Sunday, September 14, 2003		Books

Living life in imaginary worlds
Manisha Gangahar

Ambrosia for Afters
by Kalpana Swaminathan. Penguin Books. Pages 233. Rs 250.

ALL of us, perhaps, live many lives in the span of a single life. There is an overlapping of landscapes, locations, cultures and positions. In Ambrosia for Afters, Kalpana Swaminathan explores the double life of 15-year-old Tenral. The novel probes the two worlds in which Tenral moves. Tenral says, "I lead a double life." One is that of an ordinary schoolgirl while the other revolves around her teacher, Mrs Alfie. The idea of a double life is elucidated in the beginning of the novel where Tenral explains: "A double life needn’t mean Jekyll and Hyde. One could be Jekyll in both. Or even Hyde. That isn’t the issue`85All you need for a double life is a wall that divides your two selves — a wall, an abyss, an interruption, something that stops your headlong rush from one self to another". It is quite clear early in the narrative that the dual life is not the result of a split personality disorder.

Whether it is keeping one’s own secrets or attempting to intrude into the secret lives of the people around one, it is all a part of growing up. An interesting pastime for school students is speculation about the lives of their teachers after school hours. Thus, Tenral and her friends flesh out Mrs Alfie’s life in their imaginations. In fact, more than their concern for Mrs Alfie, it is their dislike for her that initially rules over their imagination. Mrs Alfie clings to the past and her "once upon a time love" is the central force in her life and it is her persistent devotion towards her lover, who no longer alive, that is her life force.

The striking feature of the book is the fact that the past is constructed through imagination, for reality, till almost the end of the story, is under cover. Not only is the Gothic romance recreated through fairytales but the past is also made to fuse with the present. Just as fairytales are far from reality, the myths that are created about Mrs Alfie’s past life are not based on truth or first-hand knowledge. The distorted fairytales seem to justify the scenario described in the novel where nothing is simple, reiterating the fact that reality can, in fact, be constructed and truths can, perhaps, be fabricated. Also in the real world, unlike the world of fantasy, no longer is the end as convenient and beautiful as "they lived happily ever after".

However, the self-created world of Tenral is not completely bizarre, for the reader would readily endorse certain revelations about life that made by the young girl who seems to have an amazing comprehension of the maze of worldly life. One cannot fail to take note of the wisdom of statements like: "Clothes never conceal you. But words can. Words can hide a person more effectively than a burkha`85words make the world a slippery place`85words are meant to make you believe in something that’s not there".

The title of the novel is also quite provocative. The literal meaning of ambrosia is ‘the elixir of life’, in other words it refers to something that sustains life. On the one hand, the author, perhaps, tries to convey the idea that the past is significant for understanding the present and it is impossible to bury the past or get rid of it; while on the other, the novel is tries to bring out the conflict between the real and the imaginary world. Neither is wholly comfortable or pleasant yet a choice has to be made by Tenral. The culmination of the narrative brings out certain truths but whether the turmoil going on inside Tenral ends there is left for the readers to decide.