Submit your Article

Emily Henry writes good books with bad, misleading titles. The frolicky looking covers don’t do justice to the stories either. With better, more-fitting titles, her books, I believe, would have been more widely read. Right now, it feels like chick lit and that definitely puts off many people. I didn’t read her books for the longest time as I felt I had outgrown those kinds of stories. 

But as everybody—people I knew and random strangers on the Internet—was raving about her books, I picked up ‘You and Me on Vacation’. I’d stop reading the moment I felt my stomach roil (love stories tend to have that effect on me). It didn’t and I loved the book. 

So naturally I wanted to read ‘Beach Read’ which was even more hyped than ‘People We Meet on Vacation’ (the US title of You and Me on Vacation). Centered on two writers who strike a deal to write each other’s books, Beach Read has a great premise that delivers till the very end. January is a romance writer who no longer believes in love. Augustus Everett (or ‘Gus’ to January) is a literary writer who is stuck in a rut. They were also nemesis in college with each apparently dissing the other’s work. 

Somehow, they end up living in neighboring beach houses. Each is trying to write a novel but is stopped by a massive writer’s block. In a bid to get out of the creative slump, they agree to swap genres. Romance ensues as they get to know each other better. 

But the story isn’t limited to that. There’s a lot of heavy content, with issues of abuse, neglect, infidelity and grief bringing in plenty of darkness to what appears to be a lighthearted story. Also, Gus is researching suicide cults and his ‘interviews’ with people who were a part of it are difficult to read at times, as are his traumatic childhood memories. 

January learns about her father’s mistress on the day of his funeral and can’t come to terms with it, especially as her father isn’t around to explain himself. The hardest thing isn’t missing someone, it’s being angry with someone and not being able to fight it out, she says. The book is peppered with many contemplative moments like this. The end does feel a bit stretched out but the characters are so empathetically crafted that you are willing to overlook this one fault.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52867387-beach-read

Four stars

Fiction

Beach Read

Emily Henry

Published: 2020

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 361, Paperback

Spy thrillers are also so intriguing to watch. Not only do you get to follow a suspenseful plot, you can also have a peek into the lives of the people who are supposedly making the world a safer place for the rest of us. Men and women in expensive suits, fighting against Russia, North Korea and some Arab countries is the general representation of spy thrillers coming out of Hollywood. 

“All the Old Knives” available on Amazon Prime Video is not so different. It’s a spy thriller set in a world that feels all too real. The film centers on Henry Pelham (Chris Pine), an ex-CIA agent who is having trouble adjusting to a normal life because of a harrowing incident in the past. 

In early 2020, Henry is informed by his boss Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) that the CIA has reopened the case of Turkish Alliance 127, a 2012 terrorist hijacking that ended in a tragedy. The CIA Headquarters suspect a leak from the Vienna station, where both Henry and Vick were working at the time of the incident. 

Also working in Vienna in 2012 was Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), who was in a relationship with Henry at the time. The two had drifted apart after the incident, with Celia finding a new life for herself with a husband and daughter in California. Nevertheless, as the mystery deepens, Henry is sent to interview Celia to find out if she was part of the leak. 

The meeting between the two former colleagues and lovers becomes the center of the movie, with repeated flashbacks to 2012. In these flashbacks, the audience gets to see a host of other characters—from different security agencies, Russian government, Islamic terrorists, Chechen rebels—all contributing to the conspiracy behind the Flight 127 terrorist hijacking and its tragic ending. 

Storytelling is what the film and its characters do throughout. Something that does not settle too well with me. When I read the movie’s description, I had expected it to be an on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller a la James Bond or Jason Bourne film franchises. 

The film even starts like a spy thriller with violence and suspense taking place within the first few scenes. Even the color tone on the screen promises an exciting action-packed thriller. But as the film progresses, you soon realize you are in for a let-down. 

Disguised as a suspense thriller, All the Old Knives turns out to be a drama, staged to reunite two scorned lovers, with all other characters and plots just playing a side role. Henry is evidently not over Celia yet as he keeps getting flashbacks of his time with her in the past. The interview with Celia to find out the truth about the hijacking seems more like Henry’s attempt to reconcile with her. 

With his well-cut suit and fancy car, Chris Pine’s Henry does at times look like the 007 star Pierce Brosnan. But he never gets to go off like 007. Henry is limited to sitting at a table of a fancy restaurant, sipping wine and talking about the past. He is a keen strategist for the CIA, and that’s all he is it seems. 

In all this, Laurence Fishburne—the three time Emmy and Tony award winning actor—gets undeservingly sidelined. His first few scenes as Vick suggest that he may have a crucial hand in the film’s proceedings but no: we see far too little of the actor. This is a role that could have been given to anyone but filmmakers decided to choose the very best in business and make him underperform. 

Who should watch it? 

I might be a bit biased here because for me espionage thrillers need to have at least a little bit of action, or tension. All the Old Knives lacks both. There are some elements of surprise and intrigue that lead to the climax but by the time the film starts to grab the audience’s attention, it is too late. Still a decent watch for those who like drama, melodrama and more.  

Rating: 2 stars

Genre: Suspense, drama

Actors: Chris Pine, Laurence Fishburne, Thandiwe Newton

Director: Janus Metz Pedersen

Run time: 1hr 41mins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s7NziAetNs

Srijana Singh is running for the post of mayor for Kathmandu Metropolitan City from the Nepali Congress. A former youth leader, women’s rights activist, and former chairperson of the Nepal Women Union of her party, Singh is believed to be the chief rival to CPN-UML’s Keshav Sthapit for the top job. 

