Vasudeva’s Family

Description

Written three decades ago, this is a novel with great insights into the practice of untouchability. The book is about the politics of purity and pollution that works together with the politics of compassion, each bouncing off the other.   To break such a system, the daughter of a Brahmin should be prepared to wash the glass from which the educated, low-caste officer has drunk coffee with her father. The transformation is not easy in Vasudevaraya’s household; nevertheless, it rears a new generation of children who think for themselves and question traditional beliefs and practices. Vaidehi is one of the few writers in Kannada who could, as far back as 1982, see that the caste system was weakening. This translation captures the nuances and moods of the multi-layered narrative and symbolic language of the original.