Ghachar Ghochar

By Vivek Shanbhag Translated by Srinath Perur
Ants and ants everywhere.
Some around rings left by teacups on the floor, some around crumbs... This is the kitchen of a lower-middle class home with rooms built like train compartments. Members of this closeknit joint family see themselves catapulted into another social milieu and lodged in an expansive bungalow, thanks to the spices business run by an unmarried brother of the head of the family .
Their journey up the ladder comes at a heavy cost, upsetting everything. Soon, they begin to show marked signs of envy and aggression ­ be it the casual cruelty of killing an ant or hiring goons to silence a son-in-law. Relationships crack and ideals are tarnished. They seem dysfunctional as they grow in numbers and economic strength.We aren't sure at the end whether the nar rator's wife who has left to her parents' home, will return.
The narrator takes stock of these twists, brooding for hours in a café where he meets a senior waiter with an apparent second sight. All ghachar ghochar -a nonsense term that implies knotty problems or a tangled mess.“Grahachara!“ (misfortune), one might have said in Kannada.
The Kannada original was written three years ago but Vivek has expanded the story for the English version. Perur compliments this with an excellent translation.
Vivek' s storytelling is like a whisper that contains a shout. He talks of contemporary angst with the commonness of a wardrobe dilemma, but it resonates like a riot. If that's a tribute to his economy of expression, it also speaks of room for the reader's involvement.
(Book launch at 6.45pm on January 19 at Alliance Francaise.Girish Karnad will release the book. Vivek Shanbhag and Srinath Perur will be in conversation with Arshia Sattar )