The Weight Loss Club: The lives of the women of Nancy charted with gentle humour and a keen eye
Novels about women and their lives, usually tend to be worthy tomes, the narratives laced with suffering and struggle. Most of the men are weak or villainous. The women have to draw upon their reserves of strength and courage to overcome never-ending challenges. I have cheered for these women and have been moved by them but rarely smiled while reading.
In her recent book, ‘The Weight Loss Club’ Devapriya Roy, handles heavy matters with a light deft touch. Nancy Housing Cooperative in contemporary Kolkata is home to an assortment of interesting characters, whose lives are charted with gentle humor and a keen eye. Though it is a book about the ‘curious experiments’ of the people in the housing complex, I was more intrigued by the women of Nancy who represent some of the female archetypes we see around us today.
Monalisa Das is an excellent homemaker, neat freak, provider of delicious packed lunches for her husband and above all, mother of two boys, ‘twin-light of her eyes, the double-staff of her (future) blind old age.’ Like most Indian middle-class mothers, she is paranoid about the academic record of her children, ensuring that the entire household is arranged around tuitions and exam preparations. The children’s Future is an all-consuming thought, the desire to rise above mediocrity is a daily struggle. When a child fails, it is a catastrophe, with the mother bearing the burden of guilt and shame.
Meera Sahai and Maaji Sahai, enact the classical saas-bahu drama, the staple of our television serials. Meera grapples with the birth of the second daughter and her mother-in-law’s relentless demands, trying to understand an inexplicable rage that simmers within her. She is trying so hard to be the good housewife, daughter-in-law, and mother that her own self of self-seems to be disappearing.
Aparajita Mukherjee, college teacher and Ph.D. hopeful, is under pressure to do what all good Indian girls must. To get married, she has to first impress Moni Mashi, the matchmaker. “If you wear horrible yellow kurtas, only bank clerks will come to her mind” warns her mother in a delightful scene. Apu is not only nearing her sell-by date, she is, alas overweight as well. If she wants to bag that NRI groom, she needs to lose ten kilos and get an image makeover.
Treeza Mathew of flat A-5 was once funny, vivacious and cute. Ever since she left her secretarial job, she has been sinking into ‘a long blank interlude edged with wispy trails of smoke.’ Treeza, childless after several years of marriage, carries a secret sorrow within her, teetering on the edge of normalcy. Her loving husband John cannot cope with her strange unpredictable behavior.
Brahmacharni Sandhya, ‘half hippie, half saadhvi, full spiritual Guru’ moves into Nancy and into the fractured lives of its inhabitants. Even as Sandhya deals with the ghosts of her own past, she also turns her own home into a kind of halfway house, helping others get their lives back on track.
Through the lives of these women and their men, including a group of college students, The Weight Loss Club explores a host of ideas. I asked Devapriya about some of the themes that stood out for me.
“How do you see women making choices in contemporary urban India where there always seems to be a tussle between tradition and the modern ways?”
“Maaji Sahai represents the very worst of tradition. Mrs. Mukherjee is a bit more waffling in her approach to tradition; she wants that NRI groom for Apu. The pressure, in this case, is subtler than that faced by Meera. Monalisa Das, on the other hand, is a version of undigested ‘modernity’. Sandhya is thus the breakthrough character because she embodies the perfect balance between tradition and modernity. To some extent, Ananda Bose and John Matthew represent this innate balance too. But I think it is far more difficult for women. With the intense pressures on them to be perfect mothers and home-makers, and also be themselves. To have it all. I think that is something I want to emphasize. Beyond these ‘traditional’ pressures are other deeper traditions that might offer ways to both heal and resist. Sustainability and harmony with nature, for example, was something that ancient traditions, chiefly, Asian and African ones, emphasized. Women, I feel, are the true upholders of sustainable principles. That is the first thing we are ready to cast away today in our hunger for a certain kind of lifestyle. I hope that through the complex presence of Sandhya we are able to interrogate the ideas of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ roundly.”
How do women become more compassionate towards themselves and help in their own healing?
There is at least no doubt in the community of gynecologists that many conditions that afflict women are a direct result of chronic neglect. They are so busy looking after others they never step back to listen to their bodies. So Sandhya as a trope represents an agency that inspires women, in this context these particular women, to recognize their external world as a function of their internal beings. Their own health. I think if that was a perspective the sisterhood popularised more, if that’s the culture, then I think women can perhaps become more compassionate towards themselves.
How important is the relationship between these women? Do you see women coming to each other’s help in times of trouble?
I think I am fascinated by the different kinds of relationships that exist between women, and in this book, we have a whole gallery of emotions governing these responses. But the theme of sisterhood is definitely a strong albeit subtle presence in the story and thus it builds towards the rousing end.
In the rousing end, the young people in the book come together to organize a protest against violence towards women. Knotty issues are nicely resolved and there are hope, happiness and a sense of well being for the women of Nancy Housing. Something I would wish for all other women, everywhere in the world.
This article was first published on IBN Live’s blog
