Opinion |
A whirlwind of emotions accompanies the characters, living and inanimate, in Geetanjali Shree’s expansive narrative, Tomb of Sand, which last week won the International Booker Prize, a first for any Indian novel. Translated by Daisy Rockwell from the original in Hindi, Ret Samadhi, it is a story that revolves around the central invisible figure in any Indian home (Ma), her daughter (Beti) and a family which extends to birds, trees and other beings like a small, cracked Buddha statue.
Giving an intimation of what is to be expected, we are told at the outset that “women are stories in themselves, full of stirrings and whisperings that float on the wind, that bend with each blade of grass.” We are asked to go along as the story’s path “unfurls, not knowing where it will stop, tacking to the right and left, twisting and turning, allowing anything and everything to join in the narration. It will emerge from within a volcano, swelling silently as the past boils forth into the present, bringing steam, embers, and smoke.”
