The story line of this book is easy to sketch out but the story itself defies simplistic description. Tomb of Sand was awarded the international Booker, in addition to the many other accolades it received, along with excellent reviews worldwide.
The award committee alluded to the “playful tone and exuberant wordplay” and in the process encouraged many to pick up this novel. What makes the Hindi to English translation by Daisy Rockwell of ‘Ret Samadhi’ to ‘Tomb of Sand’ (Penguin) truly enjoyable is the ease with which the author moves from the routine to the unexpected and on to the indefinable.
As the story is based out of North India, the India-Pak setting provides all the situational props, perhaps required by the author in order to show and not just tell her story. The story commences and a staid upper class north Indian family drama unfolds, but soon the characters with some potential deflate while those with our least expectations bloom. The worldly confidence of the practical and influential ‘Bade’ and his wife start appearing commonplace after some time, especially as they prepare for retirement along with their aged and immobile ‘Ma’.
Then the unexpected happens and ‘Ma’, like Rip van Winkle wakes up, moves in with her bohemian daughter ‘Beti’ and starts savouring every bit of her newly found life. As the tale picks up, the life of the bohemian ‘Beti’ now starts appearing conventional in comparison to Ma’s antics. Ma intensifies her old friendship with Rosie, a transgender whose character escapes easy definition. This shapeshifter type of a personality nudges the action towards the unpredictable and the unconventional.
As Ma’s life takes centerstage, the action borders on the surreal and the story shifts into high-octane overdrive. Locations and situations whirl around us, as do the observations around love, longing, relationships, nostalgia and other human emotions. The reader continues to dive deeper into the labyrinths of the author’s narrative as complex human sentiments are portrayed through the principal protagonist and other characters.
Summarising the book further or quoting more excerpts may not do justice to an outstanding effort by the author and the translator. To reveal more details of the story would be quite pointless as it would amount to missing the woods for the trees. There is deft handling of feminism from multiple perspectives while celebrating the life of an individualist. As the author famously writes “Anything worth doing transcends borders.”
After some action across the border, Ma finally sheds the identity associated with her during most of the story. Finding her true love she regains a refreshed and a somewhat selfish individuality. In the last quarter of the book, one does develop a feeling that the story should finally end and the whirlwind making us giddy must cease. Lacking a typical plot, the literati are advised patience for taking in this over 700-page piece of fiction. Appreciate it they would, but I wonder if most ‘nonNorth Indians’ would really enjoy the social intricacies of the region embedded in the story as much as the decreasing tribe of North Indian readers would.
As the story concludes, one gets to appreciate the simple joys surrounding our lives and the complexities needlessly smothering individual existence. The author’s ability to wrap the mundane around the sublime, intertwining the experiential with the unreal may well lead some to identify this book with the genre of magical realism. Like a fine drink this one must be savoured and sipped leisurely and not gulped down in a hurry.
A comment on translations: Quality translations from Hindi to English are opening a whole new world for the discerning reader in India and overseas. Over centuries mythological stories from the Hellenic period have witnessed mediocre works being replaced by outstanding translations from Greek to English. It is these high quality writings that made the Hellenic mythology and philosophy the bedrock of Western literature and thought.
Readers and writers in the subcontinent have a lot to look forward to as translations have come of age. Contemporary writers as well as interesting stories from ancient Indian literature from the earliest periods to 11th CE will, perhaps, receive a renewed effort at translations in India
