Reviews

Delhi: A Soliloquy by M. Mukundan

omelas33's review

4.0

I generally reserve such strong sentiments about books, but this one. Let’s just say I wasn’t a huge fan of the place when I was growing up in Delhi and the feelings towards the “capital” haven’t developed into anything positive since then. This book was an eye opener into things that happened before I was born. The little things and the big things.

mihrchand's review

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide and War

tbr_the_unconquered's review against another edition

3.0

Contrary to its title, Delhi is about a generation in India during the 60's & early 70's. It is a tale of the tribulations in the mind of one man who comes to Delhi out of his small town in Kerala.

It is a gradual degradation of a journey. The sights,sounds,smells and feels at first astound him and slowly begin to become commonplace and then leads to revulsion and hatred. The story being told here was of one man alone but you will know that it is the story of a lot many men & women of that age. the fortunate few escaped with their sanity intact while some became embittered and cynical with scars that would last them till the grave.


I think it is a fine line that a man must tread in times of intense trials to not wallow in self pity and thus dig his own grave.

tbr_the_unconquered's review against another edition

4.0

The city of Delhi has always been equated to power when it comes to India. Money flows in from other states but there is an inherent belief in the mind of an average Indian citizen that the strings are all pulled by those who sit in Delhi. History tells of a town which is a mashup of the ancient and the new all bundled into one package. Delhi has that special place in lore of being the capital that every invader wants to crush in their fists. But then again Delhi stands up on its two feet again and shows the world that yes I am resilient enough, send me your next drove. Such a strength of will is now more exhibited by Mumbai where inspite of multiple instances of acts of terrorism, humanity continues its unrelenting march onwards to the next day full of sunlight ! In my visit to Delhi, the parts that attracted me most to it were the still standing testimonies to eras past.It gave me a feeling that history in itself was embracing me in a tight hold that made me dizzy swimming in it. Delhi Gaadhakal (My translation of the title : The Delhi Chronicles)is such a slide show of history as seen from the people of this fabled town.

I have read passages from William Dalrymple's City of Djinns and found them extremely readable and likeable and I can perhaps count another three or four other books with their focus exclusively on this city. So what is the difference here ? The difference lies in the view point of the principal character, Sahadevan who tells us what it is to be powerless, helpless, hungry and lonely amidst this teeming mass of humanity. Sahadevan is an immigrant from Kerala who lands up in Delhi in the early 60's and he takes baby steps from absolute to relative poverty along with the still young Indian republic. He sees the three wars that occur in the 60's and the 70's. Lives in terror and shakes in impotent rage as the country goes through the state of emergency in the late 70's. He rides past 1 Safdarjung Road in the morning of October 31, 1984 where after a few hours, Indira Gandhi is assassinated. The anti- Sikh riots that followed makes him realize the pointless existence of human beings against the face of blind hatred. Sahadevan still lives on, without a female consort for he lives his life for others and is happy being a bystander, a wallflower. He moves along with the flow and watches as the dust settles down in the lives of others and they reach turning points. In the end, either Delhi grows into your marrow or you pack up and leave town is what he realizes and I could not help but be fully sucked headlong into this melee. A place of unbearable heat and teeth chattering cold that still maintains its regal bearing while standing amidst a lot of filth (human and otherwise).

Mukundan is an author for whose works I have always felt a strong affinity toward. When as a novice reader of Malayalam literature, he walked me along the banks of the river Mayyazhi or when his characters took me along to Hardwar, I have felt a very easy connect with the characters and narrative. Here I find him unflinching in the portrayal of poverty and of orphaned lives. The anecdotes he weaves in about the emergency and the anti-Sikh riots are unsettling and has an intimacy that only a long time resident of the place can recreate. I was enamored more with the ambiance of the tale rather than the characters or the dialog. There is then a very subtle thread of hope for the characters no matter how abysmal the situation they are in. In a very casual reference, Mukundan makes sure that the reader also realizes this slender ray of light amidst all the darkness.

