Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. I'm not sure about the language in this novel. You travel to this heavily Bollywood influenced conversations. Is this "authenticity" necessary? I am yet to process. Nevertheless, historical fiction is a genre I'm inclined to and this book happens to be one of them. No matter how painful the journey is, you live through tragic events of history through the characters. This book starts before India's partition and ends after Indira Gandhi's assassination.
Human generosity and gradually, brutality i I'm not sure about the language in this novel. Human generosity and gradually, brutality is unfolded. Quite a journey! These characters wear their Indian-ness like a badge, never quite integrating, destined to be on the margins, be they wealthy like Bibi-ji or poor like Nimmo. This remoteness comes home even when the omniscient narrator refers to white people as Goras.
In fact, I had difficulty with this narrator who kept indiscriminately popping in and out of the heads of the characters, both principal and minor alike, reducing them to cardboard cut-outs in places. This was the one flaw in an otherwise well crafted novel with slices of Indian life and dialogue that is fresh, humorous and insightful.
The span of the action covers the greater part of the 20th century and many time periods and events in the lives of the characters are skimmed over to zero in only on key ones. The private tensions in the lives of the three women are reflections of the wider conflicts facing the newly independent India, both internally between its diverse citizens, and externally with its neighbours, even between its distant exiles in Canada.
The indiscriminate loss of life in this conflict also comes home sharply when key people start dropping like flies from chapter to chapter. In the end, the survivors are left bereft and horribly changed and the only person finding redemption from the conflict is Jasbir, the bad apple in the family who left to join the Khalistan rebellion, and finds his way back home after seeing the damage that the movement, its actions and consequences wreak on his own family.
View 1 comment. Mar 22, Nidhi Shrivastava rated it it was amazing. While we focus primarily on the event of the Partition itself, we tend tto often not focus on the aftermath, but it haunts our daily lives whether we are in India or outside of it. As a child and pre-teen, I always wanted to know more, but the Partition traditionally is eclipsed by the independence narratives that dominates this conversation on Modern India.
I am so deeply affected by what I had read but also of the rosy eyed view I had of the world that I was raised in that told me to not judge anyone based on their race, religion, caste, sexuality, but see them for who they were as human beings first and treat them the way you want to be treated. They are represented as complex and nuanced characters who continue to deal.
All of them have gone through a major loss and grief always hangs like a dark cloud around them through the novel. The Partition, the tragic events and violence of , and the Air India tragedy all indicate how these major events are only mourned for by the people who are directly affected by them and memorialized selectively in India and in the diaspora.
To conclude, the night bird has never stopped calling, but it is us who should heed her call and learn about these historical events which shape our everyday.
Thank you so much, Nalini, for introducing this text to me and sharing your article with me. Aug 10, Jaime rated it really liked it. Oh my god! I would never have read this if it wasn't for a customer who lent this Interesting book to me.
This is a work of fiction that has real events within to educate readers the horror that many don't know about. I love how this story connects the three women together and the knowledge it holds.
I was heartbroken and admittedly cried a few times reading the sad parts, and was even sadder to find out that this is based on real events. The only negative is that it took me awhile to get into re Oh my god! The only negative is that it took me awhile to get into reading this. Thank you for writing such an interesting and heartbreaking novel. Feb 17, Silvia C. A different kind of historical fiction, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Although the stories presented are quite sad, because of all the losses and injustices, the characters are likable, and their stories intertwine and converge to link them in the readers' eyes.
I didn't know anything about the history of India presented in the book, and reading about that period was very emotional, thinking a bout what people went through. ARB did a very good job in getting the reader to empathize with the vi A different kind of historical fiction, and I was pleasantly surprised. ARB did a very good job in getting the reader to empathize with the victims of that period and their families. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 star book was the middle of the book was a little sluggish and ended up taking me a while to get through.
Overall though it was still a fantastic read and informative. Mar 20, Carolyn Gerk rated it really liked it. I picked this book up knowing very little about it, thinking that it was the story of families coming to Canada from India, and their struggles to belong. I admit I didn't exactly research it, it was given to me by a friend, and I thought, hey, free book!
I was surprised to find out that it is primarily a historic account of the turbulent history of Punjab since the beginning of the 20th century. I know very little of the history of India's turmoil, I have heard pieces here and there but have not I picked this book up knowing very little about it, thinking that it was the story of families coming to Canada from India, and their struggles to belong. I know very little of the history of India's turmoil, I have heard pieces here and there but have not followed up.
The last major plot point occurs the year I was born, so this history has never been something that has surfaced in my lifetime.
Having read this novel, I found myself interested and intrigued by the events of the past as well as by the fictional aspects. The characters though, at times, somewhat trying and distant, evolve or, as the case may be, remain the same throughout an ever changing backdrop of tribulations and instability.
We follow Sharan-jeet Bibi-ji , Leela, and Nimmo as they struggle to belong, integrate, hold onto the past and in some cases, survive. The stories of the three women are interwoven neatly and rather predictably, but the draws of the novel need not be plot twists. The draw, for me, is the picture painted for the reader of women holding fast to their families and their beliefs be those religion, or the belief that one must belong as the world sweeps past them without care. At times hopeful and just as often, frighteningly tragic, this book is reminiscent of the theme of Leela's life: half and half.
One foot in malleable fiction, the other in the harsh, unchangeable portrait of reality. An interesting read for those who want to learn about the modern history of India without having to peruse textbooks full of paragraph after paragraph of dull script.
