Class attack candid, not cynical
By Gaiutra Bahadur |
October 25, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Amit Chaudhuri's new novel, a comedy of manners set in 1980s India, centers on the teenage scion of a corporate family who neither dresses nor acts the part. Instead, Nirmalya Sengupta, in his uniform of faded kurta and jeans, takes the bus home from school while his father's Mercedes follows at a distance.
A devotee of Indian classical music, the boy is intent on defending this tradition against the threat of commercialism. As it happens, ragas run in the blood of both the protagonist of "The Immortals" and its author. Chaudhuri is not only a devotee of Hindustani music, but also a professional musician with several releases to his credit.
Like his main character, Chaudhuri was tutored by a songstress mother and a beloved Rajasthani guru. And the biographical symmetries don't stop with the music. Chaudhuri lends Nirmalya his own health condition (a heart murmur), his own cosmopolitan identity (as a Bengali raised in Bombay -- now Mumbai -- and schooled in London) and the addresses of his own youth.
But none of these parallels protect Nirmalya from the wry, knowing authorial tone that makes the book so pleasurable, despite the sparseness of its plot. In one scene, the Senguptas go for tea to the Leela Penta Hotel, an oasis of glass and palm trees at Bombay's marshy edge. Nirmalya, glancing at the wasteland outside, notices a boy "squinting and squatting on the edge of a metal cylinder."
Chaudhuri, a maestro of intimation, then shifts the focus: "'I can't eat here,' Nirmalya said, shaking his head slowly, the boyish face little more than a child's in spite of the moustache, full of inexplicable hurt, the eyes almost tearful. 'I can't eat here until Shyamji is able to eat here'." His parents indulgently follow him out, "with a conviction that they were doing the only logical and admissible thing ... Mrs Sengupta glancing tolerantly, without emotion, at the tray of cakes."
Shyamji is the boy's teacher, respected but also judged by him for squandering his artistic inheritance as the son of a gifted classical musician. Shyamji must earn a living, so he neglects his own career to tutor the rich -- including Nirmalya's mother.
Chaudhuri is clear-sighted about what is closest to him, and he is candid without being cynical about the class of aspirants who have made India a global economic player. "The Immortals" confirms his reputation as a gifted miniaturist. Nothing much happens, but its elegant sentences and dry, discerning portraits more than compensate.
A devotee of Indian classical music, the boy is intent on defending this tradition against the threat of commercialism. As it happens, ragas run in the blood of both the protagonist of "The Immortals" and its author. Chaudhuri is not only a devotee of Hindustani music, but also a professional musician with several releases to his credit.
Like his main character, Chaudhuri was tutored by a songstress mother and a beloved Rajasthani guru. And the biographical symmetries don't stop with the music. Chaudhuri lends Nirmalya his own health condition (a heart murmur), his own cosmopolitan identity (as a Bengali raised in Bombay -- now Mumbai -- and schooled in London) and the addresses of his own youth.
But none of these parallels protect Nirmalya from the wry, knowing authorial tone that makes the book so pleasurable, despite the sparseness of its plot. In one scene, the Senguptas go for tea to the Leela Penta Hotel, an oasis of glass and palm trees at Bombay's marshy edge. Nirmalya, glancing at the wasteland outside, notices a boy "squinting and squatting on the edge of a metal cylinder."
Chaudhuri, a maestro of intimation, then shifts the focus: "'I can't eat here,' Nirmalya said, shaking his head slowly, the boyish face little more than a child's in spite of the moustache, full of inexplicable hurt, the eyes almost tearful. 'I can't eat here until Shyamji is able to eat here'." His parents indulgently follow him out, "with a conviction that they were doing the only logical and admissible thing ... Mrs Sengupta glancing tolerantly, without emotion, at the tray of cakes."
Shyamji is the boy's teacher, respected but also judged by him for squandering his artistic inheritance as the son of a gifted classical musician. Shyamji must earn a living, so he neglects his own career to tutor the rich -- including Nirmalya's mother.
Chaudhuri is clear-sighted about what is closest to him, and he is candid without being cynical about the class of aspirants who have made India a global economic player. "The Immortals" confirms his reputation as a gifted miniaturist. Nothing much happens, but its elegant sentences and dry, discerning portraits more than compensate.
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