened with `The Last King of Scotland" the one about Idi Amin). We saw it on Thursday at the National Film Theatre on its first showing (each exhibit has two). Written and directed (in Hindi, with English sub-titles) by Goutam Ghose, it is described in its own self-publicity as "(a) superb must-see film, in which .... Ghose elicits powerful performances from an acclaimed cast including Nana Patekar, Deepti Naval and the ageless Rekha"; and so it is and so he does, though I have to admit that I didn`t think so at first!

I was, alas, less than impressed when the film ended and so didn`t feel inclined to participate in the Q&A session that followed with Ghose, who had come from India for the presentation and who stood just 10 metres from where we were sitting. So why did I feel that way and why have I changed my mind? To begin with, maybe I was subconsciously put off by his introductory remarks about the film, before it began, in which he spoke of it as a product of his own upper middle-class environment. He certainly did not lack in modesty; but then considering his 30+ year record of film-making, with some notable successes and awards, even though he may not be so well known outside India, such confidence was perhaps understandable. I thought there was a touch of pretentiousness about it, but on reflection maybe it was just the way many `desi` Indians do rather unself-consciously think of themselves! Then being ensconced in the second row from the front made it a little uncomfortable viewing for me, and thirdly, I could not, as an outsider, relate to its purely Indian social nuances and local reference points - but then that is me, whose intellectual and cultural orientation is Western.

Well, the film sort of grows on you; at least for me it acquired a meaning and fell into place more in retrospect than there and then. The `journey` is a yatra on a multipliticy of levels where, as the blurb tells us, "fact and fiction tensely scillate". Ostensibly there is an elaborate facade of a writer constructing a story that assumes the garb of an imagined past but one which soon dissolves into both a living reality and paradoxically, at the same time, an enigma of surreal, if tragic eternity. If that sounds too vague and poetic then that is exactly the intended effect. The artificial constructs of the structure notwithstanding, the essence of the plot is simple enough: Dashrath (played by Nana Patekar), a respected village schoolmaster, with a wife and two growing children and an elderly mother to look after, has his tranquil existence turned upside down when he comes a woman (Lajvanti, played by Rekha) in a most distraught state lying in the bushy widerness of the surrounding countryside. She used to be a `nautch` girl but had become the resident mistress of a local `raja` or landlord who was not averse to exploiting and abusing her when it suited him (here is our first song and dance routine, beautifully peformed, with the usual horde of hissing middle-aged men squatting on the floor, deliriously drunk and doddering about excitedly). She has been serially and violently raped and abandoned. He takes her home, gives her shelter and his wife and family gently nurture her back to some sort of normality when her `owner` and protector sends his henchmen to claim her back and to threaten him with dire consequences if he does not `deliver` her. So they all leave the village and trek to the big city where he finds her a secure place. So far so good, and there is no hint of any impropriety or emotional entanglement. But it is after Lajvanti leaves his protection that he falls for her and from there on, it is reminiscent of Dr Zhivago, the idealistic doctor`s passionate affair with Lara, whose life goes through a series of twists and turns of epic proportions before it ends in a tragic denouement.

When the film opens however, the transformation of the village schoolteacher into a successful author, his embracing of the `nouveau riche` lifestyle of contemporary upper middle class Indian society, with all the standard comforts that go with it, has already taken place. And so from there on, it takes on an episodic quality, with all kinds of flashbacks and flashforwards as well as the unfolding of the sequences that provide continuity and cohesion to the composition as a whole. This is interwoven with the underlying ambiguity about the essence of the film: is it Dashrath`s tale or one that he has created, with a large dose of self or wish-fulfilment?

In his opening, pre-show remarks, Ghose had referred to the new India, its vibrant economy and consciousness being part of the cross-cultural ways of our post-modern global era. He demonstrates this in telling ways: Dashrath`s (by Indian standars) ultra-mod-cons of domesticity - the hi-fi, the cable tv, the fridge/freezer, the telephone and other gadgets - and outside, in the city (Hyderabad) the shopping mall, the car and the mobile phone - all this is the changing face of the country, no doubt. This is not all. We see early scenes of marital affection between Dashrath and his wife, involving lip-kissing, and later on casual and graphic sex between peripheral characters (a `Sex in the City` style young business executive and a budding film maker to whom Dashrath has confided his whole life story, which is the outer casing of the film, as it were, during a train journey to Delhi to receive a literary award). So the picture we get here is indeed of an India that is on the move, in more than one sense. But there are incongruities too. For example, the two grown up children (son and daughter) of the family are too goody goody and all their internal dynamics are too tame, for those of us who are used to a much less sentimental approach to human interactions. Even so, when the wife and the mistress meet (in circumstances) which had best be left unsaid here) the lack of any empathy between them while understandable in one sense is too stark as a dramatic conclusion. The stiffness of their encounter is too jarring a note on which to end the film.

I have touched only on the basic elements of the film, which has a layered complexity in terms of narrative, characterisation and peformance. The brevity of the publicity blurb is indeed true in its core message. All the acting is superb, and so is the music. Rekha does surprise us with the sheer virtuousity and physicality of her dance numbers, both traditional and modern. A google search will reveal Ghose`s impressive credentials. He is a Bengali, born in Uttar Pradesh, and clearly at home in both Hindi and Bengali. `The Journey` is his own creation, not based on or adapted from someone else`s, but he comes from a long line of distinguished Bengali and Hindi film makers (a la Satyajit Ray and Aparna Sen) and so their influences must inform his works too. The theme of sexuality and adultery, was most recently explored in "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna", albeit from a diasporan Indian perspective. Here it is in a home-grown context, but even so deep down one can sense a resonance with great Russian literature where personal pleasure is tempered with feelings of guilt and remorse and notions of crime and punishment play such a decisive part in family sagas.

But at the other end of the world, the film is bound to come to America (and Australasia and E Africa) too (it may already have?). The new Bostonians there may find in it an echo of the old - a kind of Merchant-Ivory treatment, in reverse, as it were, of morals and manners, and mere mortals. If it should happen that some of our members have a chance to see it (and meet the director) maybe they could ask him this question: why is it that the film - set in Hyderabad of all places, which otherwise makes a point of portraying a 21st century India with all its technological advances and is about a successful writer who consciously writes in long hand - does not showing us a computer screen anywhere, either in his study-cum-sitting room, or anywhere outside, whether in the bookshop where he is signing copies of his book for his admiring readers, at the hotel in Delhi where he is guest of honour at the award ceremony, in the call-centre for an outsourced American corporate client where his daughter chucks her job in disgust, or in any of the other public places that we are taken to? He is clearly making a point about it, but what?

That said, do go and see the film: it is a cinematic experience par excellence.



RAMNIK SHAH
Surrey England

Reviews in Retrospect: `SIR VIDIA`S SHADOW`

Again, this is from my archives. It was first posted on the BlueEar site, later turned into GlobalEar, as well as on the Namaskar-African forum, some 10 years ago. I then lost track of it but was able to retrieve it with the help of a GlobalEar veteran in 2005. Later this year, I am hoping to review Patrick French`s authorized biography `The World Is What It Is` of Naipaul and so this may serve as a useful reminder of some aspects of his, Naipaul`s life and background


SIR VIDIA`S SHADOW: A Friendship Across Five Continents, BY PAUL THEROUX, Published by Hamish Hamilton, London, 1998

Reviewed by Ramnik Shah

I have to declare an interest: both Theroux and Naipaul are among my most favourite authors. In as much as the book is about one of them by the other I was naturally immediately drawn to it and consumed by an almost voyeuristic delight and curiosity in relation to the whole narrative, a mixture of feelings in fact that we go through when one friend talks about another and everything begins to make sense about their background and relationship and indeed a whole lot of other things concerning their personalities. The terms 'intrigue' and 'disclosure' came into the equation, but to make sense of them one has to read the book.

Theroux was born in the same year that I was; so in terms of age and experience of the world (and our subsequent move to England where my home is not far from where he used to live) there is a certain parallel. More importantly, his writings in TRANSITION (modelled on the British quarterly ENCOUNTER, edited by Stephen Spender and later revealed to be financed by the CIA) the politico-literary journal published from Makerere, the Ugandan university where he was teaching in the mid-1960s, were an early influence on those of us who were part of the UK returned yuppie generation of East African Asians. It was a time of political change and personal awakening; and while engaged in a search for identity and commitment as diasporan Indians we were ensnared by Naipaul's AN AREA OF DARKNESS. So, for us the combination of Naipaul and Theroux as literary heavyweights was loaded even then, with an ever-lasting potential that has endured to this day.

