Beach Boy

I just finished reading Ardashir Vakil’s “Beach Boy”. Its my first book of the author, not that I am a fan of any particular author, I did like his detail oriented description throughout the book. The main reason for me to choose the book was the snap on the cover page; ‘a boy with starfish on his torso’ (it’s a photograph by B. Lezak/ Swanstock), there was something in the picture that attracted me to by the book. And more over I had gone looking for ‘A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth’, so I thought if not a suitable boy a beach boy atleast.
The meticulous details provided by the author are very much impressive. It makes us wonder how many aspects of our life have we left without even thinking or noticing. Yes I remember having noodles/ fried rice from the street hawkers of Hyderabad but never had I noticed the details, though I see the fellow using the ingredients I never wondered how did he get it or is there a story behind him. That is the specialty of the author, even if it’s a panwallah who gives credit to Cyrus (the lead character), he remains fresh in our memories.

The book is written in Indian English (English mixed with regional language) for everyone to relate to the character more. It clearly depicts the adolescence and its appetites, I am not sure if everyone will agree to me when I say adolescence is complicated as is adult life. I feel both adults and the young go through different crisis of life and knowingly or unknowingly adults expect the young to have the same feelings as they have. As the father passes away everyone is moaning but Cyrus is not, he wants to go for a movie and his aunty, Zenobia is seen speaking to him “You have to show respect for the dead”. Yes this simple line burns him; he is left with feeling that he did not love his dad. Why doesn’t she realize that he loved his dad very much and he is sad but does not know how to express his feelings? Even he is cajoled by Maharani (a character) to cry. ‘You should cry, Cyrus. It’s natural. Its good to cry’, may be its true that crying might ease the suffocation in the lungs. Everyone doesn’t react the s same why. Even I remember when my Grandparents passed away I did not cry, while all others around me were crying I did not feel like. Its not that I did not love them, I did but no tears. Hey, when my one of my grand parents from the maternal side passed away I some how made my eyes soggy, because I had a feeling that my relatives will think that I am ungrateful/ non loving and stuff, and the weird part is that I do get emotional quickly and used to cry. But on that day I did not.

As I had said Cyrus wanted to go to a movie while his father was dead, and his aunt is seen scolding him. Its different a thing that he is a movie buff (like me) he explains why he loves to go to moves especially alone. ‘I loved the darkness and the calm of the theater, the comfortable seats, the fact that no one could see me, and the certainty that for the next three hours I could abandon myself utterly to the twisting plot, the double roles, the comic interludes, the classic dialogue, and the thrilling fight sequences at the end. That’s why I like going to the pictures on my own. You never had to worry about the person sitting next to you and what they might be doing or thinking. I was much happier to be in an anonymous audience. That moment when the lights dimmed and the Indian Board of Censors white page with the name of the film written on it projected on the screen, no one knew me, and I didn’t know them, but for the duration of the film we were pulled together, wrapped up, and spellbound. Out of the vastness of our city we came into this ship of darkness, paid our due, had our fun, and returned once more to our separate lives.’ Even I do go for the movies sometimes for the above said reason, but not all the time. Yes ill have to agree with Karan Johar/ Sharukh Khan in their forum during Conclave 2009, “Movies are a form of Escapism”. An escape from the world of tensions and deadlines, may be that’s the reason everyone believes in fairytales and happy endings. So Bollywood you are our spa, relieve our tensions.

The detail-oriented description of Kerala, the preparation of the cook for the dinner party, the sexual encounters every aspect of the novel seemed to be related to each other such was splendid detail orientation. To all of you I would like to say is, be detail oriented to know things more clearly. Be it at office or the vacations get to know people and the history behind. I am reminded of a movie I had see few days back “Outsourced”, its story of an American guy coming to India to train call center/ BPO staff for this firm to sell American products to Americans on phone. The one of the reasons for the success of the move was detailing, even if it was a street hawker or a native walking on the street or a guy taking leak on the corner of the road, even a cow, the festival of Holi and how native India celebrates it, every aspect was framed bringing life to the movie.

The book is a very good read, but ofcourse it’s my opinion tastes may differ. I liked the movie “Shabd”, (a story of an author who sees everything through the eyes of his book) while all my classmates hated the movie; it was a relief that they did not trash me. Even now I like that movie, got both shades of colour & darkness. Hey, I just went down and happened to hear AR Rahman’s, Oscar wining, “Jai Ho”, on TV, it was the background score for a fashion show at Milan Fashion Week, February Fall collection 2009/10. As I said its just a matter of tastes.