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| Sunday, May 9, 2004 |
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| Sunday, May 9, 2004 |
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The Virgin Fish of Babughat
The Uprooted Vine
The writer (Aparesh, Animesh, Akilesh Nandy?) has been incarcerated in this fearsome prison of corporal luxury and psychological torture long enough to lose touch with reality. The inmates are made not just physically but also psychologically nude, their minds brutalised and dehumanised while their bodies are pampered with unimaginable luxuries. Why such a horrible regimen? Nobody knows; there is no answer. The men and women are made to cohabit mindlessly. The title of the book refers to the fact that fish that have never spawned are the tastiest and likewise virgins are the most delectable in sex. The novel is open ended; one of the inmates kills her newborn infant in a futile act of self-respect. And the fact that infanticide saves the book from becoming a dystopia, speaks for the tone of the entire novel.
Compared with Mukherjee’s seamless translation, the second book jerks along. Many words that are used, for example, hussy, cussed, do not seem to suit the milieu in which the story is placed – 19th century Bengal. The story itself is based on an old theme – that of a child widow, her ill-treatment, exploitation, and eventual suicide. The title refers to Snehalata, the child widow, who is uprooted, displaced from various homes, finding peace and solace in none. Into this basic theme are woven many sub-themes that reflect the contemporary social background. There is a good deal of discussion about the nascent independence struggle and the ambivalence of the upper class Bengalis towards it, the confusion caused by the newly acquired western mores and the teachings of orthodoxy, the freshness and appeal of the Brahmo Samaj and of social reformers like Raja Rammohan Roy and others, education of girls and so on. The author is Swarnakumari Debi, Rabindranath Tagore’s sister. She has delineated her characters well and some of them stand out. There is Jagat Babu, the right-minded doctor, who wants to protect Snehalata, but cannot because of his shrewish wife, called the "Mistress" who, however, does have a vein of pity and fairness that is totally lacking in Jethima and Kishori, Snehalata’s in-laws. Then there is Charu, the weak and vacillating poet. Snehalata herself is such a spineless, self-abnegating character that it is difficult to feel sympathy for her, despite her extremely pitiable life. These strengths of the original have been carried well by the translation. |
AN unusual, thought-provoking, unpleasant novel of
punishment for crimes that are incomprehensible even to the players.
Meenakshi Mukherjee says in the Translator’s Note that it was the
importance of language and the fear of losing one’s language that
attracted her to the book. This is because the book describes the life
in an extraordinary prison camp – a paradise of cohabitation where the
gaolers try to make the minds of the inmates insensitive, but not their
bodies. Men and women in the camp are deprived of their clothes, as a
first step in their degradation, and made so anonymous that they become
fearful of losing their language, and begin to doubt their names, thus
reaching the nadir of negativity as personal names are of paramount
importance. Written in the first person by someone whose punishment is
to fill up a certain number of pages every day, it addresses
"you", the most important character, who anchors the writer to
some semblance of normalcy.
It is a very well written, somewhat allegorical novel.
The writer’s insecurities, his constant questioning about everyday
things like soap, etc., his going back and forward with the narrative,
his anxiety that he may lose his audience (the all important
"you"), convey his confusion and fear very realistically and
this is captured in the clear, concise translation. This is a meandering
tale of a prisoner whose punishment is to write. A very effective cover
adds to the quality of the book.
