Introduction to the Author

Born in the city of Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh, India, Geetanjali Shree lived in various towns of the state, thanks to her father’s job as a civil servant. According to her, her upbringing in Uttar Pradesh and a lack of English books on children’s literature encouraged her intimacy with the Hindi language and literature. She gained a deeper interest in Hindi literature when she started working on her PhD on Munshi Premchand. Her first story was ‘Bel Patra’ (1987) which was published in the reputed Hindi literary magazine Hans. This was followed by Anugoonj (1991), an anthology of short stories. Her reputation in the literary arena shot up with the translation of her novel Mai (1993) into English. The novel chronicles three generations of women and the men around them in a North Indian middle-class family. Her second novel is Hamara Shahar Us Baras (1998) which is loosely built around the events following the demolition of Babri Masjid. This was followed by Tirohit (2001) and Khali Jagah in 2006. (Wikipedia)

But the novel that carved her niche in the literary world is Ret Samadhi (2018) whose English translation by Daisy Rockwell brought her worldwide recognition by winning the International Booker Prize in 2022. Translated into English as Tomb of Sand, it became the first novel translated from an Indian language to win the glittering accolade.

Frank Wynne, the chair of judges, said

This is a luminous novel of India and partition, but one whose spellbinding brio and fierce compassion weaves youth and age, male and female, family and nation into a kaleidoscopic whole,” he said. He added that he had not read anything like it before, and its “exuberance” and “passion” make it a book “the world could do with right now.(Mateen, “Geetanjali Shree is first Indian winner of International Booker Prize”)

Introduction to the Novel

This phenomenal novel tells the engrossing tale of an eighty-year old woman referred to as Ma, who sinks into a deep depression after the death of her husband and undergoes a breath-taking journey of self-discovery. While casting off the various roles that she played throughout her life, she allows herself to be reborn and reclaims her identity by the end as Chanda and dies a heroic death.

The title “Tomb of Sand” is translated into Hindi as “Ret Samadhi”. In the very opening pages of the novel,“samadhi”has been defined as “a state of deep meditation; a trance, the final stage of yoga”. It also means “self-immolation of an ascetic by entombment”(7). In the context of the novel, both the definitions are appositeto Ma’s state-of-being. The title signifies the trance-like state (Samadhi) into which Ma slips when her husband dies. She lies in bed all day, burrows herself into a corner facing the wall and refuses to come out of her solitude. Her family is alarmed and employs every method to bring her back to life but fails to break down her barriers. Ma takes her time to recover from the loss and eventually embarks on a journey to find herself again. In this enlightening journey she is aided by her daughter (Beti), who is portrayed as unconventional and more open-minded than the rest of the bourgeoisie family. She facilitates Ma’s quest for freedom and transformation, letting her do as she pleases in her modernapartmentwhich entertains “no middle class hypocrisies” (Shree, Tomb of Sand, 310).

Pramod K. Nayar in his book Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theoryhas expatiated on Feminism, Queer Theory, and Ecocriticism.Discussing various feminist critics like Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Nayar has elucidated how a woman is created by the society and conditioned for her subjugated role in a household and the society. This conditioning is evident in the character of Ma in the novel. Post partition, she loses her independent and confident spirit and adjusts herself to the din of patriarchal demands. It takes the death of her husband to shake her out of her slumber and reclaim her identity.

Tomb of Sand can also be praised for its ecological concerns. Ecocriticism studies the“representation of nature and landscape in cultural texts, paying particular attention to attitudes towards ‘nature’(Nayar, 242). The novel also embodies ecofeminists’ view that patriarchal set-up has exploited both women and nature. Capitalism, industrialization and wars are inherently masculine in their built and character, as opposed to women and nature who regardedhailed as caregivers and nurturers. The novel admonishes the human race for the blind worship of science.

