Ghachar Ghochar

I am much too late to the Ghachar Ghochar party but I am so very glad I made it. Bangalore is a place of many memories for me. Some from early childhood and other from the time I first became an independent working woman. There is nostalgia from the later period is tinged with some unpleasant memories but the childhood stint is almost perfectly blissful. Such is the nature of very early life perhaps, a lot of aggravation is simply not felt. There is a bubble of happiness inside which a child can live largely untouched. In that sense I was very fortunate - I did have such a bubble for a few years of my life.

Shanbhag took me back to a long ago place and time. For the duration of my reading, I was in the narrator's house, a fly on the wall watching the family members deal with their assortment of issues fueled by the uneven balance of power in the household. The scenes from their lives painted with such realism that a reader can almost feel the ants crawling on the floor or hear the feuding between the ladies of the house. Each character is lovingly detailed to the point there is no single protagonist in the reader's mind. The story bears telling from each one's perspective. We hear from the narrator but we could also have heard from Vincent or Malati or Chitra.

The story is like a perfectly made cup of chai, served on a winter's day. It brings a hint of spice along with much-needed warmth and comfort. The ending which I won't reveal here left me craving for my next cup. I used to be fluent in Kanada once so I can tell that Srinath Perur did justice with the translation. The feeling of the language was largely preserved which is not an easy thing to pull off while rendering flowing English prose. I can't wait to read the next thing that this duo will send the way for their readership.