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Sandeep Ray’s A Flutter in the Colony, the Journey of a Family Between Bengal’s Famine and the Malayan Emergency

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13.09.2019

Sandeep Ray was born off the Straits of Malacca, on the edge of a rubber plantation. Educated in India and in the United States, he began his career as a film-maker, travelling widely and producing award-winning documentaries. A historian now, he explores woven pasts in A Flutter in the Colony, his first novel.

A Flutter In The Colony is the journey of  a family, scrabbling for peace between the Bengal Famine and the Malay Emergency.

In 1956, the Senguptas travel from Calcutta to rural Malaya to start afresh. In their new hamlet of anonymity, the couple gradually forget past troubles and form new ties. But this second home is not entirely free and gentle. A complex, racially charged society, it is on the brink of independence even as communist insurgents hover on the periphery. How much should a newcomer meddle before it starts to destroy him? Shuttling in time and temper between the rubber plantations of Malaya and the anguish-filled years of pre-Partition Bengal, between the Malayan Emergency and Direct Action Day, between indifference and lust, A Flutter in the Colony is a tender, resonant chronicle of a family struggling to remain together in the twilight of Empire in Asia.

Here is a short excerpt from the book:

By the early months of 1943, it became evident that a catastrophic shortage of food was looming. Bengal, it seemed had fallen under the curse of a dual-headed beast loyal to both ill fate and human tyranny. A pernicious crop fungus, followed by massive cyclones, had destroyed the winter harvest the previous year. The Japanese invasion of Burma, just months later, blocked the rice imports urgently needed to cover the shortfall. These reductions, compounded by refugees fleeing from Rangoon, caused a harrowing shortage of essential grains. Yet, the British War Cabinet sequestered food for its own war efforts, building manpower and army garrisons in and around Calcutta while implementing a pre-emptive scorched earth policy to deny the resources to the Japanese, in the event that they were successful in entering India. Tens of thousands of fishing boats were systematically destroyed with no alternative in place, effectively eliminating the local water-transport system. Starvation loomed, especially in rural areas. Usury was rife.
Budhon, Nirupoma’s favourite servant and ally, returned from the market one morning and reported that the sellers were speculating that the cost of rice was to rise significantly. This was brought to Nirmal Sengupta’s attention over lunch. He too had been discussing the matter with his friends. ‘Yes, yes, but we don’t need to panic,’ he responded calmly. A couple of days later, before Budhon went the market, he gave him enough money to buy an entire month’s supply. ‘Be very careful that we don’t waste a single grain,’ he announced as four servants hauled the sacks in. The following week the price doubled, a few days later it trebled, and by the end of a month it had reached five times the usual price.
Budhon was barely awake one morning, lying in his small corner behind the kitchen, when he thought he heard someone call his name. He listened carefully. He sprang up; it was his master’s voice. Nirmal Sengupta had never visited the servant’s quarters before.

‘Sir … what is it, sir? What may I do for you?’ he said, clearing his throat.
‘At what time does the first train leave for our village?’
‘At eight, sir. A train leaves from Howrah; it is sometimes on time.’
Nirmal Sengupta peered at the clock in the dining room. ‘That gives you enough time to get ready. Now, go into the storage room and pick up one sack of rice. You will take that to our daughter-in-law’s house. Return immediately.’
He walked back up the stairs and settled in his large armchair on the balcony. Nirupoma was surprised to see her father-in-law up at the early hour.
‘Did you sleep well, Father?’ she asked.
Nirmal Sengupta asked her to sit next to him. As she crouched on the floor, he explained to her that he had just sent Budhon to her mother with enough grain to last a few days.
Nirupoma ran to the balcony and saw Budhon walking away briskly with a sack of rice balanced on his head. She called out as loudly as she could. 

‘Please bring back a letter from my sister.’

Budhon nodded, the sack bobbing on his head.

As dusk fell, Nirupoma cradled her baby and waited on the balcony. She stared at the street, anxious to catch Budhon’s white singlet in the twilight.

Publisher: HarperCollins India

For interviews, reviews and additional information, reach out to:
sagiri.dixit@harpercollins.co.in
PB| Fiction| INR 399

 

 


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