In the heart of “small town” India is an unexplored world of stories. Sharmila Kantha at best reminds us of that treasure in the backyard. It’s a pity however that she stands in the midst of a ready field that she is unable to harvest.
Based in Patna, the story of A Break in the Circle focuses on the life of a middle-class family. Anuradha is a housewife whose days revolve around her children, husband and parents. House maid, visiting relatives, weddings and TV serials are the other elements that claim her. The news of a visit by a professor who had left the town years ago sends ripples across her placid life. She is strangely worried about the “requirements” of one who has lived in America for 20 years, and establishes an online contact with him. The professor’s past, a topic of common discussion in the town, is spiced with stories of an affair with a student, Manvi Prasad. Close on the heels of the professor’s visit, Kallu Chacha comes visiting with his family. His groom-hunting mission disrupts Anuradha’s plans to shop and prepare for the professor’s visit, as does the arrival of a troubled couple from Delhi. The couple is in Patna to find a solution to their problems and it falls on Anuradha and her husband to help them out too. In the midst of this, Anuradha must also dissuade a cousin from pursuing a modeling career in Delhi as it will bring bad name to the family. The different strains of the story begin to climax as the date of the professors arrival draws close. So while Kallu Chacha must find a suitable son-in-law, the Delhi couple a solution to its childlessness and the maid must marry off her daughter. A dramatic end takes shape as Anuradha and her husband are going to pick the professor from the airport. Veil falls off the face of an arrogant Manvi Prasad and the truth behind the professor’s past is revealed.
Wife of an Indian diplomat, Kantha has her roots in Patna. Clearly here she bites off much more than she can chew in 195 pages of A Break in the Circle. Her earlier works include a novel, Just the Facts, and two picture books for children. Even as the author struggles to place the characters in their social settings, time remains blurred. While the story attempts to be contemporary, the characters lack the ambition of today’s middle-class, particularly in small towns. They resemble more the frugal and inhibited class of 70s and 80s. The author hops from one character to the other attempting to grab it all in one sweep. As the story ends Anuradha see all of her life’s episode winding up like one of her TV serials. For the reader, on the other hand the climax is a shrill screech, just the way they do it in the soaps: “Nahiiiii”! To make matters worse, the text is rant with errors which the editors should have seen and fixed. There is excessive use of qualifiers: “Then she poured out drinking water from the large earthenware pot with a long stainless-steel ladle into oversized stainless-steel glasses and set them in front of the men sitting at the pockmarked table”; and rather banal insights: “Sadly there is no incentive in our system for such people to stay if there are better opportunities”.
Television appears as a node around which the family gathers. The story itself is deeply inspired by the spate of small town soaps. However, Kantha is unable to spark similar humour or debate. The story of the average family life is never simple to tell and Kantha under-evaluates her subject. She gives in to the first temptation to tell-it-all. While the writer commits the most probable mistakes it is even more surprising that the reputed publisher chose to put its stamp on the book in its present form.