A story about an ordinary man in a rather extraordinary fix,” the blurb goes. Not once, however, through the 312 pages of the novel does the fix seem to qualify as “extraordinary”, nor does the man appear that “ordinary”. For, what kind of ordinary man would walk off, because he is broke, with a rare Mughal-era gold coin – only two of the sort in the world – kept in the custody of a museum in which he is employed?
A second-generation North Indian in Chennai, Harihar Arora – or the novel’s eponymous “man of a thousand chances” – works as Assistant to the Curator at Madras museum. He lives with wife Sarla, towards whom he is apathetic, and daughter Meeta, whose wedding he manages to pull off by pawning the stolen coin. The couple lives in constant hope of finding Ratan, their son who had disappeared four years ago. Written in a simple and elegant prose style, Man of a Thousand Chances is author Tulsi Badrinath’s second novel.
The humdrum existence of a middle-class family is central to the plot, and is given a decent portrayal — Harihar silently despises his wife for not keeping the house, and herself, in order; all she worries about is serving food on time. He reminisces about the days when she “would greet him shyly at the front door, dressed up in a fresh stretched saree, matching bangles ... yearning to go out somewhere with him”; she’s past it and wanders their rented apartment with “hair twisted in a thin plate ... one of her crumpled house saris on”.
The sameness of middle-class family life serves a useful purpose here; it sets off the bits on the daughter’s wedding, which cover a wide swathe of the novel. To be fair, the author does a good job sketching a picture-perfect Indian wedding with all its ceremonials. Equally good is the manner in which she has detailed the frantic activity that takes place behind all that costly glitter and perfunctory smiles so critical to Indian weddings. The narrative flows as long as Badrinath keeps to what seems to be her forte: bringing simple, even hackneyed, subjects, one such as a “typical Indian wedding”, to life. It is when she strays that one may find it hard to work up a genuine interest in the plot.
The narrative falters in its attempt to convince the reader that a conscientious man with a stable job, who has so far leaned on the usual risk-free sources to meet wedding expenses, would go to great pains and gamble with both his job and reputation to meet the shortfall, by pledging a stolen coin worth millions of dollars with a pawnbroker, with an intention to restore it. “The problem was that Harihar had never been able to save much” is too lame a reason to engender theft of government property.
If little thought seems to have gone into convincing readers about a theft quite uncharacteristic of a world-weary middle-class man with a family, the author labours hard to create an aura of “extraordinary” around seemingly predictable events that follow the theft. Consider Harihar’s decision to stake the valuable coin, unmindful of the precarious nature of the pawnbroking business; it is amply clear Harihar would have a hard time redeeming the coin. The antique has surreptitiously changed hands and finds itself in the care of a numismatist, Kumar, who can – and does – kill people to accomplish that perfect collection of coins. But that’s not what Harihar knows. It has been melted, the pawnbroker tells Harihar, who is a week late in redeeming the coin (he claims he is on time, till the pawnbroker furnishes the receipt).
Or take Harihar’s enthusiasm about the expected maturity of his deposit with a certain City Benefit Fund, with which he is to pay back the pawnbroker and retrieve the coin. By the time the details are out you would have already guessed it is just another Ponzi scheme, waiting to collapse under its own weight. That pretty much sums up the “extraordinary fix”.
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And what’s with the manna from heaven? It remains unclear whether it is providence, karma or, simply, authorial prerogative – the author has much to explain – that brings an end to Harihar’s predicament. It just so happens that the museum witnesses a bigger theft, hence the lost coin becomes part of the stolen lot; moreover, it turns out the pawnbroker is the latest victim of the killer numismatist. Fear of being caught wiped out, no money to settle, and Harihar is a happy man. By closing the novel with such serendipitous events, the author stretches credulity to the limit. So much for a happy ending!
To her credit, it is striking how Badrinath has employed numismatics in her novel — coins, each with a history of its own, come alive in the numismatist’s imagination. However, most off-putting – and pervasive – is Badrinath’s fixation with the sublime mysteries of life. Realisations about fate and free will dawn on Harihar in the most unsuitable moments; the book even has a chapter philosophising on karma, causality and free will.
Moral of the story: sometimes it’s better to stick to life as we know it.
MAN OF A THOUSAND CHANCES
Tulsi Badrinath
Hachette India
312 pages; Rs 395