Loose skein: Rahman Abbas’ novel within a novel

On the Other Side is a tricky read, presenting itself as a work in progress. When judged as a formal experiment, it is more careless than cautious.

Abdus-Salam, the narrator’s deceased protagonist who is a novelist-teacher, is not necessarily a likeable or an admirable character. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/ iStock

Is a novel a beautiful thing? What of a novel that is presented as an “outline” for the first draft of a novel that the narrator intends to write? Should the reader approach it as a finished aesthetic product or should it be taken for what it claims to be: a loose skein of ideas and character notes? Rahman Abbas’ On the Other Side is a tricky novel to read partly because it poses these questions even as it sidesteps genre conventions through the device of a narrator who claims to be working on a “bulky novel” based on the diaries of his deceased protagonist, the novelist-teacher Abdus-Salam.

Abdus-Salam is not necessarily a likeable or an admirable character, and the unnamed narrator does not tell us why he (or she) cares about him or his legacy. In many respects, Abdus-Salam is a fairly ordinary man. He chews a spiced-up tobacco mix and teaches at a suburban school while harbouring creative ambitions. While he has complex and conflicting thoughts about religion, in this, too, he is not very different from most people. He veers between opting in occasionally (going to the mosque once in a while, if only out of long-standing habit), to claiming that “God is everyone’s shield”, to doubting god privately even as he fears divine retribution in moments of crisis, such as illness. His amorous adventures, however, do make him an exceptional protagonist, if only because of how long the list of his paramours is and how he uses them as fodder for fiction.

On the Other Side

By Rahman Abbas. Translated by Riyaz Latif

Vintage Books

Pages: 142

Price: Rs.499

Abdus-Salam intended to write a seven-volume Saga of Passion based on his experiences, which he duly recorded in his diaries, of which there are 53 and which have their own title, Akhri Shab ke Hamsafar. The narrator tells us that 26 of those diaries appear to have been used as material for the three volumes his protagonist completed in his lifetime but which remain unpublished because, if we are to believe him: “he would have to face the displeasure of all his one-time beloveds (those who were still alive) who did not merit mention in the published works.” This brings us to an obvious question: should we believe him?

Curiously, some of his lovers are named, while others have been left anonymous, such as the one described only as the “senior-most teacher” His sexual exploits must be doubted, for, as the narrator tells us: “whatever is inscribed without the veracity of experience is a figment of imagination.” Even if the affairs did take place, Abdus-Salam’s conclusions about women must be doubted. Despite knowing so many different kinds of women, he makes sweeping statements like, “Women customarily lie corpse-like during lovemaking.” Paradoxically, his diary also informs us that it was often women who initiated sex and that much of it was illicit. Is this character even properly observant of women, or is he merely delusional?

Curious opinions

Readers who are familiar with Abbas’ other translated novel, Rohzin, will find themselves in a familiar creative landscape to the extent that this novel too is set between Mumbai and villages on the Konkan coast. Faith, transgression of sexual norms, and their impact on literature appear to be significant themes that preoccupy the author and inform his fiction.

As far as creative choices are concerned, it is tricky work judging the merits of this book since it has been presented to us as an “outline” or a work in progress.  | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

In this novel, the Abdus-Salam character appears endlessly fascinated by women and disgusted by the conformity and powerlessness of his male peers. He writes of a teacher as “a creature who had no identity of his own… a meek species, which executed every governmental diktat with a bowed head”. These are curious opinions for a man like him to hold. After all, he himself is a teacher and a novelist and seems to hold distinct views that he is not afraid to express among friends. However, he too censors himself in his published work. When it comes to matters of faith, he expunges a paragraph from his manuscript. So, how then are we to read his character?

The narrator, too, cannot be trusted to give us an accurate portrait of the man. Form is significant here for Abbas has used diaries as a device that allows his novelist-narrator access to Abdus-Salam’s interior world, but this inevitably leads us to another problem: how does the narrator gain access to conversations between women and their feelings? Are these the narrator’s notes for his future work of fiction or are these events based solely on Abdus-Salam’s diaries? The narrator articulates another dilemma: “Shall I be accountable for all his actions?” How much of a novel is driven by “authorial will” and is it inevitable that the author shall be conflated with his characters? Since this is a novel about a novelist trying to write about another novelist, it is also worth asking if its author, Abbas, is using this novel-within-a-novel form to express his own concerns and his need to distance himself from his protagonist’s choices.

As far as creative choices are concerned, it is tricky work judging the merits of this book since it has been presented to us as an “outline” or a work in progress. Abbas himself draws attention to its formal aspects through his narrator’s concerns—“Is experimenting with form appropriate for all novels?”—and apprehensions—“My acquaintance with the aesthetics of the novel is still poor.” It must be said that as a formal experiment, the novelist betrays a careless rather than cautious approach. There are no “chapters” as such, but the novel is broken up into segments and many of the breaks occur in the middle of a scene. There is no explanation for why these breaks occur as they do (does the narrator scribble notes during lunch break? Was there a pan of milk boiling in the kitchen?), nor does the narrator tell us whether the fictionalisation of Abdus-Salam’s life has already begun within the scope of this “outline”.

At any rate, it is worth quoting Abdus-Salam on the subject: “The minute the beauty of a novel becomes reliant on someone’s interpretation, it will be deemed as a want of beauty in the novel.”

Annie Zaidi is a writer and filmmaker.