I HAVE BECOME THE TIDE-Hardback, GITHA HARIHARAN

Where is that land where water flows free? A powerful, beautifully imagined novel from Gita Hariharan asks when the tide will turn to make this dream real. Hundreds of years ago, chikka, son of a cattle Skinner, finds a home in anandagrama, among people who believe everyone is equal; people whose prayer is inseparable from song and work, the river and the land, friendship and love. Chikka becomes chikkiah the washerwoman who sings by his beloved river. But the anandagrama movement against caste is torn apart and its men and women slaughtered or forced to flee. In the present day, Professor Krishna makes a discovery. The saint-singer Kannada is none other than the son of chikkiah. The poets and fighters of anandagrama have been forgotten; Kannadeva has been whitewashed into a casteless ‘Hindu saint’.