Calcutta Chromosome-Bengali baba, this is your platform
So, I have been on a reading spree lately and have read two of Amitav Ghosh' Books - The Calcutta Chromosome and The Hungry Tide...
A word, nay a sentence or two... make that a paragraph of rant, about the former...
What were you thinking, Mr Ghosh? For crying out loud, could you not have churned something other than a 'Raaz' esque storyline?
Until the very end of the book, what exactly the plot is no one knows...but the plot-like entity keeps moving on...
I tell you if Mahesh Bhatt could make it to the end of the book, he would tell you that its the perfect money spinner... This would outdo Raaz 1 and 2 and Sangharsh (I mention Sangharsh solely for its crazy factor in Ashutosh Rana.... I have had nightmares of the saree clad Ashutosh Rana doing the tongue sound thingy)
Once, back in Mumbai, on our way home from some event...my friends and I were accosted by a man, who was clearly drunk, but more importantly wanted us to take him home because he could not find his way to it.. He kept insisting that he was a well-respected man and had a lot of money, which he would part with if we helped him get home..
This was in my younger days, when my friends and I did not want to have anything to do with random strange men, especially since our own asses were on fire owing to the parental curfew that we were past by many hours. Hence, our thoughts were to avoid meandering... So, we declined poiltely, only to be subjected to some raves and rants by the aforementioned man. The man was not making sense any more since he no longer spoke about home but about problems with the world, the youth, poverty, class and so on...
Calcutta Chromosome is much like the drunken man on his way home, only no one knows where home is. Through the book there are unveiled references to a conspiracy that involves the rural folk of India - think Bengali Baba posters, like on the trains of Mumbai.. Now imagine visiting some such Bengali Baba only to find out that Bengali baba is a clandestine scientist... who not only knows the many truths of diseases (piles, fistula, hemorage, woman problems, male child beget problems, age no bar- sex bar bar etc) of both medical and social nature, but also about 'life' - the silent parts, the noisy parts, the parts where you are alive, the parts where you are dead and the parts where you think you are dead, but you don't know for sure...and yes, the farty parts too.
The story goes that some woman, named Mangala, in the late 1800's-early 1900's,(I don't know when, really, Ghosh's story telling will put a time machine to shame), hit upon the discovery that malarial parasites can transpose bits of genetic matter into your RBC's. This, while performing some tantric cure for syphillis involving the slaughter and spatter of resident pigeons. This transferee of the blood then showed some but not all the characteristics of the host (I did not get this part, were they going guttar goo and making a lot of goo in the process, on rooftops?). Also, this happened because the flagella of the parasite was much like spermatozoic material, i.e. female anopheles mosquito makes up for lack of visible organ by unleashing her parasitic phallic self
And I use these terms rather loosely here, much like the book.... where is nothing is said in plain words, but mostly implied.
This is like me writing my Forensic Pharmacy exam - long sentences, many conjunctions, some terminology thrown in for spice and whole lot of lawish language such as 'in the event', 'encompassing.... but not limited to......', 'will be subject ....', write it long enough and the examiner sleeps before he gets to the end of the sentence..Decipher at your own risk
By the way, did I mention that the above-mentioned method of chromosomal transfer is how immortality is achieved.. (Yeah, take that karmic cycle, even a bloody mosquito has more powers than you...) And hence Mangala or Mangala's future selves (?) keep rising to infect and impart immortality, to one or more individuals that they choos. And they (partial clones of Mangala?) also control the release of specific information to specific people at specfic times because they are believers of 'that which is unknown remains so, only so long as it is not known, for once it is known, that which was previously unknown loses its identity because now people are in the know' (I. kid. you. not.)
The story also has one sneaky computer called Ava, one that can squeal on you if you are not doing your work, (shudder), a gentleman called Antar (even my doormat has more personality than him!) who works with the sneaky computer, to whom the afore mentioned plot is revealed.
Other major players include Bengali writers (portrayed as esoteric, mysterious and as connoisseurs of literature) , British scientists (made out to be mostly bumbling men short on courage, balls. things that make a man, apparently) , some children (all of whom are 'Chucky doll' esque characters), eccentric men, even more eccentric women...and the enitity in the form of silence
Strung together are words like - malaria, chromosome, superstition, immortality, silence, in no particular order....
.
.
.
.
.
Move over Mr. Bhatt... Mr. Ghosh is the new 'Butt' on the block...
P.S. If you thought I was rambling....wait till you see the book. This is only an orientation compared to the book..
P.P.S Hungry tide was a much better read.... for the vivid imagery of the Sunderbans and the tide people, if not for anything else...
P.P.P.S Seriously, this book was one big let down compared to his other works... Amitav Ghosh is an anthropologist and fact finder par excellence but the above mentioned Calcutta Chromosome was probably his effort at a Bollywood potboiler....
