Image Credits- The New Indian Express
Introduction
In 2015, the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan committed literary suicide, “Perumal Murugan the writer is dead,” he posted. “Leave him alone.” He instructed his publishers to stop selling his work and for readers to burn his books. It was due to his work, One Part Woman (2010), which had the right wing of the country seething with discontent that he was forced to flee from his own village and become ‘a walking corpse.’ However, Perumal soon broke the dark spell of his absence when the Madras High Court upheld his right to free expression. He returned with a bestseller, ‘Poonachi’ which is the story of a black goat: “How long can an untold story rest in deep slumber within the dormant seed? I am fearful of writing about humans; even more fearful of writing about gods… let me write about animals.” It is his undeterred will to write beautifully on topics with a slew of undertones that engender feelings like anger, bewilderment, satisfaction, and savour which the reader lives and inspires throughout his lifetime.
One Part Woman
The novel is set in 1940s Tamil Nadu in Tiruchengode town and revolves around the lives of a couple, Ponna and Kali, both belonging to the Gounder caste (a low caste in Tamil Nadu). It traces the fine peculiarities in the lives of the couple when they are unable to bear a child even after twelve years of marriage. The novel is an amalgamation of different issues like gender roles, societal pressure, patriarchy, caste issues, familial relations, superstitions, and rituals. The book’s title is the literal translation of its Tamil title, ‘Madhorubagan’ which means ‘Ardhanareeswara’ or half-male and half-female God residing in the same body.
The novel begins with Kali noticing the dense foliage of the Portia tree which he had planted in his in-laws’ house during the initial months of his marriage. Although Kali was content to see his tree grow up, he was also dejected due to his inability to bring a child to Ponna even after twelve years of marriage. And the healthy Portia tree was redolent of his failure. Both Kali and Ponna had gone all-out in their efforts to beget a child. Be it scaling the hill of Tiruchengode Murugan Temple and lighting the sixty lamps for sixty days, or Ponna drinking all sorts of bitter shoots and potions, or them going to every temple, big or small, or Ponna even pawning her own life to walk around the stone at Pandeerswarar temple, they did everything in their hands to make Ponna pregnant, yet to no avail. It was considered unusual for a couple to not get pregnant after a few months of marriage, and here, twelve years had passed, and therefore, it was only natural that Kali and Ponna drew the flak of the people around them. Kali used to be called ‘the impotent one’ and Ponna was ‘the barren woman.’ Ponna used to be slyly addressed by people as if she was no longer fit enough to be of use, “That is just how some cows are. No matter what you do, they never get pregnant.” The taunts and the comments grew incisive with the passing of time, making the couple stay aloof from the rest of the town. Ponna would often express her exasperation at being poked to attend weddings or funerals, “I have no children. What function is going to happen in my house tomorrow?” It was in this caustic backdrop of their lives that Ponna, stirred by the profundities of the stifling environment around her, that she finally gave in to her mother and mother-in-law’s demand to go to the fourteenth day of the chariot festival of Tiruchengode. On this day, men and women could have consensual sexual intercourse, and all the children born through these unions would be considered a blessing. Kali’s reaction to Ponna’s attending the festival marked the end of this book and the beginning of the two simultaneous sequels: ‘The Lonely Harvest’ and ‘Trial by Silence’.
The novel opens up various poignant issues and subtly tears through the layers. One of the foremost issues is that of an ideal Indian woman who gets defined in terms of her ability to be a good wife and mother. If and ever she fails to fulfil these primary criteria, she gets labelled as ‘useless’. It was these insidious societal conditions that contrived to find their way into something as personal and holy as the bond of marriage and it was this unrelenting pressure on the protagonists to bear a child that fractured their once-beautiful relationship. Murugan also portrays how the presence of an ageing, childless couple plays into the hands of some sadistic and opportunistic sections of society: ‘A woman without her husband and an inheritance without an heir are the same, they say.’ Such glib concerns are brought to the forefront by relatives and neighbours to insinuate their chance of having the couple’s heirless property. The story also captures the village way of life in that it portrays the link between societal pressure and cultural and religious myths. It was due to Ponna constantly bearing the baggage of being a childless woman, and thus, unnatural, that her belief in religious myths was reinforced eventually leading her to the chariot festival.
The story weaves itself around the trauma that takes a toll on women’s lives once they are scarred for life. The fear that constantly plagues Ponna is expressed when she holds her palms together over her head and prays, “God, my father, please make sure I do not gain the reputation for being barren.” This fear is fed into women ‘owing’ to their demanding role as a wife and a mother. Murugan also, subtly depicts the desolation a low-caste woman is subjected to once she is parted from her husband. The pitiable depiction of Kali’s mother, who was a widow, and had to toil all her life for her share is a reminder of this. Also, the abject patriarchy that women are mired in becomes conspicuous when women going to the chariot festival are labelled as ‘prostitutes’ while men going to the same festival are labelled as ‘Gods’. The gender roles are also visible when it is mentioned that ‘only the man who induced morning sickness in his wife in the very second month of marriage was a real man’, thus putting pressure on Kali too to prove his masculinity.
Pyre
As the name suggests, the book contains something so sinister that it engulfs people in its flames, leaving them charred for life: caste. It starts off with a couple, Saroja and Kumaresan setting foot in the latter’s village after Saroja eloped from her home since she was madly in love with Kumaresan. Being an unconventional wedding of theirs, they had thought that the villagers would taunt them for some time but soon the chaos would die down. But of course, that was not to be since Saroja belonged to a different caste and that was all that mattered to make the young couple’s life miserable. Saroja’s mother-in-law would sing a dirge every time she saw Saroja; she would not even taste a morsel of food made by her and would heckle her son, asking how Saroja had bewitched him into marrying her. Apart from the usual slurs and cold stares, Saroja also had to face lecherous men in the patriarchal town, leaving her wondering whether she was right in her decision to marry Kumaresan.
One particularly humiliating instance took place when abuses were hurled at the couple when they were discovered attending a function of Kumaresan’s relatives. “…couldn’t you find a girl in our village, from within our caste? We can’t even face our people. You have shamed us all. If your uncles see you now, they will hack you to death…” said a man. This left Kumaresan wondering if he had done anything wrong. Although Kumaresan had undermined the antipathy felt by not only his mother but the whole village towards their union, Saroja had it in the back of her mind that her mother-in-law could go beyond mere ranting and raving. And so it happened, when Kumaresan was out of town for two days, the whole village colluded with her mother-in-law to set her on fire when she went to relieve herself. Would she survive? Would Kumaresan save her in time?
The novel is a poignant reminder of the venom that pervades the intricate network of caste in our society, especially in the countryside, where it is still considered sacrosanct to uphold the norms of the caste system. It is an emotive display of what the ominous shadow of caste can engender in our society. Although Saroja and Kumaresan loved each other deeply, both of them, at some point or the other during their arduous lives, had questioned their decision to marry each other. Even though Kumaresan had loved Saroja passionately, he had overlooked the profound affliction Saroja must have faced when he used to come home drunk or be unfazed by his mother’s threats. Perumal depicts Saroja’s will to survive amidst the ongoing crisis in a crisp and bare-minimum manner which leaves the readers weaving more brutal tales of the couple’s torment. It is in this backdrop of caste, class, and gender that Perumal lays bare the stark reality of a lugubrious world that flies in the face of change and progression.
Seasons of the Palm
Seasons of the Palm by Perumal Murugan is a masterfully created piece of work revolving around untouchability, bonded labour, and poverty in a village of Tamil Nadu. It is a plotless book surrounding the drudgeries of the lives of the protagonist—Shorty and his friends—Belly, Tallfellow, Stumpleg, and Stonedeaf. Perumal’s narrative in this book is that which is peppered with political, social, and historical innuendoes. There are lengthy descriptions of the countryside, deities, nature, rituals, temples, festivals, and customs. The limpid writing of Perumal sketches a world that traverses freedom, joy, grief, and despair seamlessly, and effortlessly.
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Perumal crafts a world where each of these young characters is used by their respective masters in the most ruthless way possible. Even the names of the working children are such that they mirror their enslavement: Shorty is called so because of his short height, and Belly is called so due to her protruding belly. However, the names of the masters or their children are offered properly, like Selvan or Mani, and they are constantly addressed as ‘Master’. Shorty, who lives all the time with his master, is frequently abused by him for even the pettiest of mistakes made by him. Belly is frequently called names by her choleric mistress and is also susceptible to being transferred to another farm which is owned by her father’s creditor, who is a loose man. Stumpleg, though he gets to boss around his friends, is beaten black and blue by his master at times and ordered around by his master’s son. Stonedeaf takes care of the baby of his mistress, a secret known only by a few as an untouchable touching a master’s baby is unheard of. Similarly, Tallfellow has to put up with the pitiable yet grimy condition of his master who is unable to look after himself. It is in these trying circumstances that Perumal paints the typical lives of untouchable children unable to extricate themselves from the eternal bonds of slavery.
The story offers brutal insights into the toiling lives of the untouchable children, where torpor is a luxury; living undauntingly is a chimera; and loving and being loved is an occasion. All of them are subjected to different working conditions that converge at the point of abuse, exploitation, and slavery. The children are to return to their work at the end of the day, failing which they are liable to be flogged. Their situation thus is like quicksand. As long they comply thoroughly with the rules, they are well and good, but as soon as they sidetrack even a bit, they are in hot water. For instance, when Shorty had been caught stealing coconuts from his neighbouring master’s farm, he was hanged upside-down from the well by his master, thus sounding the death knell for him.
The kernels of Perumal Murugan’s story are embedded in the reality of the caste-biased society. Perumal explores how the nexus between caste and religion plays out in rural areas of our country. Several instances are given where the upper-caste households give their children an earful when they unnecessarily rub shoulders with the untouchables: “Don’t know how you can get your shirt that dirty. Must have been rolling about in the fields with those low-born varmints.” Also, the dogmas of caste, he implies, are so blatant that not only have the upper castes used them to exploit the untouchables, but also the latter have been badgered into believing that they are not fit for a dignified humane treatment so much so that they have become completely enmeshed in this brutal cycle of oppression. It is due to their resignation to the divinely ordained law that the children consider it as their fate to not be allowed in temples: ‘Shorty and Tallfellow were, of course, not allowed into the grove, now that the festivities had begun. No untouchable was.’
Perumal finds ways in the smallest of things to evoke pathos from the lives of the poor untouchables. Food, for example, for Shorty and other untouchables is merely a source of survival: “Most days, the Mistress packs his tin pail with kambu balls the day before. Thin, shrivelled, and smelling faintly of rot…” Meat is a rare occasion. However, hope is offered intermittently throughout the book. It hinges on the open fields, the grazing of the sheep, the occasional rice balls, or the master giving a day off from work. Hope is in running freely, in catching fish and in climbing trees. However, it does not take long for it to be snatched away and not as furtively as it is offered.
Through this book, Perumal casts the countryside of Tamil Nadu in a mould that is difficult to forgo. His descriptions range from people to deities to nature and much more. It is his writing that gleans the social, historical, political, economic, and geographical aspects of the society that make us privy to the unbeknownst using a style that often blurs the line between real and fiction. It is through this microcosm of the entirety of the lives of the enslaved untouchable children that we give a thought or two about what the writer tries to accomplish throughout his work.
Poonachi
Poonachi or the Story of a Black Goat follows the life of a goat that is more than just an ordinary goat. This is the story of a goat who can express her thoughts as though she is a human living vicariously through the body of a goat. This anthropomorphism offered by the author throughout the book renders it unique and somewhat unsettling. The book is written in a style that allows the readers to experience the landscape of the poverty-stricken rural Tamil Nadu. From the grass of the hills and the lush green forests to the dry and devastated lands, the readers experience it all whilst copiously living the life of Poonachi.
