Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss (2006)

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Author and Production History

  • Kiran Desai

Publishing History

  • First published in the USA by: Atlantic Monthly Press; in Hardcover: January 2006 ISBN-10: 0871139294 ISBN-13: 9780871139290; in Paperback: August 2006 ISBN-10: 0802142818 ISBN-13: 9780802142818
  • First published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton in 2006

Awards

  • Booker Prize Winner 2006: At 35 Kiran Desai was the youngest woman to ever win the award

Reviews

Plot Summary

  • One: February 1986. Kalimpong, northeastern Himalayas. The judge plays chess, watches his female dog called Mutt and waits for his tea, while the cook tries to find something to serve it with, and the seventeen-year-old Sai awaits a mathematics tutor called Gyan with whom she has had one-year-long love affair. They are robbed and humiliated by a juvenile Nepalese guerrilla gang.
  • Two: Unwilling, the cook has reported the robbery in the judge’s name. The police arrive and investigate unenthusiastically, noticing the downfall of the judge’s once wealthy home and his servant’s poverty. The cook’s wife died seventeen years ago, his only son, Biju, works as a waiter in the US. The cook tells his dramatic story of the snake incident.
  • Three: Biju’s experiences at a fast food restaurant in the US, selling hot dogs with a fellow server, Romy. Being nineteen and feeling too young and disgusted by the sheer thought about the Dominican prostitutes, he is the only worker who does not attend a nearby brothel. The manager’s name is Frank – ironic for someone selling frankfurters.
  • Four: The cook is humiliated by the police for his poverty and low social standing. Sai feels embarrassed and tries to make her friend feel better but only succeeds in making the situation even more uncomfortable, the gap between even more visible. The cook has great expectation as to his son’s, and thus his own, future.
  • Five: Biju changes jobs often and has difficulties assimilating the multicultural world in New York, which is divided into a first-class and a second-class clientele. When he meets a Pakistani co-worker, he is almost glad. At least he knows what to expect from him: well-known reciprocated hostility.
  • Six: The cook closes the gates, fearing the local thief, Gobbo, and talks to Sai about her background. Sai’s parents married against their families’ will and emigrated from India to Russia, where Mr. Mistry was promised to become a space pilot, leaving their six-year-old daughter at St. Augustine’s nuns’ convent. The Mistrys are run over by a bus and leave their orphan child in the care of the nuns and now her grandfather, Justice Jemubhai Patel, who had moved into Cho Oyu, a house built by a Scotsman. Sai had a hard time at the convent where she befriended Arlene Macedo and learned to distinguish between Englishness and Indian culture, as well as a certain fascination with sin.
  • Seven: Sai arrives at her grandfather’s house at the age of nine. She finds her only relative assimilating a lizard and his dog Mutton a film star. The judge is bossy towards the cook and not thrilled by the presence of his granddaughter. As he cannot afford a convent school education and does not want to send her to a government school, the judge hires a tutor for Sai.
  • Eight: The judge is disturbed by Sai’s arrival and cannot sleep. He remembers his first journey to England, the ashamed parting from his parents, the stay at Mr and Mrs Price’s and his loneliness in Cambridge. In the morning, he tells Sai of her tutor: Noni (Nonita), an elder spinster who lives with her widowed sister Lola (Lolita). The cook shows Sai around in the neighbourhood: Uncle Potty, their nearest neighbour, a farmer and a drunk; Father Booty; two Afghan princesses living with Nehu; Mrs. Sen, whose daughter Mun Mun left for America and the two sisters, who live at Mon Ami and feel contempt towards the Russian-Indian relations but nevertheless develop sympathy for Sai.
  • Nine: Lola and Noni hear about the robbery at Cho Oyu and fear they might be attacked by there own watchman, Budhoo a retired Nepalese army man. The sisters have a cat called Mustafa, read Jane Austen and are characterized as very pro-British. Lola’s daughter Pixie (Piyali Bannerji) works as a BBC reporter.
  • Ten: Biju takes up another job at an Italian restaurant but the owner and his wife cannot cope with his smell, and so he changes to Freddy’s Wok where he has to deliver by bicycle. One night, he delivers dinner to a group of young Indian girls celebrating “Antigentrification Day”, feeling loathing and respect at the same time. He looses his job and spends all his saving during a very cold winter, which he spends sharing a den in a basement in Harlem. In the springtime, he finds a job at a bakery and a friend: Saeed Saeed from Zanzibar.
  • Eleven: Sai takes lesson at Noni’s on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. The cook takes to liquor production, first for Biju’s sake, then for himself, too, as he likes to spend money on small luxuries. He invents stories about his employer to make himself look better. His invented legends about the judge’s past and the judge’s own memories mingle. In 1919 Jemubhai was born to a peasant and court swindler, sent to school, to Cambridge, travelled the region to spread justice but, in reality, was corrupt and contaminated. The cook entered the judge’s service at the age of fourteen and his wage hasn’t been raised much since.
  • Twelve: Sai taking lessons at Lola and Noni’s. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sen is informed that her daughter might be offered a post at CNN and rejoices in her feeling of superiority of Lola with her daughter working at BBC. Noni remembers a romance story told by her kitchen maid, Kesang, and fears that Sai might not be raised to her social standards. Having come to an end with her science knowledge, she decides to plead for a tutor for Sai. The judge sends for a tutor reluctantly.
