Sneha Pathak reviews Still Lives by Reshma Ruia (published by Speaking Tiger, 2024).
The Online Cambridge Dictionary defines still life as “a type of painting or drawing of an arrangement of objects that do not move.” This definition is a pretty accurate description of the main characters in Reshma Ruia’s novel Still Lives.
Still Lives is the story of PK Malik who left Mumbai when it was still Bombay to start his course in an American college and build the kind of life his father never had. Fate, though, manages to stall him in Manchester where he starts a business in textiles.
Recommended Reading: Desirable Daughters: A Diaspora Family Novel
Family in a Foreign Land in Still Lives
When the novel opens, Malik is fifty-five. His once-successful business is floundering, and his personal life feels equally limp and lifeless. His wife, Geeta, is wrapped up in their only child, Amar. She has never really adapted to the lifestyle in England and misses home, as is seen by her regular letters and telephone calls to her sister Lopa in Bombay. Their son, Amar, is fifteen years old and is clearly on the spectrum, a fact that both Geeta and PK refuse to admit despite Amar’s constant struggles in school and at home.
From Discontent to Disaster
It is at this juncture that PK comes across Esther, the wife of Cedric Solomon. Solomon is on his way up as PK is on his way down. An affair starts between PK and Esther, with both of them unmoored and dissatisfied with their life, trying to find something more and enthuse their life with some meaning and zest. Their affair, however, is conducted in shady hotel rooms and is defined by clandestine calls and quick meetings, guilt and secretiveness. When their affair comes into the open, it results in a crisis that threatens to topple PK’s world.
The Loneliness of Love and Loss
Ruia deftly manages many themes in the book. There is, first of all, the question of loneliness and a lack of belongingness. Both Esther and PK are first drawn to each other because they feel disconnected from their respective families. Esther feels that her rich husband has no time for her, and both her grown-up children are too busy in their own lives. PK, on the other hand, is dissatisfied with his family life, and he cannot seem to find any way to connect with either Geeta or Amar.
Once he starts the affair with Esther, we find him constantly comparing Geeta of the present with Geeta of the past. It’s no surprise that he thinks of the past version of Geeta – prettier, sexier, smarter and more loving – with greater tenderness. Geeta is caught in her own loneliness as well, with her incapability to adapt to life in England and with a husband who is mostly occupied with business; she fills her days with taking care of Amar, eating fried food and watching re-runs of Indian serials on television. Then there’s Amar, who, for no fault of his own, finds it difficult to adjust to the pace of life that everyone around him seems to flow with so seamlessly.
This loneliness is closely linked with these characters’ – particularly PK and Esther’s – dissatisfaction with their present and the feeling that they have been left behind somewhere in the race of life, that they deserved more but haven’t gotten their due. At a point in Still Lives, when PK’s friend Gupta expresses his gratitude for what he has, PK sees gratitude as being the problem with people like Gupta, who are “ready to settle for bite-sized pieces of happiness.”
Roots and Relocation: Between Sitar and Mango Trees
This feeling of lack is also tied up with the immigrant experience, another theme that Ruia skilfully weaves in with the story in a way that never threatens to overpower the story but is always there in the background. PK came to England against the wishes of his father and could never convince him of the success of Malik Textiles. Now, PK expects Amar to add to what he had once built, overlooking the fact that Amar is different from what he expects him to be. At a point when Geeta asks PK if it isn’t enough for their son to be happy in life, PK almost crashes the car.
As he then tells Geeta, “We didn’t come to England to be happy. We came here to make money…. He has to be bigger and brighter than us.” This immigrant experience is also reflected in two symbols in the novel – Geeta’s sitar and PK’s mango tree that he’s been trying to grow in Manchester for a long time. Besides these, Still Lives is also the portrayal of a marriage with all its niggles, disappointments, disillusionments and every day’s minor-looking wear and tear that can threaten to swallow the entire marriage if not timely addressed.
Recommended Reading: A State Of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee
Favourite Quote from Still Lives by Reshma Ruia
My happiness with Esther feels like a death. There’s an aftertaste, a bitterness that slowly builds inside me so that, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think of isn’t a memory of the passion of moments spent together but a guilty awareness that I spent hours away from my home, making love to a woman who isn’t my wife.
Conclusion
Still Lives by Reshma Ruia is the story of still, stale, stagnating lives. Of unfulfilled characters who are desperate to seek happiness without really thinking of the consequences, something that’s reflected in the book’s bleak ending. The prose is simple yet inviting, and despite its serious themes and overall bleakness, which is complemented perfectly by the perennially grey Manchester weather, Still Lives is a page-turner. Once you get into the world of PK, Geeta, Amar and Esther, you are captivated by their lives, however still they might be.
Have you read this novel about familial bonds, personal disillusionments, and the immigrant experience? Comment below and share your thoughts with us!
