Difficult Pleasures Book column

                                                     Literary Conversations!

The other day, chin in hand, I sat listening to Anjum Hasan at the International Centre. I was all ears to her narrative of imagination which, she emphasized, was the core of fictional writing. Hearing her did not really grab me so much as the act of reading her collection of short stories ’Difficult Pleasures’. A summer release, the collage is like a deluge of a heavy downpour which you may set out to read in a light vein, but with the very first story you are left wondering deep in thought. To quote John Cournos, a literary critic, ‘A short story is not a ‘slice of life. Call it a ‘roll’ if you must – but, at any rate a whole roll.’ The stories do not follow the beaten track of a beginning, middle and an end. An anticlimax in the artistic sense, at times an understatement, or a whimper instead of the bang that the reader was expecting.

The story is one of the most ancient forms of literature; but the short story as a well defined sub- genre is a modern literary form. Epics have stories in them- and tragedies, comedies and the novel may have many stories at the same time. A short story has its own distinct form, and in English literature this may be said to have happened in the nineteenth century, with the lack of time to read full – length novels as life became busier and busier. Anjum Hasan revels in the luxury of variety, of trying out so many different garbs or voices; but the perfection lies in its brevity and pointedness and really in the feeling of expansion into life that penetrates our consciousness by means of a style that produces a sense of truth and richness. She views each story as a specific invention, a liberating experience to move out of her own skin and slip into a character’s head and find the language and psychology to tell their story – that’s where all the difficult pleasure is!

The book cover is a picture postcard from Goa with coconut palms and a sandy beach with a simulation of the effect of waves on the contours of a sandy coastline which is irrevocably changed with every assault of the ocean wave in multiple ways, the pattern, the silhouette a paradigm shift in perspective; with each story. The stories have urban settings with themes of displacement, longing and alienation imbued with a melancholic search for meaning, deeper connections, flair for creativity and sometimes an escape from a claustrophobic relationship or a flight from paranoia.

The reader is easily led into the interiority of the characters and more often than not the protagonists are solitary reapers exclusively binding and unwinding their lives, singing melancholic strains………... Characters are animated in deft strokes and their muddles, paradoxes archived using the stream of consciousness which builds crests and troughs diffusing situations and moments with a fluidity of a competent writer who has complete control on the design and structure of the narrative.

‘Revolutions’ is about a precocious child turned photographer who sees pictures in everyday things and freezes them into his frames. His endeavors are a face in a coconut husk, plastic that could be water and water that could be shadow. His quest for recognition makes him cling to a mentor and he himself becomes frozen in time. ‘Good Housekeeping’ unravels the deep emotional bond in a mother - daughter relationship. Ayana views the world through her mothers eyes. Her mother’s mood swings, tears, likes and dislikes are hers too. The last part of the story when she comes into her own is rendered with great mastery and subtlety. ‘The Big Picture’ walks away with all the laurels. It is a sweet story about an older woman who has cocooned herself in her house with her art works and then suddenly she is let out in the wide world with an opportunity to travel to Europe with her selected paintings for an exhibition and the attraction of seeing master works and meeting world renowned artists. A menopausal woman stranded and lost at airports and art galleries , talking and mumbling to herself, fidgeting with tampons, with her menopausal timing gone drastically wrong……... ‘Immanuel Kant in Shillong’ and ‘Banerjee and Banerjee’ are meanderings into rich philosophy and literature wherein characters try to imbue relationships gone awry with meaning and inspiration from books. In ‘Saturday Night’  Hasan with great dexterity recounts two simultaneous stories which cross each other just before the end and become intertwined ironically. Inayat and Hina sum-up the collection in the last story with a deep philosophy. However much you may love and treasure souls related to you in your life ; your journey is lone and solitary and you have to let everything go one day………

Here I would like to enumerate a few lines from the collection which had me mulling and ruminating long after……..

Her reflection in the blank, curtain less windows follows her from room to room as she brings out her things and slowly lets them fill the empty spaces.

It is possible to feel completely at home in the world but this is only because we have laid claim to a small space- a few rooms, certain streets, a familiar town – over which our habitual wanderings create grooves that we can comfortably slip into. In truth, the world is a strange and horrifying place.

You know, like  Borges said, each of our unthinking footsteps makes its way over the Golgothas of others.

God, how well we know the rules. Words, words, words and all that. Do you know the feeling of losing it all.  One moment and everything gone. The edifice gone. The shimmer gone. Just pills and clock hands left.

When Samir is afraid , he smiles – but Samir is doubled over from terror, trying both to break free of his father and ensure his father doesn’t abandon him.

I remember expounding on Kant’s categorical imperative. Act only on that maxim through which you can; at the same time, will that it should be a universal law.

Literature imbued with seriousness and gravity, a delight to a seasoned literary enthusiast. Each story opens up new avenues of literary conversations.  A story does not end with the last page but repeats itself interminably in your mind long after. For oft upon my couch I lie in a vacant or a pensive mood they flash upon the inward eye and I begin again on the road to philosophical tunings, literary analogies; a world unto itself. KUDOS ANJUM HASAN!