The Great Indian Agrarian Distress - What is the way forward?

“How agonised we are when people die, and how untroubled we are by how they live.” -        P. Sainath

By the time India won freedom in 1947 after about 600 years of colonial rule, she and her majorly agrarian populace was badly battered and bruised. It has been 72 years hence, but the Indian farmers continue to writhe in the shackles of inequity, fettered by maladministered policies.

According to the Economic Survey released in 2018, roughly half of India resort to agriculture for livelihood. We have some of the most fertile land in the world such as the Gangetic plains. Though our food export basket may not be very diverse, India is only second after China in terms of the global food export volume. The government also regularly rolls out a number of policies and schemes to handhold the sector. Why then is the total agricultural contribution to the country’s GDP less than 17%? Why is it that the farmers still suffer from extreme climatic vulnerability, high price volatility, indebtedness and exploitation?

Although half the country is directly involved in agriculture, most of it is considered to be seasonal or disguised employment with very low per capita productivity and remuneration.  But it also true that any shortfall in the yearly urban to rural migration of labour destroys the entire supply chain activity, starting with the inability to harvest crops on time. This points to the abysmal state of farm mechanization in the country, mostly a result of extremely fragmented land holdings. Even if one manages to harvest, storage becomes the next perplexing conundrum. This is being demonstrated live across the country in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic that reinstates the age old saying, that the poor always get the short end of the stick.  Besides this, the practiced form of agriculture is highly unproductive with huge information asymmetry when it comes to suitable cropping, soil health and irrigation, while facilities for the same are sanctioned and implemented only on paper. The governments' urban driven policies signal that the rural farmer will always receive second class treatment, be it in terms of access to infrastructure or price fixing. Many propose policy reforms or technological advancements as a solution to this conundrum. This calls for retrospection.

Shortly after independence, government undertook land reforms to address the dismal state of agriculture in the country, albeit without success. This included abolishing intermediary interests such as the Zamindari system, introducing tenancy reforms to weed out the issue of insecure tenancy, imposing land ceiling to curb concentration of vast amounts of land among a few, and consolidating fragmented land holdings to check its uneconomic nature.

But the focus of the policy makers soon shifted to industrialization as a means to eradicate rural poverty and boost economic growth, and agriculture was left to fend for itself. Reaffirming what Thomas Malthus observed way back in the 1700s, the population grew exponentially while agriculture continued to snail in a linear fashion. The resultant food insecurity paved the path for Green revolution in the country.

While Green Revolution is considered to have achieved resounding success in creating a surplus in the country’s food reserves by focusing on the productivity, it was not accompanied by systemic measures or policy changes to improve the condition of the small and marginal farmers who make up almost 80% of the farming community. While there was a rise in the net per capita income by 190% soon after, this was limited to the bigger farmers of a few geographic areas like Punjab, UP and Haryana. But a 150% rise in input cost followed, plaguing all farmers irrespective of size of land holdings. Along with a short-lived respite from hunger, there emerged widened income inequality, inequitable distribution of assets and unnecessary mechanization that pushed down rural wages.

This reiterates the fact that technicalization of agriculture or sweeping policy changes are not panaceas to agrarian distress. They must be accompanied by the availability of markets, quality roads, avenues of value addition and access to fair prices in a steady market.

45% of the consumption in the FMCG sector is accounted for by rural households. Thus, a boost in the agrarian economy could just be the answer to most of India’s economic and developmental concerns. If the government is serious about its promise of doubling farmer incomes by 2022, the way forward is not by band-aid policies of loan waivers or transfer payments. It needs a multi-pronged approach of cooperative federalism from the Centre and the State governments, to integrate and implement the various disjointed schemes that currently function independently of one another. When data says 40% of the produce is almost always lost to post production losses, the policy makers should understand that increasing productivity is not synonymous with improving incomes or living standards. It involves revisiting the fundamentals to provide for what the system is lacking in – be it facilitating adequate forward linkage points, ensuring a market for the produce, ensuring availability of basic infrastructure, connectivity, and also diversification of secondary income sources like dairy, poultry and fisheries.

