Overview
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is a sprawling, multi-generational story about an Indian family whose members all suffer from the “Condition.” From the beginning of the story in 1900 to the end in 1977, this condition results in the drowning of many members of the family, mostly men. Big Ammachi’s greatest wish is that someone may one day find the cause of, and consequently remedy for, this Condition. She becomes the family matriarch, ruling over the estate at Parambil in Kerala’s southern region. She was a child bride who raised two children and one granddaughter despite experiencing countless traumas. The Covenant of Water, published in 2023, investigates India’s caste system, examines the class system in the United Kingdom, highlights India’s small Christian community, criticizes the British imperial presence in India, and reveals much about Indian culture, history, and politics in the process. Verghese, as a physician, also depicts graphic and detailed depictions of disease, surgery, and recuperation. Verghese’s long-awaited second novel—his first, Cutting for Stone, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list—explores broad themes of love and loss, faith and doubt, surrender and restoration.
Plot Synopsis
A 12-year-old bride will marry a 40-year-old farmer. Because it is customary for a bride to leave her family home and join her husband’s family, she will travel as soon as possible to the estate of Parambil in Kerala. While she and her mother grieve together as she prepares to go, they both know that the arrangement is unavoidable. The girl’s father has died, and her mother will be taken care of by relatives who are unable to care for the girl. The tale follows the child and her new family from 1900 until 1977. The girl rapidly realizes that her husband’s family is unusual: they suffer from what she refers to as the Condition. Almost every generation has a catastrophic drowning among its members.
The novel’s early sections shift between the viewpoints of this juvenile bride and Digby Kilgore, a Glasgow, Scotland native who enlists in the Indian Medical Service. Their lives eventually converge in ways that have a significant impact on their outcomes. While Big Ammachi, the child bride, must adjust to life at the Parambil estate and Digby, the Scottish surgeon, must adjust to Indian society, both become important figures in the lives of the other characters. They must also survive a series of calamities.
The first occurs when Big Ammachi (Big Mother) is forced to witness the drowning death of her stepson JoJo, whom she treats as her own. Big Ammachi adores her kid, Baby Mol (Baby Girl), despite the fact that she has developmental problems. She must also survive her husband’s death shortly after the birth of her own son, Philipose. Despite the fact that they married in an arranged marriage and had a huge age difference, they have grown to love each other over the years. Philipose is warned about the condition by Big Ammachi. Since JoJo’s death, her biggest aim has been to find a cure for the Condition. However, becoming a doctor is not Philipose’s destiny. Instead, he is drawn to writing.
Dr. Digby Kilgour, who was orphaned at a young age, seeks success in India that he cannot find in Scotland. He is a gifted surgeon whose career is cut short by tragedy when he falls in love with his mentor’s wife and has an affair with her. A candle is knocked over one night while they are sleeping, and his apartments catch fire. Digby’s hands are irreversibly wounded while attempting to save his lover’s life. His time as a surgeon is up. Instead, he buys an estate and becomes a gentleman farmer, naming it Gwendolyn Gardens after his mother. However, before the estate, he recovers at a leprosarium managed by Dr. Rune Orqvist, who attempts, with limited success, to heal his hands.
Digby’s life crosses with the citizens of Parambil in a variety of ways. First, Rune enlists the assistance of a young girl named Elsie, the daughter of a friend, to help Digby with his physical rehabilitation. She assists him in drawing, which loosens the strained tendons and joints. Second, when Philipose is 13, he brings a choking young boy to the leprosarium (Parambil did not have a proper hospital at the time), and Digby trains him on how to conduct a tracheotomy to save the boy’s life. Digby asks his friend Chandy to drive Philipose home, where he encounters Elsie. Philipose is struck as she examines his hands. They will eventually marry.
However, tragedy strikes again when Philipose and Elsie’s young boy is killed while climbing a tree and being impaled on a branch. In an attempt to save him, Philipose breaks both of his ankles and turns to opium for pain relief. As a result, he became opium dependent for several years. Elsie leaves Parambil after the two blame each other for the child’s death. Philipose is unsure where she has gone. But she eventually returns, and while they do not reconcile, they do have sex one last time. Philipose is still struggling with his addiction, and Elsie looks to be troubled by something else. She had a girl, Mariamma, who was born prematurely, and she refused to have anything to do with the child. Elsie vanishes down the river within a few weeks, apparently by suicide.
Philipose becomes sober for the sake of his daughter, whom he raises with the assistance of Big Ammachi. Mariamma decides to become a doctor when she is a young adult. When Philipose drowns due to the Condition, Mariamma begins to investigate the cause and cure of the condition. She does receive some answers, which helps her comprehend why not only her family but many families in the close-knit Christian society, are affected by this problem. It enables her to rescue the life of her beloved, Lenin Evermore. During her investigation, she reads her father’s journals and discovers that Philipose was not her biological father. Digby, on the other hand.
