In the wake of a dream

This is a statement of rebellion, if not blasphemy, when one imagines the speaker to be a Brahmin priest from 7th-century CE Tamil India. But then, all of Sharanya Manivannan's art is about rebellion and seeking. In her latest novel, The Queen of Jasmine Country, this pithy, profound sentence comes as reassuring advice from a father to a daughter — when protagonist Kodhai and her adoptive father Vishnuchittan confer on making a choice between the material and the spiritual. A slim volume — just 146 pages — this work of biographical fiction is expansive in its beauty and ardour.

Anyone familiar with Manivannan's work will agree that her writing is both sublime and powerful, in ways that echo the innermost instincts of womanhood. Her craft has deservedly been lauded, with her earlier work The High Priestess Never Marries winning the Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity. She has written two collections of poems — Witchcraft and The Altar of the Only World — as well asa children's book titled The Amuchi Pucchi.

Manivannan picks the legendary figure of Andal, an Alvar or Vaishnavite poet-saint, for her fifth book and first novel, and intertwines three subjects that come organically to her — femininity, love and magic. Andal is less history and more legend, because very little is known about the personal life of this devotional poet. She is known only through anthologies such as Nachiyar Tirumoli and Tiruppavai, all of which speak of her ecstatic, erotic lovefor the Hindu god Vishnu.

For those unfamiliar with Tamil tradition, poet Meera is a good parallel to draw from. Though a few centuries apart, both women were poet-saints from the Bhakti tradition, belonged to well-off families, and worshipped Vishnu-Krishna in the madhura bhava — where the devotee sees god as a lover or husband.

Much has been written about Meera, but Andal remains a mystery. While she has been exalted to the position of a goddess, and the ritual singing of her poems during the month of Margali (mid-December to mid-January) is an important part of Tamil culture, her life remains an enigma. Manivannan assumes the voice of Andal and imagines her story. The author has said that the subject was less of her choice and more of a divine summons — in 2014, Andal appeared in her dream and urged her to write.