Arzee the Dwarf - Samhita Arni

BooksA Class ApartA refreshing change in a literature that often tends to reflect the narrow,English-speaking world of its writers and many of its readersSamhita ArniIn my last review, of Ali Sethi’s TheWishmaker, I bemoaned the outpouringof semi-autobiographicalnovels, where the personal and thepolitical merge in the story of the protagonist- the individual’s strugglereflects the larger issues that confrontthat nation. The heroes of such novelsoften bear a striking (and often ratherunfortunate) resemblance to theauthor himself. In South Asian literature,much of this involves depicting,in some measure, the alienation andcultural disconnect experienced bythose who migrate abroad, or whoreturn to their homeland after alengthy absence. While one suchnovel may be interesting and necessary,a succession of these ruins thereader’s palate. It’s for this monotonythat I was glad when asked to reviewa novel which is very unique in thisregard. Chandrahas Choudhury’sdebut novel, Arzee the Dwarf,seemed to me to be remarkably differentfrom anything else that hasappeared in recent years in SouthAsian English fiction.The protagonist of Choudhury’swork, Arzee, is a dwarf, employed asa projectionist in Bombay’s NoorCinema. He is lonely and lives in adream; alienated on account of hissize and his imagination from therest of the world. Instead of the present,he is engaged with fantasies ofhis future - anticipating becominghead projectionist of the cinema,dreaming of marriage to a girl who’snot too pretty, “else her gaze willstray!” In his spare time, he talks tothe framed, faded portraits of film-stars that adorn the walls of theNoor, he engages in conversationswith Dashrath Tiwari, a taxi-driver,and Deepak, a gangster. But Arzee’sdreams fall short - instead of promotion,his cinema is slated to beshut down. Arzee is on the verge oflosing his job, and his dreams beginto crumble – he embarks on a journeyof rediscovery as he wandersthrough Bombay - reliving his pastand encountering strangeArzee The Dwarfby Chandrahas ChoudhuryHarper Collins, India, 2009Rs 325, Pp. 184new truths about himself.Arzee is a welcome change in a literaturethat has, for the most part,been susceptible to reflecting the narrow,English-speaking world of itswriters and many of its readers.Although Indian writing in English isprolific, it has largely been restrictedto a certain socio-economic class.Writers have a propensity to hail fromthe same English speaking, cultured,middle class milieu. They tend toattend the same schools, colleges and,in most cases, go abroad for a foreigndegree. Amit Chaudhari, in theintroduction to the Picador Book ofModern Indian Writing, phrased thisphenomenon perfectly, in the form ofa question – “Can it be true thatIndian writing, that endlessly rich,complex and problematic entity, is tobe represented by a handful of writerswho write in English, who live inEngland or America and whom onemight have met at a party?” AmitChaudhari was arguing for a definitionof Indian writing that extendsbeyond what is produced in Englishand acknowledges vernacular literature.But as far as Indian writing inEnglish is concerned, I think he’s notfar off the mark in suggesting thatwriters belong to an insular circle. Asa result, certain themes, perspectivesand concerns are omnipresent inIndian writing in English. Similarcharacters can be met with in manybooks, in a central or minor role, andhave spawned genres of their own -the beleaguered bureaucrat/ policeman,the frustrated housewife, thenarrow horizons of the girl on thebrink of marriage, the worlds of theimmigrant and the diasporas. Thesebooks have also reflected the lives of alarge section of their readership inIndia - all of these characters haveemerged from our neighbourhoodsand surroundings. These are familiarcharacters. An uncle or father mightbe a bureaucrat. A mother or sister isa frustrated housewife, who, in yearspast once was a hopeful girl on thebrink of marriage. Many have children- foreign educated and livingabroad - or have themselves for someportion of our lives been part of thediaspora. The narratives that dealwith history can often be similar -94 The Caravan, October, 2009

Sanjay GhoshThe Caravan, October, 2009 95

Literaturedetailing the breakup of a joint family,a loss of wealth and influence, followedby the slow, inevitable declineinto the sordid middle-class life.This is in no way a unique or necessarilynegative phenomenon.American literature, for example, isover-run by an epidemic of books thatare either novels about novelists ornovels about the disappointing lovelives of academics with literary inclinations,as Joseph Heller points outin his Portrait of the Artist, as an OldMan (which, remarkably enough, is anovel about a novelist and his partlyimaginary sex life).There’s no real harm in exploringtopics that have beenexplored before in literature,even if it’s been done to the point ofcliché - but the stock topics and charactersof Indian novels in Englishhave begun to breed wariness andfatigue in readers. One can’t help feeling,as one encounters the latest reincarnationof diasporic tale, with a protagonistwho feels alienated andstranded between