Selection Day

by Aravind Adiga

Manju is fourteen. He knows he is good at cricket -- if not as good as his elder brother Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented brother and is fascinated by CSI and curious and interesting scientific facts. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn't know . . . Everyone around him, it seems, has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself.

But when Manju begins to get to know Radha's great rival, a boy as privileged and confident as Manju is not, everything in Manju's world begins to change and he is faced by decisions that will challenge both his sense of self and of the world around him.

As sensitively observed as The White Tiger -- Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 -- was brilliantly furious, Selection Day reveals another facet of Aravind Adiga's remarkable talent.

Genres: Fiction, India, Sports, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Asia, Contemporary

304 pages, Hardcover

First published June 16, 2016

About the author

Aravind Adiga was born in 1974 in Madras (now called Chennai), and grew up in Mangalore in the south of India. He was educated at Columbia University in New York and Magdalen College, Oxford. His articles have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, the Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Times of India. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2008. Its release was followed by a collection of short stories in the book titled Between the Assassinations. His second novel, Last Man in the Tower, was published in 2011. His newest novel, Selection Day, was published in 2016.

Reviews

[Prem Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exploring the great nastiness

In the middle of the novel Tommy Sir, the talent scout scouring the maidans of Bombay "who was given to the truth as some men are to drink" ruefully says this about the game he loves:

"How did this thing, our shield and chivalry, our Roncesvalles and Excalibur, go over to the other side and become part of the great nastiness?"

Tommy Sir is the puritan fan who believes in old-world virtues of principles and righteousness hence does not fit into the modern world and is definitely setup to fail. The above lines capture the wretched transformation in a game "invented by medieval shepherds" which has been corrupted beyond recognition from the gentleman’s game it used to be.

Having said that this is not just a cricket book but the story of modern India told through its most popular game. Since the game now cuts across classes and reaches new audiences and participants alike it is a great lens through which to look at the country as a whole. Hence the corruption in the game is a mirror to the corruption that infects the body-politic of the nation at large.

Aravind Adiga as in his master piece 'The White Tiger' manages to capture the voice of the aspirational underclass of the country who have migrated to the big city and demand their share of the prosperity pie. This time though this happens through the agency of two brothers who have migrated from a village in the Karnataka coast along with their father who amidst selling chutney in Bombay spots the natural talent of his boys for Cricket and then pushes them into the game. So unlike ‘The White Tiger’ the aspiration here of the two boys is forced by the obsessive father.

The father Mohan Kumar wants to develop his elder son Radha into the 'best batsman in the world' and the younger and more complex son Manju the 'second best batsman in the world' using his home-grown eccentric techniques (“No shaving until Twenty-one”). In steps Tommy Sir who has a lifelong dream to uncover one real talent who will make it to the Indian national team before he dies. Tommy Sir also introduces the family to the visionary entrepreneur Anand Mehta whose vision is to support young cricketers with a monthly stipend in return for a portion of their marketing revenue when they make it to the big stage. Anand Mehta is himself the son of a wealthy stock broker who has rebelled against his father and gone to the US and on his return spends his time squandering the family wealth by investing in flop schemes. But with this new vision of sponsoring budding cricketers he thinks he can fulfil his lifelong ambition of gaining entry into the exclusive business club of Bombay. He is also given to spouting insightful social commentary on modern India. Sample this:

“Indians, my dear are basically a sentimental race with high cholesterol levels. Now that the hunger for social realist melodrama is no longer satisfied by the Hindi cinema, the Indian public is turning to cricket.”

At one point Mehta says that Cricket is essentially 'state-sponsored lobotomy' and its chivalrous ways are ideally suited for male social control especially in a country where the sex ratio is so skewed. So the only way to maintain the sanity of the nation wrecked by this crisis of masculinity and to keep the "rogue Hindu testosterone" in check is "Bread and Tendulkar" and hence a steady dose of live cricket. Such observations make you realize the social impact of the game on the country which might be bigger than even Football’s impact on Brazil.

The elder boy Radha is indeed the protégé but soon Manju overtakes him much to the displeasure of the elder brother. But what everyone fails to notice is to ask whether Manju himself wants to play the game. Manju himself is much more interested in Science and forensic science at that in the mould of TV series CSI. So he halfheartedly takes to the game and perhaps for this reason does not feel any stress and this ironically makes him excel in the game.

Manju also has his growth pangs as he is ambivalent about his sexuality and this reaches a head when he meets an equally talented but disinterested in the game cricketer, Javed Ansari. J.A. as he is fondly called makes Manju question whether he loves the game at all or he plays it in fear of his maniacal father. He tethers between the poles while answering this question and in the end his indecision leads to his tragic fall to mediocrity. Radha on the other hand feels fate has been unkind to him and blames Manju for usurping his space. The father in the end feels if the God of cricket Subramanya he trusts "gave one boy the talent and the other the desire". This adds up to a tragic climax for each of the protagonists and the boys themselves realize all too late that they have "martyred ourselves to mediocrity'.

If anger marked ‘The White Tiger’ then fear marks this novel. As Manju’s father is driven not just by the desire of the riches but also from fear of what will happen if his sons do not succeed and as the end shows this can lead to nothing but tragedy.

Adiga also revels in biting satire as in when he says:

'Nothing is illegal in India. Because, technically, everything is illegal in India... See how it works?'

Or

'Revenge is the capitalism of the poor: conserve the original wound, defer immediate gratification, fatten the first insult with new insults, invest and reinvest spite, and keep waiting for the perfect moment to strike back'

Or when he describes the boys' father :

“Because Kumar’s eyes had in them what Anand Mehta called a ‘pre-liberalization stare’, an intensity of gaze common in people of the lower class before 1991, when the old socialist economy was in place”

This is genius in one line!

