Krishna Sobti’s last novel, A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There, written at the age of 92, is a bit of a disappointment. I long thought if that’s the most appropriate way to begin a review. But then I am also tasked to write about an author who was a trendsetter, and who, through her dogged defiance of norms, set new standards in modern Hindi fiction. E Ladaki , Mitro Marjani are cult classics, and rightly so. Her inventiveness with language, the strong women characters, and experimentation with format and structure of storytelling are unparalleled.
These Sobtiesque traits are there in this novel too, but here she seems like a poor shadow of the feisty writer we once knew. I missed the raging, spirited, radical Sobti, an author who became a friend through the many silent conversations we had in the pages of her books.
Semi-autobiographical in nature, A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There, is based upon her real-life experiences of having served as the governess to Maharaja Tej Singh, the child Maharaja of the princely state of Sirohi in a newly independent India. Sobti appears as herself in the novel. The names, location remain unchanged. It is a queer experiment in merging fact with fiction, and Sobti’s personal family history with the larger narrative of the nation.
Sobti chronicles her memories of Partition, studying in Lahore, setting up a new life in Delhi, and then coming to Sirohi for the job. She reminisces on the Lahore that she has left behind, wonders about identity in her adopted home, but it is nowhere close to what she managed to achieve with her magnum opus, Zindaginama . Partition is the backdrop of this novel but it largely fails to capture Sobti’s conflicted state of mind.
However, one observes how the memory of Partition continued to haunt her even in her last work: she is constantly trying to find new ways to revisit what was lost forever.
I have always known Sobti as a deeply political writer. Here too she critiques feudalism and the inherent sexism in the princely state. However, her affection and concern for the child-king overshadows the politics of the princely states and their integration with a newly independent India.
This is the least provocative of her novels and not the best memory of Sobti that I would want to treasure. However, we remain grateful to Daisy Rockwell for her continuous attempts to bring the finest of Hindi writers to a larger reading public.
The writer, a culture critic, teaches literary and cultural studies at FLAME University, Pune.
A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There; Penguin/Hamish Hamilton, Krishna Sobti, trs Daisy Rockwell, ₹499
Published - April 20, 2019 04:00 pm IST
