دكان الساري

by Rupa Bajwa, ريم داوود (المترجمة)

"رامتشاند" شاب هندي بسيط. يعمل منذ أن كان في الخامسة عشرة من عمره في دكَّان لبيع الساري بمدينة "آمريتسار" بالهند. يمضي أيامه في فرد الأقمشة والأثواب ويعرضهم على سيدات الطبقة الراقية والعرائس الشابات. لكن حياته برتابتها تلك لا تعجبه، تؤرقه دومًا، ويضايقه شعوره الدائم بقلة الحيلة والنقص، لا يريد أن يكون مجرد بائع صغير وتافه في دكَّان للساري، لذا يضع لنفسه هدفًا، ويقرر تحسين لغته الإنجليزية، فيشتري الكتب المستعملة وقاموس ويداوم على قراءتهم وحفظ الكلمات المختلفة، لكن حياته لا تسير على هذا المنوال طويلًا، حوادث بعيدة عنه يعاني منها أناس ليسوا بهذا القرب منه. عجوز وزوجته يفقدا ابنيهما في انفجار مرعب، ورجل يعاني من زوجة لم تعد تهتم بالحياة، لكن كيف سيسمح "رامتشاد" لهؤلاء ومآسيهم بالتأثير عليه. "دكَّان الساري" رواية اجتماعية تغوص بنا في هند مختلفة تمامًا عن الهند التي نشاهدها في التليفزيون. رواية واقعية عن أناسٍ يحاولون الحياة في مجتمع طبقي تختفي منه الرحمة رويدًا رويدًا.


عن المؤلفة:
روبا باجوا
كاتبة هندية، ولدت في "أمريستار" بالهند عام 1976، وتعيش بها رغم سفرها الدائم لغيرها من البلدات. "دكَّان الساري" هي روايتها الأولى، وكتبتها باللغة الإنجليزية"The Sari Shop" ، ورُشِّح العمل لجائزة "أورانج" للرواية عام 2004. فازت الرواية بجائزة "الكومونويلث" عام 2005، وجائزة "ساهيتيا أكاديمي" الهندية في 2006. نالت الكاتبة جائزة "جرينزين كافور" الإيطالية كأفضل روائية شابة عام 2005. تُرجمت "دكَّان الساري" إلى الفرنسية، والهولندية، والصربية، والآن إلى العربية. لـ"روبا باجوا" عمل أدبي آخر يحمل عنوان"Tell Me a Story" - "أخبرني قصة" – صدر عام 2012.

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

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Kavita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really amazed at how good this book was! I wasn't expecting anything even close to this. The Sari Shop brought forth subtly and effortlessly the class differences rampant in society and how it actually acts out in people's lives. The narrative is beautiful and well paced, taking its time to lay out the background and then amping up the suspense.

Ramchand is a 26 year old man working in a sari shop in Amritsar. Through his work, he comes in contact with a large number of women from the upper class of the city - wives and daughters of prominent businessmen, professionals, academics, and so on. For years, he drones along in a monotonous pace. But when he is sent out of the shop to take saris to the Kapoor household for their daughter's wedding, he gets a glimpse of how the other 1 percent lives.

Suitably impressed, the luxury of the Kapoor home gives Ramchand the motivation to brush up on his long-forgotten English and hope revives that he would be able to do something more in life than just sell saris. But things don't work out that way since English is not the only thing his brief contact with the Kapoors expose him to.

Another major character in the book is Kamla, who has come from a small town to the north of Amritsar. She is married to a colleague of Ramchand and after his visit to the Kapoors, he gets inextricably involved in Kamla's life, despite not knowing her at all.

The story depicts the stark contrast of life in the city where people like the wealthy Kapoors live cheek by jowl with people like Ramchand, who pretty much lives in a hovel. However, while the Kapoors wrestle with their first world problems, the consequences of their struggles are directly felt by the poor section of the society.

The book also deals with class feminism and its hypocrisy. When it comes to feminism, many middle and upper class women don't consider poor women a part of the movement. While a Kapoor girl is rightly encouraged to make more of herself than just a wife and homemaker, someone like Kamla is considered utter filth and indecent, unworthy of mixing with 'decent' people.

The characters in this book are so well developed that it felt as if I knew them personally. The author takes her time to set the scene, and she does it perfectly. She adds in such small details of people and places that the whole book was like a film in my mind.

