BLAFTATRONIC HALWA

The Obliterary Journal - Table of Contents

2012-01-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

Here's sign painter S. Venkataraman again, starting work on the Table of Contents for The Obliterary Journal.

Note the N.S. Brand asoefetida T-shirt.

Here's the Table of Contents a little farther along:

Here's the nearly-completed wall with some neighbourhood donkeys cavorting merrily in the foreground.

Finally, here is the completed Table of Contents in its full glory.

And here's a close-up:

The book is releasing along with Yukichi Yamamatsu's Stupid Guy Goes to India during the Delhi Comic Con, Feb 17-19, at Dilli Haat. Yukichi Yamamatsu will be flying in all the way from Tokyo to do a manga workshop, and Vidyun Sabhaney, Amitabh Kumar, Roney Devassia and other contributors will be there too. Do come by the Blaft stall!

Unbound forms of Stupid Guy Goes to India stacked up at the printers

2012-01-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

Yukichi Yamamatsu's Stupid Guy Goes to India... releasing next month yougaiz!

Coming Soon: The Obliterary Journal

2012-01-17T04:31:00.000-08:00

We've been delaying the announcement because we weren't sure it would be ready. But now it's confirmed: The Obliterary Journal, a book-length collection of short comics, street art, typography, and assorted other wacky strange visuals by many extremely talented contributors will be released at Delhi Comic Convention, Feb 17-19 (exact date of event to be announced.) We will most likely also be having a gathering to celebrate the launch at a Delhi bookstore on Monday, Feb 20th.

That's Kolai Kathirikkai there on the cover, a psychopathic killer brinjal who is a character in one of the stories in the book. We would like also to draw your attention to the fact that the title of The Obliterary Journal has been actually painted on a wall by virtuoso sign painter S. Venkataraman. This is what it looked like when he first did it:

(Note: Straatkunst means "street art" in Dutch. चित्र कथा means "picture stories" in Hindi. Tipografia means "typography" in Spanish, though technically it's supposed to have an accent over the second i. And ஓவியக்கலை means "painting" in Tamil.)

This is what the wall looked like shortly afterwards, with an auto parked in front of it:

This is what it looks like now.

As you'll notice, it's been totally obliterated.

Watch this space for further announcements about the book and the launch!

Happy Birthday Gurdas Maan!

2012-01-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

Bhangra legend Gurdas Maan turns 54 today. To celebrate, we share with you this beautiful piece of collage art by Vishwajyoti Ghosh from his postcard book Times New Roman & Countrymen incorporating a scanned Gurdas Mann concert ticket, a tasty-looking dessert (yum!), and the text of an actual-absolutely-100%-no-kidding-real-deal Delhi newspaper matrimonial ad.

Buy the book here -- there are 24 more very attractive postcards in it!

Happy Durga Puja!

2011-09-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

Stolen from Detective Comics #35, January 1940.

I always wonder: is there much fiction written in Asian or African languages where the authors have used totally made-up European gods and religions and ethnic groups? If anyone knows of such stuff, please to share your information.

While researching for Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. II, we did find a Tamil pulp novel by Rajesh Kumar in which Coimbatore police detective Vivek solves a case of political intrigue in Coluba, a small independent island nation situated between the US and Canada... but that's the only example I know of so far.

Happy International Literacy Day!

2011-09-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

You must learn to read and write

Then your mind will shine so bright

Just plain Love won't do for me

You must also learn your ABC!

Commemorate International Literacy Day by picking up a copy of Kumari Loves a Monster by Rashmi Ruth Devadasan & Shyam for that budding young reader in your life.

Coming soon -- "Stupid Guy Goes to India"

2011-08-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

We're happy to announce that sometime in late 2011 or early 2012 we'll be releasing Yukichi Yamamatsu's 2008 non-fiction manga インドへ馬鹿がやって来た, in a new English translation by Kumar Sivasubramanian.

It's the hilarious true story of Yukichi's first journey to India--his first trip out of Japan, knowing no English and no Indian language--and his slightly insane mission to introduce classic Samurai manga to Hindi readers, even if it meant sitting on a mat on the Delhi pavement and selling them himself.

Here's Bharath Murthy with a short strip about Yukichi.

Look alive there, boys! Keep your eyes peeled!

Tambu Main Bamboo Ke Baad

2011-08-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Wieden+ Kennedy in Delhi has a pretty fab-sounding exhibit of vintage A movie posters on until September 17th. If you're in Delhi, go check it out... read more here. (Apparently they are selling the posters from between Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 50,000. Gotta start collecting!)

If you like this sort of thing you may also dig Delhi Calm author and Pao Collective member Vishwajyoti Ghosh's superawesome postcard book Times New Roman & Countrymen, in which he uses bits and pieces of adult movie poster artwork along with the actual text of Delhi newspaper classified ads and a wide variety of other colourful things to make lovely images like these:

Buy the book here! Go retro! Send a friend a postcard!

eBook release: Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?

2011-07-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

Blaft Publications is proud to announce the release of Ki. Rajanarayanan's Where Are You Going, You Monkeys? -- Folktales from Tamil Nadu as an eBook.

The stories are expertly selected and translated from the definitive 2007 collection of Tamil folklore, நாட்டுப்புறக் கதைக் களஞ்சியம் (buy Tamil version here), by Pritham K. Chakravarthy, whose translation of Ki. Rajanarayanan's Sahitya Akademi award-winning novel Gopallapuram is also out from Penguin this month.

