For a person who has never been to the north east, Shillong can be even more exotic than it so very truly is. So as i sat down to read Lunatic in my Head by Anjum Hasan, it wrapped me with cold excitement- the kind of excitement you get when your are travelling en route to a hill station, away from the heat and dust of June time Delhi.
The structure of the novel has that serene, laid-back attitude of the place that Shillong is. The characters are intense and yet confused, they tend to grow on you rather than catch your attention as many strong characters do in novels. The constant accompaniment of rains that lash the novel are like constant reminders to the characters, as if exhorting them-- "Go and make something of your life". Rains are ubiquitous in the novel, as one would expect in a hilly area. It did come, personally, as a welcome relief from the scorching heat of Delhi that we are currently experiencing.
Firdaus Ansari, Aman Moondy and Sophie Das-- the three central characters of the novel-- are all in a way bound by each other, although they only meet for a fleeting moment--at a fete in the Football ground of Shillong. Their desires, disappointments, happiness are all inter-related. They all are in search of something that would give them eternal happiness but do not know what. They need freedom, from the shackles that the Shillong society imposes on them, they all are "dkhars"- a derogatory term used to refer to non-tribals outsiders in Meghalaya.
Firdaus, a young university professor teaches English to a group of pre-university girls. She finds it extremely difficult to comprehend Hemingway and is stuck with her MPhil thesis which she intends to do on Jane Austen. The constant demands of her job which includes writing an article for the school journal, is mixed with her colleague Nivedita's marital problems which are discussed by her colleagues on a round table. Each one has her own point to put across to Nivedita. Firdaus finds it abhorring that Nivedita still wants to stay with her husband, in spite of knowing that her husband is dating another woman.
At the same time Firdaus, who has a boyfriend named Ibomcha, finds herself going nowhere in the relationship. She cribs about the fact that Ibomcha never really pay attention to what her dreams and desires, her love for literature and desire to move out of Shillong and go, probably, to Delhi for a better career. As she says in the novel:
"Firdaus had often tried to tell Ibomcha about Ayn Rand (her favourite novelist), staff room intrigues, and her aborted dream of living in Delhi. He would listen patiently while Firdaus spoke, his eyes seeming to comprehend, but as soon as she had finished narrating the plot of Fountainhead, for instance, he would clear his throat and begin telling her about his next money-making scheme. He didnt even do it to be rude, Firdaus realised, and this would somehow make her angrier. He just didnt understand that it mattered, that these figments and fragments were all that there was to her world."
Firdaus is always suspicious about Ibomcha constantly travelling to his home town in Manipur, skeptical about the righteousness of his travels. All this while, her thesis is stuck and one day Mr.Thakur, her supervisor, takes her out for lunch. It turns out to be a nightmare when Mr. Thankur molests Firdaus and she runs away and decides to throw all the papers of her research away in a carton. The constant loneliness of Shillong bites her every now and then. She does finally agree to marry Ibomcha after he has proposed to her, and life moves on.
Sophie Das, an eight year old girl, daughter of Mr.Das, a former university professor of English and Mrs.Das, a non-Bengali and pregnant, realises that she has been adopted and that her parents are some other people and this sets her heart racing. Without a trace of doubt she believes that her real parents will come and take her away and this is what drives Sophie for most part of the novel. The daily fights between her parents, does not seem to bother her much, and in fact she watches them like a spectator watching a performance. She constantly goes out to meet Aunt Elsa, the landlady of Das', partly because her mother wants Sophie to take care of her from time to time since she has been kind in not asking for rent for a few months now, owing to financial constraints of the Das family, and partly due to Sophie's own inclination to go out and have her own free time. something which she values a lot.
In one episode she meets Jason, Aunt Elsa's son and begins to befriend him. She is impressed by the appearance of Jason, but at the same time finds an air of arrogance in his tone, probably owing to the fact that he is an IAS officer. Sophie, feels the need to be a Khasi, when she goes out for a party with Aunt Elsa, where some people make her feel unwelcome, owing to her not being a Khasi. And while her performance in school is constantly on a downward spiral, she still expects that her real parents will come one day and take her. She ultimately resigns to the fact that her real parents would never come and carries on with her other parents, the Das'.
Aman, a college graduate and an IAS aspirant, is an ardent Pink Floyd fan. For him, music is the soul. Life without music, rock music to be precise, would be unimaginable.
"..music was Aman's silence-- it was the background against which everything else happened."
He spends hours and hours discussing music with his friends. Why didn't Pink Floyd respond to his letters? Is Roger Waters thinking on the same page as he? Music, joints, and the thought of Concordella, his dream girl, is what there is to Aman's life, or so it seems. His parents are constantly nagging him about his failed first attempt for IAS, and his all too casual approach towards the second attempt. He ultimately fails the second time as well and that is when he is sent to Delhi by his father, in search of better work opportunities.
