It's not easy to speak in many voices and escape being called two-faced. Unless, of course you are a prolific writer like Namita Gokhale, who switches between fiction, research works and children's literature with the practised ease of a seasoned Delhi commuter. Some 27 years after her first novel — “Paro: Dreams of Passion” — came out to considerable acclaim, the author has resurrected its characters in “Priya In Incredible Indyaa”, launched in New Delhi by Penguin this past week.
The first person narrator remains Priya, the girl whose parents found her a laudable match — a lawyer “of sober habits” — in “Paro”. By now she has grown into a middle-aged woman, and her husband has bagged a minister of state portfolio. As we see Priya struggling with Delhi's high society, her approaching menopause and finding a suitable wife each for her twins, who happen to be as alike as the proverbial sun and moon, we realise how much not only Priya, but India too has changed.
Back to social comedy
The tone of “Paro” may be wicked and unsparing as well, but the difference in canvas between the two novels is palpable. Perhaps it's the extreme shallowness of the party world — the over-the-top parody of the Botox pumping, numerology obsessed glitterati and the ‘powerati' — that Priya finds herself negotiating as the wife of a small time minister, which makes the reader grimace in wonder: isn't it a bit too plastic? But Namita is not into a socio-political analysis of India the allegedly emerging superpower. “I don't think it was even meant to be believable,” she says.
How easy was it to go back to those characters, with nearly three decades and nine books in between? “It was difficult to find that voice again,” notes Namita, while clarifying that “Priya” is not a sequel to her first novel, but more of an “exercise”.
Having many of the same characters meant many constraints, she says. And though conceding one's first novel is always special, she adds, “I've had fun writing this book. I thought it was time to go back to social comedy.”
Being a noted publisher and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival doesn't leave one with the peace and quiet an author might crave. “Delhi…leisure…very difficult,” she muses, as if arranging the thoughts in her head, and remarks, “Delhi is very, very frenetic.”
October to January is her “Jaipur season.” Once the literature festival is over in January, she uses February to “recover”. Namita recalls the Greek myth about Demeter and her daughter Persephone, in which Demeter goes to the underworld to save Persephone. Because Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds while being held there, she has to return to the underworld for six months every year, when the earth marks her departure with a cold, harsh winter. “My life is like that,” says Namita.
Her period of hiding, though, is in the summer. Her favourite months in the city are May and June. Broiling temperatures keep her indoors till evening, when she goes for a swim. It's in this season that she gets most of her work done, she says. Also, “it's a time to bond,” she notes. “I at least get to spend time with my real friends.”
That vital distinction between “real” friends and those one must compulsorily socialise with is distinctly reminiscent of the commitments her protagonist Priya juggles. What connects Namita to a universe she so devastatingly caricatures?
“At first I just didn't go to dinner parties I didn't believe in,” she admits. “But I realised people do get hurt and offended.” Sometimes turning up at such events is “a way of showing solidarity,” she adds. However, there are also parties she will “studiously avoid” — the kind where she feels she and her friends are used as “props”.
But she and Priya don't have much in common beyond, perhaps, the age group and the piquant commentary. “I'm in the same time zone as she's in,” she states. “For a lot of women of my generation the world has changed so rapidly that a lot of us don't know how to fit in,” says Namita.
Smitten with Sita
While India, although it may not be renamed “Indyaa” in a hurry, seems in a hurry to shed everything old, writers like Namita are smitten with Sita.
“Clearly Sita is a subconscious obsession,” observes Namita, who has co-edited “In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology” with Malashri Lal. She points out how Priya's twins are named Luv and Kush, and the company owned by BR, the industrialist who plays an important role in Priya's life, is Sita Sewing Machines.
But not many Indian women who consider themselves modern and emancipated would look to Sita as a role model. “The danger of discarding Sita is you may discard values like loyalty, strength, determination, and…those relating to a larger family setup,” says Namita. “Western feminism is sometimes too simplified, because they try to make women into men — and society needs women!”
By this she is “not making a gendered statement,” explains Namita, but referring to qualities like “nurturing and connecting, and men can have those traits.” Western feminism, with its thrust on economic fulfilment, is “an incomplete story,” feels the author.
“Ode to the housewife”
For someone who suggests “Priya…” could be called “an ode to the housewife,” this is an easy position to take, but again, how many English medium-educated young women today would be proud of being a housewife? Even the term is practically obsolete. “I'm not making a patriarchal statement,” she maintains. “Our society is held together by family values, not welfare.” She cites her own example, saying she would have been “in a very bad space” having lost her husband at a young age, if not for her family.
The Indian woman, the pivot of the family, has a “peculiar capacity to be so many things,” constantly balancing egos and situations. This quality is apparent in Priya too — who learns to use silence to deal with her husband's infidelity.“There's a very subtle difference between keeping your silence and being silenced. Sometimes keeping silent is making a statement,” says Namita, “but being silenced is repression. Choosing to be silent is a form of speech, and I think Indian women are masters of the idea of being silent.”
Rarely was silence more eloquently broken.
