Two novels make the most of relatives: immigration, siblings, money and arranged marriage in America, and a patchwork of conflicted characters in one Indian household.
Year of the Tiger is diaspora writer Sohaila Abdulali’s second novel. Set in the 1990s, it views pre-9/11 New York from the vantage point of the Hussain twins Kabir and Zara, and their elder sister Salma. The book opens with the siblings, who all have green cards, encountering a sadistic immigration officer at JFK Airport after a trip to India. This smacks of the kind of treatment that was meted out more indiscriminately to Muslims at American airports after 9/11.
Abdulali is thematically ambitious, but tends to exoticise her characters’ Indianness. She gives her story a number of subplots (from one of which is drawn the book’s title), bringing in other characters from the Hussains’ environment.
The story follows several parallel tracks. Kabir’s ‘track’ is chiefly about his escapades with women. He is a Ford Foundation fellow who studies tribal displacement in India and Australia, plays in a band and smokes marijuana. Kabir wants to return to India.
Zara makes a lot of money as a financial expert at a securities firm on Wall Street. She is seeking American citizenship. She can be seen as another example of a “black” woman fighting in a white man’s world.
Salma is a scientist, but is willing to let her Abba-Ammi find her a match. She is sceptical about a Hindu husband. This track is engrossing but, as with others, just as Abdulali is on the verge of reaching a climax, she tends to abruptly change track, leaving the reader disappointed.
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This book is a good, if flawed, read about decentred identities, about individuals trying to hold on to their own realities.
— Tanushree Ghosh
YEAR OF THE TIGER
Author: Sohaila Abdulali
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 304
Price: Rs 299
In Sinking, Not Swimming, the death of Cheenu brings three generations of his family together at the funeral. This book presents the characters’ reactions and emotions each from their own point of view. Its author weaves a story of a family which, like any other, has its full share of secrets, desires and dreams.
Author Nalini Rajan gives voice to Cheenu’s siblings, wife and others who were close to him, as they think and talk about their dead relative. The book allows you to slowly piece together the inner workings of a family plagued by its own and its members’ contradictions and frailties.
Cheenu’s older brother Suri battles with his love for his charismatic brother and his jealousy of the love his own wife Kamala had for Cheenu.
The vivacious and salacious Paru seeks physical satisfaction in the arms of Suresh.
Radha, Cheenu’s wife, learns to deal with the loss of her enigmatic and admired husband, and to move on with her life.
Though poignant in parts, the book lacks the sordidness and hint of scandal that make multi-generational stories so much fun to read. Some characters, like Ravi, Cheenu’s drunken nephew, who is obsessed with his ex-lover Preethi, seem one dimensional in their outlook and scope. Others, like his sex-starved sister-in-law Paru, are caricatures.
The book is a breezy read, with occasional bright moments of insight about the nature of life, death and legacy — yet it will leave you less than satisfied as you turn the last page.
— Neha Chowdhry
SINKING, NOT SWIMMING
Author: Nalini Rajan
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 280
Price: Rs 299