Given the nature of the subject matter and the personalities involved, it was hardly surprising that when SIR VIDIA'S SHADOW first appeared, there was a great deal of media publicity surrounding it; more specifically focusing on some of the sensational 'revelations' concerning Naipaul, e.g. his penchant for prostitutes, the death of his first wife and sudden second marriage, his touchiness on the subject of the Nobel Prize for Literature and, above all, the manner of the final parting of ways of the two friends.

But to start at the beginning, they first met in Uganda, circa 1965, when Naipaul, who was already a literary celebrity in Britain, arrived at Makerere as a visiting professor. Theroux was then a budding writer, dreaming of the big novel and fame, but had published nothing more than a few poems, reviews and articles; none outside Africa. So theirs was a fortuitous and fateful encounter, in an African university campus that Naipaul, immediately after arrival there, had dismissed off as devoid of any cultural values. But in Theroux, Naipaul found a willing disciple, and Theroux an equally eager, if rather patronizing and forceful, leader; their relationship soon took on the quality of a "guru and chela" = master and pupil.

Theroux's account of their first meeting and friendship as it developed rings so true that the reader becomes a participant, an on-the-spot observer, witnessing their many adventures as Theroux escorts Naipaul in and around the city of Kampala. They also take trips together up and down the country and to the dangerous and inhospitable regions transcending Uganda's borders with Congo and Rwanda, and into Kenya where, in particular, Naipaul feels most comfortable at The Kaptagat Arms, an old-style hotel run by a white ex-India military type in the former white highlands town of Eldoret, where indeed he stays for a prolonged period to finish his novel The Mimic Men. The quid pro quo of course was that Theroux benefited from Naipaul's fond and willing patronage; he received guidance on the technique of writing, on the politics of publishing, on life generally, and in return gave his unstinting adulation to his mentor. Even as the African part of their lives was coming to an end, Theroux, then still in his twenties, was conscious of the debt he owed to Vidia. He writes :

"Friendship is plainer but deeper than love. A friend knows your faults and forgives them, but more than that, a friend is a witness. I needed Vidia as a friend, because he saw something in me I did not see. He said I was a writer. He spoke about it with his customary directness. That meant everything to me, because I had no idea what I was going be next."

And he was repeatedly told: "You`re going to be all right, Paul", which of course made sense in their later years.

Vidia then returns to Britain, leaving a disconsolate Theroux in the backwoods of Kampala. Theroux even makes a sneak visit to London during the short Christmas vacation, without telling his colleagues. He is excited by the thrill of the metropolis, the prospect of meeting the capital's literati and the feel of being in the centre of things. He meets Vidia's younger brother Shiva, then a hippy-style student at Oxford, and observes Vidia on his home ground for the first time.

Then Theroux leaves Africa too, to teach in Singapore and to embark on his own proper writing career, with mounting success ("Fong and the Indians", "Waldo", "Girls at Play", "Jungle Lovers" at first, followed by the more successesful "Saint Jack" and "The Mosquito Coast" etc) and eventually to settle in Britain when he was barely thirty, with eight published books to his name. Their friendship, already firmly established, blossomed during Theroux's 15 or so years in England. This was a time when they would both undertake journeys, in their quest for adventure and writing material, to far flung corners of the globe, Naipaul to Iran, India, Argentina, the Caribbean and Africa and Theroux to South America, Asia, Pacific and Europe "across five continents". They would communicate by fax, letters and postcards, meet up from time to time, and pick up threads from where they would have left off, while going through the normal vicissitudes of living and age-ing.

All this is immaculately captured in the book. Describing the effect of the sudden death of Vidia's brother, Shiva, had on him, he says: "He sorrowed quietly; his grieving showed in his writing, in his choice of subject" and then: "It made us firmer friends. Now, after almost twenty years, we depended on one another ... to listen .. be sympathetic ... chastened by Shiva's death ... realized how precious life was".

As between friends who are both masters of the creative process, it is but natural that they should tap into each other's resources, but what went wrong, and when, in their relationship? Not the more superficial irritations such as Naipaul's niggardliness (with Theroux somehow always finding himself having to pick up the tab for their meals) or his idiosyncracies in matters of social etiquette (his insistence on punctuality and other forms of behaviour) or his patent insensitivity towards his own wife Pat (how she would weep silently, in protest or out of helplessness at his emotional extravagance or sexual proclivities). Theroux is as candid about his own failings and foibles as he is about his friend's. Did he resent the subservient role he had always assumed towards the older man, or the knighthood that was conferred on Naipaul who had always been disdainful of such honours "A title is nothing ... I have the idea that they should sell titles at the post office". He acknowledges that he had "always been (Vidia's) squire, "driver, sidekick, spear carrier, flunky, gofer; diligent, tactful, helpful ...?".

Perhaps Naipaul in turn was envious of his success and standing, but did that not have the effect of equalizing their status? Isn't there always an element of jealousy between friends competing in the same market place?

As widely reported in the media with copious extracts from the book when it was published, the crunch came with the sudden and shocking discovery by Theroux that Naipaul was selling certain first editions of his books that Theroux had especially presented to him, Naipaul, with fond inscriptions, through a Massachussetts bookseller. But the denouement had begun a year before, when he first met Naipaul's new wife Nadira at the Hay-on-Wye book festival in western England's picturesque countryside. The two friends were billed to appear on a joint panel, to discuss their works. Among those present was Salman Rushdie. According to Theroux, the event turned into a near disaster because Naipaul treated it more as a platform for him to be interviewed by Theroux rather than the two of them having a public dialogue. He also quotes Rushdie's rather unkind verdict on the meeting. Then came some nasty fax exchanges with Nadira, concerning the obituary that Theroux had written of Naipaul's first wife Pat at his request. We are left in no doubt that Naipaul's second marriage has a lot to do with the final break between the two friends.

So what are we to make of the book? Is it a catalogue of accumulated grievances, an account of how the two became friends and interacted with each other through thick and thin? Yes, and more. In the penultimate chapter, "Exchanges", Theroux sums up his friend discursively, ruminating about his strengths and weaknesses, his writings and his other relationships. "To all relations ... (however) there is always a time to call them off": these ominous words of Naipaul were soon to prove prophetic. In their acrimonious correspondence, Nadira had mentioned a biography of Naipaul. "The subtext of her letter was: Don't write about him. This offended me. I had become a writer to be ... free ... not to take directions ... Until I received Nadira's letter I had not even considered using Vidia as the subject of a book ... (he was my friend ... a book about such ... friendship was ... impossible ... (f)riendship had its rules ... (a)nd there was no model: such a portrait had never been done ... a young Samuel Beckett writing a book about his (friendship with) the older James Joyce(?)" And yet the "subject of proteges and apprenticeship had ... fascinated me since my earliest days with Vidia in Uganda". Theroux is at his best here, in exposing his own doubts and self-contradictions. He does not offer an excuse for what others have termed a betrayal of his friendship and there is undoubtedly a certain amount of personal bitchiness and name-calling; but what impelled him to write the book?

The last and decisive straw clearly was their final and purely coincidental meeting on Gloucester Road in London's South Kensington, when the two came face to face and Naipaul walked away with the immortal words "Take it on the chin and move on", referring to the end of their friendship. And so as he says right at the end: "Before we got to Cromwell Road I had begun this book in my head ... (this) is everything."

Do I think any the less of either of them? Not at all. On the contrary, the book has taught me, or reinforced a view I have always held, that the ultimate appreciation that we can give to a work of literature or art is to judge it on its own merit, divorced from the personality of its creator. Naipaul is not the first, nor the last, of the great writers of all time to have flaws of character or to have led blemished lives. As far as I am concerned, neither is a fallen idol. They both remain my favourite authors. In his "READING AND WRITING: A Personal Account", Naipaul says: "Literature, like all living art, is always on the move." This book extends the boundaries of both. It is as much about Theroux himself as about Naipaul. He needed to exorcise his grievance. Whether Naipaul feels and does the same, life has moved on.

Reviews in Retrospect: `HOTEL RWANDA`

This is from my own archives, posted on the GlobalEar site, now alas defunct, on March 28, 2005.

Hotel Rwanda has the same kind of aura as `Gandhi` and `Cry Freedom` and `Schindler`s List`. It is of course about recent history - a bloody and gruesome massacre of innocents that happened in our own time - and about the part that one particular individual played in saving the lives of hundreds of people caught up in it. In this case, we are also drawn into his personal life in a most empathetic way.

