Black Tongue
“Women are not born witches. Life makes them turn that way. If you want the truth of what I say, look at the facts: there are no young witches, no child witches. All the women torn or hacked to pieces in the columns of the newspapers are old. Some of them are not even witches at all. Perhaps just women like me who discovered the gift of a black tongue when everything else had failed them. I didn't know I had a black tongue until all the pieces started falling into place. And not even then."
And so the story begins from the mouth of a girl who has learned how to hate and who has grown into a woman old in wisdom though young in years. A woman who looks back on her life. On the days when she was Maya, 16 years old, street-smart and sulky, forced to leave the bright lights of the city for a village backwater because she has seen the forbidden.
The woman who teaches her hatred, Amreeta, unhappily married, determined to be a social service worker, but supremely self involved and obsessed with her husband.
The husband, Arka, remote, placid, willing to do anything to keep the peace, even ignore his wife’s tantrums.
Amreeta’s lover Paresh, on the fast track to political success, despite his cynicism where the system is concerned. He clings to the memory of a summertime romance for comfort. Even though the memory may be nothing but an illusion. And he explodes into their life propelled perhaps by the force of Maya’s curse – if there is a curse at all.
And there is Maya’s brother, Naren, a politician in the making. Who understands corruption and violence but little else. His aim is to use blackmail as a shortcut to a fortune and Maya hands him the opportunity.
In Black Tongue she looks back on her life and thinks: All those people came together twenty years ago. If I had known when I stepped out of the train that I was exiling myself for twenty years, I would have tied a pitcher round my neck and thrown myself into the nearest pond. But I didn't know - so the ponds around our village remained flat unsympathetic bodies of water, furred over with hyacinth leaves. Like the one in the city that began it all. If I stuck my tongue out at that sheet of water it would probably reflect black at me. But I don't.
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And so the story begins from the mouth of a girl who has learned how to hate and who has grown into a woman old in wisdom though young in years. A woman who looks back on her life. On the days when she was Maya, 16 years old, street-smart and sulky, forced to leave the bright lights of the city for a village backwater because she has seen the forbidden.
The woman who teaches her hatred, Amreeta, unhappily married, determined to be a social service worker, but supremely self involved and obsessed with her husband.
The husband, Arka, remote, placid, willing to do anything to keep the peace, even ignore his wife’s tantrums.
Amreeta’s lover Paresh, on the fast track to political success, despite his cynicism where the system is concerned. He clings to the memory of a summertime romance for comfort. Even though the memory may be nothing but an illusion. And he explodes into their life propelled perhaps by the force of Maya’s curse – if there is a curse at all.
And there is Maya’s brother, Naren, a politician in the making. Who understands corruption and violence but little else. His aim is to use blackmail as a shortcut to a fortune and Maya hands him the opportunity.
In Black Tongue she looks back on her life and thinks: All those people came together twenty years ago. If I had known when I stepped out of the train that I was exiling myself for twenty years, I would have tied a pitcher round my neck and thrown myself into the nearest pond. But I didn't know - so the ponds around our village remained flat unsympathetic bodies of water, furred over with hyacinth leaves. Like the one in the city that began it all. If I stuck my tongue out at that sheet of water it would probably reflect black at me. But I don't.
Black Tongue
“Women are not born witches. Life makes them turn that way. If you want the truth of what I say, look at the facts: there are no young witches, no child witches. All the women torn or hacked to pieces in the columns of the newspapers are old. Some of them are not even witches at all. Perhaps just women like me who discovered the gift of a black tongue when everything else had failed them. I didn't know I had a black tongue until all the pieces started falling into place. And not even then."
And so the story begins from the mouth of a girl who has learned how to hate and who has grown into a woman old in wisdom though young in years. A woman who looks back on her life. On the days when she was Maya, 16 years old, street-smart and sulky, forced to leave the bright lights of the city for a village backwater because she has seen the forbidden.
The woman who teaches her hatred, Amreeta, unhappily married, determined to be a social service worker, but supremely self involved and obsessed with her husband.
The husband, Arka, remote, placid, willing to do anything to keep the peace, even ignore his wife’s tantrums.
Amreeta’s lover Paresh, on the fast track to political success, despite his cynicism where the system is concerned. He clings to the memory of a summertime romance for comfort. Even though the memory may be nothing but an illusion. And he explodes into their life propelled perhaps by the force of Maya’s curse – if there is a curse at all.
And there is Maya’s brother, Naren, a politician in the making. Who understands corruption and violence but little else. His aim is to use blackmail as a shortcut to a fortune and Maya hands him the opportunity.
In Black Tongue she looks back on her life and thinks: All those people came together twenty years ago. If I had known when I stepped out of the train that I was exiling myself for twenty years, I would have tied a pitcher round my neck and thrown myself into the nearest pond. But I didn't know - so the ponds around our village remained flat unsympathetic bodies of water, furred over with hyacinth leaves. Like the one in the city that began it all. If I stuck my tongue out at that sheet of water it would probably reflect black at me. But I don't.
And so the story begins from the mouth of a girl who has learned how to hate and who has grown into a woman old in wisdom though young in years. A woman who looks back on her life. On the days when she was Maya, 16 years old, street-smart and sulky, forced to leave the bright lights of the city for a village backwater because she has seen the forbidden.
The woman who teaches her hatred, Amreeta, unhappily married, determined to be a social service worker, but supremely self involved and obsessed with her husband.
The husband, Arka, remote, placid, willing to do anything to keep the peace, even ignore his wife’s tantrums.
Amreeta’s lover Paresh, on the fast track to political success, despite his cynicism where the system is concerned. He clings to the memory of a summertime romance for comfort. Even though the memory may be nothing but an illusion. And he explodes into their life propelled perhaps by the force of Maya’s curse – if there is a curse at all.
And there is Maya’s brother, Naren, a politician in the making. Who understands corruption and violence but little else. His aim is to use blackmail as a shortcut to a fortune and Maya hands him the opportunity.
In Black Tongue she looks back on her life and thinks: All those people came together twenty years ago. If I had known when I stepped out of the train that I was exiling myself for twenty years, I would have tied a pitcher round my neck and thrown myself into the nearest pond. But I didn't know - so the ponds around our village remained flat unsympathetic bodies of water, furred over with hyacinth leaves. Like the one in the city that began it all. If I stuck my tongue out at that sheet of water it would probably reflect black at me. But I don't.
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Black Tongue
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013374324 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Savvy Press |
| Publication date: | 09/14/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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