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At the opening of this masterful debut novel, Vishnu lies dying on the staircase he inhabits while his neighbors the Pathaks and the Asranis argue over who will pay for an ambulance. As the action spirals up through the floors of the apartment building we are pulled into the drama of the residents' lives: Mr. Jalal's obsessive search for higher meaning; Vinod Taneja's longing for the wife he has lost; the comic elopement of Kavita Asrani, who fancies herself the heroine of a Hindi movie.Suffused with Hindu mythology, this story of one apartment building becomes a metaphor for the social and religious divisions of contemporary India, and Vishnu's ascent of the staircase parallels the soul's progress through the various stages of existence. As Vishnu closes in on the riddle of his own mortality, we wonder whether he might not be the god Vishnu, guardian not only of the fate of the building and its occupants, but of the entire universe.… (altro)
Here's what I wrote in 2009 about this read: "Good read about life in modern Mumbai. Tragi-comic, with the most memorial characters being the "warring housewives" on the first floor of the apartment building where Vishnu lived (on a landing)." ( )
Human and rich, funny and tragic--never been to India but somehow this seems like India distilled. The heroism of the character who can't bear pain is so noble and funny and true! Beautiful book. ( )
A wonderful tale that revolves around Vishnu, who sleeps on the staircase landing of a Bombay apartment block and does odd-jobs for the residents. He is dying and we begin to meet the residents as they argue about who will pay for an ambulance to take Vishnu away. There are two Hindu families, the Pathaks and Asranis, who have petty arguments about sharing a kitchen, there is Mr Taneja, whose wife has died and who has become a recluse and there is the unfortunate Mr and Mrs Jalal and Mr Jalal's search for enlightenment in different religions and their son who is secretly meeting Kavita, the Asrani's daughter. All of this is intertwined with Indian myths and religion. There is humour as the residents deal with each other. Vishnu looks back on his life as he dies and we read the back story of many of the residents but it is the flats and the staircase where the novel happens. ( )
I'm just a couple of chapters into this but I've decided to put it away because it just hasn't appealed to me like I thought it would. I may pick it up later, but right now I have too many things I really want to read to plug away at something that doesn't engage me.
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"I am Vishnu striding among sun gods, the radiant sun among lights... I stand sustaining the entire world with a fragment of my being." - From Krishna's discourse to Arjun, Chapter Ten, The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller
Dedica
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For my mother and father.
Incipit
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Not wanting to arouse Vishnu in case he hadn't died yet, Mrs. Asrani tiptoed down to the third step above the landing on which he lived, teakettle in hand.
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"Tomorrow, you go back," the boy says, and Vishnu hears the notes start up again.
At the opening of this masterful debut novel, Vishnu lies dying on the staircase he inhabits while his neighbors the Pathaks and the Asranis argue over who will pay for an ambulance. As the action spirals up through the floors of the apartment building we are pulled into the drama of the residents' lives: Mr. Jalal's obsessive search for higher meaning; Vinod Taneja's longing for the wife he has lost; the comic elopement of Kavita Asrani, who fancies herself the heroine of a Hindi movie.Suffused with Hindu mythology, this story of one apartment building becomes a metaphor for the social and religious divisions of contemporary India, and Vishnu's ascent of the staircase parallels the soul's progress through the various stages of existence. As Vishnu closes in on the riddle of his own mortality, we wonder whether he might not be the god Vishnu, guardian not only of the fate of the building and its occupants, but of the entire universe.
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