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Sunday, June 13, 2021

Pallavi Aiyar’s Modern Fable 'Chinese Whiskers' Traces Highly Changeable Nature of Humans

Pallavi Aiyar’s Modern Fable 'Chinese Whiskers' Traces Highly Changeable Nature of Humans

Book Review by Dhiraj Sindhi


Chinese Whiskers: The Adventures of Soyabean and Tofu in Beijing by Pallavi Aiyar


Book Review: Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar | Dhiraj Sindhi | Indian Book Blogger
Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar


AuthorPallavi Aiyar

ISBN978-9390351633

GenreContemporary Fiction (Modern Fable)

Length: 242 Pages

Publication Date15th December 2020

PublisherHarperCollins India

Cover Design: Aaryama Somayaji

Cover Designer: Website: highonmangoes.com | Instagram: @highonmangoes

Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/3xi7brw


About the author:

Award-winning journalist Pallavi Aiyar has spent several years reporting from, and parenting in, China, Europe, and Indonesia. She is the author of Smoke and Mirrors, Chinese Whiskers and Punjabi Parmesan. Pallavi is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a former Reuters Fellow at Oxford University. She currently lives in Spain with her family – human and feline.


Book Review: Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar | Dhiraj Sindhi | Indian Book Blogger
Pallavi Aiyar

Instagram: @aiyarpallavi

Twitter: @pallaviaiyar

Website: pallaviaiyar.com/

Facebook: @paliaiyar


DisclaimerThis review is only intended for initiating discussions. The opinions and views presented in this article are my own and do not reflect anything about the book's author. 

"I started reading Chinese Whiskers when I was trying to cope with the Covid fatigue and anxiety because it seemed to me a feel-good, fursome book that could give me exactly what I wanted - joy and light. And since I have a cat visitor who everyday visits my home, it doubled my excitement and reading experience. I had not been reading for some time, but this book got me out of my reading slump. "


REVIEW

The novel coronavirus disease swept across the world recently, wreaking havoc in its wake to be coped with for the coming indefinite period of time. No sooner had the pandemic hit us than we made startling headlines such as this—“Our neighbours made us Covid-19 Pariahs” and this—“Doctors, nurses forced out of the flat by society”, and this—“Cleared by doctors, not by the public”. The social stigma during epidemics is nothing new because, for us humans, it is easy to blame or associate the fear of the unknown to ‘others’. From leprosy to Covid-19, the social stigmatization has posed a serious threat to the lives of health workers, patients, and survivors in the form of harassment and physical violence, making an already testing situation harder to fight with. If we can do this to our fellow beings, then animals don’t stand a chance to be excluded from such ostracism. Right, am I not?

 

The newly published edition of Pallavi Aiyar’s Chinese Whiskers—originally published in 2010 following the plotline based on the episodes of Chinese history such as the spread of SARS virus in 2003, Olympic Games, and tainted pet-food scandals—deals with the very idea of our coexistence with other living organisms, amongst a range of other subjects. Chinese Whiskers is a modern fable that throws us into the chaotic and ever-shifting landscape of early 21st century China; told from the perspective of two cats belonging to different backgrounds who are eventually brought together when a foreign couple (Mr. and Mrs. A)—living in traditional style courtyard in Beijing’s hutongs—adopts them. So, they start their new, indoors, pampered lives, away from their biological families.


Soyabean used to live in the courtyard of the Siheyuan (historical type of residence commonly found throughout China) owned by the Xu (human) family, where he was pampered by the grandmother of the Xu household who personifies Chinese traditional and cultural values, which her grandson is least bothered to recognize. Soyabean is a plump, funny, energetic, and proud cat who is now beyond excited at the prospect of modelling for a cat-food brand—Maomi Deluxe’s ad. On the contrary, Tofu is a skinny, quiet, anxious, and clever cat who used to live with her stray cat mother and her four brothers in a dustbin situated on a college campus and in the backyard of a once-famous professor—Old Man Zhao, who was denied the permission to teach after he wrote a book, controversial enough to cause agitation among powerful people.


As apparent it may seem from these little extracts from characters’ lives, there are distinguishable motifs in the stories they tell—some concerning economic inequality, some concerning moral disengagement, and so on. Pallavi has so effortlessly incorporated such heavy subject matters in a light, witty and innocent narrative of the felines that children could handily comprehend and reckon these patterns in their surroundings. Once these furballs take up space in your heart, there is no way they’re meowing out. They’ll charm you to care about them just like you would feel for your real kitten friends. You would want to stick with them through thick and thin.


This feel-good contemporary fiction picks up the pace and builds up tension as Tofu gets warned by her brother, “Ren are walking around with great white masks tied over their mouths so you can’t see their lips when they talk.” There are three major themes intertwined throughout the book. The first one deals with the “Bing du” virus outbreak, its effects, and people’s reaction to it, especially to the part where rumours suggest cats are the source of this virus. Another one contributes to the subject of rampant consumerism and its macro-economic, social, and ecological implications; how it can be used by wealthy people to fool or exploit their consumers. Global inequality is one such outcome of consumerism, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor in the age-old saying, “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.” The third theme touches on the subject—empathy and morality. It is literally that “moral lesson” that every fable brings along. Apart from that, there are adventures, there are victories, there is hypocrisy, there is government, there are migrant workers, and there are protests.

 

Pallavi has cleverly given voice to not just two cats but two separate classes of cats—indoor cats and alley cats. The amusing and heartening viewpoint coupled with a page-turning plot makes Chinese Whiskers a pleasurable read. Moreover, this edition contains pawful of adorable illustrations by Aaryama Somayaji that really pour life into the story. I learned many Chinese words also that I have gotten used to.


Book Review: Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar | Dhiraj Sindhi | Indian Book Blogger
Illustration by Aaryama Somayaji ©highonmangoes

In the end what you can take away from Chinese Whiskers is—what really matters is how we are striving to become more inclusive of others, not just humans, but all the living organisms and what kind of legacy we’re building to leave behind for our future generations. We need to learn before we have to learn it the hard way that we humans cannot heal on our own. Many fragile ecosystems are on the verge of collapsing. We need to respect and preserve the biodiversity of our ecosystems to develop more sustainable environments. The least we can do is embrace the idea of coexistence, be compassionate towards Soyabeans and Tofus around us because we, together with the plants, animals, and other organisms, complete our life-sustaining planet. 


Happy Reading!


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