First
let me tell you that the novel reads as a novel well with its narratological
innovations/mix/collage whatever we call it.A
narrative/novel is molded/welded as a drama with its dramaturgical
make-up: “Welcome to the Nazrani Show”, [the narrator/dramatist introducing]
Anarkali’s matrophobic and matrophillic affiliation with her mother], Intermission,
Curtain and in between, the Chapters camouflaging as Scenes which alternate with Anarkali being third-personized
and Annakili being first-personized. And in the last chapter/scene we see the contiguous
merger of the doubles, Anu and Anna in the present tense and the novel /show
starts and ends in Kombodinjaapplakkal /Kerala and in between we are/were in
paradise ill or well /America.
In fact the first scene/chapter starts with
the present in Kombodinjaapplakkal/Thrissur/Kerala
in the
present tense and slides to past
/paradise/America and we are allowed into the stream of
consciousness of Anarkali whose
child/girl/marriage/divorcehoods trickle like water to wet us in the past
tense. At the same time in the present tense she [an American-returned] is ideological in her leaving America/husband
and economical in her having had left
for America before that, to remain a virgin even after the so-called first
night thanks to her husband’s impotence.
And to top it all before her marriage she was kept a virgin by her mother and her brothers;
standards of conduct of women in Kerala – she is/was/will be always /already
caught in between the ideology of
conduct and the conduct of ideology for women – no escape and no regret either
because she is already/always committed to her parents whether she likes it or
not. That is the tragedy/comedy of her
life. Being a history student she exposes the claims of past history of/ across
the world and wants to rewrite it and succeeds in it to some extent, she
thinks.
In
the second chapter/scene , the narrator/dramatist allows the second woman, Anna to narrate/dramatize her-story herself – the intrusion we
find earlier of the narrator is not
here, she is totally free to say whatever she likes , whereas that freedom is
not given to Anu , she is imprisoned in the prison-house of the
narrator/dramatist. This being caged imagery is not available to Anna, so she
is completely free to wallow in her thoughts.
Whatever
I guessed in the beginning itself that A nu/nna
are the same per son/daughter is confirmed by the anonymous dramatist/narrativist in the
Intermission, while talking to the reader--
western and eastern. Using the all inclusive WE, the narratist [a portmanteau
from narr(ator) and (dram)atist] raises the question. “By the way, do you [ i.e.,
Us Readers] wonder who this busy body know it all narrator is? Who is the real
teller/writer of the story? And Anarkali and Anna? Do you think they are one
and the same person? That one is the creation of the other? Well …. Anyway it
doesn’t matter. Nothing does. After all we [ including the writer of the
teller/writer and the reader] are only what we think ourselves to be.”
[pp197-8]. This “We” is distinguished from the teller/writer of the story and
it is this “we” who introduces the Narrator who “introduces Anarkali” [p.9] and
“lets Anna introduce herself” [p.53]. But the all inclusive “we” seems to be the narrator of the Narrator who is the
narrator/controller of the
teller/writer, Anarkali and Anna. As I said earlier Anarkali is third personized
/ introduced/told by the Narrator and Anarkali is under the control of the Narrator
just as she is under the control of her mother
first and husband next, from both of whom she liberates herself , living alone
Single. And again it is this Narrator
who “lets Anna introduce herself and tell her story by herself thereby being
first personized. And Anarkali and Anna
who first met in the boarding school also meet in the last scene to pull down
the curtain. Again it is the Narrator, who created Anarkali who creates Anna
also, Who is this Narrator seemed to be
created by an all inclusive We. Minus the reader from the all inclusive
We and the We will become identified with the writer/teller of the Narrator who
gets identified with the writer/teller of the story, Anarkali and Anna. All the
eggs come from the same hen! And in that case who is this we/narrator of
Narrator/Teller/Writer of teller/writer, Anarkali/Anna, it is none other than the author of the novel,
A.Bernard available/mentioned on the front jacket of the novel. And A. J.