There is also a rejoinder from the man to his critics who panned his first novel for bashing the dreamy eyed Indian middle class:

'What we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English, is not literature at all, but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant and funny beings. All that Jhumpa Lahiri stuff. But the truth is, we are absolutely nothing of that kind. What are we, then? We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbor's children in five minutes, and our own in ten. Keep this in mind before you do any business in the country'

Personally for me this novel is also a depiction of millions of Indian kids who lose their childhood in pursuit of the goals set by their over-ambitious parents who do not care about their real ambitions and in the process manage to push them into a life they do not want but who still labor on courageously knowing well that they might end up as tragedies.

So in the end this is the work of a genius, our own Flaubert who dissects the hypocrisies and ironies of modern Indian life like no other!

[Stephen Clynes · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the slums of Mumbai, a father strongly encourages his two sons to excel at cricket and become selected for the team.

Aravind puts the reader in the picture about modern day life in India and you get the feel of Mumbai with the contrasts between the slums and the flash wealthy parts. I enjoyed the local colour and the reflections of the father who had moved from a rural Indian village to the vibrant city of Mumbai.

But this story is a drag and very ordinary. It has your usual hopes of the father, sibling rivalry between two brothers, the challenges of teenage years, growing up, finding your way into adulthood and your sexuality. Yes folks, I found Selection Day to be regular soap opera fodder. Think EastEnders moves to Mumbai to see the relatives on an extended holiday. Don’t be put off by the boring sport of cricket as this is as relevant as one character having a stall on Walford Market.

Aravind won the Man Booker Prize in 2008 for his novel The White Tiger which I thought was an okay 3 star read. But I found Selection Day to be a POOR read and a big disappointment. I did not get pleasure from reading this novel. I did not find it entertaining. Okay it did not bore the pants off me about cricket as this was only a tiny bit of this sorry novel. I did not develop an empathy for the father or his two sons. There wasn’t even some spicy sex to liven things up. Even the handling of the differences between the Hindu and Muslim faiths was tame. So sorry Aravind, Selection Day only gets 2 stars from me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Scribner for giving me a copy of this book on the understanding that I provide an honest review.

[Ron Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Americans know more about Quidditch than they do about cricket, but there must be magic in both games. Although the British import struck out against baseball on these shores sometime in the 19th century, readers here have shown themselves willing to tolerate wickets and stumps if the writing is good enough. After all, Joseph O’Neill’s “Netherland” attracted an appreciative audience in his adopted United States and went on to win the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009. And now Americans should venture onto the field again for Aravind Adiga’s tragicomic novel “Selection Day.”

Adiga is an Indo-Australian writer who won the Man Booker Prize in 2008 for his debut novel, “The White Tiger.” Its Bangalore setting may have felt remote, but the story of an ambitious chauffeur resonated with people around the world.

Although “Selection Day” explores a different species of ambition, Adiga’s wit and raw sympathy will carry uninitiated readers beyond their ignorance of cricket — ignorance that. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Usman Hickmath · Rating 1 out of 5]

Novel started off with two brothers from Mumbai trying hard to become the best batsman in the world. But somewhere in the middle it changed direction for no reason and went on to describe the sexual identity crisis of one of them. In the end, it neither had detailing about cricket nor about sexual identity issues. I am still confused what this novel is about.

I had high expectation of this book as it was marketed as a novel about two brothers in Mumbai trying to make big in cricket -which is a very interesting setting. But very disappointed with the outcome of The Selection Day.

Adiga is a good writer. I liked his Last Man in Tower. Hope he will give a better novel next time.

[Lorilin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selection Day is a coming-of-age story about two talented young brothers, Radha and Manju Kumar, as they train to become professional cricket players. Living in the slums of India with their legit crazy and domineering father, they are desperate to get out. Their cricket skills eventually get noticed by scouters--and then by a rich businessman who offers to sponsor them if they agree to train with a renowned coach (in the hopes that at least one of them will be selected to play on a professional team).

With a little extra cash from the sponsor, life gets better for the family. Their father finally moves them out of the ghetto, and they all begin to live a more middle class lifestyle. But things also get...complicated. Their father gets crazier. The boys's relationship with each other gets extremely competitive and destructive. Plus, the brothers begin to forge new friendships with others that make them question their devotion to their father, cricket, and each other. In the end, they are forced to decide which relationships are worth fighting for--and if they even want to play cricket at all.

This is a weird book, not gonna lie. I've never read anything else by Aravind Adiga, but my understanding is that all of his books are like this: crazy characters, hard to follow dialogue, and confusing storytelling. Reading this book is definitely an "experience," but it's an experience you kind of just have to let happen to you. I struggled to get through those first 100 pages, and only once I stopped obsessing about actually understanding what was going on did I begin to like the book.

Despite my struggle reading it, I probably would have still given the book four stars, but the ending was so disappointing. I don't know if Adiga was intentionally trying to make this a "road-less-traveled cautionary tale" or something, but it fell so, so flat. I could not have been more disappointed with where the story ended up.

So three stars it is, and no, I won't read another one by Adiga--Booker Prize winner or not. (Hmmm, I've said that before. Maybe Booker Prize winners aren't for me...)

ARC provided by publisher through Net Galley.

See more of my reviews at www.BugBugBooks.com.

[Sherwood Smith]

For about a hundred-fifty years—a little before 1800 to the middle of the twentieth century—the British Empire militarily got the drop on most of India, and while they systematically looted it while the looting was good, India, as had been its very long habit, absorbed what it liked of English culture and language, and discarded the rest.

One of the things it absorbed was the sport cricket.

This novel’s elevator pitch is: poor Indian father is obsessed with making his two sons into cricket stars. But that’s like saying that War and Peace is about ballroom dancing and Borodino.

Put it this way. Out of all the billions of people on earth right now, it would be difficult to find anyone less interested in any kind of team sports than I. Yet I found this novel absorbing, vivid, often rough and painful, in spite of the cricket.

Sports-obsessive parent-zillas are well known in America. Indian’s version, according to author Aravind Adiga, share some of the same traits, including what under pretty much any other context would be rampant child abuse.

Radha and Manju are the two sons. The father has followed his own crackpot philosophy in raising them, then negotiates hard to in effect sell them, with a mind to commercials and merchandizing.

With such lines as “Revenge is the capitalism of the poor,” and “[Anand Mehta talked superman to superman with Mohan Kumar, suffering the others, mere humans, to stand around them eavesdropping,” Adiga offers pitiless insights into human nature that we all share, while illustrating with vividness the details of life of rich, middle class, and poor in India—among its varieties of languages and cultures. Dramatic tension, for me, rises between what I recognize as universals (not always admirable—far from it) and fascinating differences.

And because this is not American sports drama, which tends to have one ending, you really don’t know where it’s going as you watch the group madness of sports do its best to consume these two—and what eventually happens.

Copy provided by NetGalley

[Andrew H · Rating 4 out of 5]

My recently bought copy of the book carries a sticker, "A Netflix Original Series". Original the series is: it bears no resemblance to the novel whatsoever! Where the series offers a romanticised story and a romantic view of India, Adiga's novel is caustic, humorous, realistic. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this novel. Is it about cricket? Is it about being gay? In fact, Selection Day isn't about either: it is a novel about passion and how passion manipulates people. The central character, the young Manjunath Kumar is the victim of his father's passion for cricket and his passion for Javed Ansari, cricketer, poet, rebel without a cause. Adiga narrates the story of Manjunath with real skill and avoids turning the novel into another coming out story, yet still captures the undoubtable homoerotic charge between the two young men. In one encounter in a cricket tent, Adiga captures with a sizzle the attraction between the two males and how this is embedded within the physicality of sport. Throughout Selection Day, Adiga probes India and all its complexities-- Hindu, Muslim, ancient, modern, poor, rich, past and future. He describes with precision, satirises with pin-point brilliance and writes some sardonic one liners. He remarks that India had to end colonialism to see what colonialism could give it: a mess, starting with an out-dated sexual code and a country where everything is illegal, but made legal by corruption. In some respects this novel is a heart of darkness in which corrupt hearts operate within a corrupt society. And in such a situation, how can anyone know who he is, what identity means, and where freedom exists? A wonderful read.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

What we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English, is not literature at all, but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant and funny beings. All that Jhumpa Lahiri stuff. But the truth is, we are absolutely nothing of that kind. What are we, then? We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbor's children in five minutes, and our own in ten.

I've long been a fan of Indian literature – shaped by a long and complicated history, exotic religious practises, the lingering caste system – and as today's Indian middle-class grows and more of the very poorest citizens appear to be improving their own situations, it's been interesting to watch a shift in the country's literature as well: whereas Rohinton Mistry and Vikram Seth may have told me in the 90s that your average starving country bumpkin is satisfied to make it to Bombay and cobble together a shack in the slums, today's social climber sees the slums as a mere stepping-stone to an even better life. In Selection Day, when former starving country bumpkin Mohan Kumar discovers that his elder son is a cricket-playing prodigy, he can already imagine himself moving from their mud-brick hut to an air-conditioned flat. I came to this book knowing nothing about cricket, but it wasn't necessary when this is really about striving and want and being true to yourself in the face of the desires of others. In the end, the locale and details may have been exotic to me, but the themes are universal. A fine read.

The “selection day” of the title refers to the annual event at which cricket scouts recruit talent for the pro teams. The book begins with a section called “Three Years Before Selection Day” and introduces us to the Kumar brothers – Radha (destined to be “the best batsman in India”) and the younger Madhu (wishing only to be “second best” behind the brother he admires and adores) – and their father Mohan: a chutney-peddlar and self-taught cricket expert whose questionable edicts on the proper nutrition, exercise, and hygiene for young athletes has nonetheless propelled both of his sons into public notice. When a well-known coach desires to take over the boys' training, he puts the father in touch with an investor who agrees to pay a monthly stipend to the family in exchange for a share in future pro salaries and endorsements. Cue The Jefferson's theme song as they're moving on up to that de-luxe apartment in the sky-y-y.

Selection Day is primarily told from the younger brother's, Madhu's, point-of-view, and in the beginning, his position as the second best cricket player in the family protects him from most of his father's abuse and expectations – Madhu is able to dream that once Radha makes the big leagues, he'll be able to go to college and pursue his own goal of becoming a CSI-style forensic scientist. But as the years pass and the selection day that they will qualify for comes closer, and as Radha hits puberty and begins to have “weight transference” issues that allow Madhu to surpass his brother's batting records, the father's hopes to climb even higher on the social ladder fall heavier onto Madhu's reluctant shoulders. How much responsibility does Madhu have to repay the mortgage that Mohan took out on his boys' future? What responsibility does Madhu have to his own dreams, career, and love life? Doesn't he also have a responsibility to protect his older brother's ego and reputation? That's a lot of pressure to put on a sixteen-year-old.

Looking at class issues through the lens of a sporting family is an interesting idea – and especially as I've seen my share of crazy dance moms and hockey dads. And as little as I know about cricket, this British-transplant seems the perfect vehicle for exploring post-colonial Indian values.

Cricket is the triumph of civilization over instinct. As he left the showers by the swimming pool, and dried his hair with his towel, Tommy Sir remembered that wonderful little essay of his. American sports, baseball or basketball, made crude measurements of athletic endowments: height, shoulder strength, bat speed, anaerobic capacity. Cricket, on the other hand, measures the extent to which you can harness these raw endowments. You have to curb your right hand, your bottom hand, the animal hand, giving sovereignty to the left, the elegant, the restrained, top hand. When the short-pitched ball comes screaming, and every instinct of panic tells you, close your eyes and turn your face, you must do what does not come naturally to you or to any man: stay calm. Master your nature, play cricket. Because a man's body, when all is said and done, is a loathsome thing – Tommy Sir slapped his underarms with Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder, his favorite deodorant – loath-some loath-some loath-some. More baby powder. Much more. Mumbai is a hot city even at night.

Yet there was something kind of shallow about Selection Day: it was full of a lot of ideas, but not much heart. Author Aravind Adiga squeezed in plenty of commentary on modern day Mumbai – female infanticide has led to a gender imbalance, fundamentalist Muslims are reproducing faster than the majority Hindu population, homosexuality is still punishable by a life sentence – but most of these facts had little to do with the characters in the story. Unsurprisingly, rich people have more options than do the poor and the police and bureaucrats are still corrupt; but I do appreciate how this book helped to evolve my ideas about modern Mumbai. The writing was fine and the plot was interesting and maybe I'm just a little disappointed because it's not The White Tiger again. I'm wavering between three and four stars, but as I can't say I “loved” this, I'm settling on three.

[Gorab · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was such a nightmare. Literally struggled to reach the finish line.
Had picked this for the love of cricket. But each and every character is so much convoluted!
Read this during a reading slump, and this only contributed more to it...

Why I hated it?
- Abstract narration. The booker kind!
- Twisted characters could have been fun. But somehow these became depressing.

[Shreya Vaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's beauty in cricket, which we Indians understand deeply. Even though our national game is hockey, we live and breathe cricket. And Aravind Adiga's new novel Selection Day is centered around this passionate sport only. A mix of beating class hierarchy, rags to riches dreams, jealousies and parental pressure, Selection Day makes up for a brilliant read.

The story of Selection day is about Mohan Kumar, a father who believes that his sons, Radha and Manju will one day become either Bradman or Tendulkar. He believes that both his sons, especially Radha, who Mohan has observed to possess a skill with the bat, can transform their life forever. Mohan uproots his family from Karnataka and moves to the city where cricketers are made, Mumbai. He starts studying about cricket and developing alternate theories of every aspect of cricket-mental, technical and physical. After learning and devising new theories, he would apply the theories on the lives of Manju and Radha.

In Mumbai, Mohan's wife leaves him, which hardens his stance more on making his sons into successful cricketers. He feels that Radha is the chosen one, tall and having a secret contract with "God Subramanya", guaranteeing his success in the field. But Manju is somewhat different. He does have the skills that every upcoming cricketer requires, but is time to time distracted by science and its mysteries, a subject he loves. And if given a chance, would love to get into forensic science, rather than cricket. But somehow Manju is unaware, that he is better than his brother in this game. It's like everybody knows who Manju should be, but does Manju know himself?

Their hard work and technique draws the attention of N.S. Kulkarni, aka "Tommy sir", a well-known journalist and cricket scout in Mumbai. He senses Mohan Kumar's poverty and control freak nature and devises a plan that can help both him and Kumar out of their misery. He gets in touch with Anand Mehta, a US return son of a rich stockbroker, and Mehta purchases the right to one-third of boys earning for the life in return for Rs 5,000 a month. A venture capital that will lead to a web of jealousies, competitions, and broken spirits, creating a novel so deep and pure that it will leave you mesmerized until the end.

Selection Day is a story that has many aspects to it, special one being that Adiga appears to be the only writer who has created a story around the post-1983 phenomenon of cricket. Another notable thing is that a sport of passion is shown as a sport of necessity in Selection Day, where Manju is playing to keep up with his father's dreams.

If we speak of characters of Selection Day, each character has come out of our daily lives only. Mohan Kumar, a combination of a father who wants his kids to march towards success and a control freak who doesn't want them to falter. Fondly known as "Chutney King", he subjects them to daily humiliating body checks that he does himself, making both Manju and Radha uncomfortable. A control freak father who spends his time observing his sons practice on the field and even correct them when required, and fight for them when necessary.

Radha and Manju are both obedient sons, but time to time indulge in going against their father's wishes. Radha is the one who is to be made into Tendulkar, and Mohan's all hopes lie on him. But Manju is the one who overpowers Radha's talent one day, leaving jealousy and bad competition thriving in the family. A day comes when Manju shares his wishes with the world, a passion for forensic sciencea thrist for college degree, and his new found homo friendship with another competitor in the field Javed, but can all these wishes come true? That's left with the reader to decide.

When you read Selection day, you will instantly fall in love with it. The plot defining how heroes are made in India and how they are dropped at a single mistake is something that we come across in our daily lives. We have seen too many stars being made and broken down from time to time, but Adiga's writing skill and research for the plot makes it much more alluring when you read Selection Day. However, if you are reading Adiga for the first time, you might feel a little lost in narration and writing style.

All in all, Selection Day is a book that is commendable and beautiful in its own way. Adiga has outdone himself by writing a book so detailed and passionate, a book that you should not miss.

[Girish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aravind Adiga is an author who knocks on the door of an Indian at 2 am and present them as they open it disoriented, with bad hair, in their (probably torn) nightclothes without any makeup. Not the best way to present - but then there is an element of honesty in it.

"..what we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English, is not literature at all but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant and funny beings. All that Jhupa Lahiri stuff"

Adiaga's book starts out as a sensitive unflattering portrayal of lives in contemporary Mumbai that revolve around Cricket. A stringent father pushing his children for career in cricket, coaches and talent hunters who hope to discover the next Sachin Tendulkar. One look at the Shivaji park on a weekend and you know every one of the character is real.

However towards the end, the book becomes a muddled of ideas, lives and chaos which makes you wonder what happened to Mr.Adiga. Mohan Kumar has a secret contract with his God to raise his sons Radha Kumar and Manju Kumar to be the No 1 and No 2 batsmen respectively in the world. Little Manju has a natural gift for cricket, a mind bent on science, passion for CSI and discovering sexuality as a confusion. But when he starts bonding with Radha's arch rival Javed Ansari, the entire world goes for a toss.

The book's exploration of the business of cricket, the nation's obsession for it's cricketing heroes (adoring neighbors) and the despair when dreams come crashing are sensitively observed. The fear and shame felt by the adolescent boy around homosexuality is a bit confused. Manju's character stays as an extremely confused teenager. The entire world of characters around him are over the top crazy - just like real people!

If only the book hadn't lost its way..

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The word I would use to describe this book is Disappointing. I have enjoyed Adiga's books in the past but this one just does not measure up. While the book allegedly is about Selection Day in the sport of cricket in India, it appears to really be a story about sexual identity, with the antagonist being a truly horrible person named Javed, whose sole purpose in life is to tempt the protagonist Manju away from Cricket, his family and draw him into a gay relationship. The first part of the book is pretty good as we see Manju growing up in the shadow of his big brother and eventually surpassing him as an athlete. There is a ton of Indian cultural references in the book that are interesting, along with the family dynamic and some other characters who are there to profit from Manju's cricket prowess and that is a fascinating look at the game and the country, but the book falls completely apart as Javed (also a fine Muslim cricket player) comes into Manju's life and plays head games with him. I have no idea what the author was trying to get at by the end of the book and this would be no more than a 2** for me if it were not for a fine first 75 to 100 pages of the book.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed Adiga’s previous novels, The White Tiger and Last Man in Tower. They seemed to open up India to me in a compelling and inclusive way. But this one, unfortunately I found more problematic. The story of two brothers with exceptional cricketing skill urged on by their ambitious father is a compelling enough story in itself, but I found the characters hard to relate to. The father in particular seemed a stereotype and his foibles and frailties simply laughable rather than empathetic. The boys themselves didn’t come alive for me either. I can see that the book is supposed to present a picture of contemporary India, and up to a point I could relate to that, but the approach didn’t seem as subtle as in the author’s previous books and the human elements seems to have been sacrificed for the political and societal points he is making. It just didn’t work for me, unfortunately. And I did get bored with all the cricket.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adiga, the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner, centres his latest novel around the cult of cricket in the nation of India. When the game was first introduced to the country, the Indians despised it. Now it has a powerful hold on millions of lives.

It is this power that causes upheavals for the various male characters in the book. At its centre is Manju, the younger brother of a talented teenage batsman called Radha Kumar. Unfortunately for Radha, Manju appears to have even more talent for the game.

The boys’ father, an unsuccessful chutney seller in the slums of Mumbai, is full of nonsensical theories as to what they should and shouldn’t do in order to maintain their potency as cricket players. Unsurprisingly, his wife has long since left. Although she never physically appears in the book, she continues to exert considerable influence on her sons.

As the two boys head towards probable stardom, various other self-centred characters take over their lives, for good or ill. A few are wiser than they know, and see through the falsity of the cricket mania. Others see only gain or prestige for themselves. Manju, even more than his brother, has to make difficult choices about handling his life. Whether he decides wisely in the end is left to the reader.

The book’s themes are serious, but the writing is full of wit, humour, and absurdity. There’s an abundance of striking and hilarious detail describing a world that’s both foreign and familiar. The main adult characters have a kind of loony self-assurance that’s at odds with the down-to-earth attitudes of the two boys, and there are times when Monty Python or The Goons seem to have had a hand in the storytelling.

Cricket may be the focus of this book, but you don’t need to be a cricket fan to enjoy it.

[Archit]

I NEED TO READ THIS SOON!

This is like that recipe you are so sure of working that it salivates your mouth even before putting it in the oven.

Before the summer is over, I should get my hands on this work of Arvind Adiga for certain.

[Ashish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can barely scrape the bottom of the barrel and make it a 2.5.

I've read all the books that Adiga has written and I have generally liked all of them, some more than the other. He has a way of diving into the heart of darkness of human nature and writes about the grim realities of an ever-evolving Indian society. However, he seems to have failed miserably in this book.

The book is about the national obsession with cricket and follows the life of two brothers who are both competing to get into the cricketing scene, one which promises supposed riches, fame, and glory while struggling to deal with a helicopter-dad who is way too invested in making them the best cricketers out there. There is nothing wrong with the premise and it even appealed to me as I was once an avid follower of the game.

Reading the book felt kind of a chore, to be honest as I was left waiting for it to get better. The beginning showed some promise but the writing seemed hammy and off. It makes me wonder if Adiga has always written like this and it has been a long time since I have read his other books or he is trying too hard here. He tries to portray the super competitive junior cricketing scene in Bombay and what it takes to get selected. The description of the city and the locales which I am very familiar with were the only redeeming things in the book despite there been numerous books based in Bombay which have done this earlier.

The book struggles with character development; there is a sense of listless struggle to develop a meaningful arc in the individual characters' stories. There are glimpses of what could have been but never anything proper. The author uses a character to provide the frustrated angst that is a hallmark of his books, and he does make some good observations but nothing fully fleshed out.

It's a pity because I was really looking forward to this book, especially after the announcement that it is being adapted into a series. Hope it fares better than the book.

[Kirtida Gautam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What we Indians want in literature, at least the kind written in English is not literature at all, but flattery. We want to see ourselves depicted as soulful, sensitive, profound, valorous, wounded, tolerant, and funny beings. All that Jhumpa Lahiri stuff. But the truth is, we are absolutely nothing of that kind. We are animals of the jungle, who will eat our neighbor's children in five minutes, and our own in ten."
Pg 238.

