Those were the days when the British library was still open in Trivandrum. One of the main reasons why I loved the library was that it acquainted me with the latest publications in the field of Indian writing in English. I used to read a lot of Indian writers at that time- Kiran Nagarkar, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Timeri N. Murrari, Vikram Seth and so on. When I started doing my PG course I realised that there were so many classics I had not read, so the first two semesters were spent in devouring down the classics of British and American literature. Then with the paper 'Indian writing in English' in the third semester, I was back in the world of the Indian writers. But these time around it was a rendezvous with the pioneers namely R K Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Shashi Deshpande. The only 'new' text was Kiran Desai's
Inheritance of Loss. So after the exam, I was adamant on finding a text which would be a refreshing change from these heavily loaded texts.
English, August was my choice and it did fit the bill.
That was a long digression from the main purpose of the post namely a review of Upamanyu Chatterjee's English, August. But the fact is without this seemingly long digression it is nearly impossible for me to detail the effect that the book had on me. Indian novels in English which I had read and had been reading lately either talk about rural India or the expatriate Indian. English, August chronicles one year in the life of a young civil servant Agastya Sen in Madna, one of the provincial towns in the rural hinterlands of India. In a way, this novel is also about rural life; rural life as seen through the eyes of a city boy. Hence it is a refreshing change from those R K Narayan kind of novels (no offence meant). In the hands of Upamanyu Chatterjee, the cliche theme of the urban encounter with the rural resulting in a culture shock becomes something more. Drawing from his experience as a civil servant, Chatterjee very realistically depicts the paradoxes and problems involved in grassroots administration.
The novel, while on the one hand, looks at the larger social and administration problems in the villages of India, on the other hand, it is also a journey of self- discovery for the protagonist Agastya Sen. As the review in the Observer rightly says, his imagination is dominated by women, literature and soft drugs. But what endeared me to the protagonist was his sense of dislocation (similar to something I had endured during my graduate days at Womens) and the way in which, in due course of time, he fits in the scheme of things, though unwillingly. Just like I used to take refuge in books during those days of dislocation, Agastya finds solace in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and an English translation of Gita.
Another major concern of the author is reflected in the title. Agastya is called English in his school days for his admiration of the Anglo Indian kids and his aspiration to act and speak like them. He is called Ogu by his Bengali relatives, and August by his friends, who belong to the same MTV generation as him. The novel brilliantly captures the 'trauma' of being caught between two cultures. At times, one even feels that Upamanyu Chatterjee considers this incongruent mix of cultures as the reason for the 'out of placeness' of the protagonist. There are other instances in the novel which reinforces my certainty about this. The first generation (in the novel)- Agastya's father, his kaku- all of them are sure about what they are and where they are. Even his kaku who is a non conformist does not experience the 'lost' feeling that Agastya does. The linguistics of the text brilliantly mirrors the psyche of the 'Hinglish' generation. The wry humour goes well with the laid- back nature of the protagonist.
On the whole, the novel has rib tickling which does not come across as too forced. The novel is fascinating and brilliant for the fact that the seriousness of the issues dealt with in the novel does not get diluted in the hyperbolic comedy and the crazy of clamour of voices.
P.S. I am eagerly waiting to get a copy of the Dev Benegal film based on the novel, starring Rahul Bose.
P. P. S Is it just me or did any one who had read the novel feel a vague similarity with Jack Kerouac's On the Road.?
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