To Indians, the loss of a loved one is a complex emotional journey borne by a community with methodological cultural rituals. Indian-American literature has long dipped into this pervasive topic, approaching it in various ways with various undertones. In No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal, a construct is formed in a “refreshing, constructive and funny” way — an angle that has held Hyderabad’s interest, and continues to do so.
Rakesh shares, “I wanted to take the majority’s idea of what an Indian or Indian-American book entails and subvert that. If you go through the immigrant experience, it has to be inherently heavy and troubled in a lot of ways.” He should know, considering that he is a second generation Indian-American; his mother is from Mumbai and his father from Delhi, before coming to America in the 1970s, “a bewildering and alienating place where co-workers can’t pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class.”
The chaos of loss
No One Can Pronounce My Name follows an Indian-American family that suddenly experiences the death of their idolised daughter, Swati. The family’s world is tilted on its axis; mother Ranjana, who is catatonic following her daughter’s passing, starts to suspect her husband is having an affair, and her son, Harit, deals with the loss in an emotionally unorthodox way; he starts to dress up as his sister every night, as if she is still alive.
While this coping mechanism seems to hint at a Norman Bates angle, Satyal explains how he wanted the recurring theme of loss to be dealt with in a thoughtful, yet light-hearted way, “I think that grief or mourning have a way of forcing people into their animalistic or primitive instincts. There are ideas of self-protection, because you’re scared of the vulnerability that you’re facing. So that’s what precipitated the approach that Harit would be in a very compromised emotional position, which brings out some instinctive reactions in him.” Rakesh hopes Harit’s journey will, in exploring this specific coping mechanism, lead to a positive sense of closure.
A frequent product of grief is infidelity; to fill voids that loss creates, people often seek out connections to compensate. Ranjana starts to suspect her own husband of doing so, which leads to a huge shift in family dynamics. Rakesh addresses the assimilation between the characters in ways that he hopes will not be pitied but empathised.
Rakesh also builds a narrative around the cultural verges that occur within the family, “There’s this scene where Harit and his mother end up at a temple where a dull service is happening for a woman whose family member has recently passed away. So at the temple, there’s this combination of people’s piety and the reverence for the fact that they’re there under sad circumstances. But at the same time, it’s very social and the women are kind of gossiping with each other. Our culture is dichotomous in that there’s a respect and proper decorum, and on the other hand there’s an ending point of the grieving process.”
Another convention Rakesh tries to steer away from is that in America, people who are not Indian assume that most Indian conventions revolve around religion, that people are defined by their religion. Social factors that affect the intricate situations within the book construct an argument that they are defined by more than just religious parameters.
New Territories
Prashant, Harit’s brother, is thrown into the deep end as he goes off to college and experiences an existential quandary, according to Rakesh, “Because he’s been in such a closed environment and that he hasn’t really explored outside of himself, he worries that he isn’t emotionally equipped to be an adult. And with all the privilege he’s grown up, he’s also concerned he won’t be able to form any meaningful connections with somebody else. It’s an intergenerational thing; whatever children of immigrants have gained through privilege and education and opportunity, they sometimes waft in emotional depth.”
Additionally, Prashant finds himself attracted to an Indian girl in college. His capacity to handle multiple life events is an aspect that will resonate with many readers.
With the positive reception his 2009 book Blue Boy received, it is evident Rakesh strives to approach topics important to him, to fellow Indian-Americans and to Indians, and No One Can Pronounce My Name is no different. However, the reach of his works goes beyond borders, thanks to the commonality of the recurrent ideologies and to the globalisation of the literary industry.
( No One Can Pronounce My Name, published by Picador, will be available on Amazon India from May 2 2017)