We shall try and explore further the widely proposed solutions in the coming weeks. 

Jekyll and Hyde: The Good, The Bad, The Human

The good and bad that coexists within a single human shell is something that philosophy and literature have long been exploring. While it is mostly undisputed that both these elements do exist simultaneously in each being, some schools of thought argue that circumstances sprout evil in people; others claim humans have an innate tendency to be aggressive but are bound by the laws of civilization and society to keep the beast within leashed.

Of the latter, the most influential and interesting in my knowledge has been Freud who claimed that the drive to aggress is deeply rooted in the psyche and thus independent of circumstances. As a result people have an innate desire or need to inflict harm or damage and this desire needs to be fulfilled periodically, in one form or the other. He went as far as to regard self control as a form of aggression, as one deprives oneself of other satisfactions via restraints. Thus, self control was an effective but costly way of inflicting self damage to quench a need which might otherwise translate to harm on another.

Be it films or literature, there are a lot of works existent and upcoming that endeavour to explore this topic. RL Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde (of course of which Hulk was not a total ripoff of ), William Golding's Lord of the flies that tries to understand the conflict between the instinct for savagery and the construct of civilization that aims to the contain the former, Padmarajan's Jayakrishnan of Thoovanathumbikal who leads a dual life reserving carnal pleasures for the city away from his daily societal acquaintances and family in the village, David Fincher's Tyler Durden of the Fight Club, or the very recent and spectacular Jallikkettu from Lijo Jose Pellissery are a few I can recollect from the top of my head.

         

Originally published in 1886, Jekyll and Hyde was a book of such controversial nature that book shop owners outrightedly rejected stocking it. An initial narration by the author to his wife ends with the manuscript burning in the fireplace. This was though Stevenson omits any gory details on the kind of misdeeds committed by Mr. Edward Hyde, the  evil alter ego of the respected Dr. Henry Jekyll, described as someone who could be approached by none "without a visible misgiving of the flesh". This he conjectures is because all human beings are usually made of good and bad, "but Hyde alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil". But to Jekyll, the creator, Hyde was a part of himself and as he looked upon the ugly idol in the glass on which "evil had left an imprint of decay and deformity", he could feel no repugnance, only a leap of welcome.

The novella of hardly a hundred pages, explores the predicament of the doctor at length, torn between being himself in Mr. Hyde and the fear of exposing and endangering himself from the society that tries to cage  the Hydes that exist within and around themselves. 

It must be apparent from all the direct quotes above that I am already a fan of the writing.  While descriptive, it is succint. While verbose, it isn't forced. If you have a day or two to spare and is in search of a good read to get those grey cells exercised, this may just be it.

Ardhra Prakash

(16th October 2019)

Unlearning

Picture Courtesy: Vaibhavi Garge

Air quotes naturally accompany our every utterance of the name Eengapuzha village. 24 square kilometres in area, with a mostly non agrarian populace of over 18,000 people and thus already way outside the scope of the census definition of rural, this not so quaint town was our allotted "village" for Village Field Segment of our curriculum. It stood out starkly from all the other villages we had visited as part of the PGDRM program at IRMA and not without reason. The village had wide, tarred roads, around 4200 households that mostly had multi-storeyed homes, owned at least one car, had access to specialized medical facilities including a dialysis centre, an array of commercial eateries, and even housed a mostly lively, mall.

But the most traumatized by this were my companions, two very enterprising intellectuals who had just hard earned their undergraduation degrees from TISS, after three years of serving the poorest of the poor in West and Central Indian villages, occasionally risking their lives and jumping fences to access the only toilet in the region in order to avoid open defecation.

The first two days of our stay in a mansion like accommodation on-field, only involved us trying to make sense of how we were to design a village development report given the place seemed nothing like a village. Another concern was how no picture clicked in the vicinity would convey rurality, along the lines of what we were taught in college. So, imagine how ecstatic all three of us found ourselves to be when we chanced upon a muddy inroad, with no traces of tarring intact and interspersed with as many potholes as to our heart’s content. Add to this, there were no signs of any wealthy inhabitation or economic development marring the frame. We snapped away to glory until one of us pointed out our behaviour was bizarre to say the least.

