Hitting the jackpot
A sparkling debut novel conjures up Austen in a contemporary Indian setting.
For 25 years, Mr and Mrs Jha have thought themselves lucky to live in a modest wrong-side-of-the river East Delhi housing complex, ‘‘built around a dusty courtyard small enough
for everyone to peer into their neighbours’ windows’’.
Then Mr Jha has what his neighbours call a “lucky windfall”: after several failed ventures, a website he had worked on for five years sells for $20 million.
Now, the Jhas have assembled their neighbours to announce their move to a two-storey bungalow across the river in Gurgaon, where ‘‘the houses are spaced grandly apart’’. Right from the start, there’s a hint of unease: ‘‘Mr Jha knew he was supposed to want that – that was how rich people’s tastes were supposed to be.’’ And soon it becomes clear that quiet Mrs Jha is deeply conflicted about the move, and
increasingly worried by her beloved husband’s growing obsession with creating the right impression of wealth and success.
Like the film Bride and Prejudice, Diksha Basu’s first novel conjures up
Jane Austen translated to a contemporary Indian setting. It works well on many levels because Basu, like Austen, knows her characters and their milieu inside out.
Far from simply making fun of them and their nervous, confused reactions to their changed circumstances, she presents them with deep empathy and affection – especially the women of Mrs Jha’s generation, enmeshed so much more than the men in laid-down rules of proper
behaviour, yet sometimes (as with the widowed Rheema Ray) able to make the most of slowly shifting attitudes.
Basu also ably charts the fraught passage of her own generation, as the Jhas’ son
The surface wit of this accomplished novel is steadily underpinned by highly relevant contemporary themes.
Rupak struggles to make sense of his truncated sojourn in the US. The surface wit and sparkle of this accomplished novel are steadily underpinned by highly relevant contemporary themes of identity, community and displacement.