Recommended!. Review on English August - Upmanyu Chaterjee

I was a bit tired of reading Julian Barnes when I chanced upon English, August among the umpteenth number of books on the shelves of British Council library. The book was written in 1988 and the author was highly praised for his cult fiction. I was aware there is a movie called English, August but because I hadn’t seen it so had no clue what it was about. I looked at the orange cover; it had Rahul Bose (he played the protagonist in the reel version). Maybe since orange is my favourite colour, the cover impressed me. I flipped through the pages and noticed one peculiar thing that the author, Upamanyu Chatterjee, has neither classified the chapters nor has given them any titles.

Without wasting much time I started my reading junket. The book opens up with an ingenuous tête-à-tête between two stoned friends, one of whom has recently joined the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and is about to leave for a year’s training in Madna, a small town in the deccan, also hailed as the hottest town in India. The conversation itself sets the tone for the whole novel and I knew the reading will involve the different facets of the lives of the contemporary and the much unconventional Indians.

Actually, the reason for picking up this book was not just the aforementioned cover but also the title, English, August. I wondered nonplussed whether the book talks of an August in England??? But on the contrary it revolves around young, westernized, mongrel Agastya Sen who was English or August or Ogu to his friends.

Brought up in the culturally aware Delhi and bureaucratic bylanes of Calcutta (his father is the Governor of Calcutta), the life in the hinterland proved to be a sort of roller coaster ride to this 24-year-old, apathetic IAS trainee, and the best part is he doesn’t strain himself to fit in. An unlikely bureaucrat, he prefers reading Marcus Aurelius, smokes pot, tries his best to remain enigmatic, lies about himself and listens to Tagore. Though he may have landed up in the much revered Indian Administrative Services but why and for what, he has absolutely no reasons. While living the life of August through Chatterjee’s words, it can prove to be very easy for us to relate to him for we at some point in our lives may have experienced the same directionless and aimless feeling. Although he is a bit apathetic but in his own peculiar ways tries to assess his circumstances and decides to leave the IAS but realises that his friends back in Delhi are finding the megalopolitan lives, that he was yearning for, surreal. The author has very finely described the laid-back protagonist, and his dark, wry humour occasionally leaves you in stitches.

Upamanyu Chatterjee is himself an IAS officer, could this be his own real life story, any guesses any one??