Submit your Article

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024, ‘Brotherless Night’ by V.V. Ganeshananthan is a beautiful and heartbreaking account of a family torn apart by the civil war in Sri Lanka, fought between the Sinhalese-dominated state and Tamil separatist groups. As someone who grew up during the civil war in Nepal, I could relate to the story and it helped me sort out the many emotions of the time that I still find myself struggling with. I must confess that the subject got a tad bit heavy at times and I had to put the book down. But I loved it and I have been recommending it to all my friends and colleagues. 

The story is narrated from the perspective of 16-year-old Sashi Kulenthiren who wants to become a doctor. Over the course of the decade as civil war rages through her hometown of Jaffna, she finds herself struggling to survive and her dreams take on a different course. Her brothers and her best friend get caught up in various political ideologies and their lives too turn out differently than anyone had imagined. 

After Sashi’s eldest sibling is killed in anti-Tamil riots, Sashi begins to question everything she has learnt and believed in over the years. Soon, as more of her siblings join the movement, she too finds herself in the heart of it. Her friendship with K, a high-ranking militant, offers her a chance to become a medic at a field hospital and this leads her to keep secrets from her family. However, her motivation behind taking up the position is simply that she wants to do good and help people, despite their political inclinations. But when the militants turn on civilians and other helpless members of the society, she starts wondering about her role in the war. Years later, she tries to document all the human rights violations committed by various parties during the war. 

Sashi is a passionate and intelligent narrator. She always finds a way to protect the ones she loves but she is also torn between her love for her brothers and best friend and her sense of what is right. The book shines light on a woman’s perspective on war and how they often have to sift through complicated emotions in order to make sense of and survive in a difficult world. The other characters are also well crafted and feel like people you know or have met. The brilliant characterization and plot make the story come alive. I felt it could be adapted into a really good movie. 

Brotherless Night is a historical fiction based on real events. But it feels raw and real, especially if you have seen war up close or seen people suffer its consequences. It’s brilliantly researched and written and thus compelling. It has been a while since I read the book but it has left a lasting impression on me. It has also definitely made me want to read more of the authors’ works. Brotherless Night is Ganenhananthan’s second book. Her first book ‘Love Marriage’ is also set in Sri Lanka and was longlisted for the Orange Prize.

Fiction

Brotherless Night

VV Ganeshananthan

Published: 2023

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 348, Paperback

I have a problem picking up big books. It’s not that they feel intimidating but I can’t carry them around and I like having books I’m reading with me wherever I go. That way, I can read a few pages at work, during breaks, or when I’m commuting. But there have been many novels that are over 500 pages or so that I’ve really wanted to read. At times like those, what I’ve done is picked up a slim volume along with the heavier one. I’ll carry the lighter book to work and read the bigger one at home. This is how I have managed to finish books ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien and ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell’ by Susanna Clark, both of which are over a 1000 pages long. 

The beauty of long novels is that you get to stay in a particular world for longer and there is often great character development in the story as well. You get to know the characters properly and really start to care about them. Over the years, there are many long stories that I’ve enjoyed, including the two I’ve already mentioned. I look at their spines on my bookshelf and often find myself picking them up to read the passages I’ve marked, with highlighters, post-its, and even little scraps of papers. This week, I’m recommending three books that I find myself thinking about every now and then because of their sheer brilliance, hoping they bring you joy, comfort, and perspective. 

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree

I read ‘Tomb of Sand’ by Geetanjali Shree a few years ago after it had won the International Booker Prize in 2022. This book was originally written in Hindi in 2018 and translated into English. I started the book a few days before I was supposed to go on a vacation and instantly regretted it because I knew I couldn’t take it along. I usually prefer short stories or poems when traveling. I must have read about a 100 pages before I left and was completely captivated by the writing and the story. About an 80-year-old woman’s search for herself, after the death of her husband, Tomb of Sand pieces together her story through the eyes of her two children. It’s a story about family dynamics and aging that will make you think about life and how you can make the most of it. 

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese 

I’m generally hesitant to read books that make it to Oprah’s Book Club as I think they mostly deal with rural American life and they are usually stories I don’t find to be very relatable. But I picked up ‘The Covenant of Water’ as a friend who is a voracious reader wrote a wonderful review about it on her blog and I was intrigued. I must confess that reading her review made me want to read the book and I bought the 700 odd pages paperback immediately. Set in Kerala, South India, The Covenant of water follows a 12-year-old girl at the turn of the 20th century from the time she weds a 40-year-old to becoming a matriarch of the family known as Big Ammachi. It’s full of tender moments, heartbreak, love, and loss. Oprah calls it one of the best books she’s read in her entire life.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

Published in 1993 and over 1300 pages long, ‘A Suitable Boy’ is one of the longest books in English published in one volume. A mother-like figure who I loved and lost to cancer in 2009 recommended this book to me in the early 2000s. It was her favorite novel. She couldn’t stop gushing about it. She told me to read 50 pages every day and I’d be done in a month, she said. She even bought me a copy of the book. I never read it then. But when I lost her, I found myself trying different things to feel close to her and reading her favorite book seemed like a good idea. It took me almost six months to get through A Suitable Boy as I could only read a few pages every day but I loved everything about it. The plot is undoubtedly slow-paced as it follows four families in post-partition India as Mrs Rupa Mehra tries to find ‘a suitable boy’ for her 19-year-old daughter, Lata. Reading the book is like watching a drama unfold before your eyes. 

You can never have too many cookbooks but you also only need one or two to become a pro in the kitchen with an arsenal of recipes up your sleeves. Over the past few years, I’ve amassed quite a few cookbooks as I’ve developed a sort of fascination with learning different cooking tricks and tips. I find cookbooks extremely helpful on that front. Every cookbook author has his/her own unique ways in the kitchen and it’s fun to pick up unconventional ways of doing things.

I recently got my hands on a copy of ‘The Great Indian Thali’ by Nandita Iyer who is a doctor, nutritional expert, wellbeing advocate, and columnist. In the past 15 years, she has written three books on health, nutrition, and food. She is also the founder of the popular blog ‘Saffron Trail’ that has many healthy, vegetarian recipes. I had wanted to buy this book when I was in Delhi, India, some time ago but I had already bought way too many books so I had simply put it back on the shelf. Despite being enthralled by the pictures in the book, I thought the thali was something Nepalis didn’t need help with and I wouldn’t be missing out. But now I know how wrong I was.

Though the book, at the beginning, teaches you to make steamed rice, dal, khichdi, green chutney and the likes (recipes you’d roll your eyes at), it also has recipes of many other dishes that you’ve only enjoyed at restaurants or when traveling and never thought of making yourself. You’ll learn to make a variety of dosas, pickles, sweets, and snacks. The recipes are also categorized according to the season so you know which dish is most suited for which weather. I’d never come across a cookbook that has done this before. It shows how Iyer views food: as something that can work as medicine when taken in the right form and time.

One thing I like about cookbooks is their ability to double as decor or a coffee table book. The Great Indian Thali is no different. This beautifully illustrated and bound hardcover book is a visual delight. With colorful pages separating each section and full page photographs of food, the book is a fun one to just flip through when you are in need of some kitchen inspiration. There are great, heartwarming recipes of snacks, soups, and desserts that you can quickly whip up in minutes. The ingredients are clearly listed out and the instructions are easy to follow. There are many handy tips as well that will make you a pro in the kitchen. All in all, The Great Indian Thali, which feels like a culinary tour of India, is a must have if you are looking to eat healthy and want to learn how to make some delicious vegetarian food at home. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123509645-the-great-indian-thali 

The Great Indian Thali

Nandita Iyer

Illustrations: Abhilasha Dewan, Anita Verma

Published: 2022

Publisher: Roli Books

Pages: 191, Hardcover

I must confess that I’m generally not a fan of dystopian novels. They make me uncomfortable and jittery. Readers generally live in the worlds they are reading about and a dystopian world is not usually one I want to inhabit. But I have also not shied away from the genre completely since people keep recommending their favorites to me. Over time, I must have read over a dozen of these books including the popular Animal Farm by George Orwell and Brave New World By Aldous Huxley. While I’ve not enjoyed most of them, there have been some that I couldn’t get out of my head. I have even reread several of those and this week I thought I’d recommend three of my favorites. 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors and so there was no chance I wouldn’t read anything she wrote, though I was initially skeptical about The Handmaid’s Tale. But I read it and was completely captivated by the unusual story. Published in 1985, the story is about a heavily structured totalitarian society of Gilead which is based on extreme ideas of Christianity. The society is however plagued with infertility and the founders of the Gilead come up with a solution: A few privileged men are made commanders and their wives run the household. Each couple is given a handmaid—a fertile woman forced to become the surrogate mother. After the handmaid delivers a child, she is passed on to a new commander. It’s a horrifying idea but Atwood executes it with perfection and manages to evoke empathy and make us really care about the characters, even the flawed ones. There is a 2017 television series by the same name starring Elizabeth Moss that you could watch after reading the book. 

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Revenge, a collection of short stories, by Yoko Ogawa is one book that I’m always recommending to people, especially those who love horror and gore. The Memory Police was shortlisted by the 2020 Booker Prize. It tells a daunting dystopian tale about an island that is controlled by the memory police. They are in charge of what people remember and what they forget. They are also responsible for the things—including plants and beings—that keep disappearing on the island. But there are some people who don’t forget. The Memory Police paints a picture of a frightening society where people’s minds are controlled by external forces. It’s kind of reminiscent of 1984 by George Orwell. The story is more plot than character driven despite there being parts where things move quite slowly. But all in all, there’s a dark atmosphere to the setting that doesn’t let you put the book down. 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is perhaps my favorite dystopian novel of all time. I have reread it countless times and every time I shudder and feel really scared. The first time I read it, I drew the curtains tight at night and actually slept with a small light on. I will never forget that feeling. It’s brilliantly written and evokes such strong emotions. In this stunning post-apocalyptic novel published in 2006, a father and son make a difficult journey to cross a landscape that has been destroyed by an unidentified cataclysmic event. Their destination is the coast but they don’t know if there is anything there. They only have a single pistol to defend themselves and a cart of food that they have to ration along the way. The Road has many edge-of-the-seat moments. The setting is dark and dreary. It’s a terrifying book with many tender father-son moments that will make you want to hide under the covers as well as shed a tear or two.