Tabish Khair’s new novel The Night of Happiness is a tale of a pragmatic businessman Anil Mehrotra, who has a strange experience in the house of his most trusted employee Ahmed, on Shab-e-Baraat or the Night of Happiness. Because of a storm, Mehrotra finds himself in Ahmed’s house where the latter offers Mehrotra a plate of Nimkee with halwa that his Ammajaan used to once make.
As Ahmed relishes the halwa, Mehrotra realises that it does not exist on the plate, like the absent voice of Ahmed’s wife Roshini, in a conversation between the couple when they are in the next room. This single incident shapes the entire narrative and plot of the novel as Mehrotra becomes obsessed with understanding the reason behind Ahmed’s delusions.
Mehrotra is an important protagonist. Through him, Khair observes the quirks of class, religion, and political ignorance. He is the best representative of an elite, upper middle class businessman living in urban India, unaffected by politics, pogroms, or any identity. Educated at IIT and Columbia University, every aspect of him reeks of detached contentment, whether his staid professional life or his ‘sensible’ marriage to a literary agent, where neither bothers the other with “deep existential issues”.
It is not Mehrotra’s place in society that is problematic, but his ignorance towards a world outside of it. He is well-meaning and never sketched as a bigot though he is willing to reject a person for a job, based in their religion, which he does not understand intimately – he wants to “work with known factors”. He has only ever known one Oxbridge accented Muslim from his boarding school days. When he wants to understand more about a religious society that Ahmed’s parents had belonged to – the Tableeghi Jamait – his wife invites a famous author and journalist to dinner. The most telling aspect about him is perhaps that he needs to “dredge up the facts of the Gujarat riots” on Wikipedia, which he acknowledges was “not something that was discussed much in my circles” – the same riots of 2002 in which Ahmed’s wife Roshini was doused to death for a perceived identity.
Ahmed emerges as a fascinating and a tragic figure. The dossiers on him ordered by Mehrotra reveal his dusty years growing up in a taluk town called Phansa (which has appeared in other novels by Mr Khair) near Bodh Gaya, in the “godforsaken state” of Bihar. These form the most vivid bits from the novel. Within a few pages, Mr Khair effortlessly draws out the struggles and perforations of life in small town India. Everything in these descriptions is starkly opposite to the world inhabited by Mehrotra. Here class, religion and identity define every aspect of life and death. This novel highlights the opposing experiences that exist within the same country. What one citizen can proudly take for granted, becomes the reason why another is condemned to exile.
When he wants to understand more about a religious society that Ahmed’s parents had belonged to – the Tableeghi Jamait – his wife invites a famous author and journalist to dinner.
Like Mr Khair’s other novels, the strength of this book is also in the telling of the tale. The novel is as political in its underpinnings, as it is literary in its flair. Mr Khair’s writing is stark and prosaic, never taking itself or its subject too seriously. There are no didactic messages justifying the right from wrong, or grim descriptions attempting to make the reader cringe. The writer wants the reader to introspect on elements of the surreal and absurd, without ever overstating.
At the surface of it, this is a novel that questions notions of sanity and loss. But peel a layer and it reveals the most disturbing facets of life in contemporary India, and incomprehensible encounters with violence often hidden in the lives of those we think we know best. Mr Khair’s use of the Muslim festival, Shab-e-baraat is perhaps the most telling aspect of this book. As Ahmad explains, “During shab-e-baraat, we recall our ancestors, those who are dead, the ones gone before us to the realms of eternal peace and joy, the ones who made us possible on this earth. It links the past to the future through the present. That is why for me it means the night of happiness.”
As Ahmed clings onto the shadows of a bygone life, the reader wonders which world is more sane? Is it the one Ahmed inhabits in his house with an absent wife, non-existent halwa, and the picture of a dead mother? Or is it the ‘real’ world outside, in which he has faced incomprehensible tragedy? While there is nothing religious about Ahmed, it takes the reader the entire story to truly understand why the only festival he celebrates is the Night of Happiness.
What is the rational way to gain closure after a loss, and who can ever truly differentiate the sane from the insane? What is happiness in a world easily shredded by a moment of violence? Towards the end, one wonders what is most disconcerting about Mehrotra – his lack of a critical engagement with the world outside his own. Or his apathy towards a loyal employee and friend who was completely different from him, whom he never bothered to truly get to know. Perhaps Mehrotra’s only redemption is his eventual self-awareness and humility. Perhaps that is the only redemption any of us is ever offered.
Sarah Farooqui is an independent writer. She tweets at @sarahfarooqui20
