It is in these moments in the book that Dhingra’s extraordinary writing skills manage to transfer the olfactory effects experienced by her, for the readers to vicariously savour through her descriptive details about the fragrances.
Set in Nepal and its borderlands before the arrival of the internet, the novel begins by describing the marriage of a fourteen-year-old Meena with Manmohan, a twenty-one-year-old Nepali boy she has never met. The narrative documents Meena’s problematic marital journey and her diasporic life.
Death, the time and manner of its arrival, how it transforms people and their lives, and the ways in which each person deals with his/her loss, grappling with guilt, regret, questioning—is almost a character as it moves through the pages, forcing the reader to confront those very feelings of loss
The book also gives hindsight into the shrinking spaces in academic institutions and the rise of Right-Wing politics in India. This is demonstrated when the narrator’s student Salman is killed for his love affair with a Hindu woman. Pat, who runs a signature campaign for his justice, has been charged by the police for doing so.
Incidentally, the novel is one long narration, with no chapter divisions. It is also significant that there are very few dialogues. We see and hear everything through the stream of the narrator’s own consciousness, though he repeatedly complains that his story is controlled by others.
Well one may ask, what is this naïve eulogy on spiritual journeys? Is this reviewer not aware of the corrupt practices of big and small ‘spiritual’ establishments of this land? She is. As she is aware of the universal need for compassion and goodness.