Chronicle of An Hour and A Half

 

A fictional village in Kerala, an illicit affair where the man (Burhan) is 15 years younger than the woman (Reyhana), salacious village gossip that stokes wild action and raw emotion on WhatsApp, a crowd that turns into a frenzied mob intent on punishing and setting the ‘wrong’ right - this roughly summarizes Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari’s Chronicle of an Hour and a Half; not just a chronicle of mass hysteria and mob lynching but a searing account of the world/times we live in - one that defies Newton's Third Law - where first the reaction is decided upon and readied and then the action is fabricated/blown out of proportion to match the reaction, a world that avenges something that never happened, a world where imagined hurt (more often than real hurt) rules emotions, seeks solace and demands action from/on the Internet, a world full of self-righteous sinners.

Before you dismiss this work as a bleak portrayal of our world in the name of glorifying reality, let me tell you that the author sheds light on many aspects of our life through his sizeable array of characters. Very few portray women and their problems with a clarity as sharp and fierce as the author. Reyhana terms her husband as an uxorious leech at the start, and the ‘why’ sinks in, in the final chapter. Nabeesumma, Burhan's mother can be hailed as a powerful woman for all she endures over years since her marriage but the author meekly points out that calling such women strong is only as farcical as hailing people stepping out to work a day after floods or terrorist attacks ravage a city as resilient, because do they even have a ‘choice’?

If the author openly shows what plagues women in our society, he shows the problems men face in a quiet, understated fashion. In a book that liberally gives space to Chinnan and Ashraf who ‘see’ problematic things, even to their wives and kids, the author doesn't leave a single chapter in Burhan’s name, the man who is mangled to death by the mob. This deliberate omission of voice spells clearly how gender stereotypes and social conventions not just affect women but men too. While Burhan faces an acute punishment, Reyhana suffers chronically, her honour besmirched for life for the same trouble they idly walked into. Now when both women and men suffer in different ways, the debate on whose suffering is ‘greater’ only seems pointless. Through Shahid and his conversations with his father, the author lends space to men who sacrificed a decent married life for toiling away in the Gulf countries and the widely accepted definition of ‘masculinity’. Through Najeeb Maash, the writer airs views, easily tagged as blasphemous in parts of the world. Through Funny, his son, he shows how mobile phones can aid, if not bowel movement, moral depravity. For all the love that North Kerala harbours for communism, Che Guevara and Argentinian & Brazilian soccer, a clear Latin American influence can be felt in the writing - it’s raw, graphic and reeks of violence.

I read this ‘much praised’ book a week back even though I got a copy of it right after its release. I loved discussing it with Bhavna with whom both planned and impromptu buddy reads have been special and fun. Taking time to pick the book, I thought, will rid me of a hyper critical eye. With a fair exposure to literature from Kerala, about 80 pages in, the vast array of characters, an illicit affair at the heart of the plot, men objectifying women, it all felt formulaic even though the writing and atmosphere build-up were top notch. But as I progressed, I quietly concluded that the book deserves all the praise and attention heaped on it, I was left with no other option.