By Shashi Tharoor
Arcade Publishing, New York
277 pages
Shashi Tharoor leads two lives; first as Undersecretary General for Comm-unications and Public Information at United Nations and then as a widely praised writer who has been hailed in the New York Times Book Review as "one of the best in a generation of Indian authors."
In Tharoor’s previous works, he explores the many forces that have given meaning to the Indian identity. His most recent work, Bookless In Baghdad, includes 40 essays culled from various publications and covers a broad range of thoughts, insights and observations on the literary life. Tharoor takes the reader inside the various elements that make up his world – a childhood and youth shaped by an all-consuming passion for books and reading, a writer who remains firmly rooted to his homeland and heritage, and a United Nations official who has seen much in the way of human drama – from the reconstruction of East Timor following the withdrawal of Indonesia to the loss of the intellectual soul in war-torn Baghdad, a city that was once known for its literate people and its cosmopolitan way of life.
It has been said that Indians "live in many centuries at once." And that is clearly true of Tharoor. For here is an author who explored the Mahabarata, a 3,000-year-old Indian epic poem, and found its moral lessons still apply to present-day India. As Tharoor explains, "The epic has been an object of adaptation, reinterpretation and expurgation by a number of retellers each seeking to reflect what he saw as relevant to his time." Much to the surprise of his readers, Tharoor went on to write a novel about a Bollywood film star who, behind the glitz of show business, turns out to be much like his audiences, confronting similar issues in life and love. Many were bewildered by the seemingly trivial choice of subject matter. But for this author, Indian cinema provides another vehicle from which to appreciate contemporary social realities, as well as an alternative way of looking at India. Bollywood, both as an industry and an art form, has spawned many of India’s pop icons and role models. That the BBC has recently shown lengthy features on Indian cinema, along with its top directors, producers and leading actors, is an indication of how pervasive the industry has become. It is one medium by which the world sees India. And it is a side of India, Tharoor writes, " where myth and escapist fantasy intertwine and moral righteousness almost invariably triumphs with the closing credits."
In Bookless in Baghdad, as Tharoor looks back at his works, he gives the reader a penetrating look at Indian history and culture. India and all its aspects is one of today’s big stories, yet it has always been such for Tharoor. It is, after all, a civilization that gave rise to two of the world’s oldest religions, a culture defined by multiple strands of philosophy and thought. A land blessed with a rich geographical palette, a crossroads of many languages, dialects, and diverse ethnic groups. "India," he writes," is greater than the sum of its parts." It is this idea of India that has provided writers with a rich reservoir of material and a boundless source of inspiration. And it is undoubtedly one of the many forces that propelled India to stake her claim as an emerging power of South Asia – a nation teeming with a highly educated workforce who are the heirs to great religious and philosophical traditions found in its old epics, sacred texts and embodied in the ageless wisdom of men, like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawarhalal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore.
Globalization may be a recent phenomenon for the world, but India and its people have lived with waves of cultural interchanges for centuries. In Tharoor’s view, globalization should go beyond its economic focus to a socio-cultural awareness that allows people to consider multiple realities. From the tragic events of 9/11, we know that there is no place or no set of circumstances so remote that it does not somehow affect our lives. Globalization must therefore work on both tracks. The 21st century, Tharoor tells us, will be what he calls, a "one-world century," accompanied by the growing realization that the challenges of our time are global in nature and in their reach, and as such requires a shared responsibility by the global community. Literature, as Tharoor sees it, must play a vital role in bringing the human condition to light, allowing us to see the smaller picture and to look to the plight of ordinary men who are the first and last objects of all public policy. In so doing, it helps build a truly integrated world that globalization seeks to achieve. Tharoor puts it simply yet speaks to its very essence: " A world in which it is easier to meet strangers must also become a world in which it is easier than ever before to see strangers as no different from ourselves."
One of the most poignant stories told here, takes the title of the book. It is a moving account of how treasured volumes from the personal libraries of well-born Iraqis are sold in a "Book Souk" on the streets of Baghdad. For the war had taken its toll on the fortunes of the educated elite and their very survival depended on the sale of these prized objects. It is another tragic episode in a nation that labors under the devastation of war, decades of tyrannical rule, ethnic divisions and a growing insurgency problem even as it remains at the center of the geopolitical power struggles of our day. Oddly enough, Tharoor learns that the book bazaar located along Al Mutanabi Street was named after the legendary tenth century poet, Tayyeb Mutanabi who once wrote, " I forgive time its sins, if it maintains friendships and safeguards books." Another potent symbol of the withering intellectual spirit in Baghdad was seen in the decay of the statue of Scheherazade, the famous storyteller of the Arabian Nights. The site where it stood was deserted and its grounds lay in neglect as Tharoor recounts and sadly he tells us that, " the city of the fabled Caliph, Haroun al-Rasheed, patron of the arts was now neglecting its own stories- as if with harsh reality pressing down upon it, even literary Baghdad could no longer seek solace in the magic of myth."
Beyond this heartrending tale from Baghdad, Tharoor’s reflects on the lives of literary figures whose voices and views have made an impact across the world - among them are Salman Rushdie and Pablo Neruda. Salman Rushdie was among the first in a generation of Indian writers to fully explore the wealth of his cultural heritage in a way that embraces all the forms and expressions of being Indian. Tharoor distills the complexity of both the man and his works thus: " both in his life and his writing, he has stood for intermingling and interchange, displacement and transfiguration, migration and renewal." Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet was a man of deep conviction as he was a man of action, serving his country as a diplomat and a politician. Neruda, the romantic poet later became a staunch advocate of social justice. After denouncing the tyranny of government leaders in a scathing newspaper article and an incendiary speech before the Senate, he was forced to go into hiding and lived underground for a year before fleeing on horseback to Argentina, carrying a manuscript of his poems known as " Canto General". Following the fall of the Allende government, the military raided his home. As he lay on his deathbed, he plainly told the commanding officer, "There is only one thing of danger for you here- my poetry!" Such men and writers saw the world through very different prisms, each holding up social and political realities as they found it. Which leads up to the subject of political literature, particularly to those literary figures who ascended to political power. There is Vaclav Havel, the playwright who became President of Czechoslovakia, the Nicaraguan novelist, Sergio Ramirez who stood for re-election as Vice-President of his country and the Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa who made an unsuccessful bid for the top post in the land. What gives way to the union of literature and politics? Oppressive political systems often breeds great literary minds- few other things can stand up to the power of the sword. Vaclav Havel as quoted by Tharoor once said: " I inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking down the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions…" While some might take issue with that statement, it is nonetheless true that some of the works of the world’s finest writers have been forged in a climate of political repression.
It is a tall order to probe into deeper realities, to ask the hard questions in an effort to stir a nation’s consciousness. Perhaps those whose task is to reveal the truth should leave the business of governance and leadership to others as Tharoor suggests. Perhaps literature should serve to illuminate their path, and that alone is significant and sufficient.
But in the last analysis who does a writer write for? Who is his audience? And in this case, can an Indian writer born in London, educated in India and the United States speak to us all? Are his realities relevant at all to our lives? The best authors show us that the world has grown smaller and that we have to live with many truths- sometimes all at once. Somewhere in the complexity of Indian life, we see at least a part of ourselves. We all live with varying degrees of diversity and tolerance- not on the scale or scope of the Indian experience, but surely as a consequence of an increasing interdependent world. With the range of thoughts presented here, of subjects so remote from our sphere of life, who might take an interest in this book? For a start, there are those who love to read and those who are fascinated with the literary process. Then there are others who might be taken with the subject of India, if not with the many encounters that invariably shapes a writer’s thinking and his perceptions. Tharoor hopes that would be just about most of us. Reading through "Bookless In Baghdad" is thoroughly absorbing as Tharoor draws us into to a world that is no longer his alone but is ours to share.