Stepping Ghats

Here8217;s the good news: The great Varanasi novel is still to be written

ANY BOOK THAT CARRIES the blurb 8220;full of the sights, scents and sounds of India8221; runs the risk of colouring per-ceptions even before the first page is turned. To her credit, debutant novelist Suroopa Mukherjee does not fall victim to the tempta-tion of 8220;exoticising8221; the primary location of her story: Varanasi.

In fact, she starts on a determinedly ordin-ary note. The Senguptas are perfect paid-up members of India8217;s upper-middle class. One son, one daughter, both parents doctors, they are kindly, conformist, content. It takes the arrival of a young boy from an ashram in Varanasi to unbalance the equation. Avinash, the indestructible, is grave, luminous, unde-manding. And in his stillness lie questions the Senguptas would rather not face.

There8217;s an engrossing story somewhere in Across the Mystic Shore, strung out in the inter-twined lives of four adults: Sameer and Van-dana the Senguptas, and Abha and David. Vandana and Abha are best friends for longer than they care to remember; David, the Eng-lish student of Indology, is friend to one and lover to the other. Sameer is also Abha8217;s friend, whom she sets up with Vandana; Sameer and David, too, develop a conspirato-rial camaraderie that assumes its own inde-pendent coordinates.

Through them, and two peripheral yet piv-otal characters, Mukherjee tries to tackle the big life-issues: childhood and marriage, wid-owhood and renunciation, motherhood and reconciliation. Cleverly constructed across 20 years and two cities, the saga ventures into taboo places family lore carefully avoids: The disgraced aunt, the rekindling of an old flame, the irrational hatred, the oppressive love.

To that extent, Mukherjee succeeds, be-cause she brings sensitivity to her subject, and scholarship. Unfortunately, much of it gets mired in over-writing and a dated narra-tive device that does nothing for the story.

But most of all, the novel cries out for skillful editing, especially in the first half. All too oft-en in the opening pages, Mukherjee falls back on the staples of pedestrian fiction. Sample this: 8220;Mrs Chopra felt a thrill course through her veins8221; page 4. And then there8217;s page 213 where, in one paragraph, Sameer 8220;was angry8221;, 8220;stared8230; in horror8221;, 8220;felt sick in his heart8221;.

Here, as in sundry other points in the narra-tive, the author8217;s telling us what her protago-nist feels, we don8217;t feel it ourselves. Perhaps the greatest flaw of the story-telling lies in the adoption of an omniscient narrator. It8217;s a de-vice that died with the 19th century.

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One of the first titles under Macmillan8217;s new imprint8212; in exchange of publication, the writer signs away world rights and advances in a non-negotiable contract that Hari Kun-zru calls the 8220;Ryan Air8221; of Publishing 8212; this could have been the definitive Varanasi novel. That slot is still up for grabs. That8217;s the good news.