Sunday, October 6, 2002		Books

Freedom in feminine hues
Arun Gaur

Shahnaz
by Hiro Boga. Penguin Books. Pages 357. Rs 295.

THIS novel, ostensibly about immigration and the diaspora, begins with "Bombay, September 8, 1972" and ends with "June 30, 1973", again in Bombay. Before the end, another journey ends within those circumscribed time limits. Shahnaz, the heroine, who moves from Bombay to Eugene, Oregon, and then to Bombay all prepared for a final departure to Eugene undergoes a long series of troublesome psychic undulations. Her vacillations and misgivings gradually give way to a resolute self determined to stay in the newly adopted country and bid a final farewell to India — "Good-bye, house of misery!" This choice is envisioned as symbolic of the rise of the new woman, a free woman in a free country, commanding her own destiny. Amen!

But before she is able to convince herself that she has become the mistress of her destiny, she has to defeat her mother — Dinshi — who had herself once tried to control her destiny but had failed miserably in the attempt. I suspect that the ostensible themes of the novel — immigration, man-woman relations, search for Eden — are of secondary importance. It is the overpowering mother-complex that is of prime significance. It dictates the events right from the beginning to the end of the novel and the writer as well as the reader has to come to terms with that complex. The fight is to keep one’s consciousness free from the peril of possession by the mother-spirit.

This mother-daughter motif is so ubiquitous that the entire pattern of the novel can be traced on these conflicting pairs: Negative Mother-Daughter versus Positive Mother-Daughter. The patriarchal factor is peripheral. It never dominates in the Indian side of the story, and when it tries to dominate in the end of the novel on American soil (in the form of Shahrukh — Shahnaz’s husband, and Patrick — Shahnaz’s American thesis supervisor and lover), it fails again, though not without some resistance.

In India the only effective male resistance comes from Shahnaz’s father, who does not permit her to go to England to pursue an acting course. However, this restraint is not purely patriarchal; it is governed by the mother-principle since the father is compelled to make this choice as the girl is needed to look after the mother who has suffered a mental breakdown. The masculine challenge in the case of Silloo Aunty who elopes with a Goan doctor only to be promptly disowned by her father dissipates quickly — an inspiration for women like Shahnaz to escape. Interestingly, it is Uncle Behram’s example that might have partially influenced Shahnaz’s conduct in America. Behram forages through France and Italy indulging "his passion for exotic cuisines and even more exotic erotica."

For Shahnaz, the real challenge to her emancipation does not come from minor masculine interventions and challenges, but from her own mother. Ominously, both of them seem to be moving in the same direction. Both are bright, sensual, both dream of freedom. Shahnaz fears that genetic factors would compel her to share the fate of the mother — a nervous breakdown in the end.

This "ethereal" mathematician/ physicist mother has a strange power of undergoing transformations — from a creature smelling of dead mice to a brilliant orange butterfly. Animal imagery — ferocious and repugnant — colours Shahnaz’s image of her mother. Dinshi is a bat hanging from the rafters, "a sly and very intelligent monkey." To frustrate the evil design of this woman wielding a knife, Shahnaz turns into a leopard ready to sink its fangs into her throat. Finally, in her self-immolation, in her final flight to emancipation, Dinshi achieves the grandeur Shahnaz never thinks she can achieve. The mother stood "at the window of her bedroom in her gold wedding sari, flames roaring all around her" smiling, waving, laughing like a young bride. There is a feeble attempt to resolve this mother-daughter conflict in an ambivalent way: "She was infinitely compassionate, a glowing, majestic soul who, out of love for me, had chosen to play a terrible role."

Freedom is the watch-word. The confinement of Arni in a shed by her mother Mrs Dustoor during her monthly period is detestable. Perin Aunty’s story of Laila who would be blessed in case "she remains faithful to her dead love" is indigestible. The example of self-sacrificing Shantha, disappearing into the sky to bring the monsoon showers to the village is not for emulation.

However, this passion for freedom is a passion to extricate oneself from the mother-complex and it acquires devious shapes. It becomes freedom from "falling into that silken rut" of Indian womanhood, a freedom to get rid of the father who is no more as dependable as he used to be: "he sees only what he wants to see" and a freedom to dispense with the Indian "odours of urine and feces." The idea that preoccupies the protagonist is "Leave. Just leave and never come back."

The double-stranded narration (American-Indian, present-past) of the this debut novel almost smacks of feminist propaganda — at least in the side plots which are eminently readable in isolation from the main plot. One thread which seeks to unite the two strands is the overpowering figure of Dinshi. The novel woven around feminine figures does succeed in unravelling some layers of the feminine Parsi world, but there is no memorable character created. The Indian strand seems to be better developed and even that become stilted after a while. The same happens with the American strand. It tugs this way and that and is occasionally dotted with insipid progressions. As Hiro Boga is a poetess too, she has adopted a certain poetic stance in the novel that lovingly indulges in imaginative flights, evocative descriptions that examine subterranean hues through symbolic modes. It becomes fascinating at times. The novel is readable. At least, once.