Amulya Malladi: Serving crazy with curry

Devi has lost yet another job to compound her burgeoning sense of failure. Unmarried, unsettled, feeling overshadowed by a successful older sister, she is at odds with her mother and her mother's traditional Indian values — and she has recently lost a baby.

By page 11, Malladi has put her unfortunate heroine in the bath, suiciding.

But on page 12 there is hope. After the Devi incident, we learn, two astounding things happen. Devi completely stops talking and starts cooking, with a vengeance. The whole Veturi family is thrown into a turmoil of confusion.

Buried in this overwrought little novel there are a number of good, zany ideas. Between page 12 and the final page 238 there is much observation of worth, and a believable family emerges: Devi herself; corporate-climbing sister Shobha; self-martyring mother Saroj and the successful businessman, father Ari; Vasu, the visiting grandmother, a doctor and woman thoroughly modern before her time, and Shobha's arranged husband, Girish the geek.

Or is he?

Together they face the unveiling implications of Devi's dramatic bathtub action, buffeted about on the triple tides of love, blame and, ultimately, forgiveness.

The problem is in the writing.

The tone is one of ditzy tittle-tattle, Indian style, jarringly peppered with crass to coarse Americanese. If the eccentric language patterns had been contained to actual dialogue, it might have been clever. But their use in descriptive passages and the general narrative seem merely ignorant.

The cooking theme is a great concept so underdeveloped it is rendered meaningless. What a waste of sambar and spice.

Although there is a very interesting explanation for Devi's despair, quite cunningly revealed, and some pleasing reflections on Vasu's departure in the closing chapters, the work never quite seems to make up its mind.

Is it a tragedy? Or is it a farce?

* Bernadette Rae is an Auckland reviewer.
* Piatkus, $26.99