TRANSLATION
Inexorable Fate
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Pavitra Pavi, one of the greatest works of Punjabi literature has been made available in English for the first time. A review by ARVIND SIVARAMAKRISHNAN.
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NANAK SINGH'S classic novel Pavitra Papi, one of the greatest works of Punjabi literature and a story of remarkable power and complexity, has been translated into English by the author's grandson, Navdeep Suri, a distinguished officer in the Indian Foreign Service.
The tale is set somewhere between Amritsar and Rawalpindi at some time between the Wars. Panna Lal, burdened by business losses and unpaid debts unknown to his wife, finds himself working for the watchmaker Attar Singh. But he works as an accountant, because his poor eyesight — though he is only in his late thirties — prevents him from learning how to repair watches. Panna Lal's wife Maya is a few years younger; they have four children, and although Panna Lal's small income keeps the family going and Maya is a brave, honest homemaker, they have to face other financial responsibilities. The most pressing of these is a marriage for their fifteen-year-old daughter Veena. But a wealthy family has made a proposal, Veena is eager, and Panna Lal thinks he can at least do something good and right.
Now the first blow falls. The boy's family breaks off the arrangements; Panna Lal and Maya think the other family consider them too poor. Maya, undaunted, says they can sell her jewellery and ask Attar Singh for a loan of some kind.
Then the second blow falls. Panna Lal arrives at work to find himself sacked. A much younger man, Kedar Nath, who has overcome the early death of his watchmaker father and his mother by getting a B.A. and learning the watchmaker's craft as well, has walked into Attar Singh's shop and has been instantly employed to replace Panna Lal. With a silent look Kedar never forgets, Panna Lal walks away, and disappears.
Panna Lal's anguished family send Veena and one of her brothers to look for their missing father. Kedar, unable to tell the truth, invents a story: Attar Singh has sent Panna Lal to Bombay on business. Kedar promises to visit the family next day. He ends up, at their suggestion, renting a room next door. He eats with them, and starts tutoring both the little son Basant and the daughter Veena before he leaves for work in the morning.
As all the family come to adore him, Kedar's existential lie presses ever harder upon him. He writes the family a weekly letter purportedly from Panna Lal and reads it out to them, but he cannot let Veena see it, as she will know it is not in her father's hand. Somehow he manages to convince Maya that he is missing his own mother, and he fends off Veena's insistent questioning about his unhappiness. Yet he is drawn deeper and deeper into the family, and it is at his suggestion — and on his promise to raise money for the wedding — that Maya bravely goes and gets the wedding arrangements restored. And in a fraught encounter, Veena and Kedar accept that she is going to marry the other man. As to Panna Lal's absence from his own daughter's wedding, Kedar devises the next lie. Panna Lal is unwell, but Kedar persuades Veena not to tell her mother. And Veena sends her younger sister summoning Kedar to a midnight rendezvous...
The wedding takes place.
Kedar manages to return to work, but yet another heroic rescue of the family — as ever, based on yet another lie — is one torment too much for him; he too disappears. And then his employer Attar Singh comes to the family's house looking for him.
As great works do, this book creates reminders of other traditions and other great works, in particular Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes. But where Conrad's Razumov pays for his calculated act of betrayal, as he is slowly torn apart and destroyed by the trust his victim's family place in him, Kedar is thrust by events into lie after lie in a tale unsentimentally clear about the literalness of inexorable fate, and we are left with no moral resolution. We owe Navdeep Suri a debt of gratitude, for his act of devotion to a much-loved grandfather has made a great work available for the first time in English.
Saintly Sinner, Nanak Singh, translated by Navdeep Suri, A`N'B Publishers, 2003, p.216, price not stated.
Arvind Sivaramakrishnan is a lecturer in politics and law at Taunton's College, Southampton, U.K.
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