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Saraswati Park
A tremendous first novel from an exciting young author. Feted for its electric chaos, the city of Bombay also accommodates pockets of calm. In one such enclave, Mohan, a middle-aged letter writer - the last of a dying profession - sits under a banyan tree in Fort, furnishing missives for village migrants, disenchanted lovers, and when pickings are slim, filling in money order forms. But Mohan's true passion is collecting second-hand books; he's particularly attached to novels with marginal annotations. So when the pavement booksellers of Fort are summarily evicted, Mohan's life starts to lose some of its animating lustre. At this tenuous moment Mohan - and his wife, Lakshmi - are joined in Saraswati Park, a suburban housing colony, by their nephew, Ashish, a diffident, sexually uncertain 19-year-old who has to repeat his final year in college. As Saraswati Park unfolds, the lives of each of the three characters are thrown into sharp relief by the comical frustrations of family annoying relatives, unspoken yearnings and unheard grievances. When Lakshmi loses her only brother, she leaves Bombay for a relative's home to mourn not only the death of a sibling but also the vital force of her marriage. Ashish, meanwhile, embarks on an affair with a much richer boy in his college; it ends abruptly. Not long afterwards, he succumbs to the overtures of his English tutor, Narayan. As Mohan scribbles away in the sort of books he secretly hopes to write one day, he worries about whether his wife will return, what will become of Ashish's life, and if he himself will ever find his own voice to write from the margins about the centre of which he will never be a part. Elliptical and enigmatic, but beautifully rendered and wonderfully involving, Saraswati Park is a book about love and loss and the noise in our heads - and how, in spite of everything, life, both lived and imagined, continues.
262 pages, Paperback
First published July 8, 2010
32 people are currently reading
816 people want to read
About the author
Anjali Joseph
9 books42 followersAnjali Joseph was born in Bombay in 1978. She read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, and has taught English at the Sorbonne. More recently she has written for the Times of India in Bombay and been a Commissioning Editor for ELLE (India). She graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia with distinction in 2008. Saraswati Park is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
November 18, 2020
3.5 stars. I really enjoyed reading this book but there isn’t much substance to it. In an interview with the author at the end of my edition, she says she wanted to write about ”the interplay between the apparently exterior world of physical place and setting (Bombay suburb), and the inner world of feelings, memories and thoughts.”. Is this an original concept? Definitely not. Does she write in a way that allows us to engage with the interior worlds of the characters? Yes. Not with all of them but definitely with Mohan and Ashish, uncle and nephew respectively. Does she describe the physical world well? Definitely and her love for Bombay, her birthplace, is evident throughout.
Mohan and his wife, Lakshmi, host their nephew, Ashish, while he repeats his final year at university. Ashish is more interested in exploring his homosexuality than he is in studying, hence the repeated year, and much of the novel centres around his development both as a gay man and as an adult. Like many gay people, he is both tortured and excited by his secret life and is treated badly in relationships, partly due to his lack of experience and partly due to his needy nature. Lakshmi and Mohan have settled into late middle age, their children having all left home, but they have also grown apart. Mohan is emotionally immature, despite being 59 years old! He struggles to recognise that the problem may lie with his lack of interest in anything much outside of his own world. Lakshmi’s solution is to move away to help care for an ill cousin for a while.
I found I really did care about the characters in the book. The Bombay setting (always Bombay, never Mumbai) is described multi dimensionally so that we’re aware of the sounds, smells, heat and generally frenzy and I very much enjoyed that. A good book but not a great one.
Mohan and his wife, Lakshmi, host their nephew, Ashish, while he repeats his final year at university. Ashish is more interested in exploring his homosexuality than he is in studying, hence the repeated year, and much of the novel centres around his development both as a gay man and as an adult. Like many gay people, he is both tortured and excited by his secret life and is treated badly in relationships, partly due to his lack of experience and partly due to his needy nature. Lakshmi and Mohan have settled into late middle age, their children having all left home, but they have also grown apart. Mohan is emotionally immature, despite being 59 years old! He struggles to recognise that the problem may lie with his lack of interest in anything much outside of his own world. Lakshmi’s solution is to move away to help care for an ill cousin for a while.
I found I really did care about the characters in the book. The Bombay setting (always Bombay, never Mumbai) is described multi dimensionally so that we’re aware of the sounds, smells, heat and generally frenzy and I very much enjoyed that. A good book but not a great one.
March 7, 2019
Anjali Joseph sure can write. Hell yeah, she can write damn well. But that isn't much of a consolation when you have your mind constantly weighed down by the burdensome descriptions that leave the narration tardy at arriving at the actual plot.
.
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Based in present-day Mumbai, Mohan is a letter-writer, content but unhappy. Lakshmi, his wife, is a homemaker, tired of that title. When Lakshmi's nephew, Ashish, arrives to stay with them, they both grab the opportunity as a chance to fill the voids between them, left by time. But Ashish has his own share of trials, and sooner or later, he is going to have to learn to get over them and find a life for himself.
.
.
This book was recommended to me by a friend when I asked for books on history of Mumbai. There's plenty of references of some of the suburbs and some lesser-glamorous parts of one of the zaniest cities the world has known - Mumbai. But that's that. One can't really consider to get anything from it if you are really looking to skim through Mumbai's history.
.
.
It could pass for a three but only for the writing, for the author clearly has a penchant to write trivial and substantial aspects such as the train journeys Mohan takes, the with a precise pen for better comprehension. But in the end you ask yourself, what was the point of it all? And you yourself find answering it, Nothing.
.
.
Some books drive you in, neck deep, into the sentiment that prevails across its pages. It's a tedious chore the life Mohan and Lakshmi lead, and then a emotional chore for Ashish. Perhaps, that's why the reading itself felt like a taxing chore.
.
.
Based in present-day Mumbai, Mohan is a letter-writer, content but unhappy. Lakshmi, his wife, is a homemaker, tired of that title. When Lakshmi's nephew, Ashish, arrives to stay with them, they both grab the opportunity as a chance to fill the voids between them, left by time. But Ashish has his own share of trials, and sooner or later, he is going to have to learn to get over them and find a life for himself.
.
.
This book was recommended to me by a friend when I asked for books on history of Mumbai. There's plenty of references of some of the suburbs and some lesser-glamorous parts of one of the zaniest cities the world has known - Mumbai. But that's that. One can't really consider to get anything from it if you are really looking to skim through Mumbai's history.
.
.
It could pass for a three but only for the writing, for the author clearly has a penchant to write trivial and substantial aspects such as the train journeys Mohan takes, the with a precise pen for better comprehension. But in the end you ask yourself, what was the point of it all? And you yourself find answering it, Nothing.
.
.
Some books drive you in, neck deep, into the sentiment that prevails across its pages. It's a tedious chore the life Mohan and Lakshmi lead, and then a emotional chore for Ashish. Perhaps, that's why the reading itself felt like a taxing chore.
