Savi and the Memory Keeper

Why do you think trees exist in all myths and legends? Because they are the centre of magic. 

13 yr old Savi (she hates being called Savitri) shifts to Shajarpur with her mother and elder sister Meher, leaving behind everything familiar in Delhi. Savi, who is grief-stricken and unable to come to terms with a world without her father in it, is only more frustrated with this change. Her father died six months back and Savi wished really hard for only two things now - to keep her Dad’s 42 plants alive in their new home and she be rendered invisible for she was tired of pity in people’s looks and voices. 

But Shajarpur, her father’s hometown, which she calls LaLa land for its ‘just right’ weather and ‘always happy’ people has plans for her. A big Tree in her school gives her a superpower that makes her the most coveted among the very affluent ‘Very Cool and Hip people’ and Eco Ents club consisting of tree-hugging simpletons. What is this power & how it transforms Savi, her family & classmates, even Shajapur as it unravels is a delight to read. 

Savi and the Memory Keeper by Bijal Vachharajani explores the constant tussle between progress and preserving nature, economy and environment with an understory of loss of a loved one and grief. Indeed, a beautiful combination of themes for while we notice the green canopy, fruits & flowers, we know little about trees staying connected with each other underground through a network of roots, just like how we notice everything about a person but know nothing of the grief within. 

Grief gets a mature portrayal in this story as we see people reacting differently to the same tragedy. While Savi silently withdraws into an inner shell with a ‘Don’t mess with me’ sticker on her, her mother Dhani is either hooked to phone/laptop tackling mountains of paperwork or armed with a duster and broom on an aggressive clean up mission, Savi's elder sister Meher makes reels zealously in  a bid to earn more followers on social media, none are judged here for they all wallow in grief in different ways. Not just emotions, but we learn of many little scientific things like the mycorrhizal network that connects all trees underground and the role of pollinators like wasps and bees.  

That the author vests greater power with ‘nature’ than ‘time’ to heal is truly endearing. The use of Ficus Mysorensis tree and a purple frog species found in the Western Ghats as central motifs in storytelling is intelligent. Mentions of poha, dhokla, thalipeeth, lemon grass in Thai curry, the aroma of jasmine & freshness of mint are a feast to our senses. The author's attention to detail is noticeable when we infer why Savitri gets her name or why Bekku is the name of a black cat that stays with the family in Shajarpur. 

Man’s unending avarice, his increasing indifference to nature and the inevitable climate change are all charted well using the fictional city, Shajarpur. 

The book has a tad unbelievable element in the end but ‘those who don’t believe in magic will never find it’ and this one’s about the magic of trees as much as it’s about friendship, loss, memories, hope. Though a middle grade read, keeping in mind the cycle that the author mentions - ‘the more we forget, the less we care and the less we care, the more we forget’, this read is for grown-ups too. 

The cover design and illustration by Rajiv Eipe is gorgeous and does complete justice to the story. A reading experience becomes totally rewarding when one can figure out why the author wrote the book and the acknowledgements section does this job for the reader, please don’t miss it. 

Savi and the Memory Keeper is sure to give us warm smiles and leave us moist eyed too. A beautiful, reassuring read that is neither annoyingly optimistic nor depressingly pessimistic, and we definitely  need more such books. 

Homebound

 

“Home is the shelter you run to in a crisis, not the one you run away from, or the one that drives you out”. 

When the nationwide lockdown was extended for another 3 weeks on Apr 14, 2020, many migrant workers/daily wage labourers decided to leave big cities, factories of their dreams and walk back home, to villages several km away across state borders. Why? No work meant no money and no money meant no shelter, food and water. Hunger and penury would devour them even if they escaped the virus

Meher, a 15 yr old girl, a resident of Dharavi in Mumbai sets out on foot to her village Balhaar in Rajasthan, about 900 km away, with her family as decided by her father.  

Homebound by Puja Changoiwala is a heart wrenching account of many hardships they face during this arduous journey - sapping summer heat, agents who fleece them with the promise of ferrying them secretly in trucks marked ‘essential goods’, an excessively irate and vigilant police force patrolling the borders. Written in epistolary format, it focuses on the stigma associated with Covid, panic & fear the invincible & invisible virus generated, more specifically the non Covid deaths during the mass departure of migrant workers - due to accidents, heat exhaustion, starvation, police brutality.

Lockdown - an oft-used term during the COVID-19 pandemic; touted as an indispensable public well-being measure spelt doom for many. It will not be wrong to draw a parallel between its implications for people from different strata in society and the symptoms of infection from coronavirus - ranging from asymptomatic, mild to very severe and fatal. Even as I read this book, Delhi went into a partial lockdown in fear of an impending third wave of COVID-19. 

Millions of migrant workers who ran big cities like a well oiled machine for measly wages, worked in inhuman conditions without health care benefits, safety gear, job security and written contracts, workers whose dues remained unsettled with the sudden imposition of lockdown, who were forced to walk back home for there were no trains and buses to ferry them safely, workers who wanted little empathy and not charity get a voice in Homebound.

When the author names the first chapter as food, clothing, shelter, Internet, we know she has many relevant things to state and she does this unfailingly through the book. The writing is brilliant, there are some powerful lines like - 

"The internet is a lot like our universe and like the universe , most of it brims with a dark energy."

"Hate is heavy, a secured debt, where the country is held as the collateral, the borrower is every citizen and the interest is blood."

However, it's also true that the writing feels ornate at places, often weighed down by the use of metaphor. (For ex, tear gas shells are compared to white fairies in the opening chapter)

When Meher recounts life in her village in letters to a journalist, several issues like superstitions, farmer suicides, menstrual taboos, communal hatred, child marriage and sati surface. While this definitely ensures a holistic approach, it also gives a ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ feeling. 

From Rainpada violence episode to national assignments of thali bajao and diya jalao during nation wide lockdown, communal clashes instances in Bhagalpur in 1989 unto Godhra riots in Gujarat, from quoting Voltaire (Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother) to Faiz Ahmed Faiz  (Aur bhi gham hai zamaane main mohabaat ke siwa, rahatein aur bhi hai vasl ki rahat ke siwa), the author renders her work dense with details and opinions. 

Meher’s letters too reflect the maturity of an adult more than a girl in mid teens thereby vociferously representing the author more than Meher. Though the climax is realistic, the act of writing letters during such a painstaking journey feels little fanciful. 

Overall, Homebound is a very important work of fiction where what's written and why it's written (as we infer from the author's note) clearly supersede the glitches in how it's written.