Secrets have a chequered life. The first attempt to keep a secret is often the beginning of its end.
Secrets have a chequered life. The first attempt to keep a secret is often the beginning of its end. Nothing, not even the fear of a child-devouring yakshi (demon), can keep a 10-year-old Rakhee away from woods. She stumbles into a family secret: a stunning garden, a peacock named Puck and a girl named Tulasi. Kamala Nair’s The Girl in The Garden is a gripping story about coming of age. Born in London, Nair lives in New York City where she grew up. Nair treads the precarious line between so-called chick-lit and serious fiction. The story runs in first person and much of it is the voice of a 10-year-old Rakhee Singh who is brought from her Minnesota home to a village called Malanad in Kerala. The Varma household is unlike anything Rakhee has seen. From learning to eat the Indian way to sleeping on a hard bed, everything is new for her. In the din of a house teeming with relatives and servants, Rakhee misses her father acutely. She knows something is amiss between her parents. It had started since letters from India began arriving for Amma in Minnesota. Something had started to change since then. But Rakhee is determined to bring her parents together. The first signs of mystery in the Varma house emerge with the appearance of Dev Uncle. As Dev greets Rakhee in his stutter, “H-h-h-how are you , molay,” she shrinks back. The children watch Dev order the women around. Rakhee and her cousin Krishna wonder: Why does everyone treat him like he is the king That night she catches Amma sneaking into the forbidden woods with her elder sister, Sadhana Chechi. Next day after a harrowing visit to the hospital opened by her grandfather, Rakhee rushes to find Amma. From Amma’s room she hears a man’s soft voice and Amma’s reply, “I missed you so much.” She barges in shouting “Aba! Aba!” only to find the man is not her father but Amma’s old friend Prem. Annoyed, she runs out into the woods where her Amma had begged her not to go. Deep in the forest she finds a high wall and a locked door. As she peers in through the keyhole a beautiful garden greets her. But minutes later a deformed face peeps back and she runs home in fright. Rakhee is suddenly awake to the whispers in Varma house: Amma stealing secret kisses with Prem, Vijay Uncle and Sadhna Aunty talking about saving the family name and keeping Dev away. Rakhee and her cousins plan to enact the Ramayana. It occurs to Rakhee that maybe the creature locked in the forest was not a yakshi but someone like Sita, imprisoned by a Ravana. She goes back into the forest. This time determined to find more. The girl named Tulsi has stayed inside those walls since she was born. Someone she calls “teacher” brings her food and teaches her. She cannot leave the place as she had been told she was the daughter of the Tulsi plant and was “different” from the others. Rakhee takes to visiting her regularly, stealing books and eatables from the house for her. The two girls bond like sisters. Meanwhile, a visit to Savitri Ammomma, grandfather’s sister, introduces a new piece in the puzzle: Sadhna Aunty. By now Rakhee’s bag is full of threads that don’t lead anywhere: Amma’s said betrothal to Dev Uncle, her relationship with Prem, Sadhna Aunty’s rebellious marriage, a deranged servant woman Hema and the girl locked in the garden. Things come to a break point when the elders announce the betrothal of Sadhna Aunty’s eldest daughter Geetanjali to Dev Uncle. It becomes clear that Sadhna Aunty, in her father’s shoes, is ready to sacrifice her daughter for the family. As Rakhee thinks of ways to save Geetanjali, she realises her mother and Prem also have a plan of their own that includes her but excludes her Abba. As several skeletons tumble out of the Varma cabinet, Rakhee chooses to return to Minnesota with her father while her mother stays behind, living next door to her childhood lover. The story should have ended here but it lingers on. Nair is a skilled writer. Her narrative is quick and her story knows its way through dense family histories. But she falters in the end as she doesn’t know when it comes. The characters grow old in the shadow of what happened that year in Malanad and wait for the ultimate filmy union to come about. It does come but not without damaging the fabric of the novel. Nair creates a world remarkable for its milieu. A vibrant hum runs along the narrative, never letting it flag. The bright Kerala provides the plasma for the story to run. It is a women-centric story that comes across as natural. Rakhee’s coming of age, young girls’ discovering their sprouting bodies and a strikingly beautiful Amma, find place in the story without becoming its sole obsession. She allows relationships betwe-en women characters to grow away from the world of clichés. Her attempt yields rich results. The story is in the form of a letter written by a girl to her fiancé. She has gone to “lay her demons at rest”. While most of the story is through the eyes opf a child, the writer of the letter emerges in the end making peace wi-th her mother. The happy family picture at the end seems unreal and neutralises the thick aroma of secrets. Perhaps some elements should have been left incomplete after all what wouldn’t we do to uncoil the coiled and then coil it up again
