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Rich Like Us
New Delhi, one month after the declaration of the Emergency, is the setting for Nayantara Sahgal's novel Rich Like Us, an ironic, tender and exquisitely crafted study of India and its people in the aftermath of Independence.The Emergency in India meant many things to many people - profit and power for some; jail for others; mobile vasectomy clinics for thousands more. For idealistics like Sonali it meant the end of a dream, the extinguishing of a bright flame of promise for the country's future that had burned since Independence. An unmarried woman, proud of her senior ranking in the civil service, she finds herself demoted and humiliated through a corrupt deal at governmental level. For opportunists like Dev, a beneficiary of the deal, it means a chance to quite his ailing father's business and make it on his own as a leader of the New Entrepreneurs. Sonali's colleague, Ravi Kachru, once a passionate Marxist, makes himself indispensable to the "royal line". Meanwhile, the stubborn shopkeeper, Kishori Lal, bloodied survivor of Partition, lands in a filthy prison cell for a non-existent crime.Rich Like Us is many individual histories, and many voices, in one - a compelling and vivid tapestry of India's past and present. Above all it is the story of Rose the cockney memsahib, brought by the worldly Ram from London forty years before to a family that neither wants nor welcomes her. In Nayantara Sahgal's tale, with its humour and tragedy, is mirrored some of the grandeur and folly of the Indian experience itself.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1986
23 people are currently reading
720 people want to read
About the author
Nayantara Sahgal
48 books63 followersNayantara Sahgal is an Indian writer in English. Her fiction deals with India's elite responding to the crises engendered by political change. She was one of the first female Indian writers in English to receive wide recognition. She is a member of the Nehru family (not the Nehru-Gandhi family as she so often points out), the second of the three daughters born to Jawaharlal Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.
She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel Rich Like Us (1985)awarded by India's National Academy of Letters.
She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel Rich Like Us (1985)awarded by India's National Academy of Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
January 3, 2014
A new author for me - but I will look for other books by her. The book takes place during the time of the "Emergency" when Indira Ghandi declared martial law. Although I think of myself as an informed person, who keeps up with international news, I was amazed at how little I really had known about the abrogation of human rights and the restrictions of that time. The book follows a family including an English wife, her husband, her step-son, his wife and close family friends as they deal with illness, aging, political chicanery and indifference. Characters well drawn, story line that maintains interest, inevitably sad ending.
August 13, 2013
"Rich Like us" is the story of how the Emergency of 1975 ruined the democratic values that this country was founded upon. This is a story told through the lives of two women - the 'Cockney memsahib' Rose and the young, well-educated, unconventional Sonali. Loved to learn about life during the Indira Gandhi's emergency. A time promising wealth for the corrupt, but terrifying with sterilization for the poor and jail for the critical folks,(not mentioning the innocent masses of the post emergency days). Back to the story the emergency changes forever the lives of both women. Though truth and realities are a lot different. Still worth reading.
January 14, 2014
I started this book hoping it would be mind blowing, and in some ways it is. An insightful and intelligent observational novel about 1970s India, but the prose is unimaginative and lumbering so it's a tough one to get through. Having said that, she remains a favourite of mine for her biographies (can they be called that) of Nehru and indira
August 8, 2007
Contentwise, it was a pretty good read though too caustic a POV. Howevere, stylistically a nightmare with an overload of similies and metaphors.
August 4, 2018
I suspect there is enough of the author herself in the character of Rose, the lovable straight shooter that you meet in the initial few pages and whom I immediately grew fond of. In a world where meanness and prejudice masquerade as honesty and straight talk, she reminds us that while we all will find ourselves in tricky situations too involved to take sides, too muddled up to see clearly in, too entangled to make sense of, basic human empathy and kindness goes a long way. Her sharp English wit is a delight - "and never you mind my aitches, they 'aven't gone anywhere they can't come back from."
This is the first novel set in the times of emergency that I read. Even though I had read about it in history books, seen movies based on it, and even though I know that in India even in normal times, police and state is capable of utmost cruelty, it jolted me a little to read about the situation in India in the same terms that you tend to associate with other tyrannical regimes.
