JOIN USJuxtaposing a monkey with a man
Genre has gone rogue. Once a helpful tool in mapping the vast ocean that is literature, systemic abuse has rendered it somewhat a rigid set of pigeonholes that enables gatekeepers to reject that which does not conform. All too often, genre-fluid manuscripts that represent true creativity and literary experimentation, never make it to the reader — until it is commonly believed, as we do now, that all books must necessarily sit comfortably within the warm parameters of a genre.
It takes a publisher who lays emphasis on art and literature far more than on commercial considerations to bring out this excellently produced slim volume, Pebblemonkey by Sahitya Akademi 2011 winner Manindra Gupta. Much credit to Jadavpur University Press which upholds the worldwide tradition of universities and their publishing arm leading the intellectual growth of a nation. As a prolific translator of great skill and repute, Arunava Sinha unearths gems rarely accessible to those outside the frames of Bangla literature, essentially curating as much as filling the gaps in our current Indian Writing in English scenario.
In the absence of a definitive genre, how really may a book be described? This one is odd, slightly foreboding: much like a flash of lightning on a dark night. The writing flits from children’s fiction to fantasy to a fable to allegory to mythic fiction to an ecological study to such a unique form that no other book may replicate it. It is poetry and it is not. It is philosophy, and yet, that too it is not. It turns known realities on their head, yet it is more real than commercial pop fiction. Could this be a sketchy Bildungsroman, tracing the spiritual growth of a monkey mind through the realities and absurdities it experiences? It is essentially a book that must be experienced firsthand as also a book that creates new patterns and newer interpretations long after it is read.
A questioning mind
An ibex dislodges a pebble that rolls through streams and rocks down the Himalayan snowline until it turns into a monkey. Born unnaturally and without the essential teaching that accompanies nurture, Pebblemonkey learns about life, the world and his place in it through his experiences and through a questioning mind. By nature ascetic, he lives the simplest frugal life that includes subsisting on the most sparse. Yet his experiences are rich.
The first teacher who enters his life is the hermit. Essentially he is Tarapada Chakraborty who had stolen away from his rather successful life in secret and has wandered for 10 years seeking the meaning of life. It is through him that Pebblemonkey is introduced to the scriptures and to the essence of Advaita: everything is Brahman. This symbiotic relation, which is both meaningful and comforting, comes to a jarring end when his monkey nature will not let him take the vow of celibacy.
The next set of humans Pebblemonkey encounters are the Singh Deos, ruler of the kingdom of Jagadalpur with quaint resonances with the Pandavas and their wife Draupadi except this queen is called Ranima. Pebblemonkey’s romantic interest is the doe Doenna.
The female bear Jambavati, wife of Krishna, also comes to her father’s home in the mountains in a mythical twist. With each, he forms relationships that are strange, fabulous and laden with mystic insights. His conversations with Ranima are pure interchanges on how the world is viewed through learning and how it is in reality.
The next set of humans the Pebblemonkey has intimate interactions with is the strange trio of women mountaineers — Freya, Pipi and Terasu and their Sherpas, Big Daju and Little Daju. Running as a strong thread through this unlikely story is a concern for forests, forest creatures and man’s harmful interaction with both. On the one hand, there’s the vast learning and spiritual quests available to man and on the other, his single-minded pursuit of profit. All of it unrolls menacingly to a violent flashpoint which spells doom not only for the ecosystem but also for all the animals who have flourished for centuries in the absence of man.