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| Sunday, January 11, 2004 |
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| Sunday, January 11, 2004 |
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My Little Boat
Nasreen is doomed to inherit her mother’s sense of a rootless existence and the desire to break free from the trappings that reduce a person to a unit with no other function than to fit into all roles. With her daughter Mehjabeen away to hostel, Nasreen takes long solitary walks down to the river where she finds herself one with nature. She connects with a waif, Lallah, and the ascetic Shamsher, a seeker like herself. At the same time she goes farther away from her husband Javed (proprietor and editor of a local newspaper) who loves her but has never learnt to know her. Her heart continuously aches for her childhood friend Zamurrad and Qadeer Mamoon, Saira Alvi’s soulmate. Tired of the agony of living in the past and of childhood memories of Paris and London, Nasreen’s spirit snaps, taking with it her will to live. Her despair is compounded by the attack on Sister Augusta by Hindu extremists and her own near-fatal blow to one of the assailants. She finds her final resting place in the midst of the sweet river voices. Mehjabeen, too, has her mother’s spirit but with it, in the small town of Rahimganj, she finds the courage to let it grow unfettered. At 17, she has lost her love Rahul Ganguly to Hindu fanatics and her mother to insanity. She decides to leave for Paris to relive the memories and experiences of the two women she loved and admired but never really came to understand. Javed, distraught by the loss of the only woman he could ever love, now understands that the world is a natural matriarchy: "`85no name, nor elaborate family tree, no fancy patriarchal heritage can change that. When we do not understand ourselves, it is because we have not even made the effort of knowing our mothers." This time around he doesn’t restrain the blood of Saira Alvi from taking the direction it must and in doing that, he sets his daughter free for he knows that from "the womb of a free spirit can never be born a spirit in bondage." Set in post-Babri Masjid times "where only the sight of blood will satiate our idle spirits," the novel is profound in meaning, rich in imagery and impressive in prose. High on metaphysical elements, it takes up the cause of the free spirit without which the equation of life can never be balanced. |
A
restless seeking spirit knows no peace. Bound to life and all its
banalities and practicalities, a life that ruthlessly demands sacrifice
at all times without allowing the freedom to be, a free spirit is
crushed much before it even learns to soar. Mariam Karim explores the
options, if any, available to such a person through the journey of life
of Saira Alvi, a non-conformist poet who lives life on her own terms and
never quite fits in, and her daughter Nasreen who is looking for answers
that are never to be found but strive she must.