THE IMMORTALS
THE IMMORTALS
By Amit Chaudhuri
A devotee of Indian classical music, the boy is intent on defending this tradition against the threat of commercialism. Chaudhuri is not only a devotee of Hindustani music, but also a professional musician with several releases to his credit. Like his main character, Chaudhuri was tutored by a songstress mother and a beloved Rajasthani guru.
Chaudhuri lends Nirmalya his own health condition (a heart murmur), his own cosmopolitan identity (as a Bengali raised in Bombay - now Mumbai - and schooled in London) and the addresses of his own youth (the Senguptas retire from a luxury high-rise in downtown Bombay to Bandra, which at the time was on the frontier of the feverishly growing city, a suburb of churches and gulmohar trees where the Chaudhuris also lived).
In one scene, the Senguptas go for tea to the Leela Penta Hotel, an oasis of glass and palm trees at Bombay’s marshy edge. Nirmalya, glancing at the wasteland outside, notices a boy “squinting and squatting on the edge of a metal cylinder.” I can’t eat here until Shyamji is able to eat here.’
Shyamji is the boy’s teacher, respected but also judged by him for squandering his artistic inheritance as the son of a gifted classical musician. Shyamji must earn a living, so he neglects his own career to tutor the rich - including Nirmalya’s mother, a talented singer who has settled for being the dilettante wife of a business executive.
Gently and elusively, like the glow of a firefly, Chaudhuri’s irony lights up the complex status negotiations in the dark space that exists between the two families. Are Nirmalya and his mother disciples or employers? Was it the sight of a boy possibly defecating outside or a democratic concern for his guru’s dining options that made Nirmalya leave the Leela Penta Hotel? “The Immortals” confirms his reputation as a gifted miniaturist. You could have the book here.
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