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166 pages

English

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From the ritual-bound household of an orthodox scholar in a small village in Bengal in 1897 to Germany and Mumbai at the turn of the new millennium, The Inheritors follows the shifting life patterns of a family through a melange of narratives, memories and characters.The unrelenting puritanism of Nyayaratna Bishnupada Deb sharma drives his daughter Radharani to insanity and throws into sharp relief his grandson Shibkali’s feeble attempt to break free. Giribala voices her resentment against her circumstances through a lifetime of silence, her destiny finding an echo in her daughter. Alo, tragic victim of her husband’s sexual perversions. And Pramatha’s depraved radicalism is set against Shashishekhar’s progressive outlook which symbolizes the most significant departure from the stifling constraints of his community. Even as it inherits the deadwood of the past, each generation strives to liberate itself, setting the stage for the eternal conflict between tradition and change, between a legacy and its inheritors. Aruna Chakravarti draws upon history and myth, religion and folklore, rituals and culinary practices to create a vivid portrait of a community of Vaidic Kulin Brahmins. The narrative, oscillating back and forth in time, weaves a vibrant tapestry of life – differing ideologies and sensibilities, suicides and desertions, marriages and infidelities, bigotry and liberalism – independence and a society caught on the cusp of conservatism and modernity.

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Publié par	Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
Date de parution	18 août 2004
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789352141593
Langue	English

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Aruna Chakravarti

The Inheritors
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Prologue-1996
Excerpts from Alo s Diary
Radharani-1897
Shibkali-1897-98
Excerpts from Alo s Diary
Shashishekhar s Daughters-1939
Mrinalini-1918
Excerpts from Alo s Diary
Noni s Recollections-1940
Excerpts from Alo s Diary
Footnotes
Excerpts from Alo s Diary
Shashishekhar s Daughters-1939
Mrinalini-1918
Author s Note
Epilogue-2000
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE INHERITORS
Aruna Chakravarti is a keen academician and a scholar and translator of repute. She has presented papers at several national and international seminars and contributed articles and reviews in many collections and journals. Her translation of Saratchandra Chatterjee s Srikanta , published by Penguin Books India in 1993, fetched her the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award. Those Days , a translation of Sunil Gangopadhyay s Sei Samai , published by Penguin Books India in 1997, received rave reviews and became a best-seller. This was followed in 2001 by First Light , a sequel to Those Days .
Aruna Chakravarti is the principal of Janki Devi Memorial College, Delhi, and has taught in this college for over forty years.
This is her first novel.
To my sister Amita without whom I couldn t have been what I am ...

Prologue-1996
M onomohini Sen stepped off the train at K ln Hauptbahnhof and looked around her eagerly. The platform was deserted. She was the only passenger, it seemed, who had alighted from the train from Poznan. Could Abhi Dada have missed her fax? Or forgotten? She was sure not. Her cousin Abhishekh Roychoudhury had been rated as one of the top ten software engineers of Germany. He couldn t be that careless. Besides, his wife would be sure to remember. How many years was it since she had seen them last? Twenty-six? No. Twenty-seven. Mono made a quick calculation. It had been in 1969. The year they were married.
Ah! That must be them. Mono looked up with a smile at the two figures hurrying towards her. How like each other they looked now, she thought. Ruchira had been a shy, demure bride in crackling new red saris, sindoor and gold bangles. Now she was a replica of her husband. Tall, slim and straight, with a crop of curly hair that matched his exactly. Except that his, even at sixty, was raven black and hers was veined with silver. They were dressed in identical blue jeans and dark grey fleece jackets. And their walk, as they strode purposefully towards her, was identical too. They look like twins, Mono thought.
Sorry Mono, Abhi said, giving her a quick hug before picking up her suitcase. We overslept. He grinned-his old shy, boyish grin. Abhi Dada doesn t look a day over thirty, Mono thought. And he s as handsome as ever.
Welcome to Germany, Ruchira said with a flash of long teeth stained with nicotine. I hope you had a pleasant journey. Her Bengali was heavily accented with Deutsche. Abhi s was not.
Very pleasant, Mono replied politely and entirely truthfully. Your trans-European trains are a marvel.
Mono looked out of the window as Abhi manoeuvred his Mercedes Benz out of the parking lot. Wow! she exclaimed as the magnificent fa ade of the K ln cathedral whizzed past. What a sight! Really and truly impressive!
We ll bring you over to see it, Ruchira promised.
Did you notice the marble statues, Mono? Abhi asked.
Yes.
They are human statues.
What do you mean?
They are human beings dressed in white and coated with chalk. They stand in the same position for hours and hours.
Whatever for?
I ve no idea. It s some sort of tradition.
How did the book tour go, Mono? Ruchira twisted her head and looked back from the front seat.
Hectic, Mono replied, but extremely well organized. Every minute utilized and planned. Down to the last detail. My publishers are very good at this sort of thing.
I hope you ve brought a copy for us.
Of course.
Ruchi is a fan of yours, Abhi said, smiling. She has read all your books.
And you haven t-obviously.
No, Abhi shook his head ruefully. Where s the time?
The car had hit the Autobahn by now and was doing a staggering two hundred miles per hour. That s the Rhine on your left, Abhi said after a while. Mono turned her head eagerly but said nothing. Not impressed? Ruchira turned to her with a laugh.
Mono remembered an afternoon spent in Dakshineshwar. She had stood on the stone steps rising from the Ganga, her eyes fixed on the water. It had stretched out before her, vast and endless as the sea, under a lowering monsoon sky.
No, she said with an answering laugh. Not really!
Abhi and Ruchi lived in a village called Reischof Denklingen, ninety miles away from K ln. In the Merc it would take a little less than an hour, Abhi said. They drove in silence for a while, Mono s eyes fixed on the landscape outside her window.
What are you giving us for lunch, Ruchi? she asked presently. She called Abhishekh Abhi Dada because he was two and a half years older than her. Ruchira being her own age didn t merit the title of Boudi. I may as well tell you: my soul yearns for dal-bhat . I don t mind if I never see a sausage again. Or a cold cut.
Ruchira turned around with another flash of her long yellow teeth. You are getting dal-bhat, she said. And pumpkin fritters. And mustard ilish !
Ilish! Mono exclaimed joyfully. How on earth did you manage to get ilish?
There s a fishmonger in Frankfurt. He s a Bangladeshi and keeps everything from crabs to minnows-frozen, of course.
Ruchi and I make a trip once a month and stock up, Abhi said. Forty years among the Germans. And I still can t stomach their food.
The car climbed a hill and entered a wooded valley. Mono looked out of the window fascinated by what she saw. It was early autumn but sheets of wild poppies and cyclamen still clung to the slopes. Gnarled apple trees and raspberry canes, bending over with fruit, grew in the hollows. Tiny homesteads with sloping roofs and chimneys dotted the hills around them.
Charming! Mono cried out in delight. Straight out of a children s picture book.
Another ten minutes of driving and they were at their destination. It was a lovely house, set in the middle of a large sloping garden, old world and picturesque from outside with every modern comfort within. Everything from the brass fender at the mock fireplace to the clusters of Yohann berries hanging from the hedge around the garden looked as though it had just been washed and polished. Your house is so clean-it squeaks, Ruchi, Mono said admiringly. Cleaner than any German frau s, I bet.
Ruchi smiled. Bath first? Or coffee? she asked.
Bath.

An hour later Mono came into the living room to find Abhi watching the film Speed on television. It was dubbed in German. Come into the kitchen, Mono, Ruchi poked her head into the room. You won t get a word out of your cousin till Sandra Bullock has driven her bus to safety. Men are such children!
But after lunch Abhi sought her out. Let s sit in the garden, Mono, he said. The afternoons are still warm and mellow though it is September.
I d like to rest for a while, Ruchira excused herself. Besides, your Abhi Dada has something important to say to you.
What could he have to say that you can t hear?
Nothing really still
Once seated in the garden chairs under a spreading pear tree Abhi came straight to the point.
Mono, he said, I hear you re planning to write a book about the family. Is that true?
Mono hesitated a little. Yes, Abhi Dada, she said after a while. I ve been thinking about it for some time now.
How much do you know?
Not very much but I ve been working on it. I ve visited Majilpur and Rajpur, and talked to several people. Sodu Mashi-my mother s sister-was a mine of information. And in Rajpur I came across some old women, distant relations of the Shiromonis, who were very garrulous and eager to tell me all they knew.
Which was-?
Again-not all that much. But I m beginning to get the ambience, and some ideas have started forming in my head. I ve also been racking my brains trying to remember every detail of what my father and mother told us about their past. I really wish I had paid more attention. Mono smiled ruefully and added, Noni Didi used to talk a great deal too-about her childhood in Delhi. I m a good deal younger than her you know.
What about actual evidence? Like notes, letters and memoirs. Do you have any?
While going through Baba s books after his death-he left them to me you know-I found two letters. One was from Sodu Mashi to Ma. It was tucked away in a packet of old bills and cash memos. The other, a postcard from my grandmother, I found in the pages of The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde .
Abhi s brow furrowed in thought. Raising his head slowly, he asked, Will my mother come into your story?
Abhi s mother, Alo, was Mono s Pishi, her father s only sister. She had died just over a year ago.
She will-of course, Mono answered, biting her lips thoughtfully. The trouble is-I know so little of Alo Pishi s life particularly the early part, the hush-hush part. How much do you know, Abhi Dada?
Only that she left my father just before I was born. She was twenty-two. I had a sister of five or maybe six who died a few months later.
Why did she leave him?
I don t know. Ma never spoke of it. Her brother Himangshu-Himu Mama-who brought me up, didn t either. He must have known the truth but he kept it from me even after I became an adult. My father had done something unforgivable. That much I gathered. But what it was I never found out.
I used to hear Ma and her great friend, our Durga Pishi, whisper about it in my childhood, Mono said, but whenever I went near them they shooed me away. I was so terribly curious-I even accosted Alo Pishi once. I was about fifteen at the time and had just graduated into writing adult stories. I took my courage in my hands-we were all terribly scared of her and that includes you-and begg