I put down Gift in Green , Sarah Joseph's new novel, consumed by fatigue and sweet stupor. Fatigue brought on by the intense reflection the novel urges the reader into. Stupor fed by the visions of an idyllic world and the poetry that runs through the book.
Gift in Green — simultaneously published in English and Malayalam from which it was translated by Valson Thampu — is very much like the overriding metaphor in the book: water. It flows gently at times like a river, at times overpowering like a roaring ocean. Much of the time, though, it is a wild stream twisting and turning, taking readers through an unpredictable course.
In the name of development
This latest novel from the seasoned writer and environmental activist is about Aathi (‘the beginning' in Malayalam), an idyllic village, a “green bangle” that nourishes and protects a world of life forms both human and animal. It is about how this ‘gift in green' is ravaged in the name of development especially when it disrespects ecological balance.
Life in Aathi is serene until Kumaran returns to his native village and unleashes a range of ‘ developmental' initiatives that will bring ‘ prosperity' to his Aathi.
The novel raises several questions: What is development that is insensitive to the environment? Where are we dumping our wastes? Where are we headed in the name of progress? What are we doing about all this?
However, Gift in Green is not to be seen just as a propagandist document that voices the author's deepest concerns. Joseph's success lies in the way she raises these issues in the most lyrical fashion.
The heavy narrative breaks often into poetry and this style is set right at the beginning: “ Darkness sat brooding over the abyss./The earth was formless and void,/Not a soul or fowl was upon it. ” (Prologue)
Sensual and heady
The descriptions of a pristine world are sensual and heady. Before you know it, you are in Aathi rowing your way into lush jungles, encircled by trees and wild bushes, surrounded by playful oysters, frogs and fingerlings.
The narrative makes generous use of folk songs, story telling and other oral traditions, dipping into the Mahabharata or the Bible from time to time. There are strains of the Sufi tradition as well.
This rich narrative is taken forward by the resilient people of Aathi. They are lovable, like the prophetic Noor Mohammed and the mad but sensitive Markose who sing the most number of tales and poems in the book. Joseph's feminist sensibility ensures that the female characters are stronger and more memorable.
Take the case of Kunjimathu who lives by the splendour of physical labour and motivates the people of Aathi; or the young Shylaja who is deeply affected by waste and bravely rejects anyone or anything that contributes to it.
Yet, as the author herself explains in an interview with the translator published in the book's appendix, many of these characters have not been fully developed. Characterisation is secondary to the thematic compulsions.
For me, though, the strongest character in the book is Aathi itself. The non-linear narrative carries Aathi from purity to putrefaction and, yet, this world does not crumble. The symbolism of water is ever prevalent and adds to the intense prose. There were moments I forgot this was a translation.
Valson Thampu's translation is unique because it was done as the original was being written. I especially enjoyed the linguistic rhythms successfully captured in the translated verse.
Barring the occasional word that jarred (like “pledge-rolling”, the Hindu practice of devotees rolling on the ground in wet clothes around a shrine), the translation flows smoothly.
But I forget this is a translation. All that lingers are the ominous questions Gift in Green raises. The most powerful of them is asked as the novel ends: “How are we to apply this story gainfully to our lives?”
Gift in Green,Sara Joseph, Translated by Valson Thampu, Harper Perennial, Rs 350.
