The Poison of Love

By K.R. Meera

Publication:  Penguin Random House India

Introduction:

K. R. Meera, an eminent Indian author and journalist who writes in Malayalam and is known for such famous novels as The Gospel of Yudas, Hangwoman etc, is again sparkling with unique vivacity in The Poison of Love. Translated by MINISTHYS, the book is special with its cover design and interior decoration.

Storyline:

‘Love is like milk. With the passage of time, it sours, splits and becomes poison’ the very opening echoes the tunes of the whole novel- the story of bitter love and self – abolishing vengeance. Tulsi a highly aspirant IIT girl with record marks falls in love with Madhav who already
have 27 love affairs behind the track of Tulsi and much more after they came in conjugal proximity.

Madhab was irresistible with his passion. In his debonair pose, unfathomable mystery lurks in compassionate eyes, sculptured appearance. Tulsi could not avoid the charm. She yielded at his manipulative provocation. She eloped the day before her marriage, leaving her highly commanding
father, cancer-ridden mother, and two younger sisters’ fate at stake. She for the sake of her love destroyed every life associated with her. She even poisoned her two kids, when Madhav seeks divorce to marry Bhama. She agrees with his request but entreats Madhav for the last consummation in that bed.
‘The kids will wake up.
‘Oh, no! They will not be waking up.’
She promised her kids, her dead kids, ‘we have to leave him before he can abandon us.
We have to purify your father with the pain of separation.’ And that she did. With tonsured head and poisoned heart, she became the Meera, Meera mai of Mathura and wait for her vengeance for long twelve years to meet desolated, abandoned, paralyzed
Madhav. Her vengeance was complete and she just seeks for wounds for her own.
‘I needed wounds. To hurt me more grievously, I needed more wounds.’

Critical Approval:

Dark humour and deep pathos loomed large in every page of the novels and the feeling of agony crawls with the ants that set their track through the
pages of the book, the corpse eater. If Madhav is the Krisna figure, Tulsi must be the embodiment of gopis, though she aspires for Meera. In respect of character portrayal,
neatly connected storyline, ever-lingering tone of anticipation the novel riches its highest paradigm. The ending subdued the emotion tormenting throughout the novel, at first raising it to the catastrophic height of pity and fear and then dimmed in blood
and pain.

Alvina’s Verdict:

From the beginning to the end the novel keeps me glued in my seat. As I read, I bleed, bleed for Tulsi, for thousands Tulsis, for Kanna and Unni two kids of Tulsi.
It is a powerful story that wide opens all the locks of emotion giving one utmost pleasure and pain at the same time.