Halfway through Vivek Shanbhag's novella Ghachar Ghochar, translated from Kannada by Srinath Perur, the unnamed narrator drops by the wood-paneled Bangalore coffee shop he visits "for respite from domestic skirmishes," and asks a waiter named Vincent what's new. Referring to a type of South Indian pancake, Vincent replies, "Holes in dosas in everyone's house, sir"--which is another way of saying, "Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." That's an apt description for this darkly entertaining work, a Tolstoyan portrait of family conflict and shifting priorities in modern-day India.
At the heart of this work is the effect that sudden wealth has upon the narrator's family. The breadwinner used to be his father, a salesman for a company that sold tea leaves until the firm forced staff to accept early retirement. Now it's his chikkappa (uncle), whose wildly successful spice business has allowed the family to move from its small, four-room house to a much larger dwelling. But that doesn't solve the family's problems. Among the more vexing are the lavish wedding and troubled marriage of daughter Malati, "quick to anger and inconsiderate of others"; the narrator's own arranged marriage; and the appearance at the family home of a woman whom the narrator's chikkappa wants to avoid. Malati's mother-in-law disapprovingly states, "They say the newly rich carry umbrellas to keep moonlight at bay." Maybe so, but as this captivating work makes clear, it would have to be an awfully big umbrella to guarantee complete protection. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer