Category Archives: South Asian
Lovetorn by Kavita Daswani
Ah, this day of mislaid Hallmark hearts … meet Shalini who has had much of her future decided for her – a rather pleasant, happy one at that – by age 3. She’s lived all her life in the family compound in Bangalore, home to 37 family members spread over four generations. She’s been engaged to wonderful Vikram since she was 3, and he was 6. Thirteen years later, they remain a perfect couple, best friends who are committed and adoring, both inextricably linked to each other’s lives.
Now Shalini’s father has a new job in California and the family arrives for a two-year residency in what seems to be an alien world. Shalini’s father and her younger sister Sangita adjust almost effortlessly to the more-than-usual culture shock. In contrast, Shalini’s immersion into American high school life is painful and embarrassing (the resident mean girls actually drop a box of hair remover on Shalini’s desk!), made even more so for missing Vikram so much. Shalini’s mother suffers most of all, completely unable to adjust to an isolated new life away from the bustling family compound, and literally withdraws alone to her darkened room.
With help from Renuka, a new friend who seems to easily balance both her Indian and American cultures, Shalini soon begins to find her voice (and even manages to thank the queen bees for their depilatory efforts). Gingerly stepping into her new life bit by bit, Shalini’s young heart starts to beat faster than she’s ever experienced for her classmate Toby. What’s an engaged girl to do?
Ethnic chick-lit favorite Kavita Daswani offers another easy-breezy teen read with quite an interesting cultural twist of a 21st-century arranged marriage. Daswani gives a nod to her “cousin … in Bangalore, who … confirmed to me that girls like Shalini were real.” Certainly Daswani captures Shalini’s ‘stranger-in-a-strange-land’ experiences with heartfelt authenticity. Perhaps the less convincing depictions belong to Shalini’s mother – her depressions, her treatment, her failure to mother – and ultimately seem out of place with the rest of the otherwise engaging novel.
Tidbit: The back cover copy describes Lovetorn as a “Bollywood twist on a Sarah Dessen novel” which has me a bit befuddled, probably because I admit having never read a Dessen title. Google-ing didn’t turn up much insight to the comparison (the summaries of Dessen’s books on her website maybe suggest a vague similarity with Dessen’s The Truth about Forever?), so if anyone out there is a YA expert, do enlighten me!
Readers: Young Adult
Published: 2012 Continue reading
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
Allow me to start with two immediate thoughts about content and delivery. Content: Today’s Mexican narcos, the Colombian cartels, the Afghan/Pakistani smuggling rings utterly pale in comparison to the British and American opium runners demanding access to 19th-century China. You might have studied the distant Opium Wars via textbook facts and figures, but you probably didn’t have the sort of visceral, being-there experience as Amitav Ghosh provides here.
Delivery: Read, do not bother listening to either of the two Ibis Trilogy titles (hope springs eternal for #3). Phil Gigante who voices Sea of Poppies gives the strangest accents to the characters, including an inexcusable ‘ching-chong’ for Baboo Nob Kissin. Thankfully, the man gets to speak fluently as narrated by Sanjiv Jhaveri in River of Smoke. BUT Jhaveri’s recitation of Robert Chinnery, the illegitimate mixed-race son of George Chinnery (the English painter, a historical figure, although Robert is seemingly Ghosh’s creation), is SOOOO riddled WITH (!!!) non-existent OVERpunctuaTION and flamBOYant OVERemphasis in his cadence as to make the young man sound like a grating stereotype on some failing teen drama. So really, get the books only and let your own voice give breath to Ghosh’s brilliant characters, unaided!
River begins “in a far corner of Mauritius,” where a now-elderly Deeti resides over her sprawling clan, telling stories from her adventurous life. Backtrack to 1938, when Sea of Poppies ended with a daring five-man escape from the Ibis. Of the Sea cast, Ah Fatt reunites briefly with his father, Bahram Modi, the shrewd merchant son-in-law of a powerful Bombay Parsi family; Ah Fatt manages to get the former Raja Neel Rattan Halder hired as Modi’s munshi (writing secretary) aboard his ship Anahita headed to Canton. Meanwhile, on Mauritius, Paulette finds both an employer and mentor in botanist Fitcher Penrose who was an admirer of her late father. She joins Penrose on his ship Redruth as he sets course for China to collect rare plant specimens.
