Tag: Indra Sinha

  • Animal’s People

    Indra Sinha

    “I used to be human once. So I’m told. I don’t remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet just like a human being..” That’s how the book begins, and sets the tone and perspective for the book.

    The title of the book could have been built around Khaufpur (based on Bhopal and its 1984 tragedy) as well, after all, the entire story hinges around the one night that changed life in the city forever. But Indra Sinha’s success lies in creating a character whose very existence is a testimony to the horrors of that night. The humanity, or rather the inhumanity of it all is taken to a different level, largely because of the protagonist – Animal. Animal, a 19 year old boy in Khaufpur, whose personal takeaway from That Night is being forced to go on all fours.

    In most other aspects, Animal displays the emotional state of a typical teen with love, lust, jealousy all vying for his attention. It is his pragmatic, mostly raw and guttural perspective and wry humour that gives the book its character. It makes it real enough for the reader to connect with the other characters in the book – Pandit Somraj, the singer who loses his voice thanks to That Night, his daughter Nisha, who is the love of Animal’s life, but who loves Zafar, the activist whose mission in life is to get justice for the victims from the ‘Kampani’, but whose objectivity Animal questions, partly because he is a rival to Nisha’s attentions, Farouq, Zafar’s helper and Animal’s friend and enemy all at once, Ma Franci, a nun who has become senile in her old age and the person Animal loves most, and Elli Barber, the doctor who gives Animal hope, while others treat her with suspicion. Animal’s narrative gives life to these characters.

    Except for a stretched ending, this book is a compelling read, one which makes you look at a faraway incident – in space and time, with a human and humanitarian eye.

  • The Cybernauts

    Was reading a book a few weeks back – The Cybergypsies by Indra Sinha, which was a kind of autobiographical take on the early days of the internet, thats starting around the mid eighties. Its a tale of the early cybernauts, their addiction to the internet and how their real and virtual lives fought each other for attention and threatened to engulf each other.
    It took me back to the turn of the century, my early days online, when the net of Indra Sinha was well on its way to becoming the worldwide web it is today. It reminded me of the a/c internet cafes, visits to which were not so frequent because of the steep costs, and the dimly lit computer labs in the university which had only the unreliable vsnl connection.The days of IRC and chats with unknown angels and merlins and superboys, the arcade games, the imaginary worlds created among friends across geographies, in a way, it was almost the kind of life the early cybernauts led.
    And when you were asked what exactly you spent hours in front of a computer for, you really couldn’t explain what made it so worthwhile. The days of usa.net and eudoramail and theglobe.com, names which have bitten cyberdust quite a whileback. I still have a friend from those days, almost a decade of only virtual friendship, well, almost, since she sent me flowers for my wedding 🙂
    And then came the initial days of blogging, and friends made on rediffblogs, people whom I did not know really, but with whom i shared thoughts, and rants. And, that, i guess where virtuality started ending and reality started taking over. There were blog meets and the imaginary worlds created carefully gave way to the cafes of the real world.
    It took a turn with orkut and co, where the networks were used to get in touch with people you already knew in your real life. And these days, on twitter, i meet a few who i used to know during the rediff days, but gone are the days of anonymity, for my linkedin profile would readily tell people who i was in the real world.
    i miss those days, because there was only communication and a conversation among equals then. No virtual celebrities, no social media experts, no snobs, everything was virtual, your imagination and thoughts were the only thing that mattered, virtuality was a shell you could retreat to when the real world became too unbearable. Its different now, virtuality and reality are too enmeshed, and as with everything else in the world, behind every virtual interaction, there is a real intention. This must be Cybernauts 2.0

    until next time, really virtual

  • The Cybergypsies

    Indra Sinha

    For all those who consider themselves cyber wanderers, this is a must read. It shows us glimpses of the net before it became the www. It talks of the mid eighties to nineties when early cybernauts roamed about bulletin boards (BBS) and multi user domains/dungeons (MUD) creating their own versions of reality in extravagant roleplays.
    In what seems to be almost autobiographical, it is the story of Bear, a copywriter who is unable to get over the cyber addiction that threatens his marriage, and who still finds time to help the Kurdish cause and the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy, and go about hunting clues to meet his virtual friends in real life.
    It also talks about his various co-habitants on SHADES and VORTEX, virtual worlds, who, along with the worlds they created, perhaps played a large role in defining what the net is now. A disconcerting thought is that a lot of issues discussed in this book stille exist in one form or the other, and especially in this part of the world, the impact of the internet has still not been seen.
    Personally, i winced when i realised (after buying the book) who the author was, because another work of his (The Death of Mr.Love) had really irritated me with its pale climax, but this one was a pleasant surprise, though his complete irreverance for chronology can be a bit confusing at times. 🙂
    It is an extremely good first person view of the early days of the net and an excellent read for anyone who has any interest in the early uses of this medium, and can wonder how it must have been then, in the imaginary worlds they made and shared.