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Swimming in shallow waters
Reviewed by Geetu Vaid
Women Extraordinaire
by Suchita Malik
Rupa. Pages 293
Rs 295.
 WITH women issues and the stories of their exceptional success centre stage over the weeks preceding and following International Women's Day, the release of Suchita Malik's latest novel Women Extraordinaire is timed perfectly. The author, who has already grabbed headlines with two earlier attempts Indian Memsahib and Memsahib Chronicles, has a target audience set for this book. Suchita shows a good grasp on language in her earlier books — a fact that assuages her position as a lecturer in English at the Government College, Chandigarh. Keeping all this in mind, one picks up this new offering by her with a certain level of expectation as before tasting a new recipe from an established cook one expects a delectable fare. But there lies the catch. Just as sometimes the presence of the right ingredients and tools doesn't ensure a delicious dish, similarly in spite of having everything going for her, Suchita has dished out a bland fare. The story traverses the lives of three women from three generations and is set in historical and cultural contexts. But the narrative, as well as the way in which the characters are forged, come out as weak links in the story of Kaushalya, a woman of grit and character. Brumous character delineation leaves one thirsty to know more and to be able to “touch” the chief protagonist. The narrative is flawed. The story is told from the point of a third person or a narrator who appears to have a “balcony view” of the goings-on in the lives of the characters. Rarely does one get a first-person account of their dilemmas or a peep into the minds of the character to generate empathy. One finds a barrage of “soul-less” words being used to describe events. This pattern continues throughout. The loose timeline that binds the story is confusing as one is in doubt whether the story begins in the first decade of 20th century or in the second and whether it is progressing in weeks or months. When the writer says, “A lot of time passed,” a reader is left wondering whether it meant weeks or months. There is a mention of Partition but it is a hurried and cliched reference as is the case with other events. This jars as the social milieu and events are supposed to have had a defining effect on the “strong” characters of Kaushalya, daughter Sobhna and granddaughter Nayantara. Minor aberrations like Sobhna's completing three years of Ayurveda course before the Partition, but later on in the story she is not shown to be using her this qualification and goes on to do BEd and becomes a teacher. The geographical frame is also missing. The story moves from Dera Ismail Khan to Lahore to Dhanbad to Jharia to Calcutta to Delhi and even though the writer takes pains to describe the cities, one doesn't get a feel of the place or and the logic for the story to travel there is ill-defined. Coming to the three generations of exceptional women who face tragedy and hardships with fortitude and come out stronger and inspiring, the characters should have been carved to elicit more empathy. For example, the long passages describing Nayantara's courtship seem tiring and Kaushalya is just shown to have a good relationship with her daughter but there is no mention of her effect on her sons, their families etc. Such nuances could have generated well-rounded and impressive characters. The narrative fails these characters all the time as a reader waits for the “extraordinaire” element to peep in till the end. Just as missing passion for cooking can mar the taste of a dish, missing passion in carving characters and an insipid narrative have proved to be the Achilles heel for Women Extraordinaire.
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