A Robustly Feminist Novel — an Octogenarian Woman Reborn

The heroine of the novel is Ma, an octogenarian widow, a commendably unconventional move by the author. Shree got the idea for Tomb of Sand when an image took hold of her: the sight of an elderly woman, practically invisible to those around her. Shree grew curious about the woman’s inner life. “Is that really someone who is sick and tired of life and waiting to die,” she said, “or is there some plot waiting to hatch?” The question gave rise to Amma, the unlikely octogenarian heroine of the novel. (Alter, “An Elegy to a Pluralistic, Polyglot India Wins Readers and Critics in the West”)

The narrative focuses on two women who are determined to claim their space outside the circumscribed sphere of tradition. In her young age, Ma had been an assertive, confident and bold girl who loved and married a young man of another religion, with their family’s approval. But in the wake of Partition, a sixteen-year-old Ma was forced to leave Pakistan to protect herself from violence, resulting in the loss of her home, her lover, as well as her identity. Now at eighty, her tomb-like trance gives her the audacity to reclaim that identity.

A woman, exhausted after years of subsuming her own rhythm to that of others, lying in bed for months….for so many years had remained immersed in her motherhood, who had now forgotten everything: is this not a birth, or a rebirth? (224)

Ma belongs to an upper-class family in North India. Her son, Bade is a well-to-do civil servant butholds conventional beliefs. He orders around his wife and they constantly bicker. Bahu feels neglected in the household and finds comfort in confiding in her Overseas son. Bade reveres and dotes on his mother but only sees her as a venerable mother figure, not as her own person with her own identity. For him “Ma was Ma only in a sari” (382).Thus Ma feels suffocated as she knows that her role as a woman in a patriarchal family is confined.

On the other hand, Beti is considered a mess who can hardly take care of herself, let alone anyone else. She is boycotted by the family because she marries her lover despite their disapproval. But after she becomes a reputed journalist, she is accepted into the family again. She tries to live on her own terms, engaging in romantic relationships, cohabiting with her boyfriend KK after her unsuccessful marriage. Thus Beti leads a bohemian lifestyle, much to the jealousy of Bahu, who envies her self-dependence and freedom. The writer makes a striking statementthat defiance is necessary to assert oneself. Beti, a rebellious child and teen displayed this attitude from the start:

A path opens with no. Freedom is made of no. No is fun. No is nonsensical. Nonsensical but also mystical. (52)

Having gone missing for months, when Ma is found in the police station, Beti takes her to her apartment and tends to her needs diligently. It is almost as if they switch roles: Ma becomes a young teenage girl growing and exploring herself while Beti becomes her mother. Ma’s metamorphosis baffles her family “As though she’d removed all her layers, one by one, wife mother aunt this that, now at last she was simply herself” (529).

Ma’s casting off the saree in favour of a light gown is metaphoric. It signifies her giving up the traditional roles prescribed by the patriarchal society that had been weighing her down, preventing her from discovering her own identity. “She has peeled away all her outer layers, and now she is opening the inner ones” (391).

The government officials and the readers alike are staggeredby Ma’s intrepid spirit when she and Beti are detained in the Khyber prison and interrogated for crossing borders without visas. Ma demands to meet Ali Anwar, the special officer on duty. Actually he is the son of the man to whom Ma had been married before partition. Whereas Beti is scared out of her wits, afraid that Afghan police might shoot them within the prison walls, “Fear simply does not touch (Ma)” (632). Despite Ma’s stubbornness and defiance of the officials, we see herin such a soft light, a loving and pure soul who wins over everyone who comes in contact with her. The two young guards, barely twenty and donning on huge riflesstrike up a convivial bond with her, referring to her as “Amma ji”.

Thus the novel is chiefly the story of a lady who could have been rendered invisible in the dying light of her life but Shree’s penetrating insight revives her and transmogrifies her into “a badass feminist” (378). Beti shares her mother’s iconoclast spirit, thoughher vision is less comprehensive. But she slowly becomes more open-hearted and more accepting, owing to the company of Ma whose heart is open to each and everyone. The opening lines of the novelmake it sufficiently clear that the story revolves around women:

Once you’ve got women and a border, a story can write itself. Even women on their own are enough. Women are stories in themselves, full of stirrings and whisperings that float on the wind, that bend with each blade of grass. (11)

It may be pointed out that the members of Ma’s family have not been named, with the exception of her favourite grandson, Sid. They have only been identified in relation to Ma, such as Bade (eldest son), Beti (daughter), and Bahu (daughter-in-law). Interestingly, we are told the names of the characters with whom Ma had an unbreakable bond before Partition: her first husband (Anwar) and Rosie.

Plight of the Transgender

Meanwhile, Shree is also sensitive towards the third gender and she draws our attention to their ill-treatment by the society through the character of Rosie. Ma is the only character compassionate towards Rosie, a transgender. They share a deep and impenetrable bond, much to the confusion and annoyance of everyone in the family, including Beti, who considers herself modern. Whenever Ma gets sick and hospitalized, she calls for Rosie, for Rosie seems to know the cure for everything. Rosie seems to possess practical and mystical knowledge. Beti also eventually realises that Rosie is indeed kind and gentle and has always stood by Ma in her crisis. Rosie makes a touching statement about the socially rejected people:

Good-for-nothings are the best. They always stick with you. It’s the good-for-somethings that leave you high and dry. (415)

Rosie also comments on the deplorable and outcast status of hijras in the society and describes the transgender as “a vile invisible afterthought” (483). One day Rosie suspiciously disappears. Ma, Beti and KK visit Rosie at their address but Rosie is nowhere to be found. What they do observe are blood stains on the wall and near the bed. When they report to the police inspector, he displays an outrageously disrespectful behaviour towards the transgender, calling Rosie a “shapeshifter”. His attitude echoes the attitude of the society on a whole. Later, Rosie is reported as dead and Ma, Beti and KK see her corpse in a morgue. The dead body shows signs of violence on it. Apparently, Rosie was murdered. KK writes strongly worded articles on the condition of the third gender. One can indeed classify oneself as a third-gender under the constitution but that hardly gets one social acceptance.

Ma revertsto the tomb-like samadhi again when Rosie dies. Beti becomes more compassionate and open-minded after Rosie’s death. This tragedy urges Ma to go back to her home and reclaim everything that she had lost, her identity as well as her husband.

Indo-Pak Partition, Borders and their Impact

The novel also makes a plea for peace, harmony and brotherhood with the neighbouring countries divided by border and bad blood.When the novel opens, Ma and Beti are in Khyber prison being interrogated for crossing the border without their visas. But Ma does not confess any crime because according to her, she has not committed any. Beti gives straight-forward answers because she wants to escape the delicate situation unscathed whereas Ma’s responses bewilder the officials. She tells her name is Chanda, which, however, does not match with the passport. But Ma protests, “Chanda was sent off without a passport.” And when the interrogatorreasons, “I’m from here, you’ve travelled here”, Ma asserts, “I didn’t come here, I left here.”The officials ask her to stop with the “non-valid” answers but she raises the question, “Why are the only correct answers the ones you know?” (628)

She launches on a full-blown speech on border and its devastating effects on common folk. She beautifully expounds the true meaning and significance of borders:

A border does not enclose, it opens out….If you cut a border through a heart, you don’t call it a border, you call it a wound…A border is a horizon. Where two worlds meet. And embrace. It is a confluence. A sangam… A border is fun to cross. All give-and-take goes on there. The border exists to connect. (652-653)

The novelist, through her spokeswoman Ma, also criticises the red tapism of government which lacks a humane approach. Its rigmarole of customs and inflexibilityadd to the difficulty of crossing borders and discourages cultivating warm relationship with other countries. The novelist remarks:

Religious fanatics and government do not care for samadhis, nor stories, nor Bhupen Khakkar. They like to shut them all up. In files, boxes, trunks. Imprisoned not just over bribes or other dishonesties. Imprisoned over stories too, especially if they’re about women. (577)

Shree has also described Wagah as the centre stage where writers like Bhisham Sahni, Bishan Singh and Intizar Hussain stage their touching plays based on Indo-Pak Partition. Ma’s journey from India to Pakistan to Khyber Pass includes crossing borders. Due to being border-sensitive, it complicates the situation culminating into Ma’s death. Now, this death was uncalled for.Ma had undertaken this journey to fulfil her promise to Rosie, that is going back to their home country. Besides, she wanted to reconcilewith the love of her youth before she died. When she sneaks out from the prison cell and secretly enters the room where her former husband Anwar is lying on bed in a comatose, Anwar’s son sees her and shoots her, as she has broken a protocol. Bade exhaustsall his efforts and contacts to bring Ma back, but the system fails him too.

Sensitivity to Nature

Nature constantly hums and chirps in the background of the novel. Its mishmash of sounds and creatures and elements add to the rhythmic texture of the narrative. When Ma is staying at Beti’s house, she makes a small garden on the balcony where she feeds the birds and waters the plants. Nature also greets Ma at the window and the birds, the sunlight, the air — everything works in a perfect harmony. In fact, even while being stuck in Khyber prison, she urges the officials to get her plants and she makes a small garden in the prison, thus animating the place. Thus Ma nurtures Nature and in turn is nurtured by it. Ma’s consonance with Nature is a testament of her essentially noble spirit.

Shree has chastised human’s interference and exploitation of nature: “The rainy season’s here, but that doesn’t ensure rain. Wilful weather becomes man-ipulated…” (353).The crows are holding a meeting in a tree regarding “the horrific problems they were experiencing due to climate change and science worshipping humans” (373). They express great indignation at having been invaded by Bade :

Where are we supposed to go when they fell our sky and our trees? We had no objection to excrement and urine as long as it was organic. (376)

Fluid and Exuberant Narrative

Exuberant imagination adorns the novel throughout. Shree has introduced the doors (“experienced, sagacious, solid, learned”), walls and roads as characters in the novel. They are symbols of constance and forbearance, a quiet witness to the everyday family drama that takes place.

Shree asserts “Language is not just a vehicle to convey a message, it’s a complete entity in its own right. It has a personality, it has a cadence, and sometimes it has no message”. In keeping with her view, the narrative of Tomb of Sand is flowy, marked by a plentiful use of onomatopoeias and omission of commas. It also abounds in play upon words, for example, crownoisseur (connoisseur), herstory (history). The style even captures the speech habits of Hindi-speaking people like “arre”. Dreamy imagery pervades throughout the novel. The author weaves fantastical elements with the real life drama, giving the narrative a dreamlike fluidity. For example, crows are also intelligent observers of human activities. A crow, Jackanapes develops empathy for Bade and his family. He even flies to Pakistan to ensure Ma’s well-being. One of the butterflies painted on Ma’s walking cane alights on Ma’s hand and listens to the story of her youth. Thus the novel breathes with vivacity and playfulness.

According to Rockwell, “Tomb of Sand” was a daunting text to translate. The narrative is experimental, fragmented and dreamlike, full of language tricks and invented words. It’s laced with references to Sanskrit classics, Bollywood movies, song lyrics, prayers and chants, and contemporary Hindi and Urdu novelists. To capture the polyphonic flavour of the prose and Shree’s freewheeling sense of wordplay, Rockwell preserved fragments of the text from Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Sanskrit, leaving them untranslated.(Alter)

In a way, it’s fitting that “Tomb of Sand,” a novel about the permeability of borders — between countries, religions, genders, languages, ages, life and death — is transcending linguistic barriers, despite the obstacles.(Alter)

1. Alter, Alexandra. “An Elegy to a Pluralistic, Polyglot India Wins Readers and Critics in the West”.The New York Times, 11 February 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/11/books/geetanjali-shree-tomb-sand.html.Accessed 2 February 2024.

2. Chakraborty, Ankita. “Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree review – the timeless search to be seen”.The Guardian,26 June 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/26/tomb-of-sand-by-geetanjali-shree-review-the-timeless-search-to-be-seen. Accessed 26 February 2024.

3. Mackay-Smith, Donna. “The International Booker Prize effect: how Tomb of Sand made literary history”.The Booker Prize, 27 May 2022,https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/the-international-booker-prize-effect-how-tomb-of-sand-made-literary. Accessed 2 February 2024.

4. Mateen, Zoya. “Geetanjali Shree is first Indian winner of International Booker Prize”.BBC NEWS, 27 May 2022,https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61561452. Accessed 2 February 2024.

5. Nayyar, Pramod K. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory. Pearson India Education Services Pvt. Ltd, 2009.

6. Shree, Geetanjali. Tomb of Sand. Translated by Daisy Rockwell, Penguin Random House, 2022.

(Note: All the subsequent citations have been taken from this edition of the novel)

Wikipedia contributors. “Geetanjali Shree”. Wikipedia , The Free Encyclopaedia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geetanjali_Shree. Accessed 2 February 2024.