Book Box: Love, inter-caste
Commemorate April, Dalit History Month, with these three unforgettable novels on inter-caste love
Dear Reader,
The International Booker Prize shortlist is out.
It looks exciting, including entries from Catalonia, Bulgaria and Korea.
Despite this, my book club readers are disappointed.
A favourite author’s book failed to make it to the shortlist. It’s disappointing; not because we feel our favourite author needs this validation, but because making the shortlist, means reaching readers all over the world – something we wanted for Perumal Murugan, whose Pyre was part of this year’s longlist for the prize.
As non-Tamizh-speaking readers, many of us first became aware of Perumal Murugan in 2015, when he announced he would never write again.
‘Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead.’ he declared, upset by the burning of his book Madhorubagan. The BJP and RSS had called for a ban on his book, alleging it portrayed the Kailasanathar temple and women devotees in a bad light.
Read Pyre this week.
Book 1 of 3:
Like many of Murugan’s books, this tells the story of individuals who go against the structure of society – caste in this case. Kumaresan and Saroja dare to marry across caste boundaries and then return to Kumaresan’s village home. In this simple spare narration of 173 pages, you feel the fear of the protagonists, and the soul-sapping hostility of the village society around them, as it splits their very beings apart. There are no caste names in this book, everything is implied, though I read somewhere that the Tamil version of this novel is dedicated R. Ilavarasan, a young Dalit man in Tamil Nadu, who was discovered dead on a railway track, after his intercaste marriage had incited his community to violence.
Book 2 of 3:
My first brush with literary love across castes was in the glorious The God of Small Things. I read this novel in my twenties and everything in the book spoke to me – the twins Estha and Rahel growing up in this beautiful house by the backwaters, the larger family including Baby Kochamma, the shocking incident of the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man with Estha and finally the tragic love story between their mother Ammu and the kind-hearted Velutha who belongs to a lower caste. It’s an unforgettable story, beautifully told.
Book 3 of 3:
Forbidden love again, and this one comes alive in the poppy fields of Bihar in eighteenth-century India. The sweeping Sea of Poppies is one of my favourite historical novels -for its fascinating setting and also for its characters. There’s Deeti, the high caste, beautiful, resourceful widow of an opium addict, who falls in love with Kalua, the dark-skinned untouchable, gentle giant of a man. There is no life for them in the villages of Bihar, they know that, so they secretly run away, travelling to Calcutta to get on a ship for the plantations of Mauritius.
In addition to these powerful novels, commemorate Dalit History Month this April, by reading at least one of these searing memoirs from Dalit writers across India – Karukku by Bama, Interrogating My Chandal Life by Manoranjan Byapari and Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit — even though it’s hard to pick one, all of these are must-reads.
And discover the history of oppression and protest in the Hyderabad and Telangana region in Lands, Guns, Caste, Woman. This is an account by a Brahmin woman, Gita Ramaswamy, who tries hard to shed the privileges of her caste, and rebels against its oppressiveness, joining the Communists and the Naxalites, battling mental depression, setting up Hyderabad Book Trust publishing house and fighting for land redistribution for Dalits.
All hard to read, all gut-wrenching, and every one of them true. More here.
Next week, I look at an antithesis, another spectrum, following the run-up to the coronation, much of the world is obsessing over. I take this opportunity to bring you books, reads and re-reads that celebrate royalty and also question it.
Until then, Adieu.
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
Dear Reader,
The International Booker Prize shortlist is out.
It looks exciting, including entries from Catalonia, Bulgaria and Korea.
Despite this, my book club readers are disappointed.
A favourite author’s book failed to make it to the shortlist. It’s disappointing; not because we feel our favourite author needs this validation, but because making the shortlist, means reaching readers all over the world – something we wanted for Perumal Murugan, whose Pyre was part of this year’s longlist for the prize.
As non-Tamizh-speaking readers, many of us first became aware of Perumal Murugan in 2015, when he announced he would never write again.
‘Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead.’ he declared, upset by the burning of his book Madhorubagan. The BJP and RSS had called for a ban on his book, alleging it portrayed the Kailasanathar temple and women devotees in a bad light.
Read Pyre this week.
{{/usCountry}}Read Pyre this week.
{{/usCountry}}Book 1 of 3:
{{/usCountry}}Book 1 of 3:
{{/usCountry}}Like many of Murugan’s books, this tells the story of individuals who go against the structure of society – caste in this case. Kumaresan and Saroja dare to marry across caste boundaries and then return to Kumaresan’s village home. In this simple spare narration of 173 pages, you feel the fear of the protagonists, and the soul-sapping hostility of the village society around them, as it splits their very beings apart. There are no caste names in this book, everything is implied, though I read somewhere that the Tamil version of this novel is dedicated R. Ilavarasan, a young Dalit man in Tamil Nadu, who was discovered dead on a railway track, after his intercaste marriage had incited his community to violence.
Book 2 of 3:
{{/usCountry}}Like many of Murugan’s books, this tells the story of individuals who go against the structure of society – caste in this case. Kumaresan and Saroja dare to marry across caste boundaries and then return to Kumaresan’s village home. In this simple spare narration of 173 pages, you feel the fear of the protagonists, and the soul-sapping hostility of the village society around them, as it splits their very beings apart. There are no caste names in this book, everything is implied, though I read somewhere that the Tamil version of this novel is dedicated R. Ilavarasan, a young Dalit man in Tamil Nadu, who was discovered dead on a railway track, after his intercaste marriage had incited his community to violence.
Book 2 of 3:
{{/usCountry}}My first brush with literary love across castes was in the glorious The God of Small Things. I read this novel in my twenties and everything in the book spoke to me – the twins Estha and Rahel growing up in this beautiful house by the backwaters, the larger family including Baby Kochamma, the shocking incident of the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man with Estha and finally the tragic love story between their mother Ammu and the kind-hearted Velutha who belongs to a lower caste. It’s an unforgettable story, beautifully told.
Book 3 of 3:
Forbidden love again, and this one comes alive in the poppy fields of Bihar in eighteenth-century India. The sweeping Sea of Poppies is one of my favourite historical novels -for its fascinating setting and also for its characters. There’s Deeti, the high caste, beautiful, resourceful widow of an opium addict, who falls in love with Kalua, the dark-skinned untouchable, gentle giant of a man. There is no life for them in the villages of Bihar, they know that, so they secretly run away, travelling to Calcutta to get on a ship for the plantations of Mauritius.
In addition to these powerful novels, commemorate Dalit History Month this April, by reading at least one of these searing memoirs from Dalit writers across India – Karukku by Bama, Interrogating My Chandal Life by Manoranjan Byapari and Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit — even though it’s hard to pick one, all of these are must-reads.
And discover the history of oppression and protest in the Hyderabad and Telangana region in Lands, Guns, Caste, Woman. This is an account by a Brahmin woman, Gita Ramaswamy, who tries hard to shed the privileges of her caste, and rebels against its oppressiveness, joining the Communists and the Naxalites, battling mental depression, setting up Hyderabad Book Trust publishing house and fighting for land redistribution for Dalits.
All hard to read, all gut-wrenching, and every one of them true. More here.
Next week, I look at an antithesis, another spectrum, following the run-up to the coronation, much of the world is obsessing over. I take this opportunity to bring you books, reads and re-reads that celebrate royalty and also question it.
Until then, Adieu.
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
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