I am here to invite my readers to
learn about a book that involves the inner workings of a community that has
often only been viewed from the outside by most people in our country, but has
always held a sense of intrigue that is more attached to a culture that lives
on the other side of the world.
I am talking of lives of the
Anglo-Indian community who even when living in the center of our cities find
themselves stuck in two separate worlds, one that holds memories of the past
and the other that they find themselves present in. The question often becomes
do they return to their past or have they drifted too far away?
The Growing Years builds around
the reader the fascinating setting of a cantonment, the Jubbulpore cantonment
to be precise, where the reader is invited into the life of the author’s past
and the murmurs of the Anglo-Indian community.
The book begins slowly with an
introduction to a family in mourning, but as the family recovers from unity to
the normalcy of rebellion that a family with five children would come to
expect, you will find yourselves enjoying reading about their way of life; from
subtleties in language such as ‘funny business’ and bochee, to the larger context
of influence of religion on the lives of the family.
Maya, the mother plays the
central role in the tale as she tries to bind the family in what she considers
to be the proper way. Her four daughters don’t quite share her view, as they
squabble amongst themselves in a duel to become the center of attention.
Maya doesn’t really receive much
support from her husband, Ted, who is rather detached from the picture of the
family presented in the novel, or her father-in-law who treats her religious
beliefs to be suited to a faraway fantasy land; or even her friend Ellen who is
a natural in untying the knot of propriety that Maya has labored to place
around her family.
The book talks about how children
always look to support the winner. It is almost as though the daughters are
stubbornly rooted in the belief that they are this winner that is talked about,
as they seldom try and support each other without an evident personal benefit,
sisterly love be damned (I hope Maya excuses my language). The author does a
fabulous job in shifting from one daughter to the other as she presents their
perspective and their childish schemes in trying to usurp power from one
another.
Anna is the primary character
among the children who wonders how she ended up being the daughter of a hunting
father, and a student of a teacher who she feels is trying to bury her childhood.
She tries in her own way to teach the parents and her teacher a lesson by
trying to establish her presence, or absence to be more precise.
She finds a sense of closeness
among other characters such her grandpa, Alfie, who speaks his mind just as
Anna is striving to do so; or with Billy, a thirty year old intellectually
disabledmanwhose non-understanding of his surroundings connects with Anna; or
with Hugh, whose appearance compounds her confusion about her feelings for the
opposite gender; or with Bossy who seems to mirror her disconnect with
boundaries.
Maya finds herself in a situation
of a kite flier who is trying to fly four kites at the same time while the
kites are trying to snip at each other. We witness Maya understanding when it
is prudent to let her little kites fly a little higher in order to protect
herself from the threads cutting her fingers and when she needs to reel them in
a little bit in order to save them from winds that threaten their being.
The story ends as it began with
an incident that unifies the family as only tragedy does, but just as the
manner with which the author dealt with tragedy in the beginning, she does the
same at the end; with a sense of acceptance and destiny that holds a purpose in
life.
I end by informing my readers
that The Growing Years is a book that is transparent in its promise to tell a
story honestly and letsyou into the lives of a family who’s each character
wishes you to empathize with their side of the story.
--- Nikhil Mallikarjun
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