A family that ‘consumes’ together

Rachna Singh

The name of the book Ghachar Ghochar piqued my interest. As did the dust jacket with its picture of ants swarming over a plate of left-over food. All my attempts to make sense of the unusual title and the picture, however, came a cropper. So I simply curled up in my armchair with the book and let the author walk me through the narrative. The story is simple and takes the reader through the everyday life of a family of five. 

Appa is the sole breadwinner at the beginning of the story. He is a small salesman who honestly and scrupulously discharges his work for a paltry salary that is used to educate his children — Malati and the narrator — as well as his younger brother Chikappa. 

The family lives their life in a dark, crowded street of Bangalore with very little money but with strong bonds of affection. Then fate plays truant. Appa loses his job but Chikappa is ready with an idea for a fresh business. With Appa’s savings, Chikappa builds a prosperous business in a very short time, albeit with all the trappings of corruption and coercive goons. Soon the family shifts to an upscale house and has enough money to spend on luxuries. They are, however, completely dependent on Chikappa, who is treated like a ‘king’.

Things are going well. Malati is married with great pomp and splendour. Yet prosperity has given Malati an arrogant acerbity that does not allow her to adjust in her husband’s family. She walks out of her marriage amidst hostility and comes back to live with her ‘Chikappa’. The narrator gets married to a well-educated girl, Anita, but her views on life and work clash with that of the family. She is unable to break into their charmed circle.  

Things come to a boil when Anita attempts to question Chikappa’s behaviour and threatens a police case. She then disappears. Anita’s disappearance is the dark heart of the novel. Nothing is said about her disappearance. It is for the reader to unravel this mystery. References to mysterious deaths, a visual of blood on the narrator’s hands in the coffee shop, reference to Anita’s venom spewing at Chikappa as ‘suicidal’ suggest that Anita has been done away with as she has dared to question the undisputed power of Chikappa. But it is the imagination of the reader that brings such a denouement to the book. 

Ants become the metaphor of death. The old Bangalore house is swarmed with ants. The entire family finds ways to kill them without regret. The ant killing during narrator’s honeymoon seems to be a portent of how Anita is killed with the same lack of compunction. Ghachar Ghochar becomes the leitmotif of the novel. It suggests something that is snarled and twisted beyond redemption, be it the string of the kite with which Anita and her brother played with as children or the drawstring of Anita’s petticoat or the life of a family that has entered into a Machiavellian pact where anything that Chikappa does is acceptable. 

The ‘simple’ narrative of the book has dark undercurrents that show the ugly side of a family caught in its self-made ‘hubris’. The story impresses with its attention to detail and fine characterisation. However, it is the thrilling climax, so dear to forum theatre, that sets this novel apart.