Wani Nazir
Rohit Manchanda’s A Speck of Coal Dust (1995) starts gently, pulling readers into a world that is both delicate and full of meaning. The first sentence tells us what the place looks like and what the two boys are doing right away: “In a room at one end of a bungalow overlooking scrubland that sloped down the side of a valley carved out by a river, of which, when it was in flood, a beige flowing tongue could be seen from the window, two boys darted about in random directions, hunting mosquitoes.” This long sentence talks about the landscape and what the kids are doing. Manchanda focuses on the small details in this basic picture, such as the way the river flows, the scrubland, and the youngsters playing. The book’s core point is how the environment, perception, and consciousness all function together. The main character, Vipul, lives in a world that seems both big and small, where everything has a moral and creative purpose. “But for the eternal undulating chant of the crickets and the frogs outside, it seemed to Vipul that the world had suddenly shrunk to a point, to the small space which his senses told him his body occupied.” Sensation makes the world bigger and smaller; every sound and movement means something.
This level of care goes beyond school and work to include family and societal situations, especially those that had an impact on Vipul’s childhood. There are “yellow neurotic ragged balls of fluff” in the courtyard of Pinki Didi’s house. Not only is it wonderful to look at, but you may also study, play, and watch there. Kids are quite good at noticing the ordinary: “They looked meditatively at the debris, each fragment of which caught a ray of the sun and turned it into a miniature lamp embedded in its crystalline belly.” These situations make everyday living more important for morals and creativity. Manchanda’s comprehensive description reminds me of Narayan’s Malgudi, which is very place-based, or Anita Desai’s researched landscapes. But his view is full of life, character, and joy in the small things in life.
Another thing that is being looked into is names and closeness. The cute and funny nicknames—“Kuku or Kiki or Kaka; Baby or Baba or Bubby; Happy or Jolly or Lucky; and most sublimely, yearningly, Lovely or Sweety or Beauty”—are vastly different from the formal names used in schools, hospitals, or train reservations. “At home using a real name is like calling the sky ‘firmament’: wasteful and pompous and cold.” These nicknames are different from public formality and private, imaginative existence because they include connection, spontaneity, and belonging. In The Serpent and the Rope, Raja Rao focuses on the subtleties of language, where English and common language create complex identities. Manchanda does the same thing here.
School and authority are shown in a way that is both serious and sarcastic. Missionaries, who are usually European but sometimes Indian converts, wear “white cotton cassocks and black leather shoes” and look like “overgrown boys and girls play-acting noble ecumenical parts.” These figures may be humorous and over-the-top, but they nonetheless have an influence on Vipul’s moral and perceptual growth. Father Rocqueforte’s unexpected interest in moral science—“In the course of one of his classes Father Rocqueforte happened to stumble upon morality”—is another example of how structure and chance are intertwined. This offers Vipul an opportunity to reflect. Moral lessons are never only taught; they come from seeing, hearing, and doing things, just as Narayan’s sympathetic pictures of school.
Manchanda’s universe has time that is uneven, altered, and highly personal. The world at large is “so indifferent to Khajoori (the back-of-beyond place where Vipul and his family live)… it would not even send news of itself in time. Today’s newspaper would arrive tomorrow afternoon, carrying yesterday’s news – and, like a hardened, stupid liar, pretend to be current, carrying tomorrow’s date.” Television, which comes in grey and light grey or blue and cream, shows how unstable modern life is. Vipul’s link to the seasons—“Any season could be enjoyed in two ways: in its indulgence, and in its exclusion. Vipul enjoyed the heat of the direct summer sun, but he enjoyed better, at times, the shelter of a room that excluded it entirely”— is vividly portrayed. Vipul appreciated how hot it is outside in the summer, but sometimes he likes being inside where it is cool. This reveals how we think, feel, and see time. These rhythms make you feel aware in a way that is personal, creative, and moral.
Vipul’s universe is quite imaginative. He sees a peacock dancing to the music: “And through the chemistry of some subliminal, vivid association that the song touched off in his brain, Vipul imagined a peacock, its fan spread aloft, dancing in rapid stationary steps to the rhythm of the song – perhaps also singing the song – its beak directed upward, scenting the heady moistness in the air, plunging into ecstasy.” This is where moral awareness, creative awareness, and sensory engagement all come together. The flowers that “did not reign long upon the trees, dropping down, voluntarily, entire and moist, long before they were to wither” also show how fleeting and random life is and how important it is to take care of it. These thoughts are comparable to Raja Rao’s mix of observation and morals and Amitav Ghosh’s concentration on the moral and historical parts of real life.
