kiran desai's tragic painting of the hills

THE INHERITANCE OF HATRED


There is so much melancholy in this book that it tries to reverse the basic nature of the place and its people. The Gorkha community of Darjeeling, which is the people of Nepali origin who inhabit this place, has a history of soldiership. The majority of such initial settlers were the ex-soldiers of British Gorkha rifles fighting ashore. Many such people still trace their origin to remote villages in Nepal. But quite contrary to their proficiency and fame as ferocious soldiers, the community is very cheerful and humble. For more than once they have been praised to beat the blue blood in mannerisms. But let us plunge into the green eyed pool of inheritance and this symmetry changes. The ever melodious peace of the hills is acoustically blotched by cries of human soul.

Sai, the lead female character of Desai’s Himalayan saga of tragedy throughout the story remains an epitome of loneliness and depression. Portraying it as just the shade of the recent violent history of the hills also doesn’t separate it from resembling the writer’s alter ego. And exactly this is the most troubled aspect with this book. Sai, a girl who has seen years of confinement as a convent student and has a tragic family history comes to live in the hills. The magical hills have a different shade of colours from the old western architectured house of her grand father, who is a retired judge who has hammered away his compassion and guilt with years of hypocritical life of the service. A person who raped his own wife, beats the servant- cook and who lives in a false dignity at a far away place afraid of his own past. The picturisation is macabre, pronouncing the hidden horrors of being alive in this world. What Desai is able to communicate is that no matter who a person is and no matter where a person lives, any beautifull place it may be, the clutches of humanity devilised are not away. Is life that dreadful? Do you have to be so ruthless in judging time and people?

I have visited Darjeeling many times and the place has a sense of liberality and freedom, almost exhibiting the psychological independence its people enjoy. No doubts the place is one of the most beautiful place in the world. It has a sense of nostalgia attached to itself that gives a feeling that time has frozen there, years before. The ever friendly people are an extension to this scenic beauty. I don’t miss Kashmir’s apples because the glow of the smiling faces is so radiant here. I have to tell one small incident that occurred in front of me to dwell about the nature of the people there.

I was recently on a tour of the villages in Darjeeling. When I was going from Kurseong to Bijenbari, the jeep as always was full and people were hanging out side, it could have been the last vehicle for the day in that route as the sun had already escaped beyond the pine forests. At one of the stops, two girls and a boy got down. After the girls paid their fare the boy patted on to the shoulders of the conductor and said jovially “ I will pay you tomarrow, Daju!” The conductor was silent for some time then smiled and gestured back to him. And we moved on. As it was very suggestive, they must be knowing each other, I thought. As in these small villages in the hills people intimately know each other and even to far flung areas as the population is very less. But to my surprise it wasn’t the case when I casually asked the conductor refused. “But, how could I humiliate him in front of those girls of his own village?”

I had no other option but to salute him. Then I had to question myself, do these people living in such selfless harmony fit anywhere in the gory sketch of the loss?

Why then has Desai gone to such an extreme to taint the hills? The answer lies in the literal compulsion and the ghosts of the violence. Desai herself may have experienced some of it . If not then she must have heard of the cruelty. It is true that violence sets in the society as an atavism which deludes the bondings of harmony. It is also true that the normality doesn’t make that entire attractive prospect for literature. And so Desai decides to paint the reality with a glass her own choice. It is a fiction. And what is more of a concern is that she has belongingness to the place she describes. Because of all these factors Desai has created a picture which looks real and which unfortunately sends a wrong message. Desai inherits a voice that is not her own and this makes her voice louder to the people for whom it really matters.