Jasoda - Kiran Nagarkar

 Fiction

Read it

I've read a few other novels by Kiran Nagarkar and I am very much a fan. This novel was quite a bit shorter than God's Little Soldier (Whew!) and quite different in content than either of the other two novels I have read. The brilliance of this book is that the main character, Jasoda, could be any one of the millions of poor women in India with little choice in who they are married off to, making due with far too little, and having very few choices.

The book opens, strikingly, with Jasoda committing female infanticide. Its quite shocking. We learn later that family pressure is the major factor, but each time it happens, it is shocking. Jasoda is married to a do nothing man who is obsessed with toadying up to a local erstwhile prince in the hopes that someday it will pay off and he will be rewarded. This leaves Jasoda to manage the house, their sons, and her mother in law. As the water situation in their village becomes dire, Jasoda takes her 2 sons and mother in law and walk until they reach a train station, much like the rest of the village. They travel to Bombay to make a go of it. Being chased off by the pavement mafia and later raped by the "landlord" for their section of pavement, Jasoda learns how to be inventive and make a living for her and her sons. She finds herself pregnant again and her sons end up going out to work begging and sorting garbage. To say the least, Jasoda and her children do not have it easy.

One son finds a patron who helps him get educated, another son gets lost and never reappears, the third son comes and goes like the wind, the fourth son is born with disabilities due to a difficult deliver. The youngest child, the only daughter Jasoda allows to live, is pampered and spoiled and taken care of her whole life. Jasoda becomes successful running a snack cart and invents new dishes. 

After a while, she hears that people have started returning to the village and that development is under way. She also packs up the children who would come with her and heads back to the village. While they were gone, her husband murders the prince and takes his place and bizarrely becomes an oil baron. He re-marries in order to get a male heir. Jasoda's husband finds them a room in another village before disappearing once more. Jasoda again picks up the pieces and opens her own food cart. She becomes so successful that she opens a few restaurants. Jasoda's husband reappears randomly and declares that he is going to stay in their flat. She puts up with him for a while before arranging for him to have a fatal accident when he tries to sell the restaurants out from under her.

Jasoda's pluck, grit, and ingenuity is a tribute to women with shitty husbands everywhere who don't have anyone else to depend on. She's not an incredibly complex character, but readers are definitely able to identify with her. 

Read it!

~Becky~

The Princess and the Political Agent - Binodini

 Fiction

Verdict: A difficult one, but Read it

As I mentioned, when one wanders through Indian novels and writers, each brings a specific flavor that can help the reader understand the culture that the novel stems from. Binodini's novel is no exception. While my daughter had a Manipuri boyfriend for a while and I have had some...acquaintances from Manipur and Assam as well, I have had very little exposure to Manipuri Culture and no exposure to literary works from there. To be quite frank, when i picked this up, I mistakenly thought that this was a Bengali novel. I was thrilled to find out otherwise. As with my previous post on Attia Hosain, the introduction to Binodini at the beginning was intimidating as hell. Related to the royal family of Manipur and quite the literary influence, Binodini has published just one novel, but many other poems and short works.

The novel follows one one of the Manipuri Princesses during the British Raj, when the Manipuri king was removed and sent into exile,  and through her life. The author has created a treasure trove of culture, court intrigue, and romance. As title suggests, the Princess ends up being a common law wife of an English Political agent. While he is portrayed as a compassionate and caring person, one cannot help but wonder why the princess would accept someone who is widely recognized as being a face of the enemy and not one of them. Binodini never really answers this question. While it is a fiction novel, she has based it on actual people and events. The princess actually was with the political agent.  

This was a difficult novel for me to follow. The author does her own thing and tells her story exactly as she wishes to - no apologies, very few explanations.  While the cultural value this novel has is quite something, it's not easily digestible. I found myself having to do additional research into words and such while I was reading. I don't fault the author for this, but those who do not invest in helping themselves understand will probably miss a great deal. I also found the characters very difficult to understand and identify with. As someone who loves Indian literature, this was frustrating for me. I also would have loved to have had further insight into interpersonal relationships between the characters. Many of the relationships were confusing at best, down right confounding at worst. True to form, Binodini has just presented the story, she does not explain. 

Manipuri literature is a new one for me, and I fully plan to see what else I can find to read from there. Hopefully I can develop my knowledge enough to fully appreciate the story Binodini has told. 

Read it, but unless you are Manipuri, plan on investing some time to investigate. If you don't, you'll miss the richness of this novel.

~Becky~

Adultery - Farrukh Dandey

Non-Fiction
Verdict: Read it

Another book that turned out to be vastly different than I had expected. This is very surprisingly not about smut, or adultery, although there is a fair bit of that. What this book is about is relationships.

A collection of short stories, most of them do not turn out quite as you would have expected. I found this a bit disappointing, but it made reading it much more interesting.

Not a long or difficult read - take the time.

Becky

My Feudal Lord - Tehmina Durrani

NonFiction
Verdict: Meh.

