Tridip Suhrud

Sarasvatichandra is THE foundational work of Gujarati prose, as all you Gujarati literature fans will know. Written by a retired lawyer, Govardhanram Tripathi, and published in four parts from 1887 to 1902, it tells a complex story of family life, political organisation, and the quest for spiritual contentment. It also makes a fascinating contrast with some of the big prose epics appearing in Europe at the same time.

This first part, Buddhidhan's Administration, is the only bit I've read and it works well as a standalone novel. It begins with the arrival of a mysterious stranger in the state of Suvarnapur, who ingratiates himself into a family poised to launch a power-grab against the state's despotic rulers. Watching from the sidelines, the new arrival takes careful note of all the political manoeuvring while dealing with his feelings for the family's daughter-in-law, whom he may have known before…

The fictional Suvarnapur is a Raj-era princely state, meaning the Brits don't rule it directly but delegate authority to a local ruler. This sets up a running contrast in the novel between the new, ‘English’ (as they call it), rational worldview on the one hand, and an inherited, Indian, more fatalistic tradition on the other. Contrary to what I was expecting, the princely states do not come across very well in this book – they are painted as a hotbed of clannish in-fighting, from which the British, cool and distant, offer a welcome and relatively neutral sanctuary. But while British culture is grudgingly admired, it is continually interrogated and examined for its relevance to Indian society.

‘I must say that the English education we impart has one major shortcoming [a character remarks, in a typical aside:] it makes rational thinking go asunder. We can also say that this is characteristic of Western knowledge itself. The West is motivated by a deep sense of discontent. All action and effort stems from it, furthers engagement with the world, and promises immediately recognisable fruits. This makes one impatient and eager to attain these fruits of action. In the natural course of things, such fruits are slow to come by, which goes contrary to this sense of discontent. One is never satisfied with one goal but must hastily pursue one goal after another, which makes the mind like that of a speculator.’

The interplay between Indian and Western traditions is shown in various interesting ways, especially via the arts: in one remarkable scene, a group of women switch from discussing Puranic literature to talking about how to interpret Wordsworth's ‘The Forsaken’. Other characters reflect on Goldsmith's ‘The Traveller’ and Byron's ‘The Gladiator’, and quote lines from Shelley. Looking round a lady's dressing-table at one point, we see a sketch of ‘a scene from the third act of Uttararamacharita’ lying next to well-thumbed copies of All's Well That Ends Well and The Winter's Tale. It's a very striking portrait of how the Indian middle classes at the end of the nineteenth century were engaging with English literature.

One area where Govardhanram clearly feels Indian society needs to progress is when it comes to the status of women. The implications of this are a central concern of the plot, and indeed its female characters are in many ways the heart of the novel, at least in this first volume. We also get big, declarative speeches like the following:

In our country, many obstacles are placed in the way of women's education. If they do go to school, what girls typically study is worthless. And after they marry and become householders, study becomes even more difficult. Although knowledge is worshipped, household duties, association with illiterate female friends and relatives, the need to satisfy the base animal instincts of the husband and oneself, caring for one's children, the many ailments that women have to bear, and the lack of belief, ability and opportunity in women's education do not allow Hindu women to acquire learning.

But in fact the women here, though deeply concerned with notions of purity and virtue, are often more active and interesting than you might be expecting. In one scene, the evil Jamal breaks into a woman's room at night to ‘ravish’ her, at the urging of one of her rivals; and at first it looks as though we're going to get one of those scenes of ‘seduction’ (i.e. rape) that are so blithely scattered through works of European literature like The Three Musketeers, Pamela et al. But no: the victim here is having none of it. ‘Clenching her teeth and her fist into a tight ball,’ we read, ‘she punched Jamal full on the mouth.’ In a later scene, pursued by a different assailant, she resourcefully makes use of some nearby pulses to fend off her attacker:

Alak Kishori bathed before entering the kitchen to cook. The bathing area was dark. Garbaddas took advantage of it and made a pass at her. In response, Alak threw a ladle full of boiling dal on his face and ensured that the lecherous man never entered their house again after that day. Garbaddas stopped harassing women.

In the end, Govardhanram can't quite decide whether women are better served by the new culture of learning and education, or by traditional ideas of servitude and decorum, both of which are presented as desirable but which often seem to be in conflict. ‘The Indian mind,’ he writes, ‘seeks happiness in that which is destined’ – an admirable comment on the need to accept one's circumstances, no doubt, but one that does rather stick in the throat when it's applied to a girl who is dutifully trying to devote herself to an adulterous husband.

But it's these tensions that made the book unexpectedly interesting for me, and surprisingly relevant (star Bollywood filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed a wildly popular TV version that ran on Indian television in 2013-4). In the second and third books of the sequence, the backstory of the main couple is filled out, while in the fourth and final volume – famously long and complex – Sarasvatichandra retires to be a monk, and reflects on the mystical significance of life. This new (2015) translation from Tridip Suhrud allows English readers to enter into the debate, which is essential. Govardhanram's world is one of literate India engaging with the ideas of literate Europe, and if Europe has failed to reciprocate, it's clearly been missing out.… (más)