Bagpipes at dawn and other challenges for Scottish soldiers (Column: Bookends XCI)

 (12:36) 

Can a story about soldiers in peacetime be of any interest for an ordinary reader? What attraction could a fairly predictable routine of a regimented life, with repetitive tasks and drills under stern discipline, have for civillians? But remember “Humour in Uniform” in “Reader’s Digest”?

Soldiers too can find themselves facing situations for which no training or manual can prepare them – this young officer is tasked to manage a football team, change a baby’s nappies, guard a haunted fort, defend regimental honour in a general knowledge quiz, and have the dirtiest soldier in the world under him.

All this – and much more – was the lot of author George MacDonald Fraser, who was commissioned as an officer towards close of the Second World War (after serving in the ranks during the Burma campaign). And luckily for us, he thought it would make for some good stories.

Even as the first installments of his eventually most famous work were appearing – the Flashman series about a cowardly, lecherous anti-hero in various trouble spots throughout the 19th century – Fraser also penned a collection of “fictionalised” stories of life in a Highland regiment.

“The General Danced at Dawn” (1970) has many unforgettable characters – the apparently easy-going but perceptive colonel, the effervescent adjutant, the pessimistic padre, the meticulous sergeant-major, and so on. Fraser appears as Dand McNeill (a play on regimental motto “Bydand” or standfast in Gaelic), while others also appear under different names.

“Monsoon Selection Board” details his torturous route to officerhood and efforts to fit in his new regiment, posted in Libya, in “Silence in the Ranks” – which also introduces the dirtiest soldier – Pvt. J. McAuslan: ” … he lurched into my office (even in his best tunic and tartan he looked like a fugitive from Culloden who had been hiding in a peat bog) …”

Among the funniest are “Play Up, Play Up and Get Tore In” where MacNeill, shepherding the battalion football team around the Mediterranean, has to deal with a naval officer gambling heavily on the team including with official funds, “The General Danced at Dawn”, where a general on inspection likes their Highland dancing, joins in and attempts to set a record – for which, by dawn, are drawn in the neighbouring Fusiliers, military policemen, an Italian cafe proprietor, a few Senussi tribesmen, and three German prisoners of war, “Night Run to Palestine” about commanding an overnight troop train to strife-hit Jerusalem, and not only having to look out for Zionist saboteurs but also interfering seniors, women auxilliaries, a chaplain worried about morals, an army wife with twins and an Arab Legion soldier who locks himself in the toilet (as MacNeill learns on coming across a small group singing “Oh Dear What Can the Matter Be?” outside) and “McAuslan’s Court-Martial” – a study in inspired, clever advocacy – while the presiding officer finds the abuses very interesting!

“McAuslan in the Rough” (1974) has, among others, “Bo Geesty” where MacNeill’s platoon manning a fort on Sahara’s edge, finds strange things happening when they try to drill a well, “Johnnie Cope in the Morning” about being woken every Friday by the band going full blast outside but also about a new recruit (a Negro) wanting to join the band and the complicated discussions – one of the funniest passages in English – it entails (he is eventually allowed), “General Knowledge, Private Information” about the quiz contest where McAuslan saves the day, “Parfit Gentil Knight, But” about McAuslan falling in love, and “McAuslan in the Rough”, where the battalion back in Britain, gets drawn into a golf challenge – and the slovenly McAuslan is the caddy for the impeccable regimental sergeant major.

“The Sheikh and the Dustbin” (1988) has among others “Captain Errol” where a new officer is so nicknamed since he resembles actor Errol Flynn, and has the same casual, reckless approach – until a crisis pops up, “The Constipation of O’Brien” where a night exercise descends into farce, the title story about the battalion saddled with an Arab rebel from contiguous French territory till he can be shipped back to the Devil’s Island, and “The Gordon Women”, a superbly comic tale involving poachers and illicit distillers set in Scotland. Finally, Fraser writes about meeting the colonel, now an octogenarian, and both reminiscing how some of the most improbable stories are the most true and the colonel (identified as R.G. Lees – who was second in command at the Japanese POW camp whose story inspired the film “The Bridge on the River Kwai”) stumping him by correctly identifying all the characters.

A valuable picture of the postwar world as the British empire was in retreat and a whole way of life was changing, the books are an engaging account of an army that fought throughout WWII and emerged victorious. They are also among the funniest.

(08.11.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )

Laughter on the pitch and pavillion: Cricket in its humour (Column: Bookends LXXXVII)

(10:00) 

It now figures in fiction for all the wrong reasons now – controversies, conspiracies, crimes and even worse, distracting amorous dalliances, but cricket, in the days when it was still a gentleman’s game and not a money-spinning, over-analysed entertainment spectacle, had an honoured place in English literature, with some great authors and avid players writing about it – some tickling the funny bone mercilessly while at it.

Humour, did you think? What role does it have in a game chiefly requiring superlative skills, agility and power, of an ability for inspired, intricate stroke play, or dispatching thunderbolts at the batsman or beguiling him with spin?

An initial look is not promising. Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt played the game but didn’t write on it, nor did it figure humorously in writings of J.M. “Peter Pan” Barrie and his team ‘Allahakbarries’ (named on a mistaken belief that the religious invocation meant “Heaven help us”) comprising Jerome K. Jerome, A.E.W. Mason, Arthur Conan Doyle, E.W. Hornung (whose gentleman-criminal Raffles was an ace cricketer), H.G. Wells, A.A. “Winnie the Pooh” Milne and P.G. Wodehouse (save maybe “Picadilly Jim”).

Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey actually solves a crime during a game in “Murder Must Advertise” (1933) and Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” quintet has a most unsettling account of its origins. Laughs also don’t figure in more recent works, be it Anuja Chauhan’s “The Zoya Factor” (2008), Joseph O’Neill’s haunting “Netherland” (2008) about a lonely Dutch business executive in post 9/11 New York finding a sense of belonging by joining a cricket club, Tarquin Hall’s “The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken” (2012) or Timeri N. Murari’s “The Taliban Cricket Club” (2012).

“The Goat, the Sofa & Mr Swami” (2010), R. Chandrashekhar’s matchless synthesis of politics, diplomacy, bureaucracy and cricket – which is what the sport is now – does however succeed with its riotous finale in a Delhi stadium.

The first humorous treatment is in Charles Dickens’ rollicking, voluminous debut “The Pickwick Papers” (1836), whose chapter seven sees the Pickwickians at the Dingley Dell Cricket Club vs All-Muggleton game. Also introduced is the game’s first commentator, who – to give him credit – is admirably succinct “Capital game-well played-some strokes admirable.”

Mr Jingle, with his singular speech, has also played in the West Indies: “Warm!-red hot-scorching-glowing. Played a match once-single wicket-friend the colonel – Sir Thomas Blazo – who should get the greatest number of runs – won the toss-first innings-seven o’clock A.M.-six natives to look out-went in; kept in-heat intense-natives all fainted-taken away-fresh half-dozen ordered-fainted also-Blazo bowling-supported by two natives-couldn’t bowl me out-fainted too-cleared away the colonel-wouldn’t give in-faithful attendant-Quanko Samba-last man left-sun so hot, bat in blisters, ball scorched brown-five hundred and seventy runs-rather exhausted-Quanko mustered up last remaining strength-bowled me out-had a bath, and went out to dinner.”

Pune-born Archibald Gordon (A.G.) Macdonell’s neglected classic “England, Their England” (1933) has, also in its chapter seven, a match pitting a London team against locals in a Kentish village, with a titanic contest between a fast bowler and a soft-looking but lusty-hitting author – and what happens when the bowler feels compelled to make a supreme effort but the umpire feels mischievous. It sadly is too long to fit here but if you can’t get the book, Ruskin Bond-edited “The Rupa Laughter Omnibus” has it.

But high levels of sportsmanship were not always seen.

A minor unlikable character in Thomas Hughes’ “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” (where cricket plays a major part), arch-cad Flashman (who got his own series courtesy author George MacDonald Fraser), is once prevailed to play for the alumni at Lords and performs the game’s first hat-trick – dismissing Nicholas Felix, Fuller Pilch (the greatest batsman of his time) and Alfred Mynn by skill, sheer luck, and straight cheating. “I’m not sure that the sincerest tribute I got wasn’t Fuller Pilch’s knitted brow and steady glare as he sat on a bench with his tankard, looking me up and down for a full two minutes and never saying a word,” he records in “Flashman’s Lady” (1977).

Adrian Allington’s “The Amazing Test Match Crime” (1939) lampoons not only the game but English society and crime too as Europe’s most notorious gang “The Bad Men” (including an Englishman damned for knowing the rules but not playing by them) scheme to disrupt England’s final test match against Imperia to decide the Ashes but are foiled by an unlikely and unexpected protagonist.

The antagonistic Herecombe and Therecombe village sides play a match that lasts till midnight but only see two balls bowled – and the first where a fielding side appeals against poor light. You can learn what happened in “The Bad-Tempered Cricket Match” in “Herbert Farjeon’s Cricket Bag” (1946).

Don’t dismiss all these as anachronistic curiosities but a testament to a pastime now reduced to a tense occupation by unconscionable commercialisation.

(11.10.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )

Policing books – from the inside (Column: Bookends LXXXVI)

(09:36) 

In this universe, England is now a republic and the United Kingdom doesn’t exist (next door is the Socialist Republic of Wales), the Crimean War raged until 1985, time travel, cloning and genetic engineering exist (dodos are common household pets and Neanderthals resurrected) but not personal computers or jet aircraft, cheese is exorbitantly costly, a shadowy corporation exerts great influence, and literature, especially classical, is revered – and has an entire police department devoted to its service.

Then we learn there is a dimension within literature where all books are “constructed” and also house the characters who, aware they are in a book, act out their roles when being read but live their own lives the rest of the time. And the line between these two worlds can be crossed – by some.

This is the setting for the seven volume (so far) Thursday Next series, a rollicking meta-fictional, fourth-wall breaking romp through books, genres and tropes – classics, police procedurals, espionage, science fiction, comic fantasy, conspiracy theories, apocalyptic scenarios and even fairy tales – as author Jasper Fforde (b.1961) delves into the workings of imagination and literary inspiration, the relationship between fiction and its audience and the mechanics (and magic) of reading.

“The Eyre Affair” (2001) introduces the doughty, appealing and resourceful Thursday Next, a 36-year-old single, Crimean War veteran, working in 1985 London with SpecOps 27, the Literary Detectives (or ‘LiteraTecs’), the agency responsible for dealing with forged or stolen manuscripts and literary works. Wounded in an attempt to capture mysterious criminal mastermind Acheron Hades, she seeks a transfer to hometown Swindon (on the advice of a future version of herself).

