Gift in Green

Simultaneously published in English and Malayalam, the language inwhich it was first written, Gift in Green is an unconventional novelabout the relationship between a people and the land they inhabit.Kumaran is a young man when he leaves Aathi, serene island of waterbodiesand mangroves, for the ‘modernity’ and ‘exposure’ of the big city.Many years later, his return to Aathi signals the beginning of the end, asroads and bridges choke the water-life, birds and butterflies flee the dyingmangrove forests, and chemicals seep into the paddy fields that have fedgenerations over several hundreds of years.Will the idealism of Dinakaran, the fury of Ponmani and the pragmaticperseverance of Karthiayani and her companions be able to stop therelentless progress of the behemoth? Or will the concrete city with itsdaily expulsions of tonnes of sewage take over the backwaters that givelife to Aathi?A delightfully romantic vision of the world as it once was — and perhapsstill can be — as well as a searing delineation of the dystopia that awaitsus, Gift in Green shows us a new way to read our times, powered by theimagination of a writer who is known to touch a raw nerve every time sheputs words on a page.