the inheritance of loss

3the inheritance of loss The title itself was appealing - prententiously yet somehow i could relate to it. As i read on, there was more i identified with than i would like to admit. It has three main story lines - Sai and her relationship with her lover, her grandfather and his past, the cook's son in the land of milk and honey that is america. To me, what bound them together, at the core of it, was the issue of identity - particularly identity for migrants, made more obvious to me because i am one myself. In this age of multiculturalism and globalisation, people are uprooted from their culture often enough anyway. Inevitably comes the loss of tradition and circuming to the the mold of Western culture. These characters have a unianimously negative encounter with the West. The irony was within the inherent sense of inferiority in being brown/ indian, harbours also the prejudice against anyone with darker skin - like the shock when Biju saw an African woman behind him on the queue to request an American visa and was successful. Even the oppressed need someone else to look down on, to assure of their own worthiness. Desai describes the poverty so vividly that you step into the mind of what drives Biju, the cook and the judge. You begin to see why materialism was a saviour to their fate. Oppressed by political, economic and caste values on one hand, yet they each view their world with the same stereotyped, unfair judgement. the character i most identified with was the cook's son Biju - gave all he had to go to America, lost his soul and family while in America, left America to return to less than what he already had lost. The loss in belonging to nowhere was heartfelt. The words are beautifully crafted so that you smell the stench of rat ridden Ghandi Cafe, feel the fear during the riots and see the beauty of the Indian/ Pakistani butterfly filled border. It may sound like a bleak novel, but it really is thought provoking. There are much bigger issues i haven't gone into but may be some of you who care to read this, would e mail me your thoughts and no doubt educate me with more insights from your side of the couch. hmm, what am i saying, i don't even know if this would get onto the website...anyway, great book, highly recommended. Olivia