That Was by Sarayu Srivatsa
Review by Jess Moody
‘She found peculiar comfort in this fact: the insignificant too had might’
The Man Asian and Not the Booker Prize longlisted Sarayu Srivatsa returns with her second novel: a patient and curious exploration of the power of shifting perspectives. This is the coming-of-age story of Kavya, and her journey of family and friendships in Bombay, Bangalore, Kyoto, and Tokyo, and, perhaps, the forgotten truths of why and how she was orphaned as a young child.
From the opening, in the early nineties, Kavya is positioned as a somewhat neutral questioning presence, watching others make meaning of the world. Living with her Aunt and uncle in Bombay, she sees the complexity of a marriage, and the co-existence of different personalities and outlooks through her Aunt’s traditional religious devotions, and her Uncle’s scepticism. Cutting across it all are her own fragments of memory – a fire, a command to run and keep on running – as well as packages sent from one mysterious ‘S-San’ in Japan.
Kavya’s life is told in snapshots – different years and locations from 1991-2006– as she starts to piece together her own history and that of the people around her. A stay in Bangalore with her aunt’s mother presents a friendship with the maid’s daughter, and a first fleeting intimacy of connection with another child’s dreams. Summers spent with an Architect’s family in Kyoto introduce her literally and figuratively to multiple ways of looking, as well as the tension between old and new ways of living, juxtaposed in one household. Later, Kavya’s own interpretations of the world slowly come to the fore, with choices between meaningless but steady employment creating fake ‘outrage’ for a newspaper, and the call of more creative expression through photography in Tokyo.
Seeing is not necessarily understanding, and the reality of her friendships and relationships change with each mental click of a lens. Srivatsa applies careful restraint to her protaganist’s inner voice, allowing much of her world to be presented as it is, letting the layering build up or peel away.
There are considered and confident absences here of what might be usually expected in a coming-of-age tale: schooltime friendships are skipped in favour of a focus on the fierceness of a summertime bonds; romance and intimacy is perhaps made all the more precious for the lightness of touch. The scope and scale of That Was is more expansive, more adult in its interests and themes. Its exploration of rapidly changing norms around the new millennium works well, both in its transnational and intergenerational discussions and debates, as well as in the smaller glimpses of domestic life; the gentle unboxing of memory and self.
That Was is a delicately crafted portrait of a life lived at the standpoint of many outlooks, histories, and layered meanings. There is strong grounding here in Srivatsa’s own life: not only in her training as an architect and city planner, but also in her own peripatetic upbringing across India, and, as she writes in her author’s note, her experiences of both learning and loneliness in Tokyo. The novel reads as a kind of meditation and reckoning on place and purpose: in writing it, Srivatsa notes how she finally found a ‘shelter’ and ‘home’.
This is a story that flows gently through tenderness and trauma, through homes and horizons: moments focussing and refocussing with a compassionate and attentive gaze. Surrounded by characters whose complexity grows with the protagonist’s changing comprehension, Kavya listens to how those around her use their different faiths, traditions and philosophies to make sense of their lives. In the end, it is the unique summation of those experiences which help her draw her own conclusions.
That Was is published by Platypus Press, 12th October 2021