The book reads like a collection of salacious and malicious gossip hung from the washline of a drab and nuanceless narrative voice to look like a novella and seductively titled as a ‘diary’. It is neither literary, nor anti-literary. The characters—artists, curators, gallery owners, critics, art dealers, models and maids—are cardboard figures. Only dogs and mice have some life and seem interesting.
Satnam’s ideals are also shaken and tested by his response to the brutal reality he confronts almost daily and the tragic story of the young refugee Krishna and her old Babaji who have lost everyone in the carnage which erupted in Punjab in March 1947. Ironically however, it is Krishna’s views on communal amity and the teachings of the Tenth Guru to ‘recognize all of humanity as a single creed of mankind’, which pull him back from the path of retribution and vengeance.
In a similar vein, the text also serves to convey a merger of the canonical and kitsch: ‘My acquiescence to the belief of these innocent people in the hands of a divinity sending this book for their spiritual solace, got a rude jolt. What the priest believed to be a religious book was in fact a book of pornography!’ (p. 47; translator’s italics). By enacting such reversals, the novel emerges as a specimen of the postmodern critical enterprise that seeks to uncover the ways in which artefacts acquire cultural underpinnings.
The brilliant presentation of contemporary life through anecdotes, especially, the one that narrates the incident of the madamma (white/foreign woman) who took a dog on rent for a week (pp. 197-198), are noteworthy for their wry humour and earthy witticism. Also satirical is the recounting of the event of the prophesying Mathiri Valyammachi (great-grandmother) who after having learnt the letters begins
Qadeer delves into the complexities of labour pain and pregnancy which mostly go unannounced, through Jeelani Bano’s ‘A Day in the Labour Room’, translated from the Urdu by Zakia Mashhadi. The story explores the intricacies of external authority over a woman’s body, which is subject to experiment and surgery, sometimes beyond the purview of her consent. The modern technology of advanced medical imaging has rendered the inner corridors of a woman’s body naked to investigative eyes.
We couldn’t linger. ‘There’s so much more to see,’ urged Pradeep as he led me away. ‘Let’s meet Potty’, he said, with what I thought was a mischievous smile. The captivating aroma of really old books wafted around the corner…and there sat Solomon Pottesman, alias Potty surrounded by mountains of lovely antique books. ‘I am an incunabulist’, read the legend on the back of his chair.