Sacred Talons opens a window to a critical time in the life of our country and its people. Set in Kerala at the time of Independence, it covers a few decades in the lives of a handful of people in the southern tip of India. Here the cultures of what is now Tamil Nadu and Kerala come together, merge and remain distinct. The lives of these people are important because they, in their time, faced more changes, social, economic and cultural than their ancestors had seen over the preceding two centuries.
Markets in most countries of the world evolve over time into much more than places where goods are bought and sold. They become places of social and cultural importance. Many important events in the lives of those who live in their vicinity are linked to the markets. Many markets are celebrated in literature like the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, the Khan-e-Khalili market of Cairo, the souks of Marrakech, the Rialto market in Venice, the Sweet Meat market or Muttai Theruvu, Calicut, Chandni Chowk in Delhi, Crawford market in Bombay and others. Each of these is an unplanned, chaotic place. Each of these with its unique customs and products, be it jewellery, carpentry, metal work, spices or fruits, carries an air of something exotic. Over time they acquire the significance of cultural reference points, cited in history and legend. One such market is the Chalai Bazaar of Trivandrum which is featured in this novel. It is interesting that no major event in the novel occurs in the market; yet it is always in the background playing a silent and powerful role much like a character in a play who is always in the wings, lending context and atmosphere, but never seen.
The novel focuses on the relationship of a few families and their landlord, the protagonist of the novel, Guruswamy—an archetype of landlords across the country in the forties. With no particular skill or ability, he is granted respect and enjoys a standing in society conferred by birth as it were. Most of the action in the novel happens in and around a small coconut grove of some two acres owned by him. Altruistic by nature, he permits small hutments to come up on his lands which accommodate a Devi temple and even alters his ancestral house so that these families would have places to stay. Typical of many landlords of Kerala, he remembers a time when the lands owned by the family ran ‘into endless acres’. These have been squandered by his father and grandfather leading profligate, dissolute lives. Now Guruswamy lives in a house where the only reminders of the family’s past glory are a few paintings and a sword presented to his father by the King.
Typical of the experience of most landlords, the family lands were sold by his father for a comparatively small amount to someone who built a large number of buildings in the property abutting Guruswamy’s lands, a reminder of his reduced station in life. The terrace overlooking the grove is where Guruswamy spends most of his day. He has the slightly abstract air of people who are happiest when left alone with their thoughts. He is busy most of the day with memories and introspection and philosophizing about life and people. ‘One’s surroundings were perhaps the product of one’s mind.’ His main activity is reading, and we are told he possessed more books than anyone can read in a lifetime. He is an enigma to most people but regarded with affection by his tenants. A dispassionate observer would say his days were spent in idleness.
Guruswamy, when the novel opens, is a middle-aged man who has lost his wife in childbirth after eighteen years of a happy marriage and is alone if not lonely. Due to some of the unsavoury incidents he has witnessed in his childhood, he is determined to avoid leading the self-indulgent life of his father and grandfather. As a reaction, he participates in political rallies in his youth, at first in demonstrations against the Maharajah and later in the Independence movement.
The tenants are sympathetic figures. There is Parvathy who does the housework in Guruswamy’s house but was denied entry to the house when Guruswamy’s wife was alive because of her caste. Then we have Ravi the painter, Vengu the singer, and Pappan the tinker.
While describing the lives of these people, the author, through a few scraps of conversation brings to life the prejudices and attitudes of rural folk to caste, religion, language and other customs. For instance, Velappan’s father (a Malayali) is aghast at the thought of his son working as a milkman because this is the livelihood of the Konaar caste and says, ‘A good Nair may sell leaves for their living but not their dignity.’ Nevertheless, Guruswamy secures a job for him at his friend Das’s thriving dairy farm. Again, communal prejudices emerge. Das’s father Arunachalam cautions him against employing a Malayali: ‘they may look meek but they are a conceited bunch.’ Vengu the singer sings well in Tamil ‘though he is a Malayali’. Their ties to the old way of life and resistance to change are captured in the saying, ‘anyone who goes to work in the market forgets his father and mother’. There is a perverse satisfaction in refusing to change.
Movies and politics are important to people and Velappan is drawn to both. One of his beloved movies come to life when Raani, who is from the family that owns the dairy, ‘who have enough money to live for three generations’, falls in love with Velappan. Guruswamy helps them to marry and escape to another town. When Raani’s family looks to wreak vengeance on Guruswamy, the local people help him. In defiance, Guruswamy brings the couple back to the grove to live as his tenants.
Indeed, one is given glimpses of Guruswamy’s ambivalence. He is repeatedly drawn to the explicit portrait of the Goddess on the rear wall of the temple. Though he has rejected his father’s and grandfather’s way of life, he is often filled with doubt and questions his own motives. When he enables the young couple to elope, he introspects and concludes it is perversity, rather than altruism, that spurred him to act.
Birds have fascinated mankind since time began. A brahminy kite is central to this book. Its presence and its absence, its flight and its movements all hold meaning for Guruswamy. When he finds stirring of lust long buried, he fancies it is like a bird hiding behind leaves as it cleans its feathers. On other occasions the bird appears to be studying the deity of the temple. And then again, when he is in high spirits, his mind and body appear to be soaring like a kite. The kite is part of his daily meditation on life.
In fits and starts, changes come to the grove. People who for generations were content with the trades of their forefathers take to employment eagerly. Working hours, fair wages and exploitation by employers are discussed passionately indicating a change in status. Some of them begin to challenge the norms of the traditional society. Things come to a head when in a riot engineered by Velappan, Guruswamy is injured. Velappan is jailed, leaving Guruswamy dealing with his motives and emotions which have been suppressed for years.
Madhavan’s novel is a powerful portrayal of a way of life lost forever. It was the twilight age of the landlord and his ambiguous relationship with his tenants. The curious way in which the tenants derived a sense of belonging and identity from their relationship with the landlord can only be understood in its historical context. How these and other beliefs are challenged by economic and political changes gives this novel heft and makes it impactful. The extraordinary changes in the lives of ordinary people mirror the age-defining changes in our country.
If it were not for V Ramakrishnan’s rendering, many who cannot read the original could never have stepped into this world. Since the novel captures the historical moment with authority, it offers insights into our contemporary world.
Ravi Menon has co-compiled the book, Work Wisdom and Legacy: 31 Essays from India (Orient BlackSwan, 2025).