February 7, 2017
A fine novel with well-written characters. I loved the Mumbai the writer has created. The middle-class middle-aged couple Mohan and Lakshmi are so real that you feel you have known them all your life and start worrying about their problems like you would for your relatives. Especially endearing is Mohan’s love for books and his introspective nature. The boy Ashish, sensitive and intelligent wins you over with his vulnerabilities. Even the smaller characters like Satish, Narayan, Mayank, Madhavi, Khan would stay with you.
This is the first book I read by this author and I am well impressed.
Highly recommend.
This is the first book I read by this author and I am well impressed.
Highly recommend.
December 16, 2014
It was an enjoyable read . I love such languid, easy paced , middle class Indian existence of ordinary people -their hopes, disappointments , desires, achievements , frienships, insecurities etc. Te story revolves around Mohan - small time letter writer (an obscure occupation ) with a secret desire to be a writer, his wife Lakshmi and his nephew Ashish who is forced to stay with them to complete his education .
Ashish has a secret to hide and Mohan fears that his wife is slowly but steadily drifting apart from him. There is Madhavi , a bubbly , intelligent , neighbour who befriends Ashish , and Sunder and Narayan two greyish characters.
I relished Mumbai , it's streets, it's crowd and furore; overall enjoyed peeping into Ashish and co.s lives.
Ashish has a secret to hide and Mohan fears that his wife is slowly but steadily drifting apart from him. There is Madhavi , a bubbly , intelligent , neighbour who befriends Ashish , and Sunder and Narayan two greyish characters.
I relished Mumbai , it's streets, it's crowd and furore; overall enjoyed peeping into Ashish and co.s lives.
April 22, 2012
It took me a few tries to get into this book, and only by plowing through the first six chapters or so did I finally start to find myself interested in the characters enough that reading became less of a chore. It was around that mark, too, that I finally understood that this was really just meant to unfold like a parlor drama on public television; it's just a little story of a few unremarkable middle-class lives in modern Mumbai. Its emotional impact is probably greater the closer one knows that city and the subtleties of life there, as it's full of endless mentions of the trains going between the named suburbs and neighborhoods, and the sights, sounds, smells, and weather that one experiences there. For someone like me not at all familiar with it, I just went along taking it as a semi-authoritative fictionalized documentary of life there.
The author does have a great grasp of language and is good at using it to bring alive the striking internal dialogues of the characters, as well as painting subtle and effusive pictures of those aforementioned sights. It's these parts of the book that stand out, with the character interactions and languid story, such as it is, being the downsides. The end result for me, then, was this was a mixed bag, but one that shows a lot of promise for the author.
The author does have a great grasp of language and is good at using it to bring alive the striking internal dialogues of the characters, as well as painting subtle and effusive pictures of those aforementioned sights. It's these parts of the book that stand out, with the character interactions and languid story, such as it is, being the downsides. The end result for me, then, was this was a mixed bag, but one that shows a lot of promise for the author.
February 23, 2022
the best english novel from south asia that I've read in a long, long time
April 7, 2020
I travelled to Mumbai (once known as Bombay) on a cruise last November, and have been eager to read more books set in the city - and, indeed, within the whole of India - ever since. I therefore requested Anjali Joseph's debut novel, Saraswati Park, from my local library, and settled down with it immediately.
Although it seems underread, with less than 100 reviews and just 600 readers on Goodreads, the novel was well received upon its publication in 2010, and won both the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction and the Betty Trask Prize. The Guardian writes that this 'subtle novel is infused with multiple regrets. How true to life it seems...', and The Times calls Joseph 'a latter-day Mrs Gaskell'. The Literary Review takes a wider view, noting that the author 'perfectly articulates a growing sense of alienation as the old, socially fractured - yet transparent - India is superseded by modern democracy.'
The protagonists of Saraswati Park are married couple Lakshmi and Mohan Karekar, who live in the quiet suburb of Saraswati Park in Bombay. Mohan works as a letter writer, and Lakshmi is, to all intents and purposes, a housewife. They are settled, with their children grown and living elsewhere. When Mohan's young nephew, Ashish, comes to stay with them, however, the lives of all three are changed. Ashish is 'an uncertain 19-year-old', who is coming to terms with his homosexuality, and is struggling to make sense of himself. Within the family, tensions begin to grow, and Mohan and Lakshmi 'start to question the quiet rhythm of their lives - and discontents, left unspoken for many years, begin to break the surface.'
The sense of place which Joseph has created here is wonderful. From the outset, one can feel the constant buzz and heat of Bombay, and the always moving stream of people which fills its streets and alleyways. The novel is also highly evocative of its characters; we are aware of Mohan and Lakshmi, their motivations, and their relationship with one another from very early on. Ashish, too, is presented as a daydreamer, rather vague and unable to stick to one path. We learn about the past lives of each of the characters in turn, which gives them more solidity. Their interactions with one another have been shrewdly imagined, and just as much importance is given to what is unsaid. One gets the sense that Joseph really sees her characters.
Joseph makes one continually aware of old and new Bombay, and the sense of tradition and change within the city. She writes, for instance: 'A hundred and fifty years earlier this had been the beach, before the land reclamations; perhaps it was the murmur of the waves one heard on the busiest of days, through the endless talking... and the rumble of the red buses, the taxi horns, the metallic steps of each person hurrying through the Fort.' The contrasts between rich and poor are, as one might expect, apparent throughout.
I love character-focused novels, and fiction set in India is a real favourite of mine. It is therefore difficult to imagine how I would not enjoy Joseph's novel. Although parts of Saraswati Park are really quite slow, the overall novel is a delight to read. The exploration of Ashish's sexuality is one of the best handled elements in the entire book. Saraswati Park is a lovely piece of escapist fiction and, with the rich picture Joseph creates of life in modern India, it would be the perfect choice for the even the most discerning armchair traveller.
Although it seems underread, with less than 100 reviews and just 600 readers on Goodreads, the novel was well received upon its publication in 2010, and won both the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction and the Betty Trask Prize. The Guardian writes that this 'subtle novel is infused with multiple regrets. How true to life it seems...', and The Times calls Joseph 'a latter-day Mrs Gaskell'. The Literary Review takes a wider view, noting that the author 'perfectly articulates a growing sense of alienation as the old, socially fractured - yet transparent - India is superseded by modern democracy.'
The protagonists of Saraswati Park are married couple Lakshmi and Mohan Karekar, who live in the quiet suburb of Saraswati Park in Bombay. Mohan works as a letter writer, and Lakshmi is, to all intents and purposes, a housewife. They are settled, with their children grown and living elsewhere. When Mohan's young nephew, Ashish, comes to stay with them, however, the lives of all three are changed. Ashish is 'an uncertain 19-year-old', who is coming to terms with his homosexuality, and is struggling to make sense of himself. Within the family, tensions begin to grow, and Mohan and Lakshmi 'start to question the quiet rhythm of their lives - and discontents, left unspoken for many years, begin to break the surface.'
The sense of place which Joseph has created here is wonderful. From the outset, one can feel the constant buzz and heat of Bombay, and the always moving stream of people which fills its streets and alleyways. The novel is also highly evocative of its characters; we are aware of Mohan and Lakshmi, their motivations, and their relationship with one another from very early on. Ashish, too, is presented as a daydreamer, rather vague and unable to stick to one path. We learn about the past lives of each of the characters in turn, which gives them more solidity. Their interactions with one another have been shrewdly imagined, and just as much importance is given to what is unsaid. One gets the sense that Joseph really sees her characters.
Joseph makes one continually aware of old and new Bombay, and the sense of tradition and change within the city. She writes, for instance: 'A hundred and fifty years earlier this had been the beach, before the land reclamations; perhaps it was the murmur of the waves one heard on the busiest of days, through the endless talking... and the rumble of the red buses, the taxi horns, the metallic steps of each person hurrying through the Fort.' The contrasts between rich and poor are, as one might expect, apparent throughout.
I love character-focused novels, and fiction set in India is a real favourite of mine. It is therefore difficult to imagine how I would not enjoy Joseph's novel. Although parts of Saraswati Park are really quite slow, the overall novel is a delight to read. The exploration of Ashish's sexuality is one of the best handled elements in the entire book. Saraswati Park is a lovely piece of escapist fiction and, with the rich picture Joseph creates of life in modern India, it would be the perfect choice for the even the most discerning armchair traveller.
August 29, 2011
Saraswati Park is the story of Mahesh. A letter writer by profession, his life is bound by a set routine which includes waking up early, making tea for him & wife, getting ready, taking the local for V.T. etc. He derives small pleasure by visiting the street vendors who sell 2nd hand books at Fountain area. He is passionate about collecting 2nd hand books, a habit which irritates his wife Lakshmi. He is shocked out his reverie when the street vendors are thrown out by the municipality but before he could mull over the loss there are much bigger changes waiting to happen in his life.
Mohan & Lakshmi are joined by his nephew. With his parents moving out to another city, Ashish moves in with his uncle & aunt to finish off his final year graduation. He comes with a package. Confused about his sexuality Ashish gets into a relationship with his class mate only to be dumped later. He gets into another relationship but doesn’t know what the future holds for him.
Amidst all the happenings Lakshmi loses her brother & before she could get over the mourning she gets the news of the illness of her other brother. She departs in a hurry only to not to return for months.
Will Mohan find his true calling?
Will Ashish find a way in his life?
What happened between Mohan & Lakshmi that made her stay away for a long time?
Will Lakshmi ever return?
Read the book to know more.
My Verdict
Now, this is a book which I will call “my kind of book”; a book which delves into relationships, people, emotions, day to day life, treats the city as a character and comes out to be something which is very relatable.
Written in subtle tone, the book moves with a gentle pace but never loses the grip on the reader. For me a good fiction is something with which one can relate to and I could relate to the book because the places were familiar and so was Mohan’s passion for books. The portions where the author describes the daily routine of Lakshmi, a housewife had something charming to it, charming because it made me yearn for a life like her. I wish I could quit, stay at home & just tend to the house. I wish!
Then there is Ashish who loses himself into a relationship only to come out as a survivor and a better person. The author handles the emotions very well, there is nothing over the top about the whole affair, and things are as they are in normal life without the useless loud drama. I fell in love with the portions where Ashish interacts with his uncle. The way he guides him into finding his true calling in life was beautiful.
I could go on & on about what works for the book but I would rather recommend it to you. Surely worth a read for people who love to read books which are rich in emotions.
My rating 4/5
The book has already brought two literary awards for the debutant author Anjali Joseph. She has won The Betty Trask Award & The Desmond Elliot Prize and is nominated for the Vodafone Crossword Book Awards in the Best English Fiction Category.
The Vodafone Crossword Book Award is one of the most prestigious and a popular literary prize in India that not only recognizes and rewards the best of Indian writing but also actively promotes the authors and their books.
The awards are being held on 2nd September at NCPA, click here to read the invitee and here to know more about the awards.
Mohan & Lakshmi are joined by his nephew. With his parents moving out to another city, Ashish moves in with his uncle & aunt to finish off his final year graduation. He comes with a package. Confused about his sexuality Ashish gets into a relationship with his class mate only to be dumped later. He gets into another relationship but doesn’t know what the future holds for him.
Amidst all the happenings Lakshmi loses her brother & before she could get over the mourning she gets the news of the illness of her other brother. She departs in a hurry only to not to return for months.
Will Mohan find his true calling?
Will Ashish find a way in his life?
What happened between Mohan & Lakshmi that made her stay away for a long time?
Will Lakshmi ever return?
Read the book to know more.
My Verdict
Now, this is a book which I will call “my kind of book”; a book which delves into relationships, people, emotions, day to day life, treats the city as a character and comes out to be something which is very relatable.
Written in subtle tone, the book moves with a gentle pace but never loses the grip on the reader. For me a good fiction is something with which one can relate to and I could relate to the book because the places were familiar and so was Mohan’s passion for books. The portions where the author describes the daily routine of Lakshmi, a housewife had something charming to it, charming because it made me yearn for a life like her. I wish I could quit, stay at home & just tend to the house. I wish!
Then there is Ashish who loses himself into a relationship only to come out as a survivor and a better person. The author handles the emotions very well, there is nothing over the top about the whole affair, and things are as they are in normal life without the useless loud drama. I fell in love with the portions where Ashish interacts with his uncle. The way he guides him into finding his true calling in life was beautiful.
I could go on & on about what works for the book but I would rather recommend it to you. Surely worth a read for people who love to read books which are rich in emotions.
My rating 4/5
The book has already brought two literary awards for the debutant author Anjali Joseph. She has won The Betty Trask Award & The Desmond Elliot Prize and is nominated for the Vodafone Crossword Book Awards in the Best English Fiction Category.
The Vodafone Crossword Book Award is one of the most prestigious and a popular literary prize in India that not only recognizes and rewards the best of Indian writing but also actively promotes the authors and their books.
The awards are being held on 2nd September at NCPA, click here to read the invitee and here to know more about the awards.
January 31, 2016
Saraswati Park is a warm, beautiful and simple book that is as much a post card of Bombay life as it is of the new middle class. The book is set with normal people dealing with ennui of life, burden of buried aspirations and want of love.
Mohan and Lakshmi are the middle aged couple who have completed their duty to their children and endure the burden of routine. Mohan's world of second hand books, wish to write, and the dying occupation of letter writing is filled with silences and words unsaid. Lakshmi, carrying her unsaid frustrations of a housewife, is slowly slipping away.
Enter Ashish, Mohan's nephew. Ashish is a confused 19 year old battling his (socially unaccepted) urges and trying to find love, friendship and companionship and make something out of his life. The other characters like Satish, Narayanan, Madhavi have a distinct voice.
The 3 main characters are portrayed beautifully and the 1 year happenings connect with the reader. The simplicity of the prose is a plus but manages to paint a beautiful picture. The book also works for the lovers of Bombay (not Mumbai). There are many aspects which the reader is able to connect with the characters.
This book is a fine accomplishment! Enjoyed the reading experience.
Mohan and Lakshmi are the middle aged couple who have completed their duty to their children and endure the burden of routine. Mohan's world of second hand books, wish to write, and the dying occupation of letter writing is filled with silences and words unsaid. Lakshmi, carrying her unsaid frustrations of a housewife, is slowly slipping away.
Enter Ashish, Mohan's nephew. Ashish is a confused 19 year old battling his (socially unaccepted) urges and trying to find love, friendship and companionship and make something out of his life. The other characters like Satish, Narayanan, Madhavi have a distinct voice.
The 3 main characters are portrayed beautifully and the 1 year happenings connect with the reader. The simplicity of the prose is a plus but manages to paint a beautiful picture. The book also works for the lovers of Bombay (not Mumbai). There are many aspects which the reader is able to connect with the characters.
This book is a fine accomplishment! Enjoyed the reading experience.
October 28, 2014
Ever wondered the role of Middle class in fiction. Who wants to read about an ordinary person with ordinary life. Everyone wants to read about the rich who have scandales or insufficiences in so seemingly perfect life or the poor who have challenges and struggles in their daily life.
Quote:
The Building was like the people living in it.. middle class to its core.. Improvement or Failure – incapable of either extremity..
To read more, visit the link here: http://storywala.blogspot.in/2012/10/...
Quote:
The Building was like the people living in it.. middle class to its core.. Improvement or Failure – incapable of either extremity..
To read more, visit the link here: http://storywala.blogspot.in/2012/10/...
June 19, 2012
A gentle read, never too taxing. A story about a disruption within a family, but you never really feel like the events that cause the disruption are worthy of a novel.
I got to the end of the book and thought to myself "Nothing really happened." I don't think I'd be rushing to pass it around to my friends, but it was a nice way to pass some time.
I got to the end of the book and thought to myself "Nothing really happened." I don't think I'd be rushing to pass it around to my friends, but it was a nice way to pass some time.
July 17, 2019
This is a slow moving story around an almost 60 year old letter writer in Bombay, his bored housebound wife and their nephew who arrives to continue his studies. There's not much of a plot but the book does provide a tiny insight into life for some in modern India. The writing is excellent although I found the male characters to be a little dull and hogged the pages.
May 22, 2016
I've read this over the weekend. It was fast and simple. I didn't expect the male on male romance, which the synopsis does a great job of concealing. The premise takes place during the monsoon season in India, and it follows a middle-class Indian boy who is flunking college. He is sent to live with his uncle and aunt to get put on the right track. While there, he falls into an unrequited romance with his male tutor. This was a quiet read. Not much goes on. The protagonist, Ashish, spends most of his time mulling over past affairs with his ex. I found his character passive and aloof. The author's writing was meh. But it was pretty obvious that the author was writing from a personal experience. The themes that reoccurs in this story are: family, self-identity, death, and love. I wouldn't say this is a Must Read. But if you are looking for a gay romance set in India. I say read it. 2.5 rating.
March 8, 2017
Loved loved loved this book. There must be something in the water as I have never read a book by a South Asian writer I haven't loved. Having said that, this was special. Set in a middle class area of Bombay where everything and nothing happens, this is a story of the things we never say to each other, of unrequited love and longings as well as a depiction of the unfulfilled dreams and desires of all of us. Mohan is a middle-aged man who wants to be a writer. His long suffering wife finally reaches her breaking point just as their gay nephew arrives to stay with them. Set among the owls and car alarms of modern India where everyone has a cell phone but children still labour all day or sell themselves for a meal it is the sense of place that captures us as well as the hopes and dreams of ordinary people.
February 19, 2019
This review is also published at: https://bengalurureview.com/2019/02/0...
Saraswati Park was the impressive, prize-laden debut novel of Anjali Joseph and it packs a quiet punch. Set in a Mumbai suburb, it follows a phase in the life of an elderly couple, Mohan and Lakshmi, and their nephew, Ashish, who comes to live with them while he repeats his final year in college.
Mohan is part of a dying breed of professional ‘letter-writers’ and spends his days with a few colleagues, near VT station, as they prepare letters and applications for the myriad customers who approach them, most of whom live on the fringes of society. He once harbored ambitions of being a writer and publishing something substantial but now lives his days in a subtle sense of resignation to life’s limits. His wife Lakshmi is a home-maker, who has settled into a daily routine of household chores and select TV soaps.
Into this quiet idyll their lives have settled into, comes Mohan’s nephew Ashish, for whom circumstances have left him needing to repeat his last year of college and whose parents have to travel out of town leaving him behind. Ashish, a moody and confused (yet likeable enough) young man, does not dramatically alter the aged couple’s daily equation but, combined with a series of other events, eventually lead them to question and introspect their life together and its pent up resentments.
There is a strong sense of Mumbai, the city and its middle class world, in this book. Numerous references abound to its local train culture and various stations as well as the curiously super-functional nature of life for its inhabitants who usually build their life around their commute schedules. Mohan and Lakshmi are a typical middle class couple of the city who have settled into their humdrum and strictly routine retired life. There are passing references to their grown up kids but nothing beyond the perfunctory. More attention is given to another similar character, Satish, who is Lakshmi’s unmarried brother and who is also stuck in his own rut in life. It’s the kind of life which moves forward without much upheaval or expressed angst until an event or circumstance tests its foundations.
One of these circumstances, which the book spends a fair bit of time on, is Ashish’s arrival into their domestic certitude. Ashish has problems of his own, which include growing pains about his sexuality and his furtive, unsatisfactory affairs. He is portrayed as sensitive and caring towards his uncle and aunt and the interactions between them speak of an inherent honesty in its realistic and toned down portrayal of everyday life. The affairs he delves into may appear a tad enforced at times owing to the coincidences involved, but it does provide an integral marker in his changing disposition to the city and his life there.
Another incident in the book, the death of one of the character’s, is probably the only time the book bursts into an urgent vigor in its description and it is handled remarkably well. The resulting estrangement between Mohan and Lakshmi is, like the rest of the story, a slow burning imposition on the reader rather than one of dramatic license. The culmination of the character arcs and the story is subtle and yet quite impactful on our psyche with its endearing platitudes to places and homes left behind while we contemplate life away from them. Ashish realizes the simple truth that it is when one realizes that it is time to leave that one misses a place or a home the most. But go we must, for otherwise, how can we ever really understand the worth of what we had?
I’ve used the word a few times already here, but ‘quiet’ is the perfect word to describe the storytelling style. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be much going on. If you favor the dramatic in your stories, this may not be the book for you. Also, there is a good chance that those of us familiar with the organized and wondrous chaos that Mumbai (or more specifically ‘Bombay’ here) can be, will find this book, with its numerous references to the city’s various sites, more appealing and easier to relate to. However, the ease and comfort with which this book delves into the lives of these seemingly ordinary people speaks a universal language that can be sampled by readers everywhere. This is not a very strenuous read, which, maybe, is its biggest accomplishment.
Saraswati Park was the impressive, prize-laden debut novel of Anjali Joseph and it packs a quiet punch. Set in a Mumbai suburb, it follows a phase in the life of an elderly couple, Mohan and Lakshmi, and their nephew, Ashish, who comes to live with them while he repeats his final year in college.
Mohan is part of a dying breed of professional ‘letter-writers’ and spends his days with a few colleagues, near VT station, as they prepare letters and applications for the myriad customers who approach them, most of whom live on the fringes of society. He once harbored ambitions of being a writer and publishing something substantial but now lives his days in a subtle sense of resignation to life’s limits. His wife Lakshmi is a home-maker, who has settled into a daily routine of household chores and select TV soaps.
Into this quiet idyll their lives have settled into, comes Mohan’s nephew Ashish, for whom circumstances have left him needing to repeat his last year of college and whose parents have to travel out of town leaving him behind. Ashish, a moody and confused (yet likeable enough) young man, does not dramatically alter the aged couple’s daily equation but, combined with a series of other events, eventually lead them to question and introspect their life together and its pent up resentments.
There is a strong sense of Mumbai, the city and its middle class world, in this book. Numerous references abound to its local train culture and various stations as well as the curiously super-functional nature of life for its inhabitants who usually build their life around their commute schedules. Mohan and Lakshmi are a typical middle class couple of the city who have settled into their humdrum and strictly routine retired life. There are passing references to their grown up kids but nothing beyond the perfunctory. More attention is given to another similar character, Satish, who is Lakshmi’s unmarried brother and who is also stuck in his own rut in life. It’s the kind of life which moves forward without much upheaval or expressed angst until an event or circumstance tests its foundations.
One of these circumstances, which the book spends a fair bit of time on, is Ashish’s arrival into their domestic certitude. Ashish has problems of his own, which include growing pains about his sexuality and his furtive, unsatisfactory affairs. He is portrayed as sensitive and caring towards his uncle and aunt and the interactions between them speak of an inherent honesty in its realistic and toned down portrayal of everyday life. The affairs he delves into may appear a tad enforced at times owing to the coincidences involved, but it does provide an integral marker in his changing disposition to the city and his life there.
Another incident in the book, the death of one of the character’s, is probably the only time the book bursts into an urgent vigor in its description and it is handled remarkably well. The resulting estrangement between Mohan and Lakshmi is, like the rest of the story, a slow burning imposition on the reader rather than one of dramatic license. The culmination of the character arcs and the story is subtle and yet quite impactful on our psyche with its endearing platitudes to places and homes left behind while we contemplate life away from them. Ashish realizes the simple truth that it is when one realizes that it is time to leave that one misses a place or a home the most. But go we must, for otherwise, how can we ever really understand the worth of what we had?
I’ve used the word a few times already here, but ‘quiet’ is the perfect word to describe the storytelling style. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be much going on. If you favor the dramatic in your stories, this may not be the book for you. Also, there is a good chance that those of us familiar with the organized and wondrous chaos that Mumbai (or more specifically ‘Bombay’ here) can be, will find this book, with its numerous references to the city’s various sites, more appealing and easier to relate to. However, the ease and comfort with which this book delves into the lives of these seemingly ordinary people speaks a universal language that can be sampled by readers everywhere. This is not a very strenuous read, which, maybe, is its biggest accomplishment.
February 9, 2016
Saraswati Park could be seen as a novel about how the exterior — a sharply-felt sense of place — informs and affects the emotions and ideas of our interior lives. And vice versa. The author is meticulous in describing each character's surroundings, so that we can actually smell what they smell, hear what they hear, and vividly see what they see. But at the same time she links these acutely-felt physical sensations to precise feelings and/or thoughts. The pleasureable result is that we keenly feel the sexual awakening and resulting confusion of the younger protagonist, and we empathize strongly with the late-mid-life-crisis bewilderment of his older uncle. Each of their developments is executed in a graceful, languorous style that is a joy to read, and ensures that their final transformations, when they suprisingly appear, are all the more gratifying. A truly enrapturing read.
January 30, 2011
Didn't like the writing, found it clumsy and stilted in its style.
May 8, 2012
A slow gentle book about a middle class family in Bombay. A very quiet book, but I like Indian novels, so enjoyed it.
November 8, 2012
very slow..............a bit too slow for my liking...was waiting for story to kick in...but didnt...but it was an ok read...a bit disappointed to be honest:(
Read
June 21, 2019In 'Saraswati Park', a fictitious middle-class suburb of Mumbai, live Mohan and Lakshmi, a couple whose children have grown up and flown the nest. Lakshmi is a housewife who seems to be losing her sense of purpose now that the kids are gone, taking her only enjoyment from her daily dose of the television soap operas. Mohan spends his days as a 'letter writer', sitting with others of his kind beside the entrance to the GPO, helping the illiterate to put together letters to relatives or to fill in application forms. It's a job from an earlier era and one that marks Mohan himself out as a man of an earlier time. He could have been so much more if his father had not forced him out of college and into work and this sense of lost opportunity gives Mohan a weary air of disappointment that colours his daily life. His passion – since every man with a dull job NEEDS a passion – is for literature. Mohan wants to be a writer and spends his free time combing through the bookstalls around the Flora Fountain and fine-tuning his drafts of short stories. Had he had the chance of more education, perhaps he too could have been a famous businessman like his old classmate Yezdi Sodawaterbottlewala.
Into the dull suburban life of the couple comes a much-needed injection of new blood. Whilst Mohan and Lakshmi have reached a point in their marriage where they're irritating each other even when trying to be kind and pleasant, the appearance of Mohan's nephew Ashish gives new meaning and interest to their lives. Ashish has failed his final year of school for poor attendance. He's not stupid – he just can't be bothered to go to classes. His parents need to move to another city for work and ask Mohan and Lakshmi if Ashish can stay with them whilst he repeats the year. Without graduating from school his options in life will be limited and Mohan, himself robbed of academic opportunity and happy for Lakshmi to have a focus in her life, agrees. Ashish moves in with them becomes friends with the girl downstairs and does his best to be a good lad. At school, Ashish is soon involved in a relationship that causes him great upset and subsequently gets into another relationship with a much older tutor to whom he's been sent to cram for his exams.
As a tale of sexual awakening, it's got a lot of potential but there's an angle which becomes apparent very early in the book but surprisingly isn't mentioned on the cover. I think it's fair to discuss it without risk of spoiling the story because it's revealed very early and forms perhaps the only unusual twist in what is otherwise a gentle tale of middle-class folk. Both the schoolboy crush and the relationship with his tutor are homosexual. The first is with a wealthy fellow pupil whose actions lead Ashish to realise why he's never been interested in girls. The latter relationship with the tutor is altogether more exploitative and more worrying. I don't ask a writer to have personal experience in order to write about sexuality - that's why some things are called 'fiction' after all. As a heterosexual woman writing about gay male relationships, I didn't 'buy' Anjali Joseph's treatment of young Ashish and his sexual adventures (or misadventures). It was like watching someone who's never been off dry land write about sea sickness and was decidedly superficial.
When reviewing Farahad Zama's book 'The Wedding Wallah', I commented that it was the first time I'd read a book set in India in which the gay character didn't get his 'comeuppance' for his sexuality. For a while, I wondered if Saraswati Park might also break the unwritten rules of Indian books that seem to insist that all gay relationships are doomed to be at best unhappy and at worst tragic though I'm not going to tell you how it works out, much as I'd like to.
Not all of the book makes sense; the unexpected good fortune which befalls Ashish towards the end of the book is convenient but hard to understand and never explained; the passages about owls and eagles seem to be going 'somewhere' but never quite arrive at the point. The growing separation between Mohan and Lakshmi is neither really explained nor explored but readers will be rooting for them to sort out their differences, if only because they're just not powerful enough characters to be able to keep their distance.
The cover of my edition tells me that the Daily Telegraph included Anjali Joseph on its list of "20 best British novelists under 40" which I found surprising. 'Saraswati Park' is a competent but not particularly memorable or outstanding novel. Then I realised that Indian-born but British-educated Miss Joseph is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's creative writing MA course. Graduates of the course get a lot of attention and it can't hurt that several lecturers seem to be on every awards panel ever pulled together these days. If the cover quote is to believed, the reviewer from The Times likened Anjali Joseph to a “latter-day Mrs Gaskell” and another review I've read suggests the story is Chekhovian. In each case, I'd take these as shorthand for a book that's rich in little details and observations but shallow in the actual scope of the story. Or to put it another way – not much happens. 'Saraswati Park' is simply an account of less than a year in the lives of three people, none of them exceptional or outstandingly interesting, each of them living side by side without their orbits really intersecting. It's the ordinariness of the characters that stays in your mind at the end of the book more than the events.
The writing is slick, the characters believable, but on the whole, there's just not enough happening between the covers to justify 260 pages of text. My bookshelves are filled with fabulous books about Mumbai – this book offers little competition.
Into the dull suburban life of the couple comes a much-needed injection of new blood. Whilst Mohan and Lakshmi have reached a point in their marriage where they're irritating each other even when trying to be kind and pleasant, the appearance of Mohan's nephew Ashish gives new meaning and interest to their lives. Ashish has failed his final year of school for poor attendance. He's not stupid – he just can't be bothered to go to classes. His parents need to move to another city for work and ask Mohan and Lakshmi if Ashish can stay with them whilst he repeats the year. Without graduating from school his options in life will be limited and Mohan, himself robbed of academic opportunity and happy for Lakshmi to have a focus in her life, agrees. Ashish moves in with them becomes friends with the girl downstairs and does his best to be a good lad. At school, Ashish is soon involved in a relationship that causes him great upset and subsequently gets into another relationship with a much older tutor to whom he's been sent to cram for his exams.
As a tale of sexual awakening, it's got a lot of potential but there's an angle which becomes apparent very early in the book but surprisingly isn't mentioned on the cover. I think it's fair to discuss it without risk of spoiling the story because it's revealed very early and forms perhaps the only unusual twist in what is otherwise a gentle tale of middle-class folk. Both the schoolboy crush and the relationship with his tutor are homosexual. The first is with a wealthy fellow pupil whose actions lead Ashish to realise why he's never been interested in girls. The latter relationship with the tutor is altogether more exploitative and more worrying. I don't ask a writer to have personal experience in order to write about sexuality - that's why some things are called 'fiction' after all. As a heterosexual woman writing about gay male relationships, I didn't 'buy' Anjali Joseph's treatment of young Ashish and his sexual adventures (or misadventures). It was like watching someone who's never been off dry land write about sea sickness and was decidedly superficial.
When reviewing Farahad Zama's book 'The Wedding Wallah', I commented that it was the first time I'd read a book set in India in which the gay character didn't get his 'comeuppance' for his sexuality. For a while, I wondered if Saraswati Park might also break the unwritten rules of Indian books that seem to insist that all gay relationships are doomed to be at best unhappy and at worst tragic though I'm not going to tell you how it works out, much as I'd like to.
Not all of the book makes sense; the unexpected good fortune which befalls Ashish towards the end of the book is convenient but hard to understand and never explained; the passages about owls and eagles seem to be going 'somewhere' but never quite arrive at the point. The growing separation between Mohan and Lakshmi is neither really explained nor explored but readers will be rooting for them to sort out their differences, if only because they're just not powerful enough characters to be able to keep their distance.
The cover of my edition tells me that the Daily Telegraph included Anjali Joseph on its list of "20 best British novelists under 40" which I found surprising. 'Saraswati Park' is a competent but not particularly memorable or outstanding novel. Then I realised that Indian-born but British-educated Miss Joseph is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's creative writing MA course. Graduates of the course get a lot of attention and it can't hurt that several lecturers seem to be on every awards panel ever pulled together these days. If the cover quote is to believed, the reviewer from The Times likened Anjali Joseph to a “latter-day Mrs Gaskell” and another review I've read suggests the story is Chekhovian. In each case, I'd take these as shorthand for a book that's rich in little details and observations but shallow in the actual scope of the story. Or to put it another way – not much happens. 'Saraswati Park' is simply an account of less than a year in the lives of three people, none of them exceptional or outstandingly interesting, each of them living side by side without their orbits really intersecting. It's the ordinariness of the characters that stays in your mind at the end of the book more than the events.
The writing is slick, the characters believable, but on the whole, there's just not enough happening between the covers to justify 260 pages of text. My bookshelves are filled with fabulous books about Mumbai – this book offers little competition.
September 14, 2022
അഞ്ജലി ജോസഫ് മുംബൈയിൽ ജനിച്ച് ഇംഗ്ലണ്ടിൽ വളർന്നു. അവരുടെ ആദ്യ നോവലാണ് സരസ്വതി പാർക്ക്.
സ്നേഹത്തിൻറെ നഷ്ടപ്പെടലുകളുടെ ജീവചരിത്രമാണ് സരസ്വതി പാർക്ക്. തുടർച്ചയായ സ്നേഹ നഷ്ടങ്ങളുടെ ഭാരം ചുമക്കുന്ന ആശിഷ് എന്ന 19 കാരനും എഴുത്തുകാരൻ ആവാൻ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്ന അവൻറെ അമ്മാവൻ മോഹനുമാണ് സരസ്വതി പാർക്കിലെ കേന്ദ്ര കഥാപാത്രങ്ങൾ. സ്നേഹം, കരുതൽ, ലാളന, ശാരീരിക അനുഭൂതികൾ എല്ലാത്തിനും വേണ്ടി തീവ്രമായ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്ന ആശിഷ് ഒടുവിൽ സ്വവർഗരതിയിൽ ആണ് എത്തിച്ചേരുന്നത്. സ്നേഹിച്ചവരെല്ലാം തള്ളികളഞ്ഞപ്പോൾ ഉണ്ടായ വേദനയെ കരുത്താക്കി അവൻ തന്റെ സ്വത്വം കണ്ടെത്തുന്നു. കാലിടറാതെ നടക്കാൻ പ്രേരണയായി മോഹനും കുടുംബവും തുണയാകുന്നു.
ഒരു വേനൽക്കാലത്തിൽ തുടങ്ങി അടുത്ത വേനലിൽ അവസാനിക്കുന്ന സരസ്വതി പാർക്കിനെ ആത്മാവിൽ എഴുതപ്പെട്ട വാക്കുകളുടെ പുസ്തകം എന്ന് വിളിക്കാം.
വായന - 115
വിവർത്തനം - ഷീബ ഇ കെ
ഡിസി ബുക്സ്
191p,125 rs
സ്നേഹത്തിൻറെ നഷ്ടപ്പെടലുകളുടെ ജീവചരിത്രമാണ് സരസ്വതി പാർക്ക്. തുടർച്ചയായ സ്നേഹ നഷ്ടങ്ങളുടെ ഭാരം ചുമക്കുന്ന ആശിഷ് എന്ന 19 കാരനും എഴുത്തുകാരൻ ആവാൻ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്ന അവൻറെ അമ്മാവൻ മോഹനുമാണ് സരസ്വതി പാർക്കിലെ കേന്ദ്ര കഥാപാത്രങ്ങൾ. സ്നേഹം, കരുതൽ, ലാളന, ശാരീരിക അനുഭൂതികൾ എല്ലാത്തിനും വേണ്ടി തീവ്രമായ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്ന ആശിഷ് ഒടുവിൽ സ്വവർഗരതിയിൽ ആണ് എത്തിച്ചേരുന്നത്. സ്നേഹിച്ചവരെല്ലാം തള്ളികളഞ്ഞപ്പോൾ ഉണ്ടായ വേദനയെ കരുത്താക്കി അവൻ തന്റെ സ്വത്വം കണ്ടെത്തുന്നു. കാലിടറാതെ നടക്കാൻ പ്രേരണയായി മോഹനും കുടുംബവും തുണയാകുന്നു.
ഒരു വേനൽക്കാലത്തിൽ തുടങ്ങി അടുത്ത വേനലിൽ അവസാനിക്കുന്ന സരസ്വതി പാർക്കിനെ ആത്മാവിൽ എഴുതപ്പെട്ട വാക്കുകളുടെ പുസ്തകം എന്ന് വിളിക്കാം.
വായന - 115
വിവർത്തനം - ഷീബ ഇ കെ
ഡിസി ബുക്സ്
191p,125 rs
December 25, 2020
Four stars for how the author wrote about Bombay. Some characters could have had more depth and certain plot lines were not fully explored, but all in all it was still a gentle, enjoyable, slice-of-life kind of book in which Bombay was one of the protagonists as well.
September 28, 2010
One of the recent books I received from friend S in the U.K. is Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph. This novel was released over there in July by HarperCollins. Right out of the box I was attracted to Saraswati Park. I liked the cover and the description of the book from the publisher had me ready to read.
Saraswati is about a middle class family in Bombay. Husband Mohan is a professional letter writer. This is not a growth field. He gets some work putting pen to paper for divided lovers and families and the occasional check but he spends more and more of his time pursuing his real passion. He buy old novels from the secondhand stalls and scrawls away in the margins. His dream is step out of the margins and be a novelist. Mohan's wife, Lakshmi, is in crisis. She is in mourning for the death of her only brother and maybe for her marriage as well. The couple takes in their nephew Ashish. Ashish is troubled by his sexuality, unhappy romances and having to repeat his final year of college.
This is a kitchen sink kind of novel. The dramas and the humorous moments are small, intimate and happening to ordinary people. Most of the Indian novels I have read have been big multi-generational affairs with a cast of thousands ranging all over India's history. What a welcome change Saraswati Park is to my usual Indian diet. Joseph carefully introduces us to everyday quiet. The lives she examines are not eccentric, not flashy, not starting a dynasty or representing the history or future of a nation. These people are trying to find their way and with Anjali Jospeh's skills their journey is an exulting experience.
Is Sarawati Park going to be published in the U.S.? I haven't seen any indication of that, but maybe that will change. Here's hoping this fine book will be available here soon. It surely helps that the Telegraph selcted Joseph as one of their 20 best writers under 40 on the basis of this her first novel. Impressive, right?
Saraswati is about a middle class family in Bombay. Husband Mohan is a professional letter writer. This is not a growth field. He gets some work putting pen to paper for divided lovers and families and the occasional check but he spends more and more of his time pursuing his real passion. He buy old novels from the secondhand stalls and scrawls away in the margins. His dream is step out of the margins and be a novelist. Mohan's wife, Lakshmi, is in crisis. She is in mourning for the death of her only brother and maybe for her marriage as well. The couple takes in their nephew Ashish. Ashish is troubled by his sexuality, unhappy romances and having to repeat his final year of college.
This is a kitchen sink kind of novel. The dramas and the humorous moments are small, intimate and happening to ordinary people. Most of the Indian novels I have read have been big multi-generational affairs with a cast of thousands ranging all over India's history. What a welcome change Saraswati Park is to my usual Indian diet. Joseph carefully introduces us to everyday quiet. The lives she examines are not eccentric, not flashy, not starting a dynasty or representing the history or future of a nation. These people are trying to find their way and with Anjali Jospeh's skills their journey is an exulting experience.
Is Sarawati Park going to be published in the U.S.? I haven't seen any indication of that, but maybe that will change. Here's hoping this fine book will be available here soon. It surely helps that the Telegraph selcted Joseph as one of their 20 best writers under 40 on the basis of this her first novel. Impressive, right?
July 26, 2011
It took me a while to get into this, but it's well worth it. S Park is a much better defense of the realist novel than Franzen's Freedom, for instance; it packs the same emotional weight into a third of the pages (and, at a guess, a quarter of the words). Like 'Freedom,' the book has a bit of a chip on its shoulder: while Franzen talks a lot about Tolstoy, Joseph's particular reference is Henry James, and there's some great, gentle parody of the modernists (James Joyce as captain of the pick-up cricket team, menacing the younger boys). I'm curious to know how much the media representation of this as a kind of anti-Magical Realism polemic is based on Joseph's actual feelings, and how much of it is just good marketing aimed at people who, like me, can't really be bothered trudging through 600 page novels about the 'color' and 'exoticism' of the sub-continent. Certainly you could read the novel as precisely that kind of polemic; but maybe it's not.
And if you don't care about that, it's just a lovely book full of the minor domestic dramas that we all live through, and an all too rare instance of a well-written book that suggests family life isn't there just so the young have something from which to escape. There are very, very few false steps in the prose, and one or two wonderful moments- particularly the paragraph which gives the book its cover in this edition. Certainly the writing isn't ambitious, but since so many young authors torture language in order to express nothing, I'm fine with that.