This is precisely why this photograph is important to us as a team of prospective rural managers. That when faced with something unlike our typical understanding of the concept, rather than appreciating the welcome deviation from the rule that Indian villages had to be the hubs of poverty and underdevelopment, and analysing the fundamental ways the transformation was achieved, we were in frantic search of any element, however small, how much ever an exception, that would cement our pre existing notion of how things had to be. So, as the sky darkened around us, we revelled at how the potholes in the pictures reflected the pretty dusk clouds and agreed how our sadistic selves should be acknowledging the accomplishments of underdogs more often.

Ardhra Prakash

(9th October,2019)

Take a left where the map says right

Where are we even headed to?

Moving at the speed of light

So numbed down, 

we hardly feel the flight.

Driving around in a maze

Pretending we could trust the map

Handed to us, so we're stuck in this loop, 

wearied out, lobotomized.

Tinted windows never rolled down

Too afraid to let the wind ramble

For it might tell you truths that hurt

Truths you block out, for comfort. 

Never letting the naked eye see

Zombies behind a camera lens

Painting dull frames with pretty hues

Thank God for filters that mask the blues. 

Building walls around you thick and high

Of caste, of colour and injected hate. 

Pointing a gun at the figure ahead

Not knowing it's you on a shadow screen. 

Never the sail fully opened out

Too scared the wind might slow you down

Or take you to waters not marked out

To islands that don't house your tepid towns.

Scared to stop for even just a while

Lest you fall behind on track

What a shame it would be to slack

To not be part of the winning pack. 

But it is a race you can never win

You're always short by a foot, by an inch. 

And if you reach the mountain top

There are higher ones to climb, to scour.

This is a game you can never win

Designed to make you think you can. 

So sit back, relax, 

Roll down that glass

Feel the wind as it knots your hair

Listen to it sing, open your ears. 

Take a left where the map says right

Learn to let go of things you were told to hold tight. 

One day may be you'll reach somewhere

From where you needn't run in despair.

- Ardhra Prakash
 (July, 2019)

Belonging

I don't really understand it when people talk of wanting to belong. 

I like being a tourist

Fleeting past people and places

Backpack on, water bottle on the side, a sling bag with the essentials

All that I need for a few days to come.

I like being a tourist

I like meeting the strangest of people and 

pretending not to understand a word they say to avoid a conversation

I smile and nod and look away

I couldn't do that to my own

I wouldn't have homes to come back to then. 

I like being a tourist

To not be part of anybody's world

But be a visitor

To see you put on your best behavior for me 

Or sometimes even be ignored

With no burden of a meeting ever again

No burden of the need to collect favors for a rainy day.

I like being a tourist

Thinking passively about a home I collect souvenirs for

A home I can't wait to get away from

And a home I can't wait to get back to

Only to want out again.

Am I even a tourist, but? 

What is my destination? 

Does it matter where I am heading?

As long as I have the open road ahead of me 

And quick change to get me by

And a home to head back to

Do I even need to introspect?

It doesn't matter where I go, what I do, 

It's this few hours of detachment that counts.

This freedom and the high it brings. 

The freedom of not having to belong
The freedom of not having to perform

The freedom of not being a guest at your own home

The freedom of being just someone you meet in a bus

Only to forget.

- Ardhra Prakash

  (February, 2019)

God's Own Country to Country Of Gods: Kerala's Survival Story

Read about how Malayalis and the world came together to pick Kerala up from one of the worst disasters of the century below. Report for The Incisive Journal, from Kerala.

 “It is a terrible time to be alive in a terrible world. I have decided not to procreate. My progenies deserve better than what the world now could offer them.” I declared to my mother the other day. She nodded routinely as she continued the postprandial drill in the kitchen. I reiterated that I was serious as I scrubbed away grease from a pan aggressively. She reminded me that she was listening. This pattern of dialogue happened regularly. I had given up hope in the world. But the past week makes me rethink.

