Such a Long Journey: Book review

Such a Long Journey (Rohinton Mistry): *** and 1/2

H is later works had their names hidden behind pronouns and their deeds carefully veiled in satire, but in his very first work Mistry seems at a surprising ease in spilling the names of Indira Gandhi and Bal Thackeray all through and its this very no-words-minced attitude demonstrated in every layer of this work that makes it depart completely from its later, heavier siblings “A Fine Balance” and “Family Matters”.

P redominantly, Such a Long Journey, tells the tale of an average Bombay-ite, Gustad Noble’s life, who resides in a congested suburbian apartment building and works as a bank clerk. Beginning somewhere in 1971 against an inviolable background of Indo-Pak war, its principal track focuses on the unusual way in which this very national conflict affects Gustad and his family. The book starts off by building up the domestic skirmishes in Gustad’s life where we witness a father’s quenchless curiosity

as he waits by his door to grab the early morning newspaper to find that one crucial page that shall bear the torch for his elder son’s, Sohrab’s future. Like any father, his joy and excitement knows no barriers as he finds Sohrab’s name in the prestiged IIT passed entrants’ list not realizing how shortlived this delightful moment is, for Sohrab’s neither overjoyed nor interested in engineering. Worse, he accuses his father of making him the victim of his own unfulfilled dreams.

S hattered and emotionally bruised, Gustad stops acknowledging Sohrab’s very presence and retreads into his painful past, peeling off memories of the ruinous bankruptcy that scarred his own past and drove them forever into the constraining lower middle-class domain. Busy driving in the lanes of his psyche, he suddenly remembers his old friend, Jimmy Bilimoria whose disrespect for years of Gustad’s friendship by abruptly disappearing still shocks Gustad and his dilemma on receiving a recent letter from Jimmy asking for Gustad’s help is obvious. Jimmy, as revealed later, works for the RAW and requests Gustad to meet his right hand man, Ghulam Mohammed and receive a package containing the instructions within, which Gustad reluctantly, but finally obliges only to learn that the package’s contents could seriously threaten his vocation and safety. Where exactly is Jimmy? What’s the meaning of all this clandestine political affair?

S een through Gustad’s eyes, the rest of the book brilliantly sews together this political-thriller thread with everyday quandaries in Gustad’s family (like his daughter’s incessant diarrhea, his wife’s shift to black magic, the compound wall which serves dutifully as a public latrine and the recent notice about the wall’s demolition and compound’s further shrinkage to broaden the road plus the ongoing war) all of which coincide to bring the book into a very traditional, yet an entertaining finale.

S eemingly a heavy plot-driven work, Such a Long Journey surprisingly seldom loses out on its carefully drawn characters that so vastly populate it from the first to the last page. Then be it the bizarre and freakish Ms. Kutpitia whose witchcraft traverses through assorted evils and threats fittingly taking aid from hanging threaded lemons, chillies to formulating thick curries (containing everything from cinnamon sticks to lizard droppings) only to be dropped on a rabid neighbor’s head to burning lizard tails in oil cans (which ultimately smokes her house away); or the amusing Dinshawji whose profanity-laden mirthful one liners besides providing the comic relief accentuate his painful demise manifold or even Dr. Paymaster wherein Mistry takes a dig at the atrophied medical system of that decade through the rote learning by Gustad and Dilnawaz of the awfully repetitive prescriptions.

S tylistically, the book’s as polished as you expect any Mistry’s writing to be. Equally comfortable in lending distinct voices to almost every character, commendable is his ability to scoop even the tiniest of dilemmas of the seemingly inconsequential characters of which the most memorable is that of the pavement artist whose transformation of the solid compound wall suddenly instills the “yearning for permanence, for roots, for something he would call his own, something immutable” With a real gift for tiltillating satire, his amusive and depressive metaphors are never blunt in capturing the bittersweet emotions and experiences that everlastingly surround the characters, lending the sketches just the right amount of life.

O ne of the highpoints of the book is how the backdrop of Indo-Pak war, which besides being dynamically present in the dialogues and the various air-raid sirens, blackouts unexpectedly gains the foreground as the sixty lacs allotted by the Indian Secret Service’s RAW (in which Gustad’s friend is included) to provide financial and military aid to the then-freeing Bangladesh vanish suddenly. Besides handling this political-thriller angle with the required acceleration, the candor and the intensity couldn’t have been anymore tarter and sharp-worded to convey the immense price India had to pay for Indira Gandhi’s regime. In fact the overall effect is so spine-chilling that when Ghulam Mohammed utters “And his mummy (Indira) herself has many enemies. Makes more and more every day, from Punjab to Tamil Nadu. Any one of them could do it. I am a patient man. Her life is as easy to snuff out as Bilimoria’s let me tell you.. Like that’’ and he snapped the fingers under Gustad’s nose’’, one can’t help but ponder at the awesome foreshadow laid on the kernel responsible for Indira’s assassination.