Nightbird allowed me a view into a world I knew very little of. It allowed me a history lesson wrapped up in the package of a fictional story about women, family and change. View 2 comments. Feb 29, Catherine rated it it was amazing. This was a tragic story that kept my attention from beginning to end. The characters are flawed yet likeable, and it was the type of novel that left me thinking long after I had finished. This is a fictional account woven amid real historical events, so I learned a lot about India in the mids This book made me realize just how little I know of the modern histories of som many p This was a tragic story that kept my attention from beginning to end.
This book made me realize just how little I know of the modern histories of som many places, and made me curious to find out more Jan 18, Diana Lynn rated it really liked it. Follows 3 women from the partition of India in to the Air India bombing in From India to Vancouver their loves, family, hate, and the seeds of terrorism are explored without judgement.
I gained an understanding of Sikhs especially that I wish I had been aware of before I visited India. The characters are fascinating, and their journeys, often heart-wrenching. A sweeping narrative of the lives of three Indian women whose lives in Punjab, Delhi and Vancouver gather within the embrace of family, faith, community and friendship yet shatter beneath the fist of hatred and violence.
An imperfect, at times somewhat disjointed novel that throbs with feeling. I was heartbroken open. Sep 21, Peejay Parmar rated it really liked it.
A friend recommended this book to me randomly one day and said that I might like it so naturally I decided to check it out myself. It took me a while to read but I'm glad to say I finally finished it. Anita Rau Badami's book spans a very interesting time line from the partition of the South Asian subcontinent in all the way to the horrific events of Historical fiction has recently been a guilty pleasure of mine and this book is def up there when it comes to that genre for me.
The stor A friend recommended this book to me randomly one day and said that I might like it so naturally I decided to check it out myself. The story tells the tale of three women, Sharanjeet Kaur, Leela Bhatt and Nimmo Kaur and how their lives are forever changed by the social and political turmoil surrounding them.
Their stories and adventures intertwined beautifully yet also tragically as well. The story opens up with Sharan's point of view, a mischievous teenager whose vanity and attention seeking ways indirectly destroys her sister's life and also future generations of her own family. She marries a guy who initially came to visit her older sister and emigrates to Vancouver Canada where she and her newly wedded husband start their own retail business and become a pillar among the South Asian community of Vancouver by providing homes and help to other immigrants.
Its foundations are horror, sorrow and even a kind of guilt. I was on my honeymoon in a hill-resort called Dehradun near Delhi when the news filtered through to us that Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India, had been assassinated by two of her bodyguards, both Sikh men. Earlier that year, Mrs. Gandhi had decided to send the Indian army into the Golden Temple, the most sacred of Sikh shrines, to remove armed Sikh extremists who were hiding inside.
Her enraged bodyguards murdered her in revenge for that decision. The day after the assassination, we had caught a bus down from Dehradun to Delhi, not even remotely expecting the chaos that was to descend on that city, as there had been little indication of any impending trouble on television or radio.
The first inkling we had of the ominous situation that was developing all over the country particularly in Delhi and the area surrounding it was at the bus-station, when the driver asked all his Sikh passengers to get off and go home; he had heard that it was not safe for them to be seen outside with their distinctive turbans and beards. Then, on the way to Delhi, we saw fires spiralling up from shops and taxi stands at various small towns. Smoke hung thick in the air. Everything had a shuttered look and there were not many people around.
In Modinagar, a town close to Delhi, we saw a Sikh man standing on a bridge over a dry stream, his turban removed, his long hair unbound, his arms pinned to his sides by a car tire, surrounded by a group of hoodlums.
Somebody tossed something at him and the next moment the man was on fire. His body arched over the low wall of the bridge and one of the thugs who had set him alight leaned forward and shoved him with a crowbar so that he dropped over the edge.
I can still feel the shock that ran through me at that casual brutality — something that would be repeated many times over the next few days as Delhi erupted in an orgy of violence against the Sikhs of the city. In June of the following year, Air India Flight , carrying more than three hundred Canadians, mostly of Indian origin, en route to India, exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all its passengers.
By peculiar chance, this terrible tragedy affected me indirectly as well. One of the victims was our neighbour in Chennai, India, where I lived at the time. For nearly seventeen years the memory of the man on the bridge has haunted me and will continue to do so even though I have attempted to translate the horror into words on the page.
Some things can never be written away. I have often been struck by the tragedy of the ordinary person who ends up being a victim of wars and acts of terror caused by governments or the groups who oppose them. In this book I have tried to tell the stories of three such women — Bibi-ji, Leela, and Nimmo —whose lives are affected by the politics of the Punjab.
Histories and memories and terrors intersect, reach out across borders, continents and oceans and destroy each one of them. Who is your favourite character in this book and why? This is a hard question for a novelist to answer. Each of the three women is created from somewhere deep within me and I enjoyed living their lives on the page. That said, I must admit that I am slightly partial towards Nimmo. There is no particular reason for this partiality other than that she came to me first with her life and story.
Are there any tips you would give a book club to better navigate their discussion of your book? Fall into the lives of these three women and weep with them. Other than that I have no other advice. What question are you never asked in interviews but wish you were?
Hard to say, as each book demands a different set of questions. One that I wish people would not ask: Is this a true story? Has a review or profile ever changed your perspective on your work?
Which authors have been most influential to your own writing? I admire many authors for different reasons, but cannot claim to have been influenced by their writing in any particular way. These authors have, however, inspired me to want to use language, character and plot-lines as inventively or exquisitely as they have done in certain of their books.
What are some of your other passions in life? I would have been an artist or a gardener. My only other passion is reading. If you could have written one book in history, what book would that be? Hard to say. Increase font size. Display options. Default More Most. Back to Default Settings Done. Article Preview :. Anita Rau Badami.
Toronto: Knopf,
0コメント