Critical acclaim for The House of Blue Mangoes:
‘The book is huge in scope but intimate in detail . . . there are some magnificent set pieces’
Elizabeth Grice, Daily Telegraph
‘The House of Blue Mangoes artfully weaves many strands of Indian life into a vivid, highly coloured story . . . in the best sense, he knows how to tell a good story, and to do it with words and phrases that stamp on the mind a lasting impression of the sights, sounds, and smells of southern India’
Mark Bostridge, Independent on Sunday
‘I was caught up in his world, almost able to taste the lavish, spicy meals, see the sunrise with its “ordinary violence of dawn” and recognise the eccentric Indians or the English clergyman, who being in love with India is eager to martyr himself for it . . . And he writes beautifully’
Jessica Mann, Sunday Telegraph
‘Davidar skilfully mixes the political with the personal to create an engrossing read’
Daily Mail
‘An eloquent, lyrical tale . . . [an] enduring tale that proves years of plowing through a slush pile – learning how not to write – can produce a master storyteller’
Meenakshi Ganguly, Time
‘The House of Blue Mangoes is that rare thing: a deeply intelligent novel that’s also a cracking page-turner, and it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time’
Diana McPartlin, South China Morning Post
‘I had not read anything so good for a long time . . . he has produced a masterpiece’
Khushwant Singh, Outlook
‘The House of Blue Mangoes is a Tolstoyan saga . . . a solidly absorbing, richly informative Indian novel that should please a lot of readers – just about anyone, in fact, with an interest in the subcontinent, or anyone who’s looking for a good read in any setting as substantial and inclusive as the word “Tolstoyan” implies’
Alice K. Turner, Washington Post
‘This is a writer who skilfully draws his readers into a deeper understanding of the essence of India. His words embody the smells, the tastes, the sounds and the intrinsic spirituality of this complex and contrasting world . . . The House of Blue Mangoes . . . is a weighty and deeply intelligent novel’
Susan Campbell, Glasgow Herald
‘Gripping . . . a novel that intertwines the personal and the political, the individual and the historic . . . The House of Blue Mangoes is a polished and accomplished book’
Akash Kapur, New York Times Book Review
‘A lavish tale that will evoke memories, of such other disparate predecessors as Forster’s A Passage to India and Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy’
Kirkus Reviews
‘The House of Blue Mangoes . . . will remain an enduring landmark in fiction . . . Davidar’s pages [are] the boldest and the biggest after Midnight’s Children’
India Today
In loving memory of my mother
SUSHILA DAVIDAR
And for my wife
RACHNA SINGH
CONTENTS
COVER
PRAISE
DEDICATION
TITLE PAGE
MAP
FAMILY TREE
EPIGRAPH
BOOK I
CHEVATHAR
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
BOOK II
DORAIPURAM
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
BOOK III
PULIMED
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CHAPTER 102
CHAPTER 103
CHAPTER 104
CHAPTER 105
CHAPTER 106
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BY DAVID DAVIDAR
COPYRIGHT
FAMILY TREE
A land of miracles and fire
– Marina Tsvetayeva
BOOK I
CHEVATHAR
1
SPRING 1899. As the ordinary violence of dawn sweeps across the lower Coromandel coast, a sprawling village comes into view. The turbulent sky excepted, everything about it is tranquil. Away to the west, a great headland, thickly maned with coconut palms, juts into the sea, partially enclosing a deserted beach on which long slow swells, clear and smooth as glass, break with scarcely a sound. Beyond the beach, the waters of an estuary reflect the rage of colour overhead. This is where the Chevathar, the country’s southernmost river and the source of the village’s name, prepares for its final run to the sea.
On a bluff overlooking the estuary, almost hidden by coconut palms, is a small church. From there, the village straggles upriver for about a mile and a half, ending at the bridge that connects it to the town of Meenakshikoil on the opposite bank.
Through the village runs a narrow tarred road that stands out like a fresh scar on the red soil. The road connects all Chevathar’s major landmarks: the Vedhar quarter to the north, the ruins of an eighteenth-century mud fort, Vakeel Perumal’s two-storey house with its bone-white walls, the Amman and the Murugan temples, and on a slight elevation, the house of the thalaivar, Solomon Dorai, barely visible behind a fr
inge of casuarina trees and coconut palms. Surrounding the walls of the Big House, as it is known, are several trees that aren’t usually seen in the area – a tall umbrella-shaped rain tree, a bread-fruit tree with leaves that explode in green star-shaped clusters and many jackfruit trees laden with heavy, spiky fruit that spring directly from the trunk. These are the result of the labours of Charity Dorai, who does not come from these parts. In an effort to allay her homesickness she began planting trees from her homeland. Twenty years later they have altered the treescape of Chevathar.
