A captivating and unique read

At first glance, the rather modest title of Narendra Luther’s autobiography, A Bonsai Tree, may be attributed to an ingrained love for poetry. However, as the author convincingly argues, humans are almost never free to develop to their full potential. Their growth is invariably checked at every step by the trials and tribulations of life, thereby stunting what could have been a mighty tree into a diminutive Bonsai.

Luther lends conviction to his narrative by recalling momentous occasions and key events in his life with extreme clarity, and without any judgmental proclamations. He also emphasises that compassion is an integral trait of humanity. This aspect of human nature comes through unadulterated, especially when he recalls the tumultuous events associated with partition of the sub-continent following Independence. His family, hailing from a village in the Sialkot district of present day Pakistan, flees from their ancestral land and is subjected to immense suffering. But surprisingly, there is a conspicuous absence of bitterness in the memories of those harrowing days. 

Instead, Luther vividly recalls the Muslims who helped his family and records the almost universal disbelief to the unfolding events — “No one imagined at that time that it was so easy to destroy the edifice built by centuries of co-existence between Hindus and Muslims.” 

While his parents are busy consoling him and his siblings, Luther’s thoughts dwell on more pressing problems. As they sit shivering on a platform of the Amritsar station, his numbed mind desperately seeks solace in the immediate surroundings where, “In the mild cold of the approaching winter, the glow of warmth from the tongues of flames consuming the corpses was soothing.”

An established author long before joining the Indian Administrative Service, Narendra Luther has never been reticent in his writings. We therefore get a rare glimpse into the real world of politicians and administrators in an inimitable style tinged with humour and satire. The most heartrending parts of the narrative are where Luther, as a father, was forced to witness the degeneration of a bright and promising son into a chronic alcoholic and drug addict. Here, the pain of a father comes through concentrated and unfiltered, tumbling out in a melancholic torrent which draws the reader into its midst.

The eclipse which lasted for almost three decades often brought Luther to the brink of despair. Eventually though, perseverance was rewarded, and his son slowly picked up the threads of a life left in tatters. A firm conviction that life, like a Bonsai tree, is but “a normal plant suppressed into a miniature” makes Narendra Luther’s autobiography captivating, inducing an almost cathartic effect in the reader.