Jhumpa Lahiri has specialized in writing short stories and novels around the immigrant experience. Her forte is that of writing on people of Indian origin living in USA. Undoubtedly, she has established a reputation as a leading fiction writer and has been short listed for the Man Booker Prize this year.
In her latest book “The Lowland”, Jhumpa Lahiri blends the political and personal in a dexterous manner and makes the story gripping and the book unputdownable. The story encompasses five decades of history centering around the lives of one family. The human emotions are depicted in full force. Inter-generational bonding, love, disagreement, independent thinking, selfishness and violence.
It
is about two brothers with an age difference of about eighteen months - Subash
and Udayan. They hail from a middle-class Bengali family. They are deeply
attached to each other and are inseparable as children. They share a lot of
common interests and exhibit a scientific temperament. The talented brothers
study together and lead a happy carefree life. They look and sound alike. At
the same time, they are like opposites. Udayan is impulsive. Subash is placid.
They live in Tollygunge, a South Calcutta locality. The book derives its name
from a pair of ponds in front of their house which overlap during the
rains and become one waterbody and separate during the dry season choked with
water-hyacinth. leaving a lowland in between. The identities of the brothers
are
like
the ponds-together and separate.
Unfortunately
while in college, Udayan gets drawn to the Naxalite movement which dominated
West Bengal in the mid-sixties. It was a radical and violent Communist movement
idolizing Mao-tse-tung. It was a war waged against the State of West Bengal.
While the elder brother Subash realized the risks of what Udayan was doing, he
could not persuade his daredevil brother to give it up. Subash leaves for USA
to pursue higher studies in marine chemistry. Udayan gets actively involved in
guerilla warfare and is accused of murder. His girlfriend Gauri gets sucked
into the vortex of the misguided movement. He marries her and they live
together for a short while before Udayan is shot dead in a brutal manner in the
lowlands in front of their house by the Police who
come
searching for Udayan for his anti-State activities. The author is brilliant
when she explores the ways in which Udayan’s kith and kin are affected by his
death. The whole family is devastated with the apple of their eyes becoming a
victim of his own violence.
Subash
returns to India on hearing the tragic news Gauri is pregnant and is
ill-treated by Subash’s mother. Looking at the depressed state of affairs and
his love for Udayan, he considers his duty to lift her out of the morass at
home and take her to USA. He decides to marry Gauri and convinces her that it
is in her best interests. Gauri agrees though Subash’s mother warns him that he
will never receive any love from her because she is wedded to Udayan. Ignoring
his mother’s objections, he gets married and sets off for Rhode Island to
continue his academic career. Gauri follows him and later delivers Udayan’s
child whom Subash names as Bela.
Over
time, the incompatible couple drift apart. When Subash and Bela return to
Kolkata on the death of Subash’s father, Gauri leaves a note behind in their
Rhode Island home and abandons the family for pursuing her interest in
Philosophy in Southern California. In the absence of the mother, Bela grows up
under the loving care of Subash who she believes is her father; however the
trauma of her mother abandoning her remains deeply etched in her memory. She
grows up like other American children. She has independent views and is
decisive in her own way. She becomes an environmentalist. Subash is lonely and
develops friendship with a woman. Bela becomes pregnant and when asked by
Subash about the father she says that she doesn’t care. A girl child is born
who
is
named Meghna by Subash. Subash gives away the long-held secret of true
fatherhood to Bela who is totally shattered.
Subash
decides to put an end to the sham marriage and emails to Gauri to sign the
papers for divorce. Gauri obliges and decides to drop in at Subash’s home on
her way to a conference in Europe to hand over the papers. When she arrives at
Subash’s home, she finds that Subash is not there. She meets Bela who totally
ignores her and questions her as to why she has returned. Bela show her mother
the door.
Each
character in the novel is strong but Gauri is the most vibrant character. She
is intelligent, rebellious, unconventional, fiercely independent, extremely
selfish and a neglectful mother. And enigmatic too. She has the most
tragic trajectory in the novel.
While
the first half of this marvellous book concentrates on the Naxalite movement,
the second half deals with the impact of the shock of Udayan’s death on the
family. This is an exceptional novel by an exceptional author. The storyline is
suspenseful, the prose beautiful and written with great clarity. The underlying
theme of the book is the dislocation of immigrants and how their lives are
impacted. Lot of parallels can be drawn between the author’s earlier books and
“The Lowland”. In carefully measured words, the author gives the readers a peep
into the hidden emotions of family life and the choice of words make it an outstanding
book and certainly Jhumpa Lahiri’s best so far.
The
book lingers in one’s memory for a long time.
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