“W
●
hat,” laments
an article in
Prospect , “is
wrong with the
modern
literary novel?
Why is it so
worthy and
dull? Why is it so anxious? Why is it so
bloody boring?” After all, it is with
comedy that we share the gods’ sport,
becoming as them in laughing at our
own follies for entertainment, while
tragedy resorts to a mere mortal’s view
of life where we suffer, sicken and die.
The fault of western culture since
the Middle Ages to overvalue the tragic
and undervalue the comic, the article
continues, has been internalised by our
writers—if the subject is big, difficult
and serious, the writer tends to believe
the treatment must be in the tragic
mode. If this proposal is believed, then
we need pause, and applaud debut
writer Ambarish Satwik. He has
undertaken a subject as big, difficult
and serious as it gets—the British
Empire—and attempted to breathe life
into starched uniforms and dusty
corridors, to bring figures forever
relegated to history books into an
open-air amphitheatre where we can be
entertained by their humanness.
Perineum is a collection of 13 short
stories, spanning two centuries worth
of historical events. Following the rise
and fall of the Raj, the book takes the
phrase “seat of the British Empire”
literally enough to provide us with two
opening diagrams of the male and
female perineum, and a detailed
description from Keith Moore and
Arthur Dalley’s Clinically Oriented
Anatomy of what this confounding
body part is. Apart from forcing you
to stash your munchies away, they also
set the tone for what is to follow.
Satwik’s narrative style befits his
medical profession, to humanise, not
through emotional flaws, not by
exposing the weaknesses of envy,
jealousy and hate, but via sickness and
disease, especially those concentrated
in and around the nether regions of the
body.
This translates into a profusion of
maladies that are liberally scattered
through the book; we have the
distension of “Bobby” Clive’s penis and
its subsequent circumcision, “Bhadoor”
Shah’s irregular bowels, King George’s
torsion of the testis and Sir Herbert
Baker’s Fournier gangrene (an infection
of the male genitalia of which I wish I
had remained oblivious all my life).
These and more are painfully detailed,
each described in a profusion of archaic-
sounding medical terminology, and set
against the apparent grandeur of the
Raj era. This is a point well illustrated
by the cover—a sombre, black and
white picture of an elegantly
colonnaded colonial house complete
with sweeping arches, Victorian
furniture, and a just-as-stiff Victorian
couple—while within can be found
stories that tell of quite the opposite.
Stories where the Anglo-French wars,
the Black Hole of Calcutta, the Mutiny
of 1857, the Delhi Durbar, and
Partition, far from being the central
action serve only as a backdrop. The
spotlight is trained relentlessly on the
main players instead, the ones meant
to uphold the Empire’s power and glory,
caught under the glare and squirming
in uncomfortable positions, physical or
otherwise.
Why then such a novel take? Is it
● F I C T I ON ●
●
A medical Mardi children in her ovaries.” Occasionally
however, Satwik hangs up his doctor’s
coat and writes well; the section in the
Gras
story Beresford which describes the
torture and death of the Beresford
family by a group of rioting sepoys lays
claim to a surgical precision that is
absent elsewhere:
● “George was sprawled on the edge
of the parapet, heaving, one hand
Perineum: Nether Parts of the Empire flapping, twitching involuntarily in
the air, the other staunching a
By Ambarish Satwik bleeder in his neck. This was, a few
Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2007, 159 pp., Rs 200 moments back, his life of absolute
moral simplicity, of natural laws and
ISBN 01-4310-241-9 all that, with a God whose
Providence worked automatically.”
The detached tone of the narrative
JANICE PA R I AT serves only to highlight the brutality;
with all pretensions stripped bare, there
is honesty here that is disconcerting
that these disorders are meant to be comic element in Perineum, rather than and, at the same time, very moving.
the physical manifestation of the remaining fresh and sparkling, becomes Mongrel, the story of a half-caste
Empire’s corruption and failings, how a funny story heard once too often at woman, rejected on both the Indian
its very ‘seat’ or foundation was rotten countless cocktail parties. The so-called and the Imperial side for the colour of
and diseased from within? If so, then it comedy eventually drowns in a her skin, and finally trapped in the
is indeed a clever and, at the best of stranglehold of terminology, flatly Black Hole of Calcutta, also shows
times, thought-provoking, ploy. The sinking into the obscure: potentia:
book’s blurb however, goes as far as “…there were no petechiae on her “For her, the colour of her skin had
attributing it with “darkly satirical wit”. skin, no haemorrhages under her become her habitus and by
Satire is a literary tone used to ridicule conjunctivae. There were however, extension, her creed in this land. She
and attack human vice or folly through petechiae under the pericardium…” and her people, brought into
irony, derision, or wit. The satire in or existence and made wholesome by
the white society, were good for
●
their seed but not good enough to
Satwik’s narrative style befits his medical profession, be saved.”