The book also features some illustrations by Chennai-based artist Trotsky Marudu. Here's his picture of a bootham, a sort of shape-changing genie-like ghost:

You can buy the book from the Kindle Store or the NOOK store or Lulu.com. Or buy the physical book from here.

Here's what reviewers have said about the book:

Pritham Chakravarthy’s translation is breezy, occasionally wicked, but always urging you to read on. Folklore buffs will love this one and so will other general readers. -- R. Krithika, The Hindu

At a time when it’s fashionable to define 'Indian culture' as a fixed conservative entity, to squeeze tradition into an airtight box, these stories are essential reading. -- Jai Arjun Singh, Tehelka

This delightful collection fully lives up to - enhances - Blaft’s young but confident standing. -- Vijay Nambisan, The Deccan Herald

If you're not convinced to pick up a copy yet, check out this funny video of Ki. Rajanarayanan (affectionately known as Ki. Ra.) telling one of the stories that couldn't make it into the book as it has a visual element to it. Warning: Mature audiences only. :-)

New Kuzhali Manickavel story

2011-07-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Blaft Publications is proud to announce the release of

a new short story

Eating Sugar, Telling Lies

by Kuzhali Manickavel

Now available as an eChapbook

(a very short eBook)

"Eating Sugar, Telling Lies" starts like this:

The Thieving WhoreQueen was missing. Grey, runny bubbles leaked from a lump of wet clothes she had left on the washing stone. Her broom was propped under the stairs, handle down, the grass tip curled to an almost perfect circle.

To read the rest of this really good, powerful, hard-hitting story:

You can buy it here for $0.99 (about Rs. 45) and download in any of the following formats: EPUB, Sony reader (LRF), Kindle (MOBI), PDB, PDB, or RTF. (Should work with any credit or debit cards, including Indian ones.)
Or buy it here from the NOOK store (US or UK cards only.)
Or buy it here if you have a have a Kindle.

The eBook version of Kuzhali's 2008 collection, Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings, is also now available from Amazon, the NOOK store, and Lulu.com for US $4.99.

Also, in case you're not following it yet, there is lots more of Kuzhali's wonderful writing available at her blog: http://thirdworldghettovampire.blogspot.com/.

Enjoy.

If you have any trouble buying or downloading, please contact us at blaft [at] blaft [dot] com for assistance.

Fuming Furious Arrrgghh

2011-06-17T02:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day at school of Sharmina, the 3-year-old daughter of one of our staff. She came to the office proudly showing off her brand new LKG school books, the "Little Pentagon" series published by Samba Publishers, Chennai. I flipped through and found this gem.

The year is 2011. It is 86 years since Periyar's self-respect movement; 64 years since Indian independence; 48 years since MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech. Can someone please tell me why the F*** we are still feeding our kids this crap?

Darya Ganj Sunday Book Market Scores

2011-06-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

No dates on these...

Also from Kali Gufa, this may be the best ever horror novel back-cover author photo:

Successful Ibne Safi Kickoff! and other exciting news

2011-04-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful time in Delhi for last week's launch of four Jasusi Dunya novels by Ibne Safi, translated by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, and co-published by the good people at Tranquebar Press in India. Buy them here!

We were all very happy that Ibne Safi's son, Ahmad Safi, was at the last minute able to get his visa and come from Karachi via Dubai to Delhi to attend the function--his first time visiting India. Unfortunately, the authorities didn't let him leave Delhi to visit his father's native Allahabad... but it was great to have him at the launch, at least. (Also great to join him at Karim's the next day for a lunch worthy of the gluttonous Jasusi Dunya character Qasim. Om nom nom.)

Our illustrious translator, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, was there at the launch too, as were a bunch of Safi family friends, avid Jasusi Dunya fans who knew the stories in and out, and assorted other cool people. A big thanks to all who attended, and to all those who have been helping to spread the word about the books.

Ebooks

The Safi novels have also gone on sale as eBooks outside India... you can buy them for the Kindle from the Amazon store or in EPUB format from Lulu.com. We think this makes Ibne Safi the second ever Urdu author, after Ghalib, to be available in translation in eBook format. We like to think Colonel Faridi would approve.

The Unstoppable Awesomeness of Kuzhali Manickavel

In other news, Kuzhali Manickavel did an interview at Sepia Mutiny a couple of weeks back which was awesome 1) because it gave a nice little bump to US sales of her book and 2) because she managed to work in a link to the best song video in the history of the universe, which of course is "Dheega Dheega" from Suriyan Satta Kaloori, sung by the reigning goddess of Tamil folk song, Chinnaponnu (go out and buy all her CDs right now!!) with lyrics and music direction by Deva, and featuring the maddeningly beautiful Aarthi as the lead dancer. How we wish someone would upload a higher-res version. At least, you can read the lyrics.

For those of you who are saddened by the fact that Kuzhali is taking the month off from her fabulous blog, here is a happy rumour: a brand new Kuzhali story is set to go on sale as a special edition eChapbook early in May.

Miscellaneous Other Stuff

The Hindu's Bangalore edition did a nice write-up on Tamil pulp author Rajesh Kumar, who is probably the most prolific author in the world. Interesting story of the genesis of Rubella.
More Tamil pulp author achievements: writer duo Suba (a.k.a. Suresh and Balakrishna), who were featured in our first anthology, have written the screenplay to the new Tamil blockbuster film Ko, which has opened to good reviews.
Sarnath Banerjee stopped by Chennai last week to promote his new book (which is pretty great: read it) and was interviewed at the Blaft office by a guy who was nice enough to mention our dog twice in his article. The bad guitar playing was my fault.
The April issue of the literary journal Asymptote is up--entirely devoted to translation--and there is lots of amazing stuff in it, like this trippy play by Han Lao Da.
Persevere.

Ibne Safi Book Launch - Friday April 22nd New Delhi!

2011-04-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

Ibne Safi Cover Art!

2011-03-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

Here are the cover images for the four novels by Ibne Safi we'll be releasing on April 22nd at the Habitat Centre in Delhi:

The paintings in the middle are the original 1950s Allahabad edition covers by Siddiqui Artist.

We'll also be releasing a new "popular edition" (= slightly smaller and cheaper) version of The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. I.

Bizarre Kid's Clothing Slogans, pt. II

2011-03-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

Seen in a t-shirt shop in Sivakasi. Sort of kicking ourselves for not buying these.

That bit on the left is kinda blurry in the pic. It says, "A POWERFUL MIX OF FASHION MILITARY AND YOUTH MOVEMENT FUSED TOGETHER TO CREATE A UNPREDICTABLE CULTURE"

So Awesome! Tough Jeansmix!

In other news: Many people are asking us when the Ibne Safi books are coming out. The answer is: April. Really truly, this time we mean it. We will be announcing the launch here very soon!

Why aren't more people into the Fighter Toads?

2011-01-11T00:47:00.000-08:00

This question has baffled me for two years now, since I first learned of their existence.

TMNT move over! This is the back cover of an old issue where Masterr, Cutterr, Shooterr, and Computerr take on The Disco Thief, who hypnotizes people at discos with a hat made out of fancy lights, and makes them go to their homes in a trance to get their expensive jewellery and bring it back to him. Michael Jackson and Prabhu Deva make guest appearances.

Check out more at the Raj Comics website.

Kumari Loves a Monster / குமாரியின் ராட்சச காதலன் is here!

2010-08-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

After many delays, Kumari Loves a Monster / குமாரியின் ராட்சச காதலன் has finally arrived from the printers in all its hot-pink-and-gold-foil beauty.

Check out some of the sample art from earlier posts! Order the book online now or look for it in bookstores later this month! Tell your friends about it! Also, admire this awesome picture of the author and illustrator in front of a huge fearsome Jurassic reptile!

Shyam and Rashmi

Yeah!

Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. II is Here! and other fun stuff

2010-04-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

Hot off the presses! Buy your copy of The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. II, selected and translated by Pritham K. Chakravarthy, from the Blaft website here!

If you're not a credit card/paypal type, but you live in Chennai, come by The Madras Terrace House and pick up your copy. You can even pick up some nice threads on sale while you're at it. Or, if you're not a fashion-plate sort of person, you can get your very own barrel of slime.

(By the way, if you live in Chennai, you should also go to Besant Nagar on May 2nd to see the Perchalis perform a very very very good trilingual play called "Ki. Ra. Kozhambu" based on Ki. Rajanarayanan stories. Unlike this story, the play is wonderfully appropriate for children.)

If you want a copy of Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. II and you're not a credit card/paypal type and you DON'T live in Chennai, you're going have to wait till the book makes its way to your local bookstores. You can speed up this process and make us very happy by going to ALL your local bookstores once every couple of hours and demanding, politely but firmly, that they stock hundreds of copies. If they don't already get Blaft books you can tell them we're distributed through Westland. Try to meet the books buyer and offer him or her tasty homemade snacks while you make your polite but firm demands.

While you're waiting for the book to arrive, you can read Kuzhali Manickavel's brainmeltingly fabulous latest story at this strange and wonderful online magazine called Diagram. We find Kuzhali's writing to be an excellent sort of tonic against the yucky stomach feeling you get when you realize what a terrible horrible mess the human species is making of the world.

Take care all.

Swedish Crime Fiction: The Renewal and Redefining of a Literary Genre

2010-04-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

If you are in Bangalore on Wednesday April 21 at 6.30pm, don't miss this event at the Crossword Bookshop, Residency Road, Bengaluru.

Håkan Nesser, author of the internationally bestselling series about Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, that include titles such as The Mind’s Eye, Borkmann’s Point, and Woman with Birthmark (Pan Macmillan); together with Zac O’Yeah, author of the forthcoming Once Upon A Time In Scandinavistan (Hachette India).

The readings will be followed by a unique panel discussion on modern crime fiction, featuring literary critic Sudarshan Purohit as a moderating panelist.

Kumari Loves a Monster: Sneak Preview Part 2

2010-04-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

[Update: The book is now here! Click here to buy!]

When we blogged about Kumari Loves a Monster a few weeks ago, there were some requests for one more of Shyam's illustrations featuring a lovely nattu kattai / fearsome monster couple. Here you go:

The book is being printed this week and will be in stores, and available on our web site, very soon.

The Historical Tamil Novels of Chandilyan: Cover Art by Latha

2010-04-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

by Rakesh

Back in 2007, when Pritham Chakravarthy and I first started looking for material to include in The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, one of the authors we looked at was historical novelist Chandilyan (சாண்டில்யன், sometimes Romanized as Sandilyan). Pritham decided against including him, for several reasons (he's not really pulp--gets published in hardcover these days; the novels are really long; the action unfolds slowly, with a lot of elaborate flowery description and romantic banter which is really really hard to get sounding smooth in translation.)

