The Poetics of Water’: Reading Culture and Identity through Water in N S Madhavan’s Litanies of Dutch Battery

First published as Lanthan Batheriyile Luthiniyakal in Malayalam in 2003 and translated as Litanies of Dutch Battery in 2010, N S Madhavan’snarrative provides a vivid account of the impact of transoceanic contacts on the lives of the islanders of Dutch Battery. It sings many songs throughout the novel dedicated to rivers. The above mentioned quotation is such an instance of a song sung by Asari, the grandfather of the narrator. While reading the novel, set in Dutch Battery, a fictional island shaped after port city Kochin along the Malabar coast of Kerala, one gets to know quickly at the very beginning, that the characters’ lives are vehemently entwined with the island and its surrounding waters. It is not infallible to opine that not only the characters, but the narrative itself is unable to advance without coming in contact with water. Water functions not just as a geographical feature in thenovel, it assumes a powerful metaphorical presence in the everyday lives of the islanders of Dutch Battery. For instance,Madhavan employs an aqueous metaphor to depict the presence of wires in Jessica’s household after electricity is introduced to the region: “Near the main switchboard, where all the wires from different parts of the house met like converging rivers...” (Madhavan 121). The narrative is abundant with such metaphors derived from water.