The Blind Lady's Descendants

by Anees Salim

Born to silently warring parents, Amar Hamsa grows up in a crumbling house called the Bungalow, anticipating tragedies and ignominies. True to his dark premonitions, bad luck soon starts cascading into his life. At twenty-six, he decides to narrate his story to an imaginary audience, and skeletons tumble out of every cupboard in the Bungalow. The Blind Lady’s Descendants is an utterly compelling and haunting family saga, brimming with intense heartache and wry humour, confirming Anees Salim’s reputation as one of our most outstanding storytellers

Genres: Fiction, India, Indian Literature, Literary Fiction, Asia

301 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2014

About the author

Anees Salim is an advertising professional and is employed with Draft FCB Ulka. He loves being invisible and lives with his wife and son in Kochi. Vanity Bagh is his second novel.

Reviews

[Meghna Pant · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I've ever read of this author. I am simply blown away - as a reader and as a writer.

This story is about nothing. If you ask me to explain the plot I'll draw a blank. Despite this the story contains everything.

Let me begin with the writing - Anees is truly a gifted writer, a rare talent in today's commercialised world of Indian literature. He knows exactly how much to give and how much to hold back. His power over language is close to genius.

His characters are beautifully etched out and drawn - in their silence and in their noise. Even the protagonist's father who doesn't speak or appear throughout most of the novel, is a strong character. Such is the power of Anees' pen. No one is a saint here. No one is good (except perhaps poor Dr Ibrahim). Yet - together - they all perfectly fit together, drawing out each other's best and worst, like a game of swords. The sleepy coastal town, the trains whizzing by, the tunnel where Amar's family comes to die, are all characters masquerading as settings.

I didn't delve right into the book, it was a slow drawing out and I'm glad I stayed with it. There is so much tragedy in this book but to pull off this tragedy without tragedy's heaviness is a rare accomplishment. I would recommend this book and writer to everyone.

There are very few good writers in India and I'm glad I can count Anees as one of them.

[Madhula · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Amar Hamsa begins on a quest to narrate his twenty-six years lived at the Bungalow, what we witness is the gradual unfolding of the crumbling state of the physical and the mental, as also of relationships within and outside the home. Part witty, part serious, he traces the lives of the inhabitants of the Bungalow. We hear of his dysfunctional parents: the mother lamenting the loss of her loved brother and the father away on his regular ‘expeditions’ to Malabar; of the blind grandmother who forms an opinion on everything; of the uncle who wrote his name on every book along with the time he finished reading it. And of his siblings: the loving younger sister who drowns while attempting to pick a water lily; the selfish, pretentious elder sister for whose marriage the family sells off the blind lady’s Bungalow; and the devout elder brother who says his prayers five times a day. Against them is his own atheist self, who seems to be living a life already lived by his dead uncle.

While recounting the lives of his characters, Anees Salim also weaves the thread of the ‘real’ world: the demolition of the Babri masjid and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the differing reactions of the Muslims of the Bungalow.

Death and life, marriage and heartbreak, Anees Salim has an easy way of engaging the reader with his story. It is the author’s storytelling and the reader-friendly approach, mingled with humour, tragedy, and the happening of the then-political world, that makes The Blind Lady’s Descendants a gripping, unforgettable work.

[Nupur Lakhe |nupur_flipaleaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a 3.5/5 because it does captivate your when it starts and ropes you in the marvellous writing full of atmospherically details, emotions, and satirical wit. While I reserve all my points for the writing, I wish I could distribute some to the plot; the story moves in concentric circles and while the need to find answers to the questions makes you turn pages urgently, no closures to some of the themes running through the book definitely disappoint. A family saga with flawed characters, which could have worked if the story was free of the many flaws we spot in it.

I liked the authors way of slipping wit amidst serious family scenarios. It made me chuckle but the charm of it fizzled out very soon.

[Ali Hasan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about loss and grief, the book weaves a poignant thread of a young boy's short lived life and the house that he grows up in, under the shadow of death.

Amar, an atheist boy in a Muslim household, experiences loss right from childhood and struggles to cope with it all his life.

Anees Salim does a great job describing the disgust of a family towards an unbeliever in the house, throughout the book, disguising the monumental sin with heavy dollops of humor.

The overarching theme in the book is one of loss and unsuspecting tragedy. However, it is not written in a way that makes you put it down as if reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground. The book is about tragedy and loss, yet feels like a book about the banality of everyday life in a small coastal town.

Over the course of the book, there are times when the gloom of our beloved characters spills freely over the pages, teetering almost to a comical extent. That is what is so beautiful about the book. It makes the depressingly mundane and traditionally sinful into something more palatable.

The book ends with a lot of emotions for the reader to experience and some casual reminders about the age old issue of living a life. Or not.

"Then again, when you write about your own life, about the things you have lived through, where is the room for amendments."

[Teenu Vijayan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first book by the author and it's safe to say that this has been one of my most favourite read of 2019.
The story is narrated by Amar who is leaving a psych facility and through his words we are transported into his life at bungalow where he lived with his dysfunctional family. It's a true family saga where even the ghost of his uncle,his absent father or even the family doctor -all hold an important thread that weaves this story. The parents are stuck in a loveless marriage, the siblings fight, some people get married, some leave this world,yet their lingering essence can be felt throughout the narrative. The childhood narratives were my favourite, the descriptions were so vivid that I could picturise it happening in front of me (I would love to see a movie adaptation of this book). When the family's skeltons tumble out, it's a mess to which maybe you can relate and somewhere sympathise. For people who like reading family sagas and flawed characters,this book is perfect.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 One of the best reads of 2017

[Prashanth Bhat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blind lady's descendants - anees salim.

ಮಲಯಾಳಂ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ, ಸಿನಿಮಾಗಳ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ನಾಯಕರೆಲ್ಲ ಬದುಕಿನ ತಿರುಗಣಿಯೊಳಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿ ನಜ್ಜುಗುಜ್ಜಾದವರೇ. ಅವರಿಗೆ ಬಾಲ್ಯದ ದಟ್ಟ ನೆನಪಿದೆ. ಮಾಡಿದ ತಪ್ಪುಗಳ ಕುರಿತ ಪಾಪಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆಯಿದೆ. ಸರಿಪಡಿಸಲಾಗದ ಕುರಿತಾದ ವ್ಯಥೆಯಿದೆ. ದುಃಖವಿದೆ ,ದುಮ್ಮಾನವಿದೆ. ಯಾರನ್ನು ಬೇಕಾದರೂ‌ ತಗೊಳ್ಳಿ‌ . ವಿಜಯನ್‌ನ ಕಝಾಕ್ಕಿಂಡೆ ಇತಿಹಾಸಂ, ವಾಸುದೇವನ್ ನಾಯರ್‌ರ ಚೌಕಟ್ಟಿನ ಮನೆ, ತಕಳಿಯ ಕಯರ್ ,ಆರುಂಧತಿ ರಾಯ್ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದದ್ದು ಮಲಯಾಳಂ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಅಷ್ಟೇ .god of small things ಅಂತ. ಅದಕ್ಕಿರುವುದು ಗಾಢ ಮಲಯಾಳಿ ಫ್ಲೇವರ್‌.
ಈಗ ಅನೀಸ್ ಸಲೀಮ್.
ಇವರು ಯಾಕೆ ಮಲಯಾಳಂ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಸರ್ಜಶೀಲ ಅಭಿವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಗೆ ಆಯ್ದುಕೊಳ್ಳಲಿಲ್ಲ? ಯಾಕೆ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷ್‌ನಲ್ಲೇ ಬರೆಯುವೆ ಎಂದು ಹೊರಟರು? ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ.
ಆದರೆ ಮುಸ್ಲಿಂ ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಒಳಗಿ‌ನ ಕತೆಗಳ ರಾಜಕೀಯದ ದನಿಯಿಲ್ಲದೆ ಒಂದು ಸಣ್ಣ ಹಳ್ಳಿಯ ಪರಿಸರದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿಡುವ ಇವರ ಕುಸುರಿ ಕೆಲಸ ಮೆಚ್ಚುವಂತಹದ್ದು.
ಪ್ರಾಯಶಃ rohinton mistry ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ ಇಷ್ಟು ಚಂದ ಭಾಷೆಯ ದುಡಿಸಿಕೊಂಡ ಇಂಡಿಯನ್ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷ್ ಕಾದಂಬರಿಕಾರ ನಾನು ಓದಿಲ್ಲ.
ಟಾಲ್ಸ್ಟಾಯ್ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಾರೆ ' ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಸುಖಿ ಕುಟುಂಬಗಳೂ ಸುಖಿಯೇ ಆದರೆ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಸುಖ ಕಾಣದ ಕುಟುಂಬಗಳು ಅವರದೇ ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಸುಖಿಯಾಗಿರುತ್ತದೆ ' ಅಂತ. ಅದು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಎಷ್ಟು ನಿಜವಾಗಿದೆ. ಅಪ್ಪ ,ಅಮ್ಮ ಅವರ ಬಂಗಲೆ ನಾಲ್ಕು ‌ಮಕ್ಕಳು ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಒಂದೊಂದು ಜಗತ್ತು. ಅಮರ್ ,ಕಥೆಯ ನಿರೂಪಕ ಕೊನೆಯವ ತನ್ನ ಸೂಸೈಡ್ ನೋಟ್ ಬರೆಯುವ ಮೂಲಕ ಕಥೆ ಶುರುವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಅವನಿಗೆ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಾ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಾ ಅದು ಮುನ್ನೂರು ಪುಟ ಆಗಬಹೂದು ಎಂಬ ಕಲ್ಪನೆ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಅವನು ಹುಟ್ಟಿದ ದಿನವೇ ಆತ್ಮಹತ್ಯೆ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡ ಅವನ ಸೋದರಮಾವ ಅವನಿಗೆ ಬಗೆ ಬಗೆಯಾಗಿ ಕಾಡುತ್ತಾನೆ. ಎಲ್ಲೋ ದೂರ ಕೆಲಸ ಹುಡುಕಿ ಹೋದ ಅಂಕಲ್, ಮನೆ ಹತ್ರದ ಡಾಕ್ಟರ್, ಅವರ ಮಗ ಇವನ ‌ಕ್ಲಾಸ್ ಮೇಟ್, ಅವರ ದುಃಖ, ಮಸಾಲೆ ಪದಾರ್ಥ ವ್ಯಾಪಾರಕ್ಕೆ ಮಲಬಾರ್ ಕಡೆ ಆಗಾಗ ಹೋಗುವ ತಂದೆಯ ಇರವು ಇವರಿಗೆ ಅಷ್ಟಾಗಿ ಗಮನಕ್ಕೆ ಬರುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಶಾಲೆಯ ಟ್ರಿಪ್ಪಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಬರುತ್ತೇನೆ ಅಂದ ಅವನಕ್ಕ ವಾಪಸ್ ಬಂದದ್ದು... ಅವಳಿಗೊಂದು ವಿದಾಯ ಹೇಳಲಾರದಕ್ಕೆ ಜೀವನವಿಡೀ ಚುಚ್ಚಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ ಅಕ್ಕ, ಅವಳ ಮದುವೆಗೆ ಡೌರಿ ಕೊಡಲು ಇಡೀ ಕುಟುಂಬ ದುರ್ದೆಸೆಗೆ ಸರಿಯುವ ಸ್ಥಿತಿ ,ತೀವ್ರ ರಿಲಿಜಿಯಸ್ ವಾಲುವಿಕೆ ಹೊಂದಿದ ಇವನ ಅಣ್ಣ, ಮನೆಯ ಎಲ್ಲರ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಗೆ ರೂಪಕವಾಗಿ ಬರುವ ಕುರುಡು ಅಜ್ಜಿ, ಟಿವಿಯ ಧ್ವನಿಯಾಗಿ ಬರುವ ರಾಜೀವ್ ಗಾಂಧಿ, ಅಮರ್‌ನ ಗೆಳೆಯ , ಅವನ ಅಸಹಾಯಕತೆ, ಶೋಕ.ಓಹ್.
ಈಗ ಕೂತು ಯೋಚಿಸಿದರೆ ಇಡೀ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಎಷ್ಟು ಗೋಳಲ್ವಾ? ಅನಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಆದರೆ ಒಂದು ಸಣ್ಣ ಊರಿನ ಕತೆಯ ಕಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ಕಟ್ಟುವ ಹಾಗೆ ಚಿತ್ರಿಸುವ ಆ ಶೈಲಿ ಅನನ್ಯ.
ನನಗೆ ನನ್ನ ಮನೆ ಹೇಗೋ‌ ಅಮರ್‌ನ ಮನೆಯೂ ಚಿರಪರಿಚಿತ. ಆ ಬಣ್ಣ ಕಳಕೊಂಡ ಗೋಡೆಗಳು, ಅಗೋ ದಿನ ಖರ್ಚಿಗೆ ಕಡಿದ ಮರದ ಬೊಡ್ಡೆ, ಎಷ್ಟೆಂದರೆ ಆ ಸೀಪೇಜಾದ ಗೋಡೆಗಳು ಕೂಡ..
ಒಮ್ಮೆ ರಹಸ್ಯಮಯವಾಗಿ ,ಒಮ್ಮೆ ವಿಷಾದವಾಗಿ ,ಇನ್ನೊಮ್ಮೆ ಆರ್ತ ಕರೆಯಾಗಿ ಕಾಡುವ ಈ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಮುಗಿಸಿದಾಗ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಖುಷಿಯ ಅಂತ್ಯ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದರೆ ಅದಕ್ಕಿಂತ ದೊಡ್ಡ ವ್ಯಂಗ್ಯವಿರಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯವೇ ‌ಇಲ್ಲ ಅನಿಸಿತು!
2018ರ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ ಪುರಸ್ಕಾರ ಕೂಡ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಲಭಿಸಿದೆ.
ಒಳಗೆ ನೋವು ಹೆಪ್ಪುಗಟ್ಟಿರುವ ಈ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದರ ಓದು ಬೇಡವಿತ್ತು ನನಗೆ. ಅಷ್ಟು ತೀವ್ರತೆಯಿಂದ ಕಾಡಿತು.

