May 23, 2015 12:44 AM
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Lizzy's first malayalam novel, 'Mumbai' is an attempt to show different faces of the city Mumbai. The novel is more a promise than an excellent product. I mean, it announces the arrival of a potential author who can write excellent novels. The novel is simple and good. It doesn't enter into too hazardous spheres nor try to tell a structured story. It is more like a collage than a painting. Still, the characters relate with the readers, the author conveys her message in simple words without complexities and somewhere the city shows us that it has a big story to tell. It is a very good first novel from Lizzy who is by now giving the impression that she can be the most potential novelist in Malayalam, if the other novel I read from her(i.e.'Vilappurangal') is of any hint.
It is mainly through the life of four female characters that the city tries to tell its story. Nanda, who works in an unhappy Bank employee and through her eyes the novel begins and ends. Saraswathy who decide to suicide to revenge and her ignorant husband and the situations she lives in. Meera who saves Saraswathy from the suicide attempt and shows her the way of faith, but lost the same faith in her life and she is now a call girl. Preethi who too is a call girl and a high class esc-ort, gets a call to escape from the city's traps. With these characters the city Mumbai joins with its rain. In this relay journey we will meet some helpless souls and their situations.
I love novels and movies which shower a lot of rain. Mumbai has it all. In most of the chapters we can see and feel the rain which made my reading of the novel an experience. The rain in Mumbai is more of a symbol as we witness it in a Padmarajan cinema. In the climax too the excess of it either saves or sinks the characters together. I just love this rain.
'Pranayam'(Love) is the central theme of the novel. The journey of the characters of the novel is to find their love. And the novelist draws out a clear outline of what'Pranayam' is and how one can empower themselves in the awareness of it and it's possession. Let me quote from the book which will show the importance the author gave to this subject. 'Some time love may born out of a heart touching look. Look is one way of Love', 'When love ends, old age begins' In another chapter the author says, 'earlier even a small feather touch would have been enough to feel pranayam, but now, even in sexual climax *pranayam is not felt.'* In another place, you can read, "Her love now reached a stage where it all are just joking gestures like her faded rose plant without watering.' When the author says, 'It is Love what we have to find and retrieve', we will agree to it. Then, the author continue in the next sentence, 'it(love) need not to be restricted for an individual. It may be an environment which evokes the love, it may be flowers, sky, sea waves, it can be an environment with faithful prayers or even a small sparkle in a widely open eye.' it turns to be a philosophy. 'It is to life we have to have love, not to individuals'. The book and the author will have more to say about'Pranayam' which may have more meaning than we assume.
Lizy is little different in her approach on women's position in society. Unlike many feminist writers who likes to complain that females get less attention in society due to male domination Lizy thinks otherwise in the novel.'It is such feminist writers need to be trashed first. When women write like that poor men start believing that.' In another place, we can observe she say, 'the wives are pretending in front of their husbands, as if they don't know anything.men who think women don't have another world other than him, do they realise that she has may worlds within her?' 'All the crying serials are creation of men.' So, it is a kind of boldness the author fills in her characters to give a different reading experience. It is a novel from empowered woman. This doesn't mean that the characters didn't find low situations in their life but it is in making readers aware about its reasons the author lights her candle. In the end, when the author writes, '.have to restart the habit of reading. If I can look at the world and smile simply like Lalitha, life will become joyful every day' it is a message and a way which stick with the reader.
Two situations which I enjoyed while reading need special mention. First is the fight against corruption in banks. The example of 'Kunjuramante Podikkai' and how the new gen banks manipulate customers and how a determined individual can turn events.'The sound of one who says, 'touch here'.liked it thoroughly. The second situation is when, a mother want to adopt an orphan girl to her family. She want to convince her child about this so, explain the condition where the orphan don't have chance to go to school, study, have no place to sleep, she walks where want etc.then, the girl replied.'how lucky is that girl'..is an eye opener in more than one front.
Metro, Monsoon, Ganpathi Bappa, MF Hussein, Fire, Bomaby Bomb explosion, Red street, Underworld there is Mumbai in the novel throughout or say, sample of Mumbai. As M Mukundan says in the introduction, "a grand novel based on the city Mumbai is still awaited" but Lizy's Mumbai is just opening the possibility. Who knows, even Lizy may attempt a grand novel based on Mumbai for she has proven that she is capable of writing such'grand' novels. The city, in her words, 'hide in its chest many streets and lives which we do not know.' sooner than later we look forward to hear the story the city want to tell about all those hidden lives and streets either from Lizy or from another author. Who can prevent the city to write it?
On the minus side, as told earlier, the story line is weak, when addressing experience of a big city like Mumbai, it needed a larger canvas than it used in the novel, many subjected are been touched but all dealt in small compartments. These all I will consider ignorable for one who look for a good simple reading and also when I consider it is the first novel from the author. The novel won the Mathrubhumi Books Novel Award which is not a small feet considering it has to surpass 331 novels to win the crown.
So, barge this train to Mumbai from Kerala, if you wish to read a simple tale of a city told through the eyes of few individuals which don't rush your brain but entertain and sow some seeds of thoughts in your mind.(Oh, unfortunately it is in Malayalam it is exclusively for Mallus, so other language people may have to wait to read it.)
My rating: 3.25 stars
