The Return

by K.S. Maniam

It is the time for both apprehension and hope. The youthful narrator Ravi witnesses the change in a way of life and the end of a way of thinking. The story depicts the experiences of an immigrant community in Peninsular Malaysia before and after Independence in 1957. It documents the bewilderment and loss of bearings felt within a once secure world coming to an end in political change and cultural fragmentation. Ravi attempts to come to terms with himself by sustaining the classical Hindu virtues of spiritual proportion, harmony and grace, and avoiding the decay of ethnic civilisation through his pursuit of social mobility.

Genres: Fiction, Asian Literature

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

K.S. Maniam, born 1942, has been writing from his early teens. His stories have appeared in numerous journals around the world. His first novel, The Return, was published in 1981 and the second, In a Far Country, in 1993. He won the first prize for The Loved Flaw: Stories from Malaysia in The New Straits Times–McDonald short-story contest (1987) and for Haunting the Tiger: Contemporary Stories from Malaysia in The New Straits Times–Shell contest (1990). He is the inaugural recipient of the Raja Rao Award (New Delhi, September 2000), for his outstanding contribution to the literature of the South Asian diaspora. He has been lecturer (1980–85) and associate professor (1986–97) in the English Department, University of Malaya, in Kuala Lumpur. He lives with his wife, son and daughter in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, and devotes his time fully to writing.

Reviews

[Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Return is a bildungsroman. In many ways, it reminded me of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with its theme of colonialism and exile. As with Joyce's work, it is a fictionalised rendering of the author's childhood. The main character is Ravi. His family are immigrants to Malaysia. Unlike many of the Indian immigrants who were forcibly sent over as cheap labour to work as rubber tappers by the British, Ravi's grandmother had gone over voluntarily.

Ravi's family live with other Indian immigrant workers on the grounds of a hospital where Ravi's parents provide a service of washing the hospital linens. They are dirt poor and live under the thumb of the Indian administrator of the hospital.

Ravi is sent to an English-language school. This is both a blessing and a curse. His aptitude for his studies allows him to eventually escape the family poverty. However, it also colonises his mind by making him hate his own culture and people. This process is stunningly dramatised by how the boys are taught to read: their English school teacher uses a text about a blond-haired, blue-eyed English boy, Ernie, growing up on an English farm. With its depictions of snow and daffodils, it is all a far cry from the boys' immediate environment of tropical heat and frangipanni trees. The English may dream of a Shangri-la but Malaysian Indian immigrants dream of white England.

Ravi saves his meager pocket money to buy English children's magazines like Beano, Dandy and Topper, and devours books from the school library like The Famous Five. His increasing cultural isolation from the rest of his family takes physical form when, in their one room house housing some 10 people (four adults and six children), he marks out a space in a corner of the tiny house with chalk lines on the ground as his to retreat to and read.

Ravi's father defies the closed-in Indian immigrant community to open a laundry shop in the town, going into debt to do so. Ravi, the only literate member of the family, has to help out at the store, studying late into the night in order to keep up with his studies.

Ravi's sheer grit eventually pays off when he wins a scholarship to study in England. During his absence, the family fortunes take a turn for the worse. When Ravi returns to Malaysia some three years later, he finds that the family has lost the shop and that his father has decamped to squat on government land near the forest and river. This episode harks back to an earlier one described at the very beginning of the novel.

Ravi's grandmother had first sought to carve out some measure of independence by squatting on land near a forest and river, growing crops for sustenance. As she had no legal title to the land, she eventually lost it. On Ravi's side, his loss is of a different kind. Seeking to escape the family poverty, he loses his cultural roots. All this comes to a head at the novel's end.

I found the novel deeply moving, and its story of cultural colonialisaton one that I have experienced in my own life. I am, after all, writing this in English and not Chinese.

Land is a key symbol in the novel. The economic vulnerabilty of not having a piece of land to call your own leaves the poor at the mercy of landlords, and always under their thumb. Land also has a cultural dimension: immigrants are uprooted from their homeland. The economic poverty of being dispossessed of land is conflated with the cultural poverty of being dispossessed of your homeland's culture. The impact of this is returned to in Between Lives and the emotional resonances and impact of Mr Maniam's childhood as set out in The Return clearly underlie that work as well. While I found Between Lives to be "a confused and amorphous mess", The Return I found to be more focused and more effective in dealing with the same theme. I think this is because Mr Maniam was writing from direct experience. Definitely a worthwhile read.

