Amrita Mahale’s first novel Milk Teeth is an interesting work with a mixture of nostalgic childhood memories, the Bombay life, Indian politics, and three young people who are in search of their ideologies. A Mumbaikar herself, Mahale’s thoughts run as fast as the local trains, stopping at different stations of her life at short intervals.
The protagonist Ira is a young, enthusiastic, underpaid journalist. She meets her childhood sweetheart-cum-best friend Kartik, who had been away from home for studies, after a long time. The parents of the two are neighbours and best friends too, and all of Ira’s thoughts, for the first part of the book, revolve around Kartik and her childhood memories of him. The obsession with Kartik is pierced by the memory of a person named Kaiz, whom we understand later on to be the ex-boyfriend-cum-love of her life, who left Ira to pursue his studies abroad, and eventually broke up with her over phone.
The second part of the book revolves around her recalling her intense relationship with Kaiz, along with her present engagement with Kartik, and Kaiz’s sudden reappearance in her life. The last part is the narrative of Kartik’s life and how he is forced to forge his identity and dreams, along with creating trouble for Ira in the end.
Along with all the personal relationship mess that is happening in Ira’s life, there is a lot of communal politics involved in the narrative, with once-in-a-while comments about the religion and caste of people. Ira and Kartik are upper caste and middle-class Brahmins, whereas Kaiz is an upper-class-and-Brahmin-hated Muslim. The book not only mentions Babri Masjid and the effects of it on the lives of lovebirds Kaiz and Ira, but also cites the five ‘M’s to be kept in check by Hindus through the dialogues of the elders.
This brings us to the stereotypical elements of the novel. Though the writer has tried hard to portray the politics and communalism in India in a neutral light, the plot has failed to do so. Firstly, Ira, who is a Hindu, has a serious relationship with a Muslim and the relationship unfortunately doesn’t work out.
Kaiz comes out as a non-commitment-seeking man in the picture because he ditches Ira, even when she is willing to maintain a long-distance relationship with him. Also, the views of all characters inlcuding Ira’s parents and Kartik are very narrow-minded in terms of religion. The final blow comes when the relationship becomes the reason for Ira’s break up with Kartik, and also the respect and pride of Ira’s family is brought down to shreds.
Kartik is an evil-minded, homophobic, gay man who could have been portrayed a hundred times better. It is during his college life that he explores his sexuality, but does not disclose it to his parents or even Ira till the end. The portrayal of Kartik as the villain in the novel, who is energised by the mere thought of his fiancé having an affair with someone and spies and defames her, when he himself has been lying about his dreams and desires to the world and himself, is ridiculous.
A gay man in a country like India not only is portrayed as a sinner, but in this case, he also becomes the cruel, heartless, selfish villain. Also, Ira is insulted and defamed for having an affair with a Muslim man and loses her home, her acquaintances and her dream of a marriage. The writer fails to keep the voices of the orthodox society in check through the thoughts and actions of the characters. Instead, she helps to feed the hegemony and homophobia prevailing in the Indian society. The issues of class, religion and sexuality are unskillfully handled by the writer. The ending is not at all as satisfactory as the beginning. The book fails to keep up the promises till the end.