Drowning In Dal-Bhat

Even if we try to see each of the mother tongues as a separate sensibility, we find at the end of the day, that though the cultural specifics differ local words for festivals, kinship terms, flowers, vegetables and clothes, the game plan is common: to be as unhappy as possible. In South Asian fiction, be it bhasha or English, it is shatteringly de rigueur to dwell lovingly on flies, mucus, monkeys, cows, hunger, Ramlilas where even cheap fairings cost too much for the protagonist, furtive and forbidden gropings, sneers and taunts from those who have a few chips more, cobwebs, mounds of rotting garbage and all our fierce little customs, manners and ceremonies, be it frying goats8217; blood or getting drunk for the goddess, the depressing realisation of the littleness of our life.

Women8217;s Era fiction, Katha, Manju Kapur8217;s Difficult Daughters have all explored different dimensions of the above agenda to differing degrees, each at their own level of skill. For the Indian reader, however, there is neither charm nor surprise at having yet another thali of dal-bhat emptied on her head. The tadka is Nepali, but it8217;s dal-bhat all the same and just as deadened on our tastebuds.

I8217;m told that people have compared Upadhyay8217;s writing to Maupassant8217;s. I8217;m not sure why. There is a twist, an unexpected fillip to Maupassant8217;s characters, which has kept them fresh for both reader and re-reader since the 19th century. Upadhyay is predictable from Page One. The only surprise is that he, unlike our committedly clever IWEs, indulges himself and us with a 8216;happy8217; ending. Otherwise it8217;s like reading a translation from a bhasha original. But apart from Telugu writer Madurantakam Rajaram or a few select Punjabi writers, do you know anyone whose stories work brilliantly in English, though they may be powerful in their bhasha? And are these the only stories we have to tell? Or do we feel it is the sole task of South Asian fiction to be miserable, to perpetuate the stereotype of a poor country full of mounds of garbage and disappointed little lives?

Someone asked me sarcastically the other day, 8220;So, are there any good books?8221; Yes, there are. Comparisons are odious, but a couple of weeks ago I was thrilled to bits by Sudha Koul8217;s Tiger Ladies, which is about far worse things than The Guru of Love. Now, dispiritedly laying down Upadhyay8217;s book, I realise why Koul is a page-turner and he is not: she has vitality. There may be nothing new under the sun 8212; but it8217;s all in the telling.