[Swetha - a chronically perturbed mind · Rating 4 out of 5]

What would you do, when you know there are secrets in the family, skeletons tucked right deep into the closets of your house, and when some come tumbling out?
Anees Salim weaves a tale around a family, a typical south indian(keralite to be precise) family, where the father and mother stay in marital bonds with no love or empathy between them, and the children each have their own traits. Born into this family is Amar, our narrator, who takes to writing a memoir about The Bungalow, when he is 26 yrs and was leaving a psychiatrist’s clinic, accompanied by his mother. The book then goes back in time to when they were kids, to reminiscences and hurts and discoveries, and yes skeletons in everyone’s closet.
The story weaves like it could be your next door neighbour, a series of misfortunes and a series of mundane activities of daily life. Each character realistically flawed and mentally put to test. We have Amar who questions everything religion teaches him, and Akmal who abides by it to the letter, maybe too fanatically so. Jasira and Sophiya are polar opposites, in appearance and in character. The fights between siblings, the fight for property, the petty jealousies and life as such of the people in the Bungalow is brought before your eyes through Amar.
I could have done without Amar’s sexual fantasies which coloured the latter part of the book, but orher than that, it was a glimpse into the family, where death and misfortune follows in multiple ways.
I read it in literally a day, and it was a welcome break from my difficulty in reading my other books.

