Marginal Life and Strange Rituals in the Novel Chedal

Abstract: This article studies Imayam's Tamil novel Chedal, which depicts a Dalit girl who is dedicated to the village goddess Selliyamman through the pottukattuthal ritual so that the village may prosper and receive rain. Through a close reading of the dedication ceremony, the village's collective decision, the girl's abandonment at puberty, and her later life as a koothu performer, the article argues that the ritual deprives a child of her family, freedom and dignity in the name of devotion. It reads the practice as a rural survival of the devadasi system and shows how caste power, poverty and fear of divine wrath sustain it. Imayam's unadorned realism, the article concludes, exposes the violence hidden within ritual and holds the reader morally accountable.

Keywords: Imayam, Chedal, marginalized lives, Dalit literature, devadasi system, ritual violence, Tamil realism, child rights