Old loves, novel ways

Humour is a funny thing. It can crack you up unexpectedly. Or skip you entirely in a movie hall full of laughter. On paper, in particular, it has a difficult time expressing itself without the aid of gestures or a laughter track. Good humourists, thus, are in short supply. Ask the publishers of Wodehouse and Wilde. Or Rupa.

In its 50th reprint, Anurag Mathur’s Inscrutable Americans has, arguably, kept the 78-year-old publishing house in business for more than two decades. A coming-of-age novel of a blundering, fresh-off-the-boat Gopal set in the America of the early ’90s, the book’s continued popularity belies its birth in a pre-liberalised, not-so-well-travelled India, where Ross and Rachel were strangers yet. Mathur’s latest book, The Country is Going to the Dogs , is also a (geriatric) bildungsroman of sorts. One that traces belatedly the journey of the 74-year-old retiree Radhey Radhey (RR), “an innocent in the wilderness”, as he acquaints himself with the “sexual underbelly of Delhi”, while uncovering the mystery of a missing filmstar, Miss Fifoo. Also a Rupa publication, this new release marks a ‘homecoming’ for the author. (The six other titles that followed his first book were mostly published by Penguin.)

Unlike the protagonist RR, who lives across the street from a girl’s college — the theatre of his fantasies, both lived and imagined — Mathur’s apartment in a sleepy south Delhi neighbourhood is at least a kilometre away from two such colleges. His retirement plans though, don’t include renting a room with a feminal view. Like a soft-spoken neighbour one might occasionally exchange pleasantries and Diwali gifts with, Mathur is, perhaps, best defined by omissions. The absence of any veiled arrogance, or that air of confidence with which authors of more recent bestsellers wax eloquent on everything from their craft and marketing strategies to matters of national importance, makes Mathur seem awkward at first, ordinary even. A man, who, 23 years after his first book became a phenomenon, still appears to have stumbled upon fame by accident.

In the comfort of his own living room, with his mother and sister pottering about the house, Mathur insists his subjects and settings have never borrowed from a real person or an institution. “In fact, The Country is Going to the Dogs is much more a work of fiction than The Inscrutable... ” he says, “For, like Gopal, I was 20 at some point in my life, but I’ve never been 74.”

Is it a lot harder then to write of a life unlived? “I’d have to say yes and no. There are certain things you know a 20-year-old wouldn’t do, whereas for a fictional character who is much older, you’re never entirely sure. And while this allows for more creative licence, it also gives you more licence to make mistakes,” says Mathur. Mistakes that could puncture the carefully constructed version of Indian reality that RR inhabits. One where his interactions with Goburdhun, the proprietor and editor of The Daily Reporter , Anwar, a crime reporter, Tia, a young teacher and an object of his affection, draw on issues of press freedom, communalism, sexism and sexual orientation, only to reveal the protagonist’s populist, often illiberal and hypocritical views. From his tirade against lesbians “fooling honest, upright, patriotic Indians” like himself to platitudes like “if the Hindus hated the Muslims, the most loved film stars in India wouldn’t be named Khan”, RR exposes himself to censure, even ridicule. But he stops just short of becoming a caricature of himself.

The author, as authors are wont to do, remains detached from his characters, emphasising how they take on a life of their own and often say things that he may disagree with violently. “But I do think people in that age group in India with a certain mindset have similar viewpoints. Sure, some can be incredibly tolerant and liberal. But those are exceptions. Most others come from a certain background when India was a certain way, education was a certain way and parental upbringing gave you certain values, which have changed completely now,” he says, obfuscatory yet intelligible in a classic Indian sort of way.

As talk veers to the general elections and to middle-class India, the milieu of his books, Mathur concedes a certain section of that class, irrespective of political allegiance, has always been inherently right of centre. A position that one imagines could put authors like him at risk as they grapple with the realities of a new, shining India and its duplicities and double standards in the context of sex, for instance — a trope common to his books.

Approached from two ends of the age spectrum — from a virginal Gopal whose deflowering in the aircraft’s bathroom on his return journey to India made for a fitting climax to a surprisingly “oversexed” RR’s colourful sexual history and fantasies — Mathur’s prose never abandons but thrives in the hope of its next sexual encounter. “RR’s sexual behaviour is not as uncommon as one would think it is,” he says, “There’s an underlining regret and resentment I see in this age group. Like they have missed the bus. They probably regard the younger lot as bizarre… fortunate maybe, but bizarre.”

Set squarely in the genre of humour like all his other books, barring one each on travel and poetry, The Country is Going to the Dogs is unlikely to trace the spectacular trajectory of The Inscrutable Americans ’ success. But Mathur doesn’t appear to live in the hope of such literary encores. He even brushes off the informal distinction of being a forerunner of Chetan Bhagat (“It’s a cycle. After Chetan Bhagat there will be another Chetan Bhagat”) and Amitabha Bagchi’s comment on how he had met many who had only ever read The Inscrutable Americans and Five Point Someone. Reconciled, Mathur offers a metaphor that indicates a practiced nonchalance, a deliberate rejection of a certain kind of Indian writing and literary critique — “Sachin didn’t score a century every time he walked on to the field, you know” — leaving one wondering, if formula is such a bad thing after all.

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