When she seeks answers from Digby, she discovers that her mother, Elsie, did not commit suicide. She rejected her daughter for another, more terrible reason: she had leprosy and did not want to pass it on to her child. Digby has been caring for her for years, despite the fact that she is now scarred and blind. Mariamma’s life will change irreparably now that the truth has been disclosed, yet she will embrace at least some of that transformation: “Mariamma is drawn forward without thinking, without having to think.” She presses and overlaps her mother’s hands on the glass window, and everything becomes one at that moment, with nothing separating their two worlds”. She eventually meets her mother through the windowpanes, and two worlds unavoidably collide, just as they did for the Parambil family and the doctor at the leprosarium.
Part 1 Analysis
Water appears in the first paragraph of the book. The water here takes the shape of tears shared between mother and daughter as the daughter, a preteen, prepares to marry a much older man. They are concerned when they learn that the household into which the young lady is marrying has “a history of drownings”. If the young girl’s father had lived, she would not have been married off at such a young age, though such marriages were fairly uncommon in early twentieth-century India. There is no money or nobody to defend her save God, and her faith grows as she navigates the difficulties of her new life—evidence of The Will to Believe. According to her, “the Bible shows her that there is order beneath”. That is, God has approved of this arrangement; it is consistent with the order of the cosmos.
The family she is marrying into, however, has its own secret, as do all families, according to the omniscient narrator. Unfortunately, “secrets can tear a family apart in their revealing as well as their keeping”. The girl, who is eventually dubbed Big Ammachi by her stepson, realizes that this secret is linked to the family’s phobia of water. When she discovers the secret—that someone in her husband’s family drowns every generation—she refers to it as “the Condition.” According to Big Ammachi, “There’s a war, she now sees, between the men of Parambil and the waters of Travancore”. While she looks forward to the monsoon season because rain brings relief from the heat, her new husband is terrified of it. She sees it as a Christian ritual: her community “anticipated the monsoon as much as they did Christmas, a time when body and soul are cleansed”. Rain, on the other hand, stymies her unidentified husband: “[R]ain confines her husband in a way that baffles her”. When she eventually begins researching the family tree, she discovers that water has stolen far too many lives for anyone in that family to be comfortable with. Water is both the condition that confines her new family’s lives and the power that unifies and renews all life, as the concept of Condition and Connection begins to take shape here.
Despite the fact that she is a child bride in an arranged marriage, Big Ammachi takes on significant responsibilities: She raises JoJo, her husband’s first marriage’s son, as her own. She also comes to grasp the contours of what it is to be married, first through Thankamma, her husband’s sister, and later through her own intuition. Thankamma tells her, “My brother is like a coconut.” All of the toughness is on the outside. You’re his wife, and he loves you as Thankamma loves you”. Later, after Big Ammachi has matured, her husband will have intercourse with her, but not until “she’s integral to his world, just as he is to her world”. Because of her husband’s tolerance and her acceptance, their slowly blossoming love will blossom. “Love, she thinks, isn’t ownership, but a sense that where her body once ended, it begins anew in him, extending her reach, her confidence, and her strength”. Regardless of how much a modern reader might protest to the circumstances of the marriage, the author goes to great lengths to demonstrate how love can bloom under such circumstances.
Unfortunately, the Condition separates JoJo from Big Ammachi and her spouse. In shallow water, he drowns. Big Ammachi compares it to “drowning on land”. While it causes misery and confusion in the estate, the arrival of Baby Mol (Baby Girl) helps to heal some of the wounds. Big Ammachi, despite her small size, undertakes to establish a genealogy of this family with the horrible Condition; she calls it the Water Tree, highlighting the concept of Condition and Connection once more, as the Water Treemaps the links created by this shared condition. Big Ammachi is perplexed as to whether the Condition is a curse or a disease. She hopes to find out for sure one day.
Part 2 Analysis
The plot switches from Big Ammachi and her Indian family’s world to Scotland, halfway around the world. Digby Kilgour, like Big Ammachi, suffers from childhood trauma. His father abandons him and his mother, who is still struggling to recuperate from this ordeal. She is a Catholic in a predominantly Protestant country, and the discrimination she endures exemplifies The Injustice of Caste and Class; religion divides not only the people of Parambil but also the people of Europe in Big Ammachi’s case. These contradictions continue to shape lives in the early twentieth century. When Digby and his mother are forced to live with his grandmother, the psychological toll on his mother is irreversible. The grandmother regards Digby as an illegitimate issue and expresses her feelings openly: “This is how a boy’s world crumbles,” the young Digby muses . Digby considers himself an intruder in the household.
Digby cannot stay in Scotland for long after his mother’s suicide, but he also does not renounce the education that his mother believed was so important to his success. He does become a surgeon, but his own country’s medical industry is closed to him. He is poor, orphaned, and a devout Catholic. In order to escape The Injustice of Caste and Class, he travels to India. It’s noteworthy that the title of Chapter 11, “Caste,” refers to Digby and his social class rather than Indians. While caste and class are not the same, the repercussions are. “Why be sorry, Digby?” says his brief acquaintance with the barrister Bannerjee. “You’re a victim of a caste system,” Banny says. “We’ve been doing the same thing to each other in India for centuries”. The author thus connects the caste system to class prejudice, however, the existence of British imperialism in India alters how this works. Banny must enter his own nation through a different door than Digby, and he is susceptible to the racial biases that pervade the British colonial experience. Later, Digby understands that “he’s white here in British India, and that puts him above anyone who isn’t”. This is how colonial rule worked.
Digby also falls in love with Celeste Arnold, the wife of his ostensible mentor. When the two visit the stone temples, they see their blossoming love reflected in art forms that cross cultural boundaries: “Without the love of their subject,” Celeste believes, these Indian artists would “just be cutting stone; their adoration is what brings it to life”. Later, the author will describe the lovers’ final meeting as “a smeared canvas”. Their affair is an artistic accomplishment. Ironically, the two only become lovers after Celeste’s husband threatens to falsely accuse his wife of having an affair with Digby, a scheme designed to make whatever testimony Digby gives about him in the medical malpractice trial questionable. Arnold’s medical incompetence and open maltreatment of his wife make him a completely unlikable figure. Still, in the spirit of many books that came before it, an extramarital affair nearly always ends in catastrophe, though the book returns to Big Ammachi and her sadness before revealing Celeste and Digby’s destinies.
Part 3 Analysis
Part 3 delves into The Will to Believe, as Big Ammachi struggles to cope with JoJo’s death and the diagnosis of Baby Mol’s congenital illness. Philipose, too, has doubts about his faith: He is studying literature under the tutelage of an atheist, and his inability to make peace with water, along with the death of the boatman’s baby, causes him to question God’s existence. Big Ammachi refuses to baptize Baby Mol because her grief over JoJo’s death renders the rite meaningless: “In her dialogues with God, she avoids the topic but she senses God’s disapproval”. She decides against revealing the baby’s full name.
Other characters ponder the nature of the cosmos and their place in it as well. Dr. Rune Orqvist’s faith crisis forces him to abandon his practice in order to bring relief to the least tolerated elements of Indian society, the lepers. His drive to care for society’s most vulnerable people stems from his own experience in an orphanage. From the start, Rune has committed to the needy: “Rune’s fees are nominal for the poor and painful for the rich”. He continues on this journey, acting as Robin Hood to the unequal systems in which he is embedded until he reaches the leprosarium. When Rune first encounters the lepers, he is swept away by his place in the larger universe: “In the immensity of the cosmos, Rune feels he himself is nothing, an illusion.” “There is no difference between him and the leper; they are simply manifestations of the universal consciousness”.
Leprosy itself comes to represent caste, class, and isolation. “The mind must be scarred from being rejected in this manner,” Rune believes. These two [lepers] have died for their loved ones and for society, and that wound is more painful than the collapsing nose, horrible visage, or loss of fingers”. Leprosy (Hansen’s illness) currently has no recognized cure. Despite the fact that it is caused by a germ over which the sufferers have no control, the condition labels them as morally weak as well as socially unsuitable. “[l]eprosy deadens the nerves and is thus painless; the real wound of leprosy, and the only pain they feel, is that of exile,” continues Rune. It reflects his own exile from his homeland.
The bond between Philipose and the parayar child, Joppan, directly addresses the injustices of caste and class in these chapters. The parayar caste is India’s lowest caste, also known as “untouchables” (Mahatma Gandhi notably elevated this caste by naming them Harijans, or Children of God). Joppan is barred from attending school alongside Philipose, which both boys recognize is clearly wrong. Even Big Ammachi, who was born a generation before, can recognize the injustice of the caste system. She admits, though, that it is profoundly ingrained in Indian culture: “Its roots are deep and so ancient that it feels like a law of nature, like rivers flowing to the sea.” But the pain in her son’s innocent eyes reminds her of what it is all too easy to forget: the caste system is an abomination”. It is a method for people in positions of power or privilege to exploit the disadvantaged, and as such, it is advantageous to British imperialists as a means of increasing their own authority.
Part 4 Analysis
Digby’s afflictions are psychological as well as physical; he has lost his lover and is unable to practice his trade. Staying with Lena and meeting Rune and his lepers helps to mend some of the damage, but it will take Digby a long time to accept his predicament. “The savage, life-threatening injury is to his mind, strewn around like shattered china, no longer recognizable as Digby from Glasgow, Digby the faithful son, Digby the single-minded medical student, Digby the surgeon with the good hands”. Digby’s identity has been shattered; in order to survive, he will have to remake himself, just like the lepers at Saint Bridget’s.
Indeed, Digby’s new adventure begins with his bond with Rune. Rune not only attempts to restore his hands, but he also introduces Digby to a realm in which Digby might reimagine himself. Digby initially believes he “has landed on an alien planet”. He is unable to cope with the high heights and humidity, and his experience with lepers is limited, as is that of most people, “to seeing street beggars in Madras”. However, after some time, Digby begins to identify with his neighbors: “he’s one of them, wounded, winged, and disfigured” . Furthermore, through observing these exiled peoples, Digby discovers a new purpose: “They want him to witness their usefulness, even if the world has no use for them”. Ironically, the lepers inspire Digby to seek out a new and different life rather than sink into despair. This instance of human development is another manifestation of The Will to Believe. In this situation, Digby decides to believe not in God, but in his own ability to live a meaningful life in the face of adversity.
Digby is also inspired by Rune himself. Though Digby abandoned his faith years ago, Rune has dedicated himself to the care of these lost individuals as a result of his own: “He’s living his faith, an amalgam of Christianity and Hindu philosophy.” Medicine is his genuine priesthood, a mission of curing his flock’s body and soul. He will continue for as long as he is able”. Unfortunately, Rune’s heart problems will take him down soon, while Digby must continue on his own adventure. As Digby admits, Rune has sent a quiet message to his young charge: “Before we treat the flesh, we must acknowledge the greater wound, the one to the spirit”. This is Rune’s message to his leprosy patients, and it also applies to Digby. When Rune dies, Digby remarks that he “was not just his surgeon, but his savior, confessor, and the closest thing he’d ever had to a father”. Rune transforms into a Christ-like figure, saving the souls of his lepers, including Digby.
Elsie, a young girl, also helps Digby by drawing an anatomically precise depiction of Digby’s hand. Instead of being offended, Digby is impressed by Elsie’s aptitude at the age of nine. Furthermore, she assists him with his physical treatment, possibly unwittingly, by moving his hands in hers to create a painting of his mother. Digby has been hit.
Do you know, Elsie, little fawn who has also lost a mother, that we managed to do what time could not? For all these years, the only image I had of my mother, the one that predominated over all others, was her filthy, monstrous death mask.
Elsie has been able to present Digby a different picture of his life experience in her juvenile innocence—or in her premature, sad understanding of death.
Philipose has also been learning about death and fate. He resurrects the young boatman’s boy and “is stunned to witness this resurrection”, another veiled reference to the power of faith. Despite Digby’s accolades, Philipose is not inspired to pursue a career in medicine. “Philipose feels every eye on him,” he says when he comes home after saving the child. He puts on a pleasant smile, but he shudders on the inside. He has never had any desire to become a doctor”. Philipose’s fate will not be this. Philipose believes that when Elsie sketches his portrait in the automobile on the way back to Parambil, “she’s captured his burning and naked need to be home”. Later, Digby will express similar sentiments in his desire to own land far from the site of his accident. The two guys have a yearning to withdraw from the world, which foreshadows what else they may share.
Part 5 Analysis
The events in these chapters are dominated by politics: The world is in the grip of World War II; British dominion in India appears to be coming to an end; and attitudes toward caste are fast shifting. The post office in Parambil now brings world news and new ideas about politics and society to this rather remote community:
There are more newspapers and readers to select from. The uneducated may always locate a tea shop that reads the newspaper aloud. The news of growing rebellion against British control and a globe on the verge of war reaches even the smallest town. Literacy disrupts living patterns that have been unbroken for generations.
This level of literacy and wisdom foreshadows the collapse of the empire.
All of this correlates with an increase in agitation against The Injustice of Caste and Class. Philipose’s brief academic experience demonstrates that there is a rigorous pecking order in place, and this order accompanies graduates throughout their life. Joppan, a member of the lowest caste of players and a friend of Philipose, becomes increasingly opposed to the traditional system. “But think about this, Philipose: if nothing changes, if the people have no way to escape poverty if the player can never own land or pass on wealth to their children, then the next time there’s a famine, it’ll be the same people standing in line” . Before there can be a significant change in the country, the caste structure must shift.
Philipose struggles with these new concepts, even though he firmly believes in them; his “Ordinary Man” piece tackles a lot of current topics. He also has a fear of water, which adds to his reluctance to leave Parambil. Even before their child dies, this becomes a source of contention between him and his wife Elsie. Though Philipose clearly wants Elsie to be his wife and respects her preferences in making that decision, he is overcome by worries and jealousy. His dread of water prevents him from moving, but his envy eventually brings him down. When he walks into her studio, he is taken aback by what he sees: “He doesn’t say that in the process he realized just how prolific she’s been.” It made him feel inauthentic”. Elsie recognizes that her husband’s nervousness and jealous protectiveness endangers their relationship. She requests that he “love me just a little bit less”. His possessive personality interferes with her independent artistic spirit.
Another necessary development for the country is the end of England’s unfair colonial control. “But with the fall of Rangoon, imports of rice cease, and in the meantime, the British have seized and stockpiled locally grown rice, saving it for the troops.” This is how a famine is started”. In his Ordinary Man column, Philipose discusses how Winston Churchill’s policies affected Indians’ lives. These measures only serve to exacerbate the unrest that has built throughout the course of the war. “There are people in the world who are so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of food,” says Philipose. In the face of such desperation, faith collapses. Philipose, in collaboration with Uplift Master, attempts to ease the suffering of his fellow inhabitants.
Baby Ninan’s horrifying death—imprinted on the limbs of a tree, like a Christ figure—destroys Parambil’s peace and Philipose and Elsie’s marriage, resulting in far-reaching effects that will take another 30 years to unravel. Shamuel’s initiative in cutting down the tree extends all the way to the roots; he and his men will hack out every last relic of the tree and fill in the hole completely. It was, according to Philipose, “a cursed tree”, suggestive of the affliction that afflicts his family tree, the Water Tree, as Big Ammachi refers to it.
