Shelf Life: A ‘Sackett’ Who Changed My Life

Louis L’Amour’s ‘Jubal Sackett’ taught me that it was ‘cool’ to be the good guy.

(‘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.

From Jagadamba to Jubal

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.

On my way to the theatre on my trusty Pulsar-150, I chanced upon a roadside bookstore. They were second-hand books, possibly stolen, strewn/ stacked over what was once a piece of clothing.

Jubal Sackett, the cover said. This was the first book I lazily set my eyes upon.

(I was done with my 12th boards, and didn’t know who I wanted to be. I would wake up at 9.30 AM, watch TV till lunch, sleep again till 5 PM, watch TV until dinner at 8 PM, watch TV till midnight. And then sleep, and repeat. I had been doing this for three months. Jibes from my father, teary rants by my mother - nothing changed this routine. It was Rajamouli who made me want to get out of my three month ‘Hikikomori‘.)

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.'

I had neither at the time. And so for Rs 25, I bought the stolen book that changed my life.

The Appeal of The 'Wild' West

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.

The Wild West in Jubal Sackett, was a land beyond the still nascent ‘civilisation’ of cowboys. It conjured for me, a breathtaking world of mountains and rivers and gorgeous valleys that only two pairs of eyes had seen thus far; Jubal Sackett’s, and mine.

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).

I swore fluently in Telugu and my tongue was more accepting of the red chillies than most locals. Yet, I didn’t quite belong. I was Keeokotah, Jubal’s Kickapoo (Red Indian) friend, who traveled alone, away from his tribe, thanks to his wanderlust, and his inability to fit in.

The 'Good Guy' Can Be Cool?

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.

It would take me a few more years to consider my father for the post. But at the time, I had none I could emulate, especially since I was horribly good, and by direct consequence, quite lacklustre.

All of Louis L’Amour’s novels (of which the Sackett series are the best) gave me my role models - heroes - who were honest and strong and ‘good’ in the sense that I wished to be. Suddenly I realised it wasn’t so bad to wait for your turn in the queue. It was okay to walk quietly away from an unnecessary fight. It was alright to stay quiet and withdrawn.

I wanted to be Jubal Sackett when I grew up.

Happy Endings

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.

Deep down I knew life was unfair, and that tragedies were as real as success and laughter. But Jubal offered me something to hold on to at a time when I was utterly confused about everything - from my career to my very identity.

I also realised that good writing can be simple and direct, and I discovered I could think visually.

Addendum: Five years later, as an ignominious intern at a news channel in Delhi, I would look to Jubal Sackett for courage to ward off loneliness and to fight rejection. At 2.40 AM, as I would sit in the empty office logging tapes, the hum of a distant vacuum-cleaner would remind me of how Jubal Sackett fought off a woolly mammoth, with the help of a wild bison he had tamed through love, and I would smile.