It’s the little things
Hooray, I managed to read one more book in the last week, bringing my total up to three in four weeks. Not bad.
I liked this one very much. It’s called Homesick and it’s by an Israeli writer called Eshkol Nevo whom I’d never heard of before, but thought I’d try because I’d read a very enthusiastic review of his book on some blog somewhere.
So. It’s a book about relationships – longing and belonging – featuring lots of people. There’s a young couple living together for the first time. They’re madly in love with each other, but being together all the time – will that work out for them? There’s a slightly older couple, married for years. He comes from an Orthodox Jewish family and wants his kids brought up within the religion, she comes from a broken home and wants to bring her kids up with a more secular outlook. What will happen to them? There’s an elderly Arab, looking for the house his family had to leave behind when Israel came into being. There’s a small boy who’s been neglected by his parents since his brother was killed in Lebanon – he’s lost his brother and his parents. There are his parents who’ve lost a son – and may lose another. And there are letters from a young man just out of the army, who’s backpacking in South America for a year, trying to find himself.
This is slow reading, because every person is dealt with individually; every person has her or his own say in her or his own voice. You see the individual individuals in every relationship. But I loved it for that, for letting me get into the head of every person in the book.
At the end everything is resolved in the way that real life offers resolutions. You think things have come together (or not), but actually everything is still open, you never really know what’s going to happen next.
But it was the last two pages of the book that really moved me. It was the final letter to his best friend from the young man in search of himself. He knows he’s found what he needs, but he also knows that he needs to consciously go after all of it or it’ll recede into the background with time. So he lists all he wants in the letter to his friend, so the friend will remember and keep him on track.
“I want to start swimming,” he says in the letter.
“I also want to be less cynical,” he says. “…I’m sick and tired of pretending that nothing turns me on just so I don’t look pathetic. I’m sick and tired of shooting poisoned arrows at other people just because I’m afraid they’ll hurt me. I want to come to people with an open heart. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I want to eat big breakfasts,” he says. “Like on a holiday.”
“I’m sick of being stressed out,” he says. “I want to take my time so I can make my time.”
“I want to get turned on by little things,” he says. “Walking barefoot on the sand. Eating the cone after the ice-cream’s gone. Colourful graffiti on a dirty wall… I want to get turned on by all those little things. Not to let them pass me by without noticing them.”
I want all of this too. Usually I have it. I do get turned on by little things, mostly. But there are times when I notice none of these things and then life just sucks.
Maybe I need to write a friend a letter like this, asking her or him to keep it and remember it and get me back on track on the occasions that I lose my way.
But then again, I have this blog. So here it is.
Hindustan Times


(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

Kushal Reply:
April 9th, 2012 at 4:48 am
No, I don’t keep a diary, Abhiroop. I guess the blog works in that way. I’ve been writing it for some years now.
And welcome back to this space. Where are you now? Still in rural India?
[Reply]
Abhiroop Banerjee Reply:
April 10th, 2012 at 8:44 am
Good to be back
Eyeing a job in a village in district Nainital now. I’m going to stay a poor hungry struggling bachelor all my life, yes!!
I’m going to read ALL the posts here that I’ve missed. The blog does work like a diary. Web Log. That’s how they started I think. You’ve been writing it for just over 3 years which is brilliant.
Is your new daily Cafe available in Delhi? You are the boss of the whole paper? Congratulations!
Can I hope for a Jayanto Special/Retrospective/Book, somewhere, in some HT Media publication anytime in my lifetime (I am 25)?
Where is Samar Halarnkar?
[Reply]
Kushal Reply:
April 11th, 2012 at 4:47 am
Cafe is HT Bombay’s version of HT City, Abhiroop. So now you know what I do for a living. Bollywood, Bollywood and more Bollywood. No more books.
I don’t know about a Jayanto retrospective from HT, but it certainly is an idea and I certainly know some publishers – thank you for the idea!
Samar is still with HT, but is on a sabbatical in the US, teaching at a university in San Francisco. He still writes his weekly column on the edit page though, and his food blog, so there’s lots for you catch up on.
And finally – the fact that you’re apparently fine with staying a poor hungry struggling bachelor in rural India makes me extremely grateful. Thank you for that.
Abhiroop Banerjee Reply:
April 13th, 2012 at 7:17 am
I think I can live anywhere as long as the place lets me have a bathroom I can waste 30 minutes in planning my imaginary bathroom library everyday.
I would like to see HT do a Junior Statesman. And also do a quiz show on the radio! Because then you wouldn’t have the time to Google the answers.
But you know what would I’d really like to see?
I’d like to see Bollywood start a paper of its own and publish masala stories about the pivate life of journalists. Lets see headlines like – “Sagarika hits back at Shobhaa for calling her a screeching banshee” “Arnab denies drunken brawl with Rajdeep” “Grand Fromage arrested in midnight swoop on Koh Samui rave party” “Still friends? Upala replaces KG in Chick Click!” “Revealed! Ex-wife claims she left Gadgety Vikram after catching him with his USB dongle in Guru Rajiv’s Advanced Graphics Port. Read all about it in this week’s *** (Xplosive, Xlusive, Xposed!) on TimesofJournostan.com/rakhi”
Not that I’m interested. But it would be cool to see Bollywood grow a pair instead of just taking lame schoolboy-like digs at media people on Twitter because they need the same people to stay famous. Like women clinging to abusive husbands because they’re afraid of poverty.
Wait. I’m going to pester Oswald Pereira to write something about this. Or talk about it at least. His recently published novel ‘The Newsroom Mafia’ is a tale about the’seamy underbelly’ of big media and reads exactly like a racy bollywood blockbuster.
Yes, Mahabharat by Samar Halarnkar is still there! I’m happy.
I am adding all the books you’ve written about liking to my wish-list.
I’m sure you will find the time to read books, Kushal. Or manufacture a 3 day weekend every month. You have to! Will you give yourself a column in your paper? I hope you do because your articles are ALWAYS enjoyable
Kushal Reply:
April 14th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Aww, thank you for your confidence in me, Abhiroop. I wish I had it in myself.