Ya wonder why they do it?
A word, nay a sentence or two... make that a paragraph of rant, about the former...
What were you thinking, Mr Ghosh? For crying out loud, could you not have churned something other than a 'Raaz' esque storyline?
Until the very end of the book, what exactly the plot is no one knows...but the plot-like entity keeps moving on...
I tell you if Mahesh Bhatt could make it to the end of the book, he would tell you that its the perfect money spinner... This would outdo Raaz 1 and 2 and Sangharsh (I mention Sangharsh solely for its crazy factor in Ashutosh Rana.... I have had nightmares of the saree clad Ashutosh Rana doing the tongue sound thingy)
Once, back in Mumbai, on our way home from some event...my friends and I were accosted by a man, who was clearly drunk, but more importantly wanted us to take him home because he could not find his way to it.. He kept insisting that he was a well-respected man and had a lot of money, which he would part with if we helped him get home..
This was in my younger days, when my friends and I did not want to have anything to do with random strange men, especially since our own asses were on fire owing to the parental curfew that we were past by many hours. Hence, our thoughts were to avoid meandering... So, we declined poiltely, only to be subjected to some raves and rants by the aforementioned man. The man was not making sense any more since he no longer spoke about home but about problems with the world, the youth, poverty, class and so on...
Calcutta Chromosome is much like the drunken man on his way home, only no one knows where home is. Through the book there are unveiled references to a conspiracy that involves the rural folk of India - think Bengali Baba posters, like on the trains of Mumbai.. Now imagine visiting some such Bengali Baba only to find out that Bengali baba is a clandestine scientist... who not only knows the many truths of diseases (piles, fistula, hemorage, woman problems, male child beget problems, age no bar- sex bar bar etc) of both medical and social nature, but also about 'life' - the silent parts, the noisy parts, the parts where you are alive, the parts where you are dead and the parts where you think you are dead, but you don't know for sure...and yes, the farty parts too.
The story goes that some woman, named Mangala, in the late 1800's-early 1900's,(I don't know when, really, Ghosh's story telling will put a time machine to shame), hit upon the discovery that malarial parasites can transpose bits of genetic matter into your RBC's. This, while performing some tantric cure for syphillis involving the slaughter and spatter of resident pigeons. This transferee of the blood then showed some but not all the characteristics of the host (I did not get this part, were they going guttar goo and making a lot of goo in the process, on rooftops?). Also, this happened because the flagella of the parasite was much like spermatozoic material, i.e. female anopheles mosquito makes up for lack of visible organ by unleashing her parasitic phallic self
And I use these terms rather loosely here, much like the book.... where is nothing is said in plain words, but mostly implied.
This is like me writing my Forensic Pharmacy exam - long sentences, many conjunctions, some terminology thrown in for spice and whole lot of lawish language such as 'in the event', 'encompassing.... but not limited to......', 'will be subject ....', write it long enough and the examiner sleeps before he gets to the end of the sentence..Decipher at your own risk
By the way, did I mention that the above-mentioned method of chromosomal transfer is how immortality is achieved.. (Yeah, take that karmic cycle, even a bloody mosquito has more powers than you...) And hence Mangala or Mangala's future selves (?) keep rising to infect and impart immortality, to one or more individuals that they choos. And they (partial clones of Mangala?) also control the release of specific information to specific people at specfic times because they are believers of 'that which is unknown remains so, only so long as it is not known, for once it is known, that which was previously unknown loses its identity because now people are in the know' (I. kid. you. not.)
The story also has one sneaky computer called Ava, one that can squeal on you if you are not doing your work, (shudder), a gentleman called Antar (even my doormat has more personality than him!) who works with the sneaky computer, to whom the afore mentioned plot is revealed.
Other major players include Bengali writers (portrayed as esoteric, mysterious and as connoisseurs of literature) , British scientists (made out to be mostly bumbling men short on courage, balls. things that make a man, apparently) , some children (all of whom are 'Chucky doll' esque characters), eccentric men, even more eccentric women...and the enitity in the form of silence
Strung together are words like - malaria, chromosome, superstition, immortality, silence, in no particular order....
.
.
.
.
.
Move over Mr. Bhatt... Mr. Ghosh is the new 'Butt' on the block...
P.S. If you thought I was rambling....wait till you see the book. This is only an orientation compared to the book..
P.P.S Hungry tide was a much better read.... for the vivid imagery of the Sunderbans and the tide people, if not for anything else...
P.P.P.S Seriously, this book was one big let down compared to his other works... Amitav Ghosh is an anthropologist and fact finder par excellence but the above mentioned Calcutta Chromosome was probably his effort at a Bollywood potboiler....
Ya wonder why they do it?