Their naïveté plays against the community’s hatred and cynicism and creates a sense of foreboding that propels the narrative to its inevitable conclusion. Saroja is a city girl, and her transition to farming life would have been difficult even without the explicit derision and antagonism that the couple experiences from everyone in the village, including Kumaresan’s mother, extended family, and the village leaders. Despite the taboo against intercaste marriage, Kumaresan believes that they can settle happily there and that his community will eventually embrace the lovely Saroja just as he has. He instructs Saroja to say nothing of her caste identity, but given her fair complexion, the farming villagers immediately suspect she is not one of them. Murugan’s novel opens with the just-married Saroja and Kumaresan stepping off a bus in rural Tamil Nadu to walk a mile to Kumaresan’s mother’s home, located in his ancestral village. A young intercaste couple elopes in rural Southern India, braving the anger of their families and the fatal restrictions of society.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |