Book review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

Tsukuru Tazaki is one of the five friends group - three boys and two girls in their school days. After their school, only Tsukuru leaves the comfort of hometown to head to Tokyo for further studies. He is passionate about building railway stations that becomes his subject of study and the profession too. Whenever he is back in hometown Nagoya, he regularly meets his friends. During one of such visits, all of his friends refuse to meet Tsukuru or talk to him. He finds it strange and after repeated attempts, he learns that his friends have abandoned him, cut him-off from their group without an explanation. It pains Tsukuru a lot; he goes into depression for five months. From the verge of suicide, he recovers and learns to get on with his life. After that incident he finds it difficult to make friends and it takes two decades for him to find a promising girlfriend in Sara Kimoto. After they get to know each other better, Sara notices the emptiness in Tsukuru and feels that it has roots in what has happened to Tsukuru in his school days. She helps to track those friends and advises Tsukuru to meet them to fill up the void and eliminate the emotional baggage he is carrying for years.

Tsukuru goes on to meet his two boyfriends first, hears their version of stories and reasoning. One of the girl friends is already dead and she was the prime reason behind the friends maintaining distance with Tsukuru. But another girl friend is living in Finland far away from Japan. Tsukuru goes to Finland to meet up with her friend and many of the facts which were unknown to him open up and things start falling up in place. His friend suggests Tsukuru to hang on to Sara. Once he is back in Tokyo, Tsukuru proposes to Sara and waits for her response.

This has all the ingredients of Murakami’s novels. Loneliness, depression, death, wild dreams, music, liquor and sex. Using all of that into a good recipe, Murakami transports the readers into the story he tells. But he makes few observations which are not usually part of novels, such as science of building railway stations, skills needed to sell the cars, and the effort needed to be competitive in corporate world which he explains through the characters of this novel.

A million copies of this book were sold in the first week of its release. That shows Murakami’s acceptance and commercial success as an author.

Mini-tale: A page from the diary of a soul

I am not the soul of a human being but that of a small bookshop. Though I cannot speak, I can yet see and listen to all those humans who walk into my store. I do become aware of their emotions too. That student, who walked in worried, was worried about passing in his exams; so he was in search of a ‘Guide’ as text books did not help him get through. That middle aged person who spent hours in comics section, was assessing what kind of comic is good for his daughter. In the fiction lane, there were few exploring the new arrivals but they all ended up asking for help to find where their favorite author’s books are stored. There were many college going boys and girls visiting the bookstore but they rarely bought anything. They shared jokes and laughed as they do in canteen and moved on. Encyclopedia section did not attract any buyers at all and they say thanks to Wikipedia and Google!

Owner of the store is served with a notice to vacate this building along with its co-occupants, as it is set to be demolished to widen the road and ease the traffic. He does not seem to be worried as this business is no more profitable and he is checking what else he can do to earn a living. When he got this notice, he understood it is time to move on. If he is not moving this store to somewhere else, what I, the soul of this bookshop, should do? I do not wish to go to warehouses of Amazon as they are not lively. I always enjoyed seeing people from all walks of life visiting this small store. Yes, I am not a human soul and do not have emotions but it is so boring to occupy a warehouse where humans rarely walk. And I am not that daring to drive on the bikes like Flipkart delivery boys do to visit the customers at their homes.

Image source: The Guardian

My future looks bleak now. During good old times, those who wanted to shape their destinies, walked into bookshop to see if they can get help and they would not be rejected. I heard they now depend on Internet. Times change, so the ways. I shaped destinies but I don’t have one now. I remained relevant and important for a century. I would rather be happy with the memories of it. Human world evolves, as always. I was part of it before but now our ways are going separate. I do not feel sad as I do not have emotions (I have said  it already). While those human beings who spent time with me (without recognizing me) would still remember the ambiance of a small bookshop, but the new generations will fail to notice the fading away spirit of it as all the info is available at fingertips on their smartphone.

Every soul will rest in peace when its time comes. I am waiting for mine.

Opinion: Greece has lost what Alexander had won

No. I am not talking about the lands won by Alexander the Great. They were soon lost following the death of Macedonian king. History is full of rise and falls. But the fame sticks. That fame is the subject of my blog post.

Alexander, being a ruthless warrior, commanded great respect by instilling fear. But those who were defeated by him and accepted his rule noticed that his soldiers were brave, they had a fighting spirit, and they demonstrated the fruits of team work in the wars. Historians recorded all this in great details so we know Alexander’s soldiers won the known world for their king.