Why I like Aravind Adiga-- he doesn't write the flattery.
Few of my favorite lines:
"Nothing is illegal in India, because, technically, everything is illegal in India."
"Self-obsession without self-belief: the very definition of the Indian middle class."
"A cock is this: When you're a boy, it's your manhood. When you're a man, it's your boyhood."

I loved the book.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely wonderful novel, definitely one of my favorite reads of 2024, like all truly amazing novels it is hard to know what to say about it, except to repeat how brilliant it is. It is a novel about class, poverty, snobbery, class consciousness, how poverty traps you even when you cease to be poor; money, how it frees and traps you, corrupts and distorts everything and everyone most especially those with it but equally those without it; sex, sex as problem, sex as obsession, sex as fear, sex as freedom; family, fathers, fathers and sons, mothers, absent mothers; India, old and new, good and bad, past and present and is there a real difference; cricket which could mean any sport, sport as false God, corruption, lie, and a God betrayed, a fool's God...I could go on and on.

If all that makes the novel sound as if it is boulebias or smorgasbord of too many elements to be digestable then you misunderstand, this novel is rich on so many levels because there are so many tales to tell. I constantly, in my reviews, refer to 19th century French writers like Victor Hugo, Honre de Balzac and Emile Zola when praising authors whose work invoke a kaleidoscopic portrait of a place, era or society (I deliberately don't mention Dickens because his schmaltzy sentimentality has won out over whatever campaigning brio he ever had) and it is the unflinching look at life and society that in 'Selection Day' Aravind Adiga brings to India and most importantly Manju, Rahda and Mohan Kumar and Avrid, Tommy Sr. and even the, in many ways appalling, Anand Mehta. There are not only clear eyed descriptions of everything that is wrong in cricket and India (but it could be any sport and anyplace) there is a heart breaking pathos when, for example, Tommy Sr. the cricket Scout who discovers the 'Young Lions' bemoans how the game he loves and has given his life to bemoans,

“How did this thing, our shield and chivalry, our Roncesvalles and Excalibur, go over to the other side, and become part of the great nastiness?”

He can't understand because that would mean acknowledging he is complicit in everything that has created the 'great nastiness' that cricket and by extension cricket has become.

I cannot restrain from commenting on how 'Selection Day' a novel in which being gay is utterly central is also a completely non gay novel. I say this in celebration because I am old enough to remember the birth of 'gay' literature back in the 1970s and have watched it flower, change and grow and now it has outgrown its original roots. There are still plenty of genre 'gay' novels, the navel gazing M&M romances and other trite nothings which seem to fill ever more shelves, but 'gay' literature has outgrown such rubbish. It is simply literature.

There are many more things I could say about this incredible novel but will finish by saying, read it. I also provide a review which appeared The Guardian in 2016 and says so many things better then I ever could.

Review by Kamila Shamsie from The Guardian on September 10, 2016:

"This novel about two young boys from Mumbai whose father raises them to be “the number one and number two batsmen in the world” seems to signal early on what kind of story it will be. While ignoring all the brothers who have played cricket for their national sides with great individual and sometimes shared success – the Waughs and Crowes and Mohammads – Adiga writes, repeatedly, of the one-time princes of Mumbai school cricket, Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli.

"They were not brothers, but childhood friends and teammates whose stars seemed destined to rise together when, aged 16 and 17, they had a record-breaking 664-run partnership in school cricket, which had widespread news coverage at the time. But while Tendulkar went on to be the world’s most lionised batsman, Kambli’s test career was over by the time he was 24. It seems clear that Adiga is setting us up for a story in which one brother will rise and one will fall – but knowing this does nothing to detract from the enjoyment of the story. His two brothers are Radha, the elder, and Manju, the younger; their father has decided the elder will be the greater of the two, and for a while the boys go along with this idea, any sporting rivalry between them a minor matter compared with their shared terror of their tyrannical father.

"But the contemporary world of Indian cricket in which the boys are growing up is a very different one from that in which Tendulkar and Kambli grew up at the end of the last millennium. Cricket is money in India, to a degree unimagined 20 years ago. The shortened Twenty20 format has brought in new audiences and given rise to the Indian Premier League, beloved of sponsors and bookies and tainted with betting scandals. While some complain that the IPL is ruining the sport, others point out that it creates possibilities for cricketers of talent and nerve to rise from obscurity, and even poverty, to prosperity and fame. This, it turns out as the novel progresses, is the story Adiga wants to interrogate via his two cricketing brothers. The tale of two boys who will divide success and failure evenly between them is far too simplistic for a novelist of his calibre – and anyway, success in sport can be the most temporary state, and is never without a personal cost.

"Cricket is, of course, a wonderful way of writing about shattered dreams – both personal and national. As such, it isn’t necessary to know the game to appreciate this finely told, often moving and intelligent novel. Cricket here represents what is loved in India, and yet is being corrupted by the changes within the nation. As Tommy Sir, the cricket coach who yearns to discover the next Bradman or Sobers, remarks: “How did this thing, our shield and chivalry, our Roncesvalles and Excalibur, go over to the other side, and become part of the great nastiness?” That Tommy Sir himself is part of the great nastiness, introducing the teenage brothers and their father to a man who bankrolls them during their adolescence in return for a cut of all future sponsorship deals, only makes the question more poignant.

"But the great nastiness of cricket isn’t only to do with money and corruption. Adiga’s novel takes in class, religion and sexuality – all issues that disrupt the dream of a sport that cares for nothing but talent and temperament. Because Adiga is a novelist, and one who has grown in his art since his Booker prizewinning debut, The White Tiger, he knows how to talk about all these matters through his characters and their compelling stories. The relationship of the two brothers is significant but eventually becomes secondary to the one between the younger boy, Manju, and Javed, a good-looking Muslim from an affluent family who chooses to walk away from cricket and wants Manju to follow him. Manju’s attraction to Javed, and his awareness of the barriers between them, is subtly and often surprisingly explored.

