Transcript of my review speech at the book launch at British Council on Nov 30, 2009
He was born
in Bengal, worked with the Indian government for many years, discovered himself
as a writer, wrote a first novel based on his personal experiences in the
administration and expressed in the form of fiction, and then wrote another
book with the original title "a fairy story", which is a satire on
human folly, a fantasy fable, a hatred of all major ideas of utopia, and
arguably the greatest criticism of the world order and state of humanity. Can
anyone guess who I am talking about?
No, it's not
Sumit Mullick. I am talking about George Orwell.
The year is
1945 and the month is August, the time when capitalism and communism joined
hands to introduce the world to the atomic bomb and changed the course of
history. That same month, political expression and artistic expression joined
hands in the mid reaches of the mind of George Orwell to introduce the world to
Animal Farm and changed the way we understand the course of history. Orwell was
creating his work almost in parallel with the Manhattan project, and his book
release in the month of the bombing must have given Orwell a sense of sad,
ironic satisfaction. The jury is still out on which is mightier, the pen or the
sword.
Today, the
violence of humanity probably consumes as many lives everyday that the atomic
bomb consumed since Aug 1945. Yet, the world continues to live oblivious to
this violence, why even accelerates it further by inflicting it behind several
facades. Fairyish Tales is an expression of this violence inflicted by humanity,
upon humanity and upon civilization and upon earth and upon the universe.
Mullick removes this facade in the form of 8 fairyish stories, 8 satires of
fantasy, questioning our every notion of a perfect civilization.
