do you.know Indrajit Hazra?

Answer 1

Not personally, but . . .

"INDRAJIT HAZRA is a journalist with The Hindustan Times and the author of a novel The Burnt Forehead of Max Saul (Ravi Dayal, 2000)."
He is Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times.

"The Burnt Forehead of Max Saul
Author: Indrajit Hazra

Hard Bound New The narrative in this compact novel moves swiftly. It is sharply satirical and extremely funny in parts, but there are tragic undertones too. Ultimately, the novel is about reality and non-reality, with Max Saul himself living in a semi-hallucinatory state between the two. ISBN:8175300361 160 Yr. of Pub.2000"

and a not-so-flattering review:

"Surge of fanciful imagination


THE BURNT FOREHEAD OF MAX SAUL: Indrajit Hazra; published by Ravi Dayal, 51E, Sujan Singh Park, New Delhi-110003. Rs. 125.

A LONG title and little novel. The Burnt Head could well be a mix of J. Krishnamurthi's philosophy of Freedom From the Known and R.L. Stevenson's The Wrong Box baked by a psychosomatic in the kiln of neo-existentialism.

Memory-loss and people being hidden in a piano's belly have always been tasty ingredients for novels.

As for Indian writing in English, how come policemen in fiction are always such incorrigible fools, easy-to-bribe and easier-to- cheat?

The author gives a new look for Indian fiction with his references to Vermeer's paintings, Beethoven's Pathetique, The Swan Lake, Achilles and Rainer Maria Rilke, while the Tiananmen Square incident gets imbedded too in Hazra's unreal city. Unlike the police, the army is safe from caricaturists. You count the dead, the injured and the detained and close the file.

After all the trouble of trying to understand where exactly we are positioned while tracking Max, we find that he is cosily cuddled with his wife Urmi and the events are non-happenings of a kind: fiction within fiction.

Did Serai exist? Was Suldan real? Taking a cue from Shakespeare who said ``We are such stuff as dreams are made on'', Hazra offers his own critique: ``Stories want to end right from the beginning. But they end only when the gaps have been adequately filled. Not with glitter and smoke and tales of adventure. They end when one succumbs to the charms of little things, like the rustle of tulips and sharing a bed with someone with pride. Real tulips, real bed, real pride.''

Of course, of course. Three cheers of welcome for the author who has tried to tame the surge of fanciful imagination with the foam of his crinkly plot.
PREMA NANDAKUMAR

Answer 2

i am indrazit hazra