To spot talent is not difficult, but to get rid of baggage while you're doing it is almost impossible. Adam Lambert was the most unique performer to walk down the stairs of the American Idol stage but lost to a homophobic society. Publishers in India are so intent on their targets that they will launch books that are not good, bad or ugly (at least some emotion would be involved in that) but are inexplicable. In books, especially, good writing often coquettishly smacks you in the face like a delicious slice of literary S&M, waiting for your response; the more intense, the better the prose. But many Indian authors wouldn't know S&M from M&Ms.
Jaishree Misra writes well; you cannot fault her in the construction or presentation of A Scandalous Secret . But that's the problem, it's so clean that it's antiseptic. It's so clean, it's almost see-through: The story, the characters, the slice-of-life she wants you to know, lacks heart. The unfortunate impression left behind after you finish the last chapter is that Misra's editors held her to some kind of contract and she churned out this book simply because she had to. Before the bad news, I have to say, though, that she gets the British tone of voice just right. Yeah, it's a difficult thing to do getting any foreign tongue just so, whether written or spoken; just recall the genius that is DiCaprio in the movie “Blood Diamond”.
Turn of events
Our story begins with Neha Chaturvedi getting ready to host yet another soiree in Delhi with her socialite friends and contacts. But what no one knows is that she has received a letter from a young girl in London who says she's coming to visit, seems innocuous except that this is the child Neha gave away for adoption 18 years ago. Neha's world of puerile happenstance gets rocked only ever so slightly, though. As she ran away from her child once, she does it again, finding some relief at the Ananda spa in the Himalayas where she meets a man but again, it's not what we think. He is merely there so he can play a crucial role as middleman with Neha's husband at the opportune moment. The husband's amorphous persona is only underscored at that point; like anyone is going to take a stranger's advice on how to fix the problems you're having with your spouse.
Meanwhile, daughter Sonya arrives with her friend Estella after some angst about her parents and BF back in the UK. Small digression: Having once entertained two young American girls who entered my house and looked like they had seen the Canterville ghost cantering past when everyone started speaking in English, then demanding bagels and cream cheese (what about some thinly-sliced smoked salmon, I wanted to ask) for breakfast, I was not prepared to like Sonya and Estella, (hey, we all have baggage). It was a surprise to see the balanced approach Misra took with them. They don't complain over-much and have fairly good manners.
But the meeting between Neha and Sonya is underwhelming, we never get the sense of anything but rote emotions at play. In Neha's flashbacks to the time when she was pregnant, too, the reader is unimpressed by emotions that don't seem to plumb any depths with Neha saying things like, “My mother would kill me” and “I just want to go home”. What's that word John Osborne used to such great effect — pusillanimous, that's what she is. Yes, even keeping in mind she was a teenager at the time, surely a tidal wave of despair would have been easier to understand?
For some reason, Misra then throws in the character of Keshav as a possible love interest for Sonya. Of course at that point you're thinking, Sweet Suffering Stars, tell me history is not going to repeat ad nauseam and Misra heeds your prayers by not going down that clichéd road.
Keshav, the son of a driver who gives a Passage to India feel to the story, is interesting for two reasons: Misra actually mentions Forster's book which is a nice touch, and it gives Sonya and Estella way too little credence to imagine that class differences don't seem to matter to them either. Now in what world would that be? Then for Sonya to fall into bed with him in what sounds like an out-house... all a bit much for my suspension of disbelief.
There is a third reason. When Keshav tells Sonya: “How can you just forgive (Neha)? ...in India a mother is like a devi... Sacrificing her last morsel of food for her children!” It may be a Hindi movie, OTT sentiment, but I think that's preferable to the milk-and-water relationship between Sonya and her mother. In fact, between all the bit players here and the tone of the novel in general.
And that's my last morsel of M&Ms on offer.
