The Parcel

When it came to the opening of a parcel, Madhu did not believe in the conventional approach wherein the madam and a couple of prostitutes pinned the parcel down to a bed while the customer broke her in. The parcels momentarily turned into eels, the terror electric, until their muscles went limp. There was no doubt that this was the quickest method, and it required minimal effort on the brothel owner's part, but Madhu surmised that in the long run it was counterproductive. The sudden breaking in dislodged the parcels so badly that they teetered on the edge of madness for years, and some clients had a problem sleeping with what they thought were mental patients.

Author Anosh Irani grew up in Mumbai, adjacent to the red-light district known as Kamathipura. Having long been fascinated by the inhabitants of those infamous few blocks, Irani has now spotlighted them in The Parcel; a book that explores the lives of some of the most vulnerable participants in that city's sex trade. I've read quite a few books set in India, and while the focus of these novels has usually been the underclasses and the particular hardships that Indian society imposes on them, The Parcel illuminates a whole new substrata; and for the knowledge I have gleaned, I am pleased to have read this book. As for the actual execution of an artful piece of literature, I'm not sure that Irani totally pulled it off. 

Oh, look at this rickety face
Look where it is placed
On the body of a woman
Who was once a man
But is now neither, neither, neither.

To begin, our narrator Madhu is a hijra: identifying as neither girl nor boy but an in-between third gender –Neither here nor there, neither desert nor forest, neither earth nor sky, neither man nor woman – those born with a penis tend to become eunuchs by choice in order to express their inner natures. As it would seem with every possible subgroup of people, hijras have their place in Indian society – they attend and perform at weddings and births, they offer blessings on street corners (which can take the form of aggressive begging), and although some hijras might look down their noses at the sex trade, many become popular prostitutes – and based on the presence of eunuchs in the sacred Hindu texts, hijras are tolerated, if marginalised, by the rest of society. As the book begins, Madhu is a forty-year-old hijra, and although she had been a much desired prostitute in her youth, she left the sex trade when her body and mind finally revolted. Still feeling a debt to the aging hijra guru, Gurumai, who had helped her transition into her truer self, Madhu now spends her days as a beggar on the streets (after also revolting against the idea of becoming a wedding dancer) in order to contribute to their hijra household. As a person of no real power, Madhu is incapable of resisting when a local madam, Padma, requests her services in readying a new parcel for “opening”; and although the parcel is a ten-year-old Nepalese girl who had been sold by her aunt (for less than the price of a sacrificial goat), Madhu is jaded enough from her own career in the brothel to understand that her job is to toughen up the girl, not to offer her kindness or support. 

As Madhu looks back on her own life, the best parts are her confusing childhood – expected to act like a boy by her traditional parents, little Madhu couldn't help but lisp and sashay despite the routine beatings – and from her older perspective, it was moving when she began to wonder if Gurumai had indeed “saved” her from her stifling homelife; what if Gurumai had merely been in search of “parcels” herself when she offered Madhu a life as a hijra? What if Madhu simply hadn't given her parents enough time to grow to accept their son's true nature? What would happen if she returned home now after a quarter century without contact? 

With various backstories for secondary characters, Irani did a good job of showing the many paths that might lead a person to Mumbai's red-light district (all of which demonstrate India's persistent patriarchal devaluing of the nonmasculine). As with other Mumbai-set books I've read, the booming real estate market threatens to displace that city's most vulnerable citizens (and while bulldozing the tumble-down red-light district might seem like a civic good, where would all the hijras and prostitutes go to live?) So while there was much good and informative in The Parcel, I wasn't engaged by the actual writing; Irani did more telling than showing, and despite the emotionally charged nature of the situation, I was never emotionally connected to the characters. I've read many positive reviews for The Parcel – it's not up for some big literary awards for no reason – but I'm going to share the concluding paragraph from the Macleans review because it succinctly says what I'm trying to get at:

To be sure, the exhaustive, sometimes vivid detail with which Vancouver-based Irani depicts hijra customs, brothel life and the world of sex trafficking suggests much research. But knowledge, or rather the impulse to share it, can be a mixed blessing for fiction, and that often proves the case here. This being a novel seeking to answer, rather than provoke, inquiry, the feeling of fullness we get by the end is ultimately more pedagogic than aesthetic.

I am glad to have read The Parcel and recommend it as an informative depiction of a group of marginalised people I had never before heard of. I am really torn between three and four stars and am going to round down, but just barely.

Governor General's Literary Awards (English Fiction) Finalists 2016:

Gary Barwin : Yiddish for Pirates

Anosh Irani : The Parcel
Kerry Lee Powell : Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush

Madeleine Thien : Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Katherena Vermette : The Break

I just barely got through the nominees in time (the winner will be announced tonight), but if I got to choose who gets the GG this year, it would be Katherena Vermette for The Break.

*Won by Thien; not my favourite, but not really a surprise.

2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize nominees:

Michael Helm for After James
Anosh Irani for The Parcel
Kerry Lee Powell for Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush
Yasuko Thanh for Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains
Katherena Vermette for The Break

 I would give it to The Break.

*And in the end, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize went to Thanh for Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains.