V.S Naipaul

V.S Naipaul has been one author, I've been wanting to read since quite sometime. May be it had to do with my little conversation with a Houseboat owner, while feasting barbecue in my many shikara rides, one Kashmir summer. Naipaul had stayed in Leeward Hotel, I was told-  a hotel that moors in central Dal, nicely nugged amidst lotus blooming floating gardens. The Hotel now lays in decrepit condition though, housing the Indian paramilitary forces since last two decades. The idea of living in Dal for a year or so as Naipaul had, I was told, soaking the vivacity of our ancient lake, breathing its cleaner air, plucking lotus flowers and sipping coffee on a late summer afternoon, when the setting sun in capacity of its own virility, turns the purpled' Zabarwan hills into golden hues, gave me goose flesh. Living in Dal is a life with in a life. Though barely few kilometers away from the city central, yet there is a lifespan in between. Just when the shikira rows along the gentle paddling, and the city noise is lost somewhere in the air that you just breathed, you know Dal has welcomed you. Writing in such surroundings when you forget yourself over time, over people that you attach yourself to, over many inconsequential laughs that you manage in spite of the despair around, must be therapeutic  in every touch.

And hence I picked up my first Naipaul book- Guerrillas, few days back. The copy was old, and smelled just right. Naipaul as a writer is a rascal.That is conclusive. His prejudiced tone is visible every where in the book. But, the way he creates his story and the way he explains the bauxite laden air of Carribean Islands is in a literary sense, unparalleled. My advise- if you plan to read Naipaul, take him on a vacation. On a holiday, when you can drown your feet in a cold stream, when you can soak up sunshine while looking out through your hotel window, and birds plume away just as you look up in the skies. Naipaul will then be more understandable, more comprehensible. You have to read him, a para at a time, and then feel yourself in the center of the story. He is a rascal, he will have his way, more than often.