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Review: The Bitter Fruit Tree and Other Stories by Prakash Parienkar
Set in Sattari in Goa, this book that provides an unclouded view of the sunshine state belongs to the Premchandesque tradition where social evils are delineated in a straightforward way
After another winter spent wheezing, in 2023, I decided to leave smoggy Delhi after 22 years there. I consulted a few friends about where I could sustain myself professionally as a freelancer. Two names came up – Bangalore and Goa. I checked with a Goan friend living in Bangalore. He told me to move to Bangalore because Goa has too many outsiders already. I didn’t say anything to him then but I did give him some grief after moving to Bangalore. Thanks to this book, I now know what to call him – titeev, the word for ‘uncle’ among Konkani Christians. After all, this sentiment of not letting outsiders in is something we are seeing even globally; titeevs all of them.
The Bitter Fruit Tree and Other Stories by Prakash Parienkar reflects on this xenophobic attitude. It is evident in The Crescent Moon or The Trap which presents the Goan treatment of ghatis or those from across the hills. In the story, a family’s very means of subsistence is taken away, thereby signing their death warrant. What makes the story more effective is how the perspective shifts from an injured bull that can cause economic setback to a hungry man who had perhaps accidentally caused the injury. By the end of the story, this accidental perpetrator and his family run the risk of starvation.
The titular story also examines caste discrimination by showing how some gaonkars, who are the original inhabitants of these villages, refuse to allow the burial of the dead from certain other castes within village boundaries. Caste-based violence is the subject of The Sacrifice and The Beat of the Drum. In that, these stories belong to the Premchandesque tradition where social evils are delineated in a simple, linear, straightforward way with no solutions offered.
The solution perhaps is to move out of the village either to take up employment outside the diktats of caste as in The Beat of the Drum and The Old Man of the Hills or to live in a more “developed” area as in A Forest Sanctuary, which with its open ending explores the complexities of such a move.
Hope comes from the possibility of finding employment in the hotels in the city, reminding the reader that Goa relies heavily tourism, which is about welcoming outsiders. Will they find these jobs? an urban reader might wonder.
The stories in this collection are set in Sattari, “a forested region in north-east Goa in the foothills of the Western Ghats” and are hence about the agrarian, rural experience, about the connection with animals, one’s land and trees, and about a life lived precariously.
The clash of religious beliefs with humanity and nature eventually paying the cost is explored in The Sacrifice, The Sacred Cow and to an extent in The Crucifix on a Chain. The story explores conversion – from Christianity to Hinduism – and the conflict it can cause within a family and an individual.
Fruits of Labour explores the immediate dangers of climate change, especially for farmers for whom unseasonal rains aren’t just an inconvenience.
My friend said he dissuaded me from moving to Goa because of the strain on the natural resources that has been caused by the sudden influx of “outsiders”. Bangalore faces a similar water shortage of water. Water shows that such shortages are caused more by short sighted, unsustainable practices at a systemic level than a real lack of resources. Perhaps in our haste to progress, to urbanise, we are dooming ourselves and all generations to come. The well served the village until modern ‘taps’ came along and it was paved over to build a road that allowed cars to drive up to a temple. Embraced as a symbol of ‘modernity’, the taps soon run dry. Only one villager, Goklem, understands that it was the well that had sustained the village. At the end of the story, we see her trying to dig it back into existence. Will she succeed? And how long before another road comes along?
Goklem is an exception in terms of the depiction of women. Rural Goa doesn’t seem to treat its women any better than the rest of India. They are vilified, even if they were the ones supposedly violated as in The Crescent Moon; they are solely responsible for their large broods and the birth of a girl is deemed eminently undesirable as shown in Silent Affection.
For the most part, Pai’s translation is smooth with some beautiful lines that give the reader a flavour of the land. While I think there is no need to italicize non-English words in 2025, the glossary provided is useful. It’s how I know what titeev means. However, I couldn’t find the meaning of Vanarmaryakooykooy, bhoukatgelimooymooy though I can wager a guess. Or look it up online.
Priyanka Sarkar is an editor, translator and writer.
