WHO ROBBED THE FARMERS?

SUNNY THOMAS

They were shocked when the surveyor told them they have been land-robbed in so many words. Who could have done it? The government, the politicians, the bureaucrats, or the sand mafia? They are ever the victims: the government makes policies that drive them to suicide, the bureaucrat drives them away like flies on candy when they approach for help, the sand mafia in collision with the politician who comes to beg for their votes, slowly but stealthily, encroach on their only means of subsistence. They can’t afford the legal means, and they have nowhere to go …  

Funny people inhabit part of this planet, not because they were born funny but looked incongruous to the beholders. Villagers, when they come to the twilight of civilization, acted like comical characters in an urban ambience: Unnimon and Kunjikali have never seen a lift in their lifetime. Entering it for the first time, they were wondering why people were standing so still behind the closed door. Before they realized, they reached the twentieth floor. 

There a non-descript fellow announced: ‘This is your living room… the bedroom… the kitchen  ...’ In wonderment, Unnimon stood lost before the first full-length mirror he had ever chanced upon: ‘This is truly wonderful. No wonder the people of Aathi are dying to sell their belonging and flock here in droves.’   

   

Reading Sara Joseph’s latest novel, Gift in Green, one wonders whether it is reportage on disappearing villages or a book of fiction. There is so much of portrayal of reality that the willing suspension of disbelief which is the key to enjoying a work of art gets suspended! It is reality and more reality in the garb of fiction. 

Behind every great translation is a creative spark at work, be it Tagore’s Gitanjali, translated with a glowing tribute by W B Yeats, or Gift in Green by Sara Joseph, translated by Rev Valson Thampu of St Stephen’s College fame. The English version of the novel is a trans-creation rather than a translation, where the translator enjoys the creative freedom to interpret the author’s world of symbolism, placing it in the global context without which it would have lost its significance.

The novel is theme-driven, portraying the calamities of a village swamped by a demon called civilization. In focus is the brutal portrayal of life in Aathi, a far-flung village, which was once the paradigm of happiness, but now turned into a living hell. The villagers are queuing in to sell their land to settle down for an urban life, which they mistake as the epitome of civilization. But not Dinakaran the protagonist, to whom the land is sacred: 

‘‘For us, Aathi is not a pageant of fleeting sensations or a mere means of survival. It is an invaluable heritage, an incomparable experience … something that deserves to be treasured for all time to come. .. Our children and grandchildren should live life the Aathi way: sowing and reaping, caring for the land and water, and not merely being nourished by them.  ’’   

‘‘Thirty, forty lakhs of rupees is not a small thing for people like me,’’ his friend chipped in. Taking the cue from Judas Iscariot, the villagers are selling their ancestral heritage to people in the tent, symbolizing the multinationals who have precious little loyalty to the land.

Village Aathi echoes Arunthati Roy’s Aymanam, or R K Narayan’s Malgudi, frozen in time despite progress in the outside world.

The novel has its lighter moments to give comic relief. Once upon a time, there was a fox that was seized by the craving to eat a lion. One day, he chanced upon a young lion sunning himself in the grass in carefree abandon. The fox’s mouth began to water on seeing the lion’s thigh and the back of his neck, rich in fat and abounding in succulent flesh – all oozing deliciousness. Under the spell of his craving, the fox began to advance stealthily towards the lion, parting the grass even so quietly. Now a stupid fly had been droning and circling around the lion’s nose for quite some time. Exasperated, the lion let out a loud roar. Mother of mine, what a thunderous blast it was! It shook the forest. Without stopping to think, the fox fled for dear life.   

       

After Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) which saw the birth of environment movement and An Inconvenient Truth (2006) by Al Gore which educated the world of the ticking time-bomb called environment disaster, this home-spun book Gift in Green rings the alarm bells on environment barbarians. 

Indeed, the perfect punctuation of the book adds to the reading delight.