Anitya: Halfway to Nowhere

by Mridula Garg, Seema Segal, Krishna Dutt Paliwal

Perhaps the only novel in Hindi by a woman author depicting India's struggle for independence, Anitya portrays the human predicament of individuals of two generations during and immediately after the Independence Movement. The novel records the pain of ordinary Indians who failed to keep their tryst with destiny as they travelled from the crossroads to an unforeseen end. Moving away from the accounts of victimhood, the work deals with how high moral standards turn quite easily to betrayal when self-interest is placed against a matter of principle. The failure of the revolution or the death of ideologies, however, does not invalidate the assessment of the struggle, because the quest for Independence is as much a concern of the present as of the past.
The central character, Anitya, is important as one who has successfully gotten rid of all illusions about the happenings around him and is hence capable of facing the unvarnished truth. One significant aspect of the novel is its delineation of strong, independent, cerebral women. The novel crafts a number of complex child characters as foils to the adults in a state of moral flux. The volume includes an insightful Introduction by Krishna Dutt Paliwal.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Mridula Garg is an Indian writer who writes in Hindi and English languages. She has published over 30 books in Hindi – novels, short story collections, plays and collections of essays – including several translated into English. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.

She published her debut novel, Uske Hisse Ki Dhoop, in 1975. She was arrested for obscenity after her novel Chittacobra was published in 1979, in a case that extended for two years but did not result in prison. Several of her works have feminist themes, and she told The Hindu in 2010, "My writing is not feminist. One of the metaphors of womanhood is guilt, be it in sexual matters, in working woman or non-working. My women felt no guilt ever. It ruffled feathers. We have the cerebral part and the womb, which encompasses and empowers you but at the same time also tightens you. My kind of feminism is that each woman can be different."

She has been a columnist, writing on environment, women issues, child servitude and literature. She wrote a fortnightly column, Parivar in Ravivar magazine from Kolkata for five years between 1985-1990 and another column Kataksh (Satire) in India Today (Hindi) for 7 years, between 2003 and 2010. Her novels and stories have been translated into a number of Indian and foreign languages like German, Czech, Japanese and English.

She was a research associate at the Center for South Asian Studies in the University of California-Berkeley, USA in April 1990. She has been invited to speak on Hindi literature and criticism, and discrimination against women, at universities and conferences in erstwhile Yugoslavia (1988), the USA (1990 and 1991), and was a delegate to Interlit-3, Germany(1993). She was invited to and Japan (2003), Italy (2011), Denmark and Russia (2012). She traveled widely and lectured and read from her works there.

Reviews

[Nivedita Dhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A what a read, what a book. I have read such book after long time. This is truly thought provoking book. Why thought provoking, because this is the first time i am reading a book where the protagonist is speaking the truth from his brother’s perspective. No, Anitya is not the protagonist but Avijit. Anitya is his delusional mind. His brother who is really unhurried with a settlement to his life. You will find different sets of time of India. Pre-Independence and Post-Independence. Pre-Independence situation was mostly described by Avijit, Anitya, Kajal. But Avijit and his family was actually living the Post-Independence situation with a natural perspective of his two daughters Prabha and Shubha. You will get an idea how Gandhi Ji was manipulating the entire revolutionary situation in India 1931-1942. And how Avijit was so confused and not able befitting himself with this revolution. A man who consistently putting himself in extra marital affairs, and counting his days regretting. Sometime you will feel sympathetic to Avijit sometime you will see him as a most common coward man. Each and every character is connected to each other. Seems like he is manipulating his entire life like the Gandhi Ji tried to do the same with Indians. But who can stop a revolutionary mind, what if it’s his own daughter. Loved this book. Became a die hard fan of Mridula Garg. Really loved this book. Highly recommended..👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[Manish Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating 2.5

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one took a while to get through. Not as engaging as Kathgulab, the other book of Garg's that I've found in English translation. Similar to Kathgulab, Anitya was told through multiple points of view, but unlike Kathgulab, it jumped around from person to person and throughout different time periods somewhat haphazardly in a way that made things slightly hard to follow at points. There were also a LOT of characters, all with complicated . relationships to one another, some of them coming into the story out of nowhere (though this could have been a side effect of the long time I spent reading this).
The ending was odd, too--Shyama was the only character who seemed to really GET an end. Prabha was married to someone who I'm not sure she actually wanted to marry. Shubha left town rather quickly. Avijit just got sick. I assume Sangeeta will be sentenced to prison. No idea about Kajal. Or Anitya. But Shyama got out of bed, stood up to Anitya, took charge of herself, so that was good?
One thing I did like about this was how it highlighted several different forms of hypocrisy: Bimal Dutt and his friends', Avijit's, Shyama's, Shubha's. It also played with memory in a interesting, if confusing way.