Book Review - नौकर की कमीज़

नौकर की कमीज़ by Vinod Kumar Shukla
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Incredibly hard to classify, this book falls into no mould or style of book. It is the banal story of a newly employed and married government clerk from a poor socioeconomic background. Despite being a graduate, this cantankerous but helpless individual is exploited by his superior officer and treated as a domestic servant. Similarly, as the couple struggle with their hand-to-mouth existence, his subservient and despairing wife too is exploited by her rich landlady. Yet the characters stay on inthe reader's memory. Although the mystical element of Divara Mem Eka Khiraki Rahati Thi and Once It Flowers is missing, the "real realism" (to coin a phrase) is more bitter than the magic realism the author commonly employs – a leaky roof, rations on credit, a fractured arm, fever and delirium, etc. There are echoes of Divara Mem Eka Khiraki Rahati ThiWindow – the newly married couple, a doting mother, low paid job, an understanding boss, daily commute to work etc. The language is simple and the conversation about mundane subjects, straying occasionally into the philosophical realm.

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