Racy, but flawed

Society by Mehernosh Kapadia. Published in 2010 by Kumar Publications, 201, Sai Shradha, Plot no 312, Sector 21, Nerul, New Bombay 400706. Pp: 367. Price: Rs 250.

In Mehernosh Kapadia’s debut novel, Society, a girl is accused of murder. As is evident from the image on the front cover, the scales of justice are unequally balanced as the girl, Vrinda Athavle, is a prostitute, a Dalit as well as a seasoned drug addict. The victim, Vijay Patel, is the son of Godha Patel, a powerful Member of Parliament from Maharashtra, who has aspirations of becoming the next Prime Minister of India in the forthcoming national elections. Selected by the court to fight for Vrinda is N. Dev, a well heeled and successful lawyer who is comfortably installed in a palatial home and a plush office and whose clients hail from the higher echelons of society. With such ingredients it is difficult for a novel to fail to be a page turner.

And no one can dispute the fact that it is a racy and fast paced thriller. As is usual with this genre of fiction, the novel is extremely tightly plotted; one is keen to know whether Vrinda will finally manage to get free and even when, as most often happens in such cases that the underdog will finally emerge victorious, the reader is curious to see how the author manages the final outcome.

Mehernosh Kapadia: good storyteller

Though the novel is strong on plot, it is weak on characters. These are rather paper thin and flat and not only do they fail to surprise us but they are also very clearly defined in terms of black and white. The categorization into good and bad is so complete that it is difficult to conceive of them as human beings. There is some transformation in the central character, Dev. His fall from riches to rags is well depicted by Kapadia. Though Dev’s father wanted his son to model himself on Nani Palkhivala — hence the "N” before his name — in his meteoric rise and worldly success Dev has totally disregarded his father’s wishes. His prowess so far has not been measured on his legal skills but on the underhand deals and shady arrangements he perpetrates with lawyers to win his cases. His office is described in great detail — wood paneled walls, Persian carpets; his house is located in elite Bandra West, the "queen of the suburbs;” he drives a black and silver Bentley and he has memberships to the Cricket Club of India and the Bombay Gymkhana. However, when he decides, unwillingly at first, to take up Vrinda’s case, he soon realizes how insubstantial all his worldly possessions are. He loses his job, his office, his car, his wife abandons him and the bank calls back its loan! Dev does face all his problems and fights valiantly to overcome them.

Compared to him, all the other characters are typecast — the dishonest and lecherous politician, the powerful builder lobby, the senior partners in the law firm who are more concerned with prestige and currying favor with the powerful rather than supporting the innocent downtrodden. The ability to create convincing characters is critical to a novel like this; else how does it differ from the reports which appear in the Press on an almost daily basis? The reader gets a sense of déjà vu as the struggle by the underprivileged to get justice from corrupt politicians and the nexus between the latter and the builder lobby is a well known fact. One often gets the feeling that Kapadia does not really shed new light on this age-old problem; neither does he reveal "painful truths” nor does the reader come to a realization that society has "degenerated” as the blurbs on the rear cover suggest.

This is a pity because Kapadia can write very effectively at times. Dev and Sahas are great friends at Law school. Their plan to practise together rapidly disintegrates when Dev gets appointed by a reputed firm. He abandons Sahas without a thought like a "Kutch summer storm that dumps two inches of rain and then abruptly disappears.” Kapadia’s comparison between cricket and the legal system is well thought out and interesting. His feel for irony works very well when Dev makes a totally insincere speech at the beginning of the novel where he utters the usual clichés about how lawyers should do good, fight for justice and make the world a better place to live in by defending the poor, the innocent and the oppressed. These fine words and emotions crumble very fast a few pages later when Justice Bharucha appoints him to fight for Vrinda; he gets cold feet and is quite willing to force the innocent girl to plead guilty to safeguard his own position.

However, what is most disappointing in the book are the numerous errors both of language and punctuation which could have been avoided with careful proof reading. These assault the reader from the very first page where there is a clause which is dangling in mid air "Which startled Vijay” and which is used as a full sentence. On the same page is the description of a prostitute who is dressed in a hot pink miniskirt with matching "heals” instead of "heels.” Describing Dev’s earnings in the firm, Kapadia talks of his "racking” instead of "raking” in profits. The perquisites Dev enjoys are qualified as "coverted” instead of "coveted.” Occasionally there are misplaced quote marks, apostrophes, errors in capitalization and meaningless repetition of words.

At the opening of the Landmark store, Sir Jeffery Archer made a distinction between a writer and a novelist. He stressed the fact that good writers need not necessarily be good storytellers. So many novels fail because the authors are good writers but bad storytellers. Rudyard Kipling mentioned that for every thousand writers there is one good storyteller. The best of the storytellers encourage you to turn the page of the novel you are reading and carry on with it. Kapadia certainly fulfills this qualification of a good storyteller and makes the reader pursue with the story but one wonders if Archer has underrated the quality of good writing which one feels is certainly a prerequisite and the foundation of a good storyteller.

FIRDAUS GANDAVIA