In the
middle of the 19th century, Rani Rashmoni, having inherited a fortune upon the
death of her husband, was inspired to build a temple at Dakshineswar, near
Calcutta. Dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali, the temple eventually became
home to the mystic Sri Ramakrishna, who dedicated his life to the pursuit of
holiness and is still revered as a saint and spiritual master.
Nicola
Barker’s maddening, funny, playful and beautiful new novel “The Cauliflower” gives us a life of this
saint. Barker, the author of 11 novels and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award, has once again invigorated an old form — the historical biographical
novel — through electric wit and sheer bedazzlement.
Built
upon the apparently reverential accounts of Ramakrishna, “The Cauliflower”
reworks the contours of the historical novel into a surprisingly luminous work
of art. First, she shatters the conventional linear approach to biography and
rearranges scenes from his life into a mosaic that foregrounds and juxtaposes
events.
Passages
from other works and forms — “Song of Solomon” and haikus and catechetical
quizzes — are interspersed with pastiches of Indian film, emoticons and
authorial asides in the manner of Henry Fielding. Letters from Western pilgrims
to Dakshineswar are interleaved with lessons on the basic tenets of Hinduism and
the steps toward nirvana. Most of the time, these literary hijinks work to
great effect, but when they fail, it is spectacularly.
In addition to the author/historian, a second
narrator is Hriday, the saint’s nephew and bewildered disciple. The Boswell of the
story, Hriday is a brilliant comic achievement, snarky one moment and devoted
the next, to tell the story of Ramakrishna’s life.
And
what a life it is! Born into a poor family as Gadadhar Chatterji, the boy and
his miracles are mysteries to his parents. His devotion and desire to seek God
in all things often leads to fits of ecstasy, fainting once at the sight of a
flock of white cranes passing in front of a dark cloud. Later in life, his
trances last for days. Miracles and wonders recur. Friends, disciples and
pilgrims seek him out if only to touch the hem of the cloth around his waist.
Some believe him a godly avatar.
Yet
he is human, surely, and Barker mischievously points to his faults and foibles.
He has a secret fondness for sweets. He has a weak stomach and is prone to
flatulence and must avoid sulfur-rich foods such as cauliflower.
To
please the gods, he dresses as a woman for a period, becomes a naked mendicant
and may have even grow a vestigial tail to play the monkey-god Hanuman. His
jealous disciples take note if one or the other receives preferential
treatment, and all are astounded by the particular ardor he has for a young man
among his followers.
Ramakrishna tries many faiths, practicing
Islam for a while, tacking a picture of Jesus to the walls of his small room.
Radical for his time, he claims that while there is only one God, there are
many paths to follow. Midway through the book, there is an extended comparison
with the work of another saint, Mother Teresa, with her own craze and devotion
and self-denial. Both saints rise from the lost and desperate city of Calcutta
— “a city run under the brutal, clear-eyed, and merciless auspices of the
Goddess Kali. The creatress, the destroyer. The mother, the murderess.”
The
goddess Kali is the other great character of “The Cauliflower.” There is no
direct feminist parallel to her in Judeo-Christian tradition. She is the Divine
Mother who both nourishes and destroys life, who embodies the dualistic
traditions of Hindu thought, who presides over maya — the illusion called life.
That Ramakrishna and millions of others love Kali may be because of her power
to induce bliss, “a dangerous, overwhelming, and ecstatic energy to release,
and very difficult to control once you have. Play with it at your peril, girls
and boys.” “The Cauliflower” of the title may be many things, including a
vegetable, but surely it is Kali’s flower as well.
Through
passages both lyrical and profane, holy and human, this biographical novel
about Ramakrishna reveals a core paradox that may be present in all the lives
of the saints: To truly pursue the joy of God, they must abandon the self. And
yet, Ramakrishna becomes more present and alive for doing so. Many people in
the West may have never heard of him, but millions in the East are spreading
his gospel.
In
her afterword, Barker lays out her process as “a small (even pitiable) attempt
to understand how faith works, how a legacy develops, how a spiritual history
is written.” She is being too modest. “The Cauliflower” is a brilliant and
suitably playful way to ask these questions of gods and saints, not often
addressed these days in the modern novel.
Representative Image
Source: Washington Post
‘Facet’
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