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The Middleman THIS novel unveils the sordid underbelly of the great metropolis of Kolkata. It demystifies this crown jewel of art, culture and literature to expose its base and decadent society. The author subtly peels off the layers of its ostensible cultural sophistication to reveal a repulsive and rotting inner core. Set in the Kolkata of the 1970s, it traces the journey of a man who succumbs to the pressures of the world of business and becomes deaf to his conscience.
However, more than the characters and the story line, the most remarkable aspect of the novel remains the sprawling city of Kolkata. This is not the centre of cultural renaissance and intellectual engagement as it is famed to be. On the contrary, Sankar uses the phrase "the human jungle" to describe the city frequently throughout the novel. This is a place where prostitution is not the last resort for a woman: a world where a husband pushes his wife into the flesh trade to fund his alcoholism. The craving to earn more and more money makes a mother not only persuade her young daughters to enter the flesh trade but also makes her peep through the keyhole to see whether her daughter has finished with her client. The novel ends on a note of despondency as there doesn’t seem to be any solution in sight. In fact, Satyajit Ray (who made an award-winning film based on this novel) commented that it was the bleakest film he ever made. The author delineates the debauchery and rampant corruption in the city unapologetically. Another problem that the author highlights is that of unemployment which, according to him, is the root of all evil in society. It is a severe indictment of the Communist government’s policies that cannot generate employment for the youth. This is a novel which is riveting, absorbing and "unputdownable", if I may say so. It is a well-rounded and cogent book with very few loose ends. Its lucidity and simple language make it easy to read for the layman as well. The only flaw seems to be that certain characters exit abruptly never to be heard of again. In spite of this, the author never loses grip of the story line and gives us a brilliant account of the dissipation and excess that prevails in our metros.
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The
story revolves around a young man named Somnath, one of the thousands
of unemployed youth who wander in the city looking for jobs.
Accompanying him is his friend Sukumar who is in desperate need of
employment. His fanatical search for a job drives Sukumar to insanity
and this leads Somnath to deliberate ironically that, "An
innocent, healthy young man had lost his mind to his obsession for a
job, but no one in this civilised, socialist world was upset, anxious
or mortified." However Somnath is so pre-occupied with keeping
himself afloat that he cannot help his friend in any way. When nothing
else works, he gets into the order and supply business and becomes a
commission agent. It is here that he learns to lie, cheat and bribe
but when he is forced to peddle a young girl to get a big order, he
finally sinks to the depths of depravity and becomes numb to his inner
voice.