LS 17. Real Time by Amit Chaudhuri (BBA &BHM SEM II)

“Real Time” by Amit Chaudhuri

The short story Real Time by Amit Chaudhuri revolves around a memorial service for a young woman, Anjali Poddar (nee Taluktar,) who committed suicide by jumping off the third-story balcony of her parents’ apartment building in an unnamed city in India. The story is narrated in the third-person subjective mode from the point of view of the main character, Mr Mitra, a rather uninspired, bored, middle-aged, professional man who, with his wife, is attending the shraddh for Anjali. He is there as a duty and not because he feels any genuine sympathy for what the family is going through. He is keen for this duty to be over so that he can return home, back to the routines and small pleasures that constitute his life (going to the club, buying cookies for tea on the way home, visiting New Market, lunch of daal, rice and fish).

Not much happens plot wise in Real Time and the little action there is occurs over a couple of hours. Some background information is filtered into the story to provide a few details of Anjali’s back-story by way of Mr Mitra speculations and vague memories of her. No flashbacks – in the real sense of the word – are used to fill in the missing information and the reader is left wondering about what really happened to make Anjali take such a tragic and drastic step.

We discover that the realness of time promised by the title is an attempt to provide the reader with a sense of how real time looks and feels – its little bits and pieces of observations, half thoughts, seemingly random shifts from the serious to the banal, thoughts of ‘growling stomachs’ and desires to pee are all mixed in with vague speculations about the death of a daughter – the thing which never seems to gather to it the weight and force of being real in any way at all: the pain of loss and grief remain completely understated/avoided so as to seem almost unfelt/unreal.

The story opens with Mr and Mrs Mitra in their chauffeur-driven Ambassador car on their way to the shraddh – the memorial ceremony for Anjali – and Mr Mitra is petulantly enquiring of his wife what the correct procedure is ‘in a case like this’. Ultimately, he buys a bunch of tuberoses to give to the family. Abdul, the driver, drives in the general direction of the Talukdars’ flat, Nashant Apartments, but no one seems to know the way and they are forced to ask for help a few times. A loiterer, a boy and a watchman are brought into the story momentarily to provide directions. Finally, they reach the apartment building, use a lift to go up to the apartment and Mr Mitra hands over the tuberoses without saying anything, no words of condolence are given, then he around the rooms rather aimlessly, his mind resting on one object or another briefly before shifting on to something else – a Mickey Mouse pencil-box, a portrait, a thought of Anjali’, someone hanging out washing, food being served, and so on.

Scant attention is paid to the matter of the suicide, avoided as if by design; all he comes up with are a few disjointed snippets of memory: Anjali’s qualifications, her husband’s wealth and businesses, the good match she made. Thoughts about what could have prompted her suicide are also kept vague, superficial and cold. We learn that her marriage had not been happy (she’d left her husband before) and this time she had asserted that she had no intention of going back to him. Her parents were said to be a little unsympathetic and the end result was that she killed herself.

Mr Mitra eats a sandesh, drinks a Fanta, has a chat with an acquaintance, urinates and, at the end, catches his wife’s eye to indicate that it was time to leave and that it had all been a waste of time. No sympathy, no condolences, no real concern about the tragic loss suffered by the Taluktars.

That is all that happens in the story of Real Time. Not very much action-wise, you’d agree, I’m sure. Although, the detail that Chaudhuri does give as Mr Mitra’s experiences in and observations of that short time at the shraddh seems to add tedium to the texture to the slow passing of time.  Chaudhuri manages to create a real sense of time moving on – as it must – and people experiencing what it is they do, see or encounter – as they must – with the hugely significant (e.g. death and loss) sitting alongside the incidental (the desire to urinate, observing a mickey-mouse pencil-box, etc.).

Title:             Real Time

Author:        Amit Chaudhuri

Year:            2002

Important Characters:

Mr. Mitra - He is an uninspired, bored, middle-aged, and professional man. Along with his wife, they're going to Anjali's funeral. Which he doesn't seem too convinced about the relationship with Anjali and his wife.  He also, seems to have an unsatisfying feeling when he leaves the Shraddh.

Mrs. Mitra - She is the curt wife of Mr. Mitra and distant relative to Anjali. Seems to be more convinced than her husband about the culture of the funeral. She has very different views, than her husband's. However, she is also uninterested on going to the funeral.

Anjali - She is an unhappily married young woman that committed suicide. She didn't really know Mr. Mitra and Mrs. Mitra, but nonetheless her relatives were there for her funeral.


Mr. Talukdar - He is a tall, heavy, and old man who is a professional business man and the father of Anjali. Has three kids, two sons who live in America, an Anjali, the only daughter.

Setting:

The story takes place in the late 1940s , at an unknown location in India, where a couple is driving to the Shraddh of Anjali.
"They passed an apartment building they knew, Shanti Nivas, its windows open but dark and remote. [...] Usually, it's said that Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and Saraswati, or learning, two sisters, don't bless the same house; but certainly that wasn't true of the Poddars, who had two bars-at-law in the generation preceding this one, and a social reformer in the lineage, and also a white four-storeyed mansion on a property near Salt Lake where they used to have garden parties" (Chaudhuri, Lines 34-41).
The Shraddh seemed out of place, and so did the people who attended. Especially Mr. Mitra, who felt like "The hubbub common to shraddh ceremonies was absent" ( Chaudhuri, Line 141). Also, he felt that there was no point for his presence or for the funeral, if this culture wasn't around everybody, this is why the setting didn't feel right for him.

Point of View:

The point of view in this story, is third person omniscient. The narrator knew everyone, and what they were thinking or feeling in the Shraddh. However, the main focus was on Mr. Mitra, although the narrator would talk about the other characters, they would always seem less important to the narrator than Mr. Mitra.
"As they passed a patrol pump, Mr. Mitra wondered what iew traditional theology took of this matter, and how the rites accommodated an event such as this- she had jumped from a third-floor balcony- which couldn't, after all, be altogether uncommon. Perhaps there was no ceremony. In his mind's eye, when he tried to imagine the priest, or the long rows of tables at which people were fed, he saw a blank. But Abdul couldn't identify the lane" (Chaudhuri, Lines 43-48).

Summary:

A man and his wife, Mr. Mitra and Ms. Mitra, are on their way to a Shraddh. They are attending Anjali Poddar's funeral, a young women who has an unhappy marriage and who committed suicide by jumping off a balcony. They get lost while on their way to the Shraddah, and Mr. Mitra already is uninterested in attending. Throughout the whole ceremony, he finds it pointless to be there. Indian culture revolves around this story, however it seems absent in the funeral. Mr. Mitra in the end, decides to leave with an unsatisfying feeling.

Theme:    Destination can be hard to find.

When on their way to the Shraddh, Mr. Mitra and Mrs. Mitra, were lost trying to find the apartments where it will be headed. "What preoccupied him now was not getting there, but the negotiations involved in how to get there" (Chaudhuri, Lines 62-64). They eventually found their destination, but it was a hard one to find.
As for Anjali, her destination was never found. She "had been living with her parents for a month after leaving her husband. She'd left him before, but this time she'd said her intentions were clear and final" (Chaudhuri, Lines 202-204). She didn't have a destination since she was back and forth living with her parents and then her husband. As a result, it was rumored because of her unhappiness life, she committed suicide and that was her ultimate destination.