Manoranjan Byapari’s novel, Imaan , translated by Arunava Sinha from the Bengali original, Chhera Chhera Jibon , is an unsentimental look at poverty, hunger, death, displacement, the human will to live, the desire for company, and the meaninglessness of existence. But, written with Byapari’s characteristic candour, Imaan did not make me sad at all. On the contrary, its black humour made me smile, even laugh out loud at some places.
Sixteen-year-old Imaan Ali had entered jail at the age of six months with his mother, Zahura Bibi, who had been convicted of murdering her husband, Imaan’s father. Imaan’s mother was sentenced to 10 years in prison but she died of tuberculosis within three years. Imaan — innocent, but with no one to litigate for him — grew up in jail among other convicts, spending 16 years there before being finally released. This novel tells us how this teenager, who had “always dunked a plate in a tank of water and poured it on himself” and “had never seen anyone actually dipping themselves in water for a bath”, learns to survive outside the safe confines of the prison.
Teeming world
The safety of the prison for certain people is the central irony: “The jail is much better for a poor man. Outside the jail, you can die on the pavement. No one will care. Here…[three] meals a day [are] assured. Plus a roof, no rain, a blanket in winter.”
This inverted view makes perfect sense when we see the world through the eyes of the protagonist and those around him — all of them migrants from poverty-stricken villages or ecologically sensitive areas, who have turned into illegal squatters in bustling Kolkata. There are ragpickers, scrap-dealers, prostitutes, men who deal in corpses. The novel at times seems more about these colourful peripheral
characters than about Imaan, who appears to be just a means of taking us to the world Byapari wants us to see. We are introduced to them in Chapter 2, which is entirely woven around a death in the squatters’ colony. The characters converge at the dead man’s shack: his widow’s efforts at crying “for fear of being shamed by everyone else if she did not” are as hilarious as painful.
Moments of tenderness
Caste, as is inevitable, plays an important role. Byapari demonstrates how law enforcement agents and public perception are biased when it comes to the caste of an offender. The police would not believe that a “Braahmon” could be a thief, working along with “Kaora Bagdis... Muslims, [and] Namashudras.” Elsewhere, a pickpocket brandishes a Brahmin surname and wears a poita (sacred thread) because the ruse often saves him from thrashings.
Within this makeshift world, there are moments of tenderness too, especially in scenes featuring the three ragpickers, Polashi, Kamini and Brojo. Polashi intrigued me, for whenever she appears she is ready to bathe or clean her body. Is the act of bathing symbolic? Early in the novel, we see Imaan perspiring profusely, the sweat “streaming across the government seal on his arm [marking him as a former jailbird], all but obliterating it.”
The “government seal” stands for a person’s reputation, which is supposedly tarnished forever once they are sentenced to jail. No amount of bathing can clean that stigma.
So, what about Imaan? Does he survive? Is he accepted? Byapari answers these questions in this entertaining novel, which inspires me enough to make me want to read the Bengali original too.
Imaan; Manoranjan Byapari, trs Arunava Sinha, Eka, ₹499
The reviewer wrote this piece in Chandil, where he is currently posted.
