Page 75 - EducationWorld September 2020

exploring of the root idea as a metaphor for the In-
of inter-cultural love and dian novel in English, its SMALL DAYS AND NIGHTS
the ‘in between space’ desire to view Indian life Tishani Doshi
that Doshi explored in her through an estranging, W.W. NORTON & COMPANY
first novel (The Pleasure and, somewhat distort- Rs.350
Seek ers (2010)) about the ing, lens.
offspring of the original Above all, Small Pages 261
inter-racial adventures. Day s and N ights sets
This story is of the second out to tell a woman’s
generation. It shows that story, of woman as an
Grace, the daughter of the outsider and a survivor. are reflections wrapped
inter-racial lovers, has no Freed of myths about around a slender thread
predefined script to follow. the “binding vine” of the of action. Grace arrives in Freed from the
For, unlike in the case great Indian family and Madras from America — it ‘binding vine’ of the
of the Welsh Sian and clan, Grace observes the is always Madras, and not great Indian family
the Indian Babo of The diverse facets of modern Chennai, such is the senti- and clan, in this lyrical
Pleasure Seek ers, whose consumerist India, its mental value of vanished novel the author
love endures, the lovers in accelerated urbanisation landmarks for the author observes the diverse
Small Day s and N ights — with little regard for — following news of her facets of modern
Indian Mira and the Ital- the environment, the mother’s sudden death in consumerist India
ian Giacinto, but also the widening class and Pondicherry.
Indian Grace and Ameri- caste divides and the The arrival has about
can Blake — drift apart. criminalisation of Indian it the finality of return as vicinity of a not-so-idyllic
The wrecked marriage of politics. she says goodbye to her village on the perilous edge
parents has consequences ore to the point, American life — a possible of an expanding city.
for their daughters, espe- Mshe can cut through diasporic story is merci- Tishani Doshi is a poet
cially for the elder Grace, all this hardness and fully stopped in its tracks. who prefers to write slowly.
the protagonist of this craze of modern life to its She also says goodbye to She extends the principle
novel, who grows up ut- essential source in men’s her marriage to Blake, one of slow writing to her prose
terly alienated and lonely desire for mastery of the that flounders on the issue works too, as exhibited
due to her estranged ‘softness’ — read mother of having a child. Instead, in The Pleasure Seek ers.
parents. nature — of women in she decides to act on her Similarly, Small Day s and
In a key passage, Grace their nurturing avatar, mother’s wish to get to N ights, published nine
recounts why she is the that the world needs. know her younger sister years after her first novel,
way she is. “I cannot In what is probably a Lucia who she never sus- has a richness of texture
imagine the security of manifesto-like passage pected to have existed. and a narrative fluidity. It
being born in a place and on eco-feminist writing Doshi manages this is a beautiful ode, at the
knowing it to be mine. To in recent literature, Grace suspense adroitly as she level of style, to silence,
think of ancestors whom describes how troubles blithely guides us through slow time and smallness
I resemble, who knew stem from the desire Grace’s misty childhood (small in the Schumach-
this land, its language, to use the body as a recall of her mother’s erian sense).
its people. There must be weapon, as a ladder — for mysterious Thursday It is the poetry of
such confidence in this “climbing, conquering, outings back when she Doshi’s writing — its
existence, this knowledge descending, dwindling” lived with her parents immediacy reinforced by
that everything you have — rather than seeing in Madras. In fact, she the continuously sustained
lived has been lived before it as a spreading ‘lake’. wants to do more than get present tense — that helps
by your parents and their Though spoken in the to know her sister; she to make this melancholic
parents. All my life I have context of lovemaking, transforms into a caregiver and heart-breaking story
stood outside, like my the vocabulary expands for Lucia, a girl with of estranged marriages,
father, like my mother, to acquire a wider Down’s Syndrome. What parental negligence,
standing behind a glass, connotation about how to unfolds is a deeply human loneliness, and of sisterly
looking in.” relate to other people and story of the two sisters solicitude bearable, even
This quote — especially to nature. living in an idyllic ‘pink compelling.
the expression ‘standing The novel has layers house’ on the beach, with HIMANSU S. MOHAPATRA
behind a glass’ — serves of reminiscence — these their furry friends in the ŠThe Book Review , August)

SEPTEMBER 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 75