A Bus Called Mr Nice Guy (2005)

Cover photograph: K Ramanathan / Cover design: Jack Ross
(Mumbai, India - 15/1/02)

A Bus Called Mr Nice Guy. ISBN 0-473-10526-8. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2005. [ii] + 50 pp. [Signed edition of 50 copies].

Contents:

Letter to Gabriel White
Mysore:
- Timekeeper to the nation
- Black eyebrows nose
Bangalore (i):
- It was waiting for me
Bangalore (ii):
- Soon to be full six
- Self-conscious in a chair
Pondicherry:
- Long live classical divine Tamil
- As crêpes they’re crap
Thanjavur:
- Always in a crowd
- Put that pen away
Madurai:
- Once is never enough
- Not knowing where we’re going
Kodaikanal:
- Van Allen Hospital
- Black cow lies in the road
Kodai / Kanyakumari:
- Is this going to stay
- They like to see me writing
Cape Comorin:
- The deer doesn’t enter
- He is not a man
Trivandrum:
- They can make anything
- Haunted eyes
Kathakali:
- A lot of action
- This is my first
Varkala:
- Meine Damen und Herren
- The tank’s refilled
Quilon / Alleppey:
- No-time the expanse
- Helping the Down Trodden
Fort Cochin:
- Harbour full of islands
- How do you like Kochi?
Ernakulam:
- Human contact
- Do I exaggerate?
Kochi / Bangalore:
- Light on the tracks
- One’s the buffoon
Bangalore / Panjim:
- The hooded horror
- Sophie Marceau
Panjim:
- Fishermen
- Inside the cabin
North Goa:
- I’ve caught up with myself
- Palolem Vagatur
Madgaon:
- Is it the moment?
- Ahead of myself
Madgaon / Bombay:
- White herons taking flight
- Life must go on
Bombay:
- That is the biggest
- I can laugh about it now
Auckland:
- New construction Amcare
- An alien species
A B C

Samples:

Perdrix Press

Available:

Perdrix Press
6A Hastings Rd
Mairangi Bay
North Shore City 0630
Auckland

RRP: $NZ 20.00

photograph: Jack Ross
(Bangalore, India - 22/1/02)

Reviews & Comments:

1. Raewyn Alexander. Takahe 57 (2006): 59.
   

   
   Prose, poetry, observations and quotes conjure up through their vivid everyday otherness, a sense of travelling along with Ross through India ... This book speaks of travel, danger, poverty, oddities, commerce and friendship, and in its fractured elegance evokes a picture of one man’s experience in a land quite foreign to him.



2. Alistair Paterson. Africa: //Kabbo, Mantis and the Porcupine’s Daughter (Auckland: Puriri Press, 2008): 52-53, 56-57 & 70.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Alistair Paterson: Africa (30/6/08): pp. 52-53 & 56-57.
   
   

   
   [p.52]:
   
   *
   Thinking
   of /Kaggan, the eland
   you thank Jack (Ross)
   for the books he's sent you
   & especially
   for his travel book:
   A Bus called Mr Nice Guy.
   
   You read it, study it -
   the book that gives advice
   on how to travel through India
   how to travel through
   
   Asia, Europe, places
   you've never been to, perhaps
   might never visit
   
   except like now
   through reading the words –
   the words you've found
   in Jack's book:
   
   The most beautiful thing
   he says,
   he's seen in India ...
   
   but says nothing about
   Africa, /Kaggen
   the eland
   
   
   [p.53]:
   
   & truly, you don't know
   what it is
   (the most beautiful thing)
   
   whether it's the eland
   'most magnificent
   dark & splendid'
   
   as /Kaggan thinks of it
   or whether it's
   as Jack says …
   
   *
   the most beautiful thing
   is in the room of Ramayana
   in the face
   of Krishna
   
   playing his flute
   or in a picture of Shiva
   with Parvati on his knee.
   
   But of course, the thing
   Jack says is beautiful
   isn't in Africa
   but in India where
   he saw it near Kochi –
   
   where he saw a bus called
   Mr Nice Guy …
   
   *
   It's in a painting –
   in the here, the now.
   
   
   [p.56]:
   
   *
   While Jack –
   Jack sits at a pavement table
   in Ponsonby
   sipping a latte
   thinking of Chantal
   of travelling with her round
   the South Island
   in the New Year
   
   of Richard West
   & his book
   The Life & Strange
   Surprising
   Adventures of Daniel Defoe.
   
   Most remarkable
   to be thinking of both at once
   & remarkable as well
   to be thinking of Genji
   
   
   [p.57]:
   
   of Lady Murasaki
   & 'too many maiden-flowers
   in the field.'
   
   But then, where else
   would you & Lady Murasaki
   expect
   them to be?
   
   
   [p.70]:
   
   And in India, of course
   In India Jack put all those words
   on paper thinking perhaps
   they might make a difference
   might change things
   
   but Africa has come with us
   & it’s impossible to stop
   writing about it – about
   Africa being everywhere.

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