Book Review: Mélange of Mavericks and Mutants

Review by Feby Joseph

Mélange of Mavericks and Mutants Kindle Edition

by Ramendra Kumar (Author), Santosh Bakaya (Author)

Publisher‏: ‎Blue Pencil

ASIN: B0B694NLKP

Kindle:  ₹ 99.00 INR

A wet Thursday marks the Onam of 2022; as I sit down to write, my table with a melange of books, crockery, forgotten coffee cups, a comb of bananas running to the darker spectrum, reminds me of the missing Onam Sadhya, partly due to my lack of festive culinary expertise and partly due to a busy work schedule. Seeing my spirits pointing due south, I decide to tackle it the best way I can – The antidote usually is music and this time my chosen piece – Beethoven’s 4th Piano concerto in G Major. As the German genius sooths my guilt pangs for dishonouring the great King Mahabali, I wonder at how little credit we give to antidotes. They come in many forms and all transform our lives by doing one simple thing. Relax and soothe our nerves. 

Feby Joseph

One form of literary antidote is Humour. Recently I had the good fortune to encounter a compact little book which served as a perfect antidote to my bad humour which I had been carrying with me like a homing pigeon that refuses to depart. This economy sized humour pill, came in the form of a collaboration between two people – One, a writer whom, I unfortunately had never read before and another a writer, I had read who, partly due to the nature and contents of “the book” and partly due to verbal acrobatics we had exchanged on facebook, I am convinced, is a few cashews and almonds short of being the famous Christmas-Plum-cake on the Display in my Uncle Charly’s Bakery in Kottayam. 

Now, onto the two authors and the things I can get my teeth into – reader! Notice I mention teeth for very specific reason. Author No. 1 Ramendra Kumar is a humourist with razor sharp observational skills and the juxtaposition of mortality with the hidden laughter in everyday life is brilliant. Author No. 2 [only because she appears in the second half] is my dear frenemy Santosh Bakaya, whom (and I thank Dr. Ampat Koshy for mentioning my skepticism of her Homo-Sapein’ness, and stern belief due to certain past events, in the Foreword) I believe, is the answer to Dorothy’s perceived question “Are you a good witch or a Bad witch?”. Reader, I beg you to look at the cover image [Ramendra Kumar and Santosh Bakaya, presumably at a table] and the set of 64 teeth smiling and gleaming in gluttonous glee; Ramen (-as her partner in crime likes to be called) on the other hand is more sedate; of the proud pair, his pleasure at the pulchritude of the moment captured by Avijit Sarkar, is portière(ed) behind a profuse purdah of onyx lip-curtain. Of the two, doesn’t the mouth-furniture of the latter strike anyone as ominous? Perhaps it had to do a bit with the background music – The Piano concerto has reached it’s strange, almost morose and brief 2nd movement. 

The book is simply called “Mélange of Mavericks and Mutants” and from the cover one can deduce that the contents are of the ha-ha variety. Beautifully divided into two halves one for the anecdotes of Ramendra Kumar and the other for the accident…, I mean anecdotes of Santosh Bakaya, this book, while no PG Wodehouse, is nevertheless very funny. It is not in my nature to give the contents and story away but here are a few highlights – Mr. Ramendra Kumar’s wife’s exceptional skills at shopping and bargaining, a cute little doggy story not just for canine lovers, redefinition of certain abbreviations, a humorous mother-daughter car ride, a husband obsessed with the ease of ordering via Amazon. These are a few of the delicious morsel that await you.

As Herr van Beethoven concludes his Concerto-masterpiece, the piano and orchestra rousing to a thrilling conclusion, I can only say, whole heartedly, I recommend this delightful book. Go get it today.

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0B694NLKP

Santosh Bakaya (Bio): Winner of Reuel International Award for poetry[2014]  a die-hard romantic,  on a perennial quest for an idyllic world, of love and untethered freedom, acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu, Santosh Bakaya, Ph.D., a poet, essayist, novelist, biographer, Tedx speaker, has written twenty books across different genres. Her latest book is Runcible Spoons and Pea-green Boats [Poems, AuthorsPress 2021].  Morning Meanderings is her column in Learning and Creativity. Com.    

