The more I tried to love

The more I was left out

The more to injustice I bowed

The more it made hatred sprout

All around me was unfair strife

And here I was paying with my life

– Rajshree Raajgopal

It is not everyday that you come across a book that keeps you glued to its pages till the very end. Good fiction written in flawless English is also a seldom occurrence in Kerala. But, Rajshri Raajgopal’s ‘Boomerang’, written in impeccable English, will affiance you till page 225, with its refreshing story line. Boomerang, even though falters at times in terms of theme, is one such book, which easily prompts the reader to join the protagonist in her exacting journey.

Divulging the travails of a woman, that too a Malayali woman, Rajshri Raajgopal sets out to unearth the passion and longing hidden beneath a woman’s stiff exterior. In an explicit sketch of Anna trapped in a loveless marriage, Rajshri takes a dig at the Kerala society, where millions of women endure the woes of their marriage fearing social wrath.

Scrawling the pangs, passion and tribulation of Anna Subramaniam, her protagonist, Rajshri deliberates the readers to introspect on how our society treats women. By letting you into the inner turmoils, emotions and yearnings of Anna, Rajshri denotes that even educated women do not have the freedom to raise their voices in this society. Since the book is a first person narrative, there are instances when you could see glimpses of Rajshri in Anna.

Anna Subramaniam pined for love like every teenage girl. She longed to dance to its rhythm and be lost in its contours. But the vagaries of love take a toll on her convictions from the very first taste of it. But she clutches on to her dreams, often falling short of breath in the process. When her first love leaves her to lick her wounds in desolation, her husband makes her lose belief in love.

Anna had to bear the brunt of her inept parents – an alcoholic father and a submissive mother – while growing up. Her Christian mother, who fled with a Hindu man in her teen years, was still a sore in the eyes of her relatives. Later, when her father leaves them to destiny, Anna finds a job at a five-star hotel. There she meets George, who marries her eventually. George, his parents and his sister found her presence interfering with their privacy. For them, she remained an outsider. The succeeding events lead to a miscarriage leaving her devastated. She later finds solace in Dev, an acquaintance of George, who married her and treated her like a queen. But the story doesn’t end there. When Dev, her dream man, sashays into her life, the desperate romantic in you may hope against hope for a happily ever after for Anna. But the darkness, lurking behind the closed doors of Dev’s house, is all ready to strike at Anna’s weakest moments. Rajshri succeeds to keep the suspense alive till the end, making the reader find the name of the book, aptly given. The author does not refrain from illustrating vivid sexual sequences between her and Dev, implying there is nothing wrong in women craving for sex.
Rajshri delineates flashes of Anna’s emotions, the people she meet and the traumas she brave out in simple poems that easily pique your intrigue. Anna recalls the moment she met Maya for the first time in a crisp poem. An aura of mystery masks Maya till her identity was revealed in the tenth night.

I stared at her, beautiful but wan

Among the dead the like of a swan

A sight so true yet so rare

Not to shock or shake or scare

But to teach realities so stark

To kindle a fire with one little spark

Of love for life that she had lost

That was with me, now valued most…

Rajshri, hailing from Thrissur, picks the capital city to play the backdrop of her story.
Boomerang is Rajshri’s debut adult fiction. She has written numerous children’s books for Mimitra enterprises.