IndiaStar Review of Books   The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar New York: Harper Collins, 2002 421 pages $26.95 Reviewed by Amy March Carnazzo Editor's intro: Amy Carnazzo is a Sacramento based writer with a BA in Dramatic Art from UC Berkeley; MA in English Literature from California State University, Sacramento. -- c. j. s. wallia : David Davidar's The House of Blue Mangoes leads the reader on a delicious journey through three generations of the fictional Dorai family of Southern India, beginning in 1899 and ending during the Second World War. Based in the village of Chevathar, a region renowned for its incomparably sweet blue mango, the story chronicles the struggles between Indian and colonist, caste and caste, and father and son. Former journalist, now publisher of Penguin India (he will take over as publisher of Penguin Canada after the first of the year), Davidar weaves historical background generously through his first novel, providing readers who have only a rudimentary grasp of India's struggle for independence from the British crown with the background to understand the political and social factors complicating the lives of his richly complex characters. At times Davidar breaks from third person-narrative to first-person editorial, as here, mid-way through the book: Indian vs. Indian. We're brilliant at it. Differences of caste, community, language and religion have split our society for thousands of years. ... When the British united India in the nineteenth century, they didn't take away our essential Indianness-of which one definition would be the most total inability to make common cause with one another. Instead, they exploited our fatal flaw as it made us easy to control and rule. It is this "essential Indianness" that Davidar examines early in this work, suggesting that the tired and senseless caste conflict must extinguish itself before Indians can begin to emancipate themselves from the limitations imposed on themselves by both internal and external forces. Despite its gracious descriptions of Indian dishes, delicacies which are either being prepared, consumed, or fondly remembered, Book I, "Chevethar," opens on an Indian wasteland. Solomon Dorai, the patriarch and village thalaivar, or headman, accustomed to the authority and reverence that is his birthright, feels a growing sense of powerlessness and unease as another year of drought threatens his crops. The wells are drying up, the mighty Chevethar river flows at barely a trickle, and salinity is seeping into the cropland. Too myopic to recognize how modernity might help his village escape the ravages of uncooperative weather and poor crops, Solomon is equally distressed by a government road that now bisects his village. In contrast to the network of long-trodden paths criss-crossing the village-trails made necessary by the rules governing caste travel-now "through the village runs a narrow road that stands out like a scar on the red soil." Anyone can use this road-even the "unmentionables," and Solomon worries that not only will the mixing of castes create tension among the villagers, but also that "outsiders" using the road will upset the village's tenuous harmony. Indeed, his concerns seem justified when a young woman is raped by "outsiders ... scum who floated into the village on the new road." While the attack momentarily focuses attention outside the village, suspicions quickly turn inward, igniting already smoldering tensions between Solomon, a Christian and member of the Andavar caste, and his rival, Muthu, of the Vedhar caste. When neither will "get out of town" at the other's command, they succumb to settling their dispute the old-fashioned way-with a fight. The consideration of insiders vs. outsiders is a central element of Davidar's work, and one he approaches on a variety of levels. Does the road, this fresh scar on the landscape, make the village vulnerable to what lies outside, or do the evils disrupting village peace come from within? Do the British, greedy and self-serving, threaten the stability of Indian culture and tradition, or does their presence help stabilize a nation habitually destroying itself through caste conflict and religious wars? And at what cost? At what point, the text asks, does the Indian decide that the old ways no longer work and what he must do is look outside-outside his village, outside his family, outside himself-to find the remedies for his dis-ease. "'We will need to find our own answers,'" Solomon's cousin Joshua declares. Instead of providing answers, however, book I closes with Solomon and his generation slaughtered on the battlefield, leaving the quest for answers to succeeding generations. Book II opens in 1907, on the eve of the anniversary of the India's 1857 War of Independence. With considerable complexity, Davidar contrasts Solomon's two sons, who alternately reject and embrace family and culture. He examines, too, how each must pay for his choices. Aaron, the younger son, athletic, restless, and his father's favorite, joins the brewing revolution, becoming a rebel without a cause. Put another way, he becomes a rebel who desperately wants a cause, is given one he doesn't understand, but embraces it anyway for the sake of belonging. In one agonizing scene, Aaron and his fellow recruits listen in horror as their terrorist-trainer commands them to assassinate an innocent man. Their target is a constable, "'a good man,'" they are told, "'much like your own fathers and uncles and brothers.'" Each is expected to fire a shot into the unsuspecting victim's belly. The scene is chilling. "The realization dawned on them," the narrator says, "that no amount of prevarication could conceal the awful truth-that their target was a man not very different from themselves. ... Was it possible through some extraordinary sleight of mind, to see this poor ineffectual functionary as the ENEMY? Could they? Could they?" They're told that their victim is representative of the white man. "'By killing him, you will free yourself of any inhibitions that might constrain you from acting in the interests of our noble and just cause.'" Here Davidar presents an intriguing problem. If the constable represents the white man, to destroy him is to destroy a member of the oppressive regime. And yet, if he is a good man, not unlike their family or themselves, to kill him is to kill a decent part of themselves, needlessly and in cold blood. In so doing the recruits act in a manner not only counter to the objective of the revolution but also far more