Won’t You Stay, Radhika? review: A timeless tale of a woman’s choice, agency, and freedom

It moves, quite unnervingly so, without the hint of stagnation. Twists and turns are imminent and sneak a peek from under the veil of ennui. From Athens, Rome, London, Chicago, Delhi to Lucknow, linearity and chronological faithfulness are not the defining characteristics of this story; rather, the deliberate pauses and change of scenes work beautifully as gateways to another time, place, and a tucked-away tale or a memorable incident. Much like travelling by a train, which when stops at a familiar (not destined) station, the heart tends to accidentally discover a detour on a sudden recognition of something which had been purposefully erased, buried, and forgotten, thereby nudging the mind to follow suit and give in to the temptation, of, perhaps, nostalgia.

The deceptive simplicity of blame

Radhika is upset over her father’s decision to remarry and she is desperate to give it back to him by doing something that would hurt and annoy him in equal measure. After braving a whirlwind of doubt, prejudice, and agony, Radhika packs her bags and leaves for Chicago to pursue a Master’s degree in Fine Arts. Radhika’s move is, or so it seems, an outcome of her impulsive desire to avenge the injustice and betrayal she pins the blame for squarely on her father. At least, this is the version being endorsed by the characters surrounding Radhika, including Radhika herself. She is called names, judged for ‘eloping’ with a ‘foreign’ journalist to a ‘foreign’ land, criticised for abandoning her family by simply escaping the discomfort and accompanying ignominy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

This narrative is convenient because it targets one person and blames that person for everything that is going wrong. And the author does exactly the opposite to what she is showcasing in her museum of exhibits. She is urging the reader to scratch beneath the surface and arrive at a conclusion which is somewhat contradictory to what is being presented. This is the genius of Priyamvada (the nom-de-plume of Usha Nilsson, an Indian-born American emerita professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin) whose style of storytelling is only seemingly straightforward. Through the central character, who has been declared inept, merciless, and selfish, the reader slowly enters the worlds of the other, equally if not more, ‘flawed’ characters, who are severely stricken by conservatism, patriarchal dogmas, parochialism, ostentation, and whataboutery but somehow manage to occupy the superior moral position.

A woman’s rite of passage

The complexities of dysfunctional families, the ‘unsettling’ idea of a woman (remember this is the 1960s — a revolutionary era marked by women-led movements and collectives to assert autonomy and exercise mobility and decision-making rights in the workforce) coming from a ‘liberal’ yet ‘not-so’ progressive household in Lucknow, trying to carve her own niche in a foreign land, the high-handedness of the returning youths from the West, the sensibility of an earlier generation of women guarding their ‘savings’ from the prying eyes of the younger lot, juxtaposing cultural realities, cases of murky divorces and hasty marriages and remarriages, are on display and stand exposed, defenceless. Within this realm of turbulent times, ironically, Radhika’s personal journey is divested of all the pettiness and shortcomings that other characters, both men and women, are easily guilty of.

The clarity in Radhika’s decisions, her pragmatic approach to what is tolerable and what is simply unscrupulous is remarkable, given the fact she is hurting too. She is not a victim of circumstances. Her resolve to find alternatives is mistaken as her escapism — a convenient and misplaced viewpoint harboured by those who are actually more hypocritical than her. No, she is not escaping; she is giving chances to the people around her, her only universe, to come around and make amends. Unfortunately, she is the most misunderstood despite being the most empathetic character in the novel.

Communication, the lack of which can destroy lives, is the spine of human relationships and Priyamvada captures the conundrums, toxicity, uncomfortable silences, grossly misled assumptions in a way that do not seem remotely forced or fabricated. The fact that a 56-year-old story has all the shades of contemporary demands and delusions should serve as an awakening to examine whether, as a human race, we have really been able to cope and grow differently, possibly more sensibly and sensitively, without discrimination and entitlement.

This is a story of a woman’s rite of passage, her choice, agency, and freedom — ideas that are still alien to a patriarchal society like ours. An essential read for our times, Won’t You Stay, Radhika? is an extraordinary discovery of human fallacies and, of course, the thing they call love.