Generally About Books: August 2021

Guest Post: Beena Vijayalakshmy

“If it be true that every novel contains an element of autobiography – and this can hardly be denied, since the creator can only express himself in his creation – then there are some of us to whom an open display of sentiment is repugnant.”

- Joseph Conrad

These are the words that first came to my mind as I sat entranced after reading One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B. by Cp Surendran. The book was launched recently. I read it off Kindle.

Cp Surendran has effortlessly juggled the many roles that he has come to don in his eclectic career. While I had been familiar with his brilliant poetry and his many essays, I had not read any of his works of fiction until Osip came along. And dare I say, he makes for one demanding author who elevates his readers on to the next level and intrigues them with the blood and beat of language.

The story of Osip defies description. And deliberately so. To put it simply, it follows the journey of the protagonist, Osip Balakrishnan, an eighteen-year old who falls irresistibly in love with his British teacher, Elizabeth. When she rejects his love and takes off to England, Osip pulls off a stunt that almost gets him arrested. In a desperate attempt to win back the one love of his life, he follows his destiny to England and in the process, discovers that his future is inextricably linked to his communist past.

The narrative is jammed with several themes, plots and digressions that it is practically impossible to do justice to the book in the space of a short blog. Suffice to say, it is one heady ride that is anti-woke and is bound to raise many eyebrows. The novel touches upon several contemporary themes such as individualism vs groupism, cancel culture, the rise of nationalism and Islamophobia, the fall of pluralism, beef vandalism among others. It is a severe reproach of the authoritarian India that is antagonistic to dissent in any form, the emasculation of the Fourth Estate by the powers that be, the culture brigade that polices practically every sphere of social life in India, and holds to ransom anyone who dares to deviate from their idea of moral rectitude.

However, what intrigued me most were the autobiographical elements of the book. Being familiar with the instrumental change and the drastic administrative reforms brought about by the rise of communism that revolutionized Kerala of the 60s, the allegorical insinuations to the author’s father and his many contributions to the Communist establishment in Kerala were unmistakable. In his heyday, rationalist and literary icon, Pavanan, was a force to reckon with, an undeniable presence within the Communist circles in Kerala. However, in his final years, he led a life of relative obscurity, after being afflicted with Alzheimer’s. As does Narayan, Osip’s grandfather. Incidentally, Pavanan’s given name was also Narayanan Nair. The pain of watching one’s loved one disintegrate right in front of one’s eyes is very poignantly captured in the novel.

The existential despair and the travails of a battered journalist, Arjun Bedi, who is discredited and exiled by woke groups – “toilet revolutionaries”, as he calls them - is reminiscent of the author’s own trials and tribulations in recent times. The book worms its way into one’s subconscious, rendering the surroundings out of focus in stark white. The writing is vigorous, the prose almost poetic to a fault, the plot complex yet structured. There’s a painterly minimalism to the language – every word necessary, every word taut. The poetic depth of the love story leaves one with lingering thoughts of love and loss, while the honest writing forces one to find expression to those parts of our experiences and reject everything superficial.

Every once in a while, there comes along a book that hits some very real moments for a reader. Osip comes in the middle of a pandemic, as a virus ravages the nation. The book was recently launched and is invariably bound to revive debate on several contemporary issues. As it rightly should.

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Love, the Word Known to All

I sat down at Cheers, a cheap coffee place near the Oxford Railway Station, not bigger than a stall, where I had found myself in my aimless walks this mid-morning, and where you could stand around round plastic tables in red and white, and have a coffee and a croissant for one pound. One side of the place was red bricks, and the other a mirror.

The man behind the counter was young and bald, and had a face that invited confidences. I bought the coffee without looking him in the eye, and placed it on a red table. I had a headache coming. Its source was precisely at the centre point behind my eyelids. Soon it would radiate around my head. I checked my phone, read again the message from Arjun. Dev had posted the party scene where Maina was having a meltdown on social media. Diya shared the post with a kind of dissenting note. She said that it was a personal moment at a private party, and, ideally, should not be put out; but Arjun was a public figure, and his wife’s ‘observations’ about him were helpful to understand the domestic abuse of the ‘benevolent patriarch’. She said she would have more to say on the issue in a forthcoming book. Dev had masked Maina’s face in his video.

‘The terror comes in waves,’ Arjun said. They had come up with another case where he had asked an artist if she were her own nude model. Arjun said he did ask the artist the question, but it was out of genuine curiosity. ‘Today,’ Arjun said, ‘I awoke to hear someone moaning, like a hurt animal, and found it was issuing from my throat, so I will go and apologize to them and see if this thing can be stopped, but what’s there to stop now? You see, Osip, although one needs forgiveness or appreciation from no one more than one’s detractors, and though their file on me says I am well versed in the English language and the uses of irony, I say it all quite plainly: I am tired, and I must learn to die with this, though Dev and Diya have offered a forum on their online portal for me to apologize. Hmm. This offer Osip, was preceded by an anonymous call on my landline. The caller, a male voice, merely said, “Hello rapist, good morning” and cut the call. And, so, I ebb and eddy toward my exilic status, which I console myself is an essential stage of a writer’s evolution, but equally, I am aware now, that even this thought could be an assuagement of my vanity. In short, I am no longer sure of myself. Stay good, and let me know if you need anything, money, etc.’

I sipped the hot coffee. English coffee always smells better than it tastes. A heavy-set woman in a tall black hat, black leather jacket, and black high boots came in with two black poodles, talked to the man behind the counter in a whisper, laughed, and left, glancing at me. The cold air was heavy with perfume in her wake, and triggered the first stab of my blinding headache. I leaned my head against the mirror. ‘Poor Arjun,’ I thought. I could not think of a repentant, apologetic Arjun. I closed my eyes to contain my headache.

‘Now I present to you my 1935 poem, Ode to Stalin, seeking his forgiveness. “Though I am not yet worthy of having friends,/Though I am not sated with bile and tears, / I still seem to be seeing him in his greatcoat, in his cap, / On the wonderful square, with his happy eyes…// ).’” ‘Gladen’kii stishok. Facile doggerel.’ ‘Yes, nothing in the great Russian language, with all its wide vowels and gushing sibilants, justifies or accommodates it. The language fails when the poet is false to his situation. And the situation here is stark, simple: there would be no reprieve. Only more Siberia from the big man, and there is enough Siberia for all to go around with, and mocking laughter of other doggerel writers.’

‘Are you talking to yourself in a foreign language?’ the man behind the counter had come around, and was now considering me with his kind, bulbous eyes. ‘No. I was thinking of something.’ ‘I thought I could hear your thoughts, mate. I don’t mind, except the customers might take fright.’ I picked up the coffee and left, my head on fire, carefully stepping over the little puddle of poodle piss on the floor, mystified which one of them did it and exactly when. It seemed the woman in black had come a long time ago.

Buy the book: One Love and Many Lives of OSIP B

Watch Vani Tripathi's interview Cp Surendran: Kalinga Festival