Books

OTHER STORIES RELATED TO BOOKS Noble Savage Kalam's Law Authorspeak

Never has middle India appeared so enchanting. Amit Chaudhuri's evocations of the genteel corporate world that his parents once occupied have all the familiarity of an early morning biscuit dunked in a cup of hot tea.

REAL TIME: STORIES AND A REMINISCENCE By Amit Chaudhuri Picador Price: Rs 395 Pages: 184

Indeed, the Britannia biscuit is Chaudhuri's "Madeleine". The pater familias in many of his stories appears to work in a senior position in the Britannia Biscuit Company, making him, in the young Chaudhuri's eyes, a type of viceroy presiding over an army of biscuits. Not that Chaudhuri is ever likely to come up with such a crude analogy, heaven forfend! That would spoil Chaudhuri's delicate touch that memorialises a childhood with all the passionate intensity of displacement, or of knowing that he will never be able to regain the sense of security he knew when he was once part of the babalog.

With his biscuit memories he is able to invoke a whole era of Indian corporate life as it hovers between the worlds of the just departed English sahibs and their successors, the Indian brown sahibs who learn to tinkle their silver-dipped spoons against the bone china teacups with the very same resonance as the ancient bearers with Christian names keep an eye on the pantry. "Bearer! Tea cozy lao!"

SCRIPTING A SCORE: The cadences of Chaudhuri's sentences fall upon the ear like music

It's not just the well-paid life of the corporate executive in the Bombay (as it was known then) of the 1970s that Chaudhuri describes so well, but the domestic side of this period as seen from the perspective of a child belonging to a Bengali family. The specialness that he feels as part of the Bengali elite, who are in exile in Bombay dispensing the superior skills that their education and fine but barely suppressed air of cultural superiority allows them, is only reinforced by the advantage he has in speaking and reading in English that sets him apart from his cousins in Calcutta. It should make him an unbearable smug, but such is Chaudhuri's charm that one is utterly seduced by his tone of certitude in the rightness of what he remembers.

Part of it is due to his presentation. Just as all the Mrs Chatterjees and Bannerjees of his childhood knew precisely how to train their Johns and Abduls to set a tray of tea, Chaudhuri's mise-en-scene is perfect. In both the first and the last tales-in this collection of short stories, "Portrait of an Artist" and "White Lies"-he is able to conjure up an entire life; in the first instance of a clever but failed teacher of English in Calcutta whom he calls "mastermoshai" and in the second, of Mohanbhai, a music teacher of great talent who has been forced to earn a living by pandering to the needs of society women with little hope of excelling themselves.

Equally, a large reason for Chaudhuri's success is in the use of language. He has often spoken of his love of music. The cadences of his sentences fall upon the ear like music. They are clear and short and uncluttered. He uses them with economy and precision to set a scene, to delineate character, to create a sense of drama. For instance, talking of his cousin Binoy, acting as a spectator accompanying him to an audience with an important editor in Calcutta who at first mistakes Binoy to be the aspiring poet, this is the way Chaudhuri records the moment in "Portrait of an Artist": '"Is he the poet?" Binoy shifted uncomfortably, possibly wondering, suddenly, what he was doing here. But, dark-complexioned, almost black, in kurta and pyjamas, large eyed, he did look poetic.'

The only problem with this current collection of short stories is that we've been here before. It's altogether a good thing for the Chaudhuri addict. For others, there will be a sense of been there, heard that. There are also some fairly loud dud notes, for instance, a completely lugubrious story that is supposed to document a one-day cricket match between India and Pakistan. The episodes, from our favourite epics, retold is a trick too worn-out to be worth repeating, particularly as Surpanakha is now being dragooned as a favourite victim by feminists and proto-Dravidians alike. As for the fragments of recent autobiographical meetings with famous poets that make up the last and tediously poetic section, one can only wince with embarrassment. Stale biscuits no matter how beautifully served can only choke and gag in the mouth.