[Harshali Desai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detached, witty, funny - I would be surely reading more of Anees Salim

[Nadira Cotticollan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can say this about “The Blind Lady’s Descendents, the latest of Anees Salim’s books. One can read it once and read it again after not so long an interval and still enjoy it.
Actually “enjoy” is perhaps not the appropriate word. The Blind Lady’s descendents don’t have their lives all laid out on the rosy path, in spite of Amar’s mother hammering in long nails into the front door to ward away bad luck.Amar, by the way , is the young man through whose words we get to know the rest of them. He is the youngest child of Hamsa and Asma”whose names rhymed more or less,but whose lives never did”.
I haven’t read too many books which portray the muslim community with a kind of indulgent and yet detatched treatment. Vaikkom Mohammed Basheer could do it with aplomb. Anees can do it too.
A lot happens in the book…from the time Dr.Ibrahim’s farts creates an obstacle race to his namaaz and Amar becomes a half-circumcized and therefore half-muslim, to the time when the doctor walks in through the gate in the waning light, “surveying the bungalowlike a painting too complex for him to comprehend.”
Amar’s love for his sister Sohpiya whose drowning during a school picnic perhaps disturbed his mind even more than he had then realised, his contempt for his other sister Jazeera of whom he said, “The man out there did not know that Jazira could not whistle;she could only sing, that too her own praises” , his impatience with his brother Akmal who had become a staunch mulsim after Dr. Ibrahim’s farting incident at the mosque, donning a sufi cap which “became permanent on him as stupid as the head it sat on”, , his affections for his mother , his almost indifferent relations with his father and his obsession with the life and eath of Javi, his maternal uncle with whom he bore an uncanny resemblance creates the emotional leitmotif that takes the reader through the sad taleof the Bungalow’s inhabitants, each of them living or dying on their different trajectories, the blind old lady herself sipping spoonfuls of death fed to her by her own daughter from a porridge bowl.
Anees Salim has an unique style of lacing even the darkest pictures that he paints with his words, with the lighter hues of humour.
His books are a must read for those who love a story well told with all the delightful nuances of the English language.

[Sneh Pradhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a long time , I have read " the Indian family novel " as I call that , a kind of genre , I have had a weak spot for since my teenage days ... What is required in a family novel , is a knack for wonderful literary descriptions , observational poetry and situational as well as existential humor . And of course coupled with authenticity to the smell of the earth where the family is born and lives in . The last really good book that I had enjoyed as regards to this genre , would be " The God of Small things " , Arundhati Roy ! I love and devour the novels with stories based on family secrets , equations , anecdotes and the big , sweeping drama across the generations in the family . This is a good , entertaining one -time read but only for those , who love reading sweeping family memoirs !

[Richa Bhattarai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very impressed with this one, perhaps because it resembles semi-humorous and stuffy accounts of middle class life that we have read many, many times. Nothing new or interesting that leaps out at you.

[Dhanush · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful as usual from Anees. At the end of it you realise that the Blind Lady's Descendants are indeed blind, though they have eyesight. Blind about what happens around them, blind about their siblings, blind about the father, blind about the world they live in.

[Suman Joshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it just for the writing style and the pathos ! Beautiful writing

[Aiswarya Haridas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anees Salim unveils a magic of words. A gripping novel and it's simply Wow!!

[Amarnath · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW for book: Suicide, suicide fantasizing, incest fantasy, parricide, sexual abuse..


The book paints a realistic picture of growing up in a family that is close knit as well as slightly dysfunctional. As days goes by the dysfunctionality increases. This do remind me of all other books which chronicles a families downfall from a male of the family. KUDOS to the author that he came up with a book that will always stay in a reader's mind.

Somehow the book evokes in me the memories of reading Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil. Maybe because both are Malayalees or both are first person narrative.

The author balances between humour and tragedy skilfully.

Only negative I found is the way an incident of sexual abuse is treated.

[Rashmi.arun · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not very much impressed by his style of writing when I read 'Vick's Mango Tree', and I didn't consider reading another book from Anees Salim. But something about this book, maybe the title or cover page caught my attention while I was on flipcart and I decided to go for it. The book is definitely a good read and I loved it. He has a beautiful sense of wit, very subtle yet you can't stop giggling at some lines.
The characters have come lively and leaves a landscape in your memory just like R.K.Narayan did with Malgudi. I recommend this book to any serious book lover.

