A London – based
banker, Anil Singh, finds himself in the boondocks when he finds out that he is
the sole heir of an uncle who was murdered in distant Palanpur. Thanks to a
girlfriend who is an Indophile, he is persuaded to return to the village and
try to make sense of a world that is far removed from his own. Not blessed with
the skills of a Sherlock or a Poirot, he nevertheless figures out that the poor
Dalit woman who has been arrested for the crime had nothing at all to do with
it. While he is concerned about the fate of his uncle, investigating his murder
takes a backseat as he takes a stab at photography in order to put together a
coffee book, makes an even more half – hearted attempt to farm the land he has
inherited, and tries to lend a helping hand in a little village ravaged by
poverty and hopelessly oppressed by the caste system. There is a whiff of
romance as Anil divides his time between his many tasks and the affections of
his white girlfriend and a native beauty, he is drawn too but who can never be
a part of his world.
The author of Rumble in a Village, Luc Leruth has
based his narrative on economist Jean Dreze’s detailed notes from his sojourn
in Palanpur, during 1983 – 84 as part of a research project. Like the author,
the protagonist Anil, frequently dips into his father’s notes about his own
family’s colorful past and less than honorable role in the history of Palanpur,
made for the ostensible purpose of writing a novel, so that he can get a better
handle on a way of life that is alien to the Londoner and truth be told, to the
vast majority of urban India. In this way, the novel hops between Anil’s
exploration of his roots and his father’s account of the seamier side of dreary
Palanpur and its sordid secrets harkening back to a time when the British were
hard at work raping and looting India, ably assisted by crooked and corrupt
Indians who thought nothing of enriching themselves on the misery of those they
screwed over from among the poor and lower castes without losing a moment’s
sleep over it.
A light – hearted
approach is favored by the author which is an odd fit for the dark themes being
explored. There is gruesome murder, caste – based discrimination, grinding
poverty, ceaseless exploitation, senseless deaths of children and the weak,
torture, rape attempts and more, yet the horror of it, fails to land like a
punch to the gut owing to the breezy approach and an imprudent reliance on
narrative contrivances that fail to cohere in an organic manner. This is
particularly apparent in the epilogue, which is supposed to be a touching
epistle penned by a grateful student but reads more like a clumsy afterthought
on the part of the author.
Opening with murder,
Rumble in a Village becomes a leisurely
ramble with a steady procession of assorted characters who are gone long before
the reader can engage with them in a meaningful manner or fully appreciate
their arcs which were instrumental in shaping the evils that continue to plague
not just Palanpur but India today. Perhaps, the problem is that folks like Anil
and his girlfriend who wants to come to India to see Devi, the Goddess and
Shiva’s consort, wash her blouse in some Indian river, cannot hope to truly
integrate themselves into the fabric of rural India, despite their best
intentions given their unwillingness to distance themselves from their own
backgrounds of privilege and plenty.
Which is not to
say that the material itself is not intriguing because it is. What it lacks is
emotional resonance and one cannot help but think that it could have been so
much more, based on the promise offered by its premise.
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