Grant Snider Interview on page 12
Mar-Apr 2015 Vol 5 Issue 2 64 pages
Editorial
short fiction essays verse reviews
facebook.com/readinghour readinghour.in Published, owned, & printed by Vaishali Khandekar. Printed at National Printing Press, 580, KR Garden, Koramangala, Bangalore-560095. Published at 177-B, Classic Orchards, Bannerghatta Rd, Bangalore-560076. Editor: Vaishali Khandekar. Editing Support: Arun Kumar, Manjushree Hegde. Subscriptions, business enquiries, feedback: readinghour@differsense.com / Ph: +91 80 26595745 Subscription Details: Print (within India only) / Electronic (PDF): Annual subscription Rs. 300/- (6 issues), 2 years Rs. 600/- (12 issues). Payment by cheque / DD in favour of ‘Differsense Ventures LLP’ payable at Bangalore. Online subscription: readinghour.in. Submissions: editors@differsense.com Advertisers: Contact Arun Kumar at arunkumar@differsense.com / +91 98450 22991 Disclaimer: Matter published in Reading Hour magazine is the work of individual writers who guarantee it to be entirely their own, and original work. Contributions to Reading Hour are largely creative, while certain articles are the writer’s own experiences or observations. The publishers accept no liability for them. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily represent the policies or positions of the publisher. The publishers intend no factual miscommunication, disrespect to, or incitement of any individual, community or enterprise through this publication. Copyright ©2014-2015 Differsense Ventures LLP. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any part of this issue in any manner without prior written permission of the publisher is prohibited.
CONTENTS FICTION 3
ESSAY
Butterfly-words Barnali Saha
19
16
Tea Time
24
Dry Gulab Jamun
43
School Drop
53
Butterfly Hill
55
A Series Of Household Events
58
Colourless
Bear Country
Sarah Rand
Ranjitha Janardhan Aparajith Ramnath Nanda Ramesh Sandeep Shete
C G Salamander
The Chola Bronzes
Smitha Sehgal
Manjushree Hegde
33
POETRY 11
Cafe Mysore
Adam K Amberg
29
A Benares Daybreak
30
A Letter To A Brother
37
Ganga
48
Like An Express Train
52
Preeta Nath
38
Goirick Brahmachari
Laos
G Karunakar
INTERVIEW
A P Govindankutty Uttaran Das Gupta
Powerplug
Sayantan Ghosh
31
LIGHT STUFF
49
REVIEWS
60
LAST PAGE
Grant Snider
Cinthya Anand
12
46
Cover Design: M P Mohan
Manoj Das P Raja
FICTION Barnali enjoys writing short fiction and poetry and has been published in several magazines and newspapers in India, as well as electronic journals in the USA.
Butterfly-words Barnali Saha
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane… –Pale Fire (First Canto), Vladimir Nabokov
T
he city of Mumbai was alive with rain. Wherever one looked, one’s eyes met the torrential downpour crashing down on the grass-soft head of the earth like divine anathemas. The city was deluged. As the pluvial levels quickly ascended, streets were flooded, drains choked, and desperatelyhonking vehicles appeared stuck in traffic for good. The sea was frantic too. It lashed and sneered like a beast caught in a snare. Its frenzied watery-bellows commingling with the rolling burps of thunder and the tumult of rain created an awful melody that comforted none. The moon was in hiding, the city was dark. Most of the street lamps were out of order; even the traffic lights
weren’t functioning properly. Red remained red and never turned green. The office of the Entertainment Daily, a Mumbai-based newspaper catering to the interest of a Bollywood loving, fashion adoring public, was located in a narrow alley in the Andheri suburb. It occupied the upper story of a dilapidated three-storied building that once belonged to a never-married Parsi businessman who died of malaria. Apart from the rooms in the upper floor, all the other rooms in the building were closed and had rusty locks hanging from their door handles. No one knew who had the keys to them. People guessed that it being a property under dispute, probably the agents of law had them.
Photograph: Mark Woolcott Photography, 2013
Interview
Grant Snider As a four-year-old, Grant Snider wanted to study dragons, dinosaurs and drawing, in that order. He still loves dragons and dinosaurs, but it is his drawings, sometimes whimsical, sometimes self-introspective, but always charming, that have endeared him to millions of fans worldwide. An orthodontist by profession, his weekly web-comic strip Incidental Comics explores puzzles of life, art, philosophy and parenting, through the eyes of an unnamed narrator. It employs little dialogue but provokes the reader to ask deep questions. Grant lives in Wichita, Kansas, with his wife and children. His work has been carried in eminent publications like the New York Times and The Huffington Post. Here he engages in a candid email interview for Reading Hour with Cinthya Anand, about the intricacies involved in becoming a successful online cartoonist. Cinthya is a journalist working in Bangalore. She loves children, and correcting everyone else’s sentences.
