PADDY INDIAN
By Cauvery Madhavan
Published in Paperback (2001)
By Black Amber Books Ltd
ISBN 1901969045
237 pages
Guide Price: £7.99
Reviewed by Lopa Patel
Rating: (3 flames)
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We certainly have a wide selection of tales about the Indo/American and Indo/British cultural clash, so it is refreshing to come across the Irish/Indian experience in Cauvery Madhavan's debut novel 'Paddy Indian'. Padhman Anant is the only son in a westernised medical family in Madras, India. He joins the staff of a Dublin hospital as a junior houseman to do his Royal College of Surgeons fellowship exams, and for the first time faces the spectre of being an Asian doctor in a land where the patients clearly do not wanted to be tended to by one!

Cauvery Madhavan has used gentle humour to gloss over the glaringly racist practices - with unfavourable shift hours and the worst rotas being meted out to the immigrant doctors. To make matters worse, Padhman falls in love with Aoife, his professor's daughter. So begins his cultural angst, he lusts after the porcelain beauty of his flame-haired Irish love interest knowing that his parents will not approve of his choice.

Padhman's friend Sunil, and his friend's Indian wide Renu, are no help. Whilst being ideal role models and demonstrating that a traditional Indian marriage can work in the wind-swept, rain-soaked Irish land, they secretly feel that Aoife will make him a good wife and repeatedly harangue him not to "fool around" with her feelings.

The death of Padhman's grandfather forces an urgent journey home and several thousand miles away Padhman has a chance to reflect on his relationship. Vacillating between telling his parents or returning to Ireland without breaking the news, Padhman notes that today "he goes back to his other life. That's what it would feel like. A foreign world. How long would it be before this life, his Indian life, became a foreign part of his world?"

In many ways 'Paddy Indian' has a 1970's feel to it. Aoife's family are the stereotypical white family, relieved to find that Renu is normal because she wears trousers and drinks alcohol. Padhman too only becomes acceptable after he tells his first "Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi" joke. It is strange to find such overt ignorance in 1989 - the year in which this book is set - and Madhavan has duly obliged by making every character a stereotype.

Naturally Aoife is deemed unsuitable and this starts a bitter series of telephone arguments between Padhman and his conniving (stereotypical) mother. Invited to spend Christmas with Aoife's family, Padhman's mother warns him "keep your dignity son. Don't go if you are not welcome. Poor Amma, she couldn't bear the thought of him being invited. It was too forward a gesture, loaded with implications". Even though Padhman is from an educated, middle class Indian family, an invitation from Aoife's educated, middle class Irish family seems to throw all the characters into a quandary. Surely Padhman and Aoife are on an equal level socially? It is merely the race that is different. In Madhavan's observation, the Indians seem to consider themselves inferior even if the Irish do not share this view!

Almost on every page is an antiquated viewpoint or stereotypical observation. Why should it be assumed that in the year 1989, Padhman's educated parents will object to Aoife? Their son's happiness might be more important than the nationality of their prospective daughter-in-law. Even the yardstick couple, Sunil and Renu, follow archaic principles that few Indians would have even bothered with. Renu struggles to make Kheer (Indian rice pudding) at Diwali so that word can reach her mother-in-law back in India that she sticks to tradition. The three characters - Padhman, Sunil & Renu - also converse with each other in a ridiculous sing-song style with expletives thrown for credibility! This may be an adopted style, but is not one I've heard for years. It almost seems as if Madhavan is trying to make them appear glaringly different, when in fact they may have blended in fairly smoothly given the equality in educational status.

It must certainly be an attraction of the opposites that fuels Padhman & Aoife's relationship. Everyone believes the stereotypical rule that he must be "fooling around" i.e. not contemplating matrimony, with this white girlfriend. No thought is given to questioning what an educated girl like Aoife might see in a traditional, middle class Indian boy. Is she attracted to his exoticism or is she trying to defy her "straight-laced" parents with her choice of Padhman? By not exploring Aoife's motivation, the author has missed the opportunity to explore issues of cultural acceptance from both sides. This rather linear view - indeed none of the perspectives of the non-Indians have been explored - is a major flaw.

Intercultural liaisons are a subject not widely explored in current South Asian literature, and the confines of a medical environment must have created several such relationships in the real world. It would have been more refreshing to follow the progress of an inter-racial relationship and ultimately the marriage. Sadly, my sense of déja vu continued as the story unfolded and this out-of-date perspective is what unravelled it in the end, turning 'Paddy Indian' from a mildly entertaining cultural-clash-in-medical-gowns into plain old gulab jamun (pudding). Its predictability and sickly sweetness ensuring you can only consume one!

ABOUT CAUVERY MADHAVAN

Cauvery Madhavan was born and educated in India. She got her first taste of writing while working as a copy-writer in her hometown of Madras (Chennai). in 1987 she moved to Ireland, arriving on St Valentine's Day - and despite the Irish weather has been in love with the country ever since. Sher lives with her husband and three children in beautiful County Kildare.

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