Family Values

by Abha Dawesar

Do seu quarto, entre os consultórios dos seus pais médicos, um menino observa o mundo à sua volta. Observador discreto, ele capta a hipocrisia que o rodeia, sente a violência que corrói o sistema mas também o amor que resiste em pequenos gestos. Os seus tios e tias gananciosos que conspiram para roubar a herança do avô constituem os seus objectos de estudo. Também a televisão lhe oferece o espectáculo da avidez dos poderosos. O assassinato da Rapariga do Champô, uma pin-up que leva o povo à loucura, ensombra a sua visão do mundo. Mas o menino e os seus pais criaram um pequeno oásis de bondade; no meio do contraplacado e do plástico da miséria que os rodeia estão o amor, a generosidade e o respeito. Uma saga familiar vista através dos olhos de uma criança capaz de captar as paixões, as traições, os ódios e os ocasionais momentos de lealdade que as relações familiares encerram.

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Dawesar is a Harvard graduate who was awarded a New York Foundation of the Arts fiction fellowship. She currently lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Smita Beohar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have had an opportunity to read two books from this author. 'Babyji' was based on a lesbian relationship of a teenaged girl & 'The Three of Us' is based on the life of a man who was having an affair with his boss & his wife at the same time (You can click on the book name to read my reviews on same).


Needless to say both the books had managed to appall & shock me to a major extent and thus when I saw this new book I had a good laugh, a good laugh because of the Title of the book.

For somebody who has managed to write only on tabooed & controversial topics this title was far too conventional. Thus against all the alarm bells ringing in my head, I picked the book.

It is the story of a colorful Delhi family as seen by the youngest grandson of the family.

The small boy lives with his doctor parents in a cramped home cum clinic. From his eyes we see a mean & partial grandfather, a mad but respectable uncle, a greedy-mean uncle & aunt who are all the while plotting against the grand father, a prosperous but helpless uncle & a battered aunt. For so called company he even has wayward & drug addict cousins. The book is a mish mash of the struggles of this family. There are major in-fights but they stand together if the need arises. The kids days are spent in adjusting in a cramped home, spending days without parents, seeing things which a normal kid shouldn’t.

Within the story there are quite a many issues woven in.

- Corrupt police & politicians through the eyes of struggling parents,
- Child Sexual Abuse
- Youth going the wrong way
- Nithari case
- Arms deal also gets a mention in here
- Kidney racket
- And things don’t end there; it has even Jessica Lall murder case in it.

The only thing that is missing here is the “Aarushi Murder case.” The idea of mixing in so many things is quite innovative I would say (you can surely read the sarcasm here). But yes it was different to see these incidents from the eyes of a kiddo and their impact his psyche.

I would love to add here that I am bored of books which conveniently use such issues and center the book on it. However I have to say that "The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay" is an exception in this case. Though the book has "The Jessica Lal" kind of murder case at it's center but the book has much more substance in it.

Another major problem with the book is the way it depicts Delhi. Unfortunately most of the books based in & around Delhi end up showing only the murky side of the city.

There are books based on Mumbai and through most of those books I learn something more than underworld, local trains or terrorists. But the books based on Delhi, make the city a character, a character with all the grey shades. I wonder why any book doesn’t talk about the beauty of the city and why don’t they let Delhi be just a background.

Strangely none of the characters in the book have a name all are addressed by their nicknames. There is a ‘six finger’, ‘Mrs. Cowdung’, ‘Sugar Mills’ etc. When I was reading Abha's interviews post the release of the book, I found that she has been stressing this fact a lot.

Hmmmm...I have read quite a many books where the characters don’t have names & the lack of it keeps naggine me.

BTW The author has a strange fascination with sh!t. There are repeated references of how does the family sh!t, what is its color or consistency or how small the washroom was etc. May be she was trying to stress upon the fact that many Indians do not have an access to decent basic facilities but then that’s my interpretation. May be she was being her usual shocking self.

Overall I would rate the book just about an average read.

It has it’s moments but largely it drags. What she tells about a disjointed joint family is nothing new and neither is her treatment. I would rather re-read Manju Kapur’s “Home” to get a feel of middle class Delhites.

[Shoba Menon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simple story like any typical family in India. What I really liked was that no names were used to address the characters and everyone had a nickname. The boy's parents were addressed as Mother and Doctor and the story was written thru the eyes of the little boy.

[Amit Gupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

This saga of a Delhi family seen through the eyes of a young boy has all the expected passions - the rivalries, the betrayals, the hatreds and the odd moments of loyalty. The silent, observant boy notes his grandfather's consistent meanness to his sons and his daughters; he watches his uncle's greed and avariciousness, his aunt's resigned despair, his cousin's determined self-destruction. But the boy and his parents have created their small oasis of grace; amid the plywood and plastic of their mean surroundings are love, generosity and respect.

