Learn how to become better allies to people with disabilities, download the Randstad exclusive ED&I 2022 report.
A 'Bombay novel' that revels in the ordinary life of the city, Anjali Joseph's Saraswati Park deals with love, loss and obligation.
A ‘Bombay novel’ that revels in the ordinary life of the city, Anjali Joseph’s Saraswati Park deals with love, loss and obligation.
By Angelique Manchanda-Peres
Mumbai with its chaos, complexity, concrete blocks housing hundreds of people and cosmopolitan population continues to be a very popular city to write about. Infact, in the last decade or so, there’s been a spate of books about the city – Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, Sacred Games and Love and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra being some. The latest one to join the list is Anjali Joseph’s Saraswati Park.
When we first meet Mohan and Laxmi their days are mundane with set routines and nothing much happens to alter it. Both seem frustrated by this mundane existence. An avid reader, Mohan wishes he could do more than just write letters….his secret desire is to write stories worthy of publication and Laxmi, frustrated by how his dreams make him distant from her, turns to the television for company.
I love how Joseph details Laxmi’s frustration with their emotional detachment, as for instance in this excerpt.
“Four of Mohan’s shirts, collected this morning from the ironing boys, lay on the bed. She looked at them in exasperation. It was still there, the mild ring of dirt inside his collars, like a smudged pencil line. It wasn’t his fault; nothing could be done. She had scrubbed at some of them to remove the mark, but it had been the collar, not the stain, that had begun to despair and fray. It was in these things, which didn’t talk or, strictly speaking, have lives, that her days played out: her relationship with the shirts, neatly ironed and folded, was so much more direct that any other interaction these days.”
One day the couple receive a call from Mohan’s sister lamenting the fact that her son Ashish failed his college exams due to poor attendance and would have to attempt them again. Unknown to the family, the poor attendance was due to Ashish’s dalliance with a fellow classmate called Sundar. Since they (Ashish’s parents) are being transferred to another city, would it be possible for Ashish to stay with Mohan and Laxmi for the year? Mohan and Laxmi readily agree and soon the focus of the story moves to 19-year old Ashish – his life, his friends, his fears, his relationships, his secrets. Despite there being “secrets” in this novel, it has a very calm tone with a quietness and melancholy that emanates like faint perfume from every page, making it linger with the reader long after the last page has been read and the book closed.
For those of you who grew up in ‘Bombay’ (and in the mid ’80’s), this novel will be especially precious because of the author’s observations and descriptions of this wonderful city I call home. It is also a book about family love and obligations, about growing old together, about love and loss and goodbyes. All these may seem heavy but they are handled deftly and delicately by Ms.Joseph and there is none of that masala or twists and turns that we have come to associate with other Bombay novels – just an intimate journey into the lives of everyday people who happen to live rather quietly in this bustling metropolis. As much as I liked the other Bombay novels mentioned earlier, none of those plots seemed real to me. My Bombay was like the Bombay one finds in Saraswati Park – of trees and birds, of ordinary people, school, college, the market, weddings, neighbours, old books, corner shops and so on. This novel is a celebration of everyday life and seeing some beauty in it.
I’d like to close with a beautifully written passage that appears when Ashish is getting ready to take leave of his city. This passage resonated so much with me because, I, too, had to bid Bombay farewell around the same age as Ashish did and it hurt so much.
“…he felt melancholic; finally he understood what life was like, the meetings and partings it entailed. It was a thought that only made him more attached to his life and the people in it.
From his window seat he looked with hungry eyes at the dirty worlds next to the tracks: the brigtly painted shacks, the grubby faced children, the ugly concrete tower blocks, the smells…
It was his city, his world; it might be imperfect but it was home. Yet he knew that only his imminent departure nurtured this sudden passion for Bombay which sometimes was a neutral environment in which he existed, and at other moments felt like a trap he’d never escape.”
Publishers: Harper Collins India
If you’re planning to purchase Saraswati Park, by Anjali Joseph, do consider buying it through the Women’s Web affiliate link at Flipkart. We get a small share of the proceeds – every little bit will help us continue bringing you the content you like!
Readers outside India can purchase Saraswati Park through our affiliate link at Amazon.
Women's Web is a vibrant community for Indian women, an authentic space for us to be ourselves and talk about all things that matter to us. Follow us via the read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Rajshri Deshpande, who played the fiery protagonist in Trial by Fire along with Abhay Deol speaks of her journey and her social work.
Rajshri Deshpande as the protagonist in ‘Trial by Fire’, the recent Netflix show has received raving reviews along with the show itself for its sensitive portrayal of the Uphaar Cinema Hall fire tragedy, 1997 and its aftermath.
The limited series is based on the book by the same name written by Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, who lost both their children in the tragedy. We got an opportunity to interview Rajshri Deshpande who played Neelam Krishnamoorthy, the woman who has been relentlessly crusading in the court for holding the owners responsible for the sheer negligence.
Rajshri Deshpande is more than an actor. She is also a social warrior, the rare celebrity from the film industry who has also gone back to her roots to give to poverty struck farming villages in her native Marathwada, with her NGO Nabhangan Foundation. Of course a chance to speak with her one on one was a must!
“What is a woman’s job, Ramesh? Taking care of parents-in-law, husband, children, home and things at work—all at the same time? She isn’t God or a superhuman."
The arrays of workstations were occupied by people peering into their computer screens. The clicks of keyboard keys were punctuated by the occasional footsteps moving around to brainstorm or collaborate with colleagues in their cubicles. Most employees went about their tasks without looking at the person seated on either side of their workstation. Meenakshi was one of them.
The thirty-one-year-old marketing manager in a leading eCommerce company in India sat straight in her seat, her eyes on the screen, her fingers punching furiously into the keys. She was in a flow and wanted to finish the report while the thoughts and words were coming effortlessly into her mind.
Natu-Natu. The mellifluous ringtone interrupted her thoughts. She frowned at her mobile phone with half a mind to keep it ringing until she noticed the caller’s name on the screen, making her pick up the phone immediately.
Please enter your email address