BOOKS
Comedy and FarceDespite his modest prose, Bhattacharya's blend of the comic and
the erotic is enticing.
By Binoo K John
Writers inhabit two worlds. One the real and the other which they imagine. But the twin
worlds of Nalinaksha Bhattacharya are so disparate that it is difficult linking the writer
and his creation. The real man is easily recognisable, there are millions like him around:
under secretary in the government after 23 years of service -- beginning as a clerk -- a
one-bedroom government flat in south Delhi where he lives with his wife, mind yearning for
his boyhood days in Barisal (in Bangladesh) with his grandfather who taught him the power
and glory of imagination. The smallness of Bhattacharya's world is adorably Indian middle
class. The smallness of his bookshelf, even the smallness of his ambition as a government
servant, the self-effacing modesty ("Don't write about me, I will become a
spectacle"), the great thrill of small events like moving into a type iv government
flat.
His other persona is not easily recognisable. There are not many like him and it is not
easy to point out another Indian writer in English like Bhattacharya. A Fistful of Desire
is his third novel, but it is for the first time that the Indian reader will have easy
access to him. His first two novels -- Hem and Football (Secker) and Hem & Maxime
(Jonathan Cape) -- were not marketed well in India but earned for him a reputation in
England that few Indian writers enjoy. Bhattacharya is on familiar terms now with the
English literary establishment. His short story Ravi Shastri, on a wife-beating husband,
appears in New Writing-5. London Magazine invited him to write for the Indian special now
available in India. Time Out compared the style and sheer raw energy of his first novel to
that of Booker Prize-winner Roddy Doyle. The under secretary is not an under-achiever.
"Nobody recognises you before you have written your sixth book," Bhattacharya
laughs and quotes writer and critic Arnold Bennet as if to justify his anonymity at home.
A Fistful of Desire will not guarantee him instant stardom but it could give a glimpse of
an Indo-Anglian writer who is equally skilled at what he calls "broad comedy",
irony and the erotic. His prose has none of the flights of fancy into magical realms and
sticks modestly close to terra firma, nibbles at the reader with its occasional comic
characterisations and assumes a sudden energy when it traverses into what could be termed
familiar territory for him -- the erotic.
The two Hem novels show a modern, daring, Indian female flaunting her sexuality, taking
pride in her tomboyishness, cocking a snook at social norms, playing football of all
games, bravely breaking out of a difficult marriage. Hem's tragic follies are not
typically Indian. Few Indian girls commission the local barber and masseur to do something
to her so that her onion-like breasts will develop into pomegranates. Yet, Hem is Indian
in the sense that every small step for a village girl is a giant leap. From a simple
village girl, Bhattacharya skilfully transforms her into a powerful character. Hem could
be the '90s Indian girl setting her own agenda, living dangerously and enjoying it, maybe
even preparing the way for the Indian woman of the next millennium
It's not easy to create a character like Hem. In A Fistful of Desire the British lady
Hilda, who comes to India in search of her missing anthropologist husband, has none of
Hem's verve or tragic sense. The archetypal Indian bureaucrat Chaturvedi, who works with
the pmo and can fix anything, chases Hilda. The search party reaches a remote island in
the Andamans and Hilda comes back after meeting someone who she believes is her missing
husband, but who has by then become the chief of a tribe. There is comedy and farce but
nothing that could get the reader unduly excited. There are too many stereotyped
characters like Chaturvedi; and Bhattacharya is clearly not on familiar territory with his
third book. It is an easy read though and is clearly a cut above the average Indian
thriller, if at all there is such a genre.
Hazy Picture
A memoir that falls to unravel the enigma that was
Menon.
By K Kunhikrishnan
Any biography written by family members of a popular leader is bound to generate
interest. So it is with a sense of wonder that one picks up A personal memoir. Krishna
Menon's grand niece Janaki Ram has access to his personal letters but the book is
disappointing in the sense that the writer seems unnecessarily adoring.
The author has mainly depended on Menon's correspondence with his sister Janaki Amma
and the tone of the letters suggest a very kind-hearted and concerned human being. Menon
was a great believer in astrology and after a failed love affair, remained a bachelor. The
author, however, suggests that in spite of his haughty temperament, many women were
attracted to him. His high-handed behaviour of course is legendary. Menon "had an
unreasonable dislike of some people" and "his frequent, almost petulant
behaviour and his complete disregard for red-tape created problems throughout his term (as
the defence minister)".
The author pays tribute to his vision but says that Menon did not get enough support
from his cabinet colleagues. His resignation from the cabinet following the debacle in the
China war in 1962 ended his career, but what broke him were the deaths of Jawaharlal
Nehru, his guide and philosopher and that of his sister Janaki. His petulance survived
though. He refused to partition family property and this resulted in protracted
litigation. Menon was close to the philosopher J. Krishnamurthy and had wanted to give him
a part of the property to start a school.
It is a caring and indulgent grand uncle that is pictured in the book. The author fails
to draw out more of the man or even to bridge the haughty politician with the generous,
kind man he was at home. In spite of this personal memoir, Menon still remains an enigma
to all of us. |
