Daughter of the Ganges

I am as good as my word ... so here is the first "review" ...

Daughter of the Ganges - Asha Miro

"Daughter of the Ganges" is one of the few non-fiction books I have read, and liked. It is a memoir of Asha, who is adopted from an christian orphange in Bombay at the age of six, by Miro couple of Barcelona. Her adoptive parents have adopted another daughter, and chose to retain the given names of both their daughters; the mother maintains a diary for each daughter, describing her thoughts and feelings as they bring up the daughters from another part of the world. The book starts with Asha's memories of the distant past, interspersed with excerpts from her mother's entries.
In her growing-up years, Asha is troubled by the thought why her biological parents abandoned her, while strangers showed her so much love as to make her their daughter. As with many adopted children, her desire to know more about her roots increases with time. She joins a group going to Bombay to work with the poor, to seek answers and discover her past. In the orphanage in Bombay, she meets a nun who remembers her, but could not, or does not, give her much details about her birth parents. She just tells Asha that she is a daughter of the Ganges. Asha returns, unsatisfied, and still a feeling that her father had disowned her (her mother having died in her infancy).
She writes a book on her experiences, and a few years later, returns to Bombay to film a documentary based on it. This time, she is able to trace back her journey much farther, and circumstances of her adoption. After her mother died, her survival became doubtful. Her father, a very poor farmer, unable to look after two young daughters, requests nuns of a Bombay church to take care of her, thinking that they would nurse her back to health, and he will bring her back once she is older. However, nuns agreed to care for her only if he would agree to giver her up to the orphanage. Desperate to save her life, her father consented.
A helpful man from her village tells Asha that her elder sister still lives in their native village. He brings her brother-in-law to meet her, and then they take her to their village. A sentimental reunion of the sisters follows, even though they cannot understand each other's language. Asha is striken by the poor conditions her sister lives in. From her sister, she is able to learn much more of her father and her family. She also meets her half-sister, who had nursed her for quite a while after her mother's death. As Asha prepares to leave, the people from her native village are unable to comprehend that she wants to return even when she has found her family. But Asha's sister wants her to go back to the family she has known for years, to the life she has been living, life that is not full of hardships as her own. All she asks for is Asha to call her up some time, so that she can hear her voice, even if she is not able to understand what she says.

The book is simple, but poignant and touching. Her reunion with her sisters and family is specially moving. As are her experiences in Bombay, where she stays with a poor but caring family...
... she finds that people are amazed to find that she cannot speak their language although she looks like them
... she tries to discover familiarity with her native languages, but is unable to do so
... she tries to look for something, someone in the population of Bombay who might be her family, but not realistically expecting it, yet filled with a longing
There are points when one is surprised by her astonishment at the way of life in India, specially that of the poorer people - the poverty, the warmth of strangers, the oppression of women ... unexpected indifference, as well as unexpected love and sharing .... hey, come one, all of it is "normal" in our "culture". And then you remember, that although the book is a story of an Indian in India, it is through the eyes of a person who is not familiar with it.
A good read, over all.

Long time no see

I have been away from the blogging world, and more so from my blog, for a long while. I have visited a few blogs now and then, read posts in my reader for most part, but haven't yet found the energy to get back to posting myself. I hope to gain back the pace now on :-)

In this long absence, since I had nothing better to do, I read, and read a lot. Though I could get a few books that I had not read earlier, mostly I re-read many books, some of them for the nth time. Many times people wonder how I can read a book, even a mystery, again and again. I usually say that I do it just to pass the time, but I think that is not the real truth, certainly not the complete truth. Even though I don't have a definite answer myself, I believe it is just for the pleasure - I enjoy reading. I started reading quite early (I remember reading hindi edition of the Readers' Digest when I was 6 or so), and since then, if I have nothing (necessary) to do, I can usually be found with a book (though more than a few times I have been guilty of neglecting tasks for reading).
Then they are people, who don't read at all (except for a little of newspaper, and some religious text) - they just cant stop wondering how can I read all the time, and why do I have such a collection of books (even though it is not a large one from my perspective). I am amazed how can anyone NOT read? As I said, I read primarily for pleasure, but there are other benefits - you enhance your knowledge about people you will never meet, places you will never visit, and times you will never live in. When you appreciate others' ideas, you broaden your own mind and understanding of humanity - perhaps it is not as good as traveling and meeting real people, but I think it is the next best thing. After all, there is only so much you can learn from the newspaper, and hardly anything at all from the television.

Well, so much for contemplation. I have been reading a lot, but most of it was re-reading. But I read quite a few new ones too. Some of them were Perry Mason series by Gardener, and Three Investigators - they are really good timepass (specially if you dont want to read something serious), but one of them is quite like another, nothing much to write about. On the rest, I'll be posting my impressions, as I have been doing earlier. I dont think of myself as a reviewer, but it is good to collect ones perceptions in perspective. At any rate, it gives me something to write about ;-)