Set in Delhi, Radhika Oberoi’s novel Of Mothers and Other Perishables showcases the lives of a deceased mother and the two daughters she leaves behind, especially the elder one, fondly called “the Wailer”. The chapters are alternatively narrated from two perspectives that portray difficult family dynamics, restrained sibling relationships, start-up culture and the world of ad agencies. The first voice is that of the deceased mother, who evokes nostalgia with descriptions of the Delhi of her 1970s youth. The second is a third-person narrative that follows the life of the Wailer in 2020 amidst the anti-CAA protests. Together, they form an intricately beautiful narrative of attachment and grief.
The Wailer, who cried all the time, was given her nickname by her father, a fan of The Beatles and the Wailers, while her younger sibling, Toon, got hers for loving cartoons. In 1993, the sisters lost their mother to cancer when they were 15 and 9 respectively. Their mother’s belongings were kept safely in a storeroom, later maintained by the Wailer, who was often found crying there. Toon, too young to grasp the loss, didn’t succumb to this ritual of holding on to the dead, which caused a rift. “The silence between Toon and her [The Wailer] was a temperamental ghoul — the slightest word or gesture could be misinterpreted and rouse the ghoul’s appetite for ugliness. Both of them understood its nature, and had, over the years, chosen not to provoke it, by avoiding each other completely.”
Using the first-person narrative for the tale of the deceased mother and the third-person for The Wailer interestingly conveys the attachment of the dead and detachment of the living. The mother’s ‘dismembered voice’ cannot be called a ghost. Ghosts have some form of agency; they are believed to communicate their displeasure and joy. The mother does nothing of the sort. She sits on the leather suitcase in the storeroom, with lizards and spiders for company, witnessing a life she longs to live.
{{/usCountry}}Using the first-person narrative for the tale of the deceased mother and the third-person for The Wailer interestingly conveys the attachment of the dead and detachment of the living. The mother’s ‘dismembered voice’ cannot be called a ghost. Ghosts have some form of agency; they are believed to communicate their displeasure and joy. The mother does nothing of the sort. She sits on the leather suitcase in the storeroom, with lizards and spiders for company, witnessing a life she longs to live.
{{/usCountry}}She is audible only to the readers. She invites them in and makes them care for her short-lived life. She is attached to her belongings in the storeroom as much as she is attached to the people she has left behind. She is angry for losing the privilege of being present in the flesh, breathing, and growing old. She tells us that The Wailer once recited John Donne’s sonnet, Death Be Not Proud, in the storeroom. And quite like the last lines of the sonnet, she awakens eternally after death, to tell her life’s story. She helplessly states, “My need to tell is far greater than your need to know, of that I am certain.”
The Wailer works as a creative head in an ad agency amidst the “beefy boys”. In a male-dominated world, we see her questioning her claim to the workplace. She is “wounded by the world, unprepared for its pleasure.” A lone figure since her childhood, a quality that is deepened by her mother’s passing, she remains detached from the world at large. This changes when a young colleague, known as the Nawabzada, invites her to join the protest against the CAA-NRC. An armchair activist, she feels out of place amidst the fearless women of Kalindi Kunj reciting Hum Dekhenge by Faiz. The events of that evening make Nawabzada a viral news item, circulated in social media, which, in turn, affects his corporate life. Readers experience shock and nervousness at the sight of a conscious artist rising in a corporate conference room. His political position becomes a loss for the agency given the head of the client company is in favour of the CAA. The events that follow become yet another cause of detachment for the Wailer simply because she cares deeply.
The characters are mostly known by their nicknames and yet, their qualities are such that they become memorable despite their guest appearance. Consider Little Bomb, who visits the Wailer for one summer. She is the daughter of the Wailer’s mother’s friend. While the Wailer is shy and introverted, Little Bomb is a boy magnet, is found with stolen items from her mother’s dressing table, and carries a tape of Dirty Dancing. She introduces The Wailer to teenage rebellion. A chuckle ensues when Little Bomb succumbs to the role of a conformist wife in a realistic depiction of “bold” women who eventually adapt to patriarchal values.
Oberoi’s tale of the joys of being in Delhi in the 1970s and the city’s disenchantment in 2020 also captures stories of love — of The Wailer and her lanky boyfriend in school, of Toon and the founder of the startup where she works as the CEO, and most vividly, of their parents. The voice sitting in the storeroom defies “permanent erasure and linger[s] on the tip of non existence.” It is as endearing as the mother’s unmet desire to be there for her daughters. Striking a balance between showing and telling, she describes the vibrant colours of her youth — a chance encounter with LP, secret dates, meeting each other’s parents, and marriage. The reader is touched to see a house once filled with joy and laughter succumb to silence.
Oberoi’s eloquent page turner of a novel inverts the common notion of worldly attachments and death in its depiction of a mother and her daughters separated by mortality. The words of love, loss, and longing in Of Mothers and Other Perishables leave behind a bittersweet impression.
Akankshya Abismruta is an independent writer.