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'It's not like any other book set in India I've ever read - there's no striving to be exotic - it's rich, exciting and moving, at ease depicting the workings of a big, affluent landed household, yet equally confident in its dealing with urban street life. This is a lovely, big book.' Barbara Trapido
In this lively and absorbing novel Sara Banerji uses the elements of the epic poem The Mahabharata to create a modern life parable prefacing each chapter with an appropriate excerpt and constantly drawing the reader's attention to the features of the story. Beginning with a baby found floating in a sacred river and a poor but honest woman who adopts him, she re-interprets every precious myth and legend. Her picaresque tale involves crowd scenes of thousands, multitudes of extras, elephants, tinsel, gods and goddesses. She laughs at her characters' misfortunes and with a scarcely disguised irony portrays Indian society with all of its chronic problems. Arjuna, the heroic warrior of the Mahabharata, is taught that he has a duty to fight; Banerji's Arjuna is full of hatred for his half-brother Karna and the story traces the rivalry and bitterness between these siblings from early childhood until they are separated by death. One of them represents an India where luxury is taken for granted, the other has learnt to survive in the dirt and poverty of Calcutta. But the humour is too sly and the protagonists too fallible for this to be a tragedy. Both boys yearn to become film stars dripping with gold and wearing mock armour, one absurd adventure followed quickly by another. Only their aunt, Shivarini, recognizes the falseness of this illusionary, Bollywood happiness and uses her education and wealth to tackle injustice: the plight of India's downtrodden women, the abandoned street children and the exploitation of the poor villagers. The reader is invited to be a wry spectator of this galloping and vivid narrative, only occasionally allowed to pause for breath in order to share the characters' inner thoughts. Banerji trusts us to draw the right conclusions about morality and make our own value judgements. An imaginative tour-de-force. (Kirkus UK) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Synopsis
A rich and dramatic story of a poor young Indian boy who fights like a tiger to achieve fame and fortune In a village just outside present-day Calcutta, Koonty, a young girl is squatting in pain beside the river, convinced that her agony is the result of a fish allergy. It's not -- she's giving birth and as the realisation dawns on her, she makes the connection with the encounter she had all those months ago with the swimming stranger with the golden bathing shorts...Horrified, she places the baby onto a piece of floating debris, fixes her own necklace around his neck and pushes him downriver. Several miles downstream in Calcutta, the baby is discovered by Dolly, a young married woman desperate for a child. She takes him home and brings him up as her own son, calling him Karna. And so begins a chain of events which sees Karna's initial good fortune turn to tragedy so that, years later, he's forced to seek out Koonty, now married and with a son of her own...* Great commercial literary fiction. An enriching, emotionally charged epic story, engrossing and entrancing. A dash of Homestead, a dash of Angela's Ashes. * For fans of Amitav Ghosh, Sharon Maas, Rohinton Mistry
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'It's not like any other book set in India I've ever read - there's no striving to be exotic - it's rich, exciting and moving, at ease depicting the workings of a big, affluent landed household, yet equally confident in its dealing with urban street life. This is a lovely, big book.' Barbara Trapido
In this lively and absorbing novel Sara Banerji uses the elements of the epic poem The Mahabharata to create a modern life parable prefacing each chapter with an appropriate excerpt and constantly drawing the reader's attention to the features of the story. Beginning with a baby found floating in a sacred river and a poor but honest woman who adopts him, she re-interprets every precious myth and legend. Her picaresque tale involves crowd scenes of thousands, multitudes of extras, elephants, tinsel, gods and goddesses. She laughs at her characters' misfortunes and with a scarcely disguised irony portrays Indian society with all of its chronic problems. Arjuna, the heroic warrior of the Mahabharata, is taught that he has a duty to fight; Banerji's Arjuna is full of hatred for his half-brother Karna and the story traces the rivalry and bitterness between these siblings from early childhood until they are separated by death. One of them represents an India where luxury is taken for granted, the other has learnt to survive in the dirt and poverty of Calcutta. But the humour is too sly and the protagonists too fallible for this to be a tragedy. Both boys yearn to become film stars dripping with gold and wearing mock armour, one absurd adventure followed quickly by another. Only their aunt, Shivarini, recognizes the falseness of this illusionary, Bollywood happiness and uses her education and wealth to tackle injustice: the plight of India's downtrodden women, the abandoned street children and the exploitation of the poor villagers. The reader is invited to be a wry spectator of this galloping and vivid narrative, only occasionally allowed to pause for breath in order to share the characters' inner thoughts. Banerji trusts us to draw the right conclusions about morality and make our own value judgements. An imaginative tour-de-force. (Kirkus UK) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Synopsis
A rich and dramatic story of a poor young Indian boy who fights like a tiger to achieve fame and fortune In a village just outside present-day Calcutta, Koonty, a young girl is squatting in pain beside the river, convinced that her agony is the result of a fish allergy. It's not -- she's giving birth and as the realisation dawns on her, she makes the connection with the encounter she had all those months ago with the swimming stranger with the golden bathing shorts...Horrified, she places the baby onto a piece of floating debris, fixes her own necklace around his neck and pushes him downriver. Several miles downstream in Calcutta, the baby is discovered by Dolly, a young married woman desperate for a child. She takes him home and brings him up as her own son, calling him Karna. And so begins a chain of events which sees Karna's initial good fortune turn to tragedy so that, years later, he's forced to seek out Koonty, now married and with a son of her own...* Great commercial literary fiction. An enriching, emotionally charged epic story, engrossing and entrancing. A dash of Homestead, a dash of Angela's Ashes. * For fans of Amitav Ghosh, Sharon Maas, Rohinton Mistry
See all Product Description
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