Sivakami’s world comes crashing around her when at eighteen, she becomes a widow with two young children to bring up in the backdrop of nineteenth century south India. How this illiterate, young woman, belonging to an orthodox Brahmin family and bound by the social traditions of a rigid, unyielding society brings up not only her children but also grand children in a remote, sleepy village near Tiruchi, thereby becoming a solid family bedrock forms the seed of Padma Viswanathan’s novel,”The Toss of a Lemon”. The story of Sivakami could be the story of anyone of us. This dimunitive,plain looking illiterate woman who cannot walk in public gaze in daylight; who is required by social norms to shave her head and cast away all symbols of feminineness single-handedly raises her two children to adulthood and marriage.
At the time of the story, eight year old Sivakami is married to a village astrologer, who has the singular misfortune of knowing beforehand through a star forecast that he is destined to die in the third year after a son is born. As fate would have it, a son is born to the couple, and the occasion instead of being joyous becomes one of foreboding doom as Sivakami’s husband starts preparing in a matter-of-fact manner for his impending death. He has lands,in which his tenants grow paddy and other crops- revenue and other dues have to be collected, agricultural produce has to be stored and sold. All this is a man’s work- how can Sivakami manage all this, that too without going out to the fields? So Hanumarathnam, her husband appoints a supervisor who will take over all this work after his death! But Sivakami cannot afford to live in a state of practical ignorance. So, Sivakami, who hardly went to school starts learning from Hanumarathnam, how to maintain household as well as agricultural accounts, in order to equip herself for any eventuality!
The prediction of Hanumarathnam’s death comes true and Sivakami is hurled into widowhood with all its macabre trappings. So what has life got in store for a child widow who till yesterday was wearing delicate trinkets and playing pallankuzhi but now has to bring up two infants in a world where she cannot remarry but must live an austere life devoid of any comfort! Brahmin society required that a widow should merely subsist on minimum and not be a burden. Sivakami however carries her heavy burden on her light shoulders and accepts her new state with stoic pragmatism. Perhaps her simple, abiding faith in the household deity of Ramar, to which she makes a daily offering of fruits and milk stands by her in her hour of need. For whatever be her mental or physical state, throughout her life, Sivakam performs pooja to the Ramar, without blame, without expectation. Women those days learnt very early to cope with their lot whatever that may have been in store; some may have had a better life but destiny was never in their hands! Women like Sivakami were tough and resilent; they managed to grab little time from the daily grind to indulge in “ladylike” pursuits like embroidery and weaving floral garlands. We also get glimpses of frugal and disciplined house-keeping of those days.-children sit around their grandmother Sivakami, after their return from school and she gives each child a nutrition laddoo which would last them till dinner-time; there were no fancy tiffins to suit varied tastes and tongues. Such disciplined upbringing stood the kids in good stead-they learnt the value of wholesome simple food without fancy or frill. Extended families were the norm, not the exception; especially in matters of extending hospitality, people’s hearts were larger than their hearths. Men were socially superior because they had to fulfil the role of Protector of the womenfolk; they demanded unquestioning and implicit obedience and we find the women accepted this situation without murmur or complaint.
Sivakami does a fine balancing act of fulfilling her parental responsibilities without even stepping out of the house and without breaking social tradition. She not only rears her children to adulthood but also her grand children, the children born to her daughter. Once again Fate plays a cruel game with Sivakami, when herdaughter dies during child-birth, and the role play of sivakami’s life is enacted out. Sivakami sees through six grand-daughters and three grand-sons through childhood, adolescence, marriage and even childbirths of great grand -children. This small-made lady never has the time to think of herself or why fate has ordained her to live thus, there is so much of household work to be attended to- Sivakami makes all preparations herself for the various family functions, cooks are hired only for weddings etc. even while running the household and managing even the expenses of the grand-children because the son-in-law is a good for nothing.
Frugality, kind-heartedness, patience, attentive care while performing household work were some of the values that Sivakami practised every single day of her life. Into this rivetting tale of Sivakami’s family is woven the socio-economic changes of British India and already the clamour of freedom is heard in the distance. Sivakami’s own son dubs her an “ignorant, superstitious” widow but conditioned to live as she does, Sivakami is unable to reinvent herself. This leads to a strained almost hostile relationship with her son; yet stout of heart and mind that Sivakami is, she moves on.
Sivakami’s world and the times that she lived in may be bygone and forgotten. Yet the value system that Sivakami was, will always sustain us against the odds thrown up by life.
