A review of my first book 'Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism' (With a Foreword by Amrit Gangar) [2019] by Dr Charanjeet Kaur

Mamta Mantri: Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism (With a Foreword by Amrit Gangar) [2019]

Cambridge Scholars Publishing (UK)

ISBN (10): 1-5275-2390-X

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-2390-6

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Charanjeet Kaur

Questioning binaries and crafting/exploring ‘Space’: A Review of

Mamta Mantri’s Bombay Novels: Some Insights into Spatial Criticism

 

A scholarly and well-researched work, Mamta Mantri’s Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism, follows all the conventions of research writing meticulously; this is not surprising at all because it is the thesis for which Mantri has been awarded the PhD degree at the University of Mumbai. The added value is that it has been published by that renowned house of academic scholarship, - the Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK. Also, the perceptive Introduction by Amrit Gangar, the well-known film historian and writer, in which he locates the city of Mumbai within the mindscape of all those who belong to the ‘Ruralopolis’ as he calls it. He has high praise for Mantri’s work when he says, ‘this book comprehends the intellectual and emotional immensity of the megalopolis Bombay/ Mumbai within its primary engagement of four fictional or semi-fictional literary works of different tenors, times, textures, and temperaments.’

 

The four texts selected for analysis – DayaPawar’s Baluta(1975, translated into English by Jerry Pinto in 2015), Anita Desai’s Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988) Kiran Nagarkar’s Ravan and Eddie (1995) and Gregory David Robert’s Shantaram (2003) – offer the widest possible representations of the city ranging from the very vernacular dalit consciousness to the labour class, to the diasporic sensibility and the ‘outsider’ perspective’, bringing into play the sense of belonging/ separation/ alienation/ observation vis-à-vis the ‘spaces in which the narratives unfold.

 

Mantri takes up the spatial aspect of narratives as central to her study. ‘Since space and ownership are vital subjects in postcolonial studies,’ she says, it is important to explore Mumbai in terms of who occupies this space’, by focussing upon the dynamic relations between space, place, and literature. Space, thus, is much more than a mere, empty, passive ‘setting’– something like a blank static canvas -on which the action unfolds in time. The time/space binary is challenged as space emerges as an almost living entity, which is as vital to the action as the characters themselves and as fluid and moving as time. The spatial dimension of Bombay/Mumbai reminds me of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, especially Egdon Heath, which in The Return of the Native, has often been referred to as a character central to the tragic happenings in the lives of its inhabitants. So, whether it is the slum basti or the chawls or the skyscrapers of Mumbai, the lives of Baluta, Shantaram/Lin, Ravan/Eddie, and Hugo Baumgartner, are as much defined by the physical spaces with which they interact, as by the times they live in (volatile times beginning with the Emergency and going through the whole gamut of contemporary events till 2003) and the social milieu to which they belong. In fact, their very identity is linked with and shaped by the spaces in which they move.

 

It is an ambitious project that Mamta Mantri takes up and the scope of her research is far wider than the literary. Drawing upon a large range of sources – newspapers, gazettes, films, film history, geography, historical records and modern, postmodern, psychological, Marxist, and spatial theorists, she attempts a very comprehensive account of how the city enters the life of its dwellers, bringing with it a deep sense of belonging as well as alienations and disharmonies. Contradictions, which perhaps do not infuse rural spaces as much. The reading of, especially, a whole galaxy of literary theorists that are part of this work is truly mind-boggling, too numerous to be listed in a short review; what she is able to achieve with extensive citation is a rich critical, theoretical, and literary intertextuality in her thesis.

 

It is in this backdrop that she takes up the exploration of four complex and diverse contemporary literary works, and the challenge to seek answers to troubling questions regarding the relationship people have with the urban spaces of which they are part. In her own words: ‘How does the metropolis work as an icon of experiences of modernity and postcolonialism including fragmentation and disorientation? How do city dwellers experience and resist modern power structures? How does the modern city construct identity? What is the relationship between the city and the senses? What urban fantasies preoccupy modernist literature? What are the haunting ghosts of the city? What is the relationship between the inside and the outside of city life? How is the metropolis represented in tourist guides? How does the literature of the metropolis interact with the visual arts, films, and performance?’ 

 

These questions are taken up systematically and at length in individual chapters which study the intellectual idea behind Bombay, historical factors that continue to shape it, its representation in cinema and literature, the sensory experience of the life of the city, questions of identity and most significantly, the gaze of the Flâneur, ‘that makes Bombay/Mumbai more visual than any other sensory perception when looked at spatially. The ‘impressions’ of the city under the gaze of the Flâneurare fragmentary collages, mediated by memory and the present. Even in Baluta, in which Pawar to some extent subverts the idea by making his protagonist much more than an observer of the city, since he has a more intimate relationship with it, Mumbai quietly absorbs him as they become a part of each other. It is the questioning within the various frameworks that Mantri uses which makes this work valuable. I would like to cite what Amrit Gangar says in his Introduction as an apt and concise description of Bombay Novels… ‘[It] is a cumulative experience of the city, its post-colonial and post-modern spatial urbanity which finds us as citizens, and we, her.’

 

It is heartening to come across a doctoral thesis that has proven to be publication-worthy. Initially, I found it a bit surprising that the author has chosen to retain the thesis format, by and large, and that she has not re-written it to conform to the patterns of book publishing. But then, why not? A scholar puts in hard work to produce an academic document and follows the stylesheets and conventions of academic writing rigorously; so, if it is published as it is – in the research format, it becomes an endorsement of the methodology followed by the scholar.  The bibliography, citations, and the endnotes, along with long, relevant quotations culled from the literature surveyed make for depth in the work. Publications like these will be an encouragement for researchers to prioritize the quality of the work and also to write more specifically with a view to serious publication.

 

Lastly, like all good research, this one has several books within it waiting to be written and presents leads for further research on the various strands Mantri has touched upon. Thus, a whole thesis can be written exclusively on the idea of the Flâneur,, the city and the perspectives of the protagonist/ narrator in a novel like Ravan and Eddie. Similarly, a work like Baluta calls for a much more extensive analysis within the framework of spatial theories and the futility of the insider/outsider binaries in complex personal, community, temporal and spatial contexts. At least a few research papers can also be taken up on the theoretical and political implications of Bombay/ Mumbaisensibilities and their depiction in English and Marathi texts. These possibilities which a research work opens up become the beacons for the exploration of newer, emerging areas and consolidates the dynamic nature of the research process as well as a truly comprehensive exploration like the one undertaken in Bombay Novels: Some Insights in Spatial Criticism.

 

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Bionote:

Charanjeet Kaur, retired academician, has two published poetry collections - Mirror Image and Other Poems and The Songs from the Hills. She writes short stories which have been published in journals like Manushi and New Quest in India. Her poetry has appeared in Indian literary journals like Chandrabhaga, Kavya Bharati, and others. Post-retirement, she works with Sound & Picture ARchives for Research On Women (SPARROW) in an honorary capacity, and writes features and book reviews regularly for their Newsletter, as their Consultant Editor. She has been the Chief Editor and General Editor of the literary ejournal Muse India. 

 

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