She moved to Bengaluru in 2023. Sarukai’s novel is set at the turn of the century. Many of the transformations he observed in her were magnified during these twenty-five years. He talks about the Garden City becoming a “computer city.” Much of the city now houses primarily “techies.” In fact, one of the “old Bengalureans” recently told me at Bob’s Bar to move to that part of town so I could “be with my people.” This reflects the division between old and new Bangalore. Well-meaning friends often ask me to speak Hindi incorrectly to shopkeepers and shopkeepers to avoid being scammed. This change is also captured in the novel.
The city is not a melting pot. Its components conflict with each other as they try to claim it. At one point, one of the characters worries that the place will soon be overrun by North Indian food joints with no idlis or dosas to be found. Interestingly, the chow chow bath, a combination of sweet rava and savory vermicelli, is, we are told, a Bangalorean invention. It appears that no other mixing is permitted. One of the characters even mentions that a Malayali girl cannot fall in love with a non-Malayali.
In the heart Water days He is the simple Kannadiga protagonist of the novel Raghavendra, whose connection to Udupi is repeatedly emphasized. Udupi is almost like the utopia his father foolishly left to come to the big bad city with its corrupt police, draining taps, and miserable neighbors. Raghavendra Nagaraj’s enemy and his companions are also Kannadigas and the novel revolves around all the people who intersect in his life. This includes his wife Poornima, his daughters Suhasini and Sanjeevani, the immediate neighbor Bali who desires water supply and his shy wife, another hated Malayali neighbor Prasanna and his wife, and their helpful tenant Rajesh, among many others.
Raghavendra’s transformation from being a man of inaction to a man of action that leads to violence in the novel can be read as an elegy for a bygone way of life. This is noted in Prasanna’s Tamil neighbor’s sudden comment about the Kannadigas turning aggressive because Raghavendra refuses to be intimidated by him. By the end of the novel, Raghavendra enjoys his new confidence, fulfills his dream of opening a grocery store, and thrives. However, he has also gone from being the man who prevented his wife from revealing the name of Archana’s lover to the latter’s mother to someone who takes great pleasure in revealing it to her father. His actions also led to Megalata entering into a complicated marriage 13 days after her sister’s death. Both incidents reinforce the ‘gray shift’ of Raghavendra and by extension Bangalore.
The tragicomic novel revolves around 13 days after Prasanna’s daughter, Archana, dies by suicide, and also on the days when the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) cedes water supply to the city. Those days are becoming more exclusive now, and rarer, as most of Bangalore relies on privately sourced oil tankers. Power outages have also increased with most of the tech city’s citizens relying on generators.
Beyond the subject of these cursed social and infrastructural changes, there is an examination of notions of male honor. It seems that even Poornima, Raghavendra’s wife, has these thoughts. In such a situation, there is no letting go; There is only revenge. Poornima and Raghavendra are not the only ones. Prasanna’s sense of “honour” is a large part of the complexities. Then, there is the Bihari honour, upheld in Rajesh’s name, which leads to the attempted murder.
But there is also acceptance and inclusion. The great expression of this is the celebration at the taps at the dawn of the thirteenth day of mourning for Archana when all the women of the Mathikere district gather to pray for peace for the girl’s soul. It is the peace that her father symbolically denied her. Perhaps there is an element of revenge here as well. Because it is the men, the masculine, the patriarchal, who are not invited to the wedding later in the day.
Ultimately, Water Days shows that family and community are made up of those who support you rather than those who may belong to the same language or kinship group.
Priyanka Sarkar is an editor, translator and writer.
