A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
This novel published in 1993 is a beautiful work of fiction showing exemplary story telling skills. The novel is divided into 19 parts with each part describing a different aspect through different characters. It puts some light on various issues including racism, academic affairs, family cultures and ambition.
The story revolves around four families i.e. The Mehra’s, The Kapoor’s, The Khan’s and The Chatterji’s. The novel begins with a wedding happening in the Mehra family, where the daughter Savita is getting married to Pran Kapoor, the eldest son of the Kapoor family who is a university lecturer. Mrs Rupa Mehra is meanwhile consistently honing her match making skills now by finding a groom for Lata, her youngest daughter, a 19 year old studying English literature.
The book overall describes the three probable grooms for Lata and the evolvement of their stories in detail. It begins with her meeting a boy in college named Kabir Durrani. He approaches her and after a couple of meetings, she begins to develop feelings for him. Soon, she realizes he is a Muslim and her Hindu family will never agree to an alliance. She finds eloping as the only solution and discusses the same with Kabir who disagrees with the same. Lata is extremely heartbroken after that.
The same night, Lata goes to Kolkata with her mother where her brothers Arun and Varun, Meenakshi (Arun’s wife) and their daughter stay. Meenakshi takes Lata to a party at her residence (The Chatterji’s) where she meets Amit (Meenakshi’s elder brother) who is an acclaimed poet. She gets along well with Amit while he also begins to look at her as a prospective bride. But Lata’s mother is not too keen on the alliance since she does not like her daughter in law Meenakshi’s attitude.
Her mother then sets a meeting up with a prospective groom i. e recommended by Lata’s elder sister Haresh who is into shoe business. They begin writing to each other and although there are couple of events creating confusion, she ends up marrying him which is unexpected and throws the reader off the track.
Talking about the mannerisms, the novel seemed to be like a derivative of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, indirectly adapting the act of conversing, behaviour and proposition of love from the classic and it reflects in several conversations, dialect and behaviour of the characters. The flow of the story resembles a lengthy saga wherein although the novel proudly stands as the longest novel of the modern Indian literature and the book keeps you interested in the same. There comes a time when the central character Lata is extremely contradicting the decisions taken by her. Even though the drama revolves around 1950’s, the character although being shown independent and intellectual in the beginning, fades out under unrealistic family pressures. There comes a time, when you begin to feel extremely suppressed after connecting with her. The character is only portrayed as a victim through and through whether it comes to choosing a life partner, voicing her opinion or even defending herself when required. As an outsider, I was deeply struck by the sequences that followed. Also several characters like Maan and Saeeda used amidst portraying the different strata’s of politics, artistic, religious, social are lost somewhere in between.
Overall, the fluidity of the sequences is great since the book keeps you glued but the length of the book is debatable. The author portrays the division of upper and the lower society during that era very effectively and the pace of the story is such that you can almost visualise the characters within. The climax is slightly hurried but nevertheless the characters of the novel definitely take the reader on a rollercoaster for a few days narrating their different stories and portraying vivid shades of human behaviour. The book is lengthy but light at the same time and you can enjoy the ride while it lasts.