We want the best for our children, especially when we are
fearful about the choices we see them making.
However, sometimes our interference has huger consequences than if we’d
sat back and waited. This novel weaves
around twins, their mother, their cousin, grandmother, uncle, great aunt and
the servants. The mother, Ammu, has no
support from her parents, Christians in Kerala, India, largely because they
feel they have the right to make her decisions, despite their disregard of her
needs. Although Christian parents in
Kerala would normally arrange for their daughter’s marriage, her cruel father
won’t.
She eventually finds her own husband, but they are appalled
that not only has she chosen her own husband, but that he is Hindu. Having married him, Ammu is stuck with him, until his alcoholism
and desperation cause her to take herself and the twins back to her parents,
where they are unwelcome, as the children are half-Hindu, and she is a divorced
woman.
Even worse, Ammu then goes on to have a relationship with
someone her family and her society really disapproves of, and they react with
blunt force. Because she has crossed
caste lines, not only does her family retaliate, police officers also become
involved. Their reaction leads to
horrifying consequences that destroy the lives of the children, as well as
several of the adults.
This is not one of the new, ironic, humorous novels coming
out of India. It is heavy, monsoon moldy,
dark and grieving. In considering
literature therapy, this is a book that makes you beg for fresh air, sunlight,
joy and freedom. Realizing that rigidity
and control have created the appalling situation in these characters’ lives might
help us to relax our rigid and controlling wishes for our loved ones.
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