Cambridge Curry Club

by Saumya Balsari

The colorful chaos of a bustling mercantile street is portrayed in this provocative tale of "town and gown" against the backdrop of very proper Cambridge, England. Set in the fictional IndiaNeed Shop on the very real Mill Road, it revolves around the misadventures of the all-female volunteer staff-three wildly disparate East Asians, one fiery Irishwoman, and their imperious Armani-clad manager, "Lady Di." Disaster, death, and romance come to a boil as a normal day spirals into pandemonium in a series of bizarre events. Underneath the laughs wriggle a number of questions that won't go Where is home? If life is a struggle, is it about taking control, holding on, or letting go? Despite the antics of lovers, husbands, and eccentric customers, these reluctant heroines do their best to survive.

Genres: Fiction

244 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Award-winning author Saumya Balsari lives in Cambridge, London and Mumbai. She was named one of Britain's leading South Asian women by redhotcurry.com. She is a Senior Member of Darwin College, University of Cambridge and formerly a Member of High Table, Newnham College, Cambridge University, and Writer in Residence at the Centre of Latin American Studies. She has worked in London as a freelance journalist and columnist, and previously as a translator, editor. She has co-curated the literature section of an arts festival in 2018 and is on the advisory board of a leading international literary festival. Her debut novel The Cambridge Curry Club won the first ever Cambridgeshire Book of the Decade Award. Summer of Blue is her first novel for young adult readers. An early version of the book received a commendation from the Yeovil Literary Prize, 2009/Betty Bolingbroke-Kent Award. She is currently researching her third novel.

Reviews

[Michael Conland · Rating 1 out of 5]

At around half way, I was all set to put together a scathing review and really release the frustrations I felt reading it. However, having reached the end, I honestly haven't got it in me. I actually think I may need help, I'm so hollow right now. I don't know if I'll wake up tomorrow.

I just don't know what the point in any of it was. Thinking back, I'm sure there's a definite change in style somewhere around half way. The prologue and the early chapters annoyed me no end, with their witterings about Cambridge and some utterly baffling use of language. A fragrant cheek? What is that? Who perfumes their cheek? Have they been smashing their faces into something flavoursome? Which cheeks are we talking about anyway?

Do we need a simile comparing a woman's backside to a duck, but a duck specifically in a brook off Trumpington Road? The answer is no. The answer to all things within and to do with this book is no. No no no no no no.

After the half way point, it all gets a bit pointless (actually, it's all pointless) and almost po faced. We learn about a slightly perverted old man who writes complaints. I actually think I might be him in 40 years. Assuming I wake up tomorrow. After that though, it turns a bit depressing and serious, but not interesting. Never interesting.

The concept of the novel is kind of fun, the idea being that we see a single day in the lives of these four women, with the bulk of the book fleshing them out. The problem is that the day in question is not very interesting, annoyingly contrite and sort of aimless. This sort of thing needs to either be believable or so completely outrageous that you simply do not care that it wouldn't happen. This crashes squarely into the middle. It is moderate. It is medium. It is beige.

And who is Eileen? She appears in the epilogue and I'd pretty much forgotten she existed (she's one of the four main characters), such was her contribution.

My favourite thing about the whole book is a parrot, named Noddy. He's in about 2-3 scenes and is by far the most interesting member of the cast.

The epilogue is peculiar too. It doesn't feel like it was written by the same person, which has left me feeling that the whole experience was very disjointed, amongst a whole host of other negative sentiments.

I could have tried to be sensible in my complaints, but I see no purpose in doing so, as I can no longer remember who I am or how this began.

Do yourself a favour and consign this to the charity shop. Hopefully the ceiling will collapse.

[Amy W · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for Book Club. Not the sort of thing I would usually pick up or read, though I suppose that’s the point.

I’ll be frank: I did not enjoy this book. First off it was a confusing read as there are many major and minor characters introduced early on and throughout the book. The timeline keeps jumping around as well. One minute we’re in present day and the next minute one character or other has wistfully drifted off to think about a previous time in their lives – a time that may or may not have any relevance to current events.

Besides that, I just couldn’t get a handle on any of the characters. Even having completed the book barely hours ago, I find myself unable to remember which character was married to whom and what their back story is. I don't have a clear picture of any of them in my head. It didn’t seem like the author had things figured out completely in her head either before she started the book. She appeared to make things up as she went along and inserted random pieces of “wisdom” at will.

