The Last Jet Engine Laugh

Ruchir Joshi.

All the  ”let me take you to the future” stories I had read before reading this book took me to unknown planets, nuclear holocausts, rogue machines, and weird alien galaxy presidents with three heads.

However, this one took me to Calcutta in 2030, where the preferred mode of transport is no longer the famous Metro trains or the infamous trams, but low-flying copters. They are faster, cheaper and the more popular mode of public transport in the city.  And of course, as with any public transport in India, there are people hanging from them!

Before the details-let me tell you what the book is about.

It is about three things:

• Photographs
• A non-violent photographer in a permanent jet lag-of about 50 years.
• Violence in a very non-violent way.

Now the details-speaking of which, Ruchir is an expert at details. His detailed and vivid description of photographs is so precise and exact that you often feel that you are holding not the book but the photograph itself.  His description of his “old” espresso maker that runs on “real” water makes you start craving for coffee! Therefore, a word of advice: read this book at a time and place when and where coffee is available.  I read it on a train, where the only coffee the crapulous self of mine could get was from broken plastic “thermos” in mugs bruised due to repeated atrocities.

Now, back to the plot.

The book is written as a memoir of a 70-year-old Guajarati photographer living in Calcutta in the year 2030. Being a photographer, he has a photograph as a starting point of each story. He tells us the stories his parents used to tell him about their contribution to the freedom struggle, and he tells us the stories about how his daughter was attacked by a Pakistani-Saudi space ship, at her space station. These memoirs display the amount of imagination Ruchir has for dinner every day. Some examples:

• Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in a Russian Jail in 1980’s
• Bombay being nuked in 2012, and how the entire South Bombay no longer exists
• Delhi being the border town, as the Pak-Saudi alliance has won over all of Punjab and Haryana in 2012
• The internet aircraft war game between his nine-year-old daughter and a retired American Air force pilot in 2008
• How his father and mother eloped from Ahmadabad to Calcutta in 1940s
• War for water between New Friends Colony A and New Friends Colony B in 2010
• Helicopters used for local transit in Kolkota in 2030
• How his uncle escaped Indira Gandhi during emergency in 1976

All this is fun to read, as it is full of wit and description, despite the author accepting that “English is a @#$x#@ limited language”.

But under all the fun and wit, lies a very dark truth-every incident of his life is about violence. Be it warring nations, be it localities fighting with each other, or Indians being beaten up by British Officers during a peaceful procession.  Ruchir talks about the accession of Punjab by Pakistan in the same wit and importance that he shows for the forced “Chanda” collection for Puja Pandal.

It is about violence through words, violence through emotions (read emosanal atyachar), violence through weapons, and even violence through silence. All this seen from the eyes of a man who has almost never indulged in violence himself-the only time he did that was to save his father from goons, and his karate teacher had downgraded his belt, because he was angry during the fight.

The books make you rethink about non-violence. It makes you think about the freedom struggle of our nation: the INA of Bose and the non-violent army of Gandhi. It makes you think about your actions, words and belief-but at the same time, there is no preach-talk in the book.  While you enjoy the action of words, the thought seeps in.

Final words: this is a must-read book to get a flavor of India, special Kolkota-its past, present and future.  It is a feast of characters, descriptions and imagination. But, reading the book is like traveling in a Himachal Pradesh local transport bus: there is so much to see outside the window, yet you feel somewhat giddy.  So a word of caution-do not attempt to finish the book over a weekend.

The Zoya Factor - Anuja Chauhan

It is a formula which never fails - mix cricket with whatever you do and your berth to Successpuram is suddenly pushed from a WL to CNF. Okay, I have been dying to travel via train these days, which used to be a journey of books along with a journey from here to there (unlike Namesake, I never needed an overcoat though, thankfully). But not-traveling does not restrict me to not-reading, and I got to lay my hands on this book a couple of weekends ago.

“The Zoya Factor” is a debut work. Anuja Chauhan has spun a story around her own real life. A story of Zoya, an ad agency executive working day and night to catch hold of film stars, and sporting heroes (read “cricketers”) to shoot a twenty second commercial. Her “job description” also involves running to the nearest shoe store, just because a senior player demands to be shot in a Nike - for a soft drink ad. The twist in the tale comes when the ever-losing Indian Cricket team realizes that Zoya is their lucky charm. They always win when she has breakfast with them on the day of the match. If she kisses a bowler on his cheeks, he gets a hat trick; a hug to a batsman, and he scores a century. This discovery changes her life forever.

The Cricket Control Board takes her with the team for the World Cup in Australia. And she becomes a National Goddess overnight. Only one man does not believe the lucky charm story. It is the captain of the Indian team, Nikhil Khoda, who believes in the toil-and-get attitude.

From this juncture on, the story of Zoya and Nikhil is 30% M&B (Mills & Boon) and 70% Absolutely Crazy Humor (as the author herself would have said it. Read the book to know what I mean). In a Douglas Adams style, Anuja brings together absolutely unrelated stuff to create a “whoa-what-was-that” brand of humor - a God man proclaiming her to be the Devi, the Australian Cricket Board filing a complaint against her saying that she is an unfair advantage to the Indian team, a politician offering her the election ticket from Ayodhya, an agent bringing her surrogate agarbatti ads for a bidi company, a sexually freaked out four year old kid, and many others.

For a debut writer, Anuja deals with her innumerable characters very well. Each and every one of them plays a strong and definitive role. The lead characters of Zoya and Nikhil are a straight pick from the 120-page love story rags that sell for Rs 20 at the Sunday market. Nikhil is tall, dark, handsome, rude, and arrogant with a heart of gold (yawn!). Zoya is a plump, short, always-on-a-bad-hair-day cricket hater kind of a girl. Even though the story revolves around them, it never gets too mushy or too romantic - thanks to the other characters. Zoya’s father and brother, and her chapa-rone friend (as she calls her) are people one can actually relate to. Their characters remain strong and well defined throughout the narrative. Anuja does not desert the weird-humor line anywhere, especially towards the end where it all gets chaotic and captivates you till the last page.

The best part of the book though is not its story line; it is the Indian-ness of the yarn. The scenarios are real and the characters are the ones you could actually believe in. The description of Karol Bagh, the episode of Zoya’s brother getting injured at the border because the Pakistanis start firing after the match, the portrayal of Indian Cricket lovers - all make a good read. The ambience of the cricket matches has been captured extremely well - one can actually see the match live while reading the description.

In summation - a good read over the weekend, maybe even twice. Not a collector’s item though.