Family Values deliver some real, hard hitting notes about the problems pervading in the Indian society. Written from a point of view of a child who lives in an almost claustrophobic part-home, part-dispensary place, it exposes a lot of deceptive activities in the Indian society and administrative services. However, it is too long and take its own sweet time to unwind itself. In the end, what you get are some unpleasant emotions but too mis-mashed to enjoy them completely.

No character has a name to it. They are all given nicknames like Psoriasis, Paget, Sugar Mills, Six fingers, poop, Pariah and Flunkie Junkie. Even the city and street names are kept anonymous. This may be unsettling for a few readers as it takes time to place who-is-who in the story and start relating to them. Interspersed with the narrative are some interesting plot points - missing children in vicinity of a cannibalistic person ala Nithari case, multiple organ theft, arms-deal scandal, Jessical Lal murder style killing and kidnapping of an industrialist kid from his school ala Adobe CEO's son case. All these incidents, taken from the real-life cases, do provide some shock value but are hardly convincing because there are too many convenient coincidences merged with the boy's family. Moreover, they are written with a journalistic, almost exploitative sense without paying any adherence to the time period in which they have occur.

The tone of the novel is monotonous, almost prose style. It is dry and humour-less in parts, unconvincing in certain portions and likely to make you fidgety. There are too many portions alluding to SHIT - describing in detail about the shape, size, colour, odour of it. You do feel nauseated after a while with all this vivid description. In my case, i started skipping through the lines as the author started his customary half page description to it. Even then, it took me a long time, multiple sittings and lot of patience to finish this one.

I am going with 2.5/5 for Abha Dawesar's, Family Values. Not as shockingly engaging nor emotionally compelling as the author's previous efforts, it is a done-and-dusted kind of book which won't stay in your mind much after you are through with it. Read it if you must, but barge yourself with tons of patience first.

[Pawan · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://iandbooks.wordpress.com/
I have read few other books of Abha Dawesar but “Family Values” is a completely different type of book I have ever read. The most peculiar thing about this book is that the author has avoided any real names. All the characters in the book are named either on their profession, relationship or quirks like boy, cousin, doctor, sugar-mills, six fingers and so on. Even the name of city or streets are not mentioned at all in the book. Delhi is just referred to as Capitol and Chandigarh is planned city. In the beginning it sounded a bit jarring to me but then the names grow on you and you actually start liking these names and they make a lot of sense.

The book is written from the perspective of a boy who watches the world around him. His world is his small home which is also a clinic for his doctor parents. There are so many relatives with each one of them having some issue or the other in family. The author has interconnected the story with current events of that time but never referring to them by exact name. The events like Jessica Lall murder, Nithari Killings, Stolen Kidneys, Arms Kickbacks and so many other things are mentioned in great detail. The boy is trying to make sense of it all and often wondering what adults are up to.

I liked the book for its bold and different narrative but after some time it tends to become very depressing. At the same time what is mentioned in the story is the stark reality of relationships and family values. At one place I ended up laughing really loud where a name is mentioned as “Elder Brother Goddess Red”. You need to know the politics of state of Haryana in India and a bit of Hindi to be able to understand this.

[Simran Khurana · Rating 1 out of 5]

What can I say about this book? From the first page, the book gave me the creeps. Depressing is merely a euphemism. This was a soul-killer. It can encourage a suicidal person to go jump.

Forget the fact that the author does not use any names. Forget that there is not a single direct speech in the entire narrative. The book begins with a depressing hospital environment and the moroseness of life is described in graphic detail. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have the ability to read about someone's puke and piss. Because that's what the book wants to entertain you with.

I picked up the book only because the title intrigued me. (Yeah, now I'm offering excuses for being an idiot!)

So here's what I recommend you do when you lay your hands on this book: Make a bonfire!!

[Megha · Rating 1 out of 5]

You could read a newspaper and that would be better and cheap. If I had wanted to read corruption, dowry, greed and dirt why would I pick up a fiction. I wish the author had told more about the little boy, did he grow, did he become a doctor, was his sister burnt for dowry etc. Not a good book at all.

[Ayesha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Going by the title, and the blurb, I thought this was going to be an interesting story.But unfortunately, it merely turned out to be a depressing novel, which makes no sense.The narration is slow, and the focus is mostly on the negative aspects of life.
This is one of the few books, i could not read till the end...as the gross writeup made me feel disgusted!
Not recommended!