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Journalism of Courage
| The Guru Of Love By Samrat Upadhyay Rupa Price: Rs 195 |
It8217;s tiring having 8220;standards8221; today, because everywhere there8217;s such a huge celebration of mediocrity. You8217;re branded as carping, joyless and judgmental for wanting 8220;better8221;. The latest provocation: a book about a Nepali lower-middle class married schoolteacher8217;s midlife affair with a student. The West, which has had a special fondness for Kathmandu since the first hippies wandered by in the 8217;60s, is swooning about its 8220;tenderness8221;. Reviewers are reputedly doing handsprings. But check it out yourself and see: chances are you might find it a most unsurprising tale.
The deja vu is because of many factors. We8217;ve had 15 years of Katha8217;s translations from regional literature, all echoing the Premchand legacy of gloom, the 8216;New8217; literary movements in Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada and so on, each perpetuating the build-up of: more gloom!
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Extract Because of the houses surrounding the courtyard, they could not see the sun go down, but they knew of its descent , behind the mountains to the west, as everything inside gradually turned gray, a film of dust could be seen in the twilight, rising and falling, swirling in the air, fogging their view of one another, until Goma got up and turned on the light. |
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.
