Beneath the calm

Ratika Kapur makes a commendable debut with her first novel.

The title, though not a common usage in temperate climes, is presumably used here in the sense of overcoming an emotionally difficult time, though both sections of the book are sub-titled Summer.

The novel starts with the protagonist, Ketaki, having to deal with the fear of losing her Uncle Deepak, who has lapsed into a coma after a near-drowning incident.

Deepak is the husband of Ketaki’s maternal aunt, Neera. The story explores the strong bonding between Deepak and Ketaki, which could be father-daughter or something more

Even whilst Ketaki is wrestling with the fear of losing her beloved uncle, her father Vikram, who lives in New York, decides to make a visit to Delhi where the story is set. Vikram makes use of this opportunity to reveal a family secret that shakes up Ketaki and forces her to re-examine her feelings for her uncle: “Twenty-nine years need to be imagined again, it is as if an entire history demands to be rewritten.”

A book delving into human emotions could have been a tough call for a first-time novelist, but Ratika acquits herself admirably, even as she writes dispassionately about the goings-on in the protagonist’s family. Her uninvolved approach towards her characters seems to meld into that of Ketaki, and though the book is written in the third person, it sometimes becomes hard to discern between Ratika and Ketaki. On the day of her mother’s death anniversary, Ratika expresses Ketaki’s thoughts thus: “It may be the day my mummy died, but there is no mush, nothing melting; nothing that will well up into tears; only something hard, something calcified deep in my gut.”

The cynicism about pain is reflected in another observation about a man’s expression of grief: “Over here, pain that is left alone, unconsoled, makes a man — a mighty martyr — out of anyone.”

Ketaki’s sense of ennui is reflected in her relationships with the different men in her life. Since some of these relationships are in full swing, even before she feels betrayed by her past, these shifts from the solely sexual to the totally platonic are a little hard to fathom. Could the disillusionment with Uncle Deepak be the cause for some of her confusions? Perhaps one can look for answers in Ketaki’s ruminations about “what exactly it is that is no longer in her life and demands substitution.” Ketaki does not seem to believe that you can “simply replace one person with another.”

But her solution to dealing with what has disappeared from her life sounds more practical than mournful: “You do not go hunting for that one special person…instead, you determine what that man who died or disappeared did for you and find three or five people or ten people who can play some of his roles, act some of his parts...these sorts of things help, but only marginally.”

Foremost amongst Ratika’s strengths is her use of language, lyrical and at times brutal, guaranteed to shake the reader from her sense of complacency. She
explains her “f..k buddy,” relationship thus: “What they share is special because it is not bogged down by the horrors of forever.” And yet, “a feeling that resembles love does grow.” When it is her first meeting with Siddharth, a candidate for her hand in marriage, Ratika wisely writes: “It is that special time in a relationship, the first light, in which exists a generosity of spirit that seldom endures.”

Whilst Ratika’s clever turn of phrase might make the reader accept certain strange behavioural traits in her protagonist, Kapur is brilliant in her understanding of human nature. After her father’s startling revelation, Ketaki re-evaluates her feelings towards Uncle Deepak. “She can only love him or hate him…she cannot swim in that lukewarm gulf of indifference.”

With the family secret out, Ketaki now starts to look at Neera masi with new eyes, as her thought processes undergo a subtle shift. And for the first time, she tries to understand her: “No, her aunt did not forgive them…Their transgressions are her sustenance. She cultivates the suffering they caused her; watering it, feeding it, reaping its harvest. It is what keeps her alive.”

But where the author is most convincing is in her original expressions with
regard to the different emotions linked with death: “And in the end, it is all the same.

Whether he walks out on you, or he dies, or you cheat on him and leave, in the end this he, this flesh and blood being…is gone, and all that you are left with are artefacts: a picture, a bauble, a bone.” The angst of life is beautifully captured in the final parting. Worth a read whilst the reader will surely agree with the protagonist: “There are some things about family that should remain secret.”