ALL OVER THE PLACE

Out of this trip and the many that followed has emerged the novelist’s first book of non-fiction,A Place Within: Rediscovering India. Part journalism,part travelogue,part personal journey,the book traverses Delhi,Calcutta,Bhubaneswar,Shimla,Amritsar,Mumbai and parts of Gujarat and Kerala — in short,everywhere in the country that the writer travelled over the past 15 years. The idea of a writer trawling an ancient land has an eternal appeal,each bringing his own special quality to the enterprise —

V.S. Naipaul’s dogged pursuit of understanding or Octavio Paz’s transcendent wisdom,for instance.

Vassanji’s entry points are writers’ conferences and retreats,his companions and guides are largely academics and his special interest appears to be religion,or rather the conflict between religious groups and identities. These predilections take him to mushairas and bazaars,temples,tombs and mosques. There are warm descriptions: of the writer-artist couple Bhishm and Sheila Sahni,for instance,and nuggets such as this one about a small college in a nondescript town: “a somewhat bleak place,looking more like a slum apartment building — a block with dirty yellow paint,no grounds,many windows”.

But,overall,an air of jadedness hangs over the enterprise.

Reading A Place Within,one gets the feeling that it is a book written not now but at some earlier time and republished. It is not just the reference points — Uran Khatola,Mother India,Kipling,Vasco da Gama,Mulk Raj Anand,the jatra — that are dated and seem to bear little relevance to the present,but also the discoveries the writer makes along the way. In Kerala,for instance,he finds that “most young men are away working in the Gulf at low-status jobs but earning high wages by local standards”. At another time he is struck by the phrase “Horn Please” on the back of a vehicle. The reporting of these commonplace facts as revelations leads to a feeling of dislocation in the reader.

Added to that is a seemingly lacklustre approach towards the subject. Despite the author’s stated empathy,the connection fails to be made. There is no personal relish in the narration of history,no delight in or rage at anything perceived or experienced. Indeed,one gets the sense that India,far from being intensely experienced,is a bit like a puzzling heirloom that the author is turning over,wondering what it means to him; that while he knows it is too precious to give up,he is not yet quite sure what to make of it.

Nowhere is this more obvious than when dealing with religion. Vassanji’s pain at recent events in India is apparent. In fact,his very arrival,coinciding as it does with the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition is a poignant place for him to journey into the area of confused religious identities,syncretic traditions,the place of music and cultural affinities so on and so forth. All these ideas and others,such as the mix of love and hate,wisdom and charlatanry,were brilliantly evoked in his last novel and the first to be based in India The Assassin’s Song,set after the 2002 Gujarat violence.

In A Place Within,however,Vassanji seems to be less determined about his goal,describing religious places and meeting commentators such as Mumbai-based Asghar Ali Engineer without any clear ideas taking shape.