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Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant's Wayward Journey
How far can one truly go away from his/her ancestral roots, filial ties and the claustrophobic grip of traditions and the reminiscence of an emotionally fraught childhood and puberty? The book begins with this particular quest, and it is this quest which gains momentum as a woman seeks the essence of herself-identity ten thousand miles away from her Bengali hometown. With the lens of a time-traveller, her narrative journey encompasses her first sexual abuse, her first tryst with death, austerity, the strangeness of rituals, the inexplicable feelings of puberty and also her surrendering to love, procreation, motherhood. In herself-chosen exile in the US, she discovers that deep within; her ancestral roots a real soothe well spring of her psychological, spiritual existence. In the process, she keeps on oscillating between assimilating and disintegrating, which forms the core of her journey.
236 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 14, 2017
I have to say this was an unparalleled reading experience. And I say this not just because Lopa has the enviable skill of being able to weave images with impeccably chosen words, or, because her writing has the magical prowess of pulling one out of familiar surroundings and transporting one to her world that demands to be explored and cherished - but because, she is an extremely courageous author.
As they say, the best way to know an author is to read her / his work. But what I usually get to see are veiled characterizations and tangential references, that feed off an author's personal experiences. What we get to see in Lopa's book, however, is a stark, no-holds-barred depiction of her journey - speckled with moments of ecstasy, of despair, of shame, of anger.
This is the gripping story of a journey. The journey of an immigrant in foreign shores embracing an alien culture and slowly becoming one with the warmth and the fragrance of the Midwestern air that evokes memories of a turbulent past in another land, at another time and almost compels her to take up a pen and write this masterpiece. The journey of a woman who decides to look back at her roots, throwing aside the rose-tinted glasses we often put on when we 'want to reminisce about how good our lives have been'. Lopa frees herself from the shackles of conventions that elders consciously and unconsciously rub into the psyche of unsuspecting offsprings and that we carry on our souls for the rest of our lives. Here is a voice that refuses to conform, to give in.
So we get to read about her association of the rains with a personal tragedy, and I note from her writing that even the embrace of a loved one with the rains pelting her windows could not erase those dark memories. The rains are still her tears.
She unabashedly speaks about her first innocent crime in her efforts to live up to the expectations at home. Haven't we all been there at some time or the other?
And while her personal experiences of male atrocities touch the reader, it is interesting to note how she dissects popular mythology and points out that while the stories of brutalities in our alleys and inside the four walls of our homes make us cringe, women have all along been tormented, judged and then put on a pedestal!
This is as much a social commentary as an individual's personal journey. And that is what makes this book such an enthralling read!
As they say, the best way to know an author is to read her / his work. But what I usually get to see are veiled characterizations and tangential references, that feed off an author's personal experiences. What we get to see in Lopa's book, however, is a stark, no-holds-barred depiction of her journey - speckled with moments of ecstasy, of despair, of shame, of anger.
This is the gripping story of a journey. The journey of an immigrant in foreign shores embracing an alien culture and slowly becoming one with the warmth and the fragrance of the Midwestern air that evokes memories of a turbulent past in another land, at another time and almost compels her to take up a pen and write this masterpiece. The journey of a woman who decides to look back at her roots, throwing aside the rose-tinted glasses we often put on when we 'want to reminisce about how good our lives have been'. Lopa frees herself from the shackles of conventions that elders consciously and unconsciously rub into the psyche of unsuspecting offsprings and that we carry on our souls for the rest of our lives. Here is a voice that refuses to conform, to give in.
So we get to read about her association of the rains with a personal tragedy, and I note from her writing that even the embrace of a loved one with the rains pelting her windows could not erase those dark memories. The rains are still her tears.
She unabashedly speaks about her first innocent crime in her efforts to live up to the expectations at home. Haven't we all been there at some time or the other?
And while her personal experiences of male atrocities touch the reader, it is interesting to note how she dissects popular mythology and points out that while the stories of brutalities in our alleys and inside the four walls of our homes make us cringe, women have all along been tormented, judged and then put on a pedestal!
This is as much a social commentary as an individual's personal journey. And that is what makes this book such an enthralling read!
May 19, 2017
A Review of Lopamudra Banerjee’s Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey
By Vineetha Mekkoth - Poet, Writer, Translator, Editor
It was on the International Women’s day that I received this book. How apt it is I thought. For I know Lopa as a writer par excellence. I have been reading her on the Facebook group The Significant League, Learning and Creativity and her blog. Her command over the language is impeccable. Above all she is a woman who knows her mind and expresses it boldly. However, I don’t read much non-fiction and so it was with some doubts that I started reading this book. Lopa soon laid these fears to rest. This book reads like a poem. It is prose poetry in motion.
The book which begins with a foreword by the illustrious poet-educationist Dr Santosh Bakaya, is divided into four sections. The first titled ‘Rhymes, Refrains, Footnotes and Memorabilia’ has in it ten essays. The first essay is a dialogue with her home which is an indelible part of her and nudges her as she lives out in Dallas far removed from her native Calcutta. Gentle nostalgia unfurls as you move through it. In the essays that follow, Lopa talks of her birth, her childhood, of the death of her beloved Grandpa, of growing up, her first love, her desire, and the rains that etched these into her memories forever. “In my growing years, in all the years that followed, I’ve been touched and awakened at times; I’ve felt the light of desire melting me into a kiss of pure bliss. I’ve discovered how I trembled in love’s embrace.” Being a girl in a traditional patriarchal Bengali or should I say Indian household, she was punished for being wilful and independent, for expressing her thoughts, for dreaming. School was a place where she was forced to excel. Her father insisted on her securing the first rank and she recounts with innocence and shame her first act of delinquency when she forged a first rank by erasing the fourth she had received. An act she committed out of fear, temptation and most of all for parental acceptance. The shame and chastisement she faced on being discovered, her changing of the school, all made my heart go out to the little girl. How common it is now in this fiercely competitive world, for children to fail these parental and societal expectations which often end up in them taking their own lives! Is the imposing of our will and ambition on child minds worth the loss?