to humanise, not through emotional flaws, not by We feel for the characters in these
stories more than anywhere else,
exposing the weaknesses of envy, jealousy and hate, perhaps because Satwik’s world is
but via sickness and disease, especially those otherwise peopled by no more than
disjointed and diseased limbs rather
concentrated in and around the nether regions of the than persons, more a mortuary run by
body. This translates into a profusion of maladies that Poe than a stage lit by Kafka upon
which these players play their many
are liberally scattered through the book. These are parts.
painfully detailed, each described in a profusion of It is necessary to assess Perineum’s
accomplishments honestly: on one
archaic-sounding medical terminology, and set hand it is a refreshing change in the
against the apparent grandeur of the Raj era. The sultry and dust-ridden landscape of
IWE (Indian Writing in English), a
spotlight is trained relentlessly on the main players cheeky April shower rather than
instead, the ones meant to uphold the Empire’s thunderous monsoon rain. On the
power and glory, caught under the glare and other, in no way has the author created,
and perhaps even attempted to create,
squirming in uncomfortable positions, physical or as the blurb claims, “a Borgesian
otherwise. fictional labyrinth”.
Perineum’s stories are “surreal” for
Why then such a novel take? Is it that these disorders their unexpected juxtapositions, for
are meant to be the physical manifestation of the the almost carnivalesque tone in which
death and disease are handled. This
Empire’s corruption and failings, how its very ‘seat’ blend of irreverence and quirkiness
or foundation was rotten and diseased from within? results in a chaotic medical Mardi Gras
rather than a labyrinth crafted from
● an exquisitely, and mathematically,
structured narrative, delving into
Perineum, if intended at all, fails because “The prepucial band was incised themes as vast as time, reality and
the humour does. dorsally along the penile axis. The imagination. Rather than executing
Humour, however, with its innate dorsal nerve i.e. the terminal branch brushstrokes that build a heavily
trickery and subjectivity has tried and of the pudendal nerve, ran just layered narrative similar to Borges’
eluded even the best of playwrights, beneath the fascia…” style, Satwik is closer to Swift’s
authors and moviemakers. There are Governor of Glubbdubdrib, a magician
some who have deftly succeeded— When not quoting from the Atlas of who conjures for Gulliver the “shades”
Sukumar Ray and Ogden Nash’s Human Anatomy, Satwik is a quick or spirits of various deceased historical
delightful verse, Kurt Vonnegut and turner with sentences—“When man figures.
Joseph Heller’s lethal, razor-sharp lost his tail, he found God to sport The collection’s second last story,
prose, P. G. Wodehouse’s bumbling with.” At times though he stumbles, The Qissago, carries a telling description
aristocrats, yet even Shakespeare’s tripped up by cliché—“A storm was of a characters’ narrative skill:
comedies, though insightful of his life nigh upon the coromandel coast,” “But there was the other kind of
and times, are not considered as fine “…Savarkar had carried his infected storytelling that brought him some
and powerful as his tragedies. To blame younger brother on his back and had stardom in his twilight years:
this entirely on comedy being left him in the Mahadev temple along Qissagoi. Baaqar Ali’s qissagoi was an
undervalued would be a naïve omission the Godavari in Bhagur. To die,” and exalted form of rumour mongering.
of the difficulty of the craft, be it melodrama that borders on the self- It involved the abstraction of fiction
slapstick or the more intellectual and indulgent, “She was young and weak. from its ore: real people, real places,
involved, especially wit. The danger Probably with a past. Her face seemed a bit of folklore and the manufacture
does not lie in resorting to one form or mortgaged to it, her eyes disclaimed of quotidian legends.”
the other, but in the continual repetition any knowledge of it. She looked like a It is also Satwik’s form; though one
of the joke. Despite Satwik’s woman who would die young, with the at which he would have to work much
commendably valiant efforts, the glare of beauty in her eyes and unborn harder to turn into art. ■
BIBLIO : SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2007
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