Down to the river from the Big House tumble groves of Chevathar Neelam, a rare hybrid of a mango native to the south. The trees are astonishingly beautiful, the fruit glinting blue against the dark green leaves. The locals will tell you that the Chevathar Neelam, which has made the Dorai name famous throughout the district, is so sweet that after you’ve eaten one you cannot taste sugar for at least three days. So the locals say.
The rest of the village is quickly described. More coconut palms, the paracheri to the southwest, a few shops by the bridge over the Chevathar river, the huts of the Andavar tenant farmers close to the road, and a dozen or so wells and tanks that raise blind glittering eyes to the morning light.
The villagers rise early, but as it’s some way yet before the fields are to be prepared for the transplanting of rice, the men are not up and about. Most of the women have risen before dawn and are racing to finish their household chores. Today the village celebrates the Pangunni Uthiram festival and they’re hoping to snatch a few minutes at the festive market that’s being assembled, bright and tawdry, by the walls of the Murugan temple.
Movement on the tarred road. Two girls, one thirteen and soon to be married, the other a year younger, are on their way to the fair. They are dressed in their best clothes, the older girl in a violet half-sari, jasmine in her well-oiled and plaited hair, her cousin in a garish pink skirt. Their foreheads are adorned with sandalwood paste, vibhuti and kumkumam from the Amman temple where they worshipped before dayfall. They walk quickly, even though they’re very early, their feet light on the deliciously cool road, eager to get to the market. The older girl has been given four annas to spend by her mother. It’s a small sum but it’s more money than Valli has ever had before and she can barely contain her excitement at what she might be able to buy with it. Bangles? Earrings? Silk for a blouse perhaps, or might that be too expensive? Parvathi hurries to keep up with her cousin.
The girls pass a grey outcrop of granite polished by wind and rain to a smooth rounded shape that resembles the knobbly forehead of an elephant. Anaikal, as it is called, is popular with children playing hide-and-seek but they barely register this most familiar of sights as they hurry onwards. They enter a short stretch lined with banyan trees beyond which is the path that leads to the fair.
And then the younger girl notices them. ‘Akka,’ she says, but the remark is unnecessary for Valli has also seen the four young men lounging under the big tamarind tree that shades Vakeel Perumal’s house. The acute peripheral vision of the two girls, shared by every woman under the age of forty in the small towns and villages of the hinterland, is geared towards noticing just one thing: men. Sometimes it is exercised to give them pleasure as they flirt expertly even with eyes cast down. But more often than not it is used to spot danger. No young or even middle-aged woman is safe from the slyly outstretched male arm that seeks to brush and feel up, the crude insult, the lascivious eye, and so they learn early to take evasive action before things become unpleasant.
The two girls quickly assess the situation. The men are about fifty yards away and do not appear threatening. Still, there is no one about. Every instinct tells them to turn and retreat to the safety of their houses. But the promise of the new bangles is too strong. After all, just a few yards more and they’ll be on the dirt path which will take them to the market grounds.
The men under the tamarind tree begin to move towards them and now the girls are truly alarmed. They turn to hurry back in the direction of their houses but it’s already too late. The footsteps behind them gather speed and the girls begin to run. Terror sharpens their senses. They register with unnatural clarity everyday sights: the fire of shoeflowers against a limewashed wall, the waxy green leaves of a calotropis plant by the roadside, an orange butterfly on the road, and then everything begins to blur.
The younger girl keeps her head, or perhaps she just chooses right. She stays on the road and runs as fast as she can towards the huts of the tenant farmers barely half a furlong away. Valli veers off the path and begins running away from the river, through the acacia forest that clothes the uncultivated area by the Murugan temple. The horny soles of her bare feet negotiate the rough ground beneath her with ease but she is no match for her pursuers. Remorselessly they overtake her. She feels hands tearing at her clothes, hissed imprecations in her ears, she stumbles, goes down . . .
2
About two furlongs from the spot where the girls had begun their desperate run, Chevathar Gnanaprakasam Solomon Dorai Andavar, the thalaivar of the village, sat on the veranda of his house, deeply absorbed in the antics of a woodpecker. Round and round the furrowed trunk of the neem tree it went, and not for the first time the headman thought that the way the bird rose up the tree was uncannily similar to the manner in which his tappers ascended the tall palmyras to harvest toddy.
Clad only in a colourful lungi, Solomon Dorai looked as if he might have been carved from teak. There wasn’t an ounce of superfluous flesh on his forty-year-old frame, and his hair and moustache were luxurious and untrammelled by grey. For many years now, he had decreed that on Sundays and festival days he wasn’t to be disturbed in the morning on any village or household matter unless it was an emergency. The order was respected, not least because of the trouble that could be unleashed if it was ignored. This morning as usual he had risen before dawn, washed his face at the well, and then wandered into the courtyard to pluck a neem twig to chew on. He loved the tall stillness of the night at this hour when even the stirrings of the world were muted. Soon red would tongue into black, followed by the rest of the sequence that was so dear to him: the emerging of trees, hayricks and other familiar objects from the dark, the grumbling of crows in the casuarina trees at the edge of the compound, the lowing of cows impatient to be milked, all the comforting noises of his world.
The rich smell of jaggery coffee told him that Charity had come and gone, soundlessly, leaving the coffee in its customary place on the veranda. He drank his coffee so hot that he could only hold the tumbler between the folds of his lungi. Carefully he raised it to his lips and sipped. Excellent, as always. Then suddenly, for no reason that he could pinpoint, Solomon was no longer relaxed.
There was still some time to go before his barber would arrive to shave him, so Solomon decided to investigate the cause of his unease. Perhaps he could go down to the river, where he anyway wanted to inspect some newly planted mango trees, and then stroll as far as the Murugan temple to check that all was well. The watchman was probably sleeping off a drunken jag and there would be nothing to prevent strangers from wandering into the village. Ever since the deputy tahsildar had insisted on building his accursed new road to connect Chevathar to the town, you could not be too vigilant, he thought. Finishing his coffee, he rose to his feet. The discordant bray of a donkey drifted in on the breeze and he smiled, for it portended good luck. Perhaps his fears were groundless. No matter, it would be good to stretch his legs. As he walked across the beaten earth of the courtyard, the woodpecker flew away in a streak of green and yellow. He paused to watch its rapid jerky flight for a moment, then went down to the river.
The strangers were gone long before Solomon reached the Chevathar. One of them carried three bloody furrows on his cheek where Valli’s nails had scored him. They avoided the bridge and negotiated the shallows of the river instead. Once across, they melted into the countryside, as invisibly as they had come. Hidden in the recesses of the acacia forest was the only sign that they ha
d ever been in the village: the barely conscious wreck of a young girl.
Standing at the river’s edge, Solomon worriedly stroked and pulled at his moustache. His anxiety had nothing to do with Valli; it would be an hour or so before she was found and the news conveyed to the thalaivar. What disturbed him was what lay before him. Since the Great Famine of 1876–8, he had never seen the Chevathar so shrunken in its course. Rocks poked out of the water like tobacco-blackened teeth, and it was only in the very centre that the current flowed, slowly and sluggishly. They couldn’t afford another drought. If the rains failed again, he and every villager in the area would suffer. For now the village looked green and fertile enough, but he knew from experience just how quickly everything could change. Only two days ago, a deputation had visited him, saying that their fields were showing traces of salinity. It was always a problem: as the river and the sweet water receded, the sea seeped in. If water became scarce, they could lose half their cropland. In perpetuity. And with drought and famine, there was the ever-present danger of epidemic.
His mind went back nearly twenty-one years to the time when eight thousand people, over a tenth of the district’s population, had died. Smallpox had followed drought and famine had swept away another ten thousand, among them his parents, his older brother, two younger sisters, two uncles and their entire families. Seventeen of the people who had made up his world, all sacrificed to the ferocious goddess, Mariamman. The only survivors in his immediate family had been his wife Charity, his younger brother Abraham, his sister Kamalambal and his dearly loved cousin Joshua. Solomon had come into his inheritance when he was barely twenty, as had many of the young men in the region.
Fortunately for the community, they had been spared epidemics over the next decade and a half. Also, the rains had held up, and the process of recovery slowly began. But barely had things returned to normal when the rains had started playing truant again. For the past three years, both the monsoons – the southwest and the northeast – had been below average and the Government had initiated drought relief works once more. Not entirely trusting to Government, the people had redoubled their prayers in temples, mosques, churches, wayside shrines and family pooja rooms. In our land, religion is expected to do everything, including feed the people, Solomon thought grumpily.