One need eyes for details to find the origin of a cyclone when it is all calm and quite under the blue sky, over the sea. Unexpectedly troubles takes force and it become devastating. Characters of Lessons in forgetting experience this in personal life and in social life. A coloured mirror shown to the urban upper middle class family and social life is Anita Nair’s novel Lessons in Forgetting.
Meera, the protagonist of the novel is a housewife and a writer for the society people. (Read cookery, etiquette for parties etc.) One fine day, she went to a party with her husband and child but realise that the husband run away from her life, searching for greener prospects. Struggling to face the new challenge with all emotional burdens, Meera meets an equally desperate person, Jak (JA Krishnamurthy). JAK was deserted by his wife but had to look after his daughter who is in very bad shape right now, thanks to the society. Two stories which are interlinking in occasions are told in this novel; One of Jack’s and one of Meera’s. The characters and situations interlink but in essence they stand separated altogether, except that the nature of fate is the same for them.
’Lessons in forgetting’ is about losing family values. It is about the perspective we maintain while entering the institution called marriage. Giri marries Meera with an eye on her ancestral property. The property actually is of rental which Meera don’t tell the partner. Root of separation was there before marriage and it took many years and two children to get away from the mask. Jake on the other hand was nurturing his feeling for India but he didn’t consider the international life his wife was looking for. The ego clash takes on the children and now they are paying the price. The insecure marriage arrangement in modern days is nothing but disaster invited for future.
’Lessons in forgetting’ is about feminism, the modern way. The slogan of feminist writers these days is very funny. Don’t expect a ’virgin body’ in marriage. Even if you got one, don’t think that it is your private property and she may use it for her own purpose and satisfaction. If she goes with another man, it is your inability and she has a right for that. At the same time, if her husband goes to another woman, she cannot stand that and will cry foul big way. Pre marital sex is almost a must and if you do some adultery which is perfectly understandable. I have read writers who write the above ideas, almost in the very real sense. In Lessons in forgetting, Anita Nair presents a character who thinks the same way. Yes, she carries the hypocrisy with her. She will preach you about how you have to look at other woman, like your daughter and mother and worry about the growing daughter. At the same time she will not keep her emotions under control even to young boys. She conveniently forgets that she has a boy child as well. The author reminds us that this is not an easy go. When you forget your family life, the silence will not last forever but it will form an eye of cyclone which will not leave without giving some lessons to remember. If one closely looks at it, whenever Meera was a bit involved with an eye for flirting, something hard hitting arrives to hit Meera, in the novel.
The author tried to draw parallel for the nature of life to the behaviour of cyclones. From the silent sky, starts the eye of a cyclone and doesn’t settle without its desired damage. The concept was good, however, the angle didn’t work well where I felt cyclone could have been part of the story than a subject to study. That way it would have been more affective.
The writer Anita Nair successfully tries to present different layers in the novel and it is a reading experience when we find the connections here and there. That adds to the depth of the novel and adding additional satisfaction for intelligent readers. Good style there!
The novel carries a poignant story and one may feel really bad for the hopelessness the character of Smrithi, Jak’s daughter carries with her. Also the presence of broken relations throughout may create an image of world full of anarchy. The ray of hope at the end is not such bright for us to forget the pain injected in the earlier chapters.
The tabled guidance for corporate housewives and observations regarding cyclone were all distractions and I felt the novel would have been much better without them.
Having said all, Lessons in Forgetting is a very good read. It in fact is an easy to read book, thought not material for light reading.
PS: I have read that the book is published under the name Liliac House, in US market, so keep yourself away from duplicating.