In the essay, Tanpura, she speaks of discovering her love for music and the story of her mother’s pain at being forced to abandon it.
My personal favourite in this autobiographical collection is the essay To Ravaged Nymphs: A Journey through Blood, Bruises and Tears. She writes of the insecurity of being a female in this world of men. She shares her horror and despondency about the Nirbhaya rape. She recounts with vivid anguish her own experiences of childhood abuse and of the hopelessness of being an object of everyday male violence. That girl could have been me. So it is with women, whether an infant yet to be weaned or a grandmother, in this world of men who believe in marking their superiority by brute force and the arrogance of their male organ.
“Here, in your hands that I clench tight, my lover, my husband, my father, my son, my friend, my poet, my artist and my ravager, I give you the knife to peel off my skin, one slice at a time, to crush my rib cage and cut open the pool gushing, the heart, red, volatile, hollow, one that you may have never dived into.
My arteries and veins break free of relentless femininity. As I close my eyes in sleep today, I become a sexless dribble. I thus rise above darkness, deception, decay in a new thrust of life.”
In the final essay of the section, Writing the Woman’s Life, she writes of the women writers who have influenced and shaped her thoughts starting from Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath upto Taslima Nasreen. “I realize how Woolf, how Taslima, how Sylvia Plath, trapped and tangled in women’s bodies, have suffered the heat and passion of their literary selves.” She wishes to be like them, to inherit “the despair, the rage and the free will that kept them alive.”
In the second section of the book, ‘Home and Migrant Trails’ containing eight essays, Lopa shares her love for Enid Blyton’s ‘Fairy Stories’, her memories of a train journeys, her marriage both the secret as well as the traditional one, her first flight alone to the US as a bride, her thrill and never-ending love for the Niagara Falls, her attachment to her grandmother-in-law, her hometown Calcutta and her faith. In the essay Thwarted Escape very poignantly she says, “Years back, I had left the silly old streets of Calcutta in the haste and allure of discovery. I am the burnt out candle, who knows not why she keeps returning to the old flames.”
In the penultimate section, ‘On Being a Mother’, there are nine essays on the joy and pain of being a mother, of nursing, of the spring and the storm witnessed, about love. Only a woman can understand the oneness of human beings, of all life and this, Lopa so sensitively expresses thus. “You have grown inside me as you have grown inside mothers, walking on tattered soil and dark, grimy streets. You have grown inside me, radiant and healthy, as they have grown inside the mal-nourished bodies of their mothers—cold, parched, starving infants. Together, all of us wake up in this world of crimson blood, umbilical cords and the flickering flame of infant shrieks, in the event of our childbirth.”
Spring is a harbinger of change. Spring is also a reservoir of memories. “Last spring, when I looked out of our window to see the street outside that merged into unknown lanes, there was the noise and uproar of construction workers toiling to complete houses of our would-be neighbours, which looked like symmetrical wooden boxes. This spring, when my baby daughter rolls over and talks endless gibberish lying on the floor next to the same window, those houses adorn our neighbourhood beautifully. Kids come to play in their porch with their dogs, bestowing the fragrance of human love and life to the landscape.”
The fourth and final section, ‘Life and Death: The Intersection’ has seven essays which speak of loss, the vacuum when a loved one is no more, the goodbyes to people and places and eternal homecomings. In the essay Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes, Lopa recounts vividly the last moments of her mother. The reader witnesses the daily life of this mother who, like so many like her, toils unceasingly for the family till the last breathe escapes. Her struggles are routine and ignored by herself and the rest of the world. One glimpses one’s own mother in this heart-touching account. The essay Motherless Daughter has Lopa saying, “Where will I seek her amid the surreal, imperceptible domain of love that might linger in an imagined after-life?” All her angst is contained in that one question. How can we ever accept that a life is no more? Somehow logic fails. We try to console ourselves with faith so that we can continue moving on.
Lopa’s autobiographical prose is outstanding, reading more like fiction with sprinkles of poetry. Her imagery is exquisite. She writes with feminine insight of day to day occurrences that many might bypass. Her sensitivity and wonder at creation and the daily miracle that life is makes this collection by this woman-child, a work of joy and sadness, unputdownable.
By Vineetha Mekkoth - Poet, Writer, Translator, Editor
It was on the International Women’s day that I received this book. How apt it is I thought. For I know Lopa as a writer par excellence. I have been reading her on the Facebook group The Significant League, Learning and Creativity and her blog. Her command over the language is impeccable. Above all she is a woman who knows her mind and expresses it boldly. However, I don’t read much non-fiction and so it was with some doubts that I started reading this book. Lopa soon laid these fears to rest. This book reads like a poem. It is prose poetry in motion.
The book which begins with a foreword by the illustrious poet-educationist Dr Santosh Bakaya, is divided into four sections. The first titled ‘Rhymes, Refrains, Footnotes and Memorabilia’ has in it ten essays. The first essay is a dialogue with her home which is an indelible part of her and nudges her as she lives out in Dallas far removed from her native Calcutta. Gentle nostalgia unfurls as you move through it. In the essays that follow, Lopa talks of her birth, her childhood, of the death of her beloved Grandpa, of growing up, her first love, her desire, and the rains that etched these into her memories forever. “In my growing years, in all the years that followed, I’ve been touched and awakened at times; I’ve felt the light of desire melting me into a kiss of pure bliss. I’ve discovered how I trembled in love’s embrace.” Being a girl in a traditional patriarchal Bengali or should I say Indian household, she was punished for being wilful and independent, for expressing her thoughts, for dreaming. School was a place where she was forced to excel. Her father insisted on her securing the first rank and she recounts with innocence and shame her first act of delinquency when she forged a first rank by erasing the fourth she had received. An act she committed out of fear, temptation and most of all for parental acceptance. The shame and chastisement she faced on being discovered, her changing of the school, all made my heart go out to the little girl. How common it is now in this fiercely competitive world, for children to fail these parental and societal expectations which often end up in them taking their own lives! Is the imposing of our will and ambition on child minds worth the loss?
