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April 14, 2002
REVIEW: Lives so highly charged
BANI Basu is one of the foremost modern Bengali novelists. Her Antaarghat, of which the book under review is a translation, won India’s Tarashankar Award in the early nineties. It is the story of a group of students who were dazzled by the Naxalite movement of West Bengal in the sixties. Unhappy with the incompetence of the education system and the general corruption, these brilliant individuals, like other urban youth around them were led to believe that the destruction of the establishment was the only way to achieve proletariat goals.
Following idealism to the emotional extreme, and led by a hierarchy of fire-breathing leaders most of whom were shrouded in secrecy and invisible and unknown to their followers, the group found itself involved in brutalities that some of them had never bargained for. When the reprisal began (which ended the movement in North Bengal for all practical purposes) one of the trusted leaders buckled under police pressure, wrecking the lives of several individuals by his betrayal of their whereabouts.
Fate, or Bani Basu, brought the group together once more, many years later in a remote Bengali district, not far from Kolkata. Aided by a convenient incognito, (they were known by their pet names in the Naxalite days and simply adopted their real names) they thought they would purge the past and build a new life for themselves in the apparent tranquility, and isolation of the Kantibhai Bhulabhai factory complex.
However even Fate would be overwhelmed if the credit for all the coincidences involved in the bringing together of the group a second time was heaped on her alone. She was definitely assisted by Jayanti, the wife of the Manager of the Kantibhai Bhulabhai factory. And what drove her, Jayanti, to contrive an encounter between the betrayer and the betrayed, and to awaken sleeping dogs, only to induce tragic consequences? Perhaps it was an unconscious determination to facilitate the hand of historic justice, or more plausibly, anger suppressed for many years and activated by opportunity. Jayanti, whose character is reminiscent of Lady Macbeth, may even have been created unconsciously in her image. Only her purpose is not to make gains and her destiny is to wreak destruction.
Most of the characters in the novel are well drawn. That of the genial and uninhibitedly friendly manager, Paramartha Ray, may seem exaggerated, especially to Western or Western trained sensibilities, but to anybody who has lived in Bengal it is quite plausible. Bratati or Bibi is very real, and her brothers are not stick figures. Sirsha, the younger brother, sensitive and percipient, could even be described as a figure in high relief, a power packed gem, on the point of emerging from the frieze. However Sumanta Sengupta, in spite of his much proclaimed physical beauty and charisma, never really comes to life.
The story is told in an effective intertwining of present and past. The intensity in the style of narration can be justified by the highly charged lives of the characters, each of whom carries a past that is like the proverbial albatross around his neck. Later, reading the Afterword, I realized that the intensity must also stem from the fact that the author has herself lived through the high tide of the traumatic Naxalite years.
The book is readable and has an interesting plot. It is the work of a thoughtful writer who deserves attention, not least when she is describing nature in close association with mood and atmosphere. Her bursts of poetry are as unexpected and moving as the sudden view of white kaash flowers she describes, a profusion of which ‘grew nowhere else but here’.
I enjoyed reading the book. There is, however, some room for improvement in the translation. It reads like the equivalent of a heavily accented (though reasonably correct) oral rendering, but it is still better than most English translations to come out of the subcontinent.
The enemy within
By Bani Basu
Translated by Jayanti Datta
Orient Longman, 3-6-276, Himayatnagar, Hyderabad 500 029, India Tel: 91-040-3224294
Email: editor@pol.net.in
ISBN 81-250-1668-6 170pp. Indian Rs225
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