Every once in a while a book finds itself in the hands of a reader who reads it not only in the spirit of its words but also its sense and ambience. It then becomes interesting to read what a book becomes in the words of not the writer per se, but the reader. When Anindita Ghose's debut novel, The Illuminated, found itself with Adrian Terron, Head of Customer Centricity at Tata Group [in his daytime avatar], it led to the astute reader and writer in Adrian to come alive and here is what he has to share about this novel -

As long as one can remember, popular culture has ascribed two stubborn characteristics to Indian women. The first, their wilful self neglect. The second, their satellite role to the men in their lives. Often, buffeted by the unseen winds of casual misogyny or patriarchy most pernicious, they enjoy a false sense of control despite being coaxed or coerced to tread paths chosen for them.  

 In Anindita Ghose’s absorbing debut novel, The Illuminated, this inequitable status forms the subtext of a sweeping tale of lingering loss and brewing revolution. Its key characters, who borrow their names from celestial objects, are jolted from their orbits with a patriarch’s sudden passing. Shashi, the melancholic wife coping with an implosive sense of loss. Tara, a feisty facsimile of her father, still smarting from the tremors of a recent tumultuous affair. Both, linked by fraught filial bonds, at once unbreakable and brittle as tragedy envelops them. 

 Suddenly, mother and daughter feel the consequences and complications of an unequal equation with an Alpha male as they descend into a silent feud.  Separated by geographical distance, each stumbles through sorrow and solace while verging on an impending reconciliation. All the while, the making of Tea plays the role of a ritual freighted with significance, and surrounded with reminisces. The turbulence before the soothing stimulation, the decanting of dreams, the savouring of their collective misfortunes.  

 Ghose’s characters have a very keen sense of how they are changing within. Shashi ponders the reclaiming of a life lived in the shadow of a Promethean spouse. Tara rails against the image of herself as the inamorata to an uncaring older academic Impresario. Shashi relies on a pugnacious maid and a steadfast, idealistic friend. Tara, relies on the counsel of a pragmatic female ally bound by an unspoken sisterhood. Each skidding across the other’s orbit as their world lurches towards unpredictable alterations.

 All the while the spectre of a socio-religious organization lingers around them in a comically sinister fashion, constantly inventing ways to control India’s women. In a thinly veiled reference to India’s fractured polity, Ghose mischievously lampoons the cultural police but presages a dystopian future Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid’s Tale, would recognise all too well. On the other hand, a rebel utopia is being birthed by KC Meenakshi, a valiant fisherwoman who establishes her own city-state - a prospect that is both improbable and exciting.

 These contextual inventions, rendered skilfully by Ghose, are as subversive as giggles at a funeral. Artfully upbraiding a society that risks paying its respects to a democracy on its deathbed, while simultaneously snatching away the independence of its women.  This mocking reprimand conceals a more vital truth - totalitarian theocracies endanger women first and foremost. What seems an absurd likelihood in a progressive liberal framework, can rapidly become a reality if left unchecked. 

 It is in this backdrop that Tara and Shashi attempt to reconcile with their irreplaceable loss, and each other. The younger pushing against the boundaries of patriarchy, the older rediscovering its calcified texture. The daughter, a lashing tempest. The mother, a gradually gathering storm. The two not so much contrasts as different avatars on a continuum altered by age and attitude. 

 The Illuminated treats the reader to a feast of linguistic arcana and mythological mystique without being unduly ornate.  In an act of classic misdirection, Ghose tempts the reader to wonder whether the story is biographical. What it should be looked at as instead, is an accessible view of gender politics without the burden of ‘wokeness’. Where women are   portrayed not as simpering, sacrificing accessories to men or hyper-feminist caricatures. They are recast instead as people becoming acutely aware of being nudged into a ‘state of subtraction’ in a society that urges women to leave themselves behind as they become partners and wives. 

 The storytelling is startlingly insightful about human nature in a plot laced with a subtle sensuality handled artfully and without apology. Ghose’s narrative arc creates raw anticipation. Tara, shaken from a hedonistic stupor, mulls her next salvo against an abusive lover. Meenakshi, the talismanic activist birthing radical change is on a collision course with the establishment. Both aiming squarely at toppling tradition with a womanly vehemence. It is more likely than not, that this book will be considered a reading of the patriarchy and its manifestations. Hopefully, that shouldn’t squander the opportunity to put it on every Patriarch’s reading list too.

 Illuminated’s chapters are organised by the phases of the moon.  In its totality however, it is not the lingering everyday moon. It is a ‘Blood Moon’ - icily molten,  refracted by different wavelengths and atmospheres. Readers will squint to take it in, in all it glory. Intrigued but never unduly overwhelmed. The glow of its insights, incandescent like the outlines and temperaments of its leading characters. As a standout debut novel of 2021, it will be hard to eclipse. 

[To find out more about The Illuminated, head to this link to get your copy - https://amzn.to/3u8S96R]