In the essay, Tanpura, she speaks of discovering her love for music and the story of her mother’s pain at being forced to abandon it.
My personal favourite in this autobiographical collection is the essay To Ravaged Nymphs: A Journey through Blood, Bruises and Tears. She writes of the insecurity of being a female in this world of men. She shares her horror and despondency about the Nirbhaya rape. She recounts with vivid anguish her own experiences of childhood abuse and of the hopelessness of being an object of everyday male violence. That girl could have been me. So it is with women, whether an infant yet to be weaned or a grandmother, in this world of men who believe in marking their superiority by brute force and the arrogance of their male organ.
“Here, in your hands that I clench tight, my lover, my husband, my father, my son, my friend, my poet, my artist and my ravager, I give you the knife to peel off my skin, one slice at a time, to crush my rib cage and cut open the pool gushing, the heart, red, volatile, hollow, one that you may have never dived into.
My arteries and veins break free of relentless femininity. As I close my eyes in sleep today, I become a sexless dribble. I thus rise above darkness, deception, decay in a new thrust of life.”
In the final essay of the section, Writing the Woman’s Life, she writes of the women writers who have influenced and shaped her thoughts starting from Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath upto Taslima Nasreen. “I realize how Woolf, how Taslima, how Sylvia Plath, trapped and tangled in women’s bodies, have suffered the heat and passion of their literary selves.” She wishes to be like them, to inherit “the despair, the rage and the free will that kept them alive.”
In the second section of the book, ‘Home and Migrant Trails’ containing eight essays, Lopa shares her love for Enid Blyton’s ‘Fairy Stories’, her memories of a train journeys, her marriage both the secret as well as the traditional one, her first flight alone to the US as a bride, her thrill and never-ending love for the Niagara Falls, her attachment to her grandmother-in-law, her hometown Calcutta and her faith. In the essay Thwarted Escape very poignantly she says, “Years back, I had left the silly old streets of Calcutta in the haste and allure of discovery. I am the burnt out candle, who knows not why she keeps returning to the old flames.”
In the penultimate section, ‘On Being a Mother’, there are nine essays on the joy and pain of being a mother, of nursing, of the spring and the storm witnessed, about love. Only a woman can understand the oneness of human beings, of all life and this, Lopa so sensitively expresses thus. “You have grown inside me as you have grown inside mothers, walking on tattered soil and dark, grimy streets. You have grown inside me, radiant and healthy, as they have grown inside the mal-nourished bodies of their mothers—cold, parched, starving infants. Together, all of us wake up in this world of crimson blood, umbilical cords and the flickering flame of infant shrieks, in the event of our childbirth.”
Spring is a harbinger of change. Spring is also a reservoir of memories. “Last spring, when I looked out of our window to see the street outside that merged into unknown lanes, there was the noise and uproar of construction workers toiling to complete houses of our would-be neighbours, which looked like symmetrical wooden boxes. This spring, when my baby daughter rolls over and talks endless gibberish lying on the floor next to the same window, those houses adorn our neighbourhood beautifully. Kids come to play in their porch with their dogs, bestowing the fragrance of human love and life to the landscape.”
The fourth and final section, ‘Life and Death: The Intersection’ has seven essays which speak of loss, the vacuum when a loved one is no more, the goodbyes to people and places and eternal homecomings. In the essay Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes, Lopa recounts vividly the last moments of her mother. The reader witnesses the daily life of this mother who, like so many like her, toils unceasingly for the family till the last breathe escapes. Her struggles are routine and ignored by herself and the rest of the world. One glimpses one’s own mother in this heart-touching account. The essay Motherless Daughter has Lopa saying, “Where will I seek her amid the surreal, imperceptible domain of love that might linger in an imagined after-life?” All her angst is contained in that one question. How can we ever accept that a life is no more? Somehow logic fails. We try to console ourselves with faith so that we can continue moving on.
Lopa’s autobiographical prose is outstanding, reading more like fiction with sprinkles of poetry. Her imagery is exquisite. She writes with feminine insight of day to day occurrences that many might bypass. Her sensitivity and wonder at creation and the daily miracle that life is makes this collection by this woman-child, a work of joy and sadness, unputdownable.
March 2, 2017
Why does someone write a memoir? I mean if someone wants to write about the interesting life that he/she has lived or wants to write about his/her ordinary life as a celebration of life itself, he/she can always write an autobiography. If someone wants to write about something fascinating that he/she has witnessed, he/she can always turn to fiction. Why a memoir then?
In case of Thwarted Escape- a memoir by Lopamudra Banerjee, there is just one answer: Catharsis. Yes Catharsis; more than for anyone else, Mrs Banerjee has written this memoir for herself. For her own catharsis.
There are two distinct identities that emerge from this memoir that go on to define the persona of the author as we come to know it. First is that of a woman who has gradually become conscious of her place and struggle within her society and culture. A woman who goes on to grow from a girl-child raised in a stifling patriarchic middle –class family fully laced with its masculine notions of conventions, taboos and mores, into a rebellious young woman who recognizes the hypocrisy of a society that worships the feminine but must every now and then throw up a ‘Nirbhaya/Damini.’ A society in which the stronghold of patriarchy has seeped over generations into its myth, its institutes of power, its religion, its culture, its politics, its economics. It is a society in which no matter who wins- Ram or Ravan- it is always a Sita who suffers. At a very tender age her defiance starts with her little acts of revolts vis a vis her family because she innately recognizes that her family is just a microcosm of the society that she is supposed to live and grown in. And gradually she finds an echo of her moral-outrageousness in such voices as Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Tasleema Nasreen.
