Freedom of Choice

Full disclosure: The author is my aunt. My aunt Saradha is a cardiologist by trade, but has dabbled in poetry and fiction throughout the years. This book is available by Amazon.Co.Uk only.



When many of us in the Western world think of “choice,” we immediately think of the citizen’s freedom from the interference of government action. A quick survey of the writings of the political philosophers who influenced both our national character and our written Constitution and Declaration of Independence: John Locke and the “consent of the governed,” Thomas Paine and the pamphlet “The Declaration of the Rights of Man,” and even later works such as John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” all speak to an uncomfortable relationship between the citizenry and state power. How about Adam Smith’s individualism and its relationship of social welfare in “the Wealth of Nations”? Contemporary political issues, too, are framed in terms of choice: health care reform the “public option”, education reform and school choice, women’s rights vs. the rights of the unborn, and the freedom to practice our religions vs. the freedom assemble ( e.g. marry) who we want.

The title The Freedom of Choice might suggest that one has stumbled upon the mysterious unfinished sequel to Milton Friedman’s economic treatise Free to Choose. On the contrary, Saradha Narayanan’s The Freedom of Choice, her first full-length novel, is a story of personal struggles, dilemmas, and decisions-- not a free-market economist’s clarion call for economic and political freedom against an oppressive government. The government—in this case contemporary Malaysia---shackles the characters with cultural and religious ethos and taboos and then recedes into the background as the female protagonist deals with a life altering event with her family. The forces she must confront are not institutional, e.g. religious police, an unjust court, or a corrupt politician. It is, in fact, her husband and father of her two children who personifies the array of social and cultural demons that she must confront.

The story is of wife and mother Rachel Thomas (born Sangeetha Natarjan) who gave birth to a boy as a young, unmarried adult and “chooses” to give the child up for adoption. Many years later, after having married Matthew Thomas and borne two children, private investigator Rohan Mahendran tracks her down and informs her that she is the only living biological donor to her son, David Chang. David Chang, adopted by Vivian and Jonathan Chang, a Chinese Catholic couple, has succumbed to advanced renal disease and needs an urgent kidney transplant. Not surprisingly, the aforementioned cultural taboos forbid an anonymous organ donation system, e.g. the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), and Rachel is the only chance the boy has at transplant. Rachel’s personal and family life descends into chaos as she must reconcile her choices with her immediate environment.

The ultimate irony of the story is that Rachel’s supposed choices are, in fact, mirages. To be sure, Rachel exercises her “free will” all throughout the story. But these choices are not of the “shall I have steak or chicken for dinner” or “should I take the expressway or the local road” flavor. Furthermore, if one were to examine the story through an “Eastern” versus “Western” lens, the appearance of a choice would become illusive. Eastern societal norms against young unwed women having children dictate that Rachel does not have a choice about giving her child up for adoption, let alone abort it before birth. Even Rohan Mahendran, the character who presents Rachel with the choice of helping her first-born, reveals himself to be less of a disinterested messenger and more of an advocate. His veneer of neutrality disappears when he contacts her with an emotionally-letter--“a child’s life is in your hands”--and later reveals his connection with the foster mother.

The most illustrative “false choice” appears later in the story with a climactic and, at times, difficult to witness exchange between Rachel and her husband Matthew. Learning of Rachel’s son for the first time, an unsympathetic Matthew argues with Rachel:

Matthew: “I hope, for your own sake, you have not foolishly agreed to do anything yet. I want you to call the parents, or the P.I., and tell them you cannot do it.”

Rachel: “Matthew, that’s exactly what I am trying to do. Fulfill my responsibility as mother…to my first born, that is. Why can’t you see that?”

Matthew: “You always have a choice, Rachel. Always! Organ donation is a voluntary process. No one has the right to make you do something you don’t want to do….I’m warning you, Rachel! You will be sorry if you persist in acting in this manner.”

One can’t help but notice the strong paradox in Matthew’s argument—reminding his wife of her volition yet demanding her obedience.

Despite the book’s remarkable job of depicting Rachel’s murky dilemmas, the book’s author leaves readers with one overarching question that she neglects to answer: What is Rachel’s obligation to her first born son? Rachel stipulates periodically that she has an intangible duty to come to the rescue of a child who she gave up for adoption many years earlier. How this “duty” trumps any future duty or obligation to her two children with Matthew is not explained. What if one of her two children were to become candidates for a kidney transplant and Rachel was the only living donor? Readers are left wondering, despite Rachel’s courageous efforts to stand up to her husband for the sake of principle, whether her case for donating her kidney to her estranged son is persuasive.

The romantic tension between Rohan and Rachel later in the story feels is a little flimsy and seems be more befitting of a Hollywood romantic comedy than a novel about choice and ethics. Just as Matthew begins to drift away from Rachel over their impasse, Rohan, the mysterious and complex private investigator, predictably fills the vacuum with opportunistic emotional support. In fact, the reader spends a few pages agonizing along with Rachel over why Rohan is there and her husband Matthew is adrift, not mention the palpable attraction the unmarried Rohan reciprocates towards Rachel. Yet, at the end of the story, the question of who Rachel chooses in the end is unresolved. We are left, instead, with a vague implication that things have changed for Rachel when we have already geared up for a dramatic play for Rachel’s heart by Rohan or a final confrontation between Rachel and Matthew.

The Freedom of Choice is a fascinating read that will undoubtedly give its audience a glimpse into the painful decisions of an Eastern wife and mother that, for many Westerners, may seem straightforward and obvious. While it may be difficult to ‘tease out’ any moral lessons from the book, e.g. the legalization of market for organ donation or biomedical ethics reform, the author elucidates magnificently the notion that many choices are illusions that get decided by external forces, and that the choices we make have profound consequences on our family and society. We will be very fortunate if Mrs. Narayanan continues to build on her first foray into literature and churn out such thought provoking material.