By Ritika Sharma
A protagonist in a moving train reminisces about his life and the world through the hazy reflection of receding trees in the window—if this offers a romantic gaze, it also bursts open multiple threads of reflection. The narrative thread of author V Shinilal’s novel The Wanderer, translated from Malayalam by Nandakumar K, traverses along with the trail its central character has chosen to meditate on his journey.
The novel begins with Karamchand, a travel blogger, logging on aboard the Sampark Kranti Express at Thiruvananthapuram. The train goes up north to Chandigarh, but he gets down at New Delhi. It’s instructive to note that Shinilal, a winner of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award and author of several works of fiction, works for the Indian Railways, an organisation which, by the virtue of its sheer network, observes the changing character of the massive landmass of the country more incisively and intimately than others. The novel can thus be read as the diary jottings of a primary observer, a roving ticket inspector who records the country through its changing terrain and the demeanour of its diverse residents.
In fact, what transpires on the train, the vivid and intense exchanges among co-travellers, is a deft metaphor for the diversity that India is. But the diversity, if mutated into divisions, can be disastrous. It takes place on the train in a sad reflection of contemporary India, as train compartments come to be segregated based on narrow identities as the journey progresses.
To begin with, the travellers, carrying their distinct idioms and idiosyncrasies, evoke the memories of a time when train travels introduced Indian householders to the diversity of the country.
But, the travellers in The Wanderer are metaphors of the political developments in the country. At this juncture, the novel takes a surreal turn and the train becomes the site for some well-recorded contemporary events. Rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, who was killed by fanatics in Maharashtra, finds a similar death at the hands of extremists on the moving train. Among the passengers is a farmer who committed suicide due to economic hardships.
The novel also has an inquisitive Englishman John, a professional wildlife photographer, who spends his journey reading a book, titled India, on India that describes the history of every city the train halts at.
As the Englishman attempts to understand the city through its past recorded in the book, a passenger gets on board at the precise junction. As the embodiment of the very city, the new entrant lends an added perspective to the narrative India offers.
Over the three thousand kilometre-long journey, India is distinctly sketched through a train which becomes ‘a collection of tiny memories’.
Even the names of passengers bear resemblances with historical personalities. Be it Narendra Dabholkar, Siddhartha or the protagonist Karamchand, named after MK Gandhi and the voice of reason and rationality on the train.
Karamchand also records all the experiences and tries to weave in the myriads of tellings and retellings of India and its citizens. Shinilal also inserts an episode about MK Gandhi’s Hindi Swaraj, in which he observed that “but for the railways, the English couldn’t have such a hold on India as they have. The railways, too, have spread the bubonic plague. Without them, the masses couldn’t have moved from place to place… the railways accentuate the evil nature of men.”
Perhaps the most moving episode of the novel arrives towards the end, when Karamchand meets Siddhartha, who is still seething with tormenting questions. Unable to find a resolution, Siddhartha is beginning a heavy journey back to his family he had long abandoned.
Unable to resolve the political crisis his home is facing, he has started calling himself ‘the futile Buddha’.
Dear reader, let’s take a pause here. Does the above narrative sound convincing? Perhaps yes, if one argues that artists are allowed all stretches of imagination. Perhaps not, if the imagination seems barren when it juxtaposes disparate elements. Must the novelist throw in all the possible references merely to drive home a political point? It might be great politics, but is it a work of art?
We leave it to the reader. That said, the journey is a telling comment on Indian society. The train eventually gets dominated by sectarian politics, gets divided into watertight compartments and is led by a group of fanatics. The journey perhaps finds the best articulation through a passenger when he says: “A railway compartment is a tiny biopsy section of the Indian body.”
Ritika Sharma is an independent scholar
Book details:
Title: The Wanderer
Author: V Shinilal
Translated by: Nandakumar K
Publisher: Westland Books
Number of pages: 296
Price: Rs 599