Blue Bedspread

by Raj Kamal Jha

In a house on a Calcutta street, lit by the half-light of a yellow street lamp, lies a baby, one day old, wrapped in its hospital towel. In the next room sits a man, all alone, writing. Who is this man, at once frightened and determined? What is he writing? Where has the baby come from and where will it go? Tonight, these questions will be answered when the man unravels the dark secrets he has carried all his life.

Genres: India, Fiction, Indian Literature, Literary Fiction, Romance, Book Club, Contemporary

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Raj Kamal Jha (Hindi: राज कमल झा; born 1966) is Chief Editor of the daily newspaper The Indian Express and an acclaimed novelist. He lives in Gurgaon.

Jha was born in Bhagalpur, Bihar, and was raised in Calcutta, West Bengal, where he went to school at St. Joseph's College. He then attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, where he got his Bachelor of Technology with Honors in Mechanical Engineering. He was the editor of the campus magazine Alankar in his third (junior) and fourth (senior) years at IIT, where his first writing and editing skills got honed. After graduating from IIT in June 1988, he received a tuition waiver and full scholarship from Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Southern California to pursue a Master's program in Print Journalism; he received his M.A. in 1990.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Danyelle Ferruccio · Rating 3 out of 5]

disturbing and downright wrong at times. very upsetting but a story i will remember for a very long time. it definitely accomplished what the author was trying to achieve. when i finished this book - i sat shell shocked for twenty minutes trying to figure out why i had read the entire book but unable to get it off my mind.

[okyrhoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is the story line, and then there is the prose style. Both might, at first reading, bring to mind Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. Here, though, point of view and tone is subdued. Evasion and narrative elision is maintained throughout The Blue Bedspread, which might leave some readers asking for more (clarification).

Unlike The God of Small Things, where the loose ends come together in the end, The Blue Bedspread does not propose a unified tale. In this sense, it is realistic and honest. The "stories" narrated here cannot evoke a coherent whole, a complete fictive universe - for memory, especially that of the narrator, is fleeting.

The painful past is best kept forgotten, and yet, the Brother feels a duty to recall as much as he can for the Sister's baby he is addressing. The past, the truth, comes back to him slowly, and is revealed to us gradually, triggered by images, words, sensations, all of which come throughout the duration of a single night, as he remains awake recalling, repeating, evaluating, transcribing.

Like the symbol of the blue bedspread, memory has become eroded by time, use, and washing. Yet there exists a persistent nostalgia for the love, hope and comfort enmeshed in the tattered and discolored fabric of the bedspread.

[Neha Gupta · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was it? I didn’t understand. Initially I thought the writing style was different going from finish to start, but then I got lost. Was it a story, was it a narrative, was it ramblings, was it just character sketches, was it just imagination. It was nice that the writer was trying something new, a new style of writing and narrative, but somewhere he looses the hold and story falls between the gaps. The summary did mention a dysfunctional family and the mix of fact and fictional narration, but the writer forgets to provide a direction. Sometimes its narrated by the brother, sometimes by sister, sometimes he imagines, sometimes he rambles, and many times he is repetitive. I found it a drag and thank God it was a short book or else I would have left it mid-way for sure. I have read other books which are based on themes of incest, loneliness, dysfunctional families, but there was nothing I felt for in the book. In fact the narrative was as if a strange man is looking in the distance, talking to himself as if no one is around. It would have been ok if I could relate to it but after some time it became ramblings, murmurings and an utter waste of time.

[Tova · Rating 4 out of 5]

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DID I JUST READ?? That was easily one of the weirdest books I have ever read. RTC.
WARNING: this book deals with incest, alcoholism, and abuse.

[Sonia Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad I read Raj Kamal Jha's 'If you are afraid of Heights' first instead of ‘The Blue Bedspread’. It might have put me off Jha forever.

The book deals with terrible things done within a family by other family members.
Incest and sexual abuse are so terrible that sometimes the mind refuses to accept that such things happen and exist in everyday families, but it does happen and it is there although well concealed from everyone.
Jha opens this terrible Pandora's box, revealing to us in all its sordid details that middle class families in India are not as wholesome as we would like to believe they are.

However, no matter how I stretch my mind I cannot believe that incest can be ‘solace’ in any case. That is probably the reason why this book did not quite take my fancy as it should have; the brother and sister have sexual relation as a solace.
Sadly, there is not even a spark of hope in this book as there is in ‘If you are afraid of Heights'. There was this teeny spark of hope, when the sister leaves home, but her death puts an end to this little flicker.