And if you don't care about that, it's just a lovely book full of the minor domestic dramas that we all live through, and an all too rare instance of a well-written book that suggests family life isn't there just so the young have something from which to escape. There are very, very few false steps in the prose, and one or two wonderful moments- particularly the paragraph which gives the book its cover in this edition. Certainly the writing isn't ambitious, but since so many young authors torture language in order to express nothing, I'm fine with that.
December 16, 2012
My Thoughts on Saraswati Park
This unique and refreshing read set in modern day Bombay was a beautifully written, intimate and thoughtful novel that captured my mind with its simple, yet skillfully written prose and its intricate and fascinating characters.
While at times it was a little slow going, for the most part the languid nature of this novel drew me in and had me flipping pages and making teapot after teapot of tea, enjoying everything from the landscape, to the situations that arose- to the little memories and details that are now etched in my mind and have left me with a tremendous sense of being sated.
I loved learning about the culture of India and the insight that I did gain was enough to fuel me into doing more research and looking into reading more books by Indian authors and reading more novels set in India. The different points of view throughout the novel was not confusing and in fact allowed for a break between the more intense scenes which I found relaxing and my favorite part had to be the underlining concept of writing, art, imagination and a simple life which we struggle with so much nowadays.
If you are looking for a different read that is both powerful and introspective and that will capture your heart and fill you with hope, love and contentment, then I would strongly urge you to pick up this book. I will be certainly looking into any other books by Anjali Joseph and I am so grateful to have read such a fantastic book.
I am giving this one:
★★★★.5
Cups of Hot Tea
This unique and refreshing read set in modern day Bombay was a beautifully written, intimate and thoughtful novel that captured my mind with its simple, yet skillfully written prose and its intricate and fascinating characters.
While at times it was a little slow going, for the most part the languid nature of this novel drew me in and had me flipping pages and making teapot after teapot of tea, enjoying everything from the landscape, to the situations that arose- to the little memories and details that are now etched in my mind and have left me with a tremendous sense of being sated.
I loved learning about the culture of India and the insight that I did gain was enough to fuel me into doing more research and looking into reading more books by Indian authors and reading more novels set in India. The different points of view throughout the novel was not confusing and in fact allowed for a break between the more intense scenes which I found relaxing and my favorite part had to be the underlining concept of writing, art, imagination and a simple life which we struggle with so much nowadays.
If you are looking for a different read that is both powerful and introspective and that will capture your heart and fill you with hope, love and contentment, then I would strongly urge you to pick up this book. I will be certainly looking into any other books by Anjali Joseph and I am so grateful to have read such a fantastic book.
I am giving this one:
★★★★.5
Cups of Hot Tea
April 19, 2017
Who would love it: Lovers of close character studies. People who love to think about how we can sometimes live in two completely separate worlds, even while we sleep in the same house.
Why you should read it: This book is quiet, slow. Without realizing it, you find yourself looking into the house, peering into the lives of three characters – Mohan, a silent and thoughtful man with a job from another time, Lakshmi, his restless wife, and their 19-year-old nephew Ashish who must both graduate and accept his sexuality. It’s about relationships and partnerships both old and new, about traditional and non and how different characters cope with and grow through them.
Don’t read if: You don’t have the patience for the subtler aspects of character and life in a couple.
Best quote: “This was one of the secret jokes about marriage. People turned out to be exactly the opposite of how they’d seemed at first; they then went on changing randomly, as though enacting a hypothesis of unceasing chaos.”
Why you should read it: This book is quiet, slow. Without realizing it, you find yourself looking into the house, peering into the lives of three characters – Mohan, a silent and thoughtful man with a job from another time, Lakshmi, his restless wife, and their 19-year-old nephew Ashish who must both graduate and accept his sexuality. It’s about relationships and partnerships both old and new, about traditional and non and how different characters cope with and grow through them.
Don’t read if: You don’t have the patience for the subtler aspects of character and life in a couple.
Best quote: “This was one of the secret jokes about marriage. People turned out to be exactly the opposite of how they’d seemed at first; they then went on changing randomly, as though enacting a hypothesis of unceasing chaos.”
April 29, 2019
I really wanted to score this higher because it was beautifully written with exquisite turns of phrase and a brilliant sense of location. I thought Mohan was a well observed character and the idea of his wife and nephew were good along with the potential plot line. The problem for me was that the development of those beginnings never really happened. There was almost no psychological insight about why Mohan never really came to grips with his hermetic life, why his wife moved away for 4 months, even his nephews homosexuality was expressed but his feelings of love not examined. The book was fluently and delicately written, with some hints of deeper waters but these were never brought to the fore for me. It was too lightly drawn for me to get involved; I felt we were skating over the surface and so the characters remained two dimensional and I failed to identify with or fully understand them. I would read another book by this author however, as it was so beautifully written and I felt there was enormous potential which just failed to launch in this book.
May 7, 2013
This would make an excellent movie! Mohan and his wife live in Saraswati Park Bombay and his nephew,Ashish comes to stay with them after failing and having to repeat his last year in college. Mohan is a letter writer and lives in his own world and comfort, never realizing what effect this has on his wife, Lakshmi, till a relative of hers falls ill and she leaves to help and doesn't seem to want to come back. Ashish is nineteen and coming onto his sexuality. A failed relationship with a richer friend and an older tutor don't work out and Ashish goes thru the heartache of finding out that sometimes things don't work out well or as we would have them. The author Anjali Joseph takes us into a world rich with flavors, other peoples lives and the chaotic ever changing weather of India and its humid beauty.
December 12, 2017
It's the kind of novel that has no story to speak of. There is no discernible start or end. It's just two central characters going through 'situations'. And, for a change, the said two characters are not romantically involved (with each other). With this frugal premise, Anjali Joseph writes a beautiful piece of fiction about everyday people going through everyday trials and tribulations of life. There's no high voltage drama here. Just subtle, poignant moments. As a reader, you feel as if you are getting a sneak peek into your neighbour's house. But their's no voyerism. The homosexuality is written of unabashedly, unapologetically, non-sensationally. The middle-aged man-wife relationship is relatable, hence moving. This is a remarkable book.
April 12, 2018
The story centres around three protagonists: Mohan, his nephew Ashish and Mohan's wife Lakshmi. In a way, its a coming-of-age story of all three: for Mohan and his wife, something settles in their marriage with each other after a sudden death in the family that affects them both in different ways, and for Ashish, a sort of series of letting go of familiarity that propels his life into finding a way of living as a gay man in Mumbai while still keeping his sexuality secret from people. I enjoyed the way the narrative flowed, revealing the quirks and personalities of its characters as events unfolded in their own time. The prose was enjoyable and made it an easy read of life in middle class Mumbai and all the expectations that middle class India holds for itself and its children.
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