The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri and " Unaccustomed Earth " by Jhumpa Lahiri

• Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
• Pub. Date: January 2008
• ISBN-13: 9780393065695
• Pages :448pp

India, 1955: as the scars of Partition are just beginning to heal, seventeen-year-old Meera sits enraptured watching the performance of a young man on stage, Dev, singing a song so infused with passion that it arouses in her the first flush of erotic longing. As a rivalry between them ensues, she wonders if she can steal him away from Roopa, her older, more beautiful sister.

When Meera's reverie comes true, it does not lead to the fairy-tale marriage she imagined. Dev's family is steeped in the very kind of orthodoxy her father has long railed against and she finds herself having to tolerate their backward ways, her husband's drunkedness, and the unwanted attentions of his brother. Her only solace is in her sister-in-law Sandhya, with whom she comes to share a tenderness that is as heartbreaking as it is fleeting.

A move to Bombay, so that Dev can chase his dream of success as a Bollywood singer, seems at first like a fresh start, but soon that dream – and their marriage – turns to ashes. It is only when their son is born that things change. For the first time, Meera feels fulfilled. She is finally ready to shape her own destiny. To take control of her world.


What I liked about this book:

* That Manil Suri decided to make a woman the pivotal character. This is admirable because he had to think and be Meera for nearly 455 pages, no easy feat for someone of the opposite gender.

* The book spans nearly three decades...it opens in 1955 and closes in the 1980's. The entire story is played out against the backdrop of important political events of those decades...the readjustment to the Parition (Hindu-Muslim riots), the Indo-China war, the Bangladesh War of Independence, the Emergency of 1975 and so on.

* Suri is a wonderful parent to his characters. Each one of them is lovingly fleshed out complete with a background story, so that the reader knows what set of circumstances prompts them (the characters) to behave in the way they do. I truly admire Suri's dedication to his characters...you can see the work he puts into turning them from mere two-dimensional characters into larger than life figures. Because the book is essentially about relationships, having believable characters with a generous amount of flaws and few virtues is central to the story and Suri pulls that off beautifully.

* He is also an amazing storyteller...with lyrical and sensual writing he spends time building up a story so that before you know it you're not just reading the story but a part of it.

* As I mentioned before, this book is about relationships and motherhood...much of it is about the relationship of a mother with her son in particular. Much of the writing concerning hte mother and son is quite sensual, for instance, take the opening lines from the book:

"Every time I touch you, every time I kiss you, every time I offer you my body, Ashvin. Do you know how tightly you shut your eyes as with your lips you search my skin? Do you know how you thrust your feet towards me, how you reach out your arms, how the sides of your chest strain against my palms? Are you aware of your fingers brushing against my breast, their tips trying to curl around something to hold on to, but slipping instead against my smooth flesh?"

"Ashvin. Do you notice the wetness emerge from my nipples and spill down the slopes of my chest? Is that your tongue that I feel, are you able to steal a taste or two?"

It's really hard to tell if the narrator is talking to a lover or to a child. I'm sure Suri was very deliberate in setting this tone. I believe it was his intention to fashion Meera's relationship with her son on the Hindu goddess Parvati's relationship with the elephant-god Ganesh (Ganesh was made by Parvati to be her protector) and her darker relationship with her other son Andhaka who it is said fell in love with Parvati........

It is at this point I must mention that Suri dips quite generously into India's abundant myth pool to drive his story. As a lover or Indian mythology this was a huge draw for me.

(Shiv,Parvati and Ganesh)

******

What didn't work so well:

Meera, the main protagonist is a beautifully-drawn out character but I didn't like her very much.She was self-absorbed, held grudges and wasn't able to truly love anyone with the exception of her son, Ashvin, towards whom I think she gave such an outpouring of love it made all seem slightly unnatural. And then again, was it really love she fed Ashvin or was it her way of controlling him so he could meet her needs? She came off as cold, selfish, scheming and distrusting of men, but that's probably because the men in her life had failed her, besides she was a woman fighting for a place in a machismo society.

The first half of the book is written in the first person and flowed very smoothly. The second half is written in the second person (this is where Meera talks to her son Ashvin telling him all about the first years of his life and their early years in Bombay etc) and I found the soliloquies to be a little tedious. Meera's cloying devotion to Ashvin and his dependence and loyalty to her (to the extent of excluding his own playmates) was a little hard to swallow.

* Although I did like that the book spanned three decades I have to ask myself why so many Indian writers will, without fail, use the Indian Partition and sectarian violence as the backdrop against which their characters play out their lives?

I predict that the Indian readers will absolutely revel in this book...I'm not sure how it will appeal to Western readers...do write and let me know what you think of the book.

************************

• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Pub. Date: April 2008
• 352pp

I'm also reading Jhumpa Lahiri's new book, "Unaccustomed Earth". If I remember correctly, Lahiri started her writing career with short stories writing "Interpreter of Maladies" for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. After that she wrote her first full-length novel 'The Namesake"
which was made into a hit movie by Mira Nair. In "Unaccustomed Earth" she goes back to writing short stories some of which were published earlier in the Newyorker, here and here. I have to say I am really enjoying most of the stories. Lahiri writes about the everyday life of immigrant (Bengali) families using simple prose that starts oh so quietly and sedately but which almost always holds a big surprise at the end. Definitely give "Unaccustomed Earth" a whirl.

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar and "Daughter of the Ganges" by Asha Miro

Publishers: Harper Collins

Price:	$24.95
On Sale:	5/29/2007

If I may start with a prediction...

Thrity Umrigar's latest book "If Today Be Sweet"
(its title is borrowed from a poem by Omar Khayyam) will be a darling of the book clubs because it covers a diverse range of themes, like home, family, widowhood, bereavement,community, immigration, culture clashes, the sterility of suburban life, neighbors, contemporary America... in other words, there is something for everyone to discuss.



Sorab Sethna is an Indian-born American who is conflicted because he no longer feels a pull towards his Indian roots. He has recently started to enjoy the American dream and the luxuries provided by this country and yet, something makes him feel guilty for doing so, especially as he recalls his disadvantaged fellowmen in India. His immediate dilemma is what to do with his widowed mother? Invite her to stay with them in the US (which would be very disruptive for him and his American wife) or should he let her return to Bombay to a life that she is familiar with?


Then you have Tehmina, the widowed Indian mother. She is on a visit to America where her son Sorab lives but she finds America so strange and foreign. Life is so regulated in this country, people are so law abiding and disciplined, but cold. She finds the pewter-colored skies of Cleveland dull and misses the warmth, color and chaos of the Bombay streets. She misses her talkative and friendly neighbors. In the rich suburb that her son lives in, it could be hours before you see someone walk down the street and even then they are hurrying by with no time to for a friendly chat.

Tehmina is torn between living with her only son and grandson in the US or returning to the life she is familiar with in Bombay. The reader feels for Tehmina because having to uproot herself to live with her son in a foreign (to her) country is not easy, especially at her age. What will Tehmina choose? Will America win her over as it does with most immigrants or will she return to India?

Then we have Suzanne, the American daughter-in-law who is so unused to looking after a helpless mother-in-law, a country bumpkin , but at the same time, she understands that she can't have her husband Sorab worrying about his mom all the way in India and thus is in favor of the mother moving in with them, except, she then wants a bigger house so that she has her "personal space", something that the Americans seem to crave, notes Tehmina with some amusement.

I see from the book (and from life around me) that immigrants, especially first generation, have very conflicted ideas about home. Where is home? Is it where you are physically located, or is it where your roots are or your heart is, or is home simply a state of mind? This book explores that to a large extent and you realize it is something all of us as immigrants have had to ask ourselves, but for many of us, the answer still eludes us.

Umrigar is probably one of my favorite Indian writers. If you haven't read anything by her I urge you to give her books a whirl. Her writing is tender, elegant and eloquent and she has the most endearing characters fill her books, you won't be disappointed.

You can find my review for "The Space Between Us", here



This Edition: Hardcover

Publication Date: 06/2006

Price: $24.00

I just finshed reading Asha Miro's "Daughter of the Ganges".

What can I say about this book without giving too much away? I will tell you that it's a remarkable story of hope, love, perseverance, networking and probably something called luck. Anyway, it's about this girl called "Asha" ("hope" in Hindi) adopted as a young girl from an orphanage in Bombay by a family that lived in Barcelona. Neither Asha nor the family spoke a common language to begin with, so communication was by signs and gestures until Asha started to learn Catalan. Asha, like most adopted kids was always curious to know where she had come from and who her natural parents were and she was lucky that her adoptive parents always encouraged her to go in search of her story.

When she was twenty Asha decided to visit India with a group that was going to do some voluntary work in Bombay and Nasik (the city she was born in according to her birth certificate). Asha's description of her drive into the city of Bombay from the airport is my second favorite after "Shantaram's"...maybe I should start collecting literary descriptions of the ride in from Bombay airport as it obviously makes has a huge impact on people! :)

SHe makes contact with the convent in which she had lived in before the adoption and after a series of well-meaning lies that people told her about her past, she is able to finally unearth the truth of what happened... where she came from, who her family is, why they gave her up for adoption etc., thus filling in the blanks of her own personal crossword puzzle.

This is a very powerful story and one that you will enjoy reading. The translation from Spanish into English isn't one of the better ones, but even so, you will be touched tremendously and profoundly. I had tears streaming down my face often in the last 100pages or so of the book.

I am stopping here for now...sorry I couldn't give away everything or it would spoil the read for you.


Note: I have closed the comments box for this post only because I won't be around to read and answer the comments. Thank you for understanding.