Sunlight on a Broken Column - Attia Hosain

Fiction

Read it

One of my favorite parts of books is the introduction - and even better an explanation of the author. They help open up the author's world to the reader. I had never heard of Attia Hosain before I started reading this novel. To say the least, the introduction on her was intimidating and I very much looked forward to reading her one and only novel. Anita Desai, another favorite authoress of mine wrote the forward which helped me on my way through the novel. When one investigates Indian novels, and if he or she is careful, the nuances of different locations and sub-cultures soon becomes very easily seen. This is very easy to see in Hosain's novel.

Sunlight on a Broken Column follows a young Muslim girl and her family from British era Lucknow to more modern times. The family struggles to change from a house where ladies are in purdah to learning to accept new norms. To say the least, it's not an easy transition and many struggle. It's difficult to avoid certain stereotypes when one talks about the Muslim community in India, however some of those spring from history and it's good to look at the historical attitudes to understand current culture. Hearing this from someone in the community, and in my opinion a neutral person, helps the reader get an accurate picture.

If my description doesn't tell you too much, it's because the author portrays ideas and everyday life. There's no story arc per say to follow. It's just everyday life and how it slowly changes. While this isn't always easy to follow, it's culture rich. 

I wish Attia Hosain had written other books. I would have like to delve a bit further into her mind.

Read it if you have the time to wander slowly and contemplate the breadcrumbs and cultural tidbits she lays out for you to find.

~Becky~

The Crows of Agra - Sharath Komarraju

Fiction

Verdict: If you like this sort of thing

There's a certain genre in India where people take historical figures and build fictional stories around them with just enough facts (or many facts) to make them plausible. In fact, I think this happens everywhere. I happen to enjoy them. They make history come more alive for me and make it accessible, not to mention interesting.

The Crows of Agra is a murder mystery. A pretty well done one at that. The novel starts with a very immature Akbar ruling with a regent. As he grows, and court intrigues prevail, it looks as though the regent is gunning for power and the throne. When he gets murdered, a random Brahmin (who isn't actually a Brahmin at all) who saved the king's life is called upon to unravel the mystery. And he does just that. 

There's not too much surprising that happens, though the author does manage to preserve the solution right to the very end. The only nice twist (Spoiler alert) that I found was the culprit's explanation at the end. I won't say more than that because it's no fun if you already know who dun it. 

This is a relatively short book and is an easy read. It drags a little in some places, but is overall well done. If this is your cup of tea, enjoy.

~Becky~

The Wasted Vigil - Nadeem Aslam

Fiction

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This is my second book by Nadeem Aslam. I was prepared for another Pakistani in England story, but that is not what I got. What I found was even better than the first novel. 

Aslam takes us through a tragic story of a mixed family - a White Father, Afghani mother, and child - and how their lives have been linked to a Russian woman who came looking for her long lost brother. Afghanistan's history and war with Russia color the novel in the darkest of shades - you just know there are no happy endings here. And indeed you find out at the end that's true. 

The novel is fascinating, and very well done in terms of the author's understanding of Afghan culture and the reality of culture and how things are done in Afghanistan. He knows just how much hope and despair to balance to keep you moving on, desperate to prove yourself wrong that it's just that bad. But it is. 

I personally have not had much exposure to the effect that the Russians had on Afghanistan and vice versa, so that was interesting to learn about.  I most definitely look forward to reading more from Nadeem Aslam. 

It's not an easy read in terms of social niceties, but it is well worth it. Read it.

~Becky~

Moving On - Shashi Deshpande

Fiction

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Shashi Deshpande is a new authoress for me, though not at all a new author for many Kannadigas, and I'm glad I tried her novel out. It's always a joy to find amazing authors.

Deshpande's novel centers around a family who's legacy is death. She slowly unwinds each death through the course of the novel, drawing the reader in to each scenario. It's not necessarily a sad novel, though the characters grieve in their own ways, but it is a reflective one. What gripped me most while reading this is that the main character is in a constant state of analysis when her father dies. He has left a conspicuous journal that leads her to understand him (and her mother and sister) better than she ever had when they were alive. 

A widow with nearly grown children, she wanders into a sexual affair and then a romance after years of denying herself contact with others. The marriage she had treasured, we come to find out through the book, was not as healthy nor functional as we thought in the beginning. Her husband also gave in to suicide for the vaguest of reasons.  Her romance at the end of the book doesn't feel like one and goes through some difficulties, though the reader ends up feeling that it may go in a positive direction.

While all of this unwinding is happening, the character is tasked with helping her daughter decide what to do with her father's house - as he has left it to his grand daughter. She deals with people breaking in, trying to strong arm her into selling it a certain way, and all the difficulties a property owner faces - not to mention a woman alone. In the end, they decide to keep the house and the guilty parties are caught. One twist is that her sexual affair ends up to be the very person who is trying to get her out of the house. 

