One Part Woman: A review

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Book: One Part Woman

Author: Perumal Murugan

Genre: Historical/Domestic Fiction

Publisher: Penguin Books

I bought this book when I read about how the author was being bashed by the right-wing for his explicit portrayal of religious and regional beliefs, taboos, and atrocities levied on those who don’t comply with them heartily.

The novel is set in pre-independence South India and revolves around a couple Kali and Ponna who have been married for 12 years but haven’t been able to bear a child yet. It unravels through its various layers the struggles they had to go through to own their perceived malady. Ponna is regularly subjected to incessant pressures and taunted by her family for her barrenness and most times can fight them. On the other hand, Kali is stripped of his honor and called impotent on various occasions.

The book portrays various deep-rooted superstitions in Indian culture and how people can blindly be swayed by them. It also has a take on the intricacies and nuances of married life, shedding equal light on how it is often disrupted not from inside but outside, by people who have no right to partake in its destruction. It makes you stand at moral crossroads at times. The various standards that our society has, to deem people and relations ideal and worthy of respect often are the culprits of broken homes and lead to the demise of the mental wellbeing of people involved.

All in all, I had a great time reading this and was in awe of the raw emotions, and rich aroma of the flavors of ethnicity and culture. I found myself lost in the visual imagery of the same. The story made me realize the orthodoxy and irrelevance of various ideas and beliefs of Indian culture, though the same has gone under a tremendous amount of change and up-gradation through the decades.