An Area of Darkness or An Area of Imagination

This blog post comes after a very long time. I may offer countless reasons for the same but none will be justified now because the lockdown has given ample time for introspection that nothing was or is unavoidable and no work was so urgent that I could have skipped my occasional blog post. If not any gyan or random topic I could have easily put in my book reviews which are though dwindling in number.

So, the first book I completed in the lockdown was “An Area of Darkness” by Sir Vidiya S. Naipaul published in 1964.

I must say that it was my bad luck that I never got opportunity to read V.S. Naipaul due to my myopic vision as I was engrossed with either UPSC CSE related books, investigative journalism or spirituality-oriented topics. This was a random and not a deliberate choice and I must accept that random choice was rewarding and more so like my pet line “Whatever happens, happens for good” and I promise that I’ll be picking more Naipaul’s from the shelves afterwards and share with you all.So, coming to the book which is written in the background of the Naipaul’s visit to India for first time and freshly independent. The preface of the book gives a glimpse of what lies ahead in the book as author has cryptically shared his emotions, the pain and outbursts in it. He was here not as a European tourist but more as a person whose roots are here, the land to which his lineage belonged, the Girmitiyas. The visit which stretched for a year was spent mostly in Mumbai, Kashmir, UP and Delhi with interruptions in between till his final return to England. Though he visited India again but the pain and irritant of this journey was always mentioned by him.

The book is roughly divided into 3 parts with 12 chapters which relate to the destination.
In prelude to the book the author takes us for visual retreat of the various port cities like Alexandria, Greece, Karachi and Bombay.
In the first chapter titled “A Resting Place for the Imagination”, the author introduces to his early life, family and upbringing in Trinidad where they settle after migrating from India. There are some sharp observations about the Indian community in Trinidad, the critic of caste system followed in there and the authors aloofness from these beliefs and observations led to his concept of “An Area of Imagination”.

A paragraph from the Chapter 2 “Degree” will help us to fathom the command of the author over visualization where he has candidly described the poverty of India, the poors across the streets, invoking Premchand, the Hindi novelist, whose domain specialization was poverty in rural India. He mentions “Compassion was what I had to fight against, to give way to that was to abandon the self I had known.” The chapter dots upon the class divide between poor’s and Anglicized Indians living in metro, cut-off from the rest of the society as remnant of British Raj. The author keenly observes that though the Britishers have long left the country but the colonial mindset, the bureaucratic hurdles and elaborate machinery devised by them could not be changed inspite of best of intentions, if not efforts.

One of the candid description has been made in the Chapter 3 titled "The Colonial" wherein he writes “Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly beside the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on hills; they defecate on the river banks; the defecate on streets; they never look for cover.” Infact, reading these lines I can well relate that the observations are still valid though 60 years have elapsed. We haven’t changed much.

The part 2 consists of three chapters and entirely devoted to his Kashmir journey which was major focal point of his tour and from where he wrote the novel. Mostly descriptive in nature and offering a detail of his journey across Kashmir treks, his journey to Amarnath pilgrimage and his confession for loves towards mountains and promise to return again.

            The last and final part of the book having 5 chapters covers his experiences from travel back from Kashmir to Calcutta, his native Village, Benares and finally Bombay.  The Chapter “Fantasy and Ruins” opens with the description as to how he saw three different facets of same England. First as British colony of Trinidad, second as the England itself where he was Oxford scholar and then England as in India. The entire chapter’s theme is based on how Indian philosophy of contradictions, of survival and continuity is prevailing across cities, ruins. He has a satirical take on Indian concept of history itself without any rigor. He adds “all creation in India hints at the imminence of interruption and destruction. Building is like an elemental urge, like the act of sex among the starved. It is building for the sake of building, creation for the sake of creation; and each creation is separate, a beginning and an end in itself.”

In the Chapter titled “Emergency”, he deals with the affairs in India at the time of Chinese invasion of NEFA and Ladakh and how the country was in tatters due to ill-preparedness and lack of resources, the references to Auroville stay. There is vivid description of Calcutta of the time and the authors astonishment as to how the city continues with the names of British Raj and the uncanny similarity with London like Howrah Bridge for Birmingham, maidan with Hyde park, Chowringhee as mixture of Oxford Street, Park Lane; Hooghly as grander Thames giving impression as a grand city of India which was true then if not today except the names like Elgin, Dalhousie, Strand and colonial clubs. He adds that once a promised city of Bengali renaissance with idealism and ideas, it failed to carry forward the momentum and decayed due to crowds, cholera and corruption.

In “The Village of the Dubes” his journey to trace his roots in eastern Uttar Pradesh village is center attraction. His connect with the land of his forefathers as a duty and his emotional disconnectedness with the land on which he stands is beautifully portrayed in the chapter. In concluding part, he writes about the journey as “The world is illusion, the Hindus say. We talk of despair, but true despair lies too deep for formulation.”

On plain reading of the book, it gives impression as an attempt to show India in negative shade depicting it as a land of despair, hopelessness, poverty, squalor, dirt and cheats. The common brush is used to depict not only character of slum dwellers or government officials of Bombay, guide of Ellora or owner of Hotel Liward but even his lineage at Village of Dubes. There is no denial that what he has written was a real and candid description of the India in 1960’s and he has taken his freedom of expression on basis of his experience through entire journey and perhaps that is why the book was banned by Government of India for its negative portrayal of the country. The smugness of a 29-year-old budding author and history buff who went on to win Nobel Prize for Literature is evident in each line. The time setting may be different from todays as the country was newly independent, on path of progress and wounded from Chinese aggression.

The visualization of the country, an autobiographical account with intertwining of travelogue is intriguing read and require focused attention to step into author’s shoes to understand his emotional outburst and pain; casual reading won’t be able to grasp the depth of the literature. Being the first from Naipaul for me, it was like a fresh read. As for recommendation, the book is strongly recommended for everyone as a fresh look around ourselves and how to observe the things around us. I am sure our literary account won’t be different even if we visit today the Mumbai, lanes of Kolkata or village of Dubes or Benaras, as nothing has changed except the names of few ones.

Looking forward for next of Sir Vidiya...