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A Breath of Fresh Air

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A BREATH OF FRESH AIR by Amulya Malladi

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR is the story of a young woman, Anjali, who lives through a major disaster and changes her life for the better because of it. The book opens with Anjali waiting for her husband Prakash to pick her up at the train station to take her home. Prakash is very late. On that fateful day on December 3, 1984, the gas explosion from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, only a few miles away from the train station, spews out gas fumes for miles around, killing or physically harming anyone that comes in contact with it. Hundreds die or are taken ill. Anjali feels a horrible pain in her lungs as she tries to breathe. She cannot fathom what is happening to herself and to those around her. She loses consciousness, and wakes up to find herself in a hospital bed.

The events from this day have a dramatic effect on Anjali's life. Not only does she develop a horrible debilitating asthma that stays with her for the rest of her life, but also she finds out that the reason her husband was late in picking her up at the train station was that he was busy with a lover. Despite Indian customs and traditions, and the fact that her parents strongly disapproved her actions, she divorces Prakash.

Years later, we find Anjali happily married to another man, her second husband Sandeep. Her life with Sandeep is very complete. They are still in love after 15 years of marriage. They have a son, Amar, who is their pride and joy. But there is one problem --- because of the effects the gas explosion had on Anjali, Amar was born with so many birth defects that the doctors did not think he would live. He's had numerous surgeries to fix his ailing heart and lungs, but these surgeries are only temporary relief for this poor boy who is destined to live a short life. Despite his ill health and his inability to live the life of a normal healthy boy, Amar seems happy enough, enjoying each day as it comes. Anjali and Sandeep are very proud of him.

A chance meeting with Prakash one day changes Anjali's life once again. She loves Sandeep, and nothing will ever change that. But because of doubts that have been planted in her mind by her parents, she soon begins to wonder if she had made a mistake by not trying harder to be the good wife of Prakash. On the other hand, she still feels deep anger at him and blames him for her poor health and the poor health of her son Amar. Prakash as well finds himself angry that Anjali had left him. He had also remarried, and he loves his wife, but now he finds himself comparing her to Anjali. Who was the better wife?

Sandeep starts to doubt Anjali's love for him, thinking that she has loved Prakash all along. He keeps these feelings to himself, afraid to voice them. Anjali senses something wrong, and becomes frustrated knowing that there is something big troubling Sandeep.

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR by Amulya Malladi is a great first novel. Malladi uses the backdrop of India of the 70's and 80's to tell the story of a woman who was born to a society of strict morals, but learns to be independent and march to her own drummer. It is the story of how a major tragedy changed the life of one naive girl, and helped open her eyes to the real world. It took a life-threatening event for her to see what true happiness was all about. I recommend this book, especially to those who have read other fine fiction that has been set in India. Having just read A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry, I was very eager to read Malladi's book. I was not disappointed.

Amulya Malladi tells a tale of love, hope, forgiveness, facing the inevitable:death, infedility, divorce, struggle to find happiness all enveloped in this fine piece of prose set in India back a few decades ago!! The characters take on their own identities as every other chapter is told in a first person's viewpoint by the various characters in this story. (Anjali, Sandeep, Prakash, Indu)

The story flows smoothly and the characters are given vivid and pungent identities, each one unique and the thinking pattern of each is distinct as they think out loud telling the chapters. I have never come across a book that tells a story in a way such as this, so it was a treat for me!!

A good read if you find Indian Women authors intriguing as me!!
Happy Reading!

Amulya Malladi's first novel is a keeper. A young woman's dream of the perfect marriage ends after her Army officer husband leaves her standed at the train station the night of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. When she awakens in the hospital, she learns of the accident and her husband's affair. Anjali survives, but her marriage to Prakash doesn't.

Fast forward sixteen years and Anjali has a new husband; stable, gentle Sandeep. They have a son. A son that is gravely ill, due to Anjali's exposure to the toxic gas.

In this place, removed by the years and miles from Bhopol, Anjali spots Prakash and his new wife at the market place. She must reconcile the past with the present. Will her jealousy of Prakash's new wife and his healthy children tear apart the world that she's worked so hard to build with Sandeep?

A Breath of Fresh Air could very easily turn into another someone did someone wrong story, but Ms. Malladi takes it beyond that and exposes the flaws of the characters, and in those flaws they find the way to a powerful conclusion. The characters and their lives will stay with the reader. I'm anxious to see what Ms. Malladi has in store for us with her sophomore novel.

Amulya Malladi has written a poignant and wonderful book. A Breath of Fresh Air resonates with the power of love and the strength of the human spirit. The story begins in the railway station of Bhopal, India on the night of December 3, 1984. Anjali, a young bride is forgotten at the railway station by her philandering, army officer husband, Prakash, on the fateful night of the Bhopal gas tragedy when deadly gas leaked out of a Union Carbide plant killing and maiming thousands in the city of Bhopal. Anjali survives, but her marriage does not. Years later, happily married, Anjali is haunted by the aftermath of the gas tragedy as she and her new husband, Sandeep, watch their son, Amar, struggle for his life. Amar is born with birth defects resulting from the Anjali's exposure to the deadly poison. When fifteen years later, Prakash reenters Anjali's life, she finds that she must now confront her unresolved feelings surrounding her prior marriage and scandalous divorce. Unwillingly, Prakash is also forced to acknowledge his part in the failure of his marriage and Amar's failing health. This is a wonderful debut novel. A sad story told in the voices of Anjali, Prakash and Sandeep. It has been a long time since a book made me cry and by the end of this one, I was sobbing. A must read for fans of fiction from India and those who love a good story from anywhere.

