Review of Marathi novellas ‘My Last Autobiography’ and ‘The Woman Who Wore a Hat’
There is the pain of being widowed after having remained married for 75 years in Marathi novelist Rajendra Banahatti’s My Last Autobiography. There is the
There is the pain of being widowed after having remained married for 75 years in Marathi novelist Rajendra Banahatti’s My Last Autobiography. There is the irritability of the children who are unable to understand the whims of the old man. There are friends who are so old as well that they cannot drop by to meet each other. There is the slowing down of the body that once used to go on treks, now unable to climb stairs. There is the dependence on caretakers. And yet, this novella is far from a sad story. Filled with humour and descriptive fineness, Banahatti delivers a literary coup. My Last Autobiography comes alive through translator Jerry Pinto’s admirable capture of the irreverent tenor and repetitive rhythm of a nonagenarian. At 94, the protagonist is writing his third autobiography, musing on whether death has somehow forgotten him. The narrator is an engineer, whose name he thinks is perhaps still etched on the side of a bridge in Satara. He loves perfumes and pungent food. He fears dogs, darkness, climbing trees and swimming. His analysis of his children’s traits is filled with love for the quirks of human nature. He says of his youngest son Bandu, who he unregretfully forced to become a doctor, that he is morose, secretive and introverted: “Some people are like that. They are perennially lost, irritated, angry.
However successful they may be, they are always dissatisfied.” And there is the anguished self-reflection that sees through the fragility of his assumptions: “Was my nagging making him irritable? Had he become like this because I had lived so long?” Banahatti’s narrative style is astonishing: while everything is from the viewpoint of the first-person, the reader catches the unsaid counter-point. Even while the old man insists that his son does not understand him, you do get to see the care and concern of that son. Even as the old man insists that just because one appears to be closer to death, one need not be philosophical or spiritual, one gets to see both these aspects in his attitude to life. The obliquely shared glimpses into guilt, fear and sorrow are all wrapped in love, humour and the ludicrousness of the purposelessness of an ordinary life. In Kamal Desai’s world Kamal Desai’s 1975 novella The Woman Who Wore a Hat is usually read as a feminist piece — written as it is by a woman, about societal perceptions around the role of women. However, if this work, translated here by Shanta Gokhale, can be allowed to escape its limited feminist trappings, its philosophical examination of the purpose of life can be profitably foregrounded. Five old men meet every evening in a house that has an octagonal-shaped drawing room.
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