Though, the thriller and melodrama make for a largely homogeneous read with the effect intact for both the genres, having a thriller edge means resorting to a traditional finale where the reality factor (that reaches its pinnacle towards the middle where everything seems completely out of protagonist’s control) conveniently reaches a conclusion, and rather too soon. Though understandably, it’s a tale of harmony and settlement which sort of justifies its absolute termination, but almost unwittingly, it is this very completeness takes away the lingering factor.

Of the paler characters, the fast speaking, fractured child-man idiot Tehmul Langdaa, whose intervention is perennial fails to strike a chord as much as the forced characters of Alamai and her son (Dinshawji’s family) who mute the already soggy-with-detail descriptions of the last rites of Dinshawji (much to my irritation) for Mistry’s expression lacks that much needed sympathy that’s evident when he observes a roadside paaniwala who begs for 20 naye paise even as Gustad’s lying half-dead on the road. In fact, in Tehmul’s case the overall effect is so cranky and nonsensically elaborate it almost appears that a joke has been made of the handicapped boy.

But despite its shortcomings, Mistry’s able to convey that indeed the longest journeys are the one taken by the mind and one realizes this every time years fall away as Gustad smells the spine of a classic or looks at an old Meccano set in Chor Bazaar. The rules of memory when traversing years in a single second leap are as incomprehensible as its failures, its speed and its powers and this theme comes across through the author’s unrivaled sensory acuteness that captures the rich texture of Indian life in all its resplendence.

Sharp, short and shrewd, the book isn’t as perfect as Mistry’s later works but still makes for one compelling read.

Tales from Firozsha Baag: Book Review

Tales from Firozsha Baag (Rohinton Mistry): ****

Who, among the contemporary Indian authors, even comes close to Mistry’s sensory acuteness, his ability to handpick choicest moments from the tombs of impressions that perpetually crowds the life of every Indian. Nobody. Plainly putting it, it is exactly these very earthly moments captured so brilliantly in his books that make him so very special.

A compendium of eleven intersecting tales of residents, Mistry’s first full-fledged fiction commences with Auspicious Occasion where Rustomji, an old lawyer whose frustration with the non-existent management, and intolerance towards his neighbours have earned him the title of curmudgeon.

Mistry’s expert handicraft has accentuated the protagonist’s choler and dander through his constant profanity-laden reprimands to every living being around and the way this stoic comportment is contrasted with Rustomji’s realisation about fragility in old age towards the finale sinks one deeper into his character. For an absolute relief,

Mistry’s punched in a religious satire giving that touch of wholesomeness.

You visit the book’s prime character-Kersi, a young boy in One Sunday where we witness the spurt of manhood in him and the genetic programming of males to be physically adept. All through the Mistry, a disturbing metaphor of the protagonist’s phallus and cricket bat run through which sends one’s thoughts into a maddening frenzy as Kersi cracks his bat with his foot’such is his disappointment after a brawl with a servant is cancelled eventually.

Even in a somewhat shallow The Ghost of Firozsha Baag , Mistry’s still able to convey the blind-faiths, the conservativeness and even the derogatory status of Indian servants in a fluffy and a humorous narration through the Goan catholic Jaqueline’i.e. the servant’s eyes.

The story alternates between past and present, and Jakaylee’s view of the slaughtering outside world, as she ruminates over her quotidian lifestyle, is entertaining, though even a unique climax doesn’t bestow the repeat-value to the story.

A trilogy of masterpieces follow up next’each of them so absolved in its message, so superior in its expression and so distinct in its feel, that it is here you realise the actual power of a short-story. First up is Condolence Visit where the very thought of the pretentious relatives spilling all over her and the inevitable subsequent narration that she’d have to give to them sends shivers in the spine of the grieving widow, Daulat.

Questioning the ever desultory customs which makes the very phase of bereavement torturous for the dead’s household, the finale sees the protagonist taking her stand and coming to terms with life. And this is exactly where Mistry scores. His characters are survivors. Yes, they come with their own share of vulnerabilities, disappointments, pangs, but that doesn’t deter them from being instinctive, from being themselves’they don’t shy from accepting that life for them is a never-ending lesson.

Just one look at Jehangir, the brooding observer of Firozsha Baag in Collectors and you realise that however much unaccommodating and unforgiving circumstances might get, life never halts. In less than twenty pages, there’s an almost epic flavour to it and Mistry still conquers in sending these vibes across alternating between erotic flutters of youth, pangs from public ridicule and the ensuant loss of control that Jehangir experiences as he stands mute even as he’s blamed by his mentor for stealth of a prized stamp.

Special mention should be made to the two exquisite metaphors laced through these two stories (a lamp and stamps) which have been made to so comfortably mirror the actual event that a surreal and exotic third-dimension is added to the already-accomplished tales. Absolutely brilliant!

Through Kersi again, one catches up with how the pace and the adrenaline rush of the teenage years secretly breeds an inflated ego dying to burst out in Of White Hairs and Cricket . How a single scene of suffering changes his entire viewpoint of his family (particularly his father with whom his annoyance is paramount since plucking out the latter’s white hairs have destroyed his weekends continuously) is absolutely rhythmic in its very feel and very overpowering as a moral.

Probably Squatter and The Paying Guests won’t be as emotionally consuming as the just gone threesome, yet the very tales circling around an Indian inadaptability to the Western toilet manners and a strangling tenant who refuses to let go off a flat have their own freaky moments that make for a breezy read. 

The best thing about the book is that even in one of those remote moments that the stories fail, there’s always Mistry’s enliveningly honest narration to fall back upon which maintains the mood and the right cadence throughout. Plus the continuous interjection of the characters mean that you keep absorbing, refreshing and even refurnishing the images of dwellers of Firozsha Baag, however mediocre the fable might be. 

The transformative final triplet concentrates itself squarely on Kersi’s and Jehangir’s adulthood and while the former struggles to come in terms with his inner conflicts for his motherland in Lend Me Your Light , the generation and the resultant communication gap is more than obvious in latter’s life as he struggles to balance his titillating affair and rigid parenthood in Exercisers . How exactly drawing inspiration from the muscular fellows the realisation for taking charge of his life finds its way to his cowering heart is heart-rending.

 The astute metaphors, the prudent symbols continue to beguile as they parallel with Kersi’s experience as an immigrant in the concluding story Swimming Lessons . A metamorphosis of sorts where the protagonist learns to get over his fear of water and starts accepting the eccentricity of the foreign land is catalogued together with the reactions of his nurturers back home as they receive his very own first book about his experiences in Firozsha Baag’all this in terrific irony and self-awareness (there’s so much of Mistry as himself in this one!). 

Parsees, a faction of sect that I knew so little about, but as I finish my third Mistry book, I feel like having known about The fire temple, Behraam Roje, ‘Ashem Vahoo’, tohroon, dugli, pheytoe, sudra, dhandar-patayo, sali-boti, sigri, dustoor as well as the back of my tongue, and even as I now just glance over the cover of the book, I still get nostalgic about Rustomji, Mehroo, Jaakylee, Viraf, Najamai, Tehmina, Nariman, Jehangir, Khorshedbai, Kersi, Persy, the Boyces, the Hansotias, the Kanaris, the Modys. What more elaboration does anybody want it proof of the flesh and bone Mistry’s characters possess. 

This flavour of tenderness towards seemingly insignificant lives has imparted a smug and self-aware palpate to all the fables which should have you grinning at how significant, subtle yet soulful stories can be; his characters may not be outright winners but nevertheless, thrive as petulant survivors. 

And this is the charm of this book - being amplified at an individualistic level it is honest, and being honest it is often selfish and self-regarding (just like we all can be).

The emotional outpourings reek with déjà vus, while great griefs such as the sudden loss of a mentor are recorded simply by mute acceptance depicting how true life is maddeningly full of such missing explanations. And this is one fascinating record of a cluster of intertwined lives in the middle-class at the heart of India.

 With jubilant notations, innovative metaphors, fluid backdrops, discrete images, heartwarming characters and wholesome tales, Mistry’s throbbing first book towers over the landscape of contemporary Indian fiction. If not the Titan, Mistry, for me is the Gulliver amongst the Lilliputians. We just can’t afford to miss him. No seriously. We just can’t!  

Do catch up with the book soon… Hope you liked the review!!