Book Review | Love, and the dilemmas of devadasi life

The novel is exquisitely multi-layered in its themes — devadasi, freedom, love, patriarchy, women —peeling back one from the other seamlessly — like strands of a tapestry, separate yet intertwined, all together making up the composite picture of an individual, a community, society, and nation. By narrating the story of the beauteous Kasturi, the dancer par excellence, her sister Thilakam, the queen of melody and the others who are part of their lives — the mother, the brother, the grandmother, the friend, the lover, the patron — Vaasanthi documents the heartrending predicament of the lives of not only the women of the devadasi clan but all women across caste and class. Although the devadasi families are considered of a low caste, there are others who are even lower — like Singaram, the sculptor with whom Kasturi falls in love, and who would not be accepted by her mother because of his caste! At one point, Kasturi remarks wryly to her friend Lakshmi who is actively working towards getting a law abolishing the devadasi practice passed, that once the law comes into effect and the women start getting married, they will forget the Ragas and only remember recipes!