For those of us who treasure our childhood memories, these
memoirs by the eminent writer Kamala Das takes us back to
life in the 1940’s to
a small village in northern Kerela, evoking a distant past where it was
exciting to grow up in an extended family amongst matriarchs like her
grandmother and a whole bunch of Aunts surrounded by a plethora of servants who
did all the household work and included the young and curious child in their
world. The long and tongue-twisting names take a while to get used to along
with the names of various festivals and the unusual eatables prepared in the
household. Just as the child is made to realize the hierarchy inherent in the
caste system, along with the various superstitions and myths that are an
integral part of growing up in a village, so is the reader taken back in time
when life was much simpler and governed by intractable rules. Das puts together
an
interesting collection of memories as she straddles two worlds while growing
up. Her time spent in an affluent home in Calcutta
is mentioned barely in passing while she focuses on her experiences that she
has in her village as she finds this life more exciting and after her heart.
It is written in a racy style with a sprinkling of exciting
characters like the matriarch Ammamma who oversees the house and has a strong
affection for the young child, the servant Sankaran who is willing to protect
the child, the village idiot and the mad gypsy who lives on the fringes of
society. As the child absorbs the stories told to her by the people in her
home, she also tries to make sense of her awareness of what it is to be a woman
and what growing up to womanhood would entail for her – questions that every
young girl grapples with. It is an interesting book.