Ramendra Kumar (Bio): Ramendra Kumar (Ramen) is an award-winning Writer, Performance storyteller and Inspirational Speaker with 45 books. His writings have been translated into 30 languages and have found a place in several textbooks and anthologies, both within and outside the country.  He has written across all genres and has   been invited to Indian as well as international literary festivals. He was General Manager (Corporate Communications), SAIL, when he took Voluntary Retirement in 2020. He is now a Cancer warrior and an inspiration to many.

Feby Joseph (Bio): Hailing from the beautiful state of Kerala, the poet’s name is an anagram for forbidden meat in his country. Feby Joseph works as a Piano teacher in Mumbai & was the winner of Reuel International Prize - II, Poetry, 2020. Some of his works have appeared on Café Dissensus, Foreign Literary Journal, Riddled with Arrows and The Bangalore Review.

 

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Setu, October 2022

Poetry: Feby Joseph

Feby Joseph

Hailing from the beautiful South Indian coastal state of Kerala seeped in green and poetry, Feby Joseph describes himself as a spiritual vagabond still trying to figure it out. He is currently working as a Piano teacher in Mumbai and also learning the Cello. He is the winner of Reuel International Prize for Poetry, 2020. Some of his works have appeared on Café Dissensun, Wild Word and Bold+Italic to name a few.

1. Once was Bapu

 

Once again a page turns – a number rushes to a date.

Once again a figure is raised from annals of dust

Exalted to the stature of gods by few, or torn down by others

In the wake of false retrospection or secondhand stories.

 

Once again a face on a coin looks sideways, unable or unwilling

To see dreams of a rural and pastoral romance remain

Just a dream. Perhaps his ears have worn out

Listening to the souls of countless dead soil-nurturers

How ironic he should celebrate the basic symbol of greed.

 

Once again there will be prose – there will be poems.

Once again he will be compare to salt

To allegorize ideals and morals and values; forgetting

That behind that smile was after all once flesh and blood.

***

 

2.    Musing in Large rooms

Scenic, upon my window

A lonely cup

Would pull your gaze from the roads

I wonder?

I would place it there in between mornings

Of well thought out coincidences

Like the last two slices of bread from a dwarfing packet

Which lay down, warm, to embrace the last egg in the refrigerator –

Its Van Gogh yellow sizzling on a black pan…

A scenic plate, upon my table

2 pieces of toast and a bull’s-eye egg…

Do even pairs please you, as much

I wonder?

The coffee, long cold – Suicide point of a few eager flies

And sedimenting brown rings in the off-white china

Silently taunts time to tell its age;

The forgotten pale cup lazes like a cat

Framed in a lone window on a tall white wall…

A scenic tall white wall, white (… just white)

Surely must allude to tall rooms…?

Would you guess the whiteness and breadth

Of my rooms – I wonder?

Or the breath and square feet of this house;

The plurality of emptiness or rooms.

It must be the summer heat, which has caused the walls to expand.

I hadn’t noticed it before – how my shadows would linger behind

In sunny rooms and how echoes took too long to reply.

This scenic house must have grown

To accommodate all this sun and whiteness

Would you count the number of steps (like I often do)

Between the front door and my bedroom – I wonder?

Sometimes I get bored walking all the way and take detours.

Would chancing upon new roads

Excite you as much I wonder?

The Sun and whiteness have wiped out all the roads I made

It’s just large white tiles now – sans directions.

Sometimes I visit other rooms to keep them company;

The wall-clock checking in hourly like a night nurse.

Would the almost silent swish of the second-hand

Please you as much, I wonder?

Washing up has become easier –

One Cup

One Plate

One Glass

Who counts forks and spoons anyway?

Perhaps I’ll repeat my scenic breakfast again –

Would you join me –

Would a lone apple on a coffee table bring down your mornings

Long before sunset – I wonder?

Would a lonely cup – forgotten

On a lone window on tall white wall of a large house,

Leased by an absent sun during daytime

And echoed by crickets and moon at night

Inspire you to rouse a sleeping doorbell, I wonder?

Do I dare to wonder about the face behind that roused door –

The face; the eyes (or will any eyes fill the space?)

Do I dare to wonder if it’s you? Or would “you” fill in

For the pronouns that I wonder, wonder about me.

***

3.    Spider

 

So, a spider moved in last night –

I had no warning – Just my window

And a green lattice of rose-veins and sleeping buds.

 

This morning the dew settled on a dozen pink white roses

And a jali of fine thread enclosed within themselves

Like ever widening octagons of waves suspended between

The potted rosebush and a coconut palm leaf broom.

Seated in a corner was a red-black spider

In quiet meditation; Gazing at the tiny green worm

Slowly breaking fast on dotted green leaves.

 

Was it blind? Maybe –

For many a times I had seen these slugs move

Right into the salivating clutches of a larger insect

Or the beak of an impatient bird. The spider, though

Looked on with leisure as I sipped my coffee

Watching the documentary unfolding before me.

 

Soon my maid rushed me out, to clean my balcony;

The spider, rose and green worm all hushed

Behind a curtain as I sank into my morning chore –

A bed-sheet newspaper oozing stark black words

Of thundering timbre and no consequence

And flaked corn lazing in a pool of milk.

 

Later, I walked back to a Spartan space sans spiders and dry leaves

And the receding echoes of my maid’s litany on cobwebs.

The green worm had by now ascended

To the hem of the pale rose, rose petals.

 

As I used a torn edge of newspaper to squish the offending worm,

The green glue spreading like viscous ink between black words;

I looked up at the ceiling to see the spider

Swinging back and forth in a crazed dance, creating

Yet another lattice – waiting for my maid tomorrow.

4.    Sakhi - I

 

Sakhi, didn’t you know?

Those mirrors you sit by and cry

Are nothing but silver silhouettes!

 

The reflection you see in them

Are tired mirages

From the wet tips of Dali’s brush.

 

Sakhi, did you forget

How beautiful you were –

When you looked at the midnight moon

Swimming in a languorous pool

And chanced upon your reflection

In its silver glow.

 

Did you forget about the time

You took a swab of kohl

From the night sky

And painted a gondola

Under your eyes.

 

Every time, I read you a poem

From my crumbled pages

Shiny white lilies would blossom in that black boat.

 

Sakhi, don’t you remember –

Your anguish began

When you stopped looking at the moon

And started to chase those silver ghosts

That taunt from behind smudged mirrors.

 

Those tears aren’t even tears

But perspiration of the skin –

Somehow in the language of mirrors,

Heart and skin must be synonyms!

 

Sakhi, didn’t you know?

Those mirrors you sit by and cry

Are nothing but silver silhouettes!

 

False memories of a thousand painted corpses

That parade in daylight

Screaming at Botticelli and Rubens;

Undulating their razor sharp hips, syncopating

With fiddles in a danse-macabre.

 

Sakhi, did you forget

How beautiful your crow’s feet are?

***

 

5.    Prawn Curry

Sunday schedule – Highlights.

Receding echoes of an early morning mass

From the domes of an ancient black stone church

Preludes the bustle of a mid-morning market

That replay mock-shocked expressions and bargaining and

Bags of herbs and vegetables and breakfast-breads

And shiny bright gray-orange prawns.

Noon-day sun finds the house wafting of jazz records –

Ella waltzes through all the rooms… Often Frank joins in!

Countless aunts and uncles and cousins add to the joyful cacophony;

The house by then, a symphony of loud and cheery contrapuntal passages – 

Laughter and debates and hissing pans and clangorous pots

And exploding mustard seeds and dark-green curry leaves.

The kitchen would be lost in a sweet tamarind mist

And gossip and chopping and sautéing and tasting…

Later – a large dining room table beaming with fresh garden picks;

Various stir-fries’ and condiments and soups battling for space

Amidst plates of steaming pink-lined rice awaiting the ‘Sunday-Star’ –

A creamy, coconut laced, saffron prawn curry.

Rest – just details.

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Setu, December 2020