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My Temporary Son: An Orphan's Journey
Two writers map different landscapes of loss and love with poignant and marvelously written Joan Didion (Knopf) in The Year of Magical Thinking and Timeri Murari with his tale of losing an adopted child to another family in My Temporary Son (Penguin India). WORLD BOOKS
I was a contented, elderly man, not looking to be immersed in any emotional cauldrons . . . and then, unexpectedly, Bhima came along, skewering all my calculations.
On a hot June evening, Timeri Murari returns home from a game of tennis to find a baby lying on his bed and watching him through beautiful, large, bewildered eyes. ‘He’ll be here a few days,’ his wife, Maureen, tells him. ‘When he’s well, he’ll go back to the orphanage.’ Having played host to other young orphaned house guests before, Tim assumes that once the wound from his recent nine –hour surgery has healed, Bhima will do the same.
But Bhima brings much more to their lives than Tim and Maureen have bargained for. With the unquestioning faith of a child, he surrenders himself to their care, and with his quiet resilience in the face of excruciating physical pain, his mischievous pranks and unusual intelligence, he takes complete possession of their hearts. Before long, Tim, who has never been comfortable with children, finds himself busy learning to be a father and loving every moment.
However, their idyll is short-lived, for Bhima’s destiny lies elsewhere. His adoptive parents are about to arrive in India to meet him, and Tim and Maureen have to confront the harsh reality of handing him over to them. They are tormented by guilt and the agonising doubts about their own decision for Bhima’s future. The day the adopting parents leave with their Bhima is one of grief, for both Bhima and for Maureen and Tim.
A REVIEW
Anyone with a child in their life, anyone who has ever longed for a child and anyone, but anyone, who has ever been at the receiving end of a child’s love will find something in this book. For even the most cynical will not be moved by Timeri Murari’s true account of caring for an orphaned and disabled child. Murari’s life took on a new meaning when baby Bhima entered his life. At first it was a nameless pair of deeply troubled eyes, a two-dimensional image from a photograph that was taken in the orphanage to which his parents, also nameless, had surrendered the child. A child who left a profound impression in the precious 11 months during which Murari became his father
My Temporary Son is a thoroughly honest, self-scrutinizing and, in places, brutal narrative. It documents young Bhima’s entrance into a hard world, and the inordinate medical procedures he undergoes, all the while following the author’s growing emotional attachment to his ‘son’.
Murari’s great skill lies in the way he encapsulates his love for baby Bhima, not by wild, gut-wrenching emotive adjectives, but by a pensive and almost introspective examination of his emotions, creating g an altogether different but equally painful type of tragedy.
The book delights and saddens in turn. Murari and his wife provide a firm presence as the baby Bhima suffers and triumphs; there is pain in his surgery, his recovery, his first smile. His joy in discovering rain. This is a tremendously powerful book, and tragic, too, in its way.
I was a contented, elderly man, not looking to be immersed in any emotional cauldrons . . . and then, unexpectedly, Bhima came along, skewering all my calculations.
On a hot June evening, Timeri Murari returns home from a game of tennis to find a baby lying on his bed and watching him through beautiful, large, bewildered eyes. ‘He’ll be here a few days,’ his wife, Maureen, tells him. ‘When he’s well, he’ll go back to the orphanage.’ Having played host to other young orphaned house guests before, Tim assumes that once the wound from his recent nine –hour surgery has healed, Bhima will do the same.
But Bhima brings much more to their lives than Tim and Maureen have bargained for. With the unquestioning faith of a child, he surrenders himself to their care, and with his quiet resilience in the face of excruciating physical pain, his mischievous pranks and unusual intelligence, he takes complete possession of their hearts. Before long, Tim, who has never been comfortable with children, finds himself busy learning to be a father and loving every moment.
However, their idyll is short-lived, for Bhima’s destiny lies elsewhere. His adoptive parents are about to arrive in India to meet him, and Tim and Maureen have to confront the harsh reality of handing him over to them. They are tormented by guilt and the agonising doubts about their own decision for Bhima’s future. The day the adopting parents leave with their Bhima is one of grief, for both Bhima and for Maureen and Tim.
