Like a Masochist

To me, a novel is basically an account of people.

So when I read, I read about people and interpersonal relationships, of a struggle to make sense of life, to understand ones place in the scheme of things. I find myself getting increasingly involved with ordinary people and something unique and extra-ordinary emerges out of each and every so called ordinary.

On reading Shashi Deshpandes collection of short stories, a number of characters with extreme inner anxieties and doubts were flung in the forefront. I could identify with some aspect of each and every character - as they were constantly engaged in questioning and evaluating the meaning of ideals, attitudes, actions and reactions of people in personal interactions and relationships and in the process themselves.

Since it turned out to be an expose of sorts – people no matter how ordinary or extraordinary, have been mercilessly dissected by her – even though at the end of every story, they may or may not have come to a final understanding or resolve.

A central theme is the “Quest for Identity”. Her main concern is the urge to find oneself, to create space for oneself, to grow on one’s own, which holds true for the men and women in her stories alike.

“He did not know what he had intended to do when he first entered the water. Perhaps he had hoped to cool the fire that was in him.”

“Why is she asking so many questions now? Do you have to come as close to death to ask questions about life? Must we live unquestioningly, unthinkingly, until death comes upon us?”

Despite usage of flashback and role played by memory, the entire setting of the characters is in real time. One cannot help but turn into a mute, even invisible spectator to the sequence of events.

“Even today when I remember his letters, it’s like being jerked back into the state they threw me in. the memory knocks the breath out of me and I cease to be a woman of 40 to whom a man and what he does to my body become and matter of routine and habit. I go back to being a girl, standing outside a door, knowing little of what’s inside the room, certain nevertheless that I want to, no, that I fiercely long to be inside the charmed room.”

Most of the characters have an ambivalent need for independence on one side and on the other a need to belong, and such are the responses at different stages of life. Even though the man is the provider of the family, the woman forms the core of a family. Any and every quake begins and ends at her. As a result, a number of relationships become very geometric based on hierarchy and a policy of not asking questions – ‘Mother-Daughter’, ‘Mother-Father’, ‘Mother-Self’.

“I have never known her needs, never spoken to her of mine.”

Several marriages are built on the principle of attraction highlighting a streak of rebellion on the part of the women.

“I join him in speaking of family and old friends, as if there is nothing else in coon between us. I ruefully think of how I’d planned the evening. I’ll tackle it at last, I’d thought…”

Each and every character is caught in a tryst, a search – and it remains a constant across gender, across age, factions of the society and across every story. Thereby bringing out a voyeuristic streak in the reader, without directly relating to the subject of whose life is being observed - from a distance, using stealth (in this case a keen imagination) to chance upon their most weak and private moments.

Complete TT: Tragic but touching.