The Satapur Moonstone

 The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey; 360 pages

The second in the Perveen Mistry series, inspired by the real-life first woman lawyer in India. What I loved about the first book in this series was the description of 1920s Bombay: the culture, the diversity, the food, etc., so I was initially disappointed that this book took Perveen Mistry out of the city and into an isolated world of royalty and wealth. But that didn't last long because the writer transported me to this world right away!

In this story, Perveen is called upon to meet with a royal family in India to resolve the educational path of its future monarch. She is selected primarily because the two women (the mother and grandmother of the future ruler) who cannot come to an agreement observe purdah and cannot meet with a male lawyer. Luckily, Perveen is smart and resourceful and soon finds that there is much more than just a disagreement in regards to schooling that is keeping the palace in turmoil. Between stolen jewels, hidden identities, poisoning attempts, and a possible love interest, Perveen has her work cut out for her. There's a lot happening in the plot, but I never lost the thread. In addition, moving the action out to the countryside of India allowed me to learn more about the small kingdoms of the time and the uneasy relationship between Indians and British colonialists.

I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to the next in the series.

The Widows of Malabar Hill

 

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey, 385 pages

Mystery! History! Lots of fascinating female characters! Great descriptions of food and culture! What's not to love? I admit I judge books by their covers, and this one made me want to know more. I'm so glad that the cover of the book did not deceive.

This is the first of a series inspired by the real-life first female lawyer in India. Perveen Mistry finds herself entangled in assisting three widows in understanding and agreeing to their inheritances. The widows were the wives of one man and they follow strict rules forbidding any contact with men. Perveen is soon drawn in to their lives and their stories. The narrative moves between 1921 Bombay, as Perveen is working for her father's law firm, and 1916-1917 as Perveen's personal story and tragic past are revealed. Perveen's history shows another side of how Zoroastrian women in India lived, and I found her story as compelling as the experiences of the Muslim widows in 1921.

The descriptions of the city of Bombay with its diverse population and fascinating culture, food, and architecture, as well as the experiences of women of the time and the uneasy relationship with the British colonialists make this a great read. Add a compelling mystery and I couldn't stop turning the pages. I can't wait to read more!

British in India

The British in India: A Social History of the Raj by David Gilmour, 525 pages

For better than three hundred years, the British were in, and increasingly over, India, first in the form of the East India Company, later as direct representatives of the Empire.  Who they were, why they came, and how they lived are the subjects of David Gilmour's sweeping social history, a pointillist study which sketches the human face of the British presence on the subcontinent.

As a social history, this is not to be confused with a more conventional political or military history, and a basic knowledge of British and Indian history is required to make much sense out of it.  Gilmour admirably resists the natural temptation to put the more interesting oddities in the foreground while leaving the boring commonplaces in the background.  Even more remarkably, he largely abstains from value judgments, allowing the lives of his subjects to speak for themselves without authorial editorializing.  Unfortunately, this does nothing to moderate the at-times overwhelming amount of information Gilmour presents, but so many of the anecdotes he has uncovered are entertaining or enlightening that the reader is likely to find being lost amongst them a delight rather than a chore.

A Distant Heart

A Distant Heart by Sonali Dev     352 pages

Her name means “miracle” in Sanskrit, and to her parents, that’s exactly what Kimaya is. The first baby to survive after several miscarriages, Kimi grows up in a mansion at the top of Mumbai’s Pali Hill, surrounded by love and privilege. But at eleven years old, she develops a rare illness that requires her to be confined to a germ-free ivory tower in her home, with only the Arabian Sea churning outside her window for company. . . . Until one person dares venture into her world.

Tasked at fourteen-years-old with supporting his family, Rahul Savant shows up to wash Kimi’s windows, and an unlikely friendship develops across the plastic curtain of her isolation room. As years pass, Rahul becomes Kimi’s eyes to the outside world—and she becomes his inspiration to better himself by enrolling in the police force. But when a life-saving heart transplant offers the chance of a real future, both must face all that ties them together and keeps them apart.

In reality, I'd give this 2 1/2 stars. It was okay. As far as romances go, this was just barely one. For most of the book the two leads infuriatingly danced the "will they/won't they" while all the while being either oblivious or infuriatingly misunderstanding everything. 

