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The Occidental-Orientalist Allusion of Mangoes

A critical review of David Davidar’s debut novel, The House of Blue Mangoes, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson this year.
By Clarissa Lee

House of Blue Mangoes book cover Mangoes is the central theme to this book, but little mention is make of them in the beginning, except in Chapter 2, when one of the earliest protagonist, Solomon Dorai, was said to be anxious over the drought and brewing caste tensions,

“He turned from the river and walked up the bank to the newly planted mango grove. The sight of his beloved trees was usually enough to lift his spirits, but this morning they failed to work their magic. He sensed that his anxiety sprang more from more than just the prospect of an erratic monsoon.”

The mango theme is not to reappear until the middle chapters of Book 2, when Daniel Dorai, the last surviving son of Solomon Dorai, was moved to rebuild his father’s semi-ruined family house, and renamed it House of Blue Mangoes, after the native sweet-tasting, succulent fruit of the Chevathar where the house was rebuilt. The next few chapters spoke of Daniel’s obsession in finding out the best mango in the world and how he traipsed around India with his faithful attendant and brother-in-law, Ramdoss, in the hope of finding the ultimate fruit. Predictably, Daniel proclaimed Chevathar’s Neelam (mango) to be the best and held a daylong festival to commemorate the local fruit. If one is to make some kind of allusion between the fruit and events that spanned the entire 400 odd pages of the book, one could link them to the manifold happenings and variegated races and castes living within the subcontinent. Then again, I’m jumping ahead of myself.

In case you are wondering, this saga spanning three generations of the Dorai Dynasty in and out of Chevathar, is divided into mini books, in following the tradition of Tolkien and his predecessors of Indian littérateurs. In fact, before the book begins, there is one page especially framed with a brief genealogy of Solomon Dorai and family. Not all the progenies are named, especially the ones that only warrant a one liner mention. To discuss this book in all aspect is a mammoth task for one can dissect it from many angles. What I will do is to take a cursorily glance at the different thematic aspects of the book.

A debut effort by the CEO of Penguin India, Davidar himself has published many great Indian authors before finally having his own work published. Dismissing it as a mere case of sycophancy would do great injustice to the book for it is both well written and riveting in story, a valued addition to the treasure trove of the Indian literary tradition. Some might see the weakness of the book in its hazy depiction of certain scenes that take place without much relevance to the preceding or aftermath of the chain of reactions; some of the main characters lacking bathos; but by taking the stories whole meal, one might guess at the author’s intention. Davidar has laboured to bring cogency to the entire book, even if the reader is left wondering about some of the characters and their fate. Davidar succeeded in making us ruminate over the fate of the Dorai clan as modernity slowly despoils them of their heritage and land.

Back to the mangoes. As mentioned, there are cultures out there, populating the country, which are as rich and delicious as the fruit itself. But if we were to be like Daniel, just stopping long enough to taste the fruit yet not savouring it enough to get to the exquisiteness, we will be forever viewing the fruit with an outsider’s palate. This is true with the British and the Indians who had co-existed in the same continent. Most of these colonial masters either viewed the natives (derogatory word) contemptuously or look upon their customs and way of life benevolently, something to be tolerated. Even the white man who finds Indians fascinating, viewed them as Daniel viewed the mangoes that do not belong to his Chevathar, egocentrically, feeling that their own ways are always the best no matter what they’d discovered or seen, the same way Daniel has always viewed the Chevathar Neelam.

The white man does not fully savour the lives and thoughts of these people, as he is busy orbiting the ranks of the ICS (Imperial Colonial Service) or the English façade at the plantations. The only person who came close to understanding the Indians is a Catholic priest, Father Ashcroft, having lived among them for more than twenty-five years and serving the local Christians as a padre. Among the whites that had journeyed into this land, he had the most respect for local ways and admiration for their customs, even if he disapproved of the caste systems. He mingled freely with the locals without reservation, enjoying their company, especially of the boy Daniel, and is so attuned to their sensitivities that he could sense their foreboding and troubles.

The story begun with the violation of an Andavar girl by some ruffians, whom we later found to have been hired by Vakeel Perumal, the roguish lawyer who wanted to exert his influence in the community and seeks to do so by rousing the incumbent suspicion between the people of the Vedhar and Andavar castes. Nevertheless, the seed of discord in an otherwise peaceful Chevathar was already sown and all it need was a trivial discontent to trigger it. Vakeel had it all planned out, despite the mistake he made by having the ruffians attack the women from the wrong caste. In circumstances that were to lead to an inevitable end, we got a thoroughly realistic glimpse into the lives of these people.