Overall a wonderful read that I quite enjoyed. It seemed to me that the plot and characters of the movie "Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi" were definitely inspired by this book although things are different enough that it is hard to pinpoint exact parallels.
This is the first novel set in the times of emergency that I read. Even though I had read about it in history books, seen movies based on it, and even though I know that in India even in normal times, police and state is capable of utmost cruelty, it jolted me a little to read about the situation in India in the same terms that you tend to associate with other tyrannical regimes.
Overall a wonderful read that I quite enjoyed. It seemed to me that the plot and characters of the movie "Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi" were definitely inspired by this book although things are different enough that it is hard to pinpoint exact parallels.
December 2, 2024
Although flawed in places and in need of better copy-editing, the writing in this novel at times left me breathless. I discovered Sahgal while reading a collection of essays about Woodstock School in northern India written by former students. A brief biography identified Sahgal as Madame Pandit's daughter and the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru.
The story covers the period of the Emergency when Indira Gandhi (Nehru's daughter) attempts to quash all opposition, institute an authoritarian regime, and ensure a dynastic succession of power to her son. Many characters tell of the effects of the Emergency: new power for a few, loss of all freedom for many. For Rose, an English woman married to Ram, her Indian lover, and Sonali, a free-thinking young, the altered state of their lives arouses new understanding of life and love.
Sahgal displays masterful control of her characters' emotions and she uses complex, elegant phrasing to colorful effect. Her writing flaw lies in the transitions between narrators. Often I had difficulty recognizing which character was telling the story. I would read this book again, however, and expect to find fresh insights in a second reading.
The story covers the period of the Emergency when Indira Gandhi (Nehru's daughter) attempts to quash all opposition, institute an authoritarian regime, and ensure a dynastic succession of power to her son. Many characters tell of the effects of the Emergency: new power for a few, loss of all freedom for many. For Rose, an English woman married to Ram, her Indian lover, and Sonali, a free-thinking young, the altered state of their lives arouses new understanding of life and love.
Sahgal displays masterful control of her characters' emotions and she uses complex, elegant phrasing to colorful effect. Her writing flaw lies in the transitions between narrators. Often I had difficulty recognizing which character was telling the story. I would read this book again, however, and expect to find fresh insights in a second reading.
March 5, 2018
I read the tamil translation of this book. The translation was awful - it seemed like the translator had literally translated English into Tamil with no consideration for grammar or meaning. In many places, he had literally used the same sentences as it would have appeared in the original English novel. It could have been an interesting book, given the theme. The whole experience was ruined by the translation. A request to the publishers - please do not use this person for doing the translation of further works of non-Tamil authors.
March 14, 2025
4 stars - Brings to life the history of 20th century India and into the time of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's declaration of the authoritarian Emergency in 1975, told through the lives of an interwoven set of characters. The story is emotionally compelling; details and scenes are vividly described; the characters feel genuinely alive in all their ideals and failings, contradictions and disappointments. I learned a lot about Indian history.
Sonali, a young woman who has been fired from her job as a government administrator, tells the story, but her life and her firing are only part of a much larger panorama. The main character is Rose, an Englishwoman, whose experiences are conveyed alongside those of her husband, Raj, who is an Indian businessman and already married to another woman with whom he has a young son. Several additional main characters enter the tale, all of whom are given nearly equal prominence.
Because there are so many principal figures, and because the story frequently jumps from the present to various moments in the past and then to the present again, and because the relationships of the characters to one another frequently change, it was very difficult for me to keep track of who was being written about, and at what point in their lives situations occurred. The effect of all the shifts was somewhat frustrating but also dreamlike, as if the reader is floating through time tethered only to Sonali's (or the writer's) stream of consciousness.
At one point, I wrote a note that the book is like a matrix containing several novels, each told partially but with striking details and strong empathy for the characters. The end of Rose's complex relationship with her husband, for example, is told in a series of powerful but too brief scenes.