[Jenni · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have. No idea what I just read!

[Puja · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I started reading this book, I was intrigued by its mystery and appreciated the writing style - a mix of poetry and prose. However, the theme was disturbing, the casual handling of the main premise made me uncomfortable, and the confusing story presentation added to my eagerness for the book to end which too was a let down. A sense of unfairness prevailed as the author left the story hanging. I'm not against unconventional themes or different styles of writing, am capable of appreciating sadism and sorrow if narrated interestingly and responsibly, and am certainly open to having my own interpretation for unresolved endings without grudging the author. I loved Arundhati Roy's lyrical prose style of writing in 'The God of Small Things' which too handled a similar theme; this book has been compared to Roy's bestseller, but I found it to be a disappointment.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the heck did I just read? I have no idea. Dark, disturbing, some lyrical writing, and the most bizarre and confusing writing I think I’ve ever read. It’s a very short book and the idea of writing a collection of stories about a newborn child’s mother/family before the baby is adopted is promising but the whole thing was just a wandering, confusing mess. I don’t even mind that, according to the narrator, some of it is not true, I can deal, but honestly, there just wasn’t enough plot to string these musings together. Some lovely writing, but it put me sleep every single time I picked it up. Which was okay because I’ve had a hard time sleeping, well, since forever, but especially during the CV 19 pandemic. Which is why I give the second star, but I’m pretty sure no author ever would be pleased to hear their writing was used as a sleep aid for real.

Do not recommend.

[Geetly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked it up from the shelf just because I wanted to read something by an Indian author. After having read it, I can't be more glad I did.
The story is interesting and writing simple. Infact, its the simplistic,no-frills,straight-from-the-eyes-of-a-common-man style of writing that makes the book stunning.Although the protagonist has a dysfunctional family,quite unrealistic for most of the readers, yet the daily life observations of the unnamed man strike a chord.
I am tempted to believe that the book was actually written in the span of a night with the baby sleeping in the next room.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely find such beautiful writing, and when I do it lifts me up, no matter how sad the story. I bought this book in 1999 when it was first published, but didn't get around till reading it until now. It sat in a rented storage room for 5 years. I'm so glad it followed me and waited for me to find it again.

[Jade Jefferson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read. Slightly disturbing. Incredibly human.

[Berrak Özdemir · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kitapta ne anlatıldığını yüzde yüz anlayabilmek mümkün değil. Ancak tahmin edilebiliyor. Daha ne anlatıldığını, hatta herhangi bir şey anlatılıp anlatılmadığını dahi anlayamadan başka bir konuya geçen bir olay örgüsü var. Buna olay örgüsü denebilirse tabi. Öyle bir kitap ki, ertesi gün bir daha açmaya katlanamayacağımdan aynı gün bitirdim!

[Rena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now what in the fuckshit was this huh??? The writing style was so good but the content was fucked

[Danielle Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

YOOO nah this book is WILD lmaoo, 10s across the board man. I may come back and give it a 5 after I’ve thought about it more.

[Gaby · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Blue Bedspread was recommended to me by a friend and I thought I'd give it a try. I have to say I was kind of disappointed when I finished it. The writing wasn't as good as I had expected it to be.

The story begins with a strange, late night phone call to an unnamed man, the protagonist. He is told that his long-lost sister is dead and he has to take care of her newborn baby for the night until she can be adopted the next day. As the baby sleeps, the man writes stories of his and her mother's childhood. He takes the reader through his life and the strange relationship between him and his sister. he describes the family secrets and leaves the reader wondering what will happen next.

I thought that the plot and the story line were really unique and interesting, but the writing didn't bring it out. I found myself lost a lot of the time because the author's writing was so unclear. I think that if it was written differently, the message the author was trying to get across would have been easier to understand.

Though the writing was less than pleasent, I liked the conflicts in the story. They were things I'd never really read about in other books and didn't expect from a book set in India. The characters were interesting and made the reader want to learn more.

Overall, this book is okay. It isn't one of my favorites, but if you want to read something different, you might want to give this book a chance.

[Karen Germain · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raj Kamal Jha’s novel “The Blue Bedspread” is a bit of a mess. Although short it manages to fit in incest, molestation, suicide and two dead babies! It’s a bit much.

The story is told from the point of view of a brother who is informed that his sister had died in a hospital during child birth. He must now claim his sister’s body and the infant. He has one night with the baby, before it will be given away to a couple who wishes to adopt. The book is his letter to the child, explaining to her, her highly dysfunctional family.

