Memories Of Rage

Published as “Brishir Ghran” more than 18 years ago, when a blood splattered Bengal was still enmeshed in the Naxal onslaught, the novel has been exceptionally well translated by Nilanjan Bhattacharya. Even though Bhattacharya has lived in New York for the last 12 years, he has carefully retained and polished the Bengali nuances, while adamantly resisting the temptation of merely skirting as closely as he could to the Bengali text. For a change, this reads like a novel which could have been originally written in English, and therefore the story flows smoothly, uncluttered by linguistic glitches.

Mukhopadhyay has deviated from the linear narrative, giving us strongly, well-etched characters, leading us into the minds of both the male and female protagonists with equal dexterity. Notably, he chooses diametrically opposed social strata to explore his theme. While on the one hand there is the rich dilettante Manju, on the other there is the unemployed, former boxer, Somsundar.

In each case the author gives us every opportunity to understand the persona. But, instead of long-winded “streams of consciousness” or dialogue, he chooses the far more successful route where we are sensitised to the underlying angst of each through their interaction with each other. Manju, the well-bred socialite waiting to marry Adri, for example, starts her journey in the novel by appearing to be sophisticated, unproblematic, uncaring — but just a few pages deeper, we discover the cosmetic cover-up. In her case the rebellion manifests itself in the pagan, passionate dance she creates behind the closed doors of her bedroom for an unseen lover. She manages to maintain her sophisticated veneer, but then again breaks all barriers by venturing into a bar — where dizzyingly changing alcohol and men all merge with her into a macabre oblivion.

Similarly, Somsundar too wages a lonely battle with his own demons. Exploding often into fury against what he perceives as a complacent and hostile world he enters into a cycle of self-destruction. It is only after he has lost everything and everyone that he stumbles upon his real self, embedded deep in an amorphous dissatisfaction, rather than ideology. Often, as Mukhopadhyay quietly indicates, the rage expressed by Somsundar emerges without warning from just his own distorted sense of paranoia. The anger is meaningless — and as his world disintegrates between the Naxalite movement and police tyranny, he even wrecks the music room of the woman he once loved, because he is unable to communicate his own despair.

The social chasms so well observed by Mukhopadhyay are thought provoking — as much of the terrorism merely shifted base to other parts of the country, and unemployed angry youth continue to channelise their frustration through non-pacifist means. Whether these issues can ever be resolved through violence is the question the book raises again and again. While Somsundar, for instance, thinks that the acquisition of a gun will make him potent and impressive, when the moment comes to use it, he is tempted to shoot his Naxalite comrade, rather than the feudal

“enemies”.

Therefore the success of Waiting for Rain (a rather apt pre-monsoon title) lies not only in the issues it addresses, but also in the sheer simplicity with which it unravels complex issues — terrorism, unemployment, and social inequities — all through the looking glass of relationships. All issues are still relevant, till today, even though the book was written 18 years ago. As they say, the more things appear to change, the more they remain the same.