Part of the
New York Times' continuing series:
Read Your Way Through Kerala
A strip of lush land at the tip of India where spices grow wild, Kerala has long drawn the gaze of outsiders. Here’s Abraham Verghese’s guide to its literature, which nods at these influences but is very much its own.
By Abraham Verghese*
April 12, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET
If you arrive in Kerala from elsewhere in India, you’ll feel as though you’ve landed in a different country — “God’s own country,” as Keralites like to say.
This strip of coastal territory at India’s southern tip, 350 miles long and 75 miles broad at its widest point, is shaped like a fish, with the head pointing to Sri Lanka, the tail to Goa, and the eyes gazing wistfully west across the Indian Ocean to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — the Gulf, or Persia in local parlance.
Think of the Gulf as a Kerala annex, since 3 million Keralites — or Malayalis, speakers of Malayalam — work there; the money they send home makes up about a third of the state’s gross domestic product. Not surprisingly, the Gulf has shaped Kerala’s culture and literature. The territory sits between the Indian Ocean and the Western Ghats, the mountain range that runs parallel to the coast. Forty-four rivers run to the sea, spawning vast lakes, countless streams, lagoons, bottle-green lotus ponds and a latticework of backwaters that are Kerala’s giant circulatory system, with the annual monsoon its beating heart.
Such liquid abundance shapes the lush green landscape dotted with palm trees, and also shapes Malayali character. I think it’s responsible for the fluid facial movements that allow Malayalis to convey volumes without uttering a word.
Kerala’s uniqueness developed in part because the towering Western Ghats sheltered the state from invaders from the north, while the mountains’ fertile slopes allowed spices such as pepper and cardamom to grow wild. For centuries, Arab sailors caught the southwesterlies in the lateen sails of their dhows to come to the “Spice Coast.” When the winds reversed, they carried their purchases of pepper, clove, cardamom, ginger and cinnamon back to Venice or Genoa, where they sold them for small fortunes. Naturally, these sailors kept their source a secret from Europeans.
Expeditions by Westerners in search of these precious spices all failed until Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, landed in present day Kerala in 1498. He was the first; the Portuguese were soon followed by the Dutch, the French and the English.
What should I read before I go?
Books on Kerala’s history can feel tedious. A first-time traveler is better off with a broader introduction to India, like V.S. Naipaul’s incisive and inimitable “
India: A Million Mutinies Now,” paired with “
The Idea of India,” by Sunil Khilnani. The latter argues that politics, more than culture or religious chauvinism, shaped modern India.
Salman Rushdie’s Most Influential Work
“Midnight’s Children” (1981). Salman Rushdie’s
second novel, about modern India’s coming-of-age, received the Booker Prize, and became an international success. The story is told through the life of Saleem Sinai, born at the very moment of India’s independence.
“The Satanic Verses” (1988). With its satirical depictions of the Prophet Muhammad,
Mr. Rushdie’s fourth novel, ignited a furor that reverberated globally. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, found the book blasphemous and issued a fatwa, or religious edict, urging Muslims to kill the author. Subsequently, Mr. Rushdie went into hiding for years.
“The Moor’s Last Sigh” (1995). Mr. Rushdie’s
following novel traced the downward spiral of expectations experienced by India as post-independence hopes for democracy crumbled during the emergency rule declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.
“Fury” (2001). Published after Mr. Rushdie moved to New York,
this novel follows a doll maker named Malik who has recently arrived in the city after leaving his wife and child in London. Although Rushdie “inhabits his novels in all manner of guises and transformations, he has never been so literally present as in this one,” a Times reviewer wrote.
“Joseph Anton” (2012). This memoir relays Mr. Rushdie’s
experiences after the fatwa was issued. The book takes its name from Mr. Rushdie’s alias while he was in hiding, an amalgamation of the names of favorite authors — Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. The book also discusses Mr. Rushdie’s childhood (and particularly, his alcoholic father), his marriages and more.
Shashi Tharoor is a wonderful writer, as well as a politician and member of Parliament representing Kerala. His “
Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India” may make a Britisher squirm, but it is a necessary antidote to the romantic falsehood that the British civilized and modernized India, when in fact they built railways, roads and an administrative structure for the sole purpose of efficiently carrying their loot to Indian ports. Even the word “loot” is stolen from Hindi. Britain — not India — was modernized and industrialized by the spoils from the “jewel in the crown.”
Inevitably, two centuries of British colonization have left a mark in complex ways, including the irony that many Indian writers — including Tharoor, and the author of this article — were educated in schools and universities modeled on the British system, and write and think in English.
In anticipation of the unique and delectable cuisine that awaits you in your travels, read “
The Kerala Kitchen,” by Lathika George: a colorful travelogue, memoir and cookbook.
There’s a good chance your inbound flight will connect via Dubai or Doha, because these hubs serve the diaspora with daily flights to Calicut, Cochin or Trivandrum — cities whose names have been restored to the originals, Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. Whatever your route, do read “
Goat Days,” by Benyamin, which captures the Keralite dream of making a fortune in the Gulf even if that means taking on crippling debt to pay the broker who arranges the visa and the required Arab sponsor. This comic-tragic novel reminds readers that too often the Gulf dream becomes a nightmare of exploitation, deprivation and prolonged separation from family.
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