Serious men : review
Manu Joseph, a former editor of The Times of India, tries to weave a funny and clever novel about the ridiculousness of academia, and for the most part, he succeeds. Joseph crusades in this novel from the very heart of Mumbai to a fancy science institute, from a boring life to a self-created fiction. He rammed straight into the caste war without taking the risk of caricature.
Serious Men's anti-hero is Ayyan Mani, a dalit living with his wife and child in a one-room Mumbai slum.
The whole plot revolves around him, his distaste for Brahmins, his hatred for a system of hierarchy that's kept him and his family shackled for generations and his efforts to avoid going insane with boredom and to cheer up his sorrowful life by feeding his son with formidable questions. Mani , is a Hindu-turned Buddhist-turned faux crusader for the Dalit cause, whose one goal is to bring a little cheer to the lives of his wife and 10-year-old son Adi. To do this, he weaves together a fable of his son's genius, coaching the partially deaf, and entirely unremarkable boy to say things like "Prime numbers are unpredictable" and "Fibonacci". He fed his son to pose questions at school so that he can pass himself off as a genius.
Joseph has shattered the myth of up gradation of living standards of dalits and oppression of lower castes by those ”above “ them, how that long-ago-banished hierarchy is still so obviously at play. The lowest castes are the dalits (formerly known as untouchables) and many are still fobbed off with abysmal education, employment and housing. The anger and frustration that engenders provokes strife, and yet the wretched iniquities can also give rise to cruelly pointed comedy. Joseph is scathing in tone as he describes the middle class and intellectual elite and all their pretensions. He also understands something of what women have to go through, and pretend not to notice when it comes to creepy men they're surrounded by, at times. And he's certainly not overly kind in penning the delusions and frailties of old age, or specifically older men.
Mani is one of the lucky few from his neighborhood in gainful employment. His life is quite meshed with that of his neighbors, and yet, stands a bit apart, in that he dares to think beyond his grim circumstances. He works at the prestigious Institute of Theory and Research as a humble personal assistant to Arvind Acharya, but bubbles with resentment at the Institute's domination by Brahmin scientists. A conflict is brews between Acharya and Jana Nambodri, the Deputy Director. To Ayyan, it is the War of the Brahmins, an event he longs to witness.
The plot portrays him as slimy and shady, despite being a devoted father and ‘lusting’ husband. But actually he is like a fulcrum pivoted in the entire plot. His life itself is a reflecting of the system Joseph wants to pen down.
Despite of his interesting character, the spotlight is also shared by his boss, Arvind Acharya, head astronomer at the Institute of Theory and Research, by his brilliant and self-absorbed attitude and mindset. Though in the end it proves to be inclined to saving his own earned grace because of his fault at being carried away by his genius.
Joseph’s affection for Acharya is quite palpable in the novel - in contrast, he seems to be more of a cool, detached observer and narrator when it comes to Ayyan. For his love for old men who are moralistic and bright at the same time, he couldn't resist throwing the moral man (Acharya) into an 'immoral' dilemma which is the love for his old wife who has several lines on her neck, and the sexual attraction of a young beautiful girl Oparna, who is wooing him, whereas for Mani there's no such divide :). Oparna’s character is almost cruelly drawn. She goes from a restrained yet stunning scientist, to a lovelorn seductress and finally, a vengeful saboteur who spills the beans on herself conveniently. Just in time to aid the plot, she disappears. Though Acharya sleeps with her for a fortnight and then tamely goes back to the silence of his marriage.
Manu Joseph’s Serious Men explores politics around us – between the smart man in a chawl and the more laidback; between the parents of the poor-but-brilliant boy in school and the more prosperous ones; between husband, wife and the rather unfortunate child. There are stories here which need to be told – that Joseph drags them all into his first book is perhaps a mark of a courage which stands on the edge of bravado.
Also sometimes, though not explicitly mentioned by Joseph, his effort to prove Mani’s intellect appears to be an endeavor to pen down hi own literary excellence. But overall this novel by Manu Joseph is worth reading.
Book Review by
Aman
Mechanical engineering
2008ME10486
Group 1
The book “Serious Men” by Manu Joseph bring out the frequent caste struggles that play out in the background of the Indian society. Along with that it also tries to bring out the politics that plays out in evey sphere of social life and how rank and position becomes more important than merit itself. The novel uses a fictitious organisation Institute of Theory and Research where he uses a meritorious and prodigious old man Arvind Acharya who researches just for the pursuit of truth and is not after any glory or fame. But despite that he is very famous and well known all over the world. In contrast to him, Jana Namboodri is a manipulative person who just wants to research topics in fashion and also uses insidious ways to achieve that means.There is a constant struggle between them to achieve-power for Namboodri and higher truths for Acharya. In all this comes out a nondescript lower caste, son of a sweeper Ayyan Mani. Although not a noticeable person in terms of personality and intellect, he is a prodigy in himself, maybe even greater than Namboodri.
ReplyDeleteThe novel portrays people who are in no way flawless.The novel also brings out the miserable state of the gentler sex in Indian context. They sort of become a human mirror to magnify the already inflated egos of their male counterparts.
The novel at the end brings that the greatest power does not belong with caste, class or rank but the greatest power belong with the mob. At the end the one who comes out at the top who proves to be a man of means and is able to cleverly manipulate the mob and the sentiments of his lower caste ’brothers’ to beat up Jana Namboodri and his faithful sidekicks.
Through the various contrasting personalities and in the hustle and bustle of city life, Serious Men manages to bring out the futility behind desires and cravings. At the end, "Serious Men" by Manu Joseph,though funny and poignant, is a savage satire on class, love, relationships and our veneration of science.
This basically a small insight into Ayyan who is the narrator of the story. Ayyan always refers to him by his first name – deeply resents the power structures that continue to privilege the high-born both within the institute and more widely in society, while ceding a few concessions here and there to men like him. It is only under an alias – in this case Rushdie – that Ayyan can make himself heard, since in this environment the name matters as much as the thought. The remarks left by Ayyan on a noticeboard of the institute (and attributed to a mysterious “Administration”) constitute one of the ways in which he carries on a sardonic commentary, much of it within his own head, on the affairs of the institute and its elite, self-absorbed class of scientists, most of them Brahmins. As if fulfilling the ancient duties of their caste, the Brahmins spend most of their time thinking “deep, expensive thoughts” on abstruse scientific subjects – or else plotting a way forward for themselves, in little cliques and cabals. Ayyan loves these machinations that run in parallel to "the search for the truth" that seems to him such a charade, and does everything he can to stoke them, hoping to set off a “war of the Brahmins” that will provide plenty of viewing pleasure from his ringside seat.
ReplyDeleteAbhishek Bhatnagar
2007EE10314