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BOOKS
East
Is Like Clint Eastwood
Cheery
little puns add little to this cheerless novel set in Telugu country
By
Geeta Doctor
The Pindaris have
a lot to answer for in this turgid tale of regret and retribution set
in the early l9th century. Pindaris who? They are just one of the mysteries
that Ranga Rao, peripatetic author of obscure fables, throws at the unwary
reader. That he also considers himself a wit in the tradition of a Lawrence
Sterne, with allusions so obscure that he comes across as an offspring
of the Hobson-Jobson who has had a fling with Georgette Heyer, only makes
the going that much more difficult. Part of the saga is about the trials
faced by a band of hardy villagers, who are forced to flee from their
native village of Vepavaram along the banks of Krishna River in Telugu
country due to a famine. They have to face all kinds of hurdles-wild animals,
a cloud of midges, travellers dying by the wayside and sundry bandits
and tribals. So does the reader: Rao affects so many different styles,
throws in many anecdotes from his reading of early history of the East
India Company (of course, he pronounces it as "kempini") that
one is left gasping for succour.
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To get back to
the Pindaris, if they had swept down and done their job of plunder, loot
and rapine (note that in such fables it's always rapine, never a simple
rape, because remember oh ye infidels that we must be faithful to the
Biblical usage of our erstwhile masters, the Iskoirs of John Kempini!)
properly in the first chapter, none of this need to have taken place.
As it happens, they behave somewhat badly. They burn the village down
and decamp with the little child bride, whose grandfather, Pandithula
Rama Sharma, is left much like Clint Eastwood with narrowed eyes, and
a bitter twist to his mouth after the Mexicans have wiped out the rest
of the upstanding citizens. But unlike Eastwood Sharma's being a Brahmin,
an astrologer and grandfather to a young boy Krishna, he doesn't have
recourse to a gun. Instead, he uses his memory. He lives to tell the tale.
There are hints that the Pindaris specialise in sending pre-pubescent
girls to lecherous landlords and nawabs. And we are left wondering along
with Krishna, "Whatever happened to Aunty Chitra?"
So far so straightforward, but Rao is not content
with conventional narrative. He prefers the cursive hand, or should that
be the discursive manner? He is full of these cheery little puns. The
Nawab of Arcot, for instance, has a walk on part as the Nawab of Arecanut,
just so that someone can say, "That Nut, the Nawab of Arecanut!"
Apart from Eastwood, Rao also gives us reminiscences
of an English girl, or should we call her damsel, who spends her time
writing ream after ream of letters to her "dear mama" in England.
Grace Clark is made to trot out every cliché in the book, from
the old line about "the fishing fleet" to digressions about
"shaking the Pagoda tree", while pursuing her own dear John,
pig sticker par excellence and intrepid hunter of wild animals in the
Jungles of Hindostaan. Clark is such a sport; she even visits the local
courtesan, John's sometime mistress, and sends eager reports to Mama about
her beauty.
Not just that, but Clark is somehow privy to
all the more sensational bits of trivia that have survived about the civil
servants at Fort St George. He translates old forgotten histories and
chronicles into bits of gossip for Clark to repeat. If only he had stuck
to one form, say a proper history of the years of famine, we may have
been more forgiving.
The river is not three quarters full; it's three
quarters empty.
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The Chipko Andolan in the context of the ecological history of the
world.
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A lavish treat on India's design culture.
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(Kali, Rs 450)
The story of widows from being pitiable objects to active, resisting
survivors.
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Ridge Too Far: War in the Kargil
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War as seen by men at the frontlines.
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An American's journey into the world of Ramakrishna.
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