One of the most enjoyable sessions during the trip was our visit to the Kinderbuchhaus (Children’s Book House) in the Altona Museum in Hamburg. It’s a charming place that conducts activities geared towards getting children (and their parents) more involved with books. For instance, there are workshops where children are shown how to bind books – something that helps them appreciate the process that goes into the creation of the picture-books they would otherwise take for granted; to see a book as something that has to be carefully put together so that they can enjoy the end product. Enthusiasm levels run high at these workshops: project coordinator Heike Roegler told us that children are very proud – and very possessive – about the books they make themselves.
Also held here are exhibitions of framed, original versions of children’s book illustrations, so that visitors can see these drawing as works of art in their own right. On the day we were there, a Peter Schössow exhibition was on (Schössow himself was there too, as mentioned in the last post). Illustrations like this one – a child’s-eye perspective of a little cat in the foreground of a big city – look spectacular when you see them in their full-size versions:
Looking at high-quality illustrations for their artistic value, you realise there’s a lesson here for the many Indian parents who instinctively judge the worth of a children’s book by the amount of text it contains (all the better when it’s placed in the service of a pedantic moral lesson), failing to realise the role a series of beautiful drawings can play in developing a child’s imagination. (“Ismein padhne ka toh kuch hai hi nahin” is the typical response when a parent opens a book that’s full of beautiful drawings but very little text. But as Atiya Zaidi, publisher, Ratna Sagar, and one of the most entertaining members of our party, says, “You want value for your word-count? Buy a newspaper.”)
Earlier in the day, I had spoken with Zubaan’s Anita Roy about the often-haphazard way in which illustrations for children’s books are put together in India. “The Indian arts scene is actually lively and brilliant,” Anita said, “but there’s a lack of understanding of how children’s picture-books work. Illustrators are so central to the children’s publishing industry everywhere except India, where they get sidelined. They are not used to having publishers involving them in the creative aspect of putting a book together. It’s usually done very mechanically: an author will send in a story, the editor will say okay, this needs illustrations, and she’ll choose an illustrator and a format and send the text across and say we need 10 drawings of this size. And then someone else will put the text and illustrations together – a typesetter, or a designer if you’re very lucky. Everyone works in isolation, not much thought is given to layout, which is a crucial part of the process.”
“Most children’s publishing houses in India don’t even have a proper art director, so decisions about art design, layout etc are taken by editors like me, which is not the best way to do these things. Words persons end up having to learn how to think visually. Putting together a good picture-book requires an understanding of how text and visuals have to play off each other, but this is a neglected field in India.”
(I should mention here that Young Zubaan has just published one of the best-looking Indian picture-books I’ve seen, Mister Jeejeebhoy and the Birds by Anitha Balachandran. Lots of lovely drawings, notably a two-page spread of a sweet-shop that you just can’t tear your eyes away from. I first saw some of the illustrations at Bookaroo last winter and have been looking forward to the book ever since.)
The German Book Office in Delhi has now launched a programme called Jumpstart for children’s publishing in India, and among its initiatives is a series of intensive workshops for professionals involved in children’s books: writers and editors, illustrators, librarians and teachers, and marketing personnel. These will be held starting in July this year - mainly at the Max Mueller Bhawan, Delhi - and will hopefully address some of the issues facing children’s publishing in India. Anita tells me that as far as she knows none of the design colleges or art schools in India have courses that specialise in children’s book illustrations - certainly there's nothing that's comparable to the rigour with which these things are done in the West. The Jumpstart workshops should be a step in the desired direction.
(More about our meeting with the illustrators in another post)
A few photos and commentary from the Germany trip. Apologies about this being a mishmash of children’s publishing and sightseeing - too lazy to do separate posts. Will put up more notes when I get around to doing the official pieces.
(Click pictures to enlarge)
Our first two days were in Frankfurt, which is full of these strange juxtapositions – walk about the town centre and you’ll find the scenery changing every 20 metres or so; parts of it are like something thought up by a hallucinogen-affected mind. Down the road from our hotel was this vista: a quaint, Legoland-style tower (the Eschenheimer Turm, it’s called) in the foreground, with an oversized modern glass building just behind it.
To my (no doubt untrained) eyes it was the Turm that seemed the newer, more artificial construction. The impression I got was that someone had decided to erect the little tower as an afterthought, as a contrast to the gleaming glass-and-concrete buildings. Later I was told that it really is the oldest construction in the area, dating back to the 15th century. I’m sure there’s been some refurbishing though; the thing definitely couldn’t have looked exactly like this 600 years ago. I mean, how old is Lego?
Our stay in Hamburg was brief but it was a much more picturesque place – lots of nice lakes and bridges. This is during a walk around the warehouse district, or the Speicherstadt.
Lots of, um, old warehouses, but all very good to look at. The weather was great too. And Hamburg is something of a pilgrimage spot for me because of the tennis Masters series of 2008. (If the Hamburg Masters hadn't been downgraded and replaced by the Madrid Masters this year, I would have been in the city just a couple of days after the final!)
The TV tower in Berlin...
...and a close-up of the graffiti on its sides (including “Berlin, Ich liebe dich!” or “Berlin, I love you”). East Berlin is full of colourful graffiti and building-length artwork.
The Alexanderplatz, where I took a long and most satisfying walk one fine evening.
The Brandenburger Tor, one of the city’s most famous sights and a popular congregating ground for hundreds of tourists. Also just a short walk away from an Indian restaurant called the Bolliwood.
Cafes on the waterfront. One of the buildings on the right is the theatre set up by Bertolt Brecht (who I'm told is better known in Calcutta than in Germany).
A German Shepherd with his human at one of the cafes.
I liked the fact that pets were allowed almost anywhere - into the local trains, in shops and restaurants - and that many of them weren't even wearing leashes while out on a walk. You see a collared dog coming out an alley and ambling about by himself for a bit, and just as you're wondering if they have strays in Germany you notice a human trailing behind as the dog looks back impatiently.
The German Cathedral and Concert Hall, near which much ginger ale was consumed.
At the “speed-dating” session we had with a few German publishers’ representatives in Berlin. On the right is the redoubtable Anita Roy (Young Zubaan). With her is Susanne Pfeiffer of Ravensburger AG.
Susanne holds up a Ravensburger picture book that uses flaps on every page.
Peel back the flap on the right page here and the exterior of the aircraft’s cockpit gives way to reveal the pilot and the first officer sitting inside, fiddling with knobs and levers and looking immensely cheerful, like they’re in Disneyland or something.
Renate Reichstein of Oetinger poses with the resourceful cat Findus who stars in Sven Nordquist’s Old Man and the Cat books.
An Oetinger book that comes with a DVD containing an animated version of the story.
Atlantis Verlag, an imprint of Orell Füssli, has a picture-book titled Mutig, Mutig (literal translation “Brave, Brave”, official English translation “The Test of Courage”) about various animals in the forest deciding to undergo suitable tests of courage to “prove” themselves.
When the sparrow’s turn comes he refuses to participate, saying he doesn’t need to prove anything, whereupon the other animals recognise that “saying no is a form of courage too”. Very nice little lesson, I thought – particularly apt for those of us whose lives are not governed by an urgent need to win MTV Roadies.
Love this picture of the frog, the sparrow and the rat patiently waiting as the slowcoach snail returns after performing his task.
Books for girls aged 12 plus.
The one on the right translates as “Love, Chaos and Summer Kisses”. These are relatively “clean”, I was told (“girls dream about boys but nothing really happens”), but there are a number of books for readers aged 12 and upwards that deal more explicitly with sexuality. Apparently it’s quite the norm for parents and teachers to get such books for their children because the kids are embarrassed to be seen buying them!