[Fadillah · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I stood outside Periathai’s and Naina’s preoccupations. Their imagination couldnt grasp the real complexity that surrounded us. I had watching Periathai’s failure to earn a home in this land, decided to acquire a skill that would allow me a comfortable, unthreatened existence. One’s world was after all private. A mild anger filled me as i saw Periathai die homeless. But i considered hers an irrational attitude. No one would compel me into sharing another immature ambition. Only my studies mattered. I was at them constantly aware that i could go to England if i won a teaching bursary. Naina’s interest and my family’s struggle become unimportant. The dignity of individual was the only thing that engaged me”
- The return by KS Maniam
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I was shooketh. The ending literally tore my heart into million pieces. I did not expect that the second half of the book will proceed that way, suffice to say, an intense and emotional roller coaster ride. The story started with Ravi’s narration of her grandmother’s life. Ravi remembered her as resourceful and hardworker. She left India and placed herself in a foreign land. She worked as a tinker, healer and eventually find a land to farm and eventually settling down. Then, Ravi’s narration shifted to Kannan, his own father. He saw him as an authority figure, someone that he should obey and listen to without any objection. Ravi also saw his mother helplessness when his own father has taken Karupi as a second wife. This is the moment of trouble appeared as Karupi is hell bent on denying Ravi’s chance to study whenever she got the opportunity. Again, Ravi’s mother stood silently and will not dare to fight for him. Karupi is that typical embodiment of Step Mother in major TV show. Ravi’s father, Kannan is unpredicatable, in a way, he is almost bipolar - when he is kind, he will treat Ravi nicely. When he is in foul mood, Ravi will get beaten and slapped as if It is Ravi’s fault that he was in such mood. Reading the word ‘Rotan’ in this book , right away i can imagine the Asian Parenting back then. It was widely used to discipline the kids. Ravi is no exception to it. I have to be honest that i find myself dislike Ms Nancy. It is almost uncomfortable reading how Ravi looked up to her , in a way he almost infatuated by her. But still, Ms Nancy played a big role in Ravi’s life as his aspiration to study, learn and speak english came from her. English, for Ravi is a way to go upward of social mobility, to elevate the status and to validate that he is successful compared to others. Mr Menon or known as ‘Ayah’ is another irritating character in this book. He cannot stand seeing those who he deemed beneath him risen upwards. When he got to know that Ravi wanted to go for a secondary school, he tried to discourage him. He persuaded Kannan to stop Ravi from going for it. He also disliked that Ravi speaks better English than his son and also doing much better than his son in school. He felt that these poor people should just stay poor and just do the work that suits him. Overall, this is poignant writing, almost had a sense of melancholia in it. Some said that it is KS Maniam autobiography given the place and location of the story revolved around his hometown. There’s so much going on in this novel but it did not disrupt the flow of writing - i felt like i witnessed everything while reading it. The theme of the novel ranging from colonialism impact, hierarchy order, gererational trauma, multilingual environment and class struggle. This is what i got so far once i finished reading this book. I have nothing more to add except i would highly recommended this book. If you never read any KS Maniam Book, this book should be the first book to start. I would have given this 5 stars if KS Maniam did add one more chapter on how the family proceed with their life and ‘dhobi’ business once Ravi left Malaysia to pursue his study. I felt it left the gap in the story and i was left with many questions on that part.

[Cikin R · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book focuses on the life of Indian immigrants in Malaysia dated between 1940-1960s. There are other races and ethnicity in Malaysia but this book revolves around Indian immigrants. The style of writing is very descriptive with vivid details. It tells the story of a young boy called Ravi who is a third generation Indian diaspora and his struggles in searching for identity and improving the family's social status. It is a semi autobiographical novel.

[Rosebud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our last book on Malaysia for the international book club. This one was told from a much more personal place of a young boy. The poverty, dysfunctional family, and some cruelty were disturbing, especially when seen from the eyes of a child.

[Freddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gritty, tragic, and, nuanced account of class struggle, generational trauma, cultural colonisation, and dignity. The novel is strongest in its depiction of a particular recurring (spoilery) obsession - reading it makes me feel almost feverish.

[Rohini · Rating 2 out of 5]

I resonated with the cultural nuances speckled throughout the book but found it tough to immerse myself completely into Ravi's journey.

The story felt disjointed at parts.

It does however provide insight into the livelihood of the local communities.

[gly · Rating 1 out of 5]

For me, it was a struggle to finish the book.

It’s a good read if you’re interested in the cultural change in Malaysia, specifically in an Indian community. It reveals the changes that happened before and after the Independence.

[Syaa R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

can one escape poverty if he’s from a real poor family albeit fortunate enough to travel out of the mess for a couple of years? can one escape from being seen as ‘unfit’ from his own people? what damage would it do?

this work shows how a parent from the family tried to be dominant from years and years. it didn’t even come to me that the usage of a particular language could spark jealousy since it was one of the elites; every other person who speaks it must not be better at it or he crosses the line.

i enjoy that this work focuses on domestic issues that really just narrate bigger ones out there. but of course, everything starts at home and all of this is told from the eyes of a child.

you can definitely finish this in one sitting. i have to read it for class soon and i’m already so pumped to hear thoughts from my classmates.

p/s: i totes dig the painting by Latiff Mohidin on the cover 🧡

[Carmen Thong · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing style is quite hesitant and stunted, some of his metaphors are very odd and implausible, and it's quite confusing to follow the events in the book. The plot didn't really go anywhere. However, there was quite a few precious moments from his childhood and his struggles to educate himself. It also speaks to the status of the English language in Malaysia, which makes it a somewhat interesting read.

[Grayden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this during high school.
One of the reason I read it was due to the setting of the story.
Aside from that, the story is about history of Malaysia, which I was much interested in.
It gave me a whole new insight of the situations in Malaysia back then.
I love this book real much.

[Lisbeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opener to the cultures of other ethnic and in this book,the focus is towards the Indian immigrants who came to Malaysia during the colonial period. Though they have migrated to a new place, their cultures remains closely to them. Great book, great author.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for class, I think Malaysian authors are really good, even though this book is not my cup of tea. The culture, history, traditions, so unique and yet so fascinating! The writing style is excellent, I appreciate the text but I can't say I enjoyed it either, so 3 stars!

[Ranjini Krishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book is not very thick, less than 200 pages, I took time finishing it as the book is written with many details. The author is very descriptive and he creates a very clear picture for us to illustrate with our mind. It opens up mind about how life was during that era. A good read.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book in a day. So fascinating and by a local author! Two thumbs up :P