Whose Story Is It Anyway?

Next we meet Narmada, the woman who has worked in Smita’s sister Namita’s house, looking after Namita’s paralysed husband and Smita’s Jijaji before he died. Smita has now come to research Narmada’s life. As a young girl, Narmada was married off, against her will, to her own Jijaji; but now, even after finding a place of her own, and a livelihood, she continues to yearn for a husband and children in her own life.

Aseema, Smita’s firebrand feminist friend and Narmada’s saviour, is the fourth narrator. Her mother’s unhappy marriage and her father’s decision to marry again have turned Aseema against men altogether, so much so that she considers the entire tribe of men ‘‘haramis’’.

And then she meets an unusual man — our fifth narrator, Vipin Mazumdar. Vipin is a New Man of sorts, who agrees with Aseema that the girl child needs education — but who also wants a younger woman for himself so that he can father a child.

This is the motley group of narrators who tell us the story of Country of Goodbyes. And it is an uneven story. At its best, it is bold in its depiction of sexuality, and has moments of sheer poetry; but all too often, alas, it is high-pitched, wordy, and rather clumsy.

How much of this clumsiness does one attribute to the translation? One is not sure, but the blame is certainly to be shared. ‘‘My father was fortunate to have left his mortal frame before my mother sought a divorce,’’ says Marianne, a native speaker of English.

At other moments, the narrative acquires an effete shrillness. ‘‘Could child labour be abolished in India? Would free and compulsory primary education provide an effective solution to it?’’ ponders Aseema.

Finally, Oxfam features in the story as a kind of benevolent alternate vocation, even a deus ex machina, and that leaves me wondering.