“Imagine” – G.J-C

20:30. Friday 18th. Conservatoire Francois Mitterand. The lights dim out…

Few notes from a piano, drums fill in, followed by the bass.. Ernest Wiehe playing the sax and Philipe Thomas on trumpet. The crowd is subjugated. 20:45 enters Gina Jean-Charles. The little young lady shyly walks on stage and greets the crowd. A roar of applause, she blushes…

C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble.
Toi, tu m’aimais et je t’aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble,
Toi qui m’aimais, moi qui t’aimais.
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment,
Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable
Les pas des amants désunis.
“Les feuilles mortes” ..

it was a great night of Jazz. Blessed with a magnificent hoarse and jazzy voice, Gina has a bright future ahead. Her simplicity and contained shyness make her even more charming. If Eric Triton has raised creole Blues to summits, Gina and Ernest’s quintet add unequaled warmth and colour to the mauritian Jazz painting. Close your eyes and hear her sing “cry me a river” and you’d think no less of her than a singer of the likes of Ella Fitzgerald.

Bravo!

Interpreter of Maladies

It’s been long since I last read a book. I came across the “interpreter of maladies” in the most haphazard way that could be. I liked the cover and decided I’d buy it. But yet it remained on my desk for months, as if naturally a part of ‘my things’. I never felt the urge to read it either. It was there, it looked nice amongst pages of my scribblings and that was fine with me. I only took up the book a few days ago but wouldn’t read more than a few pages and each time I had to start over again. To resume reading, after so long, is hard. It feels so ‘un-natural’.. but once you’re in, you’d sweetly allow yourself to be swept into a cuddly world of people and their stories, like a mesmerised kid dociled by candy..

Jhumpa has a wonderful style of narration. Her words are simple, as if talking to a child. As an emerging contemporary writer of Indian (Bengali, actually) descent, Jhumpa has this spicy style, mixing stern western culture with eastern irony and innocent gossip. She depicts tones of grey from the usual black & white way of presenting things. Her first collection of short stories is a masterpiece, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2000. Jhumpa Lahiri reminds me of Arundhati Roy, author of yet another gem, The God of Small Things, which i equally loved. But the ‘interpreter of maladies’ fosters stories blessed with more subtle nuances, like prose sung to the ear, like a sweet smell drifting in an autumn breeze, like the sour note that uplifts the sweet flavour in an oriental dish.

I wish i could write like her,… simply and beautifully..