Shades of Malgudi

THERE are shades of R. K. Narayan in Anita Nair's finely balanced debut novel in the initial introduction to Kaikurissi, an indistinct village/small town in northern Kerala and the characters who inhabit it. It is the place to which Mukundan Nair, the native alien, returns after he retires from a government job. He is back not out of love for the place of his birth but out of sheer compulsions. What distinguishes Kaikurissi from Narayan's Malgudi is the abundance of modern amenities made possible by the arrival of Gulf money. What also distinguishes Nair from Narayan is the basic outlook, the conceptualisation of characters, their distinctive roles and behaviour patterns, and their overt physical concerns, sensuality and ambitions.

Mukundan's nightmare begins when he is haunted by memories of his growing up years, especially the way his mother was treated by his domineering father, Achuthan Nair. He is rescued from this "morass of past" by his old love, Anjana and an alien insider named One-screw Bhasi - a painter and an instinctive nature healer by vocation. Once Mukundan Nair finds his elevated social bearing in the society of unequals, he has no qualms about betraying others' trust. He is his father's son for a while until better sense prevails and he not only blows up the community centre built on Bhasi's land, through his connivance, but also wills a piece of his land to Bhasi, in a deliberate endeavour not only to redeem his conscience but also provide a roof to someone.

Running parallel to the other sub-narratives is Mukundan's enduring love for an unhappily married woman, Anjana, who, after her reunion with the old lover, suddenly feels emboldened to say: "Just because we are man and wife in the eyes of law, he thinks he can treat me as he pleases. As far as he is concerned, I am merely a servant who doubles as a whore." She relishes the thought of living with him for all the consideration he showers in a few weeks that her nine-year old marriage failed to provide. In response, Mukundan goes into a retrospection of sorts: "I know you think I am a good man. A gentle man. Someone you can depend on completely. I don't know if I am that man you make me out to be. My mother begged me to rescue her and take her away. But I didn't. I was afraid of my father, and so I made excuses. If I had done as she has asked me, perhaps she might still be alive. That's the kind of man I am. A weak and undependable creature. Do you want to be a part of such a man's life?" Such reflections form an indispensable part of a mostly smooth narrative.

The novel has a big canvas, a huge backdrop of jasmine flowers, rainbow-hued satin colours, toys, trinkets, fields full of rice and distant hills, mountains, wells, lushgreen bushes, a landscape full of characters with hopes and aspirations that keep alive their sordid existence. What is lacking is the initial promise of humour. A characteristic peculiarly inherent in all R. K. Narayan writings. One plausible reason could be the huge canvas itself, and the handling of which one tries to infuse it with vibrant situations and characters. But those are very few. For instance, convincing Mukundan to get inside the large earthern urn with the belief that it would bring about a new awakening.

Or when Mad Moidui is fooled into accepting a parcel in the post- office while all the time he had been hoping to get money from his son in Dubai. And, of course, some of Power House Ramakrishnan's attempts at influence and respectability.

This is an interesting novel that reads well, and fairly successfully explores undercurrents that run beneath human relationships even in an idyllic rural setting. The novel also, consciously or unconsciously, seeks to explore - at times at the metaphysical level - the plausible journey of a soul and its actions in the face of opportunity, or lack of it. For are not Mukundan and Bhasi perfect stereotypes of the two equations that determine human actions in any situation, or for that matter in any relationship?

SURESH KOHLI

The Better Man, Anita Nair, Penguin, Rs. 250.

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