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(‘What are you reading?’ is a question we ask each other all the time before losing ourselves in meandering conversations around lives scattered between pages. This week, Vikram Venkateswaran re-reads a childhood favourite to share his journey with an unusual hero.)
Jubal Sackett is (chronologically) the second book of Louis L'Amour's Sackett series. It's about how Jubal, a second generation Sackett and first generation ‘American’ explores the wilderness, befriends a Red Indian, fights a woolly mammoth and marries a high priestess. :-)
But more importantly, it's about dealing with one's own ideas of identity, morality and the brilliance of simple writing.
Here's how, and why, it changed my life.
The summer of 2001. I had Rs 50 in my pocket. I was on my way to Jagadamba - what was then the biggest theatre in Vishakhapatnam. Some debutante director named SS Rajamouli, came up with Student No 1, touted as a 'different' kind of film. It starred NTR Jr, one of my least favourite 'actors', but I was curious, since the force (read buzz) was strong on this one.
Jubal Sackett, the cover said. This was the first book I lazily set my eyes upon.
I turned the book over.
'...Sackett's quest will bring him danger from an implacable enemy... and show him a life - and a woman - worth dying for.'
The representation of the Wild West in movies has typically been linear in plot. I didn't care for revenge movies, or ones where money or treasure is the chief protagonist. It is for this reason that Sholay has always bored me. I loved the dialogues and Gabbar, but not much else.
Mine is a family of settlers, not explorers. My father, and his father and so on, were from Taruvai, a small village in Tirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu. There was this matter-of-fact pride in the way they used this location to describe who they were. I couldn't connect to it, because I was born in Madurai, raised in Bangalore (Karnataka), then Chennai (TN) and then Vizag (Andhra Pradesh).
It is my belief that we all look for someone to emulate - some role model to model ourselves and our lives on. It is born of the biological instinct to imitate the parent, to increase chances of survival.
I watched Titanic in Chitralaya, the second largest theatre in Vizag (there were only these two, and a couple of other dingy ones at the time) in '97.
It was a depressing experience for me, because Jack dies in the end. Today, 20 years later, I can objectively review a tragedy, but it would still depress me, and throw me into existential angst.
PS(st): I watched Titanic on cable 10 years later. I skipped the ending.
Jubal Sackett defeats the villain, marries the high priestess of a tribe, and makes his home in a faraway land of breathtaking beauty.
I also realised that good writing can be simple and direct, and I discovered I could think visually.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)