  • Thirteen: The principle recommends a post-graduate student, Gyan. The cook sits with them while Gyan and Sai do maths as accurately as possible as not to show that they really observe each other. The cook’s loyalty is divided between science and superstition; he is surprised to find out that Gyan is Nepali, not Bengali as he thinks the latter more intelligent due to their diet rich in fish. Sai becomes conscious of her looks and obsessed with her face.
  • Fourteen: Biju works at the Queen of Tarts bakery with Saeed, a young Zanzibar, womaniser and illegal immigrant, who had to go back to Zanzibar after a INS raid at a night club once, but came back under a different name: Rasheed Zulfickar. Saeed has implied for the green card several times, but Biju never will as the Indians are not admitted for the lottery. The MetalBox watchman asks the cook to ask his Biju to procure work for his son and the cook takes pride in having a son whom he can address in this matter.
  • Fifteen: The cook receives a letter from Biju saying that he got a new job in a bakery and the father is at once so happy that he cannot but tell everybody how has son is manager of a restaurant now and that soon he will fly to the US himself, too. He even imagines Biju getting married to the grocer’s daughter.
  • Sixteen: Sai asks the cook about his grandfather’s marriage. The cook first tells the judge loved his wife very much and become grumpy only after her death. Then he remembers that he did not like her, in fact, and that she was a man woman from a high standing family. When Sai asks her grandfather, he remembers the circumstances of their wedding. Due to a shortage of money, he was to be married to a rich man’s, Bomanbhai Patel, daughter, Bela. Bomanbhai was a financier, merchant, brothel-owner and expected status to be added to his wealth if his daughter married the first boy in the village who was to study in the UK. In exchange, he paid for the ticket to England. On their wedding night, the 14-year old Bela was so scarred that Jemu took pity and did not touch her. His last remembrance is that of the newly-weds on a bike. The judge suspects Sai’s tutor to have funny ideas. Noni encourages Sai once more to make something out of her life: “time should move” (125).
  • Seventeen: Saeed plays soccer with a mouse until it dies. The cook sends even more pleading letters to his son and becomes an important personality in the village based on the hopes he raises. Saeed experiences a similar lot when his mother gives away his address to village friends and family and Saeed is stalked by those asking for his help. Omar and Kavafya are the two other men working at the bakery. Together they try to get a green card illegally but only loose their money. Saeed has no need to visit prostitutes as he has enough girlfriends as it is. When a customer finds a mouse in a loaf of bread, the bakery is closed by health inspectors, Saeed finds another job at a Banana Republic shop and Biju realizes that they won’t see each other any more. Nostalgically, he thinks about his hometown and the times when Sai was jealous of him for his father’s love.
  • Eighteen: In Kalimpong, the monsoon season begins. Gyan has to stay overnight as he cannot possibly go back in the rain and hail. The judge is irritated about the young man’s presence at dinner and asks him uncomfortable questions knowing that he won’t be able to answer, knowing that he himself had to undergo a similar procedure during his examination period in England. His memory leads him back to his study time at Cambridge, his passing the exam by chance, meeting Bose, his only friend in England, turning away from everything Indian, admiring yet not trusting the English. In the meantime, Gyan breaks of the electrifying atmosphere and brings up all his courage to touch Sai. After some time, Sai gets up and vanishes. At night, they all lay awake listening to the rain and thinking: the judge about his past, the cook about his son, Gyan about Sai; and Sai walking restlessly back and forth between her bed and the bathroom.
  • Nineteen: Biju meets Saeed Saeed who tells him of his marriage to a hippie waitress. He married her for papers and now has to study for the INS authenticity test. Despite all that he is liked by the girl’s family. Biju does not have that kind of luck. His father continues sending him letters. The monsoon cuts the village off from the rest of the world.
  • Twenty: The twenty-year-old Gyan and the sixteen-year-old Sai continue with their love affair and gently explore each other’s bodies. Occupied with their love-making they hardly notice the upcoming insurgency.
  • Twenty-One: Noni and Lola talk about the political situation in India and the Nepalese separatist movement. Sai keeps thinking about Gyan and his touch. Mrs. Sen joins their conversation and brings it down to a stereotype view of Muslims. The sisters look down on Mrs. Sen, not only because of her proud talks about her daughter Mun Mun and the arguments over the UK or the US getting the upper hand in globalization politics.
  • Twenty-Two
  • Twenty-Three
  • Twenty-Four
  • Twenty-Five
  • Twenty-Six
  • Twenty-Seven
  • Twenty-Eight
  • Twenty-Nine
  • Thirty
  • Thirty-One
  • Thirty-Two
  • Thirty-Three
  • Thirty-Four
  • Thirty-Five
  • Thirty-Six
  • Thirty-Seven
  • Thirty-Eight
  • Thirty-Nine
  • Fourty
  • Fourty-One
  • Fourty-Two
  • Fourty-Three
  • Fourty-Four
  • Fourty-Five
  • Fourty-Six
  • Fourty-Seven
  • Fourty-Eight
  • Fourty-Nine
  • Fifty
  • Fifty-One
  • Fifty-Two
  • Fifty-Three
  • Fifty-Four
  • Fifty-Five

Characters

  • the cook has no name, he mingles legends, invented stories and authentic memory, unreliable narrator

Narration

Setting

Time Structure

Language and Style

  • Indian idioms:
  • Onomatopoeia:

Topics

  • religion, faith, superstition:
  • alcohol: chhang (73)

Intertext

Adaptations

Specials

Further Reading

Links

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