The Sari Shop is a book that forces you to humanise the people who work for you - your drivers, cooks, maids, gardeners, and those like Ramchand without whom the great urban commerce would fall flat and all your convenience destroyed. It forces you to think about the lives of people, irrespective of their class, and consider them as persons. And what's more, it does all this through a beautiful story with a well-paced narrative, and well-developed characters. This would easily be one of the best books I have read this year!

[Tea Jovanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ko voli egzotiku, ko voli indijske pisce ovo je knjiga koju treba pročitati... Za one koji vole recimo Anitu Nair i njen Kupe za dame... :)

[K.J. Charles]

The Penguin UK cover for this book is a sodding outrage, what is wrong with them? This is a desperately bleak book about poverty and class in India while includes a really brutal lengthy account of a woman being abused, beaten, repeatedly violently raped and finally murdered in a truly evil way by a non-stop stream of misogynist men and a society in which she doesn't matter at all. Who the fuck thought, "I know, let's give it a cute font and happy lady on a fuchsia pink background"? Did anyone who had read it actually brief the cover designer? What made them think "we need to make this look like chick lit", except that it's by a woman and has the word 'sari' in the title oh right there's my answer. Penguin: continuing to disappoint since I don't know when.

JFC.

Cover aside, this is about wealth and poverty in India and how it affects the various characters. It's well drawn but a bit picaresque in that there's no driving plot--the main character, Ramchand, has less of a character arc than a circle, very much ending up where he began, and very few of the events that happen have knock-on effects except the ones that see a woman horrifically destroyed.

IDK. It's powerful and well written and it felt like it was going somewhere, but ultimately for me it didn't (unless where we're going is bleak hopelessness). And I didn't love Kamla's story being presented quite so much as A Thing That Affects Ramchand. Feels fridgy.

[Gorab · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Recommended by my wife, I did not want to risk my life by not picking it up sooner.
I am the kind who judge a book solely by its title and cover, skipping the blurb and reviews. So expectations were low. Also, I don't gel along well with multiple award winning books.

But this turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Yes it is a story woven in and around a Sari shop, but the varied layers of human emotions is what makes it special. Like those detailed fine works on a Sari which may not be apparent unless you look closely.

Simple linear plot. A protagonist to warm your heart. Little grim on the sufferings of various people. A book I would recommend.

[Indrani Sen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book started with a peaceful-small-town vibe and then it changed gears and how. A very compelling read where all characters, conversations, reactions are ultra-real. The writing is very very good too.

Will look up more books by this author.

[Danah · Rating 3 out of 5]

اول قراءة في الادب الهندي ..بعيد عن أفلامهم و الطبيعة الجميلة و الرقص ، البطل الخارق " هنا ترى الوجه الطبيعي للإنسان الهندي و معاناته ملخص قصير تحكي عن شاب يتيم عاش مع عمه فترة ثم لظروفهم الصعبة طلب منه ان يعيش لوحده ترك المدرسة و عمل في دكان الساري لديه امل ان يغير من حياته للأفضل

[Shreya Vaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some stories are so simple and come from such small places that they leave you mesmerized. The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa is one such story. A simple man, working in a Sari Shop in Amritsar decides to give his monotonous and failing life another chance . But in the end, gives up when all his efforts come spiraling down. A simple yet powerful read, not many writers can pull off a combination like this. But Rupa Bajwa pulled it off effortlessly.

The Sari Shop revolves around Ramchand, a tired shop assistant at Sevak Sari House who spends his days showing all kinds of saris to different sects of women, one sect that can afford silk sarees and the other one who would love to but finalize cotton saris for themselves at the end of the day.

Stuck in a monotonous job after a rough childhood, Ramchand doesn't see any end to his misery and inner self-loathing. Sevak Sari House, colleagues at the sari shop, dinner at dhabas and a beautiful neighbor's daily activities keep him company in his misery. But one day, his luck changes when he's asked to deliver a bunch of saris to a wealthy man of Amritsar whose daughter is getting married.

Just as Ramchad enters the Kapoor abode, he is jolted out of his monotonous, narrow life. A glimpse into a different world which he witnessed at Kapoor's house, gives him the motivation to work towards endless possibilities. And with this motivation, he attempts to recapture what he has lost before, his dreams of finishing his education and having a good career. He starts with two battered English grammar books, an old English dictionary, a new pair of socks and a bar of lifebuoy soap.

