Home is the World

In the Country of Deceit opens with Devayani and her sister Savitha looking at the empty space where once was the house of their childhood. Their parents are dead 8212; their father as a broken, bitter man, and their mother after a long and difficult illness. The new house 8212; 8220;a complete reversal of the old house8221; 8212; is large, spacious, filled with light. While Savitha returns with her doctor husband and children to Delhi, Devayani moves into the new house, happy to remain in their hometown Rajnur which seems to be a fictional version of Dharwad in north Karnataka. She becomes friends with Rani, a onetime film actor who, with her husband and children, has moved back to India from the US. While Rani8217;s mind is quietly preoccupied with memories of her film career, Devayani spends her time teaching English and caring for her garden. Things seem uneventful enough, until she meets Ashok Chinappa, the new district superintendent of police who is older and married, with a 10-year-old daughter, and they suddenly embark on a passionate affair. He is in a highly visible post in this small town where everyone knows everyone else; she is unmarried and lives alone. Yet there is a desperate madness in their relationship. They meet furtively but repeatedly: in the car, in a friend8217;s house, even in her house one rainy night. Devayani feels that there is something sordid about meeting like this; but she cannot end it. 8220;There are no boundaries for love,8221; she says silently in response to admonishments from her family.

Illicit love and the profoundly difficult moral choices that it entails form one subject of this austere, affecting novel. As the affair progresses, Devayani delves into her past, searching for ways to understand her actions and her desires. At the same time, we are shown the nurturing, affirming quality of other relationships, such as Devayani8217;s closeness to her aunt Sindhu, a breast cancer survivor. Sindhu8217;s voice, in the form of letters to her niece from the US, counters Devayani8217;s giddy raptures with a perspective of age, wisdom and balance. 8220;How are you, Putta?8221; she begins her letter, with the simplest term of endearment. Other ties are also described with care and beauty, such as the bond between the sisters; the friendship with the brother-in-law; the affectionate warmth between cousins who grew up together; and the unlikely but deep connect between Rani and Devayani.

This is Deshpande8217;s tenth novel in her writing career of 30 years. The character of Devayani herself appeared in an earlier novel, Come Up and Be Dead. Among other things, one cherishes in Deshpande8217;s stories the descriptions of the daily lives of women: making tea, writing letters, sharing confidences, tending to plants, shifting between languages; also illness, caregiving, supporting each other, cherishing memories, and moving on with life. One of the many sweet things in the novel is the description of Devayani8217;s encounters with Shivanna, the son of an old retainer, who has now grown up, works as the SP8217;s driver, sends his children to good schools and has ambitions for them. When he is at work, dropping her home in the SP8217;s car, Shivanna speaks to her in English, calling her Madam; but when she meets him on the road a few days later, he speaks in Kannada. 8220;I could see he was off-duty, very much so, not only in the way he was dressed, but the way he spoke. He called me Akka, and the language he spoke was the language of our childhood.8221; This is one of the many delights of Deshpande8217;s novels: her ability to record and celebrate the many-layered richness of relationships with family and friends, relationships in which it is possible to speak in different languages at different times, reliving memories but also finding new ways of connecting with each other in the present.nbsp;