A storyteller’s art, much like that of a potter, is one of manipulation. The latter casts utility out of a mere pile of dirt shaped by the hand; the former forges meaning from clever coaxing of the time-space continuum by the instrument of language. To what extent is it then important that journeys be travelled in one direction? That the time-space warp be thus that aids a movement ahead? Can not stories be lived and tales be told without significant motion in ‘the right direction’? These are some of the questions that the wonderfully subtle novel Fugitive Histories contemplates.
Set in the post-2002 India, Githa Hariharan’s latest title published by Penguin|Viking moves across, primarily, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi. A work unique in a way that the overemphatic stress on stories to ‘get somewhere’ is here replaced by the more sober, and hence that much uncomfortable emphasis on the question – ‘where are we?’ It is through the answer to that question perhaps, that the author fodders her next, more mocking inquiry – ‘who are we?’ And it is how she does this that makes Fugitive Histories a poignant delicacy.
Yasmin, Sara, Mala and Bala. The riot-ravaged teen who lost her brother, her home in 2002; the aspiring social worker ill at ease with what she understands of life, of misery; a recent widow who has now to come to terms with doing away with being defined as ‘Asad’s wife’ – for which she must know who he was, and what happened to him; an old hysterical lady who has lived her life in submission to the male dominance of her village home, who never went out – and hence went within. Sara is Mala’s daughter. Bala is Mala’s grandmother. Yasmin is almost Sara’s muse.
In Delhi, the world around Mala comes cascading down with the death of Asad. All that is left of him are his sketchbooks and their clandestine commentaries on what Asad felt as he tumbled out of life. Asad, the intelligent artist, whose idealism, we are told much later, breaks in the face of the violence around him.
In Mumbai, her daughter Sara is just stumbling into life as a social worker, as moderately comfortable as youth and a modest job allow her. It is then that she is seizes the opportunity to go to Ahmedabad on her friend’s invite to write a script for a documentary on the Muslim families affected by the Gujarat riots.
It is there that she meets, among others, Yasmin. It is there where the author gingerly broaches the horrid, graphic memories of the communal clashes that left in their wake not only death and destruction, but also a stern reminder of the propensity of fate to go wrong; keeping going wrong. It is there that Sara sees simmering, sweltering fear as she ‘researches’ for the movie.
Cut and burnt, cut and burnt. It’s a shorthand chant, a chant that echoes in Sara’s ears because it’s trapped there. But as often as she hears it, Sara knows the chant is leaving something out. There is an empty space before and after, between the cutting and the burning. Maybe no one wants to fill up that awful space. Maybe that minute of space is too long, longer than any other minute, because that’s when a living person felt the breaking blow. Or the piercing stab. Or the burning lick of a tongue of fire.
[...]
In the middle of them all is a small recording machine with a blinking red light, quietly swallowing every sound heard in the room. The machine doesn’t know what to do with the silent tears though.
Pure, consuming, blind and obliterating. The many futile forms of hatred come to fore as Sara dabbles in despair and dilapidation – both physical and psychological. Upon her return to Mumbai, Sara is unable to write. Instead she comes face to face with the reality that broke her father.
Then with a thrill of shock Mala sees something recognizable spread across his face. It’s fear.
[...]
An artist, a human being, cannot shut his eyes and ears to such news. But how far do you go? Do you live other people till there’s no room left for you?
Fear. Love. Caste. Violence. Identity. Age. Fugitive Histories saddles, for most part, all these themes well. The stories unfold cautiously, the sublime connections emerge. It is, as W.B. Yeats would call it, a terrible beauty.
This book review by Ajinkya Deshmukh can also be read at his blog http://matte-finish.blogspot.com/
