Memory is a Painful Travel Bag - Debraj Mookerjee 

Debraj Mookerjee says the elevation of ordinary recollections to the status of felt and meaningful experience is Navtej Sarna's greatest achievement in his debut novel 


Debutant novelist Navtej Sarna's just-released We Weren't Lovers Like That is a mood book. This is not to suggest it reads best when you are in a special mood. In fact, you could choose to set eyes on the first page in whatever state of mind you might be in, but by the time you are through page fifty, you are washed over by a strange mood. You suddenly begin to feel the pangs of deep nostalgia. Little facets of the life gone by begin to etch into life, raw and fresh, as though they have suddenly bridged time to become your reality once again; those significant and not so significant brushes with people and places from the past spring past your pupils from the mind's eye and begin to bear witness to what you are today; and most disturbingly, whatever might have been - and each one of us has tucked within us so much that "might have been" - begins to reshape into palpable desire, urging you to yearn for what is not, nor can ever be.

How does the author achieve this, a special gift few writers have? One is not even sure such a gift is desirable. An object of art, as per traditional aesthetic theory, needs to maintain a certain distance from she or he who is experiencing it. It must be good enough to enter your consciousness, and yet not become it. The catharsis Aristotle talked about could only come about if the audience was aware of a distance between its own and the tragic hero's emotional content. And yet, Sarna's novel seeks relentlessly to bridge that distance. The painstakingly detailed descriptions of sepia-tinted, as it were, images from the past - of simple visual memories like the protagonists mother's insistence on retaining the "red phone" since it indicated the high rank her husband superannuated with - find vivid resonance with every middle-class reader's own memory bank. What transforms this association from mere similitude to a mood-altering experience is the poetic vision Sarna infuses in the recollection. As you read on, your own simple - humdrum maybe - life begins to assume nobility by association. This reviewer believes the elevation of ordinary recollections to the status of felt and meaningful experience is Sarna's major achievement in We Weren't Lovers Like That. Incidentally, the title of the book as also a reference to the protagonist's past lady love as "the cold and lonesome heroine" recall two of Leonard Cohen's song titles, personal favourites.

Sarna's novel has no plot really, but it has a definite structure. The controlling metaphor of the story is a journey, with support from many other sub journeys that are recollected within the broad structure of the primary quest. The protagonist, Aftab Chandra, somewhat defeatist, though highly sensitive (almost maudlin at times), is off to Dehradun in an early morning train from Delhi. Dehradun is where he grew up. It is also where (in Mussoorie really) his first real love (and wasted opportunity) now lives. His wife has left him for another man, taking their 10-year-old son with her. Broken, betrayed and bedraggled, Aftab fights a losing battle to hold it together. With an eye that cuts through the superciliousness of metropolitan wannabes, Sarna exposes the sham that surrounds the protagonist's life, highlighted by the prescient comments emanating from Aftab, who has exquisite sensibilities. We all know the pettiness that does the office rounds in small firms. Aftab wants out from all this "suffocating small talk". He muses, "It took a lot to be the whispering type; and I suppose it took a lot not to be the whispering type."

The train journey to Dehradun connects dots on the route, with sections named after Saharanpur, Roorkee, Haridwar and Doon. Interestingly, the length of these sections become progressively shorter, respectively, possibly mirroring the experience of a real journey; as you come closer to your destination, time appears to collapse. Also, whereas the author leaves behind a world all topsy-turvy, Doon holds he promise of hope and reconstruction. Indeed, the final description of him deciding to walk up to Mussoorie recalls DH Lawrence's hero Paul Morel's (in Sons and Lovers) journey of hope towards a town. This classic touch, of walking into light and life at the end, is standard technique. But Sarna has earned that right for his protagonist.

Aftab's story is almost an internal monologue. As observed earlier, there is no plot. Nor does a modern novel need one. But there is hardly any story either. The entire narrative is a recollection of scattered memory, some pieced together, some totally random (you know, the difference between a feature film and a documentary). Very little dialogue actually occurs. The entire recollection of the protagonist's marital discord features no real dialogue. The only place where there is first person conversation is between Aftab and his premarital love Rohini in Erich Segal-inspired Love Story type repartee. But there is something special about this seemingly scattered tale. 

The protagonist's consciousness is turned inside out. He judges himself by the very parameters he criticises. He sincerely believes he never really does the right thing. He admires a co-traveller who works a minor bit part in British Rail, lives on discount sale vegetables, alone and abstemious, only to establish two houses at Saharanpur. All by assiduously saving £1000 every month. This post-modern quality, of employing a shifting gaze that refuses to valorise a privileged perspective, lends much elegance to the narrative. Sarna's book is full of pathos. There is no denying this fact. But it is also full of rare richness of description, thought and honesty.