An Equal Temperament

Wodehouse used the word ‘shimmer’ to describe Jeeves’ unobtrusive but insistent presence. It is a good word to describe Amit Chaudhuri’s new novel. Through 400-odd pages, it shimmers, without stating its case. The exquisite passages of intelligence that typified this writer’s early pensive novels are present, but are lost in the torpor of his protagonist’s vacant gaze, best summarised in the novel’s last, and snappiest, paragraph: "Nirmalya sighed as he refolded the aerogramme. He sat and looked straight in front of him. Where did this sudden melancholy come from? Was it Pyarelal, or the light outside, or the way in which Shyamji had gone abruptly? Or was it something without history, a dull, buzzing ache which had first announced itself to him during his transformation from a child into a young man, which had no present and immediate cause?"

Nirmalya’s omphalocentric universe trails the ascent of his parents up the corporate ladder. Buoyed on South Bombay’s rarefied air (a perk in itself), the Sengupta menage evolves from the genteel (Kemp’s Corner) through the nervously nouveau riche (Malabar Hill) to casually affluent Cuffe Parade at apogee.