A Fort of Nine Towers - Qais Akbar Omar

After many years of Russian rule, when the Mujahedeen came into the heart of the Capital in the year 1992, the people of Kabul rejoiced. There were widespread celebrations around the city. The house hold of young Omar was no different. His father and uncles were visibly happy and were sharing their happiness with the rest of the crowd.  However happiness did not last long. That was just the beginning of the war that damaged the country of Afghanistan for the next few decades. 10 year old Omar, who expected to see the Mujahedeen soldiers "in Uniforms and Shiny Boots", was disappointed to see the warriors with "beards, mustaches and smelly shoes that wrapped up stinky feet". 

The liberation wasn't there to stay long. Soon infighting began among different war lords. The common enemy that united them ( the USSR) is no returned to their homeland. The various war lords, started to fight amongst themselves for the control of the province.  Living in the mansion, built by his grand father, called as'the President' by the neighbors, for he was the second in command of the government financial institution, the extended family of Omar and his cousins and their parents have to seek refuge. The rockets started falling in the gardens, the carpets traded by his father, has been confiscated by the 'warriors' and their life itself was under threat. The team, decided to move out of the central part of the city to the outskirts around the hill, where Omar's fathers business colleague is living in a fort mansion. The story of "A Fort with Nine Towers' thus begin. Next few years, Omar and his family live in this fort, largely protected from the war and the missiles.

Omar, narrates the next few years of his life in the recently published book, which is already creating a rave with the world readers. Unlike, the typical coming of age memoirs, the voice here is not of the young boy, but of the grown up man, who recounts the days with his own interpretation of the grown-up man. There are family stories, the first hand experience of the young boy with the torturers , loss of family members both to the war lords and to the nature, huge sense of support and camaraderie that the people show during the difficult times and his own personal learning during the time of turbulence. There are horrifying details of torture, murder, rape and humiliation either witnessed or suffered by the young boy. The version of the warring factions and tribes and the shear destruction of the civilization by the war.

The most engaging and touching narrative is their journey as nomads from Kabul towards Mazar-e-Sharif. The beauty of the nature on one side, the plight of the family separated from their own people, various difficulties en-route ( the landslide and flood from which they had a narrow escape) , the thieving of Pomegranate ( the guilt the boy carried for a long time), the blind carpet weaver in Mazar, under whom he learnt the trick of carpet making ( which helps him in the days of Taliban later), the time and travel with the nomadic tribes ( to whom his ancestors belong), their stay in the Bamian hills in the caves behind the damaged head of the Buddha and the eventual return to Kabul after a few years, settling back in the Fort were written beautifully.

During all these times, the family was planning to escape the country as many of their countrymen to other parts of the world. There are traffickers who for a large sum of money willing to take them across to Turkey, through one of the central Asian republics. The money to take them out is hidden under the garden in the form of Gold. Every attempt to reach the place and recover, was failed, as they fall into the hands of the occupiers. They planned to escape to Pakistan, which was again failed and they ware caught by another warlord, in whose captivity, the father and son was bitten by one with sharp teeth , called "The Dog".

When everything was ready and they were preparing for their final departure, came a new force in the form of Taliban. Capturing the city of Kabul, the new regime was quick to establish themselves as the rulers and forced their decree on the people. The new dictate of living under Islamic Values, the hard and cruel way of enforcing their discipline on the people, the general fear they created on the people made the life even more difficult to the young Omar. However, he now recollects, that despite all these rules, there was a calm in the country and war was not in sight (“strange peace" says Omar) . The business, which he now set up did flourish, the state machinery was effective.  But yet again, the peace was short lived, as the Allied forces entered Afghanistan in 2001 end post the World Trade Center bombing by suspected Al Queda militants. The world for them has gone back to what it was.

A very matter of fact narration, may not be an eye opener as the snippets of these scenes have come out at in different ways. He has presented the facts from the point of his own experiences and as a story of his family, which is not different from many others. Born in a high-middle class family, he had better provisions, compared to many other who suffered. however, what each Afghan citizen had to endure is the same as the the others irrespective of their social status. The book is non judgmental and he left that part to the readers. In the concluding pages, he warns the readers "“I have long carried this load of griefs in the cage of my heart. Now I have given them to you. I hope you are strong enough to hold them.”

Since it is presented as his memoirs, there is less scope for analysis and for insight to the issues of Afghanistan. I am sure that is the intend of this book as this is not a political study. The strong family ties, the closeness towards ones own at the times of difficulties, the separation and the impact of which in young ones, the slow and definite destruction of the cultural fabric of the country and many similar parallel reading is possible within the narrative. Some of the events are too brutal or good to be true. The reality borders around the exaggeration. They are harsh at times, and so moving at other places. He is able to get the readers along with him in the journey and that is the success of the book.

