GHACHAR GHOCHAR
‘G
hachar ghochar’ may be jibberish but it doesn’t really need to be translated. In any culture, it’s used when traditional vocabulary fails to fully describe the mess you’re left with when, say, the string of a kite becomes so entangled that it is impossible to untwine. Growing up in Lucknow, my childhood term for this was guchar
muchar. So Ghachar Ghochar, which was published last year but fell into my hands only this autumn, is a novel about how things get complicated to a point where they cannot be simplified any longer. Written in Kannada by Vivek Shanbhag, and translated into English by Srinath Perur, it tells the story of one family in two different Bangalores.
A lower middle-class household moves from a hovel to a bungalow that “feels like a hotel”. Family equations are realigned, and the longing for more is replaced by the tyranny of having everything you thought you ever wanted. When a new member enters the family in the form of the narrator’s wife, she is unable to understand the dynamic she is now a part of. Hilarity ensues, but only in small measure. What comes with it is contradiction, conflict, and eventually danger. Shanbhag’s work turns the spotlight on what can happen if we allow the strings that hold us together to get so entangled that our emotions, our desires, and our lives become all ghachar ghochar.