Battlefield

 

This book reminded me of George Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism. Orwell’s strands of thoughts on colonialism, nationalism and anti-semitism are woven into this slim work of fiction - Battlefield by Vishram Bedekar, originally published as Ranaangan in the year 1939, translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto.

“If we’re thinking of Nationalism as revenge, if this becomes rooted in our history as a way of thinking, what becomes of man’s evolution? I shudder to think”.

“Perhaps the boundaries of narrow patriotism need to be broken all over the world.”

“The Nazi philosophy seemed to see the nation as an avenging angel, flaming sword in hand, righting wrongs that might be real or imagined”.

"My mother was born in Poland. I was born in Berlin. My children, should I have any, will be born in Shanghai. When your grandmother is Polish and your mother is German, and you are Chinese for whom will you fight?"

Europe is on the brink of WWII. Chakradhar Vidhwans feels it is wise to leave London and return home to Mumbai, India. On the ship back home, he meets Herta, a Jewish young woman forced to flee her home in Germany and seek exile in Shanghai. Many like Herta, heavily persecuted by Germany, are also headed to Shanghai, unsure of their future.

Chakradhar, who’s nursing a heartbreak, vows to make merry on the ship for two weeks before disembarking at Mumbai. Herta who has lost her job, home, love of her life, everything for being a Jew, is intent on clinging onto the smallest sliver of hope. She cares a hoot for the morals of the world that has shut her out. A heady mix of romance & desire brews between the two leading to a passionate, short-lived, plangent with melancholy affair.

“When you need a drink, you go and get one and you are rejuvenated. Which hotel you drink in does not matter.” - Chakradhar’s thoughts on desire for women’s company (there are more such lines) may feel misogynistic and irksome. But I pushed his notions and the romance between him and Herta to the background for Herta wouldn’t have been on the ship and would’ve led a quotidian life in Germany if the Nazis didn’t drive her out. The circumstances that brought them together were more important than their state of togetherness itself, for me. The little titbits of history on 'comfort women' from England ushered to service the French soldiers and a very rich arms dealer called Basil Zaharaoff (1848-1936), Shanghai being the home for Jews who fled Germany before WWII grabbed my attention more than the melodramatic love story itself. 

The ship, a tunnel of light and dark, is a microcosm of the world we lived/live in where human beings estrange and exploit those different from themselves (based on race, color, gender and religion) with an inexplicable madness. And for highlighting this, Battlefield, a classic stays extremely relevant.