Book Review Report
On The Novel
'In Custody'
Written By: Anita Desai
Submitted by:
Rohit Naagar, OT Code: A 14
Purpose:
Anita Desai is one of india's foremost writers. Born to a Bengali father and a German mother, her literature is an excellent example of the bicultural inheritance of postcolonial India. Desai has published novels, short stories, and children's literature. She has well experience in German, Bengali, Hindi, and English. She paints an intimate portrait of lives impacted by the quest for identity and purpose. She always preferred to write in the English language. Her natural perception of the female mind characterizes many of her novels and establishes her as a writer with an unusual feminine sensibility. In 1993 this novel was adapted by Merchant Ivory Productions into an English film by the same name, directed by Ismail Merchant, with a screenplay by Shahrukh Husain. It won the 1994 President of India Gold Medal for Best Picture and starring Shashi Kapoor, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi . The language of book is very simple, logical and related.
Introduction:
In Custody is the title of novel written by Anita Desai. Anita Desai elaborates a generalized language based convulsions where the novelist draws the attention of readers to the past glory of India before the captivity by the British as then Urdu was 'the language of the court in the days of royalty ' now languishes in the back lanes and gutters of the city. No place for it to live in the style to which it is habituated, no emperors and nawabs to act as its patrons'. The disclosure of post colonialism and imperialism tracks a criss-cross of cultures, traditions, dislocation, Migrant, alienations and consequential chain of illusions and disillusions are main themes that a reader can learn about. In this sonorous and realistic novel, her endeavour is to link the readers' line of thought to the bilingual scene of Hindi vers
us Urdu. This novel has a parallel drawn between fiction and history in relation to the languages.
Summary:
The novel initiates with an air of sadness hung over in the atmosphere of the small village, Mirpore. Deven is a simple professor of a college in the department of Hindi, a department that carried the capacity of high literature but, presently lies, almost in a dilapidated condition, firstly, due to the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the students to master the subject-a subject that had little or no value in the job market and secondly, due to the composition of the town itself, a town of the tea wallahs and the truck drivers, in short inhabited by a class of people that form a distant part in the desire to grasp the beauties of philosophy, art and poetry.
Into this dismal world, comes a ray of hope in the form of his childhood friend and companion, Murad. Murad is the editor of Urdu magazine that aims to publish long lost unpublished pieces of poems of high artistic value of the once famous, decrepit poet Nur Shahjenahabad. Deven being an Urdu lover leaps in joy as Murad gives him the opportunity to interview the poet, something that he had wished since the time he relished the penmanship of Urdu poets and novelists.
The twist in the tale occurs when he finds how the life of Nur whom he considered as the epitome of reverence and regard, the God of Urdu poetry, is fraught with misery and poverty. Not only poverty in the sense of the lack of material goods but the poverty of the mind, the psyche. He is not only plagued by ill-health but also by his surroundings. The competition between his two wives, the noise and chaos of the fanatics, and the absence of decorum all combined create a distorted atmosphere, an unaesthetic ambience.
Deven, who gets entangled in the innumerable chains of difficulties surmounting Nur in the process of his interview. The interview turns out to be less of an oration of his lost poetry and more a revelry comprising rum, kebabs, biryani and gluttonous talks combined with an inefficient assistant and a second hand tape recorder meant to record Nur's voice, in an attempt to make the work easier (as copying his words by hand would have been cumbersome). All this leads up to dismal failure, making him shell out money on food, on room rent, on bribing his first wife to fix up the appointment, followed by Nur's letter back in Mirpore about his intention to visit Mecca and to inform about his cataract operation. The whole novel portrays a descending trajectory of Deven and the rise of miseries coupled with misfortunes.
The novel questions the meaning of friendship that stands on selfishness and insensitivity as observed by Deven's relationship with Murad, the bonds of marriage mirrored in Deven's complacent behaviour towards his wife and the educational system of the nation where students with scientific backgrounds are meant for the luxuries of life whereas those with a knack for humanities are shown to rot in dingy classrooms. This fact is also revealed in the way in which Deven's Hindi students take technical classes outside in order to get employment, giving least importance to the learning of the subject within the college premises. This is a reflection of the fact that the art, culture, heritage and history of the country lies threatened in front of the emerging technological boom of the globe.
In short, Deven, a Hindi lecturer in small-town Mirpore. Lives a humdrum existence. A chance to interview Nur ' india's greatest living Urdu poet-offers him an escape from his dreary life. But the Nur he meets is an enfeebled man, surrounded by clashing waves and preying sycophants. Deven's decision to be the custodian of Nur's verse gives birth to an unusual alliance between the two.
Conclusion:
The novel can be regarded as an optimistic tale of Deven and Nur inspite of the repeated negativity hovering in their lives. This is because Nur at the end finds himself a custodian to breathe to him his life as it actually is and Deven gets the opportunity to take the custody of the divine poet whom he almost worshiped. This is an achievement in itself. The novel is a portrait of human lives as it exists in their own exclusive circumstances, of the imposture and pretension lying within the human soul, of the difference between the town and the city life, of human helplessness and harassment on the road to ones desires. In custody is a brilliant parable lamenting the gradual corrosion of culture and tradition in the face of modernity, and a dazzling study of the complexity of human relationships.