"At the end, there was only one question I wanted answered: does Manju love cricket? We are told that he does, but his thoughts about the game are almost always about success or failure – or about his father, brother or Javed – rather than the sweetness of the perfectly timed cover drive or the moment when the noise of the world falls away and all that remains is the contest, mental and physical, of bat versus ball. But perhaps that’s the point: for Manju, the noise of the world doesn’t fall away. It is always there, drowning out everything, even love."

[Pallavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though, on a first glance, Aravind Adiga’s “Selection Day” represents the Cricket Mania in India, it is much deeper than just Cricket. I, personally do not like cricket. And was hoping to hate this book where as I found the story too interesting to quit even though there was cricket in it.
Pressurized by the Father, Radha and Manju, dreams to become cricketers. The father who constantly bullies and abuses their sons, has made a contract with God that his son’s will be the best and second best batsmen in the world. Manju who is the best and youngest dreams to study science but doesn’t find any means to go forward in that direction. The story actually revolves around confusion and problems on adolescent sexuality and emotional conflict in relationships.
Adiga has done his magic again. I could connect with the book not only because the story is set in India, but the main characters are from Adiga’s ancestral land, which is also mine. Some places the writing didn’t portray the complete idea or circumstances, which felt odd. But summing up, it is a good book.

ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant chronicler of the contemporary Indian society, Aravind Adiga, whose lacerating stories never fail to make an impact, has chosen India's national obsession - cricket as his shovel this time to excavate a fresh batch of unsettling truths that we've chosen so far to blissfully ignore. His previous novel - The Last Man in Tower was a shocking mirror of the Indian middle-class, a tale that might have been easily true, that reflected the horrifying lengths to which greed could drive humans.

Selection Day is probably the least caustic of his works and revolves around two brothers who aspire to be the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. It has all the sharp insights on parenthood, poverty, cricket and love that you'd expect out of it. But compared to his previous books, Selection Day lacks the Adiga punch that I've grown accustomed to and craved for.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

novel based in bombay and using the background of cricket its about sibling relationships and those with their cricket mad father and relationships with others as hint of homosexuality with one of the other cricketers.

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant, beautiful. A coming of age story which covers competitive cricket, the intense bond - part rivalry, part love - between siblings, dysfunctional families, love, loss and ambition.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining and easy to read novel – the cricket scouting and schoolboy cricketing background is interesting (particularly the frequent references to previous Bombay heroes and prodigies) and the book also serves as a reflection on the failures and frustrations of modern India. Overall though the plot seems to meander and lack real resolution, which stops it being an excellent novel.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Gentleman's Game...

“India: A country said to have two real religions – cinema and cricket.”

Two brothers are being groomed by their father to become the greatest cricketers in India. Radha, the elder, with his film-star looks and love of the game, is the better of the two, and it's accepted that he will be the star. But as they grow up, Radha's skill diminishes, just a little, but enough for him to be eclipsed by the younger Manju, whose attitude to the game is more ambivalent. Their mother having disappeared when they were little (run away? dead? The boys aren't sure), the brothers have been brought up by their tyrannical father Mohan, who is determined they will succeed in the sport as a way to raise the family out of the slums. So when the chance of sponsorship comes along, Mohan grabs it, even though it's at best an unethical deal which sells his sons into a kind of bondage and, at worst, borders on the illegal.

This is a story of sibling rivalry, tied in with a wider picture of corruption in society shown through the corruption in cricket. The game, once the preserve of all that was considered gentlemanly, has become all about money. The days of languorous five-day test matches has morphed into not only one-day cricket, but the hideousness of the ultra-short 20-20, which Adiga describes in his humorous glossary of cricketing terms at the end of the book as “in the eyes of some older fans, almost as bad as baseball.” It's not necessary, I think, to know about cricket to enjoy the book - Adiga doesn't fall into the trap of lengthy descriptions of games, tactics or technicalities, and the sport could as easily be any other. But cricket has a particular resonance, because of its origin as a game of the British Empire, a period whose influence is still vital in understanding much of Indian society.

In the next few minutes, Anand Mehta came up with the following observations about cricket: that it was a fraud, and at the most fundamental level. Only ten countries play this game, and only five of them play it well. If we had any self-respect, we'd finally grow up as a people and play football. No: let's not expose ourselves to real competition, much safer to be in a “world cup” against St. Kitts and Bangladesh. Self-obsession without self-belief: the very definition of the Indian middle class, which is why it loves this fraud sport.
Poised to offer the world more deep thoughts about the gentleman’s game, Mehta heard:
Shot! Bloody good shot!...
Confronted by the sound and smell of an instant of real cricket, Mehta felt all his mighty observations turn to ashes.

As Manju hits adolescence, he becomes fascinated by another young player, Javed. Javed is gay and Manju's attraction to him suggests that he is too. But Manju is of a lower class than Javed and has a father who's not likely to be the most supportive, so it would take considerably more courage for him to admit his feelings than Javed. But his relationship with Javed isn't purely about physical attraction – Manju finds himself influenced by the older, more confident boy in other ways. Javed, another talented cricketer, sees the corruption in the sport and wants Manju to give it up. So poor Manju has a jealous brother who feels he deserves to be the best, a friend pulling him away from cricket, and his father and his coach putting pressure on him to practice every moment he can. It's not altogether surprising that he's confused before he gets to Selection Day, the day on which the big teams pick which young players they will sign.

