The Wedding Wallah, a boisterous read of a novel, combines marriages and Maoism to create a lovely story, written in tremendously lucid prose, of modern India where the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer.
The disparity or the divide has grown and given rise to Naxalism.
Young men have taken up arms and are waging a war for an equitable society.
But is a just, Socialist society possible when the dynamics of globalisation are changing the everyday life even in small towns where young men and women aspire to work in call centres?
While Farahad Zama’s novel doesn’t lead to any answers, it brilliantly hovers around issues to bring under its ambit (defined by the subtitle as “pride, prejudice and unsuitable arrangements”) the many ways modern India lives and loves.
The novel brings to life the setting of Vizag, where Mr and Mrs Ali run a marriage bureau for the rich and not-so-famous.
If you have read his other two novels in the series — The Marriage Bureau for Rich People and The Many Conditions of Love — you would know that there is something uniquely pleasant, and perhaps refreshing, about the way Zama writes about people caught in the crossfire of love, relationships, as well as those on the cusp of getting married and still others struggling to cope with the multiple maladies of a married life.
The Wedding Wallah takes off from where The Many Conditions of Love left you.
It opens with a news clip of the kidnapping of newlyweds Srinu Kankatala and Gita Marredu, abducted at gunpoint by Maoists along with their guests.
The reporter is Usha Malladi. You recall she is the woman Rehman, Mrs and Mr Ali’s son, was romantically linked with. But you discover later that Usha has broken off with him and Rehman has secretly been in love with the Alis’ niece, a poor but pretty young widow named Pari.
Meanwhile, Mrs Bilqis is eyeing Pari for her own son, Dilawar, the dashing young man who has discovered he is gay. The abduction by Maoists leads to many characters (including Alis’ employee Aruna and her husband) collide in the jungle and get a perspective on love and life.
Zama’s forte lies in writing about everyday realities. But in his hands the everyday acquires an incantatory tone.