So, the formatting of this book, with two chapters spent in the present, one from each of the main character perspectives, then two chapters set in the past, one each from the main character perspectives, is very tiring. It slows the advancement of the story way down. And the past seems almost no different from the present - it's just full of examples of how Kimi and Rahul continuously get angry/sad/hurt by each other's actions then make up because they're such! good! friends! Well, the present is more of the angry/sad/hurt brooding, with little to no talking about their feelings and a lot of internal monologues about how "this time, it's for real, I won't be in love with them anymore. I've drawn my line in the sand and I need to stop looking/touching/thinking about them." As a reader, you have to wade through all the "past" chapters to find out what it is "this time," that has them at odds with each other. The only reason why I wanted to finish this book was because I wanted to know what that reason was. It was as expected. Very cliched, to say the least about it.

Survey of Hinduism

A Survey of Hinduism: Third Edition by Klaus K Klostermaier, 507 pages

As a religion practiced by hundreds of millions of people and the oldest of the great world religions, with roots in a time before human memory, Hinduism is unsurprisingly mind-bogglingly diverse - indeed, there are even those who claim that the very idea of a singular "Hinduism" is a colonialist imposition of Western categories on Asian reality.  Certainly, Hinduism is inseparable from Indian life and culture, and it is this aspect of the religion as a living experience that Klostermaier attempts to present.  To this end, he thankfully consciously rejects dissection and over-analysis, thus making it possible to "not only learn about Hinduism but also learn from Hinduism."  Unfortunately, this also results in his giving perhaps too much credence to the Hindu pseudo-science equivalents of creationism and the "Bible code".

A Survey of Hinduism is designed as a course textbook, and as such it is not ideal for solitary reading - much would benefit from expansion and elucidation.  Although there are many black and white photos and illustrations, these are pedestrian in the textbook tradition.  Klostermaier slips somewhat when referencing Western religion - there, he participates in the same kind of dead academicism he wisely avoids when the subject is Hinduism, a problem compounded by his evident animus towards Christianity - but this does not affect the bulk of the book.

From the Ruins of Empire

From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia by Pankaj Mishra, 310 pages

In From the Ruins of Empire Pankaj Mishra examines the careers of three prominent Asian intellectuals from the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, all of whom struggled with the cultural, economic, and military dominance of the West - not only as such power was deliberately, oftentimes violently, exercised, but also as the uncritical embrace of the mechanistic, utilitarian Western worldview by modernizing elites in their homelands.  Each of the three represents a third of non-Russian Asia - itinerant journalist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani for the Islamosphere, scholar and activist Liang Qichao for the Sinosphere, and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore for the Subcontinent.  Each sought freedom for his people, but also a form of modernity that preserved the values of his own culture.

It is possible to go on at great length about the problems of perspective in this book, problems that are only somewhat excused on the grounds that the perspective is that of the subjects.  Understandably, in writing about anti-colonialists Mishra concentrates on the negative impact of colonialism on Asian nations and cultures, but at times he oversimplifies to the point that he falsifies - even a casual reading of Finkel's Osman's Dream (which Mishra cites in his bibliography) demonstrates that the problems of the Ottoman Empire were not only - or even primarily - the result of Western imperialism.  That the reality was somewhat more complicated than Mishra's default narrative of Asians fighting for liberty from Western injustice is implied in the fact that both al-Afghani and Liang were persecuted by their native governments, and both took refuge in the oppressive, racist West - the only one of the three who was consistently safe in his homeland was Tagore, who lived under British rule (and was celebrated in the West, lecturing to packed halls and winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913).

It is possible, again, to go on at great length about the problems of perspective in From the Ruins of Empire, but to do so would obscure the very real value of the book.  Beginning in the eighteenth century, the great civilizations of Asia were confronted with the reality that they were not, after all, the center of the world or of history.  How they adapted not only helps explain the world of today, it also has lessons to teach the West as it begins to discover the same truth.

Born Confused

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier, 413 pages

This is a coming-of-age type of story about an Indian girl named Dimple. Dimple was born in the United States but her parents were not.  She feels caught between two worlds, not Indian enough for her relatives who still live in India and not American enough for her friends there.  When her parents want to introduce her to a nice Indian boy, Dimple is determined not to like him because it isn't how things are done in America but she finds that she actually likes him.  Unfortunately, she comes to that realization after she has told her best friend, Gwyn, that the meeting was a disaster and now Gwyn is interested in him.  Dimple is trying to be true to herself, be a good friend, and still maybe get the boy in the end.  This wasn't one of my favorite books.  Some of the editing style made it awkward for me to read.  I liked the story and writing all right though.  Teens, especially girls, who like Sarah Dessen's books might like this story.

Was Hinduism Invented?

Was Hinduism Invented?  Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion by Brian K Pennington, 189 pages

There have been extensive debates amongst scholars as to whether the religion known as "Hinduism" exists in continuity with precolonial Indian religion or whether it is an ahistorical construct built by imperialist action and colonial reaction.  According to the latter account, British governors, ethnographers, and missionaries opposed an ideal philosophical, spiritual, "pure" Hinduism to an existent superstitious, worldly, "corrupt" complex of indigenous sects and beliefs.  This concept was seized upon and internalized by Indian modernizers and nationalists.  Pennington rejects this narrative out of hand, noting that it does not do justice to the sincere beliefs of Hindus past and present who maintain that their beliefs and practices are continuous with the precolonial era, and fails to appreciate the extent of discontinuity and development present in every religious tradition.

The bulk of the book is taken up by a discussion of three journalistic sources.  The first is a British missionary publication and the second a British scientific journal, both concentrating on the subcontinent.  Pennington attempts to use these to show how British perceptions of Hinduism were shaped by domestic attitudes, particularly concerning class and Catholicism, and how the encounter with Hinduism affected those attitudes in turn.  The third source is a traditionalist Hindu newspaper from 19th century Calcutta, which he uses to demonstrate how Indians reacted to British criticism of their religion, particularly in the strong assertion of Hindu identity.  He also attempts to use these discussions to contribute to the ongoing debate concerning the nature of the relationship between scholarship, the religions it studies, and the practitioners of those faiths.

Pennington's own preconceptions sometimes creep in at the sides, as when he declares that Willliam Wilberforce could not have genuinely cared about the British lower classes because his politics were insufficiently progressive.  At times it appears that traditionalist and modernist might be better descriptors than the progressive and conservative labels he uses, which have political meanings that do not necessarily overlap with their theological meanings, creating confusion he is obviously aware of but seems unable to escape.  Then there is the epilogue, when in a desperate bid for moral equivalency he conjoins the murder of a missionary by Hindu nationalists to the publication of an insensitive anti-Hindu tract by the Southern Baptists, an offense compounded rather than excused by his immediate denial of any such equivalence.  Still, all in all, the worst thing about the book is its length, far too short for an adequate treatment of such a fascinating subject.

The Game

The Game by Laurie R. King, 368 pages

The Game is the seventh installment of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King. Long story short: Sherlock Holmes mentors a young woman, takes her on as his partner, marries her, and continues to solve mysteries with her. It's a very satisfying series for any Holmes fanatic. The series takes place after the original Holmes Canon, so the character of Baker Street we've grown to love (and become annoyed with at times) is not tainted.

The Game follows the same general pattern of the series in the sense that Russell and Holmes find themselves traveling to a different part of the world to solve some mystery or another. In this particular case, they travel to India to investigate the disappearance of a British spy. Because of the exotic locations in which King places Russell and Holmes, there is a lot of exposition, description, and musing about the locale, as told from Russell's point of view. With the setting being 1924 India, this book can definitely be classified as historical fiction as well as your run-of-the-mill mystery.

The Game is definitely worth reading, but I highly suggest reading the other books in the series first.

Fairest: Return of the Maharaja

Fairest [vol. 3]: Return of the Maharaja by Sean Williams, 144 pages

Volume three of the Fables spin-off, Fairest, marks a turning point for this series. It's the first one without Bill Willingham getting a writing credit (more about that in a minute) and it's the first one that doesn't feature a female fable that is well-known in the Fables universe. This volume takes place in an Indian world and centers on Nalayani, a figure from Indian mythology, and Prince Charming, that rakish man who wooed Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (but is getting nowhere with Nalayani).

It's an interesting story, but Williams' writing isn't quite up to par. There's a lot more onomatopoeia and action sequences, and less storytelling, which is sad. I am curious to see where this goes next though.