ClOSE TO HOME
Author: Parvati Sharma
Publisher: Penguin, Rs399
Close to Home introduces itself as a ‘wry look’ at the lives of people with sizable fortune. It achieves its claim, and then hints at more, says MIHIR VATSA
Parvati Sharma’s first novel Close to Home tells the story of Mrinalini Singh who, apparently, has everything she wants. Apparently being the keyword. The nature of a society and its people, we agree, is of a dynamic sort. There are things we live through and things we don’t. There are things we know of, things we keep aside never to see again, and things we look at with amusement. Stereotypes are born somewhere here, in telling the regularly experienced over and over, with a distanced judgement, till they turn into a norm, a monolithic symbol. It largely remains beyond the reach of the common man. Common man, being a middle-class man of a distinct culture. So, the wisdom goes: the poor are dishonest, the rich have nothing to worry about, HIV doesn’t infect the middle class, and so on.
But the poor could be honest; the rich anxious, and the HIV immune to the concept of the class structure. We know it from experience, if not ours then someone else’s, but we know it. These narratives counter the pulp of representation created by the ever-available allure of stereotypes. What I am trying to arrive at is this: that Parvati Sharma’s Close to Home is a story told not by an ignorant outsider or a critical insider, but by a complete insider who is honest.
And this brings us to the story itself. Mrinalini Singh falls out with her friend Jahanara and marries Siddhartha who is loving and caring, and also wealthy. later, accused of being selfish by Jahan, she begins to shower affection on her maid’s daughter till her altruism backfires on her. There are two domestic disputes: between the maid and her husband, and between Siddhartha and Mrinalini. Two couples, the former from the lower middle class, and latter from the upper middle class. Besides taking the story forward, neither of the two disputes goes beyond — their resolutions don’t surprise. The novel touches on some demanding issues of the present urban India — it’s evident- but that’s all. Where you might expect an interrogation, the narrative moves on to another stop instead.
The linguistic registers of the narrator and the characters are the same, as if the narrator was a close friend. So Mrinalini getting a haircut from the posh Khan Market becomes a routine, and not a barb at her fortune. Siddhartha called Mrinalini only on Sundays, and the narrator understands the significance of this seemingly-trivial information to mention it in the story — because it is important. What makes the novel so “breezy”, as noted by Bapsi Sidhwa in his blurb, is the minimal intervention by the narrator to hold the story intact. Add to it, twist it, complicate it. Therefore, there is an abundance of dialogues: silly and deep, coherent and incoherent. The story moves from one stop to the next, calmly but completing neatly in the end.
The characters are well-sketched, but ordinary. Mrinalini’s gay friend, Jahanara, arouses interest with her strong presence in the novel. Siddhartha and Mrinalini as a married couple behave like any other duo in a conjugal setup. Brajeshwar Jha, the charming and cunning neighbour, humours everyone he meets. They could all do much more, but they don’t, and it’s a problem. The characters, vivid as they are, stay on the surface. Sure, they are ups and downs which they must deal with, but then again the ups aren’t much high and downs aren’t too low.
Close to Home is an entertaining novel which offers more in the periphery of the plot. The dialogues are immediate, the narration personal and close. Conversations are natural and concerns contemporary. There is a significant element of the present which is achieved by the liberal usage of the colloquial. Sometimes, Sharma catches the exact pulse of a conflict and these instances are particularly rewarding for the reader. Siddhartha’s quiet disdain for the liberal “JNU-types”, for example, or Mrinalini’s desperate refusal to let Anjali inside her room. Brajeshwar and Mrinalini’s literary rivalry further lends a slight meta-tilt to the novel. The novel is also remarkably grounded in Delhi, with frequent mentions of familiar neighbourhoods. This makes the setting both favourable and intimate to the reader.
This book introduces itself as a “wry look” at the lives of people with sizable fortune.It achieves its claim, and then hints at more. What the novel doesn’t do is take the hint forward and analyse a situation better for possible moments of profundity, or make a vulnerable instance more fecund of the effect it must produce, be it through the dialogues or through its narrator.
The reviewer is the author of Painting That Red Circle White