Bernard on the spine of the book. What is the sex/gender of this author, that is
available on the back jacket of the novel, - “Asha Bernard lives in Champaign,
IL”. So the author is not Bernard who is given the initial A [ a very formidable
feminist counter to the traditional
patriarchal act of giving initial to daughters/wives after father first and
husband next, only a woman has to change her initial after marriage, but not being
a man, she is compelled to move from miss to Mrs [ by missing miss] but he remains Mr always/already.] So the
author of the novel is Asha Bernard , [should be in the frontispiece itself, so
the author A. Bernard is a miss-nomer], so
the author is a woman, it is whose creation/narration is the Narrator who
creates/narrates Anarkali and Anna, who
seem to be two versions of the same Person – Narrator – Asha Bernard and now I
can see the invisible/inevitable links between the factual and the fictional,
Asha/Anarkali/Anna. Anarkali and Anna are the two complementary versions of
Asha, the Schizo –Narrator who operates
through Anu and Anna providing a stark naked FORMIDABLE GYNOCENTRIC VIEW OF THE
NOVEL/WORLD, that is where the fulcrum of this di-asporic novel lies. [The
first night of Anu is told from her angle but not from his angle for example/
not even his name is revealed, he is called always her husband, called a
spineless man by Pearl etc]
Asha
the Narratist creates the Narrator who
tells the story of Anarkali who indulges in ideological writings with her Indo-centrism
and permits Anna to tell her story as a
feminist – this is how the Narrator/Narratist third-personizes and
first personizes herself at the
same time – seeing herself as object [Anu] and as subject [Anna] – the
Narratist is torn between Anu and Anna who are the two sides of the same coin. Versions
of a typical diasporic [Indian] wife who lived/lives in and who leaves /not
leaves America. AND more appropriately
who, simultaneously wants to leave and doesnotwant to leave America/husband. And
that is the dilemma of the narratist where she seems to be a Schizo [ not the
Freudian psychotic patient but the Guattarian Schizo -- the deterritorialized hero who can
think anew without subscribing to any pressure] living in two worlds
simultaneously enjoying/suffering. And this schizo angst of the Narratist is
fulfilled in Anu and Anna - both
possess/ are possessed by two husbands who happen to be ironically Cardiologists.,
which plainly means heart-specialists!? Anu negatively leaves him and Anna
positively leaves him – in either case the husbands don’t occupy totally the
topographies of their minds – though physically it is different. For Anu her
husband’s impotence in possessing her body in sex leads to their dispossession
of each. Anu is not able to detach him from his mother, from his possible lady:
Lorna who arrives later to break the tie – the same thing would have happened
had they lived in Kerala too - husband’s impotence, mother-in-law’s dominance,
husband’s premarital love/postmarital adultery etc. This is the one version and
the counter version is found in Anna who
suffers neither husband’s impotence nor mother-in-law’s dominance nor husband’s
over “potence” /other sexual escapades [ for they live in Kerala]. Result with
her son Ajay she lives happily with her husband John, but she wants more, so her
mind uses her husband only like a curryleaf – it is a detached attachment or an
attached detachment, whatever you call it. And her story is told not from her
husband’s angle but only from hers.
Anu
has had her sharp eyed boy to always
munch and remunch in reality and dreams – Ashok, [ his name is given but not
her husband’s, giving/asking one’s name is recognising one’s culture as Anu
feels , that privilege is not given to Anu’s husband by the Narrator/Narratist] and the same with Anna who always enjoys her hallucinations of her brown-eyed boy Ashwin.
It
thus seems Anu and Anna are the two simultaneous sides of the Narratist who
suffers the necessity and the impossibility of accepting patriarchal Kerala/husband
/America at the same time. Hence I called the Narratist a Schizo who lives in two
worlds/possibilities without subscribing to them – a lotus in the water
state. Both live in their pasts – which
haunt them like hallucinations. For a schizo should have hallucinations,
personal or private, sexual or ideological etc.,.
Both
Anu and Anna’s hallucinations are not only personal/sexual but also cultural/ideological.
With her history background Anu foregrounds a new history after deconstructing
the available histories, across the centuries, of the world – both west and
east – thereby trying to recover/discover the unwritten her-story of the
his-tory, it is no doubt intellectually/comparatively interesting and enlightening.
Likewise Anna with her Literature background tries to deconstruct the female/gender-amnesiac
cultures with her anti-virgin stories and feminist writings. Her ameliorative
longing, in her feminist tract, for freeing women from the pain/pang of child bearing
and rearing is original and laudable – it is here they are Guattarian in
creating new concepts/theories for humanity and its comforts. Anu’s The Anger of Civilizations parallels Anna’s The Anger of Female Body, I
should say.
Last
but not least I should mention the
virginity syndrome promoted/ suffered by
not only Nazrani families but also men and women from all cultures is treated in the novel sometimes
seriously/tragically, sometimes humorously/comically depending upon persons
involved in it with diverse definitions etc. And in all it seems it is
more a Matter of Body than of Mind – so both Anu / Anna remain [s]
Virgins even now in their forties enjoying/suffering their sexual dalliance with their
counternuts , Ashok/Ashwin – of course not in BODY but in MIND!? –really even
now I wonder, even I am amused, at the
nomenclatural links between Anu, Anna, Ashok and Ashwin as well as at ‘A’s proliferating with A-SH-A,
the author of this very interesting/illuminating gynocentric novel. And no
doubt the novel also turns out to be a very recent Cultural text in its
debunking classical positions/practices in religion/history/philosophy/society/family
i.e. . all the dimensions of its culture. which needs further elaboration not
done here.
With
Lots of wishes to her to further bloom as a novelist!
Best
nn
Thank you very much, Dr NN , for this analysis of my novel. It has been over 10 years since I wrote this, and I am happy that you read this and took the time to write these thoughts down.
