Sonali SenRoy's Book

I had first heard about the Sonali - Rossellini story in 2008, when Dilip Padgaonkar's book, "Under Her Spell: Roberto Rossellini in India" had come out. 

Over the past 17 years, I have spent numerous days in libraries and archives, collecting information in English, Italian and French about their story. You can say that I am obsessed with it.

Today I received a book written by Sonali in 1961, that I had ordered. There was a surprise hidden in it. This post is about her book and the surprise. The image below shows Sonali from the back-cover of her book.

Let me start with a brief background about the Sonali-Rossellini story.

Brief Background About Sonali-Rossellini Story

The 1945 film, "Rome, Open City" created the legend of Italian film director Roberto Rossellini. At the end of 1956, Rossellini arrived in India to shoot a film. At that time, he was married to the Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman.

In India, he fell in love with Sonali Dasgupta, wife of film director Hari Dasgupta. There was a huge scandal. In October 1957, Rossellini and Sonali escaped to Paris with her younger son.

4 years later, in June 1961, Sonali wrote a book in French & Italian titled, Altro Mondo (the Other World).

Sonali's Book

I had heard about this book, but had not managed to lay hands on it. After so many years, a few days ago, while re-reading my old notes, I was reminded of this book and thought that now it might be possible to find it on internet. I found it straight away, and ordered a used-copy for a little more than three Euro.

Today morning that book arrived. It says that it was originally published in French and translated into Italian by Sonali herself, with the help of Mr. Dominique Aubier. It was published by Longanesi & C., Rome in June 1961. The cover has the picture of a woman from the Ajanta caves.

On the book, the author's name is Sonali Dasgupta. The first question in my mind was - why did she use this name for her book?

Sonali's maiden name was Senroy, and after her marriage to H. Dasgupta, she had become Sonali Dasgupta. When she had reached Paris in the beginning of October 1957, Roberto was still married to his second wife, Ingrid Bergman, and their legal separation was ratified in Rome in early November 1957. At the end of November 1957, their daughter Raffaella was born.

Thus, her choice of publishing her book as "Sonali Dasgupta" in 1961, probably meant that she and Roberto were not yet formally married. May be, at that time, her divorce with Hari Dasgupta was not formalised and thus she was forced to use that name, because it was on her official documents?

Surprise in the Book

I was surprised that the used copy of the book I have received, has a hand-written note in Italian by Sonali (click on the picture for a larger view): 

 "Questo libro non è l'opera di uno scrittore ma l'esperienza di una donna. La sincerità in esso racchiusa è la prova della simpatia e amicizia per tutto e tutti. Maggio 1961, Roma, Sonali Dasgupta."

(Trans.: This book is not the work of a writer but the experience of a woman. The sincerity in it, is the proof of sympathy and friendship for everything and everyone. May 1961, Rome, Sonali Dasgupta)

Sonali and her elder son Raja

The book is dedicated to Ragia (Raja), her elder son. In the book, the spellings of Raja are "Ragia", because Italian does not have J and it uses "gi" for the J sound. It is possible that she had given verbal instructions about the dedication and the person transcribing it had used the Italian spellings of the word. I feel that she must have been disappointed that her son's name was not spelled properly.

When I had first read about the Sonali and Roberto story, I had been greatly struck by her leaving of her elder son, Raja, in India, who was around 5 years old at that time. It had seemed to me like a "Sophie's Choice" kind of situation because a mother had been forced to take one child and to leave behind her other child.

I think that by dedicating this book to Raja Dasgupta, she was expressing her regret and pain at that separation.

Contents of the Book

The book is composed of 13 chapters. The first chapter starts with her days in Bombay immediately preceding her departure from India for Paris, with her young son Arjun (later he changed name and became Gil Rossellini). A couple of chapters have brief glimpses of her life in India such as about her birth in Banaras/Varanasi and her father's work as a doctor and about her journey to Europe.

Rest of the book is about her encounters with Europe, first with Paris and Saint Remy in France and then about her life in Italy. These encounters include linguistic difficulties, challenges of adapting to the western clothes, and the curiosity of people about the sari-wearing woman. In the parts about Italy, there are also different episodes of dealing with journalists and other curious persons.

The book does not touch on her love-story with Roberto and her life with her first husband. It reads like a series of vignettes, as if she was talking to someone about what it means for her to be an exotic Indian in Europe and to explain the peculiarities of India to the Europeans. The first draft of the book was probably written by that interviewer (Dominique Aubier), at a time when she didn't have a good command over French or Italian.

The book also shows her desire for dignity and privacy, for not giving in to journalists looking for melodramatic stories and scandals.

Conclusions

To find this book with her handwritten words in my hands was an incredible sensation. Suddenly, I could touch the words she had written and imagine her sitting at a table in a bookshop, writing dedications.

It seemed to me, as if across time and space, she has decided to extend her finger towards me, daring me to touch her.

I had written to her once to ask for an interview, but it was a time of bereavement and she had withdrawn from all public contacts at that time. She died in 2013.

I have been obsessed with this story for almost 2 decades. I have already written about it a few times and have been in contact with Raja Dasgupta, her elder son, as well as with a few other persons who knew her.

With all the material that I have collected about this story, I know that one day I will write a book about it. When I saw her handwriting today, I felt as if she is herself asking me to do it.

***

Fiction Books 2024

Yesterday (5 Jan 2025) I had put the list of non-fiction books I had liked in 2024. Today, it is the turn of fiction books.

Over the past few years, my fiction-reading had declined and I found it difficult to finish reading books. Most often I stop reading a book around 50 pages, because it does not grab me sufficiently. Yet in 2024, I managed to finish reading 15 books, which are presented below. I have divided them into 3 main groups - mysteries, action-thrillers and general fiction.

Let me start with the general fiction books.

General Fiction Books

1. George Washingtom Black by Esi Edugyan (2018) is the story of a young black slave boy called George in early 19th century, who was known as Wash. The book traces his journey with a man called Christopher Wilde, or Titch. Wash lives at a plantation called Faith in Barbados and after the death of its owner, the plantation passes to Erasmus Wilde. New owner's brother Titch arrives in the plantation, dreaming of making a flying balloon and he takes Wash as a helper. He discovers that Wash has a real talent for making illustrations. As their friendship grows, a tragedy makes them run away in their experimental flying balloon, which crashes on a ship ... It is a strange story, a bit fable, a bit magical realism, but very readable.

2. The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury by Marc Levy: Marc Levy is a French author. The original title of this book was "L'Etrange Voyage de Monsieur Daldry", the book is about two persons, Ethan Daldry and Alice Pendelbury, who live in the same apartment building.

Ethan is a painter, who likes painting busy traffic crossings and Alice is a "nose", someone who invents perfumes. They go to Istanbul, in search of something they are not sure of, though Alice has nightmares which suggest hidden secrets in her past. The book is light and interesting with nice characterisations and great dialogue. Though the story has a darkness at its core, it is a a book full of hope.

It is also very European, very distinct from American and English books.

3. Travelling Light by Lynne Branard (2017): This is another book about a journey. It is the story of Al (Alissa) who goes on a road-trip to carry a box of ashes of dead-person to that guy's home town, half-way across the USA.

She meets people on the way who join her journey. There are some bits in the middle where nothing seems to happen and the book drags. It seems as if the journey has not really changed anything for her, till after the end of that journey.

The book is an easy and pleasant read, it did not grab me and there were bits where I felt a little impatient, but in the end I was glad that I read it.

4. The Sweet Remnants of Summer by Alexander McCall Smith (2022): AMS is a prolific writer of mystery books and has different series of books. I am a fan of his Isabel Dalhousie books based in Scotland. I don't like his series based in Botswana and I have yet to read any book from his Scandinavian series. This book can also be placed under the "mystery" category, however, the mystery element is a tiny part, so I have preferred to put it in the general fiction group.

In this book there are Isabel Dalhousie, her musician husband Jamie, and their 2 sons, with a lot of moral dilemmas and witty one-liners. The mysteries they need to solve are not so big  - children who bite other children, an estranged family who thinks that their son is having a relationship with another boy, and an orchestra director who wants to give promotion to his lover, without antagonising other members of his orchestra.

It is a very gentle book and I loved it because of its ambience, characterisations and witty dialogues.

5. The Wolf Run by Kirstin Ekman: Kirstin is a 91 year writer from Sweden. For me her The Wolf Run (2021, origin title "Löpa varg") was the best book I read in 2024. I had taken the book from our library because it was a part of our reading group books and so I read it in Italian translation (Essere Lupo).

It is a little book and a simple story of a seventy year old man who has been a hunter all his life and on a new year morning he sees a wolf near his camper. The book is a meditation on life and on getting old. It is also about the bond between a couple, who have spent a life together, who understand that the season of death is not far when they lose their old dog. It is poetic and touching.

As I grow older, often I find myself thinking like this book's hero Ulff, so maybe that has influenced my choice of the best book.

Mystery Books

1. Bum Deal by Paul Levine (2018) is about a defence lawyer, who used to be a boxer, and is probably going to develop dementia. The lawyer is in love with his neurologist, and is asked to be the state prosecutor for a missing-woman case.

The missing woman is Sofia, wife of a "sawbones", an orthopaedic surgeon, with "cold reptilian eyes", who likes lap-dancers and blocking the carotids of his sexual partners till they fall unconscious. Sofia's powerful father is convinced that the surgeon has killed his daughter and would do everything to send him to jail. Except that nothing is as it seems. The book has a wonderful final twist. It is very well written with a lot of witty dialogues.

2. Winter Work by Dan Fesperman: I liked this old-style spy-mystery from 2022 because of 3 reasons -

(A) its setting, location and period - the story takes place on the two sides of the Berlin wall in 1989-90, when the wall has just come down, the East German system is coming apart but not yet destroyed and Americans are trying to get info from the East German secret police regarding the Russians; 

(B) the core characters in the book are very well drawn, with depth and distinct inner worlds with unusual stories. For example, Emil Grimm the retired East German secret police colonel, who can be considered as the hero, has an interesting love triangle with his paralysed wife in terminal phase of ALS and her friend, who is also her care-giver;

(C) and the story is well written.

3. Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg (2020): It is about a young homicide detective, Eve Ronin, in California and her first case of triple murders of a mother and her 2 children - someone had killed them with a knife and then dismembered them and hidden their bodies. The guy is caught relatively early in the book but it is difficult to find the evidence about what really happened and to link him directly to the crime. The book is a race against time to find the missing bodies and some evidence. The personality of Ronin and her relationship with her work-partner, who is waiting for his retirement in a few months, as well as crisp writing are all plus points.

The final parts of the book, about the superwoman kind of detective are a bit excessive, but the book is a good thriller-mystery.

4. The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan: This was my first book by the Irish writer and I am aiming to read more of her books. She writes beautifully with very richly imagined characters.

It is a police procedural about a detective sergeant Cormac O'Reilly who has relocated to a small Irish town and is asked to uncover the story behind a young girl and her brother, victims of child abuse, he had known 20 years ago. Book's bad man is a hidden psychopath, who goes about his merry bad ways without anyone guessing about his deeds for a very long time, almost like a superman.

In spite of such an unrealistic killer-hiding in the plain sight, it is to the credit of the writer that she can still manage to make the story seem credible and interesting. It really got me and I finished it in 2 days.

5. The Heron's Cry by Ann Cleeves is a beautifully written murder mystery set in a small community where everyone is connected with everyone else, so that even between the victims and detectives, there are links. The chief detective, Matthew is gay and his husband also plays a role in the mystery-story.

Each chapter of the book is written from the point of view of different characters (but not from the point of the view of the murderer), which gives this book an interesting variation as you can see the issues from detectives' as well as from other persons' point of views. The only chapter which seemed cliched was the one in which the murderer explains the hows and whys.

Action-Thriller Books

My action-thriller books also has 5 books, including two action-thrillers by Barry Eisler. In 2022, I had loved reading Barry Eisler's The Chaos Kind, which had an international group of assassins working together to save the life of a US attorney. Eisler writes great action-thriller books and he has created an inter-connected world of books about those assassins. I read two of his books this year and I think that I am going to look for more of his books in 2025.

1. Graveyard of Memories" (2014) by Barry Eisler is about how a CIA guy in Tokyo manipulates a Japanese guy Rain to become an assassin and about Rain's love story with a beautiful paraplegic girl of Korean origin. The book has great action scenes, good pace and enough twists, but what makes it special, are the psychological dialogues the assassin-guy is having with himself as learns about the zen of being an assassin, using mindfulness and careful attention to details, as one would in a tea ceremony.  Highly recommended for people who like action-thrillers.

2. Killing Rain" (2005) by Barry Eisler, has the same hero, John Rain, at the end of the his assassin career. He starts using his skills to protect good people. It also has 2 more assassins from the Barry Eisler's assassin world - Dox, the tall and good-natured American guy, and Delilah, the Jewish girl from Paris who works for the Mossad (Israelis).

This book also has great action, nice bits about assassin psychology and brief but strong emotional parts as well. I think that Killing Rain was the earlier title of the book and it is also available as "Redemption Games". Our library has some of the Barry Eisler books, so it is very likely that I will read some more of his books in the coming years.

3. The Bourne Defiance by Brian Freeman (2023) is set in the Jason Bourne world made famous by the books of Robert Ludlum, on which many films have been made. Different authors seem to be writing books based in that world and Brian Freeman is one of them.

