A Treasure Trove For Perry Mason Fans

In every person’s young years there is a phase in which he or she is obsessed with a particular genre of literature. Mystery and Suspense were my obsession during those callow years.  The regular diet was made up of the likes of Earl Stanley Gardner (remember Perry Mason?), James Hadley Chase, and Agatha Christie.  It was out of curiosity and nostalgia that I was searching the net for electronic versions of the Perry Mason mysteries, and I stumbled upon in this website a treasure trove for those who love these mysteries. Here is the link: http://bpsc.bih.nic.in/Books.htm.  You will find almost all of Earle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason books there in neatly paginated electronic format. 

The website belongs Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC). It is a greater mystery than the ones solved by Perry Mason that these electronic books should appear in a staid government website in India! But there it is. Free. 

I am still a great fan of mystery and suspense, though I believe I have outgrown the pulp variety. Some of the greatest writers in world literature have contributed to this genre of fiction. The list includes the greatest novelist of all time Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the world’s foremost semiotician Umberto Eco, and the genre-hopping omniscient Isaac Asimov. But most of the stories in this genre were written by the writers of pulp, who sold their stories for compensation by the count of words. Over the years some of their works, especially those now recognized as classic noir fiction, have passed into the heritage of world literature.

Earl Stanley Gardner

Middle-brow literature that made nods to some pseudo-philosophy was always popular with the campus crowd of 60s-80s.  The most prominent examples that come to mind are Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In a Strange Land, Collin Wilson’s Outsider, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. To be certified as ‘well-read’ was almost a rite of passage for those aspiring to be counted among the elite.  Being ‘well read’ meant you have to be up-to-date with the ‘latest’ popular fiction in English. The college going teens’ ambitious reading experience traced a familiar pattern. It started with the obsessive consumption of popular paperbacks, which included the mysteries of Earl Stanley Gardner, Agatha Christie, the pseudo-American noir fiction of James Hadley Chase, and then the thrillers of the likes of Alastair Maclean, Robert Ludlum, or Frederick Forsyth. Romance that the girls consumed by truckloads (such as the sado-masochist fantasies of Barbara Cartland, and the syndicated outputs from Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette) and horror a la Stephen King, were indulged in but not easily admitted to lest one should be accused of having poor taste. A dash of P G Wodehouse rounded up the whole experience. 

JH Chase (RLB Raymond)

The aspirant who wanted to enter the elite club of the ‘well-read intellectuals’ had to complete the final blood ceremony by determinedly plodding through the Ayn Rand toms, the Fountainhead and the Atlas Shrugged.  

Most people gave up reading fiction once they enter the serious business of life, and live out their years missing the pleasure of real Literature. Some of them turn to ‘serious’ reading, ‘serious’ here meaning the ‘self improvement’ books whose dry as gravel contents and bullet points (these books have a predilection for the bullets) are the endless regurgitations of old Samuel Smiles.

I am not arguing that the above authors and their works do not represent good literature. I leave it to the learned critics. By the way, re-reading some of these authors recently, I now realize that the lowly-rated but the then most popular James Hadley Chase (real name René Lodge Brabazon Raymond), whose hallmark was simplicity, the short sentence, was a far better writer than the rest including the verbose misanthrope Ayn Rand.  If any proof of the popularity of Chase in the sub-continent is required, consider this: the most widely read English daily in South Asia, the Times of India, even deigned to write an editorial paying homage to this foreign writer when he died in 1985, normally a rare honor reserved for a few Nobel prize winners!

It was the nostalgia about those times that prompted me to search for the electronic versions of the Perry Mason books. The above BPSC website has it all, neatly laid out for you. 

If you are an aficionado of these mysteries, enjoy it while you can (before some bureaucrat takes it down)!

2 States: The Contrarian View

I admit I am not a great fan of Hindi Movies, and having watched only a handful of them my experience with Hindi movies is limited.  I liked a few of them though, especially the emotional dramas from the black and white era, such as Seema and Haryali Aur Rastha, and the Raj Kapoor knock-offs of the Charlie Chaplin movies.  The Raj Kapoor versions, I felt, were more interesting than the original. May be that’s a cultural thing.

I have never been able to sit through the five most popular types of Hindi movies: 

1. The siblings separated at birth

2. The father-son conflict (often includes brother vs. brother)

3. The reincarnated woman-snake story

4. The story of vengeance against three/four villains a la the Count of Monte Christo

5. The ever popular one where the story begins with the killing of the hero's parents by the villain(s) and the hero growing up to take revenge.

The last type is often grafted on to the first type to increase the emotional quotient.

In am aware that many of the better, more enjoyable movies in Hindi are either remakes of successful films from other Indian languages in which more accomplished film cultures flourish, or knock-offs of foreign movies (example Beja Fry  the curry version of Le Dîner de Cons). A casual survey will show that Hindi films always had a tradition of borrowing its muse from Hollywood. Sometimes I am just curious to find out how well the rip-off works and end up watching the movie. These are often older movies like Kati Patang, the adaptaion of No Man of Her Own  which was based on the cult noir novel I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich (my favorite suspense writer).

I had recently watched the Tamil romantic movie ‘Nee Thane En Pon Vasantham’ (You Are My Golden Spring) and had liked it. The film, slow and sure-footed, had the subtlety of underplayed emotions, sophisticated but believable characters, and a thread of longing and yearning running through the film. Is this the new trend in Indian movies? So it seemed, and when a friend suggested I check out the new Hindi block-buster ‘2 States’, I succumbed to the temptation. The contrast between the two movies was drastic.

Before I go on, I must  pause and praise two elements in 2 States that stood out. The incredible acting by Amrita Singh (what a transformation from Betab to this!), and the coruscating dream-like visage of Alia Bhatt in a Saree.

I thought I was appalled by the movie's immaturity, the cardboard-like lead characters, and the plastic props in place of supporting characters (how did Revathi agree to this humiliation?). The in-your-face shallowness of the script and its unabashedly kitschy mounting, the two-dimensional characters whose mental and emotional growths seem to have stuck somewhere in pre-pubescence, the incredibly brazen stereotyping (especially of the Tamils), and a male lead with a wooden face on which even a stray accidental molecule of emotion has to struggle to maintain its footing, cried out for an abysmal rating for the movie. 

Then, think again.

This is What We Are

Think about us.  We might have high opinions (often misplaced) about our sophistication, behavior, intelligence, and intellect, but is that the real us?  In real life aren’t we indeed two-dimensional characters like the crudely wrought protagonists of 2 States, who lack intellectual depth or sophistication in the conduct of our daily life?

People are not mature or sophisticated. Nor are they subtle.

That sounds a very harsh judgment but think back, for example, about how we behaved when we (those of us who) were in love.  We exchanged puerile one-liners when we wooed, and generally behaved like pre-pubescent kids. Spoke to each other in stilted clichés ('Are you hitting on me?'). Our nods to the fashionable were 'going steady' and the ultimate statement of modernity a contrived sexual conquest. To our callow minds these were not artificial addenda to everyday life, but symptoms of sophistication, our homage to the in-thing. Most of us, not unlike the two cardboard lovers in this movie, existed on a low level of psychological maturity, intellectual growth, and emotional intelligence.

Our minds and behavior did not grow beyond the early teen’s even when we attended prestigious adult institutions, like an IIM in the movie. We will later take the stunted growth to Harvard, if possible. We looked at the world through stereotypes, and the jokes we laughed at were ethnic slurs or those that reinforced the stereotypes in our yet (nay, ever) immature minds, and we continue to delude ourselves that the victims too should enjoy the jokes.  In short, we were rather uninteresting, unsophisticated.  Doesn't, then, the lead pair of this movie appear less improbable and ridiculous? 

The film is based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel of the same name, which according to the author is autobiographical.  Chetan Bhagat’s style is unabashedly pulp, pulp kneaded and flattened with a heavy hand, and he revels in it, not a bad thing in itself considering the success he has had with it so far. We should believe him if he owns up the film as a true depiction of his love, wooing, and marriage. The author is to be appreciated, because it needs courage and humility to own up something that uninteresting and uninspiring, a slice of humdrum love life in the Flatland.

A Flatland it is, inhabited by two-dimensional beings going through the motions of their dull lives and unimaginative loves spouting one-liners, surrounded by a supporting cast of papier-mâché figurines stuck on props ever ready to fill in with actions expected of the stereotypes on demand. A nod to Karnataka Sangeetam here, a Balle Balle there, and throw in a Kancheepuram saree in between. We are caricatures on the pages of pulp.

Considering the honesty in all that I rate 2 States very, very high.

Squirrels, Tulips, and the Coming of Spring

When the ice in our front yard melted it revealed the carpet of rotting grass underneath, and the tiny pink tip of a lone timid tulip plant pushed through the peaty ground, signalling the winter is over, almost!

This was one of the nearly 100 tulip bulbs we planted in the fading days of the fall.

May be half of them survived the marauding squirrels. 

We had to wage a relentless battle against the squirrels to get those bulbs into the ground and make them (the bulbs) stay there.

The rascally rodents have a free run of our front and back yards in the summer.  When the fall approaches they are restless, frantic, running against time to stock up food for the winter. The squirrels watch us from a safe distance and silently mock our efforts when we go about planting the bulbs.  The moment our backs are turned they sneak in and ferret out the bulbs from the ground. The bandits know where to dig and are very professional about it.  The routine is: dig, snatch, run.  Safely ensconced in the crook of a tree, the critters have a way of clutching the bulbs between their paws, like a child examining a surprise gift, which is so endearingly human. But given the circumstances we are hardly able to enjoy such display of child-like innocence by the thieving rodents.

If even half of our tulip bulbs survived the plundering by these rowdy elements, we will have a riot of colors when the spring gets into full swing!

