The Storyteller's Tale; Omair Ahmad; Penguin India; 2008
Pages: 122 ; Price: 225
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Somewhere in the beginning itself, Omair Ahmad’s storyteller is revealed to have relinquished creating “beautiful things of substance” in favour of the “beauty of words”. After an episode which involved the subjection of an ornate artefact manufactured by him to violence, the storyteller’s artful tales become his exclusive instrument for giving structure to his thoughts, since he believes stories to be less capable of destruction, owing to their intangibility. Thus, it is only through the aesthetics of poetry and nuances of his stories that the storyteller gives voice to the overpowering sensations of love, acute sense of distress or the anxieties and fears he experiences. Be it a form of escapism or an art of self preservation, throughout the narrative, his emotions are always encoded in the stories he tells.
The storyteller is of course a true artist, penniless but with a lofty pride that prevents him from commissioning his poetry for utilitarian purposes; in praise of petty kings and nobles, for a few riches in return. He is however no ascetic, elevated from the world he lives in. Despite his non-desire for materialistic possessions he is inspired by beauty (in all its forms) and devastated by its loss. The context is the latter half of the 18th century, a time when the forces of Ahmad Shah Abdali have ravaged the glorious and culturally redolent city of Delhi. Amidst the mass plunder and persecution, the humble house of the unnamed storyteller has been driven to ruins and has elicited in him a concentrated hatred for the perpetrators of this tragedy.
The desecration of his beloved city arouses in the storyteller a kind of “madness”, an urgency to communicate the sorrow that plagues him. But the lack of sensitive listeners among the company of “stupid traders” with whom he journeys away from Delhi, finds him wandering alone in the “badlands of Rohillakhand”. An improbable turn of events, leads the storyteller to a ‘casbah’ (fortress enclosing a row of houses), a somewhat unlikely trace of civilisation nestled within the heart of the forest. It is however the lure of the beautiful Begum he sees emerging from the haveli that draws him in. But he realises soon enough that she belongs to (and in fact epitomises all the qualities of) the class of raiders who feast on the spoils of their loot in Delhi. Thus an internal strife grips the storyteller as he discovers himself to be in love with the enemy.
What could have been an ideal plot for a conventional melodrama is saved from becoming so since the interaction between the Begum and the storyteller is covert, implicit and assumes the form of a battle where stories are exchanged. Disguised in the tale of Wara and Taka which explores the themes of love and betrayal, the storyteller lays bare his own insecurities and disillusionment after having learnt the truth about the Begum’s identity.
However, in a jolt to his conceit and sense of refinement, the storyteller unexpectedly meets his counterpart in the Begum. She not only perceives the subtext in storyteller’s tales but also deftly surpasses him in the skill of conveying feelings using characters from a story as her mouthpiece. The Begum’s rejoinder awakens in the storyteller a passion to win her heart and her respect. And all conquering love submerges the conflict of ideologies between them. Interestingly enough, neither of the stories alludes to romantic love and in fact each showcases the compassion and loyalty shared by brothers, not related by blood.
Ahmad follows a narrative technique of shifting points of view and thereby revisits the same situation from different perspectives. For instance, the storyteller’s advent into the Begum’s haveli is retold through the voice of the Begum, who seeks to find in the approaching stranger the cure for her longings and deliverance from her entrapment. This methodology is replicated in the tales that are exchanged between the two principal characters as the Begum’s story about Aresh and Barab is retold from the outlook of a different character.
With each rendition, the storyteller and the Begum disarm themselves of their fears and scepticism and come closer towards revealing the truth and intensity of their yearnings. Even in measured prose that does not divulge into complicated descriptions or introspective passages, the author successfully establishes his primary characters with considerable grounding and psychological depth. The undercurrent of melancholy that runs through the storyteller’s and the Begum’s repressed love story, forbidden by the rules of social convention invokes the reader’s empathy.
Since the writer acknowledges his debt to the ‘elements of Indian, Quranic Biblical and other tales’, commenting on the echoes of stories from the Arabian Nights, for instance, becomes a redundancy. What is remarkable about Ahmad’s novella however is that while it captures the essence of folktales and legends, his work does not appear to be a pure imitation of any of the popular fables. In keeping with the oral tradition of storytelling, the entire book could very well be a transcript stories narrated to a crowd of listeners. In this way, the author himself becomes a meta-storyteller himself. The language is restrained but not lacking in evocativeness. The novelty factor of The Storyteller’s Tale lies in the milieu of a past historical era; the author has been able to create through the simplicity of his parables.
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