Desire, which has been carefully shaped and controlled by morals since childhood, is a notable part of the story. When Vipul chats to girls, he feels unsure: “Vipul did not talk to the girls on the way to and from school. He was too shy, because the girls were younger than he and from that very fact there arose possibilities; and the girls, perhaps for the very same reason, seemed to be shyer still.” Over time, Vipul’s affections for Chetna grows within a moral and emotional framework: “It was imperative for Vipul to have thus provoked the others. The reason was Chetna. Over the intervening months, he had grown to develop a palpable affection for her.” Desire, observation, and moral engagement are all intertwined, like the fragile inner life in Kamala Markandaya’s books, but seen through the eyes of a child.
Manchanda also talks on distrust and social classes. There is a lot of moral criticism and inspection for servants. “All the servants were under suspicion. Thapa … was in any case always under suspicion because of his red rotten eyes and his red clever teeth and very dark glinting skin. So now he was held to be almost certainly guilty.” These lines suggest that Vipul’s ability to tell right from wrong and see things clearly is getting better every day. The “sanctum … a hollow empty cavelike enclosure but for dense incense smoke that moved about in placid swirls and eddies” is another illustration of how awareness, ritual, and the environment are all connected. They stress how important it is to be aware of and live an honest and creative life.
This connection is much greater because the book is related to media, art, and storytelling. For instance, movies can be both immersive and thought-provoking: “Ah, cinema! The hero challenging the audience to confront him if they had drunk their mothers’ milk. The heroine smiling unbeguilingly, as though known to them, sociably, for years. The parents of the heroine obsessive about some illogical archaic point.” Vipul’s moral, imaginative, and social reading of mediated stories supports Manchanda’s claim that consciousness is always developed through careful observation and thought.
Manchanda’s writing is incredibly descriptive, like when he says, “The winter sun, considerately distant, quietly warm, shone equally on them. It bathed the courtyard white, and it tinged each skin with an underglow of light, so that brown became sepia, sepia cream, and cream bleached, whitening.” Light, dust, movement, and things change how Vipul sees the world, how he thinks, and what he believes is right and wrong. “They cherished their comics. They handled them with a care that approximated reverence, turning their pages delicately as though they were archival material, sensitive to the touch.” Things and locations are never neutral; they shape a child’s moral and creative growth.
Simple things like tickling, dancing, watching rivers, and waiting for storms can help you think deeply. “They halted by it, and tried to picture what the river might look like when it had risen this far. It was a forbidding thought.”That idea makes one scared. Things that seem ordinary can have emotional and creative implications that make them special. Manchanda is one of the group of Indian writers who see childhood as a period for moral, imaginative, and moral exploration. These writers include Narayan, Desai, Markandaya, and Ghosh.
Vipul’s inner life travels back and forth between play, thought, and societal observation. Lastly, memories, family ties, and shared experiences make up Vipul’s moral and emotional world: “They talked of things that a reassembled family must: common memories: the glue that kept them coherent, that kept them from losing affection.” Manchanda reveals that even the most rudimentary substances, like coal dust, may carry the weight of history, experience, and emotional meaning. He does this by exhibiting things like river valleys, black-and-white TVs, tickling stomachs, and peacocks that he imagines. Manchanda studies, celebrates, and really feels what it was like to be a youngster.
In A Speck of Coal Dust, Manchanda creates a universe where all of these things can happen at once: being aware of your senses, coming up with new ideas, thinking about right and wrong, and understanding other people. The book’s strong attention on locality, perception, and awareness puts it squarely in the tradition of Indian writing from the 20th century. It reveals that people learn how to be moral, creative, and artistic while they are young. Manchanda uses Vipul’s attention on dust, light, laughter, and remembering to show us that even the simplest things may have a significant effect on the mind, heart and conscience in ways that are both subtle and long-lasting.
Winner of a Betty Trask Award, Rohit Manchanda’s A Speck of Coal Dust is available online.
A postgraduate gold medalist in English Literature from the University of Kashmir in Srinagar, Wani Nazir, from Pulwama, India, is the author of the poetic collections, …and the silence whispered and The Chill in the Bones. Presently working as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education, Jammu and Kashmir, he has been writing both prose and poetry in English, Urdu, and his mother tongue, Kashmiri. Wani has poetry and prose in Kashur Qalam, The Significant League, Muse India, Setu, Langlit, Literary Herald, Cafe Dissensus, Learning and Creativity – Silhouette Magazine, The Dialogue Times, and elsewhere.
