There is nothing better than life and one’s experiences to source from to write a story. Nidhi Dalmia does that and sculpts “Harp”, a fiction about about love, longing and coming of age, in a simple language and style. The novel follows the lives of three protagonists as they engage with cultural, sexual, student revolutions and the music of the ‘60s.
So we have Ashok, a young man travelling in a Europe covered by the Iron Curtain, who forms the pivot of the story, a young woman Lauren whose calling is music and Aparna, who has loved and lost. Encompassing these journeys is also a quest on their part to know themselves better and seek what they really want. These aspects reflecting real life situations and the universality of emotions resonates well with the reader.
Confessing his desire to write for long, Dalmia says, “We all have stories to tell. I too wanted to write and inspired by the Rolling Stones song, ‘Catch your dreams before they slip away’, decided to pen ‘Harp’.” That does not seem the sole aim of the book as its characters demonstratethe tug of war faced by each individual while making some crucial life decisions. “The purpose was to tell a tale about how love and obligation compartmentalise people, making them choose between love and duty, between the head and the heart, between one’s social contract and what one wants. The individual choices one has to make with profound consequences,” explains Dalmia.
Doing this deftly these come out vividly as one reads Ashok’s inner conflict when forced to choose between his love and his parents and Lauren’s dilemma between her affection and passion for music. Incidentally, the title of the story comes from Lauren’s dedication to harp. “This commitment partly drives the narrative and hence the choice of name,” reveals Dalmia. Going further, he adds, just as Frank Sinatra in the song “Old Blue Eyes” says you have to do it your way. “Therein lies individualism. These answers come from within. Its instinct plus reason. At times there is a trade off but one still has to choose. Not easy to make the roads taken shape your life.”
Like Ashok, Dalmia underwent extensive professional training across the world and has had experience in running dairy product factories. So is the novel biographical? “It draws broadly on my travels through Europe as a young man and the training I received in factories there. Similarly, it draws a little bit on the women I encountered and the relationships I had and also somewhat on the struggle to please my parents. One always draws on one’s experiences. The rest was imagination. The characters acquired more and more life as I wrote. Also it came partly from many interesting people one encounters in life’s journey. Their personalities and traits get mixed up, as do their stories. Many things are invented, imagined both in the narrative and in the personae of the characters, as it should be in fiction,” he explains. The author’s extensive travel abroad makes the description of places like Amsterdam, Lyon, Dijon, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Cracow and Helsinki very authentic.
Set in the 60s, “Harp” provides a window of that period including its hopes, dreams, idealism music and the change in the generation. Talking about young Indians then, Dalmia says, “They would honour tradition especially our philosophy and spirituality where it made sense and gave a deeper meaning to life’s eternal questions while experimenting and embracing modernity in the areas of technology, freedom of thought and culture. An eclectic best from the West and the East instead of as often happens unfortunately the worst from both places.” Ashok symbolises this change.
Beyond the romantic element, Dalmia makes some interesting observations about the prevailing economic and political situation in India then which in the liberalised atmosphere since 1991 may seem quaint to young readers. “India was stuck in the licence, quota, permit raj. The red tape and bureaucracy was tremendous. Business was perversely thought to be bad by the Government and obstacles put in its way. It was one of the hardest places to do business as my Harvard professor later commented. The political atmosphere became populist and instead lifting our people up and genuinely removing poverty through unleashing the economic potential of this sleeping giant the effort became one of bringing down the few successful,” says Dalmia
