A Year in Mumbai

Price: Rs 499

How formidable is it when an author translates her own work into English? Very much so when Shanta Gokhale does it. But when books are translated,their titles also go through that process. So,unlike Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Sei Samay,which becomes Those Days,Tya Varshi becomes not ‘That Year’,but the more dramatic Crowfall. Perhaps appropriate,but with a complete change of mood that grabs the reader’s attention.

This well-crafted book has no titled chapters; it wanders through the lives and times of a group of people who crisscross each other during turbulent events,natural and manmade – the Mumbai riots,fundamentalists vandalising an exhibition of “irreverent” paintings of gods,the tsunami,a musician managing to sing from the stomach and the startling,sudden falling of crows from the sky,so well described that one can see it – therefore,Crowfall. Many characters amble into one tumultuous year that weaves the story of a violent death and a suicide. All 42 parts of the book are nameless except for Part 18,which is titled F for Fake…

There is gentleness in the treatment despite all the props; most of the characters are of creative,if fairly passive,middle-level artists/activists. There is the theme of classical music and musicians; flamboyant artists who are caricatured rather than characterised; an artist who finds his métier,too,with great emotional upheaval. The dispossessed Warlis are also represented in the shadowy form of Girji,who can paint her tribal mural in a big-city drawing room; and the endangered Parsis are there too: all the elements that go into the mosaic of middle-class Mumbai. The novel delves into contemporary arguments about commercialisation of art and the validity of experimentation in classical music,not quite fusion. The depiction of a well-known vocalist who,after internalising an afternoon raga,performs it at an evening concert with her own lyrics of the bhayanak and bibhatsa,and her guru’s violent,almost vicious reaction in disowning his disciple for this transgression,is quite shaking.

Then there is the compromised artist and the non-compromising journalist. The treatment of the multiple stories is picturesque and melodious even while it covers the dark areas. A thread of caring friendships endures over time and place.

The significance of the book lies in the importance it gives to the lives of artists and related professional/aspirants who have hidden talents,to the many regular people who have creative yearnings — like the clerk who composes ghazals. The author makes several perspicacious comments in the book: “A picture changes under different light conditions. When a singer holds a note long enough,you begin to hear the halftones and microtones that are hidden in its amplitude.”

But the book is also a trifle indulgent. Though the considerable command the author has over her canvas is evident,it is almost like a diary of what she might have witnessed,observed,over a decade compressed into one year,that year. It has an embarrassment of riches in its detail and number of themes and subthemes,which gently lap against the sensibilities like waves of the beloved sea. It is an ode to Mumbai that is forever marked by events as they unfolded and impacted the characters.

Nirmala Khadpekar is a former journalist,who is currently with CEPT University,Ahmedabad