We both sort of wish we could have done it, though. Pritham remembers that her mother read Chandilyan at home, but kept the books off-limits for her--"too racy", it seems. So naturally she read them as soon as she got the chance. She also remembers meeting the author a few times when she was young. I myself have been keen on learning more about the novels because

a) The author seems to be a perennial bestseller. Even though they're 50 years old, the books are still available in virtually every bookshop in the state (including some online stores, here for example). There's also a fair amount of blog discussion about the books.

b) The historical setting is really interesting, something that English readers have hardly been exposed to.

c) the covers are simply *drool*. Most of them are apparently done by an artist named Latha, about whom I know nothing except that he or she is totally awesome. Check out this hardcover for the novel Rajathilagam.

(I love the way the author/title information spills off the spine... I don't think I have seen this on any other book. It just about forces you to pick the thing up when you see it on a shelf.)

Chandilyan's novels typically feature a pseudo-historical Tamil hero, together with an exotic foreign beauty, embroiled in the tangled political intrigues of the Asian age of empires. There's a very popular one called Yavana Rani about a Tamil trader's love affair with a Greek queen, and then there's Kadal Pura, about a Chola general and a Javanese princess. It's fun to see Asian heroes get to do the exotic-Bond-girl thing. It's also interesting that while Chandilyan's protagonists are all these hardcore Dravidian braves, the author himself was a staunch Iyengar Brahmin.

(The office of Chandilyan's publishers, Vanathi Pathippagam, in T. Nagar has a beautiful selection of the original paintings by Latha and Maniyan Selvam used for these covers, all around the walls of the main office, about 9 feet off the floor.)

Don't it look fun? Hopefully this stuff will come out in translation one of these days. Pritham even has a few chapters already done we may try to post as an excerpt somewhere soon.

Indian Music Therapy for Pets

2010-04-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just have to buy a CD based on the cover alone.

The liner notes are a treat, too. Actually the first track on the disk is just a recording of the good doctor reading this. Priceless.

Anyone who knows a place to get some good goldfish-sized waterproof headphones, please let me know.

Erin Hunter Doesn't Exist!!!! by Shraddha

2010-04-03T04:05:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger Shraddha delves into the world of warrior felines...

Erin Hunter Doesn't Exist!!!

by Shraddha

Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry and Victoria Holmes, all of whom are experienced children’s book writers, get the real credit for writing the ‘Warriors’. Victoria comes up with the story idea and Cherith and Kate take turns in writing them. They all live in the UK and have come up with the single name Erin Hunter to avoid confusing their readers.

For generations, cats have been living in the forest together in four clans: Thunderclan, Windclan, Riverclan and Shadowclan. These cats live according to the warrior code of life set down to them by their warrior ancestors. The kits that are born in each clan are kept in the nursery. Then once they are six moons old they become apprentices. The apprentices are mentored and as they become bigger and better warriors they are given their warrior name. The cats can also choose to become a medicine cat which means that they would have to look after a sick or injured cat. They would also be talking to starclan (their warrior ancestors) and taking messages and advice from them if they were a medicine cat. Each clan has a leader and the leader chooses a deputy to succeed him or her.

The Warrior series begin with a kittypet (house cat) called Rusty. Rusty has always been fascinated by the forest and one night he is discovered in the forest by some clan cats. He is accepted into Thunderclan. Rusty easily adjusts to the warrior way of life. Then, the warrior code is threatened and this ordinary house cat may be the one to save them all. This book is followed by five more, all of in which Rusty—now called Fireheart—is the main character.

Then there is the next set of the Warrior series which are called, Warriors: The New Prophecy. Here Erin Hunter introduces the next generation of cats. She then sends one cat from each clan on a journey that is guided by their warriors. After the chosen cats complete their journey and come back they find the other cats weak and starved.Then all the clans have to come together to go find themselves a new home.

The next set of six is called Warriors: The Power of Three. This set of books is about three young cats who learn that there is a prophecy about them that could make them the most powerful cats that have ever existed. As they grow into young warriors they unravel secrets about themselves and the clan beyond their imagination.

There are Warrior super editions which are not part of of any of the sets. Then there are Warrior mangas too. If you would like to learn more about the codes and the ways of the clan there are Warrior field guides to help you.

Shraddha

Lord Edgware Dies: Book Review by Shruti

2010-04-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

Back in December, we asked our neighbours -- the very awesome 12-year-old bookworm twins, Shruti and Shraddha -- to write book reviews on their latest favorite reads. They responded right away and we have been inexcusably slow about posting their writeups. Without further ado, here's Shruti's piece on Agatha Christie's Lord Edgware Dies. Shraddha's writeup on the Warrior series will follow tomorrow. -RK

Lord Edgware Dies

book review by Shruti

Lord Edgware Dies is written by Agatha Christie. Around the world, Agatha Christie is known as the ‘Queen of Crime’. She has written many books on murder mysteries. Lord Edgware Dies is a book full of mystery, murder, and suspense.

Lord Edgware Dies is about a lady who seeks a divorce with her husband. Her husband refuses over and over again until the lady says out loud that if she had the chance she would kill him. She asks the Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, to discuss the matter with her husband, Lord Edgware. Hercule Poirot agrees to do so. When he meets Lord Edgware to everybody’s surprise Lord Edgware says that he has already agreed to the divorce in a letter about six months ago. Poirot tells Lady Edgware (Jane Wilkinson) and she too is surprised about the letter but is very happy.

