It?s the prologue that draws you deep into Anuradha Roy?s debut novel about love, the essential loneliness of being, and lives lived through tumultuous times in the first half of the 20th century. Someone?s looking at this picture where a house ?is afloat on a river?. As the water begins to rise, ominously washing up the steps and into the verandah of this ?Roman-looking affair with tapering pillars soaring to its arched roof?, the doom signals are everywhere. ?I see people swimming behind the submerged windows, imprisoned by the drowned rooms as if in some abandoned Atlantis.?
It?s the quest for this ?I? which sends us scrambling to read the three parts of Roy?s beautiful book, for it could be the voice of any of the three key people ?Nirmal, Bakul, Mukunda. Nirmal is a history teacher and archaeologist, using this as an excuse to stay away from home for long stretches. His wife Shanti dies at childbirth, leaving a girl Bakul ? one can?t read Roy?s novel without being reminded of the works of literary and cinematic greats like Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay and also Satyajit Ray. Nirmal, known to be eccentric, had brought home an orphan of tribal origins to live at their Songarh home. When he ultimately decides to bring home his daughter too, Bakul and Mukunda will grow up together sharing more than just secrets. Any of them could have been looking at the house afloat on the river ? their destinies are tied to it after all. Though when you finish the novel, you understand that the house belonged to Bakul?s mother at Manoharpur, some place outside Bengal, and that?s where she lived and died.
Part I and II succeed in providing us a suitable backdrop for Part III where Mukunda, a builder?s assistant, will tell his story. It?s surely the most endearing part of the novel, and you are hooked the moment you hear Mukunda utter these words: ?I know all about houses and homes, I who never had one. I am Mukunda. This is my story.? As Mukunda travels over his origins in his mind ? ?Who named me? Why did they give me a Hindu name?? ? you know the journey will be difficult. But then, sooner than later, he will find both a house and a home on the water?s edge. With Bakul by his side, ?I felt as if everything had gone very still. The rushes had stopped nodding, the breeze had stopped blowing through our hair, the stream had stopped flowing, the curdled clouds had stopped drifting overhead, that bird had stopped its call, the two children on the opposite bank had frozen in mid-gesture.?
In this stillness, Bakul and Mukunda find an end to melancholy, not for them doomsday calling, but a new beginning. In a way, the stillness comes with the news that Bakul is now the rightful owner of the house. So, the house, which was afloat, and threatened by the swirling waters, is saved from crumbling. It?s not only restored but has a new lease of life. All through, it?s helped along by Roy?s luminous prose.