cultures, that onehas read this story before. The symboliccharacters of the bureaucrat, thefrustrated house wife and the immigrant- are no longer relevant today,as they fail to reflect the conflicts centralto the lives of the younger generation.Once, such types and the valuesthey embodied were the fulcrum ofour communities, without which oursociety could not function. But thepolicemen and home-bound mothersof yesterday have bred, and are nowgiving way to, the financial analysts,divorcees, and BPO workers of today.Our society is in a state of flux, andas it becomes increasingly mobile andfluid, literature is responding to thesechanges by portraying the students ofIITs and IIMs and call centre employeesas the new heroes of today – as inChetan Bhagat’s overwhelmingly successfulbooks.Arzee the Dwarf is perhaps themost unlikely and intriguing of thisnew breed of heroes. Choudhury hasto be congratulated for having thecourage and the vision to portraysympathetically, without exoticisingor varnishing, the kind of characterwho is so distant from Choudhury’sown class and background. It’s interestingto note that many of those whowill read this literary tale of a dwarfwill belong to an English-speakingupper middle class - far removed froma character like Arzee. And, in thatlight, Choudhury’s decision to makehis characters speak grammaticallycorrect, often poetic, English is aninteresting one. Unlike other authors,like Rushdie and Chandra - who havedelighted in using the ‘exotic’ polyglotlingua franca of city streets intheir works - Choudhury has resistedthis urge. In a recent interview, heexplains his reasoning: “If Arzee wasto be linguistically authentic, thenwe would have a situation whereArzee is shown speaking Hindi athome, Deepak [would speak in]Marathi, and Phiroz [would speakin] Gujarati. This would maddeneven the most committed proponentof authenticity... What is importantis not so much what language thecharacters are speaking as whethertheir speech seems persuasive, striking,true to character.”Whatever his reasoning, it seemsthat his decision to stick to a uniformEnglish - and English that is not sodifferent from the kind we read andwrite – brings us closer toChoudhury’s characters. Theybecome easier to identity with - inshort they become like us. This isnoteworthy because, to me, it’s anotherindication of increasing socialmobility in India. In times past, classes,castes and communities weredepicted differently – in TV soapoperas, in literature, in films - reflectingthe prevalence of a classist-elitistmindset. Marathi playwright VijayTendulkar’s play Kanyadaan, portrayedthe real conflict at the heart ofthe liberal middle class – the clashbetween age-old caste-based prejudiceand modern egalitarian values,between tradition and education. InKanyadaan - prejudices, history andtradition continue to work in concertto mould characters and mindsetswithin class and caste contexts – andthe play points out the difficulty ofempathy across class/caste lines.Differences can’t be transcended – nomatter how much an individual mightwant to. In Arzee the dwarf, whateverthe reader’s background, he or shewill identify and empathise with themain character. Moreover, the novelimplies that differences betweenHindu and Muslim, Parsee andChristian are superficial and can betranscended - ties, relationships, andaffections can exist and flourishacross boundaries.Arzee the Dwarf isn’t an angrynovel; it’s a subtle, intricate work.Choudhury presents, beautifully,Arzee’s point of view – infusing in thenarrative the sense of how Arzee’ssmallness shapes his perspective ofthe world, alienates him from society,and also oppresses him. Arzee’ssmallness is a burden, and makes himbitter. Arzee, in Choudhury’s words,“takes offence easily, even when noneis meant.” Choudhury captures, perfectly,the irony of how Arzee’s insecurityon account of his size, makes himself-centered to such a degree that hebelieves that truly accidental, unfortunateevents are purposefully contrivedto keep him down. It’s paradoxical –because his very smallness makes himattribute to himself a larger importance.Choudhury, a Cambridge-educatedwriter and critic, (hisbook reviews appear in MintLounge) demonstrates a knowledgeand deft use of literary devices andtechnique in his critical pieces(http://middlestage.blogspot.com)and in his fiction. His language is polished,poetic and erudite - “A lightmist, like that seen when sugar ispoured into jars, had appeared whilethey were drinking tea in the CaféMomin. The sky was sown thicklywith clouds, massy as cauliflowerheads, and Arzee saw that the windwas taking them in the same direction96 The Caravan, October, 2009

