Kopi, Puffs & Dreams

by Pallavi Gopinath Aney

Finalist for the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize

At the turn of the twentieth century, two young men from Palakkad, Puthu and Krishnan, meet aboard a ship bound for Malaya, and strike up an instant connection. Over the next two decades, they set up a restaurant in Singapore selling curry puffs and kopi, become successful, get married and start families. However, Krishnan harbours a dark secret that threatens to destroy the dreams he and Puthu have built together, a secret that only carelessness can reveal…

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2021

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spanning two decades - from the turn of the 20th century to the late 1920s - across Palakad of India, a rubber plantation in Malaya, and the emerging, bustling Old Singapore, “Kopi, Puffs & Dreams” chronicles the formation of an unlikely friendship between a kiln owner’s son, Puthu and Krishnan, a destitute servant whose family is ostracised in the community. As both young men encounter each other on the ship to Malaya, each with his unspoken secret, a connection begins to take shape. What follows is the blossoming of a friendship that lasts for years as they begin their new lives working for an English plantation owner and his wife, initiate a restaurant business, and eventually marry and form their own families. Amid triumphs, challenges and pains come their way: entrepreneur ambition is not without fear of uncertainty and failure, safe in the knowledge that their longing for dreams and freedom might not bear fruit. That shattered hope comes with disillusionments. Desire and secrecy as an interlinked theme form the core of the second half of the story. Their loveless marriages persist until it prompts them to confront their loneliness and yearning for love. And a secret that would put the friendship to the test. “Kopi, Puffs & Dreams” is no ordinary immigrant narrative for one single reason: the blending of personal and political, i.e. Puthu and Krishnan’s distinct personalities as well as the socio-cultural landscape of British Malaya, is brilliantly executed in that the lives of both protagonists mirror the Indian immigrant experiences that are marked not only by struggles and tribulations but also success and jubilation. Despite certain overdeveloped and repetitive parts in terms of plot and characterisation, written in evocative and highly accessible prose, “Kopi, Puffs & Dreams” is a friendship, immigrant saga populated with indelible, complex personas that deserves much recognition and readership.

[Girish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pallavi Gopinath Aney's Kopi, Puffs & Dreams is two different books in one.

The first is the story of Puthu and Krishnan, runaways of sorts from India, who build a thriving business in Singapore. Their (especially Puthu's) pluck, business brain and navigating the circumstances makes for a fun read. The research in this domain is decent (though a bit oversimplified) and I did feel some of the parts were like from a Jeffrey Archer novel. I wish she had done more with the hard fought elements like a personal guarantee or seat at the board.

The second is an emotional jager bomb of relationships, sexuality, fidelity and friendship. This part gets a lot icky with an almost predictable path. Some of the actions by people for people do not make much sense - much like real life. I did not understand how time passing has no bearing on the dynamics between characters.

If I was honest, the second part is where Pallavi slips in trying to balance characters and almost make everyone good. If it weren't so much for the complications in the second book, the first book would have made this a 4 star book for me.

Still a decent one time book.

[Alma Anvar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Puthu, short for Puthilath Parasuraman, hails from an upper-class family that owns a brick kiln in Palakkad, Kerala. He is the youngest of a long list of siblings, and his parents had stopped caring about parenting by the time Puthu was born. One mishap while smoking in a shed with his only friend Muthu ends up setting fire to the shed and killing Muthu in the process. Puthu's family sends him packing to a rubber plantation in British Malay out of shame, hoping people will forget the incident if he stays away for a bit. Even though he gets abused by Thiruvar in the beginning and has to live a hard life, he soon gets recused by the kindness of the Maxwells of the Jacaranda House. At the Jacaranda house, he helps Justine and Oliver with accounts and documentation, soon becoming their favourite. He pulls Krishnan out of that dump, a friend he made on the ship from Palakkad to Malay, to take up a job as a chef at the Jacaranda House. Another fire turns their lives around, and they leave for Singapore, where they build a life for themselves. In no time, Puthu and Krishnan will become each other's found family and start building their own families. They become established businessmen, Krishnan falls in and out of love with Pushpa, Puthu marries his betrothed Gayathri, they have kids, there's infidelity committed and convenient deaths.

I loved the idea of found family and thought it was intriguing. The book was well written in terms of its language and references, but simultaneously, the author skimped through important references. I will not scrutinise the ending, though it felt too rushed and convenient; it did not ruin the experience for me. I felt the author could have explored the caste/class discrimination, the amazing food scene, the geopolitical situation in Singapore at that time, and Puthu's sexuality more. Puthu is shown as an asexual person in the beginning, but this is not explored further in the book, even though the question of Puthu's sexuality arises on multiple occasions later on, like his having no interest in women or men even as he approaches his 30s or his lack of interest in sexually pleasing or engaging in sexual activities with his wife Gayathri, which eventually leads to her committing infidelity and not feeling guilty about it. Maybe the author intended Puthu to be a mysterious person until the end. I love historical fiction as it gives you a better understanding of a country, culture and its people, but there was very little of that in this book. 

There were parts in the book where I craved to be transported to the Serangoon of the 1900s, to be acquainted with these people, to have curry puffs and kopi at their store, to have the special menu at the Anna Vilasam, or to have crispy thosais at Malati Amma's shop. That being said, some parts of it had my heart, albeit the poorly executed ending.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first I thought the story was really interesting and I liked following the boys, seeing how they were doing their best to live well while not having much of anything. The most interesting parts for me were when learning about historical and cultural aspects (Indian and Singaporean). But after they got started with their business the story went downhill for me. I honestly didn't give a sh*t about their romantic relationships and petty family drama. I was waiting for certain things to be revealed/brought up again, thinking "this could potentially be really interesting" but it wasn't. The reveal about where Puthu got the money from was a huge letdown and hardly even mentioned. The very beginning of the book also brings up how Puthu is struggling with or at least wondering about his sexuality, and it's such a WEIRD thing to bring up when you're not going to explore it or go deeper with it AT ALL. At first when we meet the CHILD that becomes Khrishnans wife, I thought "aw what a sweet child, and we're being kind of body positive too" but then later her weight (and weight gain) is used as a symbol of her becoming a "villain". The fatter she gets, the more she is simultaneously hated. She is kinda described as a bad person, but it's easy to forget that she was a CHILD when she got married (to an ADULT) and of course children make bad decisions, and of course she'll be upset that her life is changing in scary ways, and later, that her husband doesn't care about her anymore, her community is somewhat hostile towards her, and her relationship with her family is strained too. The two most unlikable characters are ultimately the two main characters. Both guys are kind of bad people and I absolutely did not care for the them. I don't mind an intentionally unlikable character, but it really felt like I was supposed to sympathize with them even when they were treating people (mainly their wives or children) badly.
It also bothered me a lot that Puthu is kind of coded as both asexual and autistic, and these "traits" are used to make him a bad person and a bad husband. These things are never discussed in depth, except people keep bringing up that he "can't love like others can" but that's it. It feels extremely offensive in a way. I understand that people at the time would not have the vocabulary to talk about it like we have today, but you can still explore these topics internally.

I've seen other reviews saying the ending is too abrupt. I was just glad that it was over tbh. I still hate the ending though. The author clearly seemed to want Krishnan and Gayathri to end up happily together, but apparently didn't know how to make it happen, so in the end all characters that are "in their way" conveniently just die one after the other.

[Getthatbread · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant, easy read, but Pallavi seems to invested in her main characters' happiness to give them any real tribulations or conflicts; everything clips along too easily — you never sense that there is any real tumult looming, or a big reckoning for their choices. Career struggles are solved with a dose of luck and/or hard work, morally dubious choices work out neatly in the end, class struggles with things like class, grief, family and sexuality are briefly skimmed on and treated with the lightest of touches. Ultimately everything ends neatly (including some very convenient deaths) , like underwear starched and folded and tucked neatly into drawers.

It may be the kind of book people may want to read now, when we're in the middle of a plague and want something to reassure us everything will work out okay, to live in a world where fate will always let you recover from low circumstances, where the bad stuff isn't so bad. But it never gets into the meat of issues, the complex spice and richness that makes life (and storytelling) compelling. This one's worth a library borrow but not a buy.

Also - and this one is a personal preference - for a book with food in the title it really needs more food preference.

[neha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A light and easy read, written beautifully and with characters and stories compelling enough to keep me turning the page. Aney gives us a wonderful look into the lives of Indian immigrants in early 20th century Singapore, and I was happy to escape into their world for a few hours. It also gave me a special kind of joy to see Malayalee immigrants being represented in Singlit – something I've barely seen before :)
Can't wait to read what she writes next!

[That dorky lady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very lagging, makes it hard to concentrate and no big events or twists n turns to hold on to. I suffered about 45-50% of the book and thought well, yolo.. Why waste it on something I do not enjoy doing. So I stopped there.

[Matt Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in the premise of this story and after having really loved books like The House of Doors and Now You See Us, hoped that this would fall into that category of engrossing and illuminating SE Asian stories that I’ve enjoyed this year. Unfortunately it didn’t. It reads like the second draft of a work in progress, with waaaaay too much easy exposition and seamless bouncing through drama to neat endings.

[Wesley Aroozoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic debut from Pallavi!

