It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of life that is purloined…
Esthappen and Rahel are just seven at the time of the incident. When their cousin Sophie is found dead by the river, it upends their life and tears them apart. For the dizygotic twins, days in Ayemenem used to be filled with laughter, exploration and make-believe games. Leaving a wayward, drunk husband, Ammu had returned to the family home in Ayemenem with the kids. When tragedy struck, Estha was sent back to his father, away from Rahel and Ammu. Now, after 23 years, he has been re-returned.
The rules were always different for Ammu and her brother Chacko. Both were divorcees, but were looked at differently. Ammu was a failure to leave her husband. Chacko was the aggrieved party; so his advances and flings with workers were encouraged. In a patriarchal society, the rules for love are strictly graded, applied and regulated. The Ipe family was no different. Ammu’s father, who was considered progressive, was totally at home beating his wife in fits of anger. Somewhere his wife’s successful enterprise rankled him. The same way Ammu’s kids rankled the family.
Estha and Rahel’s second class status came to fore when Sophie landed in the village from England. Chacko’s lingering love for his ex-wife and a deep desire to connect with his daughter meant a lot was riding on this visit. In the ‘What will Sophie Mol think’ week, Ammu – raising her kids, with patience, exasperation, anger – found herself flaring up more than often. Only, seven-year-olds take words to heart, and it dictates their actions.
That’s, however, not the only tragedy in the book. There are limits to a family and society’s progressiveness. The love laws are unbreakable. That explains the impunity of the police action. A skilled carpenter, friend of the kids, a communist worker – none of these roles are enough to erase Velutha’s birth as a Paravan, an untouchable class. The irony of it all being that it is Velutha’s father who seals his fate. Similarly, it is Baby Kochamma, whose machinations to punish Ammu, end up destroying more than one life.
Estha, forced to reckon with the fear of losing his mother, has to live with the lie he told for the rest of his life. He loses his words, folds into himself, ends up doing chores at his father’s house to earn his keep. Rahel drifts from school to college and into a marriage, living with a void that never leaves. Ammu, shunted out of the house, away from her kids, diminishes and passes away alone at 31; the same age that Estha and Rahel are now.
Arundhati Roy spins an intricate tale of love and loss in her debut novel. Despite the tragic events that it encompasses, Roy’s prose flows like a river, back and forth, revealing more details of the incident that would transform the Ipe family. In its folds, it wraps childhood, love, caste, gender, politics and more. Even grief, which the kids would only uncover later, once they make sense of the lives lost. A truly well-deserved winner of the 1997 Booker Prize. Do read this one.
A Thousand Mornings 