The complexity of the story is made more challenging by the somewhat garbled syntax in many of Sahgal's sentences. References to who is speaking, or about whom, seem to me very often misplaced or missing. Transitions from one person to another sometimes occur quickly within paragraphs. Because I felt so strongly drawn through the story, I eventually learned to skip over confusing attributions and other details in anticipation of arrival at the next clarifying or surprising moment.
For me, the syntactical confusion added to the kaleidoscopic and multi-layered quality of the book. It was like trying to read a labyrinth or a palimpsest. Incidents current and historic seemed to occur side by side; all characters seemed to live simultaneously. Is this an intent of the writer or is it a matter of inadequate copy-editing? My assumption is that the writer intended to tell a certain story in a certain way. Despite the difficulties, I felt it was up to me to meet the writer at least halfway.
A scene late in the book, where elderly Rose is thinking about her life, possibly indicates that the multi-layered effect is no accident (and shows the empathy Sahgal has for her character):
There must be a reason why we are born, why we live, she mused, and it is peculiar not to know it even yet, though smaller questions have got answered. The song from the revival of the old musical they had seen in London on their last visit together came back to her. "Why was I born? Why am I living? What do I get? What am I giving?" All questions, but one question seemed to answer another, as perhaps the songwriter meant it to, and if so, there was no more than that to understand. She sat very still and after a while she could hear the stillness. Time passing, she had called the seashell sound of which silences are composed when she was a child. Now she knew time didn't pass. It was present, all of it, all the time.
The final chapters alternate between two main story threads, both hinting at a relentless and inhumane cruelty seeming to always simmer in the book's background, as an aspect of India's complex culture, that flares up with awful violence from time to time. Such a flare-up is shown in the brutal policies of the Emergency declaration in one of the story threads. The other thread shows it in government corruption and personal malfeasance, but also in traditions of male dominance that include the killing of women. The once accepted but now banned ritual killing of widows (sati, or suttee), by burning them alive, takes a very different form at the close of Sahgal's affecting and memorable book, bringing this story of India to a devastating end.
Perhaps it is the voice of the author near the book's close when Sonali advises a servant to not speak about the terrible event that has happened. "Say nothing," I said firmly, never surer of my advice. As against justice for the dead which could never be done, there was no need to imperil the employment and security of the living. Such a statement from idealistic Sonali seems to allow her to make a terrible peace with the very pattern of violence that her narrative exposes. Is it the author's final bitter commentary about the price of survival?
But the story continues for a few more pages, with new possibilities for Sonali, and for India.
Sonali, a young woman who has been fired from her job as a government administrator, tells the story, but her life and her firing are only part of a much larger panorama. The main character is Rose, an Englishwoman, whose experiences are conveyed alongside those of her husband, Raj, who is an Indian businessman and already married to another woman with whom he has a young son. Several additional main characters enter the tale, all of whom are given nearly equal prominence.
Because there are so many principal figures, and because the story frequently jumps from the present to various moments in the past and then to the present again, and because the relationships of the characters to one another frequently change, it was very difficult for me to keep track of who was being written about, and at what point in their lives situations occurred. The effect of all the shifts was somewhat frustrating but also dreamlike, as if the reader is floating through time tethered only to Sonali's (or the writer's) stream of consciousness.
At one point, I wrote a note that the book is like a matrix containing several novels, each told partially but with striking details and strong empathy for the characters. The end of Rose's complex relationship with her husband, for example, is told in a series of powerful but too brief scenes.
The complexity of the story is made more challenging by the somewhat garbled syntax in many of Sahgal's sentences. References to who is speaking, or about whom, seem to me very often misplaced or missing. Transitions from one person to another sometimes occur quickly within paragraphs. Because I felt so strongly drawn through the story, I eventually learned to skip over confusing attributions and other details in anticipation of arrival at the next clarifying or surprising moment.
For me, the syntactical confusion added to the kaleidoscopic and multi-layered quality of the book. It was like trying to read a labyrinth or a palimpsest. Incidents current and historic seemed to occur side by side; all characters seemed to live simultaneously. Is this an intent of the writer or is it a matter of inadequate copy-editing? My assumption is that the writer intended to tell a certain story in a certain way. Despite the difficulties, I felt it was up to me to meet the writer at least halfway.
