|
No
God In Sight:
By Altaf Tyrewala
Penguin 2005
Rs 195 |
What a relief to
find a novel, especially a first novel that one wants to read beyond
the first few pages; that uses a specific background but without dependence
on ethnic customs that is that is the mainstay of much second-rate writing;
that can handle political events without the elaborate stodginess of
much-hyped novels! Altaf Tyrewala’s debut novel No God in Sight
is a remarkable achievement for several reasons.
Most of the characters
inhabit the Central Bombay area, which Tyrewala says he knows best.
Dongri, Byculla, Mohamed Ali Road tend to be associated with Muslims.
While many of the characters are Muslim, some of their experiences could
be anyone’s: worry about a son not getting a job, going to an
abortionist, trying to impress a girlfriend. But underlying all these
stories is the special fear Muslims feel because they are Muslims. The
biographical note about the author tells us he lives in Bombay and Mumbai,
and there is a difference in the names. Bombay was always considered
a cosmopolitan city. Mumbai tends to be associated with fundamentalist
politics.
But it’s the
writing that is really what matters. The book is put together in a series
of first-person narratives, comments, anecdotes. There are different
groups: some families have lived in Bombay all their lives, others flee
from their villages as the pressure on non-Hindus begins to mount. What
is distinctive is the economy with which each character is evoked. There
is absolutely no flab, no padding in the writing. Yet we are given access
to the lives of an assortment of people, abortionists, beggars, converts,
bar girls, jobless young men, disillusioned housewives. Here is Amjad
, “the slayer of Lesser Life Forms” thinking about the chickens
he kills for a living:
 |
Jekyll
and Hyde: Altaf Tyrewala |
“The chickens...come
from the farm in a round wicker basket...clean and calm and unsuspecting.
They gape like awe-struck villagers, not understanding why the old-timers
in the racks below are so noisy and difficult...these new chickens,
worn out by heat, fear and lack of space, gradually become restless
and cranky, till at last they are so unlovable as to deserve to die.”
This entire section
is probably the most powerful in the book. But Tyrewala also handles
farcical situations adeptly. The first of these occurs in a village
when Babua, who is not too bright and desperately uncertain of his manhood,
becomes inflamed by the rhetoric of a mahant who warns them that “the
outsiders are sharpening knives on animals. One day, it will be your
necks.” Babua doesn’t know an outsider from the man in the
moon, but he drags a Sikh to the mahant, only to be hollered at by the
reverend. “Sixer! He is Sikh. Not outsider! Sikh is Hindu!”
Zail Singh mutters that he is not Hindu at all and staggers away. The
other farcical situation will appeal particularly to those who tire
of the extravagant emotionalism associated with the recitation of Urdu
couplets. Nawaz begins teaching Abhay Joshi Urdu poetry because Abhay
wants to impress his girlfriend. Abhay and his father memorise couplets
and rave about the beauty of the language. When Nawaz, the teacher is
asked to explain the couplet, he tells them he is not feeling too good.
They insist. He translates, “Measles…that…that cause
multicolour mumps to..to..to..”
There is too the
inevitability of some of the similes. “Next to Avantika’s
overweight frame, he had seemed reedy, like the gist of an actual man.”
And yes, Bombay/Mumbai
is part of it, but it’s the writing one remembers.