The story of Anjali, and her struggle to overcome the cruelties of fate. The struggle begins with a cheating husband whose assignation with his lover causes him to forget to meet Anjali at the station in Bhopal on the fateful night of the deadly gas leak from the Union Carbide Factory nearby. Anjali almost dies that night. She survives, and lives to love anew, but the struggle continues throughout her second marriage to Sandeep and the raising of their son, Amar, whose health is failing, even before birth, due to the ongoing effects of the poisonous leak.

The story is gently, but effectively told. The characters, their loves, their hopes and fears, their suffering and their joys, are accentuated by the cultural clash between traditional ways and modern thinking. Amulya Malladi's characters are memorable. I particularly like the way she lets each one tell his or her story so that we see Anjali's life from all angles.

A Breath of Fresh Air opens our eyes, not only to another world, another culture, but to the realization that the actions of humankind in the name of progress can lead to great benefits...but also to great tragedy, the effects of which may linger for a lifetime.

This book was a "hard to put down" book, one which left me wanting to know even more about the characters, and wishing I could glimpse into their future. I am looking forward eagerly to reading Amulya Malladi's next novel.

This is without a doubt one of the best books I have read in a long time. In fact, I couldn't put it down! The story is about an Indian woman, Anjali, who survives the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. After the gas tragedy, she divorces her husband who was cheating on her and marries another man, a kind professor. They have a child, but the child has birth defects caused by Anjali's exposure to the toxic gas. The story starts with entry of Anjali's first husband into her life after fifteen years and how they all deal with what happened the night of the tragedy and its consequences. This is one of those books that stays with you long after you have finished reading it, but in a good way, not in a sad one. It also made me laugh, strange as that may sound. All the characters are very real, and you care what happens to each one of them. I am very impressed with Amulya Malladi's storytelling, and I look forward to reading anything else she may write. Don't wait for this book in paperback, it is worth every penny for the hardcover.

Be prepared to weep at the end but this novel is beautiful. Writing is superb and the characters are not only believable but they stay with you long after you close the book.

Anjali is waiting for her husband, Prakash, to pick her up after a trip to her parents. Prakash doesn't show and Anjali faces a life-changing situation as a result. Anjali divorces, remarries and has a son, Amar. The story weaves their fragile lives with a past that comes into the present.

Chapters are short and moving; each brought across by the character's feelings and thoughts.

Can't say enough good about this story. Remember your kleenex and get ready for a novel to stay with you.

During the past few years we have seen an increasing number of fine novels by Indian writers and A BREATH OF FRESH AIR by new writer Amulya Malladi ranks with the best of them. Perhaps the wonder of reading about a culture that has always been enigmatic and exotic is part of the draw. Books like Manil Suri's accalimed THE DEATH OF VISHNU contained much of the atmosphere of India. In the hands of Ms. Malladi, India is a formidable backdrop to the 'complexly simple' tale she relates about first love in all its oblivious blindness, the decisions we make and the milieu in which we make them, and the inevitable journey such decisions develop. This is a story, beautifully told in the simplest of language without the cluttering adornments of extended artifice of place, about an Indian girl who marries for the wrong reasons, discovers her error in judgment, and has the courage to change it. The permutations of that simple triad extend all the way into her subsequent life as a divorced woman in a country where that state of being approaches being a leper, her near-death experience during the infamous Union Carbide gas leak disaster, her second marriage to a simple teacher, the birth of her only child altered by her exposure to the poisonous gas trauma, her tribulations with her parents who place social correctness above individual love, and the eventual loss of her son. Malladi uses a finely tuned manner in which to relate this story. Divided into chapters that bear the names of each of the three main characters, she allows the novel to unfold from the perspectives of each of these people, and in doing so she gives us a set of characters so well-defined that we know we'll recognize them on the street.

This is not a monumental work (it is a brief 214 pages easily read in an evening), but the impact of Malladi's writing spills over into social, political, spiritual and psychological avenues, each of which is well served by this amazingly fresh first novel. Recommended.

She is a great writer. I couldn't put this book down. She touches on subjects that are not easy to talk or write about. Anjali's ecnounter with the ex-husband and the heart breaking story of her son's sickness are not something most people will dare to write about. Way to go.

A friend told me I would love A BREATH OF FRESH AIR and he was right. Ms. Malladi presents a wrenching--and lovely--story of human growth against the backdrop of one of the darkest tragedies of our era, the Union Carbide gas spill in Bhopal, India. I had read about the event when it occurred, but Ms. Malladi's characters give it a new, immediate poignancy. Their stories are so finely drawn that I still find myself convinced they are actually living somewhere in India, struggling to grow from what they experienced. This book passed my two highest criteria: 1) I didn't want it to end; and 2) I grew, as a person, from reading it. I would encourage anyone to read this beautiful story. Thank you, Ms. Malladi!