Review of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

This is one of those book’s that everyone recommends you read and you put it on the mental list of must reads. It remains imagined until the point you actually buy it. In my case this was in a bargain bookshop in Beverley for a fiver. Part one accomplished. The next part is building up to it. A holiday is probably a good time but it is a very heavy weight paperback, which would be worthy of most airport stalls although taking up the best part of your luggage allowance.
So after sitting on my shelf for a year or two I decided to try and fit it in between two book group meetings (ish).
For most people this is probably the longest book they’ve read. In the edition I read it came in at 1470 pages long, which is much longer even than Lord of the Rings. It compares with that other well known Indian saga, the Mahabaratta.
Basically, the story is a soap opera about four extended families living in Brahmpur (a fictitious city) and Calcutta and in between.

The Suitable Boy of the title refers to the search for a husband for Lata Mehra who starts the tale off at her sister, Savita’s wedding to Pran. This succeeds in linking the Kapoor and Mehra clans.

The book goes on from there and introduces and draws in many different and interesting characters who all have a tale to tell and a different aspect of Indian life to portray.
For example, you have the sad tale of Rasheed, who initially, is earning extra cash to finance his studies through teaching Urdu to the daughter/sister of Saeeda Bai, local good time girl and chanteuse. Maan Kapoor has the misfortune to fall in love with Saeeda Bai and from the start dotes on her. Eventually, he agrees to spend a month in the country with Rasheed who is also teaching him Urdu. It is here that we first find the extreme poverty there is in India. It is also here that we see the contradictions of his life that Rasheed has to deal with and which eventually makes him crack later in the book.

Then you have the three completely different characters who are vying for the affections of Lata. First off is her fellow student, Kabir, who she falls head over heels for. He’s intelligent, handsome, dashing but most of all his is a muslim, which makes him totally unsuitable. As soon as her mother, Mrs Mehra finds out, she is packed off to Calcutta to spend some time with her brother, Arun, and his wife Meenakshi.

In Calcutta, she meets Amit, a poet who is one of the Chatterji family who live in Calcutta. He seems to be a bit of a layabout but is very charming and clever. He is contender number 2.
Finally, you have Harnesh, who is basically a shoemaker who ends up working for Praha Shoes in Prahapore. He is recommended by her mother and goes through the standard process of formal introduction etc.

All the way through the book you know it’ll end with Lata’s Wedding but you’re never sure who she will choose.

The Indian love of their religious festivals both Hindu and Muslim comes across very vividly throughout the story. Some of these end tragically. One with a mass trampling by the river Ganga and one with the collision of a muslim and hindu procession ending up in a full scale riot in Brahmpur.

A Suitable Boy is a very rich, vivid and colourful book that portrays every aspect of Indian life in the early 1950’s.

There’s even politics and law in parts of the book. The General Election of 1952 plays quite a large part and Pandit Nehru, the first PM of an independent India, even makes a guest appearance.

There is so much more to say about this book that I could write on for pages more.
Suffice to say that this was a fabulous book that everyone should read and enjoy.
As a post script, my only small quibble is the lack of an Indian glossary for some of the colloquialisms used which are untranslated. I should have written them down to find meanings but haven’t. So it was left to using the context to work out their meaning.