Much recommended. A fantastic read, beautifully written.

[zhacatomn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this novel: I wanted to see how the lives of the characters played out, and what fate befelled them. I genuinely cared for Puthu and Krishnan, the Pillai family, and Gayathri; Oliver and Justine as well. I crunched this book in 2 days, because I really wanted to see how the narrative would play out.

That being said, the first thing I thought of after finishing the book was another novel: Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life". The stories are similar in broad strokes: The characters start out with little to nothing, they eventually find great success, but they meet gruesome fates at the end of it (not so for Krishnan and Gayathri, but you get the idea).

For both of these novels, I left them with a strong sense of uneasiness. The characters and the events that unfolded felt "unfinished", in the sense that their narrative arcs seemed to be building towards something, but were cut short before they could reach their satisfying conclusion.

I felt this especially in the case of the Pillai family: I understood their relevance to the story and the sort of characters they were, but nothing beyond that. I would have loved to see Pushpa grow more than what was potrayed, as opposed to the self-centered, pompous wife that Krishnan and Puthu viewed her to be. To literally kill her off so suddenly felt like a disservice to her character, such that not even a "final words" were allowed from her.

I say all this not to detract from the author's vision. It is true that life is abrupt and seemingly never fair - I believe this narrative portrays that quite clearly, especially with how the affair and its reveal were handled. Love and relationships is also a messy business, never quite the cookie-cut, perfect narratives we desperately hope for them to be.

Yet, there's a lingering disappointment with how the narrative so quickly comes to a fold, with little time to ruminate on the lives of these characters. And in a very literal sense, I would prefer if the characters were not so suddenly erased from the narrative by way of slamming vehicles onto them (I say this for both this novel, and for "A Little Life").

There's much more I can say about this novel, but I don't think my rants are much appreciated by anyone, least of all myself. As a Singaporean, it was welcoming to see street names and locales I'm intimately familiar with printed on paper. (I also had no idea Cold Storage was around even back then!) The novel has a prose that flows quite well. It really is an incredible attempt for a debut novel and I sincerely hope the author continues to write! Thanks for the story, I'm anxiously waiting for the next one.

(PS. I don't really understand Justine's relevance to the plot later on. Seriously, what was her role?)

[Zeynep · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 | March 2022 Women's History Month

Kopi, Puffs & Dreams bu ay yaptığım challenge’lardan biri olan miyopastronot’un aylık challenge’ına özel okuduğum bir kitaptı. Daha önce okumadığım Singapur Edebiyatı’na ait olan kitap, 2 arkadaşın Hindistandan Singapur’a giden bir köle gemisinde tanışması ve sonrasında geçen onlarca yılda yaşadıklarını anlatıyor. Genellikle böyle uzun bir zamanı içine alan ve farklı kültürleri en çıkaran kitapları zevkle okurum, Kopi’yi de böyle keyifle okuduğumu söyleyebilirim.

Kitapla ilgili tek büyük sıkıntım ilk yarısından sonra kurgunun bambaşka, karmakarışık ve gereksiz bir yöne gitmesiydi. Sanki yazar kitabı ilk yarısında bitirmeyi planlamışta sonrasında kadına 2. Yarısını zorla yazdırmışlar gibi geldi. Bu duruma romanın sonu da dahildi. Bence ilk yarısından sonra her şey sonlanabilirdi, genel aile ve ilişki dramalarıyla dolu 2. Kısmı hiç sevemediğimi söyleyebilirim. Bununla beraber yazarın kalemini oldukça sade ve okuması kolay buldum. Gelecekte sürekli takip edeceğim bir yazar olmasa da konusu ilgimi çektiği takdirde başka kitaplarını okuyabilirim diye düşünüyorum <3

[Randy Sofyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two boys felt as a pariah from their past embark to a land that will write their future.

A story that started with a tragedy, forged an unlikely match which became the center that the storytelling revolved to. From Palakkad, Malaya, to Singapore in the year 1900ish, the main characters grew in a poignant way. Uncertain, bustle youth became mundane, secretive adult that seeks happiness in life. I’ve always been fascinated to-a prolonged secret, hanged thought that just leave as it be but at the end everything must come under the sun, for whatever its cost-story. Because at that point, we can do realize things that maybe we take for granted.

Some points that really interesting for me:
* Indian culture and social life; like two sides of coin, the colorful on one side and dark on the other. (The dark side mostly affect women)
* Business life - Coffee Plantation, Food Industry; the paper works, the ups and downs, and finally how to survive or even thriving.
* Marriage life - For me the key of marriage is communicating and compromising.
* Life itself - To chose your family, to found a place that you called home, and to felt genuinely happy with life.

[ZQ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5
I love how the story is set in early 1900s. It opened up my imagination to vision life back then. How chaotic yet bustling it was , many immigrants arriving to make a business.

Story revolve 2 Indian boys in their 18-19 who decided to travel to Singapore/malaya.
They worked in rubber plantations in Malaya, started their first stall selling curry puffs and eventually, succeeded into big. Business owner who owned many shops in Little India.

The missing one mark is the lack of “crisis” - it’s rather bland… the author threw in EMA and illness but it’s still did not stir much emotion. The crisis was also averted by ppl dying…

Maybe im cliche but I was hoping the brothers had a big fight or smth serious happen to their business or WW2 to overlap…

But it didn’t…. In fact, their business venture has been quite smooth sailing. There seem to be no major hiccup.

Another feedback is I dislike how they make Puthu invincible and lack of emotion.

Overall a fast read if you enjoy historical context

[missblablabla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t put high expectation when umi started reading this book. It’s a good book that you can read within a day.
Puthu & krishnan is a young boy come from India to Malaya to work in plantation. But Puthu is assign to assist Oliver in documentation and accounts. While Krishnan uneducated boy work as a chef in the Oliver and Justine house. Because of the bankruptcy the boy move to Singapore with big ambition. Puthu decided to open a restaurant and become a businessman and Krishnan work with Puthu as a cook but Puthu offer Krishnan to become his partner shareholder in their business. The business succeed and they plan to married and having a family. A scandal happened.

[Meaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this for the first two-thirds but felt that it was rushed in the last one-third. As I was reading I was debating whether to rate this 3 or 4, because I felt 3.5 was appropriate. The ending helped me to decide on a 3 firmly. The tying up of matters was hurried and felt unsatisfactory for one of the characters.

I also agree with one of the other reviews, I was expecting more descriptions of food!

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light and easy read. I enjoyed the historical details and world-building for the first 1/3 of the book, as we were introduced to the characters. But afterwards, it all became abit more perfunctory. The story moved on, without any real struggle or richness in details :( Would have loved more details on Puthu’s motivations, more buildup on Gayathri. The ending was rushed, with everything tied up a little too nicely and conveniently.

[Rahayusnida Roosley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s quite a pleasant book that you could read, to rest after a really emotionally exhausting book.
There’s no big surprises in this book. It’s like talking to a neighbor.
I wish the book could be more descriptive, for example, of the ambiance, the architecture, the delicious food, the wedding etc etc.
When I see a book written about a certain culture and country, I am always drawn to read them to learn more about these countries and cultures. I wish this book gave me more.

[Ara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough for a light read, it was fun and curious at first with the backdrop of the early 19th century historical references but I find it lacking depth as the story unravels. The interesting characters fell flat in the end, with the ending feeling a bit rushed and the struggles too simple to be interesting.

[Su Yadanar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will always have a soft spot for family chronicles set over decades. This one, especially, with the book being set in colonial-era British Malaya and Singapore was a fascinating time in history. I’ve also never really read an asexual character in an Asian book so that was particularly compelling

Now I want a cup of kopi and a curry puff

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book of the year. Local writer.
A little mix of the historical relationship between India, British, Malaya and eventually Singapore - nicely written.
A very upfront portrayal of human : loyalty, dreams, women, family, friendship that is very relatable.
Enjoyed this book.

[Praveen Raina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice capture of the immigrant community in Singapore 🇸🇬 . Personally I am intrigued by the intrepid Indians who made a decent life in the south east Asia. Coming back to the book it was refreshing, nice and homily. I little detail would have helped more in substance.

[S.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75🌟

Really enjoyed the prose. It's a little simplistic but somehow worked with the storytelling. I also think this novel would've benefitted from a bit more fleshing out; the years would pass and the audience found this out in pretty abrupt ways sometimes.

[Ruby Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

An easy read! It was an engaging piece of historical fiction and I liked that I could feel the Little India setting. The constantly shifting dynamics between these two friends who are akin to brothers kept the book at a compelling pace.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story flows beautifully. It combines elements of both magical thinking and reality, and the author creates an authentic sense of place and time.

[Sreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about 2 Indian boys moving to Malaya and then Singapore. Interesting believable character in a good story.

[Ummu Auni · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of two men from afar to Singapore with their dreams.

[Priyadarshini · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Xiangwei · Rating 3 out of 5]

No highs or lows, but an easy read.

[Prue Mansfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Malaysian read, a good enough yarn, Indian migrant labourers make good and become wealthy. Love story of course. Prob would be a DNF if not on holiday.

[Francis Ang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy reading. Compelling plot and characters. Didn't enjoy the fatphobia.