Convergence happens in Canton’s foreign quarter, Fanqui-town, a lively cosmopolitan enclave (although no foreign women allowed). River‘s narrative follows Bahram Modi’s journey with a loaded cargo that should be enough to buy his freedom from his greedy in-laws, and the lively experiences of Paulette’s childhood friend Robert Chinnery who is sent to Fanqui-town in Penrose’s employ to track down the mythical “Golden Camellia.” The foreign traders are most anxious about their overstocked opium, awaiting permission to unload. What’s illegal in their own countries demands to be dumped in China in the name of free trade … but the Chinese government has had enough and are finally ready to reclaim their addicted country. Let the war begin … literally.
Ghosh combines history and fiction here with seamless grace as he meticulously weaves actual documents, people, and events with his own unforgettable characters. The result is entertaining and astonishing … and will surely leave you impatient for more. Yes, book 3 is coming … although it can’t here soon enough for some!
Readers: Adult
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Chinese, Indian, South Asian
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
Get to know these characters well – they will surely prove to be worth every page of their three-book investment: Deeti, the young wife of a detached opium addict whose startling grey eyes see well beyond her vision; Zachary Reid, a mixed-race freedman from Baltimore whose ‘passing’ appearance helps him rapidly master life on the high seas; Serang Ali, an experienced seaman with a mysterious past, inexplicably determined to help Reid succeed; Paulette Lambert, the orphaned child of a peripatetic French botanist, and Azad Naskar – known always as Jodu – a servant’s son who grows up by Paulette’s side as her brother; Baboo Nob Kissin, whose spiritual obsessions will lead him to unexpected destinations; Kalua, a gentle giant of a young man, unjustly abused by the more powerful around him; and Raja Neel Rattan Halder, a pampered patriarch of one of the most notable families of Bengal, whose fortunes are about to crumble [his painstakingly detailed "Chrestomathy" at book's end is also quite the literary bonus].
Master storyteller Amitav Ghosh introduces each member of this epic cast in the first volume of his Ibis Trilogy as if choosing the most fascinating fibers for the most intricate tapestry. Each of these seemingly disparate strands will somehow commingle and converge on the deck of the former slave ship Ibis on its 1838 voyage from India to Mauritius, while legendary Canton looms beyond the black waters on the eve of the First Opium War. The tumultuous journey proves to be a microcosmic mix of caste, race, status, and power.
Final confession: I don’t do well with series. Especially the good ones, because waiting for the next book is achingly difficult for my restless brain. Having read numerous previous titles by Ghosh, I well suspected Ibis would be of not-to-be-missed caliber. So in order to circumvent my usual impatience, I decided I would wait (HA!) for all three titles to be out before commencing. I only got 2/3 through the actual waiting … and now that I’m deep into River of Smoke (Ibis, part 2), I am soooo dreading the delay until I can get my eyeballs on the concluding installment …
Readers: Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Indian, South Asian
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
When Firdous Bamji – a veteran narrator – reads Amitav Ghosh‘s haunting novel in his ‘normal’ voice, he’s hardly memorable. But as soon as he ‘becomes’ the searching Piya, the sophisticated Kanai (“‘[s]ay it to rhyme with Hawaii’”), the contemplative Nirmal, the grounded Nilima, and the many, many other characters, Ghosh’s already lyrical, dazzling prose becomes truly transporting.
Piya, a young American marine biologist detached from her Indian heritage, and Kanai, a middle-aged Lothario translator from Delhi, meet over spilled tea on a train from Kolkata to Canning. They are both en route to the isolated Sundarbans, also known as the tide country, an archipelago of hundreds of islands in the Bay of Bengal held together by a vast mangrove forest. Piya hopes to secure the permits that will allow her to research rare river dolphins; Kanai has been summoned by his elderly Aunt Nilima to claim a package left for him by her late husband Nirmal.
