A Gothic Novel with An Indian Twist
Told through the perspective of twisted innocence, Sakyajit Bhattacharya’s The One Legged looms large with uncertainties, unopened doors, haunted pasts, and an atmosphere of pure terror.
At 149 pages, Sakyajit Bhattacharya’s The One Legged (The Antonym Collections, 2024) is a slim novel, one that may even cause some quibbles over the specifics of its length, that perhaps it be deemed a novella instead. Irrespective of its classification, though, one thing is certain: Bhattacharya’s narrative packs a punch that is bound to leave its readers—even the astute ones—slightly reeling towards the end.
Featuring a child as its protagonist, the book defies categorization into a single genre. It’s a horror story as well as a psychological thriller, but what stands out in The One Legged is the use of gothic tropes and the use of children’s point of view, which reinforces the atmosphere of terror that pervades the entire work.
Translated from Bengali by Rituparna Mukherjee, The One Legged is the story of the few days that nine-year-old Tunu spends in his Dida’s (his maternal grandmother’s) house. Tunu has come to live with his grandparents from Asanol. Soon, we learn that he comes from a family which is on the verge of breaking up. He longs for his home and wants his mother to come for him, but despite her promises, she never appears in the course of the novel.
In his Dida’s huge house—which has some thirteen or fourteen rooms, most of which remain closed—Tunu spends his days roaming around, looking at the forest that looms near the house with its one-legged palm tree, and trying to play with Gublu. Gublu is the ten-month old child of Biswa mama and his wife, both of whom stay with the family, and whom Tunu has been taught by his mother not to think of as servants. Bored and with little to do, Tunu becomes interested in the fate of his Choto Mama, who disappeared two decades ago when he was twelve. Tunu’s curiosity deepens when he spots his grandmother leaving food at the base of the palm tree and when, after an attempt to climb that tree, he is asked by his Dida never to do so again. The reason? Because the top of the tree is where dwells the Ekanore, the one-legged apparition who sneaks into houses and “removes the ears of little boys lying on their beds (15)”.
It’s a horror story as well as a psychological thriller, but what stands out in The One Legged is the use of gothic tropes and the use of children’s point of view, which reinforces the atmosphere of terror that pervades the entire work.
This legend of Ekanore, along with his Dida’s fascination with the palm tree, her refusal to believe that her son is no longer coming back, and the reluctance of the adults around him to give straight answers to Tunu’s queries regarding his Mama, create a spiral into which Tunu gets sucked deeper, with horrific and tragic consequences for everyone involved.
One of the central themes that gives The One Legged so much of its power is uncertainty. This uncertainty looms large in the mind of Tunu throughout most of the book (and therefore, also in the reader’s), particularly about the fate of Choto Mama. As the novel progresses, Tunu—in lieu of facts—finds and makes up answers of his own regarding Choto Mama’s fate, based on whatever he has seen and heard all around. As a result, the doubts only grow and leave their stamp on many the events in the novel. Thus, there are several moments in the book when the reader is left wondering if the events described are actually taking place, or are a part of Tanu’s hallucination. This idea of uncertainty is a key theme of gothic literature as well, where answers do not come by clearly or easily, but the lack of clarity keeps moves the plot forward, keeping the reader engaged with the story.
The setting plays a key role in gothic literature. Gothic novels are often set in huge castles or mansions that feature hidden rooms, basements, and winding staircases and the events often unfold in rugged, lonely, and bleak spaces isolated from the warmth of community and the presence of other people. The One Legged makes use of this trope and adapts it beautifully for a typical Indian setting. Tunu’s grandparents’ house is located near a forest, perhaps on the outskirts of the village, where there seem to be no close neighbours or even regular visitors. This forest consists of the palm tree upon which, Tunu begins to believe, lives the Ekanore. It is also visible from Tunu’s window a dome, an old structure which had been “erected under the rule of Raja Madanmalla” and which is believed to be the place where people were hung. The fact that the tomb and the palm tree are the vicinity of each other gives both an even greater other-worldly and ghostly feel to Tunu than it would have otherwise.
As the narrative voice tells its readers, we see how the proximity of these two supposedly haunted locations feels to Tunu: “The wind blew through the ventilators of the hanger’s pillar and whistled at night. Ekanore too called out to people like that; from the palm tree, only one person would hear that cursed cry and walk spellbound across the field (30).”
Tunu become increasingly fixated in such beliefs as the novel progresses, and soon, the real and the fantastic begin to blur and merge in a way that it becomes difficult for him to make sense of what is going on around him. During a visit to the temple of Panchu Thakur, Tunu sets eyes of the fiery idols of the god and the demon Jwarasur, which is enough to send him over the edge into the arms of fever and sudden illness. And while there aren’t any hidden basements and dungeons in the huge house, the fact that most rooms (including the one that belonged to his Choto Mama) are kept locked make them very intriguing and inviting to Tunu.
