Mehru Jaffer’s Love and Life in Lucknow takes us through the lives of the city as well as its people. Written in a light vein in the first person, each chapter introduces us to different aspects of Lucknow’s history and culture while also keeping us close to Jaffer’s own experiential world. The narrator is a shadow of Jaffer, who travels back and forth in time to associate events in her life with the city’s larger contextual fabric.

The book is an unsure khichdi of genres. The title suggests an exploratory memoir, the subtitle asks us to think of it as an “imaginary biography”, the publisher, Niyogi Books, categorises it as a work of fiction, and once we start reading, what should have been a creative narration often steers into dry history. It is left to us to decide how best to read the book. According to Jaffer, the characters belong to “different recesses of the region, from its imaginary past to records preserved in archives and in history books.”

Colourful citizens

What roots the city’s dynamism is the narrator’s experiences of living in it. She steers our perception of Lucknow as we are introduced by her to the city’s “colourful citizens”, its monuments, its heritage. The commanding presence of Bano Bua is palpable, at times coming dangerously close to overriding the presence of the city as well as of the narrator. Though Jaffer stops short of expressly identifying the city with her, the old but resolute Bano Bua nonetheless emerges as a key character who holds everything together.

But Bano Bua is not alone in Lucknow. We are introduced to the quick-witted vegetable seller who counters Bano Bua’s sharp rebukes with a honey-laced tongue. Such seduction through words may appear extraordinary in other cities but not so in Lucknow, where the culture of language and lyricism is embedded deeply in the city’s spirit.

We are also introduced to Naresh, a rickshaw-puller who is a successful nautankibaaz but carries in his heart the wish to play Laila in a Laila-Majnun production. Similarly, we learn about the wonderfully named Baba of the Bottles, who lives in a cave at Lakshman Tila, accepts folded currency in a bottle, and who, with one neat trick, converts the currency into a piece of paper on which he gives his expert advice to get rid of problems.

Monotony of facts

The memorable characters are not always alive. The book goes to great lengths to take us through the city’s past, from the time of the Ramayana to the arrival of the British, from the birth of Urdu to the cultivation of English, from Sita gazing at the golden deer to the courageous Uda Bai firing at the British colonialists.

It is through these explorations of Lucknow’s history that Jaffer establishes her credibility as an informed writer. However, it is also in these explorations that Jaffer’s strength as a writer is tested. Some passages are rescued in time from the monotony of facts, but reading the rest, one wishes to be taken back immediately to the people.

The book is not bereft of tenderness. A remarkable moment occurs between the young narrator and her grandmother. It is her grandparents’ wedding anniversary which the grandfather forgets. The grandmother, having prepared a nice anniversary dinner for the evening, waits for her husband to return. Slowly the night mutates into dawn, and when he does return, he informs his wife that he has already eaten and makes for the bathroom.

When the narrator asks her grandmother to remind her husband the importance of the date, she refuses. “It is not enough for just one person to consider something important that requires two people to do so,” she says and closes the conversation.

Jaffer’s book should be read for the people in it. Though the writing is of varying merit, when it does succeed in bringing out nuances, the experience of reading is elevated and the city becomes immediately accessible. But the book also struggles to sustain this elevation. Jaffer’s writing undulates through the pages, taking us on both enjoyable drives and tiring detours.

The writer is the author of Painting That Red Circle White, a poetry collection.

Love and Life in Lucknow: An Imaginary Biography of a City; Mehru Jaffer, Niyogi Books, ₹395

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books > Imaginary Biography / by Mihir Vatsa /  April 14th, 2018