“Here is one way I propose that you read this book.” That’s how one of India’s most iconic works of fiction began. R.K. Narayan’s purpose for writing Malgudi Days was to highlight the different voices that form his imaginary city while simultaneously capturing India’s charm. His idea was that stories are everywhere and what separates an author from their character might merely be the glass that makes up a window; so, to find a story, one simply has to look out. As readers however, one must look past the window that is the opening lines of stories.
Whether simply descriptive, or immediately suspenseful, opening lines serve the purpose of being bait. If opening lines are bait you need to fall for to continue a story, let this article be the bait you fall for so the story gets picked up to begin with. Connecting the opening lines to their stories and readers to their roots, this piece serves to analyse the opening lines of iconic works while providing readers with a gateway to the world of Indian fiction.
Our list of recommendations (in no particular order) starts with, what else, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.
“’You too will marry a boy I choose,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.”, The plot of A Suitable Boy is instantly set. Vikram Seth’s novel highlights the intersections between one’s sense of self, love, and family through Lata’s search for a groom. The opening line sets the backdrop in one short line, the same way that the title “A Suitable Boy” does, but it plays more into the infamous dynamic usually present in Indian families that I’m sure you’ve seen or lived. Vikram Seth explores these well known, yet complicated, connections under the 1,500 page guise that is Lata’s search for a suitable match.
“Sir, neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can only be said in English.” The never-ending list of things made complicated in India is further seen in The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga that follows the story of Balram who navigates impossible situations in a corrupt world but finds success in life later. The opening line creates a clear distinction between where Balram’s character started and the levels of success he has reached now by using the English language as a threshold. The opener introduces the nonlinear and unreliable aspect of a story about how whispers of the right conversations can take even a servant to a successful entrepreneur while highlighting the prominence of class division in India.
“They tell me India is an underdeveloped country.” Like Aravind Adiga, Shashi Tharoor uses the opening line of The Great Indian Novel to create a tone of instability and controversy that flows throughout the story. The sentence builds on the concept of whispers and feeds into the culture of “he said; she said” that has been so prominent in the Indian political landscape. Shashi Tharoor made it a point to end his novel with that very same line to emphasise how this inevitable political cycle has not been broken and is one that needs to be rewritten until it makes progress.
“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month.” Arundhati Roy, like many authors, opens her book The God of Small Things with a description of the setting. This description suggests a lack of comfort and the specific mention of a place highlights the importance the setting plays throughout the story. Yet she keeps her cards close to her chest with the opening line and doesn’t reveal the plot of the book in any way. Opening lines are important but just as Shashi Tharoor did, Arundhati Roy uses her closing line to tie her story together. The hopeful word “Tomorrow” shows that the tone of discomfort is maintained throughout the book but it ends with an inevitable sense of hope and dreams of a finally happy future.
“The Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home sleeps deeply on this summer night.” An opening line describing the setting is especially vital in Shankari Chandran’s novel Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens. Moving between decades and post codes, the roots of the story still lie in the Cinnamon Gardens of Sydney. Shankari Chandran uses a comforting tone from the get-go to signify these established roots of Maya and Zakhir’s new family tree formed on Australian soil and assure readers that the conflict in the novel, while engaging, is thankfully temporary.
While engaging, these opening lines only offer a small window into South Asian literature and leave much of the story untold. Getting past the first sentence is a win for us readers because stories don’t end at the last page, there’s no definitive end, but they all start somewhere.
Read More: Shashi Tharoor’s ‘A Wonderland of Words’: A review