Part 6 Analysis
Digby settles into life at his Gwendolyn Gardens home; he’s made an uneasy peace with the hands that won’t let him perform as a surgeon any longer. Nonetheless, his reputation precedes him, and he ends up saving lives: Lizzi and Lenin Evermore would not have lived if he hadn’t intervened in the unusual circumstance, with the baby’s arm coming out of Lizzi’s knife wound. Digby is irritated when Lizzi claims the cut was an accident: “How many women have said that before?” How many physicians, cops, nurses, and children have heard those words and known better? It’s puzzling why a lady would protect a man so unworthy of her protection” . This exposes both a reality about a woman’s situation in mid-century Indian society and an insight into Digby’s character. He does not dismiss a woman’s anguish. Digby not only gives Lenin an odd name, but he also foreshadows the child’s fate: “That baby’s fist will get it into trouble one day”. While attempting to lightheartedly jest about the weirdness of the baby’s arm departing the womb, he accidentally assigns Lenin a future filled with strife.
Meanwhile, back in Parambil, things have come to a head: Ninan’s death has nearly destroyed the family. Philipose is now an opium addict, and Elsie has fled, leaving Big Ammachi and Baby Mol sad. Elsie clings to Big Ammachi like a kid at Chandy’s funeral: “And so Big Ammachi offered herself; she offered her arms, her hands, her kisses and her willingness to be wounded”. Big Ammachi becomes a martyr for her family, a Christ-like sacrifice to alleviate Elsie’s pain.
Philipose’s unwavering belief that Elsie’s new baby will be a boy demonstrates how The Will to Believe can also be a damaging mental habit. Because he wants it to be true, he believes the child will be a boy: “‘I had a feeling!” So, what did I say? ‘Your Lord be glorified,’ Philipose exclaims, his voice unusually loud even to him. ‘Our Ninan has been reborn!'”. When the infant is revealed to be a female, Philipose expresses his heartbreak: “God has failed us again” . Big Ammachi would not participate in his delusions; she “glares at her son” and declares that he only has “this perfect, perfect child” by “God’s grace”. Her religion is unaffected by human expectations (much alone drug usage), and she will give the child her “very own Christian name.” “Mariam”. As a result, Big Ammachi will live on into the next generation.
Elsie, on her part, is only unwillingly returning to the Parambil household. Philipose seemed to be permanently estranged from her. “Her reflected eyes meet him, and he smiles drowsily.” She has sex with him out of sympathy or duty, and once the deed is complete, the two have drastically different reactions: “Her reflected eyes meet his, and he smiles drowsily.” But a stranger stares back at him, a soul who has already left this world but has been offered a glimpse into her old life. She walks away without saying anything”. Her aloof personality, need for forgiveness, and exhaustion all lead to the idea that she was pregnant when she arrived in Parambil.
Part 7 Analysis
Lenin Evermore is subjected to a sequence of catastrophic events: Smallpox wipes out his family, leaving him as the sole survivor. The pulayan who feeds him while he is hungry becomes a “saint” to him; this event will be formative, impacting Lenin for the rest of his life . He wants to return to his home after being asked to leave the seminary—the pulayar woman reminds him that “God spared you for a reason” . The wealthy estate owner, however, has burned the place down to make way for additional farmland. This is the same landowner who refused to feed Lenin when he was hungry: “Lenin’s face is clotted with anger as he recounts this” (479). The loss of his family and home, as well as difficulties at seminary and school, shape Lenin in ways that decide his fate. Even his name suggests a life dedicated to combating The Injustice of Caste and Class.
Philipose, too, must tackle the injustices inherent in India’s estate and caste systems. Joppan, his friend, was not allowed to attend school due of his playing status; though Big Ammachi educated him independently, it is apparent that he did not attain his full potential. When Philipose offers him the position of estate manager, as well as some extra land, Joppan declines in favor of working on the barge—a chance to explore his identity and freedom apart from the system: “What you see as being generous or as being exploitation has everything to do with who you’re giving it to” he tells Philipose, adding, “It helped that my father believed that it was his fate to be a player.” He considered himself fortunate to be working with Parambil!”. Joppan, on the other hand, chooses a different path: “I can’t do much about being dubbed a player. But I have the option of living like one”. Caste and class injustices cannot be remedied in a single person or generation, but Joppan is determined to shape his own destiny.
Faith enters the lives of the Parambils once more. Since the late 1800s, the Maramon Convention has provided an opportunity for the Indian Christian community to congregate and reconnect with their values. As the narrator points out, “Malayalis of all religions doubt everything, except their faith”. At this specific gathering, held in 1964, the reverend who will speak, the fictional Rory McGillicutty, replaces the real Billy Graham, and his form of evangelical preaching is novel to this group. When the reverend begins to speak of his sexual indiscretions, his translator, Uplift Master, changes the tone of the message, utilizing the opportunity to impress upon those gathered that the region requires a hospital; his justifiable self-interest will eventually result in a new hospital in Parambil. This hijacking of the reverend’s message is another iteration of The Will to Believe, as Uplift Master takes advantage of the reverend’s unearned authority, channeling it toward his own community’s needs.
Nonetheless, as with other sections of the book, this one concludes in tragedy: Both Big Ammachi and her daughter, Baby Mol, perish on the same night. Big Ammachi, on the other hand, is aware of what is to come, thanks to Baby Mol’s supernatural foresight. Even while she worries about Elsie’s soul, she is able to make amends with Philipose: “Drowning accidentally is terrible, but drowning oneself deliberately is a mortal sin,” she thinks . She never expresses her concern to Philipose. Instead, she begs his pardon. When he asks what she wants, she says, “Everything.” We can sometimes inadvertently injure each other”. Big Ammachi passes away knowing that Philipose has (largely) recovered and that Mariamma will be cared for properly.
Part 8 Analysis
When Mariamma arrives in Madras for medical school, the city has changed dramatically since her father’s time. “Madras has changed from her father’s brief student days when the British were everywhere, their pith helmets bobbing on the streets and the majority of the cars carrying white people,” she writes. Only their ghosts remain in these colossal structures” . Memories of the empire had faded by 1968, when Mariamma arrives, though they will never be totally erased: “Mariamma has no bitterness. It’s all hers today, whatever its origins”. India is entering a new era in its history, just as Mariamma is entering a new era in her family’s history. She will become the doctor Big Ammachi wished for, someone who will comprehend and solve the Condition.
While Mariamma is settling in, Lenin is losing trust. In his first letter to Mariamma, he writes, “After all these years, all I know is that my life was spared to serve God.” But what if God intended for me to serve in another capacity?” . His seminary days are coming to an end. Later, he informs her that “my faith has vanished” and he is “lost'”. However, he soon rises beyond his despair, discovering The Will to Believe in another form of calling: “Call it communism or whatever you like, but standing up for the rights of the lowest caste appeals to me”. When he joins the militant Naxalite gang, he risks his life and freedom for his vision of social justice, mirroring the deeds of religious martyrs who make similar sacrifices for their beliefs. Mariamma’s fight with her psychology in the aftermath of her sexual attack mirrors Lenin’s struggles with his faith. For a time, she too loses her way: “Outwardly, she has brushed off the horrible scene with Brijee. Her insides, though, are still in turmoil. She is embarrassed to confront her father”. While the humiliation she feels should not be her burden, it is virtually hard for her to overcome.
When the two ultimately meet, they are “both marked” in different ways. Lenin has physical scars from his associations, whilst Mariamma has mental wounds from her meetings with men. These markers distinguish them from others while bringing them closer together; they understand each other. “As a girl, she despised the newly arrived Lenin for his antics, but she couldn’t stop herself from following him,” Mariamma writes. Why? She had to wait and see what occurred next. It was compelled”. As a result, when Lenin informs Mariamma that he has joined the Naxalites, she is stunned—and enraged. She is well aware that this expedition will result in his jail or death. In her mind, the couple would have no future. Nonetheless, Mariamma forgives him, echoing Big Ammachi’s request for forgiveness in the previous section.
Mariamma is left befuddled by Philipose’s death, albeit it will serve as a catalyst for her discovery of the Condition’s source. Mariamma has her concerns about the disease’s origins even before Philipose drowns:
Mariamma considers the Condition. With her knowledge of anatomy and physiology, she already believes that the condition must include regions of the brain linked with hearing and balance. Immersion in water may induce messages to flow over to [other] areas of the brain in those affected by the Condition.
All of this supposition will be confirmed by a post-mortem examination of Philipose’s brain. Before her father’s accident, Mariamma spent some time with him during the holidays. They discuss Joppan and the Parambil estate. When Joppan takes over as manager at Parambil, Philipose comments, “You resist fate, but the hound finds you anyway”. The phrase foreshadows Philipose’s demise when the fate of his family catches up with him. When Philipose sees the tiny child struggling in the water, he is powerless to intervene. He dives in after the infant as if trying to save both his own son and his half-brother, JoJo, who drowned before he was born.
Part 9 Analysis
Mariamma’s observations regarding the Condition also indicate something about Kerala’s Christians: “[T]hey are related. The community of Saint Thomas Christians has grown in size, but they all have relatives from the initial families that converted Doubting Thomas to Christianity” . The subject of Condition and Connection is mirrored in this interconnected community since the past that ties them is also the basis of their shared condition, a condition that offers an undercurrent of meaning to their communal existence. This finding also foreshadows Mariamma’s future discovery regarding her paternity, as she is not blood-related despite being raised by Big Ammachi. Nonetheless, their paths never crossed. “Every family has secrets,” the marriage broker assures Mariamma, “but not all secrets are meant to deceive.” “What defines a family, molay, is not blood, but the secrets they share”. Again, this alludes to Mariamma’s eventual realization that Philipose is not her father, that the truth was hidden from her not to deceive, but to protect. This will become clearer in the latter section of the book.
The house in Parambil becomes the site of the breaking of another curse: The Injustice of Caste and Class. Here, Joppan, a so-called untouchable, will dine with Anna, who is not a servant but a big sister, and Mariamma: “Parambil has changed. They are all from the same caste and are family” . At Parambil, the ancient and oppressive caste system is no longer respected. Family comes before rankings, and the family that has formed on the estate is one in which none of the members are blood relatives.
