‘Batik rain
and Other Stories’, Ashwini Devare’s debut collection, is a book with a
difference. Six stories set firmly in the mindscape of today’s Global Indian, bringing
alive a slice of the great Diaspora and evoking the rhythms of a new community
in the making, these stories are different because they are not replete with
the received angst of second-generation immigrants – look no further than
Jhumpa Lahiri or Chang Rae Lee. Neither are they characterized by the surprised
indignation of a privileged person from back home facing negative discrimination
for the first time. In real life people cannot allow their pain or frustration
to bubble over like it does for Adichie’s Ifemulu, nor do they always have to subside
into repressed creatures of suffering. They make their adjustments with grace, and
with the support of society – a community of people in and probably off the
same boat. Devare’s characters are these people and as a recorded history of a
changing people, this book is important.
The stories
span a wide arc. At one end is the story “Saroj”, a chronicle really, from past
generations, of first time travels, loss, redemption and more travel. At the
other end is “On Air”- a modern coming of age tale so universal, the Indian
ethnicity of the heroine is irrelevant. My favourite, “Batik Rain”, centres around
a family on an Asian holiday; the plot is not complicated but the writer keeps
you on edge throughout, demonstrating a masterful control of tempo and narrative
tension. I liked too ‘Siem Reap’ for how Devare weaves in a travellers’ perspective
that I am partial to – thoughtful engagement with a different culture rather than
being a mad box-ticker or a poolside sloucher. “Homecoming” and “Anthem of
Guilt” are flipsides of the same coin, and describe to me perfectly, the
conundrum of the NRI patriot.
Devare’s
writing is informed by her professional training and her experience as a career
journalist – this can be a good thing and a bad thing. She has a light touch
and we do not have to put up with any authorial neuroses whatsoever. With a few
deft strokes of her pen, she paints a very accurate picture of a marriage that
helps a man rediscover his roots or another relationship that pulls him away from
his mother and motherland. If there is stating rather than showing, it is
understated and has the ring of truth to redeem it. However, Devare’s touch is much
too light at times – “On air” for example predictably proceeds to a tame end -
tortured introspections by the protagonists or fictive plot twists could have
helped, but Devare is possibly wary of letting these devices take over her
craft.
There is
likewise a tendency to step back and give a panning shot of the background and
the story up until that point, something that recalls late night chai and chat
sessions with frequent backing-ups to understand a nuance, rather than the
modern short story form where plot development does the talking, and flashbacks
can never be straightforward. I find this refreshing though. Emotion and
fantasy are kept tightly in check in ‘Batik Rain and other Stories’ and this might
be a weakness, but the effect is surprisingly one of muted grace and integrity.
Devare
succeeds in her portrayal of the urban pan Indian identity – a significant
departure from the strong provincial flavours of all literary fiction coming
out of the country. There is a welcome currency and immediacy to ‘Batik Rain
and other Stories’ that should recommend itself to anyone interested in, or
curious about the modern Indian dynamic.
