Romance
On the brink
SHEILA KUMAR
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A Raj tale that bubbles at a measured pace.
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The Splendor of Silence, Indu Sundaresan, Penguin Books, Rs 350.
THE irony is inescapable. Indu Sundaresan titles her novel The Splendor of Silence but the story is anything but a quiet one. It is, in fact, a-bustle with colour, smells and flavours. Sundaresan bungs in the splendours as well as the seamy side of the Raj, a Japanese soldier or two, a British missionary, the Kachins of Burma, generous dollops of nationalism, some homosexuality, treachery, love, betrayal, and offers up one hot curry, indeed. And yet, the final impression is that the stew is just not masaledaar enough.
Predictable storyline
Somewhere in a seaside cottage in Seattle, a young woman named Olivia opens up a mahogany leather trunk and in the trunk, of course, is contained Olivia's colourful origins. With this hoary chestnut of an opening, Sundaresan takes us to a small kingdom called Rudrakot set in the Sukh desert, somewhere in the north of India. Rudrakot has it all, a young handsome ruler called Jai; a nubile vision of loveliness called Mila; Mila's TamBram father, the political agent Raman; his sons Kiran and Ashok; the starchy resident Col. Pankhurst and his wife Amelia who has an eye for a natty uniform; spectacular palaces; a bustling bazaar with its prostitutes; obnoxious Brit officers, the snooty Victoria Club. Into this maelstrom arrives our American hero Sam, an OSS officer in Rudrakot on a personal mission of stealth, to seek and rescue his missing brother Mike.
The story is nothing if not predictable. Sam and Mila fall in love; Sam accomplishes his mission with ridiculous ease, everyone (except, of course, the rulers of the Raj) gets their eyes opened to the Raj's perfidies...and in between, we keep going back and forth between Sam in Rudrakot and flashbacks of Sam in Burma, the latter bit including a rather spectacular fight with a python.
Pleasant enough
For the most part, the story works, even if it's a tale well told, oftentimes already. Sundaresan employs some awkward terms that jump off the page — flurry of worry, train-sired wind, first shine of dawn, dull of the afternoon, to murk the waters further — and Sam isn't the only thing American in the book; in one instance, a character talks of "visiting with" which is no English from the days of the Raj or later. None of the characters is explored with any depth and Mila's see-sawing affections between Jai and Sam is just not convincing enough.
However, it is a pleasant enough read, this Raj romance.
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