Things to leaveBehind
Auhtor- Namita Gokhale
Publisher- Penguin Random House , Rs499
This book makes for a delightful amalgamation of politics, history, and mythology. It is splendid in its narration and sincere in its tribute. The Kumaon region and its culture come alive and leave a dramatic impression on the mind of the reader, writes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
Poetic and vivid in imageries, Namita Gokhale’s Things to leave Behind is a magnificent fictional history of Kumaon. It’s splendid in its narration and sincere in its tribute. This chronicle of the region dates back to the era of the Raj. It makes for a delightful amalgamation of politics, history and mythology. In this social, cultural, political and historical nexus, are caught the convention driven populace of the hilly region.
The novel is elegiac right from the start as Gokhale takes us to 1856 and familiarises us with the events that formed several folklores about the serene Nainital (Naineetal in the book). The charming descriptions of the rustic land is soon unsettled as the author narrates an account wherein an Englishman, P Barron, makes a native landowner Nursingh Thokdar withdraw all his hereditary claims over Naineetal. It was believed that Naineetal was the lake of the three immortal sages, Atri, Pulastya and Pulaha and where Sati’s eyes had once fallen into on earth. Its location was a closely guarded secret among the natives. Barron takes Nursingh into the lake on a boat and threatens to throw him off it if he did not sign the papers withdrawing his claims. Nursingh, who can’t swim, has no option other than to oblige. This is not the only example of racial hierarchy at the very beginning of the book. There are also references to the Upper and lower Mall Roads. Indians, servants, and dogs were not allowed in the former. Thus, with references such as these, the tone and tenor of the book is powerfully set.
It is distributed into three parts. The first part, still set in the early the early 19th century, recounts the story of Brahmins Devi Dutt Pant and Nain Chand Joshi, who worked for the British. The childless Devi Dutt has a niece, Tilottama, who marries Nain Chand. Their wedding happens only after being challenged by horoscopes as well as personal losses. This is also juxtaposed with the first war of Independence in 1857. Tilottama, at the same times, wishes to have an identity of her own and is reluctant to let domesticity get the better of her.
Nain Chand is a fascinating character too, as he is ostensibly coy in front of Tilottama, who after enduring the deaths of her mother and uncle emerge stronger, and yet not fierce: “Nain Chand both feared and respected his wife. Tilottama was unlike anybody he had ever known. There was a self-assurance about her, a spontaneous fire, which all her demure posturing could not hide.”
In fact, the aura of Things to leave Behind is heightened by the eccentricity of its characters. They are multiple in number and yet distinct from one another. For instance, if there is Badri Dutt — the gutsy rebel — on one hand, on the other hand is a foil character like the drunken hangman Daniel Massery. Then there is the beautiful, light eyed British girl Rosemary at the run Christian missionaries’ leprosarium as well as her lover, the Indian Jayesh who converts to Christianity and is christened Jonas. Jayesh is the nephew of vaidya Jeewan Chandra Pant, who has his own closely guarded secret and ignominy that he has to face.
love is a recurring motif, be it in the story of Tilottama and Nain Chand, Jayesh and Rosemary, or the optimistic Deoki, who would not give up her hope of finding love. At the same time, Deoki is also Jayesh’s wife, a dutiful bride in awe of her groom who does not reciprocate her feelings; but since conventions are so integral to the story — and the time and place it is set in — Jayesh also tries to be attentive to her in his own way: “Nothing she did seemed to ever please him, yet he was exceedingly considerate in a detached, distant way.” So when she meets the painter William Dempster (“No matter that he was American, William Dempster was still a real Englishman to her”) therein unfolds yet another unique substory. As mentioned earlier, myths and fables are crucial to the text, as frequent references are made to miracles and other impossible performances. The Kumaon region and culture come alive and leave a dramatic impression on the mind of the reader as the author flirts with magic realism in the novel.
Women are central in this novel. They are idiosyncratic with a mind of their own, even so in the confines of domesticity. They are brave, strong, and graceful, and in all forms. The novel starts with their reference (of six native women draped in black and scarlet pichauras) and also ends with the same (Deoki). This book thrives with ambition, being full of substance in content and grand in form.
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