NaCoHuS : A Novel | Fiction | Purushottam Agrawal |
Translated from Hindi | Speaking Tiger (2023) | ISBN: ‎ 978-93-5447-347-0 |
Paperback | pp 213 | Rs. 399

 

Where does the recollection of what one has consciously witnessed end? Where do memories of nightmares begin?

The question continues to search for an answer throughout the book. Agrawal’s new book is a very powerful work and writing on the wall for the times that we are a part of. We are in the middle of it and there seems to be no means of an escape. The opening pages of this novel can fill the reader with a sense of terror. The metaphorical imageries play out in the open bringing one face to face with the demons at large. There is no running away. One is stuck and getting eaten bit by bit. The translation from Hindi is a collaboration between the author, Noor Zaheer and Ritambhara Agrawal and it shows how much hard work has gone into creating this work in English. I use the word “create” here, as translation is a creative activity. It captures the various moods of the novel and retains the integral parts of it that are necessary for a reader of English to understand and be a witness to. One of the thematic concerns that run throughout the novel is the idea of essentialism and how the politics of identity is tied up with it.

“Why have feelings become so delicate these days?”

----

“Feelings might have been immunodeficient, but its protectors were getting stronger by the day.”

The novel is satire of the times that we are a witness to. The question of one’s identity is linked to the language one speaks. And this has been brought out in a very terse manner at the beginning of the novel: how the torchbearers of language are willing to take up cudgels against others in the name of language. The censoring of language and in turn a censor, rather is an attempt to slowly erase one’s identity. The censoring does not end here but it takes up in its hurricane even the way one dresses. The attention has been given to the Charlie Hebdo incident – the larger question here that comes up is whether those in the West or even those nearer home have any right to question someone on how they dress or speak. One needs to understand the underlying fear and hence the idea of a threat from someone who is not “aligned” with the way the masses speak or dress. Hence the idea of the “Other” emerges. Edward Said in his theory on post-colonialism discussed in detail how the “Other” functions as a comparison or differentiation to validate one’s actions and ideas against such people. But in the current “cosmopolitanism” world, the Other is not far away in some exotic country but we have created these ideas closer to where we live. And this has been brought out in a very powerful way in this novel.

“From feeling embarrassed for belonging to east India a moment ago, he re-established himself as a refined Urdu-speaking Delhiite.”

One cannot help but recall Franz Fanon’s texts here; how his critical works were shedding light on the psychological effect on the subaltern’s mind when his right to speak is taken away. The crisis of identity that gets created through this method leads towards a fragmented self and that is what the novel has tried to capture at various levels where such a crisis of identity is possible to create and sustain.

“For the new generation, the town does not revive a scarring memory; it’s just another name lost in the list of many such across the country – unknown, unheard.”

There is a dismissive attitude towards arts and culture by the seekers of technology and science and in one sentence in this book, it highlights the dangers of how in the name of progress the attributions have now been slowly weaned away from other fields towards attaining a purely scientific temperament. Charles Dickens’s quote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” resonates in this book and in the world at large if one can dare say. The censorship is not limited only to certain identifiers. It extends to the bodies as well and who else but women are expected to be the upholders of culture and tradition. The novel looks at how women are policed and what is expected of them and from them. It also gives a satirical insight into how young men are expected to consider all women as their sisters or mothers; without addressing or acknowledging that they can possibly feel more than what is expected of them.

“What kind of a world we dreamt of,
and what kind of a world we have become.”

Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea of the Carnivalesque plays out to a certain extent in this novel. There is an attempt to subvert the dominant structures and the nightmares that our protagonists witness in this novel. This to a certain extent gives them the chance to not just witness but participate in attempting to escape the chaos through their humorous interludes from the atmosphere that would otherwise suffocate them to death. It is the world that favours those who are ready to erase the voices of others to preserve their own. It plays out really well through writings: how the construction of texts can be a way to erase certain voices and how that absence can be integral in constructing a new world.

“Shutting your eyes can be an escape from the world before you, but not from the one within.”

The book comes a full circle with no escape in sight. The dreadful opening scene is played out again towards the end of the work. This is no longer a dystopia. This is the reality that we are part of and breathing in, with no recourse to breathing anything out.

The book was originally published in Hindi in 2016 and the translation in English comes at a time when the ideas are screaming out of the book and asking us to look at where we are going. Trying to stop us from falling into the clutches of a never-ending abyss that we are hurtling towards.