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Literary Review
NARRATING LIVES
Dreams linger on
MAITHREYEE S.GANAPATHY
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Stories of the survivors of riots, sensitively told.
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Fugitive Histories; Githa Hariharan; Penguin/Viking; Rs.450.
Post-independent India has been no stranger to communal riots. Although communal in nature, for a long time, it was not any real religious animosity that caused the riots. Economics, local politics -- the reasons lay elsewhere. Until 1990 when BJP Ra
th Yatra caused riots in every State through which it passed.
Worse was to come following the Babri Masjid in the shape of riots in Bombay. But it was the Gujarat carnage of 2002 that seemed to touch the zenith of the hate-filled politics and manipulation of religious sentiments that had been going on for over a decade . These riots serve as the backdrop of Gita Hariharan’s latest novel, Fugitive Histories which looks at the communal divides and polarisation in contemporary India, through the lives of three women. Always partial to the female voice, the author once again has women telling us the story. Thus we have Mala, married to Asad and now a widow, their daughter Sara, an aspiring documentary film-maker working with an NGO in Bombay and Yasmin, a young victim of the Gujarat riots.
Exploring the communal
The present day lives of these three women, their memories and the cities woven into these memories shape the narrative. Explored within this are the elements of the communal, of ‘us’ and ‘them’ demarcated by region, religion, language, customs and food habits, that often simmered in the background of a child’s upbringing in this country. Where mixed marriages like that of Mala’s acquired more meaning than a meeting of hearts, as acts of defiance to be hailed or decried. Fugitive Histories is divided into three parts wherein the mid-section directly deals with the Gujarat riots. In ‘Crossing Borders’ Sara travels to the “safe haven” to meet the Gujarat riot victims forms the centrepiece and fetches this novel the extra star. The observant eye that laboured and lingered, sometimes too slow-paced, over the details of the mundane city lives of Delhi and Bombay now brings into focus the living conditions in this one corner of Ahmadabad where Muslims have huddled together, believing in safety in numbers. Yasmin’s youth, her vulnerability, her grief, her dreams and most of her gentle, sweet nature touches a chord with the reader. Ever since the riots innumerable Commissions and reports have brought out the details of the carnage. Such materials are in no need of embellishment; only sensitive handling which of course, Githa Hariharan does well. It flows into the story, shocking, enraging and forcing us once again to question – how could anyone let this happen?
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