Wani Nazir
Certain books speak to us. They look straight through us, and that is where Vibha Batra’s Spotless fits right in. It is more than a novel: It’s a mirror; it shows us all our tender bruises that we get good and skilled at covering up. It doesn’t even start with a bang. It starts with silence, like the light of the moon, slipping into the room:
“The moon has spots.
It’s far from perfect
and yet,
they celebrate it,
worship it, fall in love with it,
sing ballads for it, set movies on it,
buy land on it build rituals around it,
obsess over every cosmic spectacle.”
From the initial lines, Vibha Batra deposits her author right in the midst of this realm of flaw. The blotches on the moon’s façade aren’t just features; they’re a metaphor for everything that’s incorrect or simply human; and the moon itself, despite all its hitches and flaws, turns into a required and shining cyber-version for a little girl who wakes up one day to discover a snowy splotch on her parted forehead.
That’s the mortality; the snowy splotch is the tipping indication. Just like Woolf’s before and after of Septimus’ trauma, and of Clarissa’s epiphany. This easy splotch divides the author’s policy of mind.
“A mom-daughter pair seated in the first row stare stare stare with undisguised fascination.”
The “stare stare stare” sets the beat of the novel, that sense of being watched and picked apart. In Plath’s ‘Mirror’, the mirror says, “I am silver and exact,” which is similar. And here, too, Batra changes the point of view, making us aware of seeing and how that doubles.
But Spotless isn’t about pain. It’s a coming-of-age story, a journal, and a cosmic poem all at once. The narrator’s voice is sharp, self-aware, and funny when you least expect it. You can taste it and feel the muck. She feels the same exhilaration that all teens do. She doesn’t just think about the disasters and monsoons; they are all mixed up in her room and her existence. Trauma, in fact, creeping up right in the middle of school life, like it was nothing. Batra’s method is to have the strange thing come in and sit next to the normal thing, making both feel strange and just perfect. Watching yourself change via the lens hurts.
All of a sudden, boom, you’re “not like everybody else.” You can feel the thudding rhythm of disqualification there. But Batra’s real skill is turning cultural critique into something that sounds like a heartbeat. And then there’s the gentle home, which is made of love and vulnerability. There is a father who secretly becomes a co-conspirator in silence. There is also a mother whose faith helps her stay alive. Morrison’s Beloved suggests such form of martyrdom: love that saves but also kills the self.
The best thing about the book is that it shows us how to deal with everyday problems. The small verbs “googling”, “searching”, and “ordering” fall like exhales, the happy beat of pointless waiting in the wireless century. It’s Woolf’s stream of consciousness for teens, who go back and forth between science and magic, pain and stupid fun.
The moon settles back over and over again, which is a secret indication of contentment and understanding. You think of the moon as both a mirror and a therapist. The moon is always there, yet it changes all the time. It has spots and shines, much like the narrator. This link between flawed species is similar to the spiritual compassion in Rilke’s Duino Elegies, which is about the anguish of living and the amazement of going on anyway.
The image of rain in the poems is so dreadful, it’s like a complete teenage terror that spirals. The terror that Sylvia Plath wrote about: not being noticed or, even worse, being left behind. But light gets in. In one of the loveliest moments, kindness came like sunlight after days of grey. You can almost feel your heart beating again.
But the tonal range is what makes Batra stand out. Even when a door closed, the kind of silence makes me think of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day. Silence isn’t just the absence of sound; it’s a language too. Batra doesn’t lose faith. She takes it apart and then puts it back together. When you’re in a crisis, you have to search for meaning all over again.
And then there are times when the narrator just muses upon the question that had a tired kind of wisdom, like the kind kids have before the world tells them to be quiet. You can tell how badly they want to fit in.
Batra asserts that acceptance isn’t only about being appreciated; it’s also about being allowed to be a part of the whole mankind. You can hear the narrator’s doubts and guts warring with each other in the book. The feeling of being stuck, with words swirling about but never coming together, is evident. Love is also present, the messy hopeful kind, but there is a heartbreak all at once. Wanting so badly, feeling so full and so hollow at the same time. Batra pulls everything together at the end.
As the moon ceases to be a metaphor and becomes something common. Batra is communicating: your spot, your difference, your mess—that is what ties you to everyone else. Clean continue to write like a poet but read like a buddy. The main voice wavers between wanting to hide and wanting to see, weighed down by being young in a period of constant scrutiny and unknowns. It’s about wanting to be loved—not in spite of her spots, but because of them. Reading the book it comes to surface that things change, not in how people perceive you, but in how you see yourself.
Spotless fits in wonderfully with stories that praise flaws, such of those by Woolf, Plath, Morrison, and Arundhati Roy. But it’s a smart decision since it’s always there and helps you feel seen, no matter how old you are. Writing that is clear, honest, and full of heart. It helps you feel less embarrassed over time by using timing, humour, and understanding.
Spotless is a voice that sticks with you and an echo that won’t leave you. Even if it has a name, it still makes you think of the moon as a face. It looks a lot better with all the light and dark. You finish the book with a sense of respect and the feeling that you’ve revealed your secret, camouflaged skins.
Vibha Batra’s Spotless can be ordered here.
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.
