Ten elegant pieces
~ Video, by Meera Nair ~ It’s hard to browse a bookstore these days without coming across a book of short stories from India or the diaspora. Some such collections may therefore not get all the attention they deserve, and...
Susan
Surfeit of melodrama
~ Madras on Rainy Days, by Samina Ali ~ In her first novel, Samina Ali has fallen prey to that common problem of first-time novelists: the temptation to stuff every possible ‘issue’ into a single story. Which is a pity;...
Malayalis at home and abroad
~ Atlas of Unknowns, by Tania James ~ Tania James’ first novel has a vivid and powerful beginning: two sisters, Linno and Anju, in a small town in Kerala, whose father buys them fireworks for a celebration only to see...
Opinionated Pakistani women
~ No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women. By Shahla Haeri ~ Disconcerted by the invisibility of Muslim professional women in academic and cultural literature, Shahla Haeri decided to fill this gap. As she says, they may...
Identity Crisis
~ Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert ~ Emotional tourism has its allure; who among us does not find it fascinating to get a peek into another person’s soul? Emotional tourism by Westerners in the third world is less appealing,...
Flimsy personalities and plot
~ The Village Bride of Beverley Hills, by Kavita Daswani ~ The Village Bride of Beverly Hills operates on the pleasant conceit that in the cut-throat world of Hollywood journalism, nice girls finish first. And more, even a girl whose...
Identity, Choices and Friendship
~ Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, by Meera Syal ~ Is there anything Meera Syal can’t do? She wrote and starred in a phenomenally successful TV serial. She writes screenplays for plays and film. She acts and sings....
Is ‘Bombay’ gone forever?
~ Once was Bombay, by Pinki Virani ~ Pinki Virani is outspoken, courageous, opinionated, and forthright. In the preface to Once was Bombay, she lays it on the line. Who killed Bombay? We did. Each of us who thought ourselves...
A home for homeless women
~ Song of the Cuckoo Bird, by Amulya Malladi ~ In 1961, an 11-year-old girl called Kokila arrived at an ashram in a small town in Andhra Pradesh. Girls were married young in those days, but only moved into their...
Community Secrets
~ Breaking the Silence: Domestic Violence in the South Asian American Community. Edited by Sandhya Nankani ~ Domestic violence is a dirty secret in the South Asian-American community but in the last decade or so it has become less hidden....
Caustic Comedy
~ No Onions Nor Garlic, by Srividya Natarajan ~ This insouciant first novel starts with a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Chennai University. Sundar, Amandeep, Murugesh and Rufus audition for parts, convinced from a brief scan of the...
Nomads in Changing Times
~ Desert Places, by Robyn Davidson ~ Robyn Davidson is an Australian woman with a fondness for and familiarity with camels. Some years ago she travelled the Australian desert with 3 camels, occasionally in company with Aborigine groups, and chronicled...
Clinical Investigations
~ Stillborn, by Rohini Nilekani ~ This medical thriller set in Bangalore has a plot involving vaccine development, clinical trials and medical research. Being tangentially involved in those fields, and having connections to Bangalore, I picked it up immediately. The...
Intersectionality
~ Out on Main Street, by Shani Mootoo ~ I was favourably inclined towards this book before I opened it: I’d read Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night, and had heard good things about Out on Main Street already. Still,...
Culture Clash Cliches
~ The Bride Wore Red, by Robbie Clipper Sethi ~ The author is an American woman who married a Sikh man, and the book is a collection of short stories about American women who married Sikh men. Most first-time authors...
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