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.
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