Multigenerational tale unearths family secrets

Sheila James’ novel Outcaste reviewed
By Phinder Dulai
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Outcaste
By Sheila James
Goose Land Editions (2024)

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Sheila James’ first novel Outcaste is an expansive nuanced empathetic multi-generational story that takes us on a journey from Toronto, Canada to the villages surrounding the city of Hyderabad, in the state of Telangana, India. It also spans time periods that are rooted in India’s Independence movements up to 1947 and fifty years later in 1997 primarily focussing on a lesser-known history of the communist led struggle of agrarian workers who were part of the Telangana People’s Rebellion circa 1946 to 1951.

James sets up the novel with a richly detailed history of Hyderabad before it was absorbed into the Indian union through the appropriation of the princely state from the last Nizam of Hyderabad –Mir Osman Ali Khan. Part of the details of his Kingdom, include the magnificent Moghul architecture and his contributions to state-of-the-art technology to Osmania General Hospital.

The novel focuses on those who are marginalized including those who self-identify as Dalits. Central to the story is a character who has two names – one is Irwin Peter, but his original name is Rayappa which denotes his caste as Madiga, part of the scheduled castes of Southern India. Rayappa changes his name to escape the kind of every day oppression and cruelty that is directed towards the Madigas and other impoverished families. James does not shy away from the brutality experienced by Dalits levelled by the land-owning castes and Brahmin caste priests that rule over the farms that surround the village of Korampally.

The owner of the largest area of land, Raghunandan Reddy sits in his large house compound where he rules over the farms and village as a dictator. A tradition that Rayappa recalls is where a priest or landlord rape a lower caste bride  before her wedding night. While this does not actually occur in the novel, James does an exceptional job at describing Reddy’s facial features and mannerisms when a new plan for a wedding is to take place in the village; his grotesque enthusiasm is palpable.

A short prologue about another central character in this novel – Malika – begins this book. After seeing so much of her life in the farming communities destroyed by oppression by the private armies of the landlords, she becomes a communist revolutionary, leader and sharp shooting assassin. Malika becomes a flashpoint of what kind of struggle the communists had in fighting the aristocracy before Independence. In a candid description the narrator states “the more she learned from suffering, the more she believed in communism as a cure.” Malika marries her true love Vijay who is an impoverished visually-impaired basket maker and both become active revolutionaries in the Hyderabad region.

It is in a backdrop of both a civil aristocracy and the land-owning aristocracy where Irwin becomes a successful administrative leader with 20 years of service to the  new civil service  of India. When he moves to Canada, he becomes an adjunct professor in International Development at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. A jump in class and a place where caste prejudice was not practiced outside the South Asian community.

Tying this story back to Canada is the death of Rayappa’s daughter Anasuya who was on the fatal Air India flight 182 in June 1985 that exploded off the coast of Ireland. As noted in the novel, the bombing was suspected of being the work of Sikh secessionists. This particular episode is quite moving as Rayappa (who is now Irwin) scours the list of those deceased to find his daughter Anasuya’s name there. As a result of the Air India bombing, Rayappa spends 12 years at the Toronto’s Queen Street Mental Health Centre as he disconnects from the world amidst his anguish. He is finally discharged with medication once he is clearer of mind and he goes to his other daughter Jaya’s apartment.

There are many familial secrets that are slowly unearthed through the telling of this story, that are revealed in a reckoning later in the novel.

Sheila James has given the reading public a novel that is capacious in its breadth of story-telling, and she does this within 320 pages. Through the lens of empathy, compassion and a deep sense of humanity, James offers a story of tragic loss, and incomprehensible violence while we are left with a strand of hope for those who carry on living.

Phinder Dulai
Phinder Dulai is a writer and poet living in Surrey, B.C. His poetry is published in Canadian Literature Offerings Cue Books Anthology, and other publications. He is a co-founder of The South Of Fraser Inter Arts Collective, and is the author of two poetry books.
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