Call of the Leopard

The very title of Doorva Devarshi’s literary novel The Fantastic Affair of Despair is intriguing and nuanced. ‘Fantastic’: not in the modern, more popular sense of being wonderful, but closer to the more archaic, literal meaning of the word: something imaginary, unreal. A thing of fantasy. Which this story is, because though much of it is solidly rooted in the very real world of post-Independence India, there is a thread—illusive, elusive—of something almost like magical realism running through it. The beast which calls, at a visceral level, to the unnamed female protagonist: is it real? A leopard, preying over the years on the unwary? Or a symbol, a metaphor?

Then, ‘Affair’. Again, a word that may hold different connotations. The usual meaning for most people would imply a romantic (especially sexual) relationship, and that with an element of illicitness in it. The broader meaning of the word, of course, connotes to ‘matter’: a matter that sends Devarshi’s protagonist fleeing the city, where she works in a publication called The Narrator. There is sex involved in her decision to leave the city and to head first to Rajasthan and then up into the Himalayas. It is not an affair; we are told little about it, barring the opening scene and the aftermath, but that a woman, used and bruised, should flee—that says it all.

The abuse and the neglect of women in India forms a central theme of Devarshi’s novel. It surfaces again and again in different ways, in different forms, some of them so understated that at times it takes a second read, a second thought, to recognise that yes, this isn’t right. A young teenager, a child, is married off to a man thrice her age. A woman’s husband refuses to consummate their marriage, even though it means that the wife is branded ‘barren’ by all and sundry, and ridiculed for her empty womb. There is the childhood trauma of abuse by a relative that the protagonist endures—and, heartbreakingly, there is the response of her mother, when years later her daughter confronts her, asking why the mother (even knowing what she did) said nothing, did nothing. A response that again takes us into the territory of is it white, is it black, or is all of it shades of grey?

This blurring of right and wrong, of good and bad, comes through in other ways, in other characters. Not, perhaps, in most of the male characters. The vicious (perhaps because he has been neglected, at an emotional level, by his parents?) Bablu Nath, or the self-centred Damodar Pradhan, or even Leela’s husband, Kailash: all men who aren’t really black and white, but who are, all said and done, worthy more of censure than of pity. Of the male characters, though, there is one especially memorable one: Edwin, introduced on the first page itself, but then vanishing, only to reappear at the fag end of the book. Edwin is described as loud; his passion for mountaineering is an obsession that is cruelly selfish—and yet, through his backstory, Edwin takes on form, becomes a character worthy of sympathy.

It is these characters, the landscapes they live in, their feelings and interactions, that make this book so memorable. Devarshi writes with depth, sensitivity, and a feel for what lies beneath: there is so much in this book that sits so deep that to grasp it all and mull over everything would take more than one reading.

If there is a flaw, it is in the tendency—particularly in the first one-third or so—to try too hard. There are sentences in the beginning that go on and on, chockfull of dazzling metaphors and fine wordplay, but losing control now and then. The last third of the book is more mature, more restrained, and consequently more impactful.

A fine debut; Doorva Devarshi is a writer to look out for.

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