I wanted to like Anita Nair's Idris: Keeper of the Light but I didn't.
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Though the
category of genre fiction in India continues to grow apace, there are few
authors whose names are synonymous with historical fiction in the way Alexandre
Dumas, Walter Scott or Rafael Sabatini are. This is surprising, because nothing
gives a nation a sense of the rightness of its own nationhood than an
exploration of its past via fiction. In India we have traditionally chosen the
mythological over the historical. There are notable exceptions: Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis
Trilogy (the first two books of it), Kunal Basu’s The Opium Clerk or
The Miniaturist; Kiran Nagarkar’s Cuckold; even Vikram Seth’s A
Suitable Boy, which is an account of the near-historical, all bring their
chosen periods alive for the reader.
It was with a
sense of anticipation, therefore, that I began to read Anita Nair’s Idris:
Keeper of the Light. The story is set in the years 1659-61, and begins in
Thirunavaya on the Malabar coast. Idris is a Somali traveller who discovers
that a chance-met boy is his son. He finds out that his son Kandavar wants to
join the Chaver, a band of warriors who have sworn to assassinate the Zamorin.
To save him from certain death, Idris promises Kandavar’s uncle first to keep
an eye on the boy, then later to take him on a long journey to broaden his
horizons and distract him from his suicidal ambitions. They travel along the
coast of southern India, via Ceylon, Thoothukudi and Paliacatta, finally to end
in the diamond mines of the Golconda kingdom.
Sadly, the
book fails to deliver on its promise of “adventure and passion
and...fascinating insights into life in the seventeenth century.” Early on,
when Idris and Kandavar visit the head of a kalari (martial arts
school), the Muslim Baapa Gurukkal, we get a flashback where Baapa Gurukkal’s
grandfather loses caste by learning new techniques of fighting from an
untouchable and converts to Islam. The episode is curiously mythic—even
derivatively cinematic in the manner of a Hong Kong martial arts film—in its
descriptions. ”Who knows which year it happened?” asks Baapa Gurukkal,
rhetorically.
There are
other details that are carefully timeless, that could even be current:
descriptions of the setting up of a kalari, or of food, clothes and the
weather. When the travels begin and Idris and his entourage go to places under
the control of the Dutch East India Company, we are given only the sketchiest
details of what the encounter must have been like. The slave trade is mentioned
in passing. We are told that Idris draws the line at trading in humans and then
we never hear anything of this again. Instead, we have a ship’s doctor dreaming
of returning home to Delft to his wife and home—of which we are given a short
memory-tour.
Early on,
Idris says, “I travel because I don’t know what else to do.” It’s something
writers often say about themselves and why they write. It might help if
writers—and travellers—were a little clearer not only about why they do what
they do, but why they have chosen a particular journey. It’s especially hard to
figure out, reading this book, what precisely attracted Nair to the period in
the first place, since we know very little more than we did at the end of the
book.
Idris’ travels
skim the surface of 17th century southern India that we are eager to hear more
about. In this, he’s like the host of a Fox Traveller show touching down upon a
new place, picking one or two locations of colour to consume and then heading
off somewhere else. So we get pearl fishing in Thoothukudi and diamond mining
in the Krishna Basin but painted in the broadest possible strokes.
Worse, we
rarely come to care for any other character because once they have played their
part in the narrative, they vanish from it. Everybody thinks the same few
things about Idris: how distinguished and tall he is, how reserved and how
compassionate; how well he assumes any role that is required of
him to fill at any given time—healer, storyteller, leader in a crisis, or
shrewd businessman. Any character with a grudge is dealt with swiftly, mostly
by writing them out of the narrative.
The women, Kuttimalu—Kandavar’s
mother—and Thilothamma are strong and independent; but these qualities mean
little when, like other characters, they exist to explicate something about
Idris or Kandavar and then fade into the background once they have finished
being strong women for that particular moment.
The book ends
with a comfortable opening for a sequel. Historical fiction needs proper
world-building, with enough fact to buttress the imagination. I can only hope
that Nair delves more deeply into the period to bring it truly alive. Until
then, it’s back to Ghosh.
