Govindas Vishnoodas Desani (1909-2000), journalist, writer, lecturer and educator, was born in Kenya in a family that owned a general store selling wood fuel. A rebel, he ran away from home a few times, was expelled from school, and went to England to escape an impending arranged marriage. He did not know English and taught himself the language - worked as a film extra, an artist's model, a journalist, worked with the BBC. He wrote 'All About H. Hatterr' in 1948 about the plight of the common man in a multicultural world. Smart he was, teaching himself Hindi, Urdu, Sindhi, Sanskrit, Pali and English. Unhappy, he went seeking gurus and fakirs in India and learned Vipassana. He worked for the 'Illustrated Weekly' then. Fro someone who never completed school he became a Professor at the University of Texas in 1969 and taught Buddhism, yoga, Nadi astrology, occult craft etc. After 40 he went into learning obscure mantras and tantrik crafts. Many times I feel the story of the writers is even more fascinating than the characters in their books.
'All About H. Hatterr' (1948) is a classic for its unique use of language while addressing the common man's stupid dilemmas. DV Desani has a crazy sense of humour as can be seen from his small conversation with his literary agent who asks him what this work should be called - he says it should be classified under a 'gesture'/ To which the agent says that the 'rank and file' would not know what a gesture was and Desani says, then classify it as a novel for the rank and file.
Hatterr is an Anglo-Malay (English father and Malay mother) who is brought up by a Scot in India and who is in search of wisdom and enlightenment and in his search meets sages of Calcutta, Rangoon, Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Mogulsarai-Varanasi and even an All India sage. Along with his pal Banerji who encourages Hatterr (who has a penchant to fall into traps set for him by these holy men), the road to wisdom is paved with trouble. He finds himself giving his clothes to a sage in exchange for a towel stolen form the Railways only to find that the sage and his assistant are running a second hand clothes racket under the guise of being a sage. Another time he ends up trying to win the affections of a married lady who entices him to lie down in front of a lion which is supposed to eat its dinner - a slice of meat - off his chest. Another sage finds him facing a charge of taking money from someone which he had not. Characters like Y. Beliram, Advocate, Sadanand or always happy, Master Ananda Giri Giri keep popping up as Hatterr embarks on his mad hatter journey in his search of enlightenment and frequently finds himself at the wrong end of the stick - losing his clothes or money or something else.
I cannot review this book because it is so fantastic in its style, structure, narrative, characters, their motivations, their language. It is as it begins, so irreverently, as a 'gesture' and takes us through a merry go round of their common dilemmas, wants, desires and how each time they find themselves justifying their fate when they end up being conned. The end was even more fantastic as he writes a series of notes which I could not help reading despite knowing that it will just drive me up the wall. But it is compelling and you don't want to miss a word though it does not make sense as a linear structure - it's best described then as he says it 'a gesture'. And so it will go into books like 'Kim', 'Kanthapura', 'Catch 22' and such which I think will have no parallel in their uniqueness.
Fantastic. Thanks Vinod bhai for the gift.
No comments:
Post a Comment