Life Lived At Crossroads…
Indrani Das Gupta
CHAURAHA by Jiten Thakur Medha Books, 2018, 104 pp., 200
October 2019, volume 43, No 10

Jiten Thakur’s novel, Chauraha, filled with the myriad hues of human experience and diversity of human sensations is similar to the inventive style of Anton Chekhov in its depiction of a humour laced with warmth and gentle irony and comparable to Honore de Balzac in its representation of a milieu full of interesting characters. Dramatizing the multifarious crossroads that one encounters in the journey called life, Thakur’s novel leads the readers to examine and critique the intersections of various discourses like nation-state, institution of marriage, and gender roles which structure our society. At once funny and tragic, nostalgic and luminescent, grand in its metaphysical orientation and microscopic  in its representation of the little joys and troubles that beset humanity, Chauraha is a philosophical reminder of the vivacity of life itself.

Chauraha (‘Crossroads’)  swims in the lushness of memories and the translation of those ‘memories as music which reverberates’ in our mundane lives (my translation; p. 68). Jiten Thakur, a Doon-based author and an academic, is one of the best known emerging writers of Hindi fiction and poetry. A well-known name in the Hindi literary world as well as being a very popular writer  in the Dogri language, his writings have managed to capture the struggle of living amidst the changing socio-political topography of India. His style and themes apprehend the different colours of life with an amazing sense of poetical ardour and level-headed intelligence.

Set in an unnamed village in contemporary postcolonial India, the novel opens with Bua who is framed in her role as a wife and mother. Initially cast as a passive woman, resigned to despair brought on by the changing fortunes of her family, Bua’s innate strength is mirrored in the small details of her understanding a dumb boy of the village, Mohan, whom no one cares for and in her feeding the young school children of the village. Trying to contend with the apathy of her husband towards their only son, Bua’s life is an unmitigated struggle, due to desparate economic circumstances. Her husband, Chowdhury, who was once one of the most respected and wealthy persons of the village, seeks to deal with his changing fortunes through ritualistic iterations. As much as we feel for Bua’s simultaneous stoic and submissive attitude toward life’s problems, Chowdhury in his need to repeat Winston Churchill’s speeches at the small café in the village, documents the void that shapes life at every stage. He looks more vulnerable than Bua clinging to the mirage of respectability and continuity of rituals.

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