The Spanish Gardener by A.J. Cronin

While I haven't read all seventeen novels by Archibald Joseph Cronin, known as A.J. Cronin, the Scottish physician and prolific writer, among the ones I have read Beyond This Place, The Citadel, Hatter's Castle, Grand Canary and Shannon's Way are my favourites.
My first A.J. Cronin novel was Beyond This Place which I read soon after high school. I was deeply impressed by the good physician's writing style and story-telling, simple and lucid. In this novel, written in 1953, Paul Mathry, a young student, goes in search of his father who is wrongly convicted for murder.

Cronin wrote about the middle-class and for the middle-class. His stories were poignant and captured the pathos of daily life, in situations and surroundings familiar to us. Most of his novels were about love and relationships, and reflected the importance he attached to families and family life. 

Towards the end of last year, I read the 157-page The Spanish Gardener (1950) where Cronin introduces you to one of his most intense, and unforgettable, characters — Harrington Brande — a proud British diplomat posted somewhere in Spain. After his wife walks out of their marriage, Brande becomes possessive about his son, Nicholas, who he brings up in a closed environment, away from the influences of the outside world. Brande is so insanely jealous about his son's love for him that he destroys the innocent friendship between Nicholas and Jose, the charismatic gardener, who is framed for theft and dies in the end. 

A.J. Cronin

The Spanish Gardener, which was made into a film in 1956, starring Dick Bogarde as Jose, is the story of a man whose love destroyed everything it touched. When his wife tells him that she wants a separation, Brande hits back, "If you go, I'll never take you back... You'll have no money, no position, nothing. And you'll have no hand, none, in bringing up our child." 

The story revolves mainly around the struggle between father and son. In the end the son tells his father that he wishes to see his mother and stay with her. "...there is no doubt I should spend some time with mother. That is only fair...to all of us," Nicholas, matured by years, says quietly, as his father listens, stunned and speechless. Brande, who evokes pity and loathing at the same time, knows he has lost again.

Cronin was one of the most popular storytellers of his time, and many of his novels were made into successful films.

A.J. Cronin's seventeen novels

01. Hatter's Castle
02. Three Loves
03. Grand Canary
04. The Stars Look Down
05. The Citadel
06. The Keys of the Kingdom
07. The Green Years
08. Shannon's Way
09. The Spanish Gardener
10. Beyond This Place
11. A Thing of Beauty/Crusader's Tomb
12. The Northern Light
13. The Native Doctor/An Apple in Eden
14. The Judas Tree
15. A Song of Sixpence
16. A Pocketful of Rye
17. The Minstrel Boy/Desmonde

Life in Four Continents by Prakash Joshi

Since I work for a newspaper, I get all kinds of emails, including releases of new fiction and non-fiction books. Unfortunately, I can’t write about them because my newspaper is as far removed from the world of fiction as India is from a corruption-free society. The paper reports extensively on construction and infrastructure projects in India and the domestic and foreign investment that goes into
their build.

Never mind – my paper’s loss is my blog’s gain.

Yesterday, I received an email from iUniverse, a self-publishing imprint based in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, drawing my attention to Prakash Vinod Joshi’s new book Life in Four Continents where the author describes the lessons he learnt living in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. It’s a journey across four continents written with “a sense of humor often needed when everything else seems to go awry.”

“I am proud of my new country, Canada; proud of my heritage, Indian; proud of the country of my birth, Uganda,” writes Joshi, who tells readers of his “honest experiences touching the lives of several people across the globe wanting to help readers improve their lives and preserving the planet for the future generations to come.”

I can’t review the book since I have not read it but here is a small excerpt that came with the release.

“My single parenting days were most joyous and I would never trade them for anything else. I had now moved on my own with Ronak and Milan to our old home which was very close to my work, just two minutes away. Life became busy. It meant getting up early, around 5:00 a.m., getting ready, waking up the kids at six-thirty and doing a paper route. We would then come home, have breakfast and get them ready, pack their lunch, drop them at the babysitter who would drive them to nearby Parkcrest Elementary School at 9:00 a.m.” 

Life in Four Continents was written with a simple purpose, to give readers a new found sense of hope, and teach them to have a positive attitude towards life with the simple message of “Doing things the right way, the first time around, to avoid repeating mistakes, and to take advantage of other’s forgiveness.”

Prakash Vinod Joshi lives in Vancouver, Canada with his wife, Darshana. They have three children, Ronak, Tejaswini and Milan.

You can read more about Prakash Vinod Joshi at US-India Writing Station.

Scram! (1932)

The following review of Scram! is part of Tuesday’s Overlooked/Forgotten films over at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom where you can check out lots of exciting film and television reviews.