A scene late in the book, where elderly Rose is thinking about her life, possibly indicates that the multi-layered effect is no accident (and shows the empathy Sahgal has for her character):
There must be a reason why we are born, why we live, she mused, and it is peculiar not to know it even yet, though smaller questions have got answered. The song from the revival of the old musical they had seen in London on their last visit together came back to her. "Why was I born? Why am I living? What do I get? What am I giving?" All questions, but one question seemed to answer another, as perhaps the songwriter meant it to, and if so, there was no more than that to understand. She sat very still and after a while she could hear the stillness. Time passing, she had called the seashell sound of which silences are composed when she was a child. Now she knew time didn't pass. It was present, all of it, all the time.
The final chapters alternate between two main story threads, both hinting at a relentless and inhumane cruelty seeming to always simmer in the book's background, as an aspect of India's complex culture, that flares up with awful violence from time to time. Such a flare-up is shown in the brutal policies of the Emergency declaration in one of the story threads. The other thread shows it in government corruption and personal malfeasance, but also in traditions of male dominance that include the killing of women. The once accepted but now banned ritual killing of widows (sati, or suttee), by burning them alive, takes a very different form at the close of Sahgal's affecting and memorable book, bringing this story of India to a devastating end.
Perhaps it is the voice of the author near the book's close when Sonali advises a servant to not speak about the terrible event that has happened. "Say nothing," I said firmly, never surer of my advice. As against justice for the dead which could never be done, there was no need to imperil the employment and security of the living. Such a statement from idealistic Sonali seems to allow her to make a terrible peace with the very pattern of violence that her narrative exposes. Is it the author's final bitter commentary about the price of survival?
But the story continues for a few more pages, with new possibilities for Sonali, and for India.
August 21, 2023
“Rich Like Us” portrays the supremacy of patriarchy foregrounded in the political backdrop of emergency. The narrative alternates between Rose, an English lady and Sonali, a former civil servant facing the repercussion of political upheaval.
The author in between the alternate narrative, shares anecdotes of Rose’s marriage with already married Ram and the hostility she faced thereafter. Rose’s efforts to adjust into a traditional Hindu family and saving the family business despite the indifferences are testaments of how women forego their rights for the sake of validity and respect. In the current scenario, Rose is taking care of bedridden Ram and is unsure of her future.
The second protagonist Sonali is unmarried, highly educated and abhors the societal biasness towards women. Sonali’s character is visibly drawn from Ms. Sahgal’s personal experience of facing criticism and losing her job because of her sharp assessment and stance on imposing Emergency.
This book distinctly showcases the systematic deterioration of women’s status and portrays the casual lifestyle of “rich” who are determined to adopt any means to stay in power against a backdrop of unchecked and forced vasectomies and paramount corruption.
My only concern is pace which gets picked up only in the second half.
Apart from it, this is a fearless and impartial piece of work on a horrible time gone by with multiple ongoing themes, justified through an exquisite writing.
The author in between the alternate narrative, shares anecdotes of Rose’s marriage with already married Ram and the hostility she faced thereafter. Rose’s efforts to adjust into a traditional Hindu family and saving the family business despite the indifferences are testaments of how women forego their rights for the sake of validity and respect. In the current scenario, Rose is taking care of bedridden Ram and is unsure of her future.
The second protagonist Sonali is unmarried, highly educated and abhors the societal biasness towards women. Sonali’s character is visibly drawn from Ms. Sahgal’s personal experience of facing criticism and losing her job because of her sharp assessment and stance on imposing Emergency.
This book distinctly showcases the systematic deterioration of women’s status and portrays the casual lifestyle of “rich” who are determined to adopt any means to stay in power against a backdrop of unchecked and forced vasectomies and paramount corruption.
My only concern is pace which gets picked up only in the second half.
Apart from it, this is a fearless and impartial piece of work on a horrible time gone by with multiple ongoing themes, justified through an exquisite writing.
January 17, 2019
I'm really conflicted about this. Let me preface this by saying I had to read this for one of my classes in school.
I was suprised by how much I enjoyed certain aspects of this story actually, but overall I think there were things that could have been improved upon. The story follows a variety of characters and each chapter jumped between first and third person perspective somewhat unexpectedly. Those chapters that began as first person were often super confusing because I was unsure of what character's perspective I was reading until like halfway through the chapter. Each character's voice tended to blend together for me, with the exception of Rose. I found Rose's character to be super interesting, but that may be because I felt more of a connection to her than the other characters because she was more familiar to me. Much of the political and business language and context went right over my head, but that's a personal flaw rather than a flaw of the novel. Overall I just felt a huge disconnect to like 80% of this book and most of the characters and events all kind of blended together for me. Maybe I'm just not a fan of contemporary, political novels ://
I was suprised by how much I enjoyed certain aspects of this story actually, but overall I think there were things that could have been improved upon. The story follows a variety of characters and each chapter jumped between first and third person perspective somewhat unexpectedly. Those chapters that began as first person were often super confusing because I was unsure of what character's perspective I was reading until like halfway through the chapter. Each character's voice tended to blend together for me, with the exception of Rose. I found Rose's character to be super interesting, but that may be because I felt more of a connection to her than the other characters because she was more familiar to me. Much of the political and business language and context went right over my head, but that's a personal flaw rather than a flaw of the novel. Overall I just felt a huge disconnect to like 80% of this book and most of the characters and events all kind of blended together for me. Maybe I'm just not a fan of contemporary, political novels ://
July 30, 2018
Touching and beautifully written, the book speaks about the Emergency through the stories of two women - Rose and Sonali. The writing is subtle, yet very critical of Indira and Sanjay Gandhi's policies. It was frustrating to read how political power creates bullies not only among the administration but family members as well.
People live in fear under an authoritarian government and the ones who speak up are either jailed or killed.
Nayantara Sehgal received a Sahitya Academy Award for "Rich Like Us" that she later returned in protest of the growing intolerance in India. She's a fearless writer who did not mince words even when it came to criticising her own family.
Definitely, this is one of the many Indian books which must be read to understand what a Dictatorial government is capable of in our country and how millions fawn over such governments in either fear or flattery or pure devotion.
People live in fear under an authoritarian government and the ones who speak up are either jailed or killed.
Nayantara Sehgal received a Sahitya Academy Award for "Rich Like Us" that she later returned in protest of the growing intolerance in India. She's a fearless writer who did not mince words even when it came to criticising her own family.
Definitely, this is one of the many Indian books which must be read to understand what a Dictatorial government is capable of in our country and how millions fawn over such governments in either fear or flattery or pure devotion.
November 15, 2021
The story primarily follows the life of two different women (Rose and Sonali), across time. The context is set richly from the pre-independence India to post-independence until the emergency. The author holds her position as a person who knows and understands the lives of privileges, as the title suggests and sticks to that lens making it a near honest account. Despite politics weaving in and out of the story, the account remains quite personal from the viewpoint of certain characters. A few dialogues by female protagonists have interesting feminist undertones.
As with my earlier experience with Ms Nayantara Sahgal, this book too was a pleasure to read, bringing history, society and politics alive using an engaging piece of fiction in the foreground.
As with my earlier experience with Ms Nayantara Sahgal, this book too was a pleasure to read, bringing history, society and politics alive using an engaging piece of fiction in the foreground.
May 31, 2021
This book gave me more than I had expected. It ropes in a whole lot of themes than just Emergency in India. It introduces beautifully woven characters with a well knit story line.
Only the writing part was a bit of a let down. At some places it ran so smoothly while on others it seemed unnecessarily complicated. But nonetheless a brilliant read.
Only the writing part was a bit of a let down. At some places it ran so smoothly while on others it seemed unnecessarily complicated. But nonetheless a brilliant read.
January 2, 2021
A disjointed story spanning the pre-independence era to the emergency times. Rose, an English girl, marries an Indian and comes to live in India. Her trials and tribulations in an unknown country. Lack of continuity is an issue.
June 18, 2021
Strong isolated moments and promising characters are not sufficiently connected. The reader is not drawn through the story by the characters. There are long digressions and characters like KL pop up over halfway through to become central for a few pages.
