Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Title: Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents

Author: Isabel Wilkerson

Genre: Non-fiction, History, Race Relations

Wow. This is a thoroughly researched, thought-inducing look at how the treatment of race is similar to the caste system of India. Wilkerson walks you through history, and takes you through political, economical, social, and other aspects of race. It is not a short read or an easy one, but a soul-searching look at how stacked the deck has been, and without question still is, against people of color. Highly recommended.

- Sarah R.

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A House for Happy Mothers by Amulya Malladi

Priya has almost everything she could ever want. The perfect job, a loving husband, and a home in California's Silicon Valley. The one thing she can't do? Have a child of her own after several failed miscarriages and IVF attempts. Asha is the exact opposite. She lives in a small hut, in a rundown neighborhood in India, with a two children that she and her husband can barely keep a roof over. These two women may have completely different lives, but they'll be forever linked.

Desperate to do almost anything to secure a better future for her extremely gifted son, Asha decides to become a surrogate, essentially renting out her womb for a little bit of money, to wealthy couples who are unable to have children. Priya desperate in her own way, takes a chance when she relies on Asha, her surrogate, to make her dreams of becoming a mother happen.

A House for Happy Mothers is an interesting look at surrogacy and surrogate mothers, particularly in India, where surrogacy has more or less become an industry, with a fascinating, vibrant look at Indian culture, feminism, and family.

The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James

In The Tusk That Did the Damage, by Tania James tells the story of ivory poaching in southern India from three different points of view: the poachers; American documentary film makers; and an elephant, a rogue man-killer who buries his victims after the kill. Orphaned and captured by poachers as a young calf, the Gravedigger eventually escapes captivity and terrorizes the countryside, destroying crops and human life at will. The poachers hunt elephants to protect their crops and community and, also, for the valuable ivory tusks.  Brothers Jayan and Manu have lost a cousin to an attack by the Gravedigger and set out to kill the elephant as much for revenge as for his tusks. Jayan has killed elephants previously and even served prison time for the crime, but Manu is a gentler soul and very conflicted over the plan. Meanwhile, the American film makers document the work of an Indian veterinarian who has devoted his life to protecting elephants. Elephants are a species that needs protecting, but a rampaging elephant can destroy the lives and resources of people who have very little to start with, people who have their own need for protection. This struggle involves both man versus nature and man versus man. It’s an age old conflict with the addition of two modern elements: overpopulation and endangered species. 

Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell

It takes a very talented writer with a light touch to write a comic novel based on an actual tragedy. J.G. Farrell was such a writer and his Booker Award-winning book, The Siege of Krishnapur gives a witty account of a mutiny staged against a British garrison by sepoys (native soldiers).  In mid-nineteenth century India, the fictional Krishnapur, an outpost of the British East India Company, is cut off for months from supplies of food, medicine and other commodities by a native revolt. Eventually disease and starvation cause great suffering and many deaths.  Within the walls of the garrison, Farrell creates a microcosm of all that is admirable and despicable in Victorian society. The British react to this attack in the best way they know—stoically maintaining their British way of life. Hence, they keep class stratification strictly in place throughout the siege, particularly in the division of food, clothing and shelter, and even in the process of burying their dead. And there are many dead, so many bodies awaiting burial that the vultures become too fat to fly. The story revolves around several main characters, well-known Victorian types—stern paternal figures, beautiful self-absorbed daughters and wives and even a fallen woman. There are men of business who cannot agree on the management of the crisis; men of the cloth who cannot agree on the spiritual decisions that must be made; and men of science, who cannot agree on the treatment of cholera and  other diseases and injuries.  They are all forced to struggle for survival in the small, poorly stocked garrison and their hide-bound sense of superiority does not serve them well.  

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

In the 1970’s India suffered through a period of social upheaval and political oppression. Prime Minister Indira Ghandi imposed a State of Emergency on the country. She did this mainly to retain political power (ruthlessly purging and arresting opponents and other government officials.) She also tried to forcibly modernize the country. Her thugs, enforcing her policies, inflicted misery on the poorest citizens. Often they were forcibly rounded up and bussed to political rallies to increase crowd size. Men were kidnapped off the streets and subjected to involuntary vasectomies in appalling conditions. People were left homeless and even killed in a careless, poorly-planned effort to eradicate slums.  This is the society in which the four protagonists of A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, struggle to survive.

Dina, a widow resisting remarriage, tries to retain her independence and her own home by starting a dress-making business. To this end, she hires two itinerant tailors, Ishvar and his nephew Om.  They belong to the Untouchable caste and are fleeing violence in their own state. Dina also takes a boarder, Maleck, a young student from the north of the country. At first the arrangement works for all involved. Ishvar and Om are happy to have work; Maleck is pleased to have a place to live. And Dina is thrilled to have established a successful business that enables her to maintain her independence.  But their little haven of tranquility is soon disrupted when corrupt and powerful politics interfere with their daily lives. Eventually Maleck, unable to coexist with the pervasive violence in Indian life, leaves the country. But Dina, Ishvar and Om cannot leave. They must learn to accept the harsh circumstances of their lives. Despite their suffering, including hunger, homelessness, illness, and eventually, forced sterilization, the two tailors retain a heart-breaking acceptance of whatever hardships they must endure.  And Dina never allows disappointment destroy her sense of decency. They have found the fine balance needed to survive in Indira Ghandi’s India.

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The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Two brothers, born in Calcutta in the 1940’s, are close in age but miles apart in temperament. Subhash, the older, is responsible and obedient while his brother, Udayan, is brash and passionate. The apolitical Subhash leaves India to attend graduate school in Rhode Island but returns after Udayan is killed by police for his radical political activities. Because he is unhappy with the bleak future his brother’s pregnant young widow faces in India, he marries her and takes her back to Rhode Island. Here Gauri gives birth to a baby girl, Bela, whom Subhash regards as a daughter rather than a niece. But Gauri cannot invest herself in this family. Despite his kindness and self-sacrifice, she cannot accept Subhash as a substitute for the soul mate who had been her first husband. She is unhappy and distant toward both him and Bela, preferring academic studies to motherhood. Subhash cannot try enough for the both of them and eventually the family separates in such a brutal way they can never reconcile. Yet life moves along. Gauri finds a career in academia in California and Subhash continues his career in Rhode Island. Bela, without knowing the story of her biological father, becomes a rebel in her own way, rootless, traveling across the country to promote sustainable agriculture but always anchored to Subash, her devoted “father”. The Lowland is a story of immigration and assimilation. But Gauri, burdened with anger and self-absorption, would have been as unhappy as a traditional Indian wife as she was as a displaced American one.

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