A couple of days later Lord Edgware is found murdered. Poirot starts working on the case. The first suspect is of course Lady Edgware, as many people heard her say she wanted to kill her husband so that she could really be free of him. But things get even more confusing when another murder occurs. Clues found show that the victim, Carlotta Adams, probably murdered Lord Edgware, but probably is not good enough for Poirot. He continues to look for clues and suspects.

All the clues, the murdered body, the place where the murder takes place, it is all given in such detail that you can see it like in a movie.

All through the book Poirot gathers information and facts and puts all the bits and pieces together and discovers the murderer. Even though we are also given the same facts and information as Poirot we have not been able to solve the murder. I recommend this book to people who like mystery and murder. Lord Edgware Dies is a book worth reading.

Shruti

Kumari Loves a Monster: Sneak Preview

2010-03-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

Here goes: A sneak preview of two of Shyam's illustrations from Kumari Loves a Monster (a romantic picutre book featuring beautiful South Indian girls with boyfriends who are horrible gruesome monsters. Concept and text by Rashmi Ruth Devadasan. Releasing next month.)

[Update: The book is now here! Click here to buy!]

Cool no? We are excited.

Back in the World of the Living: Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. 2

2010-03-13T03:52:00.000-08:00

by Rakesh

So, yeah, we were a little ambitious when we started this blog thing, claiming that we'd have "weekly invertebrates" and all. It's now been 7 weeks since the last post and 10 since the last invertebrate. And we still don't have another invertebrate ready. I suppose we will rechristen them "Quarterly Invertebrates" or "Trimesterly Invertebrates" according to when we get back into it.

Been busy. Had a good trip to Delhi for the World Book Fair, where the Daylight Robbery launch went off well, and to Bombay for Kala Ghoda, where we did a couple of other events. In the process we managed to get India's crime fiction king Surender Mohan Pathak a flurry of English-language press writeups: see here and here and here and here. There were a couple of Hindi newspaper writeups as well but I'm not sure if they're online.

Also been hard at work finishing up The Blaft Anthology Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol. 2, which will go to print this week and should be on bookshelves in India in April. Here's the cover (thanks to Shyam and Malavika.PC.):

Final table of contents:

The Palace of Kottaipuram by Indra Soundar Rajan

Highway 117 by Pushpa Thangadorai and Jeyaraj

Hold on a Minute, I'm in the Middle of a Murder by Indumathi

The Hidden Hoard in the Cryptic Chamber by Medhavi

The Bungalow by the River by M. K. Narayanan

Hello, Dead Morning by Rajesh Kumar

Sacrilege to Love by Resakee

We've got another book due out in April too... Kumari Loves a Monster by Rashmi Ruth Devadasan and Shyam. Sneak preview coming in the next post.

Thekkady Streetside Standee

2010-01-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

This way to the chemist!

Happy Pongal!

2010-01-14T02:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Pongal everybody!

A few things of note:

Tonight is the opening of an exhibition of Natesh's drawings, when this key sketch gets real tongue is fork hen is cock, at the Madras Terrace House at 7 pm. Besides the awesome art there will be gun-shaped cookies (Natesh says, "If you can't solve a problem, eat it") and koothu music. Address and more info here.

SANGAMAM: If you're in Chennai and you haven't been to a Chennai Sangamam show yet, you're missing out. Last night in Kodambakkam there was an amazing string of performances by two phenomenal Thappattam groups... I am not sure of most names, as the Sangamam program seems to bear little relation to what actually goes on stage, but one was P. Raja's group from Panayur, and another was from Andhra... man were they good. Full acrobatics and human pyramids while dancing and pounding beats. There was also Dollu Kunitha from Karnataka (loud and wild with heavy bass drums), a very interesting Thavil - Nadhaswaram - Urumi - Bembi group from Thirunelveli (mighty strange grooves), a fabulous Villu Pattu performance, a 5-year-old Silambattam expert, fire-eaters, and finally--live and direct from Thanjavur--"கிராமிய இசைப்புயல்" (the village-music cyclone) Chinnaponnu Kumar, who was in full voice and awesomeness.

P. Raja Panayur Thappattam Troupe

at Corporation Ground, Kodambakkam, Chennai

On FRIDAY a lot of the same people are (according to the schedule--I hope it's reliable this time) performing in Perumbur at the Corporation School Play Ground, Thiru-Vi-Ka Nagar. After Chinnaponnu, Grace Karunas will be singing. Terrific line-up and not to be missed.

Sat-Isabgol

2010-01-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

by Rakesh

We had a house guest recently who was suffering from some, uh, personal plumbing problems, and I had occasion to remark at the sheer genius of the Sat-Isabgol box.

I mean, look at those fonts! Look at that telephone! Have you ever seen such a beautiful package design in your life?

Here it is again in Hindi from the other side of the box:

Wow.

INVERTEBRATE OF THE WEEK - Crown-of-thorns

2010-01-03T23:05:00.000-08:00

The crown-of-thorns starfish is one of the largest members of the phylum Echinodermata (which includes sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers). They can grow to be over 2 feet in diameter.

