Circus of intellectual life

IT has been called an "insider's viewpoint". An attempt at turning one's own upside down - examining in raw intensity every detail of the lives, scrutinising painfully the loves, ruminating sadly on the failures and admitting almost dismally that life for the gin drinkers, like the lotus eaters, is not always rosy. The cynicism is also fashionable.

But somewhere in the tangled web, characters miss their cues and, almost as if on default, give up. There are breezy references to disillusioned lives, which continue on the same track day after day.

Sam, typically the gora chora is in the country of religion, gods and, of course, Scheduled Castes invited by a friend, admirer and secret lover, Uma. Uma is young, with an interesting background, not your usual dal roti family where amma is the mainstay and Dad goes to work. Instead, there is a slight air of dementia in her home. There is no routine except from descriptions of a mother gone awry, drink and depression going hand in hand, and a stoic father with an injured air of quiet heroism of sorts and a daughter who seems to have broken away from the family mould but cannot yet junk the ghosts that flit around her mind. All this added to Delhi's "intellectual" crowd makes for a heady cocktail.

Along the way appears Jaiprakash - SC but ambitious, charming and magnetic - who lures the white skinned, gangly American into the bylanes of Delhi and Badaun, beckoning him to taste the real Hindustan. Uma is unsure and jealous. Fraught with her own personal insecurities and emotional ups and downs, her mother's drink and drug-driven idosyncracies naturally leave Uma wondering if it is time to admit that she might be a victim of unrequited love. "I'm a bit up in the air at the moment," said Uma silently, pretending Misri (the cook) was a colleague in an air conditioned ofice. "Floating, you know. Floating in a rootless, context-less space, trying to nail down a romance with an Englishman without reneging on 1947 and everything I was brought up to hold sacred. Citizen, dignity, being myself.

And now with the intrusion of this other rural man I feel I've lost my edge. He'll (Sam) drift away from me and my body will be of no help, because of course, as you know, he's immune to it."

And what about apna Sam or Sam bhai as Jaiprakash refers to him? He wants Uma and yet he does not. He wants her in the good old Christan context but cannot even for a moment imagine letting go of his emotions. "Sam sat up with his diary, writing eloquently about Uma... My beliefs and my reason for living in a particular way, he wrote, and the choices that I've made in order that we build something that would endure, help us face what will be a difficult life together.

But without love, without commitment to love, or an admission of love, can there be a future?"

Uma and Sam, caught in the crazy deep web of their emotions, their cultural conflicts which become sharper once in India. Sam's obsession with commitment finally resolves itself - thanks to the way that Jaiprakash shows him. Uma accepts the inevitable happy that the object of her unstated desires was finally able to reciprocate her feelings and sighs in bliss over expected matrimony.

And in the sub-plot of the book, the Pamelas, Madhavis, Dhruvs and the like play their own roles in a stellar constellation, with predictable rounds.

Madhavi is back in the country after a somewhat pristine and dry marriage to an ageing academic, baby in tow. She is confronted by Deekay, the man on the periphery, whose life is curiously interwined with Kamini who is adept at social conversations, but childless. Deekay is willing to babysit for Madhavi till he feels a sense of betrayal when she slimes out to sleep with an ex- lover.

Then there is Pamela, the doyen of research, waiting to appoint her successor. Nobody is good enough, till she meets Jaiprakash and almost secretly nurtures him into the man he becomes. She makes sure that the right gates are opened to him and that his ambitious dream can come true. Only then will she retire, with her trusted maid and her memories.

Dhruv and Zahra, living and loving. Oscillating between themselves and others. Seemingly exquisite creatures, whom the angels should bless. But as it turns out, even people like them do have blemishes. But life in the intellectual circus of Delhi continues nevertheless.

And so life carries on in the merry go round. The Gin Drinkers tries to catch life by the horns, but somewhere there is a deliberate blanking out, a repression of the seedy and seamy side of life.

SUCHITRA BEHAL

The Gin Drinkers, Sagarika Ghose, HarperCollins, Rs.295.

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