Contemporary Indian writers, who are ‘well educated’, having global exposure and a reasonable command over the language are emerging as one breed of writers. Or rather I should say, professional writers. They know what ingredients to put in their writing to appeal to their readers. They usually keep their writing very light, very simple. And something that most people can relate to, even when the base setting may be different. The intensity is missing. Probably because that is how today’s lifestyle is for this stratum of society. The observations are usually good and diverse indicating a keen mind. There are 3-4 parallel stories in the novel The Many Conditions of Love, with the equal number of loosely held protagonists.
There is a Muslim revolutionary straight out of an Amol Palekar film. Who falls in love with a Hindu journalist, after working on a protest together. There is a recently married girl who has come from a poor family into a rich one. And hence faces humiliation from other women in her new family, looks straight out of Ekta Kapoor serials. There is a young widow who wants to live life fully. And comes from a village to a city to work in a call center. Somewhere showing the change that women in this country are going through by working towards gaining and maintaining their independence. There is an old farmer in a remote village, who has a tough life, that is dependent on rains year after year. Then there are few characters in the supporting cast.
There is no story per se in the book The Many Conditions of Love. It is more like a diary of these 3-4 people as the life happens to them over a period of time. It starts at a point in time and it ends at another, with no defining events opening or closing the story. In fact, there are no big twists and turns. The characters are ordinary and have no peculiarities that make them interesting or stand out in the narration.
It looks like the author has picked up unrelated people and stories and tried to loosely hold them together and create a story. I could not gather if there is a message in the book. Is there something that the story is trying to say, an issue that is being highlighted, a thought that author wants to share or an emotion that must be expressed. It is just a documentation of lives of a few people as it happens on an everyday basis. The agonies that you go through every day, the rituals that you do mechanically. The cautions that you take while dealing with people around you. And all the things that make our day to day life is what is there in all the 300 pages of this book The Many Conditions of Love.
It is about people you meet every day at the corner of your street, at your office and chit chat that you share with them.
There are many issues that are touched. But never delved into. There is the farmer unrest, there is a treatment of widows in society. And then there is a cross-faith love story. All the issues are sensitive and can be dealt with intensity and depth. But the author takes them more as a matter of fact. It is more like a slice of a larger story.
The novel is based in Vizag, a city that is not too big and not too small. It is a coastal town on the east coast of India, with a laid-back pace. It is a good documentation of the place. We need more stories based in towns and cities that are not so well known. That capture the social and cultural aspects of these places and also become the chronicle of their times. Probably when someone reads this book a few decades down the line, this will give them a picture of how people in and around Vizag lived at the turn of the century. As a contemporary reader, I could not find much in the book.
After reading the book The Many Conditions of Love I found out that it is a sequel of his earlier book “Marriage bureau for the rich people”. Looks like, this sequel has few more sequels lined up as the story abruptly ends. If the author plans to write a series, I think he can pick up one story or one issue to focus on in every book. So that someone who reads just one book also gets something concrete to read.
A quick and easy Sunday afternoon read.
Buy this book – The Many Conditions of Love by Farahad Zama at Amazon India.
Read more:
- Love and Lust by Pavan K Varma & Sandhya Mulchandani
- Love Among Bookshelves by Ruskin Bond
- Sahara A Journey of Love, Loss & Survival by Paula Constant
- Mother-in-Love by Manju Dasgupta
- The Devil Take Love by Sudhir Kakar
I agree, its just a loose amalgamation of different people , circumstances we come across in our day to day life… none stands out upfront.
I have read his first book 'Marriage Bureau of Rich People'-the cover was interesting but the book was not. I somehow managed to finish it. At some point the story had no flow and direction.