A TOWN LIKE OURS

Nambisan takes us into the
heart of small-town India and into the lives of everyday people, where
everything is extraordinary. So why have they come, why did they choose
Pingakshipura of all places. Are they seeking or are they running away?
Nourishing myself with bidi fumes, I watch, listen and think. I want to know.
Pingakshipura where the water runs a poisonous black and the hair on every
child’s head is white and yet, it is a village-turned-town like any other in
India, where every life hides a story. Reclining on her thin mattress in a
room at the corner of the temple, Rajakumari, retired whore and long-time
resident of the town, shares with us some of these stories. Of Saroja and
Sampathu, unlikely lovers and parents who have both fled scenes of murder. Of
Kripa and Manohar, the childless couple discovering something new about each
other after long years of marriage. Of Lectric Mamu, injured by the
infidelity of the one woman who is immune to his charms. Of Gundumani, the
boy with the crooked leg and his almost-sister, Rukmini. Of the temple
priest, one-time servant of the red-eyed Pingakshi, who birthed the town’s
new divinity Sugandha Enterprises. In her seventh novel, Kavery Nambisan
takes us again, with great sensitivity and fierce clarity, into the heart of
rural and small-town India and into the lives of everyday people, where
everything is extraordinary.