The narrator is unreliable and admits to it within the first chapter. His stories that he leaves for his niece are only half true and it’s up to the reader to pull the fact from the fiction. Many parts of the story are captivating and Jha’s style of writing is very lyrical. It just came across as muddled and overly ambitious for the length of the story. I also finished feeling like there were plot holes. However, this may have been intentional because of the duress that the narrator was under while recanting the events.

[Dennis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure what this book was intended to be. It's only about 200 pages long and is more a collection of snapshots than a linear novel; really it felt more like a collection of sketches strung together on a thin thread. It was also obvious where this was going to end from around page 5 - certainly by page 50, when every possible bad thing from a dysfunctional family had been tossed into the mix - and it just became a matter of waiting for the author to get to the point and say it. By that point, he'd already covered domestic violence pretty well (wife-beating, sexual and physical abuse of children, possible murder) and then there's incest, in case that wasn't enough. The themes repeat but not with any real coherence. This is why any comparison to Raymond Carver is unfair; Carver drew lines until it hit you (or you had a pretty fair guess) while these were just sketches without any illuminating moment. Well-written sketches but no novel.

[Santosh Jha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a fan of Mr. Jha after reading A girl and the city, that's why I picked one of his earliest and acclaimed first book the blue bedspread.
The book is really dark, it will make you cry, You will really fall for the characters and their problems. You have to connect the dots to understand the story, it's definitely not spoonfeeding.
At the same time, the narration is boring and confusing sometimes, I felt lost multiple times, As the story goes back and forth, it's hard to keep track of and connecting the dots.
I was waiting for the ending twist. And as expected it is something that will make you recall the story again. That's what I love about this novel.
For me, he is the most underrated writer. I read his 3 books and None of them disappointed me. Highly recommended

[Steph Winter · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read simply in terms of cultural differences and human similarities. I found the author’s storytelling style intriguing and, sometimes, confusing. He made me work at figuring out who he was writing about now and how they connected with others in the story, as well as questions about timeline (what is the present? What is the past?). Was the ending a surprise? Not so much given earlier elements in the story.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE HIGHWAYMAN
Interesting to see this poem quoted, one I can still recite after 55 years which ties in with the theme of memory in the book. I read this as part of the jubilee read and didn’t enjoy the plot at all. Nevertheless the prose is very good and the author obviously meant to shock readers and make them think. The pigeons reminded me of ‘diamond square’. I doubt this novel will be discussed in any book groups or tv programmes.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued with the details about life in India. Also, the book uses an interesting timeline in that the narrative takes place over just a few days, yet the main character is able to cover the lifetime of his family. It's a good book to analyze for the author's skill in moving forward and back.

[Yogesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit unorthodox way of telling a simple story but I love the way book carried in details till the end. Well done.

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautiful books I've read

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is common knowledge that there are four types of books. There are simple stories told simply and complex stories told complexly—the first type is a walk in the park and the second is a trek up a mountain. There are complex stories told simply, and these are hard to write because the author needs to fight their desire to explain and adorn. And then there are the books that fall into that loathsome fourth category, simple stories told complexly, of which The Blue Bedspread is one.

This book has a fairly basic plot and premise once you puzzle it out, but the style makes it deliberately difficult to ever know what is going on. No character (except the maid) has a name, so they're always referred to by pronouns. There is constant switching of narration: present and past tense, first and second and third person. The result of this is chapters where you don't know who is speaking or who they're speaking to or even what they're speaking about, since it's all so maddeningly abstract and obscured.

And to what end? The story isn't particularly good. This confusing narrative style doesn't make thematic sense. And then the end of the book comes and we find out that half of it is untrue—and why? Again, why use such a punishingly abstract style to obscure the truth of the matter when the narrator is so upfront about other prurient experiences?

I can't come up with any better explanation than: To sound smart.

I've only given this two stars instead of one because Jha is a decent writer on the sentence level. I especially enjoyed this passage:

This city likes lonely people, the city likes this man.

There's no one to walk by his side, to wait for him at a street crossing, so the city moves in to help, it slows down the traffic, parts the crowds. There's no one to talk to him, so the city speaks through its banners, its billboards. At night, he has nothing to do, so he listens to the streets tell stories and watches the streetlights trap insects until both lull him to sleep.

No wonder he is so grateful to his city and returns the favor whenever he gets a chance. For example, when buildings, more than a hundred years old, streaked with moss and rain, not worth a second look, tug at his sleeves, he stops in his tracks to watch and admire. Once, twice, even thrice.

On days when the streets are deserted, trade unions have called a strike, he stays up extra hours, gives the city company, listens to its stories like a loyal child.

____________________

Global Challenge: India

[Christiane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite its relative brevity this was a confusing book. It starts promisingly with a “no longer young man” receiving a phone call from a Calcutta hospital notifying him that his sister whom he hasn’t seen in years and years (except for 1 ½ days at an unspecified time) has died in childbirth and that there’s a day-old baby girl who will be adopted in the morning. The man takes the baby home for the night and while it's sleeping on the ominous blue bedspread he writes down his memories of his sister so that the child will know who she is when she grows up.

So far so good, the man thinks back to his childhood but it soon starts getting confusing because he jumps backwards and forwards in time and his memories often seem to be unreliable and distorted. Also, and possibly to make the story even more vague and unsettling, the only person in the novel who has a name is the maid who doesn’t play a decisive role in the book. Everybody else is Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, the man, the girl, etc. and later on it’s all “he” and “she” and at the beginning of each chapter with a different narrator the reader has to figure out who is talking about whom. Everything is ambiguous and sketchy, the sister’s story which is actually presented with two possible endings, the father/son relationship, the fate of the mother, the passionate affair between a “him” and a “her'' involving an act of horrible violence.

At the heart of the book there is incest, possibly murder, possibly rape, alcoholism, a blinding, domestic violence, a miscarriage. There's a man faking the footprints of a dead baby, another (I think) man’s fascination with a beautiful female survivor of the Sarajevo market bombing he’s seen on TV. There's also a lot of filler material, some of it repetitive, like the pigeons in a cage, a wristwatch made of candy, a red bicycle, a white plastic curtain ring and two dead cockroaches trapped in a picture frame.

The denouement can be seen coming a mile away but it doesn’t really make much sense because from the start we get the picture of an old man and even if he were only oldish, his sister who was quite a few years older than him would have been way past childbearing age. So, how old was he when he picked up the baby ? How old was she ? Their ultimate meeting must have been 9 months ago … the reader is left in the dark.

The only reasons that saved the novel from a 1-star-rating are that I quite liked the language, that there were a few (!) beautiful and moving passages and the atmospheric setting in Calcutta. Still, all in all a lot of awful things happening in a short book.

[Pratheesh Parameswaran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sorry , sir your sister is dead.'
The telephone rings late at night, it's the superintendent of Police, Lake Town ,B Block , calcutta 700089 ,Mr M. K.Chatterje .

'he says ,'your sister is dead.
'We found your name written on four pages of a book she brought with her to the hospital . There was no one with her when she came in .In her admission form , she didn't write anything except her name . She was pregnant."

വീടുവിട്ടു പോയ സ്വന്തംപെങ്ങളെ അന്വേഷിച്ച് വർഷങ്ങൾ കാത്തിരുന്ന അയാൾക്ക് രാത്രിയിൽ വരുന്ന ഫോൺകോളിനെ തുടർന്ന് അയാൾ ഹോസ്പിറ്റലിലേക്ക് എത്തിച്ചേരുകയാണ് ,അവിടെ വച്ച് പെങ്ങളുടെ മകളെ അയാൾ കൈകളിലേറ്റു വാങ്ങുന്നു.

പിന്നീട് വളരെ ശ്രദ്ധാപൂർവം ആ പെൺകുഞ്ഞിനെ സ്വന്തം വീട്ടിലെ ഒരു മുറിയിൽ ഉറക്കി കിടത്തി അയാൾ തിടുക്കംപൂണ്ട് എഴുതുകയാണ് അതാകട്ടെ സ്വന്തം ഓർമ്മകൾ ആയിരുന്നു.
ആ രാത്രി തന്നെ അയാൾക്ക് അത് എഴുതി തീർക്കേണ്ടതുണ്ട് കാരണം പിറ്റേന്ന് കുഞ്ഞിനെ ദത്തെടുക്കാനായി ഒരു ദമ്പതികൾ വരുന്നുണ്ട്. അതിനു മുന്നേ അയാൾക്ക് എഴുതി പൂർത്തികരിക്കേണ്ടതുണ്ട് സഹോദരിയോടൊത്ത് കഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്ന വീടിനെ പറ്റി ,സ്ക്കൂളിനെ പറ്റിയുമൊക്കെ കുറേ ഓർമ്മകൾ - ഈ ഓർമ്മകളിലൂടെയുള്ള സഞ്ചാരമാണ് Raj Kamal Jha എന്ന നോവലിസ്റ്റിന്റെ The Blue Bedspread എന്ന നോവലിന്റെ പ്രമേയം ...