Political pundits foresee a close contest. The race is heating up, and candidates have intensified their respective campaigns in the run-up to the May 13 vote. Clad in a sari, a tika on her forehead, and garlands and khadas (ceremonial scarves) around her neck, she has been out campaigning day in, day out. Accompanying her is the deputy mayor candidate, Rameshwor Shrestha, and Congress cadres waving banners and party flags. 

They walk through the narrow alleys and courtyards of traditionally Newari neighborhoods, thriving business hubs and busy streets of Kathmandu, stopping at doorsteps and shop-fronts to interact with people. Singh is polite and soft-spoken, a character that some critics have also portrayed as her weakness. 

She has the opportunity of creating history by becoming the first female mayor of the capital city. She is the daughter-in-law of late Congress leader Ganesh Man Singh and the wife of Prakash Man Singh, a Congress bigwig. The campaign organization committee is hoping that Singh coming from such a historical political family will be more of a boon than a burden. It also espies the possibility of most women voting in her favor in light of Sthapit’s implication in sexual harassment cases.

At Pashupati Aryaghat, the mood is always somber. People come here to cremate their loved ones at one of the many ghats by the banks of the sacred Bagmati river.

On this particular afternoon, a body is burning on a pyre and the deceased’s friends and family members are there to say their last goodbyes. As the lapping flames consume the dead, the mourning family sits there still, watching the fire intently—as though seeking some sort of catharsis, a closure. Friends and neighbors approach them to offer condolence. These exchanges are brief and in hushed tones. 

While all this is happening, the cremator Ganesh Dhakal sits alone on one of the metal benches, separated from the rest. His gaze is fixed on the burning pyre. Every now and then, he gets up, moves towards the blazing heap with a bamboo pole on his hands, and prods the red-hot logs. He is making sure the body is burning properly. 

Clad in a smoke-stained white dhoti, he returns to his seat and once again proceeds to look at the pyre. It’s hard to discern his emotion at this moment. He seems steely, mirthless. 

I am wrong. Dhakal is very much a family man with a wife and nine children. For him burning the dead is just a job, even if an unusual one.   

“I’ve been here for 40 years,” the 57-year-old says. “I came to Kathmandu to find a proper job but fate had other plans.” 

Born to a poor family in Nagarkot of Bhaktapur district, Dhakal came to Kathmandu in 1982 with a dream of working for a big company. He was just 16 then. 

One of the first things he did after arriving in Kathmandu was visit the Pashupatinath temple. For a young boy, looking for a job, Dhakal says, it was fortuitous that he came across the Aryaghat cremators who tasked him with carrying logs to burn bodies. 

“I was desperate to make a living in the city, so I happily took the offer,” Dhakal says. 

He brought logs for the cremators and watched them at their job. But being a cremator was not something he aspired to be. He still dreamt of a normal job.

But as the years went on, Dhakal says, he realized his prospect of getting other jobs was limited. To survive in the city, he still needed to earn more than what he was earning at the time. 

“Becoming a cremator was my only option,” he says. “I didn’t have time or choice.” 

Having burned hundreds of bodies over the decades, Dhakal says he has learned to separate his personal and professional lives. Whatever he does for a job, he leaves it at Aryaghat. At home, he takes on his family role—as a husband, a father, and the family’s breadwinner. 

Dhakal lives in Chabahil with his wife, who suffers from a medical condition where she can’t walk, and their six daughters and three sons. He burns the dead so that his family can survive in Kathmandu. 

When Dhakal was just starting off as a cremator, he tells me, he used to get emotional. 

“I used to get carried away by the sadness of the lost lives and their grieving families that came here every day. I have learned to cope with my emotions over the years,” he says, “to see it as just something I do.”  

Between our conversation, Dhakal has been approaching the pyre to give a few nudges to the burning logs with his bamboo pole. By now, my impression of him has already changed. He is very much capable of human emotions. The only thing that separates him from most others is that he can compartmentalize his emotions—hence his nonchalance to burning bodies.  

“People keep asking me why I chose to be a cremator when I had a choice to get other jobs. But the truth is that any other choice wouldn’t have helped me get out of poverty,” Dhakal says. “When I decided to become a cremator, I was already sinking in poverty. This was the only skill I could easily learn and I was already working at Aryaghat.” 

He earns Rs 1,500 for cremating a body, which he does once every four to five days. 

Dhakal says he has long forgotten his boyhood dream of joining a big company and accepted his current situation. 

“Once I got used to this work, I never thought of quitting and looking for other jobs. After all, this job helped me raise my family,” he says. 

He plans on continuing so long as his health and strength permit him to do so. 

The burning pyre has now crumbled into a heap of smoldering ashes. Dhakal gets up to help the priest to collect asthu (cremated remains) to hand them over to the family members. 

The funeral attendees begin filing away, saying their condolences to bereaved family members. Soon, the funeral ceremony is completed, and the family members of the deceased also leave Aryaghat. 

Dhakal splashes water over the cremation platform, washing away the remaining coals and ashes into the Bagmati river. Another body will soon be cremated at this spot, and Dhakal will be there for the job.      

“Again, it’s just a job,” he tells me calmly, “and someone has to do it.”