Bookmarked by Karthik Venkatesh: Poonachi by Perumal Murugan

I read Poonachi by Perumal Murugan when it was first released in an English translation by N. Kalyan Raman, in 2018. The book marked Murugan’s comeback to writing. He had sworn off writing a few years earlier owing to the controversy his book One Part Woman had sparked. And, for his comeback, he had deliberately chosen to write about an animal, not about human beings. 

Growing up, I was never someone who was fond of animals. I wasn’t hostile, just indifferent. I considered being attached to them the stuff of lesser mortals. This informed my first reading of Poonachi. I appreciated it for how it revealed the contours of rural life. Poonachi, the black she-goat protagonist, abruptly enters the lives of an old couple in rural Tamil Nadu and they make an almost impulsive decision to rear it. From thereon, Murugan skilfully allows the reader to enter the lives of this couple. The patterns of their rural environment, their religious customs, their dealings with government authorities — these were what I observed carefully. The details of their every day, their initial struggle to keep Poonachi alive, their devotion to her well-being, how she organically integrated with their life — I glossed over these aspects rather distractedly. City-bred as I was, and having been a student of sociology, what I was drawn to pore over were the hard facts, not the emotions. 

A few months ago, I re-read Poonachi. It was a different Poonachi I related to the second time round. I no longer cared that much for the sociology. What I spent time savouring was the human-animal bond, the attachment and the emotions! Suddenly, Poonachi’s life as it unfolded was what I expended all my attention on. 

Poonachi the little goat feeding on the rice gruel that the old woman lovingly feeds her. Poonachi making her first tentative foray out of the comfort of her backyard and into the pasture where she learns to discern which leaves to eat and which to avoid. Poonachi getting lost in the jungle for a night and observing the night life as it reveals itself. Poonachi falling in love for the first time and then having to deal with being separated from her loved one… Each of these episodes played out in my imagination. 

There’s also the fact that the novel is about that most overlooked of creatures — a goat! It’s an animal that was perhaps the most absent for me, having spent a large part of my life in cities. Dogs and cats, one encountered frequently. Cows and buffaloes were not that far away either. But I must confess that I had never ​‘seen’ a goat — in the sense of paying attention to one — till I re-read Poonachi. 

Obviously, the novel had stayed the same all through. I had changed, thanks to a momentous decision my family had made about five-and-a-half years ago – we had brought home a dog, Norah, my own personal avatar of Poonachi.