More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Alka Joshi
Read between
August 12 - September 21, 2024
Malik: 20-year-old former ward of Lakshmi, graduate of Bishop Cotton School for Boys Nimmi: 23-year-old tribal woman of the Himalayan hills, mother of Rekha (girl) and Chullu (boy) Lakshmi Kumar: 42-year-old former henna artist, now director of Lady Bradley Healing Garden in Shimla, married to Dr. Jay Kumar
Jay Kumar: physician at Lady Bradley Hospital in Shimla, director of the Community Clinic, school chum of Samir Singh, married to Lakshmi Radha: 25-year-old perfumer, Lakshmi’s younger sister, lives in Paris with French architect husband and two daughters; had a baby out of wedlock with Ravi Singh twelve years ago; the baby was adopted by Kanta and Manu Agarwal Samir Singh: 52-year-old architect and managing director of Singh-Sharma Construction, from a high-caste Rajput family related to the Jaipur royal family, husband of Parvati Singh and father of Ravi and Govind
Parvati Singh: 47-year-old society matron, wife of Samir Singh, mother of Ravi and Govind, distant relation of the Jaipur royal family Ravi Singh: 29-year-old son of Parvati and Samir, architect in family firm Singh-Sharma Construction, married to Sheela Sheela Singh: formerly Sheela Sharma, 27-year-old wife of Ravi Singh, mother of two small children, Rita and Baby Manu Agarwal: 38-year-old facilities direct...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
literary Calcutta family, mother of 12-year-old Niki, or Nikhil Nikhil Agarwal: 12-year-old adopted son of Kanta and Manu; Lakshmi’s sister, Radha, is his birth mother Baju: an old family servant of Kanta and Manu Agarwal Saas: means “mother-in-law” in Hindi. When Kanta refers to her saas, she is referring to Manu’s mother, and when addressing a mother-in-law directly, a woman would cal...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Sharma firm. Mr. Sharma, 80, is infirm. His wife hardly goes anywhere without him. So Samir Singh manages all operations for the company now. Moti-Lal: prominent jeweler, owner of Moti-Lal Jewelers of Jaipur Mohan: Moti-Lal’s son-in-law and assistant at Moti-Lal Jewelers Hakeem: accountant for the facilities office of the Jaipur Palace Mr. Reddy: theater manager of the Royal Jewel Cinema Maharani Indira: 74-year-old dowager queen, childless widow of a former maharaja of Jaipur, mother-in-law of the Maharani Latika, lives in the Maharanis’ Palace Maharani Latika: 43-year-old glamorous widow of
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
He knows that Indian audiences, crazy for films, are used to seeing the same movie multiple times;
I’m only a lowly apprentice at the Jaipur Palace, after all).
Narrator
Kanta glanced at me as if to say, Malik, what do you think?
Malik narrates
my former guardian Lakshmi (or, as I call her, Auntie-Boss)
Manu is the director of facilities at the Jaipur Palace, shepherding building projects like these, and I’ve been sent by Auntie-Boss to learn his trade.
Indian movies are long, lasting almost three, sometimes four, hours, broken by an intermission.
I would like to stomp Lakshmi Kumar out of my life.
After Dev died in the gorge, I’d became adamant that my children would never suffer the same fate, migrating back and forth with
That was when I noticed the finest henna work I had ever seen on a woman’s hands.
“It is my husband, Dr. Kumar, you have to thank. Up at Lady Bradley Hospital,” she said. “I’m not a doctor. I work with him to help ease the pain during and after childbirth. I’m glad to see you and the baby so healthy.”
“Mrs. Kumar. Lakshmi Kumar. And yours?” “Nimmi.” She pointed to the young man, who had turned to face me and was now walking backward to keep pace with her. “This is Malik—Abbas
“Auntie-Boss?” “Mrs. Kumar. She’s my boss, although she pretends she’s not.”
started harvesting the rarest of plants for him to take back to Mrs. Kumar. Rhododendron for the cure of swollen ankles. Roots of snowpeaks raspberry to stop bleeding
Nimmi has been grieving since Malik left a month ago, and I know the essences of fruits and flowers are a natural balm for sadness.
To me, henna is a way for a woman to find a piece of herself she might have mislaid.
in Nimmi’s presence, I feel like a grown man—an adult—though I can’t explain why. I do know I want to take care of her, and Rekha and Chullu.
But I’m only twenty—too young to have a ready-made family.
playing polo, eating and talking.
City life of rich
“Ravi continued to Eton, then went on to Oxford and Yale. And our younger son, Govind, is now in New York studying at Columbia. And you?”
Auntie-Boss, she used to lecture me about discretion.
That does not mean that we can divulge what we’ve have seen or heard to everyone we know. There’s more power in keeping a secret than in betraying it.” I never thought Lakshmi meant that we should blackmail people using our knowledge, only that our clients would be loyal to us if we showed loyalty to them.
Samir Uncle once shared a bed with Auntie-Boss before she married Dr. Jay.
Radha, had a baby boy, and that Ravi Singh was the baby’s father. Now that boy is twelve years old, and Ravi’s never seen him.
For Sheela I was nothing more than a blemish on an otherwise perfect afternoon that ended years ago.
Malik
“In Jaipur I used herbal remedies made from native plants to heal women’s ailments.
Lady tans circle of women
always, Lakshmi exudes confidence. I have to wonder if she’s ever failed at anything.
Nimmi
Lady Bradley Healing Garden, a garden I started over a decade ago—the reason I came to Shimla in the first place. Would I have come if Jay hadn’t offered me this lifeline, persuaded me to take it?
And even though the accusations of thieving their jewelry weren’t true, my clients, the wealthy ladies of Jaipur, weren’t about to forgive—or forget—easily. In the end, I had to leave Jaipur in order to start over.
remedies that smell of the earth,
Jay continued as a physician at the Lady Bradley Hospital and remained director of the adjoining Community Clinic. I was in charge of the Healing Garden.
he managed to squeeze in eleven hundred seats—it’s that large! He designed the theater so the seats are tiered
The Royal Jewel Cinema
Singh-Sharma Construction has over every other builder.
wanted the Royal Jewel Cinema to stand out, to
Ravi
“My father believes in doing everything just as it’s always been done. But now there are newer, better techniques, materials, processes.”
Construction
among the few who know that when he was a day old, she and Manu secretly adopted him. Even Kanta’s saas doesn’t know. She thinks Niki is the son Kanta delivered twelve years ago in Shimla.
Radha has never acknowledged receiving photos of Niki or the letters telling her what the boy is doing,
Radha told me that her baby ceased to exist the day she decided to leave him in Kanta’s care.
I often wonder if Ravi Singh knows that the son he had by Radha lives only a few miles from him. Would
young Radha sitting with us at this table, telling us about her love of Shakespeare and her fascination with the Moghul Empire.
Lots of plot summary from book one
Singhs would have a lot to lose if word got out that Ravi is the father. Everyone would know Radha was underage when Ravi got her pregnant. Second, they took no responsibility, and hushed the matter up by sending Ravi thousands of
No couple wants to admit they are sterile; it’s considered a personal failing, a
Our tribal elders may not know how to read, but they revere those who can. Books contain magic,
What else would I write?
Stupid narrative technique - illiterate woman imagines the letter she would write if she could write ugh
gold ingots the size of those candied lemon slices you make.” She flicks another glance my way. “But now they’re using our sheep. Hiding it under their fleece. And
