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Hindustan Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Book review: Lopa Ghosh's Age of Mondays uses lyrical prose to bring magical realism to Delhi
A precocious 10-year-old, a fractured family, a woman adamant on breaking her shackles, an emotionally distant but present father, a magical forest, a Pandora's box of lessons — in her third novel, author Lopa Ghosh manages to explore all these and more with profound thematic depth within a narrative set in Delhi. At first glimpse, the reader is enchanted by the seemingly uncomplicated world of a child, where wonder and curiosity colour in the gaping holes of adult evasion and silences. But alongside Narois, the protagonist, the reader is also catapulted into a colourful world of 'Motherless Mondays' as lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur. Soon, the murkiness of adult actualities — grief, betrayal, loneliness, drugs, death, duality — seems to catch up as one turns the pages one after the other. But right when the innate sense of awe for the world starts crumbling, one gets to enter the mystical world of Jahanpanah Forest, where one meets Jugnus: Sliver Samir, Mian Pagla, Kochi, and Velu. They are healers and weather-workers, but most importantly they are storytellers and saviours of a lost time; in a tale that is both coming of age and of a terrifying era lost to time. What follows is the lead character's struggle to cope with the trauma of abandonment, and the build up of resilience through the innocent yet perceptive eyes of a child who confronts loss for the very first time! The intersection of illusion and reality, coupled with the lyrical and precisely presented prose, evokes a sense of magical realism that is very much reminiscent of the writings of Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. However, what Ghosh asserts is an abject refusal to simplify the either childhood or the adulthood. So through Narois' tender yet sharp gaze, the reader is introduced to a deeply affecting portrait of growing up in a world that does not explain itself. Title: Age of Mondays Author: Lopa Ghosh Publisher: HarperCollins Price: ₹499
New Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Breaking the bond
'The first time she went away was on a Monday morning in July. I woke up to the sound of a gathering storm. It was six am'. This is how author Lopa Ghosh's novel Age Of Mondays (HarperCollins) begins, plunging the readers into a world of uncertainties. Throughout the novel, the author plays with this word to create a mood to tap into the uncertain times of the 21st-century. 'My novel challenges the fragile, often romanticised notion of childhood as idyllic. In truth, childhood is fraught with uncertainty and darkness—perhaps now more than ever, as we find ourselves in the heart of a polycrisis and a world steadily unravelling. Through the eyes of Narois, my ten-year-old protagonist, I try to explore what it might mean for children to inherit such a terrifying world. Will they still play, imagine, love? I believe they will and my novel is about that boundless resilience of survivors, about the deeply personal, intimate spaces of 'deep adaptation.' While Narois's specific challenges are not directly tied to global events, the sense of uncertainty that pervades her life, is but a reflection of these dark times," Ghosh notes. Although the book starts with a sudden disappearance, it does not confine itself to this event. Instead, it offers a nuanced take by diving deep into human psychology, the politics of a mother-daughter relationship, and most importantly, the journey from absurdity to hope. Means to an end As readers travel further with the novel, they dive deep into the character of mama-mon, Imon. The character has a lot of grey shades. She loves her child and shares a sweet mother-daughter bond with Narois, and through many political references, wants to prepare her child for a revolution to survive in this cruel world. Imon accuses her husband of living a double life, but never clearly defines what this double life is about, and keeps leaving her child on Monday mornings to teach her to survive in a cruel, motherless world. Her actions scar Narois; she tries to find the intention behind her mother's actions of leaving her every Monday and then coming back. 'Mama-mon has good intentions but she is ultimately a deeply flawed person. She wants her child to survive, be resilient. But in trying to thrust upon little Narois, her own interpretation of the world, she confuses the child and unwittingly creates insecurities and trauma. Accusations of double life that she levels against her husband are also hazy – they are based on how she perceives him and are evidently in contradiction with how Narois perceives her father,' adds Ghosh. Surviving it As her mother keeps leaving her, Narois tests her survival skills in the world; she finds Jugnus—a group of legendary healers and weather workers who help her fight her traumas—in the magical Jahanpanah forest. 'Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus explores the absurdity of our incessant journey between hope and despair—and the possibility of finding meaning despite it. The journey towards hope never ends, even in the darkest of times. My novel is not about uncertainties and abandonment. Rather it is about how we survive, about fierce hope and endurance," Ghosh adds.
