Prajwal Parajuly's two books – published in Southasia and around the world in 2013 and 2014 – were accompanied by a large marketing fanfare. The Gurkha's Daughter – a collection of stories revolving around various characters of Nepali origins in India, Nepal, Bhutan and the USA – was swiftly followed by his novel, Land Where I Flee, largely set in Gangtok, Sikkim. Parajuly has been touted as "the next big thing in South Asian fiction", and whether the young author is able to maintain readers' and reviewers' interest beyond his first two books remains to be seen. However, Parajuly's work is certainly rather different from that of other contemporary Indians writing in English, especially in his focus on, and treatment of, his principle subject: the Nepali diaspora. Land Where I Flee covers many Indian literary bases, particularly those that get Indian literature recognised in the Western world – displacement and diaspora, family feuds, an 'exotic' locale. Yet Parajuly addresses such well-worn tropes in irreverent ways that make him and his work stand out from – if not necessarily above – that of his literary contemporaries and peers.
From short stories to novel
The marketing of The Gurkha's Daughter incorporated some curious genre trickery in the Southasian edition. The stories are seemingly packaged as a novel, with no mention made on the cover – which features a young girl, the eponymous Gurkha's daughter – that it is a collection of short stories. Parajuly has explained his publishers' decision as follows: he found a literary agent and a publisher who loved his work and signed a two-book deal, which, at 27, made him the youngest Indian to ever score an international book contract. He was told that one of the books had to be a novel, because of the general perception among publishers that readers are less interested in short story collections (the truth behind this assumption varies enormously across book markets, but appears to be baseless in the Southasian context). It is less common for a new author to debut with a short story collection, but this is what Parajuly had produced, so his publishers packaged the book in a way that made people believe they were picking up a novel. Such an action may make sense to marketers and publishers, but seems to have left some readers rather baffled about why they had been fooled, whether they should care about having been, but ultimately shrugging and reading the book anyway.
As competent as The Gurkha's Daughter is, I cannot not help but agree with the author, who has repeatedly expressed his boredom with the book. Promoting one's book with lukewarm feelings is a strange predicament for an author, and reflects an unusual relationship with readers and critics – lack of care about what they think? Preemptive self-criticism to deflect harsher criticisms? Utmost honesty? Or a means of creating anticipation for the next book, which, as the author claimed, was to be much better. Land Where I Flee is indeed more substantial than The Gurkha's Daughter. The stories contained within the earlier book are free-standing, but Parajuly "thought it would be fun" to pursue some of the characters and themes that first appeared in short story form through the novel format. If exodus was the overarching theme in The Gurkha's Daughter – reinforced by the little maps preceding each story informing the reader of the location of Gangtok, Kalimpong, or Phuntsholing, as well as Kathmandu and New York – return underpins Land Where I Flee.
Land Where I Flee
Grandmother Chitralekha Nepauney, a woman with overt caste chauvinism and a bad temper, is turning 84, a significant life milestone known as chaurasi in Nepali. She is like a mother to her four grandchildren, having brought them up after their parents died in an accident when they were small. The grown children return from their scattered locations to Gangtok for the chaurasi. Bhagwati has been estranged from her family for marrying a lower-caste Damaai from Bhutan; she is currently living in Colorado after being settled there as a Bhutanese refugee. Manasa travels from Kathmandu, where she lives with her family-approved husband in an unhappy marriage. Agastaya travels from New York and is attempting to hide his homosexuality from his family, a task complicated by his American boyfriend's unannounced arrival. As if these offspring weren't already black-marked enough by their grandmother (and each other), an even more estranged Ruthwa arrives uninvited, a writer who had been shunned after divulging sordid family secrets for the sake of his 'art' – an act that hadn't done him much good anyway, as his career had stalled by the time we meet him. Prasanti is the sixth prominent character, the long-loyal hijra maid (rather unusual in the Indian hills) who plays a tragicomic role. This large contingent of characters does generally work but would have appeared more natural and less clunky if the narrative perspective had remained constant. As it is, Parajuly begins with an omniscient narrator, and switches to narrating from Ruthwa's perspective at other points. This may have worked more effectively if Ruthwa's story had been privileged above the others in the plot. Parajuly states that the incongruity of this, the jarring effect, was deliberate; a way of preventing Ruthwa from appearing entirely as a villain. However, the device comes across as contrived, utilised because the best consistent focal point could not be decided on.