The cover of Subimal Misra’s ‘Anti-Novels’: I am sorry I am middle class
On 8 February 2023, Subimal Misra died. I didn’t know who he was when he died. I still don’t know who he was now. All I know is I have been hoarding books my whole life, sometimes purchased entirely on whim and because I got them at a discount or that the cover looked great or the font looked great, and Subimal’s ‘Two Anti-Novels’ found its way into my shelf the same way. The edges of its pages are colored saffron, that’s possibly why it caught my eye. Or maybe it’s the fact that the title implied it was not — they were not — a novel but something against the very idea of a novel. It could also be that as you ruffle the pages, you notice the book is made up of fragments, hosting different fonts and font sizes and alignments, and not a whole. I cannot remember when or where I bought it. All I know is that it exists on my shelf, and this morning I lifted it off its corner on that shelf, and placed it on my lap to see if there was anything I could learn from it. Why? Learn what, though? What am I hoping would happen after I read this book that hasn’t happened after I read the hundreds of books before this? What am I hoping would change? I do not know.
It is a habit of mine to read the blurb, the writing on the flaps of the cover, the reviews of the book, before I launch into the book itself, ’cause it feels like it informs me on what to see when I read it. But why am I even trying to see whatever it has to offer? What difference does it make to my life? I do not know.
On the cover of Two Anti-Novels, someone has summarized the book for me. I glance at the words, and I pause as my eyes travel down the text: “…every time the author attempts to write that story [the novel he set out to write], reality intrudes in various forms to create a picture of nation and society that is broken down and where systemic inequalities are perpetuated by the middle and upper classes, which are either indifferent or actively malignant” goes the description, “Together [they novels] are a direct assault on the ‘vast conspiracy of not seeing’ that makes us look away from the realities of our socio-political order. I feel uneasy. I turn to the next page. Jerry Pinto reviews the book: “[the techniques in Subimal’s stories] undercut the pretensions and hypocrisies by which we live”. Amitava Kumar writes below that, “[everywhere in Subimal’s writing we encounter] piquant critiques of middle-class pretensions and sexual hypocrisy”. And I realize I am about to enter into something I cannot come out as I was from. I feel that familiar thrill from my having come across one more thing that’d shape my narrative in permanent ways. But I do not why and I do not think about the why; I do not think about what I expect to happen from this piece of ‘literature’ except that it could possibly ‘change my life’.
The truth is… I am that indifferent, and sometimes actively malignant, middle class person that Subimal hopes to reach through his writing. I am that pretentious, hypocritical middle class person that Pinto and Amitava cheer on to read and learn from. It is true. It is the truest thing. Even as I type this, seated on my plush mattress in a fully air conditioned apartment that has three rooms and a hall all of which have their own air conditioners to ensure there is no lag in the cooling, a boy of nine or ten reaches for the mesh covering the glass windows adorning my room with a brush. He coughs as I type this, his frail torso is too short to reach the upper levels of the windows, so he waves the brush haphazardly and the piles of dust having accumulated on the metal mesh over the year rises all at onces and enters his nostrils. He’s been instructed by his mother, who is our maid and who is my age but looks atleast a decade older and has two children both of which are in schools, to dust the mesh — the Telugu festival of Sankranthi is around the corner and my mother is getting the apartment deep cleaned to mark the beginning of another term. I sit on my mattress only partially registering the fact that a child nearly 1/3rd my age is cleaning my windows, while I sit here fingering the saffron pages of Subimal’s Two Anti-Novels hoping for something to happen. I have a watch that costs about 5,000 INR on my left wrist, the cost of his mother’s wages for the whole month from which she supports their education; I have a Kindle White on my right that allows me access to more literature that is aimed to ‘change my life’ but which doesn’t.
I am middle class, and I am indifferent, and I do not read the news, and I do not try to educate myself on what’s happening in the country for I do not have much context, and cannot hence have much perspective either. I do not try either; it is exhausting trying to read about something I cannot relate to at all. I am middle class, and I studied all the history and geography I wanted to in school to score good marks in my Boards, and then to get into a good University that’d land me a good position in a good office that’d ensure my lifestyle continues unaffected and unabated by the going-ons in the country; I have no use for any other information about the country. What would I do with the news? How do I piece together what’s happening around the country with what I already know, when what I already know had been gathered for a specific purpose — the procurement of seats in Universities, and then the jobs — and the fulfillment of that purpose ensured automatic deletion of that knowledge? How do I process the news, without any context? How do I regain context? How long am I supposed to read the news, how extensively, and how consistently, in order to regain that context? How loyal should I be to this enterprise so I could gain not only the context but also that perspective, with respect to these non-middle class causes? I am middle class, and I have enough and more of everything I need. What happens in this country does not happen to me. I am middle class, and I have worse problems. For example that I am 29 and must: stop dating toxic men, and find someone decent to “settle down with”; lose 10 kilos, so I can feel fitter and happier with my life; follow my skincare routine twice a day, ’cause my skin needs nourishment; use conditioner and have amla ’cause I am starting to bald around the forehead, and I found two grey strands last year that I have now expertly cut and taken care of but only for now; heal from generational trauma, and baggage from past relationships, and bullying as a child. What goes on in this country, or what I gather from the news, cannot help me with these causes. So I do not read the news.
But does all of this stop me from reading this book? Or other books like it? No. I read literature by writers that promise it’d ‘change my life’. And I wait for change to happen. And when it doesn’t, I read some more.
