A murder of a man in Lucknow leads to the conviction of his business partner, Durgadas. Even though the Supreme Court upholds the sentence, his family and friends desperately try to prove him innocent. After a new testimony reveals more details about the sequence of events before the murder, the needle of suspicion points towards someone else. While Fragments of Happiness might seem like a murder mystery, author Shrilal Shukla eschews suspense for an exploration of the dynamics between Durgadas’s daughter Chaand, his sons, Rajnath and Taranath, the former’s wife Neela, and their family friend Vimal.
Niyati Bafna, who translated the book from Hindi to English, says, “At some point, everybody in the novel is a questionable person making questionable choices. The book does not try to convince you; it just tells you what is happening.”Chaand is arguably the most compelling character. She takes on a lover despite opposition from her family and refuses to follow them in implicating someone else to make her father seem innocent. She is young and confused but strong-willed regardless. The deeply religious Taranath is a stoic counterpoint to her feistiness.
Most other characters, however, disappoint. Although Taranath describes Neela as “the one person in the house whose maturity I can trust”, she merely fights and lashes out at others for the entirety of the book. Neela’s unidimensional persona is even more jarring when compared to the layered characterisation of Chaand and Julie, a former typist and sex worker.
Mukerji, Chaand’s fellow researcher in a chemistry lab, is a jealous lover who seems to have no preoccupation apart from stalking and obsessing over her. Others, such as Rajnath, seem like placeholders with their paper-thin personalities. While family dynamics are at the heart of the book, their exploration pales compared to works such as The God of Small Things or Ghachar Ghochar. Despite its many flaws, the book manages to hold one’s interest. While the plot is far from eventful, the fictional universe immediately draws one in and keeps one guessing about the fate of the characters.
Initially, the attempts to deflect the blame for the murder from Durgadas propels the plot, but as the novel unfolds, the character’s interpersonal relationships come to the fore. It has many tender moments too, such as Vimal laying out his vulnerabilities in front of Julie, Taranath discussing religion with his friend Shankar, and Chaand trying to make sense of the world as she vacations alone. Eventually, it is these everyday experiences that stay with the reader.
The book also brings to life a milieu that few Hindi novels of the early 70s have—that of well-to-do individuals in Delhi, with their South Extension bungalows, espressos in Connaught Place, holidays in Mussoorie and effortless switching between Hindi and English in conversations.
Shukla’s evocative yet restrained language ties together the novel’s disparate elements in a coherent, albeit occasionally adrift, story. “The author dips back and forth between poetry and prose,” says Niyati.“One moment, something mundane is happening and the next, someone plunges into an internal philosophical monologue. There is no boundary between their thoughts and the world outside. Shukla writes about what goes on in people’s minds, their motivations and their interactions.”