Hades has meanwhile begun to kidnap characters from fiction for ransom – with Jane Eyre his latest victim. Thursday finds a way into the book and in a fiery encounter on Thornfield Hall’s roof, kills Hades while also rewriting the ending to reunite Jane and Rochester (or the version we know). She later also ends the Crimean War, traps her unwanted Goliath Corporation partner in an Edgar Allan Poe poem, and marries her estranged fiancee.

The series really kicks in with “Lost in a Good Book” (2002), where Goliath have eradicated her husband from the timeline to blackmail her into rescuing their trapped operative. Learning to read herself into a book, Thursday finds herself in the 26-floor Great Library, which contains all published English books, and is inducted into the book world’s police – “JurisFiction”, which comprises operatives both fictional such as the Cheshire Cat (now the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat due to redrawing of county boundaries), and non-fictional. She does Goliath’s bidding but is double-crossed, while there is Hades’ vengeance-seeking sister, an insidious political conspiracy and a looming end of the world to be dealt with.

Facing multiple threats in her world, Thursday, now pregnant, takes refuge in an unfinished detective novel in “The Well of Lost Plots” (2003), or a 26-level world beneath the Great Library where unpublished or unfinished works exist. There she has to keep her memory of her missing husband alive, train a couple of generics, and unearth what the ‘Book Operating System’s’ latest upgrade will entail for reading.

After two years as JurisFiction chief, she heads back to the real world with her two-year-old son Friday in “Something Rotten” (2004). Tagging along is Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, on a fact-finding mission. But out there, another huge political conspiracy is on, getting her husband back is tricky, her mother is hosting guests like Otto von Bismarck, she ends up being targeted by an assassin and the Minotaur, and the fate of her country and the world depend on her surviving a trip to the Underworld and winning a croquet match (here it is not the genteel sport you were thinking).

The next three, set over a decade in the future, comprise a new arc, slightly edgier and much more confusing with paradoxes of time travel and identity abounding. “First Among Sequels” (2008) deals with her struggle to convince her son, “now a teenage cliche” to take a job, tackle dramatically plunging attention spans that impinge reading and deal with her two book versions. She even doesn’t appear until the end in “One of our Thursdays is Missing” (2011), where the narrator is her book version. “The Woman Who Died a Lot (2012)” sees a recuperating Thursday deal with a new set of problems including a revived Goliath. The story will continue in “Dark Reading Matter” but its current status is unclear.

Don’t dismiss Thursday’s exploits as a book-lover’s wildest dreams come true or a multitude of puns, also read them for a trenchant satire on issues like corporate greed, our celebrity-obsessed, reality show watching culture, devious politics, proliferating bureaucracy and other ills of our world!

(04.10.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

Non-conformity Zindabad! The poetic protesters of Pakistan (Column: Bookends LXXXV)

(09:44) 

With intermittent spells of military rule while civilian governments, when in place, ranged from authoritarian and/or inept, Pakistan’s polity has not been very kind towards its people through most of the country’s history. But a resilient spirit of opposition always persisted despite all attempts at repression – and a few intrepid Urdu/Punjabi poets were right in the vanguard.

A hybrid language that developed to let the subcontinent’s disparate peoples communicate with each other while used (in a more refined version) by the elite, Urdu, with its courtly background and wide intelligibility, is well suited for expressing protest – with courtesy! And poets were quick to use it – though they suffered for their effrontery!

Urdu’s first satirist Jafar Zatalli’s ridicule of Aurangzeb’s inept successors led to one of them, Emperor Farrukhsiyar, condemning him to death in 1713. His fate didn’t deter his literary successors.

In modern times, “Shair-e-Mashriq” Allama Iqbal, in “Shikwa” (1909), addressed his protest to the highest authority conceivable (“Shikwa Allah se khakam badahan hai mujh ko”) and Faiz Ahmed “Faiz” displayed quite an anti-authoritarian stance – e.g. ‘Ham Dekhenge’ (and Iqbal Bano’s live, spirited rendition in 1985 at the height of Zia-ul-Haq’s reign).

When Iskandar Mirza and Ayub Khan’s military coup ended Pakistan’s first turbulent spell of democracy, the new dispensation came under attack – by poets too. In 1959, a year after Ayub assumed sole power, a poet in a ‘mushaira’ being broadcast live from Rawalpindi declaimed: “Kahin gas ka dhuan hai/Kahin golion ki baarish/Shab-e-ahd-e-kam nigahen/Tujhe kis tarah sarahein”.

The programme was abruptly taken off, the director transferred and the poet jailed. It would be the first, but certainly not the last prison term for Habib Ahmad “Jalib” (1928-93).

He attacked Ayub’s 1962 constitution in “Dastoor” with its uncompromising refrain: “Aise dastoor ko/Subh-e-be-noor ko/Main nahi maanta, Main nahi jaanta” (reprised in subsequent stanzas: “Zulm ki baat ko/Jahl ki raat ko/Main nahi maanta, Main nahi jaanta”, “Is khule jhoot ko/Zehn ki loot ko/Main nahi maanta, Main nahi jaanta” and finally “Tum nahi charaagar/Koi maane magar/Main nahi maanta, Main nahi jaanta”)

The prevalent crony capitalism inspired: “Bees gharane hai abaad!/Aur croroon hai nashaad!/Sadr-e-Ayub zindabad!”

In Yahya Khan’s time, Jalib, addressing his portrait at a mushaira, said: “Tujhse pehle wo jo ek shaks yahaan takht-nasheen tha/Usko bhi apna khuda hone ka itna hi yaqeen tha”. A latter work bemoaned: “Dakuan da je saath na dende pind da pahredar/Aj pairaan zanjeer na hondi jeet na hondi haar/Paggan apne gal wich pa lo turo pet de bhar/Chadh jaye, te mushkil lehndi bootan di sarkar.”

In Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s time, the peremptory summons to a prominent actress to perform for the Shah of Iran at the prime minister’s Sindh mansion led to the iconic: “Larkane chalo/Warna thaane chalo/Apne hoton ki laali lutane chalo/Warna thaane chalo/Jism ki lauh se shame jalane chalo/Warna thane chalo/Gaane chalo/Warna thaane chalo.”

Zia-ul-Haq was pilloried in “Zulmat ko Zia” (literally darkness to light): “Is zulm-o-sitam ko lutf-o-karam/Is dukh ko dawa kya likhna/Zulmat ko zia, sar sar ko saba/Bande ko khuda kya likhna”.

Jalib’s Punjabi counterpart was Chiragh Deen “Ustaad Daman” (1911-84), a legend of pre- and post-1947 Lahore whose creed was: “Istage te hoyi te asi Sikandar honde han/Istage ton thale uthriye te asi Qalandar honde han/Jab ‘Daman’ ulajh jaaye hukumat se/Te asi chup-chap andar honden han”.

He made his first trip to jail, when at a mushaira early into the Ayub era, he recited: “Sadde mulk diyan maujan hi maujan/Jithe dekho faujan hi faujan”.

Further trouble came when Daman questioned Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto: “Ae ki kari jaanaa, ki kari jaanaa/Kadi Shimle jaanaa hai, te kabhi Murree jaanaa/Ae ki kari jaanaa, tada tar jaanaa hai, tada toos jaanaa hai/Jithe jaanna hai, ban ke tu jaloos jaanna hai/Kadi Cheen jaanaa, kadi Roos jaanna hai/Kadi ban ke Amriki jasoos jaanaa/Oye ki kari jaanaa/Laae khes jaanna, khichi dari jaanaa hai/Qaum da tu kaddi phloos jaanna hai” (as recited by new “Khabar Naak” host Naeem Bokhari in a recent episode). A police raid on his house led to “bombs” being found and it was jail again.

Daman also provided the best requiem for 1947. “Bhanve mouhon na kahiye, par vicho vich/Khoye tusi vi o khoye asi ve aan” and ending: “Lali akhiyan di payi das di ae/Roye tusi ve o, roye asi ve aan”. Its recital during his India visit reduced Pandit Nehru to tears.

The point is lost if we treat them as Pakistani poets only and forget the larger message of politicians and their hubris is not confined to their country but has wider application in the region and especially now!

(27.09.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )

Pakistan’s Mrs. Malaprop – courtesy Moni Mohsin (Column: Bookends LXXXII)

By Vikas Datta (08:31) 

Stock characters, based on a nearly universally understood stereotypical personalities, actions or manner of speech, can suddenly emerge in the most unlikely of places and being too well known for any original use, find their merit in satire. Like this Mrs. Malaprop incarnated in modern-day Lahore, whose exploits and sentiments are a skewering indictment of her class not only in her country, but are as easily transferable to a similar segment in its eastern neighbour, or with some changes, across the globe.

Pakistani journalist-turned-author Moni Mohsin (b.1963) is the progenitor of the well-off, but shallow and vacuous “Butterfly” who only wants a good time and expects everyone recognises her. We can imagine her indignant squeal at being asked to introduce herself: “What? What do you mean, ‘who am I?’ If you don’t know me than all I can say, baba, you must be some loser from outer space. Everyone knows me. All of Lahore, all of Karachi, all of Isloo – oho, baba, Islamabad – half of Dubai, half of London and all of Khan Market and all the nice, nice bearers in Imperial Hotel also…”

Derived from Mohsin’s newspaper column, “The Diary of a Social Butterfly” (2008) introduces Butterfly who lives in Lahore in “a big, fat kothi with a big, fat garden in Gulberg, which is where all the khandani, khaata-peeta types live”, is married to Janoo from a landed family but “very bore” for liking “bore things like reading-sheading” and who can be very “sarhial” (literally burnt, figuratively spoil-sport) at times – for her. They have a teenaged son Kulchoo, whose voice is getting “horse”.

Proud that her “bagground is not landed”, she went to Kinnaird College, “where all the rich illegible girls go while they are waiting to be snapped up” and is “very sophisty, smart and socialist”. So are her friends Mulloo, Flopsy, Furry and Twinkle, most of whose husbands are “bank defaulters but they are all very religious and upright otherwise”.

But Butterfly is not only a Pakistani version of Mrs. Malaprop, who ambled onstage in 1775 in Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “The Rivals” and had her misuse of words to comic effect (“He is the very pine-apple of politeness!”; “…she’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile”) immortalised as “malapropisms”.

In her mix of English, mangled English, and anglicised Urdu, Butterfly also offers a satirical view of Pakistan in the first dozen-odd years of the 21st century through an upper crust woman’s prism – though the brand of satire is the Horatian gentle, mild mockery, not the Juvenalian abrasive method.

It is achieved partly, by starting every monthly entry (from January 2001 to December 2007) with a serious national development, juxtapositioned with Butterfly’s activities – eg. February 2001: “Restoration of assemblies in March likely/Butterfly attends six parties in two days”. This is normally the practice till the ending when the assassination of Benazir Bhutto leaves our blithe spirit depressed too.

