The Last Song of Dusk is a debut novel by Siddharth Shanghvi and it transports the reader into a magical world of serenading peacocks, a panther-loving painter who walks on water, and a malicious woman who fed her sister to the crocodiles.
The heroine of the book is Anuradha, whose fabled beauty and legendary voice, to whom even `the moon listens`, is such that the peacocks of Udaipur gather to bid her farewell when she leaves for Bombay to meet her groom, Vardhmaan.
After marriage, Anuradha arrives in her new house run by her honourary mother-in-law Divi Bai whose brown eyelash-less eyes spread fear in all corners of the house.
The love between Vardhmaan and herself grows and she finds herself enthralled by the stories he tells her which were `like ripe, freshly picked fruits from the orchard of his observations`. He is a handsome, strong man who becomes a doctor owing to a sense of guilt he nurses as he could not save his ailing mother when he was a child.
The couple develop an intimacy so strong that it seems as though nothing can come between them, not even the demonic Divi Bai. But a sad change of events forces them to move into a house with a `heinous heart`, Darya Mahal, which had a history of dejection, waiting and death cemented in its walls.
The house has a `mysterious, luminous sadness` attached to it, yet it is beautiful with large balconies and gardens, `like the vast space a lover finds in love`.
Anuradha`s orphan cousin Nandini accompanies them to their new dwelling. Nandini is a young artist who has the ability to paint souls; she could walk on water, dance on tables and mate with leopards.
She had moved from house to house after the death of her parents `like luggage no one wants`, leading her to have a perpetual air of meloncholy around her. She is intelligent, talented, sensual and witty. When asked how old she was, she replies `timeless`, and when asked if as a painter she was a star, she replies that she was `an entire constellation`. She is referred to in the book as the `walk-on-water wanderer`.
The whole book has a surreal and dreamlike vein running through it. The core theme of the book is the survival of love in trying times — `all love is a storm` — but it reads bizarre with a house that has evil intentions and a woman mating with a panther.
There is tragedy, fate, love, friendship and the strength of the human spirit all weaved together to form a colourful pattern. The language is very rich and appealing to all the senses; the reader can smell the flowers in Anurada`s hair, hear the screeching of the peacocks at the railway station, and see the dust in the air when the rickshaws trundle down the dusty streets.
The analogies used are fascinating and capturing; Darya Mahal has a `butcher`s knife in its fist` and the Anuradha`s anklets are `the sound of her feet; the preface to her movements`.
The author has an excellent command over the language and his prose is energetic and inventive. Anuradha declares that `We have to do things for the sake of love that we cannot even imagine doing in the midst of our abhorrence`.
Nandini`s living with endless strangers after her parents death speaks of `the tearability and breakability of people`.
The book can be compared to an onion, where every peeled layer has a new story, each waiting to be told. Reading it feels like a roller coaster ride with one story merging with the next one.
The characters are colourful and very lifelike and the reader is able to share their sorrow. Anuradha refers to the impending death of her friend as `a fruit that must fall from the bough if it is to carry its life into its next avatar`.
It is fair to say that the novel weakens when it refers to historical figures like Gandhi in an unfavourable manner, for example when Nandini, upon meeting him, says that she finds his loincloth `sexy`. Also, there is language used at various points in the book with reference to sex which is wholly unnecessary.
The Last Song of Dusk
By Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
Arcade Publishing, New York
ISBN 1559707348
304pp. Rs350