Benares's Romantics

After reading “The Romantics” by Pankaj Mishra I have been wondering how this book managed to stay away from the best-sellers' shelves and from the pirated book-stalls.

It’s a wonderfully written tale of the narrator “Samar” who comes to the city of Benares and is pushed into the world of some foreigners who have come there to spiritually enlighten themselves. The book shows a beautiful and ironic picture of the confusions and realizations of the expatriates in the country mixed with the Samar’s curiosity and awkwardness towards these aliens and their life. The book proceeds, taking Samar to Pondicherry for a while where he meets his father who then sends him to Dharamshala. All this while he tries to come to terms with the past and make a sense of his life. The story ends in Benares again where he comes one last time to face the past he had left behind. The very nature of the three places played an important role in Samar's life. The hustle bustle of Benares represent the restlessness Samar felt in the new world. Pondicherry made him realize what he had left behind and sort of help him in his transition to everything which came later. During the seven years, the silence and serenity of Dharamshala makes him lose himself in the memories of the past and the realities of life's expectations.

I believe this book puts Pankaj Mishra in same league with Amitav Ghosh and Jhumpa Lahiri not because of how good they write but because of their capacity to take a part of one ordinary man’s journey through life and make it look extra ordinary and truly beautiful. Being his first novel he doesn’t gives any signs of immaturity, the credit of which goes to the fact that he has written two travellogues and is also a regular writer in Nytimes Opinion columns. He is very lyrical in his narration and gives a beautiful picture of Benares. It’s so good that one can’t help imagining being in the city himself. I would say the story ends up provoking a thought that we all go through these similar extra-ordinary situations and gradually morph into what we truly are today just like Samar did. It also made me realize that there is an amazing story in all of us, it just looks deceptively ordinary.