A beautiful novel, it really brings out the best of Shillong. The author's immense knowledge of the city, coupled with beautiful description of nature makes this novel a very endearing experience to read.
The structure of the novel has that serene, laid-back attitude of the place that Shillong is. The characters are intense and yet confused, they tend to grow on you rather than catch your attention as many strong characters do in novels. The constant accompaniment of rains that lash the novel are like constant reminders to the characters, as if exhorting them-- "Go and make something of your life". Rains are ubiquitous in the novel, as one would expect in a hilly area. It did come, personally, as a welcome relief from the scorching heat of Delhi that we are currently experiencing.
Firdaus Ansari, Aman Moondy and Sophie Das-- the three central characters of the novel-- are all in a way bound by each other, although they only meet for a fleeting moment--at a fete in the Football ground of Shillong. Their desires, disappointments, happiness are all inter-related. They all are in search of something that would give them eternal happiness but do not know what. They need freedom, from the shackles that the Shillong society imposes on them, they all are "dkhars"- a derogatory term used to refer to non-tribals outsiders in Meghalaya.
Firdaus, a young university professor teaches English to a group of pre-university girls. She finds it extremely difficult to comprehend Hemingway and is stuck with her MPhil thesis which she intends to do on Jane Austen. The constant demands of her job which includes writing an article for the school journal, is mixed with her colleague Nivedita's marital problems which are discussed by her colleagues on a round table. Each one has her own point to put across to Nivedita. Firdaus finds it abhorring that Nivedita still wants to stay with her husband, in spite of knowing that her husband is dating another woman.
At the same time Firdaus, who has a boyfriend named Ibomcha, finds herself going nowhere in the relationship. She cribs about the fact that Ibomcha never really pay attention to what her dreams and desires, her love for literature and desire to move out of Shillong and go, probably, to Delhi for a better career. As she says in the novel:
"Firdaus had often tried to tell Ibomcha about Ayn Rand (her favourite novelist), staff room intrigues, and her aborted dream of living in Delhi. He would listen patiently while Firdaus spoke, his eyes seeming to comprehend, but as soon as she had finished narrating the plot of Fountainhead, for instance, he would clear his throat and begin telling her about his next money-making scheme. He didnt even do it to be rude, Firdaus realised, and this would somehow make her angrier. He just didnt understand that it mattered, that these figments and fragments were all that there was to her world."
Firdaus is always suspicious about Ibomcha constantly travelling to his home town in Manipur, skeptical about the righteousness of his travels. All this while, her thesis is stuck and one day Mr.Thakur, her supervisor, takes her out for lunch. It turns out to be a nightmare when Mr. Thankur molests Firdaus and she runs away and decides to throw all the papers of her research away in a carton. The constant loneliness of Shillong bites her every now and then. She does finally agree to marry Ibomcha after he has proposed to her, and life moves on.
Sophie Das, an eight year old girl, daughter of Mr.Das, a former university professor of English and Mrs.Das, a non-Bengali and pregnant, realises that she has been adopted and that her parents are some other people and this sets her heart racing. Without a trace of doubt she believes that her real parents will come and take her away and this is what drives Sophie for most part of the novel. The daily fights between her parents, does not seem to bother her much, and in fact she watches them like a spectator watching a performance. She constantly goes out to meet Aunt Elsa, the landlady of Das', partly because her mother wants Sophie to take care of her from time to time since she has been kind in not asking for rent for a few months now, owing to financial constraints of the Das family, and partly due to Sophie's own inclination to go out and have her own free time. something which she values a lot.
In one episode she meets Jason, Aunt Elsa's son and begins to befriend him. She is impressed by the appearance of Jason, but at the same time finds an air of arrogance in his tone, probably owing to the fact that he is an IAS officer. Sophie, feels the need to be a Khasi, when she goes out for a party with Aunt Elsa, where some people make her feel unwelcome, owing to her not being a Khasi. And while her performance in school is constantly on a downward spiral, she still expects that her real parents will come one day and take her. She ultimately resigns to the fact that her real parents would never come and carries on with her other parents, the Das'.
Aman, a college graduate and an IAS aspirant, is an ardent Pink Floyd fan. For him, music is the soul. Life without music, rock music to be precise, would be unimaginable.
"..music was Aman's silence-- it was the background against which everything else happened."
He spends hours and hours discussing music with his friends. Why didn't Pink Floyd respond to his letters? Is Roger Waters thinking on the same page as he? Music, joints, and the thought of Concordella, his dream girl, is what there is to Aman's life, or so it seems. His parents are constantly nagging him about his failed first attempt for IAS, and his all too casual approach towards the second attempt. He ultimately fails the second time as well and that is when he is sent to Delhi by his father, in search of better work opportunities.
A beautiful novel, it really brings out the best of Shillong. The author's immense knowledge of the city, coupled with beautiful description of nature makes this novel a very endearing experience to read.
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