Ananda is an aspiring poet and a young college going student in London. Ananda’s uncle, Rangamama, is an early, retired bachelor who lives-off a comfortable pension at Belsize Park. Both are bound in a relationship barely happy and far from perfect but simultaneously, necessary for both of them. In his recent book, Odysseus Abroad, Amit Chaudhuri, narrates the story of these two characters spread across a day in London.
The immigrant experience of Indians in London; the sense of un-belongingness in a by and large alien place – its alien-ness amplified by cultural and sensibility barriers, the strong desire and need to claim a certain sense of belongingness in that space and the struggle punctuating this existential exercise; form the thematic thread of Amit Chaudhuri’s recent book. The plot centers around a day in the lives of these two characters – Ananda and Rangamama – where they meet, they brood, they discuss, they talk, they eat and they part ways. Between this apparently mundane and ordinary tale lies Chaudhuri’s craft of story telling, interspersed with the literary brilliance of mastering the Proustian moment.
The book is an exploration of various themes – literary and otherwise – narrated in a third person’s voice but beautifully capturing the mind of its protagonist, Ananda, as if the tale unfolds from his pen. The novel goes back and forth in time capturing moments from the past and jolting the rhythm with the present flow of events.
A typical Bengali middle class family’s product, Rangamama – with signature stereotypes of love for a certain kind of food, certain kind of literature, certain way of life – is pitted against the character of Ananda who wants to own and belong to all these but do much more – immortalise himself as a poet in a slightly Anglicized sense though conscious and proud of his past and ‘real’ belongingness, at the same time.
Besides this layer in the narrative, which opens to us during the various events of day this novel unfolds, is also another layer of story – that of Rangamama’s predicament – the life of an eccentric bachelor who loves and dotes on Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy and Bengali music and is reluctant to move out of his created shell of specific traits, peculiar habits and typical tastes. He reveals himself as someone who does not like change in any form, especially if it means dragging himself out of his comfort zone and limits of convenience. In a struggle to maintain a stable and loving relationship with his sister, Ananda’s mother, his brother-in-law, Ananda’s father, his brother and others, Rangamama’s life unfolds as a lonely man’s life devoid of real and sustaining relationships and well, marred by his idiosyncratic beliefs(like not to have sex to prevent yourself from catching syphilis).
Apart from the depth Odysseus Abroad achieves in detailing the plot and interacting with existential and real themes, the literary brilliance lies in the craft of story telling. Cutting across the over-hyped incandescence and trap of using first person narration in unfolding the mysteries of mind, Chaudhuri has married Woolf’s and Proust’s brilliance by staying with a third person narrative form but crafting a detailed and focused prose using stream of consciousness style to capture a very small moment of time in its detailed dissection over leaps in memories, opinions and remembrances.
The literary richness of the novel is defined by various influences of, references to, comparisons between and expositions on classical literary texts and milestones.
Chaudhuri’s latest book is indeed his best, by far, as commented by many.
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