Rising Above The Octopus

Prose that’s ripe enough to squeeze in purple gushes across the pages punctuated by tentacular lashings of child abuse. ­Rituparna Chatterjee puts together a cross-genre memoir where the tale of childhood abuse is transcreated through touches of magical realism. The story starts idyllically enough, a peepul tree and tales of childhood—the child is born with a hole in her heart, which makes her fragile. There is PuPa and Maa, her parents, but Maa passes away without the girl being told, and from there the tentacles of darkness begin to spread. The child is already aware that adults cannot be trusted, but how far that goes is not yet clear.

Her father, who works in the Railways, cannot manage the child and sends her to his brothers where she becomes the ­victim of predatory males and turns into a Watcher. Her uncle is indicated by the initial P, a ­tactic that is found in stories by Anais Nin and others, a teasing capital letter hiding intent, ­usually of a sexual nature. The child is aware that there is something wrong, but unable to fight off the tentacle that continues to ret­urn. There are rescuers, ­another of her uncles and a ­second wife. But respite is all too brief—her father is dysfunctional in his own way and cannot ­manage to look after a child.

Thereupon enters another kind of abuse, the bullying system of boarding schools and a confused child who cannot understand why she attracts unwelcome ­att­entions. Chatterjee’s descriptions continue to be vivid in her purple prose seen through WithaHoleinHerHeart’s ­perspective, a child’s wide-eyed wonder and horror at the ups and downs of life, which have more downs that ups—with bullet points and notes of the things she has learnt and wants to remember in a world of single-lined ­notebooks and school exercises.

Schooldays are usually the same when it comes to boarding experiences, from Ruskin Bond to Rituparna Chatterjee. Her stories of boarding school life and the Sweety Aunties maintain the tone of voice steadily through the pages. Chatterjee is strongest when it comes to her descriptions and she is aware of this. Occasionally, she pulls the strings of her Bengaliness, peppering the chapter with words like kochuri, jethu and others to create an atmosphere that is warm, but makes the betrayal even worse when it comes.

Her father is a Comrade working for the rights of the underprivileged. But in the end, he fails to support his own daughter’s rights, dithering between ex-wives and fumbling over the management of three households. The bulk of the story is the girl’s coming of age and learning how to cut down the tentacle through an obstacle course of different kinds of attacks and near-death experiences.

What comes through is the fact that children who are watchers cannot learn to stand up for themselves, regardless of the fact that they anticipate trouble in the shape of men. Her inability to protect herself gnaws at her and undermines her confidence as she bec­omes a teenager stuffed into organza frocks and skinny skirts with budding breasts that tempt nearby relatives. In a world of hide-and-seek, she is unaware of where she stands and Chatterjee’s candy-coloured prose adorns her real memories and transforms them into stories from a dystopian world of evil fairy tales. In her world, everyday things, like Margo soap, are transformed and have to be given their rightful place in a clean, harmless world with an effort.

Gradually, she comes to realise that abuse is the same for all women, not matter what their age. Uncle P is exposed as a serial groper, though not face-to-face, but behind the scenes by women who dare not speak up in public. Ultimately, the stories follow the progress of Chatterjee’s life, her growing up and her wandering across continents to the US, where she begins to discover the power of meditation. Typically, the US is less candy-coloured than her childhood, possibly because it comes too close to present-day reality. But the US is also where she learns to forgive herself for not having had the courage to speak out before, as the result of an ­enc­ounter with a teacher whom she refers to as the Swan.

Possibly the vibrant language is Chatterjee’s way of coming to grips with the horror of what she is reliving, the words run together and the odd spelling of etcetera, a child’s stumbling through unexpected minefields. Ultimately, a firebird arises out of the water, ­triumphing over contrary circumstances through the glimmer of crystals into an adamantine hardness.