December Meeting

We will be meeting to discuss Ladies Coupe over lunch at Queens on 23rd December.

Book for December

Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair

Synopsis:

Meet Akhilandeshwari, Akhila for short: forty-five and single, an income tax clerk and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life—always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider. Until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari, gloriously alone for the first time in her life and determined to break free of all that her conservative Tamil brahmin life has bound her to.

In the intimate atmosphere of the ladies coupe which she shares with five other women, Akhila gets to know her fellow travellers: Janaki, pampered wife and confused mother; Margaret Shanti, a chemistry teacher married to the poetry of elements and an insensitive tyrant too self-absorbed to recognize her needs; Prabha Devi, the perfect daughter and wife, transformed for life by a glimpse of a swimming pool; fourteen-year-old Sheela, with her ability to perceive what others cannot; and Marikolanthu, whose innocence was destroyed by one night of lust.

As she listens to the women's stories, Akhila is drawn into the most private moments of their lives, seeking in them a solution to the question that has been with her all her life: Can a woman stay single and be happy, or does a woman need a man to feel complete?

November Meeting

We will be meeting to discuss Hullabaloo over dinner at Konark's on 24th November.

Book for November

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

Synopsis

After years of failure, as a student and at work, of days spent dreaming in the tea stalls and singing to himself in the public gardens, it does not seem as if Sampath is going to amount to much.
Until he climbs a guava tree in search of a life of peaceful comtemplation - and becomes unexpectadly famous as a hermit.
News of the guru in the tree spreads and as curious visitors, pilgrims and businessmen arrive, Sampath's family begins to make more money than they'd ever dreamed of. But what should they do when a local band of monkeys develops a taste for liquor, and their hullabaloo envelops the guava orchard?
Written with rich humour and an eye for the eccentric, this is a magical tale of a world gone slightly mad.

October Meeting

We will be meeting for lunch at Koshy's on 29th October

Book for October

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Synopsis

Gaskell's Last novel, widely considered her masterpiece, follows the fortunes of two families in nineteenth century rural England. At its core are family relationships- father, daughter and step mother, father and sons, father and step-daughter - all tested and strained by the romantic entanglements that ensue.

Despite its underlying seriousness, the prevailing tone is one of comedy. Gaskell vividly prtrays the world of the late 1820s and the forces of change within it, and her vision as always humane and progressive.

The story is full of acute observation and sympathetic character study: the feudal squire clinging to old values, his naturalist son welcoming the new world of science, the local doctor and his scheming second wife, the two girls brought together by their parents' marriage....

September Meeting

We will meet at Three Quarters Chinese for Lunch on 30th September.

Book for September

In An Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh

Synopsis

Once upon a time an Indian writer named Amitav Ghosh set out to find an indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had travelled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medievel customs coexist with twentieth century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbours.

August Meeting

We'll be meeting for lunch on 27th of August at Roomali with a View, 100 feet Road, Indira Nagar.

Book for August

Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

Synopsis
Set in (what was then) Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent and the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, and his family.