Book review: The covenant of water  

Express News Service

Best-selling author and physician Dr Abraham Verghese has delivered an epic work of fiction, spanning several generations, with his new book, The Covenant of Water. The book is a veritable tome of 724 pages, finishing which is quite an immersive experience. Readers are pulled into the liquid depths of the tale from the first few pages and never really come up for air till it is done.

The story traces the peculiar curse of water on the Parambil family in south Kerala; at least one member of the clan dies by drowning in every generation, leading to the creation of a poignant chronicle of the hex, written on old parchment and stashed away from the eyes of those who might be terrified by the dismal prophecy. “The land is shaped by water and its people are united by a common language, Malayalam. Where the sea meets the white beach, it thrusts fingers inland to intertwine with the rivers snaking down the green canopied slopes of the Ghats. It is a child’s fantasy of rivulets and canals, a lattice of lakes and lagoons, a maze of backwaters and bottle-green lotus ponds, a vast circulatory system because… all water is connected.” The evocative passage reinforces the tragic irony of the Parambils––Malayalis with a curse of water upon them. 

The timeline of the book arches from 1900 to 1977. We read of a pre-adolescent girl who marries a widower much older than her, who goes across the broad swathe of the Vembanad lake and takes over the running of a vast old manse––the reins firmly held in her small hands–– even as a sister-in-law, then a distant relative moves in to help her. We watch with admiration as the young bride wins over her taciturn-to-a-fault husband, bestows love on her stepson Jojo, gives birth to Baby Mol and then Philipose, and eventually becomes big ammachi, the matriarch of Parambil. And when Philipose’s daughter is baptised, she is given the matriarch’s name and that’s when we learn that the old lady is Mariamma.

Big Ammachi’s long-standing wish is that if God couldn’t or wouldn’t cure the curse on the clan, then he should send someone who would find one. Two generations down, it is her namesake, a neuro-
surgeon, who gets down to demystifying the strange malady and working to find a remedy, even widening the devastating trail of the condition to go beyond members of the Parambil family and include the Saint Thomas Christian fraternity at large.

Every character in the pages of the book has his/her share of trials and tribulations; some accept it with grace and fortitude, and others fight it wildly. We meet Digby Kilgour from Glasgow, but not for a minute do we wonder why we have left Parambil to go peep into Digby’s life in Scotland, follow him thence to Madras… we know there will be a connection established soon enough. We meet Rune Orqvist, who runs a leprosarium in another part of Kerala, and there too we sense a connection well before 
it is revealed.

Readers, who are familiar with the gifted writer’s books, know that he throws many medical procedures and jargon into his stories (sample this: his lips are set together, the philtrum a dugout in the flesh above the vermilion border of his upper lip), but he does it so well that the lay reader’s interest is caught and held. Religion—in this case of the Saint Thomas Christians—is one tensile rope woven through the tale, the others being the caste system, the Naxal movement, and leprosy. And love. There is a message too, clear and direct: geography is destiny and the shared geography of the Spice Coast and the Malayalam language, unites all faiths. 

The humour is sardonic and very Malayali––the Maramon Convention, which hosts an American preacher to hilarious results, is one such passage. 

The storytelling is of the best kind, free of any gratuitous embellishment. The reveals come in calibrated doses that are affecting.

Water swirls insidiously through the tale. In a resonant passage, the author writes of how the Malayali forget that the monsoon will confine them for weeks, drown the paddy fields, leak through the thatch and deplete their grain stores. All they know is that their bodies, like the parched soil, crave rainfall. And in the end, the story of the Parambil clan stands tall, looming over everything. It is a story that will stay with the reader for a long time. 

<br /> Best-selling author and physician Dr Abraham Verghese has delivered an epic work of fiction, spanning several generations, with his new book, The Covenant of Water. The book is a veritable tome of 724 pages, finishing which is quite an immersive experience. Readers are pulled into the liquid depths of the tale from the first few pages and never really come up for air till it is done.</p> <p>The story traces the peculiar curse of water on the Parambil family in south Kerala; at least one member of the clan dies by drowning in every generation, leading to the creation of a poignant chronicle of the hex, written on old parchment and stashed away from the eyes of those who might be terrified by the dismal prophecy. “The land is shaped by water and its people are united by a common language, Malayalam. Where the sea meets the white beach, it thrusts fingers inland to intertwine with the rivers snaking down the green canopied slopes of the Ghats. It is a child’s fantasy of rivulets and canals, a lattice of lakes and lagoons, a maze of backwaters and bottle-green lotus ponds, a vast circulatory system because… all water is connected.” The evocative passage reinforces the tragic irony of the Parambils––Malayalis with a curse of water upon them. </p> <!-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v. 2.0.85 --> <div class="quads-location quads-ad200503 " id="quads-ad200503" style="float:none;margin:0px 3px 3px 3px;padding:0px 0px 0px 0px;" data-lazydelay="0"> <!-- WP QUADS - Quick AdSense Reloaded v.2.0.85 Content AdSense async --> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block;" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7550963679842137" data-ad-slot="1823845571"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});</script> <!-- end WP QUADS --> </div> <p>The timeline of the book arches from 1900 to 1977. We read of a pre-adolescent girl who marries a widower much older than her, who goes across the broad swathe of the Vembanad lake and takes over the running of a vast old manse––the reins firmly held in her small hands–– even as a sister-in-law, then a distant relative moves in to help her. We watch with admiration as the young bride wins over her taciturn-to-a-fault husband, bestows love on her stepson Jojo, gives birth to Baby Mol and then Philipose, and eventually becomes big ammachi, the matriarch of Parambil. And when Philipose’s daughter is baptised, she is given the matriarch’s name and that’s when we learn that the old lady is Mariamma.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });</p> <p>Big Ammachi’s long-standing wish is that if God couldn’t or wouldn’t cure the curse on the clan, then he should send someone who would find one. Two generations down, it is her namesake, a neuro-<br /> surgeon, who gets down to demystifying the strange malady and working to find a remedy, even widening the devastating trail of the condition to go beyond members of the Parambil family and include the Saint Thomas Christian fraternity at large.</p> <p>Every character in the pages of the book has his/her share of trials and tribulations; some accept it with grace and fortitude, and others fight it wildly. We meet Digby Kilgour from Glasgow, but not for a minute do we wonder why we have left Parambil to go peep into Digby’s life in Scotland, follow him thence to Madras… we know there will be a connection established soon enough. We meet Rune Orqvist, who runs a leprosarium in another part of Kerala, and there too we sense a connection well before <br /> it is revealed.</p> <!-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v. 2.0.85 --> <div class="quads-location quads-ad200503 " id="quads-ad200503" style="float:none;margin:0px 3px 3px 3px;padding:0px 0px 0px 0px;" data-lazydelay="0"> <!-- WP QUADS - Quick AdSense Reloaded v.2.0.85 Content AdSense async --> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block;" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7550963679842137" data-ad-slot="1823845571"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});</script> <!-- end WP QUADS --> </div> <p>Readers, who are familiar with the gifted writer’s books, know that he throws many medical procedures and jargon into his stories (sample this: his lips are set together, the philtrum a dugout in the flesh above the vermilion border of his upper lip), but he does it so well that the lay reader’s interest is caught and held. Religion—in this case of the Saint Thomas Christians—is one tensile rope woven through the tale, the others being the caste system, the Naxal movement, and leprosy. And love. There is a message too, clear and direct: geography is destiny and the shared geography of the Spice Coast and the Malayalam language, unites all faiths. </p> <p>The humour is sardonic and very Malayali––the Maramon Convention, which hosts an American preacher to hilarious results, is one such passage. </p> <p>The storytelling is of the best kind, free of any gratuitous embellishment. The reveals come in calibrated doses that are affecting.</p> <!-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v. 2.0.85 --> <div class="quads-location quads-ad200503 " id="quads-ad200503" style="float:none;margin:0px 3px 3px 3px;padding:0px 0px 0px 0px;" data-lazydelay="0"> <!-- WP QUADS - Quick AdSense Reloaded v.2.0.85 Content AdSense async --> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block;" data-ad-format="auto" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7550963679842137" data-ad-slot="1823845571"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});</script> <!-- end WP QUADS --> </div> <p>Water swirls insidiously through the tale. In a resonant passage, the author writes of how the Malayali forget that the monsoon will confine them for weeks, drown the paddy fields, leak through the thatch and deplete their grain stores. All they know is that their bodies, like the parched soil, crave rainfall. And in the end, the story of the Parambil clan stands tall, looming over everything. It is a story that will stay with the reader for a long time. <br />