Girls Who Stray, by Anisha Lalvani, is a confusing novel. The title may well be an ironic nod to male misogyny, which advocates the idea that women should be kept in fetters lest they stray and disgrace themselves. The novel makes this point explicitly:
What these deranged rapists [of Nirbhaya] were saying was surely not all that unfamiliar. It’s what, after all, the nation has been saying to its daughters all these years – we must protect our women against the temptations of the West, inching closer all the time. Punish those who succumb, who yield to these modern ways – dancing and bars and movie date nights, parents who allow their girls to roam around half naked at night. Horrific, yes, what happened to the girl, but which half-decent girl roams around the city at night like this?
And yet, with the protagonist not being given a name, the denial of an identity seems to convey that she is not an individual in her own right but a representative of the “type” of girls who stray by making “foolish choices”. Like everyone, women too can make bad choices, but their missteps and blunders should not be viewed through the distorted lens of patriarchy. To suggest that the “girls who stray” have only themselves to blame in a system rigged against them is harsh and deeply unfair.
Why stray?
The novel attempts to intrigue and tantalise the reader, beginning with a prologue high on raunchiness. For most reflective readers, however, it is bound to be somewhat revolting and off-putting.
A woman, panic-stricken by her sadistic lover’s kinky acts, feels something akin to “love” – a howler like no other – even as she wonders at the violence being visited upon her sans the pleasure associated with sexual adventurism. Her cognitive dissonance mirrors the conceptual confusion underlying the entire text.
The “straying” protagonist is depicted as a morbidly masochistic creature experiencing a bizarre kind of “tranquillity” even as she is contemplating running away from a dangerous situation. The proposition that she is a type more than a specific individual (a specimen of the category of “wayward girls”) made me wince in discomfort.
This is a rambling narrative about a girl’s directionless life, as the title proclaims. You know from the very outset that you’re in for something lurid, murky and edgy. And you get that in plenty. Some parts of the books are meaty enough to offer food for thought. Unfortunately, the novel spreads itself too thin. It is weighed down by a mishmash of themes and an obvious lack of focus. It spends a great deal of time bemoaning the iniquities of our selectively progressing nation, the spectre of AI looming on the horizon, the murky side of a shining city, and the exclusion of women from the mainstream, among other issues.
All of this is imperfectly blended with the protagonist’s existential confusion, prompting her to make choices without a sound reason or a serious compulsion. You simply can’t fathom what is driving her. The novel lacks a well-developed core that can hold it together. There doesn’t seem to be a method to the madness.
Here’s one example of a random foray into an AI-driven future, configured as an unusually vivid dream:
“At night I dream dreams more real than these days of my waking life. They pass through my body like a spectre. …
Or dreams of the future – so far ahead – a thousand millennia from now, when technology and our bodies have merged, are one thing and there is mass digitisation of consciousness, a unified social brain tapping into the internet of the future, which is one giant nervous system. Sensors float gently up and down bloodstreams, chips connecting our individual brains to pools of mass consciousness – a resource hub, governed by no person, no body, not even a singular machine or a machine cluster. This resource hub gathers and organises all thought – stray or essential, vague or crucial – to eject leaner efficiencies. Human-androids cannot yearn or desire here, and so there are no altercations, no arguments, no violence. Artificial intelligence has made life infinitely cleaner, better. Everything occurs in a manner fated by the machines, ruled by nobody.”
It’s strange that the protagonist, who is grappling with compelling personal issues, has dreams resembling a sci-fi film. If she is scientifically inclined and intellectually vibrant, why is she frittering her life away? You never get a good enough reason.
A poorly fitting jigsaw puzzle
The author abruptly steers the narrative, full of contrived twists and turns, towards the protagonist’s slide into madness. The character development is unconvincing. The derailed protagonist shows enough intelligence and resilience to put her life back together. Yet she is depicted as a restless soul wandering the city day after day. The sheer randomness of her acts makes her seem silly, but the narrative itself provides evidence to the contrary.
At one point, the protagonist flares up on being abandoned by a man who used her body in exchange for money and eventually turned her life topsy-turvy. She is aware of his ill-gotten wealth and moral bankruptcy. Though he is the one throwing money to satisfy his urges, it is the protagonist who is shown to be starving for him. The protagonist is imbued with a kind of angst that refuses to make sense:
I am hungry for him, hungry for his wealth and my revulsion to it. Hungry for his indifference to his daughter. How casually he tossed Muniya. So hungry for her to end and I helped him with it. … Hungry for how easily he has brushed it all aside and moved on.
Anyone can spiral out of control. But there has to be a logical progression in the dismantling of a personality. The protagonist goes to religious places, reflects on the plight of women, laments the predicament of the impoverished masses, stays abreast of technological developments, observes the churn in society after the Nirbhaya episode, watches the news with her family, and retains her contact with reality. Memories haunt her, but you get the distinct sense that she can pull herself together. Yet, she remains a lost soul bafflingly descending into a rabbit hole.
As the novel progresses, the protagonist starts to make less and less sense. Even a scatterbrain or a drifter can be understood for who they are. But the protagonist of this novel seems nothing more than a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces just don’t fit. What made this fairly privileged and intelligent young woman venture into a terrain so dangerous and sinister?
Yet, despite the novel’s flaws, I was impressed by the raw power of its words. Here is a great example:
And so the woman must wait at the threshold, as women do, as women have done, for aeons gone and aeons still to come.
Although the book doesn’t really succeed in making this point, it is possible to look at the protagonist’s plight as a reminder of our hostile patriarchal landscape. Women are judged and blamed for the choices they make in a world where they are not given enough choices. If they go down the “wrong” path, the sense of internal shame can make it difficult for them to confide in anyone. Even if they want a listening ear, they may not find a generous soul who will try to understand their complex emotions and nudge them towards the path of peace and fulfilment. So the inner tumult continues to corrode them. Unfortunately, the novel doesn’t stir enough empathy for the protagonist, who, at the very least, deserved a name and an identity of her own.
Girls Who Stray, Anisha Lalvani, Bloomsbury India.
