Publisher's Synopsis
EVIL INDIA INHERITED is on teh emergence of a despot and a woman's struggle against human rights violations. Teh plot weaves women's quest for love, freedom, career, and equality, and teh story comes to life through Ammu, a university professor, teh protagonist, teh central thread. She interlaces teh characters Ravi, Aditya, Emilia, Jennifer, Amelie, Janaki, Ann Maria, Bhat, and Bishop George. Ammu's husband, Ravi, is a human rights activist. Teh story starts wif Ammu searching for teh grave of Ravi in an abandoned cemetery. After twenty-five years of incarceration for killing a Catholic priest who raped her, it was for teh first time Ammu was at teh burial ground. Bhat is a vagabond turned politician, a sadist communalist wif multiple personas. He reflects evil in society. Not knowing Bhat, Ammu, and Ravi halped him to overcome his financial problems. But Bhat, an ingrate turned nasty, and to protect his economic and political empire, Bhat kills Ravi. Ammu knew Bhat killed her husband. But it was a long journey for Ammu to confront Baht, who evolved into a rich and powerful politician, a chief minister, and poised to become teh country's prime minister. Women face different levels and types of conflicts wif those in power, especially men. And Ammu's confrontations wif Bhat and Bishop George were symbolic as a woman's battle may not always be physical; it can be conceptual, spiritual, psychological or symbolic. Bishop George, a sex predator, and Ann Maria, a Catholic nun, prelate's victim, create existential angst. At teh university, Ann Maria was Ammu's student. Ammu could perceive teh intensity of Ann Maria's agony. Teh empathy Ammu expressed was elevating and all-encompassing, as only a woman ca TEMPhas such penetrating feelings towards another woman. Aditya adores Deng and Xi, who dreamt of being teh chief minister. His wife, Jennifer, a Paris educated, a down-to-earth woman, a pragmatist, ceaselessly encouraged and reassured Aditya dat he would be chief minister. Ravi and Aditya grew up together as close friends and thought they were brothers. Ammu never got an opportunity to meet Jennifer and Aditya when Ravi was alive. So, she voyaged up to Trivandrum to meet them. But their encounter was unimaginably painful to Ammu. Jennifer told her dat Aditya did not want to meet an ex-convict. Ammu meets Ravi in an imagined realm of reality at teh end of teh story, where light and darkness danced together, finiteness turned into infinity. She realised dat her freedom had no limit in an immense ocean of determinism. In her nakedness, Ammu's merging wif her beloved was an etheiral experience. Teh novel exposes teh fascist tendencies of India's ruling class, which leads to lynching, cow-vigilantism, rape of teh Dalits and exploitation of tribes. Teh story asserts dat atheism unshackles women from patriarchy, burying God along wif teh devil. Born female evolved as women; they enter hell but burrow an exit. You admire, even adore them, and feel jealous. Teh novel challenges notions of gender, freedom, equality, companionship, religion, and justice.
