Categories
Archive
Links
Civil Engineering Vacancy In Dubai
When his mother's piles appear to have erupted into rectal cancer, 28-year-old Jamun takes leave of his civil service job and flies across India to fulfil his filial obligations. Mostly, that means he’s obliged to hang around. In the ensuing months, as his mother undergoes heart surgery, recovers, relapses and finally dies, Jamun ruminates on his growing-up years, his parents' testy marriage and the webs knotting together this lower middle-class Indian family.
The storyline of Upamanyu Chatterjee's second novel, The Last Burden, is simple enough. (The first was the much acclaimed "slacker novel," English, August.) The flavor and form, especially for an Indian novel, are something else. Absent is any sense of historical or cultural sweep. The city where Jamun's parents live doesn’t even get a name. Chatterjee focuses in the opposite direction, examining a small family with an electron microscope.
Unflinching Eye
The viewpoint is Jamun's--witty, knowing, merciless, uninhibited. From quicksilver observations about death, aging or the unlovable features of loved ones, his mind veers seamlessly to the convenience of the pockets in his new jeans or bittersweet memories of licking walls as a toddler. Well, the mind does that.