Tides Of Truth: Review of ‘The Sea Has the Answers’

The Sea Has the Answers (Niyogi Books) begins with the heroine, Urmimala Das, starting her day with disturbing news in her Kolkata home. Urmi is devastated to hear that her rich, charismatic husband Shankar Das has been embroiled in a #MeToo scandal after multiple accusations of sexual harassment surface from his ex-colleagues. Questioning what she had hitherto considered a perfect marriage, she moves to her childhood home of Kinjalka in an unnamed small town by the sea. She has no plans save the pressing desire to escape from confronting her newly fractured reality. But what she encounters instead of calm reflection and slow healing is the realisation that sometimes, there is no escape from a fight. The fight comes to you, and your choice to avoid it or to get embroiled in it, reveals something of your character in moments when you would rather be invisible.

The first half of Shuma Raha’s novel is an extended reflection on Urmi’s psyche as she grapples with her memories. Not just the memories of her relationship with Shankar that she has begun to see in a new light, but also those of her parents’ and grandparents’ relationships. These layered reflections illuminate the reason behind Urmi’s introversion and lack of confidence as much as they illustrate women’s encounters with the subtle machinations of patriarchy across generations. This is easily the most profound portion of the novel, particularly the poignant story of how Urmi’s self-fashioning was influenced as much by her mother’s self-effacing existence in her marriage as by her mother’s single act of selfishness in her entire life. A parallel mother-daughter dynamic is seen in Urmi’s fraught relationship with her daughter Devika, who is simultaneously understanding of her mother’s need for distance and resentful about being left to deal with the aftermath of her father’s scandal all by herself.

Halfway through the narrative, however, this ruminative pace is interrupted by a series of increasingly dramatic events—a pushy new ashram next door trying to encroach on Kinjalka as part of its real-estate expansion, the unexpected exposure of a godman’s rape of an underage working-class girl, and a handsome young journalist who awakens dormant desires in Urmi that leave her with serious ethical questions. At this point, you start to wonder whether the pace gets slightly choppy and the story is devolving into melodrama. Raha’s narrative ultimately does reveal that Urmi’s encounters with these new problems are an extension of her initial conflict. The police’s abrupt dismissal of Manu’s legal complaint against the powerful godman is contrasted with what Urmi considers the immediate acceptance of #metoo allegations. Urmi’s passionate affair with Zakir, a much younger man, raises in her concerns about hypocrisy and power relations even in consensual relationships.

While Raha positions Urmi firmly on the side of the marginalised rape survivor, Urmi’s attitude towards the #metoo complainants is more ambivalent. The reader, who mostly follows Urmi’s perspective, is left weighing one kind of sexual violence against another. One may also be forgiven for feeling that other than Urmi and to some extent Devika and Zakir, most of the other characters fall flat—Appan is a stereotype of the loyal servant whom Urmi doesn’t see as a full person despite her love and care for him. Rima comes across merely as a caricature of the opinionated and obnoxious friend who doesn’t understand the heroine. The sporadic forays into Shankar’s thoughts offer little emotional complexity and simply reinforce the existing portrayal of him as a powerful man who refuses to take accountability for his actions.

Interestingly, Urmi’s personal crisis becomes an entry point for the novel to reflect on larger social issues. The turbulent sea functions as a metaphor for societal upheaval as much as for personal turmoil. While the parallel between the accusations of sexual impropriety and assault against Shankar and the rape complaint against Thakur, the godman, is clear, the narrative also opens up meditations on religious fundamentalism, superstition and social mores. It pays particular attention to the vulnerability experienced by women and Muslims while navigating the by-lanes of social norms in contemporary India. The novel ends without definite resolutions for many of these conflicts. If justice—both personal and social—arrives at all, it is neither clear nor conclusive. Similarly, the personal awakening that Urmi undergoes does not manifest in a dramatic overhaul of her life, even though the reader gains a definite sense of closure. Much like the sea in Raha’s title, the novel holds the answers beneath its surface, inviting the reader to dive deeper.

(Aparna Nandakumar is Assistant Professor, Dept of English, Providence Women's College, Calicut, Kerala)