I was also immediately reminded of `A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali` (ISBN 1 84195 453 5 - by Gil Courtemanche - Translated from the original French by Patricial Claxton). That was a fictionalized account of the Rwanda atrocities, with graphic details of the build-up to the genocide and the attendant horrors that took place then, but there too we had a glimpse of the eponymous hotel of the film - the Hotel des Mille Collines - and of its true-life manager, Paul Ruseabagina (here played superlatively by Don Cheadle). There are also references to him and the hotel in George Alagiah`s book `A Passage to Africa` and Aidan Hartley`s `The Zanzibar Chest`, and in Jon Snow`s `Shooting History`. These hardened global journalists too were deeply affected by what they had seen. The sequences in the film of the fleeing refugees, of the soliders and others beating up and slaughtering civilians, of the army officers and generals demanding payment for lives to be spared, of the helpless captives being tossed about here and there and of the few sheltering in the nooks and corners of the hotel - these are vivid and haunting images but they are not, alas, unique, because in all similar situations - of revolutionary turmoil, of civil-war in-fighting, of persecution of minorities etc - those in power or wielding the upper hand are prone to inflict pain and suffering of the most inhuman kind upon their victims.

There have been countless other movies depicting these kinds of horrors (in Cambodia, Congo, India/ Pakistan and so on). In `Shindler` List`, there was a large dose of menace and sanitized, almost clinical, surrealism about the plight of the thousandsdespatched to the gas chambers; in `Cry Freedom` there were the marching multitudes with the hovering presence of the security forces in military gear ready to pounce on them and in `Gandhi` the episodes of the butchery inflicted by both Muslim and HIndu religious zealots were graphically captured. In all these films, as in this one, there was a note of optimism at the end nevertheless, because ultimately humanity triumphed, even if, as in at least two of them, the individual at the centre of them did perish. The common factor between them of course is the singular character whose life sustains the plot and gives it a sense of spiritual salvation.

But to get back to our hero, Paul, but for him the film would have failed to make the impact that it has. He is an urbane and educated Hutuu, happily married to an equally charming, serene and rather pretty Tutsi and they lead a happy family life with their three bright children as part of the Westernized Rwandan middle-class elite. That much is as much implied as visually spelt out, for right from the beginning we are drawn into the gathering storm with a rapidity that leaves little room for social or political nuances, except for the one overwhelming message that the film is about, ie. how the majority Hutuus turned on their hapless Tutsi minority in a `moment of madness` bent on wiping them out.

Throughout, the centrality of the hotel as the threatre of action is never in doubt, for we are in and out of it as Paul tries to keep it going on an even keel against all the pressures. From the outside entrance through the reception area to the rear of the hotel, where there is partaking of food and drink around the pool on the terrace by the expatriate whites (the press and the UN staff) and the locals (the prostitutes, the parasites and the paramilitary personnel), we are in no doubt about its status, not so much as an oasis of wealth and splendour but rather as a haven of security amidst the chaos of the world outside. Against this background, Paul has to use all his innate qualities of patience and negotiation, even guile, forever stretching his resources and pushing against the boundaries of tolerance and understanding, in order to secure safe passage, conduct, sanctuary or simple survival for all those hundreds of people for whom he had either assumed or been forced to accept responsiblity. He talks to his bosses in Belgium, pleads with men in uniform, cajoles and compromises with his own staff, plays the family man - even the romantic husband with his wife (the few stolen scenes of tenderness between them are touching) - while all the time the tragedy is unfolding and engulfing everyone around him. We fear for his life (because there are some very close nasty encounters) and pray that he will overcome the enormous odds and the mishaps that would have deterred a lesser man.

So undoubtedly here is a film with magnetic Oscar proportions. Paul`s wife is played, equally impressively, by the black British actress Sophie Okonedo. They both deserve a medal. The credits at the end do not point to any particular literary source, but the reference to Paul as a real life figure gives a poignant and compelling edge to the saga of the Rwandan killings. How else could an African tragedy, even on the scale of other 20th century global parallels, appeal to mass audiences in the West?

There are at least two other offerings currently on view (or shortly to be) on the same subject. One is `Sometimes in April` by the renowned Haitian born director Raoul Peck, and the other Michael Canton-Jones` `Shooting Dogs`. There has been a lot of media coverage (features, interviews and guest appearances) accompanying or preceding them and the sense that we get is that the time has come for an artistic appreciation of the tragedy of Rwanda.

What should the world`s reaction be? Well, while we are constantly urged to`learn from history`, cynics among us are forever reminding us that rhetoric and reality do not always match. I well remember expressing my own misgivings to someone about the failure of the international community to do anything at the time (in 1994) against the background of the Bosnian conflict that was then raging and making the point that perhaps we were far too concerned about the latter because it was on our door-step in Europe. But that said, let us just think: how much do we know of, much less care about, what may be happening at any given time in some obscure corner of the world that is beyond our vision or sphere of concern? Of course, by `we` I mean society in general, not particular individuals. From time to time, the barrier of unconsciousness in broken and people may stand up and protest - but to what avail? But more often than not, while history is taking place, we are often unaware either of its happening or of its significance, or too preoccupied with other more mundane or immediate matters, to take notice. Time is what we need to absorb the `lessons of history` but by then it is too late to apply them! But the human spirit cannot surely be daunted; the optimist in us will always want to leave a record of our struggle,so that future generations may do better, and that is what this film is about.

This film should indeed be seen by everyone.

Posted By Ramnik on 03/28/2005 Movies

The Mumbai terror attack - the history and ramifications

A month or so after I had reviewed `Firaaq` (see my last post), terrorists attacked Mumbai, on November 26, 2008, which inevitably led to much chatter in cyberspace. Today, The Times carries a report of the surprise admission of guilt by the chief perpetrator under the heading "Mumbai gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab changes plea to guilty". Its opening and closing paragraphs are as follows:

"The lone terrorist gunman to survive the Mumbai attacks confessed to his role in the atrocity yesterday, dramatically reversing months of denials — and possibly paving the way for a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan".

"Kasab’s confession could help to ease relations between India and its neighbour, analysts said. It came hours after the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, used a trip to Mumbai to defend the sincerity of Islamabad’s anti-terrorism policies. “We believe there is a commitment to fighting terrorism that permeates the entire (Pakistan) Government,” Mrs Clinton said".

Whether there will be an improvement in Indo-Pak relations remains to be seen; it may turn out to be a pious hope! But it is worth revisiting the arguments that were raging in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Here is what I wrote on December 3, 2008 in reply to a post under the title "India`s new `untouchables`":

Message #31874 > Wed Dec 3, 2008 8:59 pm > Ramnik Shah wrote:

I too had been forwarded this piece and had read it with interest. Taking on board all that you say, from a clearly enlightened and liberal stance (with which I can readily identify), the fact remains that there has been a growing anti-Muslim sentiment building up in India in the last two decades (`Ayodhya`, the 1993 Bombay riots, `Godhra` etc), leading to a sense of alienation, discrimination, disaffection and victimisation and a general feeling among Muslims that they are indeed the new pariah class, lower even than the Dalits, in the Indian hierarchy of privilege and social order. I have heard or read many first hand accounts of young (Muslim) people, men mostly, being denied job opportunities, admission to universities, harrassed and habitually treated as second class citizens. More particularly, whenever terrorist type incidents occur, they feel especially vulnerable because of finger pointing, often with crude invitations to go (or even `go back`) to Pakistan. Their plight was vividly portrayed in the film FIRAAQ, reviewed here by me on 16 October (Msg #30332). All this is bound to fuel resentment and cause insecurity and isolationist tendencies.

The fact that large sections of the Indian political leadership (from the PM downwards), media and public were so quick to blame Pakistan for the horrendous attack on Mumbai, without making a distinction between the Pakistani state and the terrorist groups operating from its territory cannot help but exacerbate this climate of suspicion and hostility towards the Muslims. Against this broad background, it is hardly surprising if some of their young folk were attracted or recruited to the terrorists` cause. But even if there was no local Muslim involvement in the Mumbai massacre, is the (majority of) Indians` myopia so short-sighted that they cannot see the utter folly of antagonising some 150 million Muslims in their midst to the point of open rebellion and even civil war? What could then happen is beyond contemplation. They chose to remain in India after partition and, after more than 60 years and two or three generations down the line, are as much an integral part of the body politic as everyone else. They are the largest and most significant single minority whose voices, aspirations and fears cannot be ignored or brushed aside lightly. This surely is a crucial turning point in India`s history when, if wiser counsels prevail, every effort should be made to win the `hearts and minds` of an important part of the population.

