Chapter One

Spring 1899. As the ordinary violence of dawn sweeps across the lower Coromandel coast, a sprawling village comes into view. The turbulent sky excepted, everything about it is tranquil. Away to the west, a great headland, thickly maned with coconut palms, juts into the sea, partially enclosing a deserted beach on which long slow swells, clear and smooth as glass, break with scarcely a sound. Beyond the beach, the waters of an estuary reflect the rage of colour overhead. This is where the Chevathar, the country's southernmost river and the source of the village's name, prepares for its final run to the sea.

On a bluff overlooking the estuary, almost hidden by coconut palms, is a small church. From there, the village straggles upriver for about a mile and a half, ending at the bridge that connects it to the town of Meenakshikoil on the opposite bank.

Through the village runs a narrow tarred road that stands out like a fresh scar on the red soil. The road connects all Chevathar's major landmarks: the Vedhar quarter to the north, the ruins of an eighteenth-century mud fort, Vakeel Perumal's two-storey house with its bone-white walls, the Amman and the Murugan temples, and on a slight elevation, the house of the thalaivar, Solomon Dorai, barely visible behind a fringe of casuarina trees and coconut palms. Surrounding the walls of the Big House, as it is known, are several trees that aren't usually seen in the area -- a tall umbrella-shaped rain tree, a breadfruit tree with leaves that explode in green star-shaped clusters and many jackfruit trees laden with heavy, spiky fruit that spring directly from the trunk. These are the result of the labours of Charity Dorai, who does not come from these parts. In an effort to allay her homesickness she began planting trees from her homeland. Twenty years later they have altered the treescape of Chevathar.

Down to the river from the Big House tumble groves of Chevathar Neelam, a rare hybrid of a mango native to the south. The trees are astonishingly beautiful, the fruit glinting blue against the dark green leaves. The locals will tell you that the Chevathar Neelam, which has made the Dorai name famous throughout the district, is so sweet that after you've eaten one you cannot taste sugar for at least three days. So the locals say.

The rest of the village is quickly described. More coconut palms, the paracheri to the southwest, a few shops by the bridge over the Chevathar river, the huts of the Andavar tenant farmers close to the road, and a dozen or so wells and tanks that raise blind glittering eyes to the morning light.

The villagers rise early, but as it's some way yet before the fields are to be prepared for the transplanting of rice, the men are not up and about. Most of the women have risen before dawn and are racing to finish their household chores. Today the village celebrates the Pangunni Uthiram festival and they're hoping to snatch a few minutes at the festive market that's being assembled, bright and tawdry, by the walls of the Murugan temple.

Movement on the tarred road. Two girls, one thirteen and soon to be married, the other a year younger, are on their way to the fair. They are dressed in their best clothes, the older girl in a violet half-sari, jasmine in her well-oiled and plaited hair, her cousin in a garish pink skirt. Their foreheads are adorned with sandalwood paste, vibhuti and kumkumam from the Amman temple where they worshipped before dayfall. They walk quickly, even though they're very early, their feet light on the deliciously cool road, eager to get to the market. The older girl has been given four annas to spend by her mother. It's a small sum but it's more money than Valli has ever had before and she can barely contain her excitement at what she might be able to buy with it. Bangles? Earrings? Silk for a blouse perhaps, or might that be too expensive? Parvathi hurries to keep up with her cousin.

The girls pass a grey outcrop of granite polished by wind and rain to a smooth rounded shape that resembles the knobbly forehead of an elephant. Anaikal, as it is called, is popular with children playing hide-and-seek but they barely register this most familiar of sights as they hurry onwards. They enter a short stretch lined with banyan trees beyond which is the path that leads to the fair.

And then the younger girl notices them. 'Akka,' she says, but the remark is unnecessary for Valli has also seen the four young men lounging under the big tamarind tree that shades Vakeel Perumal's house. The acute peripheral vision of the two girls, shared by every woman under the age of forty in the small towns and villages of the hinterland, is geared towards noticing just one thing: men. Sometimes it is exercised to give them pleasure as they flirt expertly even with eyes cast down. But more often than not it is used to spot danger. No young or even middle-aged woman is safe from the slyly outstretched male arm that seeks to brush and feel up, the crude insult, the lascivious eye, and so they learn early to take evasive action before things become unpleasant.

The two girls quickly assess the situation. The men are about fifty yards away and do not appear threatening. Still, there is no one about. Every instinct tells them to turn and retreat to the safety of their houses. But the promise of the new bangles is too strong. After all, just a few yards more and they'll be on the dirt path which will take them to the market grounds.

The men under the tamarind tree begin to move towards them and now the...

Excerpted from The House of Blue Mangoes © Copyright 2002 by David Davidar. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved.