Reading hour nov dec 2013

Nov-Dec 2013

short fiction

Vol 3 Issue 6

essays

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The Art of Intelligent Living

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In Conversation

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64 Pages

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reviews

Nov-Dec 2013 Vol 3 Issue 6 64 pages

Reading Hour

short fiction essays verse reviews

Published, owned, and printed by Vaishali Khandekar, and printed at National Printing Press, 580, KR Garden, Koramangala, Bangalore-560095 Published at 177-B Classic Orchards, Bannerghatta Rd, Bangalore-560076 Editor: Vaishali Khandekar Editing Support: Arun Kumar, Manjushree Hegde Subscriptions, business enquiries, feedback: readinghour@differsense.com Ph: +91 80 26595745 Subscription Details: Print (within India only) or Electronic (PDF): Annual subscription Rs. 300/- (6 issues) 2 years subscription Rs. 600/- (12 issues) Payment via cheque / DD in favour of ‘Differsense Ventures LLP’ payable at Bangalore. Subscription form elsewhere in this issue.

Online subscription: readinghour.in Submissions: editors@differsense.com Advertisers: Contact Arun Kumar at arunkumar@differsense.com / +91 98450 22991 Cover Illustration & Design: Satish Kumar Story Illustrations: Raghupathi Sringeri Disclaimer: Matter published in Reading Hour magazine is the work of individual writers who guarantee it to be entirely their own, and original work. Contributions to Reading Hour are largely creative, while certain articles are the writer’s own experiences or observations.

The publishers accept no liability for them.

Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily represent the policies or positions of the publisher. The publishers intend no factual miscommunication, disrespect to, or incitement of any individual, community or enterprise through this publication.

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Editorial “From small beginnings come great things.” Well, Reading Hour is small enough and we’re certainly hoping it will lead us on to great things! We’re at the end of our third year now and we’re very grateful to all of you who have patronised us this far.

In this last issue of 2013, G Karunakar writes of magical Mandalay, one-time capital of the Burmese kingdom, and home of the ‘Biggest Book in the World’. Sreelata Menon, enthralled as a child by A Mythical Face, grows up to discover its link with one of India’s most well-known painters. Manjushree Hegde unravels the timeless appeal of the Panchatantra in The Art of Intelligent Living.

Two young writers Aditya Sudarshan and Sharath Komarraju, engage in a lively discussion on forgoing a traditional job, getting into full time writing, the making of bestsellers, and much more.

“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” said American poet Muriel Rukeyser. Indeed it is. Prathiba Wilson’s Funambulist must walk the tightrope strung for him by the same world he had sought to have beneath his feet. Who is the mysterious night visitor at the Taj Mahal, mausoleum of a beautiful queen, wonder of the world… and witness perhaps to the cruelty of a besotted king? Read Subhash Chandra’s Wah, Taj! to find out.

The burdens of the fathers must be borne by the sons and so it is, in Kirti Rawat’s A Father’s Debt. A young doctor posted at the line-of-control, struggles with his circumstances in Rajani Rajamani’s Blue Eyes. Unexpected visitors in the fields early one morning throws a village into turmoil in Priyanka Suresh’s Sunshine through Sugarcane Fields. In Pain, Divya Sreedharan tells the story of a devoted couple, a much awaited child, and the aftermath of its coming. And there are more! We hope you enjoy these stories, as well as the poetry selection in this issue.

Thank you for being a part of our journey. We urge you to share Reading Hour with a colleague or friend, so that we might welcome one more precious subscriber into our midst! facebook.com/readinghour readinghour.in

~Editors

Contents essays 45

A Mythical Face

On the Road to Mandalay g karunakar

interview

28

In Conversation

aditya sudarshan & sharath komarraju

Are you reading this?

fiction 3

The Funambulist

7

Wah Taj!

18

manjushree hegde

12

reviews 51

The Art of Intelligent Living

36

sreelata menon

21

light stuff

60

last page

poetry 6

Fear

17

The Wrinkle

A Father’s Debt

35

Within the Constraints of School-time

24

A Gift for Thatha

50

Meanings

32

Sunshine Through Sugarcane Fields

50

The Passage of Love

40

Pain

54

Classified Love

43

Separation

59

Snake in the Grass

55

Blue Eyes

prathiba wilson

subhash chandra kirti rawat

anitha murthy

priyanka suresh

divya sreedharan shom biswas rajani rajamani

snehith kumbla somendra singh kharola shruti rao

smitha sehgal smitha sehgal

rinkoo wadhera mohan kumar

fiction The Funambulist prathiba wilson

Prathiba took to writing to funnel her wandering thoughts into a creative pursuit. She has written for Indian Ruminations, Marco Polo Arts, Kalyani, Full of Crow, The Hindu, etc.

I

was always confident that at this age, I would hold the world by its tail and toss it upside down. Instead, the world strung a tight rope and made me a funambulist. I

had a sense of this reality when I met my future wife.

I was twenty-eight then, and still unmarried. The Bride Hunt was in full swing. Being twenty-eight and unmarried, in my caste, was as good as being an outcast. By then I was sure that this was the curse of those of the opposite sex, whom, during my college days, I had tormented; by mercilessly teasing them at times, or by ignoring their very existence at others. We were a gang of five boys who strutted the college corridors under the moniker ‘the five rascals’.

I was always confident that at this age I would hold the world by its tail and toss it upside down. Instead, the world strung a tightrope and made me a funambulist.

poetry Fear snehith kumbla

The Wrinkle somendra singh kharola

Maulvi Sahab’s Long Beard mohd junaid ansari

Snehith is a poet-photographer residing in Pune. His work has appeared in World Haiku Review, The Heron’s Nest, Muse India and Reading Hour.

Somendra is a Physics undergraduate student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.

Junaid studied Literature and Journalism. He writes short stories, poems and plays.

Within the Constraints of School-time shruti rao

Shruti is an editor with a children’s publisher in Delhi. She has written for Indian and international journals, and will appear in an anthology of new writing soon.

The Passage of Love smitha sehgal

Smitha, a lawyer living in Delhi, celebrates literature, law and life with equal zest.

Meanings smitha sehgal

Classified Love rinkoo wadhera

Snake in the Grass mohan kumar

Rinkoo is a freelance writer, painter and long-time teacher-lecturer currently based in Secunderabad.

Mohan’s poems have appeared in leading literary journals in India and he has published seven volumes of poetry in English. He retired as Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala.

Fiction Wah, Taj! subhash chandra

Subhash retired as Reader (Associate Professor) in English. He has been published in India and abroad. He is interested in the short story format, but is working on a novel too.

I

stand about fifty metres from the Taj, at the beginning of the water course that runs straight up to it, flanked on either side by manicured cypress trees

which look like human shadows. It is a clear night, the sky is liquid, inky blue. The silvery sheen of an enormous moon has lent a soft look to everything. The Taj is, of course, celestial! As I soak it in, I feel as if it floats above the ground, soft, fluffy and translucent. It is indeed a dream suspended in the sky! It has cast a magical spell all around, and I experience an evanescence: I am not a body anymore; I am only a spirit, light and airy. I am a part of the trance that envelops the landscape.

essay On the Road to Mandalay g karunakar

Karunakar is an advocate and an avid traveller. He has visited more than a 100 countries, travelling solo.

“For the temple-bells are callin’, and it’s there that I would be – , By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea; On the road to Mandalay...”

T

hus wrote Rudyard Kipling of Mandalay, conjuring up images of a royal city frozen in time, a city of old-world traditions, where sarong-clad people and

monks with shaven heads roam.

Myanmar was the one place I had missed visiting in my extensive travel across South East Asia. So I decided to do an exclusive tour of this less-travelled country located at the cross roads of China and India. Myanmar is blessed with enormous natural resources, a diversity of cultures, and remarkable landscapes stretching from the Eastern Himalayas

to

the

Southern Andaman Islands.

fiction A Father’s Debt kirti rawat

M

Kirti teaches English to Senior Secondary students in a Delhi school. She aspires to be a writer.

y father was as impassive as the mountains he belonged to.

