Lanterns On Their Horns
by Radhika Jha
Beautiful Books, Hardback, £14.99, pp. 480
ISBN 9781905636655

Jane Stewart

Radhika Jha introduces this, her second novel, with a few words which help contextualise its themes. Gau is the Sanskrit word for cow, she tells us, but it is also the word for “the first ray of light, the eldest child of dawn”. Set in rural India, this engaging book does indeed feature cows, showing their centrality to village life as cherished beasts reflecting the wealth of their owners and as providers of daily sustenance, but it is more about the dawn of an age in which the intrusions of the modern world threaten tradition.

There are two main strands to the narrative, the first of which concerns Manoj Mishra, an idealistic but otherwise “boring old MA (History)”, who, through a chance meeting, is inspired to abandon his PhD and set out to vanquish poverty and hunger in India by becoming involved in a programme to artificially inseminate native Indian cows with the sperm of imported Spanish bulls. This, he believes, will breed future generations of cows producing much more milk than native cows. The second, but equally important, strand involves Ramu and his wife, Laxmi, who live on the outer limits of the isolated village of Nandgaon, constrained by their poverty and by their difference from other villagers.

Initially, Laxmi’s name can be read ironically. It associates her with the goddess Laxmi, creator of wealth and a subordinate form of the great earth-mother Bhudevi, but Ramu and his wife have no animals of their own and subsist on the broken grains of rice left by their fellow villagers. Indeed, because of their extreme poverty and because Laxmi is constantly at variance with everything her husband does, their lives and their marriage seem destined to be unproductive. Things begin to change when Ramu finds and adopts a stray, sick, native cow, scorned by his wife as junglee, or weedy and of uncertain parentage. There are timely interventions by Manoj and at this point, when Ramu and Laxmi’s lives seem set to improve, it appears as if everyone will live happily ever after.

However, Nandgaon itself also undergoes changes. When first seen, through Manoj’s eyes, it seems an enchanted place. Cut off from the rest of world, without electricity, shops, motor vehicles, or even a proper road, it only reveals itself to him at a point when he has become desperate in his fruitless hunt for a place, any place, where he can carry out his first artificial insemination. It is a self-sufficient, well-tended village and everyone seems to know his or her place under the close paternalistic rule of the headman, Gopal Mundkur, who has had eyes painted on his gates to remind villagers of his omnipresence in their affairs. Despite the great personal sorrow Gopal carries deep within himself, Nandgaon appears to be a miniature Utopia, but soon it is buffeted by forces outside Gopal’s control and difficult decisions have to be taken. As a result, Nandgaon changes for ever.

Ambitious in scope, this is a very enjoyable book which, by operating at several different levels, succeeds in raising significant questions about democracy and about what happens when Western mores impinge upon traditional societies. Nandgaon is contrasted with a nearby town where change has already taken place; Gopal’s role as headman is contrasted with the behaviour of the elected politicians with whom Manoj becomes involved. Jha handles the plot and its complications with skill, managing to avoid didacticism and mawkish sentimentality about the past. Her large cast of human characters, all with mortal attributes and failings, functions as a chorus to the action. The annual rhythms and rituals of traditional, rural life are depicted with affection, as are those of the religious year. By interweaving the religious with the secular she elevates the text to an almost myth-like status so that the story of the village seems to become part of an oral canon to be told and retold to succeeding generations.

Lanterns On Their Horns does not attempt to provide easy answers to the questions it raises, nor is it a blueprint for progress but, at one point, Manoj hints that the future lies in the hands of the people themselves, by saying, “Politics won’t cure poverty”. With the passage of time, the earthly Laxmi manifests the characteristics of the goddess whose name she bears by using her education both for personal advancement and for the benefit of all. Against the patriarchal background of old Nandgaon, this seems to suggest that female education will not only empower women but that it may also profit rural India.