尋找極樂世界的漫漫長路

二十年前，堪比模特的印度美女作家Arundhati Roy因第一部小說The God of Small Things (微物之神) 而聲名鵲起，一路斬獲各種大獎，包括含金量最重的Man Booker Prize。經曆傳奇，敢作敢為，Roy一下子成了媒體寵兒。不同於眾多旅居海外的以英文寫作的印度作家，二十年來，她一直堅持本土寫作，包括許多傳記文學，關注著印度底層和環境汙染問題。二十年後的2017年， Roy出版了她的第二本小說，The ministry of Utmost Happiness(極樂署)。

 

 

這本書通過兩個截然不同的女人，將讀者帶進鮮少可以在文學作品中看到的印度社會。全書大致分成三個部分，講變性女子Anjum，講愛上了喀什米爾激進組織領袖的Naga，講她們漸漸交織在一起的生活。此書的開篇，讓人非常難忘。

 

“At magic hour, when the sun is gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke. When the bats leave, the crows come home. Not all the din of their homecoming fills the silence left by the sparrows that have gone missing, and the old white-backed vultures, custodians of the dead for more than a hundred million years, that have been wiped out. The vultures died of diclofenac poisoning. Diclofenac, cow aspirin, given to cattle as a muscle relaxant, to ease pain and increase the production of milk, works—worked—like nerve gas on white-backed vultures. Each chemically relaxed milk-producing cow or buffalo that died became poisoned vulture bait. As cattle turned into better dairy machines, as the city ate more ice cream, butterscotch-crunch, nutty-buddy and chocolate-chip, as it drank more mango milkshake, vultures’ necks began to droop as though they were tired and simply couldn’t stay awake. Silver beards of saliva dripped from their beaks, and one by one they tumbled off their branches, dead.”

 

這樣的開始似乎預示著，magic是注定破滅的夢想，是無法滿足的渴望，正如夕陽西下時，那一隻隻從空中墜落的鳥。

 

Anjum的故事，仿佛過山車，生在一個溫暖又愛他/她的家庭裏，卻最終淪為以墓地為家。她像一棵樹，古老堅韌，傷痕累累。Naga身上一定有Roy自己的影子吧。這是一個特立獨行的女子，愛了便義無反顧。大概隻有在作家的筆下，這樣兩個人生的軌跡才會交匯，充滿戲劇，充滿宿命，充滿magic。與Mistry寫的A Fine Balance一書不同，Roy到底沒有讓人徹底絕望。她讓那些社會的misfits在墓地裏建造了屬於自己的極樂署，找到了雖然隨時隨地有可能化為烏有，但卻最類似幸福的感覺。在印度，女性的地位依然十分卑微。而Anjum仍然一心一意地要做女人，做母親。個中滋味，何以言說。。。

 

想想前些時候看過的一些印度電影，《三個傻瓜(3 Idiots)》或是《摔跤吧，爸爸》，讀這樣的書，剛好可以互補一下吧。印度這個背著許多包袱，拚命地想把左鄰右舍都甩在身後的古老國度，有時看著真是眼熟啊。。。