Girls, guns and the country

The Boxwallah and the Middleman (Penguin, Rs 250) by Raj Chatterjee is about the life of a gifted newspaper ‘middle writer’: a person, who, according to Jug Suraiya, is blessed with “the ability to see and convey with sympathy the divine comedy — or sometimes tragic-comedy — that underlies our everyday encounters”. The middle writer, in this case, is Chatterjee himself — “the undisputed monarch of the Middle Kingdom”. This is a collection of middle pieces that Chatterjee has written for various publications in a long and illustrious career. The articles are truly eclectic by nature, dealing with, among things, the July temperature in Multan in 1938, eccentric bosses at the Imperial Tobacco Company (‘Ferdinand the Bull’, who believed in the healing powers of a siesta), as well as Chatterjee’s own resistance to new technology. Essentially, Chatterjee is a raconteur who softens the sharp edges and ironies of life with a gentle, yet, cheeky humour.

Raising the bat (Frog, Rs 95) by Prasad Ramasubramanian is a novella that opens with the following lines: “ It was during the auspicious Rohini Nakshatra that Krishna entered the world a babbling, bawling baby”. Krishna isn’t the blue-skinned god here. Neither is he the hero of this book. That honour has been bestowed on Suraj who yearns to wear the Indian cricket shirt. Unfortunately, everything about the book is predictable, unlike the game of glorious uncertainties. Suraj achieves his dream, but only after realizing that cricket, like reality itself, is dialectical, marked by grand entries and ignominious exits, immortality and forgetting. This is a kind of work that makes you grateful for the brevity of novellas.

Boots Belts Berets (IndiaInk, Rs 295) by Tanushree Podder narrates how the lives of Pessi, Bertie, Randy and Maachh change irreversibly after entering the world of punishing schedules, tough challenges and endless puttie parties at the National Defence Academy. The boys are busy in their free time as well: spinning tales about pretty girls, and thinking and boasting about sex (certainly a welcome diversion from the challenge of turning themselves into men of honour). Podder’s privileged access — her husband trained at the NDA in the Seventies — must have helped her in her research. Her book would be appreciated, if at all, inside the barracks.