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Literary Review
Relationships and equations
JANHAVI ACHAREKAR
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Set amidst a world of swirling numbers, Gifted describes the immigrant dilemma.
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Gifted, Nikita Lalwani, Penguin India, 2007, p.288, Rs.395
At first glance, Nikita Lalwani’s debut novel Gifted, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, seems one more in a longer list of diaspora diatribes concerned with second-generation immigrant angst. An unyielding and authoritari
an father restrained in affection, a mother loyal to outworn morals and values, cruel classmates, and the burden of being Rumika Vasi — a brown girl in the predominantly white region of Cardiff in Wales — form the crux of this coming-of-age novel.
In a twilight zone
Rumi, like most adolescents of her background, resides in a twilight zone, trapped between East and West, between books and boys, living in a suspended state of loneliness with only mathematics and cumin seeds for company. And yet, Gifted is rooted in a unique concept — that of integers and equations, of parsecs and complex calculations. For, Rumika is a child prodigy with an extraordinary head for numbers. Advised to appear for the Mensa test at the tender age of five, and then brought up by her father (a professor of mathematics himself) in a controlled environment, Rumi is pushed well beyond the limits of juvenile endurance in order to realise her father’s extraordinary dream. Of being among the youngest students to appear for the A levels and securing a place at Oxford.
Immigrant woes
Gifted is a summation of the immigrant dilemma set amidst a world of swirling numbers. Of having to try harder in an alien environment and attempting to excel even while struggling to keep one’s head above the water. Forced to le
ad an isolated and friendless existence, Rumi seeks respite in the guilty pleasures of kleptomania and Enid Blyton novels. By the time she reaches adolescence, she has calculated that her chances of bumping into heartthrob John Kemble and walking with him to school are “a 2 in 7 chance. Or maybe 3 in 14, otherwise known as 3 over 14. If you thought about it, 1 over 14 would be point 0714 so 3 times that came to point 2172.”
Lalwani writes with the deft strokes of a talented storyteller, turning diaspora clichés into the remarkable story of the child prodigy. However, more often than not, she succumbs to the temptation of stating the obvious.
It is in the second half that the book picks up. A social misfit and self-confessed geek, Rumi struggles to maintain normalcy with some help from the pop culture and fashion of the 1980s, comprising Tom Cruise, U2 and tights teamed up with loose shirts tied at the waist with three-inch thick belts. Her transition from awkward, bespectacled child to rebellious, experimental teenager is expertly handled as is her sexual curiosity and awakening. But sex, not surprisingly, is taboo in this dysfunctional Indian household. When Rumi shocks her mother Shreene by asking if she has had sexual intercourse to produce Rumi, an incensed Shreene tells her, “That is not how our babies are born. Only white people have sex.” And even as her mother dreams of a traditional arranged marriage for her genius daughter, Rumi harbours scandalous thoughts of close encounters with the opposite sex.
The build up to Rumi’s A level examinations peaks and creates a sense of trepidation. She swallows packet after packet of cumin seeds in an obsessive-compulsive need for sanity. In a particularly poignant moment, Rumi gives in to the overwhelming urge to call 999, if only to alleviate momentarily her desperate loneliness — when led to a deserted examination hall for a rehearsal by her incommunicative father.
Rumi makes it to Oxford. Liberated somewhat from the stifling atmosphere of home and family, she revels in her newfound freedom and even as her love life begins to look up, her academic performance plummets. A failed attempt at a kiss and a furtive encounter with a cousin in India finally culminate in her first intimate (if short-lived) experience with Fareed, a Pakistani, around the same time as her Penal Collection examination. In the end, Rumi breaks free from it all — family and Oxford education included. Not quite a moment of epiphany, she cracks under pressure, rejecting her past and her family.
Bundle of stereotypes
Gifted is a bundle of stereotypes for the Indian reader. It talks of racist overtones and poor parenting skills (bordering on megalomania) of middle-class Indians bewildered by a new environment and culture. Rumi’s difficult chil
dhood is in stark contrast with that of her younger sibling who seems to escape, unconvincingly, the pressures of accomplishment inflicted upon his sister. However, the character of Rumi, her peculiar circumstances and journey through adolescence are treated with humour and sensitivity, making it a worthwhile read.
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