MATCHBOX

We take birth in a world of horror where our own space is haunted by someone else’s ghost. Similarly, the fear inside us gives room to people and entities to prepare us for the battles of life. The One Legged, a translation of Sakyajit Bhattacharya’s Bengali novel Ekanore is all about making horror personal and intimate around its protagonist Tunu. It is a slow-burner and it haunts without making us realize the process of possession. Rituparna Mukherjee, the translator of the novel, sets a certain tone that makes it creepy yet seductive. The seduction makes us travel with the story, and the creepiness brings the terror. The translation breaks the fourth wall of human mind to force us get into the zone where disgust, humour, perversion and sadness do not just hover. Rather they tease and tantalize our perception and limits. They become one with our erect, fleshy goosebumps.

David Lynch, in his film Blue Velvet, explores how our knowledge about reality fades when the elements that frighten us become our holding stick. In the book, all the characters are afraid of the ghost named Ekanore, but they hold on to the image of the ghost, using fear or curiosity or a weird kind of arousal. The loneliness in Tunu’s life leads him to discover strangeness without any filters. His voyeurism comes without any appropriation which makes the novel stand beyond the genre of horror. Lynch’s Mulholland Drive is all about seeking acceptance and flowering expectations even though both of them take the protagonist to darker territories. The story of Ekanore has the same narrative wherein the protagonist in search of validation in an unconventional manner. His curiosity parts ways from right and wrong. Even the other young men of this novel believe in taking any means possible to have be happy and take a break from activities which may appear obscene or wrong. They storm to surrender with the hope that it may lead to a better version of their lives.

The tale of Ekanore has travelled through generations with certain social objective i.e. to tame and discipline children. Robert Eggers’ film The Witch is considered as underrated horror. But it metamorphoses like a drama to state the fact that the call of Satan feels liberating especially for imprisoned beings and their souls.

Thus, the naked silhouette of Thomasin played by Anya Taylor-Joy is how Eggers portrays freedom. In most Indian families, children are expected to stay within the boundaries drawn by the elders and thus, Ekanore, in this novel, is not only a ghost of a mythical tale. It is also an amalgamate of the fears and desire of children who grow-up hoping to achieve what their heart says. The scream of young minds is what manifests in this book. Sakyajit’s dark story sheds light on something that has been kept in the dark forever by people clawed by tradition and monopoly.

There is a reason why in many parts of the world it is told that Satan wants to breed children to keep himself relevant. The complex minds of children go hand-in-hand with their warm and innocent heart. They offer their soul and body to anyone who opens-up a dimension that is exclusive for their own adventures. The One Legged delivers us a ride that triggers our conscience. We, as adult readers, do enjoy getting triggered by a story, but what matters is whether, in the long run, we are doing justice to what we read. The complex wishes of the young minds are pretty simple, if seen using a larger lens. The aspect of getting in an uncomfortable position is what keeps these desires complex for the adult minds. Joko Anwar sums it up in his film Satan’s Slaves where Satan uses a communion to select his representative and then breeds a woman with his child. The behavioural complexity of the child leads his siblings to a horrifying dimension. It is the innocence that keeps the parents away from understanding his reality. We are fond of a child’s innocence but our effort never goes beyond it. Sakyajit, in this novel, strips innocence to make us confront Tunu’s mind that is in need of a companion who can relate to what he thinks, speaks, observes, and feels.

Young minds do not have filters. So, when Tunu blames his maternal uncle for his grandmother’s grief, he is not adjusting to any kind of familial custom. Similarly, the way he appreciates his aunt’s body with his gaze gives us a glimpse of how the knowledge of certain boundaries is still not his worrying factor. His nine-year old mind is unaware of how society shames an incestuous attraction, even when Krishna is still worshipped with his lover, Radha (who happens to be her mami or aunt). The comfort of children lies in the hands of their parents and so, grief and awkwardness become a permanent body-mate. Ekanore is not a ghost of the tree. It is the ghost that drives people to establish unkindness. The unsettling thoughts of the characters brew the story and thus, at the very end, we either find ourselves disturbed after knowing the harsh reality of society we simply lose ourselves to harness the darkness inside us. A better human being is nothing but a person who knows his dark thoughts and overpowers them to not get consumed by the monster. This book does not teach or preach. It simply exhibits our cold and dark elements.

Sakyajit Bhattacharya’s novel is a brave attempt and a wake-up call. It is an unusual horror novel that sticks to the basics of human life. The blade gets enough space to peel what society wants to stay hidden. Rituparna Mukherjee does not just translate the book. She magnifies the build-up and atmosphere of Tunu’s life and everything adhered to the ghost, we know as, Ekanore.

            A promising book that is rich in its literary quotient, it reaches places we would be afraid to go. Good books last for a long, long time and this is one of them.

Buy the book here.