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Fable talk

John Lee

Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra, Faber $272.

THE epic is one of the oldest forms of story-telling known. Ancient civilisations depended on these convoluted tales of heroic deeds to reinforce people's respect for the society's traditions and beliefs.

In India the epic has survived the onslaught of modernisation and retained an important place in the country's culture and religion.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain, owes much to this epic tradition. It is a rich broth of a novel, where fabulism mixes with historical fact.

Its central character, Sanjay, is a monkey, shot by the eldest son of an Indian family, while trying to steal his Levi jeans. The other members of the family, shocked at Abhay's action, take in the wounded animal. Slowly he recovers and the family gradually realises that this is no normal chimp. He understands English and begins to communicate by using a typewriter. So Sanjay begins his story-telling about the past and, like The Arabian Nights, he must continue to produce tales or he will die.

His narrative is split into books, such as 'The Book of War and Ancestors' and 'The Book of Blood and Journeys', with Sanjay recalling his previous human life in the 19th century and the lives of his brothers.

As they grow up, each brother becomes aware of his destiny: Sanjay will be a poet, Sikander a warrior king and Chotta a soldier. But they live in turbulent times as the British Empire spreads its tentacles across the sub-continent and the world they knew is disintegrating.

Sanjay hears a prophecy which he thinks is his duty to fulfil: 'Everything will become red.' He believes that red will be the blood of the British soaking the earth as they are defeated in battle and driven out of his beloved Hindustan. He realises, too late, that the red is not their blood, but the blood of the Indian martyrs slaughtered by the guns of Queen Victoria's red-coated army.

Vikram Chandra's mixture of fact, fantasy and fable, reveals the spiritual depth of India, a depth lost on the British rulers. Sanjay rails against them but finds himself facing impossible odds.

There is so much in this novel to digest. Like an action film, it seldom lets up the pace. Even in between stories, as the monkey takes well-deserved breaks, things are happening in the small park beneath the balcony where he types. His marathon narrative has attracted national attention. Large crowds gather, police move in to maintain order and everywhere there are side shows - sweet-sellers, fortune tellers and musicians.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain is a celebration of the oral tradition of the past, when people sat round campfires or a feast and told stories of love and glory, passed from generation to generation through the centuries.

It is not a flawless novel. Some stories get carried away with themselves and start to drag. Others, such as the modern tales told by the young Indian student Abhay, about his travels across the United States, are diversions which are close to intrusive.

Chandra has a tendency to over-write and he does not have the penetrative power or maturity of greater fabulist writers but he is a remarkable story-teller.

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