When no eve-teaser anymore calls them "item"!

Midlife crisis

The Great Depression of 40s

By Rupa Gulab.

Penguin Books.

Pages 214. Rs 250.

Reviewed by Rajbir Deswal

TETHERED to tattered poles, they are like sagged wires sans current and enough flow. It is essentially an all-women world of fiction, factually fructifying from their menopausal stage, in the middle-aged weaker sex. Rupa Gulab weaves her female protagonists’ ageing dilemma, in many an intense situation, when they have to sort it out themselves, keeping their "men" away and effaced, but they are definitely there! Mantra and Anjali are sisters-in-law. Both are on the wrong side of 40. Mantra is issueless by choice and in agreement with her husband Vir, while Anjali’s good hubby Karan can’t make her ex-boyfriend Shiv wipe off her mind, even after giving her a son who is now graduating in a college. Anjali’s son Rohan stumbles on her hidden agenda and leaves her a woman more sinned against than sinning, for she had been "though-seriously-but-only" indulging and contemplating manifestations of her fantasies for Shiv. On discovering his Mom’s secret love for her ex, Rohan blurts, "Go to that b****** — my father’s too good for you!" Then, there is the wannabe starlet Samira who is tolerating being bashed up by her mate, but still staying-put with him to settle scores only after making it one day to Page 3. And the spinster maid Reshma, gaily slips into the adulterous arms of the chauffeur, and is ready to end her life out of frustration. "Hey, take a sabbatical at the very least, dammit! You’re forty-three, you prefer yolks to whites, you smoke, you give veggies a wide berth, osteoporosis and quite possibly a hip bone replacement are on their way, and you may never find out what it feels like to be truly free. Go on tell him to go fly a kite!" Unable to digest the home truth or bullshit from Partho, her boss, Mantra calls it quits to tread a path that has the next milestone as her nemesis — The Great Depression of the 40s. This leads Mantra to indulging in self-pity; nearly half her life being over, with no sustaining achievement, the career not exciting her anymore, a cholesterol-corporate-afflicted husband becoming nonchalant and the libido bidding her goodbye, and above all, with nothing to look forward to except wrinkles, scraggy chicken-neck and lousy eyesight, among other horrible things. She then decides to have a baby, but things keep on going awry and awful. Anjali, on the other hand, dwindles in a kind of "to be or not to be" and is taken over by passion for her ex, harps on divorcing good and benign Karan. She seeks a new young look with waxing and workouts to fish out pampering from the "once-upon-a-time-junkie" Shiv. Have a look at her’s and other women’s trauma when they’re dressing to impress (and in Anjali’s case — Shiv): "She had changed six outfits, agitatedly discarding each on different grounds: too casual, too wannabe hip, too unflattering to the hips, too over-the-top for the occasion, neck too high to be sexy, neck sluttishly low." Gulab’s novel focuses on the lifestyle of the very high elitist’s strata who may not be as rich but who harp on enough that is pseudo-modern. And, here is the casualty of morals that goes up for a toss: curt, business-like, self-seeking disposition and a punishingly tight schedule to survive in a corporate world of the socialites, in the common denominator of "depression". Rupa couldn’t have been more charitable, realistic and candid to women in describing how age catches up with their "depression of 40s" when no eve-teaser anymore calls them "item!". And when it’s "A for Alzheimer’s, S for scurvy, H for herpes`85!" The drudgery of the corporate scenario of upstaging, maneuvering, one-upmanship, cut-throat competition, which is the hallmark, has its toll taken even on the interpersonal relations of its operatives. When at a party, Vir’s boss calls Mantra as Mamta, obviously not correctly remembering her name, Vir asks her to keep mum and not to correct the boss for it might look rude. And, thereafter, all around address Mantra with her newly corporate-baptised calling. There is enough that exposes the inner lining of business suits. Gulab has enough to give to the foodies, Bacchus lovers, Western music fads, Hollywood celebrity fans, and much more that the contemporary generation of young readers would want to lap up. She has a unique lucid and clear style which is amazingly simple, even in depiction of the very complex and intense aspects of modern life that may warrant expression through the so-called modern lingo, for the idiom that is in vogue and is best understood these days is transnational. Societal concerns also find voice in the novel and Gen X’s perceived as unwanted and undesirable orgies are depicted with ease and acumen of a master raconteur.