Book review: 'Crowded Rooms'

Crowded Rooms
Prem Nath
Penguin
166 pages
Rs199

Life — urban, modern, hectic — is examined in all its claustrophobic chaos in this debut collection of stories, Crowded Rooms. Through nine tales, Prem Nath establishes beyond doubt that he thinks differently when it comes to plot and narration. Which is the best thing about the book.

The stories are suffused with the ticking of the author’s mind, sub-shocks and suburban villainies in its many masks. The language is more than a pleasant surprise. For instance, in ‘A Blue Day’, on the subject of his break-up, Rohan muses: “Tenderness fell by the wayside and became a pair of eyes. Love peeled away and became a pair of teeth. Mind became brain. Heart became valve. The apartment they had shared became real estate.”

In the limited space allotted to them, the characters come at us without much ado. There is Maya who “felt her sense of ennui collide with her love for her lamps. Maybe it was the city life taking its toll. Maybe it was her marriage. Maybe it was a gastric problem masquerading as something bigger.”

Copywriter Makhi “would accept any kind of work on the condition that it left him enough mental space to maintain the fantasy notion that he was chasing something deeper.” There is KKK aka 3K, an Ash headed for the US, a well-traveled carton, and a TV that won’t switch off.

Assured is an ample display of style, swerving as the stories do from one storytelling mode to another. And though nine may seem few, Prem Nath fixes the matter of quantity with quality. Not many contemporary collections of short fiction have taken such care to straddle stylistic spikes. And yet.

The book projects only a peek into brilliance. Into a mind that can transfix despite its reticence when it comes to conclusions and causation. The stories are committed to disturb at all times in what seems now and then a self-conscious commitment.

The surreal jags, after a couple of them work spectacularly, can fatigue with their prompt pop-ins. It is like something weird is always giggling in the wings, waiting for a cue to jump in. Ordinary people and ordinary happenings are somehow left grappling with bizarre elements in what are almost constant parallel tracks.

Crowded Rooms works like an effective ad for the author’s eloquence, hinting at all that he is capable of focusing on while showcasing his worthwhile digressions, which could make for further fables. The book is like a promise of things to come, a forecast. Of at least an extraordinary second book.

themag@dnaindia.net