One or two other related points: the Pakistani government has been at pains to stress the need to fight terrorism as a common cause and has strenuously sought to distance itself from any terror groups located within its borders. Even if you take this with a pinch of salt, so to speak, can it be denied that there is a measure of genuine concern and willilngness to extend the hand of friendhship on their part? On the other hand, what the Mumbai massacre has shown, alas, is the incompetence, unpreparedness and inability of the Indian authorities to defend their country and in particular its commercial and financial capital. Their lack of resources in terms of equipment and training was exposed in their bungled rescue operation on the Jewish centre at Nariman Point, which was attacked by the commandos as if, as one Israeli commentator observed, there were no hostages there! So it suited the Indians to pour all their anger at the Pakistanis, thereby diverting criticism from their own failings.

I am sure at the more sophisticated intellectual and informed levels, Indians too are engaged in a process of soul-searching, and we know that there are already many voices demanding answers from the government, but in the immediate context of this thread, I wonder how the Muslim minority will be viewed and what their fate will be in the months leading up to the elections.

Finally, for the sake of some of our new members, let me reproduce the opening and concluding passages from my posting (Msg # 5784) of 28 January 2005 which I think neatly encapsulate where I, and I dare say many others on this forum, stand vis-a-vis India and the Indians:

"On Identity and Culture

Those familiar with my views know that I have always distanced myself from India on the basis that as East African Asians (EAAs) by birth (or by upbringing) we are not Indians but rather people with an Indian ancestry. In the current jargon, this translates as `P I Os` = persons of Indian origin, as distinct from NRIs (Non-Indian Residents) who, according to me, are strictly speaking Indian citizens resident abroad, though the Indians themselves include in this category those who may have been born in India but have since migrated elsewhere, irrespective of their current nationality. (It happened that the second `Pravasi` or Conference on Indians Overseas, had just ended as we arrived in Mumbai on 10 January). The distinction is important, not just in terms of legal niceties but because of fundamental cultural differences - `culture` here is used in the broader sense of a way of life in societal terms, not ethnic or religious heritage. Of course, our EAA identity has since morphed into an adopted and hyphenated British-Asian (or Indo-Canadian or Indo-American as the case may be) variety in the wake of our further migration to the West. And while paradoxically from a global perspective we may have thus become part of the vast Indian diaspora, in India itself we are seen as `foreigners`, which is fine with me, but taking a long view of prospective history, the `Indianness` of the `diaspora` must surely in fifty or hundred years be subsumed into another form of identity?

On Cultural / Ethnic Affinity

And finally, how do we relate to Indians? More like members of an extended clan where we left the common family home two or three generations ago. The distance is in terms of both time and space. One does not feel connected in any personal or immediate sense; only in terms of an ethnic dimension. Emotion does not enter into the equation; human empathy does. We wish the Indians well of course. Their dynamism has to be admired and their efforts have to be encouraged. We feel proud of their achievement and struggles, and to be of Indian stock - to share a common ancestry and past. But would we like to live, CAN we live there? Clearly not. This is true of even of most NRIs. Have we got India out of our system? Towards the end, we thought we had and that we would not be making a return visit again (even though we already are committed to another trip in October). Now I am not so sure. India in small doses is fine. So after a suitable interval of time, I am sure, (like the proverbial lover who does not admit to desire or the mother who thinks she has had enough of babies) the urge to go there again will return. Let us see".

RAMNIK SHAH
Surrey England

Reviews in Retrospect: `FIRAAQ`

This follows on from my last blog. Here I reproduce my review of `FIRAAQ` posted on the Africana-Orientalia forum on October 16, 2008. I then had further occasion to refer to it after the Mumbai bombing, which sparked off a wide-ranging debate. I will cover that in the next item under possibly another heading.

Message #30332> Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:57 pm> Re: FIRAAQ - A film not to be missed!

I saw FIRAAQ this afternoon, on the second day of the London Film Festival, and cannot praise or recommend it too highly. It is a masterpiece: a rounded, probing, conscience-pricking, highly accomplished film debut by Nandita Das better known as a Bollywood star. It is set in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots of 2002, in Ahmedabad (though the name of the city is not exactly spelt out). The credits tell us that it is a work of fiction based on a thousand true stories, but as Nandita explained both before and after the show, what she and her co-writer have done is to piece together many different factual accounts - from a variety of people of what they saw or heard during the troubles that resulted in a massace of Muslims - into a powerful narrative on film.

The characters represent a whole cross-section of society, from slum-dwellers to the upper middle-class, both Hindu and Muslim. Their lives are intertwined in many different ways and on a multiplicity of levels - through incident, accident, chance and fate - the film clevely weaves them together. There is the middle-middle-class Hindu family, where the loud mouthed husband rules the household with an iron fist, which he is not ashamed to use even on his middle-aged, largely servile and silent wife, who is guilt-ridden because she had ignored the pleas of desperate Muslim women from the neighbourhood seeking sanctuary from Hindu mobs engaged on a frenzy of murderous attack and destruction. She gives shelter to an orphaned Muslim boy, called Mohsin, whom she renames Mohan (for his own protection) searching for his father whom he had last seen being attacked, again by another group of Hindu fanatics. But Mohsin runs away from her when he witnesses her husband hit her and finds the atmosphere in their house oppressive. Then there is the young working class Muslim couple, with a child, whose house has been vandalized and virtually destroyed when they had fled to save them-selves. The interaction between the young mother and her Hindu friend, who work together as henna artists, is one of the running threads of the film. There is another young couple - but upper middle-class with a `mixed` marriage, between a Hindu wife and a Muslim husband with the `neutral` first name of`Sameer` that has insulated him against the prejudice and hostility of the majority Hindus among whom they all live. To him the riots are a rite of passage to a painful understanding of his vulnerability and second-class status. Without going into too much factual detail - though this is graphically and extensively explored in the film itself - suffice it to say that the sheer ignorance and patronizing that characterise Hindu attitudes, words and actions all through towards the Muslims in their midst are truly shocking and reveal the ugly side of India`s secular society. There is also a group of angry young Muslim men who are plotting their revenge, and again we are shown a side of India that is rooted in violence and reactive posturing. Finally, the old music master, a Muslim living among Hindus, with a faithful Muslim servant who tries to keep him, as played by Nasreerudeen Shah, is a weak character who is out of his time and place, who too has to come to terms with the ugly realities of Hindu-Muslim dynamics.

As a production, I could not find any faults with it. This is a must for all those who are obsessed with `Bharat Mata`. The message of the film, if one can call it that, is that violence is no answer to any supposed grievance - it merely undermines and diminishes humanity.

Nandita Das also stars in the Pakistani film, to be shown in the LFF on 20 October, called `Ramchand Pakistani`. I will write about it afterwards.

RAMNIK SHAH
Surrey, England

Reviews in Retrospect: `RAMCHAND PAKISTANI`

The film `RAMCHAND PAKISTANI` is currently having its first public showing in London at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts). Here is my review of it that I first posted on another forum on October 21st last.


Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:33 pm Ramnik Shah wrote Re: Ramchand Pakistani`

This is another of London Film Festival`s offerings that I saw yesterday afternoon. Like `Firaaq`, it too is a brilliant production and one not to be missed. To all of us and others who are familiar with the Indian sub-continent`s mix of cultures, ethnicities religions and geopolitics, the name `Ramchand` is a giveaway of course, and so its juxtaposition with Pakistan has to be intriguing, which it is at face, but I have no doubt that the title must have been deliberately chosen, to make the point that it is about a Hindu Pakistani!

The eponymous Hindu Pakistani is a mere child, aged 8, of a family belonging to the low-caste Hindu community of `untouchables` who eke out an almost nomadic existence as landless peasant farmers on the Pakistani side of the Thar Desert very near to the border with India. The film is based on real events. One day the child stupidly and accidentally crosses over into India and is immediately seized by Indian border guards, and so is his father who goes looking after him, and the two are held prisoner by the Indians. The film is based on real events that happened in the early part of 2002, at a time when tensions between India and Pakistan were at boiling point, following the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. And so it was hardly surprising if the Indians thought the father and son were some kind of Pakistani spies. They were also of course part of a much bigger number of innocent border crossers, from either side, who have been a constant feature of Indo-Pak `neighbourly` relations ever since Partition. Many of them have languished in the jails of their respective captors for decades, and so after the two had settled down to a prison routine, their only hope lay in being amnestied as part of prisoner exchanges that take place from time to time.

