Lessons in Forgetting

by Anita Nair

When we first see Meera, she is a carefully groomed corporate wife with a successful career as a writer of cookbooks. Then one day her husband fails to come home after a party and she becomes responsible not just for her children but her mother and grandmother, and the running of Lilac House, their rambling old family home in Bangalore. Enter Professor J.A. Krishnamurthy, or JAK, a renowned cyclone studies expert, on a very different trajectory in life. In a bedroom in his house lies his nineteen-year old daughter Smriti, left comatose after a vicious attack on her while she was on holiday at a beachside town. A wall of silence and fear surrounds the incident— the grieving father is helped neither by the local police, nor by her boyfriend in his search for The truth. Through a series of coincidences, Meera and JAK find their lives turning and twisting together, with the unpredictability and sheer inevitability of a cyclone. And as the days pass, fresh beginnings appear where there seemed to be only endings.

Genres: India, Fiction, Indian Literature

340 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2010

About the author

Anita Nair is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the novels The Better Man, Ladies Coupé, Mistress, Lessons in Forgetting, Idris: Keeper of the Light and Alphabet Soup for Lovers. She has also authored a crime series featuring Inspector Gowda.

Anita Nair’s other books include a collection of poems titled Malabar Mind, a collection of essays titled Goodnight & God Bless and six books for children. Anita Nair has also written two plays and the screenplay for the movie adaptation of her novel Lessons in Forgetting which was part of the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2012 and won the National Film Award in 2013. Among other awards, she was also given the Central Sahitya Akademi award and the Crossword Prize. Her books have been translated into over thirty one languages around the world. She is also the founder of the creative writing and mentorship program Anita’s Attic.

Reviews

[Subha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really felt that this book should be turned into a movie, but only by a director who is as good as a writer Anita is.

Its gripping from page one till the end. I took this book to my trip to Goa and I finished it while my kids and husband took naps. I was so taken by the book that I kept thinking about the characters while I was alone. Well, I do that with every good book I read. So it was not a surprise with this book. Highly recommended.

[Ahtims · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story focussing on relationships, especially the fragile man-made marital bond and the strong bond of parent child relationship.
Past few days I was peeking into the world of Meera and Jak and their family and friends . I am still reeling under the shock of what happened to Smriti.
This book slowly warmed up to me. An initial 3 stars became a definite 5 star read , but alas! the sudden unsatisfactory ending robbed it of its coveted star.

I would definitely read it again sometime later in life, provided I get an opportunity to.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it immensely...the cyclone stories and the story and the characters and the way it was told.. Anita Nair is one author who has not disaappointed me so far..

[Amina Hujdur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nimalo lagan roman za čitanje.
Teška i mukotrpna tema. Isprepleteni životi junaka, ispresijecana struktura...
Ocjena 3

[Alessandra Bassi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dolcemente straziante - Scritto da Alessandra il 20 settembre 2016
Inizia e prosegue con il tono quieto di chi descrive la vita quasi perfetta di una moglie indiana.
Alla crisi del suo matrimonio Mira reagisce con grande equilibrio: è molto sofferente e delusa ma continua a dedicarsi ai familiari più giovani (i suoi figli) e anziani (sua madre e sua nonna, brillanti e divertenti ma comunque bisognose di aiuto). Mira si occupa di tutto senza disperarsi, e continua a cercare soluzioni ai problemi che arrivano.
Quando decide di trovarsi un lavoro la storia di Mira si intreccia con quella di Jak e con la sua vita complicata. Con dolcezza inesorabile e con alterne vicende accompagniamo i due protagonisti nella loro ricerca di senso, un percorso di orrore eppure di affetto e, quasi, di ammirazione.

[Rekha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully crafted story of two lives : JAK and Meera whose world collides when Giri, the perfect husband of Meera goes missing one fine September afternoon. The story dwells on the universal theme of love, loss, grief and the rediscovery of the self.

Gripping from page one, I completed the book in 2 days straight at the risk of my eyeballs falling off it's socket. One of the best reads for me!
Long after I dusted the jacket of the book and returned to its place, the lives of the people in the book reverberated in me. It had me questioning : how can one craft a story so beautifully wonderful yet heartbreaking? Writers as Nair are extraordinary people, indeed!

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very well crafted; I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, the plot, the pacing. A sometimes quite sad story about grief, starting over and different types of love, these are familiar themes to fans of Anita Nair, themes which are skillfully woven through and around the different life stories of the larger tale. A very worthwhile read and addition to her body of work. Recommended.
(Publication note: This is the same book published in the US under the name: The Lilac House.)

[Nishant Jha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 328-pages long book; very long as per my reading standard & capability but I still went ahead & started it on my mother's strong recommendation. It starts very slowly & too many characters confused me plus they weren't very clear to me in the beginning...the book gathers some pace by the middle and then it gets very intriguing & binding! The last 100-odd pages are real nice and made reading this book worthwhile for me!

[Soumya Prasad (bluntpages) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first and only other book that I have read of Anita Nair is 'Mistress'. A couple of my friends were talking about a particular Indian author whose work was excellent and this turned out to be Anita Nair. Another friend gifted 'Mistress' to me and I started reading it without any expectations just like what I have from most Indian authors. That book turned out to be fabulous and the writing was fantastic. It did have a nice South Indian touch to the story and that was something I could relate to very well. I loved the story and the characterization as well as the complex emotions. I hold 'Mistress' very close to my heart. I did not review it because I was not sure what to write about it. I understood the relationships in the book, but I could not put it into words. So I let it be.

I watched the movie 'Lessons In Forgetting' one Sunday on TV. I had no clue that it was adapted from a book. The movie was more like a documentary and yet told a brilliant story. Adil Hussain has done a fantastic job in it. When the movie ended I saw that it was adapted from a novel by Anita Nair. I picked up the book soon enough but it lay unread on my shelf. A few weeks ago, while chatting with a friend, the topic of Anita Nair came up and I decided to finally read this one.

The first story in the book is that of Meera. Meera, goose-girl Meera (explained in the book), is a high society wife and a writer of cookery and social etiquette books. She lives in a plush ancestral house called 'The Lilac House' with her husband Giri, son Nikhil, mother Saro and her grandmother, Lily. Her daughter Nayantara lives away from home due to her studies. Everything seems to be going really well for Meera until she attends a high society party with her husband and son. Halfway through the party, her husband disappears and she later learns that he has actually left her and their kids. Suddenly, Meera is left to fend for herself and her family and the house. The second story is that of J. A. Krishnamurthy or Jak a renowned expert on cyclones who comes back to India for good in the search of something. A divorcee, he is keen on finding out what happened to Smriti, his nineteen year old daughter who lies comatose after going through a "freak" accident in a village in South India. His idea is to trace his daughter's last few days in Minjikapuram the place where he grew up. Kala, his mother's sister stays with him and takes care of Smriti. Meera and Jak's life later intervene in an intricate way.

I loved the story line and the very reason why I loved the movie. But this probably is one of the rare cases where the movie is better than the book. I initially thought that this was probably because I watched the movie first. The same thing happened in the case of 'The Devil Wears Prada' too. But this time this was not it. Meera's story line in the book is brilliantly written. Although I did not stand to watch Meera turn into a lost panic queen as she tried to pick up the bits and piece of her life financially. Her family and her cringing on the basics to selling off old books for some extra cash was understandable but why couldn't she ask for help from her estranged husband? He after all had left behind two children as well. Meera is a successful woman, and yet she becomes a lost lamb when her husband leaves. Only in the financial aspect. Not once has it been shown that she misses the man she loved. Soon enough, she goes on to have an affair with a much younger man. If the idea was to show a independent woman and feminism, this is not how it should have been done.

It was Jak's story line that disturbed me the most. While the story was troubling in itself, the writing tired me out. The story moves from third person to first person to a character narration from time to time. It wasn't easy to keep up with this and most importantly it was unnecessary. And so were the excerpts from Meera's books in the form of observations and tables. I did not understand the importance of it at all, if at all it was important. Smriti's tale forms the soul of the book without a doubt. As Jak unveils the mystery that led to her current state, your heart breaks time and again. With nothing but a few names in hand, he traces her days just before her accident. He discovers that his daughter was working for a good cause and this is what led to her current situation. The scenes that describe the accident towards the end chapters are heart wrenching and disturbing. So are the scenes where Jak bathes his teenage daughter or applies her lip balm for her. These will shake you even if you are made of stone. Kala's back story was very well narrated and stands out on its own where she is no longer reduced to a supporting character.

There is no doubt that the story line is brilliant. It is Meera's character and the writing that did not work for me.

Verdict: I would suggest watching the movie. But if written words are what pleases you, give it a try.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

[Terra · Rating 5 out of 5]

avendo due figlie ed essendo donna, seppure non in india, questo libro mi ha lacerata - ma non è un libro che ha al suo centro una qualche tesi femminista. è un libro che parla soprattutto di genitori e figli, ma anche di donne e di aborto, di famiglia, di era e zeus e di cicloni. parla di figlie, questo è l'aspetto che più mi ha catturata e rimescolata, facendomi soffrire. anita nair racconta le donne in india, come in cuccette per signora, ma parla a ogni donna, soprattutto alle madri di figlie. parla anche di uomini e agli uomini, però - indiani e non, padri e non padri. il libro è molto bello, ma farà del male a chi ha una figlia adolescente o poco più, una figlia pensante e generosa e ribelle, magari.

[Shobha Deepthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have not written a bad review of a book till date. Cause, if I find a book not worthy I just stop reading it. I do not even finish it. But with Lessons In Forgetting, I did finish reading it. Not cause for the suspense-thriller it feigns to be, but just to know if the book really is worth its ending.

I really liked Anita Nair for her book Ladies Coupe. I still think that is her best book till date. Read her other book Mistress, and left it half way some years ago. And now again knowing that her books is made into a movie, I preferred reading the book before watching the movie. Now I have second thought about watching the movie.

Mostly I like Anita Nair’s books for her characters, especially female characters. But in this book the other protagonist Meera is nothing but a UK chik-lit book’s pathetic female. Novel starts with Meera and her analogy of herself with the greek mythology goddess Hera. I seriously fail to understand how she ruins the greek mythology to suit herself. She is abandoned by her husband Giri at a high-society party that involve, writers, actors etc. And later Jak( Professor Jak ) is asked to drop her home. Jak the other protagonist of the novel.

He is a middle-aged divorced father of two daughters living with his aunt Kala Chitti and bed ridden 19 year old daughter Smrithi. The story is about what happened to Smrithi on one of her trips, that she has lost all the life in her and is a dead soul with nothing but a body of flesh. Jak believes that there is more to a fatal accident that caused Smrithi this living death. So he starts digging into Smirthi’s past, life, her friends to know the truth.

I tried hard not to skip through pages where Meera comes into the picture. I hate this character. An abandoned wife living with here grandmother, mother and with her younger son. And Vinnie, a character who she meets in an elevator and somehow becomes her best buddy for life. Another waste character in the book. Book would have done good just with Jak’s story, and Meera is the one who spoilt the book. There are many plots where Meera goes back to 3 or more of her memories with different people and the plot just loses its grip. Looks like a bad attempt by the author at jumping between past and present. By 200+ pages I almost gave up, but thanks to Papa Jak who kept me hooked on.

And on top of that she tries to throw in some gyan on female foeticide and show few characters in the novel as martyrs. Another failed attempt. And Meera and her excerpts from her book on "A Corporate Wife’s Guide to Entertaining"? Seriosuly? What age do these women live in? I personally am very disappointed in this book.

[Pankaj Giri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book while browsing the shelves of The Crossword bookstore in Siliguri. The blurb captured my interest; it was the kind of contemporary fiction I always seek. Moreover, Anita Nair is a popular name in literary circles, so I decided to give it a shot.

Frankly speaking, the initial few pages didn't impress me. The writing felt a bit artificial, as if it were trying too hard to impress. However, as I continued, the writing mellowed down, and I sort of got used to Ms. Nair's style.

Lessons in Forgetting is about Meera and Jak whose lives are going through some turmoil. Meera's husband has suddenly left home, and Jak's daughter has met with a tragic accident. It's about how their lives intertwine and how they try to battle their demons.

After about ten pages or so, I was hooked. The plot began developing beautifully, and the characterization also got deeper.

Ms/ Nair is an expert at plotting, and there are a lot of subtle twists and turns that I couldn't predict. Both Meera and Jak are well fleshed out. They have their share of flaws, but they are likable. I was rooting for them till the very end. The relationships between the characters are well conveyed, and the best part about it was that I could connect with the secondary characters as well.

The descriptions are beautiful and vivid, and the language is excellent. Once in a while, it gets too ornate for my liking, but overall it is lucid. I couldn't help but admire the delicious metaphors and similes peppering the prose. The paragraphs are also short and crisp, enhancing the reading experience.

The only thing that irked me throughout was the constant reference to the mythical characters of Zeus and Hera. I had no knowledge of them, and I couldn't relate to the comparisons. I happened to skip those references.

The climax and the ending are also executed flawlessly. It is bittersweet and realistic. A social evil is highlighted, and some scenes are heart-wrenching and difficult to read.

Ms. Nair is a terrific writer. Everything is revealed layer by layer, a skill possessed only by select writers. Moreover, somewhere towards the end, my eyes teared up a couple of times, thus making the experience memorable.

A lot of award-winning books have disappointed me this year, but Lessons in Forgetting, which is acclaimed by top media like India Today and The Hindu Literary Review, turned out to be one of the best reads of 2021.

4.7 stars from my side.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lessons are hard and clearly focused on forgetting or coming to terms with grief and abandonment but not forgiving. There is no redemption here but rather a message of how to overcome and move on. Previous events which have affected the lives of the main characters echo current ones and are carefully woven into the story to emphasize the recurring nature of the hurt thereby underlining the difficulty of learning to forget. The story is moving and engaging and the principal characters evolve believably in the course of events. Coincidence is a little stretched, particularly with respect to Rishi Soman and his relationships with both Smriti and Meera, but this is the novelist's privilege to avoid 'noise' and focus on the key issues. The main theme of the story is the evolution of the two principal wounded characters who eventually make some progress in learning to forget through their burgeoning relationship. Female infanticide is perhaps given more resonance through it's nuanced treatment which underlines the huge difficulties in addressing this issue. Altogether a satisfying and thought-provoking book.

[Mira Desai · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd loved Ladies Coupe. Maybe because it cut close to the skin in terms of story AND it had a fairytale ending, if you know what I mean. Yep, even though it was a bootleggged copy.

In "Lessons..." something is missing. Like a dal you've tried to make perfect, but something's off, the spices lack that special,whacky something.

Maybe the setting was privileged and the solutions to the protagonists's problems were too pat.
Just wanted to tell her to get on with it.

And there are two plots in here, and methinks this dilution of the reader's attention is schizophrenic.

Yep, I would still sample Ms Nair's fare, if only once.

Read during the Oct- Jan hiatus, no precise date.

[Mansee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read...though the starting few pages ....made me rethink my decision of reading the book...coz they were not interesting enuf...but nevertheless, I continued and it became more poignant as the story developed....the lead characters were well defined..and some aspects of the marriages brought out well...I was dissapointed by the end though....esp. for one of the characters..Overall a decent read- I would nt recommend buying though- I read it as it was available in the office library!

[Richa Kothari · Rating 3 out of 5]

The initial pages made me rethink to continue reading this book.The start is very slow.As the pace increased..i was captivated and intrigued..surprisingly the middle part is very intresting.There are strong shades of feminism & dealings wid mid lyf crisis in this book.Too many characters and there flashbaks are little confusing..All the goodness is overshadowed because the ending is very disappointing.A decisive action at the end could have been better..

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Lessons In Forgetting' by Anita Nair is a story of two lonely people, each tortured in different ways by things they have lost, things they can’t help but remember or by things they never knew and need to find out. It’s a beautiful tale set in southern India, juxtaposing sophisticated city life with traditional rural ways, the different prejudices of these environments, and bringing two characters with their own personal tragedies together and leaving us as readers to observe whether they can battle through their problems in order to eventually find each other. But it’s not just a love story – or a story with potential for love – it’s also a complex mystery, a search for truth and for answers to explain the destruction of a human being.

Meera is the perfect corporate wife and a successful writer with a best-selling cookery book and a guide to how to be what she is – the perfect corporate wife. Her husband Giri is the corporate man, successful, proud to show off his accomplished wife and to be the envy of his colleagues. I say colleagues and not friends because Giri doesn’t really ‘do’ friendship. He’s possibly also not as good as Meera thinks at being a husband either as she’s about to find out at the start of the book. We observe that he appears to have married Meera less for herself and more for her lifestyle which represented a world he’d never known and into which he was seeking a route. When they met she lived in a beautiful but ageing villa in Bangalore with her mother, Saro, and her grandmother, a once famous actress called Lily. Giri was won over by an afternoon tea of dainty doilies, perfectly presented ‘best’ china and the overall air of cultured gentility that was alien to his past. He married her, moved in with the three generations of women and together he and Meera added a fourth generation – a daughter and a son.

In time the very thing Giri wanted so much turned into a noose around his neck. Meera and Giri open the book, going to a poolside party at an expensive hotel where the well-to-do folk of Bangalore are displaying their perfect lives of urban fashion and success. Meera eats, drinks, flirts a little, forgets to count how many glasses she’s knocked back. Her son asks where his father is - they search for him and learn that Giri left the party two hours earlier, turned his back on Meera and their 13-year old son Nikhil and calmly, quietly walked out of her perfect life. She makes excuses, he must have had to leave for the airport, something important must have come up, but the dark clouds of disaster are gathering overhead.

Professor J.A. Krishnamuthy also known as Jak (his initials) or Kitcha, his childhood pet name, is at the party, recently arrived in the city from his life as a professor in an American university. His research is into cyclones and he’s an expert in turbulence and devastation. Meera’s in calm shock sitting in the eye of the storm that’s just hit her life. A mutual friend asks Kitcha to drive Meera and her son home and he remembers being a 13-year old himself as he glimpses Nikhil in the back seat. At the same age, Kitcha’s father walked out on the family to go and live in an ashram. He recalls the sense of despair and abandonment and knows this young man is going through what he’s already known.


Kitcha’s return to India has been to search for answers. In the spare bedroom of his house, his teen-aged daughter Smriti lies trapped inside her body after a violent physical and sexual attack on a Tamil Nadu beach. She’s unable to communicate, unable to feel or express herself. She just lies there trapped and tortured by her injuries. The girl who left America to study in India was wild, beautiful, principled and passionate – the girl who lies on the bed is damaged so badly that all he and his aunt can do is strive to keep her company and keep her comfortable. Kitcha is a man with a mission – he has returned to hunt down her attackers, to find out how this transformation took place. Who hurt his girl, how did it happen, and to some degree, who can he blame for this wasted life?

When your husband walks out it’s hard to get your publisher interested in your next book about being the perfect corporate wife. Meera’s publisher makes excuses, obfuscates, and leaves her high and dry. The household can’t get by now Giri’s gone and Meera’s income-stream has been blocked. She needs a job and she’ll pretty much take anything – but nobody wants a mature woman whose skills are restricted to writing and throwing nice dinner parties. Kitcha offers her a job, helping with his research, keeping his papers in order, keeping his aunt company. Meanwhile, he’s off to the coast trying to hunt down the boys who knew his daughter and to uncover the identity of her attackers. Meera has an admirer, a younger man who pursues her and whom we later discover is improbably linked to her employer’s daughter and her story. That thread of the story is a little hard to reconcile with an otherwise more realistic and pragmatic tale.

Whilst we watch Meera fall for Kitcha and Kitcha fall for Meera, we share their individual pain. Meera’s daughter blames her mother for the marriage breakdown, takes sides with her father, lets slip there’s a new woman in daddy’s life. Meera’s mother and grandmother each try in their own ways to save money, to help her out, to fill the Giri-shaped gap in all their lives. Kitcha tracks down the boys, learns about his daughter and what she was doing, how she played three friends off against each other, how her American-raised passion for doing ‘the right thing’ got her involved in schemes to prevent female infanticide. The book is shot through with heavy themes that set it apart from a conventional romance. We learn about the roles of men and women, about city sophistication and country prejudices, but most of all we learn about the ability of the human spirit to deal with knock-backs and to seek for justice.

Anita Nair is one of my favourite Indian writers. The first of her books which I read was ‘Ladies Coupe’, a tale of a woman running away from her repressed life and exchanging stories with other travellers in their train carriage. It was a very special book and put her onto my ‘must read list’. I also have her novel ‘The Mistress’ and ‘Lessons in Forgetting’ is the third of her books on my shelves. It’s a complex and carefully constructed tale but occasionally seems to be trying a little too hard. The book is broken up into sections which are characterised by the different stages in the evolution and development of a cyclone – I found these cyclone phases didn’t add to my enjoyment of the book but they were very easy to ignore without interrupting my reading. She also weaves in the classical story of Hera and Zeus, aligning Meera with the mythical Hera, with Giri as the philandering Zeus. I found these bits a little bit irritating but not hard to set to one side whilst I got on with the core of the story. There’s a little bit of an element of ‘trying too hard’ in these constructions – this story is so good and so solid that it doesn’t need gimmicks or distractions and I would have loved it slightly more without them.

This book has been sold under a different title – the Lilac House - in its USA edition and a film based on the story was released in India in 2012.

Nair is not afraid to tackle controversial topics and she writes beautifully. Her characters are flawed, human and usually ones with whom we can empathise. Her plot is complex and engaging, we’re soon hooked and carried along on the wave of intrigue. I’m aware that many readers are a bit put off by Indian writers and can be concerned about the use of terms they don’t know or language they don’t understand. This is not an issue with ‘Lessons in Forgetting’. It’s a story that could take place anywhere but which is all the more intriguing and compelling for that being a place I know, recognise and love.

[Ashima Jain · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book from my last hurried visit to the library was by Anita Nair. Incidentally, this also happened to be my introduction to her writing which is shocking, considering she has written so many books which have been translated into multiple languages across the world.

Meera is an impeccably groomed corporate wife with a successful career as a cookbook writer. One day her husband fails to return home from a party, leaving her solely responsible for her two children, her mother, her grandmother, and the running of Lilac House: their rambling old family home in Bangalore.

A few streets away from Meera lives Jak - Professor J. A. Krishnamurthy – a renowned cyclone studies expert whose life is on an altogether different trajectory. His 19-year-old daughter Smriti has been left comatose after a brutal attack while holidaying at a beachside town. Jak is struggling to find answers, but to no avail; neither her boyfriend, nor the authorities, are willing to help.

Through a series of coincidences, Meera and Jak’s paths cross, twisting their lives together with the sheer inevitability and predictability of a cyclone. As time progresses, sunlight begins to filter through the days where only dark clouds have cast long shadows on their lives.

As much as I enjoyed reading Lessons in Forgetting, my first thought on finishing the book was: Why on earth had I never read a book by her till now? There is something exquisite about her story-telling. Her words encompass emotions that are achingly beautiful. The narrative is delicately crafted that it blurs the lines between simplicity and ever-mounting suspense. Characters are superbly etched with their quirks and flaws that you can’t help but fall in love. If I had to pick a favourite other than Meera and Jak, it would be Lily. There is a certain charm about her that isn’t all from old age.

A definite 4 star for me.

[Sreesha Divakaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me some time to write a review for this. Mainly because when I finished reading it, I couldn’t praise it in full sentences. That’s how struck I was with this book. It is an excellent piece of writing (goes without saying, it’s Anita Nair after all!) There are strong shades of feminism in the tale, themes about midlife crises and an undercurrent of a mature love story of two middle-aged individuals.
Without giving away any plot details, I would like to admit that Smriti, the sufferer of the unfortunate “accident” is so strongly etched in my mind that my heart bleeds for this girl. And the anger I feel for the antagonists – the villains who did what they did to her – is just volcanic. Whenever I read about characters who have the “ooh-iam-a-man-and-this-is-my-world” attitude, it makes me foam-at-the-mouth angry!
What I love about Anita Nair’s books is the little background stories that her characters narrate. It gives them more depth, makes them more real. People who do not just exist within the dimension of the book, but those who have existed and lived lives before the tale of the book began. Kala’s little tales were good.
I do not think this review will in any way do justice to the book, but I strongly believe that this book will not disappoint any reader. While I enjoyed Mistress more than this, I do admit that this is probably a better written book. I am partial to Mistress judging solely on the basis of the two stories.


https://rainandabook.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/lessons-in-forgetting-by-anita-nair/

[Ruza Minić · Rating 4 out of 5]

Књигу сам узела, више због саме ауторке, него коментара на задњој страници књиге. Остале су ми у сећању друге књиге ове књижевнице, које сам прочитала. Веома озбиљна тема којом се бави. Мало ми је сметало уношење митских елемената Хере и слично, јер ми то није јача страна. Књигу вреди прочитати, јер је дала још један аспект бриге родитеља за своју децу у савременом свету. И брига мајке за ћерку тинејџерку и брига оца за ћерку адолесценткињу...
а и она и он имају своје породичне трауме и ожиљке...
-Дечак се осећао располовљено. Дивио се оцу...а био ојађен због мајке, коју никада пре није видео тако очајну и скрхану.
-Онда је побегао.
-Можда је само отишао да се провоза. И ја сам то радио, неколико пута. када растерам демоне, вратим се кући.
-Није здраво да једеш толико пице. Сва ће се та нездрава храна видети на теби за двадесет година. Бићеш врло дебео човек (каже прабаба бивша глумица унуку, тинејџеру). И сиромашан (додаје његова баба по мајци). Не расту пице на дрвећу. То кошта...
-Кад одрастемо, донесемо са собому свој живот оно што смо научили од одраслих док смо били деца.
-Како би могао престати да будеш родитељ чак и када твоје деце реши да збаци са себе одору детета?
- не можемо знати шта ће нас даље у животу задесити...и тако, књига је пуна кратких, а веома мисаоно садржајних реченица...пуних животних мудрости...
Постоји напрслина, сићушна напрслина баш у свему,
тако светлост улази.
Онда ће сви благослови и сва радост бити њени.
Сав ће се живот повиновати њеним хтењима.
једног савршеног дана.


Ослична књига!

[Ria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I seldom did read books by Indian Authors in these last couple of years, for I was busy burying myself under a heap of novels by foreign authors. The #BookstagramIndia has done me a huge favour in terms of pulling me back to a world of familiar, relatable and remarkable novels by Indian writers, with their tireless promotions, lengthy rants, and reviews replete with their love, affection, and admiration towards their favourite authors.

Inspired by those fervent discussions, I picked up LESSONS IN FORGETTING from my bookshelf and soon realised what a precious GEM is it. The story revolves around a man and a woman, inundated with the tormenting chapters of life, crossing their paths and finding solace in each other again. Anita Nair's powerful, meticulous, in-depth and elegant writing is capable of unsettling the mind of readers, just like the protagonist's, by stirring strong emotions inside their heart. There were moments I kept the book aside as I felt exhausted, from continuously watching characters suffer and also the moments when I longed to jump inside the story to soothe their mind with comforting words and a reassuring hug. Albeit, being such a novel, it had me hooked and found myself impatient for knowing the rest of the story. The protagonist, Meera has taught me to stay bold and poised, even when in distress and fight courageously for a life, I yearn to live. Lessons in Forgetting is a book that will stay with me forever, without a doubt. An amazing book, in short.

[Moushine Zahr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first novel I read from Indian author Anita Nair. This novel, set in modern and contemporary Bengalore in India, follows simultaneously and in parallel the stories of its two main characters whose lives are turned upside down and will meet by coincidence. The novel falls in the category of social drama with a little suspense.

The leading female character is Mira, an author with one sucessful book and housewife, who sees her life entirely disrupted after her husband divorces her unexpectedly causing her to seek new ways to find herself and cope with the damages alone. The leading male character is Professur JAK, a divorced Indian-American, who returned to India to take care of his teenage daugther who suffered a terrible accident leaving her in a coma and to try to discover what happened to her. These two characters with different lives and background have seen their lives turned upisde down as if went through a hurricane and unsure what lies ahead of them.

The novel is well written with characters well developed and with flaws. Even if the story is set in India and has of course many specificities to Indian context, readers from across the world can connect to both leading characters and relate to their stories, which could have happened anywhere in the world. The stories unfold as expected from the beginning as there are no major surprises. The originality of this novel doesn't lie within the two major stories, but within the comparaisons of the stories with greek mythology and hurricanes.

[Cmorice · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Un roman qui est comme un dîner raffiné, dont on savoure longuement chaque bouchée pour rester à table un peu plus longtemps."
India Today

Renouant avec la veine à la fois sensuelle et engagée de Compartiment pour dames, la romancière Indienne Anita Nair nous plonge dans l’Inde d’aujourd’hui, dont chacun des personnages exprime les multiples facettes et paradoxes.
Auteur de livres à succès, Meera, la quarantaine, doit avant tout son statut social à son mariage avec Giri, cadre dirigeant d’une multinationale. Lorsqu’il la quitte brutalement, elle assure seule la survie matérielle de sa famille – ses enfants, mais aussi sa mère et sa grand-mère –, et prend peu à peu conscience du carcan dans lequel l’avait enfermé son rôle d’épouse exemplaire. Sa route rencontre celle du Pr. J. A. Krishnamurty, alias JAK, climatologue expert en cyclones, dont la fille de dix-neuf ans végète dans le coma après avoir été sauvagement attaquée sur une plage. Un voile de silence et de peur entoure l’agression de cette jeune militante féministe, que la police ne peut – ou ne veut – élucider. Les destinées de Meera et JAK se confondent alors. D’une manière aussi fougueuse et inéluctable que la venue d’un cyclone.

[Reema Nath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through school and college we struggle to remember our lessons and then as the memories accumulate over the years, we need lessons to forget.
The main protagonists of this book are at that stage of life where memories have begun to hurt, the present had begun to unravel, and they need to cobble together a future out of this wreckage.
We meet two families, Meera’s and Jak’s which are both hit by different storms. Meera is a ‘corporate wife’ with a valuable old house. Jak is a climate scientist, fascinated with storms, and there are a lot of them in the story. Meera’s world is blown apart by a gust of wind when her husband walks out of the marriage and all his responsibilities and she scrambles to hold together what is left of her life. Jak’s marriage had already lost its wind and then he is hit by another cyclone as his teenage daughter is attacked brutally and left paralyzed.
The plot takes us deeper into their lives as they try to make sense of what time has done, search for their closure in their way and then find hope. The story takes us from the gracious old Bangalore houses to a remote coastal village in Tamil Nadu and you can almost hear the fury of the storm as the sub-plots unfold.

[Poonam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was both elated and surprised that we made a movie based on local fiction. I have never watched the movie but I have like Anita Nair's past work, so resolved the read the book.

Finally after the book had lied on my shelf for couple of years, I picked it up. Strangely, I finished reading it in a single sitting. Strange because it is not one of those fast reads.

Meera, who lives in a lavish house, has always been an epitome of old money to her husband. One day when he doesn't come home, she tries to pick her life. She runs into Professor J. A. Krishnamurthy or Jak. Jak has an interesting story; he has come from US to piece together the truth behind what happened to his 19-year old daughter, Smriti, who lies in his house, deformed and incoherent.

The subplot of Smriti was most interesting to me. The writing recreated a small-town village of India where convention and corruption both are rife. There is a wall of silence and threat looms close by. The mystery reveals a befitting subject. Just was this stark portrayal of small town and perceptions of morality, one should read this book.

[Lester · Rating 4 out of 5]

During a nonchalant start at an upper middle-class wine reception in Bangalore, Anita Nair immediately immerses us in the world of yuppie Bangalore, mainly through Meera. She is educated and a suburban housewife, who has nevertheless left further studies and traces of self-worth for the Bollywood expectation of prince charming. But within a few pages, Meera's world is suddenly thrown into chaos when her husband simply does not come home. Interspersed with the story of Professor Jak, who helps the reader unravel the mystery as to what happened to his traumatised daughter, this book is beautifully written, eye-opening, and thoroughly engaging.

Nair has a handful of characters which she focuses on, and the reader is taken from one point of vies to another throughout the book, a great tool used to make us understand the character's prejudices, expectations and (conflicting) interpretations of the slightest gesture.

The language is captivating, a twist in the story which I was not expecting was very enjoyable, and I am looking forward to reading more from Ms. Nair.

[Madhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book well written, though I did not relate to some characters. I was a bit disappointed that Jak one of the lead character took no decisive action especially - after taking so much pains to uncover the past he does nothing about it.
For the first time in a long while - I found a book un-put-down-able.
I have to say that it is so easy to see things the way Anita Nair has written. Ms. Nair has also got right descriptions about South India - especially the marital circumstances a few generations ago.
I think it's one of the most important things a book has to get right - seeing things from the characters' perspective. I could easily imagine Meera and JAK - how they would react and how their characteristics came into being. Kudos for giving me great read!

[Anjali Raghuvanshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

lessons in forgetting in so many ways feels like a book written for making a movie.
Protagonist's struggle in this book to forget their painful pasts, find solace in future and the world that is moving around them. The book nicely portrays the view indian society has on women. There are women in certain parts breaking the shackles of society and then women penalised for having a girl child.
The books plus point is the sense of purpose it will fill you up with and that you are here to do more than just live your life in the shadow of your partner.
I did find it clichéd here and there reminding me of a bolly movie. Overall an average read if you have time off your hand and need a break between serious reading.

[Pamela Mathur · Rating 2 out of 5]

A father is on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the tragedy that has befallen his daughter; a woman seeks to forge a new identity after being abandoned by her husband. The book follows the journey of these two protagonists as they move towards their respective goals. I found the novel somewhat fragmented; the two overlapping stories did not not make quite the impression as the author's previous offering "Ladies Coupe". It is an okay read in my opinion.

[Anusha Phukan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book which explains the turmoil and pain each woman go through. May it be the dismissing nature of one's children, trying to live upto your partner's expectations and failing, knowing where to draw the line or, even, why. It flings the harsh truth to your face. Accept it or be in denial forever. It's your wish. It's your life.