What might have been a brief encounter lasts throughout the sweeping, wondrous novel. Piya’s first attempt at tracking her rare dolphin ends in near fatal disaster, and she’s rescued by a reticent local fisherman, Fokir, and his young son. They deliver her to Nilima, a ubiquitous presence in the unpredictable tide country. There on Lusibari, Piya finds Kanai poring over an aged notebook in which his late Uncle Nirmal recorded his experiences during the tumultuous, tragic clashes between the government and the refugee inhabitants of the tide country. Piya’s research in the surrounding rivers and other islands overlaps with Kanai’s quest to better understand his uncle’s troubled past, not to mention his own growing interest in Piya. Piya, in turn, finds herself strangely drawn to the nearly silent – and married – Fokir.
Ghosh remarkably manages to weave politics, history, folklore, research on rare animals and their delicate ecosystems, and even the devastating December 2004 tsunami into an exquisite, heart-thumping adventure … perfect company on the run, by the way. I confess that I so missed Kusum, Horen, Moyna, and the many others, that I now have Bamji reading Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker to me. Stay tuned … literally.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2005 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American
Seasons of Flight by Manjushree Thapa
Nepal-born Manjushree Thapa, herself a peripatetic hybrid of East and West with an American education and Canadian ties, is one of a handful of Nepali authors successfully writing in English. This, her latest novel (and only her second in her almost two-decade writing history with seven titles thus far), is not yet published in the U.S., although thanks to our global economy, it’s readily available through various virtual outlets. While the book itself has not yet officially landed with a U.S. press, Flight – ironically – is essentially an immigration story, enhanced with resonating layers of political and socioeconomic history.
“Why were Americans so light of spirit?” Prema, a young woman from Nepal, asks herself again and again. Having survived her war-torn, unstable homeland where loved ones die and disappear, Prema’s adjustment to her new life in Los Angeles is a wholly different kind of challenge.
Trained in forestry – in things that might change with the seasons, but are ultimately rooted – Prema’s life in her native hill village is not enough to keep her grounded: her mother died in childbirth when Prema was 8, that younger sister who survived went missing years ago to join the rebel Maoists, her father is little more than a kind voice on a public telephone, her lover is as noncommittal as Prema herself. When she is granted a U.S. green card via lottery, she readily flees toward a chance for a “life in a richer land [that] was more – proper, solid.”
But in the multi-ethnic metropolis that is Los Angeles, Prema finds herself repeatedly trying to explain that she is not Indian, and she doesn’t speak Spanish because she is not Mexican/Italian/Spanish, that ‘Nepal’ is not the same as Nippon nor does it sound like ‘nipple’ and surely it has no relation to Naples or pasta. Untethered, Prema eschews relationships with fellow Nepali emigres, and cuts off contact with her waiting father and unattached lover. She moves in with total strangers, cares for a wealthy elderly widow most days, and finds herself alone most nights … until she meets Luis, who becomes her tenuous connection to a firmer, more grounded American life, at least for a while. But reinvention, even thousands of miles away, requires more than physical distance.
In a poignant twist, Thapa subtly compares the two sisters’ lives – eight years and countries apart. As spare as those passages are, their markedly diverging circumstances and experiences speak volumes, giving this not-so-simple immigration story keen insight into the cost of leaving, and the price for going back.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2010 (India, United Kingdom) Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Nepali, Nepali American, South Asian, South Asian American
The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
With utter certainty, I can claim that I’ve never ever been remotely disappointed by a Michael Ondaatje title. Until now, alas. Here’s my very best advice to you about this, his long-awaited new title, The Cat’s Table: read it page by page for yourself only; do not choose the audible option, even as the venerable Ondaatje himself narrates. Really. At least with this work, Ondaatje’s voice unfortunately expresses a sense of detachment so visceral that bonding with the book’s protagonist proves difficult at best …
Perhaps his distance might be explained in the “Author’s Note” at title’s end, in which Ondaatje insists, “Although the novel sometimes uses the colouring and locations of memoir and autobiography, The Cat’s Table is fictional – from the captain and crew and all its passengers on the boat down to the narrator.” That narrator, ironically, is also named Michael, also born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), also moved to England at the age of 11, and also grew up to be a writer with a Canadian address. As if to downplay those similarities (but why?), Ondaatje’s voice unintentionally results in a disengaged, aloof narration.
In Colombo late at night, Michael, the 11-year-old narrator here, boards the big ship Oronsay alone: “… it was explained to me that after I’d crossed the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, and gone through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, I would arrive one morning on a small pier in England and my mother would meet me there.”
As the ship begins its journey, Michael is placed at Table 76 for his meals, also known as ‘the cat’s table’ – “the least privileged place,” he quickly learns. His tablemates include “two other boys roughly my age,” who become his adventurous companions throughout the voyage and beyond. One friendship will last a lifetime; the other will remain a spectral presence. Michael’s three-week passage will include other memorable characters – his beguiling distant cousin Emily, a mysterious criminal about whose offenses no one seems to be quite sure, late-night gambling bunkmates, and a young deaf girl who is magic on a trampoline. In between “Departure” and “Arrival,” Michael intersperses fragments from his adult life, fluidly passing from past, present, future, and back again, offering elliptical details of what followed that pivotal multi-sea crossing.
All my favorite literary elements are here: non-linear time, sparse but profound writing, characters with mysteries to be solved (or not), fateful reunions, etc. etc. If only had known to read, not listen; the iPod failed me for sure this time! So perhaps as I impatiently anticipate Ondaatje’s next book, I’ll have the time to re-read, re-discover. re-imagine Cat’s Table all for myself …
Readers: Adult
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
Before I let myself even open Michael Ondaatje’s newest title, The Cat’s Table, which hit shelves earlier this month, I was determined to read his previous novels that I had somehow missed. The realization that I have now earned access to Table is rather bittersweet as I know even more clearly that the wait for Ondaatje’s next book will be considerable (sniff, sniff).
Even more than his 1992 Booker Prize-winning The English Patient (which I feel I must now re-read), Anil’s Ghost proves to be a more lasting novel for me, as much for what appears on the printed page as what does not.
Anil Tissera, a forensic anthropologist, arrives in her native Sri Lanka after 15 years of living in the West, not so much because of family or cultural ties, but because she is sent by a Swiss human rights group to investigate the escalating numbers of alleged murders. The Sri Lankan government and various rebel factions have been carrying on a brutal, stealthy war for decades and the body count continues to multiply. Paired with a local archeologist, Sarath Diyasena, Anil is never quite sure whom she can trust. The two form an uneasy bond over a certain skeleton – dubbed Sailor (along with its companions, Tinker, Tailor, and Soldier) –whose murder Anil is determined to prove.
Fluidly passing back and forth from the present to disparate moments in the past, Ondaatje creates an elliptical landscape of a woman’s life in constant flux. Anil regularly discards parts of her life, from her given name (at 12, she buys her brother’s name from him for 100 rupees, a pen set, 50 cigarettes, “and a sexual favour”) to her married lover whom she leaves with a knife buried in his flesh with the admonition, “‘Remember this is what I did to you in Borrego Springs.’”
Her time in Sri Lanka will (predictably) be temporary; what she learns of her native country and especially its people – Sarath’s disgraced teacher-mentor, Sarath’s doctor brother Gamini, the sculptor Ananda and his disappeared wife – will eventually force her to flee. Her tenuous relationship with Sarath must come to an abrupt end, and she will again leave behind another unresolved life.
For every fact that Ondaatje (who is also Sri Lankan-born, and long Canadian-domiciled) presents, he invites new questions for which he does not offer clear answers. The ghosts throughout are many, not limited to Anil and her past selves, but even more the countless missing persons both named and unnamed. Part mystery, part thriller, perhaps even part memoir, Anil’s Ghost haunts long after the final page.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2000 Continue reading
Author Interview: Tahmima Anam
In spite of the fierce, wrenching content of her books, Tahmima Anam in real life is a gentle, warm, incredibly youthful presence. We met in livetime a few years ago in Washington, DC, as her debut novel, A Golden Age, was winning major international awards, including the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. Recognizing the literary stardom to come, Anam was the earliest invitee to the Smithsonian Institution’s 2008 South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival [SALTAF], an annual public program of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program (my then-day job that came with serendipitous literary perks for sure). By the time Anam landed in DC from London almost 11 months after that initial invite, she had earned some well-deserved, hefty accolades.
