Rich Like Us - Couverture souple

A story of the India of Mrs Gandhi's Emergency, when power becomes arbitrary once more, when the corrupt and the opportunists flourish. It is also a story of an older India, of a generation who remember the British Raj and Partition, of the continuities and the ties of family, caste and religion.New Delhi, one month after the declaration of the Emergency, is the setting for Nayantara Sahgal's novel Rich Like Us, an ironic, tender and exquisitely crafted study of India and its people in the aftermath of Independence. The Emergency in India meant many things to many people - profit and power for some; jail for others; mobile vasectomy clinics for thousands more. For idealistics like Sonali it meant the end of a dream, the extinguishing of a bright flame of promise for the country's future that had burned since Independence. An unmarried woman, proud of her senior ranking in the civil service, she finds herself demoted and humiliated through a corrupt deal at governmental level. For opportunists like Dev, a beneficiary of the deal, it means a chance to quite his ailing father's business and make it on his own as a leader of the New Entrepreneurs. Sonali's colleague, Ravi Kachru, once a passionate Marxist, makes himself indispensable to the "royal line". Meanwhile, the stubborn shopkeeper, Kishori Lal, bloodied survivor of Partition, lands in a filthy prison cell for a non-existent crime. Rich Like Us is many individual histories, and many voices, in one - a compelling and vivid tapestry of India's past and present. Above all it is the story of Rose the cockney memsahib, brought by the worldly Ram from London forty years before to a family that neither wants nor welcomes her. In Nayantara Sahgal's tale, with its humour and tragedy, is mirrored some of the grandeur and folly of the Indian experience itself

While I know everyone is entitled to their opinions, I was surprised to see such a harsh criticism of this wondeful piece of literature which not only tells the personal stories of two women but also captures the time when Emergency was declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in India in '75. The impact of the Emergency is viewed through the eyes of Sonali, a civil servant, and Rose, an Englishwoman who has lived in India for more than forty years. I loved it because it covers so much ground and Sahgal is also such a good storyteller. Anyone who knows a little bit about the history of India will know what dark days those were for many people, when democracy collapsed for a while. I think Sahgal does a wonderful job of capturing that darkness and desperation that people felt. I also liked it because it is laced with irony and humor. I highly recommend this book. --By "nithya_k