One-part woman is not just the story of a childless couple and the hardships that they face from the society, one-part woman is a story about a place that exists in only people’s tales, a culture that people are trying to forget and characters that nobody has paid attention to before. Perumal Murugan’s stories are different, it’s not set in the present, with the bustling cities and fast-moving people, its set in a place that existed long back, in a society that was divided and people that had a close connection with nature. There are many elements explored in the novel. Perumal Murugan brings to life a culture that has been lost to time.
One-part woman or Madhorubhagan as it is called in Tamil is set on Kongunadu, an aspirant state in Tamil Nadu. The story surrounds a childless couple, Kalli and Ponna who have been married for more than 12 years but they don’t have any children. Muthu is Kalli’s childhood friend and Ponna is Muthu’s sister. Both of them long for a child. They feel incomplete without a child. The rest of society looks down on them because they don’t have any children. Ponna and Kalli take part in a lot of rituals and superstitious undertakings to convince the gods to bless them with a child. None of them are fruitful. There is a practice in Tiruchengode temple, on the 14th day of the vikasi festival, a childless married woman can have consensual sex with young men around the temple ground to have children. Men on that night were considered gods and this act was more of duty than a pleasure.
Ponna is convinced by Muthu and her mother to attend the 14th day of the festival. Kalli doesn’t know about this. He eventually finds out thinking that Ponna went to the 14th-day festival without telling him. He falls into a fit of anger and hate. Meanwhile, Muthu had convinced Ponna that Kalli had given her his permission, and that’s how Ponna agrees to take part in the ritual. This is the summary of the story.
In the end, Murugan leaves us hanging with a lot of unanswered questions. He wrote two books that are a sequel to one-part woman. Both of them in Tamil. These books aren’t translated into English. In one book Kalli kills himself and it talks about how Ponna brings up the boy on her own and how the society looks at it. In the other version, Kalli accepts the child that is born, and it talks about how they raise the child together and somehow, they drift apart.
The Controversy
After the publication of the English translation of Madhorubhagan, there was a huge backlash against the author. The Gounder community accused Murugan of defaming their caste and community. The police called both parties and Murugan was made to issue a written apology. Later, on Facebook Murugan declares that he is going to give up writing. In his Facebook statement, he said “Author Perumal Murugan is dead. He is no God. Hence, he will not resurrect. Hereafter, only P Murugan, a teacher, will live,”
The case was registered in Madras high court and the court ruled in favor of Perumal Murugan. The court order also was a part of the resurrection of Perumal Murugan as a Writer. “If you do not like a book, throw it away. There is no compulsion to read a book. Literary tastes may vary – what is right and acceptable to one may not be so to others. Yet, the right to write is unhindered.” [1]
The Change
For me the controversy and the events that followed in some way shape the author. His books before his exile and after his exile speak differently and tell a lot about the change that the author went through. In an interview, Perumal Murugan says that the stories that he had thought of writing before his self-exile are not the stories that he is writing now. If we look at Koolamdari (seasons of the palm) which was a book written before, as One-part woman talks about Konganadu, the pastoral life and his take on religion on superstition. When we look at his writings after the self-exile and before, I felt a change that Perumal Murugan went through.
Poonachi is a book that he wrote after his exile, and in the book, Perumal Murugan Openly talks about a government that makes poor people stand in lines, a government that overhears everything. He talks about people being treated like animals and animals that are more thoughtful than most humans. Poonachi is quite different from the other two novels that I have read. It is a political satire. In the translator’s note, he says that Poonachi is Murugan’s take on how the government should be. He also compares it to George Orwell’s Novel, Animal Farm. For me, Poonachi had a closer resemblance to Nineteen Eighty-Three another one of George Orwell’s Novel. A government that listens closely to the conversations of people and subjects that are scared of the Leviathan. For some reason, I felt like there is a connection between the government he talks about in Poonachi and the Government in power now.
Perumal Murugan Always wrote about his homeland. The Aspirant state of Konganadu. His close relationship with this land is somehow similar to Dante who fell in love with Florence and was later thrown out, exiled from his homeland. Dante writes about his love for Florence when after his exile, Perumal Murugan’s book, Songs of a Coward is a collection of poems he wrote during his exile. Much like Dante, he expresses his love for his homeland. He had to move out from his native, afraid of his safety.
There are many writers who were exiled because of their writing, from Dante to Salman Rushdie, but in these times of exile, the author undergoes some change. Either it’s is a positive change, writing about what they want to and not what they are told to. Another change is when they give up their stories and decide not to write. Every writer has had moments of exile, either from his home, from a society or a country. But these moments of exile in some way define what they write and why they write.
Perumal Murugan is a survivor, and he has come back stronger and more confident.in some ways he has changed but the core of his stories are around Konganadu and his love for his homeland is very visible and evident. The way he portrays the culture of a society and how he describes the people that not many people see is what makes him stand out.
[1] http://www.livelaw.in/madras-high-court-resurrects-writer-perumal-murugan-book-madhorubagan/
Armed Hermit 