Tahmima Anam’s impressive debut, A Golden Age, is the first of a trilogy set in Bangladesh, before, during, and after the War of Independence that ended in 1971 with the birth of Bangladesh as a new nation separate from Pakistan. Anam’s first protagonist is Rehana Haque, who while still mourning the sudden loss of her too-young husband, loses custody of her young son and daughter to a scheming brother-in-law. Separated for a year with her children faraway in Lahore while she remains in Dhaka, Rehana – in spite of what seems to be the impossible trap of young widowhood without a clear means of support – manages to reunite with her children out of sheer will, determined she will never lose them again. In 1971 when the people of Bangladesh declare independence from Pakistan, Rehana is no longer certain how she can protect her children during a horrific time marked by betrayal and terror. But neither will she remain a silent bystander while civil war threatens to destroy her family, friends, and adopted country.
From Rehana, Anam shifts her focus to the Haque children in The Good Muslim, the second book of her Bengal Trilogy which debuts this month. For the first time since the war, Rehana, her son Sohail, and daughter Maya are under the same roof … and yet their physical reunion is overshadowed by emotional disconnection. Sohail’s wife has just passed away when Maya returns home, leaving behind shocking violence in the small village where she was a doctor for several years. She is tired and spent, having witnessed the too-often subjugation of women just for being women. She can’t comprehend Sohail’s new religious fervor since his return from the war, his reinvention as a revered Muslim leader, nor his unbending rules and expectations in the name of a god that Maya can’t accept as absolute. Sohail’s devotion to his faith leaves him blind to his utterly neglected son – a frail young boy, unwashed, clothed in tatters, thieving, lying, and yet the only request he voices regularly is to be able to go to school. Bypassing her brother’s objections, Maya tries to at least provide her nephew with a basic literacy, but her attempts at enlightenment have tragic consequences.
Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1975, currently domiciled in London, Anam’s writerly strength is driven by a sharply observant imagination that allows her to recreate a time before she was born, before she had access to her memory. Surely her international upbringing in Paris, New York City, and Bangkok – thanks to her father’s peripatetic UN career – instilled in her a broad understanding of humanity in diverse situations. Her privileged education – undergrad at Mount Holyoke, PhD in social anthropology at Harvard (yes, that’s Dr. Anam!) – made sure that xenophobia was never even a glimmering possibility in her questioning mind.
Catching up this time via phone lines strung under the Pond from DC to London, Anam was as soft-spoken as ever. That she spoke about war, corruption, imprisonment, and even rape, rarely changed her firm but even tone. She was also sure to balance the tragedy with joyful moments of family, love, and even someday-children. As expected, her ability to explicate and engage made an hour-plus pass all too quickly …
This year, Bangladesh is celebrating its 40th birthday. You were born four years later, and have now lived through much of your country’s tumultuous history, the vast changes, improvements, and challenges. What are some of your immediate thoughts about your birth country during this celebratory time?
I feel it’s a mixed bag. The good news is the incredible progress that has been made in major areas: we’ve been a functioning democracy for the last 20 years after a tumultuous period of martial law and army rule. The world of micro-credit founded by Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank has changed so many people’s lives, especially among the very poor. The fact that 95% of the borrowers are women means many improvements for women especially. Through microcredit and state investment in girls’ education, women are becoming economically powerful. They’re sending their daughters to school, they’re managing their homes, and taking jobs. Bangladesh has a strong feminist movement; women are advocating for legal changes to the constitution for more equitable rights.
In addition to the progress, I’m aware of a lot of problems, especially the threat of climate change. In spite of being a democracy, our government has a top-down political power structure. The people suffer because of corruption.
We need more democracy, less corruption. [... click here for more]
Author interview: Feature: “An Interview with Tahmima Anam,” Bookslut.com, August 2011
Readers: Adult Continue reading
The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
Tahmima Anam continues her outstanding Bengal Trilogy, which began with A Golden Age, her glowing 2008 debut that propelled Anam into a privileged literary circle filled with international accolades. From Rehana Haque, the protagonist mother in Age, Anam shifts her focus to the grown Haque children in her second book which hits U.S. shelves in just a couple of weeks.
For the first time since the Bangladesh war of independence finally ended, Rehana, her son Sohail, and daughter Maya are all under the same roof … and yet their physical reunion is overshadowed by emotional disconnection. Sohail’s wife has just passed away when Maya returns home, leaving behind shocking violence in the small village where she was a doctor for several years. Maya is tired and spent, having witnessed the too-often subjugation of women just for being women.
Maya can’t comprehend Sohail’s new religious fervor since his return from the war, his reinvention as a revered Muslim leader, nor his unbending rules and expectations in the name of a god that Maya can’t accept as absolute. Sohail’s devotion to his faith leaves him blind to his utterly neglected son – a thin young boy, unwashed, clothed in tatters, thieving, lying, and yet the only request he voices regularly is to be able to go to school. Bypassing her brother’s objections, Maya tries to at least provide her nephew with basic literacy, but her attempts at enlightenment have tragic consequences.
As Bangladesh celebrates 40 years of independent country-hood, Anam’s intimate, vivid new title appears just in time as both testimony of endured brutality, and a reminder of the difficult choices survivors faced once the violence finally subsided. That survival always comes with a price: Sohail’s search for redemption takes him in one extreme direction, while Maya chooses a very different path. And Rehana – her silences more telling perhaps than her words can be – watches as her children’s lives diverge further and further from one another, and eventually from hers as well.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
To reduce this rich, complicated, multi-layered story into a few sentences seems almost disrespectful … but try I must to offer a skeletal overview so I can share some of the best stuff …
Hans van den Broek, high-power equities analyst, is an eternal immigrant. Dutch-born and raised, London-employed and domiciled with British wife Rachel and their son Jack, Hans considers the family’s move to Manhattan as “good fortune” … until their brief American adventures unravel with 9/11, and Rachel and Jack too soon return over the Pond.
Alone in New York, Hans spends most of his free time with Chuck Ramkissoon, a charming, scheming Trinidadian transplant with grandiose dreams of creating a cricket empire. Part entrepreneur, part gangster, all poseur, Chuck takes Hans for the ride of this life … until Chuck disappears and re-emerges as a murdered corpse found disintegrating in New York’s Gowanus Canal on page 6. In the almost-300-pages that follow, Hans reconstructs and re-examines their unusual, entertaining, unclear relationship.
So now you get the gist, check out this 2009 PEN/Faulker-winning novel’s title, so cleverly fraught that whole reams could be written about just the single word. The most obvious reference is to Hans’ Dutch roots, that missing ‘s’ an homage to Hans’ own separation from his birth-country. [Author Joseph O'Neill, who is hapa Irish and Turkish, also spent time in the Netherlands, attending boarding school in the Hague.]
Consider Netherland also means ‘lower-land’ and ‘other-land’: Hans and family initially choose fashionable Tribeca in lower Manhattan to call home, until the hellish destruction of 9/11 moves them to the historic Chelsea Hotel; when Hans’ wife and son return to London, Hans is left in a netherland of loneliness and isolation, until he becomes a regular visitor in Chuck’s unique labyrinthine landscape, itself an outlying netherland of cricket fields, seedy buildings, international accents, and questionable business dealings.
As undeniably entertaining as Netherland proves to be, it’s also a sobering look at our 21st-century disconnect: For a brief time, Hans and Chuck convince us of their growing relationship, two souls thinking they recognize a kindred other. And yet, by story’s end, O’Neill will masterfully shatter such illusion, setting the characters adrift again, left searching with just a glimmer of hope of maybe finding and somehow connecting …
Readers: Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, British, European, South Asian, Turkish
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