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20 May 2012

The hurtful family secrets that brought my famous twin back to me: On the eve …

  • Paul and Tracey who were raised by their mother Pauline were inseparable when they were young
  • Their childhood idyll was shattered when they discovered their father Enver had another family and three other children

By
Adam Luck


PUBLISHED:

18:54 EST, 19 May 2012

|

UPDATED:

18:54 EST, 19 May 2012

This Friday, the concrete and glass halls of Margate’s Turner Contemporary gallery will echo to the sound of champagne corks popping and the conversational hubbub of distinguished guests, punctuated perhaps by the occasional nervous laugh from Tracey Emin.

The artist is hosting a private viewing in her home town to mark the formal opening of her exhibition, She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea, which features both new and existing works on the themes of love and sensuality.

But the viewing represents far more than just a homecoming for Tracey. It will also be a hugely  significant family event.

Connection: Tracey Emin and her twin brother Paul were close when they were six-years-old (pictured) and the bond remains strong

Tracey is to meet 11-year-old Jaden, the long-estranged son of her twin brother Paul, for the first time.

Paul says: ‘It was Tracey’s idea to invite Jaden to the private viewing. She invited my son and his mother Louise, which was very sweet of her.

‘Tracey is very good at pulling all of the family together.’

It will be a poignant moment for the artist, 48, who is unable to have children of her own following an operation for endometriosis, and who recently said that her sex life was probably over. 

She considered adopting children but her experiences as the child of a single parent seem to have made her decide against it.

Tracey and Paul have followed profoundly different paths. She is Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.

One of her neon light installations resides in 10 Downing Street, her work sells for astronomical sums and she has met the Queen.

He is currently a dealer in architectural antiques and was once a carpenter, but cannot be said to have enjoyed unqualified success in either field.

However, while circumstances may have occasionally strained the ties between them, they have never actually broken.

Both now seem ready to move on to a new phase in their relationship, with Tracey’s desire to meet her nephew the catalyst.

Close: Paul and Tracey (pictured in 2002) were raised by their mother Pauline and were inseparable as children and even when they were young sharing a private language

Paul and Tracey, raised by their mother Pauline, were inseparable as children. Paul, who lives in Deal, Kent, says: ‘As twins, we have always shared a common bond and even, when we were young, a private language.

‘No matter where we are, that connection is still there. When we were babies, we slept in the same crib and one night I kept crying. 

‘My mother came up to settle me, but by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs I was crying again.

‘When she came back up, Mum realised Tracey was suffocating after rolling over on a pillow.’

But their childhood idyll was shattered when they discovered the reason that their father Enver flitted in and out of their lives.

Paul says: ‘It wasn’t until we went to school that our mother told us that we had to share our father because he had another family and three other children by a woman called Sheila.

‘Initially, Sheila resented my mother Pamela, but over the years the rift  was healed.’

'Ladies' man: Enver Emin was absent during Tracey and Paul's childhood and they had to 'share' him with his other family

‘Ladies’ man: Enver Emin was absent during Tracey and Paul’s childhood and they had to ‘share’ him with his other family

Enver, a one-time property developer, claimed that Sheila had given her blessing to the affair and his dual life had been ‘open and above-board’.

Tracey later told her father: ‘It was never above board, Dad! It’s not above board to have two families, right?’

The twins’ contact with their father was limited largely to his periodic  visits to their Margate home.

Paul says: ‘This was a bittersweet experience because he would turn up out of nowhere and take us off for a picnic or a birthday party.

‘On one occasion he turned up at our home dressed as Father Christmas with lots of presents, and for several years afterwards Tracey and I thought Santa was this dark exotic Turkish man.’

Tracey and Paul had to get used to their father’s inherent unreliability as well as his sense of fun.

Paul says: ‘You also never quite knew what to expect with him. We could be on a day out with our parents and then my father would tell us that he had  to pop out and see someone, and you would be stuck there in the car for two hours while he cut a business deal.

‘For two restless seven-year-olds, this was not the best experience, but that was our father: he was always wheeling and dealing.’

Enver later turned his hand to the import/export business, travelling across Africa, Asia, Turkey and Cyprus.

Paul says: ‘I think that this gave Tracey and me the idea that you could do anything. But whether it was money or a woman, it was the chase that motivated Dad above all else.

‘He was a ladies’ man and he was always suited and booted. He loved his suits and was one of the snappiest dressers in London and I think, in part, Tracey got her love of clothes from my father.

‘The fact that Dad had so many different women and different lives made a big impact on Tracey, as well as me.

