Read Ismat Chughtai’s The Crooked Line this Saturday. I had really boring work planned for the Saturday all of which I dropped more than happily, as they concerned no one else more than me. The book reminded me of Prem Chand. It brought India of those days to me, the India of Prem Chand. But certain things were different now. Now I was in affluent city instead of the villages where his characters thrived. The social circles were more affluent as well. And somehow everybody was not worshipping Gandhi. Rather one of the characters even says something to convey the irreverence. It was a revelation to realize that not everybody was idolizing Gandhi those days.
I did not know there was so much that can easily be communicated even from under a burqa. There is this bit in the story where these girls go around flirting (in their own way) while being confined in burqa. Somehow I assumed the life within burqa to be quieter. Our protagonist and her friends don’t seem to even sense the presence of it. It seems to compliment their coyness.
The first few pages of the book; I found the little protagonist in her early days vile and mad. I found this little demon’s life loathsome. On the other hand there was this quick and riveting change in events and characters around her. Her madness had a repulsive appeal. At times she reminded me of Gabriela Marquez’s Amaranta as a little girl. But while Amaranta seemed a little surreal; this girl was too real. A live and breathing creature she was becoming with every passing passage. Hence more was the revulsion and more the attraction.
The novel warrants a read primarily because of the geographic location of its characters and their placement in time. Towards the third and the last phase of the book, the novelty has worn down. There are lots of conversations which fail to interest one. And the protagonists a life has moved to a territory where nothing seems to be as significant as to be narrated. She could have shrunk the third bit and finished it a little sooner.
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