|
Literary Review
Historical fiction
On a pedestal still
PRIYA KRISHNAN
|
A rather tame attempt at re-imagining a warrior queen.
|
Rani, Jaishree Misra, Penguin India, p.416, Rs. 350.
Time keeps icons of the patriotic variety at a hallowed distance, on a pedestal. Textbooks glorify them. Ballads weave indelible heroic images, auras intact. Misra, who decides to plough through the past using the genre of historical fiction, comes up against this baggage, but can’t shake it all off to lift the veil with a little more daring.
However, she etches young Manikarnika with a contemporary sensibility, most engagingly. Life is seen in all its innocence and complexity through Mani’s eyes. As the novel progresses, all of us familiar with the martial Jhansiwali Rani of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s Hindi poem will find that Misra has set out to give Lakshmibai a makeover.
Cloying sentiments
She invests the young Rani with a femininity that echoes through the novel. This she does by inserting a romance, one that remains unspoken and unfulfilled. And with it, Misra heaps on the sentimental tosh, even during the most testing moments of war. After all, the book’s blurb talks about “the ageless conflicts between love and loyalty, duty and desire”. So along with this clichéd context, the narrative is interspersed with moments that are more cloying than touching. When Lakshmibai lies fatally wounded in Kotah-ki-Sarai, she whispers, “He awaits me,” and you realise it takes great skill to pull off a white man-Rani romance! Whether it is the story of Pelham-Martyn and Anjuli in M.M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions, or Hindi cinema’s attempt at cross-cultural love, there have always been problems with reigning in the maudlin moments.
Where the book scores is in keeping the broad outlines of history to capture its unclaimed spaces to depict the everyday, “inside” stories of the royals, emotional moments and the unstated sorrows borne stoically amidst the hurly burly of governance and the unrelenting tide of events. Misra’s portrayal of Mani’s spirited childhood with friends Nana and Tantia, her poignant relationship with Asharfi-bua and Peshwa-Sahib, and her marriage to a Raja, a very old one at that, offer telling glimpses into the evolution of this woman of destiny.
In her conversations with the Peshwa, she is privy to his thoughts that are harbingers of momentous events and unknown to her, her political instincts are honed. Very early in her marriage, in her new avatar as Lakshmibai, her maturity and keen perception are on display, when in a meeting with Sister Agnes she is able to bring up ever so astutely, the similarities between the two of them, who have not only had to change their names and subsume their original identities but also accept the duties charted out for them.
Having established that this is no politically naïve woman, it is surprising that Misra chooses not to revisit some of the queen’s actions that leave you wondering about the contradictions between Lakshmibai’s convictions and decisions. For example, if self-respect was her credo why didn’t she want to take on the British much earlier? As the Rani’s political sense evolves, you begin to see how inconsistent her passivity is in relation to the strong views she shares with Jhansi’s political agent, Robert Ellis, on the unfairness of British policies. If her “inaction” is meant to suggest that she wanted to keep Jhansi and her people safe, that is feeble justification. Then why does she leave them and flee with a select coterie to Kalpi when General Rose’s army heads towards Jhansi?
Maybe history doesn’t offer answers but Misra’s treatment doesn’t suggest that something is amiss. Lakshmibai’s heroics at Kotah-ki Sarai and the circumstances surrounding her death seem intended to whitewash the blemishes on her “spotless” reputation. Misra passes up the opportunities that a historical novel provides to bravely overturn mythical renderings, present new perspectives and an alternative narrative — imagined yet plausible. Why? Maybe she is fettered by the chains of political correctness. So the political Rani stays shrouded in myth, rendered human only in the domain of the personal.
Great visual sense
But the author does make history palpable, one grammatical error, a book binding error (p.339 follows p.238) and some clumsy writing notwithstanding. She paints epic grandeur and the panoramic sweep of the land with a great visual sense. As far as the men and women who inhabit its world go, the only character that haunts you is that of the weak, affectionate, well-meaning but effete Raja Gangadhar. It is a real and brilliant evocation of frailty. When it comes to the denouement, the momentum dips thanks to the distance already covered. Even a front row seat at war doesn’t keep you on edge or leave you shaken.
This is a brave stab at writing a book on a warrior queen but her sword certainly seems mightier than the pen that set out to tell her story. She still stands on the pedestal — that sword firmly in hand.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Literary Review
|
