Title : The Purple Line
Author : Priyamvada N. PurushothamPublisher : Harper Collins, 2012
Pages : 226
Genre : Fiction / Women Oriented
My Rating : 9 /10
Reviewed For : The Book Lovers
Priyamvada’s
debut novel, The Purple Line, delves into womanhood and explores the
significance & intricacies revolving around the elusive “Purple Line” that
symbolises Pregnancy....
It’s the era
of Star Wars & Tennessee Williams & the place is Madras - 1982 (before
it morphed into Chennai), where Mrinalini, a typical teenager, is besotted by
poetry & finds solace in the literary world. She breezes past from one
vocation to another like a running train as her heart makes journey stops on
each. But then puberty hits & the hormonal changes conduced by her
pubescence bestir her dormant Tam Brahm genes & in a moment of epiphany, she
finally realizes that she wants to be a gynaecologist...Mrinalini then sets on a
journey that makes her laugh, cry & teaches her the true meaning of
womanhood...
Fast forward
to the year 2000, where Mrinalini is now a Gynaecologist with a Masters from
London. She returns back to Chennai to set up a clinic in her ancestral
home...As a gynaecologist, Mrinalini encounters motley of characters in her
patients everyday but six of Mrinalini’s patients instantaneously strike the
chord. This is Mrinalini’s story & the story of these six women whose lives
are unknowingly linked together like fibres braided in a
rope..
First there
is Zubeida, a typical burqa clad muslim woman, whose entire existence engulfs
everything that encompasses womanhood. Zubeida has four boys & yet she
yearns for a girl because she firmly believes that only a girl will be the
absolute redemption of her motherhood. Zubeida wants to be that ideal mother for
her daughter, a mother that she never had & always craved for. She finds
solace in watching movies with her neighbour while pining for a girl but then
one incident changes her entire way of
existence..
Then there is
Megha, wed in a heavily patriarchal Marwadi family where having a son is a
quintessential status quo.. Needless to say Megha desperately wants a boy, a boy
who will lift her entire state of beingness to a higher stratum.. For Megha, a
mother of three daughters, delivering a boy to the family is her only way of
achieving salvation but then it she realises that it takes a one broken heart to
heal another...
Leela is like
a Shakespearean sonnet, who is unblemished & always so perfect that wherever
she goes she leaves behind a trail of immaculateness. On an first impression to
any outsider, like Mrinalini - Leela’s world would seem picture perfect like
those in fairy tales but as you move closer, you would see the cracks in the
otherwise impeccable wall...But Leela never let the cracks run deeper & in
her quest she never experimented, nor explored and never fell down to fit the
pieces of herself back together...
Pooja, the 16
year old falls in love and slides headlong into the tunnel of a painful
loneliness. She is bowled over by the Cricket Captain of her school team and
ends up being pregnant. She comes to the clinic to abort the child but as she
does so she learns to embrace a brave new
world...
Tulsi, an art
director, has been trying to make a kid with her husband Dhruv for 3 years but
without any results. She follows her ovulation cycles meticulously but as she
goes on & on the method loses its rhythm and the passion seems to seep out
from her unfertile efforts. Tulsi is an artist waiting in the wings and
ultimately a time comes when she realises what she truly wants & what she
can have.
Anjolie is a
performance artist who has the capability to breathe life even into a sleepy
consultation room by her mere presence. She is a fading artist who has mastered
her emotions & conquered her fears but when her time comes she must know
that it takes two sounds to make a
heartbeat...
This is a
beautifully crafted tale that explores the various convolutions of a female mind
and reveals the vulnerability of women along with their dreams. The plot
narrates seven different stories including Mrinalini’s own tangled tale of love
but they flow seamlessly into one another be it Zubeida’s tale ending on a
delicious note or Megha’s desperation for her own selfish interests or the
abrupt ending of Leela’s tale. The writing is sensous, vibrant & audacious
but not brassy. The Another high point is the aesthetic way in which the author
has highlighted realistic stories like teen pregnancy or the unwantedness of a
girl child... A must read for every woman!!
