Suitable Boy: A saga

                     The onset of Covid or Corona virus makes life miserable indeed. Panic sets in when it reaches India and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi declares complete shutdown of India inc. for a period of 21 days. Ah, that has been the real villain since March 2020. Anyway, not that it has been that dark and bleak for all.  There are some positive sides to the lock down that everyone would vouch. Of course hunger, fear of death and survival make dent into the peaceful lives of people but of course, there are some encouraging tinges to it. Anyway, no more on Covid, promise. Thanks to the lock down that disallows movement for a period of three months, this blogger gets a chance to finish the Suitable Boy of Vikaram Seth.  Yea, you heard it right, the same novel of 1500 pages or so.  How about a Book review? Okay, straight to it.

 

                    Ah, this is such a humongous novel by Vikram Seth, the largest novel till now in the world. The novel begins right at the juncture of dependence and independence, when India and Indians have been changing or grappling with the realities. Indians have glaring basic problems (Unfortunately, we have the same problem even today) differences of cultures, languages and a tinge of colonial hangover.

 

                                             The author tries to touch each and every aspect of the society that has been dying in the era of modernity or having a complete overhaul or being threatened by the circumstances and times. He touches prosperity and adversity in special ways. The novelist, talks about political rivalry, the rule of Nawab or dying culture of Nawab, King or Zamindar, Hindu Muslim unity and disunity, and singing, dancing and musical tradition. It talks about the Pul  mela on the Ganges, the reverence of mother river. He talks about the affluence of a Judge and shows, the division of society by showing their choices of apparels, literatures, wines, cars and residential localities or people they wanted to mix with. There is poetry of course, and poetry reading as well.

 

                        The central character, Lata for whom her widow mother searches a suitable groom, roams about through the alleys of India. Through this the author shows the real India, its culture, its clothes, architecture, its resilience and adaptation. At times, India withstand changes, sometime readily accepts the changes, the beauty of life.

 

                             Lata loves, has infatuation of teen age, has to grapple with separation. There is the beauty of writing love letters. Unfortunately, today the gadgets have made it a forgotten art. Her elder brother represents vanity and ego of Colonial Legacy, while her younger brother represents degeneration or a character having a talisman of ‘Idontcare’.

 

                           Suitable Boy, has innumerable strands of story, stories within stories, some resolves instantly while some the author chooses not to resolve. It’s a novel of our past, present and future. Vikram Seth tries effectively to weave a castle bringing materials from the nook and corner of the country. And it is perfect.

Thank you