SHONA Patel’s debut novel, Teatime for the Firefly, can be read as a gripping love story or it could be considered as a diaspora novel in which the author introduces a new world to people who have lived close to it for years together but could never become a part of it. The work is autobiographical in nature and brings back memories of a time when India was about to be partitioned.
Set in the Aynakhal tea estate, in Silchar, Assam, the novel is also about the life of the author’s own parents who had lived in the estate where her father rose to the position of general manager. The author, who now lives in Arizona, writes primarily for American readers who know very little about tea plantation in north-eastern India.
Teatime for the Firefly is a realistic novel with a historical tilt because its setting precedes the partition of India by a couple of years. As one goes through the novel it becomes apparent that a country which was the land of both Hindus and Muslims for thousands of years would be bifurcated as the religious identity of the two communities would not allow them to live together any more. The readers can find no reason as to why innocent people belonging to both the Hindu and Muslim communities are victims of aggressive rioting and mayhem.
Married to a Gujarati, Patel’s ancestors are from what is now the Habiganj district of Bangladesh. Before India was divided, Karimganj, now a part of Assam was a sub-division of Sylhet; and Silchar, Cachar and Hailakhandi were closely linked to Sylhet and its people in more than one way. Therefore, the setting of the novel will particularly interest Bangladeshi readers who know about Sylhet and what is called the Surma Valley.
The novel is about the love story between Layla Roy and Manik Deb. Layla’s grandfather Dadamoshai, a great advocate of English education, a Raibahadur and an Anglophile, is a powerful district judge. Manik is a highly educated young man who has qualified for the most prestigious job in the Indian Civil Service which required extraordinary luck along with outstanding qualifications for any Bengali to qualify. Manik’s exceptional success quickly gets him engaged to Kona Sen, the daughter of the richest person of Silchar.
When Manik first meets Layla in the Raibahadur’s house it’s not quite clear if it’s love at first sight. Only later, the readers can tell why manik would leave his powerful administrative job and instead choose to work as an assistant manager at the Aynakhal tea estate which requires a newly appointed assistant to remain unmarried for three years. Manik accepts the condition and breaks his engagement with Kona and continues to wait for the moment when Layla would become his wife.
Aynakhal Tea Estate comes across as a metaphor for a world unknown to all but only those who work there: the British managers, assistant managers, Bengali clerks and coolies. This world has its own rules and challenges and dangers that cannot be even thought of by people who live outside a tea estate as big as Aynakhal.
When ultimately Manik marries Layla, after a wait of three years, the Raibahadur’s granddaughter gets an opportunity to become a part of this new world which initially shocks her in many ways. Layla transforms herself into the Chota memsahib as the glow of the fireflies gradually makes her familiar with the incongruity of the world she has chosen for herself.
Unlike the works of Jhumpa Lahiri or even Zia Haider Rahman, in Patel’s novel there is no travel back to the country of birth after the protagonist decides to settle in the new homeland. The nostalgia for a lost motherland and the struggle to adapt to the culture of the newly adopted country seem to be missing in Teatime for the Firefly if it is read as novel written by an author who belongs to the South Asian diaspora living in the US.
However, Patel’s strong longing for the land of her birth and the country of her ancestors transports her, in her imagination, back to the days of her childhood and youth to the land where she had once lived that becomes the setting of her novel. Seen from this perspective, Teatime for the Firefly is also autobiographical containing many attributes common to diaspora writing.
Patel’s novel will definitely be of interest to students and academics that follow the writings of new authors now living in the West but originating in our part of the world. Teatime for the Firefly will also be enjoyed by planters and people who are related to the tea industry.
—The Daily Star / Bangladesh
Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2016