I no longer bother to read best sellers or books touted to have earned their authors advance royalties of millions or more dollars or pounds. When I read them, I felt let down. The Brazilian novelist and column-writer Paulo Coelho is one of them. Some of his novels made it to the top in the book market. Though I was disappointed, I was able to understand why he was so widely read. He writes very simple prose, chooses unusual themes, gives the story aspect top priority and interlaces his narrative with observations on matters which are of interest to the average run of novel readers. This is true of his latest book The witch of Portobello.

The story is as contrived and convoluted as Coelho’s others. An unmarried Romanian gipsy woman has an illegitimate child who she hands over to an adoption centre because she is too poor to look after her.
A Lebanese Christian couple from Beirut who have no children of their own go to Bucharest and adopt the girl and bring her to Beirut. Her first language is Arabic. When Beirut is invaded by Syria from one end, Israel from the other, they migrate to London. They are a well-to-do happy family.

The girl gives up her Arabic name and takes on the name Athena (after the goddess of learning). As she grows up, her adoptive parents are advised to tell her that she is an adopted child. As one would expect, she gets obsessed with the idea of locating her birth-mother. She flies to Bucharest and finds her mother living in acute poverty. She spends a few days with her before returning to London.

She has a good job, marries, has a son, then divorces her husband. She has business in London and Dubai which she gives up to find her real self. She discovers she is clairvoyant, can read people’s minds, heal them by her touch. A cult grows up round her. She derives power created by dancing. 

Orthodox Anglicans take umbrage and try to disrupt the dancing sessions as pagan rituals of satan worship. Confrontations end up in fisticuffs. Then suddenly Athena is found raped and murdered on Hampstead Heath. The culprit who is Portuguese escapes to Portugal and commits suicide, leaving behind a note owning up his crime. He was in love with her. Can a plot be more convoluted?

However, there are passages a reader may ponder over with profit. They are about happiness, love wealth joy etc.

When I’m with a group of people and I want to provoke them by asking that most important of questions: “Are you happy?” They all reply: “Yes, I am”. Than I ask: “But don’t you want more? Don’t you want to keep  on growing?” And they all reply: “Of course.” Than I say: “So you’re not happy.” And they change the subject.”

Akbar Ilahabadi
Of the Urdu poets I have read, the one whose compilation I am familiar with most is of Akbar Hussain Khan Ilahabadi (1846-1921). He was undoubtedly the greatest humourist of his times. Also, delightfully full of contradictions.

He sprinkled his verse with English words. He was an ardent supporter of education for all Muslims, a strong supporter of Sir Syed Ahmed’s Aligarh Muslim University and at the same time opposed to westernisation, ardent believer in the institution of hijaab i.e. women wearing burkahs and Muslims retaining their distinct, separate identity from Hindus.

He supported the Muslim League rather than the Indian National Congress. In a truly biting satire of the Raja of Mahmoodabad who was Shia and switched his loyalties from the Muslim League to the Congress and back to the League, he wrote:

Muzakkar ko ‘He’ kahtey hain
Muannas ko ‘She’ kahtey hain
Yeh mard-e-mukhannas
Na heeon mein na sheeon main

(They call the male gender a he - The female gender a she This castrated male is neither - Amongst the he’s or the she’s)

I am not sure if Akbar Ilahabadi was a drinking man: however, I am charmed by the way he wrote about it:
Jo kahaa mainey keh pyaar aata hea mujh ko tum say - Hans kay kehnay lagey “Aur aap ko aata kya hai?
Aam ilzaam hai Akbar peh key peeta kyo hai - Iss kee pursish nahin hotee keh khaata kya hai?”

I said, “I have fallen in love with you - She laughed and said “What else do you do? The general complaint is “Why does Akbar drink?” Why he eats, no one bothers to think.