FICTION Ranjitha is an English language professional with a keen interest in the written word. She is also an avid reader and always looking for her next story.
Tea Time Ranjitha Janardhan
A
ll through the summer of 1967, Jani looked forward to two things: his class 8 examination results and the reopening of his school. If he failed, he would remain in the same class and if not, he would be in his neighbour, Sabha’s, class. The fifth of six children, Jani usually ran many errands a day which multiplied severally during the summer vacation. One of these was to run to Patti, three roads away, – Patti, 82 years of age, bent like a tall thin palm in the wind, cracked at the hip – with tea and 2 Marie biscuits every evening at 5. She moved about like a tortoise, trundling her way up the flight of stairs leading to a roof top where her daughter-in-law, Manji, dried papadoms all year round in the sun. Manji sold newspaper-
wrapped packets of differently flavoured papadoms to the bakery nearby. So, it was in Jani’s list of errands to visit the bakery every other day about papadom deliveries or payments. With every batch, the baker deep fried or baked a single papadom and shared half of it with Jani, who always agreed with the baker’s expert papadom critique. It was in Jani’s interest, after all. Manji’s cotton saris always had a large wet patch around her thigh area and were always tucked up into her in-skirt, folded just below her knees, exposing cooking related burns. Her blouse never matched her saris.
ESSAY Sarah is a travel and nature enthusiast, who enjoys writing about her experiences with wildlife. Article Photographs: Sarah Rand
Bear Country Sarah Rand
A
laska, July/Aug 2014.
This has been a year of documentaries and movies filmed over extended periods of time, involving dedicated biologists, scientists, film makers and just plain old animal lovers. Joe Hatto spent seven years in the company of Mule Deer studying their births and deaths, and the constant tension and stress in the lives of these beleaguered creatures. The brilliant Birds of the Gods, Papua New Guinea, took three years of study and documentation of incredible courtship rituals that beat all courtship rituals by man or beast for all time! Most recently, for Bears, a nature movie about the Brown Bears of Alaska made by
Disney, the film makers spent two years living among the bears in Katmai National Park and Clark Lake National Preserve, observing and filming the bears in their native habitat.
Aparajith teaches history at a renowned management institute in India. In addition to his work as a historian, he blogs occasionally and enjoys writing short stories, one of which was included in Penguin’s First Proof 7.
FICTION Dry Gulab Jamun Aparajith Ramnath
A
nish opened the door carefully, leaving the chain on as his mother had taught him. Through the crack, he saw a young man dressed in an oversized shirt and terry cot trousers, with a hesitant look in his eyes, fingers scratching nervously at his upper lip. “Who’s it?” Anish asked. “Is Daddy there?” the man countered. Adults only ever wanted to speak to each other. “What do you want?” “I heard a driver was needed in this house…” “Please wait.” Anish shut the door a little harder than he’d meant to, and winced, hoping the man wouldn’t think him rude. He ran to the bottom of the stairs and shouted out for his father.
“He has an honest voice,” Anish’s mother said at dinner that day. “What does that mean?” Papa couldn’t resist the question, although he knew she would elaborate on her statement in a moment. “I don’t know, I just feel he’s not chalu,” she said. “Not one of those shrewd, ultra-resourceful people.” “Is that good or bad?” “Good, I suppose.” Sanjay got the job. Trustworthiness trumped cleverness, Anish’s parents decided, and in any case, it wasn’t as if they had applicants lining up at their doorstep. They did a test drive and Anish’s father nearly back-seat-drove the man crazy.
ESSAY Manjushree is an avid reader, and enthusiastic traveller who believes strongly in the transformative power of books. Article photographs: Wikipedia
The Chola Bronzes Manjushree Hegde
When the Actor beateth the drum, Everybody cometh to see the show; When the Actor collecteth the stage properties, He abideth alone in His happiness. ~ Manikkavachakar
I
stood before the bronze image of Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, in Egmore Museum, in speechless wonder. Dated to 1000 C.E, this is the most perfect image of that Formless One, dancing in the full joy of creation. Nimbly posed on the back of a misshapen dwarf – a motion arrested for an instant in the midst of a dance – Nataraja holds a damaru in one hand, fire in another; the third hand is held in abhayamudra, and the fourth is thrown gracefully across the body in a gesture of gaja-hastha. The beats of his damaru breathe life into the lifeless, his fire will consume his creation in a moment, and as long as he dances, his creation is sustained. Verily, Nataraja’s dance is symbolic of his līla – the sport of life and death, of creation and destruction – at once infinite and purposeless. And it is for this reason that he wears a beatific smile – for he smiles alike at death and at life, at pain and at joy. This is poetry; but none the less, science.
