The Tales Pensieve

There are certain books with which you have love & hate relationships in the sense that they just don’t strike enough chord with you so as to grip you along through-out. At the same time, however, there remains something in the book which doesn’t let you leave it in between. Fitting perfectly in that canvas was Indian Tango by Ananda Devi – while on one hand I did find it hard not to read it (thanks to the beautiful usage of language & words creating exquisite imagery in the reader’s mind), on the other hand, there wasn’t enough charm in the book to hold me glued to it through out.

Indian Tango was originally written by the author Ananda Devi in French and was translated to English by Jean Anderson. The book paints the story of Subhadra Mishra, a woman in her fifties who epitomizes the typical middle class women meandered between the family responsibilities & social inhibitions. She is married to Jugdish and is entrusted to take care of the husband, the mother in law along-with the daunting task of managing the house. She symbolizes a typical housewife who is completely forgoten and submersed her own self under the weight of her family obligations to carry on her responsibilities, performing her duties diligently throughout.

Standing at just the start of her fifties, she gradually feels confined and suffocated over the way her life is leading and everything around appears alien to her – her ongoing life’s routine gelling in perfectly with the laid down social code of conducts, her relationship with her husband, her ever interfering & intolerable mother-in-law (who increasingly puts pressure to accompany her to a pilgrimage) . The sense of estrangement creeps in and transforms into the strong desire to break free from these social inhibitions, to shed the forbiddence, to explore the untouched realms, to feel the un-felt desires & to enjoy the newly found pleasures of life. She takes herself to the streets of Delhi to re-discover the life’s lost meaning and surrenders herself completely to whatever those meandering movements of her soul-stirring walks on the street brings to her. Of the various impressions she derives from this soul stirring journey, the growing inclination towards classical music and the strangely changing sexual preferences gains her affirmation. She finds herself completely mesmerized by the strings of symphony woven by her new found love for female, in form of her growing infatuation for Bimala. The story gradually treads exploring further the new found desires of Subhadra and her growing sensual temperament towards her new found love. She indeed does break away from the usual orthodox social norms and fantasizes about that unknown woman along-with yearning for the sitar – the musical instrument.

Beautiful themes, lyrical tones and exceptionally well usage of words make it a delightful and captivating read. Infact, during the course of the pure reading of the book, one just can’t help but to admire & praise the author for her mastery over the language which surely transforms the reader to the streets of Delhi amidst a soothing monsoon rains. The whole book at various junctures is so poetic that you can just randomly pick it up & enjoy the imagery it creates in your mind once you read an extract. This is infact an interesting combination of a book written by an Indian author in French and translated into English (I am sure it must be a deliberate attempt by the author to write the book in French rather than in English).

However, despite the aforesaid, the book as a whole doesn’t offer a wholesome enjoyable ride. While the ones who have poetic bent of mind and tend to enjoy the beauty of language would enjoy the tits and bits of the same, there exist very little charm for the reader to carry the book till the end. That’s the reason perhaps I said about the love and hate relationship with the book. Having gone through the book till the last pages, there remains a feeling of un-quenched thirst which is really startling for any good book.

One can surely get hold of this book for its beautiful usage of words which are woven with such a fine sophistication that it really gives the reader a pleasurable experience in tranches but someone looking for a book to have a wholesome ride to enjoy other aspects of fictional story telling might just feel dejected and disappointed.

Title: Indian Tango
Author: Ananda Devi Translator: Jean Anderson
Publisher/ Imprint: Random House India
Pages: 203
Genre/ Sub-Genre: Fiction/ Drama
Rating: 2.75 of 5
Reviewed for: Publisher

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