When Abraham Verghese’s mother was in her seventies, his niece asked her what things were like when she was a young girl. So, she began writing an illustrated manuscript in longhand around 120 pages long, filled with stories of what her life was like back then. “It was for her grandchild, but it obviously became an heirloom for all of us,” recalls the writer and physician at his session titled Arc of the Covenant at the Bangalore Literature Festival on Sunday.
This manuscript became the starting point of his epic new novel, The Covenant of Water, a 724-page-long intergenerational saga set in Kerala. “When I picked up this precious thing again and looked at it, I realised that it was such a rich, vibrant setting for a novel,” says Verghese to Bengaluru-based independent journalist and writer Ammu Joseph, who he was in conversation with at the session.
Over a 40-odd-minute-long conversation, peppered with plenty of laughter and applause, Verghese and Joseph regaled their audience with anecdotes, memories, observations and banter, serenaded by the gentle pitter-patter of rain and the sudden mewling of a stray cat that had snuck into the tent.
