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January 23, 2007
Review of Cauvery Madhavan's 'The Uncoupling'
Cauvery Madhavan is also the author of ‘Paddy Indian’, and now has written her second novel, ‘The Uncoupling’. It is a very good read, portraying the marriage of Balu and Janaki, a fairly typical aging Madrasi, South Indian, couple.
The plot is straightforward enough – the Shankars come to Norwich, UK, to visit their only son, and take a couple of weeks to join a tour group going around Europe. On that tour, away from their familiar surroundings, domesticities, and lifetime routines, Janaki andBalu learn new aspects of themselves and each other, and find themselves havingto renegotiate the way they interact with one another. It is a book written with considerable compassion and understanding, demonstrating an appreciation of the many accommodations and tolerances of a couple in a successful and harmonious marriage, while unveiling the frustrations beneath, the enforced sacrifices, the shadows hidden from public life.
Readers are given fascinating glimpses of their domestic life in India, which resonate with great realism and humour, in term of servants, living arrangements, familial power relations. Madhavan's potraits of how things are done in India are extremely realistic and immeediately recognisable. For example, in describing Janaki's father's arrangements for his daughters’ weddings:
"there were innumerable advantages in being in service while having matrimonial matters sorted for his daughters. Any manner of favour could be asked, for he was a serving clerical officer of over twenty years' standing in the Electricity Board. He was known to be an honourable man in these matters, keeping his side of the bargain and fast-tracking files, letters, petitions safely through the labyrinthine system in return.
There were other, additional benefits. The peons....could be called upon...a had been proved at the eldest daughter's marriage, the peons had turned out to be nearly essential...Being in service meant that the Electricity Board linesmen would ensure that there were no power cuts in the marriage hall during the crucial hours of the wedding, and they could be relied on to contact their counterparts in Metro Water to ensure the water supply in the house was kept topped up, even at a time of severe shortages in the city. Retirement would have brought an abrupt close to all facilities, and it would have left Janaki's father to cope as an ordinary citizen. The helpless position that would leave him in could not be tolerated - it was unthinkable." (p155, London: BlackAmber, 2003.)
Posted by Lisa Lau at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)