‘There was a secret world there because Dad was so often absent, and I think that this comes across in Tracey’s art.

‘Tracey is, contrary to what people think, actually a very private person and that must reflect my father’s influence to a certain extent.’

While Tracey was laying the foundations for a career that would bring her international acclaim and make her millions of pounds, Paul was drifting into crime.

Two decades ago, he served an 18-month jail sentence for fraud. Meanwhile, Jaden is one of three children he has by three different women. He is estranged from his other children.

Family ties: Tracey Emin is to meet 11-year-old Jaden (pictured left), the long-estranged son of her twin brother Paul (pictured right) for the first time at the opening of her new show in Margate

Paul says: ‘I was living in Ramsgate with Jaden and Louise when I started mixing with the wrong crowd. I was getting drunk all the time, and Louise and I grew apart. She left me.

‘I carried on hitting the self-destruct button and then realised that my  mental health had deteriorated. It was decided I needed a break and I went to Australia in 2003 to sort myself out.

‘Afterwards I sold the house, moved to Deal to get myself out of that environment and lost contact with Louise and Jaden.’

His relationship with Tracey also had its ups and downs. She has helped him out financially but has occasionally grown exasperated with his precarious lifestyle and there have been periods in which they did not speak to each other.

However, Enver’s death two years ago made Paul realise he was echoing the behaviour patterns of his father.

Then, a chance meeting with a former business partner prompted a reconciliation with Louise. 

Paul says: ‘His wife used to know Louise, and eventually I managed to get in contact with Louise and Jaden through her.

‘About a year ago, I met Jaden for the first time since he was a baby. It was very emotional and we cried a lot.

‘At first I spoilt him because I had  so much guilt in me. He had not had so much as a Christmas or birthday card from me, but I began to realise that I was repeating what my father had done with me.

‘I then emailed Tracey a picture of Jaden and she was very happy that I had got in contact with my son.

Huge success:Tracey Emin, pictured here in 2004, has become one of Britain's most celebrated living artists

Huge success:Tracey Emin, pictured here in 2004, has become one of Britain’s most celebrated living artists

‘Tracey could have laid into me because of the way I had behaved, but she didn’t and I respect her for that.She was non-judgmental. Perhaps our childhood played a part in that.’

Paul believes that his father’s unconventional lifestyle has taken its toll on him and Tracey.

He says: ‘I have found it difficult to sustain a long-term relationship. I have never been able to live with another person for more than four years.

‘I simply had no role model. I think that when Tracey was younger, there was an element of searching for a father figure to compensate for our father’s absence.

‘But when she was in her 20s, Tracey became close to our father. In our own ways, Tracey and I have been determined to succeed and on our own terms, which was very much like Dad.

‘We wanted to show him that we could be successful and we wanted to live up to his expectations and get his approval.’

Enver, who was 89 when he died, had spoken of his pride at his daughter’s success and his conviction that her art lay in her childhood.

He said: ‘She expresses her feelings, she expresses what happens. I think deep down her motive is her childhood.’

He had also acknowledged that his frequent absences from her life caused problems.

He said: ‘Sometimes I had to talk to her when she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be there with her all the time.’

Paul believes that their father  provided at least some of the inspiration for his sister’s success.

He says of the exotic holidays that Enver sometimes took them on: ‘Our father’s warmth and generosity took us all over the world, opening our eyes to its wonders and its arts, and a sense that anything was achievable if you really wanted it.

‘But Tracey and I also had to share our father with another family and it was his absence as well as his presence that shaped both our lives. In Tracey’s case, I believe it has also helped to determine the direction of her art.’

Much of Tracey’s art is autobiographical and confessional, and it has frequently focused on sex.

She first came to prominence in 1997 with her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-95 – a tent covered with names.

Two years later, her installation My Bed, which consisted of her own unmade bed and included dirty linen, used condoms and bloodstained underwear, was nominated for the Turner Prize.

However, Tracey recently admitted that her libido had vanished and said: ‘I don’t look at myself in a  sexual way.’

Despite, or perhaps because of, the controversy Tracey is now regarded as part of the British art establishment.

Indeed, she has achieved national treasure status and in Margate, a town she has done much to promote, she is virtually revered.

Tracey, as one of Britain’s most celebrated living artists, is undoubtedly Margate’s most famous daughter. She loves the town and the town loves her.

She officially opened the £17 million Turner Contemporary gallery last year and she has said of her new exhibition: ‘The pressure is huge.

‘I want lots of people to go to see it because it will be good for Margate. I want them to run out of ice cream on the beach.’

In a personal invitation to residents asking them to come to her show, she wrote: ‘If you haven’t been to the gallery yet, you should. It’s fantastic and free. I really hope you can come.’

New show: The art work Laying On Blue by Tracey Emin features in a new exhibition of her work in Margate which is her home town

Autobiographical: I Said No, a painting that is included in Tracey Emin's new show in Margate
Tracey Emin's new show in Margate Kent is called She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea includes the painting Last In Love (pictured)

Confessional: Tracey Emin’s new show in Margate which opens on Saturday will feature the paintings titled I Said No (left) and Last In Love (right)

‘Tracey is really happy about the move, without a shadow of a doubt.’

For Paul, the success of his sister has thrown the difficulties of his own life into stark relief.

That has not always been easy to bear, but now he says: ‘There are positives and negatives, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. It opens doors.

‘I am happy with everything in my life and immensely proud of Tracey. I am looking forward to introducing my son to her this Friday.

‘She has said nothing about the meeting to me, but we can talk about that when we meet. We can confide in one another. We are twins, after all.’

* She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea: Tracey Emin is at Turner Contemporary in Margate, Kent, from May 26 to September 23.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have been moderated in advance.



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I can’t believe that people actually pay for junk like that!

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I am an artist “Hardcaw illustration”, but I think there should be a distinction made between craftsmanship and the rest of this nonsense!

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artist ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????, the mind boggles

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Although the people who buy her paintings would disagree, I think this girl is totally without talent. She is not creative, she is not inspiring, she is not clever with colour, her work is over rated and it is all media hype. Most people could produce a similar item.

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19 May 2012

Jay Leno on Comic Highs and Lows, Cars, and Secrets to a Successful Marriage

The late-night landscape is dramatically different than it was when Jay Leno took over from Johnny Carson in 1992, but the Tonight Show host is sticking to his program’s tried-and-true format. “I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but they’re doing a very specific kind of comedy,” says Leno, 62. “I’m doing this broad thing of a smart joke, a silly joke, and then a joke unrelated to politics. That’s what The Tonight Show is—it’s big-tent comedy.” He discusses stand-up and career longevity with Mary Margaret.

Leno Recalls His Most Memorable Interviews and the One Gig That Made Him Nervous

PARADE Did you always want to work in entertainment?
When I was 7, I went to the movies and watched Elvis Presley in Loving You. The girls went crazy when he sang “Teddy Bear,” and I thought, “This is the way to make a living.” I even took guitar lessons, but when that didn’t work, I decided to tell jokes instead.

What was your first joke?
In fourth grade, the teacher was talking about how cruel the Sheriff of Nottingham was and something about Friar Tuck, and I said, “Do you know why they boiled them in oil? Because he was a fryer.” It got a laugh.

First Jobs of the Rich and Famous

You had some lean years starting out. What was your low point, and what advice do you give to struggling comics?
My low point was sleeping in an alley off of 44th Street and Ninth Avenue in New York, right near the Improv. It was awful. I always tell comics, do what you have to do and take every gig that’s out there, no matter how demeaning, because you learn something.

Has the digital age affected how you approach comedy?
You know, humor doesn’t change a whole lot. If you watch a comedy from the 1920s, the fat rich man stepping out of a Cadillac and into the mud is just as funny now. You can use all these new elements, but that part of the process doesn’t really change.

How do you like to spend your Sundays?
Working at my garage. I have about 135 cars and 90 motorcycles. It’s a little silly, but my thing has always been one woman and 200 vehicles. It’s cheaper than one car and 200 girlfriends.

See Exclusive Photos of Jay Leno!

What’s with your off-duty uniform of denim work shirt and jeans?
That comes from me telling the wardrobe guy, “Run down to Banana Republic and get me 20 pairs of jeans and 40 shirts.” Then I’m done for the year.

Do you and your wife still have date nights?
Yeah, she’ll find a restaurant, some fancy place in Beverly Hills. I’ll stop at In-N-Out Burger first since I’m not a big restaurant guy. But she likes it, and when you’re married, that’s what you do.

What else keeps a marriage working?
If you don’t fool around, it’s not that hard. I think the key to life is low self- esteem—believing you’re not the smartest or most handsome person in the room. All the people who have high self-esteem are criminals and actors.

What lessons did you take from the late-night wars in 2010—when Conan O’Brien left NBC and you returned to The Tonight Show?
Oh, probably never explain, never complain. I make my living making fun of people, and if people make fun of me, that’s fine. My only rule is it has to be funny.

