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    Father, Rebel, Dreamer
    Father, Rebel, Dreamer
    Father, Rebel, Dreamer
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Father, Rebel, Dreamer

    By Richard Crasta

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    About this ebook

    Writers and artists who are fathers; terrorist mothers-in-law; how to face the stealing of your children (including your book-children); this eclectic book on fatherhood and Mangalore from the author of the celebrated novel "The Revised Kama Sutra" is full of surprises, passion, poignancy, It is for the reader who believes, with Franz Kafka, that "a book should be an axe for the frozen sea inside us." Though mainly on the theme of fatherhood, the book also strays into the world of terrorist mothers-in-law, the strange world of Mangalorean Catholics, and the story of a Dutch artist-dreamer father.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Crasta
    Release dateJun 4, 2011
    ISBN9781458009616
    Father, Rebel, Dreamer
    Author

    Richard Crasta

    Richard Crasta is the India-born, long-time New York-resident author of "The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel" and 12 other books, with at least 12 more conceived or in progress. "The Revised Kama Sutra," a novel about a young man growing up and making sense of the world and of sex, was described by Kurt Vonnegut as "very funny," and has been published in ten countries and in seven languages.Richard's books include fiction, nonfiction, essays, autobiography, humor, and satire with a political edge: anti-censorship, non-pc, pro-laughter, pro-food, pro-beer, and against fanaticism of any kind. His books have been described as "going where no Indian writer has gone before," and attempt to present an unedited, uncensored voice (James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and Philip Roth are among the novelists who have inspired him.).Richard was born and grew up in India, joined the Indian Administrative Service, then moved to America to become a writer, and has traveled widely. Though technically still a New York resident, he spends most of his time in Asia working on his books in progress and part-time as a freelance book editor.

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      Book preview

      Father, Rebel, Dreamer - Richard Crasta

      Father, Rebel, Dreamer

      Richard Crasta

      Copyright 2011 Richard Crasta

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 Richard Crasta

      Published by the Invisible Man Press

      Richard Crasta is the author of twelve other books, including literary fiction, nonfiction, humor, and essays.

      Author’s website: http://www.richardcrasta.com

      All rights reserved by the author and by the publisher.

      Table of Contents

      About the Author and this Book

      Dedication

      Author’s Disclaimer

      Preface to Fathers, Rebels, and Dreamers

      The Terrorist Mother-in-Law

      How to Face the Execution or Stealing of Your Children

      Fathers and Sons: A Tale of Literature, Reinvention, and Redemption

      Death of a Dreamer: An Artist, a Broken Heart, and Maya

      Pooh to Tippoo: An Essay Written on the Eve of the New Millennium

      Dennis, Live: An Interview With Dennis Britto

      Praise for the Author’s Other Books

      Other Books by the Author

      Acknowledgments

      Excerpt from Eaten by the Japanese

      About the Author and this Book

      Richard Crasta is the author of eight other books including the critically acclaimed, widely published The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel. This 2011 e-book version of his 2005 three-author book titled Fathers, Rebels, and Dreamers presents his individual contributions to that book and tries to preserve the fidelity of the original, keeping it true to his emotions and views at the time, rather than letting afterthoughts ruin its flavor and it authenticity. However it also adds some new, material. For administrative and copyright reasons, the other two authors of the original book could not be included in this e-book edition. Print copies of the original Fathers, Rebels and Dreamers (by three authors) may still be found on the Internet, but not easily; therefore, this short book makes Richard Crasta’s contributions to that book — on fatherhood, authorship, censorship, and Mangalore, his home town — available to readers all over the world at an affordable price, and instantly, thus circumventing the censorship of the Ayatollahs of publishing.

      Dedication

      To Justice Michael Saldanha, formerly Justice of the High Court of Bombay and Karnataka, and to Victor Pais, industrialist originally from Mangalore, India, and now from New Jersey in the United States.

      Author’s Disclaimer

      The book takes many fictional liberties, including the fiction that there is such a thing as liberty. Any person attempting to insult the author by agreeing with him and thereby rendering this book superfluous is liable to be shot on or before sight, and failing sight or sufficient light or physical apprehension, to be shot in absentia. For if sufficient numbers of people disagree with the author, or are mortally offended or wounded by his writings, the author must be doing something right (besides which, all that wounding means more business for the surgeons).

      Franz Kafka wrote, I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound us and stab us. If the book we’re reading does not wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? A book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us. Right; and the bandages for your axe wounds will be sold separately and autographed by the author for a small extra charge.

      In the parts of this book labeled as fiction, any resemblance of the characters or pretended facts to real people or real facts is purely coincidental and truly amazing; in the pieces not labeled as fiction, any such resemblance is probably an indication that the author was sound asleep and forgot to get his facts wrong.

      Preface to Fathers, Rebels, and Dreamers (2005), and this book (2011)

      [When I published Fathers, Rebels, and Dreamers, the ancestor to this book, in 2005, I had so much to say, so much emotion bottled up inside me and destroying me, that I desperately wished to tell the world my story. But I was concerned that this might affect my children, who were still too young at that time. Rohit, the youngest, was 15, Dev was 17, and James, 21; and I still cared about not causing any damage to them, especially to the younger two. I decided to write a book about fatherhood, but without explicitly saying everything that I wished to say, and by adding some humor and some other content to the book, so as to soften the really explosive parts.

      What follows is my Preface to that book.]

      If you are one of three contributors to a book, but are solely responsible for conceiving the book, giving it a title, and putting it together, how do you presume to speak for any of your fellow authors? You simply presume. After all, the very act of writing is a supreme act of presumption.

      Therefore, the initial presumption of mine in putting myself in an anthology which I title Fathers, Rebels, and Dreamers must be ascribed to the inevitable weakness of brain, and gigantism of the ego, to be found among the literary tribe. Actually, I am far more conformist and Establishment than I care to admit, and would be flattering myself by calling myself a rebel. This is not even to tweak the moustaches of the truth that we are often many contradictory things at the same time, and categories are simply words.

      But what if we were rebels in that we chose to call ourselves rebels despite not really being so, and despite being fathers, who are preservers and conformists in that they have been co-opted into the genetic program of propagating the race (and that too through the means of such a conformist institution as marriage)? And what if we really were rebels, or that, because I chose to champion two other rebels, I were to be temporarily permitted the Honorary title of Co-Rebel?

      Some people have described Mangaloreans as docile, unlike the temperamental and rebellious citizens of Kerala and West Bengal; if this were true, there would still be a few singular and revolting exceptions. The conformity of the majority is contrasted by the independence and individualistic spirit of a small number of Mangaloreans, especially its men (do we dare to poke at this sensitive question? Being rebels and foolhardy men, we must!) (it is only a guess that far more of the women who attend Sunday Mass do so from inner compulsion, whereas the always fewer male worshipers are sometimes moved by the physical force of external, female propulsion). One of the more prominent among these Mangalorean rebels must be George Fernandes, a former would-be padre who metamorphosed into a firebrand trade union leader, an underground resister and fugitive during the Emergency, though his becoming Defence Minister of the world’s sixth (declared) nuclear power does somewhat lower his status in the eyes of the Rebellious Pure. However, even in their dubious rebellion, whether against society’s expectations or majority thinking, each of the three writers presented here is unique, and shows no scars of being harnessed to any particular ideology or system.

      The bond that united the three authors of the earlier book was that they are all fathers —

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