Book Review: The Bitter Fruit Tree

Prakash Parienkar's collection, The Bitter Fruit Tree, features thirteen powerful stories set in Sattari, a forested region in northeast Goa. These narratives weave together village life, environmental challengesand deeply rooted cultural traditions. Many of the stories unfold against the backdrop of festivals like Dussehra and Holi, vividly illustrating the struggles of low-caste outsiders and those caught on the wrong side of mob hysteria, which often leads to tragic outcomes. 

The collection opens with the title story, The Bitter Fruit Tree which immediatelysteeps the reader in a world of profound bitterness. Tyalgi, a low-caste drummer, faces an impossible predicament: his wife has died inconveniently on Dussehra, halting his participation in the village ceremony. He needs to bury her according to his tradition but because he has no son to inherit his drumming duties, he is told to leave the village. Desperate, Tyalgi appeals to the gaonkars, hoping for a burial site. The only option they offer is a desolate spot at the roots of a bitter fruit tree across the river, located on government land.  Deceptively simple and deeply ironic the story highlights the plight of the poor with no redress in the face of overwhelming grief. 

Like the fruit in the story's title, life for these characters is often profoundly bitter. Floods can wash away a harvest just as those who cleared the land for others hope to gain some reward for their back breaking work. Impatience can lead to the disregard of rituals, as seen when a young mango tree is cut down without the owner's permission, destroyingany chance of profits and ultimately ending in tragedy. 

Parienkar's characters are mainly farmers and their wives who struggle to scratch out a living from their land or cattle. Their aspirations are often simple, usually revolving around the desire for sons, or, in the case of cattle owners, a she-calf to provide milk for sale. On the fringes of these villages live those who set traps for otters or build tree houses to hunt monkeys simply to survive. These dark-skinned chandals, as they are called contemptuously, are, adept with ropes or bows and arrows, occasionally in a D.H. Lawrence twist draw the attention of women like Chandreyee, whois burdened by a drunken, abusive husband. 

Names often recur across the stories, such as Tyalgi, which might be a result of the selection process or a deliberate narrative choice. While many drummer stories follow a familiar rhythm of duty, one stands apart: a drummer defiantly refuses to perform his traditional role, promising his mother he'll earn a living through his studies rather than through traditional rituals. This particular narrative offers a distinct counterpoint to the collection's dominant themes. 

For the most part, unlike Heart Lamp, which the style, the underlying sorrow and the narrow canvas recall, the stories lack the sophistication of urban undercurrents- life revolves around festivals and the cycles of the seasons, which directly impact livelihoods. While those in the upper echelons of the rural community often find relative happiness, those who don't relentlessly struggle for existence, battling their inherent bitterness. 

At the heart of the stories lie the deep ties between people and the land they inhabit, shaped by the ebb and flow of the Mhadei River. They capture the struggles and resilience of the communities along its banks. Despite their seemingly narrow canvas, The Bitter Fruit Treehas broader, universal themes of caste discrimination, patriarchy, mob violence and suppressed ambition, issues that cut across diverse cultures throughout India and lend empathy and shared grief. 

Vidya Pai's translations effectively convey the grassroots lifestyle and the harsh realities Parienkar unflinchingly depicts. Indeed, many of these stories are difficult to read in a single sitting precisely because of the profound disturbance they evoke in the reader's mind.