Lead Tin Yellow by Doug Gunnery . . . An American Crime Thriller by an Indian

Some months back there was small buzz in India around a crime thriller named Lead Tin Yellow by Doug Gunnery.  I read reviews and articles in newspapers and newsmagazines about this novel.  Why so much attention to this particular crime thriller in India I wondered, when there are so many crime thrillers by all kinds of writers all over the world coming out all the time.  The reviews and articles said that the thriller is set in the American Midwest and there were hints that the author is actually a well-known Indian academic, who has taken on the name Doug Gunnery as his nom de plume.  It was also hinted that the initials of his name could give a clue.  It was all so mysterious initially. 

When I read the reviews I saw that the thriller linked a Renaissance painter to a Vietnam War veteran.  This fictitious painter, named Paola Astuta, was supposed to be Rembrandt’s assistant, and is famous for creating a vibrant yellow colour by mixing tin with lead, which came to be his signature, sort of.  Hence, the title.  Astuta’s flaming yellows purportedly made Rembrandt jealous and therefore was not allowed to fulfil his potential or become famous.  So, whatever remained of Astuta’s paintings have become rare collector’s items in the modern world, with very few people knowing about his paintings and coveting them assiduously.  Into this Renaissance yarn comes a rich Vietnamese who had a collection of Astutas, an American war veteran who takes off with the Astutas during the last days of the Vietnam War, and the war veteran’s two sons.  The war veteran hides this treasure for long years, but the secret is somehow leaked and he is chased and killed on a bridge in Massachusetts.  The soldier leaves a code behind for his son and the thriller is all about the son deciphering the code, finding the treasure, and tracking down the killers.

This is the general outline of the story.  I was intrigued.  So many threads – Renaissance, artists, colour, jealousy, Vietnam, art theft, journalist son, American Midwest.  I wanted to read the book and see how these threads are strung together.  Finally, I bought it and read it and I must say it is really good and so different from many crime thrillers that one has read. 

As for the author, he has revealed his real identity.  He is indeed a well-known Indian academic.  It is all over the place now, you can check it out.  Meanwhile, three cheers for Lead Tin Yellow. 

Flood of Fire . . . finally . . .

After waiting and waiting and waiting, the Ibis finally berthed . . . Amitav Ghosh’s Flood of Fire, the third and last in the Ibis Trilogy released in the last week of May this year . . . I had pre-ordered the book on Amazon and received my copy on 31^st May . . . and couldn’t wait to start reading . . . but first, I had to save the exquisite gold and red cover . . . 

Actually, I had planned to re-read Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke and get ready for the Flood of Fire, but the best laid plans of men and so on and so forth . . . anyway, I started to read Flood of Fire and slowly the characters and events started coming into focus . . . but I could read only till page 55  . . . the last set of internal tests at college started the next day and I was flooded with answer scripts for correction and that occupied me for the rest of the week . . . and I had barely finished them then the language lab tests started this Monday onwards and I am stuck in the high seas till the end of this week, more or less . . . and I didn’t want to read Flood of Fire in flickers and flashes . . . at least three hours at a stretch would do very well, actually . . . a real blaze . . . let’s see . . .

There were reviews and excerpts and interviews in newsmagazines and papers the whole of the last week of May and first week of June . . . all very nice, but I like to read interviews with Amitav Ghosh . . . and look forward to the launch and reading in Hyderabad, and I hope there is one . . . and the best part would be to have a picture taken with my really favourite writer and have his autograph on the Flood of Fire . . .

Chai, Chai . . . Chai, Chai . . . Bishwanath Ghosh gets off in places where others only stop . . . !

When Chai, Chai first came out, I had read about it and felt I should buy and read it . . . I spoke about this book to a friend of mine and he came up with a strange kind of response . . . hey, he has written about where-all he got down from the train and where-all in those towns he went to drink . . . I wondered how far this could be true . . . this friend could sometimes be way off the mark . . . and he has a healthy disregard for people who drink . . . so, I wondered . . .

I first came across Bishwanath Ghosh through his blog, On the Ganga Mail, when I was generally googling about Mont Blanc fountain pens and read a post about his visit to Varanasi and how he had to unwillingly keep his wallet, Mont Blanc FP, watch, etc., with a shopkeeper while he went inside the temple . . . and since then I have followed his blog regularly . . . (now I too have 3 Mont Blanc FPs!)

And whenever I used to visit Bishwanath Ghosh’s blog, which was not very frequent mainly because he writes fewer posts now than earlier (2 till the end of April 2015, 9 in 2014, 12 in 2013, 27 in 2012 . . .) (he has suddenly increased his output in May 2015!!), I used to see the ‘Buy Chai, Chai’ button and continued to wonder . . . and in a recent post, he wrote about how it’s been more than five years since Chai, Chai was published and still continues to do well . . . and how his two later books, though written with much more discipline, awareness, and research than Chai, Chai are not as popular . . . and he writes about how Chai, Chai has been received by readers, and quotes their responses . . . I decided . . . I have to buy Chai, Chai and read it . . . and I did . . . bought it online and read in a day . . . chapter-wise . . . or rather, station-wise...

And to my surprise, he says in the ‘new preface’ to this edition, how Chai, Chai was received kindly by reviewers and readers, but there was one recurring complaint, ‘that it contains too many episodes of my drinking in the local bars’ . . . I found that bewitching . . . I could have said ‘honest,’ but lots of writers are honest anyway . . . and he goes on to say how he was being faithful to the narrative by describing things as they happened to him . . . and he writes some more about the inevitability of it all . . .

So, what about the rest of the book?  This post is only about my responses to the book, and not a review . . . firstly, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book . . . what with me being as curious as Bishwanath Ghosh about places like Mughalsarai, Itarsi, Jhansi, Guntakal, Arakkonam, Jolarpettai, and Shoranur  . . . places that you see only railway platforms of . . . I used to think about these places, but then the train moved on after replenishing and refreshing itself  . . . it was only after my father was transferred to Sultanpur in UP, that I saw the platforms of Mughalsarai, Itarsi, and Jhansi  . . . but Jolarpettai, Arakkonam, Shoranur were familiar platforms for our family as we moved around Tamil Nadu and Kerala and Karnataka in trains . . . there were other places too in the recent past as the trains chugged from Hyderabad to Howrah . . . and from thereon to Gaya . . . I saw only the platforms, and now don’t even remember the names . . . and somehow one place name keeps coming up again and again . . . Bongaigaon . . . I know it is in Assam, a place I have never visited . . . maybe it is a leftover name from my days of reading Railway Timetables . . . ha ha ha . . . ever done that? 

The concept of alighting at transit stations where, except for the residents of these places, no traveler ever thinks of going, is itself extraordinary and beguiling . . . but I am sure many of us, train travelers of some vintage, would have wondered however briefly, what went on in these towns . . . are Arakkonam’s and Jolarpettai’s claim to fame only their railway stations?  Or Shoranur, for that matter . . . Chai, Chai fulfils this desire in more ways than one . . . now we know a little more about Arakkonam and Jolarpettai, not to say Mughalsarai and Itarsi . . . these stations have become intervals in our journeys across India by rail . . . one measures the remaining distance or time depending on when the train reaches these places . . . aah, two more hours . . . enna, vandi late-a oduda?  . . . aaf-en-avar-le Jolarppetai vandudum, sar . . . says the tea-man . . . or pantry-car person . . . time to get down, stretch one’s legs, see if you can get today’s ‘English paper,’ which could well be yesterday’s with today’s date, and carries news about things that might well have taken place on another universe altogether, except for cricket and films, of course . . . 

The bars are all there . . . and Ghosh is clearly enjoying his time in them . . . the lodges, and the trouble he undergoes finding a room in one of them, the taxi journeys from the ‘centre’ of the towns to the ‘peripheries,’ his visits to ‘historical places,’ and temples, are all narrated with a great deal of involvement and interest . . . and towns like Arakkonam, Jolarppetai, and Shoranur, where Ghosh sees nothing to involve himself in and therefore less interesting, are dispatched in double quick time and space without dishonest lingering on . . .   and it comes out very clearly that Ghosh has taken this journey seriously and is as curious about these places as many of us would be except that he alights and comes out of the railway station . . . and sees the town and smells the whisky . . .

Chai, Chai reminded me of two books . . . one is Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August and the other is Pico Iyer’s Falling off the Map . . . for entirely different reasons . . . Chai, Chai evokes the small town feeling that is marvelously depicted in English, August  . . . a feeling of ennui . . . especially for someone who goes there from a big city or ‘metro’ . . . you don’t know what to do . . . Pico Iyer’s Falling off the Map is subtitled ‘some lonely places of the world’ . . . though there is a difference in scale, experience, and style, Chai, Chai is conceptually similar  . . . in Bishwanath’s Ghosh’s book one slides off these familiar platforms and tumbles into their unfamiliar towns . . .

The HMT Colours of Pilot

The HMT Pilot Black Dial was and continues to be one of the coveted mechanical watches from the HMT stable.  I had written about my father’s 40 year-old HMT Pilot and the ‘influential’ way in which he managed to get hold of it in a previous post (http://www.jaisiri.blogspot.in/2014/10/my-fathers-hmt-pilot-black-dial-c-1973.html).  My youngest brother, Ganu, had retrieved it from my father’s old items’ box and got it serviced and gave it to me when he heard that I had got into yet another hobby.  Of course, now that I have managed to infect him a little with the HMT-watch virus, he must be regretting giving it to me.  That was a proud watch for me.  A real vintage watch.  I felt nice wearing it.  The Pilot kept going and there never seemed to enough of it going around for all those seekers.  The current Pilot models are different from the one that my father bought.  I have also mentioned the differences in that post.  I thought it would be nice to have a ‘modern’ Pilot, but I couldn’t find them anywhere in any of the showrooms and Hari said he’d try. 

My Appa's Pilot

And sometime back Hari had asked me, out of the blue actually, if I wanted a ‘White’ dial Pilot!  I didn’t know one of this kind existed, and I told Hari.  He said, this lot was custom-made-to-order and he has got a few.  I eagerly said ‘yes’ and got this ‘rare’ White Pilot . . .

The White Knight ... notice the exquisite blue hands and green dots near the 4 numerals
. . .  and the font  . . .

In the meanwhile, Shubha called and said that she had found somebody in Coimbatore who had Pilots to sell and asked me whether I wanted one.  And she got one each for us three brothers. 

The New Black-dial Pilot . . . 

And then not many months ago, the HMT website started displaying colour colour dial Pilots . . .  brownish-maroon, saffronish-red, and yellow . . . also an Arabic numerals Pilot . . . but whenever I looked, the status was always ‘stocks awaited’ . . . I too waited . . . but stocks were still ‘awaited’ . . . and then one evening, back from college, I went online and to my shock and surprise, saw that the brownish-maroon and saffronish-red Pilots had both come out of ‘stocks awaited’ to ‘stocks available’… I hesitated for a while, refreshed the page a few times, and clicked both with trembling hands . . .  

The Maroon & The Saffron . . .

I told Hari that I bought these two colour Pilots . . . and the yellow was still ‘awaited’ . . . he then gave me a valuable tip . . . I thought I’d put it to test the coming week . . . despite that, the yellow fellow kept eluding me for a long long time . . . and again, some weeks back, on a sleepless Saturday afternoon, out of sheer laziness, I visited the HMT site and saw that the yellow fellow was available along with the Arabic numerals Pilot . . . I couldn’t believe my eyes . . . I said ‘yes’ to both . . .

The Yellow Fellow . . .

The Arabic Pilot . . .

I told Hari about this and he said, people are after these colour dial Pilots now, but at one point of time these were available across the counter at all HMT showrooms and none of us bothered . . . he said, a dealer used to almost beseech me to buy the yellow Pilot . . . but see now . . . whatever pieces of Pilot they release get sold within minutes . . .  

Anyway, these are the Pilots that I have . . . 

 . . . and then he told me that HMT made seven colour dial Pilots and sent me a link . . . one for each day of the week, he said . . . wow . . . and he had all of them . . . more wow . . . so, here are all of them  . . . all these belong to Hari, including the photo . . .

I need three more colours to complete the rainbow . . . I don’t know if HMT would put them online . . . but I am hoping that they would do in the near future . . . the blue especially looks very very tempting . . .

I know this is a madcap ride . . . but can’t help it . . .