Fiction, 2021
Despite the fact that I am now dying in Delhi heat, I was in Goa a few days ago, where I was dying in tropical humidity. Early one morning, my friend and I decided to wake up before everyone else in our villa and head out to the beach. We figured that the earlier we went, the less the sand would burn. What we failed to account for was our tendency to get distracted by anything and everything. We made it a few steps into the main street when we stopped for coffee, had a smoke, meandered through shops, and tried our hardest to get a scooter on rent (we failed). By the time we reached the beach, the sun was high, and we were drenched with sweat before we even touched the sea. But there was such an exquisite release in submerging oneself completely in salt water, being thrashed and whipped by waves, and feeling somehow cleansed after the ordeal. After weeks of a reading slump, China Room provided similar relief to that of a large body of water.
We follow two timelines, one in the 1920s, when Indian revolutionaries were recruiting young men to join the fight against the British, and one in the 1990’s when Indian immigrant families realise that pain and suffering cannot be escaped no matter how far you move. In the former, Mehar is a young child bride who adjusts to a new life at her in-laws’ house and, through a lowered veil, tries to figure out which of the three brothers present is her husband. She knows one of them visits her at night, alone in the dark, but who it is remains a mystery. In the latter, a young man returns to his ancestral village from England. He struggles to get over his “fever”, sweating and vomiting constantly and using copious amounts of alcohol to abate his desire for another hit. Eventually, he finds himself alone in the same house that Mehar spent her life in.
The two stories intertwine, but do so delicately, with the kind of simultaneous distance and care that only Indian generational stories can possess. The novel is written like a secret told, making it feel like something that should be whispered in the dark and only thought about in private or when deep underwater, so that no human forces can penetrate this protective bubble.
Song - Dheere Jalna
Film - Rang De Basanti
miss goa, missed reading your reviews