Anurima

Rani Dharker

Description

This girl. is going to make it to the top with her second novel,' I said to myself (as I finished Rani Dharker's first novel) . In her, we have a clever, erudite woman who can communicate Indian thought and tradition to the Western world as few living writers of India today.' Khushwant Singh
Here's Anurima, the second novel Khushwant Singh spoke about. It takes us to Sonapur, once a princely state, now a bustling city, where the lives of three people, very unlike each other, collide in unusual circumstances. There's Royina, young but stubbornly quiet; Krishan, a charismatic young artist. And then there's Elise, a Jew from Austria, who spends her last days reliving memories of Sonapur's lost glory. Memories whose dominant figure is the hauntingly beautiful Princess Anurima. Mesmerising and dream-like, Anurima is also Royina's journey into that past, a journey in which she rediscovers herself.

Sujets

• Fantastique
• Fantasy historique
• Médiéval-Fantastique
• Historical
• Kingdoms
• Sonepur (disambiguation)
• Khushwant Singh
• Colonial India
• Princely state
• Historical fiction
• Colonisation
• Romance
• Colonization
• Fiction
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 31 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788174368560
• Langue: English

Extrait

Rani Dharker’s first novel The Virgin Syndrome was ecstatically received and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. It was also on best-seller lists.
She has a Ph.D in English Literature and was a professor of English at M.S. University of Baroda, where she was the leading light in its Shakespeare Society, directing (plays like Girish Karnad’s Nagamandala ) and acting (in plays like Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche Du Bois). Her column, The D (h) arker Side, had a wide readership in The Times of India’s Baroda Times. She lives in a large house in Baroda with one sister and three dogs.

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Rani Dharker




© Rani Dharker, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real characters, living or dead is purely coincidental.
First published in 2011 IndiaInk An imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd M-75, Greater Kailash II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 4068 2000 Fax: ++91 (011) 2921 7185 E-mail: [e-mail]; Website: www.rolibooks.com
Also at Bangalore, Chennai, Jaipur & Mumbai
Cover: Pinaki De
Back Cover Photograph: Rahul Gajjar
ISBN: 978-81-86939-55-0

For Anil who was my hero when I was a child and – how many can say this about their childhood heroes? – still is

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
O NCE upon a time there was a beautiful princess…
Many fairy tales begin like this. Mine isn’t a fairy tale, but there’s a princess in it and she came, in a way, from a statue. Years ago when Ayesha was a child I took her to the grounds of an old palace. The statue of a princess fascinated her so much that we had to go there again and again and I had to make up stories about her to meet Ayesha’s demands. The story of the princess in my book, has therefore nothing to do with the story of the real life princess who led, from all accounts, a peaceful and far less dramatic life.
If Ayesha was the starting point, there were others who helped me in writing this book in immeasurable ways. Like Jaysinh Birjepatil. I only had to ask him a question, say on the Holocaust, and a parcel of books would arrive soon after from the United States. The books never stopped and Anurima – and my own library – are richer for it.
For background on architecture and the way we have messed up our cities, I turned to Karan Grover. The insights on these subjects are all his; any errors that have slipped in, I am sure are all mine.
When the going got tough, as it often did, Minal’s serene presence (and great meals) got me going again.
And, finally, Anil. He read through the manuscript carefully (and ruthlessly) and came up with absolutely wonderful, amazing ideas, many to do with music and which turned out to be central to the novel. His suggestions truly transformed Anurima.

CONTENTS
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1
I HAD stepped from the dark corridor into a room filled with blue light. It was like slipping into an aquamarine world, a room under water. I looked around dazed. The light pouring in from the painted windows was dyed blue. Music as fluid as a mermaid flowed through it.
My eyes were drawn to the oval patch of sunlight in the corner filtering through a largish spot in the glass where the paint had come off. It fell on a bird made of blue glass. The blue spilled over the marble tabletop, wings stretched out in flight.
The fragile, transparent shadow was a contrast to the heavy couch facing me. It may not have been ornamental like the antique furniture downstairs in the reception area or in the drawing room, but it looked very comfortable. The slight hollow on the seat indicated that it was used a great deal. A three-legged corner table was crowded with photographs, most of them sepia hued. Incongruously, a music system, very high tech, very recent, was next to the couch.
I sat on a straight-backed chair. The couch was obviously more comfortable but, equally obviously, it was marked territory. I looked at the other door – not the one from which I had entered – this one came from some inner rooms, and took a sip of the ice-cold water left by the bai on a tray.
There was an old-skin smell about the room. Had I made a mistake? I had been interviewed briefly by Ms Deshmukh and had immediately been taken on. It had seemed, at that time, to be just what I wanted. I was to come every morning at 9.30 and stay till lunch. My job consisted of reading to Ms Deshmukh or answering her correspondence – ‘I do not believe in that new fangled email that everyone uses these days. And what does that “e” stand for? How can electronic and mail go together? I will not allow a computer to enter my home. People are just being lazy, too lazy to write with the hand, too lazy to go to the post office, too lazy to stick stamps. Even my official letters are hand-written.’ She had drawn a deep breath, like a punctuation mark, which ended her tirade against email and had continued to spell out my duties. ‘And if there are no letters to be written and I do not want to listen to the newspapers, then we will simply talk.’
The job seemed easy enough and was certainly well paid but… I was suddenly submerged by doubt. I was not very good with old people. I never know what to say to them. Well, I am not very good with children either. What about people my age? Not even them. In this entire world, I had been comfortable with only three people – and one of them was dead. I would have a shot at the job, though. I think I read well. And even if I never write to anyone (except for the occasional email, which my twenty-first-century mind finds very convenient) perhaps she would dictate her letters. I needed the money.
She appeared suddenly, taking quick strides, although she was well over ninety. She sat on the couch and I became aware of the Mozart again. We listened in silence. I was used to my own silences so I didn’t mind.
‘I think perhaps you do not like this.’ Her gravely voice pushed the music into the background. ‘You prefer swaying and swinging to your pop and rock and rap.’
‘Mozart has always been a favourite.’
She turned to me, eyebrows raised. ‘Oh ho, so you even recognise the composer.’
‘And the composed. String Quintet.’ Oh no, I thought. Why did I say that? It sounded like I was showing off.
She suddenly cackled. Her face was made entirely of angles; the ridges of her eyebrows jutted out, causing shadows to fall on her sunken eyes. The nose – unmistakably Jewish – loomed, a precipice, over the hollow cheeks. Thick silver hair surrounded her face like an untidy halo of curved wires.
‘You must be one of the twenty people in this country to know Western classical music. Today I do not feel like listening to the newspaper. Even when my eyes were all right, I did not read the paper every day, all that nonsense, all that violence… I have known enough violence at first hand.’
‘Letters then?’
She was staring into space, her pupils outlined by a light grey circle, reminding me of the rings women used to stiffen the cloth they were embroidering. Did these rings stiffen her pupils? Would they collapse into tiny