A suburban Bombay tale

Author Anjali Joseph chooses to describe 'her Bombay' through a suburban locality and ordinary lives

It's another one of those novels with Bombay as its focal point and stories interwoven in a larger setting of the city. Saraswati Park by first time author Anjali Joseph is set in locality by the same name, in suburban Bombay.

Mohan and his wife Lakshmi lead a rather ordinary life with few hopes and fewer events. Mohan writes letters for a living and sits outside the post office; Lakshmi is a homemaker and has her own quirks.
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Very little about the two characters comes out through actual description but their lives in due course establish their preferences and reactions. Saraswati Park and Bombay at large continues to retain focus.
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The descriptions and detail are the sort that Mumbaikars or those who have spent time in the city in 80s-90s might relate to, though a person of lesser knowledge of the metropolis would find the author's smart details a little too, well, detailed.

Mohan and Lakshmi's life changes when Mohan's nephew Ashish comes to live with them after having failed a year in college.
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The focus soon shifts to him, his college, relationships and 'his Bombay'. His alternate sexuality and his discovery of it are treated rather mildly and do not hinder the calm tone of the book.
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What it does do in turn is heighten the plot of the book and leave it in scatters as the author jumps from one situation to the other.

Bombay remains the backdrop but a lot of detail loses focus during the emotional turbulences of the characters. Many a time the plot takes you to a peak of interest and lets it fall flat with a sudden shift in scene.
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Though Mohan has an unusual occupation, an archaic letter writer in the era of mobile phones and the internet, however the author never digs deeper into the whys and hows of Mohan's profession and neither does she dwell on it too much.

The end is rather predictable and does not feel like an end. The writing though isu00a0 good and keeps from dramatic quotable quotes that describe Bombay.

A Bombay-based reader will identify with the rather real descriptions of the bustling city, for the others though it might add to the dullness of the plot.

All in all, Saraswati Park starts out as an engrossing read, but takes a downhill path into being just another first novel.

Saraswati Park
Author Anjali Joseph
Publisher Harper Collins
Pages 261, Rs 399