Drama, Romance, Melancholy
I was never a big fan of monologues. Whenever an actor (or an actress) started their monologue, I could see people listening intently. But why listen to someone go on speaking for minutes about one thing over and over again?
So, when I first picked up this book, I did not know if I was going to complete it or whether it was going to remain there, bookmarked at some random page, collecting dust.
Why? Because this whole novel that spans over more than a hundred pages is filled with monologues.
How many monologues? Just two. Two very long monologues.
But when I started and picked up the pace, I completed it in two days. I could not keep it down. It took me down a memory lane (heartbreak, of course) and presented in front of me a world that was not mine, a world that was Tanay's but I felt as if I had known this place for as long as I could remember. Simple writing indeed goes a long way, after all, pretentious times are over.
Cobalt Blue is the story of two siblings who fall in love with a common man, their paying guest. But more than a love story, it is an account of grief. Tanay's grief and Anuja's grief.
There were many instances when I found myself falling in love with the paying guest, with his mannerisms and with his whims too.
"How did I acquire those habits? Perhaps that’s what happens during the forging of a relationship: if nothing else, you adopt some of the other person’s habits."
The novel depicts very beautifully how a stranger comes into the lives of these siblings and grows into them like a strongly rooted tree, one branch crossing each of theirs hearts.
The book also goes to great lengths in challenging the religion, mythology and, the stories around them. Being written in a substantially more democratic India (during the year 2013) the book is fearless, a little bit too fearless at times:
"At least, we could ask why Lakshmana had felt the need to leave his wife and children behind and follow Rama into the wilderness."
I might be wrong, but the very first time the colour 'Cobalt Blue' appears in the novel, it does not refer to sorrow (the blues), rather, it refers to something else:
"You had a way of looking at things which seemed sharp, perceptive, cobalt blue."
There is imagery and then there is excellent imagery. Authors over the millennia have been describing things but mostly those things have been physical. How do we explain something evasive to physical reception?
Some authors associate the colour pink to love, some associate red. Kundalkar associates a whole palette with it:
"Such colours, such colours. When you breathe out, I see red and yellow flashes in front of my eyes. When we’re in the bath together, surrounded by a surfeit of steam, it’s a misty blue. When the sun is shining and we look at each other from a distance, and we smile, it’s white, a shining white. If I’m talking to someone and mention you, my face changes, it’s a dark blue. Dark brown when I call out to you; peaceful green when you call out to me."
And with this love that is a taboo in our houses, come the consequences. The novel follows very closely as Tanay and Anuja go on to live their hearts out in a conservative and binding household. It also follows them when their lives come crashing down after the dream is over:
"Those who choose to live differently must suffer the consequences. They must take the pain their decisions bring."
"You want to. You know you do. What is there to hold you back? Jump. What you feel now, what you want now, that’s all there is. Jump. Just jump."
Even though there are only two monologues in the novel, the characters are plenty. And although the story is being told by a boy in school and a girl probably in the final year of college, we do get elderly wisdom at various instances in the novel:
"That we were a transitional generation and that gave us several advantages. We had been given the freedom to choose how we want to live and behave. We were lucky to have parents who felt blessed in having children and were willing to take all the responsibilities that came with it. And so our sense of freedom is only a rehearsal. The next generation will have to pay the price."
The whole novel would play out in the front of your eyes, all in pastel hues.
"..and a stream of blue water erupted from the door of the upstairs room and flowed down the stairs."
Your heart might break, eyes might trickle a bit, but it is a risk worth taking.
This is a story you would want to live in, irrespective of the hardships.
Also, the movie- Cobalt Blue, based on the same book is releasing on December 3, 2021 on Netflix.
Cast: Neelay Mehendale, Prateik Babbar, Anjali Sivaraman and others.
Should you read it: Yes // Maybe // No