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Open Couplets
Somewhere in the dingy lanes of north Kolkata, a young girl born to a family of idol-makers learns to carve goddesses with her own hands, a right that her artisan father had reserved for her brother. But, years later, when Ira Chatterjee—a breezy, jet-setting ethnographer born in the same neighbourhood—comes looking for the girl, no one knows where to find her.
Elsewhere, in the middle of America, Ira lives with her friend, Fasahat Zaidi, a poet, translator, but mostly, a raconteur extraordinaire from Lucknow. One day Fasahat is reciting ghazals at a bar in a saree, another day he is emailing Ira outlandish tales starring the likes of Mir and Insha. Until one day he goes mysteriously missing and no one can tell what became of him.
Determined to find those who nobody remembers, Ira embarks on a labyrinthine journey, a chimera-chasing adventure, only to confront her own state of oblivion.
Elsewhere, in the middle of America, Ira lives with her friend, Fasahat Zaidi, a poet, translator, but mostly, a raconteur extraordinaire from Lucknow. One day Fasahat is reciting ghazals at a bar in a saree, another day he is emailing Ira outlandish tales starring the likes of Mir and Insha. Until one day he goes mysteriously missing and no one can tell what became of him.
Determined to find those who nobody remembers, Ira embarks on a labyrinthine journey, a chimera-chasing adventure, only to confront her own state of oblivion.
166 pages, Paperback
Published April 6, 2017
18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 4, 2017
Review with images and interview with the author available on my blog "On Art and Aesthetics" (https://onartandaesthetics.com/2017/0...)
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On page 111 of "Open Couplets" (2017), a character mysteriously observes – “Stories have holes in them for you to enter and change their course.” A little later, on page 122, we find the following line – “The essential thing about this story, or any story, is not how it ends but what becomes possible while it lasts.” Open Couplets itself is a narrative with plenty of holes, that is, there’s much here that remains unexplained. It is also an account that is more focussed on the process, the energy of the journey. It concludes and closes in silence, incompletely, amid a crowd, in the evening – with a protagonist who is still hungry…for even more stories.
At the heart of the novel is the uncanny tale of a three-century-old labyrinth – a bhul bhulaiya, as it is known in Hindi – with concentric circles and myriad passageways, ramifying and diverging paths, thousands of steep stairs and identical doors, a central vault, a well. Within the dark and stifling monument, unusual interactions take place, unimaginable transformations occur (a woman has a man’s name, a man develops the features of a woman). This Borgesian ingredient of the maze is, in a way, symbolic of the entire book. Multiple, varied themes, places, cultures and beliefs run through it – mythology, festivity, poetry, the relationship between economics and aesthetics, academia, sexism in art, the tension between creative freedom and politics, Hinduism, Islam, India, America, LGBTQI experiences. A reader can easily lose their way.
Open Couplets – the strangest novel that I have read since Wyl Menmuir’s Booker-longlisted The Many (2016) – is published by Yoda Press of New Delhi and is authored by Torsa Ghosal (@TorsaG) – originally from Kolkata, currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University specializing in media theory and post-1945s Anglophone literature from the US, the UK, and Canada. Ghosal is the Associate Editor of the bi-annual South Asian literary magazine, Papercuts. Her short stories, articles, and poems have appeared in venues such as Aaduna, Poydras Review, and Unsplendid in the US and Muse India, Himal Southasian and The Hindu BLink in South Asia. In the past, she has also been a freelance reporter for The Times of India’s Kolkata Mirror.
Part epistolary, part (fictional) interviews, and part regular third-person narration, the plot of Open Couplets revolves around Ira Chatterjee — a breezy, jet-setting ethnographer pursuing a doctorate in the “Midwestern La-La Land” of America. Her chosen subject of research is the idol-making community of Kumartuli (“potter’s quarter”) in north Kolkata. In those dingy lanes, Ira goes about looking for a young girl born to a family of idol-makers, who learnt and practised the art that had been reserved for her brother. This particular quest clashes with another adventure. Ira’s close friend Fasahat Zaidi – a gender-non-conforming poet and raconteur hailing from the city of Lucknow – who had been living with her in the US, suddenly goes missing.
Other figures are Rizwan, an LGBTQ activist, with whom Zaidi “has managed to fall in love”, and Fatima Ali, a controversial award-winning rising star of Urdu literature. She – the object of Rizwan’s obsession – exists only in descriptions. But who exactly is Fasahat? And who was Fatima? How do they connect with Rizwan? Furthermore, what is the relationship between Ira and Fasahat? Identities shift, the true nature of associations is difficult to unpack. As Ira finds herself deeper and deeper in the messy alleys filled with artisans and lifeless statues, she “dreams of walking amid mirrors”, hoping for clarity, perhaps wanting to see herself and everyone who has touched her life for what and who they really are.
At times confusing and abrupt, Open Couplets is a thought-provoking effort that announces the arrival of a notable literary talent. While the book celebrates unconventional lifestyles, it also pokes fun at them, and reveals to us their many pains, complexities and challenges.
I personally would like to see Torsa Ghosal capitalise on her significant ability to create Borgesian situations and produce a whole new novel or a collection of short stories full of more mazes, mirrors, dreams, and maybe libraries?
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On page 111 of "Open Couplets" (2017), a character mysteriously observes – “Stories have holes in them for you to enter and change their course.” A little later, on page 122, we find the following line – “The essential thing about this story, or any story, is not how it ends but what becomes possible while it lasts.” Open Couplets itself is a narrative with plenty of holes, that is, there’s much here that remains unexplained. It is also an account that is more focussed on the process, the energy of the journey. It concludes and closes in silence, incompletely, amid a crowd, in the evening – with a protagonist who is still hungry…for even more stories.
At the heart of the novel is the uncanny tale of a three-century-old labyrinth – a bhul bhulaiya, as it is known in Hindi – with concentric circles and myriad passageways, ramifying and diverging paths, thousands of steep stairs and identical doors, a central vault, a well. Within the dark and stifling monument, unusual interactions take place, unimaginable transformations occur (a woman has a man’s name, a man develops the features of a woman). This Borgesian ingredient of the maze is, in a way, symbolic of the entire book. Multiple, varied themes, places, cultures and beliefs run through it – mythology, festivity, poetry, the relationship between economics and aesthetics, academia, sexism in art, the tension between creative freedom and politics, Hinduism, Islam, India, America, LGBTQI experiences. A reader can easily lose their way.
Open Couplets – the strangest novel that I have read since Wyl Menmuir’s Booker-longlisted The Many (2016) – is published by Yoda Press of New Delhi and is authored by Torsa Ghosal (@TorsaG) – originally from Kolkata, currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University specializing in media theory and post-1945s Anglophone literature from the US, the UK, and Canada. Ghosal is the Associate Editor of the bi-annual South Asian literary magazine, Papercuts. Her short stories, articles, and poems have appeared in venues such as Aaduna, Poydras Review, and Unsplendid in the US and Muse India, Himal Southasian and The Hindu BLink in South Asia. In the past, she has also been a freelance reporter for The Times of India’s Kolkata Mirror.
Part epistolary, part (fictional) interviews, and part regular third-person narration, the plot of Open Couplets revolves around Ira Chatterjee — a breezy, jet-setting ethnographer pursuing a doctorate in the “Midwestern La-La Land” of America. Her chosen subject of research is the idol-making community of Kumartuli (“potter’s quarter”) in north Kolkata. In those dingy lanes, Ira goes about looking for a young girl born to a family of idol-makers, who learnt and practised the art that had been reserved for her brother. This particular quest clashes with another adventure. Ira’s close friend Fasahat Zaidi – a gender-non-conforming poet and raconteur hailing from the city of Lucknow – who had been living with her in the US, suddenly goes missing.
Other figures are Rizwan, an LGBTQ activist, with whom Zaidi “has managed to fall in love”, and Fatima Ali, a controversial award-winning rising star of Urdu literature. She – the object of Rizwan’s obsession – exists only in descriptions. But who exactly is Fasahat? And who was Fatima? How do they connect with Rizwan? Furthermore, what is the relationship between Ira and Fasahat? Identities shift, the true nature of associations is difficult to unpack. As Ira finds herself deeper and deeper in the messy alleys filled with artisans and lifeless statues, she “dreams of walking amid mirrors”, hoping for clarity, perhaps wanting to see herself and everyone who has touched her life for what and who they really are.
At times confusing and abrupt, Open Couplets is a thought-provoking effort that announces the arrival of a notable literary talent. While the book celebrates unconventional lifestyles, it also pokes fun at them, and reveals to us their many pains, complexities and challenges.
I personally would like to see Torsa Ghosal capitalise on her significant ability to create Borgesian situations and produce a whole new novel or a collection of short stories full of more mazes, mirrors, dreams, and maybe libraries?
May 28, 2017
I enjoy reading books that have stories within stories and this is one such novel! Also loved learning about the Indian culture, about the Urdu poets and the sculptors.
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August 31, 2017This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the Sept/Oct 2017 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews