Ties that bind
| It is this remembrance and the way memory is made into metaphor that lie at the centre of Badami's novel, as seen through the eyes of three women over a span of fifty years. Though the story begins in a hamlet in undivided Punjab, the book is thankfully not overburdened by the shadow of partition. It instead looks at the Punjabi peasants' zest for the good life and his entrepreneurial spirit. The mournful listlessness of the chief female protagonist Sharanjeet Kaur's father at being turned away from the Canadian maritime boundaries on board the Komagata Maru hangs heavy over the household, the breeding ground for Kaur's own Canadian dream. |
| There are three broad themes that Badami looks at in this book through the three main female characters. The irrepressible Bibi-ji or Sharanjeet Kaur's Canadian avatar, who first steals her sister's groom, thereby stealing her sister's future; and later, being cursed by childlessness, "steals" her niece's son. |
| She is Canada or the Canadian dream, which starts in Punjab, plays host to migrants but most reluctantly as Bibi-ji does in her suburban palace called, what else, but Taj Mahal. Like Canada, she reaches across the seas to pluck Gobind, her niece's sons, promising a good life leaving loss and confusion in its wake. The second theme is of liminality, of being stuck in between two worlds, a theme common to a lot of diaspora fiction. This is epitomised by Leela, the half German, half Kannadiga girl with grey eyes, who longs to belong and meets a tragic end on the Kanishka Flight to India, stuck between two countries forever. Although Leela's character is well etched in the beginning of her story, it meanders and loses its way as the story is peopled with more characters. The final theme of Nimmo, Bibi-ji's niece, who loses her mother to partition, her elder son to Bibi-ji and Sikh extremism, and her other children and husband to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, is perhaps the most poignant. She epitomises the Indian who wishes the good life but has to pay a price in terms of loss and dysfunction. The section dealing with the riots, her memory of partition and its reliving in Delhi is poignant and perhaps the best part of the book. Her giving up of her son to her rich childless aunt has repercussions in the lives of all three women. |
| Badami also skilfully looks at the rise of Sikh extremism, especially in Canada. Here the characterisation of Dr Randhawa, the Sikh ideologue preaching extremism, is spot on. His lukewarm welcome to Bibi-ji's house in the 1970s and later growing popularity capture the growth of Sikh extremism from across the seas. |
| Where Badami fails is in the characterisation of Bibi-ji and Leela, who do not come to life despite the elegant writing. The early chapters on Leela as part of a noted Bhatt family in Bangalore and her reluctance to move to Canada are well-written, but not the parts which describe her experiences in the new country. The portrayal of Nimmo, however, makes up for this. |
| At a memorial service for Kanishka victims in a European country, Indian government officials and Canadian officials are gathered to remember the dead. At that time many wondered if the people on the flight, most of them of Indian origin but Canadian citizens, would be remembered by either government. For that if nothing else, the book deserves to be read""ties between India and its diaspora bind and often gag, sometimes beyond the grave, Badami's book shows just how it happens. |
| Can You Hear the Nightingale Call? |
| Anita Rau Badami Penguin/Viking Price: Rs 495; Pages: 402 |