Flavours of heartland
Are Indians living abroad more Indian than Indians living in India? Straight off the bat, the blurb tells you that “six yards of silk connect India and New Zealand”. That does sort of offer an instant solution to why the book is called so. Unfortunately, we do like a little bit of mystery
, but then the book offers that, Ramesh is missing. The cover of the book is rather David Lynch like and the ghostly red swirls are either smoke or silk threads (the name of the book suggests silk it is). The glossy rose stands out on the matte finish of the cover so you hope that the mystery of the missing Indian man will be solved bit by bit.
Almost 170 pages later, you are still looking for that touch of New Zealand where the story is based. Yes, the book is set mostly inside Sharmila’s home and her head. But there’s nothing that suggests a connect to anything New Zealandish (except that the author lives there) to make any cultural connect. This book could be set in upstate New York and the story would still work. This is about an immigrant Indian, and by jove, she’s Indian. Sharmila is married to the stereotypical “white” person. Keith with the blue eyes, who reacts to India just as any stereotypical “white foreigner” would. The only time you like Keith and the only time he seems less of a cardboard cutout is when he says, “What is everyone doing all the time?” about the constant buzzing of life and people in Mumbai.
The protagonist, on the other hand, is larger-than-life. She has been painstakingly painted with meticulous detail. We know what she’s thinking, how she hugs her Meenamma and cries. How her memory is sharp about India and all things Indian. About Kanjeevaram silk saris and the rituals and the places and the spices of her childhood. Everyone who reads Indian authors in English will tell you how they cringe to read carefully crafted descriptions of “Indian” things. In fact, Indian exotica at its worst is reflected in the pages where the two women are making murukkus in the New Zealand kitchen. Every once in a while, the author remembers why the book was being written in the first place — Ramesh is missing. Then instantly some memory of Ramesh would be mentioned and you will be pushed back into the cloying world of hot oil for the frying.
This book’s blurb says that the story is about redemption. That’s the reason why you will find a reference to “tears” and “thought” in every other page in the book. But really, Sharmila seems to be rolling through 170 pages of them and you wish they’d kill her or kill us.
Manisha Lakhe is the author of The Betelnut Killers
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