“Every good question possessed a power that was lost in its answer…”

This sentence motivated me to finish reading an otherwise intolerable book; a book bestowed with one of the most ‘prestigious’ honours in literary world. Neo-colonialism was the pre-dominant feeling that interjected my quest, time and again…

It is indeed incredible how only those works of literature and theatre that depict the ‘sorry’ events of the past are considered worthy enough of this honour. And this is the very reason why ‘Lagaan’, ‘Water’ and such motion pictures get nominated to the Oscars (but fail to win!).

We are still the land of (barely-clad) snake-charmers to the western half.

Apart from the emotionally charged subject Desai’s novel fails miserably to give a face, a voice, to her characters. They come across as unique, not of this world…they lack in what one may call the ‘human element’. The reader is not experiencing with the characters…he merely becomes a bystander, an on-looker, a spectator… The too obvious impression that one gets is that of the novelist trying to force upon the characters…they are without any real identity because they fail to belong…to a region and to the novel itself. They become a portrait of Whiteman’s natives but nothing more…