The crown-of-thorns eats coral. It does this by extruding its stomach out through the hole in the bottom of its body and leaking digestive enzyme gloop all over the coral, thereby melting the coral polyps and allowing the crown-of-thorns to slurp up their juices.

Yum!

A different kind of sea star made it into the local Chennai news this week. Most echinoderms have pentaradial symmetry (penta = 5 in greek), so this 7-armed thing is pretty different.

New Year's Appalam

2010-01-01T04:32:00.000-08:00

"Vocal Chanting" from the next Tamil Nadu Superstar

2010-01-01T04:17:00.000-08:00

From his relatively low Youtube view counts, it seems that not nearly enough people are hip to the infectious dance grooves of Tamil Nadu's very own Wilbur Sargunaraj. Please dig the following videos, then go forth and spread the word.

Hindi Pulp Art

2009-12-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more samples of the 4000+ Hindi pulp novel covers by Mustajab Ahmed Siddiqui a.k.a. Shelle, the master painter of Amroha, U.P. These didn't make it into our postcard book of his work, Heroes, Gundas, Vamps & Good Girls, but don't let that stop you from buying it.

There are so many damn guns, you know? (Acutally Blaft has put a lot of guns on the covers of our own books too, and sometimes I feel guilty about it. Dear customers: Promise you're not going to get all inspired to start stockpiling firearms and become all trigger-happy like a bunch of psycho American National Rifle Association members. OK? Please?)

This guy's blog has some nice examples of older covers, including some that appear to be Shelle's work. And there are a bunch more in the nice online collection here.

INVERTEBRATE OF THE WEEK

2009-12-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

வணக்கம் and welcome to the very first installment of "Invertebrate of the Week" at the Blaft blog--a weekly celebration of spinelessness in all its myriad forms.

Our first invertebrate is the Tardigrade. Check this one out: Cute, eh?

But before you start with the cootchie-coo baby talk, take note: these microscopic eight-legged guys are just about the toughest living things on the planet.

Scientists apparently like to do experiments on them to see how hard they are to kill. They can survive being frozen at 0.05 degrees Kelvin (that's really, really close to absolute zero). They can survive being boiled at 150 degrees Celsius. They live at the north pole and at the equator, in the Himalayas, and 4000 meters under the ocean. They can survive 1000 times the amount of radiation that would kill a human. They can even live in the vacuum of space--the only known animals to be able to do so. (Some bacteria and algae can survive in a space vacuum too, but they don't count as animals.)

The way they survive all this stuff is by using "cryptobiosis", which basically means they stop all metabolic processes. In other words, they can die and then come back to life. Like zombies.

The fact that tardigrades can survive and reproduce after exposure to unfiltered solar radiation in a vacuum--which damages DNA--means that they probably have some way of repairing their own genetic material.

Moral: Don't mess with tardigrades, because they are unbelievably awesome.

Bizarre Chennai Kids' Clothing Slogans

2009-12-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

by Rakesh

I used to get annoyed at how hard it was to find a T-shirt with a Tamil slogan on it. It still bugs me occasionally, because I find the Roman script one of the least attractive looking of all scripts (if you're not familiar with all the beautiful alphabets, abjads, and syllabaries on Omniglot, it's worth spending some time exploring). But I am now the proud owner of 2 of those popular yellow shirts given away free by the cement companies, which bear their company name and slogan (ராம்கோ சிமென்ட் -- சூப்பர் கிரேடு!) so I don't complain about it so much anymore.

Also, I've been starting to admire the exceedingly strange English slogans that appear in Chennai street fashion, on T-shirts and jeans. It seems that these are not really intended to be read -- it is enough that they are in English, or at least seem to be in some European language, and make vague references to hip or cool sounding "phoren" things like race cars. Or robots. Or dating.

Yesterday, we went Christmas shopping in Thiruvanmiyur; there were a number of kids on our list for whom we meant to buy clothes. We were really blown away by some of the slogans and designs on the kids' outfits at the shop... I think there is some sort of bizarre new textual art form emerging here. Check out this shirt sleeve:

Like, huh? Is that in Latin for a minute? Is there some deep Marxist-theoretical interpretation of the 1675 conflict between the Wampanoag Indians and the settlers of New England being referred to here? What?

Here's another beauty:

I think some African-American literary critic types should be set loose on interpreting that one, I'd like to read what they came up with.

This one reminds me of some iterative-mutating-text experimental poetry I've read somewhere. I like all the different spellings of "Tahiti" and the use of capitals and full stops.

Then there are designs where it looks like the letters of a plaintext have been rearranged or partly encrypted by some algorithmic process. This one appears to be mostly gibberish, but then note the "FANTASY GOLF" in the center.

There are some that are even more abstract, where it's hard to parse the letters:

I really want to know what that word right before "dreaming" means and how to pronounce it.

Anyway, I wonder where these nameless, brilliant designers are from: Tirupur? Ulhasnagar? Somebody needs to write a manifesto, I think.

Nandan, Young Ornithologist of Neelankarai, reports

2009-12-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

Today, we feature a report on the birds of South Chennai by Nandan Sankriti Kaushik, illustrated by his younger sister Sarayu.

BIRDS IN MY BACKYARD

Hi, I’m Nandan of class 3C. I like bird watching.

In my old apartment all I could see were screech owls, (known as barn owls), crows and hundreds of pigeons.

In July last year, we moved into a new house. I never thought we’d see so many birds! It was not like we were living with a large garden. Just a tiny one with a couple of trees and a few bushes that we’d planted.

