In the wake of a dream

“God doesn’t see in absolutes. Those are the ideas of man.”

This is a statement of rebellion, if not blasphemy, when one imagines the speaker to be a Brahmin priest from 7th-century CE Tamil India. But then, all of Sharanya Manivannan’s art is about rebellion and seeking. In her latest novel, The Queen of Jasmine Country , this pithy, profound sentence comes as reassuring advice from a father to a daughter — when protagonist Kodhai and her adoptive father Vishnuchittan confer on making a choice between the material and the spiritual. A slim volume — just 146 pages — this work of biographical fiction is expansive in its beauty and ardour.

Anyone familiar with Manivannan’s work will agree that her writing is both sublime and powerful, in ways that echo the innermost instincts of womanhood. Her craft has deservedly been lauded, with her earlier work The High Priestess Never Marries winning the Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity. She has written two collections of poems — Witchcraft and The Altar of the Only World — as well asa children’s book titled The Amuchi Pucchi.

Manivannan picks the legendary figure of Andal, an Alvar or Vaishnavite poet-saint, for her fifth book and first novel, and intertwines three subjects that come organically to her — femininity, love and magic. Andal is less history and more legend, because very little is known about the personal life of this devotional poet. She is known only through anthologies such as Nachiyar Tirumoli and Tiruppavai, all of which speak of her ecstatic, erotic lovefor the Hindu god Vishnu.

For those unfamiliar with Tamil tradition, poet Meera is a good parallel to draw from. Though a few centuries apart, both women were poet-saints from the Bhakti tradition, belonged to well-off families, and worshipped Vishnu-Krishna in the madhura bhava — where the devotee sees god as a lover or husband.

Much has been written about Meera, but Andal remains a mystery. While she has been exalted to the position of a goddess, and the ritual singing of her poems during the month of Margali (mid-December to mid-January) is an important part of Tamil culture, her life remains an enigma. Manivannan assumes the voice of Andal and imagines her story. The author has said that the subject was less of her choice and more of a divine summons — in 2014, Andal appeared in her dream and urged her to write.

Called Kodhai as a child, the protagonist Andal grows up in the the small town of Puduvai. Like Sita, she is found on the earth, in the midst of a Tulsi grove, by a temple priest. Vishnuchittan (aka Perialvar), one of the 12 great Alvar poets, adopts and raises her with letters and learning — a rare privilege for the women of the time. Steeped in Vishnu lore from childhood, Kodhai’s heart is invariably and powerfully drawn to that resplendent deity. Her life revolves around the temple of Vatapatrasayi Vishnu — he who sleeps upon a Banyan leaf — and she is unequivocally devoted to him. The god, in turn, won’t accept any garlands which are not worn by her first. Manivannan weaves this beautiful legend into her narrative. But this bhakta-bhagvan relationship is merely the plinth upon which Manivannan’s story stands; it is really about the temple of a woman’s body and the inner sanctum of her heart.

Manivannan’s rendition of ‘femaleness’ is exquisite in its insight and detail. As Kodhai, she writes about adolescent desire and does it with perfect conviction. Through metaphors of fire and earth, we are awakened to the blazing and fertile landscape of her being. We see her in defiance, in joyous abandon, in agony and in rapture. We see her undertaking vows in the name of the mother goddess and the god of love, seeking a lover who can rise to her needs.

She is sure-footed when she describes the many cages within which a woman must lock her desires. It is hard not to weep at this predicament, and yet laud a woman’s determination when she writes, “Because my father will not allow me to travel again, because this town will not let me leave its grasp, because I am born a woman in this century, borrowed into this caste, bound by cruel laws and cultural mores — because all of this restrains me, I will walk a pilgrimage in my mind.”

Kodhai turns to poetry to record and relieve her ache. But hers is no ordinary need and no ordinary man will do. Her rituals are of the world, but she is beyond it. Her searing devotion bends the will of god, who then asks for her hand in marriage in her father’s dream. Kodhai is united with the lover supreme, and is immortalised as Andal.

Manivannan’s writing is honest, beautiful and compassionate. Her recreation of 7th-century Tamil society is believable, and her storytelling, hypnotic. Her poetic prose serves as a delightful and sensual channel for Andal’s life, love and art. The poet-goddess could not have picked a better medium.

Urmi Chanda-Vaz is a writer and researcher who engages with Indian cultural history

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