A story set in a family whose individuals are in conflicts with their individual and collective past. Are you born Nepali, Bhutanee refugee and Gangtok resident? Story is of a family of affluence but with people as ordinary as you and me. Life choices they have made turns the plot to very rare. It very well reflects one common feeling that we carry: other’s life which we always see from farthest of point and think it is content. Perceived notion of others success means happiness, wealth means peace is just too common amongst South Asian families.
We carry a culture where grudge means beholding yourself and affection for life to people we love the most. Even when you want to let go, you just can’t. A grandmother who has been cunning, shrewd business woman holding threads left behind by son and daughter-in-law’s abrupt death. A Nepali Brahmin lady influencing the world ruled by Men, but lacks to get her personal expectation satisfied by her family, her grandchildren. And here is a chance through which all 4 of grandchildren are together after 18 years just for few days to celebrate her “chaurasi” 84th birthday.
A warm, cunning eunuch servant adds lively tinge to their life with his own story which is no less of character. All of six coming together to convey a strong saga of how cultural misfit we become when generation, caste, nations, wealth, personal aspirations come and twist you from who you are really to what you are now.
A very strong plot lacks equally promising storytelling, which is throughout abrupt, hurried and inconclusive. Implied meanings are not just implied but more absent of details to imply from. Characters in each chapter asked for more of substance for who they will become after the “chaurasi” event? Not just who they were in last 18 years of vanvas from them their family.
As much as I loved the characters in the story, I completed book feeling a miss at the end of choice of ending. You can flee to this book and hope to finish but will end up wondering what more could have satisfied a reader with an inconclusive but more fulfilling end.