Book Review: Saikat Majumdar's 'The Firebirds'

Book: The Firebird

Author: Saikat Majumdar

Publisher: Hachette India

Rs 374

Pages: 240

Calling Saikat Majumdar's The Firebird a coming-of-age-story would be wrong. Yes, the novel does trace events in Kolkata – erstwhile Calcutta – through the eyes of a 10-year-old. As is with the genre, it sees the protagonist witness, experience and even be the cause of life-changing incidents. And yes, it does have a lot of internal monologue running like the base coat through the novel. Where it differs is that there is no loss of innocence so to say for the protagonist Ori, who is already lost in the maze of his complicated private world when he is introduced to the reader.

The novel starts with Ori seeing his mother "die", while others munch popcorn around him and lovingly chide him for crying about it. The last pages tie the story together with the real death of his mother – with him playing a role in it.

Dissonance with the surroundings is a part of the protagonist's growing up years. Ori's family members don't approve of his mother acting in commercial theatre. His father, who was once her biggest fan, turns to the bottle and become a recluse when he can't deal with the negativity in the house. Ori's grandmother, his haven and personification of all that is right in his world, too, nods in disapproval.

A trip to a playhouse where his mother is rehearsing ends in a disturbing incident with Ahin, who personifies the underbelly of commercial theatre. And then there is his cousin sister Rupa, whose bright and sunlit world provides further contrast to Ori's dark and dingy one.

But these are just instances and almost side plots to the bigger things that are going on in Ori's head – or in Ahin's - most of the time. Interestingly, it is only Ori and Ahin's daily lives and minds that the author allows us to delve into.

If Ori's mind and his decisions are based on seeking approval from his family, being undecided about his love and affection for his mother, and being ashamed of her even, Ahin is guided by the days-that-were, and an obsession to find actors for his play. As the novel progresses, we see both fall deeper and deeper into a world where their mental paths and real lives collide and change everything.

And it's not just Ori's mother who suffers for being who she is – unapologetic about her choices. In a way, she personifies the going-to-seed commercial theatre in Kolkata. Those were the times when the Communist Party was making inroads into people's paras (neighbourhoods) and, eventually, personal lives. With growing discontent for commercial theatre and its glamour, entertainment, and pure pleasure, the Party, as it is called in the book, had its local wing members attempt to rout the curse of this bourgeoisie indulgence.

Families such as those of Ori may have colluded, with the protagonist gradually playing into the hands of the "cause". Majumdar describes beautifully the life and times of these playhouses - the lights, makeshift stages, greenrooms, elaborate coiffeurs, naked yellow bulbs, beads of sweat, repressed anger, disappointments and the desperation to succeed.

Deftly, he also throws light on how the Bengali babus wouldn't mind going to these playhouses adjoining Sonagachi, the red-light area in the city. They wouldn't be caught dead crossing the red-light area. It's not surprising, but ironic nevertheless, that women from Bengali households being actresses in commercial theatre were branded "loose", even as these playhouses were patronised by men from the same families.

Honestly, the book was a little unnerving in bits where Ahin and Ori's minds break loose and they let their warped thinking tip the already precarious balance of lives. Where it won me over were pages where Kolkata's sights, sounds and spirit come alive and throb with the need to be seen, heard and touched. That Majumdar titled the novel after the famous ballet by Igor Stravinsky, where the boy Ivan breaks a magic spell to free magical creatures so that they take their real forms, is a mind trip you are free to take.