But that is only one aspect of the film. A large part of it focuses on the human elements - how the mother left behind on her own copes with her loneliness and vulnerability, how the 8 year old child grows up in the harsh prison environment, how the father is at first tortured by the Indians and has to fight his fellow inmates to protect himself and his son, how hope turns into despair, at both ends, how officialdom treats them all, how attitudes slowly change. That is as far as one can go without divulging the plot too much (Bhadra please note).

The female lead part is played by Nandita Das (who directed `Firaaq`), the only Indian in the whole cast in fact; the rest are played by Pakisani actors and indeed the entire film was shot in Pakistan, though as the producer Javed Jabbar explained, both before and after the show, once the project had got under way, there was a great deal of cooperation between the Indian and Pakistani authorities. In particular he mentioned that the production team were allowed to visit Bhuj jail in India and so they were able to replicate its conditions and physical layout and secondly that the Pakistanis allowed Nandita Das full access into the border regions on their side, both of which were `firsts` for the two countries film-makers. The film has already opened in both India and Pakistan to favourable reviews.

Javed Jabber, then, is the producer, but the film is directed by his very able and accomplished daughter Mehreen whom he described as an independent minded person and artist in her own right. She was also present at the showing, but did not stay long because of some other commitments and so it fell upon him to explain the background to the making of the film. He said he had first of all to convince his wife to put up the initial finance, and then negotiate with other contributors. Javed Jabbar came across as such a lovely man - a highly articulate, very moral, dignified and civilized person, that it was little wonder that he and his family could have been the force behind such an impressive film. He said he had learnt about the displaced family while working with a charity in the area and concluded that the world at large too needed to be told about them. The film is a beautiful and sensitive rendering of their story. The part of the husband (Shanker) is played by Rashid Farooqui and that of the son in the second half of the film, when he had become a budding teenager, by Navaid Jabbar, another member of the Jabbar family. All the acting is superb.

My only regret is that though I did ask a question in the Q&A session after the show, I did not stay afterwards to have a word with Javed Jabbar, if only to shake his hand - that is the kind of respect and warmth he engendered among the audience.

RAMNIK SHAH
Surrey, England

Updating the blogs

Dear All

I am conscious, and have again been reminded, of having neglected this site and so propose to put that right straightaway. How? Well, as my writings elsewhere are all scattered here and there, as a first step I will work to bring them together, selectively, under one roof here, beginning with a series of my "Reviews in Retrospect" (of films, plays, books etc) in no particular order, followed by or interspersed with other postings. That will also help me to clear my own thinking about the book I have in mind, which is a longer term project. So watch out for them as they come! Thanks.

RAMNIK SHAH

Frost/Nixon, the movie

I saw this last night and must say sat through it completely enthralled. I didn`t have time to re-read my review of the stage production (see below) as I had intended to before rushing off to the cinema, but having done so now I can only marvel at how closely the movie follows the play. There is no need to go through the plot or the underlying factual ground again here; it is all set out in the previous review. What then is there left to say about the movie?

Two thoughts came to mind as the movie began and took hold as one got drawn into it: first, how appropriate that it should have opened during the week of Obama`s Inauguration, and second, which became even more compelling at the end, that maybe in not too distant a future, we shall see another avatar of the same, say a Paxman / Bush interview "with no holds barred", in which George W will confess his guilt over everything associated with his neo-con strategy of the `War on Terror`!

In the movie too, as in the play, the characterisation of the two protagonists is superbly done by Michael Sheen as David Frost and Frank Lingella as Richard Nixon; if anything, Lingella has definitely got the upper edge. We can of course see them in closer detail, with facial expressions and body language fully exposed. Sheen`s Frost comes across as a weak, fumbling, playboyish tv personality who is a bit out of his depth in dealing with the larger than life figure of Nixon, even as a disgraced ex-President. Both of them of course have an entourage of their own. Nixon`s loyal minder is well played by Kevin Bacon as a concerned and protective aide, while Frost`s friendly female companion and other staff remain true to their parts. The two sides have moments of confrontation over the implementation of the agreed deal but in the end the interviews are allowed to proceed according to plan.

And so it was that the denouement came after the first three rather anodyne sessions, during which Nixon was able to gain the upper hand and expound self-confidently on his personal history, foreign policy and other matters. The tables turned with Watergate which was the subject of the last session. In this sense the underlying reality that was his undoing was to surface again, in retrospect. It happened when Frost, who had by then become depressed at his own lacklustre performance as the interlocutor, was goaded into an aggressive mode by the discovery of a damning piece of evidence, unearthed by one of his assistants from the congressional records, that he was then able to put to Nixon, to unsettle him. It was also at this point that I began to feel distinctly empathetic towards Nixon, for he was obviously a troubled man. His `confession` was wrung out of him not so much by hostile as assertive questioning, nor was it an unqualified admission of guilt, but rather he proffered it as a rational, if flawed, explanation of his conduct, which the viewing nation could therefore see for itself as amounting to wrongdoing in fact. But while his reputation as a `tricky dicky` probably remained unaffected, what came across was that he did grapple with inner demons, and while it may not have been sufficient to rehabilitate him fully he was not to be condemned to remain a pariah for ever.

And in any case would the American public have felt morally vindicated if Nixon had been `broken`, in the manner of a weepy emotional spectacle? That he was wrestling, had wrestled, with his conscience was clear. After all, he was the product of a system that requires all aspiring politicians, and those who achieve high office, to be beholden to a whole array of supporters, promoters and hangers-on. They are all steeped in a cut-throat culture of corruption. They navigate a path to victory through what to lesser mortals is a daunting minefield of legal traps and loopholes. Favours done have to be returned and supporters protected. In the final analysis, however, the best that could be said for him was that he presented a credible case of mitigation rather than of innocence. But he did resign, and ended his life in virtual seclusion, away from the nation`s gaze. So we can afford to take a charitable view now (some 35 years after the events in question and 14 years after his death) and say, without re-writing history, that justice of sorts was done after all.

Lingella has been nominated for the best actor award in this year`s Oscars; I think he deserves that. Ron Howard too has been nominated for best direction, though there he may face stiff competition from `Slumdog Millinaire`. The film has also been nominated for the best adapted screenplay category. On the whole, the movie provides a thoroughly satisfying experience; so it will be interesting to see what awards it picks up.

RAMNIK SHAH

`Slumgdog Millionaire`

"Slumgdog Millionaire" (`SM`) is the talk of the town right now, not all of it complimentary, having won 4 Golden Globes and been nominated for the Oscars in 10 categories, of which the 3 that count most are for Best Film, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also opened in India yesterday and continues to arouse controversy, both there and here, with the e-waves buzzing with blogs and exchanges, many of them highly critical. So here is a collection of my thoughts, extrapolated (and edited) from my recent writings elsewhere:

We mustn`t forget that the film is based on a book,"Q&A", a novel by Vikas Swaroop. Swaroop is a senior career Indian diplomat, currently Deputy Indian High Commissioner to South Africa. He wrote it in 2003-04 (while he was posted to the IHC in London), and its film rights were taken up even before the book was published (because the powers that be clearly recognized its quality and potential). Danny Boyle, who directed the movie, is one of the new breed of British filmmakers who came into pominence with his `Trainspotting`, and the earlier `Shallow Graves` which I had thoroughly enjoyed at the time. The title `Slumdog Millionaire` came with the film right deal, but as Swaroop said on BBC Radio 5 on Sunday 4 January, he was quite happy with that and the fact that the story line changed to accommodate the movie project, which he recognized is a different medium that involves a whole lot of other and different issues and considerations.
"Q&A" was dramatised on radio in 2007 (I mentioned it in my annual review of that year); that version was a more faithful adaptation of the book than the film which, though it adheres to the basic theme and structure of the original, takes a large dose of cinematic licence in the form of the romance between the hero Jamal (played by Dev Patel, British born son of ex-Kenya Asian parents) and his childhood sweetheart Latika (played by the Indian Freida Pinto); indeed all the rest of the cast were Indian. Boyle has been saying that he had looked in vain for an Indian actor to play Jamal also, but found none who was physically suitable for the part.

