Oh, life!

'Marriage is a very strange thing. It's a very public institution, it's meant to tell the world that two people are going to live together, to declare that their children will be legal, that these children can inherit their property. It's meant for social living. At the same time, marriage is an intensely private affair. No outsider will ever know what goes on in someone else's marriage. It's a closed room, a locked room...'

It's this blurb that caught my attention during a recent trip to Ekta Bookstores in Thapathali. Actually I hadn't even read the whole blurb when I decided to buy it. The first line, I guess, was enough. There are some books that come to you at just the right time and get you thinking that there couldn't be a better time for you to be reading such a book, and for me that is precisely what happened with Ships That Pass. I was (am) at a phase where I'm trying to understand the concept of marriage.A lot has been said about the institution of marriage. While some believe in the institution whole heartedly and are of the opinion that marriage is for life, for some it's just a notion and when love dies, there is not much left in it. But in our culture, the fundamental truth about marriage is that you stay together till the very end, even if everything that entails a marriage comes undone midway. But like every individual, every marriage is unique and comes with its own sets of happiness and sorrows. Deshpande explores this aspect, this uniqueness of marriage in the novella.

The plotline is simply enough. It tells the story of Tara and Shaan and the unraveling of their marriage after being together for fourteen years. For Radhika, Tara's bold and blunt younger sister, one of the certainties of life is marriage and she wants to get married and 'get that part of her life over with and behind her'. But when she goes to live with Tara and

Shaan, she discovers the gaps that widen in relationships when they aren't nurtured, especially when individuals who have come together in marriage choose to lead lives of their own and she is forced to rethink her choices.

The story behind Ships That Pass is also quite intriguing. Ships That Pass was serialized in a magazine in 1980 but the author felt restricted by this form of writing. She kept all the magazine cuttings in the hope that someday she would be able to give it a book form. But the time to rewrite never seemed right, says Deshpande in the author's note in the book. Finally in 2012, she got down to it. But her bag of cuttings was lot. However, since the characters had stayed with her throughout the years, she says rewriting wasn't actually all that difficult.

There is a certain old world charm to the book. Perhaps the fact that the story was first conceived in the 80's has a lot to do with that. The writing is smooth, and the narrative slow but never boring. Deshpande, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2009, rarely ever falters in her writings. Her novel Shadow Play was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize in 2014. But maybe she could have explored a little more in Ships That Pass because when you turn the final page, you can't help feeling a little lost, and a tad bit unconvinced. Deshpande has left a lot unsaid and at times, she even seems to be in a hurry to finish off the story.

All in all, the story is worth a read. It's gripping in parts, and falls short in some areas. As you read, you pause to think about the changing dynamics of relationships as the years go by and how it is possible to become distant if communication channels aren't well maintained. In a marriage, when everything is lost and all that remains is a sense of responsibility towards each other that's when the relationship becomes stifling. And Deshpande has tried to get that message across in a subtle way.

However, this book of marital discord is one where hope is not lost. In the end, even if you are nowhere near understanding marriage any better than you did when you started reading the book, you realize that though trying to figure out the complexities of love and marriage will always be a futile attempt, a good marriage requires 'work' in order to not let complacency set in. And it's this realization, or your coming to terms with it, which gives you the satisfaction of having read a good book despite that lingering sense of unease from the writer's delivery of a half-baked story.

cillakhatry@gmail.com

Related story

Prime Life, Union Life and Gurans Life ink a merger agreement