The Tamarind Tree - Sundara Ramaswamy - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Sundara Ramaswamy

TRANSLATOR: Aniruddhan Vasudevan

GENRE: Indian Cultural fiction, Classic.

RATING: 3.75 Stars.

In a Nutshell: This does have plenty to speak for it. But it is not exactly as promised. I honestly don’t think this book will work for Western readers, even after the meticulous and praiseworthy translation. Indians (especially those from the South of the country) might fare better.

Story Synopsis:

In a small village in Southern India lies an old tamarind tree, the eye witness to all that happens around it. Damodara Asan, the village eccentric, loves sitting under the tree and narrating interesting incidents to his fascinated audience, the village kids. Through the recollections, we get to see the life in the village and the thinking of the villagers.

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of an unnamed narrator, who begins with Asan’s anecdotes and then moves into general incidents that occurred around the tamarind tree.

You need to go in the book with the right expectations. Though a novel, the approach is more like a literary-fiction-style story anthology. The book begins with Asan’s recollections of a few incidents connected to the tamarind tree, but from the fifth chapter onwards, the narration moves to newer characters, each of whom lasts for a few chapters before heading over the narrative baton to the next character. Each character’s arc is like a short story spread over a few chapters. So this is like an unusual collection of inter-connected novellas with the tamarind tree as the common factor and the characters dominating the plot.

The book seems authentic to its era and ethos. It depicts the historical period and the local mentality well. Of course, a lot of the content feels outdated and patriarchal. All the more as women have hardly any role to play and all the incidents are male-dominated. But we need to keep in mind that this was written in the 1960s, and life in a rural Indian village was patriarchal then. (It still is so, in many villages.) No point in judging the writing with a 2023 mindset.

What is not dated is the representation of the psyche of human beings. These anecdote-style stories might have been written more than sixty years ago, but quite a lot of the political and corporate scheming for selfish gains are relevant to the current socio-political environment in India. The attitude of the people in dealing with their family, their opponents, their religion, their political inclination, and their competitors, as presented in the book, are applicable even today, probably more so.

I had not heard of Tamil author Sundara Ramaswamy prior to this book. As is often the case in India, most of our talented regional authors remain unknown beyond those who read/speak that language. (Coming from a country that has 22 official languages and hundreds more unofficial ones is an advantage as well as a disadvantage. We have plenty of outstanding artists; we have no information about them.)

Anyway, coming back to the point, Ramaswamy, who was an acclaimed short story writer, wrote his first novel ‘Oru Puliamarathin Kathai’ in 1966. This book is a translation of the same, authorised by his children and translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan. In the afterword, they make an interesting point about the challenges they faced while translating such a strongly indigenous work to the Western audience. They had to add details and nuances to lines/gestures/events that might automatically be understood by Indian readers but would generate a blank response in western minds. The translation is indeed excellent; it seems to transport readers to the original place and time without compromising on the comprehension of the situation. Then again, I am an Indian reader. I don’t think most of the Western audience will get the essence of this book. It requires a lot of familiarity with local thinking, regional political machinations, and cultural knowledge.

It took me a lot of time to get into this novel, but once I realigned my focus from plot to characters, it began working better for me. I still liked it enough, but I think it would have worked better as a short story anthology.

Recommended to Indian readers looking for a ‘zara hatke’ kind of reading experience, wanting to explore a regional classic that is still relevant, and wishing to try an author unknown to the English-reading audience. Recommended also to those readers who enjoy literary fiction, and who are open to reading a cultural classic without getting judgemental about the country the book is set in.

My thanks to Amazon Crossing and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Tamarind Tree”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.