The last email
Author : Mridula Garg
Publisher : Speaking Tiger, Rs 299
Mridula Garg’s The last Email shows that in a relationship, one can almost never know what’s real and what’s not. Even after years of conversation, there’s always scope for ‘rewriting’. It can only be understood in retrospect, says JASBIR JAIN
A well-known bilingual writer, Mridula Garg has had access to varied worlds of experience. Her novels take up different themes. Nostalgia, friendship, bereavement, love, and history happen to be only some of them. Garg has also turned to satire, especially in her newspaper columns and occasionally displays a rare sense of humour. She comes across as a very complex writer, a vibrant thinker and a bold experimenter. Her latest novel, written in the epistolary form, is at the heart of philosophical and retrospective self-analysis that is weaved into accounts from her travels, her memories and her past work. The epigraph sums it up. It says, “To the shadow world of memories so agonizingly real.”
In The last Email, she manages to bring these worlds of shadows and reality together. Are the emails love lettersij Or are they a prelude of sorts to a goodbyeij One is reminded of the love letters that have gained immortality through literature. Artists, writers and hard core political leaders, persons in different walks of life — Ernest Hemingway, Richard Burton, Winston Churchill — have at some time or the other expressed their love through letters. In recent literature, Wesker’s love letters on Blue Paper and Siddiqui’s Tumhari Amrita come to mind. One could go on exploring the genre in all its richness. It feels like the ‘other’ has stepped into the ‘self’. But The last Email soon transcends any single approach.
There can be no single interpretation of these letters either. Can one take them at their face valueij They are supposedly written from ‘crossroads’ or from ‘chaurasta’. These are words indicative of indeterminacy, conflict and of a tough choice that needs to be made. Is it a literary autobiographyij It refers to most of her important works and charts the significant turns her writing style has taken. It includes her travels, some of her interviews, and the moments that led to this particular novel. Her poems and other short fiction also find space in it.
The reader also tends to wonder, “Is it a historical narrativeij” The way history moulds individuals — the Quit India Movement, the Partition, the 1971 war, the 1984 riots — is recorded in this novel. Even on Kevin’s (the lover) side, the relations between England and Scotland and the Nazi holocaust become the reasons for his own transformation. We also get to tag along with Maya/Mridula through her many travels and conferences as she catches up with her former friends, especially the young Austrian, Michael Weiss. He reaches her in her moment of grief. And later, she helps him in choosing between medicine and music. Kevin looks for her contact number/email on the internet. Readers find out that Kevin and Maya go long back. The two shared a long relationship interspersed with periods of silence. The beginning of this relationship dates back to the mid-seventies and carries on till the “present”.
What prompts Kevin to look for her againij For those who have read Chittacobra, a novel about the relationship between two characters called Richard and Manu, Kevin becomes reminiscent of Richard. There are moments in The last Email where Kevin and Maya seem to merge into the personalities of Richard and Manu. Elements from Chittacobra keep resurfacing in their letters as well as their memories. The narrative also has an excerpt from Chittacobra woven into it. It frames the physicality of the relationship. Here, the novel deals with the clash between desire and societal approval.
Initially, their emails are mostly short, dry, and formal. But gradually, they start using the word “love”. They become longer and more intimate. They discuss morals, politics, family ties, etc. Religion, one’s relationship with god, and one’s ability to forgive, also form part of their conversations. It is directed both inwards and outwards. One question that is constantly there in the background is — “How much space should or does marriage give an individual”. Naveen and lynda are constantly there in the background. Can love be intellectual and platonicij Or does it require and acquire some degree of physicalityij Does the body form the base of intellectual loveij
The last Email is a novel that leaves the reader with a range of significant questions. On the face of it, it might seem like just another unfulfilled love story. But when one digs deeper, it becomes clear that going for such an interpretation would be a mistake.
Towards the end of this narrative, Maya sends a manuscript to Kevin for a review. After nearly five years of correspondence, Kevin finds out that their letters wrapped up in a manuscript. The lines between fiction and reality start to become blurry. What does Garg really want to sayij Does the real meaning lie hidden in the maze that Garg has createdij The author refers to the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the course of this narrative. As a reviewer, I find her style and themes to be more in tune with Borges’ plays.
It’s fitting that Garg says that a writer’s brain is like ‘bhanumathi ka pitara’ — it holds all kinds of mysteries. There is a certain silence and restlessness in the human heart that cannot be filled simply with words. Kevin and Maya resort to philosophy as they discuss Kierkegaard and the his idea that life can only be understood in retrospect. But sometimes, even that does not reveal the whole truth.
There is some uncertainty about what is real and what is imaginary for every individual. life, like a narrative, can have many different turns and many rewritings. Kevin and Maya are also rewriting the events in a relationship. Another aspect Garg draws our attention to is the need for good translations in today’s world. It can help expand the horizons of our everyday world and enable us to reach out to people across barriers of language. As a writer, her ideas go beyond the limitations of language.
The last Email, like life, can be best understood when read and reread in retrospect — twice over. Then, the pattern would become somewhat clear to the readers. Its multiple layers deny the possibility of an easy interpretation. It poses a challenge to the reader. One has to unravel each layer in order to enjoy this novel.