Rupa Bajwa?s second book, Tell Me a Story, begins well, but loses steam midway, before shuddering to an abrupt end
With Tell Me a Story, Rupa Bajwa is back on home turf?the bylanes of Amritsar?which was also the setting of her first book, The Sari Shop. Tell me a story does not pick up from where The Sari Shop ended. It feels like a parallel narrative in a similar universe. Rani, the protagonist, is as pedestrian as Ramchand of the first book, their social strata is the same and the narrative also runs in the same vein. Both stories end, not on a note of hope, as the blurb on Tell Me a Story?s cover proclaims, but of resignation and acceptance of status quo.
If The Sari Shop piqued interest from the fact that the protagonist was picked up from an unlikely corner, a salesman in a sari shop, Tell Me a Story does not have this novelty. Rani, a school dropout, works in a beauty parlour, and later even as a domestic help. ?You mean, as a servant?? is Rani?s aghast reaction to the job offer.
The story starts well. Bajwa?s style is lucid and uncomplicated and she has the ability to get under her characters? skins. Rani lives with her father and brother?s family. They are poor, but Rani can afford to occasionally indulge in a pair of ear rings or junk food along with her nephew.
Bajwa paints the pathos of the household well. Sitting on a quiet evening, reading the book, one gets up to switch off the extra lights after the daughter-in-law berates her father-in-law to read by the window instead of increasing the electricity bill. And, one is grateful that the dinner menu is not watery potato gravy.
But steadily, the shortage of money becomes a daily issue in the household and a sudden expense incurred on house repairs becomes the flash point, with things going downhill after that. Rani?s father dies and feeling alienated in the house, she decides to move to Delhi when she gets a job as a maid.
And here lies the problem. The second part of the novel begins with a new character, Sadhna, a frustrated writer trying in vain to finish her second book after tasting success with the first one (autobiographical tones here?). Bajwa?s first book, too, was critically acclaimed and went on to win the XXIV Grinzane Cavour award for the best first novel in 2005, the Commonwealth Award in 2005 and Sahitya Akademi Award English in 2006, besides being translated in several languages. And considering the abrupt bump the second part of Tell Me a Story is, comparisons with the stalled writer invariably come to mind.
Sadhna competes with Rani as the main protagonist of the book, but being poorly fleshed out, Sadhna?s character fails to take a life of its own. The reader does not understand what are the ghosts in Sadhna’s life that make her listless and looking as if ?she just came back from a cremation?, as the other maid, Vina, remarks.
?And just look at her. Look at the way she dresses: no make-up, no colour, no jewellery?gold or silver?absolutely nothing to show for anything in her purse. …she doesn?t know how to enjoy life. …I would eat chicken curry and shahi paneer everyday…Some people don?t know when they are lucky.?
The story rambles on with new characters walking in and out of the pages. Rani?s satirical observations on the high life??The dogs wore expensive sweaters and the people walking them looked malnourished??also lack impact.
The suicide of Rani?s brother also is dismissed in a few pages at the end and the book finishes abruptly with Rani taking up a job in a beauty parlour in Delhi. Her yearning to meet her nephew Bittu, the short return to Amritsar and her parting with Sadhna are also dealt with impatience, as if Bajwa was, indeed, ?unable to finish the novel and was sick of it?.
Tell Me a Story
Rupa Bajwa
Pan Macmillian
Rs. 499
Pp 204