The Lives of Others - Neel Mukherjee

 Fiction

Verdict: Read It (3/5)

Overview:

Another Bookworm find this novel is the first one I've read from Neel Mukherjee

This novel covers a great deal about Village Life. It is one of the multigenerational stories that I very much enjoy. 

What I Enjoyed:

As with most multigenerational stories, there is a lot of detail that comes along by chance as you continue to meet characters. The different roles and statuses of children become obvious as the reader understands the structure of the house and the placement of the inhabitants. It's a very crude but accurate commentary about India's obsession with status, even among families. 

What I Disliked:

Because there were so many characters, there wasn't as much effort taken to develop them into well-rounded personalities. Perhaps that was the point, but it feels rather like watching a series of photos go by rather than watching a movie. I am either hit or miss with Bengali authors/writing flavor and this just missed with me. 

Summary:

There are other novels that portray the same themes in a better manner. It's a heavy book to just be a so/so novel, but that's simply my opinion. 

 

~Becky~

 

Black River - Nilanjana S Roy

Fiction

Verdict: Read It (4/5)

Overview:

It seems I haven't been diligent about writing reviews since I returned from the US some 4 months back. Shame shame and all that jazz. Now I have a stack of books to complete and this was on the top.  Ahem. Anyhow.

Black River is a novel that I picked up from my fav bookstore, Bookworm. This is the first book I've read by Nilanjana Roy.

 The novel opens with a pastoral scene that quickly devolves into a very unfortunate murder of a young girl, Munia.  What ensues is a murder mystery that doesn't follow the typical Sherlock Holmes/Police Detective template. The details are slowly revealed whilst wandering around in memories. 

What I Enjoyed:

A very simple read in terms of language and plot, the book still delights in that it is well-written and well-planned. The murder mystery is like the end of a ball of yarn that takes the entire novel to unravel. A host of characters, tied together by odd relationships, bring us through present and historical side plots. The characters were simple and easy to identify with, yet not shallow. I know I didn't mention much here, but the beauty of this novel is how it unravels and  I don't like spoilers.

What I Disliked:

There wasn't much I disliked about this novel. 

Summary:

A light read, this mystery is a great companion for a rainy afternoon. It won't take long to read, and the characters and plot are simple and enjoyable. Read it!

~Becky~

The Better Man - Anita Nair

Fiction

Verdict: Read it

I read this book some time back and somehow forgot to include it in my reviews. I like Anita Nair's writing. I've read a few before. This novel was along the same stylistic lines and I liked this one as well.

The main character, Mukundan, has returned to his village. He is determined to change both his surroundings and himself and begins restoring his old home. He ends up with a crazy sidekick who helps him and provides most of his social interaction. I'm not sure what it is about Indian lore, but the disorganiztion and chaos so often results in people in almost absurd situations that you wonder how they got there and why they just accept it. Just an observation - ahem. Anyhow. His side kick Bhasi sets about trying to improve Mukundan's unhappiness through a string of neutral to absurd ideas. Mukundan is patient with these attempts, but none of them really stick and he wanders here and there like a ghost himself, never really fulfiling his quest to change his house or himself.

THere's not much of a plot line through this book and most of what we see is Mukundan's maudlin thoughts to himself. He doesn't have much of a purpose, nor does he seem to have any passions or relationships in life. You feel sorry for him. Read it if you want a slow burn of hopelessness in a village setting.

~Becky~

Butter Chicken in Ludhiana Travels in Small town India - Pankaj Mishra

Non-Fiction

Read it

I haven't read anything previously by Pankaj Mishra - though he's quite the known and celebrated author. The title caught my eye - as did the stereotyped pictures of India on the cover - because I have an obsession with Punjab lately. 

Mishra's book walks the reader through some of his travels in India - mostly the northern half. The author's biting wit and commentary were quite amusing. India is, at the best of times, chock full of situations that are nothing more or less than ludicrous. Anyone who has spent anytime at all in India realizes this. I especially enjoyed that Mishra's destinations weren't big places. The heart of India isn't in it's big cities and tourist destinations. His skewering of small dirty hotels was especially entertaining. He also touches on some of the backward and bigoted thinking that persists to date in the minds of people who either have not been taught to think bigger and better or simply don't want to. These conversations when overheard can be quite shocking if you are not expecting them. 

It's a bit of a paradox when people travel here. You can't see the real India without moving off the beaten path, but its a hard situation to put yourself in. Anyone coming to India would be too overwhelmed (even the beaten path has been known to overcome the heartiest people) and anyone in India is too busy actually living their life and having a job to wander around in small dusty, backward places. But this is how travelers find themselves and learn about the wider condition. Trains in particular - Sleeper class if you are the sturdiest of the sturdy - are one of the best places I've ever found to observe humanity and exactly who Indians are. 

Mishra's humor moves the reader through mundane and often ridiculous scenarios. It also poses a challenge to readers like me to search out (more than I already have!) places and situations that stretch me and help me further understand the country I choose to live in. 

Read it.

~Becky~

Women Dreaming - Salma

Read it

Fiction

Women dreaming is quite an interesting read. It's been a long time since I have read an author who is so blunt (without romance or lament) about the condition of women - in this case Muslim Women in India. It's a novel, so fiction, but I could relate to the characters so well, I felt like this could be the case in any Muslim home in India.

Salma's characters aren't stereotypical. Her main character leaves her husband after he takes a second wife. Her sister in law was rejected and sent home from a marriage after her husband was not able to have sex thus she was rejected as being barren (he most likely was gay). Her mother is lost in an angry sad world where she needs to cry and shout about everything. Her husband is so angry that she stood up for herself, he takes it upon himself to make the rest of her life hell by separating her from her children. 

All of this takes place in a village. It could be any village - the small mindedness and judgmental nature are universal. The author also takes pains to demonstrate how self righteous, religious people (in this case a man) are much more interested in controlling and limiting women rather than in the actual religion. It's a refreshing honesty. Salma's main character isn't a heroine. She falls into a pit of despair and dissociation. Yet you can't help admiring her for making her own decision and living her own life in spite of so many obstacles. And you feel sorry for her because even after she does, she's not able to find happiness or even peace. The children can't decide who to support or put up with because both houses become toxic. The author also takes pains to point out how shackling one generation of women makes it's way down other generations as well. Women themselves encourage these limitations because they don't know or can't imagine any other way.

It's a sad novel, but a reality for many women and helped me appreciate exactly how my separation could have gone. I hope those who need inspiration to get out of intolerable situations read it and take hope from the main character and see the importance of finding happiness after life changes and things don't work out how you hoped or expected.

Read it.

~Becky~

Poonachi - Perumal Murugan

Fiction

Read it!

I believe I have already gushed about Perumal Murugan this month, so I will refrain from doing that in this post. But folks, Perumal Murugan. He's such a fun author.

Poonachi is a story about a goat named Poonachi. She is dropped with a goat herd when she is kitten sized by a giant who doesn't give any straight, useful answers. It's all very odd. But then the goatheard and his wife fall in love with Poonachi and decide to do whatever they can to raise her. 

Murugan's personification of Poonachi is most adorable. The thoughts portrayed from the goat are almost human, but goat enough that it's not dumb. 

Poonachi is never quite accepted by the other goats, nor their kids, but is happy with the goatherd's wife. She goes on adventures and has quite the satisfying childhood. When she reaches maturity, she is mated and conceives 7 kids, just as the giant predicted. As you can imagine, this is exhausting for both Poonachi and the goatherd and his wife as they try to keep all the kids alive. A mystical stranger comes along and buys all of the kids to Poonachi's distress. Poonachi even falls in love at one point, though no ones knows, cares, and she is not allowed to stay with that goat.

The author's portrayal of a paranoid, controlling government is hilarious and very much Kafka-esque. The government has a pre-occupation with piercing ears of both citizens and animals. I have to admit, if Murugan was alluding something else here, I must have completely missed it. 

The book ends with Poonachi's death. There simply isn't enough food for her body to support another pregnancy with so many kids as rain and drought has overtaken the land. 

It's a simple, but very touching book. 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~

Do you Remember Kunan Poshpora - Essar et.al

Non-Fiction
Verdict: Read it

I couldn't remember why I chose this book when I picked it up recently from my to-read pile. I know, I know, you must be thinking this silly woman doesn't remember why she picks ANY book. You are partly right. The problem is that it's been a very very long time since I went to buy books at my favorite store and my to-read pile is epic. I promise you, I am very selective in what I read, and I do not chose books at random.

I thought perhaps Kunan Poshpora was a person, hence the book was a biography, when I picked up this book to read it. Unfortunately that was incorrect. Kunan and Poshpora are small villages in Kashmir that went through an atrocity when the army came in and beat the men and gang raped quite a few women. This tragedy occurred in 1991. The authors of this book are a group of women who have come together to lodge a public complaint against the army and the judiciary for non action on their behalf over what happened.

As with other books on atrocities that have happened, this is a difficult read. The words are simple to understand, but the cruelty of the act and inaction afterwards really stick with you. I personally feel it is important to read about terrible things that have happened, if for no other reason than validating that they did happen and should not happen again.

Rape is a horrendous crime no matter what the circumstances are. The authors' assertion that the Indian army uses rape as a tool to subjugate and demoralize Kashmir is truly disturbing, especially when you consider that Kashmir is a very unstable, unhappy place due to many other factors.

I also was very unsettled reading about how the army has the ASPA act protecting them from ever being held accountable for acts such as these. This is unacceptable; there is never a case where rape is sanctioned as a tool of the armed forces for any reason. As with other countries, the army in India enjoys a massive amount of support, and very little accountability. The army's snide answers to the accusations and efforts to delay the case and stonewall justice were disheartening when holding the culprits accountable could have prevented this from happening again. People, even army men, learn quickly what they can get away with.

I was also horrified by the uninterested response of the police and government. I live in India and I understand how things work here, but a judge being on vacation when many court hearings were supposed to take place just made me angry. The sheer lack of interest in anyone but the victims made me lean toward justice squads, rather than this farce of a court system.

Overall it's a tough read, especially because the reader knows that this won't be resolved any time soon and could very easily happen again. Changing India is like changing the direction of a continent rolling down a hill. It very often feels impossible.

~Becky~

Upcountry Tales - Mark Tully

Fiction
Verdict: Read it

After getting bored (not really) at the bookstore hunting down new and interesting things to read, I asked my daughter for help. This was something she picked up, and as I have a fondness for short stories, I picked it up.

A collection of short-ish fiction stories, the author takes us into small villages in UP. As he mentions in his introduction, the people are neither ordinary nor uninspiring. His pride from growing up in such a village in UP is clear to see and heartwarming.

I thoroughly enjoyed these stories as they had realistic endings. They lacked the usual Indian pathos that everything will end in disaster and avoided the fairytail ending where everything ties up neatly. In otherwords, they were realistic stories and very well done. I grew up in a small town in the cornfields of Illinois in the United States. Learning about village life holds a strange fascination for me. Finding a realistic window into this world is surprisingly difficult for an outsider - even one who understands many things about India.

The author also delves into caste and caste politics, which I do not agree with but found fascinating to learn about anyhow. 

Definitely read this one. 

Becky

The Better Man - Anita Nair

Fiction
Verdict: Read it

Anita Nair is a recent find for me, and one I am thrilled to have come across.

Nair's book is about a man who moves to a village and gets into an odd friendship with a painter. Stuck in his traditional house with difficult family, the protagonist questions his life and what direction it will take.

After the local politician decides to rob the painter of his land, readers get a glimpse into how difficult village life can be. Politics, jealousy, exclusion, land grabbing - it makes one never want to live in a village. There is none of the usual romanticism about villages.

The book is very raw in a good sense, there's no frills or pretensions.

Read it.

Becky

Malgudi Days - R.K. Narayan

I have circled back around to R.K. Narayan - again at the advice of my husband. Again, Mr. Narayan didn't disappoint.

Malgudi is based on a fictional (or so they say) village somewhere in South India. Tamil Nadu if I remember correctly. This book wanders around some of the adventures that Narayan has written about this famous place, including some essays written by and sometimes about himself.

I loved it. As one who grew up in the US in a mid size town, village like continues to fascinate me. I really enjoyed learning more about Narayan through his essays and getting a broader view of his writing style.

The book did drag in certain places, but for some reason, I felt compelled to just plow through those parts and see what was next.

Verdict: Read it

I have been wasting vast amounts of time reading romance novels also, but I'm not going to waste anyone's time listing them, because I haven't come across any home runs yet.