Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
novel written by
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
n writer
Perumal Murugan
Perumal Murugan (born 1966) is an Indian author, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has written twelve novels, six collections of short stories and four anthologies of poetry. Five of his novels have been translated into Eng ...
. Initially published by Kalachuvadu Publications in 2010, it was later translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan and published in 2013 in India by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. and in 2018 in the US by Grove Atlantic. Set during the colonial era in the Southern state of
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil languag ...
in India, it deals with the social stigma that a married couple faces due to their childlessness, and the lengths they go to conceive.
Background
The idea for writing the novel came to Murugan on witnessing couples around him suffer due to the inability to have a child. The novel is set in the
Tiruchengode
Tiruchengode is a city and selection grade municipality located in southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is famous for the ancient hilltop temple of Umaiorubagan (Arthanāreeshwara), dedicated to the unique combined male-female form of Lord S ...
town in Tamil Nadu, from which Murugan hails, and its main characters in the book belong to the Kongu Vellalar Gounder caste, which he himself belongs to. The original name of the novel comes from the word ''Madhorubaagan'', the Tamil name for the androgynous form of Lord Shiva in Hindu mythology. In 2005, Murugan was awarded a grant by the
India Foundation for the Arts
India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) is a national, non-profit, the grantmaking organisation that supports the practice, research and education in the arts in India. Established as a public trust in 1993, IFA is headquartered in Bangalore. Its fo ...
to do the background research for the novel. In the course of his research, he came across a societal practice that existed in the past to deal with childlessness, which he decided to include in the book. The existence of such a practice has been a subject of dispute. Murugan stated in an interview with '' The Hindu'' that there was no documentary evidence relating to the custom and that details about it were passed on orally.
Plot
Kali and Ponna are a couple living in Tamil Nadu. Despite having been married for 12 years, they are unable to conceive a child. Their childlessness becomes a source of constant taunts from family members and fellow villagers, who variously attribute it to family curses, God's wrath, or their ancestors' ill behavior. Desperate, the couple try several remedies, prayers and offerings but to no avail. Kali is often encouraged to have a second wife, an idea he considers but ultimately rejects. As a last resort, their families put forward the suggestion that Ponnu go to the chariot festival of the androgynous god Ardhanarishvara, where on the 14th day, societal taboo relating to extramarital sex is relaxed and consenting men and women may sleep together. Kali is repulsed by the idea but brings up the subject with Ponnu, who responds by saying she would go if he wished so. Kali feels betrayed by her reaction and eventually grows colder to her. The following year, Ponnu's family takes matters into their own hands by luring Kali out of the house, while convincing her that he has given his consent for her to go to the festival. She does so and finds a man she considers "a god" to impregnate her. Meanwhile, Kali returns home to find Ponnu gone, leading him to breakdown and curse Ponnu.
Themes
''One Part Woman'' deals with the themes of ritual and tradition, and the power these elements have in societies, relationships and individuals. The novel explores how a community's pathological obsession estranges a loving couple and breaks up their happy marriage. It also depicts life in pre-Independence rural India, focusing in particular on the rigid social hierarchy set by the
caste system
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural ...
. In the mostly agrarian Gounder caste to which Kali and Ponna belong, the status of the landowner is directly proportional to the number of sons he has. Ponna is pressurized to conceive to improve her husband's social standing and to stop people from bringing up the lack of inheritance for her family's property. Thus, a major portion of the couple's woes come not from their own desire to have a child, but their community's stigmatization towards those who do not have any. The novel also highlights the stratification of Indian society along caste lines, which is brought out through the concept of
untouchability
Untouchability is a form of social institution that legitimises and enforces practices that are discriminatory, humiliating, exclusionary and exploitative against people belonging to certain social groups. Although comparable forms of discrimin ...
. Part of Kali's distress over Ponna attending the festival stems from the thought that his wife might have intercourse with an untouchable.
The novel also examines how patriarchal customs in India turn women into victims of
gender essentialism
Gender essentialism is a theory that is used to examine the attribution of distinct, fixed, intrinsic qualities to women and men. In this theory, based in essentialism, there are certain universal, innate, biologically or psychologically based fea ...
. Women are expected to conform to a fixed female identity, and Ponna's failure to do so results in the repression of her individual self. In connection to this, the novel explores the condition of marriage and gender roles within it. When the couple remains childless for years, Kali is recommended for a second marriage, almost naturally placing the blame on the woman. Murugan has pointed out that marriage in India "is not a democratic institution ..The man always has and continues to have a wider space in which to function,
hile
Hile ( ne, हिले) is a hill town located in the Eastern Part of Nepal, 13 km north of the regional center of Dhankuta Bazar. At an elevation of 1948 meters, it is the main route to other hilly districts like Bhojpur and Sankhuwasabh ...
the woman is constantly constrained." The novel also describes how patriarchy leads to the oppression of female sexuality, by viewing it solely as means to motherhood and the benefit of her husband and progeny alone.