Recommended.

swee_p's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

somewherespring's review

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

bookish_venus's review

emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is an amazing read. I don't know how come i didn't feel like reading this for years. I don't really have much words to express how I felt about this book. It was an emotional read not like we will be crying over every single page but it definitely makes us emotional. We see the life of multiple people in this 535 pages. With each page we feel more connected to them and the changes their lives go through as Delhi change is so beyond the words. They go through a lot of things, suffers a lot of things but there's always something that holds them back.
This books kind of open our eyes and make us really see what's going around us. We see alot of people but we have no idea what they might be going through and what they have been through. Without knowing any of this we might be passing on our judgement or ignore their presence.
It's much more than politics. It's more about being humane. It's not difficult to read this for a person who doesn't have any first hand experience but it surely shows what can happen when people just stop being people and keep a closed eye to the injustice and sufferings around. It's also scary to put ourselves in their situations, how will we react? It's so easy to think within the safety net but what will happen if we come in face to face with such a situation...
I absolutely loved this book and will be recommended to anybody and everybody...

raji_c's review

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

 A piece of fiction that manages to hold your attention throughout 537 pages is something indeed. 

For my #ReadingIndia goal, I picked M Mukundan's 'Delhi: A soliloquy'. And it is a wonderful book to improve one’s acquaintance with India’s capital. It offers a history of Delhi over one man’s lifetime and that history was more educational than any of my school textbooks. It spans the China and Pakistan wars, the Emergency and the Sikh genocide and is extremely painful to read. It also offers a geography of Delhi, a social geography that highlights the impoverishment and the wealth that seem to define not just Delhi but all of India. 

Although the book ostensibly deals with the life of a Malayali in Delhi and most of the central characters are other Malayalis, there is a host of interesting characters from different states who one meets with amusement and unconsciously begins to care about. These range from central character Sahadevan’s many landlords to the man who washes and irons his clothes and the Bangaldeshi child who is begging on the streets of Delhi when Sahadevan first meets him. For me, the characters and the picturisation of Delhi itself were the highlights of the book. 

Sahadevan’s arrival in Delhi — albeit, to the squalor that is the reality of the capital of independent India — nursing numerous hopes, mirrored the expectations that people had for the end of colonial oppression and the beginning of self-rule. And Devi’s departure for Kerala at the end seemed to reflect the despair that had blighted all such hopes since little seemed to have changed in the state of the nation’s capital. In that sense, this book is truly about India and not just Delhi. And I kept thinking of Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Fine Balance as I read this book. Both books made me extremely uncomfortable with their stark, unvarnished portrayals. 

There is much I loved about this book. For a Malayali born and brought up away from Kerala, there was more than a whiff of nostalgia. I think my parents might enjoy and identify with this book even more than I do because it is probably very close to their experiences. However, I do think Mukundan is a little biased in favour of Malayalis who often seem like they can do no wrong and to have better standards than other Indians. 

Also, Mukundan’s writing kept reminding me that he is a man. I am not sure if he was being satirical but his description of bus journeys strengthening human relationships and facilitating erotic fantasises seems miles away from (and insensitive to) the experience of most women for whom travel on public transport in India is usually a nightmare of sexual harassment. In fact, even today, there are girls in Kerala who travel in buses with safety pins handy to deter groping hands! 

And towards the end of this mammoth work, I did wonder if the author’s attention began to flag. Or maybe I read it wrong. But it felt like Sahadevan started a new job after turning fifty but also that he celebrated his fiftieth birthday after starting his new job. Did I read it wrong or does Mukundan employ a tone that would make satire clearer to dunderheads like me but that is lost in translation? I don’t know. Although I must say that the translation by Fathima E V and Nandakumar K was brilliant. It made for fluid reading while retaining a certain Malayalam flavour that made me smile (all the eda, edi, chechi, ettan and more that made me hear the Malayalam being spoken).  

On the whole, this was a great book and I am glad I was able to read it. 

 

 

chaiithanya's review

emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0