A quick-fix parable for our times

Five years after his debut as a novelist, publisher David Davidar has returned with a slimmer book that again sets a story in the context of sweeping political and social changes viewed against the background of Indian history. As far as similarities go, that and his return to the Nilgiris in the south as a setting are all that is common. Where The House of Blue Mangoes was a more complex, perhaps even clever, narration, The Solitude of Emperors is racier, simpler and more sharply focused.

Written as journalistic reportage (with an eye for detail that, alas, reporters so lack), at its heart Solitude... is Vijay's story of growing up in a small town from which he escapes to journalistic oblivion, working for a Parsi editor, Mr Sorabjee, and his devotion to the cause of secularism. Davidar uses this platform to explore India's secular history as different from the meaning of the term in a global context, as a co-existence of religions rather than being non-religious. He develops this metaphor further through three rather naïve histories written by Sorabjee for schoolchildren "" of Ashok, Akbar and Gandhi "" that try and establish how you can practise your faith without subjugating others to it, and how the mass of India's millions of gods are being flogged by fundamentalists to foment crises to serve their narrow ambitions.

Davidar's concern with national issues is apparent, even informed, but seems to ride on the fumes of whisky in drawing room conversations. Vijay, whom the negative protagonist of the book Rajan correctly identifies as "passionate if a little misguided", is told, "This country is poised for greatness, and the only way it will achieve this is if we are resolute and move forward in a united fashion. And that will only happen if the majority leads the way..." echoing the popular perception of the positions adopted by BJP-wallahs, the Shiv Sena and, to use a more extreme example, Gujarat's Narendra Modi. And Vijay's familiar counter-argument: "You are not the first to impose your vision of fundamentalism on the people, and you won't be the last. The people will spurn you when they realize you have nothing substantial to offer except hate and lies."

Vijay, as narrator, has some sterling moments, such as his description of the rioters stalking Bombay's roads and cul-de-sacs as they kill and maim in a violence that is senseless. And he has an eye for detail that, even in the disparaging, dispassionate tone he adopts, serves the book well. But in the end it is neither him, nor Rajan, but Noah whose character is sketched out best. The maverick Noah inhabits a cemetery in Meham, is well read and erudite, and lives on the edge in a haze of rum and ganja "" not unlike wayward characters who populate myths and graveyards in many of India's hill stations. It is Noah who, by sleight of fate, will end the communal violence that threatens Meham at the time Vijay arrives there on a vacation.

But Davidar's plot, unfortunately, is structurally flawed. The imposed sermons on Akbar and Co reek of schoolboyish sincerity, and his characters eventually succumb to the cliches of popular culture. Sentimental Noah has strayed too far from conventional society to be condoned by it, not unlike Janice (played by Zeenat Aman) in Hare Rama, Hare Krishna), and as a misfit, must be got rid of, though heroically. This Noah does in a fit of conscience after reading Sorabjee's last chapter, where he exhorts readers to seek their own way forward towards "an unwavering commitment to tolerance... You have no time to lose "" the forces arrayed against you and yours are arming at a furious pace "" and as you wait for your own champion to arrive, you must continue to fight in whatever way you can to restore the sanity and decency to our nation, you emperors of the everyday".

The denouement, then, not unlike Rang De Basanti, or the public outrage in the popular Jessica Lall murder case, which saw armies of middle class vigilantes, seems to be Davidar's solution. Identify the demons and eliminate them, though in the case of Rajan, it does seem that Vijay's accusations, picked out of thin air and never established, are precocious and likely to get past the due-diligence of even the most lax editor. The fuschia-growing community in the Nilgiris where much of the book is set, the caricature Brigadier and planter...they, alas, lack the depth David could so easily have imbued them with. In the too-pat end, therefore, the dissatisfaction of a morality tale told too fast and too simplistically is somewhat rescued by having a heart in the right place. Sadly, it seems to beat for an intellectualised rather than a real India.

---

The Solitude of Emperors

David Davidar
Penguin/Viking
246 pages; Rs 495