In a nutshell, this book felt like it was too short while also dragging at times. Segments are entirely too brief–Lakshman’s exile/move to the U.S. is handled with entirely too little aplomb for the impact it has on Kalki (it’s also sort of entirely too confusing how they’d be able to make such a move? When does this book take place? Immigration has been pretty complicated for South Asians for many years now…).
But then we spend a lot of time on his fumbly adolescent relationship with Roopa, written in a style I can only describe as “did a male author write this? ….no?” which as you might expect is not a positive per se.
There’s a lot that works in this story–the interplay between Kalki and his parents, Kalki and the world around him, Kalki and journalists all reveal the lengths we’ll go to retain who we are and what we mean to the world. In some sense Sindhu tries to cram too much into the story, and in doing so takes some (in my opinion) lazy shorthands to denote “personal growth”–namely, rampant drug/alcohol use coupled with meaningless coupling (ha). Disaffected youth? Must be into alcohol and sex. It’s a bit trite, especially as written.
I was more interested in the snippets of his future that we receive earlier on in the novel. Rather than the titillation of Kalki exploring NYC hedonism, I would have appreciated more about his journey from cloistered childhood to more even keeled adult.