The Age of Shiva - Hardcover

Suri, Manil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747591792 ISBN 13: 9780747591795

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2008

Synopsis

India, 1955: as the scars of Partition are just beginning to heal, seventeen-year-old Meera sits enraptured on the balcony of a college auditorium in Delhi. In the spotlight is Dev, singing a song so infused with passion that it arouses in her the first flush of erotic longing. She wonders if she can steal him away from Roopa, her older, more beautiful sister. When Meera's reverie comes true, it does not lead to the fairy-tale marriage she imagined. Dev's family is steeped in the very kind of orthodoxy her father has spent his life railing against. Meera has no choice but to obey her in-laws, tolerate Dev's drunken night-time fumblings, even observe the most arduous of Hindu fasts for his longevity. She must also fend off Dev's brother, Arya, whose right-wing zeal and lascivious gaze she finds repellent. Her only solace is in her sister-in-law Sandhya, with whom she comes to share a tenderness that is as heartbreaking as it is fleeting. A move to Bombay, so that Dev can chase his dream of success as a Bollywood singer, seems at first like a fresh start, but soon that dream - and their marriage - turns to ashes. It is only when their son is born that things change. For the first time, Meera feels fulfilled. She is finally ready to shape her own destiny, to take control of her world. A sweeping epic that traces the fortunes of a family in the aftermath of Indian independence, The Age of Shiva is the powerful story of an ancient society in transition and an extraordinary portrait of maternal love.

About this title

Review:

'Suri reveals an immense humanity and tenderness drawn by this compelling narrative, I read this marvelous book in one sitting.' Kiran Desai 'THE AGE OF SHIVA is a stunning novel, proof that Manil Suri is a major storyteller of heart and intelligence. Like ANNA KARENINA, THE AGE OF SHIVA is both intimate and epic, a balance of sensual beauty and visceral reality. Suri reveals truths about human nature: our circumstantial passions, the obsessions that confine us, and the many ways we rebel and find self-expression. Above all, this is a majestic story about love and its unexpected consequences' Amy Tan Praise for The Death of Vishnu: 'An intimate and intricate portrait of life in the metropolis of Bombay.' Vikram Chandra 'Manil Suri's The Death of Vishnu finds the universe in a block of Bombay flats; it is tender, caustic, witty and inspired.' Jim Crace

From the Author:

My original idea in writing The Age of Shiva was to create a central character Ashvin who is never quite attained by the people in his life who love him. In this, he would be like the Hindu god Shiva, who is so alluring because he is an ascetic - his unattainability evoking an irresistible longing which can never be fulfilled. I started with Ashvin's mother Meera, the first person in his life to be passionate about him - I figured that perhaps a chapter or so about her back history would help explain her motivations. Two hundred pages later, with Ashvin yet to be born, I realized I was writing Meera's story, not her son's.

Where did Meera's voice come from? All I can say is that for the years I worked on this novel, she was a constant presence in my life. It was an incredible experience - to be able to think like Meera, love like her, feel what she was feeling, to be her. I still feel amazed at having had this opportunity to inhabit a woman's mind so intimately.

I tried my best not to impinge on Meera's humanness, not to airbrush her character or interfere with the choices she made. Most of all, I refused to force Meera into being a noble heroine. Meera's India was a very patriarchal society, a period of oppressive expectations and few true freedoms for women. My aim throughout was to intuit how Meera would react under these pressures and constraints.

In comparison, I had to work more consciously at putting myself in Ashvin's place. Perhaps this was because my own experiences as a son, so different from those in the novel (my parents were married for over fifty years, until my father passed away at age eighty-two) kept getting in the way. It was easier to lose myself in Meera's love for Ashvin, the fabled all-encompassing maternal rapture for which there is even a special word "vatsalya" in some Indian languages. The challenge was to go further than the carefree physicality shared by sons and mothers, by exploring the gray area just beyond this.

Shiva kept wafting in and out through the pages I wrote, sometimes as a force of attraction or longing, sometimes in the form of the myths he shares with Parvati, sometimes as a symbol of religious ascendancy. I was drawn to the idea of writing a story not only of Meera (and Ashvin) coming of age, but also of the newly independent India struggling to reach adulthood. The most fascinating part of the research was to spend many hours in the Mumbai microfilm library of the Times of India, browsing through decades' worth of newspapers, trying to get a feel for the atmosphere prevailing in the country during various periods.

Each time I read an account of the history of postcolonial India, I was struck by the tremendous odds that faced the country at Independence. To have remained united despite its divisions of ideology and class, its profusion of orthodoxies and prejudices, its crushing illiteracy and poverty, and most of all, its profound religious schisms, is amazing. For India to have risen in sixty years to a point where it is poised to become a major power on the world stage is nothing short of a miracle. Writing this novel has been a journey of discovery for me, one that has helped me better understand the evolution of the country of my birth.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0747591792
• ISBN 13: 9780747591795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464