There are, of course, crows--such noisy creatures--but especially noisy were the egrets, a whole family of them, nesting on the neighbours’ coconut and mango trees; including pond herons and night herons.

There are some jungle babblers that live around us. Funny little things. They attack rear view mirrors whenever they see one.

We have put out a bowl with clean water, for a birdbath, in the garden. The babblers look very cute when they stand around on the edge and take turns to jump in and out.

Unfortunately, most of the time we don’t have a camera nearby.

But, I’d like to tell you about an incident when we DID have a camera:

Early one morning, I was getting ready for school, when my mother called me to the garden. I saw a bird. We knew it was a cuckoo, but weren’t sure what kind. The crows were all making a racket and were trying to kill this bird. It was injured, and could not fly, so we put a basket over it and gave it a cup of water.

We called the Blue Cross. They said they’d come by 10 am.

I left for school. But at 3 pm., when I got back, they hadn’t yet come, and the cuckoo was still under the basket. When the Blue Cross came and rescued it, it was nearly 4 o’ clock!

They told us it was a red winged crested cuckoo and allowed me to touch it before they took it away. It felt like soft cat’s fur. Only thing it was feathers!

Cuckoos lay their eggs in crows’ nests. When the cuckoo hatches, it pushes all the other eggs or chicks out. No wonder the crows wanted to kill this crested cuckoo.

We used to see a couple of magpie robins, but now we don’t. I hope they’ll be back.

A couple of regular visitors are white breasted kingfishers. We can’t ever get a clear picture of them, so here’s one from the internet.

From December to February, if we go up to our terrace, we can see the lovely palm swifts flying in loops over our heads.

A couple of kites tried to make a nest in our coconut tree, but the crows chased them away because they already had a nest there.

Speaking of nests, for the last couple of months we’ve been watching a pair of tailor birds build their nest, and flit in and out. We thought they must have eggs or a hatchling in it. But since the rains started they seem to have abandoned the nest.

Drongos on a wire are quite a common sight, but they still look lovely.

We get occasional treats, one time sightings, of some birds; once it was a red crested woodpecker, once a golden oriole. Just last week I saw a male and female pair of koels, right from my bedroom window! And on the bush next to them was a treepie!

Only two days ago I saw a crow and an owl fighting. The owl flew into the neighbour’s neem tree and stayed there for a few minutes. I tried to get a view of its head, but when I jumped down from our “thinnai” seat, and looked up, it was gone. I ran and fetched my binoculars. My mother said it had peeped out from under the roof next door, but we couldn’t spot it again. It was probably a barn owl. It had a white back with brown spodges, and that was all I saw. I couldn’t see its face.

There are lots of bids to see in the city…

We just have to stop, and look up. Thank you.

The illustrator and the author at Pulikat Lake

Questioning Miss Kuzhali Manickavel

2009-11-14T03:32:00.000-08:00

Hello
Halwa is
Halwa was
Halwa will be...

For (the) beginning: We have interviewed the very talented Miss Kuzhali Manickavel of Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, a bantamweight wonder-woman of the written word, a flash fiction practitioner and connoisseur of all types of written/filmed/sung/animated A-1 100-per-cent quality stuff. Here is what her very excellent book looks like:

You can buy it here. You can also check out her brand-spanking-new blog here.

1) What makes you want to write, as opposed to being a deep sea pearl diver, or Tamil Nadu's premier reggae songstress, or a designer of personalized teleportation eggs that come in customized colors made from the shells of discarded tea kadai tea kettles?

I am going to take some advice from someone (a wise someone. A wise someone who is also my sister and insisted I refer to them as a wise someone) who said I should be more like Judi Dench during interviews. I’m not sure what that means but anyway.

I don’t know what makes me want to write.

That’s not a very JudiDench answer, I try better next time.

2) If you got an opportunity to star in a movie anywhere in the world, what would your dream role be?

I’m thinking something like maybe a village setting, there’s maybe a drought and everyone is dying and then like this women’s soccer team comes from America because they have this crucial game against this English or maybe German team so they need players who are awesome and unconventional so they come to India and they see me just walking through the fields that are all droughted and stuff and they’re like oh my god you have to play for our team, you’re so awesome and I’m like no and I’m sad and emaciated but I can speak really good English so they’re like oh no please you have to, you speak good English and I’m like no but then I say yes and then we go for the tournament and the other team are like playing dirty and they have black hair and they keep glaring at us in slow motion but we persevere and we win because we are awesome and unconventional and it starts to rain and I say oh my village needs this rain and I am here in this rain and my village is over there and it’s not in the rain and everyone cries but I don’t because I am awesome and unconventional.

3) Who have influenza beg your pardon influenced you as a writer?

You remember there was that song about virus fever? That was a cool song. I liked that song very much, I’m going to go find it.

I found it and it is not as cool as I remembered it.

4) What comes to mind when I say

a) Cut Piece- sari blouse
b) Lithium- Neyveli
c) Cycle Gap- Hercules
d) High Class Veg Hotel- Saravana’s
e) Leave Letter- As I am suffering from fever,
f) One by two- Qwattar with Wattar

5) Is the world ending in 2012?

I don’t think the JudiDench thing is going very well, do you? I try harder.

6) What are your favorite books? Please name between 4 to 7 (all good Tamil girls go to heaven!)

