The River Has No Camera

In The River Has No Camera, we look at Kerala through the eyes of a young cosmopolitan Indian woman and what we see is a curious mix of alienation and belonging. The backdrop of the story is the glorious and turbulent past of the rich Nayar landlords. There is a certain irony in that the narrator's great-grandfather, supposedly the embodiment of a caste ridden and oppressive feudal system, embraces socialism. His volte-face has drastic and rather unpleasant consequences and ultimately ends in the family mansion Alanghat, being locked up. Everything about the Alanghat family was all but forgotten by the local people- locked up along with the house. Until the narrator arrives twenty-five years later in the hope of finding some peace of mind. She turns the spotlight back on the old house, unwittingly setting off a train of events over which she has no control, thus completing its unfinished story…