The Outcome :: A Sweet Sad Song of a Lonely Bird from the Empty Nest
A Book Review

Review by JC Sanasam *

A Sweet Sad Song of a Lonely Bird from the Empty Nest
A short Review of The Outcome, an English Novel from Manipur

One of the most beautiful, rich and elegant, 'She' had been;
but a nothing, she became,
what remains is the empty nest syndrome rueful
embedded beneath her chest lonely,
but still brave enough she is
to uphold everything that fate scores into.

Author: Ranita Devi Longjam
Publisher: Forward Books, New Delhi
Price: INR 150.00

And she says, '... I am still proud of my birth. I thank God for making me. I thank my mother and father for bringing me into this world. ... What I had done ... the beautiful things which I enjoyed; ... those who thought it wrong were wrong. ... What I did was right; for I bought happiness with what I did in life. Yes, I did right.'

She concludes her sad song, 'The Outcome: I've no one and I'm all alone.

Words pure from the depth of the heart! What a beauty!

The storyline of the novel 'The Outcome' digs into the roots and saga of two families that went to greater heights with a sturdy growth for quite some time but that got crumbled down in due course. The tie of the two families was just like the golden ray of the morning sun, full of hopes ready to build up a new day, full of energy potent to create life and greatness whatever it might take, wherever it might count. However without knowing where it went wrong the foundation could not stand strong as was dreamt upon.

The progeny products lacked the jelly glue to bind themselves together; rather preferred to drift away with individual destinations in the open space to be washed away by the mundane turbulence of air, water, earth, fire and energy that shape the earth. At long last the fertile field that had given life to so many new souls with resultant practical survival has been left abandoned, unknown and uncared.

The Maurya dynasty, the Gupta dynasty, the Mughals, the British colonizers all came and went; Garibaniwaj, Bhagyachandra, Gambhir Singh came and went. Could any of them take something away from this earth when their soul left? No, nothing, except leaving their bodies that got assimilated in the air, water, fire, earth and different forms of energy. They could not take away anything but they gave eventually. Giving is a must.

Taking eternally is impossible. It is the soul albeit the energy that is immortal. One form of energy transforms into another form. It is here where the irony of life; much ado about nothing is clearly visible.

Those who have some knowledge of Ranita Devi Longjam, the author, and her family, paternal, maternal and spousal will easily come to know that this is her own autobiography. Novels, a creative writing based on somebody's own life, half-truth, half-false often prove to be interesting and provide a good flavour to the public to chew and swallow.

'The Outcome' of Ranita Devi Longjam is the second English novel that has emerged in the literary history of Manipur so far, the first being the Unheimlich written by Louriam Bebeca of Khurkhul. No doubt Manipuri literature written in English is trying to shape up into an entity.

Ranita's is a good intellectual writing that can ring the sensibility-bell of general readers. The style of narration is simple and traditional but she is rich with her words and vocabulary that emanates the flavour, rather the nuance of English language. She has innovated with a new style of writing and presenting a narrative story.

Instead of segmenting it into chapters, she goes on continuously with the story course under headings of the main characters of the story. Inappropriate verbs with aberrant sequences of tense in the sentences (not very infrequent) are the only craggy jutting-up stones that momentarily hinder the flow of the language and story.

They say grammar is not important in literature; but certain languages like English demand a basic foundation about its structure, may be narrative or of dialogues, words and sentences, and paragraphing and segmentations, so and so forth.

I am proud to say Ranita shows the silver lining very prominently and I am sure, if she continues her trip in this novel writing odyssey, she sure is going to come up with a bang effect in future. I like the story and her writing.

The book is worth reading, and is of good literature. You will have the joy of reading it.