An Elsewhere Place
Author- Malay Kumar Roy
Publisher- Speaking Tiger, Rs 299
The book takes the readers to the 1950s’ Hazaribagh. The author makes growing up in the town sound so beautiful that the characters and the settings start to read almost mythical, writes MIHIR VATSA
Malay Kumar Roy’s Hazaribagh is not the town of today. Instead, he writes about growing up in the 1950-60 decade in what was then a quiet retreat township, populated sparsely, yet largely by bungalows built by wealthy Bengalis who would often vacation in the town from autumn to spring. In an otherwise touristy aura of his townscape, the young Roy situates himself firmly as a native of the land, son of a family that resides in Hazaribagh. As such, he is aware of the landscape, wildlife, and rural communities existing on the fringes of the town. In this rooting of his self, Roy’s memoir An Elsewhere Place adds crucially to the body of literature which has emerged from Hazaribagh after India’s independence.
Distanced through time by over half a century, reading Roy’s Hazaribagh evokes a feeling similar to reading a collection of mythical tales. The stories he narrates are unnervingly “simple”, complimented by his equally sparse prose. This apparent nakedness of both the languages and the content stands wistfully in contrast with the uncomfortable layers which the town, along with the realities of its townsmen, has acquired. Reading An Elsewhere Place in 2017, in a Hazaribagh which is set to become a thriving city in the future, is like going on a nostalgia trip, the particulars of which might not be completely legible even to the last five generations.
The thing with small towns like Hazaribagh is that these places inevitably develop a strong culture of memory. We hear things from generations senior to ours who had heard the same from generations that came before theirs. From hearing and retelling of a past that has sustained through memory up to the present, it becomes easier to appreciate - if not expressly identify with — the nostalgia. And this, coupled with quirky traits of a place which, besides surviving, has also been experienced across generations lends this appreciation a common ground. Roy’s memoir is one such experience for the young townsmen of the present. As readers, we find ourselves nodding in excited agreement with Roy’s close friend when he states, as a matter of fact, that Hazaribagh “touches a boy forever.”
Roy’s Hazaribagh is nothing if not for the people, and the wildlife inhabiting it. Visitors and natives alike. Pets and the wild alike. For visitors, the town is an antithetical space. Restlessness is rewarded with resolution, heat with chill, roads of the cities with private gardens. Personal competence is also put to test. Hazaribagh for visitors is a space which tricks them, tests them, and also loves them. So, we have the the famous author-detective —Mr. Author — from Calcutta being shown a mirror to humble his famed reputation. We have self-proclaimed hunters losing their wits in what is currently the Wildlife Sanctuary forest. We also have the pompous cricketer Mr. Know All, his arrogance undone by the town. These stories are often hilarious and supplied with tongue-in-cheek irony.
On the other hand, the stories woven around the natives are tender. Following these accounts, we find the warm irrelevance of public-private binary in Hazaribagh. Travelling villagers are welcome in Roy’s bungalow. They talk with his parents, narrating their stories. They maneuver the water from the family’s well. They come to the family with their problems, which, if not resolved, are heard with sympathy by Roy’s parents. Through these accounts, we are able to construct the society existing at the outskirts of the town, which the visitors don’t get to see. All stories, short as they are, carry plain but relevant wisdom, and some end in uncertainty. The book, being a memoir, does not always tie up its stories into neat ends, and this incompleteness often causes frustration.
Something must also be said about the inclusion of Hazaribagh’s wildlife in the book. Roy’s childhood is deeply marked by its presence. Birds, bears, foxes, cows — they are major characters in his stories. The family bonds with the animals, watches them from a distance, gives them shelter. There are beautiful moments shared between human and the non-human, yet without being consciously steered towards “happy endings”. The animals leave with and without acknowledgment, and the family moves on with their lives. Though few neat gardens remain in Hazaribagh today, Roy’s gardens do well to remind us of the town’s etymology: the land of a thousand gardens. Reading about these gardens reminds us of the poem “Garden at Hazaribagh”, written in 1946 by Samuel Solomon, and his reassuring line, “This loveliness shall stay after we are gone.”
An Elsewhere Place is not a complex work of literature. Its charm lies in its sheer simplicity which in turn is derived from the simplicity of Hazaribagh itself. Roy confesses that after graduating from St. Xavier’s, he never returned to Hazaribagh. I am certain that if he does return and after he has absorbed the shock of the town’s expansion, he will find that even without the gardens, the loveliness has stayed.
On a side note, the back cover wrongly states that Hazaribagh lies in the Chhotanagpur district of Jharkhand. The Chhotanagpur is a geographical region, not a district, which gets its name from the Chhotanagpur Plateau. Hazaribagh is a district in Jharkhand and the town of Hazaribagh is the district’s headquarters.
The reviewer is an award-winning poet from Hazaribagh