Book review: 'The Householder'

Book: The Householder
Amitabha Bagchi
Fourth Estate
239 pages
Rs399

Amitabh Bagchi’s second novel incorporates two worlds — New Delhi’s babu-dom and the flashy gen-next culture of Gurgaon’s call centres. Unlike in his first book Above Average, Bagchi eschews frothiness for a more sombre approach in The Householder. He takes us into the labyrinth of bureaucracy to meet Naresh Kumar, PA to Shri Asthana, IAS. Although he failed to make the grade as an IAS officer, Naresh learnt early in life how to negotiate the path to success — from upping the dowry amount set by his father to securing his first bribe. Naresh’s moral justification is that he is a householder, a man whose primary duty is to provide for his family.

Naresh’s life progresses satisfactorily until a series of calamities occur. A complaint on a deal — which helped Naresh pay for the catering and the tent-wallah at his daughter’s wedding — leads to a departmental inquiry that results in Naresh being suspended. His daughter Seema’s marriage flounders because she has not borne the obligatory child despite IVF treatments. His son Praveen, who works in a call centre, gets implicated in a murder and runs off to Manali. The Householder is about how Naresh charts his journey through these turbulent waters.

Bagchi is an accomplished writer with perspicacity when it comes to recording Delhi’s middle classes.  He travels deftly from the tailor and sari centres, to eateries in Bengali Market and the food courts of Gurgaon Expressway. This is his canvas for a portrait of the pervasive corruption and even more disturbing moral rot in society which, besides bribing and greasing palms, is unapologetic about getting an innocent driver to take the rap for a murder.

Bagchi paints the increasingly dark greys of today’s middle class with a certain detachment. There is some irony, but it is softened by his depiction of them as survivors. Bagchi attempts to view his characters with warm tenderness. They emphasise traditional values of family and the need to stand by each other. Oddly enough, Bagchi is most judgmental when writing about the call centre industry, seemingly subscribing to the popular belief that women employees are for male gratification.

Is one supposed to feel empathy for Naresh or the utterly vapid members of his family?  Hard as one tries, one is unable to summon up feelings other than distaste, especially for Naresh. It is difficult to buy into his argument that “everything he had done in these two decades, right and wrong, he had done so that her (his wife Arti) life could play out its restful rhythms undisturbed?’’

The one character who appeals is Naresh’s colleague, Pinki Kaur. Her robust approach to life is as welcome as her matter-of fact approach to sex.  There is an amusing episode when her late husband’s cousin tries to romance her and she realises that she will always be just bhabhi. Humour is clearly Bagchi’s forte and while reading The Householder, this reviewer longed for more such delicious touches.