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| An officer and a... |
| Suveen K Sinha / New Delhi Mar 13, 2010, 00:58 IST |
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Agastya Sen of English, August spoke his language, but none of Upamanyu Chatterjee’s other heroes, including his latest, have felt as familiar, says Suveen K Sinha
Back in the 1990s, for the swarm of my brethren regurgitated every day by the grimy trains coming from Patna, it was apostasy to be a Bihari, study History in Delhi University, and not sit the civil services examinations. That this writer ticked all three boxes to risk excommunication was in part because of English, August.
Upamanyu Chatterjee’s book, his first, was published in 1988, but took its time to catch on. In the 1990s it became what Hollywood likes to call a sleeper hit, one that gains in popularity and rakes it in despite meagre, or zilch, pre-release publicity.
To us, it was more than a hit. The quirks and hollowness of the government system, as seen through the eyes of a reluctant bureaucrat, struck a chord and gave many the courage to say no to the “civils”. It seemed that Chatterjee, a 1983-batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service, had poured out all his disillusionment and cynicism through Agastya Sen’s reticent narrative.
More importantly, Agastya was one of us, spoke our language, exhibited our irreverence, and suffered our kind of alienation — heck, he could be the guy in the next room in the hostel, or me! At many stages in life since college, the book has acted as a bundle of suitable metaphors — to enthuse and console, in equal measure. (For instance, the Indian Institute of Mass Communication in Dhenkanal, Orissa, was made bearable because its godforsaken ambience felt so much like Agastya’s Madna.)
One would imagine that many of the Liberalisation Children, those who were coming of age around the time the country began to open up its economy, would have kept looking for another English, August. Unfortunately, though the intervening years have seen a burgeoning of Indian writing in English resulting in many fine books, no one quite achieved the easy, languorous harmony that English, August struck. Not, unfortunately, even Agastya’s creator. In fact, it is difficult to shake off the feeling that, just like the generations his first protagonist influenced, perhaps Chatterjee himself has been looking for another English, August.
That is not to say he has not tried. But The Last Burden (1993) was a heavy one; The Mammaries of the Welfare State (2000), with due respect to the Sahitya Akademi award it won, was not juicy enough to take forward Agastya’s story; and Weight Loss (2006) seemed to lose the plot in its grotesque saga of sexual activity and search for salvation.
It is a relief when Jamun, the lead character of Chatterjee’s fifth, Way to Go, says that he gave up on sex a few years ago, though by that time he has already recounted his lack of pleasure in sex after dalliances with both the female retainer and her son. But at least you know that Chatterjee is not trying for the Bad Sex Award this time.
Still, Chatterjee’s latest does not end the quest — neither his nor mine. It begins promisingly with an introspective question: “For not having loved one’s dead father enough, could one make amends by loving one’s child more?” It’s what many in the same age bracket as Chatterjee, who turns 51 this year, would have pondered. That is the thought swirling in Jamun’s mind as he sits in a police station to report his missing father, who was 85 and half-paralysed. From here begins Jamun’s search for his father — through police stations, morgues, neighbours, service providers, and flashbacks. Through Jamun’s mind we see the world and his various relationships, with brother Burfi, the missing father, and the world at large.
But 40-year-old Jamun’s mind is not as engaging as 24-year-old Agastya’s, and this journey does not quite enthrall. The characters are there, some of them reappearing after The Last Burden. The cameos are there, too, like the property dealer, the television producer who weaves Jamun’s personal life into her soaps, the neighbour whose house is being demolished, the doctor-tenant who smokes grass and commits suicide, Madhumati, the woman with wanderlust, colleagues and servants.
The ambience is there, too. The police station is brought to life in all its glory, interspersed with the exasperating questions the constable has to ask as part of his duty, including whether the missing father was male or female, and whether he had failed his school/college exam and therefore left home.
However, Chatterjee seems to be trying too hard. Some descriptions appear forced, and you end up wishing there was less of the visual, auditory and olfactory imagery. There are too many dirty teeth and smelly armpits, and too much of constipation and flatulence. And I could surely do without knowing that the property dealer was powdering his testicles profusely just in case he got laid later in the evening. One does not read Chatterjee for story and there is not much of it here either, but the experiences of the characters do not provoke much thought and the relationships come across as half-cooked.
It’s like eating biryani and feeling that it would have been nicer with more meat and less ginger, though it must be said that some may like it for the extra ginger. It also has to be considered that maybe we have grown up. And maybe Chatterjee needs to.
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