Speedy Read

Ah a good week! I managed to finish reading three books in a week. Cool. Two were good, one boring. Premchand’s Sevasadan translated by Snehal Shingavi was the best. We had Premchand’s essays and short stories in our Hindi school books…most of them pleasantly funny. This one is intense and insightful. Though the book is set in the colonial era there are plenty of insights into human nature and politics that resounds true irrespective of the socio-cultural settings. The protagonist of the book is an educated woman Suman brought up in a life of luxury but due to change in family circumstances is married to a man of impoverished circumstances and suffers social neglect and a sense of deep unfulfillment . She finds instant fame and all the luxuries and social recognition as a courtesan but also realizes the shallowness of her social relationships. Soon she is caught between the social reformists and intellectuals out to help her out of the ‘perverse’ circumstances and the other political players – the hedonists, the religious conservatives, out to destroy her and the lives of others caught in situations similar to hers. A lot of idealism reflects through this book. Of course the fact that the main character is a woman is what I simply love most about the book the way Premchand has brought about her changing roles from a daughter to a virtuous wife to a social outcaste is amazing.

The not- so- interesting book was Inside the Haveli by Rama Mehta. It again has a woman as the main protagonist…reason why I picked it up for reading. …Geeta is an educated woman from Mumbai who gets married into a traditional conservative family in Udaipur and finds suddenly facing a completely different view of life, a stifling environment with purdah (veil) and restrictions about mingling among sexes and such. The book then tells her story of over the years how she adapts herself to the new life and carves her own independent identity. The book is not just Geeta’s story however, it is also the stories of other women, the maid servants, the mistresses, relatives…of their way of creating identities in the veiled world. What I really liked in the book was all these other characters and the rich traditional way of life in haveli described in the book. Geeta’s character amongst all these seems to fall flat and her success unsatisfactory.

The third book I have just finished reading was Nyagrodha The Ficus Chronicles by Kalpish Ratna. Kalpish Ratna is actually an anagram for two authors Kalpana Swaminathan and Ishrat Sayed. I have read their earlier books Doctor Wrasse of Crysal Rock (children’s book) and Cryptic Death (Swaminathan’s alone). I loved the title ‘Nyagrodha’ , the Banyan Tree. The book consists of stories within stories. The stories are all the traditional Jataka, Panchantantra, Grandmother Tales that we heard growing up. But each story is given either an interesting beginning or a different end and when connected with the main plot is more meaningful. However, the story within the story method also makes it difficult for us to keep track of the original plot and at times it seems to lose relevance all together. However it does keep us wanting to read more and more stories esp. the afterword. Refreshing!