Editor’s Note: The style of The Bards of the Churangoo Family may be situated within a metafictional and postmodern narrative tradition, marked by recursive self-reference, playful instability of narratorial voice, and an intentional fragmentation of authorial identity. The text employs a layered structure of nested narrators — the “writer,” the “writorial ‘I’,” Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) as narrative subject, and the meta-narrator — which destabilizes conventional notions of authorship and authority, echoing Barthes’ rejection of the singular authorial presence and Bakhtinian polyphony. The prose is stylistically hybrid, combining English with French and occasional Latin inflections, as well as intertextual references to Homer, Joyce, Xenophon, Rand, Eminescu, and others, resulting in a multilingual mosaic that foregrounds the constructedness of literary lineage. Furthermore, the text’s deliberate digressions, self-corrections, and humorous contradictions form a narrative texture that privileges discursiveness over plot, and commentary over event; the fiction becomes an active examination of its own literary genealogy. Ultimately, the aesthetic effect is one of ironic erudition — dense, playful, and self-aware — inviting the reader to participate in unraveling its metafictional tapestry of authorship, ancestry, and narrative persona.
During the long après-midi in which Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) got drunk, the matin he spent writing short-stories, the sort he is writing right now, commenting on his work, the way he is commenting right now, it is not unlikely that the current commentary is written upon a Barcelona afternoon, over a bottle of Rueda wine, and hence full of inconsistencies.
A literary magazine told me that H.L.C Abdullah has been inspired by the legendary American HIMARS Launch Capable Systems. From where, they got that? Perhaps from me, but that is not the point. The point is rather than HIMARS, the H.L.C Abdullah is inspired by L’Homère’s Ô Mer Ô Mer, the mother of all. La Mer, La Mer, Homère said, and perhaps that is the beginning of this short-story.
Homard is Homère, and HIMARS is Homère, and that is the beauty of literature.
Perhaps, je confonds the Ulysses of James Joyce with the Odysseus of James Homer, but it does not matter, Thalatta, Thalatta, even if it was not the cry of joy uttered by errant seamen upon seeing l’eau, composed by Xénophon for that matter, Homard could have been inspired by Havmor ice-cream®, the latin ‘V’, of course, fuses into the ‘U”, advertisements of which I saw aplenty in Dharamsala, where the récit was composed. Did I say the récit was composed in Dharamsala? Did I not say the récit was composed in Barcelona? Well, did I not say I was drunk?
It was indeed composed in Dharamsala, and Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) was not a writer. That is a trap. That is facile thinking. The writer is called, C.R., and he is an errant scribe who likes to have Havmor ice-cream® in a coupe with three boules of glaces decking the top, which gives him the idea ‘Lèche-Cul’, which hence formed the idea Homard ‘Lèche-Cul’ or H.L.C. Abdullah.
Walke-t-ai-je into the trap, like most other people, of thinking Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) was the scribe? Me, the writer itself? The writer itself, is called C.R. and he describes Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) having a walk in the park having tanked up on Rueda wine, and then going chez un Galicien for a repas.
The narrative plane can be separated here as such:
1. The ‘I’ writer, the gentleman who dedicates the piece to his mother (C.R.), thanking her for financial help which brought about the culmination of this piece, for whatever logistical reasons.
2. The writorial ‘I’, as I call it, the C.R., narrating the nouvelle who talks about a (C.R.) Raunak Churangoo going into the Catalonian countryside in search of indices as to whether these coastal people eat snails with their shit or not?
3. The Raunak Churangoo (C.R.), narrator in some sense, because it is through his perspective that we see the teachings of his grandmother, and of his narrative past.
4. The meta-narrator ‘We’ who asks the question: ‘whether we should eat snails with their shit or not?’, OR, rather, ‘whether we should eat animals with their bones or not?,’ OR, rather ‘what are the consequences of a heavy afternoon’s drinking upon a Galician’s hearth?’. It is He who was present when the Galician was aggressed by two lesbians in a quiet coin of the rue. Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) could not have been present, he was not in Catalogne yet, the physical impossibility makes it impossible for him to be present to witness the scene.
These are the planes I am aware of. Of course, a narrative gets played in a multidimensional way, in the minds of the characters. The characters here are (C.R.)s. Each of the Cans Rosés (C.R.)s and Chicas del Rosticeros (C.R.)s are narrators in their own right, fragments of monologues of which I hope are saisied like a bout of perception about the rose-autumn fragrance of the dead earth.
There is the forbidden territory, also, called the Author. There, I do not want to venture into. I dare not utter the first letter of the Alphabet…when I check-in to hotels I only put the initials on the fiche, I dare not write or utter the full name. It looks gaudy on the fiche, on anything else, in a newspaper, in a form, on the letter-box of the house, the name of an Author should be just affixed next to Art (his fiction). Nothing else. That is what I want.
Somebody said the author is rumoured to have studied at Oxford and Sorbonne, and was a former journalist writing for a lifestyle magazine in Moorhead, Minnesota (MT), but that is all conjecture. There is a long distance from Chattabal Rainawari (C.R.) to the streets of Oxford…and encore moins, France. In all likelihood, he is the neighbourhood Kashmiri bard, whose exploits have been magnified by all Kashmiris, fond of mythmaking, that is to say each and everyone of them.
