The Ashes of Art

Saikat Majumdar’s novel pulls you in and sets you on a family’s travails in India in the mid to late-1980’s, revealing the beating pulse of a culture often at odds with itself. Set in north Calcutta, it is the story of Ori, a small boy growing up in the midst of a once-affluent family trying to maintain its “class” in a time when reputations are lost largely through rumor and innuendo. The book is primarily about Ori, but also tells the story of his mother, a stage actress. In fact, The Firebird refers to a play, the Bengali version of Joan of Arc, in which she plays the lead.

The author launches directly into the story: “Disaster came early in Ori’s life, at the age of five, the first time he saw his mother die.” Ori’s father brings him to see his mother act on stage, but the terrified child thinks his mother is really dead. Ori’s life continues to be a series of traumatizing experiences from that point onward.

His parents occupy central pillars in the narrative, figures of an occasionally bitter nostalgia and somewhat self-absorbed and very dysfunctional. His mother, the remote goddess-like beauty that he longs to be close to, is a tragic victim of ancient family values that build a wall of judgment between her and her son, who is forced to internalize this judgment. Even though he wants to protect her against gossip, he still thinks he is sweeping under the rug her dirty secrets— mainly that she is a free-spirited woman who will not compromise her career choice for the sake of appearances. She passionately loves the theatre, and with all the gossip and frowning of family and neighbors, she still finds no good reason to give up acting. This causes a deep schism in the family. She cares for Ori, as suggested in her habit of laying out his ironed clothes and preparing lunch for school, but she feels isolated due to her family’s misguided sense of values, as she fails to express the love that Ori craves, and in the end he begins to resent her.

Ori’s father, on the other hand, has a poet’s heart, and even that does not stop him from succumbing to the general viciousness with which the community surrounds his wife, and he slowly replaces his love for her with hate. Granted, as he comes from a prominent family, at first he enjoys the fact that his wife is an admired actress, but he gradually becomes disillusioned as the social stigma becomes unbearable. Instead of joining forces with his wife against the others, he lets the community shatter his image of his wife, and he retreats into himself when neighbors and those in his own household begin to criticize her for not staying at home: “The more his wife spent her evenings away from home, the easier it was for him to sleep away his own evenings. The more she found him lost, the more she was gone.” Giving up on love for the sake of social currency, he also abandons his role as a father. Gradually, Ori’s father sinks into a pattern of going to sleep earlier and earlier, leaving Ori increasingly lonely.

Naturally, Ori turns to anyone who will give him affection. He becomes closer to his grandmother, Mummum. In his affection-less world, Ori feels happiest when he is with her: “Ori treasured his nights in his grandmother’s room…far from the hot vapour of anger in his parents’ bedroom as they locked themselves in after dinner. Only with Mummum was he safe. No one else.” That need to feel safe in an unsafe world is paramount for Ori, and the author conveys this through the boy’s joy in being with his grandmother who tells him stories in which he can get lost, while he finds unusual ways to comb and braid her hair. This bond is also permeated by sadness, since the grandmother...