Tomb of Sand

Finished March 26

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell

This book is about character, history, family and memory. It was the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize, and the winner of the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, as well as awards for translations into other languages. It was the first novel translated from Hindi to win the International Booker Award. 

This is an extraordinary novel, that is rooted in the life of an eighty-year-old woman in India. Ma, as she is referred to, has lived with her eldest son Bade since before the death of her husband. Since that loss, she has shrunk into herself, spending much of the day in bed. When her son retires, he must leave his government house and move into an apartment, which he is renovating. 

After Ma goes missing on an unexplained nighttime outing, it is decided that she will live with her daughter, Beti, who lives an unconventional life as a writer. Never married, she's had lovers, and lives on her own in an apartment. Soon after Ma moves in, she starts to receive visits from an old friend, Rosie Bua, a person who is gender fluid, and who involves her in crafts and planning a trip to Pakistan. 

I just loved this book. It is so interesting, and the writing is beautifully done, with the story seemingly wandering off at times, but really giving us information that is important to the story, background information and information about relationships and important objects, such as canes and small statues. 

We also learn about birds that become part of the story, crows that live outside Beti's apartment window in the nearby trees. Trees that have their place in the plot. 

The novel describes Ma as a woman growing smaller, and Beti as a woman growing bigger, in an interesting way that the story evolves. The first chapter grabs you, gives you hints about what is coming, and doesn't let go.

A tale tells itself. It can be complete, but also incomplete, the way all tales are. This particular tale has a border and women who come and go as they please. Once you've got women and a border, a story can write itself. Even women on their own are enough. Women are stories in themselves, full of stirrings and whisperings that float on the wind, that bend with each blade of grass. The setting sun gathers fragments of tales and fashions them into glowing lanterns that hang suspended from clouds. These too will join our story. The story's path unfurls, not knowing where it will stop, tacking to the right and left, twisting and turning, allowing anything and everything to join in the narration. It will emerge from within a volcano, swelling silently as the past boils forth into the present, bringing steam, embers, and smoke. 

There are two women in this story. Besides these women, there are others who came and went, those who kept coming and going, those who always stayed but weren't as important, and those yet to be mentioned, who weren't women at all. For now, let's just say that two women were important, and of these, one was growing smaller, and the other bigger.

There were two women and one death.

Two women, one death. How nicely we'll get on, us and them, once we all sit down together!

Two women: one mother, one daughter, one growing downwards, the other growing upwards. One laughs and says, I'm growing smaller by the day! The other is saddened, but says noting when she sees herself growing bigger. The mother has stopped wearing saris now that she must stuff more than half the fabric into her waist and raise the hems of her petticoats a little higher each day. Does gradually growing smaller make you catlike, so you may slip through tiny cracks and escape? Puncture a border and slip right through? Develop a knack for near-invisibility?

This must be the reason that the mother was able to slip through to the other side of the border while the daughter was still fretting over how stuck they were. It's also possible that the smaller woman truly was innocent when she refused to confess to any crime of her part, be it regarding legal permissions, debates over names, or accusations of theft. 

Those who didn't understand her arguments considered her crazy, maybe even vicious. They suspected her of purposefully misleading.

She pointed out that men always get the high-quality dal and women just get leftover mash, don't they? Hmm? She spoke fearlessly. So? So does that make it right?

But if you stare at them fearlessly, will the border guards understand? You have crossed the border, they reprimand.

She chuckles. Anything worth doing transcends borders. Should I do nothing at all?

No, they retort, and no one is foolish enough not to know this. Even goats and cows know where not to stray. And your eyesight isn't so bad you can't see, so how can you be forgiven?

Who's asking for forgiveness? She roars with laughter and the growing-bigger daughter weeps. And is this all there is to see? Perhaps I too have seen a thing or two. Try seeing with my eyes for once. 

If she were to fall, she did not with for it to be facedown. Wherever the bullet came from, whenever it his, she would fall straight back and lie supine on the ground. Regally. Her eyes filled with sky.

Let me practise, she'd tell her daughter

The mother had started hiccupping all the time. She hiccupped and hiccupped and hiccupped. If the daughter had not been in such a state, she'd have grown suspicious as to whether these hiccups were real or fake. They won't stop with water; give me a slap on the back! the mother would command. If the slap isn't hard enough, then try a running kick, boom! Try it on my back or in my stomach or on my sides, and make sure I fall down, but on my back, eyes open, forehead facing up; then the hiccups will surely stop. It was a strange remedy, but the daughter did as the mother asked. She kicked and kicked, boom boom boom, and with this new game her mother kept falling over bam bam bam. After a bit of hullabaloo, observers would also burst out laughing--Can you beat it? This old lady's too much! But the mother told the daughter that she needed to be prepared.            

Anyway, long story short, what happened was this: a bullet did come flying towards her, but by then the mother had become an expert at falling backwards. A bullet came, punctured her body, shot through and out the other side. Anyone else would have sprawled facedown in the mud, but Ma flipped backwards like she was doing a somersault. She lay back on the ground in an attitude of victory, elegantly, faceup, as though she was reclining on a soft bed, the sky her coverlet. 

Those who consider death to be an ending took this to be hers. But those in the know knew that this was no ending; knew she'd simply crossed yet another border. 

So there's no harm in starting the story right here, that is, the way we're doing it right now.

You can see the way the story engages, draws you in, and makes you want to know the story for yourself.

The tone is light and a little amused, as if it is playing with us. She plays with many things here, and many borders, Highly recommended. 

Victory Colony, 1950

Finished January 3

Victory Colony, 1950 by Bhaswati Ghosh

This historical novel is set in Calcutta, India shortly after Partition. It follows two young people whose lives interact. One of them is Amala, who arrived in the city with her younger brother Kartik as a refugee from East Bengal. They have few possessions and no money, and when Amala looks for food on their arrival, Kartik goes missing. Faced with the threat of police, Amala agrees to join a group of refugees being taken to the Gariahata Refugee Relief Centre. The group of young men that volunteers at the Centre and helps organize the supplies needed includes the second main character, Manas Dutta. Manas is from a good family and near the end of his studies. His father raised him to be considerate of others and encouraged his participation in the larger world. Although his father has passed away, his influence is still strongly felt by Manas. 

Manas lives with his mother and his grandfather in a large, stately home, with a small number of servants who come in for their daily work. But it is a far cry from the situation at the refugee centre, where the housing is temporary, food supplies are limited, as are other amenities. 

As we see Amala grow in confidence, moving through her grief to help others around her, organizing the women in ways to make themselves not only useful but to find ways to bring in some much-needed money, we see her inner strength and goodness. She is a smart woman, who learns quickly and wants to help those around her get ahead as well.

Manas too grows here from a schoolboy doing good deeds, to a man who becomes self-sufficient and starts his life independent of his elders. He is smart as well, and a good organizer and planner, who thinks of trying to make life better for everyone in his world.

I enjoyed see both of these characters grow, both in themselves and in their regard for each other and those that shared their world. I enjoyed Manas' grandfather as well as he came out of his shell of privilege and took the time to learn more about his grandson's friends.

I also learned a lot of Indian phrases and terminology that were conveyed seamlessly here, without the need for a glossary. The author reaches back into her own heritage to create a world I would be interested in following further. A very enjoyable read.

The Sandalwood Tree

Finished April 7
The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

This novel takes place in two different times. In 1947, Evie Mitchell is moving to India with her husband Martin and young son Billy. Martin returned from World War II changed, and Evie hopes that this time in India will help bring him back. Martin is an anthropologist and is coming to India on a Fulbright scholarship to research the end of the Raj and Partition. The two met while at University, where Evie was an aspiring astronomer. They come from different background. Martin's parents are Jewish academics and Evie's father is a blue collar Catholic.
In the small bungalow the two rent near Simla, Evie finds a cache of letters hidden behind a brick in the kitchen. They are dated from the 1850s, and Evie becomes fascinated by the two women who wrote the letters, searching for their story.
Felicity Chadwick and Adela Winfield are the two women, and we learn of their friendship, which began when Felicity was sent to England for her education while her parents continued to live in India. The letters date from when Felicity returned to England as a young woman.
Both time periods are ones of unrest. In the 1850s, there was the Sepoy Rebellion also known as India's First War of Independence, and upcoming Partition causes great unrest within India.
Evie is feeling lonely and isolated, without even her husband as a real companion. The local British have their own outlook that Evie finds colonial. Her ayah Rashmi, takes it upon herself to offer puja and advice to resolve what she sees are Evie's problems, much to Evie's embarrassment. She explores the local area, despite her husband's concerns, as part of her search for Felicity and Adela's story.
Felicity and Adela are both rebels in their time as well, dreaming of independence and a life without subjugation to a husband. Living on her own in India, Felicity is outside the world of her fellow Britons in many ways.
In both time periods, it is a crisis situation that changes how the women interact with those around them, bringing them closer and changing their relationships with those around them. I liked the independent spirit and curiosity displayed by the characters and their growth over time.

Teatime for the Firefly

Finished January 5
Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel

This novel is set in Assam, India in the 1940s. Layla is a young woman of seventeen who has been brought up by her grandfather, an educated man who believes in the importance of educating women so they have choices. Layla birth time and the death of her parents have led many traditional Indians to believe her to be bad luck and she has resigned herself to never marrying. She aims to continue her grandfather's legacy of education for girls and has started training to be a teacher. Her grandfather often hosts guests and the Russian author Boris Ivanov is a frequent visitor. One day when he is expected to come and make a speech for the opening of the new school her grandfather has started for girls, Layla encounters a young man, Manik, recently back from being educated overseas. His unusual attention to her and his outlook on the future draw her to him, but she soon finds out that he is engaged to a young woman down the street, an arranged marriage. When Manik gives up his civil service job to go work as an assistant manager on a tea plantation, everything becomes less certain, and the two young people begin a correspondence.
The historical events of India and partition come alive, but what is really brought to life here is Assam itself. The geography, scenery, and climate are well described, and life on the tea plantations comes alive for the reader. Their remote location, and how that draws misfits and thus unusual friendships is a big part of this story, as is the paternal relationship between the plantation managers and the workers.
Layla and Malik both grow through the challenges and circumstances that their lives bring them. This provides a glimpse of a life in a certain place at a certain time in an engaging read.