Swaroop said the idea of the plot had come to him when there was a scandal involving a participant in our `How to be a Millinaire` who was accused (and I think convicted) of cheating. So he translated that into an Indian setting, except that unlike the British case, where the person concerned was an educated middle-class type, his hero was going to be an unsophisticated youth with no formal education who was engaged in the perennial struggle for survival in the mean streets of Mumbai, but who was able to answer the quiz questions by reference to the knowledge and wisdom he had acquired through his life`s experiences.

There is no denying that SM`s portrayal of Mumbai`s underbelly, of its underclass of slum dwellers, and its culture of low level life, is absolutely briilliant, as is the photography. The idea of the tv game show is of course an accepted part of the Indian entertainment scene. And so the basic plot line worked; how it did is something best left to your judgment.

SM is a British, not an Indian, production, though of course it is about India - set in India, with Indian characters and an essentially Indian story. It is certainly not a Bollywood nor indeed a Hollywood movie. It cannot therefore be judged by traditional Indian standards. In this respect, it is not much different from `Gandhi` or `A Passage to India` - the first became a universal epic, the second based on a great work of literature made a significant contribution to an understanding of the Indo-British colonial dynamic. A common feature of these and other similar films is that the makers of them are empathetic to Indian perspectives.

SM is not a documentary either, but fiction. It is based on a book, by (as we have seen) an Indian writer, and while (as I have previously mentioned) the flim- makers have departed from the original script, the screen adaptation nevertheless stays true to its basic structure and theme. But even so, without a degree of verisimiltude, a work of art can fall flat. The `rags to riches` phenomenon is not new; to that extent it mirrors real life; only of course the exact circumstances and details may vary. Here it is the device of the `Who Wants to be a Millionaire` (WWM) that is employed. In other situations, it could be just a lottery win, or a fortuitous `find` of a bagful of cash or other valuables, that could transform someone`s life, or a fight with `baddies` resulting in the hero making off with their loot, or just sheer hard work and struggle against any number of odds, ranging from natural disasters, to beaurocracy to racial discrimination to competitors and rivals - the possibilities, both in real life and therefore in fiction are endless.

The WWM scenario in SM is really an artistic device. The story line was to link every question to an underlying experience that had taught the contestant a lesson that contained the answer or a clue to it which he was able to recall. And so it is through this means that we learn of the painful past and growing up of Salim, the hero. And what a damning indictment of Indian society that was - damning but realistic. I won`t go into the details here because these have been amply dissected and discussed widely. But to those who who have condemned Danny Boyle for showing the stark `underbelly` of Mumbai*s (and by implication India`s) poverty-ridden shanty towns with all the vices portrayed there, I would say, why be so squeamish, why turn a blind eye to them? Most of us are familiar with the ugly side(s) of India`s society, not just in terms of the deformed, disabled, desperate and disfigured beggars we see everywhere in India, but also of the general squalor, decay and deprivations that are part of the daily lives of literally millions of people there. As for scenes of violence, well, we have them in films about war (not just in the Western cinema, but also in Indian movies, eg. `Ashoka` and of course countless other standard Bollywood ones) or crime (eg. `Fargo`, or the most recent `No Country for Old Men` mentioned in my annual review for 2008).

What most Indian film-goers are used to seeing and want is sanitised treatment of all these issues in their films and tv soaps - full of song and dance, plastic romance and robotic characters, both good and bad. So it is `social realism` that seems to have offended critics of the film. Well, what SM does is to disabuse them of the aura of well-being associated with the standard Bollywood fare, though at the same time it fulfils the promise of a `feel-good` movie. If people found the scenes of gritty realism, and of the culture of corruption and criminality, and of the misery and general decay all around in the streets and slums of Mumbai to be upsetting then that is how the subject was treated in the book - if anything even more toughly. Paradoxically however, though at first it appeared as if this was a `feel-bad` movie, once the story unrolled and the mystery unravelled, it was transformed into a `feel-good` one as the hero managed to win the ultimate prize against all odds and expectations. Even so, how can anyone deny that below the glitter of Mumbai, there is a huge underbelly of poverty and deprivation, of literally hundreds of thousands of people living, working, travelling, just existing, cheek-by-jowl? As Danny Boyle has said, what he was most impressed by was that yes, there was poverty, but not of the `abject` kind (that being the epithet normally applied to the term), but rather that the people of Mumbai (and presumably of India generally) are resilient, enterprising and philsophical.

The flashbacks in the narrative add a touch of suspense and thrill, and unfold the story leading to the hero`s trial by ordeal in the WWM hot seat, very effectively. The endpiece, the proverbial Bollywood number on the station platform, was the right note to end the film on, after the dramatic climax of the hero`s passing the gruelling tests both of the contest itself and of the torture at the hands of the police.

A R Rahman`s music was superb; my only regret and complaint is that its sound level in our multiplex cinema auditorium was so loud (as it usually is, with deafening crescedoes) that I wasn`t able to enjoy its micro-nuanced effect - I suppose it is best heard on a CD. It reminded me of other movies where Indian classical or semi-classical themes have been incorporated into their sound tracks, eg. Satyajit Ray`s `Pather Panchali` and a certain sequence in `Bullitt` (starring Steve McQueen), both of which contained jazzy compositions by Ravi Shankar.

Some people have even criticised Boyle`s casting of Indian actors, but can we not imagine what the reaction would have been if he had used only (white) British ones? Incidentally, apparently Amitabh Bhachan has not been happy with SM`s commercial and critical success, but he of course has an axe to grind here (he was the first anchor of the Indian WWM show, but then was overshadowed by his successor Shah Rukh Khan who made an even bigger success of it) - he would have been an invidious choice for the film, where he is an invisible presence in one scene! And are the Indian commentators rattled because SM is not an Indian but a British production? But then it was the same when `Gandhi` was made - if the Indians were capable of producing a world-class film biopic of Gandhi at that time, then they should have done it, but it did not happen. There was a carping critique of the film by Alice Miles in The Times on 14 January 2009 in which she accused cinemagoers of pornographic voyeurism (?) and of Boyle`s "forestalling potential criticism about another country`s horror as entertainment by employing many Indian actors" , and alleged, contrary to fact, that "(m)uch of the dialogue is in Hindi"!

Be that as it may, the broader appeal of the film is that it is the culmination of a process that had already begun, of bringing Indian culture into the public imagination here in the west. Not just Bollywood, Indian fashion and tourism, outsourced IT software networks, global Indian corporate activities, Indian diasporan interactions but also great contemporary Indian or Indiasporan literary figures (Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, V S Naipaul, Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Desai et al - all these have been steadily making an impact on British and American consciousness, now heightened by the recent attack on Mumbai and its landmark Taj Mahaj Palace Hotel. SM will prove to be an icing on the cake. It is exciting and energizing, pulsating with sound and sight. Freida and Dev, both young, pretty/handsome, and personable, make a romantic couple worthy of any make-believe, feel-good scenario and the final scene, though it is in the classic Bollywood glitzy genre, will surely resonate with audiences as a lasting impression. It thorughly deserved the four Golden Globes and now, even one or two Oscars!

RAMNIK SHAH
Surrey England

Revisiting `Frost/Nixon` on stage

Before going to see `Frost/Nixon` the movie, which went on nationwide release here yesterday, I thought I would revisit my review of the stage production of it almost exactly a couple of years ago. So here it is, as it was posted on the Africana/Orientalia site on 7 February 2007 (Message #18572). I will then compare it with the screen version in due course.


"`Frost/Nixon` has been playing at London`s Gielgud Theatre for the last six months, and is now about to transfer to New York`s Broadway. It has been much acclaimed by professional critics here. Seeing it at the weekend, one could understand why. It is simply sensational. American audiences will surely be enthralled and entertained in equal measure.

The play of course is about and based on the Frost / Nixon interviews in the spring of 1977. It is docu-drama par excellence, with a theatrical aura that perfectly fits and depicts the two principal characters, but without any artificial or imaginative additions. It is realism at its most natural; the history it portrays needed no embellishments.

But first some background: by the mid-`70s, David Frost, the British tv personality, now an al-Jazeera news anchorman and a freelance broadcaster based in London, with `gravitas` befitting an elder media statesman, was already an established trans-Atlantic celebrity. Then he was the `playboy` talkshow host, with his own programme series on both sides of the water, and even `down under` in Australia. At that particular point however his career was somewhat on the slide. By some extraordinary luck, or clever manipulation (take your pick) he managed to secure an exclusive interview with Richard Nixon who promised him that it would be "with no holds barred". Nixon too was suffering from a lack of purpose and focus after his downfall. In this respect, both interlocutor and subject needed each other to boost their morale.

