Indira Govindan’s Blog

Rest in Peace, Dear Kanmani ❤️

2026-07-08T07:18:16.068-04:00

Books with Handlettering on the Cover

2026-06-09T07:15:57.579-04:00

This week topic at Top Ten Tuesday is: Books with Handwriting on the Cover (or fonts that look like handwriting). Below are ten of mine. I chose those that I have alread read.

Drive by Chennai: 6

2026-05-28T10:43:38.733-04:00

Spotted Great Indian Fruit Bat (Pteropus medius) colony on Madras Museum grounds.

Drive by Chennai: 5

2026-05-23T22:53:13.222-04:00

Appropriately sized, cleaner and prettier viewcutters on R. K Salai. These metallic viewcutters built around electrical transformers are part of Chennai beautification project meant to prevent dumping of garbage around transformers, pasting of unauthorized posters and camouflage ugly electrical infrastructure. As one can see, the metallic enclosures are tall enough to hide most of the transformers and the areas around them are clean. As for preventing pasting of unauthorized posters, see photo above.

Thanks for visiting.

Maurice and Maurice: A novel and Movie

2026-05-23T14:11:37.545-04:00

Maurice: Novel (1914) by E. M. Forster

I came to E. M. Forster’s Maurice via its movie adaptation similarly titled. Forster completed it in 1914 but was published a year after his death in 1970. As a gay themed novel, it would have been daring in 1914, just fifteen years after Oscar Wilde’s trial. Forster was a homosexual, a fact he did not hide from his friends but also did not acknowledge it publicly. By 1971, queer fiction as a genre was beginning to take-off with several published novels by acclaimed writers such as James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal. Maurice got a somewhat tepid response from critics. In fact, it was seen as inferior to A Room with a View and Howards End.

Maurice is a coming-of-age story and a love triangle—it tracks the sexual journey of our eponymous hero from adolescence to adulthood, from a confused awareness of same sex attraction to the first taste of gay love (albeit platonic), heartbreak, attempts at conversion therapy and finally self-acceptance and physical consummation with a male lover. Running parallel to Maurice's quest for sexual identity is his Cambridge fellow student and first love Clive Durham's ambiguous sexuality. A squire with a country estate and political ambitions, Clive rejects (perhaps represses) physical desire in masculine love. So much so that after a bout of pneumonia he declares himself cured of his love for Maurice, gets married and encourages Maurice to do the same. At this point, Clive insists he and Maurice continue as friends. There is a third person in this story- Alec Scudder, the gay groundskeeper in Clive's estate. On a visit to Clive's estate, Maurice meets Alec and they start an affair that is initially sexual but turns into love. To Clive's horror, Maurice leaves with Alec never to be seen again in London society.

Maurice is not a particularly likeable character. He is an upper middle class privileged young man--has no money problems, works in his father's firm, treats his widowed mother and unmarried sisters poorly, and the winds of cataclysmic world war that is slowly blowing towards England hardly touches him. His one crisis in life is sexual and in that struggle for sexual identity, Maurice becomes heroic. He refuses to live half a life offered by Clive that would be safe and respectable but without passion. Instead, he gives up social standing and financial security, risks exposure and public disgrace to be in a relationship that makes him happy.

Critics may not have liked Maurice when it first came out, but time has worked in its favor. It is now recognized as a classic and is part of gay fiction canon. The novel's strength comes from its quiet but passionate argument that physical desire in gay love is as natural as in heterosexual relationship.

Maurice: Movie (1987)--A Merchant Ivory Production starring James Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves

I saw Maurice the first time many years after it was released in 1987. It was my first gay movie. Not having read the book, I did not know what to expect and was blown away by both its theme of homosexual love and sex scenes between male characters. One does not have to read the novel to appreciate the movie. It stands very well on its own. The only thing that stayed in my memory was the scene when the butler is walking up the stairs with the breakfast and Maurice and Alec are still in bed together. Next moment he walks in, starts cleaning up the room, spots the ladder by the window and casually points to a mud spot on the floor. I remember holding my breath waiting for other telltale signs that might betray Maurice and heaving a huge sigh of relief when the scene ended.

Viewing it the second time after reading the book, I was able to appreciate the changes made in the movie version while retaining the broad contours of the novel. The biggest change is the storyline involving Lord Risley. He is a minor but interesting character in the book as an openly gay fellow student of Maurice and Clive. In the movie, he gets arrested for sodomy, tried in public and sentenced to imprisonment. This incident is set up as the reason for Clive renouncing his homosexuality and settling into a heterosexual passionless marriage. In showing men kissing and in bed together, the movie is bold for its time. There is also the nostalgic period settings, attractive protagonists and excellent acting. But it does not sugarcoat the oppressive social and sexual mores of the era and the price that is extracted from those who choose to defy them.

It was a groundbreaking movie in 1987. Almost forty years after it was released, the movie based on a story written more than hundred years ago still holds up.

My recommendation? Read the book, watch the movie in any order. It will be worth your time.

Drive by Chennai: 4

2026-05-15T12:54:57.508-04:00

Chennai Beautification Project: Viewcutters Part 1

Kilpauk (Poonamalle High Road)

Since last year, these viewcutters have sprouted around electrical transformers on Chennai roads. I find the designs and colors interesting even if they are not particularly effective as coverings. Whenever I am able, I take photos of them from the safety of the car. Here are a few

Spurtank Road, Chetput

Casa Major Road, Egmore

Hadley Road Kilpauk

Thanks for visiting.

Kerala: God’s Own Country Part 3

2026-04-30T12:46:00.003-04:00

Chinese Fishing Net, Fort Kochi

For a state that is about 250 miles long and 80 miles wide, Kerala has plenty of water—more than forty rivers, largest lake in India, a sea on one side and two annual monsoons. And a lush landscape. I spent close to a week driving around Fort Kochi and the backwaters from Ernakulam to Kumarakom. I could have easily spent another week doing the same. I tried to capture Kerala’s beauty in videos and photographs—could succeed only partially. Below is a sample of what it offers to the visitors.

Enjoy!

Sunset at Fort Kochi beach

Even God’s Own Country cannot escape the scourge of plastics

Lake Vembanad, Kumarakom

Top Ten Tuesday: Merchant-Ivory: From Books to Movies

2026-04-27T14:30:00.004-04:00

For Top Ten Tuesday this week, the theme is Freebie. That is, we can choose any theme we want. My theme is novels that were made into movies. In particular, I have chosen Merchant-Ivory movies, since they made many movies based on novels. I had seen several of their movies and had read a few of the novels but not as pairs. One of my upcoming projects is to read and watch them in tandem. I plan to start with Maurice—I had seen the movie years ago but did not read the book because strangely enough it was not available at the library or the bookstore (pre Amazon days). I am looking forward to starting this project.

Drive by Chennai: 3

2026-04-23T11:30:00.002-04:00

Despite being clean, uncluttered with a very helpful sign, this guy preferred the road. What can one say?

Top Ten Tuesday: Floods and Rivers

2026-04-22T07:11:00.001-04:00

For Top Ten Tuesday April 21, 2026 theme (April Showers), I chose to go with books (fiction or non-fiction) dealing with rivers and floods (which also happen to have blue covers). I have four here:

1. Naina Kumar: Flirting with Disaster

2. Robert Macfarlane: Is a River Alive

3. Alexis Hall: Waiting for the Flood

4. Norman Maclean : A River Runs Through It

Thanks for visiting.

Naina Kumar: Flirting with Disaster Review

2026-04-21T07:10:00.010-04:00

Having experienced two hurricanes myself, I was initially somewhat skeptical of a romance story about rescuing a failed marriage while trapped in a hurricane. Is it even possible to have sane conversations about marriage and divorce amidst imploding windows, broken tree limbs, fire ants and snakes in a city that has turned into a giant lake? In this well written novel, author Naina Kumar shows that under the wreckage of a natural disaster, it is still possible to find that lost love. Flirting with Disaster is about two people finding the courage to be vulnerable in love, overcoming fear of failure and parental disapproval and, learning to make open and honest conversations with each other. The hurricane is the third main character and effectively provides most of the drama in this emotionally satisfying story.

When the story begins Meena is on her way to her hometown Houston to get her long estranged husband Nikhil to sign the divorce papers so that she could marry her boyfriend and kick off her political career. She plans to be back home the same day without realizing that there is a hurricane on the way. But with the city in a mad scramble to escape the hurricane, airlines are booked, highways are jammed and Meena has no choice but to stay with Nikhil. Seven years ago, she met Nikhil while she was preparing for her bar exams. Nikhil who is in construction business, is a college dropout and suffers from a sense of inferiority, both about his profession and his lack of college education. Meena has her own hangups. She is terrified of failing and disappointing her parents. She desperately wants her parents to be proud of her who were hurt and ashamed when her sister got pregnant and dropped out of college. When she and Nikhil get married impulsively while on a trip to Las Vegas, she keeps it a secret from her parents and never introduces Nikhil to her family. When she fails her bar exam the first time she keeps that also a secret from her family. Nikhil is a rock during this difficult time for her and it is his love and support that helps her prepare for a second try. However, after she passes her bar exam, she leaves Nikhil and Houston behind to take up a job with a legal firm that lobbies for progressive causes in Washington, D.C.

The story is told from Meena’s point of view and it goes back and forth between present and past. In the present, during the days she spends with Nikhil, she realizes that she is still attracted to him and in love with him too. There are touching moments of togetherness when they rescue (using a paddle boat) a neighbor (a NASA astronaut, no less) whose house is flooded. When Nikhil is paralyzed with fear seeing a cottonmouth, it is Meena who steers the boat out of its way. Nikhil takes care of her when she develops a severe allergic reaction to fire ant bites and cooks her favorite pasta. She discovers that he watches reruns of Gilmore Girls and wants to build a similar beating heart kind of bed and breakfast hostelry. Nikhil is a beta hero, a romantic ideal in a minor key, supportive, kind and caring,—qualities that she, obsessed with passing the law exams, never noticed when she was married and living with him. She had no clue about his emotional struggles and insecurities. Her beef with him then was that he never shared any o his work life with her and kept everything bottled up and gave her no chance to help him in the same way he was helping her. Yet, now she finds him readily opening up about his b&b project and the volunteer work he does repairing homes damaged in natural disasters. He shows no hesitation in letting her know he still loves her and is full of admiration for the work she does on the Hill. She too confesses that underneath her badass veneer, her actions were driven by fear of becoming a disappointment to her parents.

Whether intentional or not, hurricane serves as an allegory for the marriage—take flight when a storm is approaching and deal with the wreckage later or stay put, batten down the hatches and clean up the debris as it lands. The author draws a realistic portrayal of what it is to be in the middle of a hurricane—frantic preparations, incessant rains, howling winds, floods, power outages, isolation, using radio as a way of staying in touch with the neighbors and the long wait before it is over. The novel is particularly strong in showing personal development, especially for Meena who finally comes to realize that her marriage is worth fighting for. If I have one quibble it is that I would have liked Nikhil’s point of view too. Secondary characters make brief but memorable appearances—particularly amusing is the NASA astronaut who is surprised that his is the only house on the street that has been flooded, a house which is situated right on the center of a cul-de-sac (even the mandatory flood insurance does not clue him in!).

Drive by Chennai: 2

2026-04-11T14:30:00.001-04:00

Eyes are Windows to the Soul

2026-04-11T10:44:00.002-04:00

Eyes are indeed windows to the soul. Not just for humans, for all living creatures. To me, the best bird photos are those that tell me what is going on behind the eyes, in the heart.

Some birds look fierce, like a red-tailed hawk; its eyes do not try to deceive you. They tell you that there is murder in its heart.

But with sparrows, goldfinches and red-winged blackbirds, their gentle, defenseless look makes you keep your distance from them lest they get spooked and fly away.

A snowy egret leans in while wading in the pond ready to spear any unsuspecting fish with its long sharp beak, the madness in its soul reflected in its pale orbs.

Then, there is that stately crane, standing cross legged like a Regency buck waiting for the coachman to bring his hat and gloves. What a pose, what a look!

The mallard duck’s mouth is perpetually tilted in a smile that is reflected in its eyes; maybe it is just grateful to be in this world, living and loving.

The tilted playful look is definitely misleading— the rose-ringed parrot is definitely calculating how much of the tamarind pods it can gorge on before retiring to its nest.

The most intriguing is the urban crow. Perched atop a palm tree, it has a quiet contemplative look taking a moment to observe the world, perhaps wondering where does it fit in this hurly burly world.

Thanks for visiting

Kerala: God’s Own Country—A Photo Journey Part 2

2026-04-10T10:03:00.003-04:00

Dutch Palace, Mattancherry or Mattancherry Palace

Mattancherry Palace is renowned for its Kerala style murals depicting scenes from Ramayana. These murals date back to 16th century. Despite lighting challenges, I managed to capture some on my phone camera. Enjoy!

Other buildings in the Mattancherry Palace compound.

Published!

2026-04-09T14:30:00.001-04:00

Two years ago, I participated in a paper weaving workshop taught by Helen Hiebert. I created the above 👆piece titled Marriage of True Minds. Helen included this artwork in her new book Weaving with Paper which came out last December. The book is a treasure trove of weaving techniques all beautifully illustrated abd a gallery of works created by very talented artists. Helen is a dedicated teacher and I greatly admire her teaching approach. I learned a lot in her workshop. I hope to take another workshop with her.

Thanks for visiting.

What is Thideer Nagar

2026-04-09T07:44:00.002-04:00

Greams Road Thideer Nagar Today

As a recent transplant to Chennai, my curiosity has been aroused every time I passed this road sign 👆tucked into a little corner of Greams Road. Greams Road is a long road that begins at the intersection of Anderson bridge and College Road and ends at Anna Salai. A quarter of the road runs parellel to the Cooum River but a wall of blue screens completely block the view of the river from the road. For the rest, small businesses, eateries and banks dot both sides of the road. It even has an art gallery. (A google query “Greams Road Chennai” will bring up several videos of Greams Road at various points in time.)

Now coming to Thideer Nagar. Thideer means sudden and nagar means a town or a neighborhood or a human settlement. In the present day Greams Road Thideer Nagar one doesn’t see any sign of human settlement. Google search revealed that Chennai has a number of such thideer nagars—they are unplanned settlements formed when migrants from outside come into the city and settle on the banks of Cooum and Adyar rivers and other waterways. These are shanty towns consisting of several hundred families. Men and women worked locally and children went to neighborhood schools. Because Thideer Nagars are illegal settlements, they could be razed and families evicted without due process. That was the fate that fell upon Greams Road Thideer Nagar. Between 2015-2018, despite stiff resistance, all the families were evicted and resettled in a different location by the Greater Chennai Corporation as part of Cooum river restoration project. A number of thideer nagars by the Cooum river have suffered a similar fate.

Eight years later, what remains of the old Thideer Nagar is a cluster of cars parked where there used to be auto mechanic shops. Based on newspaper reports, it seems that the municipal corporation has not been able to evict them because they had proper patta to their property. So, even if humans have been disappeared, Thideer Nagar still lives.

As for Cooum river restoration, that project supposedly started sixty years ago. The river is still as dead as it had always been. Even the dead would not want to be dead there.

Thanks for visiting.

All photos by Indira Govindan.

Kerala: God’s Own Country—A Photo Journey Part 1

2026-04-08T00:30:00.002-04:00

Kerala is a visitor’s paradise. It has an abundance of natural beauty—rivers, beaches, mountains and trees. It is place of great religious diversity—Hindus, Muslims and Catholic and (even jews once upon a time) call it their home. It has art forms that are centuries old, both in crafts and performance arts. It is a photographer’s dream place—for a visitor there is always something to capture on camera—the birds, places of worship, public murals. During my six-day trip to Fort Kochi and the backwaters of Kerala, I kind of ran away with my camera. This first set of photos give a sampling of the different places of worship.

Thanks for visiting.

Robert Macfarlane: Is A River Alive Review

2026-04-04T14:30:00.002-04:00

Robert Macfarlane is a popular nature writer who has been on the NewYork Times best seller list several times and won many prestigious awards for nature writing. I personally own The Lost Words, a book he co-authored with Jackie Morris who created absolutely beautiful illustrations for the book. Is a River Alive was published in 2025 to a generally favorable reviews. Even though I consider myself a committed enviromentalist I wasn’t planning to read this book (not enough time in the day). But I read it because it had a section on the rivers and waterways of Chennai, the city where I presently live. I will confess that I only read the section on Chennai rivers. My town is very close to where the Cooum river flows and even when one becomes inured to its deadened state, it registers in a sad way every time I drive past it. Most regular inhabitants of Chennai feel this sense of sadness. There is a feeling of hopelessness that nature does not stand a chance against uncontrolled, unregulated industrial development and those who care about protecting the rivers and waterways are fighting a losing battle against corruption and rapacity of the political system. In a society where even certain groups of people are denied equal rights and equal protection under the law, an argument for personhood of and legal rights for rivers can seem quixotic. Macfarlane’s interlocutor in Chennai was Yuvan Aves, a 30-something naturalist and an environmental defender and, the founder of Palluyir Trust for nature education and research. As an active member of resistance and community movements against ecocide and industrial violence, he is one of many inspiring figures who keep fighting the system to prevent industrial encroachment of protected lands and to restore lost wetlands. Perhaps the most heartwarming is the story of Turtle Patrol— a group of vounteers who between January-March patrol Chennai beaches at nights to protect the Olive Ridley sea turtle nesting sites, relocate eggs to hatcheries, and assist hatchlings safely reach the sea. They have been doing this for more than three decades. Macfarlane himself is not optimistic about the survival of Chennai waterways but people like Yuvan give us hope.

The section on Chennai makes one serious factual error that is repeated throughout—Cooum and Adyar rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, not the Indian Ocean as the book keeps mentioning. Again, the beach where the sea turtles come to nest is located on the Bay of Bengal not the Indian Ocean.

Drive by Chennai: 1

2026-03-18T13:29:42.592-04:00

Quirky!!

Published!

2026-03-18T11:58:00.043-04:00

In the Fall of 2023, I had the fortune to participate in Kolaj Institute’s Folklore Collage Virtual Residency. There were other residencies on the same theme and the work created by the artists resulted in a new journal called Folklore Collage Society. I had the honor of having my art chosen to be the cover for volume1 of the journal (see above) All artists were asked to create accompanying text with the artwork and I was thrilled that my 1000 word article included in its entirety (see the video below).

Thanks Kolaj Institute!

Belinda Bauer:The Impossible Thing Review

2026-03-16T01:45:00.011-04:00

I chose Belinda Bauer’s The Impossible Thing to read for ReadingWales’26 March event by BookerTalk. To take part in this event, we need to read a book from any genre written by an author from Wales. Belinda Bauer presently lives in Wales, where before turning to fiction writing, she was a court reporter at Cardiff and several of her books are set in Wales. She is an acclaimed award winning author. This was my first book by her. I picked up the book because it has a compelling story—beautifully written with engaging good guys, perfectly woven storylines with an evocative sense of place. It bills itself a crime novel—it is that but it is also a story of moral awakening of a young woman. It is also a tale of one stubborn determined bird.

The story is set in dual timelines—The first part is set in the twenty years between the two world wars in northern Yorkshire by the rock cliffs over the coast of North Sea. The second part takes place in present-day rural Wales. There are two protagonists in each section— a girl and a bird in one; two 20something men in the other. The thread that connects the two parts is theft of bird eggs and their trafficking (legal and illegal) to traders and collectors. The narrative switches back and forth between the two timelines.

The cracks on the cliffs of Yorkshire, where the story starts, are nesting grounds for millions of seabirds—“Gulls and fulmars and guillemots and puffins and gannets and kittiwakes and razorbills…every one of them drawn back every summer to the same face, the same place, the same tiny ledge, where it would lay its eggs and raise its chicks”. For the “climmers”, going down on the rope along the cliff face, four or five times a day, collecting 40 to 50 eggs per day, from March to July and selling them to traders and brokers gathered on the cliff top was lucrative, more lucrative than laboring on the farm. There was money to be made on each and every egg but colorful large eggs fetched the highest price. Stealing eggs from the nests and selling them for highest bidder was legal then and there was no moral qualms about either. Many farms along the cliff top lived well on stolen eggs but not the Sheppards of Metland farm. Their farm, unfortunately ended on an overhang which made it impossible to rope down the cliff wall and pluck eggs from under the birds. But the overhang had a crack through which a very tiny body could pass.

While rest of the family toiled on the farm, Celie Sheppard, a six year old with a body so small that a wind could actually blow her away, takes the desperate risk to rope down through the crack in the overhang to steal some eggs because she wanted to eat omelettes.

“She could see hundreds of birds pressed against the cliff-face. And, as they shifted about, glimpses of eggs of every size and colour that she could imagine. They had chickens in the yard, of course, but they laid dull little brown eggs, and never enough to eat, only for selling. These eggs were two or three times that size, and speckled and spotted and splattered with brown and black on backgrounds that ranged from cream, through blue to green. Celie had never had a toy, but the thought of holding such eggs in her little hands made her nearly smile, with a feeling that was beyond hunger”.

When she ‘climmed’ the first time and got her first egg “ even though she had no way of knowing that night—wouldn’t understand for a good while—that was the egg that would change her life”. It was a guillemot egg—“ red in color, a deep, tapestry red, but grew lighter as it rose from the base, fading to a pretty pink blush at the very point. There was not a mark on it. Not a spot nor a squiggle to sully the perfection”. An “impossible thing”, this Metland egg as it came to be known, the one that would sell for £20, promised more if Celie brought one up the cliff top every year. Guillemots are creatures of habit—every year they nest on the same spot, lay the same colored egg and do so for thirty years. This bird too comes every year to the same “doomed” home to lay its egg and watch it taken away. In the struggle between survival and dominance, between the predator and victim, even a puny, scrawny child has more power than a bird. Does the bird feel the loss of its egg? Here is how the author describes it when the bird sees Cecie coming down the cliff:

For the first time, the bird seemed to know what was about to happen. It did not flap. Flapping had never worked. It did not squawk, for squawking was pointless. It did not peck, for that had never stopped the thief. If birds can learn, it had learned. This time the bird just watched Celie approach… All around them a thousand guillemots shrieked warnings, and here and there exploded from the cliff in whirring sparks of chocolate wings. While this bird just watched her, and waited. Under its downy breast she could already see the prize. A tiny shock of red on the shaded wall. The bird shifted and the egg disappeared, and now there was nothing to distinguish this guillemot from any one of the thousand others under the Metland overhang. As if it knew it could not fight her, but hoped it might still deceive her…Gently, Celie reached under the bird. It turned its head away a degree, and half opened its beak and made a low grunt that Celie felt more than heard. Carefully she placed the egg in the satchel and tapped the rope. The bird sat and watched her all the way.

Celie steals thirty eggs from that one guillemot over a period of fifteen years. She even becomes a minor celebrity; every summer tourists from all over England coming to watch her bring up that perfect red egg for everyone to ooh and aah over it. Yet, the author does not allow her to become a heartless waif. One summer she says no to climming and that’s when the collector and the thirty eggs disappear.

In the present day in The Brecon Beacons, Wales, Patrick Fort and Weird Nick, are trying to figure out why and who stole a wooden box containing a red egg that Nick had found in the attic. He had tried to sell it on eBay (because he needed the money for a gaming chair) but his listing is taken down since selling wild birds’ egg is illegal and then someone burgles his house and steals it and now Nick wants to get it back. Patrick is neurodivergent and Nick, a misfit, and both are living with their mothers. But they are sweet likeable characters and their interaction with each other is often lol funny. Their sleuthing exposes them to the world of illegal egg trafficking—a chronic egg thief, a vigilante officer of Royal Society of Protection of Birds and a curator of Museum of Natural History. Drawing inspiration from their Call of Duty slayings, they recover the thirty missing red Metland eggs, including Nick’s. In a scene that is almost cinematic, they metaphorically give the eggs back to the birds.

The Impossible Thing is based on a true story—the original Metland Egg, all thirty of them are still missing. In the fictional version, Bauer gives them a heartwarming resolution.The novel is about poverty, deprivation, greed and obsession. It is also about redemption and grace. Fittingly, the bird has the last word:

And yet.

Under one warm breast.

Nestled against one tiny heart . . .

A single, perfect, red egg.

Name That Movie!

2026-03-12T08:43:00.000-04:00

I created this movie quiz using large letter postcards that were so popular in the first-half of 20th century. A large selection of these are available in Wikimedia. I got printed a number of them at a copy shop and proceeded to create movie titles out of them. See if you can figure out the titles.

Inheritance of Resistance

2026-03-12T02:28:00.010-04:00

I started this artist book in 2019-20 following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Then came Dobbs vs Jackson in 2022. What struck me forcibly was that we should never take our hard won rights and liberties for granted. Revanchist forces retreat temporarily and just wait in the wings for the right moment to take them all away. If we care about protecting our rights, we need to be not only vigilant ourselves but teach younger generations to be vigilant too. Help them understand our struggles, successes (and failures too) and give them the tools to continue to build upon the foundations we have laid. Our resistance is our legacy and their inheritance.

Chetna Maroo: Western Lane Review

2026-03-01T23:03:00.004-05:00

For November Novellas reading challenge, I chose Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (Publisher: Picador, 2023) after it popped up on several ‘best of’ lists in addition to 2023 Booker prize short list. Told in first person point of view of an eleven year old girl, it is a grief story, a sports story and a coming of age story. It is only moderately touching either singly or in combination.

Simply put, it is a story about the death of a parent, the family that is left behind, grief that follows and the game of squash that rescues them. Squash is both a metaphor and a frequent plot device that moves the narrative forward. There are plenty of observations and occasional action but little direct conversation. We know very little of what is going on inside any of the character’s head. Stuck in the isolation of their grief and unable to express and share it with each other, the family little by little sinks into desperate apathy. All of these the author conveys in unfussy sparse prose. Then an unexpected act of aggression (on the squash court) jolts the characters out of their inertia and make them take steps towards active living (a squash tournament helps with that). Overall, a slow predictable story that you can take it or leave it.

Magda Szabo: Abigail Review

2026-02-28T15:00:00.007-05:00

Abigail by Magda Szabo is the second book I chose for Read Independent Publishers as well as for Hungarian Literature month at Winstonsdad’ Blog. I read and liked it when it was originally published by New York Review Books in the US in 2019 with a wonderful translation by Len Rix. I have not read any other book by Szabo but the particular appeal of this book is that it is a Bildungsroman—a coming of age story. I really love this genre and as Rix so convincingly puts it, “it is a novel one can and one should return” and I did.

Abigail is also a historic fiction, set during the penultimate phase of World War II. It is the story of a fourteen-year old girl, Gina Vitay, a motherless and only child of a general in the Hungarian army. She is loved and cherished by her father and other family members, and her life in Budapest has been a privileged and cultured one. When the novel begins, Gina’s beloved governess, a French woman, is sent back to her home country and Gina is told without any explanation that she will be attending a boarding school away from Budapest —a fact kept secret from rest of her family. She and her father have a close and loving relationship, and not knowing the reason why she is being so abruptly uprooted she is uncomprehending and heartbroken. The months between fall 1943 to spring 1944 that Gina spends at the Bishop Matula Academy in a remote part of Hungary is the heart of the story.

The first several weeks at Matula goes badly for her, totally through her own fault. Being told that she cannot communicate with any of her family or friends, she is desperately longing for all the things she had to let go—her beautiful home, her friends at school, her boyfriend, her aunt’s parties and soirées, trips to the theater. Matula is not a fun and frolic place—a former Calvinist seminary converted to a girls boarding school, its setup is puritanical, highly regimented and strictly monitored. Her classmates are welcoming but Gina finds them immature and their secret games utterly childish. She is scornful when the they confide that Abigail, the girl statue in the garden, comes to the aid of girls who need help. When asked to join in their game, she throws a massive hissy fit and tells on them to the administration. She is hoping that it would get her thrown out of the school but what it gets her is a complete ostracization by her classmates. Eventually, she breaks through that cold wall of exclusion but not before she makes a disastrous attempt to run away from the school. When she pleads with her father to take her with him and tells him of her escape attempt, he finally reveals the reason for hiding her in Matula: Her father is a member of an underground group of army leaders that has been opposed to collaborating with the German army and if it comes in and occupies Hungary, he will be arrested. And that puts Gina at risk because they will use her as a hostage to force him to confess the names of the other members of the dissident group. He makes her promise that she will keep this a secret and not attempt to leave Matula unless it is him or someone trusted by him come to take her. What a burden to put on a fourteen year old! Loving and dutiful daughter that she is, she makes her promise.

Even though she desperately misses her father and is frightened for his safety, typical resilience of youth and companionship and solidarity of other girls help her settle in her new school. But not for long. When outside forces come knocking on Matula’s doors, she makes a near fatal mistake of putting her trust in the wrong person risking not just her life but also of other students and adults at the school. When the book ends, Gina is once again spirited away, this time incognito, in the care of strangers.

Abigail is a coming-of-age story but also a war time story of children caught up in the dangerous and bloody games that adults play. Whatever adults get out of this game, for children it is nothing but displacement, loss, trauma and sometimes even death. We know that Gina comes back to Matula a year later (after the war ends) and we also know that she grows into full adulthood, married with children. Though the book is written as the events unfold but we are also made to think that she is looking back trying to make sense of that confusing and painful period of her life. When I finished the book, I wished that Szabo had written a sequel. I would have liked to know how she survives that one year of hiding, how she deals with the death of her father and what kind of adult she grows to be.

The book is completely centered on Gina and Szabo does a beautiful job of describing her thoughts and capturing her interiority. Gina comes off as a typical teen but she is also an interesting mix of sharp and the dense. She is observant but proves incapable of putting together the clues to figure out the real person behind the mythical Abigail. She learns from her mistakes but not before she brings heaps of trouble on herself. She thinks she is alone in the world but does not see that there are people looking out for her. But her heart is good and we get the impression that whatever the future brings, she will be sustained by the memories of her father’s love and the moral anchoring that Matula gives her.