An idyllic childhood is usually not the stuff of a great book. Without the torment of a bully or the tyranny of an abusive elder, the plot rarely thickens. Yet, this innocent and charming boyhood tale is refreshing in that it keeps the reader’s attention without going too deep into the darkness of growing up.
The Sergeant’s Son is the story of Kalu, a boy born in the darkness of amavasya, or a new-moon night. That is why, his mother tells him when he asks about his colour, he was born with a dark complexion. In a nation of coloured people, where fairness is coveted, Kalu is vexed at being thus singled out by nature. For us, as Indian readers, Kalu’s distress is easy to understand, as is his mother’s explanation. We know what he is talking about.
In fact, this is the kind of familiarity that marks most of the book. The stories about family, friends, school, the neighbourhood dynamics in a big city and a small town ring a bell. We have encountered similar people and waded through situations quite like the ones through which the author takes his protagonist. One such character is Kalu’s father, Sergeant Samar (and hence the name of the book). “Samar regularly subscribed to Desh, the leading Bengali literary journal. He would read the magazine from cover to cover. It was because of him that the children got into the habit of listening to the news on the radio both in the morning and at night.” If you belong to a Bengali family or know of one, you are sure to have met Samar, albeit under another name. Bengali men of a certain vintage are deeply nostalgic about the literary traditions of Desh and the English news on the radio.
The book takes us into a world we know. The characters are people we are likely to have met in the everyday humdrum of our lives. We are also most likely to have been in similar situations as the protagonist finds himself in or, at the very least, know of people who have been there. For example, the pressure of securing a rank in class even after firmly securing the teacher’s approbation is a familiar story. Kalu is often burdened with the need to excel in his class, even though “more than studying, his interest lay in drawing and colouring”. And then, there are those who never believe in his talent, accusing him of copying the pictures he drew from books and magazines with tracing paper. These attitudes cut deep and shape much of Kalu’s character as it develops through the rest of the book. Sceptics live among and within us, and we are sure to encounter them all through our lives. But the ones who make the most impact are those we meet when we are young; when our talent is only as good as what others say it is.
The book also gives us an insight into a world that we have long left behind. The Bombay the author describes is as far from the present as one can imagine. The travelling salesmen, selling everything from cakes to sugarcane to ice cream, for instance, are not part of the city’s landscape anymore. Nor can one imagine stealing mangoes off trees in the heart of the city. Similarly, the Allahabad that the author takes us to exists in an era long gone. It lives only in the literature of those times.
The book is faithful in the way it paints these places. It is almost as if we can see the bazaars of Allahabad with pushcarts stacked with vegetables and grain. Even though it may be impossible to find such a place in the city today, the book takes us there.
The strength of the book is that it deals with the known. It does not take an unfamiliar turn. But, in a way, that is its weakness too. At no point does the book make us wonder, “What next?”. The father’s stoicism, the mother’s frustrations, the rivalries that colour sibling relationships, and the sexual forays of a repressed adolescent do not bring any surprises. The author works with stereotypes; while there is no denying the fact that these are real people, it may not have been imprudent to sketch in a few edges to their personalities. Fiction does give one that liberty and the author may have done well to exercise that.
THE SERGEANT'S SON
Ashim Choudhury
Rupa
246 pages; Rs 250