ESSAY G Karunakar is an advocate and world traveller who enjoys writing about his visits to different countries. Article photographs: G Karunakar
Laos G Karunakar
A
fter my sojourn in Vietnam, I decided on a visit to Laos, a tiny country wedged in between Thailand and Vietnam. A less travelled to destination than its neighbours, Laos faded from focus for over two decades during the communist regime that had restricted tourism and contact with the outside world. Now, restrictions have been lifted and the pristine country holds tremendous appeal for tourists with its intact traditions, culture, and the old fashioned easygoing lifestyle of the people. Tourism is still in its infancy, though, and facilities are few. In spite of no beaches or historical gems to market, Laos’ appeal is no less, thanks to the exotic river landscapes, flora and fauna. Indeed, Laos is notable for its remarkable biodiversity of mountains and plateaus that attract thousands of visitors from the West; they contribute over 50% of the nation’s revenue. The perennial Mekong River running across the country for 1400 meandering kilometres makes for languid riverfront life, supporting rice field cultivation and offering abundant fish...
FICTION Nanda is an engineer turned writerphotographer. His primary interest is children’s stories but that does not stop him from writing on any topic that inspires him.
School Drop Nanda Ramesh
S
astry was dozing in his usual place, on the easy-chair in the veranda. A fly buzzed near his ear, making him shift his position and jerking him awake. The newspaper covering his face slid off and the sheets scattered on the floor. His glazed eyes looked at them with irritation. Reluctantly, he stretched his body slowly as he checked his watch. It was still early, barely 9 a.m. The sun, however, was already up in the sky and shining bright. He could feel beads of sweat on his neck. Having lost the languor from the nap, he started picking up the sheets and arranging them correctly. He did not want his wife or daughter-in-law to see the newspaper sheets all over the floor when they emerged for their coffee break. He would hear about it for the rest of the day. Madhukar Sastry, along with his wife, Gowramma, or Gowri-paati to his grandchildren, stayed with his son’s family on the ground floor portion of a duplex located on a busy street in Bengaluru. He had retired from his job as a Manager at the State Bank of Mysore a few years back. It was the culmination of decades of hard work during which he had got his children married and well settled in life. He had looked forward then to days of freedom, enabling him to read what he wanted, to sleep when he wanted or go for walks when he wanted. No more looking at boring reports, solving the many office crises or staring at deadlines! It would be total bliss.
INTERVIEW P Raja is a former Professor of English. He is a creative writer, critic and translator. He edits Transfire, a quarterly devoted to translations.
Manoj Das P Raja
M
anoj Das may be less familiar to a wide readership than R.K. Narayan or Ruskin Bond, but, to quote K.R. Srinvasa Iyengar, doyen of Indo-Anglian literary criticism, “His stories, convincingly autochthonous, by virtue of their own Indianness, have won for him a discriminating world audience.� For years together academic publications in the West looking for a good short story from contemporary India would choose, almost certainly, one from Manoj Das. If the very inaugural number of the prestigious Ascent launched by the English Department of Illinois University selected one story from outside the U.S.A, if the Long Island University chose only one story from Asia for their anthology Brooklyn and the World (1983) juxtaposing some of the outstanding works of their own state with some from the rest of the world, if Loyola University included one Indian story in the magnificent International Issue of their New Orleans Review, their choice was Manoj Das. The list is long.
FICTION Sandeep is an award-winning writer and management professional. His writing has been published in over a dozen anthologies and journals. He enjoys cartooning too.
Butterfly Hill Sandeep Shete
Lekhana 2015 - Narratives of Violence - Short Fiction Contest 1st Prize
A
s I march towards Butterfly Hill today, I feel much like a playboy off to meet his mistresses in his newfangled roadster. Dangling from my neck, bumping lightly against my belly, is my brand new camera – a digital SLR, no less. Behind me, the post-monsoon sun is climbing swiftly. Reaching behind my neck, I lift the camera strap with my thumb to wipe the dampness underneath it. The new gadget is heavier than my old one but I’m fine. “It’ll count the feathers on a hummingbird on its busiest day, sirjee,” the seller had boasted. “And what about the butterflies on Butterfly Hill?” I had asked. It wasn’t a fair question. Nobody in Pune calls it Butterfly Hill. That’s just a name I’ve given to this rocky elevation, this nondescript ‘tekdi’, as Puneites do call it, scattered most of the year with thorny shrubs and anaemic grasses. Had it not lain ten minutes from my home, I wouldn’t have known – or cared – that it existed.
C. G Salamander is a fiction writer. His comics have appeared in The Mint, he is published by Mantaray comics and Kokaachi Studios, and his forthcoming titles are ‘Palm’s Foster Home for Peculiar Stories’, and three short graphic novels. He has also appeared in various anthologies.
