Pondicherry does conjure up touristy images of the sea, the strand, the Gandhi statue on the strand, tourists, the Aurobindo ashram, tourists posing to get great photographs, the white town with its beautiful colours and cafes, the streets with its French names in the white town, and the very different atmosphere of the other side of the town, with its old houses and their thinnai – the raised platform at the front of the house, a space for interactions, a social space. Ari Gautier’s first novel was The Thinnai (Le Thinnai in the French original), a novel that brings the Franco Indian world of Kurusukuppam, its people and streets. Nocturne Pondicherry takes us back to that world once again. A volume of seven stories, translated into English by Roopma Singh, Nocturne Pondicherry makes available in English the world of Franco Indian literature in the hands of Ari Gautier. Gautier traces his roots to Pondicherry and lived for a sometime in India and later France and is now based in Oslo, Norway.
A short musical composition, the nocturne, deals with evening or night. The stories in the volume are at times dark, at times disturbing, at times lyrical and present the stark reality of life in Pondicherry. The place comes alive as the characters play out their lives. The Pondicherry that one gets to see in the stories is far removed from the touristy Pondicherry that one usually has in mind. “Mani Enna?” begins with an evocative description of the place and the character –
“Even the ocean did not want to have anything to do with him. The deafening and trembling waves tore through him on the deserted beach. Naked and dislodged, he was getting crushed against the still black rocks that helplessly watched over the macabre scene. His body followed the contours of the waves, drawing on the damp sand enigmatic and ephemerous lines that disappeared even while they were drawn. The cowardly and deadly moonlight withdrew as the first ray of sunlight appeared. It was left up to the accomplice stars to wipe out the last traces of light on this creature who was damned by the gods. Rejecting its crapulous blanket, Pondicherry woke up and got ready to hide behind its faux holy veil.”
It is through such an evocative opening that Gautier takes us into the world of his characters. The lived experience of life, the cop on duty, the luring smell of hot masala dosas, the struggles to extricate the body that is struck between the rocks, the reluctant cop caught between work and his desire to be away from it all comes out with great care as Gautier weaves lyricism in his descriptions.
“Viji,” the first story of the collection, ends with a shock to the reader, a shock that comes quietly and overpowers as the story draws to a close. The song playing in the auto that Viji travels in, her thoughts taking her to a different place and time, only to have the terrible reality thrust into her face. The stories inhabit streets and places in Pondicherry – Rue Montosier, Ellaiamman Koil Street – the rains that change so much – “People who had taken shelter in the verandahs of neighbouring houses walked towards the street, their hands extended outwards to feel the falling rain which could stop their drenched bikes, while others found their way again, pants and veshtis rolled up their legs.” The stories have several Tamil words used and the usage of such words is natural, in keeping with the world that Gautier presents. Nocturne Pondicherry has a much needed glossary of Tamil words at the end.
The sadness inherent in someone having to leave his land to move to France is vividly presented in “The Exile” – “The old man was one out of five thousand people who had opted for French citizenship in 1962. He was among those who dreamt of changing their destiny with a thumbprint on a piece of paper. He was devoted, indebted and the target of ridicule in the village for enrolling his son Lourdenadin in a French school.” It is with great subtlety that Gautier presents the lives of those who have been forced to live on the peripheries of society. Their struggles and sufferings, the small joys that linger on only to be crushed, the darkness that envelopes is something that haunts the world that Gautier presents in Nocturne Pondicherry.
Pondicherry almost becomes a character in the stories, its past history, its present intertwined with the lives of those who inhabit it, their hopes and dreams, the despondency in their lives is what the seven stories hold out for the reader. Written in a lyrical prose that brings out the essence of life and lived experience, the stories in Nocturne Pondicherry recreate a world that is in flux.
The reviewer is associate professor, department of English, Brahmananda Keshab Chandra College, Kolkata.