Boring

This first part of the book, Day One, was somewhat boring story wise and by the way it was written. It was also quite annoying on certain levels: like the way the author was never clear on who was talking or doing something. There weren’t that many names but somehow the author managed to get you lost in them, losing track of who was the drunk, or who was the shop owner… The author also expresses a very “unique style of writing that I cannot really describe. He manages to give you a very expressive description of the environment and surroundings without using details at all. He also uses a lot of adjectives, which might explain how he does it. I cannot really relate to this story on a personal level, except for a Hindi movie I watched where children are used to deliver explosives and such to certain locations as acts of terrorism. The story was quite irritating as you never got a clear description of what had happened to lead to these events in the story. You never know what really happened to the porter after he left to go see his family, at the beginning it seemed to me that he had been kicked out of his family, but later he supposedly returns to them. And you never get to read what a Pathan is, even though the child keeps repeating that he is one. There is also the fact that there is no intrigue, no suspense… this makes the story boring and gives no motive to keep on reading. There is no real character description, at least none that describes the character’s personality. All characters seem to be flat ones, unchanging, boring and with no real explanation for their actions. You never find out if the porter does steal food or not, so you can never really understand if he is or isn’t a good person, or if he really is a thief. The shop owners and such keep saying he’s changed but you never really see any concrete proof of it. The characters are all shallow and basically just shells or puppets. I seem to be only citing only the negative things about this story, and I wish I could do otherwise, but I cannot find anything good about it: the story has neither tail nor head, the characters are flat and shallow and I can barely make sense of which character is which. The only good thing is that he can create a scene in your mind with only a few words. And that isn’t even completely good, because if he can do so much with a few words, imagine what he could do with more description…

The second part of the book: Day One the Bunder, is quite a bit different from its predecessor in terms of themes and subjects. The theme in the first part was more like racism and poverty, whereas the themes in this part are corruption and power. The main character also changes from a poor young porter to a semi rich “business man” or factory owner that has enough money to buy expensive whiskey and drink it regularly while still bribing dozens of people. The story was a bit more interesting than the precedent one, but honestly still not worth my attention. I also found it strange that a factory owner would “hang out” with a bunch of thugs that steal cars and smuggle “other stuff” throughout India. The style of writing is still confusing and incredibly boring. I did not have many experiences that can relate to this story, but there was one time where my driver got pulled over by a police officer while driving us from the airport. The driver got out and walked away from the car to talk to the officer. After a few seconds, the officer looked in our direction, turned back to my driver and let him go. Apparently the driver had been speeding, and when my father asked about the fine, he said that there was no fine. My father, surprised, asked what he meant by that, since a fine was a normal punishment for speeding here in India. My driver answered that since we were white, he let us go. We were all surprised, but there wasn’t much we could do. Another time, my driver was driving me to some mall or some other place and we got pulled over again. This time, it wasn’t for speeding; it was just a checkpoint that we had to go through. As the officer looked over our car, another came up and asked me in English if I wanted to “skip” this checkpoint. I asked what he was implying and he responded by reaching out his hand towards me and saying “50 rupees”, now, I am not a scrooge, but I did not think this was appropriate, so I said no. He kept insisting and seemed to say that he would create problems if I didn’t agree. I then had to call over the superior officer and report the man. The superior said he would take care of it and let us through. I found his similar to the story.

This story can only be described as useless: it had no point: it is like an argument that 5 year olds have over whose sweets are better. The story was very abstract in nature, but at least the characters were so few that it was impossible to get them mixed up, it helped that they were all very different in name and personality. One thing I was confused with was the fact that the police chief seemed to not mind the book seller, yet when he got drunk; he started hurling abuse at him. And there was also the fact that his arrests only happened twice a year, when the seller must have sold them every day to make money, so how does this make any sense? And something that the chief said startled me: “this is how we hide the evidence” why would anyone put incriminating evidence in a jail cell? And again for the sake of words, I will repeat myself by saying that the style of writing is again terrible: it is simplistic, boring, kind of depressing and the only good thing about it is the fact that he uses adjectives a lot. And even that he does wrong sometimes, as he uses them too much. I’m running out of things to say. This story, although irritating, has a part that I endured more easily than the others: the end, when the salesman walks up the hill and “sticks it” to the lawyer and police chief by selling the banned book. That part reminded me of just how much I’m sick of following the rules and watching out for what I say in front of people, it reminded me of how much I want to stand up to my parents, and how much I want to be able to give way to my impulses and feelings. In a way that the author probably doesn’t fully realize, that single act of defiance represents so many things: revenge, freedom, will and most of all the feeling of invincibility you get when you do exactly what you want, no matter what other people think.

The next part of the book, the one about the bomb, was much better than the others: there was more action, more excitement. It was more like a police story, it was more vulgar than the past stories, which somehow made it more realistic and in a way allowed me to really get into the story more. The style of writing was still quite bad, but improved in some ways: there was a better use of adjectives, the names somehow were easier to recognize, probably because he described them more and in more concrete ways. The themes in this part of the book were racism or discrimination, and rebellion. This story was also different in the way that the main character was a totally different person: a rich, low caste teenage boy that was sick of being discriminated and looked down upon. This I can relate to a bit since I have often been mocked and bullied by classmates and such because of my ginger hair. I have learned to accept it, but there are still some people that I do not feel “cool” laughing about this with. His anger towards his family is also a reminder of just how much I hate my family: my siblings are the some of the most annoying and awkward people I I know, second only to my mother. I hate her more than even the main character does. I despise her, not because of her caste, but because of her personality. I am sick and tired of her hypocritical behaviour, her stubbornness when she won’t admit she’s wrong, the way she diverts the subject of conversation when she knows she is going to lose. I hate her more than anything in the world, and the worst part is I know I’ve grown up to be like her, and she yells and punishes me for it. She scolds me for being intolerant towards my siblings and not to my friends, but she does the same: she is completely intolerant towards her children, but she acts as if her and her friends are perfect. She tells us to do things, or to behave in ways that she doesn’t and won’t ever do. I wish I could act superior to her like the boy can because of his caste. And I’ve decided to stop suffering her reign: if she screams at me, I’ll scream back, if she hits me, I’ll hit back. I’m going to stand up to her. I’m sick of being self aware and of worrying about what people think about me.

The last story, in which the teacher and his student lead strange lives in the town of Kittur, was unsettling to say the least. The style of writing seems to have improved quite a lot since I first started reading the book, and I feel like the stories are getting a bit better. This story, strangely, might have been an incredibly good one, but it seems that it ended too fast. The story felt like it was only the prologue for an entire novel, but it ended and no other mention of it was in the book. The characters were still quite shallow, except for the teacher, who seemed to be the main character. He was more of a real person in my eyes, because the author went into more depth when it came to his past life and his ambitions. Now, for this chapter, there is no way for me to relate to: I have never seen a violent teacher in my life, I have seen boys that could be described as “bad” or slightly corrupt, but nothing like the boys in this story. And again, there were things that were never described in this story: like tripping, I don’t understand what it is, I can tell it is wrong and sexual in nature, but other than that, no idea. There is also the fact that I cannot understand how a theatre can turn into such place as the one they had to send the children. The mystery of Nathan X was never solved; the fact that his wife was so young wasn’t either. This story scared me a little because I have a feeling that there are actual towns like this where the children behave in ways that are best not described in an IB course essay. The sexism that occurred quite “unnoticeably” in the beginning of the story was amusing in the way it slid right past you if you weren’t paying attention. At the beginning, the permission form that the students had to sign to go to the mosque had to be signed either by the father, or by a male guardian. And talking of fathers and guardians, I didn’t understand how the parents of these terrible kids did not punish them for their behaviour. And the first few sentences of the story talking about the fight over the land were useless in terms of the storyline. It was never referred to again.