Utilising a range of historical and chronicling bibliographies, Davidar is able to give an in-depth study into the private lives of the Indian citizens living between the late 19th century, when the British Imperialism is at glorious peak and the first half of the last century. We get a brutally honest depiction on what is it like to be an Indian, belonging to a certain town and caste during that period, all with minimal romanticising.

Reading the book would definitely leave one pondering about the characters in the book, for some of them are relegated to the backseat once the objective of the manifold stories become moribund or are completed. In terms of the women depicted, they are mostly backdrops of the events taking place though of course more emphasis were given to women of the Dorai family like Charity, her daughter-in-law Lily and Lily’s daughter-in-law, Helen. Even then, the lives of these women are mostly explored at a physical level, with the exception of when an inner look at the psyche is warranted by the flow of the story.

But before we start criticizing, one must not forget that women at that time were mostly seen as chattels by their families, as the society was still very much patriarchal and the author is trying to give us a macro-view of how it was like to live in a society back then. Even the stereotyping associated with each different group of people, from the Anglo-Indians community to the English officers, planters and their wives were very much current perceptions of the era depicted. Helen, the headstrong and ambitious, beautiful wife of Kannan Dorai, Daniel’s son, is viewed by his family as a thorn to his flesh, not fitting into the traditional mould of a submissive wife. She is portrayed as rather self-centred with no sensitivity towards others. What is not shown is the frustration she must have felt in having to be caught in a world where she is not accepted by anyone except by her Anglo-Indian community at the Railway Institute.

The masochistic centrism of manhood is also one of the subjects broached in the story. Here we could see the difference in treatment of Solomon when it comes to his two sons, Daniel and Aaron. Aaron was naturally the more favoured one, as he possessed of the brawn, which was a treasured asset to the men of the Dorai clan, where else his brother is the brain with virtues not wholly appreciated by his father. The last words of his father that were to haunt Daniel for the rest of his life were that of cruel rejection. These could be the words that had torn the family apart as Aaron developed a deep loathing for his family, especially his older brother, and Daniel found it hard to make amends with his brother until it was too late. From the story, it could be observed that whatever Daniel tried to do after that was to regain the family pride and to prove his worthiness to his dead father and brother. This proved to be the unravelling of the man as his sanity was severely tested by such burdens.

There are the Hindus, the Christian Indians whose ways were still very entrenched with the ways of their ancestors, the English who were assumed to be Christians (though there were little reference to them attending church services except for the sections in the book talking about Kannan attending chapel at the plantation where he works), the various castes and Anglo-Indians who were sidelined by both the Indians and English.

Englishmen and woman who sympathized with the plight of the Indians, who strived to be progressive yet faced with the irony of betraying their nationalism and identity as epitomized by the young Kannan Dorai, are characters like Father Ashworth, Chris Cooke, Freddie Hamilton, Michael and Belinda Fraser. There are some who were indifferent, as were most of the planters whom Kannan works with. Some, like Mrs Matilda Stevenson, despises them. Some of the Indians, including Daniel Dorai, preferred the colonial masters peaceful ruling of the country as opposed to the rebellion of his nationalistic minded brethren, like that of his brother Aaron, whose death he blamed solely on the group who resisted against the British rule, not knowing that his own family has a part to play in that matter. This is not to say that he loves the English, he is just indifferent to their presence as long as they leave his family alone. Politics was never his strong point and this rubbed off on the young Kannan. It took a heart-wrenching soul searching before he finally figured out his stand on the frustrating matter of nationalism, and with the break-up of his marriage to Helen, which incidentally, we were never told the resolution of even at the end of the book.

Events unfolding in more than half a century were studied through the lives of individuals affected by it. A more personalized flavour is given to the issue of nationalism and how its influences encroach into the lives of the people unwittingly. It speaks of the evil of sectarianism and colonial rule. The very human theme of love, tragedy, hate, respect, vengeance, selfishness and apathy is echoed throughout the book. Today’s generation living in relative ease and comfort should read this book so as to not forget the liberation and freedom fought for and hard-won by our forefathers whilst enjoying the entertaining anecdotes and timeless tale it provides us with.

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