Why do you still tour?
When you live in show business, people will tell you something is good even when it’s terrible. But on the road, you find out what they really think.

Are you always on the lookout for a joke?
If you have to write 10 to 14 minutes [of material] every day, you have to keep your eyes and ears open. It’s like how I was in school: I didn’t study a lot but I never missed a class, so I was taking it all in. I’m always listening.

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18 May 2012

Love Your Clutch – Pro Riding Secrets

Photos by Heather Lewis

The clutch is one of the tools your bike is equipped with that few riders get the most out of. For some it is just for starting and stopping and others like to smoke them. But having excellent control of the clutch can really help your riding in so many ways. Here are some tips and drills to improve your control of the lever on the left.

Right way to hold clutch.

Right

Wrong way to hold clutch.

Wrong

1. Clutch adjustment is very important. Not only is the angel of the lever on the handlebar critical, the engagement or friction point needs to me adjusted so you hand can comfortably control the lever without compromising your grip on the bar or having the lever bump against your knuckles. Of course operating the lever by using only one or two fingers is the only way to have control when you really need it. And if there is any drag or friction in the operation of the lever, or drag from work or warped plates, that is like adding a delay to what you want the bike to do; Not good.

2. To test and practice your dexterity, with the bike at idle (no throttle) and on a slight incline use only the clutch to get the bike to roll forward and then slightly release it to have it roll back, then engage it to have it roll forward again. Doing this you should not make jerky or cantankerous movements of the lever. You smoothly control the forward and back roll of the bike with the clutch only.

3. High level clutch control comes into play not only when riding at speeds slower than first gear, this is the same level of control you’ll need when things get interesting at speed. The clutch can help to control the bike, especially the balance. You can use a pop, or burst of power, amplified through the clutch, to keep your balance and control the bike. You can practice this by coming to a stop and allowing yourself to lose balance and then using a burst of power, through the clutch, to get moving when you feel the urge to put your foot down.

4. The clutch is a power amplifier or a way to allow the bike to go slower than the gear you are currently in. It is not a power reducer. Slipping the clutch to limit the power to the rear wheel is how clutches burn up and how bikes overheat. It is a lot better to reduce the power with the throttle and use the clutch for the burst when needed as opposed to trying to control the power through the clutch lever.
Want to lean more ways to ride at a higher level? Check out www.jimmylewisoffroad.com.

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17 May 2012

Secrets of the New All-TIME 100 Movies List

Everett

We’re baaaack. (A reference to the 1982 horror film Poltergeist, which is not on the list.) Or, rather, I’m back. Seven years ago, the editors of TIME.com asked the magazine’s two movie critics, Richard Schickel and me, to compile and annotate the all-TIME 100 Movies list: our informed judgment of the best, most influential or simply most beloved films released since TIME began (March 3, 1923). The endeavor, posted May 23, 2005, scored 3.5 million page views that day, a record for a TIME.com package, and 7.8 million the first week. The reader success of that project led to other all-TIME 100 roundups — TV shows, English-language fiction, pop songs — and, indirectly, to the nearly daily proliferation of Top 10 lists (Tasteless Ads, Famous Toilets, Models Falling Down) that ornament your favorite website.

Now I have been summoned to update our effort — the new all-TIME 100 Movies — and add a selection of 10 Millennium Movies, the finest films released in the dozen years since 2000. Friend Schickel has moved his critical perch from TIME to the exemplary Truthdig web magazine, where, I note with pleasure, some of his choices for the best films of 2011 (Hugo, War Horse) coincided with mine. This time I’m on my own. Instead of a months-long collaboration on the original list, with its attendant, amiable disputes and compromises, I debated myself; I listened to the rival noises in my head.

(SEE: The original all-TIME 100 Movies list)

Some room had to be cleared for films made since 2005. There are four (Avatar, The Hurt Locker, A Separation and WALL•E) on the updated 100, with a few others (The Artist, The White Ribbon and Synecdoche, New York) on the Millennium 10. But the ultimate aim of the new All-TIME 100 Movies is the same: to compile a curriculum of movie pleasures and achievements, a five-foot shelf of cinematic glories.

