Lost at Home

Much of the angst in Usha Priyamvada’s novels can be traced to a modern middle-class woman in the making, standing at the cusp of modernity, with a paycheck to her name and a say in her family. She is ready to move headlong to carve out a space for her ideas of freedom, individuality, and desires. But in the process, this socially conditioned woman has to grapple with her demons and indecisions. The craft of Priyamvada’s fiction lies in the articulation of this anxiety.

Her first novel, Pachpan Khambe, Lal Diwaren (1961) was a hit. Translated into English by Daisy Rockwell, and published by Speaking Tiger in 2022, it tells the story of Sushma, a 33-year History professor who, bogged down by her familial responsibility of feeding a family of six, decides against marriage despite feeling a strong pull towards it. This sacrifice, which should have allowed her a sense of respite, leaves her bitter and lonely.

A similar mental state racks Radhika, the protagonist of Won’t You Stay, Radhika? The English translation of Priyamvada’s 1967 novel, Rukogi Nahi, Radhika? has been brought out by the same translator-publisher duo. The novel traces Radhika’s journey as she returns to India after her snug life in Chicago begins to stifle.

Her stepmother Vidya, whom Radhika calls by first name, sends Akshay to pick her up from the airport. Wanting to bask in familiar comforts and heal old festering wounds, she meets a host of relatives. But exactly the opposite happens—owing to a long span of separation, everything has an air of formality.

However, the central conflict of the novel lies in Radhika’s meeting with her father. Their relationship cracked after Radhika’s mother’s death—and her father’s subsequent decision to marry his student. Unable to accept the newcomer, Radhika leaves home. But all through her journey, the sense of estrangement that comes from a distant father nags her. Each time she falls for a man, she searches for her father’s image. This constant push and pull between the father and daughter, both acting out of their fears and insecurities, repeatedly wounding but never letting go of each other, gives the novel needed nuance.

Radhika returns to Delhi where she feels a palpable tug of attraction to Akshay and Manish, an old friend and an art historian. While these two sensitive men represent a newly burgeoning masculine sensibility, it’s interesting to note the difference in attitudes of these two men—a Westernised, promiscuous Manish vis-a-vis a conservative Akshay who can’t accept Radhika as she is another man’s “leftovers”.

Highlighting the contradictions of an emerging middle class torn between their ingrained prejudiced thoughts and its fascination for Western culture remains the major focus of this novel. Even the strokes to show the reverse cultural shock are deft and skilful—sharpening with the presence of Diwakar who is unable to find a lucrative job in India or a Boston-accented Pravin who has forgotten how to talk in Hindi.

Owing to flowery language and very long sentences that at times even begin to feel exhausting, the translation must have been a hard nut to crack. Rockwell does a good job in most parts. But as a reader who has read the book both in Hindi and in English simultaneously, I can’t help but notice that a few concluding pages from the Hindi original are missing.

What perhaps felt slightly strange (even unnecessary) was the mention of Radhika’s Electra Complex and its far too simplistic resolution. Blaming it on Electra entirely might even turn counterproductive for Radhika’s complex character, which has its fair share of patriarchal intonations. Her initial resistance to accept Vidya might not be because of the father’s remarriage but derives from her disillusionment that her writer-lawyer father might still have needs that can only be fulfilled by a younger woman. Even for an attachment pattern that has its roots in childhood, it’s surprising that not even once does the novel mention Radhika’s mother or the relationship between them.

This first-of-its-kind Hindi diaspora novel should be read for its woman protagonist whose life is not upended by her romantic partners but rather makes a comforting peace with a growing sense of ‘ennui.’

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