COUNTRY OF GOODBYES.
by Mridula Garg.
Translated from Hindi
by Manisha Chaudhry.
Kali for Women.
P 230. 2003. Rs. 250.
MRIDULA GARG stands
apart from the mainstream of contemporary Hindi literature for basic reasons.
Her audacious themes and her searing stylistic honesty. With six novels, eight
short story collections, two plays and two volumes of essays to date, this
English translation of her 1996 bestseller ‘Kathgulab’ gives non-Hindi
readers access to her oeuvre ~ and her relevance to today’s literary world.
But no translation,
not even this competent one by Manisha Chaudhry, can bring alive the shades
between the sentences, the colloquial cadences, the literary non-conformism
that is intrinsically Garg. Why else would she be honoured with the 2001
Hellman Hammett award for courageous writing by the New York-based Human Rights
Watch in the aftermath of her brief arrest by the Delhi administration for
‘obscene writing’ and the seizure of book stocks after Sarika magazine
printed two pages of her 1979 novel ‘Chittacobra’ out of context? Why
else would Garg be invited as the keynote speaker at the International
Colloquium of Women at Iowa in 1990?
‘Country of
Goodbyes,’ with a dramatic
Manjit Bawa painting on its cover, encapsules all that Garg’s writing has stood
for down the years. Its five interlinked narratives twist and turn tautly into
each other to form a tight-knit novel of human interdependence realized through
interpretations of independence. Across continents, relationships and
existential terrains, she essays a saga of the seeking self.
At its very heart is
Smita, a victim of incest, who flees to liberation in America, only to be
confronted by seething disquiet triggered by dilemmas of alienation ~ until she
turns to the solace of social work. The other voices stem from Marianne, a
sociologist who sacrifices herself at her husband’s creative altar, then
struggles to break free. And Narmada, the domestic help in Smita’s sister’s
house, the chronicler of the family’s turbulent passage through redefined
bonds. And Aseema, a New Delhi social worker, a defender of feminist values.
And Vipin, the sole male voice, who embodies more tenderness and life sap than
the strong women protagonists do. At the very heart of their interchanges is
the issue of motherhood ~ and its place in each life.
Isn’t that an
old-fashioned issue? Not in Garg’s worldview. For, as she said in a recent
interview with this writer, “I’ve been told that I talk too much about thwarted
motherhood in ‘Kathgulab.’ Motherhood is back in fashion in the west,
but in India we’re still caught up in an aggressive feministic ideology. Why
should a woman want be a mother? Why not? It’s a personal choice.”
Garg’s characters dare
to bare all, to be themselves without social approbation ~ because her
conclusions are never author-defined. Instead, she invites the reader to
identify with the fictional lives, the raw emotions evoked, the otherness of
everyday beings, unhampered by social diktats.
In Chaudhry’s
translation, a glimpse of this unfettered spirit seeps through, often in
stream-of-consciousness passages interspersed into the narrative flow. Take this excerpt from the opening of
Aseema’s story: “My name is Aseema. What! I can hear you exclaim. Aseema is no
name for a girl. Without limits ~ who’s ever heard of a girl being called that?
Boys are often called Aseem, though. I suppose that’s what male chauvinism is
all about. Girls have to remain within limits while boys are free to cross
them. So, it was that my pipsqueak of a brother was named Aseem by my parents
and I was just plain, old-fashioned Seema. Limited. Within boundaries or
fetters or whatever. I changed it and made it Aseema without so much as a
by-your-leave…”
Each character is
built up with as much spontaneity, with distinctive dialogue, with potential to
evolve as a thinking being. Each crisis arrives out of the blue, as
dramatically as it does in real life. Each individual seems based on inner
spirit, sensual more than sexual. Throughout, the novel palpates with
discontent.
Garg arrived on the
Hindi literary scene in the mid 1970s, when extra-marital relations and women’s
sexuality were burning topics. But her stance was radically different from the
existing ‘fallen woman syndrome,’ as she terms it, that consigned the courtesan and the
professional woman alike to the domain of husband and home. But Garg did not
subscribe to that. She associated no guilt with a woman’s enjoyment of worldly
success or sexuality.
Perhaps that is the
key to Garg’s success as a writer, whether in Hindi or in translation. She
voices the world of the contemporary Indian woman, unafraid to defy age-old
norms, or flaunt her economic independence, or fight to re-mould the world her
own liking. Today’s woman can identify
with Garg’s characters, their radical stances, their conceptualization through
literary devices within a non-realistic mode.
Overall, Garg explores
social issues beyond textbook feminism. That’s an impeccable reason to get to
know her better through her words.
(The Hindu Literary Review, 2003)
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