Dear Alexander McCall Smith, I wish you a happy birthday from drizzly Mumbai. To you, I raise a cup of adrak chai. The celebration of your 75th must be like you and the characters in your books – friendly, kind, humorous.
Author Alexander McCall Smith (Kirsty Anderson)
We haven’t met, but I have felt, in person, your warm-hearted humour. It was a pleasure to attend your session at Tata Literature Live in 2019. You came dressed in a kilt and sporran. If I remember right, the host for the session, Ms Shobhaa De, asked, with impeccable timing, what was underneath the kilt. It raised a wave of laughter in the audience. You replied, underwear. Then you added, as for folks in the Scottish Regiment, nothing came between them and their kilts… That, too, brought the house down.
How sportingly you showed up in a kilt. Your past visits to India must have given you glimpses of men walking down a street in traditional dress. Was you wearing a kilt a friendly nod to the lungi? You have an affinity with India, don’t you? The books of RK Narayan, you’d told journalist Vinay Kamath previously in an interview given to The Hindu Businessline, had partly inspired your decision to write the Botswana series. Like RK Narayan’s, your stories are ingeniously written to read simply. Your humour is good-natured, and your stories offer an experience of people being good at heart and happiness being within reach in realistic, daily life.
Your famous character, detective Precious Ramotswe, desires to help herself and others to find happiness. And the way to it, your books say, lies in kindness and human connection which is always a possibility. That way lies redemption, too.
224pp, ₹599; Abacus (Amazon)
Your book, The Kalahari Typing School for Men was powerful medicine for me. I was living alone in an uncaring neighbourhood during the pandemic, coping with severe mental illness. In this particular book, Rra (meaning Mr) Molefelo engages Precious to find Mma (meaning Ma’am) Tsolamosese, whose boarder he’d been, back when he was in college. In desperation, he’d stolen the landlady’s radio. He sold it to fund an abortion for Tebogo Bathopi, his girlfriend whom he abandoned subsequently. Now, after many years, following a brush with death, Rra Molefelo has taken stock of his life as a householder, husband and father. Faced with the possibility of sickening and dying in the pandemic, I too summed up my life.
The past lies heavy on Molefelo’s heart. He wants to make things right with Tebogo and his former landlady. On his brief, Precious finds their addresses and reaches out to them. He, at last, gets to make amends with them.
They, large-hearted, resilient folks who have moved on with their lives, accept his gesture graciously. On Precious’s urging, he sponsors a year of education in a good school for one of Tebogo’s daughters. As Precious says, “I do not think you can make up for things cheaply, Rra. Do you?” No, no. But, as your books say, dear Alexander McCall Smith, whether it’s making up to someone else or to oneself, it is possible.
This passage moved me so much:
She smiled at him. ‘I was your mother in Gaborone. You were my son while you were here. Now I am proud of you. Mma Ramotswe has told me how well you have done.’
‘But I did a very bad thing to you,’ said Mr Molefelo. ‘Your radio . . .’
Mma Tsolamosese interrupted him. ‘A radio is a small thing. A man is a big thing.’
A rock dam of tears was cracked open by the last two sentences. A human is a big thing. We are worthy as ourselves.
I had stolen no radio, nor had coerced an abortion, but there were regrets. Now, they “stuck” a little less. Soon, I saw myself a bit more kindly. It became possible to access psychotherapy. A difficult process, but it is making me happier and less prone to behaviours that hinder me and others in relationships.
Like me, dear Alexander McCall Smith, so many readers attribute to your stories their renewed faith in their humanity and that of others, which led them to build their happiness.
Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe in HBO’s The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (HBO)
Moreover, your works have affected my little writings profoundly. My poems were given to fixated melancholy and pessimism. No more self-nourishing sadness chasing its tail. It isn’t cathartic; I don’t think so. If my poetry is sunnier of late, it was made lambent by, chiefly, your books. My newer poems are sad in a healthy, cleansing way, but most are hopeful, even humorous, some are flirty, even resonant with delight. I have begun to write short stories which can be gritty, and in which, however, the characters are hopeful and attain happiness.
Reading your books, it is easy to remember: Folks like myself, beginners to the Buddhadharma, misunderstand dukkha or “suffering” as pain, and torment. It seldom is. More commonly it refers, say the gurus, to feeling constantly dissatisfied. This is the human condition, because, as it is said, ‘all lacks an essence, is made of pieces and processes, and is impermanent’. Even in this paradigm, they say, happiness is achievable. This comes through in your books, too. Happiness occurs more frequently than I’d thought. So what if it slips away? So does – to paraphrase Proust – unhappiness.
I have made good inroads into the Botswana series – five books down. One of my aspirations is to finish reading each book of fiction with your name on it – 80 books in four or five series, yes? – no matter how long it takes. Of these, the Botswana series will always have special significance for me. It, along with the dharma, and the love and kindness of a few dear folks is a source of my faith in humanity.
Dear Alexander McCall Smith, profound gratitude from one of the millions of readers nourished by your writings.
Suhit Bombaywala’s factual and fictive writings appear in India and abroad. Social media handle: @suhitbombaywala.
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