The Queen of Dreams

...life is nothing but a dream
From which I will wake into death,
which is nothing but a dream of life.
(p.19)

Most of the people do dream! There are people who never give a second thought to their dreams. There are people who obsessively try to sort out the meaning of their dreams. There are some others in whom, the dreams will live for some time and fade out soon. Chitra Divakaruni Bannerjee’s Queen of Dreams is for those who dare to dream!

The plot evolves between Mrs. Gupta-the queen of dreams and her daughter Rakhi-a budding painter. Their lives designed in two extreme poles and the daughter always tries to find out the mysterious aspects of her mother’s life. However, Mrs. Gupta passes away without giving an answer either to Rakhi or her husband.

Rakhi later find out her mother’s dream journals in the private room, which had been a forsaken place in the house. Through these dream journals, her mother explains her life, its mysteries, its miseries and her love towards the husband and only daughter. These letters also help to build up the father- daughter relationship in a curious way.

Rakhi’s life set in a different land, culture and caliber flows in a different current than her mother’s had been. She faces the financial insecurity; as a single mother, she is threatened of her daughter’s love; as a budding artist, she finds vagueness in her way; in her small business she gets the challenges from the worst competitors ever; in a later period she has to encounter the ugly tentacles of racism in land where she was born- and all these time Rakhi feels that some mysterious power emanated from her mother protects her all around!

Well, it’s not only Rakhi’s mother who possesses mysteries in her world. From the man in the woods to Rakhi’s daughter, from Rakhi’s father to the manager in JAVA shop, her close friend Belle to Eliana, others too imply mysteries to Rakhi’s life. It should be comprised to say that all goes well in the end. Rakhi learns to let go the unsolved mysteries and unforgotten maladies. 

Chitra Divakaruni Bannerjee has once again let alive the feel of Indian magic amidst a foreign culture. She has brought together the beautiful co-existence of two cultures through the mother and daughter who seems to be emotionally alienated, but shares the strongest bond beneath!

In this novel, Chitra Divakaruni Bannerjee gives a subtle implication that once you are out of your country of birth, the natural magical powers imparted to you by that place diminishes. There is no clear indication on whether Jona’s visionary gifts, supposedly inherited from her grandmother would benefit or diminish by the contact with the Western culture. Like many of her former literary works, she has set the plot in the United States and made the characters as immigrant Indians from Calcutta. The author has shown one of the predominant ABCD (American born confused desi) syndromes among many expatriates through Rakhi’s friend Belle (Balwinder Kaur). 

The novel leaves many unanswered questions to the reader at the end. That may be the beauty of this novel adding to the wisdom imparted about the dreams. However, I personally feel that the book is not up to the usual standard of Chitra Divakaruni Bannerjee. I site this novel as a reflection of Mistress of Spices at many instants. Surprisingly, the language also looses the Bannerjee beauty unlike in her other works. Well, there are ups and downs for all artists.

Afterword: There is an idea that I most liked in this book:

As an artist, Rakhi never likes to get disturbed during her creative time.

“She tried to explain to Sonny once. How at a certain moment the colors take over the eyes, the hands. How she must surrender her body their rhythm. How, until the movement is done, nothing else matters.

 

She had not expected him, who was not an artist, to understand.

....................................................................................................................................................................................................But as she was taking the dishes to the sink, he murmured, ‘It’s like being in the middle of lovemaking, isn’t it?’”

(p 11-12)