The notion of ‘coming of age’ is one that has for long been a monopoly for Western popular media, its origin lying in the bildungsroman novel. Naturally, when one thinks about the genre, it is often through an imposed lens of first-world whiteness. Alina Gufran’s debut novel, No Place to Call My Own, is the latest entry in a growing genre of Indian coming-of-age novels that do not stoop to frivolity. With Sophia as the protagonist, Gufran, who was recently in Bengaluru to launch the book, charts the growth of an Indian Muslim woman in the context of the undeniable friction that she has to negotiate with in terms of gender and religion.
Much of Gufran’s novel and its protagonist are built upon contradiction, as indeed life and people are. There cannot help but be an element of confession involved in a coming-of-age novel, where fiction acts as not only a site of experiment, but also a shield against accountability. As Gufran states, “The process of writing the novel was both intuitive and laborious. The coming-of-age angle is one that’s being determined by readers, and not the idea I first started writing with. It was clear that Sophia, the narrator’s, journey was compelling enough for me to follow it to its rightful conclusion. The confessional quality is intentional and speaks to the ‘point of telling’ of the story that’s intimate and seeks to situate the reader in the middle of her many anxieties. There’s a certain refraction fiction allows for, whereas a personal essay might’ve felt too direct, too conclusive, and would make for a very different story.”
In the same vein as the title, Sophia moves and flails around: both psychologically, and geographically. The structure of the novel mimics the title, insofar as the chapter titles refer to cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Beirut among others. Gufran, who herself has travelled a lot, confesses, “Both by design and unintentionally, movement has been a constant in my life – across cities, countries, especially cultural and linguistic worlds. Like Sophia, I’ve felt the pull of elsewhere, the search for something larger that feels more certain than just the idea of the self. I’m still amidst that search, but certain ideas of home have changed for me – rather than a fixed location, home is perhaps an approximation of memories, relationships and seemingly mundane rituals.”
At one point, Sophia calls her parents – her Muslim father and Hindu, Arya Samaji mother – ‘not inherently bad’, but of course, products of their social circumstances. With her parents’ initial love succumbing under domestic disputes rife with religious tensions, it is natural to trace Sophia’s unbelonging back to her roots. As Gufran says, “She grows up watching two people who, despite their love, remain fundamentally exiled – from their families, communities, and perhaps even part of themselves. That kind of fracture forms the basis of her search; she inherits their outsider status, perhaps without their conviction. This rootlessness leaves her unmoored, questioning where she fits.”
Hurtling through life, seeking refuge, the closest to home Sophia seems to find is in the female friendships she fosters, specifically with Medha. Musing on whether it reflects her own personal experience, Gufran says, “Yes and no. Female friendships, for me, have been some of the most formative, but I wouldn’t call them a surrogate for home. Much like all relationships, including the one we have with ourselves, they further complicate the idea of belonging, offering safety and intimacy; but also severance and reinvention. For Sophia, her friendship with Medha is a kind of anchor, but also a mirror, reflecting back to her both the love she craves and the ways in which she pushes it away.”