Family

The Toss of a Lemon

The Toss of a Lemon

Padma Viswanathan

Language: English

Pages: 619

ISBN: 0547247877

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Sivakami was married at ten, widowed at eighteen, and left with two children. According to the dictates of her caste, her head is shaved and she puts on widow's whites. From dawn to dusk, she is not allowed to contaminate herself with human touch, not even to comfort her small children.
 
Sivakami dutifully follows custom, except for one defiant act: She moves back to her dead husband's house to raise her children. There, her servant Muchami, a closeted gay man who is bound by a different caste's rules, becomes her public face. Their singular relationship holds three generations of the family together through the turbulent first half of the twentieth century, as India endures great social and political change. But as time passes, the family changes, too; Sivakami's son will question the strictures of the very beliefs that his mother has scrupulously upheld. 
 
The Toss of a Lemon is heartbreaking and exhilarating, profoundly exotic yet utterly recognizable in evoking the tensions that change brings to every family.

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War and Family Life (Risk and Resilience in Military and Veteran Families)

Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue: The Story of an Accidental Family

Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyone in the presidency. Didn't you say the invitation says your son-in-law is now in Indrapuram?" Muchami pauses, either to decide how plainly he should speak or to let his words sink in. "In fact, I'm sure Vairum might even have sent Goli an invitation, if only to provoke him. He didn't make the invitation in Goli's name because this is his show." "People in our Brahmin quarter are going to think Vairum is trying to slap Goli in the face," Sivakami says, rueful. "He is, but I think that's

She alights in Cholapatti, feeling elegant in a silk sari of red and yellow checks, ornamented with less gold than on her wedding day but still quite brilliant in thick gold bangles and dangling jimiki earrings. A gold chain threads the sides of her sternum; her wedding pendants fit snugly between her small breasts, hidden beneath sari and blouse from any jealous glance. Hanumarathnam greets her in front of their home, together with his aunt, his uncle and his cousin Murthy. This is the only time

they will be accommodated. Muchami will sleep in the courtyard out back, since the building is Brahmin-only. They tidy themselves, organize the gifts and go to take their evening meal at the in-laws' home. Murthy, in a kurta neatly pressed except for one wrinkled sleeve, is being insufferably knowledgeable, having travelled here once before. Gayatri is so curious that she can't get too irritated with him; Rukmini, also curious, is naturally deferential to her husband; Thangam shows no curiosity.

enough provided for, they say, and her husband would get it if they gave it to her, and so better it should stay in the family. Many a woman buys this line. Sivakami's mother, though, on her deathbed, called to her side her only surviving daughter. There, in confidence, she told Sivakami about the battle she had fought with her own brothers, her mother's battle against the mother's brothers, and so on and up and down through the generations to defend the wealth of the family's women. "God's

subtlety and feeling for tradition that Muchami and Sivakami share. As Thangam and Goli get settled in the government housing complex at Kulithalai, Muchami makes a point of dropping in daily. He almost always finds Thangam on the veranda, alone with the children, and offers to bring her back to her mother's for a visit and a meal. She always accepts, and he returns her at dusk to a dark and empty house. Sivakami sends food back with her, which she always accepts, looking as vacant as her

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