Butterfly flits back in “Tender Hooks” (2011) which has a different structure – daily entries and a specific plot – finding a suitable bride for her divorced cousin Jonkers after being emotionally blackmailed into the task by her maternal aunt. But Butterfly is not at her best with strains in her own marriage while her cousin has his own ideas. The headings of this account, beginning in end September 2009, give a flavour of what Pakistan is going through, without the parallel activity of our heroine, who ultimately proves that she does have a conscience and a good heart.

“The Return of the Butterfly” (2014) goes back to the original format – eg. March 2008: “Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif agree to form coalition government/Butterfly discovers Janoo’s favourite colour”). This shows her at the most hilariously dense – her husband wants a ‘green’ car and she proposes others before her son suggests the most environmentally viable way would be to retain the old car but use it less – leaving her aghast. “Father tau was already crack, now son is also following in his footsteps. It’s all to do with hereditary and jeans, I’m told… Some people inherit lands, some inherit Swiss bank accounts, some inherit kothis, others inherit factories and firms and political parties…. and what does my son inherit from his father? A cracked head.”

The Butterfly series, published by Random House India, are a wickedly comic satire but should not be let go at that only. It is satire’s unerring attribute that its target is far wider from what it appears to be. But do we have the courage to ascertain how much it concerns us?

(06.09.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

The funniest storyteller’s funniest storytellers (Column: Bookends LXXIII)

By Vikas Datta (08:55) 

Winston Churchill’s most outstanding contribution during World War II, according to President John F. Kennedy, was that he “mobilised the English language and sent it into battle”. But his compatriot, P.G. Wodehouse, went one better, in making the language an unsurpassed medium for some of the most inspired comic writing ever possibly seen in any tongue and creating a number of enduring and unforgettable characters from woolly-headed aristocrats, shrewd domestic staff, bossy and demanding aunts – and especially two irrepressible, irresistible raconteurs.

Most authors can count themselves lucky to create one character whose popularity withstands the test of time – but Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) managed it for most of his creations – be it vacuous but golden-hearted Betram Wilberforce ‘Bertie’ Wooster and his astute manservant Jeeves; the immaculate but verbose Psmith; the absent-minded Earl of Emsworth of Blandings Castle, who is unwillingly drawn into various family issues; the free-spirited Uncle Fred, whose London visits prove devastating for his nephew Pongo; the opportunistic but proverbially unlucky Ukridge; the colourful members of the Drones Club and others.

But the best are the loquacious storytellers of the Anglers’ Rest pub and the “19th hole” (or a bar/pub on or near the golf course) of an unnamed golf club, who have a tale for any occasion, much to the distress of their often unwilling audience.

With Mr. Mulliner and the Oldest Member, Wodehouse can be counted for his most outlandish and uproarious tales, featuring his customary tools of hyperbole, deliberate use of cliches, inspired imagery with his original and innovative metaphors, mixed metaphors and similes, transferred epithets (using adjectives meant for people for inanimate objects), creating new words by splitting compounds or removing prefixes/suffixes, sparkling wordplay, witty banter and, of course, an unquestioned mastery of English prose.

While Mr. Mulliner’s stories are based on trials and tribulations of his large number of cousins, nephews, and other relations in Britain as well as America, the Oldest Member, who is never shown playing golf but possesses an extensive knowledge about it, has an unending fund related to the game’s role in the love and work lives of his friends and acquaintances.

We’ll begin from the Angler’s Rest, where Mr. Mulliner is a regular. The stories begin with an unnamed first-person narrator introducing the ongoing discussion at the pub, followed by Mr. Mulliner intervening, being reminded of a story involving a relation, and then taking over the narration to describe the events. Initially, the narrator returns briefly to end the tale, but subsequently the story ends when Mr. Mulliner finishes.

Of the 41 stories, nine each can be found in “Meet Mr. Mulliner” (1927), “Mr. Mulliner Speaking” (1929) and “Mulliner Nights” (1933) and the remaining in six other short story collections – with “Blandings Castle and Elsewhere” (1935) and “Young Men in Spats”(1936) accounting for over half.

Among the best are about his brother, the famous chemist Wilfred and the complications in his love life, then how his Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo (a tonic to encourage “Indian Rajahs’ elephants face a tiger of the jungle with a jaunty sang-froid”) helps their nephew, shy curate Augustine and how another nephew, the stammering, crossword enthusiast George is cured (of the stammer that is). Then there is what happened when yet another nephew (detective Adrian) smiles, of uncle William’s adventure in California one night which led him to name his son John San Francisco Earthquake Mulliner (disputed by a Californian who claims it was only a fire), distant cousin Wilmot who is a “nodder” at Hollywood’s Perfecto-Zizzbaum studio and more. The list also contains nieces Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Wickham, whose intended suitors have a torrid time, and Charlotte, a poet of ‘Pastels in Prose’ who suddenly starts writing on hunting gnus.

From the Oldest Member come 25 stories – nine each in “The Clicking of Cuthbert” (1922) and “The Heart of a Goof” (1926), five in “Nothing Serious” (1950), and one each in “Lord Emsworth and Others” (1937) and “A Few Quick Ones” (1959) – told most often to a young man who is desperately keen to be elsewhere.

