84 pages • 2-hour read
The Covenant of Water
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Symbols & Motifs
The Condition
The Condition—the moniker that Big Ammachi assigns to the curse under which her husband’s family lives—is the primary motif that runs throughout the book. In nearly every generation, someone dies by drowning. After her beloved JoJo drowns as a child, Big Ammachi makes it her life’s work to find someone who can help her discover the causes—and hopefully a cure—for the Condition. It also comes to symbolize, more generally, the human Condition, the fact that families must confront tragedies and heal the best they can. While the novel is filled with tragic events, it ends in promise, with Mariamma reaching out to her long-lost mother. By then, she has successfully identified the causes of the Condition and managed to save her own lover, Lenin Evermore. There is hope for the future.
By the conclusion of the novel, Mariamma’s perspective on the Condition has shifted: “Mariamma thinks about her own shattered illusions. Should she thank or curse the Condition and Lenin for bringing her here [to her mother]? The Condition takes away, but it also gives gifts that one might not have wanted” (714). In these pronouncements, the phrase has a dual significance—referring both to the family’s singular Condition and to the broader human condition. Tragedy runs through this family in a particularly visible way, but no family is spared from loss. One must make peace not only with the waters that link the world but also with the familial ties that bind all together.
The Elephant as Totem
Damodaran, a bull elephant, is a frequent visitor to the Parambil estate from Big Ammachi’s first day there to her last. Years earlier, Big Ammachi’s husband treated the elephant’s wounds, and ever since then he has been a friend of the household. The very first time Big Ammachi meets Damo, he gives her an offering of jasmine. She grows to feel that he watches over her; further, she sees “echoes of her jasmine-bearing visitor” in her husband (20). While Damo does not live at the estate full time, he becomes a constant protector. When he returns after Big Ammachi’s husband has a stroke, the husband does not recognize the elephant; that is when Big Ammachi knows his condition is serious. He dies that night, and the elephant mourns, “a lament from Damo for the man who rescued him when he was wounded, for a good man who is no more” (216). Damo is as much a member of the Parambil family as he is a symbol of protection and connection.
The night that Big Ammachi herself dies, many years later, she wishes she had seen Damo one last time: “She’d have liked to see him again, lay her hand against his wrinkled hide” (518). He has watched over not only her but also her son, Philipose, but his visit this year is overdue. It appears that Damo sensed what was coming, as Mariamma later finds out: “The week her grandmother died, Damo disappeared into the jungle near the logging camp. [...] Damo went to keep Big Ammachi company, no doubt” (573). Big Ammachi and her animal talisman—who also represents her husband—disappear in tandem. He will protect her even into the mystery of whatever comes next.
Naming and Nicknaming
The importance of naming runs throughout the book: Many residents of Parambil respond not to their given names but to nicknames bestowed by family members and neighbors. Big Ammachi is reluctant to baptize her daughter after JoJo’s death, and she later decides to keep Baby Mol’s “real” name a secret: “I left the other name in the birth register and that’s where it will stay” (181). To keep Baby Mol safe, Big Ammachi has decided that her given name will stay tucked away, far from the possibility of harm. Naming invokes powerful forces, and identity itself becomes as fluid as the water that runs—and threatens—throughout the book.
The beginning of Part 5 again emphasizes the fluidity of naming: Uplift Master—“no one can recall his baptismal name” (299)—comes to town and tries to improve the community of Parambil. He eventually is able to bring electricity to the region and secures its status as an actual district, giving it more political power. Later, the marriage broker who facilitates the marriage between Philipose and Elsie is known only as Aniyan, which means “‘younger brother’; the pet or baptismal names he carried have long vanished” (349). In this tightly knit community, people are known not by their official names but by their relationships.
The importance of naming resonates throughout the book: not only does Big Ammachi’s granddaughter become her namesake, but the newest member of the extended family, Anna, quickly turns into Anna Chedethi: “That suffix gives Anna the stature of a relative, not a hired servant” (446). The suffix means sister, or more specifically, big sister; this is the role Anna will take within the family, especially for baby Mariamma.
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