Tuesday, July 8, 2025
  • Home
  • National
  • International
  • Movies
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Fitness
  • Lifestyle
  • Punjab
  • Contact us
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Business

A journey through the mind

by author
April 10, 2021
in Business
0
A journey through the mind
0
SHARES
18
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


Jhumpa Lahiri’s words create a world worth a thousand pictures Express photo Jhumpa Lahiri’s words create a world worth a thousand pictures (Express photo)

By Suvanshkriti Singh

Related posts

EXCLUSIVE – Crypto giant Binance controlled ‘independent’ US affiliate’s bank accounts

EXCLUSIVE – Crypto giant Binance controlled ‘independent’ US affiliate’s bank accounts

June 5, 2023
Why investing just to save tax may be bad for you

Why investing just to save tax may be bad for you

June 5, 2023

I saved Whereabouts for the train. I figured, what better company on a pilgrimage to a land and language that was mine but also distant from me than a title that announced displacement.

My journey was marked by names and crowds — names that recalled to memory crossings down the same tracks, years ago, crowds whose masked mishmash of sounds and smells and speech fuelled my escape into Jhumpa Lahiri’s masterful prose. That of Lahiri’s narrator, in contrast, was enfolded in wide-open space, enclosed by emptiness, devoid of a single name.

She is 45, beautiful, contemplative — a voyeur of other people’s thoughts, fascinated to presume — alone, both rueful and protective of her solitude.The novel itself sets out as an anonymous ode to an unnamed city, recording with loving attention the intimate, unconquerable features of its streets and sidewalks. But, it becomes much more — at once a guided tour of a would-be everywoman’s mind and an exercise in linguistic alchemy.

I follow the narrator through bookstores, coffee bars and theatres, each location a breadcrumb on a fragmented memory trail. I follow her also to dinner parties and country retreats, through petty hostilities and casual musings, to baptisms and graveyards. I become privy to her home, her dread at the moment of waking, and her resentment of spring.

Lahiri’s words, spare though they are, create a world worth a thousand pictures. Here, clouds are masses of jellyfish, the sea magnificent in its restless, perpetual agitation, and hotels are parking garages designed for human beings. A world of generous gazes and routine spectacles, where intimacies are imposed and indisputable, and painted nature trembles with life.

Beautiful though the world Lahiri crafts through words is, the one I find myself inhabiting is also just of words. There is something of the transmutative in the novel’s deployment of language. The sentences stretch, explicitly and subliminally, the limits of what words can mean and do. The title, so obviously evocative of place, comes to encompass space and time, seasons and states of being, nostalgia and remembrances of the future.

The narrator, like Lahiri, loves words. She is at home with phrases you or I would rather our lives steered clear of — at sea, adrift, bewildered, uprooted. These words, she confesses without guilt, are her abode, her only foothold. And Lahiri certainly is surefooted, in translating as much as in her writing, prompting deep dives out of oneself and into the heart of anxious emotion, only to return to impassive reflection in the space of a conjunction.

Whereabouts has everything to recommend itself. It is penned by a celebrated writer, and born of a love of two literary languages — one of my favourite moments in the novel is a parenthetical interlude that breaks the translator’s fourth wall to reflect on the polysemic joys of jewellery boxes. A slim, elegant, memorable book.

Yet, what endeared it to me most was that it was a novel to get lost and liberated in, to belong to when I couldn’t belong to where I was. A novel whose pages echoed my struggle for escape. It is an ethereal world I was transported to, the shadow of an idea; yet, nothing could feel more solid, more real.

Suvanshkriti Singh is a freelancer

Whereabouts
Jhumpa Lahiri
Penguin Random House
Pp 163, Rs 499

Get live Stock Prices from BSE, NSE, US Market and latest NAV, portfolio of Mutual Funds, Check out latest IPO News, Best Performing IPOs, calculate your tax by Income Tax Calculator, know market’s Top Gainers, Top Losers & Best Equity Funds. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Financial Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel and stay updated with the latest Biz news and updates.





Source link

Previous Post

Let’s talk about gaslighting and fundraising – TechCrunch

Next Post

IPL 2021: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw power Delhi Capitals to big win over Chennai Super Kings | Cricket News

Related Posts

EXCLUSIVE – Crypto giant Binance controlled ‘independent’ US affiliate’s bank accounts
Business

EXCLUSIVE – Crypto giant Binance controlled ‘independent’ US affiliate’s bank accounts

June 5, 2023
Why investing just to save tax may be bad for you
Business

Why investing just to save tax may be bad for you

June 5, 2023
Share Market outlook today: Nifty, Bank Nifty may to gain on positive global cues; check support, resistance
Business

Share Market outlook today: Nifty, Bank Nifty may to gain on positive global cues; check support, resistance

June 5, 2023
Startup group of G20 calls for $1-trillion commitment
Business

Startup group of G20 calls for $1-trillion commitment

June 5, 2023
DHARAKSHA: Converting rice straw stubble to sustainable packaging material
Business

DHARAKSHA: Converting rice straw stubble to sustainable packaging material

June 4, 2023
Amrita Hospital, Kochi opens two new research centres; announces Rs 65 Crore for charitable care
Business

Amrita Hospital, Kochi opens two new research centres; announces Rs 65 Crore for charitable care

June 4, 2023
Next Post
IPL 2021: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw power Delhi Capitals to big win over Chennai Super Kings | Cricket News

IPL 2021: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw power Delhi Capitals to big win over Chennai Super Kings | Cricket News

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECOMMENDED NEWS

Caught On Cam: Explosive Thrown At Temple In Amritsar, Police Suspect ISI Link; BJP Questions Law And Order In Punjab | India News

Caught On Cam: Explosive Thrown At Temple In Amritsar, Police Suspect ISI Link; BJP Questions Law And Order In Punjab | India News

4 months ago
Waqf Bill Among 16 Bills Passed During Parliament Budget Session | India News

Waqf Bill Among 16 Bills Passed During Parliament Budget Session | India News

3 months ago
Craft Safari in Kashmir: A move to revive state’s centuries old hand-made craft | India News

Craft Safari in Kashmir: A move to revive state’s centuries old hand-made craft | India News

3 years ago
Wildfires Ravage Los Angeles: Death Toll Rises To 11 As Over 10,000 Lose Homes | World News

Wildfires Ravage Los Angeles: Death Toll Rises To 11 As Over 10,000 Lose Homes | World News

6 months ago

BROWSE BY CATEGORIES

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fitness
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

BROWSE BY TOPICS

Architecture culture Fitness indian architecture indian culture indian culture and heritage indian news lifestyle national news Technology technology news Travel travelling

About Us

Awaj Ludhiana Ki

Address

2667/3, Kishore Nagar, Tajpur & Jail Road, Ludhiana – 141008

Recent News

  • Gopal Khemka Murder Accused Killed In Police Encounter, JDU Leader Says CM Monitoring
  • How Russian Ministers Death Post-Dismissal Mirrors Critics Fate
  • Sarah Jane Dias joins the cast of Lakadbaggha 2 – The Monkey Business as Anshuman Jha welcomes her into the expanding animal-lover vigilante universe : Bollywood News
  • Over 25 Crore Workers To Strike Against Govt, Know Whats Open And Whats Closed?
  • RTI Reveals Spy Suspect Jyoti Malhotra Was Kerala Govts State Guest; Custody Extended Till July 21

Category

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fitness
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

Search

No Result
View All Result

Email

[email protected]

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers

Copyright © 2019 Awaj Ludhiana Ki or it's affiliates | Website by Awaj Ludhiana Ki Team

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact us
  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fashion
  • Fitness
  • Food
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Punjab

Copyright © 2019 Awaj Ludhiana Ki or it's affiliates | Website by Awaj Ludhiana Ki Team

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In