The Sari Shop: A Novel [Paperback]

Rupa Bajwa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 20, 2005

"An impressive debut, full of lean and lyrical prose." —Ligaya Mishan, New York Times Book Review

Ramchand, a tired shop assistant in Sevak Sari House in Amritsar, spends his days patiently showing yards of fabric to the women of "status families" and to the giggling girls who dream of dressing up in silk but can only afford cotton. When Ramchand is sent to show his wares to a wealthy family preparing for their daughter's wedding, he is jolted out of the rhythm of his narrow daily life. His glimpse into a different world gives him an urgent sense of possibility. And so he attempts to recapture the hope that his childhood had promised, arming himself with two battered English grammar books, a fresh pair of socks, and a bar of Lifebuoy soap. But soon these efforts turn his life upside down, bringing him face to face with the cruelties on which his very existence depends. Reading group guide included.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bajwa dramatically illustrates the class gap in contemporary India in her debut novel, focusing on the fortunes of Ramchand, a lowly, disaffected clerk in a popular sari shop. The novel opens with Ramchand happily going about his duties serving the shop's mostly upper-class clients. Opportunity for advancement comes from an unlikely source when he attracts the attention of the beautiful, literate Rina Kapoor, whose family hires the shop to provide saris for her upcoming wedding. Inspired by his foray into a wider world ("there were cars and flowerpots and frosted glass trays with peacocks on them"), Ramchand embarks on a half-baked self-improvement effort that includes a reading program and some unintentionally comic attempts to learn English. Shortly afterwards, though, Ramchand sees the other side of Indian life when the wife of one of his co-workers, a woman named Kamla, descends into public drunkenness. Ramchand is a tenderly drawn character, reminiscent of Naipaul's innocent strivers, and the rest of the cast is vividly sketched. There are several typical first-novel flaws: the narrative is slow in the first half, and Bajwa's transitions between her character-driven subplots are occasionally uneven and erratic. But Bajwa's loving attention to detail—Ramchand washing his feet with lemon juice before he visits the Kapoors, the malicious chatter of the sari-shopping ladies—paints a compelling, acerbic picture of urban India.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

The Sevak Sari House in Bajwa's resonant first novel is a microcosm of its surrounding town, Amritsar, and perhaps of all of India. Ramchand, a shop assistant, seems content selling saris to wealthy matrons and their daughters. But when he is sent to the opulent home of the Kapoors with stacks of saris for them to scrutinize, he experiences his first hints of discontent. Vowing to educate himself to better his place in society, Ramchand purchases some used grammar books and a dictionary, through which he plods in his off hours. He is brought back to reality when he is again sent outside the shop, this time to a co-worker's shack. Stunned by the poverty and degradation he finds there, Ramchand plunges into a deep depression over the world's inequities. After a brief and courageous outburst aimed at his higher-ups, he retreats to his old compliant self, stuck in a rut that is at least secure. Biting humor, perceptive social commentary, and the poetic telling of a poignant tale combine for an exceptional debut. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (June 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039332690X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393326901
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #687,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "When you explore life, you also explore yourself.", June 25, 2004

By 

S. Calhoun "rhymeswithorange" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sari Shop: A Novel (Hardcover)

Ramchand has obediently worked as a clerk at the Sevak Sari House in the city of Amritsar, India for eleven years; alternating his time between the Sari shop located in the city's old bazaar and his one room apartment with minimal possessions. His simple life, however, takes a drastic turn when he is ordered to take a selection of saris by bicycle to a prosperous family who is preparing for their eldest daughter's wedding. Upon entering this strange new world of extravagant automobiles, air conditioning, servants, and wall-to-wall plush carpet Ramchand's mind goes in a tailspin. He has never encountered such luxury before and is deeply affected.

From this point forward Ramchand's consciousness is awakened to the issues of class that surround him in his everyday life. He becomes interested in the lives of the various woman who visit the sari shop and listen to their conversations revealing their affluent lifestyles and snobbery attitudes towards others. At the same time, and also at the other end of the class spectrum, he becomes acquainted with the dire situation of his co-worker and his wife who reside in a tin shack in a poor section of the city. Ramchand's experiences quickly led him into a dizzying philosophical journey with potential serious ramifications for many.

