Shashi Deshpande A Matter Of Time - Review
A
Family tries to cope with history, past glory and personal tragedies
and stumble upon the truth and learn to handle it in their own ways
whether or not they are prepared for it. The family tries to cope with
shame and humiliation with a superificial composed-ness, ghosts of the
past keep haunting them though as they try to make sense of why it had
to be them. Shashi Deshpande weaves a tale of almost four generations
intertwined within their milieau so deeply that it has become a cobweb
hard to be sorted.The title The Matter Of Time seems to hint at the attributed virtue of time to be a great teacher, but hardly as a healer because there's hardly such a time and if ever it doesn't come as much of a respite as the next tragedy is looming large at them and they know.
Each character though puts up a brave fight except for the protagonist Gopal, who in a way brings it upon the others due to his philosophical yearnings. In a way he becomes an instrument for the others to discover and connect their lives with the past. There are no lessons to be learnt though it seems as the sutradhar often assures us, except for complete acceptance.
The book perhaps lies emphasis on the fact at how marriage as an institution can be perceived by some people and how it might be perceived in a very orthodox society. It is not celibacy that Gopal wants, neither he denounces physical aspect of loving so as such he is hardly an ascetic but in him he has inklings of a poet or a wanderer who wishes to follow his own path, only meeting people as acquaintances. He himself tries to search meaning into this unusual yearning. How does he justify his act to these pragmatic worldly people and make them understand something beyond their ken.
Deshpande uses various tools to juxtapose the characters' existentialist dilemma, Indian mythology, Western philosophy, Kannada literature, even oral tradition in the way of Kalyani telling the family story, are a means for the characters' to analyse their circumstances.
