Suman Dhar
NETI, NETI by Anjum Hasan. (First Published in 2009 in India by IndiaInk Roli Books)
I had never read Anjum Hasan before, but that is my short- coming. According to the introductory paragraph in the book, her earlier novel 'Lunatic in my head' and the book of poems 'Street on the hills' were highly praised in the literary circles. And her collection of short stories 'Difficult pleasures' published in 2012, was equally well received.
The book struck me as an honest reflection of the emerging Indian woman. A girl, brought up in a middle class family of mixed parentage, settled in the quiet, but stylish (in the archaic, colonial sense) city of Shillong; almost escapes from the small town boredom and too close-knit, nuclear family to find herself in Bangalore, right at the middle of the new India. A year in Bangalore, with her new found group of free- spirited friends contrasts sharply with Sophie's slow and sedate life in Shillong. If she was bored in Shillong, now once the novelty died down, the emptiness of the money-minded new city bogged her down with all its crudity and ugliness. Shillong with its sense of permanence of relations and natural beauty, invites her back. She goes back only to find that the world which she thought as unchanging, was actually crumbling.
Sophie Das has a Bengali father, and a Delhiite mother, who due to various reasons migrated to Shillong and settled as school teachers. Her father, Mr Das, a PhD in English, who quoted 'Hamlet' on all occasions, had to give up his job in a college and his dreams of teaching in a university and settle down in a school teaching job in a new city. This led to frustrations, and he was now intent upon shifting to Santiniketan and fulfil his dream of translating 'Hamlet' into Bengali. Mrs Das is from a typical Delhiite business family which never trusted and accepted the eccentric and opinionated Bengali son-in-law. Mrs Das having lived in an alienated place, cut-off from the values of her initial life, have now decided to move to Benaras to her Guruji's ashram and spend the rest of her life there. Sophie's girl-hood crush on a Khasi CD shop owner is also explored till she discovers the seamier underbelly beneath the dreamy exteriors. The book, like any good piece of literature has multiple layers in it. The changing perspective of women in India and the resulting clashes with the traditional male dominated society, the contrasting lifestyles and values of small town and those of a metro city, and an underlying layer of the loss and a feeling of rootlessness - are explored.
A well written book with touches of wit and humour. A book with its negativity, as the name suggests, also reinstates beliefs in human nature.
SOLO by Rana Dasgupta, first published in India by Harper Collins. Winner of the 'Commonwealth Writers' Prize' under 'Best Book' award in 2010.
Normally, English books written by Indian authors carry some Indian-ness either in the story line or in the HEYNE< characters but 'Solo' is an exception. It carries with it the proportions of an epic and looks at Eastern Europe in the entire span of 19th century through the eyes and dreams of Ulrich, a 100 -year-old Bulgarian who has lived a solo life through the massive changes which shook the 19th century Europe and the world.
The story opens in 1901, in the days when Bulgaria along with half of Europe was still a part of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish traders and gypsies with their free and lyrical lifestyle along with the newly emerging driving force of the century science and technology - seamlessly weave in and out of the story. While talking about passions for music, railroads and chemistry Ulrich leads the reader through the rise and fall of communist eastern Europe. His life, like the region, starts off with a lot of exciting possibilities, goes through painful changes and ends in insignificance.
In the second part of the book, the story soars through the dreams of Ulrich and spreads its wings from the Georgian part of Soviet Russia to New York in USA. Strange and forceful characters emerge from the debris and ashes of post- communist-era east Europe. The ruthless nouveau riche of Georgia, a musical genius from Bulgaria, and a successful businessman of New York are the central characters of Ulrich's dreams. They are the children he wished he had. The book appears to be somewhat weird and eccentric because of its dream-like-quality. A good read, and will be enjoyed by readers interested in
human chronicles.
LIVES OF OTHERS by Neel Mukherjee (Published by Chatto & Windus. UK) was shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 2014.
An unsparing and savage portrayal of life in Kolkata and Bengal during the late sixties and seventies. Neel Mukherjee has very successfully lived the lives of others in this book. The backdrop is a decadent and rich family in Kolkata, now falling apart with all its pettiness from which emerges two beautiful characters of Supratik and Sona.
Through the eyes and life of Supratik we are taken across the stark realities of rural India with its helpless poor being unsparingly oppressed and exploited by the combined team of the rural rich and the local state machinery. The other character, Sona, is almost like a beautiful lotus which sometimes does blossom in the quagmires of decadence. A mathematical genius, Sona takes you to another level of existence altogether.
The novel is set in the late sixties known as the era of Naxal movement. We have read a lot about this period, but most of the chronicles dealt with the urban romanticism of the era whereas Neel takes us to the depth of rural Bengal. I found this to be one of the very few (I am not able recall another) depiction of stark reality what really happened to the dreamy eyed youth who honestly believed in the doctrines of communism and went ahead to live a life amongst the poor and the oppressed. The struggle to integrate with a life alien to them, somehow build the bonds and earn the trust of the landless daily labourers, sharing the dream with them, building up a rag-tag team to stand against the oppression, and ultimately being crushed by the state machinery which is always ready to stand up for the protection of the rich and the mighty. It angers you, frustrates you. It is not the utter devaluation of ethics and morals, we have immunised ourselves to such things, but the stupidity of the dreamers who thought they can take on the monster with their sling shots, the stupidity of believing that the Davids of the world really trounce the Goliaths. But then that is what dreams are made of, that is what makes life worth living.
A very very readable book, but not for the faint hearted.