Book review: Maps for a Mortal Moon by Adil Jussawalla

Adil Jussawalla`s Maps for a Mortal Moon is, quite simply, a feast. The cover states that the book is a compilation of essays and entertainments. Well, every page lives up to that stated promise.

I have this habit of reaching for the pen to note down notable lines when I am reviewing a book. Where Maps… was concerned, I was reaching for that aforementioned pen every page or so.

What does the acclaimed poet/columnist cover in this work? Why, just about everything, though not anything, and believe me when I tell you, no one can make that distinction more clearly than Jussawalla.

Jerry Pinto who has introduced and edited this book, has most helpfully categorised the articles , slotting them under Writers/Writing/Reading/At Home/Travelling?People/Language/Poetry, and ending with the author`s funnier pieces.

Let the author speak for himself. In Salman and the Sea of Paper, Jussawalla writes:` …that outcast Salman Rushdie has been the subject of one of the grosses pieces of history. In the minds of those who believe in carrying out the fatwa against him, he is an entirely invented creature, a Satan without parallel.` Elsewhere he talks about the physical upset of a first encounter with someone of another race, the discomfiture that has only marginally to do with colour, and the reader, much struck, says, “Yes, of course.“

He begins his tribute to Ramanujan by saying the word polymath is more suited to a bird than a poet, and then goes on to say Ramanujan was indeed a rare bird, and a rarer poet. In the Joy of Sensuous Writing, he writes: `The perfectly formed sentence, the perfectly straight margin and finally the block of a paragraph, chunky and sensuous as though made of marshmallow.`

In an excellent essay on the craft of reviewing books, Jussawalla says that, to review a book, `we have almost literally to taste it, to eat another person`s words, and say what they felt like. It may be a health hazard … after having eaten other people`s words, we may have to eat our own.` Howzatt for a twist on ye olde humble pie? In Who Needs Novels, he asks a simple question: `With so much life in the novel, why do so many people want it dead?` Why indeed.

The prose is transporting, the tone is wry, heavy in irony, one eyebrow seemingly raised at everything. The reader walks beside Jussawalla as he takes on the role of skilled flaneur of cities, of situations, of life itself.

Together, the reader and the writer walk about Bombay (`People were beginning to realise that they could only survive in Bombay, not live in it`) , oftentimes in the monsoons, sit in dimly lit bars and meet interesting people, sees bombs exploding in Paris, visit the Frankfurt Book Fair in its early days.

The essay on people who return to India after having lived for many years abroad is written with a forgiving sort of humour. The passage where he is refused accommodation as well as jobs in England is presented to the readers without any sentiment; he then links this situation to the Oxford Indian`s denial of the immigrant.

In the Librarian and the Labyrinth (my favourite) Jussawala makes a case for creativity blossoming in the quiet of a library.

Asking around, Jussawalla finds people would be interested in reading what Naipaul has to say about India but not interested in reading his novels. He has a tender observation or three to make about in an evocative piece on Marilyn Monroe: the day became the colour of her hair being one standout line.

There is a concluding section of a few of Jussawalla`s humourous pieces but the funniest lines in the book lie elsewhere. In Toni Morrison, Paris and Me, Jussawalla talks of overhearing an over-earnest Englishwoman advising her American friends what to read. `Spotting Jurassic Park she cried, “Oh! You must read the book before you see the film. It`s so much better.“ The Americans, doubtlessly friends of Spielberg, responded with a frozen silence. `

Pinto writes in his introduction, `It is difficult to underestimate the impact Jussawalla has had on the intellectual life of those who care about the intellect.` I also read somewhere that Jussawalla was surprised at the reception this splendid book received. All that talent and a self-deprecatory modesty too!

In the end, I must rhapsodize once more about the sheer fluidity of language employed in Maps…
Do read this book. Only, don’t do it at a fast lick. No profit there.