There is Cuthbert Banks, who abandons golf for a literary society to impress his girl till a Russian author’s visit restores equilibrium, George Mackintosh who suddenly becomes uncontrollably voluble (even on the links) till his betrothed tries an unconventional shot, American tycoon Bradbury Fisher who plays for high stakes, Wallace Chesney whose game suddenly improves when he dons a hideously-coloured set of plus-fours, Chester Meredith, who seeks to restrain his language to impress a lady but loses control on the fairway behind the ‘Wrecking Crew’ foursome (The First Grave Digger, The Man with the Hoe, Old Father Time, and Consul, the Almost Human) and many others.

If you’ve read these stories, you will probably be unable to resist a chuckle. And if you haven’t, you’re luckier – a whole universe of fun awaits you!

(05.07.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

The P.G. Wodehouse of medicine! (Column: Bookends LXIV)

By Vikas Datta (09:48) 

Involving a long and gruelling stint of study to qualify and everyday exposure to human pain and suffering, the practice of medicine is perhaps one of the last you could expect to serve as a base for comedy. But it is the saving grace of humanity that it too has people capable of seeing – and sharing – the funny side of their life. Like this doctor who found greater fame with his uproariously comic series of books centred on his profession.

Though doctors too have left a mark on literature – Anton Chekhov, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mikhail Bulgakov, A.J. Cronin, Khaled “The Kite Runner” Hosseini, W. Somerset Maugham to name some – comedy has not been common.

Making up the deficiency is Richard Gordon (actually Dr Gordon Ostlere (1921-), with his long-running “Doctor” series and their array of film, stage, TV and radio adaptions. (His only companion in the genre is possibly H. Richard Hornberger or “Richard Hooker” (1924-1997) of “M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors” (1968), also adapted for film and TV, and its two sequels.

Gordon studied at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, founded in 1123 and the oldest to be working at its original site – Smithfield in Central London. (More commonly known as Barts, it is already immortal in literature, as the venue for the first meeting of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, whose alma mater it is) and then worked there as an anaesthetist. He did a stint as a ship’s surgeon, as an assistant editor of the British Medical Journal and author of medical textbooks, before leaving practice in 1952 to become a full-time writer.

His series breaks new ground for the celebrated British style of humour, marked by a distinct undercurrent of satire and sarcasm, colourful and unusual descriptions, similes and metaphors, sharp wit with deadpan delivery, bolstered by the English language’s extraordinary capabilities for comedy – as exemplified by the works of P.G. Wodehouse.

But unlike Wodehouse, his settings are not only stately country mansions or clubs for the idle rich, but medical colleges (the fictional St. Swithins) and practices in the metropolis and suburbs and even a merchant vessel in the South Atlantic, though they are peopled with a similar cast of eccentric and idiosyncratic characters – in Gordon’s case, pompous senior specialists, cheeky or unsure junior doctors, authoritarian nurses, difficult and uptight patients and a range of other singular but entertaining participants.

The series begins with “Doctor in the House” (1952), which sees Gordon joining St.Swithins, making friends with the foppish Gaston Grimsdyke and Tony Benskin (who would go on to become recurring characters, along with tutors, the Dean (Dr.Lionel Loftus) and Sir Lancelot Spratt – who is said to retire and later die in this work but returns in subsequent installments, even starring in quite a few of them.

This is uproariously funny (take the scene where an obstetrics examinee spectacularly muffs his practical of child delivery, slipping and sending the whole papier mache model of mother and child and his instruments flying in all directions. An examiner looks at him sourly, picks up a forceps and hands it to him. “Hit the father on the head with it and you’ll have killed the whole family”.)

“Doctor at Sea” (1953) sees a bored Gordon signing on for spell as a ship’s doctor in a tale of nautical diseases and other marine misadventures, “Doctor at Large” (1955), “Doctor in Love” (1957) and “Doctor and Son” (1959) about his first years in the profession and changes in his personal life (though in the last, Gordon is now Simon Sparrow, while Grimsdyke and Sir Lancelot reappear).

Till here, the books were semi-autobiographical, but the subsequent ones are more of inventions, sometimes verging on high farce, and with more innuendo.

“Doctor in Clover” (1960), “Doctor in The Swim” (1961) and “Doctor on Toast” (1961) are various escapades of Grimsdyke, “The Summer of Sir Lancelot” (1965), “Love and Sir Lancelot” (1965) and “Doctor on the Boil” (1970) star the testy old specialist, “Doctor on the Brain” (1972) sees the Dean and Sir Lancelot writing each other’s obituaries, “Doctor in the Nude” (1973) about a major snafu ahead of the Queen’s visit, and “Doctor on the Job” (1976) about a strike in the hospital. “Doctor in the Nest” (1979) and “The Last of Sir Lancelot” (1999) are some of his struggles with the NHS and to keep the hospital from closing.

Despite their names, “Doctor’s Daughters” (1981), “Doctor on the Ball” (1985) and “Doctor in the Soup” (1986) are not part of this canon.

Chronicling the changing face of medical education and practice across the second half of the 20th century, Gordon also proves that laughter is the best medicine!

(03.05.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )

Humour of everyday life: The art of Jerome K. Jerome (Column: Bookends LV)

By Vikas Datta (10:32) 

Many enduring human achievements are ventures which did not turn out as planned and literature is no exception. A newly-married, not very established author, spending his honeymoon boating on the Thames, started to write a serious travel guide but ended up with a comic novel due to his matchless ability for rib-tickling presentation of everyday events and people (including relatives). It may not have been the genre’s first but is the most enduring, having never gone out of print or popularity for over 125 years while flagging off a glorious parade of English authors skilled at evoking humour out of the commonplace.

Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” (1889) is his account of a boating trip from Kingston to Oxford. The author, who appears as J. the narrator, however replaced his wife with two real-life friends “George” or George Wingrave (then a junior bank employee) and “Harris” or Carl Hentschel (who ran a printing business). Fox-terrier “Montmorency” was fictional but included on the belief that the inner consciousness of a typical Englishman of the time included a dog.

Though it has quite a bit of sentimental, even tragic, parts verging on purple prose, they are however overshadowed by the humorous set pieces which start right from the first paragraph where the three protagonists complain of their imagined medical maladies and the need for a relaxing holiday.

This over-the-top display of hypochondria, especially the morbid self-diagnosis of the author, who “never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form” sets the stage for some of the most uproariously funny passages ever seen in English literature.

His purpose is aided by skillful and adroit employment of a whole array of literary devices including outrageous hyperbole, vivid metaphors, comic exaggeration – but in an understated, self-deprecating, deadpan way (the hallmark of what is thought as British humour).

Different readers may have their own favourites – and have a wide selection to choose from – but some that will definitely figure are the trip’s planning which leads to the recollection of an uncle famed for raising a fuss for the simplest chore (immortalised in countless anthologies as “Uncle Podger Hangs a Picture”), the inescapable aroma of ripe cheese, the unreliability of weather forecasts, Harris’ adventures in a maze, his skill (or lack thereof) in singing comic songs, the German music professor’s performance, the two drunken men who slide into the same bed in the dark, the difficulties while learning to play bagpipes, the many claims for a particular fine specimen of trout (also much anthologised as “A Fishy Tale”) and many more.

Jerome also went on to write a sequel, which sees the friends (save the still unmarried George) contrive to leave spouses and children for a relaxing cycling trip through the Black Forest in then Imperial Germany and parts of the contiguous Austro-Hungarian Empire.

“Three Men on the Bummel” (1900), though lesser-known and starting slowly, is however as good as its predecessor and maintains most of its freshness, even in the comic stereotyping of the German character (particularly their fetish for order, discipline and cleanliness) and the practice of cycling.

Its high points include George’s experiment with a book of tourist phrases – “its longest chapter being devoted to conversation in a railway carriage, among, apparently, a compartment load of quarrelsome and ill-mannered lunatics” and what happens when they are used at a bootmaker’s, at a hat shop and with a carriage driver.

Then there is the adventure of Harris and his wife on the tandem, Harris confronting the hose-pipe, the animal riot in the hill-top restaurant and the plan in Prague to wean George of the local beer. And, yes, Uncle Podger appears twice – to share his advice on packing and then among employees leaving their suburban homes for their offices.

“Three Men on the Boat” at first did not meet a favourable critical reception when it first appeared (sneered as vulgar for using slang), but it went on to sell in huge numbers – a million copies worldwide in the first 20 years – and the astonished publisher told a friend: “I cannot imagine what becomes of all the copies of that book I issue. I often think the public must eat them.” (Jerome’s afterward in a later edition). And pirated copies sold another million in the US!

Whats more, both works went on to serve as English textbooks – in Russia and Germany respectively, while some selections serve as models of prose in textbooks around the English-speaking world. As an example of English’s capability for humour, both are unsurpassed!

(01.03.2015 – Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in )

An innovative look at strategy and its making

Strategy entails making efficient use of available resources – which are generally never enough – in a general plan of action to achieve a goal, usually over a period of time. It may seem a simple enough task – and many unqualified people – may term themselves expert practitioners – but it is certainly not so and they are deluded…. as the following paragraphs will show. On the other hand, there are some issues which are so SNAFU…even FUBAR (sorry, can’t expand these acronyms) that even the best strategists cannot untangle them as this story will show you and then there is one man who… but better you read it yourself….

~~~~One of the signs that distinguishes a good general, so good generals, bad generals and military historians let it be known, is preparedness to refuse to do things that other influential people think would be a good thing to do. The good general, pressed for political, or propaganda, or in some cases purely idiotic, reasons to take a course of action that he knows to be military unsound, digs his heels in and points forcibly to the disadvantages of such a course of action.

Thus, during the Second World War,  Gen Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, spent much of his time – usually in the middle of the night when he wanted to go to bed and Mr. Winston Churchill didn’t – in the production and development of persuasive arguments about the unwisdom of pursuing such schemes of Mr Churchill’s as the establishment of an unsupported beach-head beyond the range of fighter cover in Norway, or tying up and probably losing most of the commandos in the purposeless capture of the island of Pantalleria or doing something aggressively spectacular but fundamentally useless in the north of Sumatra. (These and a great many other aberrations beside, Gen Brooke had an enormous admiration for Mr Churchill as a war leader.)

In the simpler days of Victorian soldiering, the reasons that were put forward for doing or not doing things were of a less complex politico-strategic nature than the ones that Brooke had to dream up in the small hours of the morning at No.10 Downing Street or at Chequers.

A case in point arose during a panning conference chaired by General Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1884 to discuss arrangements for the relief of General Charles Gordon, at that time besieged in Khartoum by Dervishes under the command of the Mahdi.

It was believed by some, not least among them Mr Gladstone the Liberal Prime Minister, that Gordon’s incarceration at Khartoum was a product of his own high-minded obstinacy.

Gordon was a remarkable sapper of deep religious faith, an unfashionable tendency to pass his spare time in the performance of good works among the poor and the sick, and, for a Victorian, an almost subversive indifference to money, which he mainly either gave away when he had it, or refused to accept when it was offered to him. He was an outstandingly able soldier with a particular flair for getting the best out of those who in his time were comprehensively known as ‘natives’.

He had been famously successful as the commander of the Chinese Ever Victorious Army during the Taiping Rebellion against the Imperial Chinese government, and caused distress and amazement to the Chinese court by resigning when one of their acts met with his moral disapproval. He upset them further by sending back the handsome financial present with which they wanted to reward him for his services. He had governed the Equatorial Province of Central Africa. He had been sent to the Sudan to superintend the evacuation of the Egyptian administration and garrison, neither of which was humane, efficient or a match for the Mahdi and his Fuzzie-Wuzzies. Gordon had got some out, but refused to obey an order to abandon the ones he couldn’t get out and to get out by himself.

The unhappy Egyptian warriors, not celebrated for their martial ardour, congregated around General Gordon in Khartoum. He inspired them to fight for their lives, and with a compound of ingenuity, leadership, and zeal had by the time of Wolseley’s planning conference already survived a siege of five months.*

The delay of even starting to think about  how to rescue Gordon was of almost political provenance….. (To be continued)

*All told, he was to hold out for nine months. Gordon was killed, and the defences of Khartoum overrun, six days before Wolseley’s relief column arrived within range of the city.

Rally to the colours….II

And continuing this magnificent story in its immortal crisp but descriptive prose….