This action-thriller is based in the USA and it is about a senator, his assistant, a secretary of state, and a cool-headed spy-killer with two women who love him. It has nice pacing, and a lot of action. It is a good fun book for fans of Robert Ludlum.

4. Insidious by Brett Battles (2020) has an unusual action hero called Nate, who can talk to his dead-wife Liz and she tells him about women in situations of danger who need his help.

Nate also has a Thai girl friend and partner called Jar who is on autism-spectrum. They need to solve the mystery of a girl who was kidnapped as a child, had managed to run away. Many years later, she has found her kidnappers and wants revenge but her life is in danger. The book has well-drawn and unusual set of characters. It is recommended for the fans of action-thrillers.

5. Deadlock by James Byrne (2023) is an action thriller with a witty hero called Desmond Aloysius Limerick, aka, Dez, who paraphrases half his sentences with "Love" and has a whole trove of nice one-liners. For example, I liked, "The God answers all prayers, sometimes the answer is no."

This book's villains are nerdy looking techs, a philanthropy-promoting TED speaker and some instagram-influencers.

Dez is better than Tom Cruise and Dwayne Johnson combined, he can kill hundreds and destroy whole buildings, so the thrills go together nicely with popcorn munching. It is recommended for good entertainment value for fans of action-thrillers.

Conclusions

This year I also liked some Italian books but since they are not translated into English (for example, a couple of books by Ilaria Tuti), I have not included them in this list.

Last year (2024) also has been good for me for writing books. I write in Hindi and in 2024, I finished the first draft of my third book - I really like the way it has turned out. A gentle love story, I think that it will make a great film.

I am now writing something else, and intended to go back to reviewing and rewriting my third book after a gap of a couple of months. In the meantime, I am still waiting for the publication of my first book, it was accepted by a Delhi publisher in 2023 but I am not sure when it will come out.

I am hoping to read more good books in 2025. Best wishes of a happy reading 2025 to all of my readers. If you have read some good books, do tell me about them in the comments below, thanks in advance.

If you like non-fiction, you can also check the non-fiction books I had liked reading in 2024.

*****

Non-Fiction Books 2024

In 2024, I decided that every time I will read a book till the end, I will note down my comments for my blog, instead of trying to come up with a list of books at the end of the year. Thus, this time making a list of my recommendations has been easier and is comprehensive.

This post is divided into 2 parts - this first part is about non-fiction (6 books) from 2024, while the second part will be about fiction books.

1. Spring Chicken - Stay Young Forever (Or Die Trying) by Bill Gifford  (2015)

It is a 2015 book about ageing, living longer and becoming older with less health-problems. It looks at the whole world of living longer movement - from what does ageing means, what causes ageing, the impact of ageing on different body-systems including muscles and movement, heart, lungs, brain and neurons, metabolism, etc. and and what can be done to slow down this process.

The author talks to the well-known experts and researchers in each domain, as well as to people with crazy ideas who are trying to stay younger and live longer. Most such books are repetitive, they have only a few ideas, but this book takes a wide overview and hardly ever repeats itself. It was my first read in 2024 and it got me straight away. It is a well-written book.

2. Midnight's Machines - A Political History of Technology in India by Arun Mohan Sukumar (2019)

It touches on an unusual theme - the relationship between culture of a people and technology. I had never thought about the cultural attitudes about technology in India in this way before reading it, and it made me rethink about some of my earlier beliefs. In India, we have beliefs about nature, environment, divinity and our own (human) role in the larger scheme of things.

Many of these ideas are expressed in terms like Gandhism, the ideas of self-reliant communities, the beauty of small things, and the distrust of modernity and technology (and of rich industrialists). The book touches on all these and how these affected pre-independence and post-independence developments in India, the role played by Rajiv Gandhi and even greater impact of Y2K disruption in bringing a grudging acceptance of technology to India. Though youth is enthusiastic about this change but the book suggests that the older distrust has not yet disappeared, it continues to shape our decisions even now. A very interesting read.

The Indian Ideology by Perry Anderson (2012)

This book looks at 20th century's India (at the 120 years period going from the birth of Congress party till the last UPA Government). Anderson's main area of interest has been Marxism and his analysis of the recent Indian history is shorn of any romanticism about India's freedom struggle and the role played by Congress in it.

His main criticism of congress in the pre-independence period is that its ideology was not progressive and modern, but was "Hindustani" (biased towards Hinduism). After independence, his judgement is that there was a confused polity. He looks at the ideas of Gandhi and Nehru, finding much to criticise, conceding some good intentions and a lot of bad choices.

He lays the blame for the creation of Pakistan on Gandhi and congress party "because they wanted a strong central government". He also finds fault with Indian electoral system (it is not proportional representation), inclusion of Kashmir in India, crushing of the independence movements in the North-East and the treatment of Muslims in post-independent India.

I feel that in India, we are used to a fawning adulation towards figures like Gandhi and Nehru, and any attempt to look at anyone critically is seen as sacrilegious. In that sense, I found his analysis refreshing and provocative. However, I do not agree with many of his conclusions for example, that aiming for a strong central government or not allowing successions, were bad choices for India. In any case, I feel that this book should be read for an alternate point of view about contemporary India.

Who Ate the First Oyster by Cody Cassidy (2020)

Simple sounding questions like "who ate the first oyster" or "who invented fire" or "who invented clothes" can lead to a profound reflection on human evolution over the past 3 million years and understand the significance of things that we take for granted.

For example, eating oysters required people to understand the science behind the tides of oceans because the oysters can only be gathered at low tides. It required making a connection between high-low tides with phases of the moon and a keen spirit for the observation of the world.

It is a book about human evolution science and I found it very interesting, full of A-Ha moments. If you like reading the natural history and science books, try this book from 2020 - it is full of new insights.

Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria (2024)

I knew Zakaria only as a TV personality and this this was his first book for me. The central theme of the book is that big and transformative changes occurring in short spans of time, are revolutions for the human societies, each of which follows a trajectory ending with an inevitable backlash of some kind. He focuses mainly on the revolutions in Europe over the past 500 years, especially about economical and social organisation of society, including the technical innovations.

I liked the first half of this book more than the second half. I felt that the last part of this book was scattered and confused. However, even in the second part, I found interesting ideas about cultural backlash to explain part of the Putin-Xi Jinping effects in Russia and China. I also agree with his view that today many countries in the world are not looking to the West to copy its ideas of organising societies, but instead, many of them are exploring their own understandings of modernity.

I also felt that the book sidesteps the whole issue of spread of Islamic orthodoxy, which is another huge phenomenon influencing geopolitics today. This orthodoxy can also be seen as a backlash to sudden modernity and changes in those countries. It seems that some of them, especially in the Arab world, seem to be finally overcoming it, while others, especially Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, seem to be lagging behind.

In conclusion, this book is an interesting read.

The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2022)

Pulitzer prize-winning Mukherjee writes big but interesting tomes about themes related to medicine. This book had come out in 2022 and I had been planning to read it for a long time.

In the medical college, I used to love physiology and had been fascinated by the microscopic "organelles" inside the cells, but at that time the understanding about these was fairly superficial. However, over the past decades, thanks to new research and technology (including genetics & molecular biology), our understanding of human anatomy and physiology have improved in ways that I could not have imagined. Thus, I was looking forward to reading Mukherjee's book on this theme.

It is great book, immensely readable, but it is for general reader. For me, it skimmed the surface, giving tantalising glimpses of the new knowledge but not really going deeper into it. For deeper learning about human physiology, I need to read a textbook. However, if you like to learn about the human body, it is an interesting book.

Conclusions

I feel that most non-fiction books do not need to be a full book, they can be much shorter. Most of them have very long initial parts where they talk at length about the context, but most of it is already well-known. When they do touch on their subject, they are often repetitive. Therefore, though I do start reading a lot of non-fiction books, I rarely finish them. Thus, I am really happy that I have 6 books in this list this time.

As the year comes to an end, I am listening to an interesting podcast by Devdutt Patnaik, which is more than 12 hours long. Recently, I had also listened to another interesting podcast with Manu Pillai. Hopefully, in 2025, I will read some books of both of them. This year (2025), I am also hoping to read some biographies, a genre that I have largely ignored so far.

Best wishes of a happy reading 2025 to all of my readers. If you have read a good non-fiction book, do tell me about it in the comments below - thanks in advance.

You can also read about my choice of fiction books that I had liked in 2024.

*****

The Library & Airship of Amerigo da Schio

Recently, an old noble family of Schio opened their private library with antique books for public viewing. The family's name is "da Schio" (literally "from Schio") and they have a big villa in the city centre, in front of the Duomo church.

Count Amerigo da Schio, from this family had made the first airship in Italy and its maiden flight had taken place in Schio in 1905. This was just two years after the the Wright brothers had made their maiden flight in 1903.

This post is about the "da Schio" family's private library and the story of the first Italian airship made by Amerigo da Schio.

Civic Library of Schio

These days, our Civic library in Schio is having a mini-exhibition about antique books and handwritten manuscripts. This exhibition will be on till the end of Dec. 2024.

The tiny town of Torre Belvicino, a few kilometres north from Schio, was one of the first places in Italy where the printing press was started, soon after Johannes Gutenberg had discovered the moveable type for printing in Germany in 1440 CE. The first printed books in Torre Belvicino came out around 1460.

At the same time, the St Francis church had some antique handwritten manuscripts with some exquisitely made illustrations from 13th century. Thus, our library has an eclectic collection of antique old books. I will write a separate post about our library, its history and its old books.

For the inauguration of this exhibition of old books in the civic library, the "da Schio" family also opened the doors of their private library for the public, to show off their collection of old books.

Da Schio family in Schio

The records show that the "da Schio" family house has been there for more than a thousand years. The old pictures from 19th century show 4 houses built together. Around 1875, the building was renovated and a new façade was built, giving it a more dignified appearance, so that the four houses appear as one.

The "da Schio" family had a number of famous personalities in the past. These personalities included Manelino da Schio, mayor of Belluno in 13th century while his son Frà Giovanni da Vicenza was a well-known Catholic Dominican inquisitor (his portrait can be seen in the stained-glass windows of Santa Corona church in Vicenza). The descendents also included a bishop in the 16th century. The title of Count was given to the family in 1530 by emperor Charles V.

The family's royal symbol is a mermaid with double tail, which can be seen at the top of the house and in the family seal placed in the books (image below).

The present Count Giovanni da Schio, was born in the room above the library but today lives in their villa in Castel Gomberto. One of the Counts' son, Tommaso Amerigo, is a trained archivist. Both Giovanni and Tommaso were present during our visit to explain the history of the house and the library (first image at the top).

The remaining parts of the "da Schio" building have been made into offices and apartments. However the family still maintains the library. 

Library of the "da Schio" House 

This library has about 4000 volumes including 2 incunabulum books (the first printed books in 15th century).

The library was (and is still) not organised for subjects or authors, but rather for aesthetic reasons, putting together books of the same sizes and colours in the same shelves. Each cupboard (all are open cupboards), covering the whole length of the wall, has an alphabetical identification and the shelves are numbered. Thus, to find a specific book, one must consult a card-catalogue. There are 10 boxes of card-catalogues (shown in the first image at the top).

However, the family has started a process of digitising the book-archives.

The library room has a few pictures of Amerigo da Schio, who is considered as a famous Italian and world personality. The place of honour, in the centre of the room, is for a model of the the famous Amerigo airship hanging from the roof.

The Airship of Amerigo da Schio

Amerigo was born in Schio in 1836. Though he trained as a lawyer, he had eclectic interests including astronomy. During that period, different persons were discussing how to fly. While the Wright brothers were trying with their aeroplane, it was too heavy to be able to carry passengers.

On the other hand, others were thinking of an airship carried by a big balloon - these were also known as Blimp or Dirigible Balloon. Amerigo was among one of them, though he thought that with time, lighter metals will be found and future will belong to aeroplanes.

Hot air balloon was invented in France in 1783. Two years later, Blanchard and Jeffries crossed the English channel in a hydrogen balloon. In 1852, Giffard flew a steam-powered airship filled with hydrogen, while the Zepplin airship was invented in 1895, which were also used to bomb Britain during the first world war.

Amerigo's airship in Schio, was the first Italian airship. Making it was not easy because the parts had to be built and brought to Schio. For example, its motor was made at the Fiat factory in Turin, while the black plastic sheet fixed at the bottom to allow elastic expansion of the balloon, was made by Pirelli. It was filled with a gas made from burning some metals and other things. Underneath the balloon, a frame made from aluminium tubes was built to carry passengers. The first flight on 17 June 1905, in the area where the old hospital of Schio is located, was successful. After that it was flown a few times.

A book published to commemorate 70 years of Amerigo's airship by Arrigo Usigli, had some information about the challenges in making the airship: "Its total weight should have been around 1000 kg but the initial endothermal motors were too heavy for it. However technical progress helped by reducing this weight and a motor produced by the French Buchet was chosen, which weighed only 80 kg and provided 12 HP." (p. 25)

At one level, we can say that the invention of the airship was not very useful, because over the next few years, aeroplanes were developed and became the principle mode of flying for humans. However, Amerigo's airship innovation led to better industrial capacity in many areas in Italy, including in the Fiat and Pirelli factories.

To Conclude

If Homo Sapiens species arrived some 300,000 years ago. The writing was discovered around 3000 years ago. Till about 500 years ago, books were only handwritten and were thus called Manuscript (from Latin, Manus means hand and Script means writing). The society that reads books, arrived only some hundred-two hundred years ago. Initially, many persons, not used to the easy availability of books for general public felt that books were a bad invention, that they would have destroyed the human capacity for memorising and thinking.

While, today we can only laugh at those fears, already the world is changing. With technologies such as easy video-making with mobile phones and internet, perhaps we are moving towards a post-writing and post-book world. As has happened so many times in the past, new technology does not mean that the old things disappear. Hopefully, books will be with us for a very long time, even if they change form and become electronic or video-story tellings.

The beautiful library of the "da Schio" family is one of the treasures of humanity and hopefully, it can be preserved for future generations. 

*****

Amrit Lal Nagar: Creative Inspirations

Hindi writer and playwright Amrit Lal Nagar has left an incredibly vast testimony of his creative powers expressed in works ranging from short stories to fiction, satire, memoires, plays and screenplays.

In this article, I want to focus on some insights about his creative inspirations based on his book “Jinke Saath Jiya” (My Contemporaries), published in 1973. In this book Amrit Lal Nagar ji had brought together vignettes and memoirs about important figures of the 20th century’s Hindi Literature, some of whom inspired him and others, who were his friends.

Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay

Sharat Chandra, the famous Bengali author, had died in 1938. Nagar ji wrote a vignette about him. At that time he was 22 years old. In the memoir, he wrote, “I had learned Bengali to read his books and he truly had a great influence on me”. Nagar ji had gone to meet his idol a few times.

Sharat Chandra had a house in Panibash village, about 2 miles from Devalti railway station near Hawrah, and it was there that Nagar ji went to see him during his last days. He wrote a moving account of this visit, in which he described Sharat Chandra’s deteriorating health and artistic loneliness . He concludes this account with the following words:

“To go back, after kissing his feet, as I was going to the palaki for the station, he said, “Wait Amrit, I want to show you the splendour of Roopnarayan pond”. The sky had a few stars and perhaps it was a full-moon night. He pointed towards it and said, “When the water is high and it touches my house, I love it.” Standing at the edge of pond, it was the last time that I saw that great artist.”

Surya Kant Tripathi “Nirala”

Nirala appears multiple times in different writings of this book. Nirala had died in 1961. Here I want to share a few impressions from Nagar ji’s essay from 1962, in which he had written about the first Nirala Jayanti celebrations in his village Gadhakola near Purwa town in Uttar Pradesh.

Nirala was born in a Brahmin family in Midnapore, now in Bangladesh, but had arrived in Gadhakola as a child. He grew up here, choosing to live closer to the marginalised groups and wrote some of his iconic stories regarding those persons in this house. It was here that he was tormented by the high caste rich landowners and he left it vowing to never come back.

Nagar ji writes effortlessly creating a vivid picture of different persons who had been a part of Nirala’s life when he was a poor villager, who now wished to claim a part of his glory as a renowned poet. His words express his reverence for Nirala, even while he observes the complexity of human egos and emotions. About Nirala’s closeness to the poor and the excluded he wrote:

“I started to think, why would the higher castes remember Nirala? He had never accepted their caste-superiority. He had refused their false-ideas of religion. He had listened to the voices of the poor and marginalised, fought for them and was a part of their joys and pains. That was why such a large group of his followers was a part of the procession, to show their disdain for the higher castes. I loved it. Lord Shiva has to be accompanied by his marginalised bhoot-gana.”

The Farmer Poet “Padhees”

Balbhadra Prasad Dikshit “Padhees” was Nagar ji’s contemporary and friend, famous for his poetry book “Chakkalas”.

Like Nirala above, Padhees had also chosen to move away from his Brahmin clan to become a farmer himself and to write about the lives of the poor farmers and the landless peasants in his poetry. In his book, Nagar ji dedicates a big chapter to this farmer-poet to express his own ideals of being close to the marginalised persons.

With extensive quotes from different poems of Padhees, Nagar ji’s essay explains the popularity of those words among the poor farmers because he was giving voice to the voiceless. He wrote, “Padhees’ call was like a spark to light the fire in a heap of straw. His poetry was the voice of the mute farmers of the 7 lakh villages of the country.”

Lamenting the death of Padhees at a young age, Nagari ji wrote:

“Farmer-poet Padhees was a great word-smith. Every language would be proud to have a poet like him. The beautiful, alive and heart-touching depictions of nature, villages and the village life that he presented in his Avadhi language poems would be difficult to find elsewhere … Those who had the good fortune of knowing him from close knew that he was even a far better human being.”

Jaya Shanker Prasad

Eminent Hindi writer Prasad had died in 1938, when Nagari ji was just 22 years old. Prasad was one of the early influences on the young Nagar ji.

In his essay on Prasad, Nagar ji describes the hardships he had faced when his family wealth was lost and he was crushed under the burden of debt. Yet even in those trying times, Prasad did not lose his dedication towards writing.

Nagar ji describes the lesson learned from Prasad with the following words:

“He kept his poetry hidden, he liked to keep this passion for himself. This habit meant that he kept working on his literary efforts in solitude. In Prasad’s literary journey, the stamp of this focused effort is evident. As a poet, playwright, and author of stories, books and essays, in all his different works, you can see his undivided and attentive thought-process. A creative work can be small or big, but for a serious author, they all merit equally careful attention.”

Sumitra Nandan Pant

Nagar Ji starts this vignette with Nirala in Lucknow during the 1930s. Nirala had a deep reverence for the Hindi poet Pant, and had introduced Nagar ji to his works. My favourite part of this vignette is the part when they both, Pant and Nagar ji, were in Madras (Chennai) in 1946, working with Udayshanker on his film Kalpana. This episode illustrates the source of the poet’s creativity:

“Pant ji was writing the songs for that film. He had just recovered from a long illness and often seemed lost in thoughts. There was a light in his serious face. One day, standing in the garden with his hand on my arm, he suddenly raised his head up to stare at a tree. His eyes seemed lit from inside. Clutching my arm, he said with enthusiasm, “Look my friend, the poems are raining down.” Some days after this, he started writing the poems of his book ‘Swarn Kiran’.” 

Conclusions

The sixteen portraits of contemporary authors and poets in Amrit Lal Nagar’s book “Jinke Saath Jiya”, refer to some of the iconic figures of Hindi literature of 20th century. All the portraits, while they tell about their subjects, they also throw light on their relationships with Nagar ji. They also indicate which aspects of their personality and literary efforts were perceived as significant by Nagar ji. In this sense, a critical reading of these essays provide some invaluable insights about Nagar ji, such as his admiration for those who were speaking for the poor and marginalised and fighting for their dignity.

