Review of Tempest on River Silent by Sandeep Khanna
Thus was born the idea of this warmly written bildungsroman that follows the protagonist and his friends from their innocent, playful school days of the 70s in Delhi to the complexities of being senior professionals in 21st century contemporary India.
The narrative is held together by the two main characters, Devavratt (Dev) and Eklavya (Luv), as the novel juxtaposes description with a conversational style of writing.
The 70s was a testing decade of political and economic upheaval in India, marked by significant social changes and a search for self-definition. The story begins with the author recounting his school and college days in a series of flashbacks about friendship, pranks, teachers, girlfriends, families, festivals, triumphs and failures, while deftly weaving in the changes wrought by the transition from socialism to a market-based economy.
These chapters also stir up memories that many of us grew up with — buying half a loaf of bread, drinking Campa Cola or savouring Nirula's ice-cream, watching family dramas such as Hum Log or Ramayana on colour TV for the first time, driving a Maruti 800, the rise of cricketer Tendulkar, the Emergency, Indira Gandhi's defeat, and so on.
Force of change
In the 90s, when economic liberalisation was sweeping India, Dev and his contemporaries were early-career professionals, chasing their dreams, travelling across the country on work. The book captures their career graph as they ambitiously juggle work and family as well as the larger cultural and economic changes in all its beauty, diversity and irony.
Nationalism, spirituality, materialism, happiness, loneliness and death are deliberated and argued upon when the friends meet, as they strive to strike a balance. During one of their spirited discussions about 'right and wrong', Luv concludes they are both machinations of the mind. Dev concurs, asserting that 'right and wrong cannot be cast in stone'.
Through the protagonist's journey, the book explores change and the challenges it presents; modernity vis-à-vis tradition, time-tested values versus pressures of modern life, home-life balance against professional success.
Dev's dilemma, seemingly, is reflected in the book's title, Tempest on River Silent, a metaphor for the unsettling forces of change (tempest) and everlasting tradition (silent river).
Will the normally phlegmatic Dev be able to face the tempest of change? Or will his life remain a calmly flowing, silent river?
The author, a management professional with a penchant for sports, poetry, history and travel, has endeavoured in writing a book covering the last 50 years in India, elaborating on what he and his friends would often discuss — 'the change we have experienced in India in our lifetime has been breathtaking'. The unrestrained details — about college life, work and more — can be tedious in spots, however, making the book a bulky read at 640 pages.
The reviewer is a Bengaluru-based independent journalist.
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