Reviewed by: Sutanuka Ghosh Roy
Title:
When Jaya met Jaggu
Author: Annapurna Sharma
Page:
187
ISBN:
978-93-91431-35-8 (Paperback)
Edition:
(2022)
Price:
₹ 400 * $ 14.99.
Published by
Hawakal Publishers, Kolkata, New Delhi, India.
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| A Annapurna Sharma |
The opening story “Jasmine Maid” is a realization story of a child maid that catches the readers unawares. Malli the little girl works as a maid “when her mother fell sick, she took over the job like it was sarkari naukari”. The juxtaposition of Indian words with English is a clever ploy of the writer to make it feel more at home. Indian writers writing in English have come a long way and have been using the English language very effectively in the Indian context and there have been warm-hearted global acceptance. Malli’s connection with the ‘black idol of Krishna’ is intricate and with each passing day, the bond becomes intimate. Sharma has deftly brought out how Malli is doubly marginalized as a child maid and also as a girl child. The little girl understands the ways of the world in a bitter-sweet way. “When alone, she opened her fist. There were three chocolates soaked with the sweat in her hand. On her way home, she threw them in the dustbin, the big one, where no one, even Baba or Madam could find the Coffee Bites. The sweetness oozed into her and spread like venom”. Coffee Bites for Malli associates memories of fear, sexual assault, forbidden desire, and other turbulent emotions. The readers are at once moved with empathy for the subaltern.
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| Sutanuka Ghosh Roy |
In “The Lame Mango” Sharma seems to have
mastered the art of dealing with ultra-sensitive narratives and adapted and
directed the story into a moving piece of drama. The narrative of Ajay,
Pratibha, Mahuya, Sravan, and others is propelled by an efficient and
easy-flowing language that does not loosen its grip even for a moment. Sharma
has done a great job as a storyteller who finds expression in the way the story
bends to diverse rhythms. “Alka darted like a bushy tailed squirrel and pointed
to two saplings planted on either side of the axed mango tree. A house crow
landed on the axed mango tree, glancing right and then left at the baby plants.
Tears dropped endlessly”. “Gods without inquest” leaves the readers groping
with emotions. The characters of Ranga and Rangi stand for two distinct world
orders rather than becoming dense and appear to be jerky since “there is no
place for greed in their lives”. The story assumes a different kind of
storytelling, stitching together the fragments of their lives. “Ranga was
intoxicated with selling toddy. Rangi loved red: redness of sky, redness of love,
redness of truth, redness of the deity, redness of her fingers”.
Sharma has depicted the clash of culture
between the east and the west in her next story “The Temple under the Tamarind Tree”. The
journey from Bengal to Boston remains a search for roots and food is a powerful
tool for retrieval for Partho the protagonist of the story who “spent most of
the time at the university teaching South Asian Literature”. His mother’s
dreams of the fading shapes of God make Sharma’s narrative seem suspended
amidst nothingness. The sense of otherworldliness can perhaps be attributed to
the distance—of class, lifestyles, realities—that separates the readers from
the subject. Myth, tradition, religion, and belief are woven as a continuous
loom and Sharma has her reader in thrall with the art of fashioning her narratives
with refreshing air. She writes, “tradition never claims lives. It merely holds
all beings in a close circle, not the vicious web of spider, but the gossamer
of love”.
When Jaya met
Jaggu
is one of those books which leave you asking for more. Sharma through her
intuitive artistic language and in her quiet way has succeeded in interrogating
our established views of love and life as a whole.
