In the world of an aspiring writer

The Patna Manual
of Style: Stories
Siddharth Chowdhury
Aleph
2015, pp 143, Rs. 295


I almost didn’t read this book, for the jacket proclaimed — ‘Go to any party, in any country, on any moonlit terrace of the world, the best dressed man is always the one from Patna.’ It completely put me off. But, it’s Siddharth Chowdhury, his Day Scholar was interesting, and shortlisted for Man Asian Literary Prize. So, I started flipping the pages, and didn’t regret it one bit. I soon found myself lost in the world of the protagonist, Hriday Thakur, and his adventures with his life, work, family and friends.

A collection of nine interlinked stories, the book follows the literary ambitions of Hriday, through which we encounter many interesting characters that people the book. To begin with, there’s Jai Shankar Sharma aka Jishnu da, a colourful personality from Hriday’s Delhi University days, now an ‘importer of Russian blondes’; Samuel Crown, a punctilious proofreader who introduces Hriday to the ‘nuts and bolts of the publishing business’; the many women who have touched his life in some way — his teen-crush Sophia Rai, youth-flames Charulata and Anjali Singh Nalwa, wife Chitrangada, chronicler of graveyards Imogen Burns, and so on.

Though all the stories are  breezy vignettes detailing an aspiring writer’s infatuation with life’s many colours, they don’t follow any timeline, in the strict sense of the term. The book kicks off with Hriday, having just lost his job as a sub-editor with a “third-rung ‘lifestyle’ magazine called Touch”, heading to Yadavji Litti Centre for his favourite Patna Large of four litties, two pieces of mutton in fiery red gravy, brinjal and potato chokha and a small katori of desi ghee, bumping into Jishnu da, and bonding over glasses of beer and Peter Scot, and fiery-hot stories from Jishnu da’s life. We then go back to his life post-MA, where the only certain thing in his life was Charulata, the one with Durga-shaped eyes, and his meeting with her parents to seek her hand in marriage. He is, at this stage, very determined to be a novelist, not wanting to do his MPhil and pursue academics, as also civil services.

Through the course of the next few stories, we learn that he has finally found his footing as an ‘ad-hoc’ lecturer in the English department at Zakir Husain College, with his book of stories to be published soon, and that he is happily married to Chitrangada, a marketing executive with a publishing house, who shares a perfect rapport with his mother.

The book wraps up with the Death of a Proofreader, that relates the positive influence Samuel Crown, ‘the best proofreader in all of Ansari Road’, had on Hriday early in his life, prompting him to get back to doing his M.Phil.

Well, that’s The Patna Manual of Style for you, in short. A great collection of stories that are, by themselves, short stories in the real sense of the word. The best part of the book, however, is its shifting narrative, that provides readers ample windows to understand Hriday better.

A quick read at 142 pages, the book left me wanting more. Such is the characterisation of Hriday. However, another peek into his life would be a definite possibility in 2020, according to the author. While the book is instantly appealing to all those hungry for good stories, it will be especially so for people in the world of writing, publishing, proof-reading and journalism. I have a minor complaint though — there are quite a few editing errors. A keener eye for editing would have been certainly welcome.