Manneys of Pune - Beating the Retreat

As many Pune readers would know by now, the iconic Pune bookstore "Manneys" is closing down soon (in March 2012). "Manneys" has been an old Pune favourite, partly because of its vintage (about 50 years old) and partly for being one of those bookstores that is tagged as having "rare/arbit/you won't find it at Crossword" books i.e. a snob value that the more discerning book-reader can flaunt. According to Mr. Manik Mani, the owner, he is not shutting the place down because the Joe Foxes have run him out of business, but because it took up valuable time that he'd now rather devote to his family and other pursuits.

I personally had an ambivalent relationship with it. My commercial engagement with books revolves around discovery, (physical) accessibility, and affordability. Both the first and the last have decisively shifted online. I also made heavy use of the 2-3 libraries I subscribed to, and thanks to Landmark's sponsorship of quizzes, I usually had coupons to the store right across the road. Also Manneys was shut on Sundays, the price of being run by an individual who also prized life-outside-work.

The term "old-fashioned" to describe stores like Manneys emits a whiff of both nostalgia and a certain exasperation. The latter because customer service can be limited, extended browsing is difficult, and there were no discounts to grease the palm. However, as alluded to before, Manneys was one of the few places in the city where you could find an interesting book, on History or the Sciences or Philosophy. In fact, that should read as "stumble upon", thanks to the higgledy-piggledy disarray on the racks. But you could find an entire shelf or two of Tagore's works, or books about plays, or about linguistics. Sometimes you found them when they fell out as you put back a book on the other side.

Given this emotional ambivalence and the fact that I've long since deserted the store, I can't be too sentimental at Manneys' departure. However, it had an undeniable 'heritage' value, for as expressed in this post about the changing landscape of Pune's landmarks (where, ironically, I evoke it), Manneys and its ilk were outposts in the otherwise bland 'sameification' of mall culture that has cloaked cities like Pune. I was planning to write up a post about book stores in Pune, and Manneys would have been among the first to be included. There will undoubtedly be a gaping hole in that list.

So I went to Manneys last Saturday for the last time (at least for now) and scooped up a bunch of books. I also noticed the immense goodwill that the store has obviously generated among its many customers, most of whom told Mr. Manik how much they would miss the store. I could not resist joining them to wish him a happy post-Manneys life.

Manneys has a discount sale until the 4th of February, Saturday (unless this has been extended). They still have lots of great books. In Dhammo-style, here are some of the ones I picked up:

1. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish : Neil Gaiman
2. Two "William" books : Richmal Crompton
3. The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot : Robert Arthur (Three Investigators series)
4. Pale Fire : Vladimir Nabokov
5. Southern Mail/Night Flight : Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
6. Dog Detective Ranjha : Partap Sharma (who recently passed away)
7. The Story of Philosophy : Will Durant

George's post on a "defining bookstore of his life".

Some press articles about the store and its closure:

1. The Economic Times
2. DNA: local reaction
3. Indian Express on when William Golding visited it

That's a wrap, Mr. Baswani

From what I can tell, the actor Ravi Baswani did not have a fan club or a Facebook page. And why wouldn't that be? IMDB lists fewer than 30 movies in his filmography, over a thirty year film career. Most of those movies never amounted to anything much. Some were nothing more than complete duds. Even his last public performance seems to be for a very unamusing ad for Mirinda.

Yet, to film-people and viewers of certain vintages and tastes, Ravi Baswani is a name that evokes several happy memories. Of chasing and being chased by Duryodhana. Of being turned into a chauffeur by Winnie Paranjape. Of losing a newly bought handkerchief in a girl-wooing scheme promoted by Amitabh Bachchan. Of being partly responsible for an entire generation both eating their cake and throwing it out of the window. And of being in a fabulous parody/tribute of ye olde hindi film songs.

You will notice that Baswani's reputation was built largely on his appearance in two movies. One is the much loved and much feted Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. The other is Chasme Buddoor, which according to me, has been the least watched of all the great Hindi films of the last 40 years. In both, he is in danger of being thought of a comic sidekick and a weakling. But it was never his place in the grand scheme of things to play the hero. To his credit, he always held his own: in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, trying to keep the moral compass in shape in a deeply immoral setting, while exhibiting shiftiness, jealousy and pusillanimity in Chasme Buddoor. In both senses, he was the guy next door - someone certain to lose out¹.

