March 2020 Reads (Part 1)

Books read during the month of March 2020 shared below - 

1. Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi 

Grace Marisola arrives in Pondicherry from America to cremate her dead mother. Her mother has bequeathed her a huge land in Paramankeni, a big house on it very close to the sea, with a sprawling garden and an elder sister, Lucia with Downs syndrome, her existence unknown till then, all this even as Grace is grappling with her decade long unsuccessful marriage with Blake, her job and social life in America.

Born to an Italian father, Giacinto Marisola and an Indian mother, Meera, Grace finds her every childhood memory thwarted into a deception by the secrets her parents kept from her. She unravels the truth over time by interacting with her mom's friend Kavitha Raman, her mother's lawyer and Lucia's teacher at a centre for disabled children where Lucia has spent all her life, her father in Venice.

Grace is keen on bringing Lucia home; together the sisters stay with a few dogs, a litter of pups and Mallika, a caretaker woman. Valluvan, the village headman, their only acquaintance is a source of security with Grace feeling constant threat from every man's prying eyes.

When Kavitha auntie tells Grace that she wasn't expected by her mother to stay with Lucy, Grace only replies - it isn't difficult, it's just the repetitiveness. 

It is this mundaneness of routine, the mere predicability, inevitability of decay in a relationship over time, the ways one deploys to wriggle in and out of life that is dealt with in lush and evocative prose in Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi.

The author also lays bare how a dysfunctional family leaves cracks in children that can never be mended easily, the creaking noises their lives make cannot be drowned by all din in the world. The prose assumes the course of a meandering river, bright & free flowing in most places, prosaic and little stagnant like when stuck in whirls at times.

Torn between a parent who led a life of guilt, another who believed in complete renunciation, little like her mother, a little like her father, Grace settles over time into being just who she is, comfortable in her skin and with her soul.

Small Days and Nights with a ray of hope in its open end is a book that poignantly states no matter how much we try , many WHYs in life cannot be answered. Sharing a quote from the last chapter - "In the days to come there will be children engineered to resemble our ideas of children. They will be born in petri dishes and every chromosome, every strand of genetic evidence will be tampered into perfection. And still, we will fall short". This is the truth that man blatantly or half heartedly refuses to accept. 

There are books that quench our thirst as readers and then there are few books like this one that proceed a step further, prove the sheer beauty and power words have which will force us to pen down something beautiful on a piece of paper.

2. The Demon Hunter of Chottanikkara  by SV Sujatha 

Devi, a young girl but no ordinary mortal, and a lion Ugra, her mount, guard the village of Chottanikkara against evil spirits. The densely forested northern limits of the village, marubhoomi is home to demons with never ceasing blood lust like Jalapisacha (water demon that resides in old, decrepit wells), Kollivaipei (demons that breathed fire), Pretha (scavenger spirit that roamed the graveyards), Brahmrakshasa, Mohini Pisacha, Vetala. Devi could hunt them all down, reduce them to ashes or nail them to a neem tree (the metal iron was believed to maim these demons). .

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But a crime scene like no other in a grove befuddles all. Leads from the scene, Devi's nightmares, a warning by a rakshasa she last slayed and lastly an eye witness's accounts ascertain the presence of a monstrous Yakshi who assumes a reptilian form with cerulean blue scales, sword like teeth; a flesh eating demon who cannot be thwarted by use of iron.

Parasurama who trained Devi in arts of combat provides answers to crucial questions, what is a yakshi & how can she be slayed? Rolling a set of cowrie shells, he prophesies this hunt will be the most daunting task for Devi that requires her to do the unprecedented.

Who is this Yakshi, why was she killing the men in her village? Will Devi succeed in killing this indomitable demon? 

The characters are few and well chalked out. The clean & fast paced narrative holds attention unto end though the end itself is clearly predictable.

SV Sujatha's story Gandaberunda (from anthology Magical Women) was a neatly crafted thriller and this book too pleasantly surprised me, have never devored a book so fast in recent times.

This book brought memories from my childhood visit to the Chottanikkara Bhagavathy temple, close to Kochi; many possessed by evil spirits were exorcised here. The trees with iron nails driven in, strands of human hair wound around them, the sight is clearly etched in my memory. Making a mention of guruthi puja and naming a character as Kannappan (Devi's foster father), the author has used practices and beliefs of/around the temple in weaving a decent supernatural thriller for the readers.