Beauty and Terror: Backwater Legends

In a village in the interior of coastal Kerala, one grows up imbibing the beauty and grace of its nature. It is all around you. The breeze that plays in the groves, the coconut trees swaying in the wind, the tranquil waters of the lagoons caressing the land in gentle waves, the network of canals and waterways that quicken the vegetation and sustain the greenery, the paddy fields snuggling close to the white motherly hills, the sunsets that turn the blue into gold. Peace pervades the mind. But peace is hardly a catalyst for creativity. Mind wanders beyond the beauty of this reality and invents dark fears.

Hurrying Home Before the Darkness Falls

For a stranger who wanders into this fairy tale land the lush green countryside would seem like an abode of peace and tranquility. It lies under the canopy raised by coconut trees, languorous in the sweaty heat of the summer, playful and inviting when the heat abates and the landscape turns into a riot of colors, and voluptuous and desirable like a bathing nymph when the rains wash and seed the land.  It would seem in this land people have no right to be discontent, no reason for being poor or hungry, no justification for being afraid. A minister from the north (I think it was the Late Yogendra Makwana) once caused a huge controversy with his casual remark, on seeing coastal Kerala, that people here had no right to be unhappy or poor when there were an abundance of beautiful women to be wooed and plenty of coconuts to be plucked. Laurie Baker, a true Malayalee if ever there was one, once said this was the only place in the world where people preferred to build their homes under the trees (though it is not true any more). A contented people living in peace with the nature. That is the picture.

Life on the Backwaters

But this land is just like the nymph of the lore, full of beauty, passion and caprice. Terror is an inseparable part of anything so unfathomable. If you had lived and belonged here, you will know this: the land broods. Fear of the unknown, of the dark forces, of the lurking menaces of netherworld, is an inseparable part of the lives of its people. The fear lives on in its lore, its legends, and its interpretations of reality itself.

Objects of beauty and grace become ominous symbols of fearful supernatural elements. There is a manic frenzy in the growth of the vegetation. Weeds and grass overrun the land and it turns a dark green. Tangle of weeds and bushes overgrow village paths. Dangers lurk underneath. The narrow paths turn into corridors of shade when the trees from both sides grow and meet above, shutting out the sun. One is afraid to walk there. There is uncertainty there.

After the sunset the lagoons present an eerie vista. The steely gray of the backwaters has a menacing look. An evil spirit broods there under the dirty sky. As you sit there longer, what at first seemed like only melancholy becomes an apprehension of something malignant. It is in the air. The last crow hurried home. The sky is empty. The trees lean close to the water. Their reflections have vanished. Now there is only a glittering darkness in the water where earlier those reflections moved with the breeze. Evil spirits are awakened from their slumber. They are moving in. The trees are their abode. It is dangerous to sit under those trees at that time. The oppressive atmosphere paralyses the soul.

With the rains come the thunder and the lightning, like malevolent warriors traveling across the sky flaunting their multi-pronged weapons. The gentle swaying of the coconut trees becomes an ominous dance macabre, and the medusa-like heads of the trees swing madly in the wind. The wind howls and screeches through the trees like a banshee, slashing at everything in sight. When darkness falls there is no let up, the dance macabre continues. The rain pounds on the window panes. Something crashes to the ground and there is the cry of an animal, almost inaudible in the howl of the wind. A bolt of lightning throws the fury of the elements outside into stark relief. Silvery ropes are tied across the tops of the trees and some invisible hand pulls at the tangled ropes. There is fear outside the windows.

But the most terrible, heart-constricting fear is in the moonlight. Especially if you are a lonely wayfarer in the night. The distances look unconquerably long. Like a leprous patina the moonlight lies on the hills. Those white hills are special to Pallippuram. They are made up of ‘silica sand’ and are probably the whitest natural objects in the world. In the daylight they looked like heaps of milk powder. Now they are heaps of crushed bones, bleached to their whitest. In the moonlight they look a bluish white though, an eerie bluish white. They sit there in the moonlight, there is one of them every hundred meters or so. The moon is bright, but these hills have no shadow. That itself is frightening. They loom huge as you approach them. And once you pass them, you are afraid to look back. There is a scraggly looking tree just on the side of the large hill, and a pale shadow of the tree lies on the hill. The silence! the cursed silence is like a heavy burden laid across your heart. And when you look ahead you see that shadowy wavering form approaching from the distance. It cannot be human. Your legs feel like they were cast in iron, and your heart pounds. There is uncertainty and fear.

Given Beauty, human mind will invent the opposite, Fear. Fear is the primal element of human psyche, and it is not hope but fear that enables men and women to conduct their lives. Apprehension, fear, uncertainty. These are the three emotions that lie at the roots of creativity. Human life is a continuous effort to make the future safe, and creativity is its tool. Safe for what? Safe for human life! This seems like incestuous logic, a paradox. True, but life is a paradox too.