The blurb calls it a coming-of-age novel, and so it is in a way.
The blurb calls it a coming-of-age novel, and so it is in a way. But Poison Roots, a translation by Padma Narayanan of Verpatru, Indira Parthasarathy’s classic novel in Tamil, is nothing like the coming-of-age novels by Indian writers in English today. A coming to terms novel might actually be a better label for this book, because this story is not about growing up and finding freedom within yourself. It’s about growing up to discover that try as you might to pull away, there’s a reason your roots are called roots.
(Try plucking anything out by its roots. It’s very, very difficult. Any market gardener will confirm this. Also, most trees.)
Set in the cusp of India’s Independence, just before and just after it, Poison Roots is about Kesavan, a young Brahmin student, who is trying hard to define himself by his own thoughts and beliefs, not by those of his family and community.
This is not easy (and that’s the understatement of the year). Kesavan’s parents are as traditional as traditional can be, and Kesavan is rather scared of his grim and unbending father.
In college, however, he’s a different man. He’s a member of the Communist Party, he abandons his Brahmin insignia (the tuft of hair, his sacred thread), he speaks out against caste and like any young man conscious of his adulthood, he tries to be his own man. But is he really Does he really live up to all that he espouses That’s the question that bothers the introspective Kesava.
And conversations with his favourite professor at college, a man who has the ability to cut sharply through rhetoric to reveal some very uncompromising truths, both help and don’t help the young man. Seeking validation from a man he respects, all Kesavan gets is more to think about.
After all, what can be said about a communist, anti-caste student who participates publicly in the strict Brahmin death rites of a relative, both out of fear of his father and because his father has promised to buy him a bicycle if he does — a bicycle that will soon be used by members of his political party to ferry messages during a conference What was Kesavan’s real motivation in that incident and in others like that
And what does Kesavan think about women, with his possible crush on Janaki (only possible, because he won’t admit it even to himself), the flirty young woman who knows exactly how attractive she is, and the kiss he receives out of the blue from the very bright and independent young doctor Subhadra, who knows exactly what she wants and has decided that’s Kesavan
In fact, Kesavan, in his quest to create the real, individual Kesavan, has lots to think about. Including his father because, as time passes, the young man realises that his strict, ritual-obsessed father is more his own man than he ever imagined. Appa does not force Kesavan to do anything he doesn’t want to do.
Though the young man wants to study Tamil, rather than Sanskrit or English as Brahmins really should, Appa doesn’t argue after he’s stated his case. More: Appa had insisted on the proper funeral rites for his dissolute half-brother, making Kesavan perform them for his uncle even though the community disapproved. And Appa also rescues another of his half-brothers from penury and brings him home, again against community disapproval. What is Kesavan to make of that Not only of Appa’s actions, but also of the fact that his grandfather had married three times What kind of strict Brahmin family is his
All this (and more besides) is set against the backdrop of Independence, with Tamil politics playing the opening shots of issues that remain relevant even today. In fact, everything about this period, all the discussions and opinions and arguments seem very familiar, especially in this moment in 2014 as India goes to the polls. Roots, clearly, are stronger than we may imagine.
Poison Roots gives its readers much to think about and even to grin at — except for one thing. The translation.
While it’s great to read a book that would otherwise be unavailable to non-Tamil readers, I don’t think it’s unfair to hope that its translation might have some style.
Fans of the original Verpatru talk happily of Indira Parthasarathy’s accessible style. Unfortunately, I can say no such thing about Poison Roots. The book is in English, but that’s about all you can expect from it in terms of readability. From the very first line of the very first page, you know this book is going to be stilted and bald, without subtlety and without style.
Still, better a baldly written book than an overwrought and hysterical one. So if at all you’re interested in novels about growing up, add Poison Roots to your book-shopping list.
Kushalrani Gulab dreams of being a sanyasi by the sea with a huge library of books to read and write about.
She blogs at tomeofmylife.blogspot.in
