Walking into a shadowy world

This is an earnest attempt to string together the struggles of trafficked women and children, but the narrative tends to meander

Taboo’ by Nirmala Govindarajan, is, going by the blurb, a novel that explores the dark and disturbing world of exploitation and human trafficking. The story moves from place to place and person to person in a quest to throw some light on the viciously shadowy world of crime and the struggles of those who are trafficked. There are events and observations that take place all over the country (and some in foreign locales). The mysterious Lady with the Slender Hands is introduced right at the beginning; she is a sort of thread that links the events of the novel together.

The tales weave in many characters, the ‘mongers’, who interject the narrative with strange observations, a certain Pascal Rebello de Fonseca, the Lady with the Slender Hands herself and Perumal Arokyaswami. There are also corrupt politicians, mystics, children and missing mothers. Everybody, it seems, has struggled in some way, although those caught in the web of crime suffer the most.

Too many adjectives

Mixing first and third-person narratives, ‘Taboo’ makes use of an unusual writing style to move its story forward. There are references to current events, music, dance and a lot of Spanish.

The novel’s experimental style, modelled on the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique, focuses heavily on allusions, metaphors and a great many adjectives.

It does get a little confusing

There is a semblance of a structure in there — of characters having lost their childhood, of their dreams and hopes being crushed, of certain entitled individuals demanding more than their share of what they cannot have. However, there are also too many words in capital letters, a play on place names and an attempt to inject rhythm in what could have been simple prose. At a little over 300 pages, the experimental style of writing turns out to be rather tiresome. Perhaps, it might have worked if the word count had been reduced.

Alternatively, given the seriousness of the subject matter ‘Taboo’ works with, and the obvious meticulous research that has gone into unearthing details, a more straightforward and direct narrative might have helped. As it is, the unusual presentation of the book sometimes seems to make light of its own story. The gravitas of its content is not as effective as it could have been, especially when everybody talks in a peculiarly sing-song way. That, along with the excessive capitalisation, makes the reading experience a wee bit bewildering.

Trying too hard?

The Greek-chorus like interjections of the ‘mongers’ is a bit too much. The nuances of characterisation are at times lost, especially because of the time and place jumps. The dreamlike reflections of Erendira, with their sprinkling of Spanish, are an unusual idea — only if you get an inkling of what she’s talking about.

Overall, ‘Taboo’ is not an easy read and not just because of its story. It takes time to navigate the text and piece the story together because of its unconventionality. The story tries too hard to be cerebral, rhythmic and lyrical. As stated before, a shorter novel may have handled the experimental prose better.