Do you want me to tell you what's
the story? I might have to read you from front to the end, from end to the
front, read the lines, read between the lines, become the narrators themselves
– lost in the world of the past and that which is present and not present. If I
have to, I'll have to quote the whole book. The narrators will reel you into a
daze and haze of memories. They will identify themselves, become
unidentifiable, and become one and another.
When the roof is beneath your feet, there’s the whole sky above.
Chachcho, Chachcho… Memories rustling like dry leaves. Memories like a
magic lantern, moving from here to there in a flash, turning upside down,
inside out, playing tricks.
Even the happy moments from this world of memories give the old man
more grief. Dreams that go backwards, not forward, can do nothing else.
Lalna, Chachcho, Bitwa and Uncle
are central to this story. So is the roof of the Laburnum houses which flourished
a friendship between two women – Lalna and Chachcho. Bitwa is a son of one
them, don't ask me of whom. Chachcho and uncle are now dead. Lalna has returned
to the Laburnum house after getting news of Chachcho's passing. But, she has brought
once again the same storm to the house which engulfed Bitwa when she lived
there. Or, has she come here finally to settle down? I am afraid I might give
you the why, or if I can.
The two part narrative – one of Bitwa
and another of Lalna – will take you to their inner world, which is way scattered,
and bigger than the outside. You might not want to believe all of their secrets
and the way they tell it, but you'll believe it all – it doesn't matter even if
you don't! The richness of The Roof Beneath Their Feet is in how it has crafted
its structure and voices. The voices are like portals into the inner rituals
and complexities of the relationships. You start from an individual and reach a
place of distorted realms and inner turmoil, of sadness and longing, of
memories and hatred, of love and unspoken truths. Again, you want me to give
you the story; I'll give you the book instead.
Bitwa is torn with memories of
Chachcho, and it is dragging him to the past – a past where there is a shadow
of two women hovering over his identity. It is as if Bitwa dips in and out of
the memory pond, and is confronted by Lalna wherever he goes. A common roof
shared by hundreds of Laburnum houses has its own story. Here a personal
history or tragedy, whatever you call it, takes form of people, courtyard,
window, stairs and the roof. You start from the earth, and there's no end where
you can go. Here a mohalla comes
alive, but what interests us are Lalna and Bitwa, tied together with an
unfathomable union. Hidden behind the obscurity of the voices is a story of
people neglected, hidden, longing for freedom, like the Hindi title Tirohit suggests.
The roof where Chachcho and Lalna
made their escapades is a symbol of freedom, a dissent, a revolt and a longing.
Behind and beneath the personal tumultuous history of the roof and
relationships, lies a sexual misinterpretations and stigmas, sullied by rumors
and the patriarch. Two women turned into a man and a woman, a joyful meeting
turned into an ecstatic and sensual love affair. Lalna is a symbol of rebel! The
story fits all harmony of a double base and all the notes of a piano – this is
not an exaggeration, you have freedom of sensitivity while reading this story.
You can give it different moods, and it fits all – you'll believe me when you
read it.
When the women and children and servants would crawl out like an army
of ants from their holes below and gather on the roof, they would never want to
stop. Snacks, titbits, more snacks, more titbits, and riding on these, the
women’s gossip, the clinking of their bangles, the lifting of their veils. The
servants would have their own business, hanging wet clothes out to dry,
lighting a beedi, chewing tobacco. On one side, the children’s playfulness, the
teenagers’ wilfulness on the other.
I read somewhere that religion was born from sin, and philosophy from
grief.
This is what a house in mourning looks like. Faces like pumpkins and
flowers in full bloom, side by side. This is what a house in mourning looks
like. The dead live on, the living keep dying!
This is what a house in mourning looks like. The dead become real, the
living become unreal.
Some sentences, and images are
like a meteor coming straight to your dark and elusive senses. However, the
author is concerned, we are not lost in the realm of her narration. Some descriptions
are like a poetic dream, imagination of a longing. What does one want – to get
rid of memories, be haunted by it, to recreate it, to hide it, discolor it? Bitwa's
remembrance finds himself in the cozy comfort between the two women's friendship,
but also in a gust of its perplexities. At times the author takes such sharp
turn in point of view, you're awed.
Some people, even if they lie quietly in a corner, can spread
everywhere like grief.
If you’ve been a part of someone’s life, you’ll be a part of their
death too.
Is it so, that we see those who were there only when they are no longer
there? Is it so, that we only live what’s not there, and the things that are
there remain mere mechanical habits until they recede into dreams?
It is like recreating a world out
of memory and finding yourself a place in it. You'll find puzzle pieces, a
thread and finally a peace or mild pain of discomfort you compromise with. This
a story of a friendship, a motherhood, freedom and love. You'll realize, the
complexity of human relation is such an art, a drama and a restlessness.
You'll find here rivalry,
unspoken love and hatred, and at the same time a flame of a memory keeping two
spirits bound. When memories get their dreamed appendages, they become animated
and drag you along. To sum up – It is a perfect complexity like an art, has subtlety
like its habit and it is like a hand caressing your soul, and speaking to you in a language you absorb. If you start constructing
the images, you'll be addicted. You feel the ambience, you become narrator's
memory; you are there. The stream of consciousness, moving between narratives
and times is like a poetic dream of a rebel, friendship and motherhood. If this
were to turn into a movie, it would be another art. Flash of light like
memories, sometimes like rain rivulets following a rugged path of solaces. The
discomfort will please you, with earth like sentences. Sometimes, you become
hungry for the objective realities, and the narrators touch you with a feather
of dream. Try reading it with some music, it becomes the music. Here realities
grow wings and fly higher to the realm of subtleties.
Do you still want me to give you
the story, plot?
Original Text: Hindi
Translator: Rahul Soni
Publisher: Penguin India https://penguin.co.in
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