1. Jude the Obscure- Thomas Hardy

2. Catch 22- Joseph Heller

3. The Others- Robert Ferro

5. Brave New World- Aldous Huxley

6. The Phantom Tollbooth- Norton Juster

7. Behind the Attic Wall- Sylvia Cassedy

7) What is your take on Indian writing in English?

(JudiDenchJudiDenchJudiDench.)

I think it’s good that more seems to be happening now with Indian writing in English than before. I think it’s especially great that graphic novels are being done and translations seem to be taken a little more seriously. I’m glad to see new publishing houses coming up. However it does seem to me that a lot of Indian writing in English seems to be very safe. It’s written adeptly and you can’t fault the writing in a technical sense (most of the time). But the themes, plot lines, narrative structures, sometimes just the basic ideas have all been seen/done before. I sometimes get feedback that English writing from India always seems to be dry, heavy, boring, completely void of humor. And I don’t think this is true, we’re very funny people. It seems like this vast category of Indian Writing in English is being represented by a very narrow field of fiction and a handful of writers. There IS more out there and it would be great if we could tap into that rather than just stick to what’s safe.

Secondly, I think there’s some baggage with Indian Writing in English that we need to deal with. There’s still this notion that English is a “better” language. And I think that is at the root of this truly bizarre notion that if you can speak English or if you read English books, that naturally qualifies you to write English fiction. I’ve read some truly horrific pieces of oh-my-gawd-just-put-sporks-in-my-eyes-to-make-it-stop-hurting writing by people who were already convinced their writing was excellent because they felt their English was strong- the fiction aspect of it was completely disregarded, it was written in English and that was somehow enough. And it’s hard to provide any kind of critique to this person because they honestly won’t understand what you’re saying. The baggage, the way we think of English as a language is really in the way and I think we need to come to terms with that.

My final point, which I guess ties in with my previous one, is that I think we need to accept Indian English for what it is, rather than think it is “bad English”. For one thing, I think it’s a supreme mindfuck to use this language in the way we use it and also have this deep-seated feeling that this language is wrong or bad because it isn’t American English or British English or whatever. That’s not healthy. We also need to be a little more honest about how we use other languages along with our English. Once I was just observing a casual conversation between friends and they were using six different languages in the same conversation. That’s pretty awesome when you think about it. When I try to write in Indian English (which I guess is a problematic term in itself) people laugh and then they say, well how are people outside India going to understand this? I don’t think that should be our immediate concern. When American writers write something filled with regionalisms or allusions to facets of American and western culture, I don’t think they are worried about whether the Indians are going to get it.

8) Chidambaram: temple city. Tell us about it from your own two eyes (as opposed to the ones you stole from the 18-year-old exchange student from Norway.)

The school I went to in Chidambaram once made a big deal about building nice bathrooms for us because we didn’t have proper bathrooms before and then they had a big opening ceremony for the bathrooms and they drew rangoli and they called in a special guest to open the bathrooms and make a speech which was probably about bathrooms and then when the ceremony was over they locked the bathrooms and said we couldn’t use them because they said we didn’t know how to use bathrooms properly. And the teacher’s bathroom was at the end of the hall from our class and whenever certain teachers went to the bathroom they would take off their chappals and wear one of ours (which were lined up outside) to go to the bathroom, which is gross and insulting so we had a chappal lookout who would say ‘blue chappal yaaru pa’ and the unfortunate soul who owned the blue chappals had to go to the water pump and wash them and sometimes other girls went with them for company and consolation and while the unfortunate soul washed their chappals and we would go to the stores and buy cheeni mittai.

The word ‘bathroom’ appeared in this answer 10 times. 11.

9) What do you get if you a cross a sand lorry with a meen body vandi and an old buffalo?

Why would you want to do that?

10) Your advice to the writer in all of us / to the ones who want to write for a living / or just for jolly-would-be?

I don’t think I’m qualified to give any kind of writing advice. Still, in the spirit of Judi Dench, I will try to answer this illustrious question.

1. Read Everything- I think this is in direct contradiction with a rule that says you should only read/write/school yourself in work of your own genre. But if your access to reading material is limited, then read everything you can get your hands one. Even if it is something you normally wouldn’t read or aren’t interested in, read it anyway. Even if your access to reading material isn’t limited, I think one should at least see what else is out there and learn to appreciate it, make an effort to understand what makes different kinds of writing strong or not so good.

2. Read Bad Writing- I think this is also in direct contradiction with another rule but I believe a lot can be learned by reading really bad writing. The trick is not just to read it, but also to figure out why it doesn’t work for you. I think it’s interesting to do this with movies/TV shows (which I think is in contradiction with yet another rule that says writers shouldn’t watch TV. See? I really shouldn’t be giving writing advice.).

3. Read Work In Other Languages- I think the more languages you understand, the world is that much wider and you can learn and absorb a lot by reading/listening/watching work in different languages. If you can’t read in other languages, listen to radio plays, watch TV programs, street plays, etc. While the stories themselves might be familiar, it’s interesting to pay attention to how the language is used, how things are described, what swear words are used, how people describe love, how they describe happiness, states of wealth. I think this encourages you to use your own language a little differently, instead of relying on the same words in the same order, the same descriptors.

This was also too long.

11) In what direction does the crow fly?

I’ve never really understood what that means. Wouldn’t you know which direction the crow flies in if you watch it fly? As in wouldn’t you know it went that way or whatever?

I’m not being JudiDench anymore.