Prajwal Parajuly

Prajwal Parajuly caught the attention of the media when he became the youngest Indian author to be offered a two-book, multi-country deal by Quercus in 2011.  He published his first book in 2012: a short story collection The Gurkha's Daughter and his second book in 2013: a novel The Land Where I Flee.  Parajuly is a  Nepalese Indian writer –an  advertising executive-turned-author,  as unassuming and unhindered as the stories he pens. He is the second author from the Indian diaspora after Kiran Desai to illuminate and bring to centre stage the world of Indian Gurkhas, the majority ethnic Nepalese-speaking community in and around Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan.  Kiran Desai’s narrative in The Inheritance of Loss borders on the demand for Gurkhaland at its peak in the 1980s in Kalimpong.  But Parajuly evocatively enlarges the panorama by his in-depth portrayal of the life of Gorkhas, coalescing their stories into the mainstream.  

He writes about the experiences, culture and belief systems of the ethnic and diasporic Nepalese. Insightful peeking into the minds and characters of these people shaped by their politics, traditions and economics makes the reader walk their perilous trails through refugee camps, caste divides, revolutions and ultimately the American dream. Generally regarded as immigrants within their own country, he satirizes the stereotypes which abound in people’s minds in the story- The Immigrants:  ‘When I told people I was of Napalese origin, they instinctively asked me if I had climbed Mount Everest. When I answered no, I hadn’t and no, I did not know anyone who had, they were disappointed. When I mentioned I was from Darjeeling, most people asked me a tea question. When I let them know I couldn’t distinguish one  variety from the other, and that I didn’t drink tea, they looked bewildered. And if I told anyone I was an Indian with Nepalese origins, they looked at me wide-eyed, thinking it to be a curious mishmash . . . I stayed silent and let people continue living in their uninformed bubbles.’ To the contrary, Parajuly hashes the myths, and visits the grey areas of ignorance surrounding these very people through the book. The legendary courageous Gorkha soldier’s post imperial perspective is summed up in the line: "I haven't been in any danger since the Gulf War, but they might have some useless war for me to fight again. They are the British after all." He also fiercely derides the epithet ‘loyal’, used for most Gorkha workers, working blue collar jobs – ‘it reeks of their servitude’,  he says , ‘trapping rather than liberating them’. Another very interesting aspect of most stories is the juxtaposition of the east and west prism of perspectives on choices in life. A woman in her prime decides to walk out of her marriage which is going nowhere to study further and travel the world. 

The writing style is lucid and completely unaffected. The primary aim of the writer is characters and their everyday lives, to the extent that though the stories are based in lush green ambience of the Himalayan foothills, yet the narrative does not deviate from its core to paint the landscape in different hues. Each story is introduced with a title and a map of locations in the story in and around Nepal, Bengal, Sikkim and Bhutan. With the last story the mapwork shifts to New York – Manhattan , the Nepalese diasporic recount of two immigrants who have to unlearn and relearn new ways of relating to each other far away from their ethnic lands.

The first story The Cleft abounds in societal prejudices and the caste system rife in the Gorkha community. The illusionary dreams of stardom by the servant girl Kali with a cleft, imbues it with poignancy. A Father’s Journey is a sweet story about an enduring relationship between a father and his daughter. The subconscious desires mired in bigotry that parents pass on to their children mingled with their love and attention, and which the most enlightened of progeny then try and live them, a living tribute to their parents’ love for them. Missed Blessing entails the delicate balance between debt and sacrifice, obsequiousness to the wealthy and powerful between families and the motive behind every goodness shown to you. No Land is Her Land is recounted against the backdrop of Nepalese exodus from Bhutan, the story of refugees and their striving at perfections to regain acceptance in other lands. Gurkha’s Daughter and Passing Fancy are marked for their narrative technique. The former relays the plight of 200 years of lives of   brave, loyal Gorkha soldiers and their Brit counterparts through a mimicry enacted by children and the latter showcases the dual relationship of a woman with her husband and the neighbour through direct speech and stream of consciousness technique.

Stories of dysfunctional characters painting mindscapes of dispossesion and divisions, yet these very imperfections make them human and their strivings heroic.  Some of the characters continue in his second book and evolve further into rounded beings, their energies lent to the realisation of a beautiful world!  Prajwal Parajuly, we look forward to more writings from you!