While THE SARI SHOP contains an engaging and highly entertaining plot, Rupa Bajwa's prose is often uneven and lacks a clear direction, especially towards the middle, that can possibly attributed to this being her debut novel. Hopefully her writing skills will improve and she will continue to publish thought-provoking books with memorable characters in the near future. Recommended, especially for those who enjoy Indian literature.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Money, congestion and noise danced an eternal, crazy dance", August 10, 2004

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Sari Shop: A Novel (Hardcover)

Longlisted for Britain's Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004, Rupa Bajwa's The Sari Shop turns the world of a small shop in Amritsar, India, into a microcosm of the society, allowing the author to explore big ideas within an intimate environment. Exploring the lives of ordinary shop salesmen, both at home and at work, as they struggle to make ends meet, she juxtaposes them against some of their wealthy clients, highlighting dramatically the economic contrasts in their lives and the differences in their expectations. From her opening description of the raucous awakening of a small neighborhood, she presents the kinds of homely details which make the setting easy to visualize, despite the cultural differences.

Ramchand, now twenty-six, has been working as an assistant at the Sevak Sari House since he was fifteen, doing the same job day after day, going to a small dhaba with some of the other assistants for something to eat at night and sometimes to the movies. He has little hope of improving his station and, with his parents dead and no family in the city, little opportunity to meet a marriageable young woman or change his lonely life. Through flashbacks, the reader learns about Ramchand's family background and how he came to live alone in Amritsar.

As Bajwa slowly draws the reader into the lives of other characters, the reader empathizes with them. Kamla, the wife of Chander, another of the shop assistants, is an especially pathetic case, a young woman who has been victimized by society, her husband, and her husband's former employers. Rina Kapoor, daughter of the wealthiest man in Amritsar, however, is also, in some ways, a victim of her economic situation, as are the women for whom shopping for saris is a primary activity. Only a few women here seek independent lives, these being women for whom it is an option because of their economic privilege. Kamla has no such options. When the lives of Ramchand, Kamla, Rina, and Chander intersect in a shocking climax, lives change forever.

The stunning ending is melodramatic, and Ramchand's change of character may not be completely realistic, but the story moves effectively from its quiet character study at the beginning into a compelling story of characters whose lives overlap, often unwittingly. Sometimes darkly humorous, the story has considerable charm because Ramchand himself inspires empathy. Intimate and thoughtful in its depiction of the various social strata which make up the community, the novel is more understated--less sensational and less political--than some of the more panoramic epics which have come from India in the past decade. Mary Whipple

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A New Voice To Be Heard, July 11, 2006

By 

Steven P. Reutter "Steven Reutter" (Carlisle PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sari Shop: A Novel (Hardcover)

There are, apparently, an endless supply of narratives portraying the class inequalities in contemporary Indian life. Few of them have made it into the hands of western english readers. It is a treat that this one has overcome the narrowness of western ethnocentricity to give us an insight into the world of modern Indian culture.
Rupa Bajwa opens the window for us to see the world she was born and raised in. While not biographical, it is still first hand. We see a world of rich, deep culture. But a culture, to the western mindset, of indescribable inequality without recourse to true justice. We witness a society at the crossroads of modernity and inescapable prejudice.
It is not, at its core, a sad or tragic story. Neither is it a story inciting change to the established order. But it is an insight into the complex nature of the Indian psyche that must be unraveled and attempts made to resolve it before this nation can join the club of first world nations.
This is Bajwa's first novel. Her newness is obvious, even to the unskilled. But that is not a criticism per se. Her imagination, vulnerability, and even her weaknesses are cause to want to read on to the end. It is because she is not yet refined that the reader extends her grace and continues on to learn what she has to say and see where her characters go.
I applaud this first effort and hope she will give us further enrichment into her world and opportunity to watch her mature into a major force in literature.