Gripping exploits
Aradhika Sharma

The Conch Bearer
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Roli. Pages 265. Rs 295.

It was two different wishes led Divakaruni into writing The Conch Bearer. One was to create a story for her two sons two boys to enjoy and brag about. The other was, "in post 9/11 America, to give the children of this country a book with Indian characters—foreign, strange, brown skinned characters—a boy and a girl that seem very different from them but turn out, in their hopes and fears, not to be that different after all`85. characters that they will come to love. When you love people in books, it’s a little harder to hate people like them in real life, no?"

The Conch Bearer is a fantasy, full of magic and spells and the supernatural. And at the same time explores the triumph of the goodness of the human spirit over evil; of benevolence over greed; of love over hate. The book’s strength is it’s inimitable setting, along with the stylishness of Divakaruni’s writing.

While the book is a page-turner but essentially it is a novel for young adults. In fact, it is faintly reminiscent of RK Rawlins’s Harry Potter series (and Divakaruni did say that she wanted to write a triology) but with much fewer twists and turns than in the Potter books.

The protagonist of the story is Anand, a poor, teenager who lives and works as a chai-boy in the poor quarter of Calcutta. In doing a small deed of kindness to a frail old man, Aryabhatta, Anand is catapulted into a world that he had never imagined. The man cures his sister Meera, who couldn’t speak and asks Anand if he wants to come on a journey with him to the Silver Valley to return something special to the "Healers". Anand agrees to go on the hazardous journey with Aryabhatta and they are joined by a street girl Nisha. Anand finds out that his task is of the conch bearer, who must return the mystical conch to its rightful place and in the process, battle the machinations of the powerful but evil, Surabhanu.

The trio undertakes a perilous journey through forests, jungles, and mountain ranges with strange animals, with Surabhanu closely tracking them. Surabhanu is a tough opponent and can change shape at will. The trio dodges evil at every turn. However, in the end the good prevails over evil and the protagonists arrive at Silver Valley.

The book has a mythical tinge: "‘Ah death!’ the conch gave a sigh. ‘You humans are always making such a hullabaloo about death. His body was old and tired—it was time for him to crack that mold and emerge from it, to take on a higher form`85..He died performing his duty."

The Conch Bearer is quite a page-turner; a gripping potpourri of exploits, exploration and the supernatural. Divakaruni has been able to capture the sense, feel, smell and tastes of India with a simplicity that is proof of her consummate skill as a story teller. It’s a thrill-a-minute story with a nail-biting climax in the Himalayas. The characters are real, both the human as well as the supernatural ones. The Conch too, has a character of its own, glowing in ethereal beauty for those who are blessed with special gift and appearing as a mere piece of bone to those who are not. The book, thus, speaks directly to children, in a very beguiling manner.

One can quite imagine the reader, putting down the book in the end, with a smile and a satisfied sigh!

HOME