Maria’s Room by Shreekumar Varma

Give me a dream and make it come true...


Shreekumar Varma’s latest work circles around dreams in different stages: Nurtured, pursued, shattered. The story hinges on the impact of dreams on life, both imaginary and real. The protagonist, Raja Prasad, is a writer. Haunted by an agonising past, he clings tenously to the present through his writings. As he embarks on his newnovel his peresent gets inextricably tied to the story he weaves in his mind. The book's 300 pages come together gradually, like pieces in a puzzle. The puzzle here is both the life of the protagonist, who is a writer, and the novel he aims to produce. In the process we are handed a writer’s enthralling pursuit of his manuscript.

"A novelist looking at life is like a child playing with his numbered drawing book. It is upto him to connect the dots and make the picture;"

In the first 150 pages, the protagonist arrives in Goa and begins to focus on real people as characters for his novel. Raja is a recluse and his vision of the world is like that of an overexposed camera. We are given glimpses into his traumatized mind but the character seems incomplete and weak. It takes an effort to wad through this section of the book. However, brilliant flashes of Varma's creativity make the journey a little less tedious. He imparts an ethereal radiance to his descriptions. Conceits like, "A black Tata Estatedrove up and paused like an animal at a waterhole," provide the much needed succor in this section which could have been compressed to 50 pages. It is like watching a flower blossom, an experience few would sit through, though a satisfying outcome is assured.

There is no turning back once you are past the 150 mark. It is after this point that the novel-within-the-novel format begins to take a clearer shape. Raja Prasad, the protagonist, begins his novel titled Maria’s Guesthouse. Varma however, turns this format upside down. The developments in Maria’s Guesthouse now begin to affect life of Raja and of those around him.

Shreekumar Varma is a Chennai-based writer, poet and teacher. Amonghis other works are Lament of Mohini and Devil’s Garden. Shreekumar is the grandson of the last ruling maharani of Travancore. In Lament of Mohini he dealt with the story of a royal family and its escapades. His debut work, like his latest fiction, used novel-within-novel format. Both the works have at their core a writer’s engagement with his work. Pre-occupation with the past and struggle to free oneself of it, is also a common thread that runs through both the books. In Maria’s Room past is mysterious. It beckons from across the border of memory where it has been banished. Its attempt to cross over into present through the ministrations of mind forms an engrossing plot. Curse is another recurring motif in Varma’s work. Lament of Mohini brings up a family curse wherein women are left behind to suffer. In Maria’s Room too, Raja believes there is a family curse where men are left alone.

The fact that Varma is a descendant of reknown painter Raja Ravi Varma speaks through the heightened visual quality of his work. His vision brings out distinct moods of episodes, much like a painting.

Varma picks on universal subjects of love, loss and death. He adds to this generous scoops of mystery and delectable strokes of word-masonry. Dialogues flow in and out of the narrative inconspicuously. He plays around with words easily and is able to mould the language to his ends. Speech of each character is uniquely and distinctly sculptured. So, on one hand a little boy’s call is transcribed as "Oos there" the female protagonist’s speech is given a pleasing desi twang, "I don’t like phones only". The writer’s pen is free of inhibitionsand complexes. He brings out the neurosis of his protagonist with a poetic flourish.

The reader is not given the benefit of many voices as the narrative runs in first person. An acute sense mystery is evoked as everything is seen and told through the eyes of the protagonist. It becomes difficult to put down the book as a reclusive Raja pieces together the disturbing past. While mystery has an instinctive appeal for readers Varma balances it with insight and creativity. His own words go on to best describe what he has attempted with this novel:

"What wouldn’t we do
To uncoil the coiled
And then coil it up again."