Goodness of the good
RAJI NARASIMHAN
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Despite over-padding and tedious bits, the core of the novel appeals strongly to the reader.
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The Inheritors; Neel Chowdhury, Random House, Rs. 356.
There is a lot you like about this book, and a lot you dislike. What you like emerges slowly, from an adjective-laden, flashback encrusted narrative. You see it at its most representative stage when Arjun, the journalist, proposes to Shivani, one of
the inheritors of the Lohia Estate. Why not accept him, she wonders. For, there is nothing but a modest hope on his face, which “might be the foundation of all that mattered”.
Foundations, good beginnings, and the threat to them from the intrigues of people with personal ambition are what make the theme of the book. If the foundations are based on true human values, runs the reasoning, the dividing line between opponents would be thin. Hence, the agreement signed by the head of Lohia industries with Hirenmoy Chakraborty, the Marxist leader of the strike against them. The workers get a year’s salary in lump sum till the owners are able to lift the lockout they have imposed on the factory and resume production. It is a crippling amount of money and Lohia Company cannot afford it. But they will tap sources because their chairman, Hari Lohia, is as concerned about the welfare of the poor as the Marxist ideologue, Hiren. The roots of both men are similar in essence despite their confrontation of each other.
Of course, hard practical considerations too move Lohia Industries. Hiren, past 80, further weakened by the assault on him by Hari Lohia’s nephew, might die any day. And then the workers’ fury will know no bounds. A settlement is therefore wise, not just humanitarian.
Nonetheless, value-based foundations in any human activity help ease frictions and promote tolerance in the final count. That is the gist of the thinking that powers the book. Hiren-Da, or his anti-monopolistic principles if he dies, will continue to operate in Calcutta, along with money-based, monopoly-ventures like the Lohias’. For, at heart the capitalist is also a humanist. Capital and labour complement each other. Repeatedly, Lohia lets go opportunities for expansion overseas. He’d rather provide jobs to fellow countrymen than to outsiders.
Family ties are another area in which personal ambitions crumble. Anjali, the sister of the patriarch Hari, cannot muster the ruthlessness to hand over to the police the solid, taped evidence she has of the first-hand involvement of her nephew, Piyush, in the assault on Hiren. If it comes to light, Piyush, now in custody, will have to serve a much larger term in prison. Anjali and her sister — Piyush’s mother Aruna — are opposites in every way: in temper, spirit and goals. But the sight of the semi-wreck that Piyush has become from prison habitation unites the warring sisters. The pain of Piyush’s debasement spreads like a stinging emollient on all the family members. All Aruna’s drives to wrest control of the Lohia empire lose ground and leave her cleansed, almost penitent.
This is the strong, appealing core of the novel — the goodness of the good. And because of it one can disregard the many tedious, over-erotic scenes in it, the padded descriptions of scene and landscape that interrupt reading.
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