Deshpande does a masterful job of bringing us through some of the more abstract questions and scenarios that follow death, but are far more common than we think. How well do we actually know our parents? How functional were our relationships and how much of that was just gloss that we applied because we wanted them a certain way? The author doesn't really give us answers, but she does show how the main character makes peace with her own discoveries. She also does a terrific job of portraying a woman who has incredible strength and won't be made to fall in line with what others want. 

I highly recommend this book. There are only a few things that people outside of India would struggle to understand, and the questions that Deshpande brings up are ones that we all face and can relate to. 

~Becky~

Mumbai Fables - Gyan Prakash

 Non-Fiction

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It's been quite some time since I read a non-fiction book. I picked this up from the library thinking it would be stories of or from Mumbai. I was a bit wrong on that count, but was quite satisfied with the book.

Mumbai, or Bombay as I still call it, is a fascinating city. It's history and cast of famous characters are no less fascinating. Gyan Prakash has done a lovely job of drawing us into the magic of Bombay. Architecure, movies, papers, characters, legends. It's quite the read. The city that never should have been - a series of islands and land reclaimed. 

I won't go too far into all of the historical timeline, but I will say that a general knowledge of India and Mumbai is helpful.  I was hoping that Gyan Prakash would get into some of the more recent developments in Mumbai, but as many historical books do, it doesn't get into anything all that recent. 

Read it!

~Becky~

Godaan - Anurag Yadav

 Fiction

Read it if you like Village Life Novels

I picked up this novel because it proclaimed "Masterpiece of Hindi Literature" on the cover. I figured that I would check it out. While a little slow in places and extremely fatalistic, it's a good read.

The story takes place in a small village somewhere in northern India outside of Lucknow. Anurag Yadav has a field day pointing out the differences in class and mentality between villagers, the village head leader, and a group of cosmopolitan friends who occasionally run into the villagers. It's all done in a very matter of fact way without excuses for anyone. 

Hori, our main character, is a farmer. He has a wife and 3 children who are almost grown. Hori struggles to improve his situation throughout the book with no success, dragged down by circumstance, malice, and taking loans, a common plight of farmers who end up paying interest long after the loan should have been done. He fights tooth and nail - usually with only his pride left - to hold on to his land and his status as farmer, only to be trample on until all he can claim is that he is a laborer. The village head makes all his excuses about how difficult it is for Zamindars and how he should be excused from any responsibility at all for collecting taxes and fines. The cosmopolitan friends soar above it all, neither worried about money nor how their actions affect anyone.

Spoiler alert - Hori dies in the end from being over worked, a condition that I'm sure many farmers and laborers can understand well. There's absolutely no happy ending for any of the characters, so typical of Indian authors, nor is there any feel good about Hori or his circumstances and how people remain in poverty. Since not many of the people reading this book will be from a village or living in such poverty, it's an interesting exercise in awareness. 

Read it.

~Becky~

The Far Field - Madhuri Vijay

Fiction

Read it!

I initially picked up this book because the art work on the cover is beautiful, and I am very glad I did.  Madhuri Vijay has created something very special with this novel. This is my first exposure to her as an author, and I can't wait to see what else she has written/will write.

This novel is about Shalini. She is from Bangalore who has a very ordinary, yet troubled childhood. Her mother's mental issues are never spelled out, but it's clear she has something wrong. The mother is amused by a wandering Kashmiri clothing seller who comes many times to visit her in her home.  As a child, Shalini can feel that something is wrong, but can't quite put her finger on it. After her mother commits suicide, Shalini decides to find the carpet seller and get her questions answered. Only she doesn't really have a solid location for him, just an old story that he told that helps her in a starting direction. She stays with his extended family for a while and then his son when they agree to help her find him. She exists in a vacuum and passes her time there, wondering if she should stay permanently. Stumbling into a falsely peaceful looking area, she affects the lives of everyone she stays with trying to get her questions answered. Ultimately, her family finds her and a colonel brings her back, then sleeps with her. Her report on the events that she saw in Kashmir are misconstrued to assist the army and the Kashmiri's son is arrested. Shalini is left to live with the fact that inspite of her neutral intentions, her decisions have left a permanent, horrifying mark on people she grew to care about. 

The author unwinds and untangles one thread at a time for us as she goes on an epic trip to uncover some unresolved questions from Shalini's childhood. I know it sounds like a huge trope, but it's very well done. Vijay addresses mental health, infidelity, Kashmir, and how sometimes our actions have unintended, irreversible consequences. It's not a difficult read (though like most of the novels I read, it's quite long), but it does leave you feeling desperately like you wish there was a different outcome. It disturbed me for a few days after I read it.

This isn't my first exposure to the atrocities that continue to happen in Kashmir, but I was very much hoping that the ending would have been at least neutral. It definitely wasn't. I also very much enjoyed (in the literary sense, not seeing a character suffer) how the author focused not only on mental illness and how it can be difficult for an individual, but the long, ongoing consequences that the rest of the family may face. I felt a distinct concern for Shalini the entire novel as it is so obvious that she is wandering lost and trying to make sense of things that were never even spoke of, not to mention explained.

Take your time and wander through this. Its a hell of a book.

~Becky~