To add to the mansion’s mystique and inscrutability, when Tunu manages to get inside his Choto Mama’s room, it’s not the ordinariness of the room and its possessions that strike him. Instead, he is drawn to an odd stain on the wall which becomes a living, breathing organism as Tunu touches it, adding to the sense of the gothic and the horrific. The stain is “yellowish…probably due to dampening”, but it’s also “runny, a noisome mix of yellow and light green” and “a faint rotten smell wafted out of it as well, possibly a fungal growth (32).” In fact, Tunu finds putting his hand on this spot in the wall comforting until he realizes that the stain also resembles diseased skin which reminds him of a sick, dying stray dog in Asanol, and forces him to take his hand away from the wall.
This equivocation in Tunu’s head about the origin of the stain which he gets drawn towards more than once in the story, and his ambivalent feelings about its origin and its nature further adds to the atmosphere of dread. The idea of terror through obscurity and obfuscation is a key gothic technique used to its maximum effect by Bhattacharya, whether it’s the lack of clarity about the fate of Choto Mama, the legend of Ekanore, or the stain on the wall.
Another key idea that recurs in gothic novels is the intrusion of the past in the present. Curses, omens, and prophecies that span generations are often recurring tropes in the genre. The impact of past on the present is a key theme in The One Legged, too. One of the most important reasons for the tragedy that befalls the inhabitants of Dida’s house is their wilful blindness towards Tunu’s obsession with the past, along with the fact that the complete truth about Choto Mama’s disappearance seems to have been kept hidden to escape punishment. There’s only one adult, Paresh, who is willing to tell Tunu what happened to his Mama, describing to him and the readers the actual evil in a very human form that took his mama away. Paresh clearly tells Tunu that there is nothing called Ekanore, that it is the stuff of myths and stories even as he accepts that he feels haunted by a sense of evil in the place.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, by then it’s too late. Gublu is dead, an innocent mad man has been lynched to death, Biswa mama has been imprisoned, and Tunu is too far gone in the world of darkness to ever be able to return to normalcy.
Bhattacharya’s work also shows that although the gothic might have originated and blossomed in English literature, it has the capacity to be adapted seamlessly into a local, more Indian setting in the hands of a skilful writer.
This is where The One Legged employs another genre device: the presence of evil tainting innocence. From fearing the one-legged Ekanore, Tunu himself turns into Ekanore both literally and figuratively when he does what he has hitherto believed only Ekanore to be capable of. He also hurts himself and is forced to hobble around on one leg. The image of Tunu climbing the tree with his one injured leg because he thinks that he can be safe only at the top of the tree becomes symbolic of Tunu leaving behind the world of light for one of complete darkness. Bhattacharya ratcheted up the terror by several degrees in the novel’s final pages, until the climax arrives with an explosive, horrific realization.
The motives behind the crimes are both childish and child-like; and yet, despite its twisted ending, The One Legged makes it possible for the readers to mourn for the loss of innocence. The tainting of the innocence with evil seems to run in cycles and stresses the themes of gothic doubling, where an interior of innocence can conceal darkness.
In the absence of clear answers, Tunu loses his grip on reality more and more and the readers. The sense of his fever dream-like state tints his daily experiences with the otherworldly, such as the description of when Tunu sneaks out of his room:
The landscape resembled the one from his dreams so he recognised the dome right away. The surrounding environs let out a deep sigh, and the howling wind beckoned Tunu inside. He saw the moon hanging precariously at petrified Calculus’s nose as if the slightest flick of hand could topple it, spilling dark blood over the hyaline forest (87).
Bhattacharya’s decision to funnel the tale mostly through Tunu’s point of view—interspersed with the perspective of a group of local boys—allows the reader to share The One Legged’s sense of terror, dread, and curiosity. As children who don’t have the kind of resources adults do, and who are dependent upon the adults around them for information, the narrative becomes even more constricted and constricting. There is a constant sense of dread in the lack of clarity.
The One Legged situates the tropes and trappings of the gothic novel in an Indian context, in a way that feels neither foreign, nor forced. While the ending – with its shocking twist – is akin to a psychological thriller, the novel manages to lend and blend itself well with the gothic elements. Bhattacharya’s work also shows that although the gothic might have originated and blossomed in English literature, it has the capacity to be adapted seamlessly into a local, more Indian setting in the hands of a skillful writer.
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Sneha Pathak is a writer and translator currently based in Gurugram, Haryana. Her book reviews and other writings have appeared in Purple Pencil Project, Kunzum Review, Mystery and Suspense Magazine, Muse India, Kitaab Quarterly etc. Her first book of translation was published in 2023. She can be found on Instagram at @reader_girl_reader.