So the play begins with the the ground work and build-up to the main event. We see him at work, getting a team together of old friends (like John Birt, who was later to become Director General of the BBC), negotiating the deal with Nixon, whom he paid $600,000 (financed from his own private resources, since at that stage no networks were interested), with both parties advisers fretting over the finer details of the package. This was settled as a sequence of four one-hour sessions, covering different aspects of Nixon`s presidency. One of these was `Watergate`, the exact parameters of which were later to be in contention but resolved with much mutual posturing and threats of litigation. One half of the play is taken up by these preliminaries, and then come the interviews proper, but we sit through a two hour production without a break for an interval, an extraordinary feat sustained by the sheer power of the narrative!

The encounters between the two men are the mainstay of the story. In the first three, Nixon gets the better of Frost. He gives away nothing of importance; there are no damning revelations, no admissions of culpability. Both of them however observe the courtesies of the game while seeking to strike or defend and score or shield points. It is as if we are witnessing a verbal, albeit sedentary, boxing match; after every round, so to speak, they retreat into their respective corners, to confer and be coached by their aides. To Frost`s allies, the project seems doomed; his eternal self-assurance is under threat. On the eve of the fourth and last session, there is much soul-searching and even a nocturnal phone conversation between the two men which may or may not have taken place in reality but which set the scene for the final denouement. And so in the last telling quarter hour, the punch line is delivered; Nixon is cornered and `confesses` his guilt; he is confronted with evidence that he cannot deny. This is best left unexplored here, for even though the facts are already on record and too well known, what matters is their dramatization- so gripping and expertly done. But lest it be thought otherwise, despite all that we know about Nixon`s political disgrace, personality defects and moral foibles, it is his own candid self-analysis of his character and acceptance of blame, in hindsight, that is so disarming. He thus comes across, paradoxically, as an honourable man because, as he explains, during the only emotional outburst that we see, he wasn`t going to shop his closest associates to the Feds when he learnt of their wrong-doing, because you just don`t do that to your own people. And his answer to the basic question, "why did you not destroy the (White House) tapes?" was also rational and convincing, namely that the system had been put in place by his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, and protocol and public interest demanded that it be continued.

The play`s author is Peter Morgan, a veteran and accomplished writer of many tv and movie scripts, though this was his first stage production. Frost is played superbly by Michael Sheen, the same actor who played Tony Blair against Helen Mirren in (his, Morgan`s `The Queen`, about the relationship between monarch and prime minister at the time of Princess Diana`s death. His other major achievement was `The Deal` (supposed to have been agreed between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when Blair became leader of the Labour Party in 1994). So Morgan is past master at capturing both the minutiae and the nuances of political posturing, dialogue and relationships, all of which is evident here. Frank Lingella`s rendering of Nixon is equally impressive, and while remaining a little too controlled throughout, it softened just enough, in the last scenes, to give us a glimpse of the emotional turmoil of his `alter ego` as he came to terms with his fate.

More topically, for us in Britain, the possible analogy with what may yet happen to Tony Blair, who is soon due to go into the wilderness and will surely be judged by his hubristic handling of the Iraq affair and other foreign policies and who also could be damaged by the `cash for honours` investigation currently under way, was just too compelling and provided an exciting backdrop to a memorable experience.

To New Yorkers and those in the vicinity, I would say: don`t miss this, book your tickets now. It will be a unique opportunity to revisit the Frost / Nixon interviews almost exactly 30 years on!

RAMNIK SHAH
Surrey, England"

50 Years of Castro: Impressions of Cuba Revsited!

As Cuba celebrates 50 years` of its revolution, I am reminded of what I wrote about my visit to Cuba in 2004. It was posted on the Blue Ears site (which later became Global Ear, now alas no more!). Am planning to see `Che` tomorrow. Here, then, is my blog of November 2004:


Sunday, November 21, 2004
Travel::
Impressions of Cuba

Having just returned from a week`s trip to Cuba, let me record my impressions of the country here. My fascination for the place goes back to 1961. To a 20-year-old student radical, when the `Bay of Pigs` happened, Castro`s Cuba became instantly and inextricably linked with revolution and resistance, and acquired an aura of rustic romance. So it was thrilling to set foot there some 43 years later, and to find that the `Revolution` (of 1959) is still alive and kicking, personified by Castro as a much revered father figure of the nation.

Our trip started at Varadero, which used to be the Americans` den in their backwaters for gambling, prostitution, tax evasion and other associated vices in the 1940s and 50s. Evidence of this can still be seen nearly 50 years on, in the faded facades and forticos of crumbling buildings of the period and the empty but well laid out streets and avenues, reminiscent of US mid-town life, flowing with the ubiquitous and battered Fords, Pontiacs and Chevrolets, whose colourful bodyworks are of course powered by reconstructed Russian engines as maintained and further modified by Cuban ingenuity.

From Varadero to Cienfuegos to Trinidad and then on to Havana, as we drove through the lush countryside, one could not but notice how leisurely and peaceful the pace of life was. People milled and mingled around in town centres, just as they would anywhere else. More noticeably, they waited by the roadside for transport, which is the one public utility that is most evidently lacking in Cuba. They have an excellent universal health care service and an equally comprehensive education system (both free at all points of use) but do not have a good transport infrastructure either in terms of a road or rail network or of trams and buses. And so it is customary for drivers to stop and give lifts to pedestrians.

In general, then, people are not prosperous, but they are not poverty-stricken either. They enjoy a subsistence level national wage (reputed to be around US $15 a month) which means their necessities of life (basic food, shelter, clothing etc) are assured; anything above that would depend on extra-curricular activities! There is a large bureucracy designed to ensure that people follow rules: eg. ration books are essential for daily purchases; every cow and horse (believe it or not) has an ID assigned at birth and any such animals to die have to be accounted for (to prevent `black` marketing in meat and skin products); inspectors check that vehicles stop at every railway crossing (which are invariably unguarded) even along disused lines for trains that may never come or appear infrequently; and records are meticulously kept of the most mundane transactions, again so that no one derives any unfair or unmerited advantage.

But at the top layers of government, access to officials or ministers is easy. Indeed, as a (British Asian) business contact explained, state security of the kind that we are used to is afforded only to Castro, his Deputy and his brother (who is professionally involved in such matters); others can be approached like ordinary citizens, without corruption or backhanders. The economy runs on an extraordinary rather than a complex dual Cuban Peso and US $ level, except that two days after we arrived there (on 8 November) the US Dollar became `non grata` as a trading currency, to be replaced by the CUC (the convertible Peso) which meant that one could exchange US Dollars at par. So for tourists and foreigners, everything is always quoted in terms of the US $ and the rates and prices are not that cheap either - for example a small beer (Crystal) at a cafe, restaurant or hotel, usually cost between $1 and $2.50. The same applies to food in such places; though marginally cheaper for visitors it is of course wholly out of the economic range of the locals. But the remarkable thing is that the Cubans live with this dichotomy as routine; there is no resentment, no embarrassment and no envy.

Walking in the grottiest parts Old Havana for example, at no time did I feel either threatened or out of place. On the first evening, I deliberately wandered about wearing a tee-shirt bearing the Canadian colours and the logo of Niagara Falls, with a pouch around my waist, just so that if I did anything out of the ordinary it could be seen that I was a foreigner - but nobody either accosted me or even gave me a second glance. At other times, most people tended to assume that I was a Latino - because of the brown skin of course, even though I was better dressed and looked like a tourist. Now, not knowing a word of Spanish was a major drawback of course. But we managed to get by, though I did wish I was better at languages.

Even so, I had a most enjoyable cultural experience one afternoon when I left my British English group to take an excursion in Matanzas in the company of tourists from Mexico, Argentina, Spain and Venezuela - albeit with a bi-lingual Cuban guide who interpreted everything of importance into English for the benefit of poor me and a German couple. What it showed was that when it comes to social niceties, learning about strange lands and other forms of personal communication there is no fundamental difference between the English- and the Spanish-speaking worlds.

If Varadero is a reminder of the American presence in the pre-Castro period, Trinidad is living testimony to the grandeur of a more distant past, with its streets, squares, cathedrals and palaces preserved as they were some 3 or 4 centuries ago with the help of UN funding for world heritage sites. Driving up and round the coast from there, we even visited the famous Bay of Pigs and a couple from our party, in typical British eccentric fashion, stripped bare to take a swim there just to prove something (?).

