‘There had never been any of that soft mother –daughter business between them.’ I really enjoy reading stories of dysfunctional families with complicated characters and relationships. Be it an unusual mother daughter relationship lacking love and affection, as in Shashi Deshpande’s ‘The Dark holds no terrors’ and Jahnavi Barua’s ‘Undertow’; sibling rivalries like the one narrated in the recent short story I read-‘The Romance of Certain Old Clothes’; broken and irreparable father daughter relationship as depicted in ‘The Vegetarian’ and families torn apart by any tragedy. How do you think a literary creation would fare without drama? Taking the dynamics of human relationships into consideration, I think Undertow is a brilliant book which captures the effects of familial cruelties on a person with absolute candor.The first part of Undertow, set in the year 1983, takes us through Rukmini’s tough struggle to choose in between her individual autonomy or surrendering as a prisoner to repressive social practices. Through various events of Rukmini’s life, we get to see how her mother got in the way of most of her choices. Being restricted to her hometown, enrolled in the Guwahati Medical College, she never got to explore career options of her choice. Usha was never available as a friendly mother for Rukmini to lay down her guards and share her feelings. So talking about the development of romantic feelings towards a Malayali Christian batch mate was out of the question. She knew it with certainty that her controlling mother would dismiss her feelings. Going against her mother, Rukmini married Alex, which resulted in her ostracization from the family. Usha was least affected with her daughter leaving the city foreverto settle in Bangalore. Her father, Torun who apparently had the choice of intervening, didn’t make an attempt to mend the situation. In the second part of the book, we see Rukmini’sdaughter Loya standing in front of the same Yellow House her mother grew up in, looking for answers from her grandfather Torun. Loya’s narrative represents her lack of control over the environment she grew up in. The emotional trauma caused by the divorce of her parents, the cold shouldered attitude of her father’s family and Rukmini’s solitary confinement affected her all throughout. She blamed her mother’s family for casting away their only daughter, for no attempts on their part to reconcile and for all the associated crises. She was angry and wanted answers.The author gives the Brahmaputra a special place in the book, making readers visualize it as a powerful entity of the region. The conversations between Torun and Loya were inclusive of discussions on the history of Assam, valiant war heroes, rich culture and heritage, socio political aspects of the region and events post Andolan. It’s really impressive that the author made sure to promote facts about the state which might be hitherto unknown to readers from different parts of the country and beyond. Being a resident of the same place the Yellow House is set in, I walked along with Loyathrough all the familiar lanes, by the river side, away from the noise and bustle of the city. It was an absolutely refreshing exercise for my mind. I just wish the ending was less melancholic.
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Wonderful..it feels like without reading the book,I could just get into the scene.
I would rather suggest Undertow is a must buy and read!!
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