Families at Home, Reeti Gadekar, HarperCollins, p.266, Rs.295.
With the national media having milked the yet unsolved Aarushi Talwar murder case for all it was worth to feed the voyeur in us, there’s no reason why Families at Home shouldn’t do brisk business. Coincidentally, its pl ot takes off from the unnatural death of Saudamini Talwar, the youngest offspring of a wealthy and influential old Delhi family. In fact, had the impending launch of Reeti Gadekar’s debut novel not already been news before the Noida tragedy hit the headlines, the timing of its release might well have led to the inevitable speculation and explained the haste with which this book appears to have been put together. For, editorial lapses recur with distressing frequency and even include a discrepancy in the murder victim’s age (she’s 23 on Page 17 and 27 on Page 22).
As you delve deeper into the novel, the doubts, unfortunately, linger. You wonder, for instance, why it has been described as “a work of humorous crime fiction”. Firstly, it isn’t particularly funny, unless you consider the savage digs that Gadekar’s main protagonist, the determinedly cynical Additional Commissioner of Police Nikhil Juneja, reserves for the world in general and his friends, family and colleagues in particular. Families is, in fact, dark, even melancholy. Secondly, the specific crime that serves as the novel’s reference point is no more than a fragile thread running through the narrative. The investigation Juneja conducts — in between his relentless partying, scheming and deeply pessimistic reflections on life — with an eye to its predetermined outcome is constrained by circumstances and, therefore, half-hearted, the red herrings the author throws our way unconvincing. Even the denouement is too nuanced to leave an impact. Where, you wonder wistfully, is the tautness, the spine-chilling urgency of absorbing crime fiction, the driven protagonists and the withheld breath with which the final, suspense-packed pages are turned?
Redeeming qualities
But in all fairness to its author, Families does have other things to offer: the “bigger story”, as Gadekar herself puts it, which is “about how different people have access to different kinds of justice” and others, including the “deceased”, have none at all. It follows that the novel also deals with the various kinds of crime, of commission and omission, of collusion and complicity that human beings are prone to, whether they happen to be the pillars of society or its dregs and their motivation is greed, malice or survival.
This complex, amoral world is an appropriate canvas for the author’s delineation of an inherently corrupt police force and, particularly of her central character, the bachelor-cop who abhors respectable women and the very concept of marriage and children with a vengeance. Despite his estrangement from his family (“Punjabi, rich, conservative…”), Juneja has no compunctions about enjoying the benefits of the “silent” money transfers into his bank account that his wealthy father arranges for him. Nor does he have any qualms about screwing the very cronies he seems to spend so much time with. And his unrelenting bitterness can be exhausting, with nothing in his past or present to justify its intensity. Gadekar’s painstaking efforts to lend authenticity to her anti-hero are well-intentioned, but our inability to engage with an individual who comes across as a singularly unappealing bastard can be a bit of a problem, particularly when the novel rides on his shoulders.
It is clear that the author meant K. Joseph, Juneja’s subordinate, to serve as a foil, but while this “benign, imbecilic” and uncompromisingly honest cop is endearing, even as he gets on his ACP’s nerves and exasperates his colleagues in equal measure, because unlike their morally ambivalent selves, “he does not adjust”, the contrast he presents to the darker shades in which his superior is painted is way too stark. Gadekar does offer some engaging cameos, though, of Joint Commissioner Gupta, the obsequious Sinha and brutal Sajjan Kumar and the silently ironical Diwan Singh, Juneja’s family retainer and “boss” rolled into one.
Poignant depiction
Where the author truly scores is in her poignant depiction of Delhi in the 1990s. As her characters brood on its moments of beauty and pathos, its killing heat, infernal noise and terrifying aggression that perennially threatens to explode into violence, its potential for minor joys and major heartbreaks and the singular talent of its inhabitants for circumventing rules, subverting justice and corrupting every single good intention known to man, what gradually emerges is a vivid image of a metropolis that we greet with a shock of recognition, carp endlessly about and are irresistibly drawn to, lured by the power of its venal charm.
Yet, as the novel draws to a close, the sense of being let down is overwhelming. It makes you wonder whether this has something to do with unfulfilled expectations. Families was, after all, short-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007.
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