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A Fort of Nine Towers ( 2013 )

Qais Akbar Omar

Picador

396 Pages
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Washington Post, New York Times

My Autobiography - Dickie Bird

Sports scene is full of heroes and people with some eccentric characters. They always create enough interest even after their retirement. Most of them make 'hay while the sun shine' by publishing their memoirs, even before their retirement. However, it is seldom that people from the supporting function gets so much attention. Harold 'Dicky' Bird was one such character. One of the most celebrated umpires of modern cricket, he was one of the stars of the game. His retirement from the international cricket umpiring was an huge affair. Of course, we have some interesting characters in the umpiring field, these days in New Zealander, Billi Bowden, Australian Darryl Harper and West Indian Steve Buckner. But it was with Dicky Bird and his compatriot David Shepard the umpiring came into lime light.

Born to a miner in Barnsley, Dicky Bird started as a footballer like all the youngsters. An accident caused knee problem prevented his football career, and continued his focus in the next passion, cricket. His introduction to Barnsley club wasn't all that impressive. The batting coach had a look at the skinny boy came into nets and promptly send him back , almost ending his cricketing dreams. However, a kind man took pity on the weeping young boy and bowled for him to bat for the rest of the evening. Along with the celebrated Yorkshiremen, Dickie was also inducted into the Barnsley Club and later to the Yorkshire Club to play for county. He had reasonable success there in the company of Freddy Trueman, Geoff Boycott and few other English players. The star studded Yorkshire team prevented him with enough appearances in the county matches, keeping him at the 12th man slot. Whenever the stars were called for the country duty, he get the chance which he made use, only to relinquish the place to the returning players. Once, even after scoring a match winning 181 against Glamorgan, he had to sit out of the next match, to pave way to the regulars. All these events, and being the 12th man in the side made him to switch the side to Leicester, which he still believes as the gravest mistake he did in his life. He continued his not so good life at Leicester for 4 to 5 years, before taking up assignment to coach college teams, which took him to far of places like South Africa and Nigeria.

The coaching stint also did not last long, before he finally decided to take up umpiring as a full time job. Since, then he did not have to look back. Considered as one of the best umpires in the modern times, he held the distinction of standing over 66 tests and 90 odd one day internationals, including the initial three world cup finals. Respected world over, both by the crowd and the players, Dickie Bird talks about some of his interesting stories in his inimitable humour. One of my favorite is when England was playing Australia , Allan Lamb comes out to bat carrying his mobile phone in his pocket. Instead of taking guard, he came over to the square leg where Dickie was standing and promptly handed over the phone, instructing to take any calls which come, as he is expecting some important calls. As expected, the phone rang and . To his surprise, none other than Ian Botham was at the other end. Came the instruction crips and clear, "Tell that Lamby to play the shots or get out".

His memoirs gives us insight to many such interesting characters in the world cricket, known to us. There are many English players of his era comes in the discussion so are some of the known international players across the continents. Dickie Bird also spend whole lot of pages to the unsung heroes of the cricket. The Groundsmen is one of such team. He covers various groundsmen across England, and shos his admiration to their work. Groundsmen are one such team who are always at the receiving end.

For the fans of cricket, this one interesting book. However, as an autobiography, one can not call this as a good work. It is easy reading, it does keep your interest alive with stories and incidents concerned with your heroes.

Before I end this, I will also give you one more incident narrated by Dickie Bird elsewhere ( not in this book, I guess in an article called 'from the pavilion end')..

"Bomber" Wells, a spin bowler and great character, played for Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire. He used to bat at No.11 since one couldn't bat any lower. Of him, They used to paraphrase Compton's famous words describing and equally inept runner;

"When he shouts 'YES' for a run, it is merely the basis for further negotiations!"

Incidentally, Compton was no better. John Warr said, of Compton "He was the only person who would call you for a run and wish you luck at the same time." Anyway, when Wells played for Gloucs, he had an equally horrendous runner as the No.10. During a county match, horror of horrors.......both got injured. *Both* opted for runners when it was their turn to bat. Bomber played a ball on the off, called for a run, forgot he had a runner and ran himself. Ditto at the other end. In the melee, someone decided that a second run was on. Now we had *all four* running. Due to the confusion and constant shouts of "YES" "NO", eventually, *all* of them ran to the same end. Note - at this point in time, the entire ground is rolling on the floor laughing their behinds out. One of the fielders - brave lad - stops laughing for a minute, picks the ball and throws down the wicket at the other end. Umpire Alec Skelding looks very seriously at the four and calmly informs them "One of you b*****s is out. I don't know which. *You* decide and inform the bloody scorers!".

