Short notice

Rs 295

It is somehow absurdly flattering to know that your fictional heroes have been around these parts,in the neighbourhood. And Sherlock Holmes created 30 years after the Revolt of 1857 and with a doctor-sidekick who had been to Afghanistan could certainly find a reason to one day leave 221B and board The Coromandel Star for Madras. Vithal Rajans Holmes of the Raj first published by Writers Workshop in 2006,a trifling detail that the new publisher decides to leave out gets Holmes and Watson on the boat out of Britain,but ends up becoming another addition to the underwhelming reworking of Holmesiana. In the first of six stories,The Case of the Murdering Saint,Holmes is puzzled about a murder in Madras. The Shankaracharya of Kumbakonam is arrested for killing his accountant. But could the monk have done that? Before Holmes does all his deduction stuff,the accoutrements of the Orient are piled on: a cobra wraps around his leg,a tusker goes for him,he chomps on samosas and talks cricket. All very charming in the beginning,a little tedious later and totally exasperating towards the end. There is even a Professor Higgins,a Colonel Pickering and the fair lady Madame Blavatsky. The only problem Rajans Holmes cant solve is our loss of interest in the murder and the investigation. Too much atmosphere,too little mystery. A note says these are Arthur Conan Doyles unpublished stories. He certainly had a reason to hide them.

LOVE STANDS ALONE

Rs 399

It has been over 2,000 years since the Sangam poets wrote about love and war in over 2,000 verses. In the palimpsest of literature,the twin themes have been written and over-written so many times that when the girl tells her friend Larger than the earth/ vaster than the sky/ and immeasurably deeper than the seas/ is my love for him,it may not delight our overloaded senses. But you dont seek out Sangam for novelty,you turn to it for the Original Metaphor,the early tropes of desire and despair. In this volume,a selection of Sangam poetry,when you read,For among the woods of the shore/ where like the small-headed goats/ from the Pooli land/ seagulls thronged and fished/ your waves kept lashing/ against the screw pines/ bearing white blossoms/ and even in the dead of night/ I hear your voice,you hear the sotto voce eloquence of longing,an exactness of emotions and image. The Akam interior poetry is about love; and Puram exterior about all things worldly,especially kings and battles. The war verses are muscular,direct even in mourning. There is one written by Pari Makalir,the daughters of Pari,after the Chera,Chola and Pandya kings laid siege on Paris hill country and killed him by subterfuge: In such a night as this/ when the moon was full/ our father was with us/ and our hill was our own./ But tonight/ the moon is full again/ the triumphant kings/ marching with their battle drums,have our hill/ and we are fatherless.