The second identity is that of an immigrant. And like all first generation immigrants, she is torn between two worlds. There is always a nagging implicit guilt about a new world usurping her original ‘Home’: in reality and in memory. There is a subtle interplay and tension between these two identities: the Woman identity is the centrifugal one, pulling her away from her home and her society because that is the only way of breaking free from it; the Immigrant identity is the centripetal one that calls across the seas to her to come back to her filial obligations and ties, to the joy and love of her city. Between the friction of these two identities the escape of the author becomes a ‘Thwarted Escape’ and not a complete one. So she must revisit her past, make peace with it; find new meaning to her memories and instead of an Escape she must attain liberation in her catharsis. Her memoir is thus a non-fictional bildungsroman of sorts.
Coming to the architectonics of this book, Thwarted Escape is neatly divided into four parts viz Rhymes, Refrains, Footnotes and memorabilia; Home and Migrant trails; On being a Mother and Life and Death: The Intersection. Each part by and large dealing with a specific theme (not strictly)- the memories of growing up in 1st part, the build up to and the actual migration in 2nd part, Motherhood in 3rd part and a loose assemblage of death, afterthoughts and some sort of closure in 4th part. Throughout the book the author is in firm control of her narration. There are two voices at play within the book, one that of present day author and the other that of past; sometimes as girl-child, sometimes as the precocious teenager, sometimes as the young self-aware woman. Both these voices overlap and interact thus paving way for the author to judge, justify, explain, narrate, evoke, fantasize, reminiscence; side by side. Not only narrative voice but the mode of narration is also manipulated as and when needed by the author to suit her own purpose. Take for instance chapter 2 of part 1st ‘A foolish thing that was but toy.’ This chapter is a montage sequence taking the reader briefly and briskly from the author’s birth to her puberty in a rapid set of images and episodes (It brings to mind the opening of James Joyce’s Portrait of Artist as a young Man; there are echoes of this novel throughout this memoir.)The montage not only serves as an apt narrative technique of childhood which in memory only survives as such- a few brief episodes and striking images but it also scaffolds the author at a deeper psychological level so that she is enable to revisit her past without aggravating too much of her psyche by the traumatic and painful experiences as for instance her first experience of death and mourning and more prominently the sexual abuse. By using montage she briefly recreates her most traumatic memory but just enough to get over with it. Had she used a different narrative technique, not only would she have to put herself through the pain and trauma again but she also would have had to bring fore the villians from past which would have opened a whole Pandora’s box both at personal and most probably at family level as well.
Then there is the language that flows as a sweet cadence of measured tone and rhythm. This is not only because Mrs Banerjee is already a poet and singer but also because of the milieu and literary environment that she grew up in, that of Calcutta Bhadralok. The Bengali language can easily lay claim to some of the best and finest literature ever written in South Asia, if not the whole world. There is something about the Bengali language that makes it titillate like a butterfly on the tongue. And there is ample sprinkling of bangla verses and maxims in this memoir. But more than that it is the bangla sensibility that Mrs Banerjee brings into her English that makes it a pleasure to read her prose. Lines like ‘She was dropped on the earth like an imperfect midnight song’ or ‘Moon is a tear drop away’ can serve as examples. But occasionally the intricacy and filigree of language works to the distraction of the reader as he is carried away and the author loses the full impact of her subject.
One more important aspect of the narrative structure of this memoir is that it follows a non-linear narration. There are too many time breaks and time jumps, both between the chapters and parts as well as within the chapters. the non linearity within a chapter works, by and large, to the detriment of author as it jags and disrupts the attention of the reader. Just when a reader has invested his attention in the teenage angst and opprobrium of the young author, all of a sudden he/she is uprooted and transferred to the childhood or adulthood of author and the reader has to once again start his/her emotional investment again. Too many and too frequent of this results in emotional fatigue and detachment and the reader fails to keep up with the time jumps and breaks. Although occasionally it does work as for instance in the chapter where there is the juxtaposition of the author’s labor and parturition with that of her mother, the narrative jumping to and fro between 2010 and 1971. The non-linearity between the four parts of the memoir is a different matter altogether. Here it works to a perfection. Because rather than being running in circles, the narration here works in a spiral ascendancy. Each time the author comes back to a point in time, the point is on a higher level. Thus when the author returns to her childhood in part two it is not the same childhood as in part one, for we have seen her defiance and her dreams and her joi di vivre. Thus the small girl of part two is much different from that of part one. That is how the non-linearity works between the parts.
All in all Thwarted Escape makes for a delectable read and in the prophetic words of the veritable Dr Santosh Bakaya (as she has put them in the foreword of this memoir), “A book that one wants to go back to,again and again.”
In case of Thwarted Escape- a memoir by Lopamudra Banerjee, there is just one answer: Catharsis. Yes Catharsis; more than for anyone else, Mrs Banerjee has written this memoir for herself. For her own catharsis.
There are two distinct identities that emerge from this memoir that go on to define the persona of the author as we come to know it. First is that of a woman who has gradually become conscious of her place and struggle within her society and culture. A woman who goes on to grow from a girl-child raised in a stifling patriarchic middle –class family fully laced with its masculine notions of conventions, taboos and mores, into a rebellious young woman who recognizes the hypocrisy of a society that worships the feminine but must every now and then throw up a ‘Nirbhaya/Damini.’ A society in which the stronghold of patriarchy has seeped over generations into its myth, its institutes of power, its religion, its culture, its politics, its economics. It is a society in which no matter who wins- Ram or Ravan- it is always a Sita who suffers. At a very tender age her defiance starts with her little acts of revolts vis a vis her family because she innately recognizes that her family is just a microcosm of the society that she is supposed to live and grown in. And gradually she finds an echo of her moral-outrageousness in such voices as Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Tasleema Nasreen.
