Finding Home Again: Our Quest to Belong by Richa Sharma | Aparna Rayaprol

This debut novel by Richa Sharma, an alumna of the University of Hyderabad, explores the uncertain condition of today’s migrants, their belongingness to place and their feelings of homelessness. Literature around the globe and in India is full of stories about home, belonging, and homelessness. Edward Said had described exile as a generalised condition of homelessness. Whether it is a Palestinian in the United States or an African refugee in Germany, there is a sense of oneself that is cut off from the original homeland. Exile in the context of the Holocaust often resulted in forced migrants establishing a diaspora. A diasporic community always had a connection to a homeland, imagined or real, depending on when migration happened. Border crossing and migration may be both voluntary and forced and it is the migrant who knows that the meaning of finding home is often a psychological, social, and physical entity.

In this novel, the context is not about people crossing international borders, but of the migration within India by upwardly mobile middle-class people who are the beneficiaries of education and cultural transformations. It is a novel about intergenerational mobility, communication gaps in families, and the growing distance between old towns and new metropolitan lifestyles. Families with their intricate and complicated relationships and emotional drama are a favourite topic for many writers and this novel is no exception.  The story is woven around the derailment of a train in flood-ravaged Assam, the loss of lives and the aftermath seen through the lives of three characters, Mridula, Kranti and Maya. The three of them have to deal with the reality of bodies, hospitals, and the distraught family trying to search among the debris of the accident.

These central characters are in their thirties, enmeshed in fragile relationships and constantly seeking love and acceptance. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Bangalore are the places where the plot unfolds. Bangalore signifies a destination for those having made it in the world, Arunachal Pradesh is depicted with nostalgia and offers the emotional connect to the homeland, and parts of Assam as the home that one needed to forget and leave. The writing often renders the description of places  as incidental, and could have been more detailed. Every place exists in the novel only in relation to the memory of the character, so the descriptions tend to be fleeting and rather abrupt. The strained marital relations between the three couples often seem to centre around the social etiquette that comes with class differences between spouses.

The novel introduces Mridula searching near the train for the husband she no longer loved, but who is still her child’s father. Her character is somewhat sidelined in the novel and brought back to the centre only at the end. Her own bad marriage is the backdrop upon which her character is built, but the reader never gets the whole story. Patriarchal practices are changing with time, but in a way that makes the younger woman less bound by tradition, but psychologically weaker. Her cousin Kranti who offers to help Mridula is the typical hero of today, haunted by his dreams and nightmares like the rest of the main characters. His wife in Bangalore is a symbol of his upward mobility as she is more urbane and sophisticated. Kranti seems to be moving away from his wife perhaps because his return to Assam reminds him of things that do not match with her personality. But this is not explicitly explained and left to the imagination of the reader.

Maya is the primary protagonist who is searching for her parents who were passengers on the ill-fated train. The strength of the novel lies in the way the story is woven around Maya’s struggle to find her parents, dead or alive, her fight against the demons in her head and to come to terms with her upbringing. She encounters several people willing to help, but they are reminders of the life she chose to move away from. Her encounter with Kranti is the main plot of the novel and their attraction toward each other seems to be connected to place and home. Both have partners back in Bangalore, but they seem to have unresolved issues with them. The reader wonders whether they will find each other and make peace, but the author does not let us know.

All the characters seem to have dreams and nightmares strongly connected to place and memory. There is much emphasis on childhood trauma, possibly resulting out of the bad marriages of parents, without giving us details. The author deals with inter-generational conflict without resolutions, and it seems that she is hinting that parents are responsible for the dysfunctional children they raise. It is suggested that it is this childhood trauma that leads to the apparent feelings of homelessness among the protagonists of the novel. The emotional fragility of the three characters and the way they actually deal with life is somewhat reminiscent of the present generation who contend with mental health and strained relationships. Unhappy marriages, lost homes, and, perhaps, a need to find peace with the past are some of the key themes of the book.

I like the way that Arunachal and Assam come across as clearly separated politically and physically, but with their similarities in the street life, the towns, and food. The descriptions of food and the way that it is served in restaurants and homes are quite rich and real.

It is a good debut novel and will strike a chord with those making multiple homes in different locales and who realise that there are no neat answers or resolutions in life.

Aparna Rayaprol teaches in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hyderabad.

Header Image: Penguin Random House India