Migration has always been the way to prosperity for poor communities worldwide. While Indian writing in English has focused on international migration—particularly the tech-driven migration from India to the western world—other Indian languages have spoken of the innumerable journeys that have happened over the years in our country. In Delhi: A Soliloquy, M Mukundan focuses on the large Malayali community that made its way to the capital city in the post-Independence years. This is an excellent English translation of the Malayalam Delhi Gadhagal, which is considered a modern classic and has won multiple awards.
The story is mostly told through the eyes of Sahadevan, who arrives in Delhi from Kerala in 1959 as a young man and eventually lives there into old age. His first friend and mentor is a fellow Malayali, Sreedharanunni. The book starts in 1961, with rumours of a sudden Chinese invasion circulating. Sreedharanunni cycles desperately around town to get more information. Delhi at this time is an undeveloped city, with cauliflower fields in between societies, and the common man has neither radio nor television to give instant information. It is only the next morning, after a tense night, that Sreedharanunni confirms the news from the paper. As a worker’s union member and a believer in Communism, China’s sudden move disturbs him enough that he dies of a heart attack.
This is just the beginning of a tragic tale drawn out over the decades. Sreedharanunni’s wife, Devi is granted a small job in a government office by the union, but struggles to make ends meet. More crises arrive; they keep washing over the population as the years pass. There are wars with Pakistan, the excesses before and during the Emergency, the 1984 riots, the slow march of communalism and side-effects of liberalisation and lawlessness. Sahadevan, Devi and their circle of friends, like anti-Forrest Gumps, bear the brunt of these events. Where Sreedharanunni’s son is forcibly sterilised in Sanjay Gandhi’s infamous population control campaign, Sahadevan’s journalist friend is maimed in a lockup. Dasappan, the streetside barber, has his livelihood upturned by government goons, while Sahadevan himself loses his business in a communal-driven demolition drive.
Mukundan speaks of all kinds of immigrants making their way through life: small traders, journalists, prostitutes, students. Lost in an unfamiliar place, they seek each other for support. They are invited to each others’ homes for conversation and comfort food; they themselves provide the safety net of jobs and accomodation for newer migrants. In their eyes, Kerala is a progressive, safe place, unlike this Delhi of government thugs and honour killings. The longing for home comes through in every character, as do the little nuances of languages and custom that every Malayali would recognise: whether it’s the frequent references to the Jayanti Janata express train, the specific shops in Bengali Market that carry Kerala-special grocery items, the clothes, or the nickname suffixes the characters use for each other.
Only a few of the characters have happy endings (or endings at all). Mukundan does not feel compelled to make his book a closed world with resolutions to every dilemma. Nor do all the stories begin from the beginning. It is instead a peek into a larger world, and much more effective for that. We the readers are temporary visitors here—should I say immigrants?—and our sympathies and impressions are made on the basis of incomplete impressions, just like in real life. Beneath the surface, and beyond the main characters, are innumerable cameos of people who have their own lives going on. The book is Dickensian in its broad picture of society.
Delhi: A Soliloquy is based on Mukundan’s experiences as a Cultural Attache in Delhi, where he lived and worked for 40 years. He knows these people that he’s writing about. And by the time we are done with this book, we will know and love them, too.