Moral Ambiguity in Times of Desperation

Dystopian fiction is far from uncommon in these times, but Megha Majumdar’s second novel stands out because of its plausibility. Here are no plump suburbanites turned feral vigilantes, or fearful tribes with survivalist tyrants leading them: this novel, A Guardian and a Thief, is set in Kolkata after climate change causes flooding and famine.

In the year prior to this day, farmers across the region had fallen, their bodies running fevers in air that no longer cooled. In the croplands, among stilled machines, pests had traveled from acre to new acre, savage in their feeding of grains. In the west a drought had cleaved riverbeds and in the east salt water had tainted the paddy fields.

At the center of the story is Ma, a young woman living in Kolkata with a small child and an elderly father . Ma’s husband has already travelled to the US, and is attempting to get them the coveted ‘climate visas’, begrudgingly given out to a favoured few by Western governments in expiation of their guilty consciences. Ma is lucky enough to get these visas for the three of them to emigrate to the US.

They opened each passport with gentle fingers that took care not to cause any tear or fold, no sullying of these divine documents permitted, and checked, murmuring as they did, that the visa stamps bore their names spelled correctly [..]

Just one week to wait until their flight takes off. Just one week that they have to survive with the rice and lentils and onions hidden in the house, the supplies that Ma has stolen from donations to the shelter where she works. For she is both the guardian of her child and father, and a thief.

Everyone is desperate in Kolkata, and among them is Boomba, a young man who sees Ma stealing shelter food and determines to steal some back. He follows her home and breaks into the house.

The kitchen window was indeed open, but it had bars. Was he skinny enough to —? Here was his body’s deprivation coming to his aid. Here was hunger, his helper. [..] The bars bit skin from his torso as he slid himself in, and his ribs stung long after.

Lentils, rice, cashews and raisins were his target, but he also picks up a purse, and flings the unwanted passports into a garbage heap.

The police are not helpful.

The US Consulate even less so.

‘Yesterday’s appointment is not today’s appointment’, said the guard.

‘The next available appointment … I don’t see anything until September’.

‘Once I make a note, the visas are cancelled. Even if you find the passports tomorrow, you have to reapply for new visas.’

A little sleuthing leads Ma to Boomba, whose Scooby-Doo Tshirt is recognizable on a fortuitous CCTV, and who has dropped an item relating to the shelter. But Boomba is not intimidated by Ma:

‘Manager madam,” said Boomba in a low voice. “You are the thief. [..] If you take me to the police, I will tell them about you. I will tell them, so what if this manager madam speaks nice English and looks so decent? [..] You arrest her now! You put her in jail along with me’. He grinned.

This is not a story with heroes and villains. Ma had rationalized stealing from the starving shelter residents to feed her child, and Boomba too, much poorer, has a story. His village had flooded regularly with the rising tides, and their precarious living from growing betel leaves became impossible. His father attempted to become a honey collector in the forests before he was injured by a tiger, also thin and starving. He leaves for the city, hoping to earn enough to support his parents and toddler brother. Lowpaid job followed lowpaid job, until a weakened tree falls on his lodging and he ends up in the shelter.

Perhaps the most centered person in the novel is Dadu, Ma’s elderly father, who is described lovingly and vividly.

[..] Teeth crooked as gravestones. [..] He had changed into outside clothes, ironed pants and ironed shirt, sleeves loose about his thin elbows and rubbed a sheen of Vaseline on his fish-scale skin.

And yet, Dadu too commits a shocking act to save his beloved granddaughter from starving.

Breaking into the trauma of the present in Kolkata are the phone calls from Ma’s husband, who is unaware of the passport theft, and who lives in the alternate universe of America

a country of grocery stores as large as aircraft hangars, stocked with waxed fruit and misted vegetables and canned legumes from floor to ceiling. It was a country of breathable air and potable water.

Not everyone in Kolkata is in dire straits. Some billionaires live in bubbles of luxury, and soothe their consciences by providing food to the poor, and Majumdar turns a wry eye on their generosity.

Days before the billionaire’s daughter’s wedding, there was a feast for the poor of the city, limited to children and their guardians. [..] The walls of the auditorium played pictures of the couple [..] The lovers’ journey was of great sentimental value to the billionaire’s family, but it was merely comedic material to everybody who had come for the food. It would soon become a matter of jokes on the internet.

I feel obliged to mention that the plot is imperfect in places: who would leave the precious passports so easily accessible, or leave their toddler daughter in another room with a strange man in the house? And why would Ma not tell her husband about the awful situation? These situations are not impossible, but the way they are presented by the writer make them seem unlikely.

Majumdar’s writing is deceptively simple: straightforward sentences that pack a powerful emotional punch, but never detract from the propulsive story.

This is an unusual, original novel, all too close to reality.

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