A REVIEW
Anyone with a child in their life, anyone who has ever longed for a child and anyone, but anyone, who has ever been at the receiving end of a child’s love will find something in this book. For even the most cynical will not be moved by Timeri Murari’s true account of caring for an orphaned and disabled child. Murari’s life took on a new meaning when baby Bhima entered his life. At first it was a nameless pair of deeply troubled eyes, a two-dimensional image from a photograph that was taken in the orphanage to which his parents, also nameless, had surrendered the child. A child who left a profound impression in the precious 11 months during which Murari became his father
My Temporary Son is a thoroughly honest, self-scrutinizing and, in places, brutal narrative. It documents young Bhima’s entrance into a hard world, and the inordinate medical procedures he undergoes, all the while following the author’s growing emotional attachment to his ‘son’.
Murari’s great skill lies in the way he encapsulates his love for baby Bhima, not by wild, gut-wrenching emotive adjectives, but by a pensive and almost introspective examination of his emotions, creating g an altogether different but equally painful type of tragedy.
The book delights and saddens in turn. Murari and his wife provide a firm presence as the baby Bhima suffers and triumphs; there is pain in his surgery, his recovery, his first smile. His joy in discovering rain. This is a tremendously powerful book, and tragic, too, in its way.
231 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Timeri N. Murari
36 books37 followersTimeri Murari is an award winning writer, filmmaker, and playwright, who began his career as journalist on the Kingston Whig Standard in Ontario, Canada. He writes for the Guardian, Sunday Times, and other magazines and newspapers internationally. He has published both fiction and non-fiction, and his bestselling novel, Taj, was translated into 19 lanugages and has recently been reissued by Penguin India. In 2006, he published a memoir, My Temporary Son, exploring the difficulties of adopting a desperately ill orphan. Timeri now lives with his wife in his ancestral home of Chennai, India.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 8, 2024
Timeri Murari writes so beautifully! But this story really touched my heart. I wanted to read on and on. I did not know it's a true story- an orphan disabled infant came, and completely changed his life!
August 24, 2022
A must for anyone going to have a baby or having a baby or thinking of adoption.
This is a autobiographical story centred around a boy Bhima who is born with a unique deformity. Maureen an Timeri (the author) decide to keep the child with them till he recovers from a surgery.
Unknowingly Bhima becomes a part of their life. Tim and Maureen are old enough to be the child:s grandparents and so Maureen decides to set Bhima for adoption by younger childless parents.
The bonding between the author and Bhima lasts for over a year and becomes difficult when the adoptive parents come to take Bhima
A wonderfully written book more like a diary of an orphan who gets love and finally a family who he can call his own.
The language is excellent and there are moments which bring tears. The emotional bonding is described beautifully.
Refreshing and apart from the main plot the author also strays by explaining the happenings during the time in the outside world and also shares glimpses of Madras as he had seen as a child and what it is now.
This is a autobiographical story centred around a boy Bhima who is born with a unique deformity. Maureen an Timeri (the author) decide to keep the child with them till he recovers from a surgery.
Unknowingly Bhima becomes a part of their life. Tim and Maureen are old enough to be the child:s grandparents and so Maureen decides to set Bhima for adoption by younger childless parents.
The bonding between the author and Bhima lasts for over a year and becomes difficult when the adoptive parents come to take Bhima
A wonderfully written book more like a diary of an orphan who gets love and finally a family who he can call his own.
The language is excellent and there are moments which bring tears. The emotional bonding is described beautifully.
Refreshing and apart from the main plot the author also strays by explaining the happenings during the time in the outside world and also shares glimpses of Madras as he had seen as a child and what it is now.
December 12, 2024
One of the most amazing books I have ever read
July 22, 2016
Gripping....straight from the heart
Timeri Murari has brought his special style of writing to this wonderful though sad story. A real page Turner! Bhima is truly blessed to have Tim and Maureen to start him on his journey after such a tragic beginning.
Timeri Murari has brought his special style of writing to this wonderful though sad story. A real page Turner! Bhima is truly blessed to have Tim and Maureen to start him on his journey after such a tragic beginning.
May 3, 2015
Really interesting and touching.
June 19, 2015
An exclusive reading..a delightful story of relationships taking the process of adoption to a new height..
April 29, 2013
One of my favourites! Heart touching!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews