Co-founder, Satyam Renaissance Consulting; Founder, Anantara Solutions, Author, Thinker, Management Expert
I had the good fortune of working closely with G. B. Prabhat (GBP) of Satyam Renaissance fame, the pioneer of the offshore consulting model. This was at Anantara Solutions, a Chennai-based global consulting outfit where he was the founder and I was a ‘finder’.
Despite my short stay, our relationship bloomed to an enduring high, thanks to the wonderful conversations we had, as also the fact that I had read his novel ‘Eimona’ long before I became a colleague. It was his stoic poise and awe-inspiring wit and wisdom that gave me the strength and stamina to look beyond the 'maximum' nusiance value of a few 'minimum' persons, an insescapable reality in every organization across verticals.
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It would not be out of place to begin this short post with a short introduction to Eimona.
Eimona is a gripping tale of co-existing contrasts in a tech-savvy, money-minted new-age India – abundance & deprivation, loneliness & celebration and advancement & regression – seen through the eyes of an aging protagonist of the old order who sees a future that begins to dictate even before it beckons from the mists of the unknown.
Whether it's the endearing protagonist Subbu, his grandson Bharat, Bharat's go-getter wife Indu, their innocent daughter Maya or the several others who circle the life of this family of four - GBP brings out the most profound emotions lurking in the seemingly inconsequential actions of every character.
GBP’s vivid imagery of the world around him is as hilarious as it is heart-wrenching – we have smart career-women seeking ready-to-deploy hubby packs of good looks and meek authority; the sophisticated demeanour of professional life degenerating into shabby movements of retired confinement; societal code of conduct for bereavement and celebration; the incidental well-being of families blessed with ample space, adequate money and less time; and of course - the umpteen vultures of culture selling best-of-breed solutions for fighting depression, blooming love lives, deciphering child psychology besides a host of social and anti-social issues disconcerting the high-achievers of the new generation.
The trinkets of observation - principally seen through the roving eyes of Subbu - are laced with effortless humour - an astute blend of Wodehousean wordplay and Chaplinesque graphic display. They subtly highlight the self-defeating ingredients of self-centred strides - the intrusive courtesy of shopping malls, fleeting values of modern families, switching loyalties of corporate worlds, matrimonies bound by contractual obligation and supersonic success stories demented by brimming insecurity.
However, the perfect poise of Subbu’s detached tongue-in-cheek commentary is somewhat lost in the volcanic climax of the novel. Knowingly or unknowingly, the author tilts the moral scales in Subbu’s favour rather forcefully. Towards the end, Subbu has his stamp of incisive authority virtually on every episode. One wonders whether the hypocrisy of the new order could have come about more subtly.
Nevertheless, the pace of the novel is extremely alluring. The fag-end drama, in what’s a social commentary, is narrated with best-seller finesse. In fact, the novel has all the essential elements to make it an engaging film plot. This is a one-of-a-kind effort that makes you wake up and take notice. And the story is best read, not described.
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GBP was kind enough to spare time off his hectic schedule to share a few thoughts on one of his latest books, a one-of-a-kind primer, not your everyday self-help book, aptly titled ‘Maximum Person’, aimed to help the reader lead a fulfilling life, personally and professionally. I am currently midway through the book and look forward to sharing my two-penny review as soon I am through with it.
Meanwhile, here’re the excerpts of the Q and A:
How did the idea of 'Maximum P' germinate in your mind?
GBP: For a while, with great alarm, I have been watching steep declines in the Quality of Life (worldwide). Specifically I am deeply concerned about the QoL of the emerging generations. That, coupled with my knowledge about industrial Quality Management techniques gathered over a 30 year period in business consulting, prompted me to propose a model for dramatically improving the QoL of individuals by an adapted application of Quality Management techniques. The result was “Maximum Person.”
{You can buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUM-PERSON-Dramatically-Management-Techniques-ebook/dp/B09DY9WN9M}
Was consulting always an area of your affinity? Was your vocation a conscious career choice or a shift driven by circumstances or a mixed bag?
GBP: A mixed bag! I set out to have a career in Information Technology. I soon realized that in the corporate world, Information Technology was changing from an article of faith to being treated like any other investment which to yield tangible returns. This required fitting all IT interventions into the business context. Exciting new fields like Business Reengineering came to the fore when I was young. I capitalized on such trends and turned myself into a consultant never once divorcing myself from IT.
By your own admission, your favourite book is your next. So what's next?
GBP: I am presently working on two novels, some short stories and the next volume of my Tamil poems.
I would like to know more about "Intimate moments..." based on your father's short stories and also your Tamil poems. Was your father a strong influence for the writer in you?
GBP: My father was a prolific writer in Tamil publishing over 500 short stories in addition to novellas and skits in a writing career that spanned about 70 years. He taught himself Tamil (English and Malayalam were his media of instruction) because of his abiding interest in the language and its literature. He wrote copiously in English too (he was an English literature teacher) but his output in English quantitatively was dwarfed by his Tamil writings. Intimate Moments and Other Stories is a collection of select short stories of my father rendered into English by me. The rationale behind the selection of the stories was to showcase his vast oeuvre. My father was indeed a powerful influence in causing and shaping my interest in literature.
(Note: GBP shared the foreword he wrote to his dad's collection. I initially intended to include only an excerpt, but mesmerised by its profundity, I hereby reproduce it in full. This is undoubtedly one of the best forewords ever written. Read, reread and savour the beauty of the prose turned into poetry)
FOREWORD
Having a father who is a literary genius is both a gift and a problem.
A gift because he stoked in me so fierce a passion for literature that made all other pursuits seem worthless. I continue to immerse gratefully in the pleasures of the world he introduced me to.
Being a great writer’s son, however, puts me in a predicament. It creates the social compulsion that I do not offer any commentary on his writing, certainly not praise. A strong dilemma overtook me. Either I could remain the modest son of a family of virtue and let my father’s Tamil works go unrepresented in the world of English readership. Or break with the well-established tradition of modesty, play the maieutic role of the translator, and make his work accessible to English readers. I have chosen the latter.
Under my father’s tutelage, hopefully I have turned at least a novice at handling the indispensable requirement of a critic: Of dispassionately viewing the work for what it is. It is comforting that his stories appear alongside my commentary. I am sure they will speak for themselves. So here goes.
My father and veteran writer, G.S.Balakrishnan, has been writing since the 1940s. Over a period of 60 years, he has written over 500 published short stories in Tamil, in addition to a number of novels, novellas and skits. He is also a prolific writer in English with short stories, opinion pieces, translations of Tamil literature, and English literature reviews to his credit. He is the author of 10 Tamil books including collections of his short stories and an introductory treatise on humour. His short stories have won him many awards, the Kalki- Berkeley Award for the best humorous story among others. An English teacher at many prominent universities of India, Balakrishnan, now nearly 80, leads a retired existence at Chennai (Madras), India.
There must be only a handful of writers who have over 500 published short stories. O.Henry is said to have published over 600. Most historical notes about Luigi Pirandello claim that he has written about 500 short stories. At any rate, it is not often that the man you meet easily on the road is such a prolific writer. My father roams the roads constantly, speaking to ordinary folks about ordinary things with the inherent writer’s instinct. His range is awe- inspiring: humour, philosophy, medical ethics, cryonics, patriotism, romance, hope and disillusionment. Yet for the most part, the stories concern ordinary folks and ordinary things. Every writer knows that dealing with ordinariness is a far more complex undertaking than dealing with extraordinariness. My father sought ordinariness not as an affected, condescending search for raw material for his stories. He genuinely rejoices in the ordinariness of life while aspiring for the sublime in his art. Renowned Tamil writer, “Sujatha” Rangarajan, who passed away recently, clubbed him with the literary doyens, Kalki, SVV, Devan, Nadodi and Savi, for his humour. His Tamil publisher, Srinivasan of Alliance Company, the oldest known publishing company in Tamil, described him as “an unpretentious genius.”
Balakrishnan wrote for nothing except the aesthetic purpose. Entertainment is the only goal of his writing. If there is edification, like with any great writing, that is merely a byproduct.
He has an intense disdain for the didactic. His work is unattended by direct sentiment. While his stories attained his stated goal of unmixed pleasure for the reader, they are nothing like the modern English short story. The modern short story (at least, American) is the emperor’s new clothes. It receives widespread approval; the more inaccessible it is and the more pretentious, the wider the approval. At heart, however, the applauders are clueless about what they are applauding. Worse, they doubt if the story is even there. The new short story demands an effort of the reader that is greater than that required to understand nuclear principles or equally daunting arcana. It is an unending mystery to me that the practitioners of the imposter craft of the modern short story hail Maugham, Hemingway and Hawthorne as the greatest artists, but do little to emulate their art. My father’s stories are a lifetime’s protest against such inaccessibility. A greater acquaintance with simple yet profound stories such as his may actually give readers the courage to declare that the emperor, indeed, has no clothes.
Many of his stories set in period 1950-1970 bear the charm of sepia-tinted pictures. The revolution of the age may have become the quaintness of today. (In more than one story, the salwar kameez is the radical progressive’s attire.) On the surface, the settings may appear sweetly anachronistic, but the stories bear the unmistakable stamp of timeless works. The type that you would particularly love to read on a rainy day curled up under a blanket. His is an uncomplicated literature.
Of the literary lineaments, Balakrishnan used the plot most profitably. His singular capability is uncovering overlooked or unorthodox insights. These insights turned into plots that compare with the best in the world. He paid attention to style and many times produced scintillating narrative. It was only very rarely that he was not patient with character development. Perhaps he was carried away by the splendour of his plot that he was unwilling to plod through it. In such cases, character development was legitimately a distraction. Excited by his plot, you can see him speed through the narrative towards the resolution. It is as if he wants to, like O.Henry, urgently peer down the cliff of the narrative to look at the ending below. But like O.Henry, he caters eminently to readers who want the story writer to cut to the chase. He is cast more in the mould of Saki, James Thurber, Ambrose Bierce and Katherine Mansfield than in the mould of Gertrude Stein, Raymond Carver and Julio Cortazar.
He is only as incomplete as any master of writing.
The majority of his writing is in Tamil, which was not the language of his instruction. His passion to write drove him to become a self-taught student of Tamil. It is surprising that being a teacher of English, he did not choose it as his primary medium of expression. While he did write quite copiously in English too, it is in Tamil that he was at home.
Being well-versed in Sanskrit, he believes that Sanskrit literature is the highest form of the craft. Readers familiar with Sanskrit writing will see that both the aesthetic and affective qualities of his stories are influenced by great Sanskrit works.
My mother, Vijaya, is his first critic and he listens to her carefully. Though he wrote almost as much under her name, as he did under his, she supplied material for only one story. That story, Full Circle, is included in this collection to lend it completeness.
While reading the drafts of many stories, I have taken the liberty of asking for a redundant line to be deleted, for minor conversions in prose, and for titles to be changed. He would consider the suggestions with the greatest humility.
In producing this collection, I am filled with the cardinal fear of the translator: That he reflect the original in spirit, if not in letter.
The Tamil writing fraternity has lavished praise on Balakrishnan for his humor and I have no disagreement with the view. He is, however, much larger than just his humorous writing. I have attempted to make this collection a sample of his oeuvre, not just his humour.
The collection includes unusual stories dealing with the unusual (magic in Methuselah, robotics in Mini and Mohini, fire-walking in The Fire Ablution, and fantasy in The Singing Cracker), humour (Doting Diktats, It’s a Dog’s Day, and My Dear Nightingale), history (The Jasmine Creeper) and the perpetually attractive aching human relationships (many stories). The collection includes 3 award-winning stories The Night of My Desire, The Jasmine Creeper and My Dear Nightingale. A few stories are the Sudden Fiction type but don’t trade punch for the gravity of their lengthier companions. Ultimately, as his Tamil publisher, Srinivasan says, his stories defy categorization, characterized only by a mysterious underlying charm.
In translating his stories I believe I am discharging as much a literary duty as a filial duty – the literary duty of bringing high quality Tamil work to English.
Unlike Latin American and other world literature (say, the works of Julio Cortazar, Jose Luis Borges, Ibsen, and Gao Xinjian) which are capable of contemplating world history and world thought, as English literature also can, Tamil literature is intensely local, almost folksy. It doesn’t acknowledge the world outside. That does not make great Tamil writers any less than peers from any part of the world.
The tragedy of regional writing in India is that, for the West, it is still an unsighted treasure. Tamil writing is a gem waiting to be discovered by English readership. Writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Haruki Murakami, no doubt extraordinarily talented, benefited by their association with America and promotion by giant journals such as The New York Times. There are equally prodigious writers in Tamil and other Indian languages – unsung Nerudas - waiting to be announced. With many things Indian receiving high visibility, I can only hope Tamil writing translated into English will become a collateral beneficiary. And try hard to make it happen.
G.B.Prabhat
April, 2008