Mariamma’s research into the condition reveals some surprising facts regarding the sickness. Her piece, which was published in the journal for which Philipose formerly wrote, details the different forms of the Condition: “It’s fascinating how all of the women with the Condition are remembered as ‘eccentric.'” That was as noticeable as their hatred of water”. The editor continues, “These eccentricities aren’t explained by a tumor.” Here’s my theory: “What if these acoustic neuromas have a mental counterpart, some aberration that’s part of the Condition and manifests itself as ‘eccentricity’?”. This becomes critical in Lenin’s prospective rehabilitation. If his irresponsible behaviors are, at least in part, the product of the Condition, he may be released from prison one day—and sooner than planned.
Mariamma also points out that the “eccentricity” detected by her research and highlighted in the magazine article can never be completely removed from Lenin’s personality—even if the tumor is removed. This, however, does not diminish her feelings for him: “She likes this Lenin. No. She is madly in love with him. Despite how much they’ve changed, she believes that a person’s essence is formed at the age of ten. “The ‘eccentric’ part cannot be removed” . While Lenin is finally carried away to prison—and the reader never hears of his or Mariamma’s fate—it is safe to assume that Mariamma will wait for him to emerge and that he will return to her as soon as he can. There are some relationships that, like water, cannot be broken.
Part 10 Analysis
When Mariamma returns to Digby in an attempt to find the truth about her parentage, he lets her observe one of his hand procedures. Despite his previous injuries, he has learned to do these exact surgeries, primarily using his better left hand. His ability has “grudgingly impressed” Mariamma. “It’s not in any textbook,” Digby says of his tactics. It takes faith. “You must believe without evidence”. Digby employs religious terminology to describe the underlying psychology of his rediscovered abilities. It’s a faith he must actively select, highlighting the importance of The Will to Believe. While Digby’s “faith” may not be directly related to Big Ammachi’s or, later, Philipose’s faith, it is nevertheless a statement that demonstrates how much the concept of faith—belief without proof—influences the characters in this world.
Part 10 also stresses how much India has changed in the years since British rule, particularly in the chapters in which Digby tells how he and Elsie met. As Digby points out, by 1950, there were fewer white faces at the exclusive clubs: “Since Independence in 1947 and the departure of many white estate owners, Indians have made up the majority at this gathering.” Yet, to Digby’s surprise, the tone of Planters’ Week remained intact”. While Indian pride has increased immensely over the years—consider Mariamma’s declaration that Madras is hers—the repercussions of colonial control remain. “Indian national pride was at its height, but the educated, moneyed class, and certainly the ex-military officers, inevitably had English language and culture deeply enmeshed with their Indian ones”. In many ways, the postcolonial period is a continuation of the colonial past.
When Digby and Elsie reunite, she is a “grown woman,” as Digby remarks; he believes she has “caught up to him”. This allows him to reevaluate her role in his life—not as a youngster assisting him with painting classes to rehabilitate his hands, but as a lady who has known and endured sorrow. The two have developed a stronger bond. Hands, however, continue to play an important role:
Elsie took a look at Digby’s hands. He extended his right hand and flexed his fingers, and she sheepishly smiled, caught in the act. She examined it carefully, trying to reconcile it with what she remembered. She nodded in agreement and then fixed her gaze on him. He couldn’t look away, and he didn’t have to .
This candid assessment, with its underlying tension, frees Digby to talk freely to her. When she talks about herself as an artist and what it was like to give up her work, she glances down at her hands. “Art is never finished,” Digby assures her. Only abandoned” and attributes the thought to Michelangelo while conceding that he “could have made that up”. Digby is surprised and pleased by her laughter at his arrogance. The two’s friendship begins with his approval of her artistic tendencies, which Philipose destroys rather than supports.
When Elsie approaches the cliff’s edge, Digby secretly begs her not to jump; he has already decided that he wants to be with her. When he is able to gently bring her back from the edge, he hopes—wishes—that she has decided to live: “I’ll never let you fall, never let you go, not as long as I live” . Even after he finds her horrible secret, he keeps this unsaid commitment. “The nature of the happiness that came from love was that it was fleeting, evanescent,” Digby says when Elsie returns to Parambil and stays so long that he thinks she will never return. Nothing endured as long as the land—the soil—would outlast them all” . Elsie is returned to him via water, floating down the river in a supposed suicide attempt. Digby sees Elsie as “a resurrected Ophelia” , just as she helped bring him back to life all those years before, echoing Mariamma’s rebirth of Lenin. Many of the characters in the book are martyred and/or resurrected; the theme is ultimately one of redemption.
