The Blind Lady’s Descendants
Anees Salim
Penguin
Pp 301
R399
PERHAPS NO other place in Kerala hides so much mystery under its plain views than Varkala, a southern coastal town pockmarked by bulky tourist guides. A giant cliff rises menacingly over a choppy Arabian Sea, watching over the place like an amulet on a woman’s neck. Endless shacks full of foreign tourists line the narrow walk along the cliff and, a little away, the sea shore serves as an eraser of sins for dead people. It is in such a setting that Anees Salim pitches his fourth book, The Blind Lady’s Descendants. A son of the soil, Salim takes upon himself the task of unravelling the mystery of Varkala in the form of a memoir-like narrative of his main character, Amar Hamsa.
Amar starts to write his story—which he describes as a short biography of small people (of a fair-sized family tree seriously blighted and occasionally shorn)—as he turns 26 years old. Amar is born in the Bungalow, a mansion for all seasons that functions as the storyboard for a bundle of diversely opposite characters in the book. At various stages, the Bungalow is the venue for men-only divorce conferences, a circumcision ceremony that goes horribly wrong and even a tragic and logical murder. In between, the family album fills itself with faces that put on masks to suit the occasion.
Amar’s parents, Hamsa and Amsa, live side by side in silence after bringing four children into the world. Jasira, the eldest, lives by film magazine centrespreads, earning praise by a foreign tourist for her resemblance to actor Sophia Loren. Sophia, the second daughter, wishes she had received the laurel instead. Akmal, the second son, wears a skull cap and repairs transistors, while keeping the fragrance of faith alive in the Bungalow. Into their world comes the blind Grandma, the mother of Amsa. She is here after selling her house to fund Jasira’s wedding.
The Bungalow is also the site of discovery of Amar’s alter ego Javi—the brother of his mother. Javi left two suicide notes before he walked into a rail tunnel for the last time—curiously the day the narrator was born. There are more deaths and heartbreaks in the book. With Varkala—the town of acres of coconut groves, paddy fields, banana plantations and cliffs—in the backdrop, the book also has another important character: Sandip, the resort-owning friend of Amar’s, who weds a tourist from Canada. The Bungalow becomes the centre of their universe as well.
These characters plot and plough through the vicissitudes of life like waves in the nearby sea. The story takes place between 1968 and 1994, and comes to a climax in the clamour of the religious riots around the demolition of Babri Masjid. In The Blind Lady’s Descendants, the author continues his quest of characters with quirks as in his previous works like Vanity Bagh.
In his new book, Salim resurrects the mystery of his birthplace inside the four walls of a home that becomes a microcosm of the fairytale town of Varkala. As it befits the town, Salim meanders to its trademark cliff and throws down his tales to float in the sea below. Some manage to catch a wave to return, the others probably find new directions.
Faizal Khan is a freelancer