Literatureas him. Under the watch of stonyfacedbuildings, trees were rustlingand sighing; on the steps beneathshutters and awnings, dogs had theirsnouts tucked into their tails...”Reading the book, I was remindedof the oft-used quote used to describeJane Austen’s works, taken from a letterto relative - “The little bit (twoinches wide) of ivory on which I workwith so fine a brush as produces littleeffect after much labour.” A great dealof labour and skill has gone into creatinga refined piece like Arzee theDwarf – though at times, it feels a littletoo polished, a little too smooth.Like Austen’s novels, there are veryfew references to politics and eventscontemporaneous to the novel’s time.One character, Deepak, a gangster,refers briefly to the Hindu-Muslimissues and the conflict in Kashmir, butfor the most part, current eventsrarely seep into the novel. JaneAusten succeeds, despite the absenceof external references, in creating a‘real world’ because she still depictsthe social stresses that arise from suchevents – her books feature innumerableregiments and officers, as theEngland she lived in was engaged inthe Napoleonic wars, and she skilfullydepicts the tensions that result fromthe return of gazetted, moneyed,heroic soldiers on a society governedby rigid class distinctions.Larger social conflicts and tensionsare vaguely present in the backgroundof Choudhury’s narrative, but remainundeveloped. Can one imagine anapolitical Mumbaikar - or for thatmatter, an apolitical Indian? Politicspermeates all dimensions of life inIndia – it’s hard to escape. As a resultthe world Choudhury has so carefullyconstructed seems a little unreal andabstract. Moreover, Choudhury hasobviously chosen to endow his maincharacter with a mixed background –Arzee has a Hindu father and Muslimmother, and is by birth (in a strangeplot-twist) a Christian. I felt that, indesigning Arzee this way, Choudhurywas trying to make some statement orreveal some elusive social truth – butwhich failed to be realised in his book.My main bone to pick withChoudhury’s book stemsfrom this. His novel is tantalising- it seems like a glimpse somethingdeeper, a revelation, is to beoffered. But ultimately, the ending ishinted at, but not shown; a revelationfails to materialise – leaving this readerfeeling a little cheated. Choudhuryis a subtle writer, and perhaps theepiphany is there, hidden in the text –but in a manner that is too understatedfor most readers. Arzee doesundergo a personal crisis. But there’sno real confrontation or conflict – it’simpossible to have one in such narrative,since it is governed almostentirely by Arzee’s perspective andwouldn’t be able accommodate a different,conflicting viewpoint.His depictions of women are alsoproblematic. A theme in his novel isthe blurring of reality and the imagined,and the difficulties that result.Arzee is in love with Monique – whoat times appears real, but at othertimes seems like an imagined-fantasywoman. She is beautiful, elegant and(best of all), she rarely speaks – isn’tthat every man’s dream? Besides ‘fantasywoman’, the other women adherestrictly to categories – the overpowering‘Mother’, the ‘Whore’ and the perfect‘Wife’ (Deepak the Gangster’sspouse). All the women are submissiveand, whether they be his motheror the whore, the fulfilment of hisdesires is their priority. Even thebeautiful Monique waits for Arzee toact and make choices, and is happy tofollow his lead.No book is perfect, and this isChoudhury’s maiden effort. Onegets the sense that Choudhury, inthis novel, is trying out his handand I suspect this ‘small’, yet skilfulnovel will be followed by somethingeven more accomplished andgrander in scale. Arzee the Dwarf, Ihope, is the harbinger of change, interms of literary Indian writing inEnglish encountering a greater varietyof characters and stories in thefuture. In earlier times, English wasthe voice of a small section, and alimited range of themes, settingsand characters was only natural.But India is changing. English hasbeen seen, for a long time now, asthe means for a better life andgreater opportunity. Social theoristAshis Nandy estimates that thispopulation – migrating in search ofeconomic opportunity or fleeinghardship and violence – might be asmuch as 60 million. In such circumstances,cultural and familial tiesweaken, and English is increasinglythe unifying language. The declineof vernacular languages is an oftheardlament. It is a source of fearto some, and positive change forothers. For many years English andvernacular languages have warred –and have come to symbolise differentlife-styles, cultures and values.Many see the possibility for an‘Indian’ identity that supersedesregional loyalties and identities,that bridges the great dividebetween urban and rural - and thisno doubt, has some connection to auniversal lingua franca that can beused in all of India – whether it beEnglish or Hindi.Yet, vernacular literature is invaluablefor many reasons. One - it presentsthe voice of a different class, ofminorities and individuals who areoften marginalised. It also has a traditionthat spans centuries – preservingand evolving storytelling styles,descended from the unique styles ofour own epics, myths and the fairytales.One can only hope that in thegrowing use of English - these concerns,themes and styles do not disappear.A few writers, like SalmanRushie in Haroun and the Sea ofStories have used story-telling stylesand devices that originate in ancientIndian literary traditions - suchblends, I hope, will bring a new richnessto Indian writing. In Arzee theDwarf, I see the possibility for a largerscope for Indian writing in Englishto present the voice of the underdog,the marginalised and the unique. The Caravan, October, 2009 97