I love Adiga's depiction of Mumbai or Bombay (names which he uses interchangeably). He shows the poverty, corruption and class divisions quite clearly but, unlike some of the (usually ex-pat) Indian writers who love to wallow exclusively in the misery, Adiga also shows the other side – the vibrancy, the struggle for social mobility, the advances of recent years. His characters, even when they're being put through the emotional wringer, manage to have some fun along the way, and the whole atmosphere he portrays lacks the irredeemable hopelessness of so much Indian literature. There's also a good deal of humour, often very perceptive and coming at unexpected moments, startling me into laughter. This book tackles some tough subjects, but on the whole Adiga simply lays the arguments out and leaves the reader to come to her own conclusions – there's no whiff of the polemical in his writing.

“People thought I had a future as a writer, Manju. I wanted to write a great novel about Mumbai,” the principal said, playing with her glasses. “But then...then I began, and I could not write it. The only thing I could write about, in fact, was that I couldn't write about the city.
“The sun, which I can't describe like Homer, rises over Mumbai, which I can't describe like Salman Rushdie, creating new moral dilemmas for all of us, which I won't be able to describe like Amitav Ghosh.”

There is, however, some great characterisation, and he writes about them empathetically so that it's hard not to see why even the less savoury characters have turned out as they have. One of the things I loved was seeing how the perception of Mohan, the boys' father, changed as they grew up. This man who loomed over them in childhood shrinks as they grow – both physically and in terms of his influence. It's the mark of the quality of Adiga's writing that this happens so gradually there's no jarring moment, but towards the end I realised I had come to feel about him quite differently than I had in the beginning.

For me, this was a slow-burn book. It took at least a third of the book before I was convinced that this tale of cricketing brothers was going to hold my interest. But as it progressed, I began to appreciate the subtlety with which Adiga was showing various aspects of contemporary Indian life, and as always I found his writing pure pleasure to read. And by the time I reached the end, I found he had again created some characters who had become real to me, in the way Masterji did in his excellent Last Man in Tower. This book confirms Adiga's place as one of my favourite authors, and gets my wholehearted recommendation.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Scribner.

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[Selva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, but it could have been better. In the same mould as the author's The White Tiger, only this lacks the sledgehammer effect of TWT. The story is that of two brothers who hail from a slum in Mumbai, both teenagers, both gifted cricketers, and what the Indian selection system does with them. I always write in many of my reviews that a book could have been trimmed by say 50-100 pages, but only with this novel, I thought, the story could have had more heft with a 50 more pages or a bit more than that. But it still captures the whims and confusions of adolescence amazingly well. You don't have to know Cricket so much to read this, but it helps if you do. The ending does have a punch like TWT, but it is more subtle here. Recommended if you liked the author's other books.

[Anirvan Ghosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you're reading an Arvind Adiga book you know that the characters are going to be close to the Indian reality, in which hundreds of millions live. And that is a life of hard work and low wages, in towns with poor infrastructure. Most people lose hope of ever breaking out of that vicious circle.

In his first, brilliant novel 'White Tiger' Adiga created a protagonist who was determined to succeed despite his difficult circumstances, and as it turned out, at any cost. His second novel was as gritty, and was also very close to real-life events where lower middle class families in old high rises are paid handsomely to leave by a builder eager to make luxury apartments and almost all of them do, save one. The end is not kind.

This novel is not as gritty as his past ones, nor as hard hitting when it comes to highlighting wide societal inequalities, corruption and crime. But it is as real as the rest of them, and brings out the unpredictable reactions in teenage kids whose father is an obsessive control freak, eager to make his kids the best batsmen of all. I think Adiga isn't as good in this one, as he was in his previous works, because the narrative weakens about halfway through the story and the father's character is not as consistent as I would have expected. The characters of the two kids though, are well done, and both behave unpredictably, as you would expect teens to do. Ultimately, this book is a message about the perils of pushing your kids too hard, of burying them under the weight of your own expectations and desire for justice in an unequal world.

If you haven't read his first two books, I would recommend them instead of this one. But if you have read them and are trying to choose between this and a Chetan Bhagat novel, picking this up should be a no-brainer.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what tennis coach and father of champion siblings, Richard Williams, thinks about this book, but I loved it. The ambitious father in this book is Mohan Kumar, who trains his sons Radha and Manju to be the best and second-best batsmen in the world (or close to it, the best in the Mumbai school cricket league) using a mixture of determination, superstition and rituals, and presumably quite a lot of ability.
This is Aravind Adiga, so we should know the novel is going to be satirical and full of both humour and poignancy. His target here is the corruption and manipulation which has entered the game along with the money now involved in it. Much of this is embodied by sponsorship arranger Anand Mehta, while lamented by aging scout Tommy Sir (who is, of course, part of the 'nastiness' himself).
Things do not turn out as Mohan plans, or for that matter as Mehta does; there are a few googlies and doosras thrown down the pitch. It all makes for a very satisfying novel about dreams and disillusionments, whether you enjoy cricket or not.

[Trevor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Usually I don't write reviews of books that I do not enjoy, but this is an exception.

This book was awful, with no redeeming features, it was:

1) Poorly structured
2) Had characters who were not properly fleshed out
3) Verbose
4) Homophobic
5) Unrealistic dialoge - even considering the main characters were teenage boys.

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher for an honest review.

[Azita Rassi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can’t believe that I’m giving a book by Aravind Adiga only two stars, but that’s the best I can do. It was a chore to finish this book, and I don’t think that that was only due to my total ignorance about cricket and my indifference to it. Like 4 3 2 1, I couldn’t get interested in any of the characters. Manju was better than the rest, but the fact that the focus of the narrative constantly shifted to others prevented him from becoming the unifying element of the novel for me.

[Sorin Hadârcă · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the White Tiger and the Last Man in Tower, this new novel is clumsy. At times it's projected as Cain vs. Abel story, then as that of a boy resisting his homosexuality. Setting a man free in modern Bombay is a captivating undertone, but its ending is lose.