This beautifully produced novella is a story of three women, Ameera, Indumati and Ayesha who negotiate the minefield of patriarchy and abandonment, to emerge phoenix-like and rise triumphant in their solidarity. The story opens dramatically in a prison in Dubai, where Ameera has been incarcerated for three years and is finally being released and allowed to go home. This is also the site of Indumati’s desperate escape from being sold into sexual slavery and Ayesha’s long service in the home of a rich family.
The omniscient narrator, in a creative departure from conventional narrative techniques, uses point of view very effectively to let us hear the individual stories of the three protagonists from their perspective so that what we get is a credible and deeply moving insight into these three lives united by more than just their geographical origins and common destination of a return to the place they call home. This is also a story of women who, like countless immigrants seduced by the golden promise that Dubai offers, leave home in search of a better life for those dependent on them–siblings, spouses and children. So, while a major part of the story is limited to a neighbourhood in Chennai, the triumphs, tragedies and trauma of the experiences of these women in Dubai serve to effectively expand the boundaries of the fictional landscape; as each woman’s present predicament and future journey is defined by their past, in myriad ways.
The experiences of the main characters also provide two illuminating insights. The first is that it is not only men who travel away from the safety and security of home in search of a better life for their families. The second, especially in the context of this particular book, is that a well written story about complex human relationships and the capacity of individual men and women for generosity and meanness, loyalty and betrayal, strength and weakness, faith and doubt, hope and despair, travels seamlessly across cultures, especially in the hands of a skilled translator. What makes the experience of this story even more meaningful is the rich detailing in the minutest particulars of the lives of the three women and the variables of their cultural identity that define but do not either limit or divide them; be it language, or the frozen registers of faith, food and dress. The reader can relish the fragrance of the moringa sambar, inhale the intoxication of the nagalingam flowers in full bloom, laugh at Jameela’s confusion between poriyal and poririyal and walk comfortably down Mount Road as confidences are exchanged and self-confidence is rebuilt.
By the time we turn the last page of this compact but intense narrative, peopled by only a handful of characters, we would have heard and vicariously experienced the autobiographies of a whole throng of women, united with their sisters in suffering by their common quest for survival, love and dignity. The story also reminds us that an important agenda of feminism that seeks to empower women through education, employment and economic independence along with marital agency, is one that merits continuous bolstering as it is the bedrock of female emancipation. This is borne out by the optimistic ending of the story which is also a new beginning for Ameera, Indumati and Ayesha who can look forward to collaborating on co-creating a home and a haven for women to study, learn and most importantly have the freedom to choose their destiny.
This review would be incomplete without a mention of the two stories that play the role of a digestif at the end of a feast in a home run by a woman with meager resources but a generous heart. The first of these, ‘Khuska’, is a story from the point of view of Rajashekar, a down at heel taxi driver who is taking a family of NRIs on a pilgrimage of some temples. The masterful brushstrokes of the writer and the translator bring the scenes of compassion, the temptation of a single currency note that would spell at least a temporary end to family troubles, and the eponymous special child who may have been cruelly named for the poor man’s meatless biryani, but smiles with the innocent benevolence of Murugan; to life. The second short story ‘Success’ is told from the point of a view of an aging and lonely anonymous old man and while the goalpost of the title may have eluded him, he does hold on to his tattered dignity and walks into the sunset with this huge achievement of resisting the temptation of a lie and in the process becoming an unlikely but inspiring hero.
This book is a creative collaboration that builds the bridge where we can meet and listen to each other’s stories, no longer divided by language.
Anjana Neira Dev is a Professor at the Department of English in Gargi College, University of Delhi, Delhi.