The second point for assessing Mayur Times should be based on the changing contexts of the horizons of the novelist and the readers. In literary critical theories, there is something called horizons of expectations by the readers from the authors. According to this theory, readers keep on changing their horizons of expectations in terms of drawing meanings from certain creative texts. When I read Palpasa Café five years ago, one of my horizons of expectation was: How would a novel from a prominent journalist be like? And before going through Mayur Times, it was: How will the second novel by the author of Palpasa Café be like? In addition, if I were to read Palpasa Café for the first time now, my view of it as a reader would be very different from what it was then because my horizon could have shifted. When Palpasa Café was published, the Maoist insurgency was at its peak. So, reading the novel now would be different from the time when it was first published.
The third and a brief point that should form the basis for critical review of the novel should be the community of characters (journalists) and the community of settings (present day Madhes and criminalization of politics). Human emotions have a certain universality in the novel, but any critical reading of this fiction cannot ignore the “community” aspect on which the novel is exclusively set.
The part that depicts the universality of human emotions which is most fascinating is the bond between the two fast friends Parag and Lisara. Again, it would very much depend on the cultural horizon of the readers but their friendship must certainly also be judged from the point of view of woman-woman relationship. The novelist does not clearly suggest they are lesbians. But he certainly leaves narrative holes for a reader to infer such meaning too. Their “attitude” towards men, including the one who expected “love” from Parag, suggests their friendship is deeper than an ordinary Nepali reader would like to believe. An analysis of their relationship with this element in mind would make the reading more challenging and fascinating. Even if the novelist himself differs on the inference of certain meanings by some readers, he can be challenged to prove otherwise. After all, the author is also a potential reader the moment the novel is born.
In his latest novel Wagle warrants a sense of urgency in the plot. Events are fast-paced. Times are suffocating. Characters are caged in those suffocating moments of criminalized politics and the merciless violence that demonstrates the most evil side of the human capacity. Mayur Times is a sad commentary on the cruel pitfalls of the Maoist insurgency and the Madhes movement. War, conflict, or insurgency may not sound as deep, cruel and ugly when one looks at it from the point of view of tragedies endured by individuals. A novel, unlike a short story or a commentary, has the advantage of having a select few characters and describing the details of their personal stories during the war. The novel as a genre has the advantage of interpreting the world of war and cruelty from a variety of perspectives as represented by the variety of characters. Mayur Times makes use of this advantage to tell stories related to Maoist insurgency on the sidelines of the main story based on Madhes. For me, the best narrative in the novel is the story of the tea-shop owner, an elderly woman, whose driver-son was killed during a Maoist shootout.
This is probably the first Nepali novel in which the two protagonists of the fiction journalists and the plot is based on journalism. Novelist Narayan Wagle, as we know him, is a male with his “ethnic” identity as someone who hails from the hills and not Madhes. But the story in the novel is told through the main characters who are two young women (unlike the novelist who is a man) and it is about Madhes. It would be interesting to see how young women journalists take the story, and read responses from readers who belong to Madhes.
Mayur Times generates sensibilities in readers about the deepening and long-lasting disintegration caused by the insurgency and the unrest seen in the plains post-Madhes movement. The story it tells is gloomy but the energy its protagonists manifest is full of youthful strength. This is a story of courage, as represented by Parag and Lisara, against the odds thrust by cruelty of times on innocent citizens.
bishnu.sapkota@gmail.com
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