Acid, by the bilingual author, Sangeetha Sreenivasan, is a translation from her Malayalam original that won her the Thoppil Ravi award in 2017. It is interesting to note that the cover image of the Malayalam original seems to focus on the relationship between two women over a passage of time. The English translation has a jacket design reminiscent of a half-surreal, half-psychedelic vision where images blend into and grow out of each other, reinforcing the idea of the trip induced by the titular ‘acid’ or LSD.
Kamala, the protagonist who indulges in hallucinogens, leads the life of a single mother with her two sons, and her lover Shaly, who is unsure about her sexual orientation. Her twin sons lead lives dependent on each other until one simply stops being his brother’s caregiver. Kamala’s neurosis is a result of her circumstances, beginning with her forced marriage to her cousin, her son’s paralysis, and the development of interest in the same sex while living with a woman who declares she is ‘not a lesbian’. All this is topped off with the responsibility of her children, yet the tale is not told from the point of view of a mother, a lover, an estranged wife, or a daughter just bereft of her mother. In spite of her many roles, Kamala is her own person and is portrayed as such. She seeks solace and happiness by plunging into the world of psychotropic drugs. Her trips often end badly, but that by no means deter her from her journey. Kamala’s hallucinations are vividly described, complete with ‘red kangaroos wearing lucky horseshoes’, and like the cover image, the incidents take shape and flow into each other to form an unusual plot structure that mimics the sensation of a hallucination.
The family is unconventional in terms of both arrangement and approach. Kamala and Shaly, seemingly in a long-term relationship, fight cruelly and often. Aadi willingly takes care of his brother, just as Shiva willingly lets himself be taken care of, yet both long to be free of each other. The twins hate Shaly but feel that their home is incomplete without her; and Shaly is disgusted by Kamala’s gratuitous use of drugs, though she feels drawn and bound to her. The context changes from Bangalore to rural Kerala, with no change in the manner in which society probes into the life and decisions of an individual.
Acid is a richly textured tale, where characters like Andrews, Rita Mama, Madhavan, Rhea, Vinita and Janu only add to the texture by weaving in and out of it. It is sometimes difficult to follow the flow of the narrative, especially if the reader prefers her incidents to be ordered into a conventional and comforting beginning, middle and end. Sometimes the weave is bewildering, as when it is peppered with quotes alike from Gerard Manley Hopkins, Sri Aurobindo and Walt Whitman, and embraces The Beatles and Pink Floyd, mythology and muzak. The text is not cumbersome but it certainly is as acerbic as the title, and can make the reader uneasy. From time to time brilliant sentences sparkle amidst the severe text: “How should we move our lips when we smile?”
The novel does not deny the complications of life that the characters go through, with each character possessing a unique loneliness. The image used to describe the characters’ emptiness, that of the froth gathering on top of flowing industrial waste, is a powerful one. There is an acceptance of the reality of the world in spite of the apparent profession of denial. At once intense and indifferent, Acid remains an intentional and unconcluded trip.
Acid By Sangeetha Sreenivasan, Penguin, Rs 499