Book Review: Decoding love and caste in British India

Titled Things to Leave Behind, Namita Gokhale’s book tells the story of Brahmin women in Kumaon, and is a manifestation of the author’s reaction to the Brahaminical and patriarchal setup. “These are the stories that nobody else in the world knew. I felt I would be betraying the stories if I didn’t give them a voice. The story is part of the family lore,” says Gokhale, who is the co-founder of the prestigious annual Jaipur Literature Festival. “We discuss a lot about Dalits and their struggles. But not many people know about Brahmin women. I am very proud to be a Brahmin but at another level, I’m deeply ashamed. Those in the cities can’t imagine what happens outside,” adds Namita.

Published by Penguin India, the 302-page book was launched by writer and politician Shashi Tharoor at the national capital recently. Set in the years spanning from 1840 to 1912, the book chronicles the mixed legacy of the British Indian past and reveals through a complex love story the finer nuances of caste, colonialism and an emerging modernity. At the heart of the story is a tangled love quadrangle, and a painting, and the indomitable spirit of pahari women. The main protagonist of the narrative, however, is Kumaon, in its history, people and landscape, the Kumaon where Namita grew up and which she continues to inhabit through her books and dreams. “It is about our own time when everything is changing. The human heart, love and freedom, these things are constant but the human nature does not change. Be it in the Mahabharata or in a recent novel like this. So it is about people coping with change,” explains the author. 

Describing Things to Leave Behind as her most ambitious work yet, Namita, who has penned more than a dozen books including both fiction and non-fiction, says the book was very difficult to write as it was an “absolute mess of stories”. The book, which is the culmination of her Himalayan Trilogy, comes after A Himalayan Love Story and The Book of Shadows. 

She says the British Raj was responsible for solidifying caste system in India adding that the interlocutors and local informants the British had were “mostly Brahmins” who used “caste hugely towards the cause of their own glory”. She adds, “While Brahmins did contribute for transmission of knowledge, they were not very liberal in sharing that transmission. And yet, there have been people who had the guts to choose their own paths. These are the people, particularly the women who inhabit this book, whose stories will win your heart with their defiance of convention.” 

Author: Namita Gokhale

Publisher: Penguin India 

Genre: Non-fiction