Rainy Kalden
The Oblique Rays of Sunshine by writer Prerna Dewan Rai, published in 2022 by Writer’s Pocket publication, is set against the backdrop of the agitation of 2017 in Darjeeling. It recounts the lives of not just Charles and Mohini, who seem to be ill-timed sweethearts in the story, but the novel reveals a plethora of past that has been intimately connected to the hills since time immemorial. As Rai puts it, “History repeats”. In this work, the desire for ‘Gorkhaland’ accompanied by chant songs of protests, rebellion, curfew and death evoke the memories that have always been associated with the name and demand for ‘Gorkhaland’.
Although the novel deals with a very sombre subject matter that includes death, murder, poverty and revolt, the writer captures not just the image of blood and tears but also the scenic beauty of the Darjeeling hills through the eyes and experiences of the characters. The portrayal of local scenes abounds in visits to Bhola’s Aloo Shop near Nepali Girl’s High School popularly known as Boarding School locally and students attending winter tuitions. One can almost hear the choir singing in the cathedrals of missionary school and the conversations of the women at the public spring. The novel depicts the mundane activities of the civilians as well as the young sweethearts who experience the emergence of love. Later, as the tension rips apart this delight of daily existence, one cannot help but feel nostalgia for it. It is astounding how Darjeeling, with its mountains that appear to reach the heavens, can be both a location of exquisite beauty and a place where the view of the mountains is stained red by the blood of its people.
Rai also alludes to the lament for the loss of lives that has accompanied the demand for a separate territorial space since the 1960s referred to as ‘Chyasi’. Further, she also makes reference to how the youth fled into the dense forests at night to hide from police raids on the villages. The image of the sweat and pounding hearts of men as they remain vigilant and covert, expecting death just around the corner and the women who are left alone to pray for everyone’s safety is bone chilling. Rarely do all the men return, leaving behind the rest of the family—now fragmented by death— to cling to the waves of agitation and also to push forward in hopes that their loved ones sacrifice their lives in vain for an ungranted homeland. The agitation in Darjeeling is a movement for which many have perished and many remain the living dead.
In the novel, a group of characters led by Rajesh, who wants to lead the rebellion clash with another group of innocent individuals who are merely assisting a bride and her groom in escaping is what develops the agitation. This compels one to ponder on the demand for ‘Gorkhaland’ which has been supported repeatedly for extended periods of time by all civilians from Darjeeling since 1986 which still remains far from success. It has always come to an end with unreasonable periods of shutdown and no resolution. A simple word—”party”—caused a misunderstanding between Rajesh’s group and the group of the bride and groom. The misunderstanding of one group, leads to murder and sets off families breaking, students getting expelled and many dreams dashed. It is perhaps due to the lack of a common ground of the political parties leading the civilians in the agitation that yields such failure.
The narrative style leads us through historical events of the 1986 agitation movement popularly known as the ‘Chyasi Andolan’ and the 2017 agitation movement. Today one who has experienced the widespread shutdowns due to ‘covid’ can further relate to the growing sense of uncertainty and panic when a large-scale lockdown is followed by curfew and the order to shoot individuals on sight. While some families experience a decline in their financial stability, others end up losing their members. The narrator expresses these emotions through a variety of characters, both young and old, in the agitation movement, which is rife with the suffocation of dashed aspirations. The horrors of the agitation movement have left many traumatised by the death of their friends and loved ones before their very eyes. Unable to move forward with their lives, it is only when the characters again unite towards the end of the novel and come together back in the same hill town that they can attempt a second chance to live a life among common fellow sufferers of the past.
For the Darjeeling hill people, the memories of the unrest connected to the ‘Gorkhaland’ movement have long been a living nightmare. Children grow up hearing bedtime tales about their fathers or uncles hiding in the woods. As the cry for ‘Gorkhaland’ continues to resound, the ‘Khukuri’ is a symbol that serves to remind the populace of the blood they bear on their shoulders. However, faint questions arise: is it really worthwhile to have a place you can name home, built with so much blood and destruction? Is such land even one that can be openly claimed as their home? Is such widespread sacrifice necessary? What even is a homeland where living people are drowned in the past of bloodshed? Why are people and the land connected in such a complicated way?
Over all the novel makes us delight in the grandeur of Darjeeling hills while simultaneously unsettling and disturbing us because the desire for homeland is is accompanied by the unfathomable sacrifice of numerous individuals. Here, Rai voices the cries, the anguish, the agony and the determination of the people to keep fighting for ‘Gorkhaland’. The hill people are never ‘less’, they are always ‘more’ be it in celebrating or in pursuing the dream for ‘Gorkhaland’ for which so many of their brothers and sisters have sacrificed their lives.
(A voracious reader, Rainy Kalden is doing her postgraduate studies at Sikkim University. She most relishes reading novels. Because she is from Darjeeling, she is particularly interested in reading about the people, the culture, and the rich heritage of the Darjeeling hills. Her pen is adept at noting poems, essays, and has always been on the cusp of writing her much-desired self-written novel. )
