This novel in letters between teenage girls in Bombay and Karachi is anything but light reading

The premise couldn’t be more befitting, given the hostile political climate on the two sides of the border. In debut author Antara Ganguli’s book Tanya Tania, two school-going girls with the same name spelt differently, one in Bombay, the other in Karachi, grow as friends over letters they write to each other in 1992. The year is important; it is central to the story – the year before the riots in Bombay destroyed the soul of the city, and, in many, heartbreaking ways, the fragile lives of Tanya, Tania.

Two teenagers, trying to figure out the various shades of identity, sexuality, ambition and relationships in and outside the home, are suddenly plucked out of their teenage angst and thrown into the deep end of the pool of sorrow in the wake of a violent tragedy.

The epistolary-style novel begins with a heartfelt letter of apology in 1996, from Tanya in New York to Tania in Bombay. Tanya has moved to Columbia University from Karachi for higher studies, but can’t seem to put the past behind her, a past that haunts both the girls, wordlessly binding them and driving them apart. The next letter goes into flashback, to 1992, when Tanya first writes to Tania:

Dear Tania,

Hello. My name is Tanya Talati and I am the daughter of Lisa Talati, your mother’s friend. They were at Wellesley College together. In college, my mother was Lisa Wilking. You must have heard of us. It is at my mother’s suggestion that I am writing to you. I broke my leg playing hockey and have to remain in bed with an immobilised knee. It is stultifying. I am reading my way through the American classics so that I will be well prepared for writing college admission essays. I’m reading Hemingway right now. He is alright. Not quite as dark as Dostoyevsky, who is my favourite.

The letters, in appropriate teen-speak, start off light and frothy, with Taniya, Tania getting to know each other through predictable anecdotes they share from their lives – first flush of love, sex, dhoka; high school drama, a palpable disconnect with parental expectations, figuring out the big “What Next?” conundrum after school…

Make it dark

But soon you begin to sense darker issues simmering, not unlike those that go on in millions of households – Taniya’s helplessness watching her mother’s failing mental health and her father’s financial troubles, Tania’s dismay watching the clash of political ideologies and personalities in her home, and together, both girls tackling a growing sense of loneliness and unrealised dreams. As they swap intimate details, Ganguli uses the letters as a way to explore and build the tension that envelops both cities and countries, of lives across the border – the similarities and differences, so close yet so far apart.

From the shadows of Tanya and Tania, two other girls emerge as worthy protagonists, with Ganguli giving them full form – Chhoti Bibi and Nusrat, who work in their respective homes. The two young “servants”, who grow to own the novel, often overshadow the personalities of Tanya, Tania. Writes Tanya: “I suppose it’s strange to discuss a servant quite so much. It’s the broken knee. I don’t see anyone these days other than Chhoti Bibi…But still. There is something about her. Her first day here, she strode into the house and walked straight to the kitchen although there’s no way she could have known where it was.”

About Nusrat, says Tania after her mother’s violent outburst: “I don’t know how it happened but somehow Nusrat’s arm was around me and mine around hers. I could feel her breast under my head and it felt nice…We lay like that until it got dark and she had to go home. My mom never came out of the room…I want my mom to love me like Nusrat loves me.”

Tension, trauma, teenage

Sexuality, class identity, love without labels, and the trauma of our violent times are themes that Ganguli brings out gently, effectively. The book gathers pace and heft towards the finishing line, changing in tone as the events around the girls – the demolition of Babri Masjid, riots, kidnapping threats and violence across the border – threaten to shake the fragile balance of their lives.

It adds layers to all that has changed in Indian young adult fiction in the last couple of years. Look at books like The Right Kind Of Dog by Adil Jussawalla, Guns On My Red Earth by Swati Sengupta, Payal Dhar’s Slightly Burnt, Himanjali Sankar’s Talking of Muskaan, Andaleeb Wajid’s When She Went Away, and many more, where authors have pushed the envelope and broadened the young adult narrative from high school themes to more nuanced conversations around selfhood, gender, war, terrorism, famine, divorce.

On one level, Ganguli’s book speaks to anyone who may have felt the cross-border tension creeping into their daily lives, sensed the chants of Hindutva growing louder in the air, and wondered at the futility of destruction. The treatment, though, writing as she does through the perspectives of 16-year-old girls, limits its literary scope. Staying true to its structure and characters, there is a lot “young lit” about it – but that is not necessarily a bad thing at all.

Tanya Tania, Antara Ganguli, Bloomsbury.