ഈ നോവൽ മനോഹരമ��ണ് അതു പോലെ ഏറെ നൊമ്പരപ്പെടുത്തുന്നതും ....



I put you down on the bed, place two pillows on either side, to rest against your tiny hands, each smaller than my finger. The time has come, I go to my room, take out the paper, they placed the wood her body, on log at a time, the thick ones at the bottom, the thin ones at the top, I have had these sheets of paper for quite some time,

The priest asked to me to hold the splinter and walk around the pyre, I could begin with my name but why waste time, she begins to burn, they poured oil, the wood made noises, the van was lit by her flames, the smoke gets into my eyes. There isn't much time, the man and the woman are coming to take you tomorrow, the fire was still burning when we left, let me tell you about the doctor with arms as milk, lam seven years old , she was gone, you were waiting at the hospital , why should I cry .

[Eoin Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A magical, spellbinding, poetic and unsettling tale told in sparse and precise musical prose

In a house in Calcutta, a city of 12 million people, a baby lies on a bed in one room while in the next a nameless man is writing, painting vignettes from fragments of his memory. Who are they and how are they connected? Raj Kamal Jha spins a haunting story that is packed with visual moments of striking beauty but which gradually grows ever more disconcerting and poignant.

One of my favourite book quotes

"They go to the bathroom, stepping lightly on the green carpet, the cold faucet is blue, the warm is red, they wash their faces, pour out the liquid soap that floats, like cool green jelly, in their palms. They tear out the tissue paper for the first time in their lives, watch it stain dark in patches as it soaks in the water from their washed hands. "

This is an author whom I would like to read more from and will. There is an air of microscopic beauty and moments of intrigue in this book which come to the fore all the more sharply as the action takes place against the vast backdrop of the huge sprawling metropolis of Calcutta.

[Pop Bop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ramblin', Ramblin' Man

Forget about plot. Forget about "caring" for the characters. Forget about the big issues addressed. This isn't kitchen sink drama, it isn't a sprawling family epic, and it just barely counts as a narrative at all.

It's all about the writing, at least to me. Little details and observations. It doesn't even matter that the narrator is unreliable, because the details aren't, (whether fabricated or not), and the mood that's created is hypnotic. (Have you ever heard of an "unreliable composer" or an "unreliable pianist"? Of course not. Doesn't matter.)

Here's a line selected almost at random - "...yellow sodium vapor lamp,... If you strain your eyes, you can see dead insects trapped in the Plexiglas cover. How they got in I don't know." If you turned Edward Hopper's painting "Nighthawks" into prose, you'd get this night-and-the-City book.

Everyone's lonely; everyone's lost. Maybe the child to whom this story is directed will, indeed, possibly, find herself. But I doubt it.

[Booksperience]

The thing I loved most about this novel, The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha, is its overall structure. The entire book is composed of stories though interconnected. Each chapter is told as a different story. What better way to convey the profound lessons of life when the audience is only a child — a mere two-day-old baby?

The narrator writes down the story of his life through the quiet hours of the night as the little baby lies fast asleep in the adjacent room, hoping that someday she will be mature enough to read those truths that are in some way connected very deeply with her own existence. Rather than sharing the story with her verbally, he sits silently at his desk and writes.

He writes, not only because of the child’s inability to comprehend spoken words at her tender age, but also because of the lesson he had learned in his childhood. That when words grow and grow inside you until they fill up your lungs and refuse to come out, and gulp down your breath making your lips quiver like in winter… and get trapped in your chest… you can always write it down…

[Amishal · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are difficult families, some more than others. And they have a deep and damaging impact on people.

How, though, does it help to turn stories of sexual abuse and incest into melodramatic fiction. Does this story give direction--no it does not. Can incest really save a person without scarring them psychologically? No, it cannot. This story almost offers incest as an acceptable way out! In order to get over something, one needs to distance oneself from it. This book advocates indulgence. It is a DUMB and damaged and damaging book. It is as mindless as Arundhati Roy's novel.

This book is not representative of India. Even to this day people do not sulk so much or take themselves so seriously in the country. Addressing problems is good; sentimentalising them aggravates problems as is the case in this book in which the author never separates himself from his damaged characters.