This is another story about how men are sexist and do not treat women right. Especially Middle Eastern Men. It's one woman's account of her marriage and how her husband thinks he runs the world. Unfortunately these stories are a dime a dozen, and there's nothing earth shattering or particularly interesting in this story. 

Please note that I think the author is brave and has a valid point. My Meh was not about her experience - it was about it being the same story told yet again.  The writing was nothing that caught my imagination and the hook-line about Feudal Lord was quite a bit overused.

If you're interested, by all means dig in, otherwise, nothing unusual here.


Becky

A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipul

Fiction

Verdict: Meh....

For a book that came well recommended, I had a hard time getting into this one. Set in the Caribbean, this novel follows a Caribbean Indian named Mr. Biswas, from his birth to his death. His childhood is not easy nor particularly happy. After he gets married, he is forever hen pecked and at odds with his wife's family in a fight to not be absorbed by them and become like them - a thing he finds detestable. 

He's not a likable protagonist. Flawed, stubborn, and not overly smart, I found it hard to like him. I also found the Caribbean Indian angle difficult to understand, as the cultural references, and back story aren't ones I understand. I found the novel to stretch out interminably at certain places, caught in the mundane everyday interactions that left me wondering why I needed to read yet another of the same fight.

The much touted humor in this book left me wondering where exactly it was. I never did find it.

Becky

Love Will Follow : Why The Indian Marriage Is Burning - Shaifali Sandhya

Hello Bibliophiles! (Book Lovers for the non-vocabulary blessed)

My apologies for yet another long absence. I have been reading, but I've also been rather sucked into teaching piano lessons, so I've not kept up with my writing. Hopefully I can get back on my horse.

So. Love will Follow.

I picked this book for some rather obvious reasons. The first and foremost is that I married an Indian. Indian marriages are a bit different than western ones, and my hybrid marriage is a beast unto itself. I have always been fascinated by the differences in arranged marriages and love marriage (and every permutation between) and how the outcome of these options is affected by the Indian societal structure.

This book was a fascinating glimpse into Indian marriages. The author's premise was that Indian marriages are burning for a variety of reasons, but mainly that people are both evolving away from traditional mindsets (see non - traditional/non-arranged arranged marriages) and people's tendancy to be more educated and more willing to walk away from situations that were not satisfactory. The story was written from a mainly North Indian point of view, and all of the personal stories were from families in the north of India, which was disappointing for me because there is quite a difference in North Indians and South Indians. For the uninitiated/uninformed, this book makes Indian marriage seem like a dismal institution - which is basically not all that far off from the truth in the fact that not only is India a Patriarchal society with life for all women being very difficult, personal satisfaction/needs are generally placed way lower than those of the group (family or societal), especially for women.

The author gives the impression that divorces are happening on a mass scale. In reality, when the book was written in 2007, only .07% of marriages ended in divorce. Chew on that for a minute. In a nation of how many billion people, .07% still doesn't add up to that many. True, Indian's traditionally did not get divorced, so any increase is noticeable. However, saying that Indian marriages are burning down is a bit alarmist and not all that true.

As the author herself pointed out, societal pressure to stay married is still enormous. While India has been shooting towards modernity, people's mindsets have not changed all that much. A vast majority of people are still extremely old fashioned and conservative at heart.

What I did find interesting (and indeed, extremely depressing) was the author's look at what was making Indian marriages so difficult to maintain. I found the author had many valid points in this regard. However, I feel those factors have always been a part of Indian society and are not to blame for breaking marriages, but more along the lines with weakness in Indian society in general.

As a westerner, I cannot agree that people should not have modern outlooks and personal needs just because divorce may occur. As a matter of fact, I think divorce is a positive step in direction for women in India. Not divorce itself, but the comfort level of a women to go after what she wants and not take/put up with anything and everything someone else wants. Indian life is hard on women, even the economically comfortable/modern ones. Women here never really escape what society and family expects of them. Feeling comfortable enough to know her own mind and make her own decision would be a huge step for a woman here.

Unfortunately, India's problem with women will be ongoing for a long, long time. Mindsets do not change overnight - or over decades for that matter - and India's track record with women is abysmal. Divorce numbers may continue to climb, but it will still not be in a positive fashion. It takes an incredibly strong person to buck tradition and society and hold his or her head high as they walk alone. In India, most of the cases would result in social isolation and an overpowering sense of guilt for most women, which they most likely will not find worth the divorce anyhow.

I wish I would have read this book before I married my husband. I don't regret my marriage one bit, but had I read it before I met him, I may have walked into a difficult situation much more prepared. Love doesn't conquer all, which of course I wouldn't have believed at that age anyhow. When you go into a partnership with a person who's society has a long and complicated history, it's a difficult path to walk. I do hope India can work on it's issues, but I'm positive it won't happen in my generation or even my daughter's.

Verdict: If you are interested in Indian arranged marriage or Indian society's view on marriages and women, this is an eye opener. It's a heavy and at times depressing read, but eye opening. Read it, but keep in mind that .07% doesn't mean marriage is burning completely any time soon.