Book Review: TOMB OF SAND by Geetanjali Shree (translated by Daisy Rockwell)

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Author Geetanjali Shree wrote the best possible one-liner for the heart of the story herself: "An octogenarian lady from Delhi crosses the border on foot without a visa in search of an old lover." But this is only one of several threads in this unforgettable tribute to motherhood, family, nationhood, and the power of story and literature.

When a book written by a not-s0-well-known author from a not-so-well-known publishing house wins the International Booker Prize, inquiring minds will of course want to read it! (By the way, I'm so happy at having discovered Tilted Axis Press! I foresee a good deal of my future salary going into obtaining their remarkable titles! They should be more famous!)

I wasn't expecting TOMB OF SAND to be 735 pages long, but don't let its length put you off! It didn't FEEL like 700+ pages, which is a testament to the author's skill. The language (apart from the unfamiliar Hindu terms) is simple and lyrical, with word play and literary techniques that, incredibly, did not detract from the narrative pace. What a difficult thing to do!

The four star rating is not a judgment on the book's merits, but more on the limitations of this Filipino reader: with all the Hindu cultural and historical references inside, I must confess it took 200 pages of getting used to, with the remaining 500 pages easy going once I had gotten my literary bearings. Geetanjali Shree's prose, translated by Daisy Rockwell, is efficient and MOVING in both its meanings for speed and impact. I was tearing through pages, NEEDING to know what happened next. Thank goodness for Google (although some parts were too exciting that I simply couldn't be bothered putting the book down to input characters hurriedly on my phone, and just forged ahead. Context clues rock!).

I must tell of a clever literary trick the author pulled. She starts with a bang ("There were two women and one death,") but then adds 200 pages of world building that made the reader focus on so much noise of shallow every-day-living going on in the story (and almost made me put down the book out of boredom), when BAM! AN INCIDENT occurs that jerks us back into the true heart of the tale: the eighty-year-old lady whose name I shall not reveal because I do not wish to spoil the story, hehe). "See how easy it is to forget about a widow if she does nothing but sleep off her depression?" Shree said to this shocked reader, making me an accomplice to the heroine's almost-undoing.

I was weeping by then, deeply moved by scenes in pages that my family recently enacted only a few months ago. I kept thinking of the Filipino saying "The mother is the light of the home," because of the many times the author wrote of the heroine being like the Sun, or having sunlight hit her in strange and beautiful ways. Some of the most touching scenes where the ones showing how her adult children constantly sought for their mother's smile, or how they lit up upon seeing hers. How they cared for their mother in her dotage, and how they were sucked up in her rebirth when she sought to go on her quest.

This book is about borders ("What is a border? It's something that surrounds an existence, it is a person's perimeter... however, a border is not created to be removed. It is meant to illuminate both sides... a border is a horizon where two worlds meet and embrace.") and transcending them. Shree didn't just mean the Partition of Hindustan and Pakistan, but anything that was divided from others because of religion or gender.

Speaking of the borders between genders, this was also the first time I learned about the hijra in India (persons of the third gender), and how cruel their countrymen are towards them, despite their existence in the culture since antiquity.

This book is a universal appeal for forgiveness and understanding, warning about the perils of differentiation: "Proclaiming divisions has become a celebration for some. A jubilee of hatred. The joy of rifts."

Shree's book is a worthy prize winner, indeed. And has left this reader thirsty for more works that highlight stories that might not be highlighted by social media, but are as important and rich as their Western counterparts (if not more!). Shree's choice to write this in Hindi, despite being fluent in English, is a testament to her dedication.

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