Before our ferry ride in Hamburg: Sayoni Basu, director-publishing, Scholastic India (and big sister to Samit the Duck) with our super-efficient tour guide Katrin Hoenemann.
At the Carlsen office, a company mascot holds a basket full of the little “Pixi” books that have acquired national-heritage status in Germany over the past few decades.
Quite a working environment, this: inside one of the Carlsen offices. These sightings caused much envy among the members of our group, most of whom spend their days in very drab offices. And yes, that's a Robbie Williams cutout in the far corner.
Inside the Tatzelwurm, a prize-winning children’s bookstore in Frankfurt. (Picture courtesy Arun Erik Wolf of the Frankfurt Book Fair office)
It’s a small space but very efficiently used. Lots of supplementary activities are conducted here to keep children interested in books, e.g. they occasionally have groups of youngsters coming in to loll about in sleeping bags and listen to audio books.
(Left to right) The children's-book illustrators Katrin Engelking, Peter Schössow, Isabel Kreitz and Ole Konnecke, whom we met at the Kinderbuchhaus (Children's Book House) in Hamburg.
We had an informal chat with these fine artists over tea. Peter also narrated the story of his marvelously detailed picture-book Baby Dronte, about a little dodo who gets himself adopted by a ship's frog-captain.
(For more on the illustrators and their work, see their websites: Peter, Isabel, Katrin)
Incidentally, one of the things we learnt is that there’s a cultural resistance in Germany (and other European countries) to the French style of illustration, which tends to be more distorted, surreal and not instantly pleasing to the eye (if you’ve seen the animated French film The Triplets of Belleville, you might get a sense of this). More about that later.
I haven’t seen most of the non-Hindi film releases of the past few months, and haven’t been too clued in about them either, so I had only vaguely heard of the Dustin Hoffman-Emma Thompson starrer Last Chance Harvey. But on the flight to Munich I sank happily into this low-key romantic film about two misfits – an elderly American jingle writer named Harvey and a middle-aged British spinster named Kate – whose paths cross. It’s been a while since I’ve encountered a movie that’s driven mainly by characters and conversation, and this one was mostly a delight.
Its success owes almost entirely to Joel Hopkins’ sensitive screenplay and what the two leads do with it. Emma Thompson was one of my favourite actors back in the days when she was working prolifically in films (the Carrington/Remains of the Day/Dead Again/Much Ado about Nothing phase) and watching her endearing, self-conscious klutziness was like catching up with an old friend. But I was especially impressed by Hoffman, an actor whom I had slotted in the De Niro/Nicholson category of onetime greats who have become victims of their own stature so that it’s impossible now to watch them in a film without thinking primarily of the actor rather than the character. Working with naturalistic dialogue and a strong script that allows him to play a (relatively) normal guy, Hoffman is excellent as Harvey, whose growing despondency in the film’s first half hour is very believably done.
In London for the wedding of his daughter (who is closer now to her step-father than to him), Harvey checks in at the hotel he is supposed to go to, expecting the entire wedding party to be guests there, but then finds that everyone else is staying at a house rented by his ex-wife. At a pre-wedding dinner he is clearly out of his depth in the presence of sharply dressed youngsters who engage in social conversation and business talk; his daughter and son-in-law, though affectionate in a superficial sort of way, don’t make an extra effort to make him feel like part of the family. In these scenes, the writing and Hoffman’s performance creates a powerful dual effect: on the one hand we cringe for Harvey (anyone who's ever known social awkwardness will sympathise with him in these early scenes), but on the other hand it’s possible to see why this man estranges people and makes them uncomfortable, and to realise that he was probably a less-than-ideal husband and father. This brings a certain urgency to his relationship with Kate, whom he meets at an airport bar where he’s brooding about his misfortunes. (The “last chance” of the title refers to an assignment that might salvage Harvey’s teetering career, but his meeting with Kate gives the words a second meaning.)
I thought the film’s first half was outstanding, the second half slightly less so as it started reflexively drawing on the clichés of romantic films: a missed rendezvous (a la Love Affair and An Affair to Remember), second thoughts, a reconciliation. There was also a subplot about Kate’s paranoid mother and her next-door neighbour that was superfluous at best. But these things didn’t much matter given the Hoffman-Thompson chemistry. It’s wonderful to see two performers of this caliber in such good form, and playing off each other so well, especially given that one of them is in his seventies and the other doesn’t do much movie work these days.
(Also watched on the flight: The Reader, which I had heard mixed things about but which I liked a great deal. Maybe planes are the new multiplexes.)
One of my favourite newspaper quotes from recent days is this one by Abhishek Bachchan, in a coochie-coo cover story done by HT City:
I still wake up in the morning and revel in the fact that I share the same room as Aishwarya Rai.
Why not simply "Aishwarya" or "Aish"? "Aishwarya Rai" makes it sound like little Abhishek is still the 17-year-old boy who gawped at the freshly crowned Miss India World back in 1993 and thought "How cool would it be to have HER as a roomie?" Now I imagine the first thing he does after getting up each morning is fist-pump and yell "Yes!" She even pays the rent on time, he probably thinks to himself.
(Going by this story, I think S Sreesranth would approve of AB's choice of roommate.)
Anyway, this is silly nitpicking. While on dream couples, here are two plugs for my wife (who has never once told a newspaper that she revels in sharing the same room as Jabberwock Singh). First, a wellness blog she recently started; it's still at an experimental stage but expect lots of spa reviews in the near future, and possibly a guest post by me about my Ananda stay three years ago (but definitely nothing about this experience). Second, a link to Abhilasha's page on Muziboo, where she's uploaded a couple of her songs. She hasn't seriously pursued what could have been a very promising singing career, but I'm hoping she does at some stage.
Back on the 24th. Blogging will or will not resume then.
Apologies again for the copious amounts of non-blogging I've been doing lately (ya, I know, who even notices or cares in this age of Twitter and Facebook). It'll probably continue like this for a while - as mentioned earlier there hasn't been much reading and movie-watching time recently, which in turn means that there isn't much to blog about (yes, my life is that interesting). Plus I took a minor break from writing and in the process discovered that non-blogging is nearly as addictive as blogging and requires less energy, so there.
The to-read list is being conscientiously dug into, or at least cautiously prodded. Two of my favourite bloggers, Amit and Falstaff, have books out: My Friend Sancho and études respectively. Amit and I became friends a few years ago, shortly after we both started blogging, but I had been a fan of his nuanced yet clear-sighted feature writing (as encountered mainly in Cricinfo and Gentleman magazine) long before that. And Falstaff's short prose - which you'll find scattered through his blog archives - is as delightful as his erudition is daunting. ("I can't help it, everything interests me" is one of the epigraphs on his book, and I can see why.)
To balance things out, one must occasionally read books by people whom one doesn't personally know. I discovered a lovely-looking Vintage Books edition of Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train at The Book Shop in Jorbagh. (Here's an old post on Hitchcock's superb film of the book, and another one on Highsmith's writing.) Also, Alan Moore/Brian Bolland's Batman: The Killing Joke, which I picked up from Landmark in Mumbai, and a couple of Henning Mankells. And I'm eagerly awaiting my copy of Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favourite contemporary writers.
Most of these are slim books, which makes them good traveling companions, and they should come in handy next week. I'm going to Germany for a few days from May 17 - the trip is part of an initiative by the German Book Office to facilitate interactions and tie-ups between publishers of children's books in India and Germany, and I'm playing the role of the bastard hack in the group. Will be visiting a few publishing houses, meeting illustrators, going to a small book fair in Berlin. Should be interesting.
Anything I write about that trip will of course find its way onto this orphan site at some point. And other blogging will happen as it happens.
Have been reading Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s delicate, carefully observed novel The Story of a Widow, about a Karachi-based woman discovering romance relatively late in life. As a huge fan of Farooqi’s English translation of the Dastan-e Amir Hamza (see these earlier posts), I couldn’t help thinking about the contrast between that book and this work of original fiction. The Adventures of Amir Hamza is a big book in every sense – a larger-than-life epic featuring impossibly grand and heroic characters, and written in florid language that replicates the style of medieval campfire storytelling. The Story of a Widow, on the other hand, is a gently unfolding contemporary story about subtle shifts in relationships, the quiet workings of family politics and emotional manipulation in a conservative society. It’s written in a sparse, conversational style, and even the chapter titles are minimalist: “The Widow”, “The Man Next Door”, “The Letter”, “The Family” and so on. (Just by the way, here’s a typical chapter head from the Amir Hamza book: “Of Buzurjmehr’s Relating the Emperoro’s Dream at the Appointed Hour, and of Alqash’s Life Being Claimed in Retribution”!)
The novel’s central character is a woman who would have been decidedly out of place in the company of Hamza and Amar Ayyar: a middle-aged widow named Mona Ahmad who, as the story begins, is coming to terms with her newfound independence and mulling the end of a secure but loveless (and generally boring) married life that had lasted three decades. She doesn’t have much to complain about, her deceased husband Akbar having left her well provided for; but he was financially conservative during his lifetime and now his large portrait seems to frown upon her when she indulges in a bit of impulse shopping.
Just as Mona is settling into her new life, a man named Salamat Ali moves into her elderly neighbour’s house as a tenant and begins to show an interest in her – an interest that culminates in a formally worded marriage proposal. Now she has to assess her own feelings about the matter while also dealing with the various ways in which the people close to her will be affected: her married daughters, her sister and the more orthodox elders in the family. Questions of impropriety and dishonour are raised; another attempt at matchmaking is made; a daughter who was particularly close to her father becomes resentful when she realises that her mother wasn’t happy in her marriage.
I thought Farooqi’s portrayal of Mona’s emotional turbulence, her vacillating feelings about Salamat's discreet but cheeky courtship methods, the many insecurities – all of which seem more suited to a college girl in love for the first time than to a woman of her age – was done with particular sensitivity. But equally notable is how we are made to realise that Mona’s decision to accept Salamat’s proposal – though apparently a sign of a progressive willingness to get on with her life – might simply be a kneejerk act of defiance, and that it could lead to a different sort of enslavement rather than deliverance from social strictures. What does it really mean to be independent, and to what extent are our actions determined by others' expectations of us (even when we think we aren’t answerable to them)? By the time Mona's story reaches its bittersweet conclusion, she has probably had occasion to think about these questions. It's a very engrossing journey.
P.S. A special word for Moonis Ijlal’s beautiful cover design. And here’s an interesting little piece by Farooqi that touches on a novelist's complicated relationship with his creations; it's best read after you’ve read the book.
Earlier in the day, I had spoken with Zubaan’s Anita Roy about the often-haphazard way in which illustrations for children’s books are put together in India. “The Indian arts scene is actually lively and brilliant,” Anita said, “but there’s a lack of understanding of how children’s picture-books work. Illustrators are so central to the children’s publishing industry everywhere except India, where they get sidelined. They are not used to having publishers involving them in the creative aspect of putting a book together. It’s usually done very mechanically: an author will send in a story, the editor will say okay, this needs illustrations, and she’ll choose an illustrator and a format and send the text across and say we need 10 drawings of this size. And then someone else will put the text and illustrations together – a typesetter, or a designer if you’re very lucky. Everyone works in isolation, not much thought is given to layout, which is a crucial part of the process.”
(I should mention here that Young Zubaan has just published one of the best-looking Indian picture-books I’ve seen, Mister Jeejeebhoy and the Birds by Anitha Balachandran. Lots of lovely drawings, notably a two-page spread of a sweet-shop that you just can’t tear your eyes away from. I first saw some of the illustrations at Bookaroo last winter and have been looking forward to the book ever since.)