I can see what Balsari was trying to say. There were messages about living your life how you want, being with who you choose, following the career path you see fit etc. However, these messages were dropped on the reader in such a ham-fisted way that I just didn't care. Similarly, the references to Cambridge were grating. Any opportunity to shoehorn in a mention of one of the colleges or roads around Cambridge was taken. We get it, you’ve been here. It annoyed me and I live in Cambridge. I can only imagine how annoying it must have been if you’ve never been to the city.

There were other messages such as how you shouldn’t stereotype people, about how where you’re born isn’t necessarily where your home is and so on. I get all that. The story was just so thin and cobbled together that anything Balsari was trying to teach us pretty much fell away.

The writing style was very amateurish and certainly not a great work of literature. Sometimes I don’t mind an easy, fluffy read, if there are well-formed characters or a good plot point behind it – but this had neither of those redeeming qualities.

All in all: forgettable.

[Talvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had basically zero plot until the very end and even then it was over in like two pages! Dragged myself through this book just to be able to say I’ve read it!

[Roberta · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just awful. it's badly written, the plot is absurdly disjointed, none of the characters made any sense to me, full of stereotypes and just plain BAD. Even Cambridge was depicted in a way I couldn't relate to, and I've lived here 20 years. waste of time.

[Berenice · Rating 1 out of 5]

We read this as a Book Club and not one of us enjoyed it! Seriously, don't waste your time on this book. All 8 of us were quite critical on a number of fronts:
* Lack of plot
* Lack of proper characterisation
* Too many characters - who was the guy near the end who got stabbed? Couldn't remember!
* One or two interesting threads (such as the marriage in India and return to the UK) but not followed through
* Loose threads left hanging
* Odd characters like Eileen who seem to have no proper story/dialogue/anything - why are they included?
* Mad bit of story with the wheelchair/dead lady, that we thought was probably supposed to be funny, but was so poorly written that we all thought 'What? Why don't they just call an ambulance?'
* Terrible contrived and rushed ending (did she reach her word count in an assignment on creative writing?)
* Ongoing yap about street names which was tedious enough if you live in Cambridge, but must be dire if you don't! I mentioned in group that it reminded me of my life in lockdown - go for a walk, turn left, turn into X street, turn into Y street, come home again. (It got more of a laugh than the book did, anyway!)
* Blurb making it sound like an honour killing - half of us couldn't remember anything about this, the other half remembered a couple of pages about a bloke hiding in the shop.
* The Curry Club not mentioned until half way through!
* Shame as everyone thought it started quite promisingly with the wind following everyone, etc. But didn't follow through.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I was being generous with 2 stars. It felt very bitty with little or no story pushing it's way through. Can't really be bothered to review it as I felt so little towards it.

[Juuso · Rating 1 out of 5]

aivan hirveää / cringe

[Inès · Rating 3 out of 5]

not a bad book, the characters are well built, the dialogues are pretty funny, sure there is no plot per se but it's a nice book to read when you dont want to bother your mind with more problematics..

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about four women who work in a charity shop in Cambridge. Three of them are Indian and one is Irish. The essentially deeply racist and lipstick charity worker who owns the shop calls them her Curry Club. Hence the name of the book.


All of the makings of some Asian based chic-lit right? Only this book is so much more than that. I am not a fan of chic-lit except as social comment. I have read a few titles from a variety of authors because I am interested in what chic-lit says about women’s lives; what it says about how women want their portrayed. Too many women enjoy chic-lit for it not to be some kind of fantasy reinforcement. I have liked the slow emergence of South African chic-lit because it does deal with different things form those which Irish or American based stuff does.

So I thought this book would be interesting in terms of what Indian chic-lit was about; how it was different from all the blonde stories out there. Andin some ways this is a chic-lit book. I think the surface story would make a great movie. The four women are engaging and funny and just so very Indian in some ways. There is cooking and families and laughter and the smells of curry and arrogant husbands and all the stereotypes of Indian families we have.

But there is also a much deeper sense of dislocation; a struggling to make England home when England does not treat them as if it is their home. Always foreigners despite 30 years in a country many of the characters peppering these women’s lives have no home, no real sense of where home is. The local chippie asks the Indian man if he is going home for the holidays – a ‘home’ he has not been to in 30 years. India is not home, England is not home – there is no home for so many of the first generation post colonial immigrants to England.

But this book is not all heavy and political, not at all. This is all underneath the story and unless it was something that interests you, you may not even see it. The story itself is fun and light and easy to read. And funny. The shenanigans that go in IndiaNeed, the charity shop and in the women’s lives from old flames returning to angry husbands with achar oil all over the crotch of their pants in an airport are just worth reading the book for all by themselves.

I did like this book – and I really do think it would make a great movie. The women are so real I wanted to actually see them and laugh with them at the ridiculousness of life.

[Neal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost gave up half way. Persevered but still couldn't warm to it. The setting and the characters were familiar in a mildly comedic sit-com sense - it was like a little snapshot of a fairly mundane moment in time and I felt no better informed, intrigued or entertained than before I started reading the book. In substance hardly much more than a vignette because for me, no-one stood out, nothing happened to fire the imagination. On the plus side, well written and sprinkled with witty observation, but ultimately just too tame for me.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting group of characters set in a Cambridge charity shop, but the writing style was hard to get past. The book read like a stream of consciousness or like listening to an old ladies conversation in the street about people they know. Slightly cliched ending.

[Teju · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you extend the definition of a writer to "anyone who can spell and write grammatically correct sentences" then you might call Ms. Balsari a "writer"...and this book as a "novel".

[Eleanor Marsh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by whichbook.net and I'm starting to think I should ignore their suggestions! This is one of at least 3 I have tried to read lately..
Unbelievably bland. I wouldn't even call this an easy read, there is no plot and the characters are one dimensional. I did enjoy reading the reviews though! Some are hilarious!

[VG · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not worth going past first few pages! Terrible writing, even worse story (not plot)! How did the publishers print this rubbish! Waste of my time and money!

[Shanilis Virtanen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of pointless

[Natasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

overbearing vocabulary. that being said, there are some wonderfully crafted sentences that certainly reflect the skill with which the author writes. overall the story is an easy read that touches upon some heavy themes like love, identity, nationalism and assimilation. to me there is an overwrought effort made to describe the city of Cambridge. there is too much name-dropping, too many streets, that if one is not familiar with Cambridge already, becomes burdensome to remember and thus appreciate.
favorite lines:
p18: "It was one of those encounters bursting at the bud, like the thousands in the lifetime of an individual, that, but for chance or fate, lead nowhere."

p42: " 'Give the immigrant net curtains and he simply blends, like the tea packet labels that say "Product of more than one country." but to blend or not to blend into the diasporic cuppa - that is the question.' "

p49: Durga wanted to call her back, ask about Arthur. What did he always say? Who was he? husband, lover or son? ... And what if everything Arthur had ever said was gone, washed away like the ashes and flowers floating on an Indian river, and one human being had the power to keep his spoken word alive in an echoing universe?

p75: " It has been easy to be young, and it might be difficult to be old."

p137: "Instant attraction didn't happen in real life, it was the stuff of the chick films Kathy had dragged him to watch with a popcorn bag in one hand and a large Coke in the other."

p239: " But could a relationship, a marriage be dropped simply because it was dull? Her own parents had worked at staying together, and wasn't marriage about imperfections and warts and fissures and cracks and packs of Band Aid?"

[Ken Langer · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I agree with many of the reviews that the book is thin on plot, for me the characters came to life and the relationships were heart-felt and extremely human (I'm tempted to say menchlich!). I refer not just to the relationship between characters, but also those of characters to country (the local scene and distant, idealized India). The author delighted me with her original and colorful metaphors and wry, English humor. For example, in describing a Mr. Chatterjee, she writes,

"[He] surveyed his household with pride; everything was in its place, and all the clocks obeyed the same master, as did the weeds. He had perfected a daily regime that started with the head, not the heart. Every Saturday he vigorously massaged coconut oil into his receding hairline. The oil seeped into every corner of his being, smoothing away self-doubt and dandruff . . ."

This is not a thriller with lots of chase scenes and sex (well, there is a murder); but, like a a tasty curry, it should satisfy any reader who is willing to savor the spices, both individually and how they work together.

[Tiya Prince · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was really confusing and terribly put together. There were too many characters, and was tricky to identify. The idea was boring, as a day in the life of some charity shop workers. I barely made it through the first two chapters, and as it was given as a book report, I had to read the whole thing. Cambridge in real life is very different to the way in which it is descibed badly in the book. The book is also quite stereotypical. Altogether, a dreadful read. If I could have given this 0 stars, I would have.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to give it a two, but there were some few interesting characters, and some funny parts and observations, and the idea was good. The rest was a bit messy, stereotypical characters, clichéd ending.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 star story, 4 star evocation of place.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty dreadful.
Like a book version of a radio 4 play where they take it in turns to speak.