An excellent Indian murder mystery

Bad weather is a time for good books, and this weekend I read a murder mystery featuring a portly Punjabi detective, Vish Puri. The Case of the Missing Servant unfolds in Delhi, Gurgaon and NOIDA with side trips to Mehrauli "farmhouses" and to the Pink City.

I read it straight through in a single afternoon, and it was neither immediately obvious nor deliberately obscure, thus passing my basic tests for a well-written and well-paced murder mystery.

I also liked the fact that it was deeply Indian in its setting, characters and motivations, diving smoothly and intimately into the complexities and contrasts of life in New Delhi. Very often when people write about India, they are either dark, harsh and judgmental, or else they tend to sugarcoat. In this case, I thought the portrayal was authentic without being depressing, a realistic portrayal by an Indian author. In fact, reading the book, I would never have thought the author looked like this!

Tarquin Hall, featured nowhere in the book, is half-British, half-American and lives in New Delhi with his Indian-born wife. In the writing of this book, he seems to have adopted at least temporarily and with remarkable accuracy Indian attitudes, stereotypes, slang, beliefs and value systems.

Vish Puri, the central character, a Punjabi Sherlock Holmes and admirer of Chanakya, is slightly cocky like all great fictional detectives, and dreams of being portrayed by actor Anupam Kher in a possible Bollywood biopic of his life. As he negotiates the twists and turns of a sensational murder case, Hall explores life in North India - the web of relationships between the classes and the masses, the dirty nature of the construction business, the locus of power among politicians, businessmen, bureaucracy and judiciary, and corruption at every layer of society.

He does all this, however, while remaining matter-of-fact, almost cheerful, and without altering the entertaining pace. The tone is never bitter, and never without hope - the warmth and humanity of Vish Puri permeates this excellent page turner like the aroma of fresh paranthas.

(Check out the Guardian UK's review here)

I didn't think this winter could actually delight me

And it hasn't, for the most part. But last week, following a spell of freezing rain, the weather gods decided to treat me to a Winter Wonderland.

This translates to every single bare tree and shrub being sheathed in transparent, sparkling ice on a clear sunny day, transforming a regular old suburb into a Swarovski crystal forest.

As I snapped away, hands hurting in the cold, eyes dazzled with the glory all around me, I reflected that Walt Disney himself couldn't have done it better.

 

Ice Scraper

You are in bed, half-asleep, the morning after a snow storm. Which storm? Who knows, they are all one icy blur in your  memory. As you hear the wife leaving, you read the Times on your phone, scrolling through the story today's weather "a day of slush between two snowstorms." Speaking of storms, the wife is kind of storming out, annoyed that you didn't fuel the car on the weekend before the storm.

As the apartment door slams shut, you can literally feel the peace settling back, pressing down like two stones on your eyelids. A few more minutes of sleep....

Your cellphone ringing is a rude awakening, her voice incoherent, muddled with frustration, rage, and... are those tears? It takes a few minutes to realize that not fueling the car was the least of your faults. That spot where you parked near the top of the garage was open, exposed to the snow storm, something you did not realize late on Saturday night when it was the only thing available. The back of the car, it seems, is opaque with a sheet of ice frozen hard - and she tried to scrape it off with the only tools she has, her fingers and a plastic bag. 

As you dress, you try to think of  a solution, considering you don't even own a shovel, let alone an ice scraper. Indoor parking so far has made you soft. Though its freezing outside, you know the temperature inside the car is rising with each interminable second as she gets more and more stressed about being late for work.

By the time you leave home, your phone is already ringing again, a sign that she has already driven down six levels and has been parked outside since a minute or two (though she sincerely believes it to be much, much longer).

The car looks crappy. You unleash your weapon in a tidal wave across the rear windshield and watch it clear like magic. Magic, or two bottles of microwaved hot water.

Now she has turned her back to you, and you know she half wants to smile or maybe even giggle. But with a long and potentially difficult drive before her, the frustration hasn't quite gone away yet, so she will hide her face. She hates being late.

You want to smile too, in triumph, but you haven't quite gotten over your annoyance at being blamed for not moving the car on a Sunday before a storm or not being aware that it was exposed to the elements. She could have moved it herself if she wanted to. So you remain stony-faced.

A few hours later, these pictures reach your inbox. 

"The drive was so horrid, but it's so beautiful here today!" reads the message.

It's not till evening that you tell her about the backup secret weapon you didn't even have to use - her favorite stainless steel spatula

Building This Blog: The Bottom-Up Approach

When I first starting blogging, I only wrote about what I wanted to write. I enjoyed writing, I wrote regularly, and never found it hard to keep up.

As the noughties decade crept towards its end, however, I tried to create a "focus" for my blogs. I think that was where I stumbled. The more I tried to narrow my area of focus, the less I enjoyed it, the less regularly I wrote, and the more often my posts seemed forced.

In the process, I have learned some things about myself. One is that I will never be a food-only, books-only or theater-only blogger. I will always have multiple themes. Another is that I may add pictures to my blog, but for me, the pictures will always have to play a supporting role to the writing.

This time round, I have decided to go back at least partially to my original approach and to write - to write for myself, not for the stats, not for comments and not for anything else. And I have decided to wait and see what themes (if any) emerge from this blog. I have a feeling that sections may emerge, but I want them to emerge naturally.

This time, I am not going top-down. Like anyone trained in the object-oriented approach to programming, I am building this blog bottom up

I never thought I would feel warm at -6 degrees Celsius

Well, not warm exactly. But less cold. And somewhat relieved to be in air that doesn't painfully sting the skin.

As a child in India reading the Narnia books, I never fully comprehended the horror of the White Witch's curse - always winter and never Christmas. But that's what this January has felt like, as immured in the home, office or car I stare through the windows at the bleak tundra without.

Granted, the winter has had some moments such as the treacherous beauty of driving through snow, a moving snow-globe in a silent white world where tires feel unsteady on the suddenly frictionless tarmac, slippery and textured at the same time.

Or the rare bright day when the sheets of snow have a crystalline sparkle, and pale tree skeletons draw starkly lovely patterns against the austere blue of the sky.

And as the days lengthen slightly into February, I have seen a few of those.

But mostly, its been gloomy days of monochromatic landscapes, dull white skies with their suggestion of grey, dense fogs, and long dark night drives through freezing rain.

The frozen Hudson preserves none of its summer loveliness, with scabrous sheets or unsightly pieces of ice.

All in all, I can't wait to see the first daffodils.