And what of Havana? The city is full of monuments, to the victorious revolution, of course, and lots of historic towers and buildings of the colonial era. It is essentially a mixture of the old and the new. There is even a Fountain of India, which at first I thought might be to celebrate the post-colonial Gandhi/Nehru connection, but no, it is a picturesque marble structure erected in 1837, with nothing (that I could detect) to indicate why. One dominating feature of the city`s landscape is the Malecon - the gigantic sea wall around the northern shore. I had my business contact host`s driver stop along it at night to take a closer look - even on a normal evening the waves were fearsome and some lashed over; so imagine what it would be like during one of those hurricanes?

And then, of course, there is Hemingway`s House, with its large surrounding grounds and gardens. It was left by him to the Cuban nation as a legacy and has been preserved in the same state - now as a tourist attraction - solid, stately and serene. We are allowed to peep into all the rooms through large windows and see the furniture, the rugs, the objet`d`art and other decorations and, above all, the books - hundreds of them lining the walls of every room, including the spacious toilet in the main house, and in the guest cottage outside. Anyone with long eyesight or a special lense could read the titles of the books; in the study it was possible to make out some of them, eg. `The Partisan Reader` (no other details), `Enemies of Promise` by Cyril Connolly, Nevil Shute`s `Beyond the Black Stump`, `The Republic` by Charles A Beard and `Doctrine and Action` by Dr Oliveira Salazar.

The opulence of the estate was unmistakeable; there is the huge swimming pool (now empty and exposed), while his yacht `El Pilar` remains anchored on stilts in a seemingly navigable condition in the large boatyard. And as if the property was not set high enough, there is the inevitable stone tower, which one can climb up to along an iron ladder of the modern fire exit variety; so I did and the view was fantastic. Oh, and I forgot to mention a stuffed lion, as a trophy, below in one of his studies - as proof of his East African safari! But though much is made of his Cuban connection, he was really an expatriate - not so much The `Quiet` American as a gregarious, party-loving playboy (there are stories about him seen swimming naked with Ava Gardener who was rumoured to be his daughter!) and, to paraphrase Graham Green again, he could even have been `Their Man in Havana`, `their` here meaning the FBI - at least they were keeping track of him!

On the long flight to Havana, I had finished Jon Snow`s extremely readable `Shooting History - A Personal Journey`. To those not familiar with his name, he is of course the celebrated British TV journalist and now Channel 4 news anchorman. In it he recalls a conversation he had with Castro (he had been asked by Neil Kinnock to record a meeting he, Kinnock had with Castro) when he confirmed that the Americans had once tried to blow him up with an explosive cigar. But he also told Kinnock during a banter about beards and baldness that he saved some eighty hours a week by not shaving! I thought of this when we visited the Plaza de la Revolucion where Castro gives his annual speech on 1st January when up to 2 million people gather to hear him. It is surrounded by buildings housing all the principal ministries, the most notable of them being the Minstry of the Interior which sports a giant mural of Che Guevara. Che of course is perhaps the best known revolutionary hero after Castro to be admired, and here again I was reminded of `The Motor Cycle Diaries` about his early life that I saw less than a couple of months ago. The Plaza is not large in comparision with other similar places; Tiannamen Square in Beijing for example is much, much bigger, though there the presence of the Chinese army is unmistakeable, whereas here there were no visible guards.

We also visited the famous Hotel Nacionale de Cuba, built in elegant Colonial style in 1927 and set on a landscaped crag overlooking the Malecon and the Atlantic Ocean. The bars and the galleries of the hotel contain photos and sketches of people like Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Paul Robeson and Winston Churchill (among others) all of whom had stayed there at one time or another. Another night, my business friend took me to a live show there, but quite frankly it did not compare favourably with the Cubanacana Cabaret that I have seen performed here in London. And that brings me to music; this is such a fundamental aspect of life in Cuba that one simply cannot escape it, nor should we want to. Just as when you land at Las Vegas`s McLaren Airport you are immediately drawn into the gambling culture of the place (with one-armed bandits placed in the customs hall and so on) so here in Cuba, the music beguils and captures you the moment you arrive. The air is filled with the rhythms and sounds of `son bembe`, `salsa` and `Trova`. In hotels, restaurants and public places, they play - not to serenade you as much as just to infect you with the spirit of the music, and so if you get up and do a few steps they are delighted - of course you are then expected to tip them!

From music to literature and art : there is no shortage of galleries, museums and meeting places. So many of these were within a hair`s breath of our hotel; I ventured into the `Palacio de Bellas Artes` right across, attracted by a large expectant crowd of people who had gathered and were obviously waiting for something to happen. I usually find, in foreign cities, that the best way to make some local contact is going to an art gallery, museum or college/university related cafe or site where one is bound to meet some intellectual type who speaks English! Well, this for once did not work: I could not find anyone with whom I could have a conversation in English and it was only after a broken and elementary exchange with a couple of people that I managed to find out that about to open was an exhibition of paintings by the celebrated Cuban writer, painter and musicologist Alejo Carpentier. They gave me a brochure in Spanish which maybe someone will translate for me some day!

(And food?  I should have mentioned that my business friend, living a bachelor style existence in a sleek upmarket kind of apartment block where he also had his office, entertained me to an Indian meal there prepared and served by, wait for it, his Cuban-Indian cook!  Cuban-Indian not of the native Indian variety but rather from India - originally from Kerala who had been settled in Cuba for some three decades and married to a local Cuban woman.  He said he had cooked for top people, including even Castro, and of course spoke Spanish.  The vegetarian meal he had prepared was like one we would have at home, with hot chapatis, curry, rice and dahl and other condiments, served as they do in India, straight off the oven!  My friend spent a certain number of months only in Havana and needed home comforts).  

As for the flow and exchange of information generally, we could get CNN in both English and Spanish at all the hotels. The locals do not have such easy access but news cannot be suppressed. Special editions of local papers announcing the death of Arafat were on sale in the streets almost immediately and hotel workers did ask about Faluja; so they knew what was going on and were concerned about world affairs, though from a different perspective - and why not?

So to sum up, I am glad I went and saw for myself that Cuba has stood up to the American hegemony and is surviving despite the embargo that has now lasted some 40 years. Cuban technology, engineering and medical expertise developed and flourished as a direct result of American sanctions because, as our guide emphasized time and again, `necessity is the mother of invention`, These professional skills have not only made the country into what it is, largely self-reliant, but they have long been exported to other Third World countries, particularly in South and Central America. The Cubans` contribution is valued and respected there.

But I fear for its future: for once Castro goes (and despite all the anti-Cuban rhetoric repeated by Bush during the recent election, it is clear that the Americans are now basically waiting for him to die rather than wanting to topple him) the country will get sucked into the global market economy - because the capitalist hawks are waiting in the wings and, let us face it, the country is ripe for `development`... . Are there any parallels with other Communist societies? In China and Vietnam, we have the spectre of a dynamic, though paternalistic, leadership embracing the pragmatism, if not the ideology, of capitalism, in a measured and controlled way (unlike in Russia). In both those countries, there is a long historical tradition of self-help interacting with the competitive spirit and the survival instinct, against the background of a burgeoning population.

In Cuba, a different kind of cultural environment prevails and the people are fairly laid back. The sound social structure of the Cuban nation will therefore be severely tested by any push towards a free market type economy, and the present broad mass of an equally poor population will be split into those who can ride with the new wave and those who will be left high and dry - thus giving rise to all the ills of extremes of poverty and wealth that we have come to see in other parts of the developing word. So maybe the end of the Revolution is not too far off, who knows?

PS> After returning from my trip, in the last couple of days, I have resumed reading "Dirty Havana Trilogy" a fictional account of low-level life in Cuba by Pedro Juan Gutierrez, translated by Natasha Wimmer, and must say it all makes sense! RAMNIK SHAH, Surrey, England

Posted By Ramnik on 11/21/2004 Travel Add your comments Reads: 32

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Impressions of Cuba Posted by Ramnik on 11/21/2004

Castro saves 80 hours a WEEK by not shaving? No, of course not. I have checked the reference - at page 234 of Jon Snow`s book (HarperCollins/Publishers 2004 - Hb - ISBN 0 00 717184) - and it should of course have been `eighty hours a year`. Sorry. RAMNIK SHAH
Posted By Ramnik