Kiran Manral - The Face At The Window

+Amaryllis
+Kiran Manral

Julia McNally is an old woman now.  She watches her body degenerating slowly.  It is gradually becoming harder for her to go about her daily routine. Her joints are creaking and she is besieged by ill-health.

She is a retired schoolteacher and lives in a cottage on a remote hill-station along with her faithful retainers who take good care of her.  There are caring neighbors that she can depend on.  Her beloved granddaughter, Nina, studies in a boarding school close by and visits her whenever she can.

Despite all appearances, Mrs. McNally is not at peace.  She is beleaguered by her past.  There are secrets she has that she has not shared with those closest to her, her daughter Millie and her granddaughter Nina. Surely they need to be told things from her past that affect them as well.  While she is mulling over these thoughts, she finds ghosts from her past reach out to her.

The Face At The Window is beautifully written.  It takes some time for the reader to sink into the story, as most things are referenced to, but not explained.  Once you get the drift, the story sails along smoothly.  A lot happens which keeps you glued to the book.

I grew fond of all the characters in the book.  Mrs. McNally is the narrator and she grips our attention and our heart.  Nina is a young teenager who is trying to learn about life.  She is a happy go lucky child and does not have the angst that her mother and her grandmother suffered from.  Dr. Sanyal who takes care of Mrs. McNally's health, Sumit the author, who lives close-by and is writing a book, Bimla and her husband who are Mrs. McNally's retainers, Col. Dayal, a neighbor that Mrs.McNally depends on, all these character flesh out the book nicely.

Not all of us are destined to a clear identity.  Right from the birth of a child, the parents are around, the family is at hand to provide a child with an unambiguous legacy.  What of the orphans?  The little babies who are discarded at birth to be brought up in orphanages?  What goes on in their minds?  Don't they ever long to learn about their natural parents?  What of the people who die in disgrace and are buried hurriedly, do they return as ghosts?

Kiran Manral has written books that cover all sorts of genres.  All Aboard was a light romance as was Once Upon a Crush.  The Reluctant Detective was a delightful book about a housewife who is drawn into solving a mystery.  The Karmic Kids is about parenting.

It is heartening to see a young author experimenting with so many genres and coming up with this lovely tale where the main protagonist is a 75-year-old woman who has an unusual story to tell us.  The ending will blow you away.

Andaleeb Wajid - More than Just Biryani

Published by Amaryllis
Bought +Amazon.com

Food is a big part of our lives.  We eat, at the very least, three meals per day.  It can get very mechanical  at times to prepare the same few dishes over and over again. What keeps the cook going is the promise of praise at end of a meal.  The promise of praise also eggs the cook on to hone the recipe and make it her (or his) own.  So, a particular dish becomes attached to a particular cook, "Oh! No one can cook Biryani like Tahera."  Such recipes, particular to a cook, often have an interesting story behind it.  Every clan abounds in such stories.  Some recipes are shrouded in secrecy, "I never found out the secret ingredient that your grandfather used in the chicken, but it tasted out of the world."

Andaleeb Wajid introduces us to the world of three women, Ruqayya, Tahera and Zubi.

Ruqayya is a young bride in the 1950s in Vellore, deeply in love with Omar, her handsome husband.  The rest of the household puzzles her.  There are a lot of women in the house, busy working most of the time. Ruqayya hates cooking and knows nothing about it. How does she make a place for herself in this food proud, bustling household?

Tahera is the self assured, well beloved wife of Bilal. Her world revolves around her husband and her children.  She lives to cook and feed her little family. Will she be able to cope with a loss that threatens to send her spinning out of control?  She is so mired down, will she ever be able to pick herself up again?

Zubi has everything a heart desires. A small nest, a doting husband, a cute child. Why is she so anxious all the time? Why does she keep pushing away happiness?

Sonia Kapoor sets out to write a recipe book but is far too intrigued with the life of the cook.  She cannot keep the book within the limits of a cut and dried catalog of recipes.  She finds herself too involved in the world of her subject, Zubi, and there is danger she may cause irreparable damage.

The story crisscrosses across Vellore, Bangalore and Hong Kong. It covers the life of three generation of women  Ruqayya (the grandmother), Tahera (the mother), and Zubi (the daughter).  Food and the love for cooking is the constant in the lives of the women.  We also learn how the women pass on their fears and their learnings to their daughters.

Andaleeb Wajid rushes in where most authors fear to tread, right inside the hearts and minds of her protagonists.  We get a fascinating glimpse into the lives of women as it was in during the 1950s upto the current decade. (The 2010s).

The book disorients the reader at times when the author steps backwards and forward into time.  She picks up the story of a character and then drops it - rather abruptly.  Right when we are involved in the story of Tahera, we are led into the story of Ruqayya and then on to Zubi.  The last story is a quite depressing, and Zubi seems fixated on remaining unhappy.  It comes together beautifully in the end though.

You will find a lot of frank and forthright writing in here, and also some recipes that cry to be tried out.  You will also come out a lot wiser about the lives of women and their quest for love and happiness.