But then his feeble attempt towards a new life spirals his life upside down. It brings him face to face with the cruelties that lead him to this misery in the first place. A battered Ramchand falls down to the same place from where he dreamt of better things for himself. In the end, The Sari Shop shares a very stark reality of urban living and turns into a simple story which has a powerful message.

The Sari Shop is divided into two parts. The first part deals with Ramchand and his progress towards a better life. Rupa Bajwa's unpretentious writing makes you walk alongside Ramchand on his journey and even makes you disheartened on his failures. The first part also shows the stark comparison of urban India amidst Amritsar. From hypocrites like Mrs. Sandhu to the westernized and educated Mrs. Sachdeva, the characters are in full color in The Sari Shop.

The second part of the book introduces you to Kamla, Ramchand's colleague Chander's wife who shows the other side of atrocities, draped in exquisite Banarsi saris. Kamla, like Ramchand, wanted a better life but instead got everything that she never wanted. An alcoholic husband who beats her black and blue every night while blaming her for his failure, including a miscarriage. Kamla takes up the bottle for solace but ends up being raped by policemen and burnt to the ground by a gang of thugs, hired by the right and superior people of the society.

The Sari Shop is by the common people for the common people. Till now, I haven't come across a book so simple yet so beautiful, a story so powerful that needs to be read and shared more. We come across people like Ramchand on a daily basis, our home servants, drivers, gardeners etc. But never we look at them from a different perspective, never we pay heed to their dreams and aspirations. But after reading The Sari Shop, I will look at them from a different set of eyes.

A beautiful thing about The Sari Shop is Rupa Bajwa's flawless and bold writing. The language is simple yet powerful, and flow of the story is straight. Though in some areas you might feel that the story is a bit dragged, especially the first part, but it can be ignored. Some of the readers might expect the "masala level" to be good, but I am sorry to inform it is not like that. The Sari Shop is too simple for some readers and they might think it is boring till they arrive at the second part. But then, for me this is a book that introduced me to another brilliant writer, Rupa Bajwa.
All in all, The Sari Shop is a story that you should definitely read.

[Rach (pagesofpiper) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I've gone on a journey with these characters but it's not really gone anywhere, an empty journey. The ending was a complete let down. I thought the horrible things that happened might have encouraged the main character to do something, to make things better or change something but no. His English books he was so passionate about stayed dusty on the shelf, he went back to his routine before with nothing changing. He didn't learn anything from his experiences. He didn't DO anything. One of the characters even wrote a book about a gentleman in a Sari shop... but that plot didn't go anywhere, he never found out, I thought he would be told and then go buy the book and it'll be the sixth book on his growing pile of books.... but no!

The only part I liked about the books was that it was written about a different town in a different country that I've not read about. A lot of the language was from that country, nouns written in the original language but I still understood what was going on. I loved that the main character was trying to better himself too (for a part of the story until he gave up!) and that he was passionate and slightly addicted to book buying! :)

[Heidi Amar · Rating 4 out of 5]

من الروايات الجميلة التي قرأتها قبل عدة سنوات، تحكي عن مشكلة الطبقية وهي واحدة من المشاكل المزمنة في المجتمع الهندي.

[Neha Gupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life is simple, if you stop thinking and feeling, but then there is no life!!

The book is about an ordinary man. An ordinary salesman in a Sari Shop in a small town. What happens when he dreams of reading and learning? He learns a lot more than his small mind, his small life and his small status can ever take. He thinks he can change and he can make change. Silly man! Doesn't know a small man with small means cannot make even a small scratch on the surface of the big ugly society.

I felt exasperated after reading this book. The entire irony of life. It brought to my mind all the things, all the unfairness and unpleasantness of the world which I observe every day and also form a part of. There is so much I can do to make small changes around, but refuse to. I suppose, just ignoring it, helps me sleep better at night.

Just last week, in the blazing June summer, a gardener was watering plants outside a bungalow. The sparkling, cool water, came fast and refreshing from the pipe. It quenched the thirst of dried earth and gave a lush green landscape around the bungalow. A small street urchin stood outside the wired boundary of the garden with an empty plastic bottle. He was requesting the gardener to fill his bottle with water. The gardener tried to shoo him away with a dirty look. I stood there watching the irony of the situation. "Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink."

The author has done a magnificent job with her writing. She creates a strong impactful story with a simple plot and characters. It’s as if I knew these characters. They are based on day to day people and have depth as well as stay shallow at the same time. A very balanced writing form an insider, as an outsider.

[Ian Laird · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sari Shop is a simply-structured story offering considerable insight into contemporary Indian society.


It is also very affecting because we expect our hero, Ramchand, to rise to the moral challenge he is confronted by and we are disappointed when he does not.

The Sevak Sari House provides the environment for the events and the observations of the story. It is a particularly good choice because the business is well-established, selling a pre-industrial product of exquisite beauty, largely beyond the means of the people selling them. By way of parenthetical anecdote, I have bought saris, with my family, from sari shops in India - in air-conditioned comfort assisted by regiments of smiling male and female assistants. Outside these tiled, impeccably clean shops are broken pavements, noise and quite a bit of rubbish. At building sites throughout the city (Kochi) women labourers carried dirt and rubble about in what looked like big woks on their heads. They were often dressed in saris.

Back to the Sevak Sari House. Social hierarchies are reflected in the layers of people who work in the shop: owner, manager, senior assistants, junior assistants. Ramchand is only 25, but already a ten-year veteran, poorly educated (through the parsimony of the relatives who brought him up) and very limited in his exposure to the world. What he does know comes through the customers he sees in the shop, who are predominantly wives owing their status to their husbands' wealth and /or position; their idle, frivolous and shallow daughters and the people who hang on to this class of wealthy women, like Mrs Sachdev, the teacher. Ramchand makes the mistake of thinking that her education and position as a teacher means she is also a good person who will stand up for what is right and help him fight an injustice.

Rupa Bajwa's storytelling has led to us to Ramchand's challenge, standing up against the injustice done to his colleague Chander and Chander's wife Kamba, who also represents the reprehensible treatment meted out far too often to women in India, by some husbands, some men and some police.

That Ramchand fails to meet his challenge is probably a more effective way of making the point about restrictive class structure in India than if he had been more heroic.

[آمِـنَـة سَرَآبُ ابْتِسَامَة · Rating 5 out of 5]

في هذه الرواية تتعلم الكثير من العادات والتقاليد الهندية والمعتقدات الغريبة لكل ديانة ، بل وحتى مسميات الأشياء والطقوس وحتى الأكلات .

رامتشاند البطل اليتيم بائع الساري هناك في ( سيفاك - بيت الساري ) يقص علينا ماضيه وحاضره ، أحداث يومه مع صُحبته :
من مدير المحل الوقح مهاجان ، الموكل من صاحب المحل بيمسن ست الطاغية البخيل ، ومن موظفيه : جوكل العجوز الحنون ، وهاري المراهق ذو العقل البسيط ، وشيام وراجيش العجوزان المميزان لدى مهاجان ، ولا ننسى تشاندر الصامت .

تدور الأحداث هنا في ( سيفاك - بيت الساري ) مع العملاء بجميع أنواعهن وأعمارهن وطبقاتهن الاجتماعية .

رواية تأخذك إلى بلد التوابل ،
تشعر أنك تسير حقيقةً في ضواحيها القديمة وشوارعها القذرة بين محال السمبوسة والمقاهي حيث يقدم الشاي بالزنجبيل .
ترى البؤس والفقر واضحاً بجميع ملامحه في أزقتها البعيدة عن العمران الحديث .

وفي حيناً آخر تجد أنك تعيش في قصر عظيم في حيِّ أكثر رفعةً وشأناً ورفاهيةً لا حدود لها ، وتشتم رائحة العطور الفرنسية وترى التماثيل الكريستالية في كل زاوية وركن !

هنا في هذه الرواية تجد أن المجتمع الطبقي مكشوفةٌ عورته ،
الظلم والطغيان ، الإنكسار والاستغلال .

في دكان الساري الأقدم في هذه المدينة تجد كل ما يخطر ببالك من أنواع السواري بل وحتى ما لا يخطر ، كذلك البشر تراهم بجميع أنواعهم .

لطيفةٌ جداً هذه الرواية . بل وأفضل ما قرأته إلى الآن في هذا العام .





#إلى "كاملا " زوجة تشاندر :
أنتِ بطلتي في هذه الرواية ، لن أنسى قصتكِ أبداً .

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Searing. Haunting. Thought provoking.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the writing and the premise of this novel. But, while sad and moving, and sporadically hopeful, it just didn’t go anywhere for me. I kept thinking it would, but it didn’t. The ending just left me wanting more.

