A Suitable Boy : Review
Published in 1993, written by an internationally acclaimed author Vikram Seth, 'A suitable Boy' is unconventional in many ways. First and foremost being its length, it has roughly 1350 pages and nothing short of a tome. Other factors being ,a preface written in verse, verses used for chapter titles in the index, the family trees( given to facilitate understanding for those poor people who can never understand that how a nephew's niece is related to the uncle's cousin, which are quite simple for us Indians) and these are just to quote a few.
The book starts with the marriage of Savita Mehra in 1951 to a English Lecturer Pran Kapoor. Lata is the younger sister of Savita and since Savita is now married, it is high time now to find a suitable boy for Lata. The whole book revolves around this one liner plot. Seems quite unexciting...huh !! wait ! haven’t we overlooked something ? It is 1951, a time when a nation had general election for the first time under its own constitution, a time when the scars of partition were still not completely healed, a time when the rosy dreams of Independent India were withering away and most importantly a time when some Indian felt for the first time that British India was not that Bad. Just like Salman Rushdie's "Midnight Children" the time period in this book is highly significant. Set mainly in the north of India, this book is a definitive guide to the Indian culture and values for anybody who is curious about it. For those who are already aware of them, it is a journey back down the forgotten memory lanes.
Vikram Seth takes you through a pan-Indian journey (as he himself termed it in the book) in the search of a Suitable boy for Lata. On the journey you meet many people, some suitable, some not, but all carved out with such a rare finesse that they almost seem at a touchable distance from you. The amazing storyteller that he is, he also commands a deep understanding of human psychology and emotions. His characters are real, made up of flesh and blood. It seems as if you are reading about your neighbor next door. He strictly adheres to the old rule of storytelling that great stories are simple stories. And with this simplicity he dwells into the minds of his characters, which makes them so special. He is an amazing researcher and you can see that in the amount of detail he provides about a shoe cobbler, lawyer, judges, shoe trader, politician, courtesan, Calcutta socialite, Godman, mathematician and what not. His hard work pays off in the consistency of all of his characters.
This book is about Lata's dreams, her Mother's expectations, Maan's (Pran's brother) escapades, Savita's love for unattractive but understanding Pran, Kabeer and Amit's unfulfilled desires(two 'suitable' boys), Pran's struggles with his disease and college politics , Indian politics and about its perception through a common man’s eye and many other innumerable characters. But most importantly it is about a journey of Lata from being a girl to becoming a woman. She changes partly because of the circumstances around her but mainly because of discovery of her true self along the journey.
This book never preaches anything but teaches you so many other things. It is actually a love story in a very unconventional sense. It rarely talks about the fairy tales; rather it talks about the unpleasant things happening around. We never want to discuss about these things when we are in love but nevertheless they all have their own undeniable significance. It talks about a love that grows slowly and steadily, the one kind which is good enough to be true, the one kind we all wish to have one day in our life. This unusual romanticism gives the book a universal appeal, which is a hallmark of a timeless classic.
Words are only used as a means of storytelling and are not an end in themselves. You keep on reading this book seeing the unread pages thinning away day by day and before you realize, Lata is finally married and leaving for her own home saying farewell to her mother and maybe to you also. You close the book and wonder to yourself "Was it me who just completed this 1350 page book?" and somewhere deep in his subconscious, Mr. Seth smiles and says "thank you my dear. Thank you very much."