Fast forward to present time, Greek Govt. is not able to repay its debts. But yet, its citizens do not want to let go of the benefits provided by Govt. with the borrowed money. They said no to austerity which reflected in electing a party to power which is against austerity.

Acropolis of Athens

When did those brave soldiers become a burden on their Govt.? I think it is not historical. Joining the European Union was a bad choice for them. It was their mistake (or of anyone) to spend borrowed money which they will not be able to repay in foreseeable future. They walked into the debt trap. ‘Grexit’ seems inevitable and just a matter of time. When Greeks abandon Euro to adopt their own currency, finance costs will go up a lot, inflation will do a great damage to their already suffering economy and their Govt. may have to sell off the lands it owns to repay some of its debt before it is able to borrow again.

People from ancient times created an image for their homeland and it sticks for a long time. For India, it was Buddha and later King Ashoka (the Great) who were a symbol for peace and non-violence. And India is still home to that tradition, look at Dalai Lama or visit Dharamshala for the proof.

But Greece did not become a home to another Alexander or a person of his caliber. And today’s Greece is creating a different image for those who will study history in future.

Book Review: By the Sabarmati by Esther David

This book is a collection of twenty-short stories. These stories are real short and sad. A few minutes time is what you need to read each one of them but the emotions they invoke are deep. All of the stories are about the women who live around Sabarmati (in Gujarat). And these women live in poverty, and their daily lives revolve around making their ends meet, having food or cloth of their choice is a luxury for them. But they too are humans, failed love or death of near ones makes their lives unbearable along with the disappointments they need to face for being born as poor.

The first story ‘Father’ is about a daughter worrying about his father on the first day of her marriage. ‘Full Moon’ is a story of two friends, one of them getting killed for dowry and the other being haunted by the memory of her. ‘Zhunzhun’ is a lamb adopted by a poor family and the sisters getting drowned in an effort to save the lamb. ‘Tent of Bones’ is a story of a women and an aged bullock waiting for its death at the hands of a butcher. ‘The Charpoy’ is about a man living in the memory of his dead wife. ‘Homecoming’ is a story of a poor mother whose son grows to be a rich man but does not want to live with her mother. ‘Kurma Avatar’ is about the guests making the lives of their hosts a burden by adopting a tortoise as pet. All other stories are also taken from unique life experiences of those living an ordinary life. These are not the stories which are written for entertainment but to show the emotional side of those poor who had no better choices in leading their lives.

After reading this I realized that taking a walk in slums or where the poorer of poor live and getting to kow them better, one can come out with a bunch of stories like this Author had done. While putting them into words, author adds the ironies of life to them. These stories can make the reader sad but also opens them up to wider emotions making them temperamental at the end.

Esther David is a Jewish-Indian author, an artist and a sculptor. She lives in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She has won Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for The Book of Rachel.

Opinion: ‘Farm in India’ and smart farmers

‘Make in India’ is aimed at providing employment. But another major problem of India is its food prices which is a major source of inflation too. Before we discuss further let us look at some numbers.

Source: Agricultural Ministry, Govt. of India

India has 2.4% of world’s geographical area but has to feed 17% of world’s population to be self-sufficient. All of that 2.4% land is not arable. India is a mini world. It has deserts and snow-capped lands. Its mountains and valleys do not make farming an easy task. India houses more than 2,000 wild tigers in its protected forests and all of that forest land (~23% of India’s land) would never be available for farming. (So the effective arable land reduces to approx. 60% of the total land available. Data source: World Bank, Link: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS). But India’s population (and world’s too) is expanding. They need to be provided with food at affordable prices. When population is rising, farm output has to increase but the land available for it is not infinite. So it pushes up the food prices. 

Trying to limit the prices through subsidies is bad economics. The better way out of this would be is by increasing agricultural productivity. We know our farming skills are not efficient and we wonder when we hear of a single farming family working in hundred acres of agricultural land in Europe or US. Surely our farming needs reforms. We need to make our farmers less immune to swings of monsoon. We need to build more cold storage facilities to avoid wastage of vegetables and corn. We need to encourage farmers to use better farming methods and machinery. We need to encourage exports of farm produce. We need to increase the number of agricultural universities we have. We need to make agriculture an attractive sector for new talent. That will help provide employment for youth and food at affordable prices for India. And also to the world when we produce surplus.

If we can have a ‘Farm in India’ campaign (after 'Make in India' achieves some milestones) that can encourage prospective entrepreneurs to get into Agriculture. Inviting those international farmers and their associations to do contract farming in India can help our farmers to improve their productivity and farming yields. 

Dear beloved Mr. Modi, as you build smart cities, please help our farmers become smarter too. Help them to help India.