Book: A Suitable Boy By Vikram Seth

[Krishna]

** Original post on March 20, 2012 **

This is a major saga, on the lines of A Fine Balance (reviewed earlier in this forum). Both books track the lives of a few friends/ relatives in the backdrop of major political events in India. There, however, the similarity ends. This is a very different book from Rohinton Mistry’s and the style is also different. This book is set in India in 1950’s, when the newly independent India was trying to find its feet.

This book tracks the life of four families. The family of Mahesh Kapoor, a politician and a minister in the government of (the invented state of) Purva Pradesh is one of them. He is an irascible but honest and straightforward minister who would not like to use his considerable influence even to help his family members in trouble. He has two sons, Pran, a quiet, literate, university professor and a wayward, vagabond, mercurial Maan, who is infatuated with Saeeda Bhai,
who is a courtesan with a divine voice.

Pran is married to Savita, who is the from the family of Mehras. The delightfully sentimental worry wart Mrs Rupa Mehra, widowed, is the mother. Savita’s sister Lata is unmarried and the book tries to find a suitable boy among the three suitors who vie for her attention. Her brother Arun is the domineering, Anglophile who loves the way of the newly departed British. Her other brother Varun is timid, under the thumb of Arun, detesting him but unable to assert his independence.

Arun has married into a sophisticated clan of Chatterjees, whose head of the family is a Judge. One daughter Meenakshi is married to Arun but the other one, Kakoli, is an irrepressible bundle of energy and poetry, courting Hans, the German engineer. The poet and writer Amit and the ascetic Dipankar complete the family.

The story is confusing at first with all these characters moving in and out of the story (I have not even mentioned the family of Nawab of Baitar, his daughter Abida and sons Imriaz and Firoz!) I had to refer to the family tree given in the beginning of each book.

Once you get to know the characters, the story flows and is very interesting for the most part. It is long (1350+ pages!) so be patient. It is also told in a very Dickensian way and there is a wealth of information on verious topics, told almost in passing, but impressive nevertheless – The poems made by characters, the ways of the Nawabs, the belief systems of the different coreligionists in India, the festivals, the invented Pul Mela, which is a proxy for a real mega festival of India – the Kumbh Mela, etc.

The story also has its grand moments – both happy (the Ram Lila festivals, the Moharram festivals) and the sad (several riots, the stampede in Pul Mela akin to the ones that happen in the real festival). The scale is grand, the style easy and flowing and your interest is easily kept.

I found only two things that are distasteful – an incest thrown in almost as an afterthought that had nothing else to do with the story at large, and the very abrupt, unsatisfactory, ending.

I would still say that it is a great read and would give it a 7/10

— Krishna