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Facts, fiction & a heady concoction

THE young may inadvertently may bear a palpable disconnect with the historical events of India and the world during the 20th century.

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Suparna-Saraswati Puri

THE young may inadvertently may bear a palpable disconnect with the historical events of India and the world during the 20th century. Keki N Daruwalla’s Swerving To Solitude: Letters to Mama tries to bridge this gap. Meandering through the Emergency and Lal Salaam era, the storyline deftly maps a century’s political history, connecting pre-Independence India with Canada, America, Mexico and Russia. The script is nuanced with just the right measure of storytelling elements that highlight an engaging perspective on politics, history and human beings, in this order.

Set essentially in Lucknow, Seema, the story’s protagonist and narrator, is a journalist who embarks on an introspective journey through correspondence with her long-gone mother. The maze of subplots encompassing the narrator’s relationship with her husband, close friends, relatives and an unconventional parent accentuate Daruwalla’s remarkable talent for detail and an enviable sense of humour. 

Statements like, ‘Dreams are not just visuals, feelings are part of the play’ or ‘Journalism is a stretching exercise, keeps the joints trim’ or ‘Gotra-ghetto-thinking must be quite incestuous’ or ‘Thought and tyranny never go hand in hand,’ provide glimpses of an acclaimed poet, known for eloquence and delightful expressions. Laced with acerbic wit, the less than 250-page novel delves into the idiosyncrasies of ordinary and extraordinary people across landscapes, leaving impressions on time.

The author successfully manages to  weave an expansive canvas for a story that pegs on historical references (the Communist movement of British India and abroad, The Russian Revolution). This is especially done in terms of personalities (MN Roy, Indira Gandhi, Stalin) and socio-political phenomenon (the Diaspora, McCarthysim).  For students of the past, the book’s read may provide a crash course in world history as documented by Burns and Ralph. Indeed, ‘Each shift has an underlying narrative that may or may not open itself to language.’

For avid readers of the poet Daruwalla, the book proves to be a literary detour that is most certainly a stimulatingly and equally amusing read. His decades-long experience in writing that translates the profound into literature, that enjoys a wide range pf appeal and appreciation is evident in the smooth pace of the story. At the same time, it reiterates somewhat poignantly — ‘reality is too big for any human being to comprehend in its entirety.’

Swerving To Solitude is like a kaleidoscope, the prism of which may appear to some as playing the devil’s advocate. The fact that a great change is brought about by great personalities may appear to be a misnomer for many because, ‘Time does take its own time to screw you.’ It is not often that we get a view of events, a perspective on personalities who may have commanded a bit more than a mention as a footnote in the annals of history. And one that is not marred by exaggeration or underestimation.  

From the lives of characters etched in this book, a takeaway is that life’s unpredictability and suddenness itself heighten the endeavours of many who chose to tread differently.

From disembarking at wrong station(s) to eventually arriving at the right places, the walk undertaken is worthwhile if the gaze is not on the so-called mandatory or prescribed and conformed ways of walking because, ‘you need to be careful when you are tired.’

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