As I wrote in Secrets of the all-TIME 100, an article that accompanied the original list, Schickel and I approached our compilations from different angles. He worked from a list of his favorite directors and chose what he thought were their best works. (The editors of Cahiers du Cinéma used a similar rule to chose their top 10 all-time films 50 years ago.) For me, the films were the thing, not their makers. Yet even in the updated list, nine directors have two films each: Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut (who both began as Cahiers critics) from France, Ingmar Bergman from Sweden, Akira Kurosawa from Japan and — in a mythical backlot land that embraces Hollywood and London — Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Billy Wilder. (Also, Stanley Donen, if you count Singin’ in the Rain, which he codirected, as his film. I’d say Donen gets a 1-1/2.) All these gents had, or are still enjoying, long, productive careers worth charting with two films. Nobody gets three.

(MORE: Secrets of the all-TIME 100)

Looking at the global picture, I thought that every continent deserved at least one movie — except for Australia, which also must endure its tinier neighbor New Zealand getting a slot for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (The Aussies are represented on the Millennium list by Moulin Rouge!) You may suspect that I wanted the list to have the priorities of a Benetton ad. Yet I maintain that the Egyptian Alexandria… Why? and the Brazilian City of God are less affirmative-action choices than vital cinematic statements that reflect the roiling passions of their countries and, by extension, their continents. An older Brazilian film, Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ Vidas Secas, might have been a deserving entry, as would Ceddo, by the sub-Saharan director Ousmane Sembene. That would have allowed me to include a film in the Wolof language. But, you know.

In all, I find 11 films from France, six from Germany, four each from India, Italy and Japan, two from Hong Kong, two from Sweden (thanks, Ingmar) and solitary entries from Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Iran, Poland, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan and the U.S.S.R. The American films dominate, as they do at the box office of virtually every country in the world. About half of the 100 could be called Hollywood product; but that town is its own United Nations, a magnet for refugees from Hitler and strivers of every stripe. Deciding which films are British is tough: it’s a production center as well as a national cinema, and some of the 100 movies that the Brits might claim (Brazil, A Hard Day’s Night, 2001: A Space Odyssey) were directed by Americans.

We, and now I, tried being synoptic in our recognition of movie genres. I count eight musicals (including three Indian films), nine out-and-out comedies, a dozen or so romances, six horror or science-fiction movies, three Westerns, two animated features and six pictures that might be classified as film noir, whether primal (the 1945 Detour) or nouveau (the 1974 Chinatown). The list has plenty of intellectual seriousness — what Woody Allen called “heaviosity” — but, I think, classical fun and heart, too.

ALEXANDRIA — WHY???

Here’s the rationale behind each choice:

Alexandria… Why?: Egypt’s Youssef Chahine was for a half-century a near-great filmmaker. This first episode in his Alexandria quartet bears influences from European and Hollywood films and pulses with its own cinematic vitality.

All About My Mother: This 1999 Pedro Almodóvar delight replaces his next, also remarkable film, Talk to Her. To me it’s his finest blend of tragedy, comedy and humanity, with an amazing all-female cast.

 Avatar: James Cameron’s Pandoran fantasy is here not for its box-office supremacy (otherwise, where’s Titanic?) but for its envisioning of a whole new world through technology its director helped spur — the future of movies.

 Awaara: The list’s third Indian pop-musical drama earns its spot for its convulsive family conflict, as performed by Raj Kapoor, India’s all-time top actor-director-showman, and his own father Prithviraj.

Blowup: The Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni brought an intellectual voluptuousness to Europe’s postwar anomie; his English-language debut film also defined Swinging London’s new generation of cool kids who have it all and still feel empty.

Les bonnes femmes: In the late ’50s, Claude Chabrol formed a triumvirate (with Godard and Truffaut) of French film critics who became idiosyncratic, world-class moviemakers. This is his funny-poignant, sour-sympathetic masterpiece.

Days of Heaven: Terrence Malick is not in the Sundance school of indie movies, but he fills the very definition of an independent filmmaker. I chose a strong example from Malick’s early, rapturous prime.

Gone With the Wind: The movie’s omission from the original all-TIME 100 provoked the highest reader dudgeon. (I originally, sheepishly, included it in a subsidiary category called Guilty Pleasures.) GWTW gets promoted for its enduring, indelible performance by Vivien Leigh and for the narrative drive and heft of its first two hours. Super-long epic films almost always sag in the second half.

Histoire(s) du Cinéma: Shown on French TV in the 1980s and ’90s, and finally made available on American DVD last year, this is Godard’s grand, cranky summation of film history: a clip show that is both a personal testament and its own great movie. 

The Hurt Locker: A pounding war film that reveals a superb soldier’s psychological turmoil but heroically refrains from judging him. The movie’s inclusion, purely incidentally, also doubles the number of woman directors on the list. Leni Riefenstahl, meet Kathryn Bigelow.

Killer of Sheep: Charles Burnett’s portrait of a black family in the Watts section of Los Angeles, c. 1973, finally got a proper theatrical and DVD release in 2007. That’s when I saw the movie and was awed by it.

Letter from an Unknown Woman: Max Ophuls directed his early films in Germany, his last in France. I chose the best of the four he made in Hollywood: a fateful romance filmed with a glistening intelligence. 

Napoleon: Abel Gance’s 1927 French bio-epic, running in various modern reconstructions from four to five-and-a-half hours, boasts a cinematic grandeur to match its outsize ambition.

A Separation: Asghar Farhadi’s complex domestic drama, the most recent movie on the list, is from the fertile film industry of Iran.

The Seventh Seal: As I plaintively wrote in Secrets of the all-TIME 100, “That movie changed my life, man!” (As in: made me see film as an art, made me want to be a critic.)

They Live by Night: The leads, Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell, are among my favorite icons of doomed young love.

The Third Man: One of those movies I’ve seen every few years since my teens, and one of the few that looks as rich, or richer, each time.

2001: A Space Odyssey: I can’t say I’ve ever warmed to the film’s anti-prophetic vision of the future (now the past). Over the decades, though, I realized is that one of 2001’s perverse strengths is its demonstration that not every movie needs to snuggle up to viewers, or kick them in the gut. Later directors built on the technology of 2001, not on its structural and cinematic daring. 

Vertigo: Few directors have portrayed a man’s obsession with a woman with such technical mastery and confessional purity. 

WALL-E: The best Pixar ravishment directed by Andrew Stanton. I somehow resisted adding Stanton’s latest effort, John Carter.

REGRETS?

I’ve had a few. Now that I’m in charge here, why didn’t I add Heathers, my forever favorite killer-teen comedy (and an acute commentary on the dictatorship of coolness)? For my Jean Renoir film, I might choose Grand Illusion or The Rules of the Game over The Crime of Monsieur Lange, but Schickel’s précis of M. Lange was so lovely I left it in.

As for all TIME stories, we encourage backtalk from readers on this list. Feel free to compliment or carp; I can take it. And you never know: we may be revising the all-TIME Movies again in 2023, when the magazine reaches its centenary. A hundred movies for 100 years: has a lovely ring to it.

LIST: The 10 Greatest Movies of the Millennium (Thus Far)

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16 May 2012

New Indian novels mirror contemporary man-woman relationships

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS,

New Delhi : Contemporary Indian popular fiction that narrates “desi” cosmopolitan stories has been mirroring the changing man-woman relationship in a more open and accepting urban India, a leading literary agent says.

Even 10 years ago, romantic novels spun stories about a man and one woman, whose sacrosanct monogamous love twisted and turned its way to the altar after epic struggles. Brazen romantic love as a subject of mass fiction was considered audacious in the middle-class conservatism of the 1970s-1980s.

However, when the globalised 1990s began to creep into “desi” books, the floodgates of love opened to include more complex themes with “emotional riddles, tangled relationships and even same sex love”. In the decade of 2000, the cast of the tales grew younger in years as dark passionate secrets came tumbling out of cupboards – but with an essentially Indian feel.

Quite a lot of books are reflecting the changing romantic relationship in India, says literary agent Mita Kapur of Siyahi, which promotes contemporary young Indian literature.

“It came to my mind when I was reading ‘Zoya Factor’ by Anuja Chauhan and ‘Piece of Cake’ by Swati Kaushal. It also comes through in the way Advaita Kala (almost single) handles her relationship or Anita Nair addresses relationship. Namita Gokhale also reflected upon the relationships in her book, ‘Priya’,” Kapur told IANS.

“Complex relationships have always been there in society – in a particular class in the urban areas which were developing faster than the rural areas.

“I read a lot of new manuscripts by young writers. Though I do not always approve of their writing, I have noticed a certain openness in the way they talk of relationships in their books,” Kapur added.

Difficult relationships, jealousy and triangular love no longer shock readers; rather they make powerful plots like in cinema and television.

A new book by Nirupama Subramanian, “Intermission”, follows in the footsteps of John Updike to paint the changing face of Gurgaon suburbia, the dazzling face of modern India.

Varun and Gayatri, an NRI couple returns to India after several years abroad. Varun is glad to be his own boss while wife Gayatri finds readjusting in the traditional Indian family difficult. Life changes insidiously for the family when Varun meets Sweety, a single mother of two, in a dream of a nuclear family.

