Where Mayflies Live Forever : A Novel

To me, the most remarkable aspect of the book is its vivid, scientific, and almost surreal description of a subterranean ecosystem, a system of underground caves called dolines. The protagonist visits and ultimately gets lost in the secret world of the caves, away from human society. The story of a family ravaged by an incident of sexual violence and its aftermath, the novel attempts a unique fusion of genres. The unfolding of the plot solely through testimonies reminds one of Rashomon; the author's command over botanical names of regional flora, both Western/scientific and local, is astonishing.Anupama Mohan's debut novel is as gripping as a thriller, but its flow is periodically interrupted by the sinuous subjectivities it explores in and through the voices of different witnesses, and of friends and family members of the absconding accused. The plot emerges entirely from these subjective testimonies recorded by the police, with no intervention from any omniscient authorial voice. The only form of narration other than these testimonies comprises of the internal monologues of two key characters: the person accused of murder, and the police officer trying to find her -- both resourceful women fighting against great odds. These two make for a drastic contrast. One series of internal monologues makes up the ecological backbone of the book, while the prolonged internal monologue of the police officer provides vital criminological insights which help situate the crimes against and by the accused woman in their fraught social context.The novel forces the reader to be active and critical, and to change tack, alternating between mutually discordant modes of narration. It begins and ends in medias res -- in the middle of things. The reader must resolve the plot on their own, from the clues provided in the text.It is an engrossing read, and anyone who wishes to witness the innovation of a new combination of literary genres must not miss it.

It is a captivating blend of crime fiction and social commentary. The story opens with a shocking discovery - a headless body - that throws a small Tamil Nadu town into chaos. But the investigation soon becomes more than just finding the culprit. It's a quest to understand the life of the victim, Veni, a seemingly ordinary teacher with a hidden past. Through interwoven testimonies and internal monologues, the reader delves into the lives of the women connected to Veni. The author's powerful prose confronts sensitive topics like violence, trauma, and the societal constraints faced by women. However, readers should be aware that the book tackles mature themes and a brutal crime scene.If you're looking for a mystery with clear-cut answers, this may not be the book for you. However, if you're interested in a character-driven story that explores the depths of human emotion, 'Where Mayflies Live Forever' is a must-read.

'Where Mayflies Live Forever' is an intense book that evokes a gamut of emotions - anger, shock, hate, relief, grief, joy.Much of the story is driven by testimonies of different about a woman who has gone missing after decapitating a prominent politician. Like the lady officer who investigates the disappearance, the reader too is torn between deep sympathy for the murderer Veni and horror at her crime.Anupama Mohan forces her readers to face the unbearable pain and long aftermath of rape and also uplifts them through Veni's journey of recovery in the cradle of intense natural beauty of doline ecosystem.The author blurs the boundary between prose and poetry; takes the book to a level of meditation on the limits of human nature.

Mohan's book, which, according to my reading, would fall within the purview of feminist eco-fiction, is not just a narrative of assault told from multiple perspectives... It is an empowering tale of resilience. Mohan opened up a wound that healed itself by the end of her book. Like a number of possibilities that are projected from something as broken as glass bangles put in a Kaleidoscope (a metaphor she uses), her book creates a world of possibilities arising from the resilience of her protagonist Veni, who walks through the quagmire of grief, pain, trauma, empowered by something invincible within her-- her spirit. Along with Veni, who walks until she reaches the greener pastures of healing, I too had walked and reached a calmer place by the end of the book, while walking with her.I am thankful for the last chapter of the book, and for the knowledge about mayflies-- now I know where and how they live forever.

I can't remember when last I was this moved and shocked and angered by a novel. Mohan's tale makes you seethe in frustration but then there are sections which lift you out of your gloom and into the incredible world of nature and its thousand beauties. The novel's structure is intelligent and gripping and the movement between different characters and nature sections makes it impossible to stop reading. The use of poems in many places adds to the whole Tamil ethos and brings this South Indian world alive. Mohan's style will remind you of Arundhati Roy's but she is fully original in her own way and is much more poetic in her use of nature and her focus on human psychology. Each character is memorable for something and Veni stands tall like an awe-inspiring heroine. The novel is a must-read on all counts!

But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head. The book explores the life of Veni who happens to be a resident of Tamil Nadu, however, the discovery of a decapitated body brings forth a series of events that shall intertwine the thin line between self-discovery and delusions of life. The book has been divided into 11 Chapters. Before the beginning of the chapters, a quote is mentioned where the readers can get a sense of discovering one’s inner self.

In the galaxy of Indian writing in English, the stars are so many that it is difficult for a new writer to make a mark. Anupama Mohan’s debut novel stands apart because it is a forceful narrative in which the protagonist Veni does not hold a discourse of victimization, even if she undergoes unfathomable woe and suffers unbearable violence.The novel is unputdownable because it unfolds as a detective novel based on a news bit on what could be called the archetypal form of gender violence that we come across inexplicably too often in India. It teaches the reader who is too eager to find answers to understand what matters, above all, is asking the right question: “How many of us must go missing before you notice?”Set in Sittannavasal (Pudukottai district) in Tamil Nadu, the novel’s evocation of small-town India and tropical insects is reminiscent of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. The author would not shy away from this literary lineage because her novel is about being a woman, inhabiting a woman’s body with the life it nurtures and the pain it endures and figuring out how to navigate the complex map of her psyche without silencing her sensuality.In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the destination one but the tales are many. Here the diverse voices of those who are impacted by what happened to Veni – her grandmother, her school friend, her father, her husband, her brother, the woman Assistant Superintendent of Police, one of the accused – converge to reveal the many facets of Veni’s personality, the social mindset and the corruption corroding politics in the land. It is the story of a joyful young girl maturing into a teacher, a wife, a pregnant mother before being hurt and emerging as an avenging Goddess to find justice for herself and the womankind. This novel does for gender justice what Meena Kandasamy’s Gypsy Goddess (2014) did for caste justice.In The Mahabharata, Draupati is said to have let her hair down vowing to tie it only when her honour has been avenged. Here, the modern-day heroine does the reverse, i.e., burns her thick black hair, the sign of her femininity and uniqueness, lets it grow and unfurls her attractive tresses only when she is able to complete her journey of self-possession.When living through her trauma, Veni draws strength from her grandmother’s knowledge and practice of midwifery, Siddha medicine, the healing and regenerating power of Nature itself with the vivifying bounty of water, vegetables, and fruits with which she has endowed Mother Earth, and more importantly, Sangam Tamil poetry of love and war. Veni’s discovery of and sojourn in the subterranean caves of the Jain temple that help her recover, while echoing Michael Ondaatje’s reference to the Grove of Ascetics in Anil’s Ghost, can be read as a plunge into Plato’s philosophy, Freud’s subconscious, and Indian spirituality.The masterful use of English in the novel with the occasional infusion of Tamil words (sometimes translated, sometimes transliterated and other times untranslated) successfully transposes several vernacular registers of language to demonstrate that English has become an Indian language.