Vivek Shanbhag (translation by Srinath Perur)
2015
Harper Perennial
pp. 124
Ghachar Ghochar is a psychological, family drama that traces the rags to riches story of a family. Narrated in the voice of a young man who gets embroiled in everything that is happening around him in setting up and success of the family business. Unable to keep up and find his own place in the change that the family undergoes, he finds solace in daily escapes to the Coffee House. He slowly watches as his own marriage crumbles in the face of keeping the family together.
The book brings forth the joys of a family, the way in which the family addresses stressful situations as a single unit and helps each other. Family works as an automaton, each part recognising what needs to be done and comes together without any instruction. Hidden among all these are open secrets that nobody talks about but everyone knows, topics that are evaded in front of particular family members in an attempt to maintain peace and tranquility. This is disrupted by the joining of an outsider, the daughter-in-law who refuses to fall in line.
The story is at once gripping and mundane. And that is the beauty of it. It is a middle class family’s story that would resonate with everyone. It is in the mundane that Shanbhag has found drama and brought out the nuances. Master storyteller Shanbhag. Good translation by Perur.