Raag Darbari, deriving its meaning from the famous raga composed and sung by Tansen in Emperor Akbar's court, recites the tale of a mythical village, Shivpalganj and its inhabitants- those who have the power and those who want it. The metaphorical court is the sitting room of Vaidyaji, the person with the highest stature in the village, holding presiding positions in the intermediate college management and the grain co-operative. It is the regular hang out place for his yes-men, where they drown themselves in bhang, squandering their energies in discussing matters of least consequence. This is juxtaposed with the outsider perspective of Vaidyaji's nephew, city returned Rangnath, who has a hard time getting accustomed to the mechanisms at work in the village.
The novel is proclaimed as one of the most exquisite examples of Shukla's prowess in satirical style of writing. As the author has stated, the inspiration for the novel was drawn from a number of incidents and tales shared among his colleagues, friends and himself. This is evident from the episodic structure of the novel. Each chapter is written as a collection of disparate events happening all over the village. The depiction is perhaps intended to be cinematographic in some sense, with with a vivid description of the scene marking the start of every chapter. These introductions, for me, formed the most entertaining parts of the chapters, where Shukla employs the most vernacular of the idioms to create puns and mock the stereotypically idyllic and romanticized versions of village life in the existing hindi literature. While reading this novel, thus, it was impossible for me to prevent myself from comparing it with Godaan. The two novels, written about three decades apart, differ starkly in their representations of the Indian village. While the latter is more reverential in nature, Raag Darbari does not opt for the more wordy and verbose route, and in fact, is at times quite graphic in its descriptions.
"Two wrestlers strolled nonchalantly out of the akhara. One was Badri: the other, Chhote. Both had shaven heads, covered with a plaster of dust and sweat. The backs of their necks were wrinkled like a rhino’s; they wore the ends of their loincloths hanging down loosely at the front, like an elephant’s trunk. On either side of the narrow loincloth hung the scrotum, at large in the universe, on public exhibition; but just as the indecencies of Henry Miller and D. H. Lawrence are condoned in the name of art, so too these two wrestlers were permitted to let it all hangout in the name of Indian gymnastics."Raag Darbari breaks the mould of your run-of-the-mill hindi novel in terms of its skeletal structure as well. It does not specifically have a unifying plotline per say, but is more of a collection of subplots based around the numerous characters. Thus instead of having a defined point of crisis followed by its resolution, the novel is essentially a well written witty commentary on the socio-political set-up of Shivpalganj. It does not have a hero figure as such- Rangnath, who finds himself in moments of moral dilemma at numerous occasions but fails to take a stand or make his point, hardly showcases his heroics when the situation demands. Another notable aberration is the sheer absence of women in the story- with the exception of Bela, who is a minor character, there is not even an indirect reference to a female character. When the author was asked about the same, his replied that women were not the ideal vehicles to bring across the factionalism that exists in the society.
In essence, the book, with a slew of deftly designed (and named, for that matter) major and minor characters, is a thoroughly entertaining read, the definite peaks being the author's clever quips and humorously vivid descriptions.
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