As it often happens, we learned more about Ravi Baswani after news of his death (from a heart attack, after looking for locations for his directorial debut) came in (see 2). He was 64 - which meant his acting debut in 1980 was at the ripe old age of 34. That he was a highly regarded theatre actor (as most of these can-really-act Delhi-wallahs are). That he was straight-talking, even caustic at times, and said such things about movies like Jodhaa Akbar such as: It's like [Ashutosh Gowariker] said, "Bring me all the bad actors. I’m going to make cinema out of that.".. (And even that he was probably living a couple of kms away from my house in Santacruz (E), long ago!)

On one hand, Ravi Baswani never did much else that rivalled his two most famous films in terms of attention. On the other, in those, he achieved much more than many in Bollywood ever do in an entire life. The length of a career is never a good measure of anyone's work, and there are several people both inside and outside film industries that this could apply to. Perhaps he was too hemmed in by the nature of his comic success, the inevitably stereotyping, and for being a thoughtful person in a time and place that made such people go extinct very soon.

Still, as with most obits, this made me evaluate the place such a person had in my life, and I'm surprised to know that it was significant, even if brief. And what better excuse to pull out Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Chasme Buddoor once again, to marvel at the writing and the little touches, and the people that chipped in to make our little lives worth living.

More
* His last known interview; another interesting interview (from 2003)
* Ravi Baswani played the moderator on an Indian version of Whose Line is it Anyway. He also did a fair bit of TV during the heydays of DD, and perhaps his last major TV role was in the slightly offbeat Just Mohabbat
* The latest film I've seen him in was in Naseeruddin Shah's debut directorial venture.
* I've read obits mention that his name in Chasme Buddoor was "Jai Lakhanpal". They might be wrong. One, to my ears, he says 'J. Lakhanpal' ("brother of B.A.Lakhanpal") and not "Jai". Second, I always thought he was making the whole thing up, because it was obvious he had no such brother. (Incidentally, a man named Dinesh Lakhanpal was an assistant director on the film in real life.)

The wonderful parody/tribute song sequence from Chasme Buddoor:

Parody, Chashme Buddoor - Hindi Song - Deepti Naval , Ravi baswani @ Yahoo! Video

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footnotes
[1]: In a post called Who's playing the lead, I used Jomu's un-heroic inability to start his motorcycle to wonder if we would be the heroes of our films. It seems strangely appropriate to RB's life.

[2]: See an interviews with Kundan Shah and a post by Sudhir Mishra

Sundaram has served his last great meal

The actor Nagesh, one of the greatest I've seen, passed away earlier today. He remained active, especially in Kamalahassan movies, almost till the end (according to Wikipedia, his last release was Dasavatharam).

Nagesh's genius for comedy and pathos, drama and character, put him, IMHO, in the Chaplin league. Hindi film watchers may have seen Mehmood portray several Nagesh roles in Hindi remakes, including the role of the waiter in Main Sundar Hoon (Server Sundaram) and the madcap wannabe director (complete with horror narrator) in Pyar Kiye Jaa (Kadalikka Neramillai).

A detailed tribute at PFC provides a glimpse of how wonderful the actor was. A theatre in the T.Nagar area of Madras, named after and owned by the actor, was the closest to home when I lived there, and where I saw a few films, including Devar Magan. That theatre was a minor geographical entity, but the man was a pint-sized movie landmark.

Death did them apart

A few days ago, I was reading this obituary of Harold Pinter. At the end of the article, this caught my eye:

Mel Gussow, a critic and cultural reporter for The Times, died in 2005.

The obit was written by Mel Gussow and Ben Brantley.

Obviously, Gussow had contributed to the obit a long while ago. Though seemingly morbid, keeping an up-to-date obituary of a notable personality even prior to his decease is common newspaper practice. That said, I haven't seen this inversion before.

Max Gussow was a NYT theatre critic, whose own obit can be read here. There's also this nice Washington Post article about the life of an obituary writer.

Remembering Minal Panchal

I never met Minal Panchal. Regretfully, I only heard about her when this happened. It doesn't matter. Minal, whom I've never known, except via the outpourings of people who are also strangers to me, continues to affect me in ways that many near ones never will.

She was a year younger, and that hurt. That she was on a popular social networking site, sketched out in almost three-dimensions, made her more than a bystander in an avoidable tragedy. From what people said I can imagine someone, infinitely more enthusiastic about life than I will ever be, looking forward to classes, to learning, to adventures of the future, of life-changing events. Cut short abruptly. No fault of hers. Wrong place, wrong time. You can rail about unfairness, but it won't help. You can say 'that sucks' - nope, makes no difference. We've got to trudge on. We'll falter too.

