Ashokamitran's novella Sand (Manal in Tamil) was originally written in 1974. It was later translated into English and published in 2002. This says something about literature in India then and now. Even an Indian reader from the north, who speaks a different language— let alone someone in a different country—would not even have known who Ashokamitran was twenty years ago when literature written in local dialects and languages were not translated into English. This movement of translation is a very new occurrence in India and really, the biggest literary gift a country so diverse could receive.

In the foreward by Paula Zachariah writes so wonderfully about the falseness of the idea of Oneness of India. There is none she says. Which has lead to this situation where English speakers read certain books, people who don’t read English, which is the vast majority, read books in their own languages and that our two mythological epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata are the only texts that have been translated into ALL dialects spoken in the country and thereby being the only texts to unite India.

Imagine that.

Not even Gandhi or Nehru she says for they alienate much of India with language. One , the former who writes in legalese speak and the latter in Oxfordian English accessible to the upper and educated class.

And yet even today English remains the only common language spoken throughout the country.

A beautiful sentence she wrote on the last page: even though I could not access Ashokamitran for many years, I am consoled by the fact that it was the many facedness of India that caused it and not the facelessness of Oneness . “

Isn’t that a beautiful thought?

Born Jagadisa Thyagarajan, Ashokamitran passed away in 2017 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, at the age of eighty five. He had written over two hundred stories, nine novels and several essays and translations in his lifetime.

Although set fifty years ago, there is something timeless about the Sand— which could have easily taken place two decades later. It is not constrained within external politics or circumstances. What felt normal then could hold just as normal twenty or thirty years later. Many might interpret that as a criticism against stagnancy and unchange in India but in fact, quite the opposite—that’s the beauty of the story and of the writer. It is so modern in many ways, you wouldn’t think Ashokamitran was born almost a century ago.

The house in Ashokamitran's "Sand", set in Madras (now Chennai), one of the four largest cities in India at the time is a living character—its walls absorbing whispers, its corners collecting secrets and in this house lives a joint family whose interconnected lives are the nuts and bolts—and at its center, a high school girl whose coming-of-age unfolds against the backdrop of familial complexities.

But this story could have been set anywhere— in a village in Bengal, in Mumbai. Other than the names of the characters, nothing particularly ties the stories or their characters to a particular place or, in fact, time. And that is the strength of the story.

I first encountered this story on a rain-drenched afternoon in Paris, the sound of water against windowpanes providing perfect accompaniment to Ashokamitran's measured prose. With each page, I sank deeper into the girl's perspective—her observations of family dynamics serving as both microscope and mirror, revealing both the particular mechanics of her household and universal truths about how families function as ecosystems of power, love, and memory.

Our protagonist stands at that exquisite boundary— between childhood and adulthood—a high school student who holds high responsibilities in the house. Ashokamitran renders her and in fact, all his female characters with incredible sensitivity, capturing her adolescence, her role in the house of a half child, half adult with as much authenticity as any female writer would. Her name, spoken with different inflections throughout the household, carries different weights depending on who calls it.

Whoever said that men can’t write female characters must read this book as an example.

Sarojini observes the adults around her with the patient attention of a naturalist studying fascinating but potentially dangerous creatures. When her grandmother sits by the window in late afternoon light, fingers moving through prayer beads with mechanical precision, the girl notices how shadows elongate across the older woman's face, revealing contours usually hidden by daylight. When her father returns from work, she catalogs the subtle tells that forecast his mood—the weight of his footsteps, the angle of his shoulders, the seconds that pass before he acknowledges others.

A particularly moving passage describes her walking home from school, gradually shedding her student identity with each step closer to home, transforming back into daughter, granddaughter, niece, sister—roles that both shelter and constrain her.

The joint family in "Sand" operates as complete cosmos, with its own gravitational laws.. At its center sits the patriarch—the girl's grandfather—whose physical decline contrasts with his still-considerable influence over household affairs. Ashokamitran portrays him not as tyrant but as fading monarch, clinging to vestiges of authority while privately acknowledging time's inevitable progression.

The grandmother emerges as perhaps the most complex figure—outwardly adhering to traditional wifely deference while wielding considerable power through domestic management. Her relationship with our protagonist reveals generational evolution; she simultaneously enforces gendered expectations upon the girl while quietly encouraging educational ambitions she herself was denied. Their conversations, often occurring during kitchen work, contain multitudes—spoken instructions about proper vegetable cutting techniques overlay unspoken negotiations about female identity.

The middle generation—the girl's parents, aunts, and uncles—occupy that precarious position between tradition and modernity. Her father, a mid-level government employee, exuding this tension most vividly. His Western-style office attire gives way to traditional veshti at home; his professional authority dissolves at his father's threshold. When he attempts to advocate for his daughter's participation in a school event that would require breaking certain traditional protocols, we witness the delicate diplomacy required to navigate generational boundaries without triggering open conflict.

The constellation of cousins, varying in age and temperament, creates another vital dimension. Ashokamitran excels at portraying relationships—the competitive undercurrents, fierce loyalties, and shared conspiracies against adult authority. When Sarojimi and her favorite cousin sneak to the terrace to share forbidden romance novels, their complicity transcends mere mischief to become sacred bond.

The story's title—"Sand"—initially puzzled me. The narrative unfolds primarily within domestic spaces, with few references to literal sand. Yet with each rereading, the metaphorical resonance grows clearer. The joint family house, despite its apparent solidity, is built upon foundations as shifting as sand. Traditional structures—both architectural and social—face erosion from modernizing forces billow between that of duty and expectations—the stereotype of a South Indian family.

Memory itself operates like sand in this story—sometimes solid enough to build upon, other times slipping through fingers. The grandfather's recollections of pre-partition life, the grandmother's stories of her childhood village, the parents' nostalgic references to courtship—all these narratives accumulate around our protagonist like dunes, sometimes providing support, sometimes threatening to bury or suffocate.

One particular scene captures this perfectly: the protagonist discovering old family photographs in a neglected trunk, each image partially obscured by fine dust that might as well be sand. As she gently wipes away these particles, revealing faces that simultaneously are and are not her own—clearing away enough detritus to discern connection while knowing that complete restoration remains impossible.

The house, in Sand, is mapped as territory shaped by invisible but rigid boundaries. The kitchen represents the grandmother's domain, where even the girl's mother must request rather than command. The front sitting room, where male visitors are received, operates under different governance than interior spaces. The small alcove beneath the staircase becomes Sarojini’s only refuge—a rare location of privacy in the densely populated household.

These spatial politics extend beyond physical demarcation to encompass auditory landscapes as well. Ashokamitran masterfully depicts how volume modulates according to speaker and context—the grandfather's opinion offered at conversational level carries more weight than the aunt's impassioned argument; the cousin's whispered gossip conveys more actual information than formal announcements at family meals.

For our protagonist, navigating these geographies requires constant recalibration. Her movement through the house—when she may enter which rooms, where she must pause before crossing thresholds, which spaces welcome her presence and which merely tolerate it—constitutes an education in power relations.

Ashokamitran portrays with particular nuance how education creates productive discomfort within traditional structures. As the girl encounters perspectives through books and teachers that contradict household wisdom, she becomes interpreter between worlds—sometimes deliberately mistranslating to preserve peace, other times bravely insisting on introducing new ideas that challenge established order.

A pivotal scene occurs when she brings home a science textbook containing evolutionary theory that contradicts religious narratives maintained by her grandparents. Rather than depicting simplistic conflict between tradition and modernity, Ashokamitran shows complex negotiation—how Sarojini learns to hold contradictory truths— that which she learns at home and that which she learns outside— simultaneously.

Throughout "Sand," temporal markers emerge through domestic rituals. Seasons announce themselves through changing menus at family meals; festivals punctuate the calendar with elaborate preparations; the grandfather's declining health serves as memento mori. For our protagonist, these cycles provide both comforting continuity and frustrating constraint.

The story's most poignant passages track subtle shifts in household dynamics as the girl advances through adolescence. Privileges previously denied gradually become available; responsibilities incrementally increase; adult conversations less frequently halt at her approach. Ashokamitran writes her maturation within joint families not through dramatic declarations but through quiet recalibrations of daily interaction. I really haven’t seen any male writer write a female character, that too, at the most delicate of ages, with as much nuance.

A particularly moving sequence follows the protagonist through examination season, when household routines reorganize around her academic needs. The grandmother who once prioritized the girl's domestic training now fiercely guards her study time; the usually demanding aunt softens her requests; even younger cousins receive stern warnings about disturbing her concentration. This temporary elevation reveals both the family's capacity for adaptation and the conditional nature of such accommodations.

While never explicitly labeling his work as feminist, Ashokamitran's "Sand" offers penetrating insights into gendered experience within traditional family structures. Our protagonist's growing awareness of different expectations for male and female cousins constitutes a crucial element of her development. When her academic achievements exceed those of her male relatives, the family's mixed reactions—pride complicated by discomfort—reveal patriarchal assumptions operating beneath conscious awareness.

The intergenerational relationships between women provide the story's emotional bedrock. The grandmother's complex mentorship of the protagonist—simultaneously enforcing traditional gender norms while secretly nurturing ambitions beyond them—illustrates how women's resistance often operates through indirect channels. Similarly, interactions between the girl and her aunts reveal solidarity beneath surface tensions, particularly in scenes where they exchange meaningful glances during male relatives' pronouncements.

Most compelling is how Ashokamitran portrays Sarojini’s internal negotiation of feminine identity. Her observations of compromises made by adult women in her family—intelligence subordinated to harmony, desires deferred for collective good—prompt both respect for their adaptive strategies and determination to chart different course. Yet this determination manifests not as rejection of family but as hope for evolution—that the foundation built by previous generations might support structures they themselves could not imagine.

What ultimately distinguishes "Sand" is its insistence on finding profound meaning in seemingly insignificant domestic moments. A shared cup of coffee between grandfather and granddaughter, the careful rearrangement of sleeping mats to accommodate a visiting relative, the collective holding of breath when monsoon rains test the aging roof—these ordinary occurrences swell under Ashokamitran's attentive gaze.

Unlike novels that rely on dramatic upheavals to drive narrative, "Sand" finds its momentum in subtle shifts of relationship and understanding. The protagonist's growth occurs not through rebellion but through gradual recalibration—learning to love her family while seeing them clearly, developing selfhood that neither rejects nor surrenders to collective identity.

This literary approach mirrors how most human lives actually unfold—not through dramatic ruptures but through accumulation of small moments that imperceptibly transform us. By focusing on ordinary experiences within joint family life, Ashokamitran achieves extraordinary intimacy, inviting readers to recognize their own family dynamics reflected in his precisely rendered scenes.

For the protagonist, navigating high school while simultaneously negotiating her position within the family creates constant tension between individual formation and collective belonging. Her emerging selfhood, like a structure built upon sand, requires constant maintenance against erosive forces—yet also benefits from the supportive foundation that shifting sand can sometimes provide.

In closing, I return to that rainy afternoon when I first encountered "Sand." What struck me then and continues to move me now is how Ashokamitran transforms the specific into the universal—how this particular joint family speaks to fundamental human experiences of belonging, growth, and the bittersweet passage of time; how the truest foundations we build are not physical structures but the invisible architectures of memory, relationship, and love—materials seemingly insubstantial as sand yet capable, when properly tended, of supporting us.