There is so much in these essays that can be starting points for critical research on Nagar ji’s own creative works, to see how these inspirations were developed and manifested in them. For example, his admiration for some of these persons’ optimism and resilience, their knowledge of Upanishads, their respect for our cultural heritage, heritage and knowledge-systems and so on.

At the same time, one can appreciate that in these memoirs and vignettes, there is a touch of levity, humility and self-deprecation about his own creativity.

***

Notes:

1. I have translated from Hindi the different excerpts used in this write-up, trying to respect the sense of his expressions instead of making literal translations.

2. This article was published in the August 2024 issue of the magazine "DFTT" (Documentary Films & Theatrical Trust) of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), a special issue to commemorate the 108 years of Amrit Lal Nagar, edited by Savita Nagar & Rajesh Amrohi.

#amritlalnagar #hindiwriters #hindiliterature #indianliterature

 

Knocking-Down Alice Munro

The latest issue of Outlook magazine (11 Aug.2024) in India is about the Nobel prize winner Canadian writer Alice Munro (1931-2024) controversy. After Munro's death in May this year, her daughter disclosed that when she was 9 years old, she was sexually abused by her step-father. She said that she had told it to her mother, but her mother had refused to leave her husband. This disclosure has led to the campaign which says that Munro was a terrible person and her works should be boycotted.

The magazine has different persons sharing their views about this controversy. I would also like to share a couple of my ideas about this theme.

Views in Outlook Magazine

Most views published in the magazine, take nuanced positions. For example:

Jai Arjun Singh's view is that everyone contains multitudes and asks, "is it so hard to believe that people who have done heinous things in one context are also capable - over a long lifetime - of producing thoughtful, moving art and doing it honestly?"

In the Munro controversy, the heinous act was by the step-father. I feel that painting Munro as a kind of accomplice is going too far. However, suppose Munro was a terrible person, does it mean that we erase her work? I don't think so.

Jerry Pinto mentions the universality of human flaws and says about Picasso, "He is flawed. I accept that because I am flawed. I accept his art as coming from a flawed source because there are only flawed sources." I like and understand this viewpoint better.

I think that people who point fingers at others, are often those who have their own skeletons in their cupboards.

My Views

I also think that same events can be interpreted differently. For example, some things can be seen as harmless fun or not so serious by one person and a mortal offence by another. I remember film actress Rakhi's interview about her divorce some decades ago, in which she mentioned about her husband Gulzaar's saheb's cruelty "because he wanted only freshly made warm chapati and threw it away if it was not to his satisfaction". I know some men and women who also prefer their chapatis warm, but fortunately, they don't need to divorce their spouses, they just need to get a new cook for their kitchens.

You think that I am trivialising the issue? How about ragging? Some 20 years ago, I had written a post about my ragging experiences in the medical college in 1972. I had happy memories of that experience while another of my classmates had left the college. Some even commit suicide due to ragging. BTW, my post about that ragging experience, is one of the most popular posts on this blog and it triggers a large number of persons, who continue to read it, in spite of explicit warnings about its content.

In Munro's defence, I can also say that her daughter had told about it to her mother, almost 15 years after the event. Thinking of "multitudes" inside us, and may be Munro had had some very good memories in all those years with her husband, including of many acts of kindness and empathy, and she was conflicted in her mind. I can't judge her reasons. Since Munro is dead, and can't defend herself, in the end, her daughter's is just one side of a complex story.

Finally, if we start boycotting due to all the stories about the well-known writers, artists, actors etc., we won't have any films, books and works of art left for us to admire and engage with. Maybe this is because, famous creative people undergo a lot of pressure to cross the boundaries?

Since we live in the age of aggressive self-promotion based media-celebrities, I guess many persons outraging about Munro are only looking for attention through their outrageous comments. Unfortunately, click-bait hungry portals & social media are only too happy to oblige them.

***

War Cemeteries of Vicentino

The First World War was fought between the Austrian-Hungarian empire on the east and the rest of the Europe (and USA) on the west, between 1914-1918.

The tiny town of Schio in north-east part of Italy, where I live, is a part of the Vicentino area around the historical town of Vicenza, and is marked by the little Dolomite mountains of the Alps. Some of the most furious battles of that war were fought in these mountains.

There are three major war monument-cemeteries (known as Sacrario) on these mountains - on Pasubio mountain, on the Altopiano of Asiago and on the Grappa mountain. (In the image below - a view of the top of Grappa Sacrario)

Recently, our local book-readers' group decided to visit the war-sites described in a book about the first world war, that we had read. The book written by Paolo Malaguti was titled "Moro della Cima"  (Moro of the mountain top), and it told the story of a man called Moro who used to live at the top of the Grappa mountain and had played a role in the battles around that area.

This post is a result of this visit to the Grappa mountain, at around 1,800 meters, and it briefly presents the three mountain cemeteries.

The Sacrario-Cemeteries

All the towns in this part of the north-east of Italy have their first World War cemeteries, with the tombs of the local boys who had died in that war.

However, around 20 million soldiers had died in that war, thousands of bodies had been lost and many soldiers had not been identified. After the end of the war, for some of them, Sacrarios (sacred monuments) were built in which the remains of a lot of soldiers were put all together.

The Sacrario of Grappa Mountain

The Grappa mountain looms over the town of Bassano. In the battles of Grappa, around half-a-million guys had died and another half-a-million had ended with disabilities. All towns and villages around Grappa have their local monuments to remember those guys and almost every family have relatives who had taken part in that war.

The biggest cemetery is the Sacrario monument at the top of the mountain with thousands of tombs. The monument is divided into two parts - on one side are the Italians and on the other side, are the Austrian-Hungarian tombs.

At the top, connecting the two sides, there is a wide-strip of land, from where you can look down at the mountain-slopes. Underneath the monument is a few kilometers long gallery, part of which can be visited, which had a hospital, dining mess and spaces for firing artillery fire on the enemy soldiers.

In the Austrian-Hungarian part of the cemetery, there is a tomb of a young boy, which has become a pilgrimage site and is often cited during the calls for peace and against the wars. It is called the tomb of Peter Pan. The blond angelic looking boy's body was found in September 1918 and the Italian soldiers who found him gave him the name, Peter Pan. Later his real identify was discovered, he was from a Hungarian village, which is now part of Romania. People place flowers, sea-shells and stones on his tomb.

Sacrario of Asiago

Asiago is a part of seven municipalities spread over the high-plains of Vicentino region. German-speaking Cimbrian people from the Bavarian region of Germany had settled here. It is a well-known tourist place known for its beautiful mountains, lakes and skiing slopes.

The Sacrario monument of Asiago is a huge construction in the form of an arch at the top of a hill.

Sacrario of Pasubio

Pasubio mountain (2,232 meters) looms above Schio, where I live. The mountain pass called Pian delle Fugazze at 1,163 meters, beneath the Pasubio mountain, holds another Sacrario, which I can see from our back-terrace.

