12 India – The mango season – Amulya Malladi, June 2014 (Score 6.6)

 Priya has returned from America to India, to the smell of mangoes, to a domineering mother, to horrendous heat and, probably, to “You must marry a nice Indian boy”. She has two weeks to, as she sees it, endure.

We learn things about Indian family life and of inter-caste prejudice. There is also prejudice against people of other tribal origins from other parts of India. All of this complicates immensely the matter of arranged marriages. Priya especially fears the results of her telling her parents that she is engaged to marry Nick, an American – a different race. She puts off telling them.

It is clear that racism exists in India, at least among some people, in as virulent a form as is found anywhere. It seems to be against Indians of different group origins, against white people, against black people. We have found traces of this everywhere during our notional trip round the world. We can only hope that not everyone in the countries where we have found it is like that.

We learn of a thread which Brahmin men wear across their chest. This plays an important role in the life of Priya’s Brahman family.

Janeu is a consecrated thread that is worn, reportedly, by each and every Hindu Brahmin of India. The type of Janeu is different for different caste groups or sects of people of the subcontinent. One is Brahmgandh Janeu (with 5 knots or 3 knots), which is meant for Brahmins, and the other is Vishnugandh Janeu (with one knot), meant for other classes.

When the “partner-agreeing” finally arrives, Priya is sitting with the selected man, Adarsh. Adarsh gives her the perfect opportunity to tell him about Nick. She fluffs it, and I screamed at her, internally, “Just do it!!”. That showed me how difficult it really is to put yourself in the mind of someone from a different culture, even though my preferred reading over the last twenty or so years has been literature from non-Anglophone countries and cultures.

I found this book fascinating, with the pressure building constantly on Priya as a result of her upbringing and her failure to stand up for herself against her parents. The e-mails between her and Nick certainly add to the pressure, especially when Nick fails to reply to one in particular. Is he on his way to India?

I am not going to tell you any more. You need to read this book to find out for yourself what happens. I will tell you that the denouement completely surprised me. I scored “The mango season” at 8.0.