Padma Viswanathan - The Toss of a Lemon
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The year of the marriage proposal, Sivakami is ten. She is neither tall nor short for her age, but she will not grow much more. Her shoulders are narrow but appear solid, as though the blades are fused to protect her heart from the back. She carries herself with an attractive stiffness: her shoulders straight and always aligned. She looks capable of bearing great burdens, not as though born to yoke but perhaps as though born with a yoke within her.Spanning the lifetime of one woman (18961962), The Toss of a Lemon brings us intimately into a Brahmin household, into an India weve never before seen.Married at ten, widowed at eighteen, left with two children, Sivakami must wear widows whites, shave her head, and touch no one from dawn to dusk. She is not allowed to remarry, and in the next sixty years she ventures outside her family compound only three times. She is extremely orthodox in her behavior except for one defiant act: She moves back to her dead husbands house and village to raise her children. That decision sets the course of her childrens and grandchildrens lives, twisting their fates in surprising, sometimes heartbreaking ways.Inspired by her grandmothers stories, Padma Viswanathan masterfully brings to life a profoundly exotic yet utterly recognizable family in the midst of social and political upheaval. The Toss of a Lemon is the debut of a major new writer.
Padma Viswanathan: author's other books
Who wrote The Toss of a Lemon? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Padma Viswanathan
Narendra Mehta
Michael Shoulders
Joy E. Addo-Noble
Devdutt Pattanaik
Ruskin Bond
Unknown
Ebooks Corporation.
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Table of Contents
for
Bhuvana and S. P. Viswanathan
and for
Dhanam Kochoi
Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence: but I seem to have found from somewhere the trick of filling in the gaps in my knowledge ...
Salman Rushdie, Midnights Children
PART ONE
Thangam 1896
THE YEAR OF THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL, Sivakami is ten. She is neither tall nor short for her age, but she will not grow much more. Her shoulders are narrow but appear solid, as though the blades are fused to protect her heart from the back. She carries herself with an attractive stiffness: her shoulders straight and always aligned. She looks capable of bearing great burdens, not as though born to a yoke but perhaps as though born with a yoke within her.
She and her family live in Samanthibakkam, some hours away by bullock cart from Cholapatti, which had been her mothers place before marriage. Every year, they return to Cholapatti for a pilgrimage. They fill a pot at the Kaveri River and trudge it up to the hilltop temple to offer for the abhishekham. These are pleasant, responsible, God-fearing folk who seek the blessings of their gods on any undertaking and any lack thereof. They maintain awe toward those potentially wiser or richer than theylike the young man of Cholapatti, who is blessed with the ability to heal.
No one in their family is sick, but still they go to the healer. They may be less than totally healthy and simply not know. One can always use a preventative, and it never hurts to receive the blessings of a blessed person. This has always been the stated purpose of the trip, and Sivakami has no reason to think this one is any different.
Hanumarathnam, the healer, puts his palms together in a friendly namaskaram, asks how they have been and whether they need anything specific. They shyly shake their heads, and he queries, with a penetrating squint, Nothing? Sivakami is embarrassed by her parents, who are acting like impoverished peasants. They owe this man their respect, but they are Brahmins too, and literate, like him. They can hold up their heads. Shes smiling to herself at his strange name: a hybrid of Hanuman, the monkey god, and rathnam, gem. The suffix she understands; its attached to the name of every man in the region. But no one is named for the monkey!
Her mother and father cast glances at each other; then her father clears his throat. Ah, our daughter here has just entered gurubalam. We are about to start searching for a groom.
Oh, well, Hanumarathnam responds with a wink, I deal in medicine, not charms.
Sivakamis parents giggle immoderately. Their daughter stares at the packed dust of the Brahmin-quarter street. Her three older brothers fidget.
But you have my blessings, Hanumarathnam continues, making a small package of some powder. And this, dissolved in milk and drunk each day, this will give you strength. Just generally. It will help.
Then he looks at Sivakami. She doesnt look up. When he asks her parents, Have you done the star chart yet? his voice sounds different. They havent. Come at dusk. Ill do it for you.
What could be better? The humble folk trip back to their relatives, four doors down the street, for snacks and happy anticipation of their consultation with the auspicious young man, who also has some fame as an astrologer.
At that strange hour that gives the impression of light even though each figure is masked by darkness, Sivakamis father, with two of the male relatives, finds Hanumarathnam on his veranda. He cannot make out the young mans features, but the slant of his chest and head suggests wisdom and peace. So young and a widower, by a freak accident: his wife drowned in the Kaveri River before she ever came to live with him. His parents were already dead. He lives with relatives while his own househis parents home, the second to last on the Brahmin-quarterstays locked, dark and still.
Hanumarathnam stands to greet them; they take their seats; they make brief small talk as his aunt brings tumblers of yogourt churned with lemon water and salt.
He examines the chart by a kerosene lamp while the men finger their shoulder towels. He makes some calculations. He purses his lips and takes in a sharp breath before speaking. I, well, I must say it. I have just entered gurubalam myself.
Sivakamis father hesitates. Oh?
I will make more detailed calculations, but this is my reasoned guess ... Your daughters horoscope is compatible with mine.
The young man licks his lips, no longer the astrological authority but instead the nervous suitor. He speaks too quickly. I am obliged to mention, of course, or perhaps you have already heard: the weakest quadrant of my horoscope has a small shadow ... It ... it faintly suggests I will die in my ninth year of marriage. But, as that prediction is contained in the weakest quadrant, it holds no weight, as you know, though ignorant people let it scare them.
The men do not know but are not ignorant enough to say so, and anyway, Hanumarathnam has not paused in his speech.
And most often, the birth of a son changes the configuration, as you know. I understand it must be difficult for you to consider giving your daughter as a second wife. My first wife, she drowned to death in her tenth year. Only three years after our marriage, you see, and it was not I who died, you see? It was her. Quite contrary to the negative quadrant of the horoscope. An, an unfortunate, accident. So I have no children, and I am still young. I have money and manage well. I am speaking on my own behalf only because I have no father and I know the horoscopes better than anyone.
He blinks rapidly, the lamplight making him look younger than his twenty-one years. He takes a breath and looks at Sivakamis father.
I have never looked at, nor ever proposed to any girl before now. Please ... consider me.
That night, Sivakamis father relates his impressions to her mother. They are positively disposed toward the young man and feel they trust his astrology and his good intentions. They ask their relatives in the morning: have they heard anything against Hanumarathnam or his kin? The relatives assure them that they have heard only good things: fine, upstanding Brahmins all. The young man not only has special talents but has just come into his inheritance, some very good parcels of land. They think it could be a good match, more: a shame to waste the opportunity.
In the morning, Sivakamis father bathes and prays. Then he picks up quill and ink and writes a gracious note, pretending they, the girls family, are taking the initiative, as is right and conventional, and inviting Hanumarathnam for a girl-seeing as if his already having seen the girl had nothing to do with any of this.
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