Mamta Kalia

The mention of Madam Ripley Bean’s
fear of her father in the very first
introduction of her in the novel gives us an
important clue. The answer Madam Bean
gives when the journalist asks her who the
girl was and why she remained silent even
though she knew her saying in the court that
when James’s murder took place Allen was
with her could have saved Allen’s life unveils
the secret. The key that makes it clear that
the girl in question is really Madam Ripley
Bean herself is the fact of the girl’s fear of her
father. This is the last meeting of Madam
Bean and the journalist. Madam Bean’s
answer is: “The girl was a coward. How
much she desired to cry out to the world
that Allen is not the murderer! But she was
afraid . . . The girl was afraid of her father.
You don’t know what kind of times they
were.”
“I had got my answer.”
In fact, there are other indications in the
novel that Madam Bean herself is Allen’s
lover. Like, the existence of Allen’s letters
with her, and finding in her book the last
message that Allen had sent her through
Kallu Mehtar and Fr Camillus that said ‘No
regret my love.” The technique of revealing
clues gradually all along the development of
the plot of the novel caters to our pleasure
by whetting our curiosity and then satisfying
it.
The progress of the story through the
medium of a relay race of ghosts – this, in
fact, can be found in connection with an
ancient Indian narrative system too.
Gunadhya’s Brihatkatha has been narrated
through the medium of ghosts and
Gunadhya had written it down with his own
blood. Kathasaritsagar is the extant form of
this Brihatkatha. K. Ayyappa Paniker calls
this ‘chain narrative’ but Vibhuti Narayan
Rai has improved upon this technique in his
novel – here the chain is of narrators. At the
beginning of the novel, the narrator is a
journalist, who subsequently plays the role
of the audience. The presence of this
‘audience’ in the very text of the novel
endows it with throbbing life. When the
thread of the story is in the hands of ghosts,
the novel assumes a magical quality. The
combination of amazing storytelling, hidden
transcripts of time and visual images renders
a rare beauty to the story. The role of the
audience keeps alternating here from
between those of the reader, the spectator
and listener. And the three dimensional
narration is tightly integrated with the
thread of the story.
Contemporary English novelist Allan
Sealy adopts the structure of Kalidasa’s
Ritusamhara in his novel Everest Hotel. This
is an outstanding example of the encounter
of contemporary realities with Indian
narrative traditions. The latest novel of
Vibhuti Narayan Rai is significant from this
standpoint too that here we find a counter
telling of the unilenear colonial model of
narration.
Courtesy : ‘Tadbhav’, Lucknow
ed. by Akhilesh.
0o0
Prem ki Bhoot Katha : Vibhuti Narayan Rai.
Bharatiya Jnanpith, New Delhi. Rs 140/-.
April-June 2010 :: 159