A discerning reader would not believe this smalltalk. For his purposes, the writer of this tract is called C.R., À propos de la nouvelle: ‘The Abdullah Dynasty of Kashmiri Homaridae’, commentary approved by Farzdan, FRCS (Friends of Rumped-Up Compulsive Sideurgistes) , Professor Emeritus of Old Armenian at the University of Châlons-sur-Razdan (C.R.), Razdan Province, Razdan 2301 – 2309, Armenia, which could mean in all lexical ambidexterity a Kashmiri fellow by the name of Csoechwor Röthyvaz (C.R.) or Csaerpoot Ratamoğulyvaz (C.R.).
Whether the author C.R., travelled to Oxford or not, you have to take it for his word. If he is insisting on this trope, there has to be an ulterior motive…the author behind C.R. … who writes the ‘C’ in the beginning and the fullstop at the end of R., has nothing to do with Oxford or Sorbonne or Charleston or Rutgers (C.R.) or Columbia or Rochester (C.R.) or Coïmbra or Reading (C.R.).
Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) is an alter-ego, in this case not so literary as in the others, for we are not aware of his writing activities, aware we are of his Kashmiriness and his genes.
In different récits, there is a different version of what his profession is? In So-Si-So-On, Farzdan calls him a food writer, of what sort, we are unaware, I mean a contemporary Food writer or an ancient one, a postmodern food writer or a socio-literary food writer, a stream-of-consciousness food writer or a slice-of-life food writer? In The Unhinged Mornings of my Priapic Bandar, are évoked his literary activities. It seems he has written a novel called The Gusts of Alien Wind, which in all means sounds archaic. Who chooses a title like that anymore? It seems like the title of a concerto piece of Rimsky-Korsakov, or Tchaikovsky, or Mussorgsky, or any other Russian romantic artists? Indeed if he quotes the quatrain of Eminescu:
Cheek press’d to cheek, there in sweet ecstasy
we, Falling asleep under the old locust
-tree, Smiling in dream, seem in a heaven
to live,
For such a night who his whole life would
not give?’
the title should be: Who his Whole Life Would not Give? or alternatively For Such a Night…. That is more in line with this. The Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) of The Black-Eyed Kashmiri is unspecified. The only cue with have to his bearings (though at one point he says: ‘…I profess my profession.’) is his stint in Bhutan at the end. What else can you be doing in Bhutan, but eating food or measuring Happiness. It is very much likely then Raunak Churangoo (C.R.) is an obscure food writer who studies eclectic culinary ambiguities as to: whether we should eat snails with their shit or not?, and whether, whether we should eat animals with their bones or not?
There might be two Raunak Churangoos (C.R.)s tied by the common ancestor Rani Churangoo (C.R.). We see, in Cherwell Attack Claimed by Al-Ghustachye as well as in this nouvelle, Rani Churangoo (C.R.) is referred to as a grandmother, but that might be a larger ancestor. Just as Lal Ded, is the ancestress of all (Kashmiris). In my information, Rani Churangoo (C.R.) of Patal gam, Ghuspora, married Ramesh Nath Churangoo (C.R.) of Watal gam, Zalpora, to result in two fils, Rameshwar Nath Churangoo (C.R.) and Roop Kishen Churangoo (C.R.), both of which married Csonder Maal Raina (C.R.) daughtress of Chaman Lal Raina (C.R.) of Buhur gam, Musīlpora, and Czaher Maal Rather (C.R.) daughtress of Chander Mohan Rather (C.R.) of Wuhur gam, Csaenthpora, respectively. In the first case, the marriage resulted in one fille, called Rani Churangoo (C.R.) again who married Ram Prakash Churangoo (C.R.) of Dyak gam, Dasstapora, to result in two fils, Rattan Lal Churangoo (C.R.) and Radha Krishan Churangoo (C.R.), from one of which, our author Raunak Churangoo (C.R.), came out of the womb into the wide world. From the other marriage, that of the original second fils, no natural child was born, but they mangeith (adopted) a girl by the name of Rani Churangoo (C.R.), from a common ancestor Ram Chandra Churangoo (C.R.) who had lost his wife very early in marriage, just after childbirth. This girl married Chuni Lal Razdan (C.R.) of Lyak Gam, Thokpora, to result in one fille Csonzalposh maal Razdan (C.R.) who married Rakesh Kumar Churangoo (C.R.) of Syak Gam, Drokhpora, to result in the other offspring Raunak Churangoo (C.R.), who might as well be our author. Which of the two Churangoos of the Churangoo Family Roost (C.R.) composes letters, and which caricatures lunches, is anybody’s guess, but we do think the style of one is finer than the other.
This one claims ancestory in Churangoo Residence (C.R.), Gupt Ganga, Ishber Nishat, Srinagar 191121 just as his aïeul Abhinav Bhat Beeroo had done on the slopes of the Zabarwan hill, where he cultivated the famous Cuvée Farzdan Appellation Ichber-Nichat Contrôlée (AIC).
DoubleSpeak 