This is the story of Mira Kannadical who lives simultaneously in a private world of lyrical intensity and a public world of violence and torture. Mira who hopes to lead an ideal life after her return home from England finds her India teeming with confusion and unrest. Realising the futility of her desire to lead a Utopian life in a world of harsh realities, Mira turns away from poetry and looks to people around her to help define herself Durgabai, practical and devoted to her patients; old Swami Chari, preaching that the world s sufferings are only an illusion; and her rebellious lover Ramu, urging her towards dangerous political action.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this brief novel by Indian-born poet and critic Alexander ( House of a Thousand Doors ), Mira returns from Britain to a post at the Central University of Hyderabad, India. As "haunted by memory" as Wordsworth, whose poems she teaches, Mira discovers herself uncomfortably between traditional values and the postcolonial world. Living on Nampally Road with "Little Mother" Durgabai, a physician to the poor, Mira absorbs the sights and sounds of the neighborhood--shoppers, hawkers, political demonstrations, police brutality--while trying to find her voice as a writer. As her relationship with Ramu, a political activist, deepens, Mira is drawn toward the victim of a gang rape and caught up in resistance to chief minister Limca Gowda's oppressive rule and his "Ever Ready" cabal of secret police. In quietly lyrical prose Alexander treats her protagonist's political awakening with engaging affection, and readers will enjoy the details of the Indian setting, from an apothecary's silver-plated Queen Victoria clock to the 300-pound servant Rani and her "metaphysical urges," fed by a steady diet of movies at the Sagar Talkies cinema.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
After four years of study in England, twenty-five-year-old Mira returns to India, grateful to have obtained a teaching position. She arrives in Hyderabad, a city that pulsates with a power struggle brought on by political corruption, and sees first-hand its effects on the lives of people who dare to defy it or happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Though writing and poetry have always provided meaning in Mira's life, her awareness of her country's political corruption causes her to question the necessity teaching English poetry in India. She feels she lacks the words to describe her society: "The lines sucked in chunks of the world, then collapsed in on themselves. Our streets were too crowded, there was too much poverty and misery. The British had subdued us for too long and now that they had left, the unrest in rock and root, in the souls of men and women, was too visible, too turbulent already to permit the kinds of writing I had once learned to value." Through Mira's talks with her Little Mother, a holy man, and her boyfriend, the struggles for morality and survival in a society that is politically immoral become real. Meena Alexander draws the reader in to ponder these struggles and brings to light important questions that are not easily resolved. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith
When Mira Kannadical returns to Hyderabad, India after four years of study in England, she expects to live a quiet, scholarly life. "It was my hope that by writing a few poems, or a few prose pieces, I could start to stitch it all together," she says. "My birth a few years after national independence, my colonial education, my rebellion against the arranged marriage my mother had in mind for me, my years of research in England." But things are not as Mira expects them to be. Within months she is caught up in the political upheaval around her. "The British had subdued us for too long and now that they had left, the unrest in rock and root, in the soul of men and women, was too visible, too turbulent already to permit the kinds of writing I had once learned to value. Those who heard of my poetical ambitions thought this writing business a great eccentricity in me." Choosing sides, Mira casts her lot with the poor, the downtrodden women. Will she ever write again? Or will she channel her creativity into activism alone? Unclear. Nonetheless, Mira is not likely to be swallowed up by the call of external forces. Instead, she remains grounded, resolute in her commitment to justice, decency and sisterhood. Nampally Road is passionately written, moving, intelligent. India - the class conflicts, the imperialist legacy, the sexism - is vividly drawn. This is politically-pointed fiction at its best. -- From Independent Publisher
When Mira Kannadical returns to Hyderabad, India after four years of study in England, she expects to live a quiet, scholarly life. "It was my hope that by writing a few poems, or a few prose pieces, I could start to stitch it all together," she says. "My birth a few years after national independence, my colonial education, my rebellion against the arranged marriage my mother had in mind for me, my years of research in England." But things are not as Mira expects them to be. Within months she is caught up in the political upheaval around her. "The British had subdued us for too long and now that they had left, the unrest in rock and root, in the soul of men and women, was too visible, too turbulent already to permit the kinds of writing I had once learned to value. Those who heard of my poetical ambitions thought this writing business a great eccentricity in me." Choosing sides, Mira casts her lot with the poor, the downtrodden women. Will she ever write again? Or will she channel her creativity into activism alone? Unclear. Nonetheless, Mira is not likely to be swallowed up by the call of external forces. Instead, she remains grounded, resolute in her commitment to justice, decency and sisterhood. Nampally Road is passionately written, moving, intelligent. India - the class conflicts, the imperialist legacy, the sexism - is vividly drawn. This is politically-pointed fiction at its best. -- From Independent Publisher
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