Life from Below

Publisher: Fourth Estate

Price: Rs 599

Pages: 468

Before embarking upon Kiran Nagarkar’s The Extras,I reread its prequel Ravan and Eddie,the story of two boys born and raised in a Bombay chawl. Precluded from ever being friends by an incident in early life (Eddie’s father saved the baby Ravan from falling to his death and in doing so lost his own life),the two boys,nonetheless,lead parallel lives; both are unsuccessful at school,become enamoured of films,and learn martial arts.

When The Extras opens,Ravan and Eddie are on the cusp of adulthood. Ravan has a brief career with a wedding band before becoming a taxi driver; Eddie balances a job in a speakeasy with a band of his own. In time,both are drawn inexorably towards Bollywood,and they meet and form an uneasy alliance as extras (or “sub-artistes”) in the movies.

As a sequel to Ravan and Eddie,The Extras mimics much of the style of the earlier book. The droll,scattered essays on various aspects of Bombay (and Indian) life pop up ever so often. (One of these kindly tells the reader that s/he should feel free to skip it and return to the main story a few pages later). Here,also,is the careful,almost too obvious parallel structuring of the main characters’ lives. If Ravan lies to his mother about his job with a band,Eddie pretends to be a car mechanic. Ravan is taken in by a conman who offers him a passport and a Dubai visa; at the airport he learns that Eddie has suffered the same fate. With rather excessive symbolism Nagarkar,at one point,has these aspiring movie stars dance as mirrored,chromatic opposites in an item number featuring Helen and titled “Black or White”.

The author takes things further by providing counterpoints to events from the previous book — aspects of Eddie’s relationship with the “Aunty” who runs the speakeasy,and Ravan’s foray into Catholicism will seem very familiar. Reading the books in succession,it was hard to remember where one ended and the other began.

The Extras really comes into its own in the latter half. One of the major shifts is that the impersonal essays peter out,to be replaced with more personal accounts of the city in the form of letters from a powerful criminal with whom Ravan has become embroiled. Their tentative friendship is expertly done — there are no sudden revelations of blamelessness on either side,it is entirely organic.

The Bombay of the late 1960s is fully alive — corrupt,chaotic,horrifying,violent,but also full of unexpected kindnesses. Nagarkar rarely romanticises the city,but observes it in loving detail until the city itself is as big a presence as the main characters. We move from grim scenes of botched abortions in the red light district to comic set pieces,including one in which a character attempts to hide his venereal disease from the family visiting him in hospital.

The Extras is subtitled “*ing Ravan & Eddie”. This brings up a recurring theme of the book — are Ravan and Eddie the stars of their own story,or are they merely the “extras” of the title? A conversation with a fellow “extra” late in the book brings the question up again.

One of the strengths of Ravan and Eddie was that it did not give its titular characters the story arc of a protagonist,allowing the central conflicts of their lives to go unresolved. This is The Extras’ biggest departure from the previous novel. Here,Ravan and Eddie may be naïve,ignorant and prone to failure,but they can also be extraordinary. The latter half of the book is pure Bollywood — the meteoric rise to fame,a partnership involving (shades of Amar,Akbar,Anthony!) a Hindu,a Christian and a Muslim; one of the characters may,even,in the face of religious difference and family opposition,get the girl in the end. Eddie stubbornly declares that they can,at least,be the stars of their own lives and in this book not named after them,Ravan and Eddie come into their own.