The second identity is that of an immigrant. And like all first generation immigrants, she is torn between two worlds. There is always a nagging implicit guilt about a new world usurping her original ‘Home’: in reality and in memory. There is a subtle interplay and tension between these two identities: the Woman identity is the centrifugal one, pulling her away from her home and her society because that is the only way of breaking free from it; the Immigrant identity is the centripetal one that calls across the seas to her to come back to her filial obligations and ties, to the joy and love of her city. Between the friction of these two identities the escape of the author becomes a ‘Thwarted Escape’ and not a complete one. So she must revisit her past, make peace with it; find new meaning to her memories and instead of an Escape she must attain liberation in her catharsis. Her memoir is thus a non-fictional bildungsroman of sorts.
Coming to the architectonics of this book, Thwarted Escape is neatly divided into four parts viz Rhymes, Refrains, Footnotes and memorabilia; Home and Migrant trails; On being a Mother and Life and Death: The Intersection. Each part by and large dealing with a specific theme (not strictly)- the memories of growing up in 1st part, the build up to and the actual migration in 2nd part, Motherhood in 3rd part and a loose assemblage of death, afterthoughts and some sort of closure in 4th part. Throughout the book the author is in firm control of her narration. There are two voices at play within the book, one that of present day author and the other that of past; sometimes as girl-child, sometimes as the precocious teenager, sometimes as the young self-aware woman. Both these voices overlap and interact thus paving way for the author to judge, justify, explain, narrate, evoke, fantasize, reminiscence; side by side. Not only narrative voice but the mode of narration is also manipulated as and when needed by the author to suit her own purpose. Take for instance chapter 2 of part 1st ‘A foolish thing that was but toy.’ This chapter is a montage sequence taking the reader briefly and briskly from the author’s birth to her puberty in a rapid set of images and episodes (It brings to mind the opening of James Joyce’s Portrait of Artist as a young Man; there are echoes of this novel throughout this memoir.)The montage not only serves as an apt narrative technique of childhood which in memory only survives as such- a few brief episodes and striking images but it also scaffolds the author at a deeper psychological level so that she is enable to revisit her past without aggravating too much of her psyche by the traumatic and painful experiences as for instance her first experience of death and mourning and more prominently the sexual abuse. By using montage she briefly recreates her most traumatic memory but just enough to get over with it. Had she used a different narrative technique, not only would she have to put herself through the pain and trauma again but she also would have had to bring fore the villians from past which would have opened a whole Pandora’s box both at personal and most probably at family level as well.
Then there is the language that flows as a sweet cadence of measured tone and rhythm. This is not only because Mrs Banerjee is already a poet and singer but also because of the milieu and literary environment that she grew up in, that of Calcutta Bhadralok. The Bengali language can easily lay claim to some of the best and finest literature ever written in South Asia, if not the whole world. There is something about the Bengali language that makes it titillate like a butterfly on the tongue. And there is ample sprinkling of bangla verses and maxims in this memoir. But more than that it is the bangla sensibility that Mrs Banerjee brings into her English that makes it a pleasure to read her prose. Lines like ‘She was dropped on the earth like an imperfect midnight song’ or ‘Moon is a tear drop away’ can serve as examples. But occasionally the intricacy and filigree of language works to the distraction of the reader as he is carried away and the author loses the full impact of her subject.
One more important aspect of the narrative structure of this memoir is that it follows a non-linear narration. There are too many time breaks and time jumps, both between the chapters and parts as well as within the chapters. the non linearity within a chapter works, by and large, to the detriment of author as it jags and disrupts the attention of the reader. Just when a reader has invested his attention in the teenage angst and opprobrium of the young author, all of a sudden he/she is uprooted and transferred to the childhood or adulthood of author and the reader has to once again start his/her emotional investment again. Too many and too frequent of this results in emotional fatigue and detachment and the reader fails to keep up with the time jumps and breaks. Although occasionally it does work as for instance in the chapter where there is the juxtaposition of the author’s labor and parturition with that of her mother, the narrative jumping to and fro between 2010 and 1971. The non-linearity between the four parts of the memoir is a different matter altogether. Here it works to a perfection. Because rather than being running in circles, the narration here works in a spiral ascendancy. Each time the author comes back to a point in time, the point is on a higher level. Thus when the author returns to her childhood in part two it is not the same childhood as in part one, for we have seen her defiance and her dreams and her joi di vivre. Thus the small girl of part two is much different from that of part one. That is how the non-linearity works between the parts.
All in all Thwarted Escape makes for a delectable read and in the prophetic words of the veritable Dr Santosh Bakaya (as she has put them in the foreword of this memoir), “A book that one wants to go back to,again and again.”
January 12, 2018
Thwarted Escape by Lopamudra Banerjee is a memoir, wherein the author has painted a meticulous and beautiful picture of her life - right from her girlhood days in Calcutta, India to her present abode in Texas, United States.
Born of typical Bengali parents, and like any other child would, she tried her best to please them by scoring as high marks as she could in school, an aspect that made her already difficult relationship with her father, all the more difficult. "At home, getting a rank was something I had iterated and reiterated. I don't remember if I had my father's constant company during this period/his presence was intimidating/as he kept reminding me that I need to come first in class."
It was in the years that followed, that she found solace in literature, and her love for Bengali poetry and stories began taking form.
"In sleep, I wanted to be one with the busted fairies and stretch my wings" reflects her search for freedom, her desire to cross patriarchal perimeters. Since an early age she knew she was meant to fly. Boundaries couldn't cage her free falling soul.
