Sucheta is a writer, journalist (currently editor at Deccan Chronicle) and an electrical engineer by training. She has translated from Bengali to English the work of Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay. More interestingly to me, her debut work of fiction, a collection of stories, 'Ladies Night' is published by Running Head Publications - which connects real writers to real readers. Sucheta is a real writer and I am a real reader by my definition so we are all good.
On happy hour time, four ladies get together at a bar, and over drinks and some basic rules on who buys drinks and why, weave storytelling into the afternoon and make it as interesting as it can get. So, between the four women, they come up with 18 stories of all kinds.
So there's a story about a lonely fish that gets other fish for company, an act of kindness you'd think, but the company eats the lonely fish and relieves it of its loneliness - would the fish have been better off lonely or is it better dead? In the same story a girl falls in love with a cricketer and many other things about him, but he does not seem to really worry about her existence which is Ok because we like the idea of being in love with him. Then there is a girl who receives a letter from a dead cousin and it turns out there is a secret society of mind loggers who are planning to take over the world by inducting their own chosen ones (the chosen ones have to fulfill conditions such as having a death wish, a clear conscience etc) and much more. In another, a sightless courtesan regains her vision, wooed by the Moon (the Sun also tries for her hand but fails as he wants a son but it so happens that the courtesan and the Moon produce daughters who marry Sun and thereby sons are produced as well!) The engineer in her peeps out in stories like the computer marrying the ball - its a sentient computer!
There is an interesting conversation between two friends in the form of letters or mails - each telling the other of the many thoughts that occupy their minds - of daily life and the world at large.
There's one story about a poet in which I liked these lines - 'when you love someone you feel like there is a part in you that wants them to reject you just so that you can feel the pain of rejection. That pain is the measure of your love.' Reminded me of DH Lawrence!
There is a story about Greek Gods and groupies and butter and lipstick and washermen and washerwomen and somehow it all connects in the end. One in which a young girl gives her dying and demented grandfather some weed to relieve his pain and he gets aggressive or shows some signs of life before he dies - lives a little before he dies again. It's funny, and then you realise that is what life is, one day you are the grand child and another day the grandfather!
In one, the narrator logs in to her husband's social media account and flirts with a housewife (or whoever the other person was digitally) and can see the interesting differences and perceptions between genders. One crazy story about this gardener who keeps bumping off his wives but still manages to keep his job - perhaps a real story - there are so many of them out there. One on patriarchy being a female conspiracy, lesbian friends in a journalistic set up, cancel culture in journalism and so on and on.
But the one that I really really liked and fully understood (in most others I didn't make all the connections because she writes on two or three levels and unless you read carefully or are intelligent enough, you will end up feeling like you missed something and have to ask the next person what you missed like how I did while watching 'Sixth Sense') is Chet and Babakukur. Chet is a part of Sucheta so I guess all Chets in the book are her, but this is about her and her father, and she is working in Delhi and sees a dog which reminds her of her father about a year after his death and long enough for the soul to get recycled - Baba being father and kukur meaning dog in Bengali. She writes about her relationship with her father, her growing up years, trying to be the perfect girl, doing her electrical engineering to please dad but winding up in journalism which she wanted, realising and standing up for her goals which were different from those of her parents (who she realises later) were limited by their experience and vision perhaps. She recollects how in so many ways her father tries to do the best thing by her, giving her freedom, taking her everywhere, exposing her to the best books, all that he could afford to do, the Papa's princess. She recalls how he was as a person - straight, honest, threatened by people who could not deal with his honesty, how he published her manuscript, and over the years perhaps made peace with the fact that she had different goals and aspirations and that was that. His kidneys give up and she says he lost his will at some point to live, though there were people willing to donate their kidney for a transplant. There's a plant, they care for together - which dies - she experimenting, he trying to revive it. Then Babakukur makes friends with one guy at office, someone Chet does not like, and gets possessive and the Municipality is trying to take away strays which puts Babakukur in danger. This story really made me feel so much in so many ways - I have a daughter studying in Delhi and though she did not have to do her Electrical Engineering, I can see the burden we put on our children by just being. There is this line 'a good parent is one who fights for you, and who also waits for you to return' And I was asking myself, that's a good line and I hope to be that. Babakukur made me feel sad, fearful, nice, hopeful, glad and so many things I cannot name. One one side I can relate to my daughter and on the other I can relate to my father for who I studied Civil Engineering and quickly got off and finally got into writing. Maybe the damaged part in me is trying to be understood or undo by writing.
The last story is a para or two and in that the bartender asks a riddle which was way beyond me - I anyway do not exercise my mind with riddles. But Sucheta constantly challenges you with riddles, questions, diagrams, poems so it is a bit like going to school and trying to figure it out.
Jokes apart, its eclectic reading and it felt a lot like how I felt when I read Alice Munro's short stories and I was like, hey did I miss something, and went back and read it again. Sucheta's writing is intelligent, layered, honest and deep, and in a story like Babakukur, can touch spaces like how a well made movie does. Because so much of it is the truth, it is also funny without perhaps wanting to be. I feel that just as I identified with Babakukur, the book must surely touch so any facets in people. I do not know how many publishers would have picked up the book and seen it for what it was and the potential it has, and brought it out with such care, other than Running Head which is run by my two good pals from the writing world Krishna Shastri Devulapalli and Chitra Viraraghavan. My only regret is that I am not at the level of the book yet, but then with good books you never are - they help you get there one book at a time (mostly).
Great debut by Sucheta and here's wishing her many more books. I am definitely going to share this book with my daughter who speaks and writes a bit like this these days and who may get it way more than me. And for Running Head and Krishna and Chitra, this is what you wanted to do and you did it - promote writers who you believe, have the real stuff. Many more books to come from you too!
No comments:
Post a Comment