Mutthukkal Patthu (2015)
October 16, 2021
UNQUIET WATERS
October 15, 2021
A Kraal to Crawl Into… By P G Sunderarajan
As the author explains – A home ‘is a barrack to burrow in, a kraal to crawl into. A cove that covers, a shingle that shields, a shell, or maybe a lair to return to…’
Or a state of mind, perhaps. In the novel Going Home, the term ‘home’ and ‘house’ move beyond the physical solidity of a structure to spread through the novel pervasively as a large, ruling metaphor. It influences the lives of its characters in different ways.
‘I want to go home.’ This was the refrain with which Gayatri as child, often interrupted her games with her playmates. Home to her meant “Retreat” maintained by her grandfather where her grandmother ruled over the other ladies of the house with a benign eye.The nostalgic memories of her childhood days often haunt her in later years when she feels cramped in a tiny structure called a ‘flat’ in Delhi. Gayatri feels that she, her husband and her son are like three mice inside a mouse-trap.
Gayatri could not have a claim on any part of the ancestral house ‘Retreat’ since she is the daughter of the daughter, of the grandfather. In spite of the 1956 Hindu Succession Act, Section 16, she has been deprived of any share in the property. Her mother writes to her in detail and asks her not to brood over it any more. But the charms of the ‘Retreat’ cannot be forgotten so easily.
Now her only solace is her friend Rama, a writer whose creative talent she admires. Yet, Rama herself feels cramped in the flat where she lives. She regrets that she does not even have a corner of her own, let alone a room to sit and write. Nor does she have a table of her own to write on. The motif of a home runs through the entire novel as the author portrays the travails of a group of working women whose lives are intertwined. Gayatri, the narrator, ruminates over a home: ‘A house. A receptacle that receives us. A chrysalis that contains. It could be a house or it could be the body that houses our being. It absorbs the vibrations of our mind and heart…One seeks to grow bigger than own’s own body, home, even one’s fate.’
The story is narrated in the first person by Gayatri, who however, refers to herself in the third person, whenever her childhood memories take over. The author makes use of the stream of consciousness technique with a telling effect. The delineation of Rama’s character is handled with delicacy. The hostility of her in-laws is shown in sharp relief against Rama’s endeavours to please them.
Recalling her younger days when she got an opportunity to look at a sandalwood tree in a friend’s house, Gayatri realises that like that tree, Rama’s fragrance can be sensed only when one gets near her. The sandalwood tree looks ‘ordinary’. Gayatri recalls:
‘How often she had walked on this very street, taking in the tree with indifference along with the rest of the garden. Now the tree stood before her, looking as common as any other unprepossessing tree – light, yellowish- brown trunk, some curving branches with the usual green leaves, that’s about all. Overcome by a sharp pang of disappointment, Gayatri moved closer and sniffed at the tree. Why, she couldn’t smell anything at all.’
Review of Going Home, The Book Review, January – February, 1991
A Kraal to Crawl Into… By P G Sunderarajan
‘Gayatri, look here,’ said her friend Pramila, ripping off a loose strip of a bark from the tree. Breaking the bark in two, she held it near Gayatri’s nostrils. Then Pramila took a sharp-edged stone and stabbed the raw portion of the trunk. ‘Now smell this.’ Gayatri brought her face close to the trunk and smelt the portion. ‘Hmm…aah…’ she exclaimed, smelling the odorous portion, her eyes tightly closed. The heady fragrance of sandalwood spread pervasively through her body in a sweet madness. Behind her closed eyes they appeared, one by one – exquisitely carved sandalwood figurines, images of deities, Ganesh, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Raja Rajeshwari, Sri Krishna…Figurines that are usually stored, wrapped in the soft folds of pure silk. “My child, don’t smell them, it’s wrong, for they’re Gods” a voice warned. The scent was like a secret stealing back to her surreptitiously, enveloping her in a balmy aroma. Redolent Rama. To sense your essence, one needs close proximity. And sensitivity. And brains. Your own parents, your in-laws and husband don’t have the olfactory cells.’
Gayatri hosts a party in honour of Rama’s latest book “Driftwood” that drew praise from a few critics. Joshi, a guest and an erudite litterateur, commends Rama on the strength of her detachment to the stormy happenings around her. Attention is drawn to other reviews that commend the realistic portrayal of two male characters. Sheela, a friend, frowns upon the way a few other reviewers hint that the ‘realism’ would may have come about because of Rama’s imagined “close association” with those characters. Rama is upset by this. She points out that only in the case of women writers, their real life is equated to the incidents in their work. Rajagopal suggests that they ignore the reviewers who unnecessarily drag the private lives of women writers into their works.
In the concluding chapter, Gayatri returns home from a visit to Rama and joins her grandson Siddharth in making a house with his colourful building blocks. Gayatri’s son Arvind asks her if she would like to change her clothes before they all have dinner. Suddenly, Gayatri is gripped by a desire to not just change her clothes, but to divest herself of everything including her corporal body and take flight from it all.Review of Going Home, The Book Review, January – February, 1991
“A kraal to Crawl Into” by Jaidev
‘A kraal to crawl into.It’s a barrack to burrow in.A cove that covers, a shingle that shields.A shell, or maybe a lair to return to…’ Going Home
‘In her Preface to Going Home, Lakshmi Kannan recounts how, on its publication in 1986, the Tamil original Aathukku Poganum had sort of scandalised a number of her relations who had received it with a ‘judgemental’ silence. In contrast, the novel in English translation was received with much gratitude by her female readers. They found the story to be a map of their own harsh life experience. To them, it was both timely and enabling.
The novel is against the perverted logic behind the patriarchal normalcy which does not see anything wrong in denying women their legal share in the family property. The law no longer discriminates between male and female heirs, but then it is flouted with impunity. All kinds of prized notions such as the family name and honour are invoked to justify the denial of coparcenary rights to her.
A girl could be considered an heiress to the family property only if she didn’t have a male sibling, for she was only the second-best child. But the minute a brother was born, she stood stripped of everything around her that was once her home. The women acquiesced as if they were pledged to some terrible, unstated fiat. And of course, no ‘good’ daughter or sister wrote a petition to the court against her own parents or brothers.
The ending resonates with the Gita.
“A Serious Feminist Novel”, Indian Book Chronicle, xxx August 2000.
“A kraal to Crawl Into” by Jaidev
‘In her Preface to Going Home, Lakshmi Kannan recounts how, on its publication in 1986, the Tamil original Aathukku Poganum had sort of scandalised a number of her relations who had received it with a ‘judgemental’ silence. In contrast, the novel in English translation was received with much gratitude by her female readers. They found the story to be a map of their own harsh life experience. To them, it was both timely and enabling.
The novel is soaked in anger. It is against the perverted logic behind the patriarchal normalcy which does not see anything wrong in denying women their legal share in the family property. The law no longer discriminates between male and female heirs, but then it is flouted with impunity. All kinds of prized notions such as the family name and honour are invoked to justify the denial of coparcenary rights to her.
The unjust and illegal pattern is so firmly entrenched that many women quietly accept it as something “normal”: A girl could be considered an heiress to the family property only if she didn’t have a male sibling, for she was only the second-best child. But the minute a brother was born, she stood stripped of everything around her that was once her home. The women had little or no self-esteem and their docility was translated as ‘becoming’ of daughters, as a tacit, graceful acceptance of their femininity. The women acquiesced as if they were pledged to some terrible, unstated fiat. It was not decent to talk about it, much less to protest or murmur about the unfairness of it all. It was simply not done. And of course, no ‘good’ daughter or sister wrote a petition to the court against her own parents or brothers. The novel questions this pattern which remains as dominant as ever.
The domination- subordination game
Quite often, it is the Indian male’s inner insecurity and inferiority that gets arbitrarily transposed on to his wife, sister or daughter. Thus, the novelist Rama’s bogus husband cannot bear her success. This success hurts him more because she has earned it in spite of him! When someone innocently addresses him as ’her’ husband, he takes it as a personal affront. He is not ‘her’ husband, it is she who is ‘his’ wife! No wonder he scorns the party organised to celebrate his wife’s new novel! Any woman succeeding in our society needs to be doubly congratulated, for owes her success not only to her merit, but also to her dogged determination not to surrender to pervasive patriarchal obstacles both inside the home and outside.
Divided into two parts, Going Home alternates between Gayatri’s childhood in her Mysore home, a great mansion owned by her Western-educated grandfather, and her life in Delhi as a working woman married to a more satisfactory specimen of Indian patriarchy. After the grandfather’s death, the stately mansion passes on to an uncle, it being assumed that Gayatri’s mother cannot have any claims on it. Ironically, this mansion has stayed branded in Gayatri’s mind as ‘home’ because she spent her formative years in it.
A competent, hard working woman, Gayatri slogs all the time to sustain her husband’s dream of a home. But once it materialises as a D.D.A. flat, she discovers to her shock that it is a veritable mousetrap. She reconciles herself, but in the end, it becomes clear to her that his new home is not quite hers. For her daughter-in-law has not only taken it for granted, she almost wishes that it would formally become hers!
The ending resonates with the Gita.
About her flat, Gayatri remarks that ‘It is a hole, a shebang, a den, or a niche if you will…A matchbox flat with small rooms fitted with tiny windows that look like beady, cunning eyes…We have shrunk to adapt ourselves to the narrow limits of this cage – Shankar, Arvind and I. We’ve learnt to cripple ourselves to a smallness so that we can fit into this rat hole. Or maybe I should call it a rat-trap.’
The novel has a marvellously lyrical epiphany. Gayatri goes to her son’s school to collect him. Suddenly, thanks to the children’s identical school dress, she mistakes one boy after another for her own son.
‘There he is! I moved swiftly towards Arvind. He smiled at me brightly as I hastened towards him. The smile faded a little, but the countenance remained genial and pleasant, the hint of that smile undiminished as he moved on! Again, it was not Arvind…Finally, I left the school with Arvind, in a daze. I felt strangely exhilarated. Something seemed to stretch and expand my being, my limbs awash as flowers rained within me in a soft shower. I soaked in the moment.’
Going Home is a serious, feminist novel. Its political agenda never eclipses its deep humanity and compassion, its poetic texture or its grand epiphanies.’
“A Serious Feminist Novel”, Indian Book Chronicle, xxx August 2000.