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Literary Review
Maiden venture
YET another book in Indian diasporic literature. Video by Meera Nair is a set of 10 short stories, most of them set in India. The stories try to capture that which is quixotic and quaint about India. Short, precise but barely taking you above the static world, these well-crafted stories in excellent prose fail to capture the essence of a situation.
Probably the best story in the collection is "My Grandfather Dreams of Fences". An old landlord struggles with the changing times and attitudes of the lower class. He is helpless as Kori, the labourer to whom his father had "given" land, shifts the fences every night. Watching these events is his 15-year-old grandson, who doesn't think twice about going for a movie with Kori's son Ramu.
"Summer" too is a very well written piece. One is almost transported to the long, eventless days of summer in one of Kerala's villages. But the enjoyment and games of the cousins and also the sexual encounters are commonplace. Stories set in Kerala are descriptive and invokes in the reader a feeling of nostalgia for a world that was.
The most improbable story is perhaps "Video". Naseer visits his cousin and has a peek at a western blue film. Watching this film, Naseer is filled with a longing to try out all that he has seen. But his wife refuses. Naseer is persistent, ultimately causing traumatic changes in his wife's behaviour and then, like a chain reaction, through the colony. One is left wondering if men in the land of the Kamasutra really need a western blue film to excite their imagination.
"The Lodger in Room 726" causes moments of consternation in Chik-Chik as he imagines him to be a murderer in hiding. The story builds up well but the denouement leaves you untouched. "The Curry Leaf Tree" is written with an insider's view of Indians in America, their loneliness, their own built-in system of caste and the longing for rich, spicy food of India. Dilip Alva belongs to the new breed of software professionals that America greets with open arms. And thanks to his American job he gets to marry a Mangalorean girl way above his social standing. But in all the picking and choosing that his mother did, one important thing she forgot to make sure was whether the "girl" knows cooking!
"A Certain Sense of Place" leaves you wondering at the purpose of the story itself.
Bill Clinton's visit to a small village in Bangladesh bares the simplicity of the people. "The Sculptor of Sands" tries to invoke a mystical aspect but fails. In "Sixteen Days in December" the story of the death of a journalist and the destruction of the Babri Masjid is interwoven. Nair manages to capture but fragments of the events, in the bargain losing out on the despair and the loss of hope of the times. The last story in the collection, "Vishnukumar's Valentine's day" speaks of the Indian male's contempt and scorn that a day should be set aside to express love. But Vishnukumar's wedding anniversary falls during the week, so every year he and his wife make it a point to eat out. Leaving behind his mother and mother-in-law he and his wife, and this year his son as he has just turned 11, try to enjoy themselves. But they are too caught up in the travails of home life to really do any justice to the food or the restaurant.
Nair went to the U.S. in 1997 to study Creative Writing. And she has put to good use her writing skills and the images of India. This is her first book of short stories.
Video, Meera Nair, Anchor Books, A Division of Random House, 2002, p.191, $12.
NIMI KURIAN
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