Elsie’s leprosy diagnosis prevents the reunification of her chosen family; Mariamma, the child, is unable to join them. It would jeopardize not just her health but also her capacity to prosper in life; children of leprosy parents are rarely accepted into society, even if they survive the disease. Digby, for his part, knows that her condition is progressive and incurable, unlike the Condition that Mariamma tries to fix, at least in the case of her great love, Lenin. This, too, reflects the Condition and Connection concept. In this work, the term condition might refer to the Condition that plagues Big Ammachi’s family, any health ailment, or the human condition—being vulnerable to illness, injury, and death, and hence to sadness. This is the condition that connects Digby and Elsie, as he determines that the love they have is worth any risk to him, any anguish in the end: “This is the end of one life,” he thinks, “and the beginning of another I could never have imagined.” “I don’t have a choice, which is the best kind of choice” . He swears to remain with her, just as he did before learning of her fate.
“How is she to reconcile the long-dead mother with this living apparition on the lawn?” Mariamma wonders. Her astonishment at realizing that Digby is her father, as well as her anguish at meeting her mother after she has already been blinded and scarred by her illness, nearly overwhelms her. She silently begs the guy she mistook for her father and then recalls Elsie has come to see her several times, dressed as a beggar at the annual religious gathering. It appears to be a sign—an acceptance from her father, Philipose—because Mariamma goes to the window where her mother has pushed her palms against it, matching them with her own.
Discussion Questions
Why is it considered fitting that the Saint Thomas Christians were converted by the apostle Doubting Thomas, even if this account may be apocryphal? How do the characters in this story experience the testing and breaking of their faith multiple times over the course of several decades?
How does the Condition and its consequences affect the Parambil family throughout generations? Can you elaborate on the other tragedies they have to face alongside it? What are some of the tragic events that Digby and his cohort, including Rune Orqvist, Celeste Arnold, and Elsie, experience throughout the story?
Is it challenging, or even impossible, to maintain faith when confronted with such circumstances? Do any characters in the story manage to develop a stronger bond with their faith by the conclusion? What are some potential outcomes when individuals with inherited faith face challenges that put their beliefs to the test? How might these experiences lead to a more resilient and intentional form of belief?
How does the death of JoJo impact Big Ammachi’s faith? How does the aftermath of the situation make her question her ability to believe? Why does she refuse to have her own daughter, Baby Mol, baptized? Why does she doubt whether it will have any measurable impact?
What does she mean when she says “Grace didn’t save JoJo” in her conversations with God? How does Big Ammachi’s faith get tested to the breaking point after experiencing multiple losses within a short period of time?
What might have motivated Elsie, the daughter-in-law, to leave the estate following Ninan’s death? How does the character’s scolding of God and blaming Him for the deaths and absences reflect her attitude towards religion?
What is the significance or meaning behind the number 417? What are some potential factors that could contribute to Mariamma inheriting her grandmother’s tendency toward doubt? In what ways does she rely on her faith despite claiming to have rejected it after her father’s death? Why does she close her eyes when the nurse prays?
Why does Lenin require assistance and what kind of help does he need? What role does faith play in the protagonist’s life when her loved one is on the brink of death?
What are the factors that contribute to Digby’s failure of faith when he is reunited with Elsie? What are the implications of her return to him, considering the additional challenge of her contracting leprosy? How does her despair over her son’s death contribute to her vulnerability to suicidal thoughts? What does the protagonist’s hesitation at the edge of the cliff reveal about her state of mind? How does the other character’s actions contribute to her change of heart? How does the suicide of his own mother continue to affect him? What role does the protagonist’s faith in his love for Elsie play in his ability to persevere despite her illness?
What kind of effort is required to maintain a strong belief? Who knows about this? How does Big Ammachi’s knowledge compare to Mariamma’s and Philipose’s? What is Philipose’s relationship with atheism?
What is Big Ammachi’s reaction when she finds out that Philipose’s tutor is an atheist? What other reasons might there be for him sending him into your life?
What is the significance or relevance of the number 236 in the context of the discussion? How does Mariamma’s realization about her grandmother’s prayer impact her perspective on her career as a doctor and scientist? What role does Mariamma’s fundamental faith play in her life, despite her doubts and disappointments? What does Philipose express in one of his Ordinary Man columns before his death?
What does the doctor in the parable mean when he says that “belief” is the common ingredient in all cures? Is the effectiveness of a cure dependent on the patient’s belief? Why did the user express desperation to the doctor? What is the significance of the phrase “And I believe” in the given context?
Reflection Essays
1. What roles does faith play in the lives of the characters? What distinguishes their situation in the Indian context?
2. What function does caste play in Indian culture as shown in this novel? What effect does it have on characters like Joppan and Lenin?
3. Contrast Big Ammachi’s personality with that of her granddaughter and namesake, Mariamma. What similarities do they share? What distinguishes them? What is Big Ammachi’s influence on her granddaughter?
4. What is Philipose’s function in the broader Parambil family? What effect did his death have on Mariamma’s work on the Condition?
5. The Condition includes legendary elements as well as a scientific explanation. Do both perspectives hold true? What is your reasoning?
6. How do the politics of empire, communism, radicalism, and independence affect the lives of those in Parambil?
7. Does Digby Kilgour get acceptance into Indian society? What is your reasoning?
8. What role does naming play in this book? Why is it that so many characters are identified by their roles rather than their given names?
9. In the text, what does leprosy (Hansen’s disease) represent?
What exactly is the “covenant of water”? How is this agreement respected among Parambil residents? What is the source of the problem?