Book Review: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Watanabe is a Japanese youth studying at a University in Tokyo. He has two girlfriends Naoko and Midori. Both are unusual, suffering from depression, and need help to recover and Watanabe is the friend who they trust. He is worn out between these two, grows up from the experience, loses one and settles with the other.

Naoki is introduced to Watanabe by a childhood friend of hers who commits suicide in his youth. That puts Naoko into emotional trouble. And Naoki has this in her blood too as her younger sister also had committed suicide for psychological problems. She is put into an unusual hostel which serves as a home for those suffering from emotional issues and it helps bring together through many activities and teaches them to help themselves. Watanabe as a close friend of hers offers help and attempts to fill in the confidence in her to come out and face the external world. He finds that is he is deeply in love with Naoko. Reiko, another patient at the hostel, is a roommate of Naoko. She has an ear (and hands!) for the music and “Norwegian Wood” is one of the songs she plays on her guitar. Though herself a patient, she is another source of strength for Naoko in getting better. Three spend good time together when Watanbe visits the hostel. And there is hope that Naoko would get better and become normal.

Top Left: Haruki Murakami Right: Stills from movie adaptation of the novel

Midori is another student in Watanabe’s class. She is attracted to him for his unusual, serious and sincere behavior. She is going through difficult phase in her personal life as she had lost her mother recently and her father too is on the deathbed. Watanabe turns out to be a true friend for her understanding the situation she is into and supporting her while she gets through the difficult times. A bond develops between them and that turns into love.

Watanabe has to choose between Naoko and Midori and seeks guidance from Reiko on this matter. He learns from Reiko that Naoko could not get better and committed suicide. That news comes as a shock for Watanabe and he travels alone to unknown places to find peace with himself. Finally he recovers from it and connects with Midori.

What starts as a usual, predictable plot takes many twists and turns. It explores many strange human characters. The novel is more about those who are not normal but very sensitive and emotional and who can’t bear the pains which normal people would tolerate and get over it. This novel is also full of descriptions of the characters having drinks and casual sex and this theme recurs throughout the book and makes the novel more dramatic.

Though this novel has autobiographic tone, its author Haruki Murakami clarified that it is not his biography and his personal life is lot boring. It is believed that Norweign Wood is one Murakami book that “everyone” in Japan has read.

Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

The plot of this short novel begins with a young Pakistani, Changez, who heads to USA for his higher studies in a prestigious university. After his studies, he manages to get a job in an investment banking firm. His intelligence, hard work and commitment help him to get noticed and grow within the organization. He finds an American girl friend too. Before it turns out to be all is well story, terror strikes on the World Trade Center at New York bring down twin towers come to the earth. That incident changes the way white Americans looked at Muslims living in the country. The protagonist of the story too observes people around looking at him with suspicion. A colleague of him advised to shave off the beard. Checks at Airport turn embarrassing. Strangers attempt a physical assault on him when he is alone in the car park. His girlfriend falls sick and moves away from him. All these developments put Changez into introspection and he finally realizes he truly belongs to his home country Pakistan and that is where his destiny is. He resigns from the job, packs off his bags, heads back to his home country. He finds a job in a College but his passion turns him into a social activist.

The whole story is told in first person in autobiographic style, over a conversation with an American tourist visiting Pakistan talking to the author in a restaurant. Though it is supposed to be the dialogue between the two strangers, it is the uninterrupted monologue which runs through the entire novel. So the reader gets to hear only person throughout the novel, the narrator in first person. This style is unique and may be unsuitable for a work of fiction but the author make it work for this story.

This book was shortlisted for The Man Booker prize in 2007. Its author Mohsin Hamid is talented and a writer to watch out for.

Opinion: Jindal Steel and DLF: Business laggards or political victims?

The recent developments in the business world have severely affected the fortunes of two companies who were regarded as the leaders in the business segments they operated in.

Supreme Court judgment to cancel the coal block allocations affected the whole power industry and Jindal Steel & Power has taken the biggest hit. Now it is charge sheeted again by CBI. Last week, SEBI took decision to keep promoters of DLF out of equity markets for a couple of years for giving false information while listing its stock. These incidents have put great pressure on their stock prices which have seen multiple year lows.

So was this in their destiny? The issues they are facing are nothing new but many years old. What about the timing? As the weight on the lid came down, Pandora’s Box got opened?

Stock performance charts for Jindal Steel and DLF in the past 4 months. Source: Google Finance

Just a year or two ago, Naveen Jindal was a celebrated businessman cum politician. TV shows discussed how he was able to balance the demanding roles of a politician as an elected MP and that of a head of a vast business enterprise. His dual role complemented each other as they concluded. But now, in the changed political scenario, it does not appear to remain so.

If you read the biography of KP Singh “Whatever the Odds”, you will know that it is more than the business cycles, managing the politicians were a challenge for the chairman of DLF. Once he was in the list of top 10 richest men of India. But his wealth deteriorated along with the market capital of DLF.

