Gachhar Gochhar

Gachhar Gochhar

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Author: Vivek Shanbhag 

This book has been on my to read list for ever. I even bought it once but lost it in the pocket of my flight seat even before I could start. I finally get to read it when I got a free pdf copy in a Bengaluru book club. Coincidently the town being the setting of the book and the native of the author. There is nothing better than reading about the place you start living in. Thank god for the translations! 

Basically, all my attempts to get at it despite it being a snip snap 100 odd page book have been all Gachhar Gochhar, but there is always  a meaning to everything that happens. Just like this book! 

Gachhar Gochhar as a term being refered in context of a complete mess. The book talks about how new money corrupts. Especially when it comes too much and too soon and by wrong means. Only you understand what it was to be a ‘Have not’ and then ‘Have it’ all’. A part of you can’t accept that you deserve it but giving up is not an option. Once you get a taste of what it is like, the taking - you keep taking. 

All those moral stories of our childhood about greed, money and power take an ugly shape in this adult story. A family struggling for a basic meal suddenly becomes rich. The power equations in the house get drawn and conscious or integrity take a back seat. The family bond of a shared past and evolution draws the loyalties. Everyone else is an outsider, every question is a threat, every dissent is a revolt.

When you watch Game of thrones you think it happens only to royalty. When you watch Saas Bahu soaps you think it happens only on TV. But the drama of money, politics, family loyalties and intrigues plays in every home. At times I wonder if it’s not so much about lack of money but the abundance of it. All that wealth and the fear of loosing it or not knowing what to do with it leads to the insecurities. 

Our nameless protagonist and his mental monologues, offers us a deranged state of a man drifting into a meaningless state. Amongst the hierarchy of needs for a man, a purpose sits at the top. Most of us are caught in the daily drudge of the bottom needs like food, shelter, security and social. Suddenly when these needs are met the purpose does not appear automatically. This is where a man either finds one or drifts into nothing. Reaching the point of Gachhar Gochhar. 

Sharing some lines that showcase the prowess of Vivek Shanbhag’s writing - 

Now, let me not give the impression here that I believe in the supernatural–I don’t. But then, neither do I go hunting for a rational basis for everything that happens.

‘Sir–one story, many sides.’

Words after all are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered.

As natural as it is for families to pretend that they desire what is thrust upon them as an inevitability. It’s one of their strengths.

it’s not enough just to inspect the upper surface while buying a dosa pan. You should look at its base too. It too must have an even surface. And if you start using it from day one as if it’s a non-stick–that’s it! Your dosas will stick to the pan and come out a mess. There’s a procedure to get it ready for use. In our house we’d apply oil to the pan and keep it near the stove’s flame for several days. Sometimes we’d keep it out in the sun too. After it was heated up we’d wash it, scrubbing it with coconut coir. We’d keep doing this till the pan soaked up all the oil and became ready. An ideal pan should be coarse enough for the batter not to slide away, but smooth enough that the dosa shouldn’t stick when lifted. That’s when a pan is ready …’

She wouldn’t understand. For that, she’d need to have lived those days with us–when the whole family stuck together, walking like a single body across the tightrope of our circumstances. Without that reality behind her, it’s all a matter of empty principle.

He’s given to quoting a proverb that says wealth shouldn’t strike suddenly like a visitation, but instead grow gradually like a tree.

The result was that we simply did not desire what we couldn’t afford. When you have no choice, you have no discontent either.

The SM was in the habit of punctuating his speech with the phrase ‘an important matter’, but in his enunciation it became ‘unimportant matter’.

I sometimes wonder if their every moment is spent sharpening their tongues, silently accumulating resentments for later use.

Anita doesn’t like to cook. It’s not that she can’t; she doesn’t want to.

He attempts compulsively to say something funny all the time, and this has turned him into an object of laughter. No one is amused by his quips; to make things worse, he laughs at his own jokes. That laughter too has increasingly grown feeble and nervous and altogether pathetic.

‘So, Vincent, what news?’ He says, ‘Holes in dosas in everyone’s house, sir.’ A common enough adage it’s true,

I began to fear that those unsaid words among us would soon fester and spread their stench.

It was an inexplicable feeling, this wanting her to want something, then meeting that want, and this somehow drawing us closer.

A man in our society is supposed to fulfil his wife’s financial needs, true, but who knew he was expected to earn the money through his own toil?

The well-being of any household rests on selective acts of blindness and deafness. Anita had outdone herself when it came to suicidal forthrightness.

‘Cakes as good as the coins they cost.’

None of those types who will point out the mustard seed under your feet, but are blind to the pumpkin beneath them.’