Float and wander through a story where an everyday beginning, middle and end, becomes a world transformed. The author sets you adrift, starts to bring your attention to an occasion or individual and then sets a song or a description of a room to capture your thoughts and send them elsewhere. Giving a real insight into a certain sphere of life in India during the 80’s, we are also allowed a fleeting glimpse of some of the numerous people required to make this particular household function. Occasionally you may need to research certain words to understand their meaning and context in this tale of family life. The author has the ability to open your eyes, to reveal the hidden, to encourage you to look for the connections in this delightfully whimsical yet satisfying read. ~ Liz Robinson
**Includes a new foreword by Pankaj Mishra** Bombay in the 1980s: Shyam Lal is a highly regarded voice teacher, trained in the classical idiom but happily teaching more popular songs to well-to-do women, whose modern way of life he covets. Sixteen-year-old Nirmalya Sengupta is the rebellious scion of an affluent family who wants only to study Indian classical music. With a little push from her mother, Shyam agrees to accept Nirmalya as his student, entering into a relationship that will have unexpected and lasting consequences. With quiet humor and unsentimental poignancy, The Immortals is a luminous portrait of the spiritual and emotional force of a revered Indian tradition, of two fundamentally different but intricately intertwined families, and of a society choosing between the old and the new.
