IN these post-modern times when novel writers concentrate on churning out books of the pulp fiction variety — typically with criminal nuances (Slumdog Millionaire, White Tiger) — undertaking the writing of a trilogy on historic fiction is a gutsy move.

But so it is with first time novelist Waheed Rabbani, who has come out with the first book of his proposed
trilogy based on historic and fictional events involving the struggle that began in 1857 and eventually led to freedom from the Raj.

Doctor Margaret’s Sea Chest uses

archetypal ingredients such as intrigue, love, conflict and historical narrative — the very stuff that classics were made of.

Modern writers have quite discarded these components, particularly since Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy’s cryptic narrative of hard core reality (God of Small Things) became the quintessential written word. Now spicing up literature are heavy descriptions of all that the underbelly of society holds in its grasp.

So it was no small pleasure to chance upon this book while browsing at a bookstore in Toronto. The brief summary on the back cover described the book as a cross between M.M. Kaye’s Far Pavilions and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind.

But that, as it turned out, was only an impression created by the publisher’s very well-worded synopsis; the book itself does not contain such high quality content that may be compared to either of these all-time great classics.
However, the novel does succeed in creating its own original tone which is a mix of modern day English-speak, with a bit of cultured slang words plus dashes of spicy romance meshed with a good deal of history involving the last days of Mughal rule in India.

The storyline is complicated as it spans three continents and then some. Spreading its wings over two centuries, parallel tales are launched through the many characters that are all central to the story. The reader will be a bit bewildered in the beginning as she tries to keep up with the threads of all the various narratives that are set centuries apart.

Woven around the discovery of a 100-year-old sea chest in the 1960s, the tale is actually rendered through the account of a Doctor Sharif who has been given the task of tracking down the heirs of the American Dr Margaret so that the ancient sea chest may be handed over to them.

The lady was supposedly the first North American doctor to travel to India in 1850 to join a missionary group. Over time she became a close confidante of the Rani of Jhansi, a major player in the 1857 War of Independence.

In between, her story links up with the Crimean War during which the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade claimed her love. This portion of the novel brings in a Russian touch, which will play a significant part in the lives of her 21st century descendants.

As mentioned before, the span of the tale is far and wide due to which keeping the story’s gist in sequence becomes a challenge at times.

Added to that is the nagging doubt of how far the events are fictionalised and how much is culled from facts. And yes, how can I forget, also interspersed are dream sequences bordering on the supernatural that seem to dictate Doctor Sharif’s actions throughout the book.

The writer, Waheed Rabbani, currently resides in the small town of Grimsby close to Niagara, Ontario and incidentally also establishes both his protagonists’ links to that town. Himself quite a multicultural product — born in India, educated at St Patrick’s School in Karachi, with an undergraduate degree from England and a Master’s from Montreal, Canada — he has perhaps tried to link his characters through that same route.

The novel is a reasonably commendable endeavour by Rabbani, particularly as it portrays an aspect of the history of united India with which western readers are probably not altogether familiar. There are likely to be many aspects which readers from the subcontinent will also be hitherto unfamiliar with.

The one jarring feature for me is the bizarre Roman spellings of Urdu words. Dekho need not have been dekko nor did jaldi se need to be written as jaldhisey. However, the translation of Mirza Ghalib’s many couplets into English — which the writer has done himself — are worthy attempts which come close to capturing the depth of the great poet’s words.

So far Rabbani has kept a harness on the different storylines, while also managing to wrap up the current novel with the right balance of closure and suspense in the closing chapter. While the book might not receive worldwide acclaim, it will rekindle the lost romance of the classics.

Doctor Margaret’s Sea Chest

By Waheed Rabbani
YouWriteOn.com
ISBN 978-1-84923-177-0
417pp. Cdn $13.99