reprehensibly than the white man has acted toward them. Skillful as he is at discomforting his readers, Davidar is equally adept at easing tension with some very funny bits. Midway through the above scene, in fact, Davidar spares us, however briefly: In a moment of welcomed black-humored relief we learn that, among the poor victim's other fine qualities, he is "'a man who beats his wife only when necessary and then only sparingly ....'" In another scene, the fatuous lawyer/conman Vakeel Perumal decides he needs to befriend the village priest: He was thinking of Father Ashworth as he read an article in the newspaper about Easter being celebrated ... By the time he was halfway through the piece, an idea came to him. He yelled for his wife. When she appeared in the room, he said excitedly, "We're going to become Christians." Kamala, a rather stolid woman, was used to her husband's sudden enthusiasm and said incuriously, "Why? I thought we were quite happy being Hindus." "Yes, yes, but Easter is tomorrow." "What about it?" "Oh, you stupid woman, that's when Jesus Christ, the Christian God, is born again." "You mean like one of Narayana's avatars?" "No, no, you madwoman. Anyway, from today you are Mary and I am Jesus Christ." These were the only Christian names Vakeel Perumal could find in the rather sketchy account. Just then his younger daughter, Vasanthi, wandered into the room. "And what will she be?" his wife asked, getting into the spirit of things. Vakeel Perumal was nonplussed for a moment, then he said airily, "No harm in her being Mary as well!" "And Nirmala, will she be Mary too?" "No, she will not be Mary. I'll find her a name. Get me my shirt and trousers, I'm going to visit the Christian priest." Father Ashworth received Vakeel Perumal in the front room of the parsonage. "Good morning, aiyah. I'm Jesus Christ," Vakeel Perumal began. The priest wasn't sure he had heard right and asked with exquisite courtesy, "Can I offer you a cup of tea?" Simon's elder son, Daniel, sensitive, bookish, and determined to study medicine, apprentices as a pharmacist with a famous Siddha physician, Dr. Pillai. The physician is impressed with the young man's work and chooses him as his successor in his practice, and, much to Daniel's surprise, sends the young man to medical school. Here again Davidar has his characters look "outside" to find (literally, in this case) a remedy for disease: Siddha medicine, says Pillai, helps restore balance, but "in my experience," he goes on, "knowledge of Siddha medicine alone will not make you a good physician. ... It's important to contrast it with other systems. It will teach you to appreciate the greatness of Siddha." Wise words from a wise healer. Advice practical on many levels: Learn your tradition, and then go out and learn everything the white man has to offer. Then come home to your tradition, a more enlightened man. Ironically, Daniel Doria makes his fame and fortune not as a healer, but as the creator and marketer of his "Moonwhite Thylam," a lotion designed to turn the dark skin of the Indian to "a pleasing shade of white." Daniel does eventually "come home" to the family estate, but more so as outsider than kinsman. His magnificent rebuilt "house of blue mangoes," a gargantuan palace of confused architectural identity (and built on a swamp) is tribute to the Dorai name and the father he could never please-as well as to the lack of practicality in nouveau riche everywhere. At the opening of book three in the lush tea estates of the hill region, it is clear that the Dorai quest will finally succeed or fail with Kannan, the grandson of Solomon, and first Indian planter in the region. Successful? Yes. Happy? In the beginning, no. "This was partly because he realized he might never see Doraipuram again, but had more to do with the reality of Pulimed. He was amazed at how white and 'foreign' the tea district was. He'd had English professors at college of course, but here India had been pushed to the margins. It had seemed that he was the outsider. Fortunately for him, he'd adapted quickly and had soon begun to enjoy the place." Enjoy it though he does, fortunately for Kannan he adapts far more completely in his new surroundings than his predecessors ever needed to. As a result, the necessary compromises he makes force him to consider his Indianess with far greater urgency and depth than his father, uncle, or grandfather ever could. Where I would fault this work is in its pace in its second half. Midway through it begins to drag and continues to meander in a relaxed fashion until the end. The dialogue and tone of book III aren't quite realistic either, and at times I felt I was watching a Doris Day movie. Here is a description of Kannan's young wife when she arrives at their bungalow for the first time: She fell to dreaming of the parties she would throw in the living room with its comfortable armchairs, its wine-red carpet, the matching drapes. It was all so rich, so confident. She couldn't bear it, she was so happy. 'Do you like it?' Kannan said behind her. She whirled around to face him. And then spontaneously caught him up in a tremendous embrace. 'I love it,' she shrieked. Perhaps Davidar is trying to capture the romanticism and shallowness of this type of woman; if anything, though, he seems to be parodying a style, but I don't think that was his intention. Either way, it doesn't work in this instance. Finally, almost as an afterthought, we should consider the female characters in this novel, who, except for Soloman's wife, Charity, appear themselves as afterthoughts. The types are predictable: There's the dutiful Indian help-mate, the wife and mother who squelches any self-determination, needs, or wants to support her husband and children. If she does her job well her husband will throw her an occasional bone and her son might worship her. There's the aging white socialite who makes sport of humiliating young initiates to her social domain. And finally, there's Kannan's Anglo-Indian wife, Helen, who is not only ignorant, shallow, spoiled, and vicious, but also a romantic social climber who beautifully embodies what would be unappealing in a woman of either race. Despite the couple of misplaced ingredients, The House of Blue Mangoes is indeed a marvelous first course from David Davidar. Its rich characters, complex social issues, and colorful descriptions of the Indian landscape combine to produce a delectable and satisfying Indian feast. One well worth savoring. Amy Carnazzo Circuit News Office: (916) 356-7740 Mobile: (916) 296-4399