Right after I read her autobiography - One Foot On The Ground, I ordered Shanta Gokhale's 'Crowfall'. This is an English translation of her original novel "त्या वर्षी", which won the Maharashtra State Literary Award in 2008. Since this translation has been done by the author herself, I hesitate to call it a translation. Perhaps when I read the original, I would be better informed to label it.
Before I started reading it, I looked for reviews online. It has been repetitively described as a "portrait of Mumbai". Although this description is what we scientists often call 'fit for purpose', this book is so much more than just Mumbai. It is a story about a group of artists living in Mumbai in turbulent times. 'That year' is the year 2004 - based on the events in the book, but the characters relive their childhoods through their parents' youth, making it an account of post-independence India.
Ashesh and Anima are siblings, raised by a Gandhian father and a reluctantly secular mother. They are the central characters of this novel. Ashesh is an artist - a painter and Anima, a school teacher. Stumbling through personal tragedies, both of them have found a life of their own in Mumbai. They have found a family in their artist friends. All of them together, are witnesses to the socio-political transformation of Mumbai through the 90s.
Shanta Gokhale has unfolded all the shades of the act of human grieving for the reader. When people lose their loved ones to death or failed relationships, the grief stays back with them and grows up for the rest of their lives. It is like they birth an entity at the end of the relationship which haunts them forever. How you remember the one you have lost changes with time. The intensity of the grief wanes and the mind sometimes re-organizes your memories. It is quite possible for two people related to the same dead person to have two diametrically opposing memories about them, often prompting you to wonder, if they are indeed talking about the same person. She captures this process of living in memory of someone. She has done it so brilliantly that it flies out of the novel and reads like something universal, which even I can experience as I read.
Art is the carrier of this story. But this book is as much about the technical aspects and the philosophy of art, as it is about the humans who create it. I was taken aback, when I came to a point where Shanta Gokhale confidently spends an entire chapter on describing the proceedings of an art conference to the readers. Who takes these kinds of risks in a novel? But I read the entire chapter with as much interest as I had in the burgeoning romance of two characters in the novel.
Through the storyline, this books tackles fundamental questions about human creativity, starting with something as basic as, what is art? It also gives the reader a peek into the politics within the art community. Visual art is no exception to other human activities. There's fame to be sought, there's money to be made. Gokhale obviously comes from a position of rich experience in the area, hence is able to show us all the faces of the Mumbai art circle.
A recurring theme in the novel is the struggle of the young to break free of their mentors. This happens in every generation, yet every generation feels utterly dismayed at the way the younger generation is going about their lives. This struggle, to break free and keep your peace as well, with your gurus, your parents, your audience is also a process of constant negotiation. The negotiation is with ourselves as much as it is with others. This books unravels that process for the reader without making it overly dramatic.
Some parts of the book make you wonder if a poet is writing this prose. There's a description of Laburnum Road in Gamdevi leading up to Mani Bhavan. I have never been there, but the words literally took me there. Which brings me to the most important part of this novel. Above all the human entanglements and art, or the vivid portraits of Mumbai, it is perhaps more importantly than anything else, about the slow, steady yet viciously persistent process of dismantling Gandhi in an independent India. It began in 1948 and has continued doggedly, bringing us to the India of 2021. We see a nation today where Mahatma Gandhi has almost successfully been replaced by Ram. All the things he stood for vanish in front of our eyes as we become helpless observers. I wonder if the author was aware of just how ominous her metaphors were going to be!
