![]() ![]() He tolerates Sai (her Westernized parents were killed in an accident in the Soviet Union), but true love is reserved for his dog, Mutt. He envied the English and despised Indians, slathering powder over his too-brown skin, rejecting his peasant father back in India, he could be hideously cruel to his wife, indirectly causing her death. The judge’s estrangement began as a student in England. The judge and Sai are “estranged Indians” who converse in English, knowing little Hindi. In a once-sturdy house in Kalimpong, in the spectacular Himalayan foothills, live an old judge, his dog and his 17-year-old granddaughter Sai in a nearby shack is the household’s linchpin, the wretchedly underpaid cook. Desai’s somber second novel (a marked contrast to her highly acclaimed comic fable Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, 1998) looks at cultural dislocation as experienced by an unhappy Indian ménage. ![]()
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