DEvica Rege’s debut novel is not a definitive national novel. Nor can it be characterized as the next ‘great Indian novel’, despite the greatness it harbors within its pages. This collective chorus includes numerous ideologies and perspectives.
The year is 2014, and the Bharat Party, a thinly veiled version of the Hindu nationalist party the BJP, is newly in power. It was the previous ruling party’s choice of “weak governance” and “fascism” that was synonymous with decades of corruption, and India voted in favor of a right-wing party that promised to clean the Ganges, a holy site for the Hindu majority. I cast it.
The novel begins with the return of Naren Agashe, who, after years of working as a Wall Street consultant, realizes that “existence in America is like stale bread.” He does not consider returning to his hometown of Bombay, as it is called here. “Back is the wrong word. The word is forward…” A new India, full of ambition and potential, looms on the horizon. I want to be at the center of everything when it all comes together. In every country’s life, says Naren, “a golden generation emerges that embarks on the transformation into a modern nation. That means building wealth in ways that neither father nor son could do.” What makes his generation what it is? “India won political freedom in 1947 and economic freedom in 1991, but it was only in this election that the political and business classes came together. And just in time.”
Traveling with him is his university friend and former flatmate Amanda Harris-Martin. A white American from New Hampshire, she wanted to “strengthen what has become soft in my heart,” and set out to document life in a Muslim-majority slum on the outskirts of Bombay. I secured a group of friends. In time, as she reflects on the lessons she has learned, she will realize that “she has treated the slums as places, not living spaces.”
Rege’s greatest talent as a novelist lies in posing questions without providing definitive answers.
The third of the trio of protagonists is Naren’s much younger and impressionable brother Rohit, who runs a film studio and gathers with a wide range of friends from across the country’s social strata. These form the secondary characters of the novel. “All were active online, retweeted and even trolled, and while they had once given Rohit a sense that they were the voice of a generation, they were collectively shocked by the Bharat Party’s resounding victory. His suspicions have grown since “It was confirmed that what he once thought was a generation was actually a faction.” ”
While Naren moves “towards freedom” and Amanda “towards purpose”, Rohit embarks on a #rootsour across Maharashtra in search of his identity and ancestry. He said, “In the Deccan Plateau, there is no gap between the country’s mythology and history. The line from ancient to medieval to modern times is unbroken.” He feels “exalted and close to power,” and has made friends with Hindu extremists and politicians alike.
An incisive depiction and ambitious examination of the socio-politics and ethics of modern India, Quarter Life joins recent debuts such as Megha Majumdar’s Burning and Rahul Raina’s How to Kidnap a Rich Man. , which not only speaks truth to the saffron powers, but also articulates more existential truths about youth. of India. “You can’t model the Indian dream on the American dream. America doesn’t have our historical baggage. It’s hard to fly on a heavy ass,” a character says at one point. Who becomes collateral damage in the pursuit of national greatness, in this case Hindu greatness? Who will move forward and who will fall back? Rege’s greatest talent as a novelist lies in staging questions without providing definitive answers. Uncertainty is in the air.
The 416-page novel is held together by an ingenious structure, intricate restraint, and clever foreshadowing. It is not the plot line but the fault lines of caste, class and religion that emerge from the shadows cast by Rage. The novel is divided into six parts, including a first-person afterword in which Rege muses on his motives. Slowly escalating the characters from “anxiety” and “transformation” to “stalemate” and beyond, the crescendo chapter “Atmosphere,” set during a 10-day festival of the Hindu god Ganesha, evokes a powwow. Reminiscent. A scene from Tommy Orange’s debut novel There There. Tension increases. Violence erupts. When the inevitable actually arrives, it can be an overwhelming shock to the gut.
As Rege writes in his afterword, this novel, which dwells in shadows, multiplicity, and limits, is “the eye of a needle through which many threads pass, but keep running outward.” The city of Bombay is a “huge mango tree, so ripe that we tremble, but the mangoes never fall.” The country, on the other hand, is “a body that is beginning to eat away at itself,” and at the same time, “a world complete in itself… spinning wildly but never letting go of its axis.” The same goes for the changing world of Quarter Life, never losing sight of its anchor point: the reader.
Quarterlife by Devika Rege is published by Dialogue (£22). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Shipping charges may apply.
