Mango-Coloured Fish

by Kavery Nambisan

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Genres: India, Contemporary

241 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1998

About the author

Kavery Nambisan is a novelist from India. She is also a surgeon who practices in rural India. Her career in medicine has been a strong influence in her fiction.
She spent her early years in Madikeri. She studied medicine in St. John's Medical College, Bangalore from 1965 and then studied surgery at the University of Liverpool, England, where she obtained the FRCS qualification. She worked as a surgeon in various parts of rural India before moving to Lonavala to start a free medical centre for migrant labourers.

Nambisan works as surgeon and medical advisor at the Tata Coffee Hospital in Kodagu, Karnataka, and is the Chief Medical Officer for Tata Coffee.

Kavery Nambisan began by writing under her first married name Kavery Bhatt for children's magazines. She wrote stories for the now defunct children's magazine Target. She also contributed to Femina and Eve's Weekly.

Reviews

[Smitha Murthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My last read of the year. It began promisingly but faded away as I couldn’t keep up with the characters. Nambisan is eloquent and erudite. Often, too much so. There were some passages that brought to mind a Shashi Tharoor-type of writing. Grand words that I had never heard of.

Yet, if I didn’t particularly love this book - the fault is mine. This book didn’t speak to me, no matter how hard I tried.

[Raja Subramanian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember going through one of the book exhibitions in Bangalore and purchasing a whole lot of books by Indian Authors sometime in 2001. Among those was Mango Coloured Fish by Kaveri Nambisan. I picked this up from one of the bookshelves I was cleaning up the other day and started reading.

The story is about a young woman, Shari, and her journey into discovering her self through introspection and observation just weeks before her planned wedding with Gautam. Living in the shadow of her sister Chithra, controlled by her domineering mother, and a timid father, Shari has developed a strong individualistic spirit bordering on rebellion internally. Externally, however, she appears to comply with the family's required social behavior to a good extent. She gets a sense of belonging and affection from her Uncle and Aunt Paru. As a child Shari is close to her brother Krishna who is a voracious reader and a rebel at heart. At school, she develops a close friendship with Yash. After finishing college, Shari takes up teaching at the Kindergarten level in a school. She meets Naren, a sightless school teacher, but a fiercely independent personality and a strong friendship develops.

Shari undertakes a trip to Vrindavan to spend some time with her brother Krishna and his wife who work as doctors in a small hospital. Shari meant to talk to Krishna about her upcoming marriage, but ends of witnessing the marital dynamics between Krishna and Teji. Shari then leaves for New Delhi to stay with Yash and her husband. She does want to talk to Yash about herself, her confusions, her aspirations, and many more. Instead, she discovers that Yash is cheating on her husband while posturing externally to having a great marital life. Shari leaves Yash's home to stay at a hostel enabling her to introspect a lot more and observe life around her.

Kaveri Nambisan develops her characters with extreme care and passion. Not just the protagonist Shari, but all the characters come alive with her masterly prose and extremely sensitive writing. I haven't read her other books, but definitely will, shortly! I am surprised that this good book has not received many reviews on Goodreads. Try reading this one, and you will not be disappointed!

[Annapoorni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book- Mango-voloured Fish
Author- Kavery Nambisan
Publisher- @penguinindia
Genre- Women's Fiction
My Rating- 4.9⭐
12 th book in March

I am a huge fan of Kavery Nambisan's books and writing. #MangoColArmedWithouredFish is only the second book of hers that I have read and yet I feel qualified to the claim of being a huge fan.
I have recently gone back to underlining favourite passages and phrases, and my copy of this book is untidily underlined a lot, sometimes with a kajal pencil- I think(I am not joking. The stub is so blunt but it served the purpose)
Shari analyses marriage of people in her close circle, before stepping into her own. I was relatively slow in reading this book, sometimes leaving it out for a while day. I think I saw a little too much of myself in Shari and that was not easy. Not in what she does, but in her.

Kavery writes with attention to detail. Her vivid images and the words she uses to paint that picture will stay with you for long. There are some gems of pithy lessons peppered all through the book. More work for my stubby kajal pencil(I don't even remember buying it or using it)

M for Mango-coloured Fish

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[Malvika · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Mango-Coloured Fish' is a wonderful read. It captures a slice of the life of a young woman who is about to be married to the one she believes is her 'The One'. I loved the use of stream of consciousness here, the way each thought flowed and melted into another. Her thoughts flow...something that reminds young Shari of her ex-lover, takes her back to the day that they said it and how she felt after that. The novel is layered, perceptive and capturesamong other things the stillness and mundanity of everyday life beautifully. I cannot recommend it enough.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I did find it a bit hard to follow at times, with characters weaving in and out of the story sometimes. Regardless, I found the plot interesting and I liked the element of suspense added with the story.

[Gowtham Krishna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a book with varied pace (in a good way), the writer has done a good job letting us into the inner workings of the protagonist's mind. Worth reading!