Scroll.in
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
May fiction: Six new novels and short story collections to cool down with in summer
All information sourced from publishers. Songs Our Bodies Sing, Lindsay Pereira A heartbroken father in London turns to the Beatles to make sense of what he has lost. An antique dealer in Bombay rejects jingoism in favour of racism. Two immigrants in Toronto look for ways of belonging with a local rock band. And, in Paris, a tourist rejects long-held ideas about trust. The East and West have clashed in innumerable ways since each first acknowledged the existence of the other. The stories of Songs Our Bodies Sing are set at these points of intersection. What they reveal are commonalities rather than differences, with protagonists on opposite sides of an imaginary divide, trapped in boxes of their own making. My Name is Jasmine, Shashi Warrier A woman wakes up confused in Malkangiri District Hospital in Odisha. When a nurse wants to know her name, she blacks out in terror at the realisation that she has no idea who she is. The next time she wakes up, the terror returns, but she wills herself to look at her world more rationally. She discovers she's suffered a head injury and lost some of her memories in the aftermath. When the police come, she finds out that she knows more about guns and violence than any common citizen should. Floating voices in her head tell her: trust no one, keep to yourself, you've been through worse and survived. When a psychiatrist is brought in to find out whether she's faking her amnesia, she's inclined to trust him. Her fingerprints lead the police to believe that she is part of a group that's planning a major operation soon. While the investigating agency fears that her former colleagues might try to have her killed before she can testify. Deciding that she needs legal help, the psychiatrist calls in a former Supreme Court advocate. Given the concern and support from the psychiatrist and the lawyer, Jasmine is torn: should she give up her group that supported her when she had nowhere else to go? Or these two people, who believe in her when no one else would? Age of Mondays, Lopa Ghosh Ten-year-old Narois wakes up to find that her mother is preparing to go to a mysterious place – a place neither too far nor too close. It is a motherless Monday. The first of many. As Narois's father struggles to adapt, as her parents' marriage comes apart, as Narois herself tries to make sense of the goings-on – is her mother having an affair; is she planning to abandon the family forever? – she creeps away into the dark, magical-real Jahanpanah forest to escape. Here, she encounters the Jugnus – legendary healers and weather-workers. Silver Samir, their handsome leader, Mian Pagla, who followed the river, Kochi who is bendy when sad, and Velu the gentle murderer mesmerise Narois with their tales; she will do what she can to belong to them. It is a world on the brink, where the mother Narois leans on may be unable to protect her and where betrayal can be love in disguise. One More Story About Climbing a Hill, Devabrata Das In 'A Night with Arpita', a beautiful young girl in a train compartment captures the imagination of the writer – but he is unable to fathom the reason for her melancholy until it is too late. In 'Ananta with His Seema', three apparently disconnected incidents take place on a railway platform. Descriptions of the incidents are interspersed with passages from a letter written by Ananta's friend, which lays bare his helplessness in the face of injustice and the loss of his youthful ideals. In the eponymous story, life imitates art with a disastrous twist. A young couple treks up a hillside to recreate for themselves the experience of two characters in a love story set in idyllic Shillong. But the beauty of the pine shrouded hills is marred by extremist violence and their climb to the top of the hill has an unforeseen, macabre end. Each of the eighteen stories in this collection provides an insight into life in an area of conflict, told with irony and ingenuity. The Dead Know Nothing, Kishore Ram Disgraced after failing the seminary exams, Thankachan has returned to his old life. On Fathima Island in the Ashtamudi archipelago, his days are clouded over by the fear of never making anything of himself, but soon, strange events begin to happen on the island. A dead body surfaces one day, then another. Soon, a murder case considered solved years ago is suddenly once again wide open. Is his evasive brother involved in something sinister? Is the fate of a fisherman's son really sealed at birth? Packed with intrigue, compelling characters draw the reader into their lives and the heart of the dark secrets that have long lain dormant. Once revealed, they threaten to shake the foundations of community life and wreck Thankachan's hopes for the future. Water Days, Sundar Sarukkai At the cusp of the millennium, in a fast-changing neighbourhood in Bangalore, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi form a buzzing background of muted conversations as speculation mounts about what really happened that night when a girl barely out of her teens died. Raghavendra, erstwhile security guard dreaming of setting up his own grocery store, finds himself unexpectedly in the middle of it all, tasked with the responsibility of finding out the truth by his wife Poornima. And every morning, for the thirteen days that it takes for the soul to find liberation and the story its resolution, the women gather at the water taps before sunrise, collecting water and stories …