Judge: If the jail wasn't full, I'd give you both 180 days, but since the jail is full, I'm going to give you just one hour.
Oliver Hardy: Thank you, sir.
Judge: To get out of town! And never let me set eyes on you again! Case dismissed.
Stan Laurel: Does that mean we can go back to sleeping on the park bench?

The scowling Richard Cramer in Scram!

Laurel delivers this gem of a line in all innocence. While the judge’s harsh pronouncement ricochets off Laurel’s affable face, the enormity of the situation is not lost on friend Hardy, who is equally innocent but slightly cleverer of the two.

The two lovable vagrants are hauled up before Judge Beaumont (Richard Cramer), a mean judge with a screwed up face, who orders them to get out of town in one hour.

Judge: Scram! Or I'll build a jail for you.

As the homeless duo make their way through rain on a cold night, they come across a drunk in tuxedo (Arthur Housman) who is looking for his car keys. Laurel and Hardy, ever willing to lend a hand, help the drunk retrieve his keys. The search for the elusive keys is not without the usual share of slapstick comedy and a cop is thrown in for good measure. There’s always one or two lurking around the pair. 

A stone drunk Arthur Housman with Laurel and Hardy.

Oliver Hardy: What's the matter, neighbour?
Drunk: I los' the key to my car.
Stanley Laurel: Can you find it?
Drunk: No, thas' why I'm lookin'...

The drunk returns the favour by inviting the boys over to his house, except he takes them to the wrong house. You guessed it! The poor chaps land up in the angry judge’s home where his wife (Vivien Oakland) faints at the sight of Laurel and Hardy. The unsuspecting pair revive Mrs. Beaumont with a glass of water from a pitcher, except it turns out to be gin (the handiwork of the drunk who has quietly stumbled his way out of the house). 

Vivien Oakland forces Hardy to a dance.

Now the poor fellas have a very drunk judge’s wife on their hands. Although Laurel and Hardy don’t know who her husband is, they are aware of the delicate situation and, in desperation, try putting her to sleep. Not one to quieten down easily, Mrs. Beaumont plays music and insists on dancing with the boys who by now are too frightened to even think of their fate should her husband walk in. 

At last, the judge’s wife plops on her bed with Laurel and Hardy on either side. Just as they think it’s the end of their troubles, Mrs. Beaumont explodes into inexplicable fits of laughter that’s so infectious that it catches Laurel and Hardy too. The comic duo laugh their guts out until suddenly, as they are about to have another bout of laugh, they see Judge Beaumont standing in the doorway, a dirty scowl on his face and a gun in his hand. One after the other, they swallow hard – gulp! The judge raises his hand and fires…

 
You don’t mind what happens in the end because, by then, you’re rolling with laughter too. 

Produced by Hal Roach and directed by Raymond McCarey, Scram! is exactly as the title suggests. But Laurel and Hardy don’t scram out of town. Instead, they stay put without realising the consequences of their action. Blame it on their innocence which, as I have said before, is what Laurel and Hardy is all about. Here are two amiable and happy-go-lucky fellas whose optimistic view of life, in spite of being perennially broke, hungry and homeless, never changes. The world according to Laurel and Hardy is a world you would do well to live by.

Do you have a hobby?

“Do you have a hobby?” is probably the most annoying question that well-meaning uncles and aunts ask their teenage nephews and nieces. They asked me when I was a kid. I don’t recall being irritated, though. My parents probably asked the same silly question. I don’t know if it annoyed my cousins. I’m sure it did.

Flamingo Library was located in the foyer of Hotel Sona.

At times, their cursory interest in my hobbies, after I had revealed them, stretched to: “Oh, so you play chess, do you?” And you know what’s coming next. “Do you think you could teach my son? I will send him over every Sunday morning. I want him to cultivate at least one hobby. Thanks, uh.”

Indulging in a hobby is time spent gainfully so long as you’re enjoying yourself. There’s never a dull moment. For me, hobbies are primarily about passion, creativity, private space, and personal fulfillment.

I had many hobbies and nearly every one of them was introduced to me by my father, hobbies like pouring over his assorted collection of stamps and creating my own album, playing chess or scrabble with him in marathon sessions that often lasted morn to eve, buying and reading comic-books, solving crosswords and jigsaw puzzles together, and drawing and painting everything from abstract to still life.

Speaking of chess, I spent a lot of time playing with Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky during my teens. That is, replaying their games from the controversial 1972 world chess championship at Reykjavik in Iceland.

Between these simple pleasures of childhood, we played cricket at home, with a wooden bat and a tennis ball, using a part of the door as stumps; took potshots at small wooden puppets with a ping-pong ball gun, keeping points, five for every hit; or played table tennis across the dining table, with a stick balanced delicately on two inverted glasses serving as a net. 