Had he been the emotional sort, he would have tried to settle

scores. It wouldn’t have been easy though. How do you get even with people who live no longer? You can’t and so he, very wisely, didn’t attempt to. Like a dutiful son, he worked tirelessly to repay the debt his ancestors had bequeathed him. His father had done the decent thing and got him an education. After all, a wrestler doesn’t step into a sand-pit without any training! Of course, Grandfather had to borrow money for it, but that money was well spent. So, at eighteen and with a high school degree, Father had his job cut out for him.

fiction A Gift for Thatha anitha murthy

A

Anitha is a software consultant and lives in Bangalore. She loves to write whenever inspiration strikes her, and has been published both in print and online, in various genres.

bha always found it delightful to chat with Thatha. He was sharp in spite of his age. He was a voracious reader, he watched the news and quiz

shows on the television, he knew the intricacies of Carnatic music like the back of his hand… Abha found him more interesting than many of the guys she had met. When she was still a student, she would dread meeting Thatha, for he always had a tricky Math question up his sleeve that left her fumbling. But then he would explain the answer to her and everything would be alright. Thatha’s mind was razor-sharp; it was only his body that had yielded to the wear and tear of an active life. Still, at eighty-five, he managed all his activities independently, albeit with limited mobility, and that, to Abha, was admirable. She barely remembered her grandmother, who had died more than twenty years ago.

“So Thatha, how does it feel to be eighty-five?” Abha held an imaginary mike in front of the old man.

“Oh, I feel like Sachin Tendulkar!” Thatha chuckled.

Aditya Sudarshan graduated from law school in 2007 and turned full time writer in 2008. Apart from two novels, the whodunit A Nice Quiet Holiday (Westland, 2009) and Show Me A Hero (Rupa, 2011), a coming-of-age novel that stood out from the usual campus stories, Aditya has also published short stories, literary criticism and plays. He won The Hindu’s MetroPlus Playwright award in 2011.

in conversation...

Two young writers in a lively, candid discussion on what it means to be full time writers, what goes into the making of ‘bestsellers’, readers good and bad, and many other things, while they wait for their next books to hit the shelves...

Sharath Komarraju is a software engineer turned full time writer. His first two books Murder in Amaravati (Amaryllis, 2012) and Banquet on The Dead (Westland, 2012) were detective fiction, while his next novel The Winds of Hastinapur, expected shortly from Harper Collins, is a retelling of the epic Mahabharata in the voices of its female characters.

fiction Sunshine Through Sugarcane Fields priyanka suresh

T

Priyanka is a home-maker. Rejection-shy thus far, she finally sent in this story, one among the hundred odd tales she has been hoarding all this while‌

he spikes of the sugarcane leaves were as sharp as the winds blowing through them. Heera ran his fingers over the spikes, his chest expanding with pride as he

looked at the waves of green spread all around him. In less than fifteen days, he would start harvesting and reap the fruit of long months of toil. He loosened the muffler over his ears and nose, anticipation warming him from within. He started walking on the embankment between the fields towards the rear end of his empire. His feet fell soundlessly on the muddy terrain, damp with dew. And then he heard a man’s lowpitched words, almost as silent as his footsteps, yet carried his way by the wind.

essay The Art of Intelligent Living manjushree hegde

T

Manjushree is an avid reader, writer and traveller. She firmly believes in the tranformative power of a good story.

hat was funny!” exclaimed a friend.

“I know!” another chimed in. “I had no idea that people in ancient India were

so…” she groped for the right word, “Witty!” she finished.

What part of ‘premiere work of ancient-Indian satire’ threw you off, I asked them.

Apparently, it was the ‘satire’ part. They just didn’t believe me.

The text in question was Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra – the original, Sanskrit version of it, composed in Kashmir in 200 B.C. Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra is, veritably, a cornerstone of literature. A work of intelligence, jest and jocularity, it is one of India’s most influential contributions to world literature. Even before the invention of printing or paper, it had travelled around the world a number of times, and ensconced itself in the folk tales of multiple civilizations.

fiction Pain divya sreedharan

S

Divya is a journalist, published short story writer, and blogger living in Bangalore. She writes regularly for The Hindu Sunday Magazine and for Prevention India, a health-lifestyle magazine.

halu, open the door. For god’s sake, let me see you. Please, can we talk?”

She can hear the desperation in Ajith’s voice. In the background, a child is

crying loudly, fear evident in his voice. Their son. His arms and face are red and splotchy. The mark of an angry hand is clearly visible. Her hand.

She cannot open the door. She cannot move, the pain inside her so full that only a greater pain can make it bearable. This hand I used to hit him, she mumbles to herself, this hand, I wish I could cut it off, if only… it will break, crumble into nothingness.

Just like me, just like me…

She stops, body bruised and aching. Throwing herself against the wall again and again, to dull the pain inside, has left her knuckles grazed, but the bones unbroken.

No, not so easy to break, she thinks. Not so easy to erase what I have done to the one being who is utterly dependent on me. I am a monster.

fiction Separation shom biswas

T

Shom is a Marketing Manager in Bangalore. He is a collector of rare, first-edition sports books, and is consistently one of the best EPL fantasy football managers in the world.

he meeting unfolds along expected lines. I had seen it coming. It doesn’t faze me. It’s not too bad.

I’m okay.

I step into my office.

Warm. Warmer than expected. Or required.

I reach for the air conditioner’s remote. Twenty-three degrees. I bring it down by two.

The laptop stands open, the orange screensaver lighting up that corner of the room.

Orange. It’s a nice colour. My colour. It’s a great logo. I step towards my chair.

No, not yet. I need a couple of minutes still.

Ah, that logo.

I slam the laptop shut, slink to the sofa. The comforting, enveloping caress of soft leather. I will sit here for a while. Today, I can afford to.

A tentative knock. Once. Twice…

“Come in, Liz.” The tall, dark, way-over-the-top-made-up Lizzie slips in through the door.

first person A Mythical Face

Sreelata is an avid traveller and history buff; she is a freelance writer who writes on anything and everything.

sreelata menon

During the day and a half of the Saraswati puja every year, while my grandfather always did the aarti honours, the welfare of the Saraswati was my responsibility.

That was till such time as she was reverently wrapped up and put away again. The fact that I was her custodian during the time that she was out of the cupboard, and the fact that it was in her presence that we received our books after the final puja and wrote the mandatory Hari Shri Ganapathe Namaha on

Vidyarambham

(or

Vijayadashami) day, somehow seemed to give me, in my mind at least, a proprietorial right over the image of that lovely face.

reviews Are you reading this?

It is a difficult life for Max. He spends his time sitting in a dark corner in the basement, cramped and perplexed. A voiceless human.

A Jewish rat. “How could I show up and ask people to risk their lives for me? How could I be so selfish?” he asks himself over and over again. He wants to walk out – but he knows he will not. Living is living. Even if the price is guilt and shame.

The Book Thief- Markus Zusak

A celebrity supermodel Lula Landry, commits suicide, and her brother, John Bristow, is unable to come to terms with it. He retains a faintly disreputable private detective, Cameron Strike, to unravel what he thinks is a suspicious death. The rest of the book is how Strike, at first reluctantly and later with conviction, investigates the death. Though not quite a police procedural, the book does follow time honoured detective story structure.

The Cuckoo’s Calling - Robert Galbraith

fiction Blue Eyes rajani rajamani

Filmmaker, illustrator and lazy mum with more than a passing interest in all things food, Rajani spends her time blogging (eatwritethink.com) and spinning yarns when not in the kitchen.

L

ife is burdened with choices. Death? It is unambiguous that way, wrapping its chosen one in a sublime blanket of mortality.

That fateful night, caught in a skirmish near the LoC1, Naik Chaman Singh had thirty seconds to decide – to surrender or face death. He was waiting for me at the base camp.

When I got there, dawn was just breaking out, its dull red lethargically blotting the blue along the horizon. I noticed his form as he squatted by the boulders, arms resting on his haunches, his eyes closed. He heard me walk up to him. When I touched his shoulder, he opened his sapphire eyes, and whispered, Farishta2...

Mornings at Ranglla are dusty, and lacklustre.

The locals have long been evacuated; I had watched them leave with their possessions on mule backs, looking at us with passive repugnance.

Their lives just as transient as ours, just as dispensable as well.

A few kilometres down the road, the official border begins...

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