THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS – Kiran Desai (Booker Prize 2006)

I read this book both from the perspective of a budding writer and a voracious, eclectic reader.

As a reader, I take immense pleasure, watching a story unfold with many colorful characters and a well-knit plot. The book’s loss is in its characters. The story line is thin and drab, with only four sad creatures (note, not characters) cocooned in a distant place, except for one, who is conveniently packed off to the U.S to introduce a multi-cultural dimension to the plot. Though the synopsis on the back of the book promises hilarity, I couldn’t find signs of delight or humor.

However, the beauty of the novel lies in the writer’s insights and sensitivity to sketch the negative emotions dwelling deep within each of us. Desai’s wisdom in understanding loss is commendable but precisely why the story fails to kindle wonder, hope and inspiration.

After all, it is human nature to seek examples from lively and strong characters portrayed in literary fiction, who can morph loss into gain, sadness into happiness, lightly, humorously and seamlessly, against all odds. There is always the possibility, that false reality / illusion / fantasy (doesn’t fiction fall partially in this realm?) can catalyze optimism and urge one to succeed and find happiness.

As a writer, I am impressed, how painstakingly the author (eight years to write the book and a Master’s in Creative Writing from Columbia Univ … hmmm!) has gone into the finer details of creating word play, lyrical sentences, elaborate, rich descriptions and twists in transitions, which led to the Booker Prize. Any student pursuing creative writing and learning the do’s and don’ts of what makes a book popular and what fetches an honorable prize should read this book.

If you are looking for entertainment, this book is a no, no!

Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger

The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga (2008)
Seetha’s comments on the book

It was a nice surprise to know that Adiga’s book has been short-listed for a Booker prize. I had read this book some months back and had this urge to ask all my friends to give this book a read.

I finished the book in one sitting. Very gripping. Not only the plot but also the narrative, the hard hitting stance Adiga takes on today’s lopsided life in India, whether its in the dark land of Bihar or the “wonderful” software metro called Bengaluru. And that’s it – the growing inequality that he captures so grimly, so poignantly through the eyes of a north Indian driver who makes it big in Bengaluru and how! One is reminded of Madhur Bhandarkar’s movies where the director time and again focuses his camera on the chauffeur’s gossip about the lives their employers lead. Remember movies “Page 3” and “Corporate”?

In Adiga’s book, Balram is both the protagonist and the antagonist. The hero and the villain rolled in one. Once a slave, always a slave? Not so with Balram, the hardworking, crafty, thoughtful, devil-may-care driver. The servant God Hanuman becomes Rama.

I enjoyed Adiga’s sarcastic profile of the young, NRI returned couple who employ Balram Halwai, the driver. Ashok and Pinky Madam, are really out of sync with the ways of today’s harsh life in India and Ashok, the husband, for all his benevolence, is a real sacrificial lamb (bhakra) in the hands of his own employee. But the vignette of city life Adiga has described so darkly is what one reads when one opens today’s daily newspapers in India. How many times have we read that the rich man’s son gets away in a hit and run case and the driver gets blamed?

The exploitation of the poor, hardworking class by the landowners, the domestic helpers by the middle class, the weak and vulnerable by the bully and the corrupt system embedded like concrete in our society - its all there in the newspapers daily. Luckily you don’t hear the author screaming these lines at you like some left party demonstrator on the street. The reader is left with this message to mull over in a truly disturbing way.

This is not a gentle, easy suspense book to read. Not the language. Or the humor that surfaces time and again throughout the chapters, sometimes hard, sometimes tender.

It is a must read book. This is fiction that has a story to tell. To make you think about our times.