Skimming through Bama’s Karukku again (I’ve lost count of the number of times), evokes in me images from Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen (children fishing) and NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names.

Bulawayo  particularly, when reading through passages like, “If you went there and pulled off a cucumber to eat, its touch upon the tongue was wonderful on a hot day. In any case there is a special taste to food snatched by stealth,” and then again, “When we used to go out in the early morning to relieve ourselves, a bright red sun, huge and round, would wake up in the east and climb into the sky.” 

Indeed the experiences of the oppressed are more or less alike everywhere.