Book: Bombay Balchao
Author: Jane Borges
Publisher: Westland Books
Pages: 224
Read On: Hardback Edition
How Long it Took Me To Read: 2 days
Plot Summary: Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the nineteenth century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans. Looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).
Lovers and haters, friends and family, married men and determined singles, churchgoers and abstainers, Bombay Balchão is a tangled tale of ordinary lives – of a woman who loses her husband to a dockyard explosion and turns to bootlegging, a teen romance that drowns like a paper boat, a social misfit rescued by his addiction to crosswords, a wife who tries to exorcise the spirit of her dead mother-in-law from her husband, a rebellious young woman who spurns true love for the abandonment of dance. Ordinary, except when seen through their own eyes. Then, it’s legend.
Set in Cavel, a tiny Catholic neighbourhood on Bombay’s D’Lima Street, this delightful debut novel is painted with many shades of history and memory, laughter and melancholy, sunshine and silver rain.
General Thoughts: This was one my birthday book buys. I bought it back in February but I read it last month, five months into the lockdown and it was perhaps the best time to read this book and feel like I was out in the city and amongst it's people.
Things I Liked:
1. It's no big surprise that I am a little bit partial to stories set in my city. I find it hard to resist a story set in Bombay. It's familiar, homey and, given how we've been homebound for the last six months, reading stories set in my corner of the world was a good antidote to this peculiar kind of homesickness. I am very much here, yet the city and its people, it's hustle and bustle all seem so distant. So, I pretty much read this at the perfect time. And in a small but significant way, this book took me back to a city I love so much. A city I miss so much and cannot wait to go back to once this madness is over.
2. As someone who is from Bombay and grew up here so much in this book felt like a chapter out of my own life and my own experiences. The retro Bombay feel just wafts in these pages and these people and characters mirror so many folks I grew up around. Deeply nostalgic and so damn relatable. The book gets a whole extra point for its sheer ability to make this place- Cavel- come alive and remind me so much of my own childhood. And I bet, anyone who grew up in Bombay, especially those of us who had Goan, Mangalorean and East Indian friends will feel the exact same way.
3. I also love ,love, love interconnected short stories. It's honestly one of my favourite kind of book to read. Characters weave in and out of stories and we see the same bunch of people in different capacities and at various different points in their lives and it, when done well as it has been done here, all adds up so this wonderful tapestry and narrative. So even though it's technically a collection of short stories, it ultimately feels like a novel. Plus, I love this whole idea that while you are a main protagonist in your own story and might even come across as a hero/heroine, you could easily be a minor, insignificant or even the villain in someone else's story.
4. I enjoyed the writing immensely. The author does a wonderful job of making this place, its people and the various time periods across which these stories are set come alive in a myriad ways. All of its seem real and believable and relatable.
5. My favourite thing about this book were it's characters. So many wonderful, flawed, human, sad, stuck, messy and beautiful people live here and to see them over the years and root for them and feel for them was perhaps my favourite thing in this book. Apart from of course the food! :) Seriously, I was cravingggggg Goan food as I was reading this book.
6. I also learnt a little bit of my city's history which is always, always a good thing be. I learnt about Dockyard explosion that killed hundreds of people and rendered a lot of people homeless. This explosion was a lot like the recent tragedy in Lebanon. And I knew nothing of it. Nothing! This book has also inspired me to do a deeper dive into my city's history.
7. Not that it matters immensely, but this is such a beautifully made book. The cover is beyond gorgeous, the art is so apt and such a thing of beauty. I am happy to have to sit on my shelves.
Rating: 4.5/5
A book I highly recommend, whether you call this city home or not. Especially those who think this city is unwelcoming or unsafe or some such rubbish.
Also, the Kindle edition of this book is available for free as a part of Prime Reading. So if you are a Prime member get this book now.
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