FICTION A Series Of Household Events C G Salamander
Lekhana 2015 - Narratives of Violence - Short Fiction Contest 2nd Prize
W
hat I am about to tell you is by no means my story, instead it is just a sequence of household events that have led me to
perform the unholy act that I am guilty of. I do not expect solidarity nor belief for what I am about to pen down, but in any case, let me assure you that I am not mad, nor am I hallucinating.
FICTION Smitha is a legal professional and a writer. She has published in Kritya, Muse India, The Brown Critique; and her work is featured in two poetry anthologies.
Colourless Smitha Sehgal
Lekhana 2015 - Narratives of Violence - Short Fiction Contest 3rd Prize
D
rink, they said. Muthu leaned forward, craning his neck, stretching his feet. The tips of his toes had swollen, as if they had been wound tightly with cotton thread. A tiny flash of memory sparked through Muthu’s head. Just a single prick of a needle – that was all that was required. He, a four year old, would willingly acquiesce, tingling at the anticipation of the torture and the ensuing relief. Blue-tinged blood would appear as droplets, then gather and trickle down. “The body has been cleansed of polluted blood.” Karuppan’s eyes would gleam with satisfaction, as he washed the needle and pushed it at a slant into the calendar that hung on the mud wall of their tiny hut. That was Karuppan’s home remedy for itchy toes. The memory was many moons away. Karuppan now lay curled up in his bed for most of the day as Muthu went out to work on Neelakantan Nampoothiri’s land. In emerald paddy fields, swaying as the golden sun slanted down on them. Muthu’s heart swelled with an undefined happiness. He tended them with love. He looked at his palms, looked at the well-defined, clean lines criss-crossing them.
POETRY Cafe Mysore
A Benares Daybreak
Adam K Amberg
Adam grew up in the United States, where he studied under the American poet William Virgil Davis. He now lives and works in Bangalore and is interested in building a literary bridge between his experiences in two vastly different cultures.
Ganga
A P Govindankutty
Govindankutty writes in both Malayalam and English.
Preeta Nath
Preeta has a Ph.D., Sociology, from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has worked in the social sector and as a freelance media artist. She dedicates a lot of her time to look after stray animals.
Like An Express Train
Uttaran Das Gupta
A journalist with an active interest in theatre, Uttaran’s poetry has been published in India and abroad. He is writing a novel on HLV Derozio, India’s first “national poet”.
Powerplug
A Letter To A Brother Goirick Brahmachari
Goirick lives in New Delhi. His poems have appeared in both international and Indian journals. His articles and film reviews have appeared in dailies like The Hindu, The Shillong Times and others.
Sayantan Ghosh Sayantan is an editor for a publishing house. His work has appeared in Indian and international journals. His entry was longlisted for the DNA-Out of Print short fiction prize 2014. He blogs at http://sayantansunnyghosh.blogspot.in/
REVIEWS The Lady And The Monk Pico Iyer Random House Reviewer: Shruti Rao
START-UP CITY Molloy Bannerjee, Siddharth Bannerjee, P Ranganath Sastry Harper Collins Reading Hour Review
Shruti is a literature postgraduate from JNU, currently working as a freelance editor and writer. She has been published in various international and national journals. She is preparing for her second Masters in Children’s Literature.
last Page Manjushree Hegde
My friend started a new venture this year – a doggy boutique. She sells dog and cat things. Like doggy ‘Ugg’ boots, doggy cashmere sweaters, organic handbaked doggy treats, alpaca cat toys, bags for toting doggies, designer leashes and matching or coordinating collars, doggy raincoats and hand-knit sweaters, doggy tee-shirts, doggy wifebeaters, and designer litter boxes and scratching posts. In short, things you don’t really need for a dog. Or a cat. To show support, though, I go and help out when I can. It’s fun and I love all the dogs. In high school, when the choice between cats and dogs defines you as much as whether you drink Coke or Pepsi, or listen to Iglesias or Linkin Park, my choice was firmly feline. I collected cat poems (Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,/
Inveterate traveller, avid book collector, and Sanskrit afficionado, Manjushree lives in Bangalore and spends much time outside it.
are changeable, marry too many wives,/desert their children, chill all dinner tables/with tales of their nine lives./ Well, they are lucky. Let them be/nine-lived and contradictory), I had the B. Kliban books, the B. Kliban mugs and the B. Kliban posters. I was all about cats and their insouciant, tail-flipping independence. But at 18, I made the conversion to Dog Person. As with most converts, I became a zealot; I am now dogsall-the-time. Dogs are trustworthy. They’re faithful, they’re noble. They’ll save babies from burning buildings, travel thousands of miles over treacherous terrain just to be with you, sleep happily and protectively at your feet, mourn when you leave, and jump with joy when you return – even if you only went downstairs to get the mail.
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