Reception
The novel has garnered critical acclaim. Meena Kandasamy of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' praised Murugan's "unsurpassed ability to capture Tamil speech,
hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
lays bare the complex organism of the society he adeptly portrays" as well as Vasudevan's translation for "preserving the mood of the original". ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'' called it "a subtly subversive novel
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mech ...
considers the constraints of tradition ..In simple yet lyrical prose, Murugan shows how their standing in the world depends on their offspring." Lucy Scholes of '' The National'' summed it up as a "moving, quietly magnificent portrait of a tender, loving marriage that’s buckling under the impossible strain of meddling busybodies and the weight of conventional societal expectations." She opined that the translation was "competent" even though "occasional phrase
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mech ...
strike as a little too modern does sneak through." '' Kirkus Reviews'' concurred, writing: "Poignant and sweet, the novel suffers only from a certain roughness in the prose; something, it seems, has been lost in translation."
The original Tamil novel was awarded the ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman in 2015. The English version was awarded
The Tamil Literary Garden
The Tamil Literary Garden, is a Canadian literary organization and charity founded in 2001. The focus of this organization is on supporting translations of Tamil literature, sponsoring lecture series, commissioning publications, launching books ...
Award for Translation in 2014, and longlisted for the 2018
National Book Award for Translated Literature
The National Book Award for Translated Literature is one of five annual National Book Awards recognising outstanding literary works of translation into English administered by the National Book Foundation. This award was previously given from 1967 ...
. It was also announced as the
Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize
Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize or Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation is a literary honour in India, presented by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, given to "outstanding translations of creative and critical works" in 24 m ...
awardee in 2018, but the High Court of Madras passed a stay order on it after agitators filed a plea against it. Vasudevan consequently declined the award, citing an unwillingness to pursue a legal battle for the same. In the wake of these events, Sahitya Akademi jury member Githa Hariharan filed a counter-affidavit contending that issues within the purview of litterateurs could not be subjected to judicial review.
Controversy
In December 2014, the novel attracted the attention of various caste-based factions in Tamil Nadu, who claimed that the novel's depiction of extramarital sex during the Ardhanarishvara festival insulted their deity and the women of their caste. Nearly 10,000 copies of the controversial portions of the novel were distributed by the protesters in houses and among women to mobilize people against the book. Protests broke out in Tiruchengode, where copies of the book were burned and an official complaint, demanding a ban against the book and the arrest of the publisher and author, was lodged. Although the protests were widely reported to have been encouraged by the right-wing
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...
, it issued an official statement denying any involvement in the matter. After a district-wide
strike
Strike may refer to:
People
* Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
was declared, Murugan issued a clarification that he would remove all references to the place where events in the novel take place. As protests continued, he attended a peace meeting presided over by local administrators, where he was forced to render an unconditional apology and agreed to withdraw the book itself. In the aftermath of these events, he posted what has been called a "literary suicide" note on his
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...
page, withdrawing all his written work and declaring a self-imposed end to his career as a writer.
In 2016, a petition was filed with the
Madras High Court
The Madras High Court is a High Court in India. It has appellate jurisdiction over the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is located in Chennai, and is the third oldest high court of India after the Calcutta High ...
to nullify the settlement against publication of the book. Concurrently, multiple criminal complaints were filed against Murugan on the grounds of obscenity, blasphemy, and defamation. The High Court ultimately ruled in favor of the author, invalidating the settlement and dismissing the criminal complaints. In the verdict delivered in July 2015, Chief Justice
Sanjay Kishan Kaul
Sanjay Kishan Kaul is currently the Most senior judge of Supreme Court of India. He is former chief justice of Madras High Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court and former judge of Delhi High Court. He has also served as acting chief justi ...
held:
The judgment was hailed in the press as a landmark victory for free speech in India.
Sequel
In 2014, Murugan wrote two books, ''அர்த்தநாரி'' () and ''ஆலவாயன்'' () as "dual sequels" to ''One Part Woman'', both picking up from the end of the original novel but each following different storylines. However, the protests against the original broke out in the time leading up to the printing and release of the books, thus curtailing its publication. Subsequent to the High Court ruling on the matter, the books were translated into English by the original translator, Aniruddhan Vasudevan, as ''A Lonely Harvest'' and ''Trial by Silence'' respectively, and were released in December 2018 by
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House.
On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase o ...
. In both books, Ponna returns from the festival pregnant, but the former finds her dealing with her grief as Kali commits suicide, while in the latter he survives but continues to harbor deep resentment towards her. The books were well received by critics, who praised the novels' indigenous writing style, strong characters and the themes they dealt with. The two books were jointly shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2019.