Sahgal wants to pontificate on the Emergency and put it in the context of other rights abuses, but the writing is overly diffuse.
"The emergency had given all kinds of new twists and turns to policy and the world's largest democracy was looking like nothing so much as one of the two-bit dictatorships we had loftily looked down upon" page 31, and we know what sort of book we're in.
90 pages in and not much has happened.
Plenty of pathos and realism but lacking in dramatic tension.
Expectations unmet
Sonali is fired early on. Expectation: we're going to explore why she was fired.
Reality: her firing illustrates the corruption of the Emergency, but Sonali does nothing for the next 150 pages, eventually popping up at the end.
Ram has had a stroke and Rose is isolated. Expectation: this is the main timeline.
Reality: most of the story is told in flashbacks.
Sahgal wants to pontificate on the Emergency and put it in the context of other rights abuses, but the writing is overly diffuse.
"The emergency had given all kinds of new twists and turns to policy and the world's largest democracy was looking like nothing so much as one of the two-bit dictatorships we had loftily looked down upon" page 31, and we know what sort of book we're in.
90 pages in and not much has happened.
Plenty of pathos and realism but lacking in dramatic tension.
Expectations unmet
Sonali is fired early on. Expectation: we're going to explore why she was fired.
Reality: her firing illustrates the corruption of the Emergency, but Sonali does nothing for the next 150 pages, eventually popping up at the end.
Ram has had a stroke and Rose is isolated. Expectation: this is the main timeline.
Reality: most of the story is told in flashbacks.
May 29, 2019
i own a copy dd 1993 - not listed here
September 14, 2021
I loved the portrayal of India in this turbulent period of its history. However a lot of the characters seemed underdeveloped and there wasn’t a lot of plot.
October 17, 2021
im ngl guys while the narrative style was quite difficult to get through I really liked the political and gendered stance of this book and the characters within it
July 19, 2025
compelled me to read more of Nayantara's work
September 21, 2025
well written, but abrupt ending. I feel like I needed to know more about Indian history to really understand a lot of it
March 10, 2017
Not the first book you'd pick up
Am interesting story into to lives of the upper class based on the emergence. The writing is not that exceptional though.
Am interesting story into to lives of the upper class based on the emergence. The writing is not that exceptional though.
May 14, 2012
Heard so much about this book, but it just did not sing to me. Loved to learn about life during the Indira Gandhi's emergency in an intimate way - it was an education in history. The writing style itself was an impediment to my greater enjoyment - I cannot say exactly what but it somehow felt like a high school textbook prose.
Read
August 6, 2012The story may disappoint you if you are looking for a novelist's point of view of "Emergency", as claimed by the promo of the book on its covers.
But,the narrative, as seen from the eyes of the principal protagonist, Rose, of India is certainly interesting. The author has succeeded in maintaining the Britisher's angle to that part of the narrative.
But,the narrative, as seen from the eyes of the principal protagonist, Rose, of India is certainly interesting. The author has succeeded in maintaining the Britisher's angle to that part of the narrative.
Want to read
November 29, 2016The story may disappoint you if you are looking for a novelist's point of view of "Emergency", as claimed by the promo of the book on its covers.
But,the narrative, as seen from the eyes of the principal protagonist, Rose, of India is certainly interesting. The author has succeeded in maintaining the Britisher's angle to that part of the narrative.
But,the narrative, as seen from the eyes of the principal protagonist, Rose, of India is certainly interesting. The author has succeeded in maintaining the Britisher's angle to that part of the narrative.
October 3, 2011
Not one of my favorites. I was never captured by the story line. If it was a longer book, I'm not sure that I would have finished it. I just give it a 5 on my 10 scale.
July 11, 2013
I love books that examine the problems of being at the top -- even if you want to change, there's some difficulty. This book is super.
June 20, 2016
The book is a scathing commentary on the Emergency Days of India, told beautifully and sensitively. The canvas of the story is vast covering several decades with history interwoven very skillfully.
July 14, 2015
One of the best books i have ever read. She is now my favourite author.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews