This was a book which I came across almost accidentally. I go to a couple of different libraries at least fairly regularly, and I look at books - obviously including audio books - which are on offer. This was one of them, which I paid all of 50 cents for. All by accident!
It proved to be a very fortunate accident. For those 50 cents that I shelled out, I got many hours of enjoyment, as I got more and more wrapped up in this story, and in the characters that populate it, as the book went on. By the time that I reached the end of it all, I felt that there was yet another author for me to get excited about and look for books by.
Warning: from here on out, there will be spoilers. So if you have not yet read this book and plan to do so, you might not want to continue reading.
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Okay, by now, I suspect that if you are still reading this, either you have already read this book or, failing that, you for some reason do not mind it being spoiled. Don't say you were not warned!
We get started in Calcutta back in the tumultuous 1960's. It is a very different version of Calcutta than the thriving, sprawling megacity which the world knows now. There are two brothers, Subhash and Udayan, living in poverty, and seemingly quite similar in many respects, at least at first glance. They watch, and sympathize with, the Marxist Naxalite movement. Ultimately, Subhash goes off to America to study, while Udayan stays back in India, and grows ever more radicalized as a Communist. Eventually, he gets involved in something and gets into trouble. The police catch up with him and eliminate him, point blank. He leaves behind Gauri, a young wife whom he loves. Unknown to Udayan, Gauri is pregnant.
Subhash, who is just trying to recover from the first real love affair of his life, returns to India. He is incensed by how Gauri is treated as a second class citizen in the home of his own parents. He decides to liberate her from this fate and bring her to Rhode Island to become his wife. Soon afterward, Gauri gives birth to Bela. The couple agree not to rush and tell Bela that Subhash is not her real, biological father until they both feel good and ready. Still, Subhash acts and seems like a real, loving father to Bela. Meanwhile, however, Gauri remains distant and aloof, and she engages in academic pursuits. Eventually, these grow very serious, and she gets recommended to pursue a professional career in philosophy. When Subhash takes Bela to Calcutta for over a month, Gauri takes this opportunity to leave them and heads off to a university in California.
Bela now feels abandoned, and her reaction is abrupt and painful. She grows up seemingly distant, nothing like the happy young girl she seemed to be before her mother left them. Subhash does not know what to do, and has no idea how to bridge the seemingly growing distance between him and his not biological daughter. Eventually, she grows up, gets a solid college education, and then seemingly lives a nomadic life, traveling to farms and trying to improve life conditions for others in any way that she knows how. Subhash, meanwhile, feels increasingly isolated and powerless, never knowing where Bela is, or when, or even if, she will return home to him.
Eventually, she gets pregnant as well, and decides to return home to Rhode Island with Subhash. But Subhash, who has himself now found contentment in another relationship with a woman, is suddenly presented a chance to finally grow closer again with Bela, feels he needs to tell her once and for all about her actual history. He tells her about his brother Udayan, who is her actual, biological father. After a very long night full of tears, Bela is gone from the house the next morning when Subhash wakes up. Yet, she returns later, deciding to bring her soon to be born daughter up in the same place in Rhode Island where she grew up, although hopefully, under better circumstances.
There, she gives birth to her daughter, Meghna. She begins to raise her in the same Rhode Island home where she herself grew up. Meanwhile, Subhash has gotten in touch with Gauri, and finally decides to approach the subject of a divorce, even though decades have passed since Gauri left the family. Gauri has no problem with this, and decides to pay a visit to her own old home in Rhode Island, deciding that Subhash deserves closure in person, rather than by more impersonal means. But when she arrives at the house, she is stunned to find instead her own daughter, Bela, who has clearly not forgiven her at all for abandoning them all of those years ago. She cuts Gauri with the power and anger of her words, and Gauri's life largely goes off track as a result, at least temporarily. We next see her in Calcutta, and she comes close to committing suicide.
In the end, there are some unexpected rays of light and hope. Subhash seems to have finally found contentment, and it seems clear that Bela, while still very much struggling to come to terms with finding the reasons why her mother has abandoned her, and clearly seems unwilling to forgive her, has modeled her own approach to motherhood largely on making sure that she does not make her own daughter feel the way that Gauri made Bela herself feel. She has a romantic interest in a Rhode Island native herself. And Gauri, after some serious turbulence, has returned to academic life in California, and received a promising letter right at the end of this story.
Ultimately, this was a very enjoyable read. A beautiful book, where a number of themes are juggled quite capably. There are some political and philosophical issues, and there is the warmth - and the absence of it - in the family life of the characters involved. We learn about the history and culture of India, and particularly Calcutta, which is also a plus. I did not know what to expect from the book after deciding to take a chance, but it obviously proved rewarding.
Highly recommended!
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