A man and his mind | Book review: ‘Chosen’ by Suyash Dasgupta

By Reya Mehrotra

If only words were spoken as well as they have been written by the author of Chosen, the mind would be a free place. But masked emotions fog the happiness within, the dull takes over, destroying the peace, churning an engulfing storm. The choice of ‘to be or not to be’ troubles the mind.

This is what Chosen is all about. Suyash Dasgupta’s debut novel published by Academic Foundation attempts to lay bare the rare issue of male mental health. A grade 12 student of Singapore American School, Suyash calls his work a ‘multisensory experience’, and rightly so. The book is a film in words—with songs and the storyline intermingled. QR codes embedded in the book pave way to two songs penned down by Suyash and sung by Kombat.

Chosen tells the story of a bully teenager Mason, his depressed, dejected and abusive father and their broken bond. He delves deep to find the root causes of the cracks that gradually become reasons for a downfall.

The author deals with a heavy subject through a piercing story written with brevity, hence appealing to the young readers. Suyash’s Chosen also brings in a refreshing writing style, with the entire work written in rhyming prose.

“These kids just like to make me look mean; I’m surrounded by some babies who scream

At the drop of a hat, on top of all that, Let me rehumanise myself, By taking you through my daily routine,” Mason says in the story.

As one progresses through the book, Suyash shares through his protagonist Mason how even after 14 years, his father isn’t “enticed to know” him. “Maybe torturing me is just his way of vengeance. He thinks by taking away all that connects me to her, he can finally get her to leave. Maybe that’s why he sighs and smiles, so widely, when I bleed”, Mason uncovers his parents’ broken relationship and its impact on his father.

However, Suyash Dasgupta not only narrates a story of abuse, but humanises the abuser, sharing how crushed dreams and hidden vulnerabilities become a recipe for depression and abuse. The abused becomes the abuser, and so, Mason, ill-treated and physically and emotionally tortured by his own father, becomes a bully in school.

Resolution comes in form of communication. When Mason’s father dies, Mason communicates his feelings to his friend Jordan. “How’s anybody gonna love you when all you do is beef with them? There’s something called empathy… And you had an advantage, If you spoke out to people about the carnage in your home, they wouldn’t let you live alone,” Jordan suggests to Mason, an advice Mason’s father never got.

By choosing a male protagonist to share the importance of communication and empathy, Suyash brings forward how men are expected to be manly always and emotions and men do not go hand in hand. The vulnerability has to be hidden in the darkest and deepest wells of the mind, and the devastating impact it has on mental health.

“But this ethanol

Ain’t fixing all

My problems,

Is this depression or

A lesson from God,

Will I ask for help?

Or will I forget?

Keep these emotions bottled up

Till my last breath

Instead, I want

something real,

Conversations that make me feel

Conversations that make me heal,

I need verbal bandages,

‘Cause right now these herbs are damaging

My body, my soul,

I’m hardly, still whole I can hardly, control Myself,” says Mason’s father, desperate to reveal his wounds.

Often the easiest solutions lie in the simplest words of kindness that soothe the mind, body and soul, and this is the message Chosen has for its readers.

Chosen
Suyash Dasgupta
Academic Foundation
Pp 88, Rs 395