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Eastwords
In Eastwords, the mysticism of East meets the yarns of West and lends them an ethereal touch. At the same time, it cocks a snook at Shakespeare’s tales. The book is full of imaginary characters and those that have been adapted from Shakespeare and also from history. The narrator, Sheikh Piru, is not purely fictional either. He finds a mention in both Parashuram and Syed Mujtaba Ali’s works. With each page, the characters take on a new life and at times even a new name. This constant reinvention, as in the case of Puck from Pakhee to Ariel and finally Harilal, lend the story a different dimension that forces the reader to think beyond the realm of the defined. The tropical monsoon sets the background for the intoxicating prose. Sheikh Piru is the unwitting participant in his own tale. He refers to Shakespeare as a contemporary and relates to him in a way that at times feels respectful and at others strips him of any greatness. The beautiful Sukumari is doomed to suffer and fated to be transformed into Sycorax, the witch. The novel deftly weaves into its pages magic spells, capable of physically enslaving someone, turning them into other things and returning the dead from the grave. Kalyan Ray was exposed to a multitude of cultures and experiences, as he grew up and educated in Calcutta, and now lives in both India and the US. He has worked as a taxi driver in Calcutta, as a nurse’s assistant in New York, professor of literature in New Jersey and visiting professor in the Philippines. In his debut novel, he uses the Pandavani narrative technique used by Teejan Bai. Refusing to be bowed by the literary dictations of the West, he takes the liberty of weaving Shakespearean characters into his story and at one-point even questions the authenticity of the Bard’s stories. His book has already found its way into the curriculum of popular culture studies at MIT in the US. The story goes so topsy-turvy at times that it seems more like a roller coaster ride. The umpteen references to Shakespeare start to grate after sometime. Even after the humour in the initial attempts at referring to him as ‘Willy Baba’, ‘Bardic Bill’ and ‘Swan of Avon’ fade away, the reader has to put up with it till the very end. What makes this novel likeable is that the author has a sound knowledge of the subjects that he chooses to include in his cross-literary accomplishment. It has all the vital ingredients: deceit, love, conquest, greed and sacrifice, all spiced to taste. |
A
story belongs to the person who tells it, making it witty, classy,
melodramatic or thrilling in accordance with his wishes. The characters
are bound by the author to dance to the tunes that he plays out to them.
It is the very nature of story telling that makes story tellers borrow
from folk, myth and history, and at times from other writers. Myth and
magic, interspersed with a juxtaposition of East and West, make an
explosive setting for any tale. And if the tale is filled with twists
and told with conviction, it holds the audience spellbound.