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(First published in Kitaab on 4^th October 2022)

https://kitaab.org/2022/10/04/bookmarked-musings-skeletons-in-the-closet-by-jyoti-kiran-pisipati/

Every human story has an undisclosed, mysterious layer stashed away in its folds; its presence is central to the existence of humanity. Sometimes secrets are buried so deep that to fish them out needs a shrewd inner eye. Myriad reasons and complexities are associated with the act of secrecy – a writer’s nom de plume, a fake identity of a soldier or a witness in a high-profile case, a spouse in an extra-marital affair, family secrets, and religious/caste biases; there is no dearth for the diverse needs of maintaining confidentiality. Secrecy is as complex as the human mind. It is devoid of any spatial limitations. There are public and community-shared secrets; private and family-kept secrets.

While secrecy-as-privacy is generally appreciated and approved, secrecy-as-conspiracy is condemned and even feared.

A secret is defined as a piece of information that is known by only a small number of people, and is deliberately not told to others’. If the word ‘deliberate’ is used in the definition, does that mean it is conspiratorial?

Intra-textual and inter-textual devices like parodies, allusions, metaphors, personification, symbols and motifs, and idiomatic expressions are all covert forms employed by writers in their texts. A good reader enjoys unravelling these literary ‘secrets’, delving into the labyrinths and passages of the narrative, intentionally or unintentionally conceived by the writer and the joy of reading is in excavating these mines and interpreting the subtext.

In parallel, textual ‘secrets’ are vital to the organic sustenance of a narrative. They are often woven around family secrets, deep-rooted political ideologies and conspiracies, communities, personal lives, sex and sexuality, and personal loss and identity to name some. They run through the story threading the plot along with them, sometimes uncovering the underlying enigma or burying it deeper. But many a writer uses the multi-dimensionality of secrecy in different literal and metaphorical ways.  

POLITICS AND ‘GOOD GOVERNANCE’

Undisclosed names of political figures and geographical locations in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance add an interesting and mysterious layer to his narrative. Set in the 1970s in the ‘City by the Sea’, the novel spans the social and political landscape of India from post-partition times, through the regime of one of the most popular political panjandrums of the 1970s, ‘the Prime Minister’ till her assassination. Mistry’s obsession with the Emergency of 1977 is too popular to ignore and he uses it as a template to highlight the effect of the political circuses on the common man. Conspiracies, government strategies, and manipulative plots in the name of good governance and public works weave around the lives of Mistry’s characters in A Fine Balance and Such a Long Journey, placing him amongst the increasing number of controversial writers of contemporary Indian fiction.

COMMUNITY SECRETS

Once a lazy and uninspiring young lad, Sampath Chawla, the protagonist of Kiran Desai’s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, becomes a seer overnight for casually reading through the letters which arrived from all over the world to the Shahkot post office. During his brief stint as a clerk in the post office, Sampath, out of pure boredom, one day opens the letters from places with strange names – ‘Bombalapetty, Pudukkottai…Koovappally, Piploo…’,  ‘envelopes filled with promise’  written by the townspeople to their family and friends across the globe. He reads about “family feuds, and love affairs, of marriages being arranged, babies being born, of people dying and ghosts returning” (34). The letters open up exotic lands with interesting people – ‘people who took bath only once a week and women who wore short dresses even when they are old” (34). Little does he expect that one day this benign act he is guilty of can prove to be a huge turning point in his life. Vexed with the monotony, one day, Sampath impulsively leaves the town and eventually makes the guava orchard, located on the threshold of the town, his home. Initially surprised and amused by this act, the townspeople flock around him waiting to see his next step But there sits Sampath all day, among the thick leaves and branches of the biggest guava tree in the orchard, and out pop the secrets of the people one by one. He asks Mr Singhji if his ‘jewellery still safely buried beneath the tulsi plant’, Mrs Chopra’s lump in her throat, the secret oil of the bald man in the crowd. The gullible residents of Shahkot are shocked to find out that he is in possession of all their secrets and soon Sampath is elevated to the position of a seer. Sampath’s lacklustre and mundane life transforms as he uses the personal yet harmless secrets of the people to his advantage. The detective on the other hand is also on a conspiratorial self-inflicted assignment as he discreetly follows Sampath and his family, trying to prove the real reason for Sampath’s stardom. He hides behind the bushes all day and makes a note of any secret ingredient Sampath’s mother Khushi may be adding to his meal, but his efforts turn futile. In Kiran Desai’s first novel, she orchestrates the curves and contours, the colours and shades of secrecy in her plot, embedding them strategically for the desired effect.

COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET

The invisibility of LGBTQA+ in mainstream literature is slowly changing, challenging the dynamics of heteronormativity. Conversations around gender politics now include LGBTQA+ and literature of and by queer writers is bringing in the visibility of the community. Hugely regarded as an ‘urban phenomenon’, works like Mohanaswamy by Kannada writer Vasudhendra have brought into light the fact that love has no geographical and societal limitations. In the words of Maya Angelou, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Personal identity and self-love are stronger than the challenges that come with divulging personal information. Mohanaswamy narrates the story of the protagonist with the same name, who asserts his sexuality in a gender-biased society. Deeply autobiographical, Vasudhendra, then an acclaimed Kannada writer, confesses that his coming out of the closet experience was relieving and challenging at the same time. The story initiates the dialectics of gay sexuality and social conflicts with stark revelations of the sexual tensions of the leading characters. Apprehensive about the public response to his sexuality, he published his initial works under the pseudonym Shanmukha. S. But his books were received with positive reactions and he observes “No matter what, Mohanaswamy unburdened me and gave me the wings. I would never trade that feeling with anything else,” (Hindusthan Times, July 1, 2017).

SHARED SECRETS AND ENSHROUDED ,PAST

A secret from the past entwines the lives of Jairaj and Ratna, renowned Bharatnatyam dancers and the lead characters in Mahesh Dattani’s play Dance Like a Man. Defying his father Amritlal’s s wishes, Jairaj chooses to become a dancer and along with his wife Ratna, pursues a passionate career. Several instances foreshadow the revelation of the secret from Ratna and Jairaj’s younger days. For instance, the relationship of the couple, though one that has seen the test of time, does not look fulfilling and happy. Their conversations are punctuated with their effort to keep their past a secret, which their daughter Lata is completely unaware of. Central to their relationship as husband and wife is their shared secret that has been buried under layers of guilt and ambition. When Lata’s career is on the threshold of taking off, their dormant displeasure erupts spilling out the tragedy that they both experience forty years back. Dance Like a Man is a play that exposes gender stereotypes and deep-rooted prejudices and weaknesses that can sometimes cripple relationships. Along with the shared secret of Jairaj and Ratna, the plot thickens when the reader is witness to the conversation between Ratna and Amritlal, when he asks her to stop Jairaj from dancing and ‘to help me make him an adult. Help me to help him grow up’ (51). Under the shadow of her misogynistic father-in-law, Ratna contrives and conspires a new path for her husband in which he would eventually be faded out of his career, thus staging and carving a successful career for herself.

 Shukumar and Shobha from Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story A Temporary Matter are civil to each other, with conversations restricted to work and managing the home. Ghosts of the past estrange the couple creating a chasm in their relationship. Their predicament of living life together ever since they experienced a tragedy together a few years back, finally seeps out, bringing their relationship to an abrupt halt. Their suppressed emotions make way when a chance power outage on four consecutive nights forces the husband and wife to have dinner together in the darkness. As they prepare to spend an hour every night in darkness, they decide to each tell the other one incident from their life that they have never spoken about to anybody. ‘Something happened when the house was dark’ and the ‘exchange of confessions – the little ways they’d hurt or disappointed each other’ momentarily brings them together and on the fourth night, they make passionate love. It seems for a few days as if the temporal void that they each settled into these past few years has brought them closer through these confessions. But the make-believe façade of their detached lives gives way and their marriage falls apart, as their last divulgence to each other brings about a finality to their marriage.

SECRETS – BOON AND BANE

Home is the most unassuming of places where secrets thrive. Restriction of personal freedom, fear of a family member, cultural prejudices, gender inequalities, skeletons in the closet, egos, and jealousies make domestic and familial spaces a cauldron of some very well-kept secrets. Clandestine relationships, surreptitious meetings, a teenager’s covert activities from prying eyes, family culinary recipes kept away from the public, squirrelling away small amounts of cash from the household expenses – all make compelling plots for great narratives.

Durga’s life turns around with one small personal victory that she wins against her oppressive husband in the short story ‘Electoral Empowerment’by Konkani writer Damodar Mauzo. Durga is the submissive wife of Ratnu and is dominated and bullied by her husband. “Do just as I tell you” is what is expected of her.

Despite being an educated girl, from the day she is married, Durga becomes an unpaid worker for Ratnu, going through the domestic drudgery of cleaning the house, cooking, and feeding the husband and his friends on time. She is ordered by Ratnu not to cook any of her favourite food which could even remotely remind her of her mother’s house.  Finally, Durga resigns herself to her fate and meekly decides not to oppose Ratnu’s orders anymore.

Until the day she has an opportunity for a small but sweet vengeance.

It was election time. Ratnu campaigns for Vassu, his cousin and was sure that the latter would win the elections. Despite the careful instructions of Ratnu,  on the day of the election, Durga chooses to do the unthinkable. She stamps every symbol except Vassu’s and “…smiling triumphantly, Durga turned homewards.” Durga’s triumph transcends the limitations set by a patriarchal society. Rather than submitting to the expectations of Ratnu, she uses that one power she has – the privacy of the ballot box.

PUBLIC SCRUTINY OF A PRIVATE LIFE

The most dangerous of all forms of secrecy, though, is the one that leaves behind a mutilated soul. When the roving, unpardoning public eye is curious to know a piece of sensitive personal information and it cannot be easily procured, it resorts to all forms of cruelty finally snatching it and leaving behind a wounded visceral soul.

Vijay Tendulkar’s play Silence! The Court is in Session centres around a group of amateur actors who come to the village to perform a play. A few hours before the show, some of the members, to pass the time, devise a mock trial and make Leela Benare, a young, unmarried female actor in the group, stand in the witness box. As the trial progresses, the intention of the male members of the group comes to light. They prod Miss Benare about her illicit affair with Professor Damle, her pregnancy and pleading with three men in her life to marry her to give legitimacy to the unborn child. What starts as a mock court proceeding, turns into scrutiny, a humiliating inquest into the personal life of Miss Benare. Neither is she given a chance to plead not guilty nor are the men, who could provide truthful testimony, are present at the trial, making Benare completely lonely and helpless. Judge Kashikar, in the absence of any witnesses to defend Benare, pronounces the verdict as guilty and orders for the abortion of the foetus as it is an illegitimate child of an adulteress. 

The word ‘Silence’’ in the title does not seem to attribute to the trial session in progress; rather it seems to impose on Leela Benare, whose identity and voice are permanently quietened. Though in the end, she forces herself to narrate her story, she is hardly heard and acknowledged by her colleagues as their ulterior motive of exposing her personal life has already been achieved. The play highlights the prejudicial treatment given to a woman when she is found in possession of a secret in her life.

Secrets are necessary ‘evils’ of our life; the stepsisters who we live with but seldom acknowledge and love. But love them or not, they are an integral part of every human story. Narratives provide a fertile landscape to experiment and explore these dark, mysterious crevices.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calinescu, Matei. “Secrecy in Fiction: Textual and Intertextual Secrets in Hawthorne and Updike.” Poetics Today, vol. 15, no. 3, 1994, pp. 443–65. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1773318. Accessed 28 Jun. 2022.

Dattani Mahesh. Dance Like a Man. Penguin Books India, 2006.

Desai Kiran.  Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. Faber and Faber Ltd, 1998.

Kermode, Frank. “Secrets and Narrative Sequence.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 7, no. 1, 1980, pp. 83–101. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343177. Accessed 28 Jun. 2022.

Lahiri, Jhumpa.  Interpreter of Maladies. E-book ed., Fourth Estate/HarperCollinsPublishers, 2000.

Mauzo, Damodar. Teresa’s Man and Other Stories from Goa. (trans.) Xavier Cota. New Delhi: Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 2014.

Vasudhendra. Mohanaswamy. (trans.) Rashmi Terdal. Harper Perennial, 2016.