Day
21: The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan
4
Stars
This is a
multi-generational epic set in India, mostly in the first half of the twentieth
century.
Sivakami, a
child bride, is widowed at eighteen when her astrologer husband dies on the
date he predicted. She is left to care
for her daughter Thangam and her son Vairum.
Her odyssey extends into her children, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. After Sivakami,
much of the story is told from the perspective of her granddaughter Janaki.
The focus
is on the day-to-day life of a Brahmin household, especially a Brahmin widow
who must live in almost complete seclusion because widows were seen as bad omens. Sivakami is very orthodox and accepts her
fate unquestioningly. She becomes a
symbol of purity, avoiding touching anyone in daylight. Her loyal servant, Muchami, serves as her
representative in the outside world.
The novel
traces the conflicts between the traditional India and the modern, secular
one. Sivakami represents the former and
her son represents the latter with his progressive ideas about a non-caste
India. It is difficult to feel sympathy
for Sivakami because of her extreme orthodoxy which includes a sense of
inviolable superiority over everyone else.
She has a fear and disgust of “pollution”.
A major
theme is the incompleteness of knowledge.
Sivakami must make decisions for her children while being functionally
illiterate about the outside world. Her
traditional certainty encounters a modern future that is unknowable.
The title
refers to the practice of having someone toss a lemon out the window when a
baby crowns so that a male outside can determine the precise time of birth for horoscopic
purposes. We never learn the horoscope
of Sivakami’s son: the unknowable
future.
No comments:
Post a Comment