Lahiri's Masterpiece- The Lowland

A complex saga covering three generations, and vast spans of time and space – that’s how one can describe The Lowland.  Heart-wrenchingly real and relentlessly honest, the story evokes strong emotions in readers. What is right, what wrong, what is real, what imagined, what is proper, what improper, all lines get blurred. What remains is a very humane story of very relatable characters, of people who seem to come alive on the pages, who remind you of people you have met somewhere.

Jhumpa Lahiri has always handled complex relationship tales in her past literary forays, but this tale is at a different level altogether. Here we have a tapestry of the complex socio-political backdrop of 60s’ Calcutta, which triggers all events and eventually shapes the fate of the characters. The Naxalite movement in Calcutta, is described in so much accurate detail, down to its gory, misplaced ideologies, how it stamped the collective consciousness of an entire generation of youth in the country, how it became self-defeating and ultimately crumbled under its own violence.

How she reconstructs the entire atmosphere of the Calcutta of the late sixties and seventies, and brings alive the volatile times in her book so evocatively, is truly the mark of a great writer. Much research and careful study is required to present an authentic picture of those times, especially since the author herself was born much later, when the movement had already died its natural death.

Lahiri moves away from her recurrent theme of expatriate experiences, to weave this hauntingly beautiful tale, set initially in Calcutta, and then in Rhode Island, USA. More emotional than her earlier stories, The Lowland is an intensely personal tale as well. Moving back and forth within the consciousness of Subhash and Udayan, Gauri and Bela, you cannot entirely sympathize with or hate any one character. Each one has their justification for doing what they do or not do.

I felt she was partial to Udayan and Gauri, only to be shocked by the revelations later. Subhash is panned by Lahiri for his impassiveness, but she has him rewarded for his goodness later. Bela comes across as a vulnerable, emotionally wrecked child initially, but her later metamorphosis surprises the reader once again. The author adds wonderful nuances to her characters - the way Gauri lives in Udayan’s shadow even after his death, their mother calling Subhash by his brother’s name, Bela’s observations of an entirely different way of life in Calcutta. She takes time to fully etch out a character, slowly revealing them through their responses to each passing incident, just as in real life it takes time to know a person.

The Lowland seems to be the culmination of Lahiri’s painstaking research and her powerful literary capabilities. She seems to reach the pinnacle of her literary career with this Booker nominated novel. 

Or is there more that she has in store for us readers? Will she continue to surprise us with more such fine stories in the future? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.