Oh Calcutta

Camus8217;s Meursault, meanwhile, lurks in the background. Ritwik feels the kind of pain that Meursault steels himself against, and yet is denied the hint of grace offered to the latter. Mukherjee8217;s pronounced anxiety of influence allows more traces of the past masters: there is, for instance, Hitchcock/Robert Bloch in Ritwik8217;s confrontation with what he thinks is his mother8217;s ghost on an armchair in his dark Oxford room. There is James Joyce in the rather forced and occasional demolition of syntax. And it is not possible to detach the book from the mother-son paradigm sanctioned by D.H. Lawrence.

Past Continuous begins with the funeral of Ritwik8217;s mother, who died a mere 11 days after his father. Ritwik perfunctorily goes through the rituals, unlike at his father8217;s funeral where he had refused to perform any. Behind this rejection lies a violent family saga in which invectives and blows were routinely traded 8212; with the mother venting her anger at the violence against her on Ritwik. The result is bitterness and hatred for the family and Calcutta, a rejection of the belief system that defined this Bengali-Hindu, middle-class universe. But England merely frees him from the physical proximity to this world. Reading the literary masters at Oxford, Ritwik is a lost soul in an alien land, captive to an inner vacuity akin to what he felt after his mother8217;s death 8212; 8220;as hollow as the sounding brass, the tinkling cymbal.8221; Most of his concerns in England 8212; literary studies and pursuits, gay relationships 8212; ring with this hollowness.

Ironically, it is when his student visa expires and deliverance comes in the form of Anne Cameron, an elderly and ill woman Ritwik must care for if he wants a roof over his head, that the novel comes close to a hint of redemption. Ritwik8217;s relation with Anne not only connects the two narrative strains but also offers him an opportunity to explore the idea of love. Anne is Ritwik8217;s only chance to abandon his traumatic past because her own is no less so. But he had learned early on how life belies your expectations 8212; his mother did not die when he was 25 but 21 8220;Be prepared, be always prepared,8221; as the Salesians had taught him. Thus, Mukherjee extinguishes any hope for an absolution and in doing so remains faithful to Ritwik8217;s world view.

Past Continuous is a powerful book. But Mukherjee forgets that it is not the novelist8217;s business to explain. Thus the emphasis, 8220;This is Calcutta/India, that8217;s how bad it is.8221; While the details need not be factually disputed, the picture is sometimes one of Orientalism revisited. Since the average
Indian reader could do without such over-explaining, might one ask if he is merely a supplement to Mukherjee8217;s real target readership?