[Marva · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was so obvious, I knew this was coming, that is going to happen. Yet I wanted to read, to see if my reader's premonitions were true and when I found out, they were, I don't know if that made me happy or sad. You can smell, the inevitable past seeping through pages, sometimes a fragrance, otherwise stinking, sometimes a smell - indifferent. I wanted to take an axe and destroy the Bungalow, or burn it all, as much as I wanted to be inside it. The Tunnel - The Bungalow, plays the role of heaven and hell interchanged, the safe abode, the monotonously boring space, the hysterical houses!

[Shynil Hashim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anees’ The Blind Lady’s Descendants is a delightful read. He subtly ventures deep into a telling tale of the inmates of a crumpling bungalow. A dark story woven with a narrative that is interestingly detached in its humor which keeps the reader glued and subjected to regular bouts of chuckles.

[Alma Anvar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The constant apprehensions and bad luck surrounding a family from the cliff town of Kerala. The entire book is written as a memoir of the protagonist Amar Hamsa. The book received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in 2018.

[Sadiq Kazi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very underrated! Written with wit and a copy-writer's economy, this is one author to watch out for.

[Aditya Subramanian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anees Salim does black humor and pathos well in equal measure. Deserving winner of The Hindu Best Fiction award for 2013. Looking forward to Vanity Bagh next.

[Anju Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book transported me all the way to kerala and for the first time, I wish to go back.

[Ashwini Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anees Salim's book gives you a feeling of a centipede crawling through a rain drenched dirt path, where the overall progress for someone with a bird's eye view may be slow; nonetheless, the individual legs witness a lot of movement. Similarly, the book doesn't have its troughs or crescendos, but things keep on moving inside the hamsa family and its member's lives. The tragedies that keep routinely visiting the Hamsa Bungalow are internalized by the narrator who feels that despite his mother driving nails through the front door to ward off evil spirits, the bungalow has been designed to let its backdoors and windows be welcome entry points to tragedy. Soon enough, we have a young family member, Sophiya, dying, and his brother, the narrator, called Amar analyzing his family's reaction. Despite not being stellar in his academics, Amar manages to retain a penetrating and objective view of all that happens around him, and all his symapthies clothed as curiosities are reserved only for Javi, his long gone maternal uncle. Perhaps, his atheistic belief system leaves no one in the family sacred or above-suspicion to him. So, when he sees his mother shooing away kids from taking away fruits from the wax jambu tree that Sophiya had planted, he decides that his mother has overcome grief over Sophiya's death. He does not spare her when he goes on to tattle about his mother's alleged poisoning of his maternal grand-mother, the eponymous blind lady. He also pokes fun at the over-religiosity of his brother Akmal, who he subjects to his own little pranks, that deliver hilarious consequences. His sister Jasira turns out to be avaricious after marriage and also the focal point that intensifies the tragedies afflicting the Hamsa family; a feature that becomes obnoxious when she demands transfer of property rights to her name in lieu of money that her father asked for legal costs that may be incurred for Akmal's case, after Akmal goes absconding in the aftermath of a transistor bomb hoax after few days of Babri demolition. The narrator finds no moral compass in the little lies, greed and perfidies that he witnesses in his family slowly coming apart at the seams, and that perhaps explains his obsessions with Javi, who died at 26, on the day the narrator, Amar was born. Javi had left several books and two suicide notes behind, that Amar kept with him, until he finishes this book, a 'narration of his life of 26 years', before he also ends up committing suicide. Amar had no particular reason to, and neither does his narration betray any sense of morbidity except in one instance where he makes quite a deathly metaphor that seemed out of place. Amar did not carry any outwardly cynical attitude, but was witness to the slow whittling away of character and integrity in his family members and those around him. The unexpected suicide that lunges at you, at the very end, mirrors the inexplicable suicide of Javi, who, also did not reveal enough about the causes leading him to his desire to end his life, except a case of a freak incident that was explained as a case of mental illness. Perhaps, in being unable to decide as to how to lead his life with no moral compasses to guide him, he chooses to live and die in the same mould as Javi.