The Sacrario looks down from a panoramic point at the Leogra valley and its towns - Sant'Antonio, Valli del Pasubio and Schio.

A short distance below the sacrario, around the edge of the mountains is an old fort (Forte Maso), which was also a site of a furious battle. Walking around Pasubio, one can see smaller monuments remembering specific battles and their soldiers.

Other First World War Buildings

Scattered across these mountains, there are numerous ruins of old buildings, artillery sites, tunnels and caves which were used during the different battles.

One of my favourite such sites is located at a place near Tonezza del Cimone, not far from Schio, with the ruins of bunkers of the Austrian soldiers on a mountain-side. (In the image below)

It is such a beautiful place with wonderful views of the surrounding valleys. To think of the war, bombs and people dying in that place, makes me feel very sad, and I cam imagine the lives of those soldiers.

In Conclusion

Let me conclude this post with a picture of some of our book-readers' group-members from the Sacrario of Grappa mountain.

It was a beautiful visit to the top of Grappa mountains. Being together with our book-loving friends was great. Thinking of the world war history and the book we had read, made that history and those events come alive.

These cemeteries have tombs of soldiers from all over Europe, including from UK and USA. The well-known American writer Ernest Hemingway had been an ambulance driver in Schio during that war in 1918. Thus, these sites are pilgrimage places for the families of those soldiers from different countries.

A big thank you to Michela, our readers'-group coordinator, and to Mirko, who was our guide for this visit.

***

#grappa #warcemeteries #firstworldwar #northeastitaly #bookreaders #schiocultura

Sculptures & Art About Books

I love reading and as a chld I had started reading very early. There was a time when I read everything. I used to say that I will even read toilet paper if it has something written on it! I no longer try to read toilet papers, but I still read a lot. I am a part of a Booking-Readers' Group in Schio in the north-east of Italy, where I live. Finally, earlier this year I completed writing my first fiction book in Hindi.

This photo-essay is about those works of art from across the world which celebrate books and their authors.

I am starting this post with a sculpture from the Brera Museum of Conteporary Art in Milan (Italy) - it has marble statue of a young woman reading a book by the Italian sculptor Pietro Magni. (Image above)

My Favourite Authors

Most of my favourite authors from my childhood were from my father's collection of Hindi books - Krishen Chander, Nanak Singh, Shivani, Chatur Sen, Rangey Raghav, Asha Purna Devi, Bimal Mitra, Shanker, Muktibodh, and many more. Those were not books meant for children, but that did not stop me from reading them!

Growing up, I discovered English books. Then, over the last decades while living in Italy, apart from Italian writers, I have also discovered many Latin American and European writers. Through the images of this photoessay, I hope to make you think about your own favourite authors and books.

The next image in this collection is from the Innocenti building in Florence that hosts the UNICEF office and shows a boy sitting on a paper boat. I think that it wonderfully illustrates the capacity of a good book to transport you to far away lands of imagination. I don't know the artist of this sculpture.

The next image is of an unusual tower made of one hundred white coloured books by the Italian sculptor Lorenzo Perroni, who specializes in sculptures of white coloured books. I had clicked this picture during the visit of a group of American astronauts to the Sala Borsa hall in Bologna in 2011. So you can see the astronauts in the lower right corner, with people sitting on the ground in front of them and the white columns of books towards the left.

The next part of this photo-essay is divided according to countries where the pictures were taken.

America (USA)

There are two images from the Central Park in New York. The first one has a statue of Robert Burns, also known as Robbie Burns. He is considered to be the national poet of Scotland. According to the Wikipaedia, "He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish Diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature".

The second image is of a sculpture showing two characters of one of the most famous and enduring love stories of the world - Romeo and Juliet - by the British playwright William Shakespeare.

Austria

The next image is from Vienna and shows the writer and playwright Ferdinand Raimund (1790-1836) near the opera building. He is credited with a number of important books and plays in German. I find his story very tragic - bitten by a dog and afraid of a painful death due to rabies, because no treatment existed for this disease at that time, he had committed suicide at the age of 46 years. When I hear people complaining about vaccines and refusing to vaccinate their children, I would like to remind them of this story.

Belgium

The next three images are from Brussels, the capital of Belgium. The first one shows two lovers at the lake - they are Thyl and Nele, the characters of a book by the Belgian writer Charles De Coster. De Coster is considered to be the father of Belgian writing. This monument is the opera of the sculptor Charles Samuel, a fan of De Coster. The monument also has many other characters from De Coster's books on its sides - a cat, a cooking pot, a spinning rod.

The next image shows two of the principle characters (Captain Haddock and Tintin) from the iconic comic books about the adventures of a boy called Tintin. These comics were written and illustrated by the Belgian author and artist called Hergé (his real name was "Georges Remi"). Tintin is considered to be one of the most popular European comic books and these have been translated into different languages.

The third image from Brussels shows a statue of Charles Buls (also known as Karel Buls) placed in the Agoraplein square, close to the Grand Place square. According to Wikipaedia, "He was a Belgian politician and mayor of the City of Brussels. Buls was an accomplished and prolific author, not merely on educational and artistic issues but also publishing accounts of his travels abroad. Buls became Mayor of Brussels in 1881. However, along with these reforms, his most lasting achievement was the result of his opposition to the grandiose architectural schemes of King Leopold II, and the resulting preservation of old parts of Brussels. "

Brazil

The next five images are from Brazil. The first one has the bust of famous Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran in the city of Goiania. He was 12 years old when his family emigrated from Lebanon to USA. He died at 48 years and wrote in both Arabic and English. His most well known book is "The Prophet".

Many of the words of Khalil Gibran have been quoted infinite number of times and will be familiar to readers across the world. For example, you must have heard these - "If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were." Another of his quotes that I like, says - "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers." You can check many other quotes from Gibran at Goodreads.

The next image is from Pelorihno, the old city on the hill in front of the port of Salvador do Bahia, where the well known Brazilian writer Jorge Amado lived. His house in Pelorinhno hosts a museum and shops around sell his souvenirs including his paintings showing him with a pipe in his mouth.

The next two images are from the medical college in Pelorihno, showing two ancient Greek philosophers, writers and scientists - Hippocrates and Galen.

The last image from Brazil shows the house of Cora Coralina, an Afro-Brazilian slave during Portuguese occupation, in the historic city of Goias Velho. The house is located next to the river Rio Vermelho and there is a statue of Cora standing at the window, looking over the river. Cora was a poet, who wrote about the degradation of slavery and her poems inspired hundreds of other Afro-Brazilians to seek a life of dignity.