It is a far cry from Rabindranath Tagore’s “Nashto Nir” or “Ghare Baire” or Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s “Devdas” – tales of unconventional and heroic love.

Tracing the history of romance in literature and its assimilation from the society, Dipa Chaudhuri, the chief editor of Om Books International, says 35-40 years ago love stories in books were built in the mould of Mills Boons and Barbara Cartland romances which began with difficulties in the beginning and resolved in the end.

“For me it was a bit of an illusion because the books were written in a certain time period which played on what love ought to be for women. The presentations were stereotypical. What I find today is a demystification of love in actual life and yet the upholding of the emotion and connecting with realities. It is no longer the ideal emotion that you can reach out to touch. Contemporary romance is a surprise to me because so many things (options) are coming out of Indian contexts,” Chaudhuri told IANS.

Chaudhuri said: “Interestingly, more men are also writing about love now. Everybody needs to evolve. Men are talking about love, loss and longing – difficulties in negotiating relationships,” Chaudhuri said.

Two new best-selling mass-market works, “I Too Have a Love Story” and “Can Love Happen Twice” by Ravinder Singh addresses the progression in Indian love stories through the life of its young protagonist Ravin, who finds love through a matrimonial site and loses it, only to give another shot at it.

Books like “Boy Meets Girl”, “There is No Love on Wall Street”, “The Great Indian Love Story”, “Marrying Anita”, “Nick of Time” and “Scandalous Secret” have been powered by the Indian reader’s undying passion for love stories with a tweak.

On a parallel note, a spate of books have been addressing forbidden love like gay and alternative sexual passion.

According to writer Namita Gokhale, the author of contemporary novels like “Paro: Dreams of Passion”, “Priya: ” and a new anthology of short stories, “The Habit of Love”, modern fiction mirrors the anxieties and aspirations in relationships.

“There can’t be any single Indian reality as societal constraints are changing and opening up. It is the need for love stories – the writers – to understand real kind of love. Writers are projecting different emotional and social situations… After all, literature helps make sense of our lives,” Gokhale told IANS.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

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15 May 2012

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

It’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed an episode of Secret Life and sometimes I forget how bad things have gotten between these so-called friends. ”Allies” was here to remind me just how screwed up everything is.

Amy, Ricky and Ben should not be in this rut!
I still cannot believe how badly Amy’s decision to get back at Ricky for… what was that again? Setting a date to get married or something silly like that? That so many of the incoming seniors gave up their summers to go to school surprised me. Amy was right, she should be out enjoying herself. She made a really bad decision to go to school, but then she was not alone as the entire senior class joined her.

Upset Amy

Why was there even a minor flirtation going on between Amy and Ben? Ben has turned out to be one of the very worst characters on the show. Does being the son of the sausage king really make a stupid, immature boy with stars in his eyes and dreams of romance attractive to every girl in school? I don’t buy it now any more than I did when he first sat stupidly in front of the school counselor to say he was in love with the pregnant girl in band who he had never even met.

Ben has two quasi marriages behind him. Both of those women were in love with the same man. You’d think he might want to emulate Ricky in the areas of common sense and responsibility. Ricky was like a dream. He offered to watch Amy’s friends’ kids after a day at work when he didn’t even know they were coming. She has to know how special is, right? Why, for some unknown reason, do her thoughts still linger on Ben?

I don’t believe she would ever seriously consider returning to Ben by tossing Ricky aside, but that she even flirts with the idea drives me nuts. When Ben said with a smirk that he was happy he could still make choices in his life, as if Ricky could not, it made me want to smack him silly. Dylan is going to have him spinning in circles in no time.

Whatever happened to virtuous Grace?
Remember the days when Grace wanted all of her friends to wear chastity rings? Ever since she had sex with Jack – and thought through the act she killed her father – every other word out her mouth has been sex. For a show that is supposed to talk about the secrets in teenagers lives, I can’t think of one secret that has lasted longer than 30 seconds.

What made Grace think that the next time she slept with Jack he would make a lifetime commitment to her? She showed him more than once that she was incapable of being committed to anyone for longer than it takes paint to dry. I’m glad he was honest with her, and it would be nice to see her think of something other than sex for at least one episode. I’m begging.

Omar pops the question!
Just when Adrian found a relationship she was comfortable with and didn’t make her want to run, he asked her to get married. The ink on her divorce papers wasn’t even dry! They just celebrated with pizza. If he’s as smart as they’ve made him out to be, he would have never asked her so soon. Of course her first instinct was to flee. Do you think Omar might be the right man for Adrian?

Other stuff to chat about:

  • Why wouldn’t Amy tell Jacob that Ethan wasn’t the best person to pick as his first friend in America?
  • Is everyone afraid of being alone? George and Kathleen were sneaking around and making out and she’s not even divorced yet. Give it a rest, learn who you are, then get into a relationship.
  • Madison and Lauren finally realized nobody else can handle their crap and they’re trying to be friends again. Thank goodness.
  • I could not believe my ears when Alice told Henry she didn’t want to be “a” whore, she wanted to be “his” whore. He just wants to try being friends again. Has Alice really hit rock bottom and feels so alone that she would rather offer herself as a whore than a friend?

Thanks for letting me play along this week, reminding me that the secret is everyone has sex and even more people know and talk about having it every day. The bad news is there is about one Ricky out there per million. Make good choices, not bad ones, at least until the time machine is invented (fingers crossed!).

Category: Love Secrets  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
15 May 2012

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

It’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed an episode of Secret Life and sometimes I forget how bad things have gotten between these so-called friends. ”Allies” was here to remind me just how screwed up everything is.

Amy, Ricky and Ben should not be in this rut!
I still cannot believe how badly Amy’s decision to get back at Ricky for… what was that again? Setting a date to get married or something silly like that? That so many of the incoming seniors gave up their summers to go to school surprised me. Amy was right, she should be out enjoying herself. She made a really bad decision to go to school, but then she was not alone as the entire senior class joined her.

Upset Amy

Why was there even a minor flirtation going on between Amy and Ben? Ben has turned out to be one of the very worst characters on the show. Does being the son of the sausage king really make a stupid, immature boy with stars in his eyes and dreams of romance attractive to every girl in school? I don’t buy it now any more than I did when he first sat stupidly in front of the school counselor to say he was in love with the pregnant girl in band who he had never even met.

Ben has two quasi marriages behind him. Both of those women were in love with the same man. You’d think he might want to emulate Ricky in the areas of common sense and responsibility. Ricky was like a dream. He offered to watch Amy’s friends’ kids after a day at work when he didn’t even know they were coming. She has to know how special is, right? Why, for some unknown reason, do her thoughts still linger on Ben?

I don’t believe she would ever seriously consider returning to Ben by tossing Ricky aside, but that she even flirts with the idea drives me nuts. When Ben said with a smirk that he was happy he could still make choices in his life, as if Ricky could not, it made me want to smack him silly. Dylan is going to have him spinning in circles in no time.

Whatever happened to virtuous Grace?
Remember the days when Grace wanted all of her friends to wear chastity rings? Ever since she had sex with Jack – and thought through the act she killed her father – every other word out her mouth has been sex. For a show that is supposed to talk about the secrets in teenagers lives, I can’t think of one secret that has lasted longer than 30 seconds.

What made Grace think that the next time she slept with Jack he would make a lifetime commitment to her? She showed him more than once that she was incapable of being committed to anyone for longer than it takes paint to dry. I’m glad he was honest with her, and it would be nice to see her think of something other than sex for at least one episode. I’m begging.

Omar pops the question!
Just when Adrian found a relationship she was comfortable with and didn’t make her want to run, he asked her to get married. The ink on her divorce papers wasn’t even dry! They just celebrated with pizza. If he’s as smart as they’ve made him out to be, he would have never asked her so soon. Of course her first instinct was to flee. Do you think Omar might be the right man for Adrian?

Other stuff to chat about:

  • Why wouldn’t Amy tell Jacob that Ethan wasn’t the best person to pick as his first friend in America?
  • Is everyone afraid of being alone? George and Kathleen were sneaking around and making out and she’s not even divorced yet. Give it a rest, learn who you are, then get into a relationship.
  • Madison and Lauren finally realized nobody else can handle their crap and they’re trying to be friends again. Thank goodness.
  • I could not believe my ears when Alice told Henry she didn’t want to be “a” whore, she wanted to be “his” whore. He just wants to try being friends again. Has Alice really hit rock bottom and feels so alone that she would rather offer herself as a whore than a friend?

Thanks for letting me play along this week, reminding me that the secret is everyone has sex and even more people know and talk about having it every day. The bad news is there is about one Ricky out there per million. Make good choices, not bad ones, at least until the time machine is invented (fingers crossed!).

Category: Love Secrets  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
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