Kerala and its rains are inseparable. Monsoons are welcomed with great familiarity. The amount of rain it receives annually is thrice as much as the national average. Apart from the fact that it feeds most of our 44 rivers enough to keep us green throughout the year, only marring the map with isolated water logging, it has also been a part of cult literature. What better example than P. Padmarajan’s Thoovanathumbikal and its “rain swept love”. Rain is as much a meaty character in the saga as it has been in our lives. This was my first monsoon back home in years. I have to be honest. Mumbai monsoons are not as enticing as movies make it sound, to someone from Kerala. Naturally, I was as happy as I could be to relive it. This monsoon too was pretty uneventful excepting a few incidents of water logging and flooding in Kuttanad, an area that is always hit. That was until the 8th of August, 2017.

Incessant rains lashed the state, now estimated at a 164% excess in just the last one month. Rains flashed a face of it to us that we were hardly familiar with. The excitement of watching the sluice gates of Idukki Dam open after 26 years soon turned to anxiety and anguish. Landslides and mountain erosion in various parts of Kerala added to the severity. 35 out of the 42 dams  in the state were now open simultaneously. The rains showed no signs of subsiding. Rivers swelled with flood waters taking down 12 of the 14 districts. Even after continuous warnings, cautions and alerts, most of Kerala was caught unprepared – the rich and poor alike.

Disasters have always been something I have watched on the news and sympathized with. Nothing too real. Just enough to may be make me contribute to a relief fund set up. On the morning after the 71st Independence Day of India, Malayalis all over were busy connecting to friends and family spread across the state. Some were trapped in their buildings, others trying to move out of it. Regional news channels were abuzz with horrifying telecasts of the flood and the allied rescue operations. The state forces already in alert were up and active and were soon joined by the central defence in how much ever numbers they were deployed in, but compared to the sheer magnitude of impact, it felt like a needle in a hay stack. Government machinery functioned meticulously, spreading helpline numbers, delivering accurate hourly updates via social media handles. Meanwhile, water kept devouring entire houses and soon we realized that this was a disaster like never before. By the end of the day desperate calls for rescue began appearing on social media either posted by victims themselves as the last of their phone battery drained away or by relatives or friends panicking as they lost contact with trapped kin. Hours of uncertainty followed.

Let me pause and circle back to where we started. To the fundamental question of whether I would procreate? May be, yes, I now would. What changed my mind? People around me did.

As soon as calamity struck, I watched in awe as local people stepped into ground zero without second thoughts, putting together make shift rescue boats and floats. Using storage barrels to inflated tires, to making human barricades held together by trust and sweat, they helped thousands to safety, either assisting the existing rescue forces or by themselves. No one waited for orders or promises of rewards and accolades. They just took charge.

Social media was instantly put to good use. There was an explosion of, mind you, all valuable information, from a constant supply of helpline numbers to sharing google map locations or coordinates of victims. When non-resident Malayalis posted panic stricken messages about how they lost contact to their families, they were immediately pacified by hundreds who helped share information until they reached the right hands. I remember making around four calls that day to rescue teams to report stranded families of people I have never seen before and bursting into bouts of happiness when someone retracted a post announcing the families had been rescued. Meme pages that are constantly accused by the older generation as nothing but mere distractions, turned into control rooms orchestrating rescue operations. Actors, comedians, comic creators or simply put, anyone with a sizable social media following became a source of information. Brilliantly, IT department of the government launched keralarescue.in to integrate the activities of government officials and volunteers. Anbodu Kochi, an initiative that started in 2015 to extend support to Chennai during floods, had already started the groundwork for the next important phase after Rescue – Relief. And while the national media seemed to want to disregard the catastrophe, individuals circulated the news via social media to gain national and international attention and assistance. Local news channels refrained from third rate ‘discussions and debates’ and stuck to reporting the situation at ground zero with the help of their many brave and driven journalists. Take notes, national media!

From flood affected areas came out stories of trapped families redirecting rescue workers to more vulnerable areas especially single storied houses where the inhabitants now had nowhere to go as water gushed above the ground floor into the terraces, thereby prioritizing and ensuring that relief was received where most needed. I heard of people determined to survive, rationing supplies among the many present, collecting rainwater to drink and pacifying each other. I am sure all of us were jittery as we saw a woman in labour being lifted into the helicopter, who was dropped at a hospital just in time to deliver a hale and hearty baby. Many such stories, some heart wrenching, some heart-warming, filled the news.

Soon enough, came the most important of all the heroes Kerala witnessed in the last few days. The Fishermen. The ones who really picked us all back up from despair.  As soon as the news of the gravity of the situation spread, 2884 men picked up 642 boats and traversed long distances from as far as Thiruvananthapuram over trucks to reach affected areas of Thrissur, Pathanamthitta and Ernakulam districts. They cruised through unknown lands of varying water levels, all in the hope that their valuable skills of handling rough waters, would help them through the harsh currents to save lives. And they did so splendidly. Of the two lakh rescued from severely flooded areas, it is estimated that more than a lakh have been by these heroes, without capes, but with paddles and propellers. Many were injured in the process and their boats were severely damaged. But they smile heartily sharing that they were even prepared to sacrifice their own lives if they had to, to save another. Kerala just can’t seem to find enough words to thank their own “army” as they have been rightly described by the chief minister, Shri. Pinarayi Vijayan.

                                            

Pinarayi Vijayan. He will always be remembered as the man who kept Kerala away from scattering into a million panic-stricken pieces at the time of a calamity of this magnitude. I often joke that this man has been suffering since he pledged to be our chief minister. Ockhi cyclone in 2017, Nippah outbreak earlier this year and now the worst flood Kerala saw in a century. Had he panicked or not had his well-oiled machinery prepared to carry out every bit of his action plan to the best of human ability, the extend of death and destruction would have been much higher. He remembered to be self-assured in the face of uncertainty and lead us into believing that we, as a team, were enough. That is a lesson I shall take with me to my grave.

                                                         

Officials worked round the clock. Rescue operations went late into the night only pausing briefly until day break due to visibility issues. The teams flung into action again at the break of dawn since a single second wasted could mean another life lost. Army and Navy helicopters had the difficult task of rescuing people from the rooftops of houses inaccessible by boats due to extremely harsh water currents, while ensuring that the wind did not cause further damage to rooftops and roofing sheets and thereby to humans near it. From cabinet ministers to opposition leaders and party members, everyone were directly involved in coordinating the rescue and relief efforts. MPs, MLAs and members of local bodies ensured their constant presence and extended cooperation by uniting beyond petty politics. The health department under the very efficient Shailaja Teacher focused on ensuring medical assistance in camps and containing the spread of water borne diseases that usually follow catastrophes such as these. Revenue department employees worked through the night scanning through piles of information and let me not forget to mention the Kerala State Electricity Board employees who worked through pouring rains to re-establish electricity at times of power failure to assist rescue and avoid casualties via electrocution from damaged wires. A big salute to all of the Kerala Police Force who have been working tirelessly for days now. Though underappreciated, they are still very much involved with rescue and maintaining law and order through these tough times.

The young and feisty District Collectors were at the forefront inspiring, invigorating and integrating volunteers and relief activities. Most importantly they made sure that no one took undue advantage of the calamity. Shopkeepers marking up prices excessively at the time of shortage were caught red handed. In case individuals were reluctant to hand over resources vital to rescue, it was ordered to be handed over to the police.

But the most inspiring thing about the past one week has been that we managed to find the true meaning of the word “heroism” and we managed to find it inside each one of us. When I started making calls to random numbers I was passed on by another set of strangers, most of who were not even physically present in the state, to see if I would be able to manage any resources at all for my town which was cut off from the rest of the world, I was instantly linked to a group of similar individuals and groups trying to do their bit just like me. And together I felt we could move mountains if we wanted. I came across individuals who transferred materials and money to each other without having spoken previously at all, united by a need to overcome. I spoke to people who were constantly travelling from camp to camp, chipping in whatever meagre amount they could, losing out on valuable days of work. None of us asked each other of our political preferences, skin colour, affluence, caste or religion and any similar attributes attached to us by mere accident of birth.

And when there were, as my friend rightly and profoundly said, “thoughtless morons who could be considered outliers compared to the sizable number at the centre,” who were spreading gross and selfish 
lies disregarding the damage and impact, we pacified each other reminding this was not the time to be distracted. This was the time to move ahead of what happened, to move forward, to “make history.”

  

You can help us rebuild and rehabilitate the lives of  hundreds among us by making donations at  https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/ . Every rupee counts. Remember, together we can move mountains!

(Please note that I do not own the rights to any photographs above. Please let me know if you have an objection with me using your creatives and we shall get it removed as soon as possible.)

#disaster #disasterrelief #kerala

Ardhra Prakash
(21st August, 2018)

Why Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund?

Kerala has been reeling under monsoon fury. According to official reports, the infrastructure loss has been estimated at close to Rs. 20,000 crores. Please donate to the best of your ability to the chief minister's relief fund, however small it might be.

Prayers and gratitude to the volunteers, forces and officers who have been doing a meticulous job saving others while risking their lives and even the back end team for providing timely information and instructions regarding rescue and relief every hour of the day.

                              

To pinpoint, you could say Kerala floods started on the 8th of August. Soon enough the Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund was announced and contributions were encouraged. Be it people within the state or all the kind hearted friends from other parts of India flooding me with calls of anxiety about our safety and a will to extend help, a common response I receive to suggestions to donate to the CMDRF is whether it is trustworthy. Let me explain why it is

1. Accurate accounts of funds received and utilized need to be furnished in the legislative assembly.

2. Anyone can access full information on the transactions on the find via RTI and thus is transparent.

3. Directly controlled by the state government who are in touch with the requirements of the citizens. Over the last 2 years, 435 crores have been distributed among 2.35 lakh people as disaster relief.

4. Wellswishers get 100% tax exemption on the amount donated.

Personally I feel that rather than donations dissipating to a million smaller funds, seems like it is easier to keep track of one fund. Any fund we donate to could be misused. But this one seems more accountable and is required for infrastructural development.

The magnitude of damage inflicted by the flood is unprecedented. Leaving apart rescue and relief work which in itself is costly, the state is now faced with the Herculean task of rebuilding infrastructure and rehabilitating the displaced, through out the state. The damage has been estimated at about 20000 crores as of yesterday. Even if we are to undertake the redevelopment on a war time basis, it is going to take this small state years to get life back to normalcy and back into the path of development.

Hope this helps put out doubts from your mind with regards to the dependability of Chief Minister's relief fund and contribute as much as you can.

To donate

: https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/

or NEFT/IMPS/RTGS

Bank : State Bank Of India
Account Number : 67319948232
IFSC Code : SBIN0070028

#WeShallOvercome

What Maketh A Good Book? ft. Nicotine By Nell Zink With The Incisive Journal

What makes a book, a good book for you? Find more about about how Nell Zink's Nicotine proved to be a reading milestone for me here.

What makes a book, a good book?

This question floated into my brain an early November morning and left me perplexed. I had just put down Nell Zink’s much acclaimed fourth novel Nicotine a few days prior and wanted to review it. But I was just as confused about the book after I was done with it, as I was while reading it. Is this a good book? I was clueless. So, I looked up the definition of a good book and even randomly put this question to some people I know who read.

Google showed me some articles that provided tips to guarantee the flawless book – catchy opening, solid storyline, good characterisation and it went on and on. As to the real people I had approached, the initial replies were mainly suggestions and their type of preferred genre. I made myself clearer. I wanted to know what made a book of any genre appealing to them. What makes them smile after they are done with a book and lock them up in their heads not to be forgotten soon but to be shared among others as intimate suggestions? Though it took some time for everyone to get over the randomness of that question and tell me crudely what made them love a book, they all made sense.

Before Nicotine

I used to prefer, note the past tense, beautiful writing, not too complex that like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice described by fellow social cataloguer as “language that could be beautiful, ends up difficult to decipher and you find yourself going back to those paragraphs again and again only to be left unsatisfied” or not too simple like say Chetan Bhagat who chews your steak for you. Books with a definite story line – an introduction, the build-up, the climax, not necessarily in the same order. Yes, multilinear and multiple narratives.  Naïve me thought I was an adventurous reader because I was happy with these multi-s in my read. I required humour, philosophy, drama, realism and all in the right proportions for me to like a book.

Age of Nicotine – my forbidden fruit.

But just like how the forbidden fruit changed the course of humanity post the original sin,  Nell Zink’s Nicotine changed it all. It showed me that a writer is not supposed to give a rat’s arse about what the reader wants and the reader is not supposed to tell a writer how to do their job. My reading graph after Nicotine hereby shall be divided into 3 eras – Before Nicotine, Age of Nicotine and After Nicotine and I had not one clue when I purchased it. Nicotine was supposed to be a funny, easy read.

Briefly, Nicotine is about a very young business graduate Penny who loses her very old and rich Dad and is suddenly out in the world without a purpose. Jobless, homeless and suffering from PTSD, Penny is manipulated by her family consisting of her young mother and two half brothers to reclaim their ruined ancestral property now occupied with squatters who have come together by a common love for tobacco, so strong, they name their home Nicotine. The very squatters become her new family and welcomes her to their anarchic, confusing but supposedly driven by a cause life.  It is not the perfect book. It is named after Nicotine but rarely gave much importance to it other than a lot of mentions. It is hard to relate to at times. It becomes the anarchy it tries to portray, may be intentionally. It strays from the path off and on, making the pseudo progressive in me uncomfortable.

The story starts off promising a typical American coming off age movie. As Penny introduces herself as a fellow homeless anarchist to the squatters at Nicotine, you expect the tried and tested trivia of pretences and the attached drama once the truth is unmasked generally towards the end of the story but you are not served what you expect. The truth is revealed to the inhabitants of Nicotine by a third person pretty soon into the book and there are no tears, yelling or talks of betrayal. They all shrug their shoulders and get busy.

Another interesting part is when Amalia, the young mother tries to describe her take on the cosmic snake. Penny is trying hard to make a moment out of it. She wants her mother to make sense. Just like she had just corrected Penny’s assumption that in a sexual relationship between a 16 year old boy and a 12 year old girl, the older male doesn’t necessarily have to be the abuser and it could be the other way just as much. Penny is pretty flawed, confused and lost throughout the story just like the reader I was throughout the book and the ending really doesn’t change that. You could even say that is exactly the type of reader I was with this book.

If you look at other reviews of Nicotine by professionals, like the New York Times or the Guardian, they all seem to say the same thing. The book is a mess. There is no binding story line, the plotline is actually rather bizarre and not very satisfactory owing to the fact that it never really gets anywhere. The characters are fresh but they don’t change dramatically for the good or bad over the time period of the story but rather merely gets by every day. What else could I say about a novel where the protagonist takes up a bank job while conveniently living as a squatter to save upon rent? Where’s the betterment and where’s the redemption? May be this complete lack of reverence to any binding norms is what makes this book so special. It is fresh and it is funny.

After Nicotine

But as a writer Nell Zink is the right dose of funny, serious, sarcastic, silly and refreshing. The book is not a treat to my brain who demands a story. But it is unputdownable (add to dictionary) and hilarious, at the same time thought provoking but not preachy. Hell yes, I am suddenly more open to books not conforming to my idea of writing and that I think is our most remarkable achievement as the reader- writer duo and now I am a proud peruser ready to take up more unconventional reads. 

May be this is what books are supposed to do – give the comfortable reader a slap across the face and ask them to stop being so boring, help you evolve as a reader.  Many thanks, Nell Zink, I may not love your book and might not rate it a 5 star if I had to, but I would always be thankful for it.

Ardhra Prakash

26th November 2017

"Exit West By Mohsin Hamid: Refugee Crisis Through Magical Realism"

Find my extended review of Mohsin Hamid's Exit West for The Incisive Journal here. Disclaimer:  This article contains spoilers.  Skip paragraphs 6 and 7 to avoid them.

I am a bibliophile. But what I also am is broke through most of the month. A very normal condition for someone who recently changed jobs, have to pay rent and put food in their tummy while  living a couple of states away from the parents who once did all this for me only to be taken for granted until a brief time away. So, when I came across Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West impacting readers across the world in my Social Cataloging Site and driving Bookstagrammers crazy in my Instagram, I am not proud of it but I sent puppy eyed messages to my loving father asking him to order it for me. And he did. I got back home after a few long months and my father presented me with this perfect welcome back “gift.” Exit West is my first Mohsin Hamid book but certainly not the last.

Let’s forget for a minute, the beauty of the writing, the literary treat the book offers. Relevance is one of the biggest achievements of this book.

According to the UN High Commissioner for refugees, more than 65 million people have been displaced from their country of residence and/or origin, due to social and political conflicts, violence or human rights violations. This is the highest ever since World War II, constituted mainly by 5 nations – Syria, Afghanistan, The Lake Chad Basin, South Sudan and Somalia. The book stands wildly significant for me being from a country where the idea of burning Rohingya Muslims alive is applauded by privileged apathetic trolls bend over their computers and iPhones hurling abuses and threats, wherein we could’ve ended up on the wrong side of the border just as easily, by mere accident of birth. The same accident that lets me complain about being broke while I can very well feed, shelter, clothe myself well in a world where that remains a luxury to many.

In this beautiful book, Mohsin Hamid talks about the fate of millions of Nadia’s and Saeed’s, our protagonists, pot smoking youngsters from “a city swollen by refugees, but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war” in an unspecified country. Nadia is the independent working woman who chose being abandoned by her family over being a slave to nonsensical societal norms and propriety, daring to earn and live alone while Saeed is homelier and more conservative but when they meet and discover their budding love in a world that was just beginning to fall apart around them, they decided to hold onto each other a little tighter. Their seemingly normal lives are soon shaken by civil war from where magical doors take them to refugee camps across the globe here they need to build their lives from the handful of belongings they could fit into a backpack. These magical doors, guarded by the militants or the military, hard to find and expensive to get through, are a convenient metaphor to un-complicate a complicated, twisted reality, the migratory journey itself.  The story focuses on how the world and the people in it matures around these god forsaken times rather than the journey itself. But beyond the label of refugees, migrants and religion, Saeed and Nadia are human beings, youngsters, just like you and me, excited by that song, a magic mushroom, a tight rolled joint. Like it could’ve been you or me.

And while you relax thanking god for having been spared of these casually yet powerfully conveyed perils of 65 million fellow humans, he tells you, “…. everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time….and when we migrate, we murder from our lives the ones we leave behind.”

It also gets to me how subtly he takes us through the life of the once passionate couple as they grow apart unable to preserve what they had once, to remain unscathed after the tiresome journey that almost consumed them. “In the late afternoon, Saeed went to the top of the hill, and Nadia went to the top of the hill, and there they grazed out over the island, and out to the sea, and he stood beside where she stood and she stood beside where he stood and the wind tugged and pulled at their hair, and they looked around at each other, but they did not see each other, for she went up before him and he went up after her, and they were each at the crest of the hill only briefly, and at different times.”

No, it is not a happy ending for Nadia and Saeed’s romance. But it is a happy ending for the individuality and friendship they share. Of course I did feel uncomfortable reading the ending where the protagonists does not rekindle their relationship and walk holding hands towards the sunset. But that’s just the years of conditioning our movies and literature inflicted on us, reiterating the notion that the boyalways gets the girl. But maybe, it’s not about the boy and the girl and if they end up in each other’s arms at the end of the day. May be it is about how the boy and the girl blossomed into who they are today. Survivors with a journey they could be proud of. Chillingly casual and hauntingly mundane in the midst of the end of worlds, this book is definitely a good read.

Ardhra Prakash(14th Novemeber 2017)