It would have been impossible to write Alipura in 2021. “Village and block Alipura, district Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh”, with its dominantly H...
It would have been impossible to write Alipura in 2021. “Village and block Alipura, district Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh”, with its dominantly Hindu population would probably not exist, having been forced into a nomenclatural change to a benign and acceptable “Amitpuri” or “Rampura”, as per a certain dispensation’s current creative agenda. However, written in Hindi in 1995 as Baramasi, Gyan Chaturvedi’s novel manages to capture that title as well as the various inflections of provincial life in the adroit hands of its translator Salim Yusufji.
Set in Bundelkhand of the 1960s, Alipura performs significant calisthenics with social commentary and satire, humour, politics, and Hindi heartland cultural imperatives. Multiple nods to Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari, seamless segueing with Phanishwar Nath Renu’s aanchalik upanyas, a fair bit of prophesying about the resurgence of Savarna, right-wing extremism in India, Alipura is a delightful romp through the flux of the ’60s and ’70s.
Till it is not. Till it turns into a sombre exposition of exactly what it means to be powerless in a power-hungry socio-political milieu.
Tracing the history of the Dube family, fallen on bad days since the early and unexpected demise of their father, well-regarded poet and seemingly urbane Amritlal, the novel is a sprawling story of four brothers – Guchchan, Chhuttan, Chandu and Lalla,...
