Author: Neel Mukherjee
Neel Mukherjee made me squirm and hold my head in my hands while reading several parts of this novel. To call it gut-wrenching feels inadequate. I would take it a step further and say he scoops out all of your insides and lays it bare in front of you to confront.
Now having got that out of the way, this is a great exposé of the vast class differences that are in plain sight in everyday India. Our lack of curiosity or maybe the fact that there is so little free intercourse between the classes, has resulted in keeping these stories in the dark. We see many of the protagonists in our daily lives as maids, cooks, road-side entertainers or construction workers and Neel paints their hand-to-mouth existence in full technicolor. Neel delves into their past to describe how they got to this particular station in their lives. The poverty they were born into and then their displacement; sometimes out of necessity and other times by choice.
While this is a novel, I can attest through my personal experience in India that the descriptions are frighteningly realistic and that is why it hurts so much to read this book. Neel has the skill that makes for a great author. He observes small things and describes them vividly, making the reader picture the stark reality and daily struggle of the poor in India.
The beauty of the book is the way he has laid out the narrative as 5 separate vignettes whose interconnection becomes evident in the end. This framework allows him to tell the story from a different point of view in each case and immerse you in the action. Each of the stories can be read independently and if you have to pick one, I recommend story #2. Be warned that the subsequent stories are not for the faint of heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment