AUTHOR – ARUN JOSHI
PUBLISHED IN – 1971
PAGES – 175
SPOILERS AHEAD.
I will say one thing: it definitely lived up to it’s name. The story follows the narrative of Romi who recollects his friendship with Billy Biswas and his adventures. Romi met Billy during his stay in America but had to return to India once his father expired. He went on to apply for civil service examinations only because he had nothing else to do. He succeeds in it and after he is settled in his job, he marries Situ, who was selected by his uncle. Billy continues to stay in contact with him all throughout. He himself comes back from America and takes up a teaching position for anthropology. He marries Meena and later they have a son. Despite his well settled life, Billy finds himself in constant agony over the fact that his belongingness seems amiss. On one of his excursions to a forest, he goes missing and after two years of search, he is thought of taken away by a man-eater. It is only after ten years that Romi meets Billy again. From then now Billy narrates why he decided to stay missing and tells him about his new livelihood. That takes up half the book. As Billy describes, once he reaches the forest, he finds his calling there. Frustrated by the way the humans work in the lives, caring for things that aren’t worth it, Billy decides to stay back in the forest and marries a rather mysterious tribal woman. Later things take a bad turn when Meena finds out about Billy and in her pursuit, Billy ends up getting killed.
The central theme of the book was existentialism. The whys and hows of Billy. There’s also some aspects of folklore and surrealism involved. I liked it alright. The flow of the narration was beautiful but I was not exactly into it. It’s always amusing to try a different author so that was definitely there. I am not in right frame of minds to deal with existentialism right now.
There was one part which made me terribly happy though: the mention of my hometown. I have never read any book that has mentioned it. It is obviously my fault since I read a lot of books by foreign authors rather than Indian ones but even in Indian books, I have seldom come across the name. I don’t know why but I felt proud. And it happens to be the very place where Billy first started to feel uneasy. Should I move out of here?
I loved the way the author had painted Billy Biswas as. Every time there was a dialogue by him, it made me smile. It was as if I could completely understand his waywardness and was okay with him for being who he was. His faults and uncertainties seemed immaterial to me. In a way I believe I was as struck by him as was Romi. Every time Billy arrived in the scene, I felt like I was in my forties and had spent the last twenty years waiting for him.
Lastly, I couldn’t help but hate both Situ and Meena. I don’t recall when was the last time I felt so strong hatred for a female character. Usually I am able to sympathize with them. I bear nothing but pure rage for these two women though.
Random fact: Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, joined the monastery so that he could study and didn’t have to worry about his livelihood. Is there any good biography of him? I owe him because I can blame most of my lacunas on genetics.
Why am I so glad that June is finally coming to an end?
Frozen lives 