The story to's and fro's between then and now; fast forward to the time when she is bound in holy matrimony and has crossed oceans to start a new life, her innate habit/quality of questioning everything around and within her comes to surface when she says "I have always wondered what transpires in a woman's mind when she embarks into her personal, sacred, profound journey into making a child, hand-in- hand with her man. "
An aspect that stuck me was the 'perfectly thought of' titles, giving away nothing more nothing less, a complete fit.
Through 'Thwarted Escape' she has not only managed to celebrate jocular days, but had also laid bare some of her deepest, darkest secrets- her search for meaning and passion, her strength that she hopes to pass on to her daughters. All this and more forms the basis of this memoir.
A definite recommendation.
Born of typical Bengali parents, and like any other child would, she tried her best to please them by scoring as high marks as she could in school, an aspect that made her already difficult relationship with her father, all the more difficult. "At home, getting a rank was something I had iterated and reiterated. I don't remember if I had my father's constant company during this period/his presence was intimidating/as he kept reminding me that I need to come first in class."
It was in the years that followed, that she found solace in literature, and her love for Bengali poetry and stories began taking form.
"In sleep, I wanted to be one with the busted fairies and stretch my wings" reflects her search for freedom, her desire to cross patriarchal perimeters. Since an early age she knew she was meant to fly. Boundaries couldn't cage her free falling soul.
The story to's and fro's between then and now; fast forward to the time when she is bound in holy matrimony and has crossed oceans to start a new life, her innate habit/quality of questioning everything around and within her comes to surface when she says "I have always wondered what transpires in a woman's mind when she embarks into her personal, sacred, profound journey into making a child, hand-in- hand with her man. "
An aspect that stuck me was the 'perfectly thought of' titles, giving away nothing more nothing less, a complete fit.
Through 'Thwarted Escape' she has not only managed to celebrate jocular days, but had also laid bare some of her deepest, darkest secrets- her search for meaning and passion, her strength that she hopes to pass on to her daughters. All this and more forms the basis of this memoir.
A definite recommendation.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2018
After a long time , Lopamudra Banarjee’s debut memoir , that she so lovingly sent me , gave me the focus to read a book seriously . Of late my reading had been limited to scrolling through walls, feeds , a snippet here , an article there always a sense of waiting for more . Thank you for sending a feast my way .And what a feast this book and journey has been ...
For some reason , Lopa’s lyrical flow reminds me of water, her passion, of fire .As does this book , sometimes it patters in gentle drips of familiarity, at others, it churns with inner tempests , glows as warm embers of memories or rages in consuming inferno . And yet a single string of sincerity ties together all the different dualities into one coherent book. This sincere effort is apparent in the brutal honesty with which she embraces her dualities, the angst of finding herself in them , through them .
What really stood out for me were her love letters to different places , be it her childhood home, the city of her youth or the roaring welcome of a new land .
There are so many parts of this memoir that I could relate to as a fellow traveler with a similar journey. Be it the sense of suffocating claustrophobia of growing up in a suburban middle class Indian family , as a girl, or the strange allure of the same customs , traditions , family in later years ,or the awestruck wonder at the miracle of being a mother .
So whether you read this book for the resonance of a similar experience or whether you read this book to get a glimpse of another’s journey, Thwarted Escape is a beautiful read to escape the confines of our own limited space and travel this journey with Lopamudra Banerjee.
For some reason , Lopa’s lyrical flow reminds me of water, her passion, of fire .As does this book , sometimes it patters in gentle drips of familiarity, at others, it churns with inner tempests , glows as warm embers of memories or rages in consuming inferno . And yet a single string of sincerity ties together all the different dualities into one coherent book. This sincere effort is apparent in the brutal honesty with which she embraces her dualities, the angst of finding herself in them , through them .
What really stood out for me were her love letters to different places , be it her childhood home, the city of her youth or the roaring welcome of a new land .
There are so many parts of this memoir that I could relate to as a fellow traveler with a similar journey. Be it the sense of suffocating claustrophobia of growing up in a suburban middle class Indian family , as a girl, or the strange allure of the same customs , traditions , family in later years ,or the awestruck wonder at the miracle of being a mother .
So whether you read this book for the resonance of a similar experience or whether you read this book to get a glimpse of another’s journey, Thwarted Escape is a beautiful read to escape the confines of our own limited space and travel this journey with Lopamudra Banerjee.
June 11, 2018
" I am the burnt out candle who knows not why she keeps returning to the old flames ".
Such poignant use of words with deep intense feelings is what touched my soul while reading the book " Thwarted Escape " by my dear friend Lopamudra Banerjee.
She has tried a different approach in her writing style to express the protagonist's headstrong journey from innocence towards maturity.Time and again she has shifted her thoughts from her acceptance to the space she lives in and the place she belongs to.
As far as I know Lopa, she has been staying abroad for quite a few years. Though she has adjusted with the soil and nature of every abode she lived in, yet no one could pull the root out of her.She is deeply rooted and attached to her city Kolkata and creates one wherever she goes.
The entire book has definite structure where the author keeps entering and exiting through her reminiscence between past ,present and future with touchy characterisation and wonderfully woven words.
I wish it touches the heart of book lovers and finds wide readership as it truly deserves success.
Gopa Bhattacharjee
Such poignant use of words with deep intense feelings is what touched my soul while reading the book " Thwarted Escape " by my dear friend Lopamudra Banerjee.
She has tried a different approach in her writing style to express the protagonist's headstrong journey from innocence towards maturity.Time and again she has shifted her thoughts from her acceptance to the space she lives in and the place she belongs to.
As far as I know Lopa, she has been staying abroad for quite a few years. Though she has adjusted with the soil and nature of every abode she lived in, yet no one could pull the root out of her.She is deeply rooted and attached to her city Kolkata and creates one wherever she goes.