[Mary Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sari Shop is about many things, but for the main character,
Ramchand, it is about the development of character itself, particularly
about putting one's morals into practice under morally impossible
circumstances. Ramchand is born into a Hindu family of shop owners.
His mother is an observant Hindu who takes him to temple weekly, but
he is too young to absorb any special identity or spirituality that
can be called Hindu. As an adult, Ramchand proves to be especially
empathetic toward a Sikh couple who have lost two barely adult sons in
an Indira Ghandi assault on the Golden Temple of Amritsar(Operation Blue
Star, 1983), trying to give solace to them in their own home.

Ramchand's parents enrolled him into English medium school at age 6, but
that same year, both parents were killed in a catastrophic bus accident.
Ramchand was sent to a distant uncle in Amritsar for his education, but his uncle selected a more economical curriculum. Ramchand spent summers with his grandmother. At age 15, Ramchand was withdrawn from school and received a school leaving certificate. Ramchand did not leave school with the knowledge of English he had hoped to achieve. He observed later that no one had ever asked to see his certificate showing he completed eighth grade. His work would not require much reading, writing and figuring.

The astonishing thing is that Ramchand's family expected him to support himself fully and to live independently from age 15 on--and he did without any further contact from his family apparently. The action of THE SARI SHOP opens when Ramchand is 26 and he has been living and working in the same place since he was 15. Through his work at the Sari Shop, Ramchand becomes acquainted with the absolute wealthiest famlies in town and even arranges a quick and dirty invitation to the wedding of one of Amritsar's wealthiest daughters.

There is a lot of description of the different kinds of saris available at
the shop. They are divided by fabric, by design--by type of border, by type of skirt; there are saris and salwar kameezs, and each garmet can have a head piece called by various names such as pallu or chunni. The colors are vividly described e.g. "bottle green."

Ramchand learns from his friends at the Sari House, particularly Chander,
that one of the wealthiest families in Amritsar withheld temporarily, then
permanenetly, three months of regular wages from a significant number of workers. Ramchand tries talking calmly to the factory owner and is firmly told that the profit margins don't allow the wages to be paid.

Ramchand also learns that Chander's wife is the victim of "persuasion" outside the law for demanding her husband's wages. She is drunk, arrested, raped, then sexually assaulted by the police using a lathi or night stick. In a different incident, Chander's wife Kamla threw a sharp object at another of the rich family heads, Ravinder Kapoor. This time the reaction was catastrophic. Kapoor --no doubt off the record--hired goons to break all of Kamla's bones, parade her naked through the slum neighborhood, and burn down her slum house with Kamla
inside.

This systematic destruction of Kamla's life creates a moral crisis for Ramchand. The families responsible are the same ones who buy the most expensive saris. The other shop boys do not see the overall implications. Ramchand stays home two weeks without authorization trying to figure out what to do.

The book has a lot of comical elements that ride on the gossip of the ladies from the different families as they browse the saris. There is real color in the book as the descriptions of the fabrics jump off the page.

For me one of the most charming threads in the story is Ramchand's desire to learn English. Bajwa really makes it clear how lack of context makes it so hard to span the words, when one word can have so many meanings. Ramchand needs the "tuition" that the rich boys are getting. He also deserves it. Yet Ramchand is making real progress.

[Book'd Hitu · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I feel…
To begin with, I must mention that I have put Rupa Bajwa in the front line of few authors whom I want to read again and again. Exquisite and simplest writing blended with magically crafted minute details of simplest of the things. Rupa Bajwa has done an excellent job and complete justice with the format and theme of this book.

The Story…
As I progressed with the story, upto the 70% of the book, I couldn't believe that such a simple story can be told in such an interesting manner. This is a story of Ramchand, a simple and down to earth boy who works as a shop assistant in a sari shop with other boys. The story initiates and continues with the daily chores of Ramchand and happenings with and around him. Small events and his feelings are narrated very beautifully throughout the book. Ramchand’s dedication towards English and his efforts to learn the language makes us smile with admiration. Ramchand's experiences with the high society customers are thought provokingly narrated in the book.

Ramchand one day happened to meet wife of his colleague Chander. A fragile woman who’s all desires of a healthy living has died, she is a woman leading a life of hopelessness with her unstable mind and in the company of alcohol. The story takes a turn from this point. Ramchand’s state of mind and further consequences are described in a very emotional and thought provoking manner by the author.

To conclude…
Simplicity and richness of words is the essence of this book. This book proves the existence of finest writers in India and it can be a true inspiration of any literature lover who wants to become an author.
A must read for every reader.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short novel explores poverty, gender, class and the precarious life of India’s marginally employed. The background of the characters is artfully developed. The reader knows their back-stories but the other characters only know pieces.

Ramchand had a good beginning in life, but the death of his parents left him vulnerable to a greedy uncle. He was able to get some education and in this book he works to develop his English skills. The 6 days/week of long hours he puts in at the sari shop, limited his horizons until the absence of senior employees brought him outside assignments.

As Ramchand sees the life of the very rich and how it impacts the life of the working poor the reader does too. His sensitivity is foreshadowed by the story of his childhood and his sympathy for the couple who lost two sons in the 1983 assault on the Temple of Amritsar.

You see the upper class’s blithe indifference to the suffering of others. With jobs scarce, you see the pettiness of the managerial class. You see how the arranged marriage system creates an adherence to it among the comfortable women (and perhaps is the reason for its grudging acceptance of achieving women) and the absolute tragedy (and society’s acceptance of it) that the wrong marriage can make for a poor woman.

Along with Ramschand, you feel despair. The issues, of course, are larger than anything Ramshand can do anything about. Without an accessible system of justice and a social safety net the poor and marginally established have little recourse.

[سلمان الطياري · Rating 3 out of 5]

سوداوية، كئيبة، خاوية. بها بعض الاوصاف الفريدة والبيئة المثيرة لي شخصياً ولكن..بكلمة واحدة اقول رواية....جوفاء

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so evocative of an India that is difficult to know as a tourist. The main character works in a sari shop. He’s had a difficult life but is lucky to have this job. One day he’s chosen to show saris to wealthy women in their home and events build from there.

[Baljit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled upon an old copy of this book, and altho i was sure i had read it years ago, i started the 1st few chapters and then was so caught up in it, and finished it by the end of the day.

Its a tale of a simple man employed in the sari shop and all the characters he encounters. But depsite all the ups and downs, the mundane hours and high drama, the take home message could be, things go round and round and end up the same...much like a hamster in his wheel.

I loved the prose and the setting, and will be looking out for more works from this writer.

[Swati Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 /5
Surprisingly, I found this book unpredictable.
The characters were so real, the setting even more so.You feel sad, happy, hopeful, sorry, angry and even judgemental during your journey through the novel.

(SPOILER ALERT!)
I found the ending most acceptable of many other probable ones, because is it not like everyone of us - getting agitated and rattled every now and then, with a burning desire to do SOMETHING - for couple of days max. And then, back to our routine life.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an immensely disappointing ending. There was such promise, then….. nothing. Only to return to how everything was before. After what SHOULD have been life changing experiences! If there is a point to such a deflating finale, what ever would it be?!

[Fatma Sajwani · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية لطيفه مشوقه في بداياتها ولكن بنهاية سيئة مملة>، ولكن لا شك أن الكاتبة وفقت في سرد وتعريف القارئ على الكثير من الاعراف والتقاليد التي يتبناها طبقه معينه من المجتمع الهندي.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8

This story 'grew on me.' The first half I would have rated as a 3, but by the end I decided I had enjoyed this short trip to India. For future printings in English, I suggest adding definitions for readers who aren't familiar with the foods or clothing of India. (I waited too long before I started looking up the words and finding images as needed.)

This is a coming-of-age story about a 26-year-old thoughtful young man who, at a fairly young age, had been left to fend for himself. While reading, Camus' The Stranger kept coming to mind. And now I'm wondering if that's a fair comparison. I guess it's time to re-examine Mersault. (But I like Ramchand better.)

A quote from p 64:
Ramchand had also noticed that women rarely, almost never, bought saris alone. They had to be in twos and threes to be able to decide and to derive the maximum pleasure from the process of purchasing a sari. Buying a sari wasn't just buying a sari — it was entertainment, it was pleasure, an aesthetic experience.

Bottom line: The details are different, but human nature is pretty much the same in all cultures.

[V · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tbh, this one caused mixed feelings. I get what the author is trying to portray w.r.t to injustice caused by classism, but, it feels haphazard & deliberately spiralling towards helplessness of the main character.

[Manu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rupa Bajwa makes her debut with a haunting story set in Amritsar. It is a quintessential Indian story, but one that diverges from the usual existential woe stories of the Indian middle class.
This one goes a bit lower, in terms of the protagonist - a sari shop assistant, and through his eyes paints a miniature picture of 'the other india'. In spite of a troubled childhood, he lives an uncomplicated home-shop-home life, until one trip outside this routine, changes his outlook. Thus begins a journey - a search for a meaningful existence, which brings with it an empathy for others.
Juxtaposed with him, is another character, who hasn't had a great childhood herself, and manages to fall deeper into the morass of her life, when she tries to rebel against the unfairness of it all. Their meeting brings about the next turning point in the story.
Throughout the story there are several instances that show the superficiality of the people around him, especially the upper classes, and their innate selfishness. The climax has been treated extremely well - closing the door to the larger world. Tragic, but realistic. And it is perhaps that streak of realism that runs through the book, that forces the reader to feel for the characters, and their pain.
Meanwhile, I think the author has managed to be a part of the novel too, literally, through the character of Rina Kapoor. (at least in part)
A very good read, especially if you're into Indian fiction.

[Srujan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa is the story that brings out the contrast between several strata of our society which cohabitate the Indian Cities but are as unlike each other as it would be possible to be. It begins the apparently insignificant Sevak Sari House in the main Bazaar of Amritsar. It follows the eyes and the ears of Ramchand, a lowly salesman at the shop who seems to be a misfit in not only his world but everyone else’s too. He is mostly invisible to everyone, it’s almost as if he doesn’t exist and, like all the other salesmen who man the counters in these tiny shops, blending seamlessly into the walls with customers’ eye moving from one shelf to another shelf, one counter to another counter, scarcely paying any attention to him.

When the story begins, Ramchand’s life is a sharp contrast to the colourful sarees, it is not only colourless but also toneless and textureless. He has no family, no friends and sadly no aspirations either. He himself wonders why he feels out of step with the world. The one day, he is sent to the residence of the Kapoor family preparing for the wedding of their educated, confident daughter Rina. And something, some kind of stimulus that he experiences in that mansion, jolts him out of the state of barely existing and infuses a strange sort of enthusiasm in him. He buys books to learn English, starts paying attention to his grooming and among many other things, tries to learn how to come across as a gentleman. And yet, it was kind of fascinating for me because it is not as if he wants to climb the social ladder, in no way he comes across as a ‘wannabe’ to me. And I wish I could say it comes to a happy fruition because it doesn’t. Everything else that happens in the book is tragic, dark and somehow makes a reader from a privileged background like me squirm. By holding a mirror to our modern day hypocrisies, it sort of makes me uncomfortable.

But, it would be unfair to say that passage through the book is dull, drab or covered with grime like the walls of the small room where Ramchand lives. It is dotted with events and details, which are not only sweet but also quintessentially Indian. The incidents are as colourful as the sarees and as intricate as the embroideries on them. It is fun to witness the various varieties of bargaining from the other side: the loud, aggressive haggling that women do out of sheer compulsion of their nature, the coaxing and cajoling that novices like me engage in out of the sheer hope of landing a bargain, the rude or even outrageous kind which the women from wealthy families deliver like a command or a whim, often like a show of power, and many more. Then there is a beautiful segment where he reminisces about his childhood, and it seems like he has forgotten most of the details while convalescing from a head injury. This one part where he remembers his mother fondly is so touching, I cannot help share it. It is distinctly tinged with sadness but makes me question, if our primal emotions are really that different or change so much based on our background of affluence or poverty. This is how it goes:

Ramchand’s mother once gives him a small ball of dough and asks him to make “the most beautiful thing in the world” from it, so as to keep him busy while she cooked a meal. What is the most beautiful thing, in the world? he wonders wordlessly. It was his mother, of course, or his father. But they weren’t things and not made out of dough, were they? A while later, she returns. finds him crying, not howling or throwing a tantrum or weeping like children do. He was really crying, with real heartbreaking sorrow, full of grief. With tears welling up in his tiny innocent eyes, he looks up and says, “But ma, I do not know what is the most beautiful thing in the world.” She didn’t laugh, did not say a word. Instead, she hugged him, not speaking not moving and not laughing. Then everything becomes normal, except that Ramchand unknowingly loves her much more than before.

As you see, nothing dramatic happens here, and I cannot really tell what I like about this passage so much. And yet it is something that stands out of the entire book for me. Moving on, I somehow feel that the story really captures the details of the life of Indian poor or the Indian middle-class with uncanny accuracy. Ramchand’s struggles to learn English, the alienation he feels when he reads the letters in The Complete Letter Writer or Radiant Essays for School Children of All Ages is depressing, to be honest. His room with its dark walls become the back drop of the sharp contrast between the paraphernalia on the shelves around ( A jar of Parachute oil, a tub of Zandu Balm and a tube of Burnol among many other things ) and the world in The Complete Letter Writer where someone called Phyllis events his ‘girlfriend’ Peggy on a ‘motor tour through Wales’. And even more striking contrast to the lives of the rich and famous who shop at the Sevak Sari House and who live a life much beyond the scope of his current aspiration.

But all this does not help in making the bitter, almost sickening taste go away, the taste that Kamala’s story brings to us. Kamala is as unremarkable as Ramchand and just like him, so far has stumbled through her life by merely existing, adjusting or making do with what the life throws at her. A chance encounter with her and her story makes both of us, me and Ramchand, sick to our stomachs. Being a book about sarees, there are countless female characters, but I don’t feel like getting into them because they all feel shallow as a saucer. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of interesting, gossip-ey stuff, vanities of women of all ages and such things, but in the end, there is nothing that shrouds the double standards of the society. It puts an educated, sophisticated girl on a small pedestal purely because she is “different from the other rich women of the society, she is more than a homemaker and a wife” but turns a blind eye to Kamala’s sufferings. It is as if her poverty makes her of no consequence, and like Ramchand is probably destined to just exist and then one day, may be, stop existing. It leaves me with a feeling that while we as a society are all for a show of support to feminism, whatever may it mean to each of us, but when it comes to the economically disadvantaged strata of our society and especially its women, we have nothing for them but negligence and plenty of discrimination.

Summarising the book, I think the book is interesting and well written, but not a book for all moods. I did enjoy the book, but I would not be surprised nor would I disagree if someone finds it average. Because it is a book about the average and the below average and does nothing to help the reader’s mood. Preferably skip this one if you are not up for tragic stuff.

[Akshay Dasgupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book as part of my endeavor to read all the Sahitya Akademi Award winners in the English category (shamefully, I have managed to read only 5 until now).

I was left feeling a bit disappointed after reading the book, especially the ending. It certainly did not justify the book. The beginning was superb. The author's description of an old and decaying market in the older part of Amritsar and a daily mundane life of a shop assistant is interesting and comical at the same time.

However the direction that the book took half way through was a let down. I would have rather liked to read about how Ramchand, inspired by the Kapoor family (his chance encounter with Rita) would have continued in his efforts to educate himself and make a better living in the process, rather than sink and withdraw into a almost bipolar disorder on account of the plight of others around him and also up to a certain extent his own failures and disappointments in life.

Overall a decent read but certainly had the potential to be a great book.

[Shailee Dixit Savalia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story started well, character building was great. But overall a very depressing book. Why couldn’t it have a little hopeful end? Why so sad? There was a hope in the start of the story line that the main character, Ramchand will make his way up the ladder, learn English, do something good with his life. He was a hopeful person. It could very well have been an inspiring story rather than bleak at all aspects. He ended right where he started. Everyone’s lives have revolved in same circles.
Even Kamla, was young, hardworking, doing well for her worth, in the start of her story. She too ends up so badly? Drunk, raped, hopeless, killed just for making loud noises at rich business man’s gate? Unfair. All this happens and is believable but may be I expected much better then this after ‘tell me a story’.
Yes, there are differences between 2 classes of society. And the rich, influential people do misuse the power at their disposal. But this is one side of the coin.
Book is written well but Title of the book dint tell me that it is gonna be so dismal.

[Nidhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depression is well-portrayed by Ms Bajwa in this book. Though not an extreme form, but once in a while we all go through these "phases" and the only way to come out of it is to shake it off. This aspect makes the story more realistic. Although Ms Bajwa could have gone to the other extreme trying to make it a tragedy, the book certainly is closer to real life.
The interesting part is the choice of the protagonist himself. I personally have somehow overlooked the sari shop sales people and have never given a thought about their individual self-s.
However, there are a few character portrayals that probably did not require as much dealing that in turn tends to mislead the reader. But overall the description of the town, the sari shop and the customers at the shop is absolutely amazing.