A Disobedient Girl - Ru Freeman

"Family matters"

The story is a simple one, or rather two simple ones. In one of two alternative strands running through the book, a girl called Latha is a servant for a rich Sri Lankan family, but is sent away to a convent in disgrace when her wilfulness and sense of outrage at the injustice of her position leads her to getting herself pregnant. In the other strand, Biso is a mother of three children who has run away from her abusive husband from an arranged marriage after he murdered the man she is really in love with. Both are heading in the same direction, away from the city towards the tea-growing hills of Sri Lanka, on separate parallel paths, but different time-lines.

Within these simple stories however there is much detail - not unnecessary descriptive passages, background detail or over-elaborated backstory (although the sense of location, customs and class distinctions in the society are well covered and I particularly liked the authenticity in the references to old sweets and products of yesteryear) - but there is enough information to consider the actions and mindsets of each of the two women, each from different classes and of differing ages, one a servant and an orphan, the other a wife and mother, balancing the options each of them has, if they have any options at all.

It's perhaps the absence of any freedom to choose how to live that speaks most significantly about the conditions of these women, as well as that of others they come into contact with on a daily basis, revealing in the process the underlying attitudes towards class, caste and evidently women's place within society that determines and places restrictions on what they can hope to achieve with their lives. Set against the turbulent background of political unrest, the film also takes in wider concerns about the role of the family - what a family should be and what it actually is.

The author deals with these issues effectively and with some degree of subtlety. A Disobedient Girl is not light reading however, but demands attention to the little details. There is a lot of value and significance placed in simple objects and possessions, so much so that the denial of a new pair of sandals not only describes the position of servant girl Latha, but proves to be instrumental in determining the direction her life will take, while a pair of earrings, passed from one woman to another is a simple gesture that speaks of love, friendship and solidarity. It's beautiful simple touches like this that make A Disobedient Girl all the more effective as a story, weaving little connections between Latha and Biso and the women around them into something greater and rather more substantial.