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Exploring contours of marriage Where would we find a greater truth than in the saying that “a successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt everyday”. But what happens when a married couple falls into an unfathomable trap of deep uncertainty, biting silence and eventually fall victim to ever-building tensions of metaphysical questions.
Black Bread White Beer attempts to explore such tensions in the life of a couple who started off with an idea of a perfect marriage but gradually succumbs to the pressures of destiny and chance. The novel covers one testing day in the life of Amal, a Bengali man, married to an English woman, Claud, after the irrevocable loss of their unborn child. While Amal spends distressingly on food and drinks, Claud retreats into her own cocoon, giving place to an ever-engulfing silence. To ease Claud, Amal wants her to blame him for not being cautious, but her silence creates a bewildering chasm between the two. Neither is ready to share the grief and “secrets”, which they once thought should never exist in a marriage, start creeping into their once-almost-perfect relationship. Niven Govinden leaves an indelible mark on the reader’s mind not only through certain episodes in the couple’s life but also through his technique of conveying a sense of urgency through jarring sentences, for instance, the narration of the event when Amal waits for the car before going to pick up Claud from the hospital, and the dullness in the air inside the closed car, make the reader shares the anxiety. The author brings alive the sensuous details of sounds of water, car’s engine, architecture of a church and the roadside view. We can almost feel the contours of the painting that they buy for Claud’s mother and can smell flowers in the car. The real strength of the novel lies not in the plot but in the use of language which conveys emotions through everyday phrases like maternal approval being a daughter’s battery charger, the son-in-law as an agreeable chaiwala; and vivid descriptions of various settings. Govinden allows the “unfamiliar sounds to form their own language”. He makes witty observations about life and marriage like “conception is something to be taken seriously, needing as much preparation as a marathon”, and “understanding the secrets of marriage is knowing when to pick your battles”.
The novel is not flooded by umpteen characters but the protagonists succeed to leave an everlasting impression on the reader. The delineation of each character is so realistic that these can be people one has come across in real life. The author has given a deep insight into the working of Amal’s mind and how a man reacts to various things in life ranging from dealing with the bantering of the in-laws, thinking about having sex with a waitress who does not serve a fresh sandwich, to reacting to the loss of an unborn child as only “a collection of cells”. Govinden brings out the idiosyncrasies of Claud in being over sensitive towards giving birth to a toxin-free child, and Amal who, though an atheist, finds splendid architect of churches pacifying and serene. The author has employed various techniques to take the reader not only into the characters’ minds but also into their drab routine making her sit in their living room listening to their conversations over bland salads and beers. The grim situations are often countered by humour in the form of a weird conversation, flashbacks of old memories of their first date, wedding day, dancing in a pub and occasionally resurfacing love. The novel is not just about the grief but also about hopes — parents’ hope of having a child and grandparents’ dreams of raising a grandchild. It is about finding the gap in fear, hopelessness which can lead a couple to rely on each other and on the Supreme Force. It highlights how little rituals can keep a couple together, how memories help in healing, how dancing to an old-time favourite song can open up channels of tears letting the apprehensions go. After all, love, understanding and compassion can “conquer all”.
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The title Black Bread White Beer reflects the polemics between the colours — white and black — and everything that the differences in these colours symbolise. Whereas the black bread is stale, damp and inedible, the white beer is tasteless and colourless. The title hints at the cultural differences between the British family of Claud and the brown (if not black) Indian family of Amal; and the fact that the author through Amal does not want to delve into the grey zones but wants to expose what is good and what is bad in the couple’s marriage, “no more grey, just black and white. Black or white”.
