“This life is a funny thing, eh.” She said, “one day somebody dead and you cry. Two days later somebody married and then you laugh.”
I bear no ill-will for this book as I jumped over to it under the fit of a fizzing rage mixed with a sort of mental flurry that emerged in me out of sheer curiosity to read one of the earlier works of the author, which I had no plan to read anytime soon. This book was fun. Its comic sense, with conversation in the Trinidadian dialect of Indians living there of early 20th century, was very funny. Though I was not much impressed with the story, as being an Indian having familiarity with the theme of Indian ways and beliefs, used in the novel, a few events seemed very predictable.
This is the story of Ganesh, who fails in the teaching life in a small Trinidadian village and returns home where his to-be father-in-law Ramlogan is impressed with his reading and writing abilities and he calls him “sahib”. He wants him to marry his daughter Leela and he agrees. He uses the money of Ramlogan to build a library and orders thousands of books. There are some very funny and hilarious scenes created when the understanding between both of them was misconstrued due to the misinterpretation of certain events, in such cases the role of Leela was also very interesting, who becomes a communicator between the two and proves a canny as well as an untaught communicator at the same time.
Ganesh, a book lover, wants to do ‘a little bit’ of massaging and ‘a little bit’ of writings. As massaging he carries from his forefathers and writing from his own passion. After a lot of effort, he publishes a book on Hindu religion titled 101 Questions and Answers on the Hindu Religion. Among one of those questions, at one place, asks someone who is the greatest living Hindu? And the reply comes… Mahatma Gandhi! There was a lot of fun in all the delivery of dialogues. Later He sent a copy to Gandhi but the outbreak of the war prevented the acknowledgment. At least this excuse was given to all around him. Yes! This story was taking place in the 1940s. And the war was a world war!
One day he heals a boy of a young lady who injured his ankle and since that day he begins his reputation as a “healer”. He got popular and becomes a mystic. Later he gathers a mass of wealth and becomes a political leader.
This is an interesting book and I have no doubt about it. The story is definitely funny and worth reading for those who are not familiar with the beliefs and ways of Indian lives. Those might have found freshness in it at the time of its publication if this book was written keeping the prospect of Trinidad and nearby English-speaking population.
My problem was timing too. I was reading it after I have already waded through some of his major and well-appreciated novels written almost 20 to 25 years later than this book, so I saw a clear-cut difference in both the writing and execution. A writer matures with the time, but more important than this I found his writing changed both in style and approach. I could perceive these changes. This was indeed the first novel of the author. I guess he was writing it when he was 23 or 24 years old, so an impressive effort for that age. He is very humorous and entertaining in this book, and in his later works he became intense, but the origin of that impending intensity of thought could be felt even in this book as I noticed he had been mentioning here also both political and religious tenets, though in a farcical manner!
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