Down memory tracks - Ajay Panicker

At the end, Aftab Chandra-the narrating ‘I’ of Navtej Sarna’s debut novel, We Weren’t Lovers Like That-is where he began, vacillating between longing and flight. But flight, by his own admission, overtakes him.

As the first lines go: “I am leaving. Doing the one thing I feel I am still good at: running away.” In a bid to handle a mid –life crisis, Aftab embarks on a journey to Dehra Dun, where his childhood memories lie buried. His 14-year marriage to Mina has broken up, he has just lost a job in a private firm and he is going in the hope of catching up with his long-lost love Rohini, whose own marriage has broken up.

Telling tales always has a therapeutic effect. As the train moves from Delhi to Saharanpur to Haridwar and finally, Dehra Dun, the episodic narration occurs under chapters named after these cities. We are able to see Aftab’s memories, packaged in vivid and evocative descriptions.

The novel constitutes two halves. In the first, Sarna-who is the spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs-captures Aftab’s existential angst through spatialised memories. At this stage, the story is mostly located in the ‘I’ of Aftab’s self (interestingly, on 68 occasions, in chapter two, he speaks in the first person).

The second half is more interesting, with the introduction of Aftab’s days and nights with Rohini. Remembering his initial days with Rohini, he waxes eloquent: “When the streetlights shone in puddles on the deserted street and water rose and fell as the raindrops pricked its surface.” 

Such descriptions reach their climax towards the end of the novel, when observations gain detachment and maturity. Aftab, and along with him the novel, attains a remarkable calm and sensitivity. However, in order to reach there, one has to go through the initial grind of self-indulgent descriptions that, on occasion, is cliché-ridden.