In the 10%x zoom of time, we are fairly insignificant beings, most of us, just happened to be put together for a briefest of jiffies. Whether ember or diamond, star or firefly, we have a chance to shine, even if at sub-lux levels. Some of us extinguish early, sometimes due to no fault of our own. Don't wait too long to sparkle.

* Sepia Mutiny remembered Minal in the aftermath last year.
* As did Minal's former classmate.
* Prof. Loganathan too.
* This year, Minal's family hopes for a fitting tribute by way of a museum for children.

Obits: The Final Quarantine, The Talented Mr. Minghella, The Wronged Man

Last week was full of goodbyes, starting with cricketer Bill Brown. Here are some more.

The Final Quarantine

By the end of his life, Sir Arthur C. Clarke was reportedly losing his memory, finding comfort in the distant wisps of the past. Perhaps this was the last and most personal of all his prophecies, a prescience signalled by HAL, probably the most significant fictional character he ever created, the epitome of the anthropomorphized computer. At any rate, Arthur C. Clarke himself is in no danger of being forgotten in a hurry by the world. To me, his writings always seemed to echo the seaside that was never far away from a man who had called two islands home for 90 years - unrhurried, eternal, with visible depth, and with promises beyond the immediate horizon.

I don't have a good appetite for full length science fiction, but I immensely enjoyed both Odysseys 2010 and 2061. There still are several of his fiction novels that I haven't read. His Profiles of the Future, found in a book exhibition, lies at the back of the book cupboard, unread. For, like with other sci-fi writers, I mainly preferred Clarke's short stories, which were succint and clever. My personal favourite, one that illustrates all the collective power of Clarke's neurons and fingers, is called Quarantine. It was written as a challenge, to fit a story on a postcard. From such little acorns do mighty oaks grow, as The Sentinel may testify. Someday, the oaks fall too, but seldom before a grand life.

The Talented Mr. Minghella

Dying relatively young was film director Anthony Minghella. I didn't like his most feted work "The English Patient", but I really liked the slightly underrated "The Talented Mr. Ripley".

The Wronged Man

Whenever I saw (or see) Raghuvaran on film, I always got this feeling that the man was criminally underused as an actor, and that he knew it himself. Yes, being mostly used a 'villain', he had to make outrageous roles look believable, and had to develop menacing tones and tics to keep him in business. If Amjad Khan was the gigantic baddie, Raghuvaran would be on the other side of the body mass index see-saw, who, to be evil despite his lankiness, had to have several layers of dark. Layers that would never really be peeled back.

Raghuvaran made his debut in the 'arty' Ezhavathu Manithan (incidentally, made by a relative of mine) but soon segued into professional nastiness, especially in opposition to Rajnikanth. He was usually urban, ruffled, not shying away from underhand treachery, eyes heavy (some say this was the effect of a drug habit) and dark. The odd Anjali apart, it seemed Raghuvaran, shirt out and in tall trousers, always ended up on the wrong side of things in this unjust world, not giving in without a fight, and not without making the hero look good, just about.

RIP Bill Brown

RIP Bill Brown and Mankading

If you are a quizzer, chances are that you first heard of Bill Brown as being the man whom Vinoo Mankad famously ran out at the non-striker's while bowling but *before* finishing his delivery. This led to the curious dismissal sub-genre of being 'Mankad'-ed. Bill Brown passed away yesterday and a shower of tributes have poured since. Some of it can be read at Cricinfo. Interestingly, the dismissal was named after the bowler and not the batsman. This can possibly be attributed to the fact that some people did not think this to be an act of sportsmanship, and since the hullabaloo was in Australia, local reporters may have chosen to attach the name of the 'perpetrator' of the controversial mode of running out a batsman, instead of the Aussie batsman.

Of course, with recent rule changes, it is much harder to 'Mankad' anyone. A non-striker can now start 'backing up' (jargon for leaving the crease - a little misleading because he isn't going back!) "as soon as the bowler’s backfoot touches the ground in his final action stride." (quote from Bob Simpson's column, who disapproves of this rule). This alteration makes it even more unlikely that anyone will be 'Mankad'-ed: the bowler has even lesser opportunities to effect the run-out, because most Mankadings are done towards the end of the delivery action (after the backfoot has landed) unless the batsman was foolish enough to strand himself out of the crease so early. It's also a question of the bowler's balance to perform such unnatural acts mid-performance.