Devika Bai has a wonderful eye for detail
Description
The Flight of the Swans is a rich and fascinating family saga set in British India and Malaya. Cursed, and with blood on his hands, Captain Ramdas Rao Bhonsle is forced to flee Killa Fort, which has fallen to the British. A strange flight of swans signals his flight from Killa; a flight that will drive Ramdas and his family into further adversity. But great adversity spawns great dreams. Ramdas dreams of ousting the British from his motherland. His sons, the handsome and irascible Nilkanth and the plain and romantic Madhav dream of possessing the same girl, Tara Bai, who is the most beautiful courtesan in the land. And Ramdas’ granddaughter, blind Arundhati, dreams only of seeing one day. Woven into this tapestry is a lone white swan inextricably linked to the ebb and flow of the Bhonsles’ fortunes as they flee across India to Malaya.
Genres
Reviews
This may be author D. Devika Bai's debut novel but with The Flight of the Swans, she has firmly marked for herself a place in the Malaysian literary scene. Last week, her book was at No. 5 on the MPH Bestseller List ? Devika has that certain style that swallows us straight into the book. She paints a vivid description of the battlefield scene, enveloping us with the cries of wounded men, sounds of rifle fire and exploding cannons. Devika spins the captivating tale so well that at times I found it hard to put the book down, often bargaining with myself for another two more pages at the breakfast table before I leave for the office ? She leads us on a journey of loyalty, romance, family conflict, social injustice and dreams. As the tale unravels, we follow the fortunes of the Bhonsles from the royal household of the Rani and the Killa battlefield to a humble village of farmers and finally to the British colony of Georgetown, Penang; we grow with the family, living their lives and feeling the passions of sons Nilkanth, an irascible gangster, and Madhav, the romantic dreamer. Both want the same girl, Tara Bai, the most beautiful courtesan in the land. We also get an exotic view of British Penang where Mukta's eyes open wide with childlike wonder to see the British, Indians, Chinese and Malays living side by side; we are filled with hope and pray for the cheerful Arundhati, the blind granddaughter, so she may be able to see some day. The book provides an insight into the Mahrattas - a fiercely independent but clannish people from west-central India who were mostly warriors and farmers. That in the book Killa Fort was ruled by a Rani comes as no surprise as it was the Mahrattas who preached human equality and crushed the Indian caste system. But Devika still has one twist to the tale, one that sees me wiping away a tear at the very end.
The Flight of the Swans contains a lot of historial, cultural and religious details.
New voice of Malaysian fiction ? Bai's debut novel is original in that she has woven Indian and Malaysian history together through the trials and tribulations of the Bhonsle clan. Asian tales of migration to the "West" and the attendant struggles with cultural differences are slowly becoming a dime a dozen. But how many of us have read a novel recently which takes us on the migratory journeys within Asia? Probably very few.
