Letters From NewYork
Reading Manil Suri
Some readers may be disappointed when they realize that Manil Suri is not in the process of penning the last part of a "trilogy." As the author has maintained, apart from the fact that both his books are set in his native India-- and the God theme and title are dominant--there is no common thread between The Death of Vishnu and Suri's latest novel, The Age of Shiva (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007) a narrative with a female protagonist. Spanning 30-plus years, it is a portrait of maternal love set in a country in turmoil. Meera Sawhney is a 16-year-old middle child from a relatively well-off family. From childhood, she finds herself overshadowed by her older sister, Roopa: the fair-skinned beauty, the one doted upon by their parents. When Meera meets Dev Arora, an aspiring singer and Roopa's secret paramour, she is enamored…and wants to lure him away from her sister. She seizes her moment when Roopa agrees to an arranged marriage with a naval officer, someone whose status is far above that of Dev's. Fate and Meera's desire to spite her overbearing father coincide, resulting in her wedding to Dev--an impulsive act that has long-term consequences. Meera trades a life of luxury for one of near-poverty--Dev's provincial, "lower-caste" family lives in a rundown section of Delhi. Here again, she plays second fiddle--this time, to the bottle. Meera manages to find a level of contentment, in part, because her progressive father disapproves of the religious aspects of his daughter's new life. After a series of unfortunate events, Meera's father agrees to support his daughter and Dev for life. But Meera pays a high price for this financial dependence, and she can never quite forgive her father or husband. Surrounding the family drama is the larger one of Hindu-Muslim relations. The early part of this novel is set in post-partition India, at a time when both Hindus and Muslims had tales of horror about each other. One cannot doubt the injustices visited upon both sects after the British left the Indian subcontinent with a massive mess on its hands--one that has repercussions even today. In Suri's novel, small everyday prejudices lead to constant mistrust. For instance, on Eid, Dev's mother accepts almond milk from her Muslim neighbor, but her paranoia makes her pour it down the sink when she gets home. On the other hand, Meera's attitude toward Muslims is not close-minded, because her parents' close friends were Muslims. In fact, she is mistrustful of Arya, Dev's brother, who helps and trains young nationalistic men at Hindu refugee camps. But Arya has his reasons--his family, friends, and his wife's family experienced atrocities at the hands of Muslims on their journey from Pakistan to India. The parallels with modern India, where, unfortunately, in-fighting between the two sects still exists, are strong. One wonders, though, about the effect of this novel on Suri's Western audience. In this age of Bin Ladens, suicide bombers, and 9/11-related fear of Islam, might not this historical, sometimes-skewed portrayal of Muslims continue to stir the pot of Western prejudice? Throughout the novel, Lord Shiva symbolizes religious upheaval, and his wife, Parvati, represents maternal love. The connotations are even stronger once Meera and Dev's son, Ashvin, is born. He is his mother's salvation. One cannot help but sympathize with Meera, to whom life continues to deal bad cards. As a result, a very co-dependent relationship grows between mother and child, one that is not entirely healthy for the boy. There is a danger of their relationship crossing boundaries--just like that of Lord Shiva's wife Parvati and her third, demon-like child, Andhaka. Parvati, as any mother would, lovingly cared for her child, but he lusted after his mother--and was ultimately killed by Lord Shiva. Not to push the envelope thus far, but Meera and Ashvin's relationship almost takes a twisted turn born of innocence and a young boy's raging hormones. It is refreshing that Suri has written about these natural events, and his drawing upon Hindu mythology makes his writing especially effective. But his honest depiction of the almost-Odepal nature of the love between mother and son may make some of Suri's South Asians readers squirm. Which begs the question: Who is his audience? In a country like India, where so many blockbuster movies are based on the altruistic nature of a mother's love, will readers shun this book? Is the author risking alienating them by touching upon a taboo topic? Suri has done a remarkable job of portraying a woman's inner world, her turbulent emotions…right down to a mother's sense of fulfillment at having her child breastfeed. The strength of his novel lies in those minute details as well as his portrayal of the political climate in post-partition India. However, his depiction of poverty, especially that of families like Dev's, lacks authenticity. Living in her in-laws two-room shack--with the drying dung on the walls, the lack of refrigeration, and the two married couples sharing a room--cannot have been easy for Meera after having grown up in middle-class luxury. The picture the writer paints of her acceptance, her acclimatization, is almost idyllic. No matter what, The Age of Shiva will get even the most discontented readers thinking and talking. What more does an author need? Farah Ameen is a Bangladeshi-American writer and editor based in New York.
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