A story of secrets in the Kolkata of ’60s

Saswati Sengupta’s debut novel The Song Seekers revolves around recently-married Uma, an English literature graduate, who leaves her maternal home in Delhi to start the marital phase of life with her husband and in-laws at the Chhattopadhyays’ sprawling mansion, Kailash, in Kolkata. The traditional bungalow with its old-world charm, shadowy landings and dark corners, her reserved father-in-law, a few old letters in his bedside drawer, the shrouded existence of the green-eyed aunt, the mystery surrounding her mother-in-law’s death and the overwhelming presence of the Chandimangal, composed by her great-grandfather-in-law and printed at the family press, intrigue Uma. As she starts reading the novel, which celebrates the might and power of Goddess Chandi, aloud to the small group of three women in Kailash’s well-kept kitchen, Uma stumbles upon the dark secrets of Kailash. She realises that deep inside, its foundation was not as stable as the Chattopadhyays would have wanted it to be. In due course of time, she gets the feeling that the number of untold tales is much more than the number of books lining the old in-house library. As her Chandimangal reading gains momentum, slowly the smothered stories begin to emerge with the shadow of death looming large. The book by Sengupta weaves in the evolution of the militant goddess recast as a wife and a mother, the Portuguese footprint in Bengal, the emergence and growth of printing, the caste system which shackled the society and made it impossible for the lower-rung inhabitants to break free, the onset of the freedom struggle, the Swadeshi movement and later the Partition, its repercussions and the turbulent Sixties. Sengupta covers it all with ease, expresses it with precision and validates it with in-depth research. The story, set in the Kolkata of the 1960s, unfolds gradually and is a constant time-travel. Each chapter holds a new story, making it a book within a book and an interesting read, bringing to the fore the conflicting images of the feminine — prayed to and preyed upon. However, the never-ending transition between the four generations of the Chattopadhyays and many twists in the tale sometime make it a little difficult for the reader to grasp the story, initially though, but once accustomed to the author’s style of writing and the story flow, it becomes a comfortable and interesting read. It’s as if the reader gets to know the household and, with the passage of time, becomes a part of it.