A debut novel travels to a Tamil village at the turn of the 20th century where old codes of caste and gender crumble around a widow
She looks capable of bearing great burdens, not as though born to a yoke but perhaps as though born with a yoke within her.” This is Sivakami, 10 years old when the novel opens, and soon to receive a marriage proposal. After her husband’s early death, which he had foreseen in his astrological charts, Sivakami will find herself bringing up their children — Thangam, the golden, even-tempered daughter, and Vairum, the bright, difficult son. As a widow, she will be given two coarse cotton saris to wear; she will have to remain “pure”, without touching even her children, from dawn to dusk; and the barber will come every few weeks, at night, so that no Brahmin sees him, to shave her head.

Yet, despite the dictates of caste and gender, Sivakami finds herself taking on the forces of destiny to shape her children’s lives. When Thangam is married off to a ne’er-do-well due to the indifference of Sivakami’s brothers, Sivakami begins to bring up Thangam’s nine children. When Sivakami’s brothers plan to send Vairum to a paadasalai, a Vedic school for poor Brahmin boys, she decides to move back to her husband’s house and live independently, bringing up her family on her own terms.

In this project, she will have the help of Muchami, a gay youth from a lower caste whom her husband had trained as overseer of their properties. She will have the benefit of her husband’s training, for he had spent his last years instructing her in the management of their finances. She will also have the support of her faith — not only in the black stone Ramar whom she worships daily, but also in the bedrock of tradition.

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