Kiran Nagarkar with the book; Mrinal Sen and Anupam Kher at the launch. Pictures by Pabitra Das

Khuda Ka Chhota Maseeha is how Anupam Kher translates Kiran Nagarkar?s latest title God?s Little Soldier. Nagarkar?s protagonist, who is led to believe he is born to be a waalee (the anointed one), doesn?t have an immediate cause to fight for, but a greater task on hand ? to defend his faith, the Islamic faith and bring back to Islam those who have strayed.

Nagarkar has another best seller in hand. After the success of Cuckold which won him the Sahitya Akademy Award, the novelist took ?nine years to write? the 556 page-turner which was introduced in the city at Oxford Bookstore by Samik Bandopadhyay on Wednesday. Anupam Kher added filmy glitz to the occasion as Mrinal Sen?s presence added a touch of the high-brow.

From the 16th century history of Mewar in Cuckold to 21st century Mumbai in God?s Little Soldier, Nagarkar takes a leap across time to write on one of the most burning global issues of the 21st century, that of violence and Islamic fundamentalism. ?Violence is not new to humankind. Today in the 21st century every country is riven by violence. And the thing that bothers me most is that you no longer know the enemy, for the enemy is within. And the innocent bystander is still a victim or a possible victim,? said Nagarkar.

Another novel spawned by 9/11? ?Yes, 9/11 shook me to the core of my being and I decided to look into the psyche of the terrorist. They need not be madarsa educated Koran-quoting marginalised people.? Zia, the protagonist, comes from an extremely liberated and wealthy Muslim family of Mumbai. Yes, he has been strongly influenced by his aunt at a tender age but he could have shed those shackles as he was sent to the best boarding school or when he did ?statistical modelling? at Cambridge. But instead Zia?s orthodoxy sent him across to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Zia is a good soul gone bad, suggested Nagarkar.

Commenting on Nagarkar?s prose, Samik said: ?Unlike other Indo-Anglican writers, Nagarkar?s language is rich and textured. He doesn?t have to follow any models of European literature but there is an inherent modernism in the texture of his language.?

Kher read out portions of the novel, as did the writer himself. One of the passages was from the early portion of the novel, where the sickness of Amanat, the first brother, is paramount. ?Here sickness is a metaphor for creativity,? explained Samik. The two brothers in the novel are in a direct clash of psyche ? Amanat racked with asthma, a thinker and a writer; Zia, a math genius, vibrant and clearly a doer.?

As in his Cuckold that was a historical novel, Little Soldier too has an ?awareness of history? as Bandopadhyay put it. The relocation of the Khans from the posh Firdaus Lane and Nepean Sea Road to the more downmarket SVP Road, Zia?s escapades to the Chor Bazar and Bhendi Bazar all give a sense of history. Nagarkar juxtaposes the dark and the dreary with the flashy images of Mumbai.

Anasuya Basu

Drawings of darkness

An exhibit at the tribute to Shyamal Datta Ray in Gallery Sanskriti

At a time when watercolour was considered a medium fit only for painting pretty pictures with plenty of atmosphere or for conjuring up moods, Shyamal Datta Ray, who died last year at the age of 71, had tried to elevate the status of this medium so that it was taken as seriously as oil colour. The artist, who had for the better part of his life lived close to Deshapriya Park, will be remembered for his attempts to give watercolour a solidity and down-to-earthness that the works of earlier practitioners lacked.

Datta Ray?s work gained in weight because he treated subjects that earlier watercolourists never touched before. Although transparent water colour was his medium, the artist had chosen to depict the underdog, the deprived and dispossessed human being ? subjects that were far from fetching or comforting.

This truth strikes home once again at Gallery Sanskriti?s exhibition of the works of Datta Ray.

The mendicant musician, the itinerant entertainer with his monkeys, the beggars, the sacrificial goat ? the Calcutta that we are trying to sweep away and into oblivion ? all come alive in Datta Ray?s works. In this tribute to the artist, 40 works, some quite recent and some from the days of his early youth, have been put on display.

Like many of the best-known artists of Bengal, Datta Ray?s strongpoint was drawing. He could turn a rickety and skeletal human frame into a scarecrow-like form that occupied a good part of his compositions.

These gaunt figures that recur in many of his paintings in groups or as individuals symbolised the dusty and dilapidated city of Calcutta itself. It is a city of darkness, crumbling palaces and kings without crowns which in spite of its poverty could cast a spell that is being shattered forever.

Included in this exhibition is quite a large painting in acrylic of the broken bowl that stood for a whole generation of people who had crossed over from East Pakistan and lived in penury on the streets of Calcutta. Many of the paintings, like the landscape with trees and the pigeon, are from a very early period.

It was because of his ability to depict life as he saw it without being sentimental or maudlin that Datta Ray became one of the major artists of Bengal.

Also included in this show are two quite uncharacteristic works. The head and bones of a fish lie on a large porcelain plate like a skeleton. In another, a woman applies lipstick on her mouth, an act fraught with eroticism. This is a Shyamal Datta Ray one has not seen before.

The gallery has published a lavishly-illustrated volume of the artist?s works on this occasion.

Soumitra Das