The Sunday Tribune

Peep into urban life
Kamaldeep Kaur Toor

The Matchbox
by Ashapurna Debi. Translated by Monabi Mitra.
Rupa and Co. New Delhi.
Pages 147. Rs 195.

This compilation of short stories delineates the stark reality of urban lower middle class families whose life is made up of one deprivation after another. The author describes their pitiable lives shorn of any contentment, unable to cope with the daily life, which is a constant struggle against insurmountable odds. Though she explores various aspects of human relationships, a common thread binds most of the stories. And that is how the lack of money vitiates human bonds.

The disillusionment with life and their inability to find any kind of happiness mark most of the stories. But Ashapurna Debi deviates from what is expected of a woman writer. Her stories are not women-centric, rather they vividly portray male frustration and disappointment in the urban milieu as they try to grapple with the pressures of everyday life. Men’s inability to communicate their innermost thoughts and feelings due to social conditioning is very well depicted in the story Heartless, where Dipankar, the central character ruminates, "...men rarely have a chance to explain themselves or to speak of their inner feelings. And so they are usually put down as being uncaring, heartless!" In this story, the author describes convincingly how women misconstrue men’s feelings.

The story The Matchbox carries this sentiment further as a young boy, Samir, tries to come to terms with his unemployment and gets into frequent altercations with his father as a result of his frustrations. But towards the end he realises that he is like an empty matchbox devoid of any spark, while his sixty-year-old father patiently leads a life of drudgery. The story is remarkable for its psychological insights into the father-son relationship again eroded due to the lack of money.

Another story that deserves special mention is The Butcher, again a story set in wretched poverty. The female protagonist cannot look after her child due to the burden of domestic chores. The child dies due to lack of care and the mother is called pitiless and a butcher. The story is a very sensitive portrayal of how the concept of motherhood undergoes a change due to strained financial conditions. It is because of her dilemma and complexity of the situation that this story evokes the most sympathy in the reader.

Other stories like Forgive Me, The Descent and The Homemaker present women trapped in sterile circumstances in life. For them, "Life itself had aged immeasurably. It no longer wore the joyous freshness of an innocent maiden but seemed like an abandoned bullock cart whose broken wheels had got stuck in the mud..."

All the stories are written in simple and lucid prose. They, however, lack strong, well-defined plots. Psychological explorations into the mind of characters are the mainstay of the stories. A deep sense of pesimism and morbidity pervades the texts, as various characters have even lost the will to struggle and have adopted an apathetic approach to life. Overall, the stories provide telling insights into the urban middle class and lower middle class life in Kolkata.