The political connections which helped few businesses grow in the past are now taking a toll on them. Losing political favor is no good for any businessman, in India and everywhere. A billionaire businessman of yester years is now in jail in Putin’s Russia. Indian businessmen (who are out of favor) may not be in the same risk but their fortunes and revival depends on their ability and willingness to cope with the changed political scenario.

For stock market investors, it is time to go beyond financial statements. Those with good political quotient seems to have better opportunities to make money. 

Writers as agents of social change

"Can writers bring in desired social change?"

Why did you ask that question? Oh, you forgot Charles Darwin and his work ‘The Origin of Species’. Don’t you accept Voltaire as French enlightenment writer? Do you remember that in the middle of Second World War, Stalin distributed ‘War and Peace’ to Soviet citizens to gird themselves against the invaders? Ah, what a price Hitler paid for not reading his Tolstoy. Rachel Carson could bring ban on DDT, a destructive chemical, with her ‘Silent Spring’. What else could one ask for?

Many leaders chose writing as a communication tool to bring in the desired societal change and writing was their only option when they were jailed, for Gandhi to Nehru and Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela. If what they wrote were just self-expressions, why their works are in re-print for so long? How could Obama quote Gandhi or I would quote John Steinbeck (on this blog post), if we had not read and influenced by their writings?

Instead, you would have asked why all the writers were not equally successful at influencing the readers and triggering a change? For that, I would have quoted John Steinbeck again – “A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly”. Effective writing demands efficiency in the creator. Do your homework, present your best case and attempt to stand out. They may not notice you immediately. They may chose to ignore your change proposition first, laugh at it, criticize it and then ride the change!

I would have loved the question, if you had asked why the successful writers could not bring the desired change all the time and why only few of their works were celebrated and the rest were ignored. If your new book is not loved by your readers, it is your publisher is at risk, more than you, the celebrated writer. Well, this applies to all the professions and is not limited to writing. Amitabh Bachchan and Rajanikanth too had their share of flops. Being accepted by the society does not necessarily mean they take all you give. Change is embraced when the society is ready for it. And you cannot remain the change master forever and it could be time to make way for another writer.

If leaders are product of the times, then it is the awaiting social change provides the subject to the writers. Writers too are part of society and do not live away from it. They are part of the change the society goes through. Probably they see it first and have the ability to communicate and pass on the message to others. Societal change demands writing from writers and writers propagate the change. The change cycle continues and new writers are born to lead the new change.

Well, what is your next question? I liked discussing this with you.

[Written for Indispire Edition 35: Is there power in writing? Can writers bring social change & change the world?]

Opinion: Indian companies global ambitions: Value hunting or walking into a trap?

Yesterday Economic Times reported that Tata Steel is in talks to sell its steel business units in Europe. (Link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/steel/tata-steel-in-talks-to-sell-long-steel-business-in-europe/articleshow/44831550.cms). This is the same company which bought European steel maker Corus for an astonishing figure of $8B in 2007. It was the biggest foreign acquisition by an Indian company then. Optimistic times make the risks look smaller. Neither Tata Steel nor any other businessmen expected the business cycle to top out that year and they did not know either that that steel industry was set for a multi-year down slide. It took time for Tata Steel to come out of its optimism and finally wrote off $1.6B in 2013. (Link: http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/what-the-tata-steel-write-off-reveals-113052101267_1.html). Now it finds that its European business unit is a drag on the company, so it wants to sell off some of the units there and reduce its foot print in Europe.

All the companies make mistakes and all businessmen get few things wrong. Ratan Tata has so many achievements in his life committed to Tata businesses; one Corus deal going wrong would never undermine his business judgments. But yet it was a billion dollar mistake. Had this mistake been done by any other Indian company, it would have been suicidal. Take the case of Suzlon. It acquired REpower, a German wind turbine maker in 2007. Suzlon thought it is a prized deal and financed the acquisition by borrowing extensively. Times changed. Suzlon could not withstand the debt load. A multi-bagger stock turned into a penny stock over the time. If Tata Steel was not a well-established, asset-backed, cash flow rich company, it would have struggled to service its debts.

This does not mean one should avoid going abroad with an open purse. Take the successful story of Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) deal which is doing wonders for Tata Motors. But looking into the sales figures reveal that it is the rising sales of Land Rovers in China bringing good returns to the company. If JLR was a region-specific business, it would have become another blow to Tata group.

It is not that only Indian companies struggle outside their home country. Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese pharma business group, had ambitious plans when it acquired Ranbaxy in India. It could not manage Ranbaxy and sold it off to another Indian company Sun Pharma but lost multi-billions in the transaction. Big ticket acquisitions always come with integration risks. If the acquiring firm does not have appetite for those risks, deal turns out to be a death trap.

So next time when we hear about an Indian company buying a distressed foreign company, it should not be viewed with pride but caution. It will not be a cake walk going global for all. The proud moment can bring a distress later too.