Surya Kumari

            On Thursday morning when I got up from yoga I looked out the window and saw a skeleton arm and hand lying on the street with the fingers pointing towards Popeyes. 

            I almost finished editing “Sparadrap" by Serge Gainsbourg on Christian's Translations and getting the chords positioned properly. 

            I typed up more of my notes The Marrow Thieves for the Ask the Author assignment for Canadian Literature. 

            I had chips, salsa and yogourt for lunch. 

            In the afternoon I went to Freshco where I bought five bags of grapes, raspberries, five year old cheddar, a tiny whole chicken, yogourt, canned peaches, shampoo and conditioner. 

            I think the pandemic combined with school is getting me depressed. It’s much more inspiring to go to the old campus and sit in a roomful of students with a real professor to interact with. 

            I finished typing my notes for the Ask the Author assignment. I put my questions and comments leading up to the questions in a separate document and attached the corresponding page numbers from the book to each question. Then I sent the document to my project partner Justin. He’ll pick out the questions he wants to answer and then maybe I’ll refine the questions. There is only supposed to be a maximum of three questions. A lot of my questions are challenges to the logic behind the book but that doesn’t seem to be what is wanted for this assignment. The questions are probably supposed to be about the literary methods applied. I guess I might have at least three questions like that in there. 

            I had a potato, three chicken drumsticks and gravy for dinner while watching Interpol Calling.

            In this story a drug lab in Karachi is broken into and a large supply of drugs are stolen. But some of the packages contain live cholera vaccine that the lab has not yet had a chance to destroy. The vaccine is resold and distributed on the black market. Interpol sends out a circular to all clinics to test all vaccines before distribution. A Dr Soni, who runs a small clinic in Delhi hands over two packages of the cholera vaccine to a field doctor named Kaul. He does not read the circular until after she leaves. He tests his vaccine and finds it is live and then he reaches for the phone. Suddenly a man named Raji clubs him. When he falls he crushes the cholera slide in his hand and is infected. When Duval learns of this he heads for Delhi. He learns that an outbreak in Bengal is linked to a drug company named Pan Asia. Porton and Buchanon, the owners of the company agree to cooperate but we see that Raji also works there. Duval figures that whomever stole the vaccine only found out later that it was live and retrieved and destroyed all they could. Meanwhile Dr Kaul is travelling from village to village. She administers one injection but only for tetanus. Duval figures that only someone at Pan Asia could be using the company for the black market and a full check on their inventory and staff is ordered. Interpol finds that Porton’s real name is Wilson and that he was court martialed in 1946 for selling medical supplies on the black market. When he is confronted he finally admits it but says that Raji killed Soni, just before Raji throws a knife at Porton. As Porton dies he tells Duval that only Dr Kaul has what was not retrieved of the live vaccine. Duval goes on a desperate search for Kaul. Meanwhile she has arrived at village that needs cholera vaccine and she prepares to give the injections. Duval learns that Kaul is in Raku but his driver tells him it would take more than four hours to get there. Duval finds the nearest airstrip and commandeers a plane. Kaul tells the villagers to come after they’ve eaten. The first six patients come in and she gets the needle ready. The plane lands and Duval travels by motorcycle, arriving just as she is about to inject the first patient. When Duval tells her she is about to administer live vaccine she faints. 

            Kaul was played by Surya Kumari, who was a film star at the age of 12 in India. She was also a singer and dancer. At seventeen she sang a popular version of “Maa Telugu Thalliki” the state song of Andrah Pradesh in the film “Deena Bandhu”. She won the Miss Madras beauty pageant and was a runner up for Miss India. She starred in “Uran Khatola” and “Ram Aur Rahim” but did not get starring roles in English films. But as a singer she was a superstar and restaurant patrons would pay extra for meals if they could hear a recording of her while they were eating and traffic would stop to listen as well. In London she formed India Performing Arts with her husband, poet Harold Elvin. It was both a school and a production company. She and her husband also performed together as he recited poetry and she played music.