Book Review | Unflinching look at custom and caste

When I read Vultures written by Dalpat Chauhan, translated from the Gujarati by Hemang Ashwinkumar, I had tears in my eyes long after I closed the book. Originally written in 1991, as a Gujarati novel titled Gidh, its English translation suitably titled Vultures is a stark and unflinching portrayal of custom-sanctified violence, debt bondage and caste labour. This sets forth a chain of memories, with Bhalabha morphing into his younger self and plunging us right into Iso’s life and story. Iso’s parents, his father Ghemar who made flat-soled slippers and his mother who cut grass and threshed grains in the fields of the rich landlords, both lived an extravagant life which resulted in their son Iso slaving in Mavajibha’s field, first as a pendhariyo then as a serf, in exchange for food, in a series of traps called auto-renewing annual bonds. The story transports the readers into the fields, under the harsh sun, watching Iso lament his accursed destiny, doomed to endless drudgery, Iso wished for a free unfettered flight, much like the vultures and kites soaring overhead.