By Kevin Brown
Ruthvika Rao’s debut novel, The Fertile Earth, opens with a brief scene in 1970 where the Deshmukh family is murdered outside their house in Irumi. The Deshmukhs are the zamindars of Irumi, a type of feudal landlord who own and manage everything in the area, much like the owners of land in the post-Civil War South who supposedly rented out their land to sharecroppers. In much the same way, the Deshmukhs loaned money for equipment, seeds, and anything else the farmers who lived in the area around the Deshmukhs needed to produce a crop to those farmers who had owned their land for decades. When that crop failed, the Deshmukhs took their land, then leased it back to them, essentially enslaving them. As Rao describes the Deshmukhs, “Their authority, their birthright, and their power over the lives of those who lived in Irumi was absolute. On the far edge of Irumi, on a low hill, stood a temple. The villagers might pray there, but the Deshmukhs were the real gods of Irumi.” While they seem all-powerful in the beginning, the narrator makes it clear that everybody knows who killed the Deshmukhs. The reader will be among that everybody by the end of the novel, as the narration backs up to 1955, then proceeds forward to the murder.
The core of the novel, though, follows Krishna and Vijaya, a boy and girl who meet and fall in love, but, because of the caste system in India, are unable to act on that love. Krishna lives on the edge of Irumi where his mother is among the laboring class, mainly doing sewing work for the Deshmukhs. Vijaya is one of the Deshmukhs’ daughters. They plan to go into the jungle to hunt a tiger that is on the loose, one that Vijaya’s uncle Surendra has also been trying to kill. On the day they finally travel into the jungle, lying to their parents, Vijaya’s younger sister Sree and Krishna’s brother Ranga go with them. Krishna brings Ranga, as he has been helping Surendra track the tiger, and he knows the jungle better than anyone else. The day doesn’t go as planned, and the events in the jungle change all of their lives and come to dominate the rest of the novel.
In the aftermath of that fateful day, Krishna, as one of the smartest children in the village, is able to leave and begin a college education, while Ranga remains in Irumi and works for Deshmukhs. Vijaya ultimately leaves and pursues an education, as well, while Sree remains at home. Over the course of a decade or so, Vijaya and Krishna communicate with one another through letters, then phone calls. . They ultimately begin to believe they have a chance at a relationship, while one development after another prevents them from doing so. That love story propels the reader through the novel, as Rao has created two realistic, broken characters whom readers want to find some happiness in their lives.
Beyond that story, though, Rao explores the political climate of India in the second half of the twentieth century. There is a growing dissatisfaction with the property and caste divide in small villages, such as Irumi, leading to the growth of the Naxalite movement, a Marxist group who seek to overthrow those who hoard land and wealth, wanting to redistribute it to the people. However, when Krishna is in college, he also becomes friends with Gagan Gupta, who is running for office by arguing that India is only strong when it is a Hindu nation, ultimately representing religious nationalism. Given the growing Naxalite feelings on college campuses, Gupta is the minority voice, but Rao makes him a compelling character, even when he seems blind to the realities around him.
During this rising tide of dissatisfaction with the caste system and inequities of wealth, the Deshmukhs remain oblivious to their role and how the village is beginning to feel about them. Though their elaborate house and land begin to decay and they struggle to find people willing to work for them, they believe that they still deserve all they have. This change appears throughout the novel, including in a trip Vijaya and Krishna take to an 8th century temple. Rao describes what has happened to it: “Time had robbed it of all rich detail. The salt and the sea air had been at work, sanding down the surface, patiently, little by little each passing day for the twelve hundred years the two temples had been standing. It saddened her that time had passed. And the people who’d built this grand thing, brought their prayers there, worshipped their gods there, were all gone.” Such change is happening throughout the country, even in villages such as Irumi. Rao also humanizes the Deshmukhs, as they have family struggles, as well as family secrets, though those are heightened by their role in the village. Vijaya’s father Mahendra dotes on her, as does her uncle Surendra (at least until the tragedy in the jungle), which is the only reason she attends university; however, her mother Saroja seems to hate her existence, the reason only appearing late in the novel.
Rao also populates her novel with minor characters, such as Katya—the Deshmukhs’ servant—and Mary, a Naxalite, who both reinforce questions of caste and wealth, but also make the world Rao has created richer and deeper. While the reader ultimately knows what will happen to the Deshmukhs (and to India, more broadly, if they’re aware of the country’s history), they care more about the history because they care about Rao’s characters. There are no easy answers in this novel, just as there aren’t for a country’s history or romantic relationships, but the questions Rao raises make spending time in this world well worth it.
Kevin Brown (he/him) teaches high school English in Nashville. He has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. You can find out more about him and his work on social media sites at @kevinbrownwrites or at http://kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.