Like every society all over the world, we have a reality persisting and affecting our lives for centuries, which many of us don’t really like to own up to. In certain societies it might be the race of the people or the sect one comes from, but in our case it is the caste system. A societal classification that is so deep-rooted in our culture that it has permeated into every single religion that one might find in our country. Malayalam writer Vinoy Thomas in Blackened, translated into English by Nandakumar K has tried to reveal the underbelly that exists simultaneously with several other layered realities.
Philippose came from the prominent family of Adhikarathil, who were amongst the oldest and most respected Christian families of Kerala. As the youngest son of Kuncheriya, he was married off to Rosamma, the daughter of the leading grandee of Alakode. But when even after a couple of years they were unable to have a child, Kuncheriya ordered them to go to the church of Arthunkal and pray to Reverend Father Giacomo Fenicio (locally called Veluthachan), a 17th-century Italian priest, to give them a child as fair as him. But things take an interesting turn when a child is born to them who is significantly darker than his family, which inadvertently gives rise to suspicion of his lineage. This shapes Eranimos Philippose’s life and leads him to go on a quest to unravel the question of his identity and even legitimacy.
Originally written as Karikkottakkari and succinctly translated by Nandakumar K Vinoy Thomas in just 160-something pages, the book has been able to address the issue of caste, colourism and even the history of Christianity in the region of Kerala.
Blackened also addresses how caste plays a role in Christianity that is practiced in India, with the obsession over purity and ‘high-born’ families (sometimes veiled as ‘respected’ families). It is also a commentary on religious conversion, which was supposed to lead people towards a caste-neutral environment, but instead they imbibed all the social ills of the caste system, including the fetishisation of a fairer skin colour. The feudal structures of the past are still carried forward through different forms like legacy, et al and it is a reality which needs to be talked about at regular intervals in order to dismantle them and simultaneously keep the conversation alive in our memories.
Books like these, which carry such difficult and, for some, even controversial narratives so seamlessly with the plot and its characters, have the capability to leave a lasting imprint on the minds of the readers. Also, the fact that the author used this opportunity to locate pride in one’s true identity while demanding for equality reinstates what a society should be like and refocuses on the quest for attaining it.