Leafing through the dictionary for strange words and their strange meanings and using latitudes and longitudes to locate mysterious cities and towns in a world atlas were other useful pastimes that helped shape my growing years.

A rather silly pursuit was book cricket: you flipped the pages and stopped at random, the page numbers on the left serving as scores. We even drew up eleven-member rival teams, each a famous cricketer. It doesn’t make sense now, but it did back then. At least you didn’t sweat it out or injure yourself.

During my seventy-five day summer vacation, my friends and I, bored playing outdoor games in hot sun, would pick up books and comic-books from the local circulating library and take turns reading them during the week. We, thus, read the entire hardbound Hardy Boys series from the popular Flamingo Library located in the foyer of Hotel Sona in the idyllic and sleepy town of Panjim, the capital of the beautiful coastal state of Goa, a favourite destination among foreign tourists. 

Childhood was never better. It still isn’t. What was yours like?


How others look at hobbies…

“The only insult I've ever received in my adult life was when someone asked me, "Do you have a hobby?" A HOBBY?! DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING DABBLER?!”
― John Waters, Role Models, American filmmaker, actor and stand-up comedian

A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.
― Phyllis Mcginley, American author of children's books and poetry

It's the safety valve of middle life, and the solace of age.
― Mary Roberts Rinehart, American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie

Respect Your National Anthem,

Respect Your Nation

On Friday, February 10, I posted a video of India’s Silent National Anthem. Today, I am posting another one called Respect the National Anthem, an award-winning ad. I hope you will click on “Play” and watch both the videos. I have a feeling you will like them. They have touched a lot of non-Indian hearts on YouTube. 

For Tuesday’s Forgotten/Overlooked films, don’t forget to visit Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

The Silent National Anthem 

All of us feel that the national anthem of our own country is the best in the world. We rise to our feet every time the anthem is played and we beam with pride every time we listen to it. No other song gives more goose bumps than the national anthem. How many of us remember other national anthems of the world? I have heard America’s The Star-Spangled Banner on a few occasions but I wouldn’t be able to hum a line if you asked me to. And why should I? I have my own anthem and it's better than yours!

India’s national anthem – Jana, Gana, Mana – is, arguably, one of the finest. It was composed and set to music by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, the renowned writer, poet, musician, playwright, and spiritual preceptor. Although Tagore originally wrote it in Bengali in 1911 and later translated it into English, the anthem was adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the Indian national anthem on January 24, 1950. Jana, Gana, Mana means “Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, Dispenser of India's destiny…” You will find a nice piece about the anthem here.

Over the years the Indian national anthem has been scored and sung in a hundred different ways, and it’s hard to pick any one. My own favourite is The Silent National Anthem created by Mudra Group on the occasion of India’s 61st Republic Day, which falls on January 26 every year. August 15 is our independence day. This beautiful version of the anthem is played in all BIG Cinemas, a division of entertainment group Reliance MediaWorks, minutes before a film rolls. Some years ago, the federal government made it mandatory for all movie theatres to play the national anthem before the start of the film. It’s a goose bumpy feeling if there’s ever one inside a cinema hall.

Check it out below and tell me exactly what you felt, though don't I know that feeling already.

R.I.P. Sharada Dwivedi, 1942-2012

On February 6, Bombay (now known as Mumbai) lost one of its most important denizens — Sharada Dwivedi — who spent a lifetime chronicling and conserving the city's historic building and architectural heritage. The 69-year old genteel urban historian died after a brief illness.

Dwivedi, who completed her schooling from Queen Mary's High School, graduated from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics, and took a degree in Library Science from the University of Mumbai, wrote several books including Bombay: The Cities Within (1995), her first, with noted historian and architect Rahul Mehrotra.

Some of her other notable books were Banganga, Sacred Tank (1996), Fort Walks (1999), Anchoring a City Line: The History of the Western Suburban Railway and its Headquarters in Bombay (2000), The Jehangir Art Gallery (2002), and The Victoria Memorial School for the Blind (2002). Each traced the rich and vibrant heritage of these historic buildings. 

Dwivedi, who often fought politicians to preserve Bombay's heritage, was involved in several conservation projects and served as a member of the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee. She was also a member of the Executive Committee of the Urban Design Research Institute and a consultant to the Bombay Collaborative, which works with historic buildings in the city. 

If Bombay owes its historic buildings and monuments to the British, it owes their preservation to Sharada Dwivedi.

Seat of Learning: The Rajabai Clock Tower located within the Fort Campus (headquarters) of the University of Mumbai was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, an English architect, who modelled it on London's Big Ben. The 85-metre tall landmark in south Bombay was built in 1878. 
Photo: Prashant C. Trikannad