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SHORT STORIES

Men without Women

Haruki Murakami

Published: August 2017

Publisher: Random House UK

Pages : 240 pages (hardcover)

Haruki Murakami, as the master of strangeness and surrealism, might more than occasionally leave us confused by blurring the lines between reality and dreams in his stories. But the seemingly connected tales in this recent collection of short stories, ‘Men Without Women’, Murakami’s first in more than a decade, feel a lot more developed and realistic compared to the surreal stories in Murakami’s 2006 collection ‘Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman’. In ‘Men Without Women’, as his characters try to grapple with the fact that they are alone, Murakami, for the first time, doesn’t roman­ticize the concept of being lonely. Instead, the stories are about love, loss, and pain—the very elements that are the driving forces of life. And though it feels un-Murakami like, it’s a refreshing change for those who have had a little too much of the writer’s obsessions with jazz, whiskey drinkers at bars, and van­ishing cats—though there are hints of these in ‘Men Without Women’ too.

Most of the middle-aged men in these seven tales, four of which have been previously published, have lost the women in their lives—to other men or death, and they are thus lonely.

This puts them in a situation Murakami terms ‘Men Without Women’. Though the stories are essentially about men and nar­rated by men, women hold an important place in each of the tales, even though they remain somewhat mysterious.

In the first story, an actor, whose wife has died, hires a young woman driver to take him to the theater and bring him back home. During the commute, he talks about how he was always faithful to his wife, even though she had many lovers. He even confesses that he took to meet­ing one of them at bars to talk about her and somehow get his revenge but, in the end, manages to rise above it.

There is another story where a housewife visits a man at his retire­ment home to bring his groceries and then they have sex, following which she tells him bizarre sto­ries. Then there is an unmarried 50-something plastic surgeon with a long list of girlfriends with whom he enjoys wine, conversation, and sex, ‘a discreet pleasure but never the goal’, until he falls hopelessly in love with one of them.

In yet another story, a man gets a call at one in the morning from the husband of a former girlfriend, whom he has not been in touch with for years, to tell him she has commit­ted suicide.

Studies say loneliness can be lethal. In ‘Men without Women’ it is said to be deep-seated like ‘a red wine stain on a pastel carpet’. And while that might be true, the varied ways in which the characters in the stories deal with it make you realize that, while loneliness is at the crux of our existence and there is no escaping it, we will all eventually find a way to embrace it.

‘Raid’, the latest Ajay Devgn star vehicle, is set during the 1980s and follows the exploits of an honest to a T income tax offi­cer, played by Devgn, to bring down a corrupt demigod politician. The film wastes no time in paint­ing Devgn’s Amay Patnaik as an incorruptible, saint of a man. In his first scene, we see him saunter into a country club. The guards won’t allow him in because he’s wearing sandals. In a normal situation, a per­son would fuss with the guards but not Patnaik. He instead appreciates that the guards are following the rulebook, and nobody’s above the rules. The entire movie from then on is an elaboration on Patnaik’s by-the-book approach to everything.

Drama/Thriller

RAID

CAST: Ajay Devgn, Saurabh Shukla, Ileana D’Cruz

DIRECTION: Raj Kumar Gupta

Patnaik has recently shifted to Lucknow with his wife (Ileana D’Cruz) to assume the local office of office the Internal Revenue Ser­vice. He’s a strict task master and always urging his junior officers to wage a crusade on tax evaders and money launderers. At home, he shares a sound relationship with his wife. They don’t fight, don’t argue but give positive feedback to each other. He compliments her for tag­ging along with a government ser­vant whose honesty always leads to abrupt transfers. She compliments him for his uprightness. Their talks are unbelievably sober and refined, given that he’s the kind of husband who’s rarely at home, and she’s the kind of wife who spends her dull afternoon at the verandah waiting for him. Like Patnaik’s saintly image, this relationship feels too idealistic and far-fetched.

The movie picks some momentum when Patnaik starts getting anony­mous tip-offs that direct him to Tauji (played by Saurabh Shukla), an influ­ential local parliamentary leader who enjoys a reputation as the dis­trict’s guardian. Patnaik leads a huge raid party to Tauji’s residence—‘The White House’—in search of InRs 420 crore worth of unaccounted wealth.

Director Raj Kumar Gupta loosely bases the story on the “longest income tax raid” carried out in Luc­know in the 1980s. The premise sounds interesting. But Gupta, who has previously directed ‘Aamir’, ‘No One Killed Jessica’ and ‘Ghanchak­kar’, settles for a more mainstream and dialogue heavy treatment this time. In his previous films, Gupta left things open-ended, without resorting to simplistic resolutions. One can speculate that because his last two films, except ‘No One Killed Jessica’, were box-office bombs, he this time wanted a crowd-pleaser with a dependable Bollywood star. In ‘Raid’ he is least bothered about breaking the film’s tempo: he sneaks in ill-timed songs and makes wild detours.

It’s a challenge to keep the audi­ence hooked to a single location for long, and Gupta and his screen­writer Ritesh Shah lose steam by the middle of the film. Though sup­porting characters—especially the ageing and wisecracking Maaji, the grandmother of Tauji household—provide some comic relief, the story has no interesting twists to break the drudgery.

Hardcore Ajay Devgn fans who like a brooding hero could find ‘Raid’ a passable companion piece to his ear­lier works like ‘Singham’, ‘Drishyam’ and ‘Gangajal’. But for the rest, it’s just Devgn on autopilot.

2 AND A HALF STARS

Wicked Spoon Fork & Rock, as the name sug­gests, is all about great food and good music. Located conveniently opposite the parking lot behind St. Mary’s School in Jhamsikhel, right next to the famous Roadhouse Café, Wicked Spoon is a popular venue for live music in the area.

With a dedicated stage complete with sound and lights, this live music venue fea­tures band and artists of different genres every weekend. From rock, blues and pop to contemporary and jazz, Wicked Spoon serves a variety of music combined with an elaborate multi-cuisine food menu. Combine that with the flaming bartenders mixing a delectable list of cocktails and you’re in for a treat.

THE MENU

Chef’s Special:

Beer Battered Fish and Chips

Lemon Chicken

Wicked Crispy Chicken

Opening hours: 10:00 am-10:00 pm

For reservations: 01-5522968

Cards: Not Accepted

Average meal for two: Rs 1,500 (including starters & main course)

 NON-FICTION

The Perils of Being Moderately Famous

Soha Ali Khan

Published: December 12, 2017

Publisher: Penguin India

Pages : 256 (paperback)

It seems every Bollywood actor, at one point of time, sees the need to come out with a book—on their spectacular flashbulb-lit lives, how they beat the odds for a comeback, or even a diet book, if nothing else. But Soha Ali Khan’s debut book ‘The Perils of Being Moderately Famous’, a collection of personal essays, doesn’t feel like an actor, one who belongs to such an illustrious family for that matter, boasting and bragging about life and its luxuries. Instead, as she recounts what it was like growing up as the daughter of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore, and being Saif Ali Khan’s sister, and Kareena Kapoor’s sister-in-law, Soha, with her wit and self-deprecating humor, narrates things so refreshingly that it makes her relatable, despite her star status. The book feels like a one- on-one conversation with the writer.

As a part of some notable and some forgettable films, Soha is what you could call ‘moderately famous’. But as Asian Age rightly noted, “Star­dom may have gone to the brother but grace seems to be a legacy received by Soha”, and it’s the grace with which she has penned her book that makes it such a delightful read. This is one memoir that’s not in your face, heavy with ‘brutal honesty’ and ‘frankness’ that feel forced.

She’s not trying to get you to like her or think well about her through her writing. She’s simply telling you her story. The ease with which she talks about those one off date nights and serious affairs and then her college life and foray into acting makes you wish the chapters were a bit longer. Life could definitely use a little bit more of her wit and insight.

And while she makes you laugh time and again, there are also moments in the book that are stir­ring and get you thinking. Bits where she talks about her father and her relationship with him as well as the pain of losing a parent whom she loves and respects in equal measure make you take a moment to remem­ber all the people and things you hold dear in your life.

What’s also remarkable about the book is that nothing feels over the top and there have been no attempts to sensationalize things. That is not Soha’s style. She is all about keeping it simple, humorous, and classy as she shares her personal expe­riences with warmth and a lot of integrity while offering some nev­er-seen-before images of her family, childhood, and her daughter Inaaya. Reading ‘The Perils of Being Moder­ately Famous’ affirms the fact that experiences are universal and that you don’t have to be famous, even moderately so, to enjoy the little things in life and be grateful for what you have.