THE STORY OF AN INDIAN WOMAN
The protagonist of Kiran Nagarkar’s new novel is real and unforgiving, and has no room for morals
In his seventh novel, Kiran Nagarkar returns to the Rajput setting that captured our imaginations in his celebrated Cuckold. But Jasoda stutters where the earlier novel sang. Jasoda is a quotidian heroine through whom the book tells a story of a woman trapped by circumstance but crawling her way out by any means necessary. The reader is dropped straight into her world. Introduced to Jasoda giving birth while grazing a cow in the parched village of Kantagiri — resting against a barren tree. She immediately kills the baby girl. It’s a dark and raw beginning, apt for the visceral painful journey for which the author is preparing the reader. From the first page, Jasoda lives every social evil. She bears three sons, and one daughter — whom she lets live only after her son pleads; she earns food for her children, abusive husband and invalid mother-in-law by working as a midwife. Hers is an existence driven by determination and severely lacking in choices.
In the novel’s afterword, Nagarkar writes: “Take any of the great epics, it’s the men like Ulysses, Arjun, Ram, Hector, Achilles who are the heroes. In quotidian life, it’s very often the women who are epic heroines.” Jasoda is very much the story of an Indian woman. The novel is fiction, yes, but it could be set in the villages of India. It’s a stark story of what it takes to ensure one’s survival and makes for very interesting if brutal reading. Jasoda is not a character to be put on a pedestal. It’s unlikely that readers will find her relatable. She is raw, real and unforgiving. She has no room for morals. Jasoda is a stunningly etched character. Like his protagonist, Nagarkar has done away with sentimentality in favour of reality. The reader feels traumatised for Jasoda even as she goes about her day enduring one painful pregnancy after the other.
Nargarkar’s story is told in scenes. When Jasoda helps give birth to a baby girl, she does not miss a beat in asking the mother if there’s “anything else” she wants the midwife to do. It’s subtle and supremely heart-wrenching to be confronted with the protagonist’s distaste for the girl child. But, Jasoda’s position is understandable as practical. Split into four parts, Nagarkar’s book echoes the lilting narration of Cuckold only in Part One, which is set in Kantagiri. Jasoda’s move to Mumbai is chronicled in Part Two, and in Parts Three and Four we follow the arc of her return to the village. But this is by no means a hero’s journey. Though she returns with prosperity in tow, her character has no epiphanies or emotional revelations that are at the crux of epic tales. This is pointedly marked by Jasoda’s unsympathetic view of her only daughter Jahnvi. Again, Nargarkar’s is not a maudlin heroine but a practical real woman. The result is a divided reader — you want Jasoda to rise above her circumstances but she does so only to an extent. The same is to be said for her husband. When Jasoda returns she finds that he, Chhote Huzoor has become Sangram Singh and now has power over the royal assets of the area. Her return doesn’t go as she expected, and after finding that Singh’s new position holds no benefit for her and the children, Jasoda sets out again. This time, she has closure.
Written over many years and in starts, Jasoda, the novel, suffers from some narrative discrepancies. However, given that 20 years went by between the time Nargarkar began Part One and the book’s fruition, it is ironed down quite nicely. Part One’s words and imagery have the lilting haunting quality that made Cuckold so appreciated. Despite the brutish events unfolding before the reader, it’s by far the most beautiful part of the novel. In the end, Jasoda is an unrestrained and poignant telling of a survivor’s story. The eponymous character is authentic and perfectly drawn out. In that sense, it’s a must read. Avantika Mehta is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi