The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka (2002)
It has been a long time since I have read a book that I could really get involved in. The Rice Mother was one such book and what a treat!
The novel follows the family and generations of Lakshmi. Each chapter is written in the voice of a different family member, so get a picture of the family through the different eyes, and experience the same event through the experiences of various characters. Maniacka had done this to perfection.
Lakshmi was born in 1916. At age 14, young Lakshmi, the matriarch of the novel, is married off to an ostensibly wealthy widow. She leaves her mother and homeland of Ceylon for Malaysia. Once she arrives in her new country, she realizes that she was duped into marrying a man without the great wealth she had been led to believe. He is a lowly clerk with no aspirations to improve his station in life. Within a few short years, she finds herself the mother of six children. Her first borns are the twins, Lakshmnan and his sister, Mohini. They are soon followed by Sevenese, Anna, Jeyan and Lalita. Lakshmi devotes her life to building a better life for her children.
Mohini is beautiful, and Lakshmi pins all her hopes on her beautiful daughter. During World War II, the Japanese invade Malaysia. Overnight, girls are dressed as boys to keep them from being raped by the Japanese soldiers. Lakshmi hides Mohini in a secret room under their house because she fears that Mohini's beauty cannot be hidden in boy's clothing. For three years, Mohini is kept hidden from view. Then, when the end of the war is in sight, Mohini is accidently exposed when the Japanese soldiers storm the house. She was taken away by the soldiers and never seen again. Although her fate was never known, the family knew that she was likely brutally raped and murdered.
Mohini's disappearance and death cast a pall over the family for generations. Lakshmnan feels responsible for his twin sister's death. His relationship with his mother, Lakshmi, is also soured after Mohini's death. Lakshmnan becomes a compulsive gambler. He marries a cruel, bitter woman, who gives him three children. His wife, Rani, pits her children against each other. Their middle child, Dimple marries the mysterious and wealthy Luke. Rani sees a meal ticket. Lakshmnan, however, realizes that Dimple is in for bad fortune.
Dimple begins to take an interest in her family's history and begins recording the stories as told by each family member. She encourages her grandmother, her aunts and uncles to share their memories on cassette tapes. Her life with Luke begins to erode, after she learns that he has a mistress. He introduces her to opium. Her daughter, Nisha, was a very young girl when her mother died. Luke then created an entirely new life for her, erasing her memories of her mother's family.
Only after Luke dies, does Nisha come in contact with her mother's family again. Before he died, Luke gave Nisha the key to the cassettes that Dimple had so carefully preserved. The tapes help Nisha come to terms with the sorrowful legacy of her family, and her past. Learning of her family's experiences and histories enables her to come to terms with her own fears and depression.
The Rice Mother is the debut novel of Rani Manicka. I eagerly await her next offerings.
Read: July 9, 2010
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