Kintsugi by Anukrti Upadhyay (Harper Collins India)
Published: 28 July 2020
ISBN: 9353579538
RRP: $24.99
Extent: 224 pages
The connection between Indian authorship and the ‘global novel’ is an ongoing development in contemporary literature. Let me take that thought back one step further—the global novel as a whole is an extremely contemporary development, with few authors of any nationality taking the steps to think outside of their national perspective. Of course there is the immigrant novel, in which a narrator hops to another country, and reflects on their experience. But, novels in which authors imagine multiple nationalities, and hop around perspectives of people from different cultures and landscapes? For whatever reason, despite the times we live in, they haven’t grown as popular as they could.
It is for this reason that I welcome novels like Kintsugi, penned by Anukrti Upadhyay, an Indian author who writes in Hindi and English. It is a common trend to see Indian novels reflect on journeys to the US or UK, be they classics like The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971) or recent releases like My Father’s Disease (2020). An Indian novel, set partially in Japan, Jaipur, and Singapore, with characters of multiple nationalities, is a rare thing indeed. The structure makes it odder yet. Kintsugi could be classified more as a story collection than a novel, with six separate stories subtitled after the character from which the plot of the story is based. The characters are Japanese-American Haruko, Jaipur-based doctor Prakash, Haruko’s friend from her haveli Leela, foreign exchange student and Prakash’s bride-to-be Meena, her language partner and later life partner Yuri, and Japanese-American student Hajime. The first five stories alternate between Japan and India. The last one takes place in Singapore and Indonesia. The characters ultimately become involved with each other in some form. Normally such appearances would appear as authorial contrivances, but in the context of the novel, I believe Upadhyay’s point is to show that often we do not pick the right person for ourselves in the first go, and it is only through a reshuffling of people and place that we can imagine the alignment that allows us to finally co-exist with our proper partner.
Upadhyay’s incidental observations into Japanese culture and formation are the most important insights offered in the novel. For example, from the way she describes the ‘[crowds] of tourists and devotees [mill around] a Japanese temple[,]’:
‘To me, the whole effect was not unlike an Indian temple town, only cleaner and far more orderly. The temple compound was large and, despite the crowds, a place of peace. I followed Yuri’s lead and poured water from a long-stemmed wooden ladle over my hands. We stood before the idol-less sanctum in silence, our heads bowed. Candles flickered in the dim interior. The high altar was flanked by vases filled with chrysanthemums, and the bells hanging from the ceiling at the entrance were muffled with red cloth looped into graceful folds. The only sounds were those of coins dropping into the wooden offering box and people softly clapping their hands twice as they bent from the waist in obeisance.’
Upadhyay’s descriptions of Yuri also show Upadhyay’s mastery of attention to detail and observation. While Meena and Yuri are on a bus, they argue about whether or not to ask the driver to stop:
‘‘Come on, Yuri. Surely we can ask the driver very, very politely to make an unscheduled one? I’m sure he won’t mind. Back home, we do it all the time! Let’s, please. He would only need to stop the bus for a few seconds. The man controls the machine, isn’t it?’ Yuri smiled, but shook her head firmly. ‘I am very sorry but we cannot do that. It would be impolite to place the driver in such difficulty. He would have to choose between refusing a request and breaking a rule.’ I gave in. I knew that despite the gentle tone, those strong words from Yuri.
Yuri’s response not only documents an insight into a key difference between how Indians and Japanese people perceive considerate behaviour. It also serves as character development. Yuri and Meena are worlds apart. Whereas Yuri believes that one should never impose onto another, Meena sees everything as flexible. Every moment is defined by the moment which comes after, rather than an overarching plan, and so there is no sense of rule to follow. Meena has no problem disturbing the driver because in her mind the driver can stop and it would merely alter the direction in which time would pass, rather than perturb a schedule the driver has to follow. Meena’s clear Indian conditioning cannot cohere with the Japanese mentality of Yuri’s. And it is this innate difference, stitched not only through culture, but through the weaves of their very individualities, that cause the most negative of consequences to occur as their friendship becomes romantic, and sexual.
In the art of Kintsugi, broken pottery is mended by taking broken parts and melding them together with gold or silver powder. To repair is not to make an object appear how it once was, but to reimagine it altogether. Upadhyay’s novel functions as a metaphor of the act of Kintsugi itself. Like the pieces of a melded pot, Upadhyay’s characters are less fully developed personalities, but pieces of a story collaging into something greater. To fade into each other is part of the inevitable, but it is when our interactions are gleamed outward and reflected back onto the greater human experience that we learn from another’s mistakes, and we collectively evolve. In creating a novel that actively forces characters outside of a locale and inherent lived experience to interact with each other, Kintsugi the novel is more than a garnish on top of a vase. Kintsugi is an attempt to suture the human heart and its condition through the shape of completely mismatched human souls.
Kiran Bhat is an Indian-American author, traveller, and polyglot. He is known as the author of We of the Forsaken World…, and has published books in five different languages. His writing published in journals such as The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, The Southern Humanities Review, 3:AM Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, The Chakkar, and many other places. You can follow him at @WeltgeistKiran.