Czech Republic

The next image of this photo-essay is from Prague and shows the statue of a women writer - Bozena Nemcova (real name "Barbora Panklova"). Writer of fairy tales and legends, she is best known for her novel Babicka (Grandmother), an autobiographical book about her childhood with her grandmother.

India

The next four images are from India. The first image has the iconic figure of poet-saint Basvanna from Basavkalyan in Karnataka, who is known for his Vachana-sahitya. According to Wikipaedia, "He spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as Vachanaas. Basavanna used Ishtalinga, an image of the Śiva Liṅga, to eradicate untouchability, to establish equality among all human beings and as a means to attain spiritual enlightenment. These were rational and progressive social thoughts in the twelfth century."

The next two images are from the Hindi Bhawan in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and present two important personalities from the world of Hindi literature - national poet of India, Maithili Sharan Gupt and the iconic writer Munshi Prem Chand. My aunt, Dr Savitri Sinha, was close to Maithili Sharan Gupta, affectionately called him Dadda and had written about him.

Munshi Prem Chand was the writer of many stories that I loved as a child. He was the founder-editor of Hans, a literary magazine in Hindi, that continues to be active even today.

The fourth image from India shows Nobel laureate poet, writer, playwright and freedom fighter, Rabindra Nath Tagore.

Italy

The images of writers from Italy are more numerous than all the other countries in this photo-essay. This may be because I have travelled widely in Italy. Perhaps, this has also to do with greater willingness in Italy to honour artists and writers in the public spaces.

The first three images are from the gardens of Villa Borghese park in Rome. The first image shows the Ukrainian born Russian writer and playwright Nikolai Gogol. In her book "The Namesake", Jhumpa Lahiri had paid homage to Gogol by giving his name to her hero.

The next image has the Peruvian writer Garcilaso de la Vega known as The Inca, from Villa Borghese gardens of Rome. He wrote about the Spanish colonizers of Peru. The son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noblewoman, he is recognized primarily for his contributions to Inca history, culture, and society.

The third image from Villa Borghese gardens of Rome has a writer from a tiny eastern European country called Montenegro - Petar Petrovic Njegos, who was a nobleman and a poet. As the Prince-Bishop of Montenegro, he is credited with modernization of his country.

The fourth image is also from Rome, from the ruins of Traiano's baths near the Colosseum, and shows the statue of Italian journalist and writer Alfredo Oriani.

The next image is from Santa Croce square in Florence and shows the most well known Italian poet Dante Alighieri, famous for his epic poem "Divine Comedy".

The next four images are from a garden near Cavour square, close to the Brera museum of art in Milan. This garden has many statues of writers, journalists, philosophers and scientists.

The first of these images shows the well known Italian journalist and newspaper editor Indro Montanelli, writing on his old typewriter. He is shown as a young man, his severe face is focused on his writing. It is a remarkable piece of art.

The next images have 3 Italian writers - Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Gaetano Negri and the playwrite Giuseppe Giacosa from the Cavour square park in Milan.

The next image is from the city of Vicenza and it shows the writer, editor and publisher Neri Pozza. The sculpture is close to the bridge on the river Bacchiglione, just behind the famous Basilica built by Andrea Palladio. Neri Pozza is one of the reputed contemporary publishing houses in Italy, who have published the Italian translations of different Indian authors including Alka Saraogi and Anita Nair.

The last image of this photo-essay shows the statue of Irish writer James Joyce and is from the city of Trieste in the north-east of Italy. Joyce is shown walking, crossing a bridge in the centre of the city. Joyce had lived in Trieste for many years. He is famous for his books like Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.

In the End

I have loved putting together this photo-essay, even though identifying the pictures for this post took me hours of going through my vast picture archives. It was frustrating that from many countries, I could not find any image related to a book or a writer or a journalist. For example, I could not find any such image from my image archives of UK or Switzerland. No country of Africa is represented in this photo-essay for the same reason.

Many countries do not put statues of writers in prominent public spaces, probably because often writers speak against their governments! Also because compared to national leaders, military persons and freedom fighters, for many countries writers and artists are not considered important enough to be remembered through art and sculpture. Finding images of art related to women writers is even more difficult - for this essay I could find only two of them.

I hope that you will enjoy going through these images and perhaps share with me your experiences of finding the statues of your favourite authors during your travels! I would love to hear about any art works related to writers and/or their books, especially from countries not represented in this post.

***

#artaboutbooks #artaboutwriters #artistsandwriters #authors #booksculptures

Writing Choices (1)

I am writing my second novel - it is in Hindi, because after trying for about 20 years, I found that I was more comfortable writing my books in Hindi. I still do not have a publishing house for my first book but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

It took me almost two and a half years to write that first book, and during that period, I rewrote it 3 times before finding a structure that I liked. It is about a young man who discovers that the woman he had thought of as his mother was not his birth-mother and then for the rest of the book he tries to find more about and locate his birth-mother.

I had a basic idea but once I started writing, new ideas came all the time, some of which I tried. The final structure of book and many of its characters and scenes, which came out in the final version, were very different from my initial ideas.

However, when I think back about the writing of my first book, I can hardly remember all those changes and the experimenting with different ideas.

It is the same with my second book. I am doing the second rewriting. It covers a long time period, more than a hundred years, and is spread across different countries. I think that I might need to do at least 2 more rewritings before I will have a proper draft. While I work on it, there are so many ideas which come to my mind and I try to incorporate some of them in my writing. 

So I have thought of occasionally noting down in this blog about my writing process. This book revolves around 4 generations of a family involved in a tea garden.

The first version of this book had alternating chapters focusing on different characters from different countries and time-periods. I wrote around 80% of it but felt that its basic premise of the story focusing on a woman of the 3rd generation was not working, it seemed kind of flat and not very exciting.

In the second version, I have grouped together the chapters according to the time-periods, to make it easier to follow. Now, its focus has shifted to 2 characters from the second and fourth generations.

I had started writing it with longer chapters and fewer voices telling the story. After writing about 70% of this version in this way, one day I changed my strategy - now the chapters are shorter and the story is told by a larger number of voices. I still have about 10% of the book to complete but I like this second approach more, though it probably has too many events all reaching their culminations in the last few chapters, so it is kind of chaotic.

My plan is to finish this version, read it and then decide if I prefer it with longer chapters and fewer voices or shorter chapters with more voices.

While writing, sometimes some characters suddenly take form, come alive and become more complex, sometimes asking for greater space in the story. For example, some old photographs taken in 1930-1940s played a key role in the story in the first version. In this second version, I have a French guy as the photographer and a few scenes with him. Then, a few days ago, while going for a walk, I thought about that French guy and I felt that he is an interesting character and thus, it is possible that he will have a bigger role in the third version.

I love writing my book. For a few hours every day I get lost in the worlds of my characters and their stories. It is an amazing feeling.

*****

#authorsunil #sunildeepak #sunil_book #writingprocess