When an old couple receives a generous and anonymous gift—a black female goat—the onus falls upon them to take care of her, and they do so dutifully. They make sure that the feeble goat is fed properly and protected from wild animals. They also ensure that she has her ears pierced which is mandatory for all the animals. The ear-piercing is a procedure that is done so that the ‘regime’ or the authority can identify each animal and in case they do something amiss, they can be punished. “Goats have horns, don’t they? Suppose they get a little angry and point them at the regime? Such goats have to be identified, right? That’s why they have to get their ears pierced.” During Poonachi’s ear-piercing procedure, the careless officer gets crossed at the uncommon sight of a black goat, which is considered hostile to the government, and hurts her ear, making her bleed profusely. Perumal, here, silently lampoons the ‘holier-than-thou’ authorities in his own style. ‘Everyone was well versed in how they were expected to behave towards the regime. They had mouths only to keep shut, hands only to pay obeisance, knees only to bend and kneel, backs only to bend, and bodies only to shrink before the authorities.’
Even though Poonachi gets entrapped in the jaws of death many times, she is not deterred in her ability to rebound. She comes back stronger and more determined. She faces the unbothered world when a mother goat refuses to milk her along with her children. However, she does not get bogged down and is headstrong in her will to live which is also shown in her ability to express freedom as the essence of one’s nature. She also develops a strong dislike for lambs who keep their heads down even when they are not grazing or drinking water. “Can you call it living when you live without looking at anything but the ground? … Unless we look up, how can we see the sky?”
The book seems to be a Goerge Orwell’s 1984 redux where there is the subjugation of the weak through abuse of power, money, gender norms, and hierarchy. It is also told through the perspective of an animal. However, what makes it different is that it manages to evoke pathos, tenderness, and warmth amongst the readers. The book is marked by the painstaking chalking out of the animal as well as human behaviour in the story.
The animal characters of the book are lent great human qualities when they feel desire, envy, taste, and pain. Poonachi, in particular, feels romance and regret to the extent that she almost appears like an undeterred young woman in this harsh world. She is a young girl who falls in love, and upon being forcefully separated, she holds the memory of her lover in her heart. She is a woman who becomes prey to her circumstances and is dragooned into mating with an old and disgusting male. She becomes a young mother, striving to ensure the survival of her children whilst giving herself away in the process. Similarly, she becomes a woman who reunites with her former lover and fleetingly experiences some blissful moments again. Perumal successfully weaves a tale of a young woman defying the conditions of her time using her only weapon—the will to live freely.
Conclusion
Perumal Murugan successfully depicts the exacting conditions of the lives of the people of a typical household in rural Tamil Nadu. It is only after reading the heart-rending stories of his protagonists—be it Ponna, Kali, Poonachi, Shorty, or others—that one would cotton on to the fact that “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” Perumal captures the essence of the people who were free and content but soon became weltschmerz-laden due to the vagaries of circumstances and time. Due to the despairing nature of his characters, comparisons of his work with that of Premchand and George Orwell can be found, but the sweet moments of love and togetherness he offers make him stand apart. Perumal’s works are bound by the glue of intersectionality, which helps him in weaving tales that combine the social, political, economic, and regional dimensions of society, and forge narratives that raise questions and demand change.
By Ananya Gupta
Ananya Gupta is a second-year student of BA (Hons.) Political Science studying in Hindu College, University of Delhi. She has a keen interest in books, music, and movies and hopes to balance her academics with the same.
References
Pyre: Perumal Murugan
Seasons of the Palm: Perumal Murugan
One Part Woman: Perumal Murugan
Poonachi: or the Story of a Black Goat: Perumal Murugan
Postcolonial Feminist Reading of Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman with its Resistance in the Context of Myth and Culture: Poulami Halder Research Scholar, Department of English, Visva-Bharati University
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https://ushakr.wordpress.com/by-me/review-of-perumal-murugans-poonachi-or-the-story-of-a-black-goat/
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