[Iffat Nawaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some among us might have wondered what it feels like to hold a lit bomb between our palms. One that will go off inevitably yet its spark, heat, force, weight, and pulsating nature are so fascinating that we are unable to put it down or look away, all the while knowing at the end of the wick we too will be destroyed—a chosen death, a voluntary annihilation.

I felt similarly as I held Anees Salim's The Blind Lady's Descendants between my palms. From the very first page I knew we were in for a beautiful doom, one that would leave intricate scars. Set in 1970s/80s/early 90s Kerala, in a small town adorned by cliffs next to the Arabian sea, the novel revolves around a family with dark and open secrets, middle-class burdens, carrying the dogmas of religion and its overlooked holes. One could sum it up as a social commentary on the small town Muslim identity in India but then we would miss out on its poetries, subtleties, and melancholies that feel too appealing not to dip into.

Let's forget the fact that this book had received the Sahitya Academy award in 2018 and the Raymond Crossword Book award for best fiction in 2014, and that we were told by our parents to read good books which the world had vouched for; let's instead turn to the parts that will make you laugh out loud, the seething sarcasm that holds the power to define certain unanalysed situations of your own life while drawing anew the stereotypical faces of lust, loneliness, lamentations along with their sad manifestations. Told in the first person by the protagonist Amar Hamsa, a 26-year-old who is writing his memoir, Anees Salim does not miss a beat when it comes to burying a hidden treasure in an insidious place to pull it out as a full grown and actualised simile years or pages later.

The family dynamics and the characters which are developed with empathy and astute craftsmanship, can resemble people you have known. The faces, the foreshadowed deaths, the ever-moving trains, the marriages and miscarriages—all were relatable to me as a Bangladeshi, because we too, in a small town or not, have seen or been persons who grew up understanding innuendoes of shame and guilt, pride and dead-ends, and our lives written out for us before we got to straighten out the wrinkled creases to find another route, to escape the grip of fate and its thick stagnancy.

If you want to catch a delightful long sigh of a few short, familiar, and devastating lives laced with beauty, tragedy, humour, and gorgeous imageries which will both haunt you and draw you to new places (or previously overlooked ones), this is the book to pick up next. Be touched, explode, and before you break apart by the force of Anees Salim's storytelling, smile and cry some—this book will hold you as you do.

This review was first published by the Daily Star newspaper, under the title "Tucked between moving trains and elegiac dead-ends"

[Srivardhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story with dark humor and cruel
reality

This book is a suicide note of the protagonist, Amar Hamsa. A note filled with dark humor and cruel
reality.
The narration begins with the Amar telling about her mother driving tiny nails into the front door to
ward off bad luck. “Bad luck, then, must have come in through the back door, because by the time I
considered myself grown up, I had started to regard it as a family member”, Amar says. Yes, this bad
luck, which didn’t care about the tiny nails in the front door, becomes a member of his family and finally
drives him to commit suicide. Being a reader, we feel the pain Amar goes through. When Amar decides
to end his life, we don’t feel bad, we just pity, because we already know there was no other way out!
Many might argue that instead of suicide, Amar should have faced the difficulties, and the climax should
have ended in hope, but somehow, I don’t feel this was what it was meant to be. The premise of this
was laid by his uncle Javi, who killed himself on the same day the protagonist was born. In real life, not
everybody is born to fight!
It’s a sad story mixed with lot of dark humor and lewd fantacies (Which doesn’t seem unreal!). The
characters seem so real - blind lady who has opinions on everything, Asma and Hamsa two people who
should never had been married (As said by the author himself), Jasira who is bent on getting her share
no matter what, Akmal an intelligent boy who turns extremist, Sophiya who dies in an accident, Javi who
writes his name on every book he has read and Protagonist (Amar), an atheist who is haunted by his
uncle Javi who died on the same day protagonist was born.
None of the characters are neither good nor bad. Their actions are the reactions to the situations. Even
when the mother feeds sleeping pills to her own mother to kill her, you don’t blame the mother, but
instead you blame the situations which lead the lady to this desperate action. You don’t blame the
protagonist when he decides to kill himself, but you pity him, because by then you know that he didn’t
have any other option to free himself from the pain he is going through. Death comes here as a
liberator!

