Evocative tale of suffering
Arun Gaur

Brahma’s Dream
by Shree Ghatage.
IndiaInk Roli Books, New Delhi.
Pages 436. Rs 495.

Innumerable people suffered during the Partition, particularly in the North-West Provincial region. Becoming homeless, they did not know where to turn to as the political boundaries were still fluid. A character asks in the novel: "In these conditions, how do people carry on their daily lives?" Another answers with a shrug: "Perhaps, they try and convince themselves that everything is an illusion, a dream. That’s what my grandmother said when seven of her 11 children passed away. She firmly believes that we shall be delivered from our suffering only when He stops dreaming about us."

Set in the 1940s Bombay, the novel is primarily a tale of suffering of Mohini who has acquired Cooley’s Anaemia as a part of her inheritance. After diagnosing her ailment, Dr Merchant blurts out: "Cooley’s Anaemia cannot be cured. The longevity of the patient is anywhere up to three years." The girl survives, and survives by her sheer will power. Nevertheless, she remains acutely aware of the suffering around her and whispers to Vishnupant, her grandfather, a retired professor of history, "If all this is Brahma’s dream, then why is He having such nightmares?"

Everything in the world, whether it is a suffering of an individual sulking in a detached corner or that of the masses uprooted by the political cataclysms, is a part of the continuum in Brahma’s dream. We may go on raising questions about it but the answers are not to be found, as Vishnupant himself admits.

The world that the novel contains is not exactly seen through Mohini’s eyes but is a series of episodes and flashes that running parallel to her own perceptions become a part of that Brahma’s continuum. Every character contributes to these flashes. Vishnupant fears that the tools of civil disobedience would backfire in post-Independence India. Kamala, the mother, broods: "Why had her child been singled out in such a cruel way?" Her questions become crumpled and turn to ashes. Bayabai, an elderly kin and child-widow, vows that if Fate had decided to punish her, she would not deny Fate that satisfaction. Dr Chitnis goes on hopelessly but relentlessly searching for some possible cure of Mohini’s incurable disease. The agony caused by Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination is also a part of this suffering scenario.

Mohini remains the central concern of majority of the characters. Her body moves from one plane of physical suffering to another, but her mind grows and gropes to find the answers to the riddle of Brahma’s dreams, which she vaguely grasps by the end of the novel.

There are many evocative passages in the novel, particularly those dealing with the ailing body. The author has skillfully dramatised the communal hatred unleashed after Gandhi’s assassination. However, the lyrical intensity is not sustained, and there is an insufficient development of characters’ depth in general. The slow pace of the novel, instead of being a sticky thing, could have yielded rich dividends, had it been fed with provocative ideologies on the social, political and metaphysical planes. Consequently, the pace has become halting. On the credit side, the novel managed to be included on the 2005 Kiriyama Prize Notable List along with the works of V.S. Naipaul, Pico Iyer and Ved Mehta.

HOME