FOCUS LITERATURE Sudha Devi Nayak
Looking back, it’s an inspiring feeling – of having met with such narrations, having learned from them ….
==
TEXT
A great book becomes a great reading experience, and a great reading experience is largely defined not just by the character of its content but also the context and circumstance in which it is read.
I remember that, during my last year of graduation, my father brought home Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy from his office library. He read the book in the little time he had for himself after supervising our lessons. Every few days he would say, ”Amma, this is one of Tolstoy’s great novels and you must read it.” Every time, my reply would be a meek, “Yes, Papa.” But I never got round to it and the book was ultimately returned. Later, after I got married, I was thrilled to find Resurrection in my husband’s modest collection. I would read it right then, I thought, but never quite got down to it, complacent in the knowledge that the book was with us and could be read anytime.
Though many books were read, Resurrection was not. Years passed with a number of family relocations and the book was left behind in Bhubaneswar. When I returned several years later, I rediscovered the book, moth-eaten and the covers falling off. I rushed with anguish and guilt to the binders, had it repaired, and sat down to read it. It was some 40 years since I first saw the book. Better late, than never. I read it, and as pages passed by, and I got exposed to its great narrative, the awe in me multiplied – the awakening of one man, the injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of the Church.
The book narrates the story of a nobleman who seeks redemption from a sin he committed earlier, opening his eyes to a world of misery and oppression outside his charmed, aristocratic existence. My reading of the book was more than a memorial to my father.
Sometime back, I rummaged through a small almirah of books that belonged to us — six siblings in all at my parents’ place — the books that remained after each of us left the place with our favourite books. I spied a brand new book Forbidden Colours by the Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. On the flyleaf was an inscription addressed to me, with best complements, by a colleague. There was no date or place mentioned and I had no memory of the book. All I knew was a good friend talking to me across a yawning distance of time. The book written in the 50s and translated in the 60s was published by Penguin in 1971 and explores brilliantly the theme of homosexuality through an ageing novelist who seeks to take his revenge on the womankind by bribing a beautiful homosexual student to marry him. Written in lyrical, crystalline prose, the book is memorable.
Once, I was on an official visit to Thiruvananthapuram. I found in SBI’s guest house there a small collection of books in a lone book case that contained Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel Never let me go which was earlier on the Booker shortlist. A novel of love, loss and hidden truths. It is about children who led normal lives and are made to believe they were normal except for the fact that they did not have biological parents. It is only as they grow up and learn — a heartbreaking journey from innocence to knowledge –that they are a set of clones, created to be donors for donating organs till they die. A piece of science fiction, too, that indeed reflects well on our life and times. The sole occupant of the guest house, over many days, I shed gallons of tears as I read the book during my leisure time.
I also remember the quiet vacation spent at my uncle’s abode in a little village in Andhra Pradesh, Kaptanpalem, so called because a captain once passed by. It was a rambling, crumbling mansion of several generations that held a million secrets, surrounded by mango trees and date palms with string cots strategically placed for afternoon siestas or evening chats. As an 11-year-old looking for secrets and mysteries in the mansion, I came across a tattered copy of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty abandoned by my older cousins.
I read it lying on a string cot under a tree. It is the autobiographical tale with a horse as its central character, that has seen cruelty and kindness at the hands of its many masters. There are the carefree days as a colt with its mother, then pulling cabs under difficult conditions and finally having had a happy retirement. I cannot but quote these memorable lines from the book, ”There is no religion without love and people may talk as much as they like about their religion but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it’s all a sham.”
Looking back, it’s an inspiring feeling – of having met with such narrations, having learned from them, and living my life through them.