[Shayonnita Mallik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I have a problem—this is yet another highly praised, award winning book that failed to capture my imagination.

A friend and I tried to read it, and we tried very hard to like it, but found it utterly dismal.

Salim is a gifted writer. Words trill out of his pen and form pretty descriptions on paper. His descriptions of towns and days and childhood bewilder and engage. Yet, that's all this book is—a series of descriptions in pretty words about nothing that leads nowhere.

The book, a biography of 26-yr-old Amar, traces the life and miseries of the Hamsa family who live in an unnamed town that lies between mountain and sea. From page one to the end Amar harps on and on about bad luck and doom that circle his family. Yet, nothing of significance—apart from death and suicide—seem to scathe his family.

Excruciatingly slowly he introduces us to each increasingly unlikable character—characters whose "human flaws" he tries so hard to outline in an effort to paint them grey, that they remain mere caricatures, unable to become anything anyone of us may relate to. Part after part, he writes and described and you wait for something of substance to happen—some event to give you a narrative that will be more than a deeply uninteresting family history of a family of deeply uninteresting people and yet, nothing happens.

Like all Indian liberal novels trying to be regional in spirit, this one has a dash of Indian-ness in language and tradition, a gay character, a sprinkle of incest and loads of drama. You steer through sometimes lulled, sometimes bored, wondering if these cardboard characters arbitrarily named after a tourists' suggestion will come out of their privilege and choose to do something.

Ofcourse metaphorically you could assume a lot of things—the duality of minds, the structure of the household, the destiny of a man born as his nephew, the philosophy of suicide—but a lot of times the novel sounds like an annoyingly depressed cousin who drones on and on about the smallest occurences in his house; anecdotes that have no purpose and no catch phrases.

I'd recommend a read only if you're into idle chatter, or gorgeous English. Else, move on.

[Baljit · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
In this family story, Amar is relating the story of the various characters living at this crumbling bungalow is a small coastal village of Malabar. There is the story of how Amar was born, of the events that occurred the day he was born, which were seldom referred to. So when he sees the name Javi on many books he is curious. But although Javi was not alive during Amar’s lifetime, some have observed that Amar looks exactly like him.

There are Amar’s sisters, one who is rather full of herself and the other who is a gentle soul, his brother who trains as a radio mechanic but spends much time praying and preaching, his father who is rather spineless and disappears off to attend to his spice trade, his mother who rules the roost in between episodes of dizziness and heartache.

Dr Ibrahim is another key character, appearing to dispense tablets and well meaning advice in equal measures.
All these people belong to Amar’s blind maternal grandmother, who then comes to live in the bungalow due to some manipulation and the wedding of her granddaughter.

Overall I found the characters amusing and the writing witty and laced with a cynical humor. Ultimately we find out the intention of Amar’s written story of his family

[Debayan Ghosh Dastidar · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one has read the Small Town Sea, this will be very similar in theme and substance. The story is similarly of a family in a small town of Kerala and struggling to meet the realities of their lives. This is a story about trauma, family, mistrust, and the monotony of just surviving in a mofussil. The protagonist is a young boy who grows up, where things change still nothing actually changes. If someone has relished Pather Panchali trilogy of Satyajit Ray, sometimes one is just dumbstruck by the constant inflow of tragedies hitting a person. This story also follows a similar pattern where one battered by constant barrage of tragedies hitting and people still behaving in the meanest possible manner. A story which will really take a lot of time to finish but will leave you with sadness all along

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first impression of the book was, if it was not this author, then I would have given up hope in the first few chapters itself and moved on. Not because I have high expectations for the author, in fact this is my first book of his. The story is very simple yet intriguing. It takes you to a small family of five and progresses through the ups and downs and funny encounters in a typical middle class Indian household. What made me continue reading was the way the overlooked parts of a family were being portrayed as. The way the story is being told keeps you rooting for even when the part is bleak (well, I usually get bored pretty fast). This is one of the stories that will always stay with me, and the characters are so original that they have also held a place in my memory.