The entire book has definite structure where the author keeps entering and exiting through her reminiscence between past ,present and future with touchy characterisation and wonderfully woven words.
I wish it touches the heart of book lovers and finds wide readership as it truly deserves success.
Gopa Bhattacharjee
June 18, 2017
A regular life led over three decades is not worth inspiring to be imprinted in the pages of a book, yes or no? The answer is yes, if the person writing the experiences is talented enough to write and has the impulse to question his or her being, has the empathy towards the subtle nuances of life and at the same time is sensitive towards the challenges life throws at the self. This autobiographical sojourn is a compelling read.
The prose is poetic but the circumstances are not. Yet the words paints a beautiful imagination in the mind of the reader. Part travellougue, part rebellious, part escapist and part acceptance are the chapters in this memoir. A cluster of life events which runs backwards in the mind of the author and forward in the pages of the book as a memory building and acceptance of the routine that life goes on.
Lopamudra Banerjee's Thwarted Escape is compelling read. You cant escape life, the escape is thwarted by reality whenever the thought of an escape sets in. Hope to have more compelling reads from the author.
The prose is poetic but the circumstances are not. Yet the words paints a beautiful imagination in the mind of the reader. Part travellougue, part rebellious, part escapist and part acceptance are the chapters in this memoir. A cluster of life events which runs backwards in the mind of the author and forward in the pages of the book as a memory building and acceptance of the routine that life goes on.
Lopamudra Banerjee's Thwarted Escape is compelling read. You cant escape life, the escape is thwarted by reality whenever the thought of an escape sets in. Hope to have more compelling reads from the author.
May 1, 2019
Thwarted escape takes you back to your roots if you are an immigrant or staying away from your home for a long period. It makes you feel nostalgic for the beloved city, Kolkata. It makes you long for your grandparents, your school days, the first days of passion, the first days in a new country and gives you a teary eyes smile. Lopa’s prose is a brilliant narrative of of her journey in USA and all that holds her back to her motherland. The lucid presentation and the interesting anecdotes makes it easy for the reader to relate to the book. Loved reading it and definitely worth reading again.
November 8, 2017
A brilliant book, a masterpiece, poetry!
Mere declaring this book to be a memoir won't do any justice as it goes beyond that. The author has wonderful observation skills and the way she has presented even the tiniest moments of her life is quite noteworthy.
The author has an excellent command on English language with which she has scripted every line in a poetic form and that is the true essence of this book. Upon reading, the scenes from her life shall appear upon the television screen of your mind and you will find yourself living those moments, feeling every bit of emotion that surfaces with the turning of pages.
This book is one of those rare gems which will linger in your memory for a considerable amount of time.
Mere declaring this book to be a memoir won't do any justice as it goes beyond that. The author has wonderful observation skills and the way she has presented even the tiniest moments of her life is quite noteworthy.
The author has an excellent command on English language with which she has scripted every line in a poetic form and that is the true essence of this book. Upon reading, the scenes from her life shall appear upon the television screen of your mind and you will find yourself living those moments, feeling every bit of emotion that surfaces with the turning of pages.
This book is one of those rare gems which will linger in your memory for a considerable amount of time.
December 28, 2016
Lopamudra Banerjee’s memoir, ‘ Thwarted escape’ though written in prose form, is sheer poetry. At the very outset I would like to say that even though I have finished reading the book, I go back to it whenever I am in the mood to read poems, such is the power of her words.
Through her book, Lopamudra embarks on an unique journey from her childhood days when words in the shape of poetry eluded her. The image of the lifeless body of her grandfather being carried away in the rain, remain etched in her soul as much as other poignant images of rainy sojourns. Her revelation of her childhood molestation incident is the story of many young children. Molestation during adulthood is every woman’s tale, the criminals mostly being strangers, though relatives and friends are very often the culprits too. She says in her book- “ Every other day, a new Nirbhaya is born, in some or the other part of my motherland.” Her fierce words rekindled the flame in me to protest against the inhuman tendencies of mankind; that every parent should instill in their child, the values of respect and dignified conduct, which will shape his future behavior.
‘Thwarted escape’ portrays her inner trait of doing things differently since her childhood days, trying days, when she defied norms to erase her marks in her school report card, an act for which she had to switch over to a vernacular medium school.
Her journey towards adolescence is interesting as much as the story of the would-be bride, whose existence depended on the photograph clicked for the purpose of marriage, her homely skills of cooking and sewing, her complexion, again every woman’s tale. The story of her simple marriage ritual in a temple, before her official lavish wedding again reflects her free spirit, her quest to break free from conventional norms.
She talks about Kolkata, the city she left behind to go to the US using the following words, ‘I am the burnt out candle, who knows not why she keeps returning to the old flames.’ The myriad feelings she underwent during the birth of her two children are so well expressed that I begin to realize while reading the book that probably this is what passionate writing and Literature was all about, seldom found these days. Lopamudra Banerjee’s effective use of words, her narrative skills, her sensitive and strong portrayal of her experiences and characters definitely takes the book to the highest level, one that will be treasured by one and all.
Through her book, Lopamudra embarks on an unique journey from her childhood days when words in the shape of poetry eluded her. The image of the lifeless body of her grandfather being carried away in the rain, remain etched in her soul as much as other poignant images of rainy sojourns. Her revelation of her childhood molestation incident is the story of many young children. Molestation during adulthood is every woman’s tale, the criminals mostly being strangers, though relatives and friends are very often the culprits too. She says in her book- “ Every other day, a new Nirbhaya is born, in some or the other part of my motherland.” Her fierce words rekindled the flame in me to protest against the inhuman tendencies of mankind; that every parent should instill in their child, the values of respect and dignified conduct, which will shape his future behavior.
‘Thwarted escape’ portrays her inner trait of doing things differently since her childhood days, trying days, when she defied norms to erase her marks in her school report card, an act for which she had to switch over to a vernacular medium school.
Her journey towards adolescence is interesting as much as the story of the would-be bride, whose existence depended on the photograph clicked for the purpose of marriage, her homely skills of cooking and sewing, her complexion, again every woman’s tale. The story of her simple marriage ritual in a temple, before her official lavish wedding again reflects her free spirit, her quest to break free from conventional norms.
She talks about Kolkata, the city she left behind to go to the US using the following words, ‘I am the burnt out candle, who knows not why she keeps returning to the old flames.’ The myriad feelings she underwent during the birth of her two children are so well expressed that I begin to realize while reading the book that probably this is what passionate writing and Literature was all about, seldom found these days. Lopamudra Banerjee’s effective use of words, her narrative skills, her sensitive and strong portrayal of her experiences and characters definitely takes the book to the highest level, one that will be treasured by one and all.
February 9, 2017
Weaving every thought and every emotion with the magic of her words....the book is like the course of a river flowing smoothly....unabatedly !
The book unfolds like a beautiful lotus in a pond.....and continues to revel in the glory of sunshine !
From the much revered Goddesses in India....along with the legendary feminine Epic characters.....and her own ever introspecting mortal self....from childhood to womanhood...to motherhood....the book is a journey of feminity....the inward and external journey.....over the mountains and seas that life carries us through.
Holding on steadfast and never losing ground.....thoughts and emotions unfold....in the most beautiful word patterns
If I had ventured marking some beautiful sentences...probably the whole book would have been highlighted !
With her mysteriously curious mind......the yearning for the horizon continues.....This is just a beginning and theres going to be lots more in store.....The Goddess to whom she prays on the festival of Spring....is omnipresent within her !
The book unfolds like a beautiful lotus in a pond.....and continues to revel in the glory of sunshine !
From the much revered Goddesses in India....along with the legendary feminine Epic characters.....and her own ever introspecting mortal self....from childhood to womanhood...to motherhood....the book is a journey of feminity....the inward and external journey.....over the mountains and seas that life carries us through.
Holding on steadfast and never losing ground.....thoughts and emotions unfold....in the most beautiful word patterns
If I had ventured marking some beautiful sentences...probably the whole book would have been highlighted !
With her mysteriously curious mind......the yearning for the horizon continues.....This is just a beginning and theres going to be lots more in store.....The Goddess to whom she prays on the festival of Spring....is omnipresent within her !
June 12, 2018
The back cover of the book is perhaps the first page I generally read when I get a book in hand. I did the same for ‘Thwarted Escape’ too…and it unfolded to me a new dimension of the author, who is a friend from my scholar days. I had known her then as a simple, fun loving, romantic girl and her identity in the world of Literature today is not surprising.
I was fortunate to receive this narrative journal from Lopa personally, when I visited her place in February 2018. Thereafter, the book has kept me engaged as I have flipped through the pages, one by one, reading deeply in between lines to feel the emotions that underline each sentence.
The simplicity of the life of a girl growing up in a middle class family has its own essence of romanticism which has been beautifully penned. The descriptions are very close to heart for any girl who has grown up in similar conditions… albeit, each girl has her own set of experiences that find a special place in the mind of the individual. Lopa has chosen her words so well, that the imageries are universal, yet juxtaposed classically in being unique to herself. That is exactly what makes her narrative so poetic!
Each page of the book is like a footstep that leads the reader to peep into her childhood, girlhood, adulthood, motherhood…while journeying through her little nook in her Barrackpore home, the classrooms where she has spent secluded moments scribbling her thoughts, those times when she felt broken as she could not decipher the nasty ways of the world, to her stolen romantic whisperings by the Ganges and then flying with her to a distant land across the seven seas. The metaphors, images and anecdotes are distinct and well woven into a saga of Lopa’s life.
The book is worth a read because it is the story of a common girl who chooses to break the shackles of monotony and find a way to live her dreams. Her journey has not been easy but she has travelled it with confidence and perseverance. It is a learning for those who opt to give up or live up with what the immediate circumstances have to offer, rather than look beyond and reach out for the better.
Looking forward to reading more of Lopa’s wonderful compositions. I wish my friend all the best!
I was fortunate to receive this narrative journal from Lopa personally, when I visited her place in February 2018. Thereafter, the book has kept me engaged as I have flipped through the pages, one by one, reading deeply in between lines to feel the emotions that underline each sentence.
The simplicity of the life of a girl growing up in a middle class family has its own essence of romanticism which has been beautifully penned. The descriptions are very close to heart for any girl who has grown up in similar conditions… albeit, each girl has her own set of experiences that find a special place in the mind of the individual. Lopa has chosen her words so well, that the imageries are universal, yet juxtaposed classically in being unique to herself. That is exactly what makes her narrative so poetic!
Each page of the book is like a footstep that leads the reader to peep into her childhood, girlhood, adulthood, motherhood…while journeying through her little nook in her Barrackpore home, the classrooms where she has spent secluded moments scribbling her thoughts, those times when she felt broken as she could not decipher the nasty ways of the world, to her stolen romantic whisperings by the Ganges and then flying with her to a distant land across the seven seas. The metaphors, images and anecdotes are distinct and well woven into a saga of Lopa’s life.
The book is worth a read because it is the story of a common girl who chooses to break the shackles of monotony and find a way to live her dreams. Her journey has not been easy but she has travelled it with confidence and perseverance. It is a learning for those who opt to give up or live up with what the immediate circumstances have to offer, rather than look beyond and reach out for the better.
Looking forward to reading more of Lopa’s wonderful compositions. I wish my friend all the best!
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