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| Image Courtesy: Google |
Fractured Legend opens with a statues
deliquescing, in the Book 1, “Slave”. The novel is presented in three books.
Book 1 is titled “Slave”. Book 2 is called “Manuscript” and Book 3 is “A Very
Long Letter”. Book 1, book 2 and book 3 are split into three chapters each. Fractured Legend connects the story of
four women in a string of narratives, in which magical realism and gothic elements play a disastrous role, leaving the plot murky, uninteresting and
impossible to associate with (intellectually or emotionally).
Two more
artistic techniques remain surprisingly traceable in the work. One is
absurdism. Absurdity lurches upon you from the first chapter of the Book 1. The
non-presence of action is one of the reasons this element of absurdity
dominates this chapter. Absurdism, however, does not seem to be intentional in
the craft of the author. The whole first chapter in the Book 1 does not even
start the main action of the story. This chapter revolves around the precincts
of the hopeless lives of the characters the narrator fishes out from her
memory. This postpones the main action farther, leaving the sense of a lack of
purpose extremely evident. It is in this sense absurdity becomes strikingly
evident.
Second is
the stream of consciousness. Priyambada, the narrator in Book 1 “Slave”, recounts
many of her experiences and it leaves an impression much like it is stream of
consciousness. The Book 2 and 3 also are full of details of abstract thoughts
presented with least art and full of ambition. These two ideas—absurdism and
stream of consciousness—are not elaborated in the blurb, not even mentioned
once.
In the
eighth page, Priyambada thinks about a man who extols the divinity of the
temple. From there her thoughts drift away to the young man, who took her with him
to travel all night long to his temple. His flesh too is held in a statue and
comes to life only occasionally; much like Priyambada and her companions.
Aardya is her close companion, a girl with genuine wits. Priyambada is close to
Ardya than any other persons or statues.
Priyambada
decides to take a risk with her existence and decides to transform into flesh
and continue living a ‘normal’ human life. She is shown as taking this theme
forward; however, the extent to which this normality is applicable to her
existence is questionable. Priyambada’s life is normal like that you can
observe in the conventional ‘normality’ exhibited in bollywood movies and
certain daily Hindi soaps.
The Book
2, “Manuscript” is the story of Nandhini. She is a professional in killing
people. Her life changes as she accepts the assignment to retrieve a manuscript
kept by Ardya, who is reluctant to give away this manuscript. This story
follows first person narrative as well. “Manuscript” has a whole different tone
from “Slave”. If “slave” is about identity crisis and cliché feminism, the
“Manuscript” is about a violent sequence of events that leave the narrator with
little room to think elusive and lyrical sentences such as; “We all know that
no slave girl ever made it to the end; we know that we are outcasts and are
merely seen as amusement pieces, to be cast away like bed bugs,” which we come
across in “Slave”.
Book 3 is
a long letter written by Pravalli, Priyambada’s daughter, who hates her mother
when she comes across the truth that Priyambada was a temple slave once. This
story, epistolary in nature, carries no action forward and leaves the readers’
eyes droop with heavy slumber.
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| Kranthi Askani Image Courtesy: Google |
Askani is
a technocrat-turned writer, who deserves some credit for attempting such an
endeavour to connect the stories of four women, although as a work of fiction,
which is a miserable failure. Askani writes a female centered story, yet the
voyeuristic fetish of phallocentrism is quite evident in the petty assertions
of naked baths and similar instances.
Fractured Legend is just another incompetent book
on the block of contemporary Indian writings in English. Fortunately it is not
a half baked romance.
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