Gopal Lahiri
The Autograph Seeker by Tony V. Francis
Novel
New Delhi: AMARYLLIS, 2017
Price- INR 399
ISBN: 978-93-81506-99-8
Tony V. Francis’s witty, elegant and the well-crafted novel ‘The Autograph Seeker’ chronicles Kolkata of the eighties and nineties and also dig deep into the history of the famous San Souci Theatre of Kolkata flourished during British rule which was untold for the last 150 years and the ghastly secrets and missing memories of the famous actress of the Bengal Theatre, Esther Leach, an Englishwoman who accidentally got burnt on the stage before the shocked audience and died in mystery.
In her absence, swathed in a darker hue, her beautiful daughter Alice Anderson, estranged from her husband Thomas Anderson and her native Bengali lover Babbo Bustomchurn Addy (who was ready to kill anyone for her) makes us feel their presence with a force and freshness. The closer they got to the source of the memory enchantment, the more our sense of triumphant anticipation was invaded by a creeping dread of what it might be concealing. Francis’s sharp, potent novel depicts how even the briefest relationship can affect the rest of life.
The two actors staged ‘Othello’ with great hurdles but with the sudden dramatic exit of Addy and the reluctance of Alice to go back to stage, the San Souci Theatre experienced a steady decline and ultimately the owner of the San Souci, James Barry, sold the theatre to the Catholic Community of Calcutta who started an institution what was to become the iconic St Xavier’s Collegiate School of Kolkata.
The novel is set in a misty, horror filled Calcutta during colonial rule, populated by the British occupants and the locals. That is not all. Another story run parallel in the novel and the spotlight is the brighter on the two characters, the protagonist Tony, a school boy of St Xavier’s school, class of 1993, fond of collecting autographs of famous personalities and her mute Anglo-Indian lover Vinny who succumb to the implacable journey toward love in the end.
The characters and events during nineteenth century Calcutta are astonishingly fresh even if those characters are floating like back projections in a canvas of contemporary events where the collection of autographs define time, where every word evokes a forgotten past.
All this the writer relates to us bluntly and plainly with the sparkly filter of humour and eloquence. Testing the bounds of relationship and identity, Francis displays his linguistic gifts in the narrative that resist sentiment and startle with intimacy. He has written that much dark, that much light.
There is excitement, horror and a sprinkling of magic during the colonial period and these strange, flinty, narratives speed by, offering lots of surface tension and compelling deeper emotions.
The tone is however, quiet and nuanced when Alice and Addy spent many hours in each-others company on rainy days and Alice was fascinated by the lean darkness and muscles of man.
“Alice rested her chin on her fist and gazed at Addy.’. I would like you to know something Addy. These two days have been the best rains after the longest drought of my life. Thank you.’”
The energy and excitement of the fiction, come from the two prime characters themselves, their inner lives, what they see and imagine and read; from what Jane Austen called their ‘sensibilities’.where riffs phase in and out—which makes it a pleasure on a sensual level.
‘It was the best winter of my life. With Vinny by my side, no cold was too cold. She bullied me and charmed me, fought with me, bewitched me, until I simply could not exist without seeing her every day. Everything was fun. I liked her laughing eyes and her boyishness’
There is the laminar flow, the romanticised, interesting characters, the exquisite dialogues in sign languages and sentences and finally the elegant suffering,
What a day this has turned out to be! He signed
It was obvious the young woman was in a state of surprise at the sight of the man behind her.
Where did you learn to sign like that? She signed back.
One picks these things up as one passes through life.
It is you, Lover.
In flesh and blood
The fictional stories of a classroom of Xavier’s are vivid and rocking gently on the ripples and one can easily forget the time lapse. The junior students that can seem one-dimensional in the early days turn into rounded human beings once they are grown and matured. The protagonist, Tony, was creative, bold and along with some of the fictional Sunnys’ of his class raised objections to the teachers’ tirade time and again and got punished in the process. Furthermore, he had a great passion of seeking autographs from the various Public Figures.
Those student days revealed the fallacies of early jealousies, petty fights, class room fun and unadulterated adulation for winning mileposts. Much of the content was timeless and one could occasionally catch glimpses of the stolen moments of Calcutta.
‘Short street ran right between St Xavier’s primary school and high school. There was something about Short Street that made traffic behave itself. Yellow taxis ceased to honk and drove past quietly. Rickshawalas held their bell and ran by with their patrons. Private vehicles muffled their curses till they were well past Camac Street. The two buildings on either side of the road commanded respect and awe.’
Peppered with autographs and amusing anecdotes, the readers are led through a mix of nostalgia, heartbreak, betrayal, humour, fun, love and profound acceptance. The protagonist Tony remains as if a child blossoming inside throughout but the insights or witnesses are not lost in the process.
Tony V. Francis’s ‘The Autograph Seeker’ is a dazzling excavation of the glimmering San Souci theatre of yesteryears and how a collision of fates can transform the inner worlds of Tony and his unspeaking lover Vinny. This atmospheric novel is truly an ode to the loss and gain of loving what will forever be just out of reach.
The cover design is entrancing. This smart, consummately accomplished novel is just the kind of book that you’ll want to recommend to others over and over again.
