Book: Suralakshmi Villa
Author: Aruna Chakravarti
Pages: 313
Read: Hardcover copy pictured above
Read in: 3-4 hours
Plot Summary: Suralakshmi Choudhury, a gynaecologist based in Delhi, falls in love at the age of thirty-one, marries and has a son. Suddenly, five years after his birth, she abandons everything including the house gifted to her by her father and her flourishing medical career, to travel to an obscure village in Bengal and open a free clinic for women and children.
She leaves her son behind but takes along a poor Muslim girl, she has adopted. What makes her take this strange decision? Suralakshmi’s actions confound her relatives and it is from their accounts of the incidents, letters, memoirs, and flashbacks – from a more distant past – that the story comes together and the layers and nuances in the enigmatic character of Suralakshmi are brought to light.
In Suralakshmi Villa, Aruna Chakravarti blends the narrative of the novel with history, legend, music, religion, folklore, rituals and culinary practices of both Hindus and Muslims, and creates a fascinating tapestry which reveals the syncretic nature of Bengal and her people.
Things I Liked:
1. Suralakshmi Villa is an extended version of a short story written by Aruna Chakravarti, which I had read several years ago. So, when I picked up the book and started reading it, I was really confused if we already had and read this book! However, since Chakravarti is such a wonderful writer and the book explores and delves into the lives of so many women all over Bengal, there is no sense of repetition in the narrative at all! While there are some aspects of the book that seem familiar, but there is just so much more in there that is heartbreaking and riveting.
2. The writing is utterly beautiful. The author brings the women, their homes, surroundings, relationships alive and you feel like you are watching their lives unfold in front of you. Beautiful, evocative writing! You really bond with these characters and feel so strongly for them and their rights- always a hallmark of great writing!
3. We meet many women in this book. Some of them are likeable, some are relatable, some evoke a lot of empathy and some are just plain confounding! So, there is a lot of little stories about the lives and suffering of women from different socio-economic strata and all these stories are beautiful, heartbreaking, uplifting and moving. You'll come away with a sense of outrage but not one of hopelessness.
4. This book is set, for the most part, in the late 1950s and we see the lives of women in that era in a metro (Delhi) and a village (rural Malda). Each of these narratives are equally interesting and poignant. I enjoyed the Malda stories more than the Delhi ones, but even the Delhi ones were really enlightening.
Rating: 4.5/5
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