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My Autobiography ( 1997 )

Harold Dennis Bird ( Dickie Bird) with Keith Lodge

Coronet Books

479 Pages

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It happened in India - Kishore Biyani

I think it was towards the end of 2006. I was on my way to Office and an unexpected traffic jam on the Hosur Road, at the Madiwala Checkpost junction caused all my days plan in a spin. The nerve-centre of the jam was the BIG BAZAAR store situated next to the Forum Mall, which I understood later, have launched another innovative campaign of theirs called 'subse sasta din' or so. The crowd was uncontrollable and spilling over to already heavily trafficked Hosur Road. The visual and print media covered this with lot of enthusiasm and I heard the scenes were as bad if not worse in other centres across the country.

As I was reading again of these incidents in Kishore Biyani's book, it revealed a whole lot of new concepts successfully deployed by his team over the years, which I have seen and dismissed as any other campaigns.

Retail is the catchword these days. With the increase in the income and the all too powerful middle class consumer rise, the avenues to spent have to grow in a similar manner. The growth of organised retail in India has to be discussed along with these lines. Though there are many early entrants in this field, supported and funded by big industrial houses in country, the result , barring in the textile sector (to an extend) hasn't been all that great. Many traditional so called 'departmental store' chains have struggled in scaling up their operations and/or in measuring up to the new bourgeoisie communities demand and aspirations. Many of them have had an early death and few remained, to my understanding, are still struggling for existence. The history of the global players too haven't been all that lucrative.

There are few who remain competitive and prosperous in this environment. Future group is definitely one of them with their 'Pantaloon', 'Big Bazaar' and 'Central' stores. This books is the story of this empire from its early days of conception to the behemoth it is today. Kishore Biyani takes us through his experience of building one of the largest retail empire in India, from near bankruptcy and rejection to be one of the role models of the industry. Being a trader and an in born talent, there is no doubt about his penchant towards business. I was particularly interested in his words on the concept of Big Bazaar, which he attributes to the 'Saravana Stores' in Chennai. The created chaos of the stores, the various campaigns being run by the organisation, the early identification of the demographic split of the customers he planned to target and attract , the meticulous planning of location and the goods to be carried in each stores - all of which are quite impressive. Two things stand out in the whole affair; one his knack in getting the pulse of the buying behaviour of his customers, and the speed and accuracy of execution.

Well, this is not a business study ; we are discussing the book here ! Written and announced as an autobiography, it is more of the story of Future Group and the retail business in general, less on the person by himself. It also carries the testimonials and remarks by his associates, employees, contractors and investors, in the expected lines (!). While not commenting on the business side and the personal side of the book, it is an interesting insight to the changing retail scene and the buying behaviour of the people during one of the most eventful period of India growth story.

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It happened in India
Kishore Biyani ( with Dipayan Baishya)
Rupa PublicationsRs 99
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The Motorcycle Diaries

Watching the movie adaptation of famous literary works have always disappointed me. Barring a few, I always found the experience of reading the book , is far superior and fulfilling to watching the film.

I wonder why. There could be multiple reasons. It could be my limitations...

When I read a book, I give the characters shape according to my understanding and likeliness. The places , people , the atmosphere, time are filled in automatically as per my requirement to give me a sense of being part of the plot. I dictate the tone, the voices to the wording given by the author, I dress them up. I have already visualized the physical , mental , emotional part of the character. I give them the shades of goodness and badness.

If the films does justice to this, that is , to my way of visualizing the novel, I come out satisfied. More often than not, it happens on the contrary.

What we see in the cinematic version of the book is the directors version of the understanding. It is his visualization of the book we get to see. It is his experience, and interpretation. They seldom match at the first time. I'm not suggesting that it is in correct. If you haven't read the book, you might still like it.

Reading a book, thus, become a personal experience. This is guided by multiple factors. It is your experience, your gender, your place of birth and being, your age, your knowledge and education , your growth as a reader ( yes, reading the same book at different ages of your life gives you very different perspective). While cinematic version of popular fiction could be less complicated ( and we are not discussing them), the literary genre fiction for adaptation will be challenging.

Watching "The motorcycle Diaries" made me think in these lines. This movie for one, gave me a very different view. I did not like the book form of "The motorcycle diaries". Yes I understand that it was written when 'Che' was 20 yrs old and was a medical student. Yes , he was in his early ages of his short life, and this journey has helped him in his progression as a revolutionary as they say ; but it failed as a literary work for me. May be, I had high expectations from a 20yr old writer. May be it was Che Guevara's book to me than a medical students diary and letters. But the film was a different story altogether. It impressed me , for its stunning visuals, for its beautifully crafted screen play and dialogues. for its characterization. There aren't many instances where I have liked the adaptation of fiction into movies. The last I remember (as I liked )was "Il Postino" , adaptation of the book written by Antonio Skarmeta.

There are cases where I was impressed with a movie and bought the original fiction. One of the recent such case was "Red Shorgum" by Mo Yan.