~~~~ Major Pryor turned out not to be one of those reticent heroes who shrug modestly with an embarrassed smile when asked about their exploits. He was an eloquently obsessive megalomaniac with a flair for stage management. Instead of the quiet question and answer session over a cup of coffee or a drink that the correspondent had expected, there was something approaching a son et lumiere display. Pryor, wearing the famed scarlet tunic, regulation riding breeches and field boots, had a demonstration platoon in full marching order lined up behind him. Their embittered expressions suggested that some time had already been spent on rehearsal. Pryor shook hands brusquely and got straight down to business.

“Now,” he said resonantly, “I have devised this presentation to illustrate the advantages that follow upon an officer of my seniority dressing as I do in a battalion assault. In essence, they are two. The first is control. Some confusion in action is inevitable. I minimise it. I provide a rallying point, an inspiration. Its central ingredient is visibility. Anyone temporarily lost, or unsure of what to do, has only to look around, identify my red coat, and be reassured. If in doubt he can come to me for orders.”

Pryor paused, and stared dramatically at the demonstration platoon. They stared resignedly back.

“You may well ask,” continued Pryor, looking at the correspondent with a challenging scowl, “You may well ask: If the second-in-command is so conspicuously visible to his own men, is he not equally conspicuously visible to the Germans? Will they not concentrate their fire at him? The answer to that question is Yes. Of course they will. I expect it.” He lowered his voice grimly. “But that,” he said emphasizing each word like a slow succession of gun shots, “is-what-I-am-paid-for.”

His decible output came back to normal. “And now,” he cried, “for part one of the presentation. Sergeant Smith.”

Sergeant Smith called the platoon to attention, and marched them off wearily in fours to a neighbouring muddy field. They spread out in extended order, and waited. Pryor took a position forty yards ahead of them. He blew a whistle. They all advanced, Pryor in front in  his scarlet jacket, the troops plodding behind with rifles, bayonets fixed, held at the high port.

Pryor blew the whistle again. They halted. Pryor turned towards them.

“Sergeant Smith,” bawled Pryor, “can you see me?”

“Yes sir,” shouted Sergeant Smith.

“You there, right-hand man. Can you see me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Left-hand Can you?”

“With total clarity,” said the left-hand man unexpectedly. He had a cultivated, sardonic voice.

Pryor stared at him briefly, gave it up and told Sergeant Smith to march the platoon back to the farmyard. There, they were ordered to stand easy. Pryor braced his legs in front of them and flexed his swagger cane.

“You will appreciate,” rasped Pryor to the correspondent, “that it is impossible to simulate battle conditions with precision. That was only an approximation. It should however have given you some idea of the value to troops of a presence of a readily identifiable senior officer to whom they can turn when under pressure.”

Pryor, who seemed to be expecting some form of endorsement, or admiring comment, stared fixedly into the correspondent’s eyes. The correspondent nodded nervously, wondering how to get away from this lunatic.

“Now,” said Pryor. “I said earlier that there were two benefits that arise from my wearing a scarlet jacket. The first, visibility, you have seen demonstrated. The second, more incalculable, concerns that elusive, essential, indefinable quality, morale. The men may not realize it, ” – he turned to gaze at them with paternal sympathy – “but if senior officers are wounded in action they bleed like anyone else. A senior officer who is hit and seen to bleed, for that matter a senior officer who shows external signs of any physical weakness whatsoever, is one with a bad effect on morale, HE BECOMES A LIABILITY. Men who rely upon him for leadership and guidance, who draw confidence from his presence, may lose heart if they see him stained with his own blood.”

Pryor glowed again at the correspondent. The correspondent gave a repeat performance of his nervous nod.

“You see what I am getting at,” went on Pryor spelling it out. “My tunic is the same colour as my blood. My tunic does not show blood.”

He accentuated the intensity of his mesmeric stare upon the correspondent. The owner of the voice from the demonstration platoon was never officially identified, but the correspondent was later prepared to put his money on the man who in the muddy field had seen Pryor with total clarity.

“You will also notice,” said this commentator, “that he wears khaki riding breaches.”